NotSheep

You might remember how we inherited a third cat when we moved in here? Well - half a cat, he won’t actually come in the house or let anyone touch him, but he resides in a small wooden shelter under the kitchen window and expects us to feed him regularly (despite being an excellent mouser). According to the previous owners, he adopted them, and they called him “Littl’un” (presumably because the other cat who prowls around a bit is substantially bigger, since Littl’un is not actually that small). Anyway, they tried to take him with them, he wasn’t having it, and so we said we’d put some food down for him. I believe he may be responsible for the kittens across the road; if he ever becomes willing, I’ll get him in a cat-box and take him to be neutered.

You may also remember Scratchy’s feelings about cats - which I think are most easily summed up by the word “argh” and a huge shudder. So it came as a pleasant surprise when he started to show a little bit of concern for the welfare of our cats.

But last night was the shocker. George put down food for our two cats (ie the ones who sleep in the house) but didn’t want to go outside to put food down for Littl’un, so I told him to leave the cup with the food in the conservatory and I’d do it later. Of course I forgot. At about 10pm, I remembered - but it turned out that Scratchy had actually fed Littl’un - and without anyone asking!

Of course as he headed downstairs after confessing to this he was muttering “I’m not going soft, I’m not…” Of course not, dear

Any Canadians reading? Probably not (unless you count Scratchy). Happy Canada Day anyway

Did a trial run with the birthing pool tonight. It took a bit longer than expected. The only mixer-tap we have downstairs is in the kitchen - handy for the birthing-pool in the dining-room, if only any of the connectors would work on it. But they don’t - so instead we ended up using the utility room taps, starting with a few inches of cold water then adding hot. We also found out that the hot water ran out faster than we’d expected - it seems that it heats up fast, but doesn’t heat up huge amounts. So we had to stop filling the pool and allow more time for water to heat up again.

But once the pool was finally full - ah, bliss! I’ve spent months feeling like I weigh about 500 pounds, and it was glorious to lounge in the water with the buoyancy taking all the strain. The kids all came and had a look, and the steam set off the (very sensitive) smoke detector in the front hall - but oh do I feel relaxed now! In fact…..*snore*….

…and only 12 days left! This moving-house and having-a-baby business is having a very detrimental effect on my reading time

I was just sitting wondering what I should do this morning - thinking about all the things I could be doing and all the things that need doing, and trying to decide which of them I could be bothered to do - when an email arrived from my friend S, suggesting we get together. Hey, perfect - an excuse not to do any of that stuff!

Anyway, S came over with her three children, and all the kids played together all day - mostly outside, since the sunny weather stayed all day, which was lovely, because S and I also got to sit outside :-). S is welcome anytime - not only did she bring food, but she even helped me hang out the laundry

Various neighbourhood children also arrived at various times, so once again, my poor deprived home-educated children had no opportunity to socialise…

We ate at about 7, then it was into bed early for everyone. Freddy really needed an early night and the same wasn’t going to hurt George at all. Jack barely managed to stay awake long enough to eat Barney’s a bit miffed because he can’t find his Rubik’s Snake, but it must be around somewhere, so it will show up.

Anyway, nothing too exciting, but it was a nice day

Go clean your computer keyboard.

Don’t ask. Just do it. Take my word for it. Get some compressed air, or a small paintbrush, or even just turn it upside-down and blow hard on it (but if you do this, make sure you close your eyes while you blow).

Oh, and you might want to blow the dust off your computer fan too, while you’re at it.

Make sure you have the vacuum cleaner handy when you do all of this. If your keyboard is anything like mine was an hour ago, you’ll need it.

George nearly became a pancake yesterday afternoon.

This street is a pretty good one for kids to play and ride their bikes on - there’s one of those great big planter-roundabout traffic-slowing things in front of the house next to ours, and several more further down, plus all the streets in the neighbourhood twist and turn, so nobody’s speeding, really. But 28 miles per hour is still fast enough to flatten someone.

Especially if that someone is a just-turned-8yo who is having his first summer that he’s allowed to play out on the street and is just learning some road-sense and winds about at great speed on his bike.

Especially if you’re a cement-mixer truck.

It really was George’s fault, though the cement-mixer truck would have been wise to go a bit slower, considering that there are so many kids out and about. I was out in the driveway and didn’t see exactly what happened, just that George was right beside the truck, inches from the wheels. And that was scary enough. For all of us.

The driver screamed at George, who was more upset by the “are you stupid?” bit than the bit that involved swear-words. At the time I thought that was unnecessary, but afterwards I realised the driver was probably at least as scared as George and me. Anyway, I immediately brought George in and talked to him about it, explained that if he was going to ride out on the street, he needed to pay more attention (he claims not to have seen the truck). We talked again about it later in the evening, and we’ll talk again before he goes out on his bike again.

Maybe it will be a blessing in disguise - maybe the close call will shake George up enough that he does pay more attention from now on. I hope so.

Anyway, otherwise…my friend who was too sick to come last week visited yesterday instead. Her nearly-1yo is just starting to walk, and is very cute. I hadn’t seen them for ages, so it was great to see them yesterday. She also brought her infant car-seat, which means I can leave Jack in the big convertible seat for a while longer.

Scratchy spent a couple of hours in the evening trying to fix my CD/DVD drive. It has never really worked properly, not since I got this laptop two years ago. If I was a more organised person, I suppose I’d have done something about it while it was still under warranty, but anyway…recently it’s been refusing to recognise any CD or DVD, just giving me the message “F: is not accessible”. Anyway, Scratchy found the installation stuff, uninstalled it and reinstalled it (hence the previous note about the filth in my laptop…) and now its still picky, but it will recognise some stuff anyway. Better than nothing.

My car is old enough that its radio plays tapes, not CDs. I’d quite like a car radio that played CDs - but what I’d really like is one of these.

Another day without any friends, without any social contact…yadda yadda yadda.

This morning H came over with her two children. She brought us a very yummy fruit-basket. I made lots of food for lunch (and I do mean lots!) and we polished it all off, then sat in the garden all afternoon since the sun had come back out Meanwhile the neighbourhood kids had started to descend on us once again, so there was certainly no lack of company even after H left late this afternoon.

After dinner J arrived to pick up her barbecue (which we’d borrowed for George’s party a couple of weeks ago), along with her son J. Cue lots more kids running about, lots of noise…and lots of impatient waiting for the ice-cream van, which never did arrive. We finally managed to get all our kids in at about 9.40, but even then we had to chase some of their friends out of our garden and home!

We seem to be having a problem with power-surges or something. Since we moved in, every time we’ve turned on the pc in the dining-room, it has cut off the broadband connection, and we have to turn off the pc, then reboot the modem. If we turn on the light in the garage, that cuts off the broadband connection too, but it comes back once we turn the light off, we don’t have to reboot the modem. This afternoon, we lost all power to the electrical sockets in the kitchen and in our bedroom (which is above the kitchen and garage). The fusebox switch had tripped, but we couldn’t figure out why. Then we discovered that someone had turned on the pc monitor in the dining-room (but not the pc itself). Turned it off, flipped the switch back, all sorted…until we boiled the kettle, and then they went again. The oven still works, but this is worrying. I think we’re going to have to get someone who knows something about electrics to look at it (ie not us) - I hope this isn’t going to be expensive

The baby is very low down in my pelvis, but seems to have taken up residence on one side of my pubic bone - ouch! Watch that pregnancy countdown ticker at the bottom of the blog - not that it actually means anything, you understand, just that I’m interested to find out what it will do once I get past 40 weeks (and I will!).

Okay, this is an official eviction order, baby. I have had it with being pregnant. I am tired of it taking three shipyard cranes to get me turned over in bed. I am tired of having to get up 15 times a night to pee. I am tired of waking at 5.20 am every day, finding myself unable to go back to sleep, and then being ready to crash out again by 10am. I am tired of only being able to eat three mouthfuls of food before I feel stuffed, only to feel starving again 45 minutes later. I am tired of heartburn so severe I feel like I can’t breathe. I am also tired of what goes on at the other end of my digestive system. I am tired of having to ask for help to hang out the laundry because every time I bend over to pick something out of the basket, I almost fall over. I am tired of not being able to reach stuff in cupboards because my huge bump gets in the way. I am tired of going “oh!” because the Braxton-Hicks are pretty strong, while knowing that it’s meaningless. Barney is tired of carrying heavy stuff for me and is ready to hold a baby while I carry heavy stuff instead.

I have washed most of the nappies, the cover from the infant carseat borrowed from my friend T, enough clothes and baby-towels to see you through your first couple of weeks of life on the outside. I have sorted it all into neat stacks and put it away in one of those wire-drawer set thingies that Ikea sells. It’s all sitting there, lovely and tidy, freshly-laundered. Won’t you come out and see?

The birthing pool has been inflated for a couple of weeks and we’ve done two trial runs on filling it. Okay, so neither trial run was perfect, but I think we’re close enough now that we can manage.

I’m ready for you to come out and meet us. The only front on which I do not feel completely ready is that I’m not entirely settled about the names we have chosen. But we can work that out later.

So how much notice do I need to give? According to that ticker-thing at the bottom of the page, I have nine days before your arrival. Must we wait that long?

*Sigh* - yes, I know, we probably must. And we probably have another couple of weeks after that too. And no, I won’t do anything to induce labour (though one or two of the traditional methods look good right now, but I think that’s hormones).

My prediction? July 31st. About 8 lbs 4 oz. Gender? No idea, and don’t care.

Now watch me stay pregnant until September.

(Just in case you’re reading this blog from the top down, read the previous post first. If you don’t, this one won’t make sense.)

…yes, I’m tired of being pregnant - but if you did decide to arrive on your due-date, that would give me just enough time to read the new HP book once it’s released. So actually that would work quite well. So how about we go for the due-date?

(Well a girl can hope, can’t she?)

BTW, Barney did the New York Times crossword this morning. It was posted on the Leaky Cauldron site yesterday, so I printed it off last night. He was very pleased to get it, and absolutely delighted when I pointed out that most people who get the New York Times wouldn’t even have been up out of bed by the time he’d finished it

My predictions: Dumbledore will die, as will a Weasley (my money’s on Ginny). The younger Malfoy will turn against his father. Hagrid will show himself to be useful beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Snape will make everyone doubt him, but will ultimately turn out to be Good (though possibly not until book 7…). Luna will be more important than in previous books, as will Dean. There. Now you can all laugh this time next week when I’m proven completely wrong.

Us? Harry Potter fans? Never……

Off to re-read the fifth book now (just finished the fourth one)

What I did today: Caught up on laundry. Emailed. Sat on patio reading HP5. I love this weather

Yeah, there are lots of other things I could have done today. I could have put away all the laundry I did this week. I could have cleaned the bathrooms. There are still boxes in the guest-room waiting for me to sort them and put things away. But dammit, I’m 39 weeks pregnant and it’s 80 degrees out there, so I’m gonna sit on my backside and sweat

Forecast for tomorrow says it will feel like 86! Bring it on!

I just read a headline on the BBC news rss feed: “Hall damaged in suspicious blaze”.

Only, I misread it. And for a minute, I thought it said “Hell damaged in suspicious blaze”.

Now I’m giggling uncontrollably

…and yet I’m having labour-type contractions every few minutes. Hm.

I know I’ve another three-ish weeks to go. I think when these started the baby was posterior, but pretty sure now the bum is sticking out my front (and very visibly so).

Hm.

I’m not heating water for the birthing pool, but I’ve asked Scratchy to look at the TENS machine and make sure it’s all in working order - just in case.

Some of you may have noticed that my family has a vague interest in Harry Potter.

Some of you may have noticed that my family has a vague interest in home-education.

If you’ve noticed both, give yourself a pat on the back.

And if you already knew what I’m about to tell you, give yourself a second pat on the back. I only just discovered that mugglenet is run by a home-educated kid. Cool

This will probably amuse a few HP fans too.

Two nights of even-less-sleep-than-usual, and running about doing stuff yesterday have taken their toll on me, and I’ve spent today doing as little as possible. Was hoping to have finished the fifth HP before Scratchy goes off to buy the new one at midnight, but not sure if that will happen now.

We went to visit my friend M yesterday; her baby R is about four weeks old and very very lovely. All my lot got cuddles, Barney in particular was very pleased (he likes babies a lot). Did a few errands afterwards, then came home to find a note from the community midwifery manager in the mailbox - she’d been by while we were out. The note said she had “some ideas for the birth plan”…hmm…I phoned her, and had a very frustrating discussion. Despite agreeing with me that there is no point in worrying about the baby’s position until I actually go into labour, she keeps pointing out that none of her midwives is experienced with breech birth. I did say that then she could get someone who is experienced but she just says it’s too late for any of them to do the study day now *sigh*. She’s also quite determined to find fault with the pool I’ve got - first it was “will it be big enough/deep enough?”, then, when she’d actually been in it and found it was, she started talking about heat retention. We’ve done a trial run and it only dropped about five degrees in 12 hours, and it doesn’t take a lot of hot water to heat it up again by that amount, so now she’s saying she talked to someone who had an inflatable pool (”it might not have been the same as yours”) and the sides weren’t firm enough *sigh*. I’m feeling less and less supported by the midwives, and more and more hassled…the old familiar story.

This evening, Scratchy has taken Barney, George and Freddy off to see an outdoors production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Barney is very keen on Shakespeare generally - we examined Twelfth Night in great detail a while back, and it has really stimulated an interest. George is interested too, though more in the storylines than the language and cultural stuff. Freddy hasn’t so far shown much interest, but was quite determined to go with them this evening. So it’s just me and Jack at home, and Jack is currently lying beside me, about to fall asleep. So I should really get off the computer, give him a cuddle, and get on with reading HP5

My three eldest (10.5, 8 and 6) have just returned from watching a live outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and have declared it “excellent”. Great big grins all round. Even Scratchy, who wasn’t very keen on taking them (too much effort for his liking…) was glad they went (and enjoyed it for himself too). Barney (10.5) loved it - he’s read the story and he’s familiar enough with the language from having studied Twelfth Night and read various other Shakespeare works that he followed along quite easily. George (8) got lost once or twice in the dialogue, according to Scratchy, but he too had read the story so it wasn’t a problem. I don’t think Freddy (6) had much understanding of the language, but he was entranced by the performance of it anyway. They’re all keen to study the play in detail now

George and Freddy are now fast asleep in bed, and Barney has gone off with Scratchy to acquire the new Harry Potter book. Depending on queues, they will return at about 1am with two copies (so I can read it without waiting for Barney to finish, since there’s no way he’s going to leave me in peace to read it if he hasn’t got his own :lol:)

Me…I finished the fifth book and tried to go to sleep, but that didn’t work, so after an hour or so of trying I got up and had (yet another) bath. I’m now sitting thinking sleep would be really nice, even if it was only a couple of hours before I do my usual up-from-3-to-6 bit - but the only way I’ll get any sleep tonight will be if I fall asleep with a book in my hand. Can you guess which book?

Whaddya mean, “read what?”

Read the first third or so, fell asleep, woke up at 8 am and read the rest.

No spoilers here though - though even looking at other sites where spoilers are supposedly being posted, only half of them are true anyway! Scratchy has been trawling for spoilers all morning, because he hasn’t got a book to read

Barney is still reading - he got ahead of me to start with but fell asleep sooner than I did

Verdict: It’s patchy. Most of the important bits of the story are in the last couple of chapters - there are bits in the rest that strike me as probably important for background, but there’s very little action up until nearly the end. The book isn’t as dark as I’d expected - there is one bit where I went “ew” but then I did that about the whole lines-on-Harry’s-hand thing last book too. More deaths in this book than ever before, but only one described in detail, and only one of relevance to the story. Bits of it are so much filler, but other bits are very well-written - the funeral scene in particular impressed me.

…the one down the bottom of the page? The one that tracks my pregnancy and says “2 days left”?

Bwaaaahhaaaahaaaaa.

I just want to know what it’s going to do when the number of days left goes into the negative figures. Like “-10 days left”. Is it going to yell at me (”whaddya think you’re doing?!”)? Is it going to start sounding like an over-anxious midwife (”well, you know we must advise you of the risks….”)?

I suppose it won’t actually know that I haven’t had my baby. Maybe it will assume I have, and start telling me how old my baby is. Maybe it will disappear. Maybe it will just stop.

Personally, I think it should start counting how many treats I should get every day - one for every day of being past 40 weeks. As in: “Your baby was due 5 days ago, so your partner should give you 5 treats today. We suggest: 1) foot massage, 2) backrub, 3) cooking something yummy for dinner, 4) telling you that you look wonderful (even if it’s a lie), 5) a huge bar of chocolate (plus gaviscon for when that has its usual effect).”

Still here. Still pregnant.

J and her boys came over yesterday; we sat outside in the sun and ignored the occasional raindrops. We’re expecting H and her three kids here today. At least it’s keeping me busy while I get ever-more-fed-up…

Given my blog-name, how could I resist a quiz called “Which flock do you follow?”

And here is my result:

Which flock do you follow?

this quiz was made by alanna

It’s raining?

No!

After all these weeks of wonderful sunny weather, days spent outdoors…I’d almost forgotten it could rain.

So….today. Kids ran in and out of the house many many times (it’s raining/it’s stopped/it’s raining/it’s stopped…you get the idea). This was, of course, because I cleaned the floors this morning. You’d never know to see them now though.

We had H and her children (plus an extra - her niece who is staying with her) here today, which was nice, but would have been better if Barney hadn’t been in a major stroppy mood for most of the day. He started by being moody, and kept it going until eventually he shut Jack’s fingers in his bedroom door, making one finger bleed and cutting right through a fingernail. I was Not Pleased. After H left, I went to have a bath, but the cold tap in the bath is still playing up - fortunately Scratchy arrived home minutes later, because he’s the only one who knows how to fix it, so I did get my bath in the end.

Now we’re discussing baby-names again, because, well, I’m just not really that happy with our choices, and some small daft superstitious bit of me says that the lack of decision with regard to names is the reason I’m not in labour yet. Well, everything else is ready, so what else could it be? *rolls eyes at self*. Anyway, I had one doozy of a contraction this evening - a great big one that I felt the whole way from the top down. Another dozen or so of those and I’m sure I could get on with pushing…

Just in case anyone was thinking of asking!

Today’s been a funny old day. Barney made me breakfast this morning, but completely screwed it up so that it was inedible. In the meantime George and Freddy were having a huge fight that Jack was doing his best to muscle in on, so feeling queasy and fed up I yelled at them all and sent them all back to bed. Eventually I made it upright myself, and everybody got something to eat, but it wasn’t a great start to the day

After that less-than-perfect start, I decided I was going to give them some stuff to do. TCS be damned - everybody here seems happier when there’s some kind of routine. That’s not to say I can always stick with one, and I daresay any routine will go out the window for a while once the baby arrives, but when they’re given something constructive to do for an hour or two, everybody just seems to get on better with everybody else. Anyway, George did some science and maths, Barney did some science, geography and English, and Freddy did some science and maths and read a load of stuff about animals from the Arctic and Antarctic and wrote the answers to questions about them. Jack has, for a while now, been demanding “work” when his brothers get some, so I’d already printed off some bits and pieces from the internet for him to do. We’re real hot-housers here - stuff like “I’m learning about shapes” and getting him to draw lots of circles in different colours, and counting how many frogs (”free!”) or cats (”four, five, firteen!”) there were on the page, etc. He was so thrilled with this that he was literally jumping up and down in his seat and waving his arms up and down

We did most of that in the conservatory, and realising that we could barely see the kitchen from it because of the fingerprints on the patio doors, I set George to work with a spray-bottle of window-cleaner and a cloth, and he cleaned the patio doors and all the windows all the way around the conservatory. Did a pretty good job too :-). He can only reach so far up, of course, but since most of the fingerprints are at his level or below, that didn’t matter much

Barney seemed a bit miffed at George being asked to do this instead of him (as the eldest, he complains about being asked to do the most, but he objects if he thinks he’s not being given enough responsibility :lol:), so I sent him off to dust all the windowsills throughout the house with a damp cloth

Does it count as nesting if you’re getting the kids to do it for you?

They’ve now all disappeared down the road on their bikes with their friends, except for Jack, who is hugging his friend G on the swings in the back garden - well, either he’s hugging her or nutting her, I can’t quite tell which. At least the weather’s improved since yesterday

As part of my attempt to insert some routine back into our family life (see yesterday’s post), I decided that the boys should have routines they can follow at certain times of day - the idea being that I can say “have you done your morning routine?” instead of nagging them about every single thing they’re supposed to be doing - and also that we don’t get to noon to find that nobody’s dressed, nobody’s teeth have been cleaned, and the cats are drinking the leftover milk from the cereal bowls on the kitchen counter. The routines idea is something I’ve been doing for myself for about three years, on and off - well, to be honest, with all our house-moves during that time and my intrinsically lackadaisical attitude towards housekeeping anyway, it’s been more off than on, but when I do manage to stick to it, it makes a huge difference. So we sat down and figured out what they could all be doing. I decided to take the opportunity to add a few extra household-y bits in - they all do some stuff around the house, but I figure they’re getting older, they can do more (and I’m getting older, I can do less :lol:). So I made up a list of chores they can do - various jobs that take 5-10 minutes each - and added to each routine “pick one chore from the chore-list”. I pointed out to them that whoever got through their usual routine first would get first choice from the chore-list. I thought this idea might hit some opposition, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it greeted with enthusiasm - especially when I pointed out that although it looks like quite a long list, if each of them did one chore after breakfast and one after lunch, we’d get through the whole list in four days, leaving us a few days off before we start again.

So - Barney has cleaned the oven doors (inside and out), George has wiped the fronts of all the kitchen cupboards, and Freddy has tidied the back garden, driveway and front garden, picking up any rubbish that’s blown in, any bits that are out there that shouldn’t be, etc. Actually that was two separate jobs - back garden, then front garden and driveway - but he came back to choose a second chore!

This isn’t just laziness on my part (though I will freely confess to being a sloth) - I really do think it’s good for kids to participate in the care of the house too. My grandmother (whose house we lived in) was incredibly houseproud - a lovely person, but obsessed with cleaning - and we never really did learn how to do anything around the house, because nobody else could do it to her satisfaction. We also never learned to cook, because we “made too much mess”. She did teach me to knit though ;-). But back to the current day…well, the kids live here too - and if they’re old enough to contribute, why should it all fall to the adults?

I hope we can keep this going. If everybody really does stick to this, we’ll have a clean, pleasant place to live, which will be nicer for everyone, plus it will make for a less stressed-out me (and thus a much nicer time for everyone else :lol:) and, I hope, a feeling that everybody pitches in together. Fingers crossed

And yeah, I definitely think this should count as nesting…

Completely irrelevant to anything I usually blog about, but this piece caught my eye: US police have arrested three individuals who had constructed a 120-metre tunnel which crossed the US/Canada border. The tunnel was used for drug-smuggling, and police believe it would also have been used to move people and guns if it had not been discovered.

There’s nothing new in drug-smuggling across borders, of course. The bit about this story that makes me smile is the names of the three men: Francis Devandra Raj, Timothy Woo and Jonathan Valenzuela.

In Canada, even the drug gangs are multi-cultural!

I am doing some very serious nesting. I’ve been mopping floors, washing towels (even ones that don’t need it), even cleaning windows. And I’ve not just been telling other people (i.e. my children) to do these things, I’ve actually been doing them myself. Now this is peculiar for several reasons:
1. I am much better at administration than work. In other words, I’m better at telling people what to do than I am at doing it myself.
2. I have never nested in any of my previous pregnancies. Never. Not so much as a bit of light dusting. And here I am cleaning windows? What the heck?
3. I am only 40+4. Yes, I know that pregnancy is supposed to last 40 weeks, but that’s normal people, not me. I reckon I’ve at least a week to go, possibly two.
4. We have only lived in this house a few weeks, so it’s not even like it needs any major cleaning. And yet, somehow, that’s what I’m doing…

So.

Our new Argos cards finally arrived this morning, so I’ve ordered Barney’s bed. The poor child has been sleeping on a pile of two mattresses since we moved in here. The double bed he previously used is in the spare bedroom, but he wanted to sleep in his own room, so mattresses it was. I’ve ordered him a mid-sleeper bed with drawers and shelves and a pull-out desk- the plan was to order it along with a few other things once we got the Argos card, so that we could put it on one of those don’t-pay-for-six-month deals - unfortunately all the other things we needed were out of stock, so it wasn’t possible (unless I bought a bunch of things we didn’t need, and I wasn’t about to do that). So I might as well have ordered it a month ago and stuck it on the Visa card. Ah well. Maybe it will be here before the baby arrives, maybe not. At least Barney will have a proper bed to sleep on

…because it appears they’re more prompt than me. Just had a phone-call from them to confirm delivery of the bed I ordered this morning. Rather impressed

I forgot to say before, but I’m feeling quite human today. I think after the horrible night on Thursday, I was just completely knackered last night - so I slept well despite any discomfort. And it’s amazing how a decent night’s sleep can make all the rest of it seem easier to cope with

Jack is supposed to be going to sleep. Instead, he’s sitting on his bed, with several pairs of underpants stuck under his pyjama top, saying “I got a baby in my tummy” and giggling…

I was cleaning the downstairs loo (see, I told you I was nesting) and that’s where these live. I love them, so I thought I’d show them to the world :-). TBH I’m not usually into this kind of craft, but a few years ago I was at a summer fair and there was a woman who made these and the ones she created were so full of life, they were wonderful. She had 1920s flappers, little old men and women, all sorts of things. I bought a few as gifts, and asked if she ever made breastfeeding mums - she said “no, but…” and grabbed a notebook where she kept ideas. She took my phone number, and a while later, rang me to say she’d come up with three of these. They were all fabulous, and I bought them all LOL. I gave one to a friend who’d breastfed her first child for over a year but managed only a few days with her second; she’d just had her third baby and I offered it as a kind of good-luck charm - it must have worked too, because she breastfed him for over two years

Anyway, enough chat - here are the photos:

You all know what I’m talking about…

Bah.

I’ve decided to make a few changes to how this blog works. The blog in its entirety will no longer be passworded, but some posts will require you to be logged in to view them. The username and password that used to access the whole blog will no longer be valid - you’ll need your own.

I’m also moving the files to the notsheep.net website - at the minute it’s a web-forward.

So…what you need to do is this:

If you’re reading this at lamiam.com, go to www.notsheep.net
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Is it a good idea to be doing this when labour could start at any minute (she says in hope)? I don’t know. So if some of it doesn’t work, email me, and I’ll try to fix it - unless I’m in labour, in which case you may have to wait a while

It’s 7.47 am. My children have been up since 6.45, and I’m already threatening them that they won’t be going anywhere today if they don’t stop fighting with each other and refusing to cooperate. They’re supposed to be going to my friend J’s house this afternoon - she is a Very Kind Person who insisted on coming and picking them up so I could get some rest - and it’s probably just as well, since I’ve been awake since about 4.30, having contractions every few minutes. But not contractions that feel like they’re going anywhere, so don’t get excited.

On Monday night, as regular readers will know, I really thought labour might be starting. We filled the pool, I used the TENS machine while it was filling, and then got in. I spent 2-3 hours having strong contractions, using the birth-ball, feeling a bit sick and nauseous…and tired. Very tired. So when the contractions eased off a bit, I went to bed, hoping for some sleep. And…well, that was it. Still pregnant *sigh*. I can handle being overdue - that was expected. It just feels like every day or two I get my hopes up that labour might actually be imminent, and then when nothing comes of it, it’s frustrating.

Yesterday, I decided to move the blog. It’s always been accessible from notsheep.net, but it was a web-forward, which meant that some features (like logging in and out) didn’t quite work properly. It was pointed out to me yesterday that 41 weeks pregnant might not be the best time to start a project that could take some time to finish, but I figured either I’d get it done before labour started (which would be A Good Thing), or I’d go into labour before I got it done (which would be An Even Better Thing). A win-win situation As it turns out, I’ve got everything done except that my posts all lost their categories, so I’m going through them and re-categorising them now. Maybe labour will start before I’m done….*looks at belly optimistically*

Scratchy took yesterday morning off so he could take Barney and George to the BBC studios - this was part of the deal when Barney agreed to take part in the schools radio show about different kinds of education. They were shown around the studios and got to watch a radio show being recorded, and Barney even got a small part in it (he had one line - “oh please!”). They also watched some editing going on in the editing suite, and were taken into the news studio where they were given the chance to sit at the newsreaders’ desks. Photos to follow

Well, apparently we do anyway

A few minutes ago, Barney and George were bouncing on the trampoline and singing “Brick in the Wall” at the tops of their voices.

Now they’re singing “Video Killed The Radio Star” - could this be related to yesterday’s visit to the BBC?

Spent some time on the phone today working out what the kids can do in September, trying to find local activities rather than traipsing all the way to the other side of the city for stuff. Some things will still take place at quite a distance - Circus School, for example, is available in two locations: where they did it before (in our old town, 30-40 minutes away), or in the middle of the city (which would involve traffic/parking issues, or taking five children on public transport - uh, no thanks). We can’t do archery anywhere else too, and that’s going to involve a drive of nearly an hour, but they enjoy it so much, and the instruction is so good, and it’s also very cheap…I was hoping to get archery and Circus School on the same day, so I’d only one trip across the city per week, but that’s not going to work out, so we’ll just have to manage.

I have found out about swimming lessons locally, though, and we can fit those in, plus the leisure centre is sending us a brochure about all the other stuff that’s offered there. And I found a local Scout group which is not super-churchy and which offers all the levels we need - since this year we’ll have one in Beavers, one in Cubs and one in Scouts. I’ve talked to the ex-District Commissioner (because Scout HQ gave me the wrong person, but he was very helpful anyway) and to the Group Scout Leader, and it sounds good. So that’s all cool

I still have to try to source a Chess Club - they really enjoyed the one they went to before, but it no longer has a junior section - and a martial arts group of some sort, because they want to do ju-jitsu or something similar.

Oops - I almost forgot - we’re home-educators, we’re supposed to be socially isolated! Silly me!

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I will then upgrade your user-level so that you can see all the posts. There. Not too onerous, is it?

…but it might be the last…the contractions are strong and frequent…

Sorry to get everyone’s hopes up

It really felt like things were cracking on, then it felt like early labour for a while, then it felt like maybe-labour for a while, then it felt like maybe-things-will-get-going-again-soon for a while…but they didn’t. I’m still pregnant. I can handle being overdue, but this here-we-go-oh-no-we-don’t business is new to me and driving me nuts.

Grrr. Nobody better annoy me today.

Freddy was having his fingernails cut by Scratchy. “Look,” he said, “you missed my insect finger!”

Jack was watching me core and wedge an apple (using one of those cutter things that does it all in one go): “Be careful, don’t hurt yourself.” On completion, in an astounded voice: “You didn’t hurt yourself! Good work!”

Picked up my replacement slow-cooker. Made some bread in the breadmaker - it didn’t rise as much as I’d like, but it tasted good…we were late picking up Scratchy because I couldn’t peel the children away from it :-D. Went shopping at Co-op, where I discovered a huge pile of infant formula at a reduced price on the clearance shelf - when I told the staff member that it wasn’t legal, she looked miffed and disbelieving, but went off and checked and came back and said “You’re absolutely right” and went about getting it all taken down

My cats have learned how to get in and out through the bathroom windows. The upstairs bathroom windows. They jump from the kitchen windowsill onto the conservatory roof, then from there onto the bathroom windowsills. The only thing they haven’t figured out how to do is look and see if the bathroom windows are actually open before they start.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I joined the MuddlePuddle blog-ring. I had to have something to distract me from the contractions on Wednesday evening, you see. Apparently it was the fastest ever joining process - five minutes (and two contractions) from start to finish - because Jax and I were instant messaging at the time. I suspect it might also have been because she wanted to get me joined before I changed my mind And it might have been even faster if I’d bothered reading any instructions instead of asking Jax questions that were already answered in them

Nothing else to report. It’s the weekend, baby (hint, hint).

…I thought it was agreed on the homebirthuk list that I would be next in line to give birth after J, who had her baby girl last weekend. And what do I wake up to this morning? Not one, but two birth announcements from list-members. L had a baby girl at 11pm yesterday, and A had a boy at 2 o’clock this morning. Congratulations to both, but really - I was supposed to be next!

And I’m still not in labour. In fact I feel even less labour-ish than I did a few days ago. Huh.

Where’s that stomping foot graphic then?

George and Freddy have disappeared across the road to a friend’s house, and Jack has been playing football with the pop-up goal thingy in the garden. Barney has combined the ingredients for French bread in the breadmaker and it’s now merrily wobbling away on the counter. Scratchy is cooking roast chicken for lunch, and we’re having slow-cooker Sloppy Joe’s for dinner. So everything that needs taken care of today is done. And now I’m boooorrrred! I wanna be holding my baby!

The Guardian ran a contest asking people to re-write the end of the latest Harry Potter book in the style of various authors. Some of these are just wonderful