NotSheep

On Thursday, my baby had his/her head over my left hip and his/her bum under my right-side ribs. Today, the same baby has turned - 180 degrees. Now there’s a bum where there was a head, and a head where there was a bum.

I wouldn’t mind, if I weren’t 41 weeks and 6 days pregnant, but I do think it’s time my child got his/her act together.

I’m not concerned about being overdue - this is how I do pregnancy, after all. I’m more concerned that labour will start with the baby in a really awkward position. I’m not even particularly worried about birthing a breech baby - it’s just, well, it would be nice if some part was presenting…

So bored I’m reduced to posting recipes on my blog.

Just had this very scrummy pasta salad for lunch - I found it on a website but made some changes (because I didn’t have everything in):

about 7 ounces pasta, cooked and drained (I used penne I set aside last night when I started thinking about pasta salad)
a slice of bacon, cooked and chopped (original recipe said 8 slices, I think that might be a bit much, but I only had one slice anyway. You could use vegetarian bacon bits if you’re veggie)
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons instant veggie stock powder (original called for chicken)
thinly sliced lettuce

Original recipe also called for a large tomato, seeded and chopped, and 1/4 cup sliced green onions, but I haven’t got any so I did without.

Combine mayonnaise, sugar, lemon juice and stock powder and mix well. Add everything else and toss. Eat.

This is what I would have made for lunch if I’d had the ingredients and could have been bothered. It’s the best pasta salad I’ve ever tasted, and it lasts well for a couple of days, so I usually make a huge batch and eat nothing else for a day or two

Pasta & Fresh Vegetable Salad

1/2 lb rotini
1 green pepper
4 small carrots
4 green onions
6 radishese
1/2 cauliflower, cut in florets

Dressing
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon grated parmesan
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Cook pasta al dente, rinse in cold water and drain under cold water. Chop the vegetables. Combine pasta & vegetables.
Mix all ingredients for dressing; mix well.
Pour over salad & toss to mix. Cover & refrigerate.

Well here I am, 42 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Not really a surprise to anyone, is it?

My homeopath sent me some Pulsatilla 200C in the post, as the 30C potency I took last week did get the baby moving, but didn’t actually get him/her into any kind of ready-to-be-born position. I took the 200C last night, and I think* the baby is now head-down, though with his/her head slightly to the left of my cervix - though no longer over my hipbone, so that’s something. And it’s been less than 12 hours since I took the Pulsatilla, so maybe today we’ll see a baby in some kind of position where actually coming out would be possible?

(* I am not very good at working out the position of babies in utero. In fact, given that this is my fifth baby, I think it would be fair to expect me to be much, much better at it than I am. So I am offering no guarantees regarding this information.)

So far this morning has not been one of our better ones. Freddy was using the kids’ bathroom, so Jack came in to use mine. After spending five minutes telling me he was going to do this (with me going “yes, yes, go on then” the whole time), he did so, and then emptied half a bottle of essential oils down the sink. So now the bathroom reeks of a mixture of tea-tree, sweet thyme and rosemary oils. George had three meltdowns by 9am *sigh*. Let’s hope it gets better from here.

As those of you who know me via email lists probably know, my email sig-lines include quotes, chosen at random by my email client. I added one today, but I like it so much I’m going to put it here too:

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

So…yesterday at about 3.30 pm, I wrote a post that I was having some pretty good contractions. And I saved it as draft. And I said, in the text of the post, that I was saving it as a draft, and I wasn’t posting it until I was absolutely certain that I was in labour, so if anyone was reading it, they’d know things were moving.

Well, you didn’t read it, so that tells you what happened, doesn’t it? Four hours of contractions and then….nothing.

But I did think the baby was head-down yesterday, and from yesterday afternoon, I thought he/she might actually be head-down-in-my-pelvis (rather than just head-in-that-general-direction, as previously). This morning, I decided to phone the midwife and ask her to check, figuring that if I was wrong, it would give me the opportunity to take more Pulsatilla before the weekend.

And I was right :-D. Baby’s head is now down, just over my pubic bone. Not engaged, but a) it’s down (did I mention that?) and b) this is a fifth baby, so not-engaged is no big deal. And it gets the midwives off my back about breech birth at home, and about having an ultrasound scan to check. So all good

Now if we can just get labour going….

Jack was very chatty with the midwives today - he kept coming in to show them books and things he’d found (”dis is my skateboarder”) and then got a post-it note and pen to “write my name” - a page consisting of lots of shapes that looked like “J” - not bad. And then another post-it note to draw circles. He told me before the midwives arrived that the baby was coming out soon and he was going to “hold her and cuddle her” - to which George said “unless, of course, it’s a boy”, and Jack looked at him as if this thought had never occurred to him and then said “yeah”. I asked him later what he was going to do when the baby came out (expecting the hold-and-cuddle answer again) and he said “stay awake” and then “come down in living room” (where the birthing pool is)

The arrival of the second midwife today was greeted by a yell from George at the top of the stairs of “it’s another widmife!” - which prompted Barney to yell “no, it’s a breadknife” and then they went off into a round of rhyming words, the more ridiculous the better

Jack fell asleep at 4.30 and didn’t wake until 6.30 - normally that would trigger a huge sigh on my part, because I know it means he’ll be up late, but since Scratchy was going grocery-shopping last night, I sent Jack with him…hehehe…of course Scratchy comes home and tells me how Jack talks non-stop the whole way through the trip - well what does he think he does all day with me?

The people that Scratchy works with, for example. They’re starting to think he’s making it up about me having a baby so that he can get the extra leave (a whole three days!)

The neighbours. If my kids don’t make an appearance outside by early afternoon, a neighbour will often send a child over to invite them out to play…”oh, and ask how their mum is”.

We’ve done the hot-food-hot-bath-etc thing. And I’m still not in labour. Not even slightly. This baby has obviously inherited the stubborn gene (which could have come from either side) and completely failed to notice the strong presence of the impatience gene in his/her mother.

We had J & K’s two kids here this morning so they could go for a meeting. They (as in all the kids, not just the visiting ones) trashed the bedrooms, made a lot of noise, then got thrown out into the garden (because I’m not in the mood, okay?). Now I’m sitting here eating an afternoon snack (Indian food…) and listening to the Holly Cole Trio. And waiting *sigh*

No, not busy because I was having a baby!

Yesterday we scored a couple of great freebies on Freecycle - a tent and a bicycle. The bicycle is a bit bigger than the one Barney has, and I’d noticed this week that all the boys needed their bike-seats raised a bit, so I suggested to Barney that he “move up” to the “new” bike, which he did. Then George moved onto Barney’s bike, Freddy moved onto George’s bike, and we put the stabilisers back on Freddy’s bike so that Jack could have it. Barney is happy because he’s got a bigger bike, George is happy because he’s got a bike with gears, Freddy is happy because he now has a red bike, and Jack is over the moon because he has a bike at all :-D. Unlike all the others when they got bicycles, Jack required no teaching at all, he just got on and started pedalling. His steering is still a bit wild, but hey, it’s only been a few hours

Since Scratchy had taken some of the seats out of the car to go pick these things up last night, I took the opportunity to vacuum out the car before they went back in. Result: one clean car. Well, clean on the inside anyway. The outside is still a combination of dust-grey and mud-brown.

Then we had a look at the tent - wow! It’s huge - it only just fits in our garden! - and fabulous. I’d take a photo and post it, but it’s taking up so much of the garden that there isn’t anywhere to take a photo from! It’s a Relum Canton (in case that means anything to anyone - it means nothing to me :lol:). It’s one of those huge things you get at Eurocamp-type places. There are three bedroom pods, two of which will each hold a double air-mattress comfortably, the third will hold a single with a little room to spare - and all the bedroom bits put together only take up about a third of the whole tent. It’s got windows with curtains and vents and a wardrobe bit and even an emergency exit. The whole front panel, which contains the front door and two windows can be moved forwards to increase the “indoor” space or back to the first set of poles to give you a sort of patio thing. It’s in really good condition too - what a find! There are still three poles we haven’t managed to identify, plus a bit of blue fabric which we can’t figure out what to do with. It’s the same fabric the bedroom pods are made from, it’s square-ish with a hole in the middle and a number of hooks around the edges, and it fits across the width of the tent. Anyone think they can identify it? - matching tablecloth maybe?

Midwife came by and said my blood pressure was up slightly (but I had just put up a new tent with my husband, so that’s hardly surprising :lol:) but nothing else to report. She did make a comment about seeing me a bit more often now I’m “so overdue”; I think they will heave a collective sigh of relief when this baby finally puts in an appearance. I can’t really blame them for that, as I will too!

Apparently I’m great value - ’cause I know nobody has ever paid me this much!

I am worth $1,805,948 on HumanForSale.com

Boy, 8 lbs 9.5 oz, 4.39 am…details to follow in another post once I’m not quite so tired and sore…all well, including the four big brothers who were in attendance

The birth story will be coming - I’m working on it - but I wanted to record the rest of the day before I forgot it all in the haze of new-baby-lack-of-sleep

Briefly, up all night in labour, Toby born at 4.39 am, midwives left sometime around 6.30 am, Scratchy and Jack and Toby and I went to sleep, Barney and George and Freddy fended for themselves for a while.

I think I resurfaced at about 9.30 am, by which time Scratchy had, I think, more or less kicked the rest of the kids out of the house I could hear them talking to someone outside - they weren’t exactly going door-to-door along the street with the news of our new arrival, but not far off it

Barney and I had put the breadmaker on timer last night, so we had lovely fresh bread for breakfast

I had completely forgotten about afterpains, so had nothing at all in the house to use for them. It being Sunday, there was nowhere open until 1pm. He took Jack with him (peace! quiet! :lol:) and promised to return with painkillers and lunch. While he was gone, Freddy came charging into the bedroom saying “There are loads of our friends outside and they want to know if they can come in and see the new baby!” He rattled off a couple of their friends’ names, and I said, yes, okay then. I pulled up the sheets and off ran Freddy to tell everyone - a minute later I had ten kids in my bedroom all going “awwww….” and “isn’t he gorgeous….” and “he’s so tiny….” and “look at his teeny fingers….” etc etc. After about 20 minutes of this, Toby managed to poop meconium all over the back of his nightshirt and - somehow - all over the front of my shirt, so I told them all I had to change him and me and could they please clear off now, which they cheerfully did

Scratchy got home with lunch, everyone ate, the boys went back out to play, and Toby and I went back to sleep for a while. They’ve all just come in and had dinner and been sent off to bed early - after all, they were up since 4 am! And they’re supposed to be starting ju-jitsu tomorrow evening.

Toby has been very peaceful and settled today, mostly he’s just slept, with the odd few minutes looking around him. I think he’s probably still quite full of meconium, and he hasn’t really shown much interest in breastfeeding yet - he’s latched on a few times but really only suckled once or twice and then for only a minute or so. I’m hoping that he’ll have a couple of hours of interest soon, so that maybe we’ll get some sleep tonight.

Barney is completely besotted with Toby, he’s been checking on him all day and spent a good hour early this afternoon with Toby asleep on his chest (see the pic I posted previously - if you can’t see it, you need to register/login). Jack comes in about every ten minutes when he’s in the house, saying “where baby is?” - just in case I’ve lost him, I suppose Freddy keeps coming in and looking at him and then walking away grinning. George is the least bothered about it all really - in fact he’s denying that he was here when Toby was born (and he definitely was!) - I think maybe he was in some kind of Harry-Potter-dreamworld at the time

Must get some photos of them all together tomorrow…

Toby is two days old, and he’s fabulous

I thought he might be up most of Sunday night, after sleeping most of the day, but he really only had one wakeful period, from about 2.30 until about 5.30 am, and once he’d sussed staying latched on, he was quite happy to breastfeed lying down, so even during those hours, I got to doze. I couldn’t quite believe how not tired I felt yesterday - I was starting to fade by about 4 pm, but considering I’d missed an entire night’s sleep between Saturday and Sunday, I don’t think that’s too bad :-). My friend J came over yesterday and Scratchy went to work - he has three days of parental leave to take, plus he has a flex-time day, so this way he gets to have the rest of the week off. Having J here was great - she fed us all, stopped the kids from causing too much havoc, and held Toby when I needed to use the bathroom or whatever. I do like people who come and visit and don’t expect to be waited on ;-). Had a midwife visit late morning; nothing to report there (unless you count that I’m apparently going to have to actively decline health visitor services *sigh*).

J stayed until Scratchy got home and then he made dinner and I got to have a bath. One of our neighbours came in to see the baby, and then between us all we cleared up the living-room, which was a bit of a mess since that’s where the birth-pool had been - furniture had been moved about to make room etc. After dinner, Scratchy took Barney, George and Freddy to their first-ever ju-jitsu lesson, and I took Jack and Toby off to bed. Jack brought a book, “read” about three pages, got up to go pee, came back to bed, lay down and promptly fell fast asleep, so I got to lie down and gaze at Toby for a while

The ju-jitsu went well - Barney and George came home and demonstrated a few moves to me, Freddy had chosen to sit on the side and watch (which is his style - he likes to take things in before he gets involved - I expect he’ll join in in a week or two). They all went for groceries afterwards (we seem to be constantly buying groceries these days - I suppose we should get used to it, as it seems it’s likely to continue for the next 15 or 20 years :lol:), so by the time they got home they were all tired. Barney is still asleep as I write, at 9.40 am, so he’s obviously making up for lost time!

Oooh, remember our “half-cat”? The one that lives here and we feed but it’s not really ours? He was most miffed last night to find that his box in the back garden had been taken over by a large hedgehog! The hedgehog didn’t stay though, which is a pity because it would have been cool for the kids to all see it this morning, but I suppose it’s not a pity for Littl’un (cat) who’d have had nowhere to sleep!

Oh, and Freddy announced that he has finished the first Harry Potter book. Since I wasn’t aware that he’d even started it, this is quite a surprise. When we bought #6, George started reading the whole series - he’s onto #5 now, so he’s getting through them at nearly two books a week - and he mainly reads in bed since he’s out playing most of the day. Freddy had, at that point, decided to read the first one, but gave up after the first page - he could manage all the words, but it was a bit text-heavy for him, and he kept losing track of which line he was on. So when he came looking for book 2, I suggested he should really read #1 first, but he already had! I wasn’t sure if I should believe him at first, but after talking about it and asking him what his favourite bit was, he’s definitely read it. “What was your favourite part?” “Um…a chapter…I’ll show you….” (flicks through book) “This one!”. Not bad for a kid who really didn’t pick up on reading until about eight months ago.

My milk started to come in yesterday evening, and overnight Toby has slept and fed intermittently. He’s getting pretty good at nursing now - he still does that frantic-bobbing-head-where’s-the-nipple thing, which I’d forgotten all about :-), but once on he’s got a good latch and he’s suckling well. All of the boys except Barney landed in our bed this morning to check he was still here ;-). It was quite strange to be sitting here with four boys on the bed and realise there was still another one elsewhere in the house! Toby slept again this morning while I got to wash and eat and dress - very cooperative :-). I always find it makes a big difference if I get even 20 or 30 minutes in the morning to get myself sorted out, but with a new baby you can’t necessarily expect that! He’s asleep again now, all tucked up in blankets on the sofa with Scratchy (and three of his brothers) watching over him - so I even get time to blog! As for those people who are demanding birth stories - you’ll just have to wait until I figure it all out!

It’s been an up-and-down kind of day. After feeling great all day yesterday, I’ve been more sore today, especially across my back, and a bit more crampy. And my tush hurts; I need to shrink those things. (And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t ask, because you don’t want to know.)

I’ve been a bit weepy today too - I suppose hormones are responsible, and I think I’m still processing how the birth was so different from what I’d planned. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night either, which I’m sure didn’t help. Toby wanted to feed all night, but was a bit mucousy in his nose and throat, so wasn’t having much success feeding lying down - so I spent much of the night sitting up, and slouching over as I fell asleep. Now I think of it, that might also have something to do with the back pain.

Scratchy washed some diapers on Monday; half of them came back damp (folded, in a neat pile, but damp…*sigh*) and the rest of it…well, nobody seems to know where the rest of it is. As a result, Toby has been wearing nothing but a nightshirt all day, which is fine, because I’d been planning on doing at least some EC (elimination communication) anyway…though Scratchy thinks it’s a bit weird - but a) it’s his fault the small diapers weren’t available, and b) he’s thought that about a lot of stuff that I’ve suggested and that is part of our everyday life and seems the “normal” way now…

One of my neighbours sent in a baby present, which I think was really thoughtful, we’ve only been living here a few weeks. I have lots of other thank-yous to online friends today, but I’ll make a separate post about that :-). We had another en-masse visit from the neighbourhood kids too - there was a request at the front door to “see your baby”, so Scratchy carried him out to the front door and suddenly there was a deluge One of the neighbourhood mums came over too - she made nice remarks about how beautiful Toby is, and then spoiled it by asking “has he you up much during the night?” Wahuh? He’s three days old…:roll:

The older four boys - eek! I have an “older four boys”! - went off to a birthday party with Scratchy over lunchtime, which meant that Toby and I got to stay home and have a lovely peaceful time. After the midwife had been, we went off to bed together and had a couple of hours sleep :-). I’m always kind of aware of how many children are around - if Scratchy takes one or two out somewhere, I kind of know without thinking about it how many are left with me, if that makes sense. And the whole time they were gone today, I was aware that I had one here, so there must be three off with Scratchy - except, of course, that there were four with him. I’m going to have to update my head-count instinct, or I’ll end up leaving a child somewhere!

As for the downright gorgeous…well, that’s Toby, of course. He’s just lovely. I love how sometimes he’s about to cry, or has just started crying, and he hears my voice and stops, and opens his eyes to see me. I love how, when he’s looking around, he catches sight of my face and suddenly those little arms and legs that were waving about just stop, and then his whole little body relaxes. I love how he smiles - he has smiled at me three times already. I don’t care how many “experts” say that three-day-old babies’ smiles are just gas - he smiles when he’s looking at my face, and not any other time. I love how he watches whoever is willing to talk to him - after he feeds I sometimes put him up on my shoulder if I think he needs to burp, and there’s frequently competition to see who can get their face in there fastest to get his attention :-). And he watches them, and coos, and pushes himself up on his elbows to get a better view.

Jack has been telling me his version of Toby’s birth story. It contains a lot of “baby came out of your bum”. “His head came out first…and then his arms…and his fingers….” (yes, because I was really thinking about his fingers at the time :lol:) “…and then his body, and his legs and he was standing up!” And he puts his hands up to his mouth to make a sort of oval shape with his fingers and says “and you were blowing, like this” (entonox mouthpiece) :lol:. He talks about “the people who came” - the midwives - and tells me what they did. He really remembers a lot of detail.

…I love how he knows when my mealtimes are - and he lets me eat!

Never had one that did that before!

This from O’DonnellWeb is titled “A Note To First Time Homeschooling Dads”. It’s well worth a read

Toby sleeps a lot more than any of my other babies did, and I’m not sure if I should be worried!

He’s eight days old today, and last night he nursed at 1 am, then didn’t wake until 6.15 am. He breastfed again, then was awake for about half an hour, then fed to sleep at about 7.30 and is still asleep from then (it’s now nearly 9 am). The night before, his longest stretch of sleep was nearly four hours.

There’s plenty of milk, he seems settled, he’s not dehydrated, he’s peeing and pooping, he’s quietly alert when awake…am I missing something? Is it normal for a baby of this age to sleep so much? Have I just been trained to expect more wakeful, needy babies because my others were?

(Or am I tempting fate by posting about this?!)

These are the results of your inventory. The scores are out of 20 for each style. A score of 20 indicates you use that style often.
Style Scores
Visual 5
Aural 12
Verbal 17
Physical 5
Logical 17
Social 9
Solitary 11

from Learning Styles Online (where, btw, I am a “Household Manager” - yay! :lol:)

Today started off beautifully - I woke first and was staring at Tobylying next to me, and then he woke up, looked around caught sight of me and gave me a huge smile

Then it all started to go downhill

This morning has really emphasised how much difference our morning routines make. When everyone does what they’re supposed to, the morning goes smoothly, the house is organised, I’m not stressed (and thus nor is anyone else - or at least much less so!) etc. Yesterday was a good example - I really made an effort to get the boys back into their routines (since last week was a lost cause in that respect - more because Scratchy was home than anything else). And by 10am everyone was up and dressed and clean and fed and Barney had hung out the laundry to dry (!) and George had vacuumed the entire downstairs (!!) and Freddy had run about doing a dozen little jobs for me, and I’d had something to eat and was well on my way to my daily water-intake goal, and Toby was settled and lovely and everything was good…

Today was the opposite. I was in bed feeding Toby and by about 9am the others were only just getting downstairs to have breakfast - thus, hungry cranky children. So they were fighting, and kept waking Toby up, which meant I didn’t get a chance to shower or dress, etc. And by 9.30, I was practically yelling at them to get on with their routines…and they were all getting crankier by the minute. I did eventually get a chance to use the bathroom - I Toby over to Barney; after a minute he started crying but I couldn’t get back right away, so Barney started singing to him, and he very nearly fell asleep in Barney’s arms *impressed*. He’s very good with babies, and very proud of it

Still, I’m stressed, and Toby is picking up on it, so although he’s been happy when he’s been at the breast all morning, he hasn’t really settled down at all…I managed to breastfeed him to sleep about ten minutes ago and lay him on the sofa beside me and he’s awake again *sigh*

Jack has become the essence of the title of this blog. We’re “not sheep”, because we don’t just follow blindly, we ask questions and challenge assumptions. Jack has taken this to an extreme. He argues about everything. I don’t think I’ve said a single thing to him in the last few days that hasn’t resulted in a discussion about whether it’s the right course of action. Can’t think where he gets that from *looks away and whistles innocently*.

I finally got the kids settled to do some work (ie formal learning stuff) this morning - I had given them a few bits to do over the summer, not very much, but anyway…some was due today so they did eventually get on with it. We’ve had maths and history and literacy and ICT; I’m really surprised at how Freddy’s reading and writing have come along - he didn’t seem to be doing anything for the longest time, and then suddenly, his reading had taken off and his handwriting was legible. I’d say his reading is now about the level that Barney’s shortly before he left school, when his reading-age was tested and found to be 12.5 years, yet just a few months ago, Freddy was barely reading at all. It’s great to see how he’s been able to do it in his own time, rather than being pushed to learn to read before he was ready (and maybe ending up with the idea that he wasn’t any good at it, or that he could read but didn’t enjoy it).

Scratchy brought the car home at lunchtime so I could go out this afternoon and get it taxed - long overdue, so I couldn’t do it at the post office, had to go to the licensing office. I also got the airbags disabled, so I can put Toby’s seat in the front where I can see him (and he can see me). Anyway, after much discussion with Scratchy along the lines of “are all the documents I need for taxing the car definitely in there?”, “the insurance certificate is definitely there, right?”, etc - off I went to the tax office. (Reason I didn’t check the documentation myself: I was still dealing with a hadn’t-had-enough-sleep Toby.) Well, you can guess what’s coming, can’t you? I got to the licensing place, parked the car, got all the children out, walked the ten minutes to the building, went inside…at this point I was really hot and thirsty but I didn’t dare drink anything because my breasts felt like rocks and I knew as soon as I had a drink they’d let down, and Toby was still sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him until I was done at the counter. We got inside, found the right office, I opened the pouch containing all the documents, and discovered that the only insurance document I had was the policy schedule - which they don’t accept as proof of insurance. Cue much muttering and swearing under my breath (well, not all of it under my breath if I’m honest). I went up to the counter anyway, and explained the danger in which my husband had placed his life, and begged…and the very nice bloke let me tax the car. Lucky for Scratchy.

Toby woke up while I was doing that, so as soon as I was done, he got fed, and then we walked back to the car, and he got fed again, and then it was back in his seat for us to head home. (He is the complete opposite of George, who screamed constantly when in the car - Toby just falls asleep almost instantly.)

Once we got home, Scratchy started dinner, and I was feeding Toby again, when Barney said he’d forgotten how to play 20 Questions - so we played, to remind him. I chose “Shakespeare” first (inspired by the bookcase :lol:) - Barney guessed that on question 17. Then Barney chose himself - I got that on question 10. George picked a picture of a cat and Freddy chose the universe, and then it was my turn again: we got to question 18 and they were still clueless…at that point George was ready to give up and said “I’ll be blowed” - which made me burst out laughing, and made everyone else burst out laughing too when I told them what I’d chosen: a candle!

Nice to have a giggle before dinner

…is Tiggers are wonderful things…so that makes me…wonderful, right? ;-D

You are a Tigger Homeschooler. Tiggers jump into
homeschooling with both feet, as a grand
adventure. Everything is about learning, and
their days (and houses) show it.

What kind of Hundred Acre Wood Homeschooler Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I wonder how Tiggers feel about miniature schnauzers? We’ve one coming this afternoon, to visit for a week - we’re doggy-sitting for friends while they’re on holiday. This isn’t quite as altruistic as it sounds - it’s also a sort-of trial run for us to see what it’s like to have a dog (Scratchy and I have had dogs, but we’ve not had one since Barney was a baby, so the kids have never lived with one). I’m pretty sure the cats won’t be keen on the idea though…

Meant to blog this yesterday but forgot about it until a conversation with a friend this morning.

George has, for his entire life, been an intense person. There is no middle ground with him, it’s all-or-nothing. This makes for some interesting moments.

We’ve known for a long time that some of George’s worst moments are when he’s hungry - he just doesn’t do hungry. He does screaming and freaking out and yelling at everyone about everything, but he doesn’t do plain old hungry. We’ve used various techniques to try to avoid the pre-meal meltdowns, with varying degrees of success, and for some time now, we’ve been working on helping George recognise when he’s getting “wobbly” and what he needs to do about it.

Last night before dinner, George was just about to get into screech-and-scream mode, ostensibly because he wanted an orange but Scratchy had thrown them out (well they did have green stuff growing on them). He started yelling “I hate apples! I only want an orange! I don’t want anything else!” - but then managed to stop himself long enough to come and tell me (relatively calmly) that he was getting wobbly. I sympathised, and suggested he have a piece of bread instead (we were having bread with dinner anyway), and reminded him that asking instead of demanding would make Scratchy more likely to give him what he wanted. And what did George do? He went back to the kitchen and said “Daddy, I’m getting wobbly, so can I please have a piece of bread?” And Scratchy said yes, and George ate his bread, and all was calm.

Not a huge dramatic moment, but this is a big deal for George. It is really hard for him to stay in control when he’s wobbly, and I’m really proud of him for managing to do it

From
the Beeb

Results
Your answers suggest you are a Supervisor
The four aspects that make up this personality type are:

Summary of Supervisors
Bring order to their home and work life
Like to act on clear, achievable goals
Think of themselves as stable, practical and sociable
May be irritated when people don’t follow procedures
More about Supervisors
Supervisors like to make plans, organise people and get things done efficiently. They are natural administrators who dislike chaos and strive to bring order to every aspect of their lives. Supervisors like jobs where the goals are clearly defined and there are proven work methods in place.

Supervisors are most likely to say they prefer a job which involves a series of separate projects, according to a UK survey.
Supervisors use logic to solve problems and believe in being open and direct in their communications with others. They prefer to work and socialise with like-minded people.

In situations where they can’t use their talents or are unappreciated, Supervisors may reject the opinions of others and insist they are right. Under extreme stress, Supervisors may feel cut off from the people around them and lose confidence in their own ability to cope.

Because they like to take charge and organise activities, others may find Supervisors too bossy.

Supervisor Careers
Supervisors are often drawn to jobs in management or administration that require logical planning.

I dunno…I think the Beeb one was closer

Here’s my pig, and my results.

Barney woke up grumpy and stormed around the house for a bit. Then he got a nosebleed - he gets nosebleeds regularly so he’s pretty good at dealing with them, but today it looks like he did cartwheels around the bathroom whilst spraying blood in every possible direction *sigh*.

Toby had a huge dirty diaper, so I was changing him. He does not like being wiped clean, and was crying. Jack (3yo) ran into the room saying “What’s wrong with my brother? What’s wrong with my brother?”. Awwww…

George and Freddy are supposed to be tidying their room. Hm. We’ll see.

The plan today is to register Toby’s birth and go to the bank. Both of those can be done in town; I thought about walking it, but I also need to get the forms in for Barney and George to go to circus skills group again in September, and that’s about 35 miles away, so…umm….no

I’m sure there are more things I’m supposed to do today, but I can’t remember what. I’m sure I’ll remember right after I get back home though!

The midwife is coming to pick up my notes. I’m still fuming about the visit on Tuesday; she may wish she hadn’t bothered.

I’d forgotten how hard it was to get anything done with a newborn! - even one as sweet and as laid-back as Toby :-). I can type one-handed, and relatively fast too, but I can type so much faster with two hands….

(Very quick update - all is well! :lol:)

Ever since we moved into this house, we’ve been having problems with our internet connection. It seems to drop when we do certain things, some of them completely unrelated - like turning on the garage light, or putting a mobile phone on the charger (only one of them though, the others don’t have this effect!)

So we’ve been playing around with the setup, trying to figure out what’s happening and - more importantly - a way to sort it out.

We talked to Pipex, and they said we had to log into BT overnight so BT could assess our line. Pipex do have records of dropped connections, but BT won’t accept that :rolls:. So we did what they said.

Overnight - about 9ish hours - the connection dropped twelve times. And in the next three days, Pipex recorded 45 dropped connections. 45!

So BT are now investigating. I have a suspicion that they will say the line isn’t good enough to support 1 mb, and we’ll have to be throttled to 512kb - not a huge big deal really, but 1 mb is nice. What concerns me more is whether this will actually fix the problem

I’ve been a bit remiss about blogging (though I have a good excuse!), so here’s a precis of the last few days (and yeah, I know “precis” should have an accent, but I can’t be bothered to look up how to do it, ‘k?)

The older boys have done a bit of formal work in the last week or so - they were willing (especially when I said we could do more Latin :lol:), and I’ve been trying to get everyone back into some kind of routine, so what the heck. Anyway, the weather wasn’t great, so I couldn’t fall back on the system that has been working so well all summer (you know the one - it’s-sunny-and-it-won’t-last-so-go-and-play-outside). I have, of course, been implementing the late stages of that system (i.e. I’ve been repeating “oh look at that rain, aren’t you glad I made you make the most of the sunshine?” until the kids threaten to throw things at me). So.

We got Toby’s birth registered, which went smoothly except for my horror when I read the bit of paper I’m supposed to hand to the GP (”without delay”!) - signing it apparently absolves my GP of any obligation to maintain patient confidentiality. Can someone please tell me exactly what it is that the Inland Revenue (and a variety of other agencies, none of which has anything to do with healthcare) could possibly want to know from my GP?

We also got the library-books-from-library-in-old-town returned and registered at and borrowed some books from library-in-new-town. The library here seems fairly good - the librarians we met were friendly, there’s a decent-sized kids’ area with tables and puzzles etc. I hope they implement the we’re-supposed-to-charge-for-interlibrary-loans-but-we-always-forget system that the old one adhered to

On Friday D and A and their children visited for a while - our lot always enjoy seeing them After that we had another set of visitors - our friends who are Misty’s usual family (Misty being the mini-schnauzer we’ve been doggy-sitting). They had only just got back from their holiday, but were missing Misty so much they wanted to come and get her right away :-D. We were sorry to see her go - she’s a lovely little dog, and we enjoyed having her here. Even Scratchy was quite taken :-D, and the cats tolerated her better than I’d expected, to be honest! I think the next time our kids mention getting a dog, Scratchy might actually be quite keen…

Saturday was spent moving furniture - we acquired a second set of bunk-beds last week and had been trying to decide what to do with them. Recently George, Freddy and Jack have been sharing a room, with George and Freddy in bunk-beds and Jack in a cot-bed (that’s a convertible crib to you North American readers). This arrangement left Barney in a room of his own, and one bedroom (actually the biggest one) free - well, as free as a bedroom can be when it’s full of the stuff you don’t know where else to put. Anyway, we had explained the options to George, Freddy and Jack. At first George said he wanted a room of his own, but when he realised that he wasn’t going to be getting the biggest room (and all the toys that were stacked in it) to himself, he changed his mind - so all three still wanted to share. We decided to put both sets of bunk-beds in the biggest room (and it really is big - even with two sets of bunks, three kids, all their clothes and a bunch of toys in it, there’s still plenty of room), and to move the double bed from there into the bedroom the three kids had previously been sharing. Of course these kinds of things somehow always take ten times longer than you anticipate, so while everyone did have a bed to sleep in last night, that’s about as much as I can claim!

Yesterday evening, Scratchy took Barney, George and Freddy to a play performed on a touring theatre ship (the only one in the UK). It was for ages 7 and up, but the ticket-office said Freddy could go even though he’s only 6. So Jack and Toby and I stayed at home and I quite happily fell into bed - Jack was less than impressed at not being able to go, but cheered up and fell asleep in my bed reading about the adventures of Finn McCool - who, according to legend, built the Giant’s Causeway. So that’s geology, mythology, literacy…the education never stops ;-). At about 10.30 pm, the boys and Scratchy arrived back full of tales of wonder - it sounds like it was a very creative, original and entertaining production. And free! I do like free stuff

Today was spent trying to finish sorting out the two bedrooms - not with a great deal of success, really, since Scratchy always stands about waiting for me to tell him what to do with stuff, and I was in more-or-less constant demand from Toby. I think he’s feeling a bit under-the-weather - I’ve been flu-ish for the last few days, with a sore throat and head and coughing and being shivery, so if he’s feeling anything like me, I’m not surprised he just wants to nurse constantly.

And that, since he’s now in my arms and forcing me to type with one hand again, is that for now.

Did you know?

Toby is three weeks old today, and he wasn’t a very small (relatively-speaking) baby to begin with (8 lbs 9.5 oz), and although he hasn’t been weighed since the night he was born, I think he already looks bigger than he did…but he still looks so tiny.

Teensy little fingers, teensy little toes, teensy little ears…how can he be so little? I look at my giants other kids and they are so big! Even Jack, who is, after all, just three years old, seems enormous.

It really is true: you do forget how tiny new babies are. I really do need to get myself organised and take more photographs.

We spent yesterday with friends who live a couple of hours away. We arrived about noon, and apart from brief intervals when the children arrived for meals, we didn’t really see much of them until we left. They were having too much fun :-). We didn’t get home until close to midnight though, and I’m paying for that today (living with Grumpy, Ranty, Whiny and Stroppy….any one of those can be applied to any of the four older kids!)

Today…well, first I realised I hadn’t paid last month’s Visa bill. Argh. I always pay the bill in full - haven’t paid interest on a credit card in years (having spent too many years making minimum payments…oh to have all that wasted money back *sigh*). I do all the banking stuff around here - Scratchy is willing, but not organised enough, and every time I’ve left it to him in the past, stuff has ended up not paid. Pass the humble pie…

Phoned the Visa people and said “argh…sorry…grovel…new baby…five kids…will pay on-line today…” and they looked at the account and said that since it’s always paid in full, they’d waive the late fee. We still get hit with interest, but that’s actually less than the late payment fee, so I think we got off lightly. Reading around the blogring today, I notice I’m not the only person thinking about finances today.

I also managed to sell a refrigerator today - it was only a bit over a year old, but we got a fridge along with the house, and our own is too tall to fit anywhere in the kitchen. We could really use a bigger one than the small one we’ve got in the kitchen, but I can’t be bothered to go to the garage (a whole six or so steps away) every time I want something from the fridge, and I can’t justify running a small one in the kitchen and the big one in the garage, so the small one will have to do. We also have a cooker and dishwasher for sale (we got those with the house too) - there’s someone coming this afternoon to look at the dishwasher. It would be good to have all that space freed up in the garage, and the money certainly wouldn’t be wasted.

I told the boys they should go and call for their friends today and play outside with them, as all the local kids will be back at school tomorrow. Then I found out that some of them went back today. Poor things don’t even get all of August off now! George and Freddy were out on their bikes but beat a hasty retreat when it started to rain come down in torrents. We’ve now got a bit of thunder and lightning - let’s hope the air is a bit fresher afterwards so that I can stop with the headaches already.

Must go print off “work” assignments for the kids now…it’s September tomorrow!

Pupils at a Northamptonshire school are to be allowed to swear in class - but only a bit:

“Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score.”

And what happens after they get to five?

“Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson.”

I bet they’re f***ing terrified!