T-Bird Anni Rides Again

today has been a day for small victories.

Aprilia made eggy bread for lunch and cleared up properly afterwards.  It was lovely too!  I took some pics of her as it will do for one of the clauses in her Brownie cook badge but then looked at them and realised my kitchen really is too messy so she needs to do it again once I’ve tidied up!

She also did the division page in Wizard Whimstaff despite it being really badly explained in there and me needing to resort to much simpler means, like sharing out mini eggs - and yes, aren’t we being restrained still having mini eggs a full week after Easter!!

Then there was her reading comfortably a small wodge of "level E" readers  wich are supposed to be for 4-5 year olds and have an interest level to match…. Oh Boy, I’ll be glad when she stops with the baby steps and does that explosion into reading thing so we can leave the "learning to read" books behind!  Only 1 more level E to go and you know? that my "accidentally" get lost before morning….. I can feel a reward Fairy book coming on (or at least thre would be if she would fall asleep so I could sneak it into her room!)

She also spent  a few hours doing braiding on our cardboard "braiding wheel" made last year after the re-enactment thing we went to.  It took us a few minutes to work out how to do it again but it’s simple enough.  She has already done a longer braid in an afternoon than she managed in the entire week she persevered with it  lsat year.  Funny what a difference 6 months can make really!  And she only found it because I turned teh compost in her craft drawers at the weekend because ther was more stuff out of the drawers than in them which just goes to show that having stuff tidy does make them more likely to be used.

and then there was the parchemnt craft project, I have to leave the room whist she does it as the noise of the nib crying in pain at being crushed into the parchment makes my toes curl, but the results are getting better all the time and this is, aparently somethng for Granny.  It’s a little gift box (really little) and she’s not sure what to put in it yet but Granny will love it anyway I’m sure.

Oh, and we did our "school" bits too (whilst she braided mainly) 

and just to prove it wasn’t just a day for her to have victories, I got the mind map finished for my TMA.  I was going to polish it off this evening but I think I’ve hit taht "slightly too tired to write anything more intelectual than a blog post before going to bed" phase! 

After the episode of dummy spitting yesterday I got a grip and toddled off to Wilmslow bright and early.  Then we waited for 3/4 hour for someone with a key so I could set up control.  then, just as they were all walzing off one of the units informed me that, although I could recieve his transmissions, he couldn’t get me due to some techy stuff with tone locks.  You know, half an hour earlier I could have done something about that but he needed to be gone like 5 minutes ago so I didn’t have a chance to rummage through Duke’s magic box of every concievable thing you will ever need whilst running control (we hvae a spare radio in there….)

All in all it was an okay if niggle filled day like 3 people using totally wrong call signs leading to a rather confusing conversation or two on the lines of

(them) "650 to control, we need an ambulance here" 

(me) "650 from control, you ARE an ambulance, over" 

(them) "er, no, I’m a first aider at  mile marker 6"

(me, taking a deep breath) "then you are not 650,  650 is an ambulance call sign, you are post 6 and I am taking no prisoners on this one Control Out" 

he took the hint and he got his ambi who further emphasised the point as it was the real 650 I sent…… and now I have totally lost you all haven’t I! But assuming this blog doesn’t evapourate like some of my others have, I can look back and sigh bout it in a few years!

Aprilia valiently tried to watch a DVD on Duke’s laptop which resolutely refused to play more than 45 minutes of the film before reverting to the good old Blue Screen of Death meaning she got good at using the skip scene feature to get back to where she was each time.  It really is true you know, Vista really does fall over mor times than a drunk on a Friday night! 

Actually, one thing I really enjoy about this particular kind of job is the kind of "all in the same creek without the paddle" camaradery taht builds betwen me on Red Cross Control and the guy running Raynet Control who deal with all the non-medical bits and who get similarly duff information, vagueness and the likes.  At one point we were dealing with different sides of the same incident and it was only because we could compare notes that we  could actually work out what on earth was going on.

Once we got home there wsa much crafting and a small degree of tidying.  then I tried to convince her it was bedtime even though we had forgotten to change the clock in the living room which just goes to show she can tell the time you know as she was insistant it was only half 6, not half 7!  Note to self, change clock! 

I am trying to set up a formula that looks at a date of birth, looks at today’s date and then tells you the age.  I’ve played in Word but think I’m going to end up in XL as Word doesn’t seem to play but I just don’t know where to start with this one!  I used to be really good at formulae in Office but that was a lifetime ago, when I was single, slimmer and could guarentee 8 hours uninterupted sleep at night!

I dunno really!  I got half of a mind map done, in between interuptions from cat, daughter and daughter’s friend.  I updated the waiting list for Rainbows but didn’t quite get round to phoning the 3 at the top of the list to invite them to start.  I did manage to remove the cover off the rubarb which I put over it ages ago when it started growing before the weather was done with being frosty and was greated with a lovely surprise - enough lovely juicy fat stalks to do stewed rubarb at teatime!  Somehow it tastes better when it’s come out of the garden and into the pan less than an hour before eating it.

Tomorrow I’m doing radios for a half marathon, assuming it’s not washed out.  Actually, washed out would be lovely but only if they decide NOW and not at 9am tomorrow by which time I will ahve crawled out of bed at 6:30 BST (that’s 5:30 by my body clock)and dragged my baby’s sad little body out of bed and into her carseat (and gone are the days I could do that without waking her!) in order to drive over an hour and be set up ready (including hoisting up a 20 foot aerial mast that the MOD gave up looking for in the 50s) before the briefing starts at 8am (the race starts at 10:30 - obviously this is going to be a very long briefing!)  ACtually, the whole thing is p***ing me off really.  I only found out I was expected to turn up a week ago and it was just assumed that I would turn up.  It is also assumed that my child will trail around and be thrilled to be couped up in a shack with a grumpy mummy who can’t play with her cos she is wired into a radio (well, okay, I’ll be wearing a headset with a fairly short cable because the speaker is duff on our set so I can’t leave the desk) and 2 grumpy old blokes running the radios for the organiser’s side of the event (why can’t they run the Red Cross freqency too i hear you ask?  No idea.) who don’t like chatting girls in their radio shack. It was also assumed that Duke would turn up and it cocked up their plans mightly when he told them taht he’s working so not available, and they only had a week to sort out a replacement.  I desperately wanted to say no but somehow didn’t quite manage.  Bad girl!  Weak girl!  Must, must, must learn how to say NO and mean it. 

So I do beleive that now I should go and crack open a bottle of wine and drown my sorrows.  It’s a small bottle so even I should be able to avoid nasty side effects in the morning but it’s the thought that counts. 

My mini muffin has spent a blissfully happy day sewing badges onto her camp blanket.  Now, to be fair, some of the sewing will make her cringe with embarassment in a few years but not all of it, and the more she has done the better she has got at it.  And she did all the needle threading for herself (it’s a reasonably large eyed needle but still, she jut got on with it)

When she wasn’t bein domesticated we also went shoe shopping as her toes were at the end of her shoes.  I ended up measuring another girl’s feet in Brantano too as her grandma didn’t know how the gauge worked and the staff all looked to busy to ehlp her.  Poor kid, her feet were 2 full sizes bigger than her shoes, which were litterally falling apart where her feet were pushing out through them (and it was raining so her socks were dripping wet)  I got the distinct impression that after Grandma had bought new shoes (and dry socks) she was going to ahve Things To Say to the girl’s mum.  I kept my head down and hoped Aprilai didn’t say anything about her shoes being too small too!  Do wish they could make shoes that flashed warnings up when they were too small!!! 

meanwhile, I am plotting implausable schemes for scraping my overgrown limipt child off me for long enough for me to produce at the very least an outline for part 2 of my TMA (I threw part 1 togehter before she woke up this morning but I can’t be that lucky again twice can I?) 

Whiskers hsa obviously been outside (in the rain) and has now just walked across my text book and my PC keyboard whilst rubbing her soggy fur across any bit of me she could reach……. The result?  paw prints in my book (I guess I’m not selling this one on then!) random characters all over my mind map (hey, it may make more sense than what I’ve thrown in there!) and I need another wash.  Mission acomplished she is now reclining comfortably on the bed whilst she washes herself.

my dad phoned at 9am this morning and after enquiring if he had got me out of bed (no dad, I gave up sleeping taht late in my teens…. Aprilia on the other hand is expert at it!) invited me round as we hand’t seen each other for ages.  So I dragged her out of bed, rammed breakie into her and threw her in the car - she was being particularly droopy.  She continued to droop all voer me all morning whilst me and dad chatted.  the second knee op has gone well but he has cellulitis round the joint and is on his 3rd set of ABs for it.  he had it last time too but it wasn’t picked up for 6 weeks by which time it needed serious treatment.  the Easter card has restored me to a place of honour in the will and has been saved to show off to everyone who didn’t visit over Easter who would guess that all it would take would be a bit of rubber staming in gold and silver inks to placate her!

Swimming this afternoon was just me and Aprilia which was nice for a change if not very energetic, she wanted to chill mainly so i couldn’t really tear up and down the pool whilst she drooped over her floaty tyre.  Not that I have much energy for things like that just now though, I’m hoping for a bit of sunshine soon to set us both right again.

Anyway, it’s 9pm and I have a mind map to throw randome facts about the role of religion in medicine during the reformation and counter-reformation that just isn’t going to fill itself in so I’d better get on with it really!

Sonlight week 17 (good grief, at this rate we may actually complete it within 2 yaers you know!)

Usbourne Greek Myths
Child’s History of the World - Fairytale Gods
Day by Day
things you find underground (from an Usbourne book!)

3 pages Miquon RED!!!!!!!!  At Last!!!!!!!!!
3 Reading A-Z level E books

painted Duke’s den, apart from the corner he couldn’t empty and will carefully move the contents of so we can paint there too. 

Me

Entire chapter of course book read/listened to
Essay mind map begun
resisted pile of snax delivered by small child mid afternoon so feeling vaguely virtuous

I’m not much of a book reveiwer but this one got me thinking.  Understood Betsy is the story of a little girl (Elizabeth Ann, or Betsy) brought up by neurotic and over-protective reletives in a town in the early 1900s.  When ill health means that these ladies can no longer care for her she is passed through the hands of another local family member and straight onto the train to yet more family - "the Putneys" - countryfolk who have more relaxed ideas of how a small girl should be looked after.  Obviously with their aproach of "of course you can do it" the girl learns that she can and goes on to thrive where she had wilted under the "oh dear, yes, that’s far too hard for you isn’t it" treatment of her earlier years.  Only when her townie aunt comes back to collect her does she realise how different and how much happier she is away from that cossetting but is then worried about how to protect her delicate flower of an aunt from the hurt of rejection!  It’s all happy in the end though as any good children’s book ought to be.

We loved it in the same way we love all those idilic "growing up a hundred or so years ago in wild countryside" types of books.  But I do think it has value apart from the obvious "fresh country air and chores are good for a gal"  I think it reflects on 2 very different, if rather over exagerated, styles of parenting that are still around now.  I wonder if Sonlight throw that one into the mix to poke parents more than to entertain the kids - there is always taht danger with home ed that the child can become the delicate flower so well understood by the doting mother whose very life revolves around the child’s every percieved need (especially for those of us who only get one baby to play with)  I know I catch myself doing it and I see it occaisionally in others too (I suppose if I were a school mummy I’d see it there too but really I only have home ed families to look at!) and it brought a wry smile to see that charicatured in the town family with it’s oposite over exagerated in the country cousins.  It worked though cos I am now more concious of the fact taht actually, she’s growing up (far too fast if you ask me!!!) and getting more and more capable of doing stuff that I would usually do for her without thinking.  She’s capable of being a lot more responsible for her stuff than she is currently too but then there’s a distinct lack of role models for her on that front (eep!)  And she can make a mean eggy bread meal without the slightest bit of help from anyone (well, okay, so I helped fish the eggshells out the first few times….)

 

th other day Duke made some comment about me not doing really doing so well as he does when I do the night cover.  I ignored this sweeping statement as I always do….I mean, I don’t get one day a week at Oulton during the day where I can drowse away a few hours and catch up like he does and he doesn’t have an energy leach of a 7 year old to drain away all the energy so it’s hardly a fair comparison is it! Of course, today, I’m up and about, so is Aprilia but guess who’s having an afternoon nap?  And he’s not even got an excuse of having done any overnights!  Well, it’s cheaper than going shopping which was his plan, but not so productive as painting his room which was mine (and I can’t reach the high bits so I need him to work with me on this!)

And I have managed a bit of study, not much but a bit.  Tomorrow we drop back into routine and that will have to include study for both us girlies.