NotSheep

Scratchy had the day off yesterday, so I made the most of it. I started with a trip to the local play resource centre with my friend J - I picked up a few material things but mainly ideas. After that I headed to the local health centre, where I’d an appointment with the obstetric physiotherapist (to see if we can make my body look as if it’s not 15 months pregnant). Came home with exercises to do and a thing that’s essentially a very wide elastic band - the idea being to shift everything else back into the right place so that it’s easier for the muscles to do that too. The appointment was quite good fun - the physio and I share a slightly surreal sense of humour, and there’s plenty of fodder for it in examining my abdomen and trying to dig for muscles Forgot to see about getting bloodwork done for the milk-bank donor-testing thingy, so will have to get my act together on that.

I’d left the boys some work to do, with Scratchy supervising, and to my surprise, they actually got it all done. Maths, geography, science, guitar, recorder and blogging for Barney, maths geography, French and blogging for George, and science and handwriting for Freddy.

Home for lunch, then a few errands - bank, library, brief grocery stop, then back home again to put the groceries away. We cut apart the invitations for Barney’s party, and he, George and Freddy delivered them to those local kids who were home from school. The rest will have to be delivered this afternoon.

I dropped Scratchy, Freddy and Jack off in town and they spent some time in the playground before getting dinner and taking the train to Beavers. In the meantime, I drove across the city (in the dark and rain…) to take George to the dentist to get his brace fitted. This is when I had my fall - and I’m more sore than I thought from that It took the dentist ages to fit the brace - she had to fiddle with it with pliers to get it to sit right - but eventually it went in. George was very patient about the whole thing. He didn’t keep it in right then, because he and Barney were off to Community Circus, but he put it in before bed last night. It took ten minutes for us to get it in the first time, then he decided to practice a bit - it took 20 seconds the next time, and about three seconds the time after that. Then he woke me at 3 a.m. to say it was bothering him and could he remove it (yes, of course). He’s had it in and out countless times today - obviously already expert. He’s also had to rescue it from Misty, our visiting mini-schnauzer - that will teach him to leave it where small animals (and people!) can reach it. Having Misty has been quite good for the boys; it’s surprising how fast having things chewed up teaches children not to leave things like pencils, erasers and small plastic dinosaurs on the floor The cats still aren’t keen on her presence, but they seem to be very slightly less miffed than they were before, so here’s hoping.

Right, where were we - ah, yes, Community Circus. I’d had plans to do more errands while Barney and George were in that, but I was feeling so shaken I decided to sit in the entrance-hall and talk to Toby instead.

After Community Circus, I drove Barney to St John Cadets - the first time I’ve dropped him off, and although Scratchy had pointed it out to me twice, it still took longer than it should to find the right place. Eventually I made it back to pick up Scratchy, Freddy and Jack, who by that time had toddled across the road to the library near the Scout Hall.

Picked up dinner for George and me on the way home, and it wasn’t until about 10 p.m., when Barney had been brought home from Cadets and gone to bed, that we realised his dinner had consisted of a packet of crisps and a drink during the break at Community Circus. Oops.

This morning’s been a lot of doing nothing much, really - I’m too sore to be bothered, so they’ve all been left to their own devices. Barney made lunch, George cleaned up afterwards, and they’re now all (including Toby, who’s in Barney’s arms) sitting watching a DVD. They’ll be out in half an hour, delivering invitations and walking Misty, so I’ll just count that as PE and - oh, animal behavioural studies or something