Spring and scrubbing

Good day to you all. I am full of the joys of spring. I have no idea why the sun has such a profound effect on life but it really does. The house seems less small and dirty, money issues seem less dire, marriage seems less hard work and overall the sun 'takes the edge off' the harsher realities of life. It's the gas and air of nature.

Last Sunday was spent entirely indoors thanks to a. the weather and b. my tiredness. Thank goodness for a. The Sound of Music and b. me setting up a small school which helped us get through the day but still, the difference between last week and yesterday was amazing. Three and a half hours of a Sunday spent in the park under the sun has fully restored my zest for life and even though the tiredness will not abate for many years to come, I am far happier. Although I have to say watching Bea and G loving Julie and the von Trapps singing their hearts out did go some way to helping me reach my happy state - the sun can't take all the credit. I really thought that they would only tolerate watching one song, 'My Favourite Things' as it had some relevance to their life, (I have been known to sing it quite a bit over the years) but they carried on and lapped up Do-re-mi and on further until the end of the film (explaining the Nazis to a seven year old is tricky - luckily G didn't ask). So much so, I have downloaded the music and Bea and G are now fully committed to having seven children so we can form our own choir.  Bea did ask to be called Liesl for a few days but we soon all forgot. I am very up for calling the new baby Gretel though - particularly if it is a girl.  Oh and Glee is back on TV. Oh and I only have four more wibbly meetings left to do. And the weather means that I can now wear maxi dresses on rotation for the next twenty weeks which dramatically reduces my need for maternity wear. Things are good. It will probably snow next week just to piss me off but so far, so good.

In other news, I have almost entirely abandoned potty training. I knew Ted would be my nemesis when it came to potty training and I have been proved entirely right. He quickly assessed that I wanted him to go for a wee and therefore went out of his way not to wee on my demand, or indeed his and seemed genuinely quite pleased when he wet/shat himself so, either he works it out for himself or he shall remain in nappies/pull up pants until he is old enough to find it embarrassing and work it out for himself. I give up. Which just goes to show you that one shouldn't be too quick to judge on the whole parenting front. If I had stuck at two children I would imagine that people who couldn't handle potty training were just 'not doing it right'. I have done it right. Ted is programmed wrong and no amount of love is going to get me washing any more poo out of his mini boden pants - they are far too cute to throw away. TOP TIP. Buy cheap, crappy (pun intended) pants for when they start training so you can just throw them away with each unpleasant accident. Only when they are fully 'trained' should you use all your money off vouchers and child benefit to invest in nice cotton pants from expensive mail order companies. I am, as always, here to help you.

I would probably be slightly more tolerant of his effluence if there weren't so many other reasons for me to be scrubbing carpets and soft furnishings from various other 'accidents' around the house. For example, take Friday morning. I was greatly looking forward to Friday because of a lunch my school friend had organised with a couple of other school friends in posh Putney. I did the school run without make up and in slobby clothing and came back to have a bath and hair wash - I haven't ever attempted this before but it was very successful, no one pointed at my dishevelled appearance and laughed, and Ted spent the whole time I was in the bath downstairs, using my iPad to surf You Tube to find clips of Spiders and Spiderman, so there wasn't even any damage done (he is freakishly able to negotiate You Tube to find almost anything he wants - the other day he was very happily dancing along to a dancing, singing banana - it freaks me out what he knows). It was only after I got out of the bath and started to put on my make up that he took a black felt tip to the cream bedroom carpet whilst I wasn't watching. Little sod. Particularly irritating as I had only just put my duvet in the recently vacated bath to try and get out the stench of sick. G sat up at 6.30am that morning and threw up all of his morning milk all over my bed. The duvet is super king and filled with feathers so it is incredibly difficult to clean. I settled for cleaning only the part that smelt of sick. Sick is like broken glass - you never quite get it all - little splashes seem to get in to the most ridiculous places. My bedroom still smells a bit of sick. Although that could be from Ted who was a little sick on my carpet at some point last week - I forget when - it was still dark and K was still asleep so I probably did miss a bit. I got in to bed on Saturday night and got a real whoosh of sick from a cushion so I had clearly missed a bit of G's outpourings as well. At least I could throw that out of the bed without having to get out myself. The other evening I got in to bed and found a suspicious damp patch on top of the duvet - a Ted calling card. So extreme was my tiredness at that point in the evening I deftly moved the damp patch over to K's side and fell fast asleep - I'm not proud of my increasingly low levels of cleanliness and standards of hygiene but I am passed caring. When the youngest is potty trained and fully able to make it to the loo to be sick I shall have my entire house gutted and everything in it burnt in a deeply satisfying ceremony. I shall drink a lot at that ceremony in toast to my ruined hands and aching elbows from all the scrubbing.

To the rest of Friday - the lunch was lovely - Ted had a whale of a time running around with a huge snake and my friend's son who is the same age. He even managed to find a loo brush and ran through the place very pleased with himself before I rugby tackled him to the ground and wrestled it out of his very determined fist. I also ate loads of great food which is always the sign of a great time. As an additional bonus, the lunch has provided me with something that has kept me amused ever since. My very learned lawyer friend who is a total stickler for punctuation and grammar told us of her hatred for mis-spelt texts.  In particular a boy with whom she had been on a few dates, sent her a text saying 'I hope your well'. A common enough mistake, however my learned friend was not going to tolerate such things and was unable to ignore his mistake. She replied, 'You hope my well is what?'. This has honestly kept me laughing for a good 72 hours. K cannot understand why I should find this so amusing but clearly he has never been made irate by a mis-placed apostrophe or laissez faire attitude towards the use of 'your' and 'you're'. Or 'their' and 'there' actually. Equally as annoying.  The relationship went nowhere after that - luckily so as she has since met and married a very nice man and produced a sprog so all in all thank goodness for this poor other boy and his temporary illiteracy. Some spelling mistakes are better than others - after all if it wasn't for Bea's slight dyslexia (still to be 'proved' officially) I would never have spent last mother's day with a card that said 'Fack you for lovin me'. I doubt any other card will ever make me as happy or provide as much amusement - this Mother's Day will be a tad disappointing.  She wrote me one at the weekend that was almost totally correct - where is the fun in that? Although it did tell me that 'f' is for how fun I am. I like the idea of her thinking I am fun. But it doesn't warrant a blog entry - let's hope one of the others is similarly affected and I can get some mileage out of them.

I shall leave you to your lives. Enjoy the weather while you can.
xxxxxxxxxxx

P.S Since I wrote this post this afternoon I have been asked to do one extra wibbly meeting meaning I am back up to five before I finish, we have realised that Bea's £100 scooter was left in the park car park on Sunday and is now no longer there and the sun has gone to brighten up the other side of the world - so my shine is somewhat tarnished. Let's hope the sun comes back tomorrow. I need to take the edge off.