Category Archives: Personal

First Parents’ Meeting Done

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Looks like an interesting group of parents. All sorts. The ‘integrated’ part of the school seems to be true.

One worry. Adam’s uniform jumper may already be too small. And that’s the largest size they have with the playgroup’s logo on it, which is slightly different from the Primary School’s.

He has a play session next week and he’ll wear it so we’ll see if it’s as small as I am afraid it is. If it is I will mention it to his teacher and see if she has any ideas.

In other news, I am a bit perturbed by his nursery who are really pushing me to put him in underpants, just so they can move him up to their pre-school room. I really don’t think he’s ready. And I don’t care if he stays in their toddler room until he leaves at the end of the summer. I’m half tempted to do it and let them deal with the mess, but I won’t.

This weekend we have plans but the weekend after we don’t so we may try pants then.

FFS, he’s not even 3 yet!

And So Grandma and Pops’ Visit Ends

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They left last night to go to a hotel as their flight was very early in the morning and they wanted to be closer to the airport.

A small boy cried hysterically after he waved them off in their taxi.

It was a good visit but it really wore me down. I spent this morning in bed and may go back there in a bit.

More detailed update when I have fully recovered.

A Little Boy Never *Had* Such Fun

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Not only did Grandma buy him this Thomas and Trevor toy at our local resale shop for the low low price of £9.99, when he got home from nursery today she took him out back and helped him ride his trike for about an hour.

He’s also been doing spectacularly at potty things and has gotten tons of stars and treats. I think he likes the chocolate even more than the toys. 🙂

I’ve been sleeping badly so I’m exhausted. But still enjoying my mom’s visit. #fibrosucks

Longer post soon. I promise.

We Don’t Have Why (Yet), We Have ‘What’s That?’

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About everything from a cup he’s drunk out of 10,000 times to the ceiling and the floor.

And not once. Twice. Three times. Four.

‘What’s that?’

‘Your Thomas cup.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Still your Thomas cup.’

Over and over again.

I’d almost, maybe, not really, prefer why.

Almost.

Maybe.

Not really!!!!

It’s Turning Into A Bit Of An Addiction…

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my acquiring of blood meters, that is.

I was given an Accu-Chek Aviva when I was diagnosed. Lovely little meter. Beeps nicely. Stood me in good steed.

Then I got pregnant. And panicked. What if my meter stopped working!?!? What would I do?!?! So I bought a second Aviva.

Then Accu-Chek, who are a lovely company, came out with the Aviva Nano and said, want one? Sure. Why not? It’s another lovely meter, very small, also beeps nicely. Uses the same strips and finger pricker as my Aviva, so that was convenient. It quickly became my primary meter with the other two in storage. Which was a good thing when I couldn’t find the Nano after we moved. It’s been found now and I really do like it better than the regular Aviva.

And just last week they offered me another ‘upgrade’. This time to the Accu-Chek Mobile. All one unit, pricker and meter. Cartridge rather than strips, so less faff. So I ordered one and it came yesterday.

So far I’m a bit meh about it. I don’t think the finger pricker is very good. The motor to advance the cartridge is rather loud. Adam thinks it’s scary looking. And, of course, I’ll need to get my GP to prescribe new lancet drums and the cartridges, which I don’t know if the NHS has/covers.

But still. 4 meters.

It’s a bit of an addiction.

Isn’t it?

Here’s The Thing About Me and Feminism

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I am, indeed, a feminist. I believe in equal rights for all humans regardless of race, creed, colour, gender, sexual orientation, etc etc etc. I believe that the feminists did great things in the middle to end of the 20th century to let me be the kind of feminist I am.

What kind of feminist am I?

The kind that enjoys running her own company and enjoys cooking for her family.

The kind that appreciates the right to vote and appreciates when she’s cleaned her house.

The kind that knows there is still work to be done and knows we’ve come quite far.

What brought this on? Two things; the first being my feelings of complete satisfaction today as I folded the laundry and made slow cooked lamb for my family for dinner tonight. Some would say that because I enjoyed those things, I am not a feminist. They are wrong.

The second thing was wanting to join the Blog hop over at Salt & Carmel about the absolutely misogynistic and ridiculous advertising campaign that Ann Summers is currently running. They are giving away free ice cream with, (ready?) flavoured lube toppings, from I Scream Trucks (TM I’m sure) and asking people to make “‘O’ Faces” to win prizes.

I don’t know about you but ice cream trucks to me screams children. And “‘O’ Faces”? Don’t even get me started.

Ann Summers, for the Americans in the audience, sells sexy undies and sex toys on the UK high street, i.e. downtown. We have one at Belfast City Centre and I am not a prude but seriously, their windows are embarrassing. And their stock is crap.

But that’s neither here not there. What is here and there is this misogynistic ideal they are spreading through England (no I Scream Trucks here in NI, alas) in order to give away ice cream. And sex toys. To teenagers.

Several people have already written and Tweeted about their young children noticing the vans and not understanding why they can’t have a free ice cream. O_o

So we’re sending a message, Tweeting using #misogynytour and #annsummers. Having a blog hop.

Because some, I’m sure, male marketing exec thought this was a good idea. And, apparently, so did the CEO of Ann Summers. Who is a woman. O_o

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off To School He Goes…

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So, as I’ve mentioned, Adam starts pre-school in September.

Which means a new childcare situation.

I hate this.

Forget the fact that I hate the telephone and would rather email and text people.

There’s the fact that you never really know if the person or people will be good at looking after your children.

But I do need additional care for him. I currently have about 24 hours a week childfree.  16 of those tend to be used for the company, whether working for clients, looking for new clients, doing my books or what have you. That leaves 8 for everything else I like to do without a small boy underfoot, like clean the house and get some rest.

Preschool is only 15 hours per week, 3 hours a day. I will in reality probably have 2 hours a day to due commute time.

So I’ve just gone from 24 hours a week to 10…

So our goal is to find someone or some place to take care of him for at least 2 days, adding at least 8 hours to my childfree time.

Still not ideal. But 18 is better than 10.

So I’m looking for a child minder or a nursery who will pick him up from school and hold onto him for the afternoon.

Anyone local have any recommendations?

It Sounded Like A Good Idea

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So I was on Mumsnet recently, as I so often am, and someone was lamenting the state of their house, as we so often do (Yes, yes, less MN, more cleaning. We’ll get right on that.) and someone suggested what she called the 10 Loaf method.

Which is: Do task A for 10 minutes, do task B for 10 minutes, loaf for 10 minutes. And we all told her it was a brilliant idea.

So I tried it today.

Task A was cleaning the kitchen.

Task B was folding laundry.

Loafing, was, well loafing. 🙂

And while it sounded great in practice, I don’t think it really worked.

Instead it felt like I was leaving half finished jobs. Doing it in 10 minute increments is great, I think, but the changing task part? Not so much. I didn’t get to finish my kitchen clean up completely because Adam woke up from his nap but probably would have gotten much further if I had just concentrated on that in 10 minute increments. Although the laundry is folded, I’ll give you that, and it probably wouldn’t have been even started if I’d just concentrated on the kitchen.

So next time, I think I’ll do 20/10 loaf instead and see how that works.