NotSheep

A much better night than I’d expected, really. Barney never did make it to his own bed - he’d fallen asleep by the time I finished writing the post below, and got moved onto the mattress on the floor a couple of hours later. He was up twice to throw up during the night, but has made it through today so far without anything more than feeling tired and sorry for himself. George has been demanding food (”I’m starving to death!”) so I think he’s on the mend. Freddy’s headache has gone; he says he has a sore throat but still wants to go to dance class today, and Jack is as bouncy as ever. Toby hasn’t thrown up since early yesterday evening, and seems almost back to his usual self. And I’m still healthy, so the fingers remain crossed that we’ve said Bye Bye Blergh.

They even got up this morning prepared to do some work, so we did a bit of French and more times tables, Barney did some science and Freddy finished his book about animals, which is about an inch thick, so that’s quite an achievement. Looking back through it, we could really see how his comprehension and writing had improved. We’re still mostly in pyjamas though, and so there’s much snuggling on the sofa going on and Spy Kids 2 on the DVD player.

All of which has left me feeling very fortunate as I’ve done the rounds of the blog-ring (catching up, and haven’t commented much, as I haven’t had my hands free much, but I am reading!) I see that they’ve had the blerghs for much longer than us over at Joanna’s, and at the Beans they’re not only coping with a much longer-lasting blergh than us, but I do believe Helen’s broken arm tops my fractured rib too. So I really, can’t complain.

And then there was a dreadful announcement on an email list, stillborn twins, which is just so awful that there isn’t anything anyone can say I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to go through a loss like that.

Feeling very thankful for what we’ve got.

It seems that everyone has recovered from the lurgy, just in time for the weekend. Barney and George agreed that it wouldn’t be a good idea to go to archery yesterday, but Freddy felt up to going to his dance-class yesterday afternoon, and we were all up and about today. Headed off this morning with my to-do list, and got through most of it And even better, Toby managed to be in the car for several chunks of the day without crying

Parking was nuts - the car-park where I usually park, and which is usually not even half-full, was already full by 10.30 am. Finally got parked somewhere else, only slightly less convenient, and discovered, within a minute of getting out of the car, that one of my shoes has a split in the sole, so I walked around for the rest of the day with a squelchy foot in a mucky sock I do really need to buy some new footwear; the problem is that my feet are not the shape most shoe manufacturers think feet should be, and I’m too mean to pay huge amounts of money for something I’ll no doubt wear out within a few months anyway.

Banking - the boys get their pocket money once a month, in theory on the first of the month, but in practice it’s usually late. So we went to the bank where they have accounts and irritated all the people in line behind us while they each put their own money in their own accounts.

Went and bought some groceries, though not much, as I was looking for special offers and there wasn’t much worthwhile. Shall have to do a proper grocery list one of these days…

Had a look at a few cameras - our digital camera has stopped functioning properly, and apparently Kodak “can’t get the parts” to fix it. Funny - I thought they made the parts. Anyway, it’s a recognised fault with this particular model, according to Kodak (though according to the woman in Jessops, who really did seem to know her stuff, it’s a recognised fault with most Kodak models, but anyway…) and they are willing to offer us a discounted slightly-better model. The discount only brings it to about £20 less than the lowest price I can find for it on-line though, so I figure if we’re going to buy a new camera, we might as well get what we want. I am currently being tempted by something which is slightly outside our planned budget, so I won’t say anything until we do something, if you see what I mean.

Discovered that Boots are now selling Nappi Nippas - well, the package says Nappi Nippas, the actual things inside it say they’re Snappis, which I know are supposed to be the same as Nappi Nippas, only they’re not the same as the one Nappi Nippa that I can still find. Maybe the design’s changed, I don’t know. But I’m happy to have found them, because when you’ve mislaid all your others, it gets a bit desperate when you mislay the last one Also picked up a packet of nappy pins, just in case (and also so I can use the non-terry squares I’ve got).

Bought kitty-litter and chatted with the bloke in the pet shop about what I’m going to do with the new aquarium. Drove back across the city (argh) to pick up Scratchy and came home; I was planning on going to look at Christmas trees, by the time I remembered we were only 50 yards down the road from Scratchy’s workplace, but we were facing the wrong direction and I couldn’t be bothered to turn around and fight the traffic, so came home instead. After dinner we moved the first two fish into the new aquarium to start getting it cycled, then Barney and Scratchy went off to play basketball. I’m glad to see them doing stuff together - Barney really enjoys spending time with Scratchy, and with them being boys, they need to do stuff side-by-side instead of face-to-face the way sensible people (i.e. girls) do it

I am definitely getting my Christmas list dealt with this weekend, and purchasing as much as possible on-line, so that I can get out next week and finish shopping. It’s bad enough already out there; give it another ten days and it will be completely nuts

Have you ever had one of those days when you did have a plan, but it didn’t go as planned, but it was still good? That’s kind of how this weekend was here.

We started on Saturday morning with swimming for Barney, Freddy and George. Last week, Freddy was told that he was moving up a class, so would be going into the same class as Barney and George. He didn’t get a bit of paper saying this, though, which is what happened when the others moved up, so I wasn’t sure. On Friday night I suggested to Scratchy that he phoned the leisure centre to ask if Freddy would be in the 8.30 class or the 9 a.m. class, and he agreed that was a good idea. He still didn’t do it though so they all had to get there for 8.30 just in case. As it turned out, Freddy is moving up, but not until the end of the session. Barney is less than impressed that Freddy will once again be in the same class; his muttered remark to George was “Right, after Christmas, we’re working on getting outta here!”

George got left at the leisure centre after swimming, for his trampoline class, and the others came home. Everybody got some food, then I went to pick up George, and we went together to get a Christmas tree. We had a great conversation on the way - “How was swimming?” “I can’t tell you.” “Why not?” (thinking, what did he do…) “Because it was too good.” “It was too good to tell me?” “That’s right.” “But… why can’t you tell me it was good?” “Because there aren’t any words for how good it was.” Ah….

An artificial tree was in the plan, but apparently if you add a foot to a £35 tree, the cost increases to £80… This is the same shop that told me bookcases were seasonal items, though, so I don’t know why I’m surprised Anyway, I decided it would work out cheaper to buy a real tree and get an artificial one for next year in the sales after Christmas I do like real trees though, so I’m quite happy to have one We picked out a nice one and some lights for the house. The tree just fit into the car (and I never thought, when I left Scratchy with the other kids, that I’d have to put a tree in my car on my own - bad planning, that).

Anyway, home, tidied up a bit, put up tree, swept up needles, got out decorations, swept up needles, sorted through decorations, swept up needles, put some lights around the bushes out the front, swept up needles… you know the score. Eventually we got lights and decorations on the tree itself, and it does look good

Browsed on-line after getting the boys to bed, but didn’t actually order anything because I couldn’t quite bring myself to click on “checkout” after I’d seen what it said in the basket after the word “total”. I have forced myself to click on “checkout” this evening though, in consideration of the fact that Christmas is now just three weeks away. Let’s hope that neither Hawkins Bazaar nor The Book People use Famac for their deliveries, or we’ll be lucky to get the stuff in time for Easter. The last time I got something delivered by them, they delivered it to the windowsill of a house about a mile away. Completely different address to ours - fortunately the woman who received it brought it round and asked if it was for us (it having our address on it was no doubt the clue :roll:) And the time before that, they left a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the garden in the rain. You have to really make an effort to be that good at being bad

So where were we… oh, Saturday night. This morning started off very quietly - usually the days here start with a child or two shouting at the top of their voices, and everyone else going “argh! sssh!” but this morning when I woke up I discovered that Barney, George and Freddy were playing quietly in their beds, with the bedroom door closed so that the light wouldn’t wake everyone else! After the shock wore off we had breakfast and set about moving the aquaria. We went through about six plans there before finally settling on one, and about that I will just say this: it all looks good, but those danios can jump! Fortunately, said danio was rescued by Scratchy before the cats realised anything was up

Barney requested that we make bread, so we threw some stuff in the breadmaker this afternoon, but took it out for baking in the oven - I don’t think we let it rise long enough before baking though, as it turned out slightly… um…dense. Good, but dense. Discovered that the BT bill is overdue - why do they only give you about ten days to pay it? What if you’re away or in hospital or something? I really don’t like BT. If I could get broadband without them, I’d dump them All the other bills are up-to-date, though, and there’s a cashback cheque due on the mobile phone bill, so if that £120 arrives promptly, it will be a nice little Christmas pressie

Everything I did this weekend was slowed down somewhat by the fact that Toby has decided that I, and only I, will do. He doesn’t want Scratchy or Barney or any of the other people who, until now, have been adequate mummy-substitutes for a few minutes. He wants me! This is very flattering, of course, but does make life more difficult. Hm… just wondering if it has anything to do with me being gone for an hour yesterday when I went for the Christmas tree

There’s been quite a bit of talk this week, both in the media and on some home-ed email lists, about the “new” teaching-reading strategy. I have a child who was naturally oriented towards phonics and learned to read quickly and easily with a very phonics-based approach - but when it came to his brother, phonics didn’t hit the spot at all. He was much more interested in look-and-say than sound-it-out. Both are now enthusiastic and fluent readers.

Thus the bit of all this that bothers me is that the government “has said it will scrap the official “searchlights” model which, to oversimplify, urges children to use a variety of methods to decode words.”

Well we couldn’t have children using a variety of methods, could we? I mean, it’s not like children are at all different from each other, is it?

According to the BBC, “This has worried those teachers who say that children learn in different ways and that there is no “one sizes fits all” in learning to read.”

No wonder. Frankly I have difficulty understanding how anyone who has spent more than half an hour with a group of children could possibly not understand how different children’s learning styles are. I’m astonished that anyone is stupid enough to think that insisting that all children are taught to read using the same technique is a good idea. And I’m very glad that my children have the opportunity to learn to read in the way that fits them best, rather than chopping and changing every time some new theory comes along (which seems to be every week).

There’s a certain irony in the latest plans: there’s no consensus among the “experts” about what synthetic phonics actually is, much less whether it’s a good idea. So they don’t all think the same - but they expect children to do just that.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a government elected after a campaign of “education, education, education” might have got it sorted by now. Or that they might at least have got a clue.

But you’d obviously be wrong.

Making its way around the blog-ring is this:

I had to do this one, because it’s Barney’s favourite song. Here’s his (slightly worrying!) result:

(George got the same result as Barney, which is even more worrying!)

…if I printed off labels with our names on them and stuck them on the insides of our Christmas cards instead of actually writing on them?

Even if I’ve a baby who likes to keep at least one of my arms busy and preferably both, and a still-sore rib, and it’s two weeks before Christmas and some of my cards have to go to Canada and the US?

I already tried printing directly onto the cards; the card is too absorbent and the ink blurs so it’s illegible.

(And do I sound like I’m panicking yet? 8-O)

Spent yesterday afternoon sorting through Christmas presents - better than I expected. I’m still waiting for my order from Hawkins Bazaar, so fingers crossed that arrives soon, but apart from that, I have only two people left to buy for - both pre-teen girls. What do you buy a pre-teen girl? I don’t do girls! Boys? No problem. Girls? Eh? What?

Still haven’t wrapped any gifts or even sorted out the cards - the plan is to attack those jobs this afternoon, as well as doing a haircut session for George, Freddy and Jack.

Yesterday was a “longer” day than usual, because there was no trampoline class for George in the morning - it usually runs to 11.45, which kind of cuts the amount of time available for doing other things, because we can’t go somewhere for the whole day. There was some kind of show on at the leisure centre yesterday, so the trampoline class had been moved to Friday evening, which suited us very well, because not only were Scratchy and Barney headed that way to play basketball anyway, but it got George away from me on Friday evening He and Barney and Jack still had swimming yesterday, but their classes are done by 9.30, so the day just felt like there were more hours in it than usual.

Have been flickring like a madwoman - nearly 1500 photos uploaded since Tuesday or Wednesday. Will have them all tagged soon… and have already got some comments on some of them. I particularly liked the comment on one photo of Jack on his third birthday - “my god she is an angle”

Oh, and I phoned my mother. She’s coming to visit next Sunday. So that’ll be a couple of hours of biting my tongue very, very hard, preceded by a week of no sleep for me. Wish me luck - I’ll need it

I spent nearly an hour on the phone this morning trying to find a way to get my children’s dental and ophthalmic check-ups covered by the NHS without having to register them with a GP

We’ve been taken off the old GP’s list, because we’re too far away. They suggested a practice about ten minutes from here, but that practice can’t register us because we’re not in their catchment area. Which leaves us with a practice that I don’t want to register with (for a variety of reasons).

The dentist and the opthalmologist need a health service number in order to get paid. Apparently the only way to acquire a health service number is to register with a GP. The oldest three all used to be registered with a GP, so they have health service numbers, but the youngest two have never been registered, so they don’t have numbers.

Therefore you can’t access any NHS services, even if you’re entitled to them, unless you register with a GP. So while registering with a GP isn’t legally required, it’s more or less forced on you anyway

If I want them to see the dentist or the optician, I’ll have to register them with a GP. No bloody wonder the NHS is always strapped for cash.

Toby’s got a snuffly nose, but has been sleeping lots today - unsurprisingly, since he hardly slept at all yesterday; he was far too interested in looking around him at W5!

Scratchy heard he passed his course though, so the day hasn’t been a total washout

Scratchy came home on an early lunch yesterday, as the new (to us) living-room furniture was arriving. The kids and I had the whole room cleared out and cleaned before he came back, then he and the kids managed to get the sofa-bed upstairs (with much puffing and grunting and the loss of some skin from one of George’s fingers, which came close to causing a riot but didn’t!) Once the furniture was in, we didn’t even put the cushions on before charging out to the car to take Scratchy back to work. Headed off to buy more certificate frames - I’d found some a couple of weeks ago for £2 each, but hadn’t bought enough, and of course when I went back for more yesterday, there weren’t any. With luck they’ll get more in after Christmas. Got the kids some lunch and went off to do a bit more shopping, then back to pick up Scratchy. An afternoon isn’t really much time to get anything done in, especially when you’ve to feed your four older kids and stop to feed your youngest every so often!

Anyway, home and Scratchy made dinner (burgers - Freddy mentioned that you “can put custard on burgers” - turned out he meant mustard LOL) while I sorted out the living-room, and it does look nice Barney had his Scouts Christmas outing last night - they were going bowling, and he had to be dropped off at 6.50 - and George had ju-jitsu starting 10 minutes later, about 15 minutes away - Freddy went with them too and Scratchy did some errands in-between leaving and collecting George, and again before getting Barney. So it was a pretty quiet evening for me - or would have been, except for Jack’s incessant chatter-instead-of-going-to-sleep I spent a long time on the phone with a friend who has just stopped breastfeeding because she’s going back to work and wasn’t told she could mix breast and bottle - and she also wasn’t told not to stop suddenly, so she’s feeling rough. She phoned a health visitor the day after she stopped, and asked if she could put the baby back to her breast, and was told that because she’d taken epsom salts, “it’s too late now, that would make the baby very sick”. Having checked into this, it turns out to be completely wrong *sigh*. Why can’t health professionals stop making stuff up! Anyway, we’d a long chat and now she’s got some decent information and I hope she’ll be able to sort it all out.

Our plan today is to do some Christmas crafts - not sure what yet, but it will be from the Usborne Christmas Art Activities book, which is fantastic

A school in England has introduced a new sports kit - nothing new in that, but they’ve decided to use brand-name kit. Nike, to be exact.

Some of the parents are complaining, because they reckon ?80 is a bit steep for a school sports kit. They’ve got a point.

The school has defended itself by saying that the outfits are not compulsory, that students can still choose to wear the “traditional” sports kit.

Now hold on - isn’t one of the most common reasons given in support of school uniform that it makes everyone equal? Takes away the pressure to wear brand-names and expensive stuff? Stops students who don’t have the money for trendy clothing from feeling left out?

I don’t happen to agree with that argument - I’m not in favour of school uniforms at all and don’t think any of the arguments in their favour are true - but if you’re going to have a uniform, shouldn’t it be a) the same for all, and b) something everyone can afford?

The head teacher’s reply is as good a bit of politician-speak as I’ve heard in a while: the school “is delighted that there is such an interest in one of the strategies initiated to further improve pupil participation, learning and enjoyment in PE.”

Bwaahaahaa.

And: “Pupils may still wear the traditional kit, however the school is delighted that the uptake of the new standard kit has been so high.”

Right. No pressure to buy the expensive kit then.

What planet are we on again?

A new survey “reveals” that “Young people are not being adequately prepared for the world of work while they are at school”.

The survey found that the education system failed to equip young people with practical skills that are necessary for the world of work - skills like working in teams, communication skills and punctuality.

I think we should be fair on schools. How could they prepare young people for the world of work, when the similarities between the two are so few?

Unless, of course, you plan to work for Nike. In that case there’s a school in Wigan where you can learn quite a bit about being a good corporate employee

Good: My rib is finally better enough to get to grips with the gorgeous Storchie-thingy wrap that TracyO sent me when Toby was born
Bad: Toby has a very snotty nose and has slimed me and the wrap. Never mind, we’re all washable.

Good: Barney made lunch, including tortellini for me
Bad: He dropped the tortellini in the (desperately needs a scrub) kitchen sink while he drained it

Good: There are mince pies. I can have those for lunch, can’t I?
Bad: There are twelve mince pies. Twelve? For a family of six? To see us through the next at-least-three days?

Good: Scratchy did the “last” of the grocery shopping last night
Bad: That’s why there are only twelve mince pies. There are also only two bottles of drinks for Christmas dinner (non-alcoholic, since I’m bfing and the kids are kids). Seriously? - not enough goodies, Scratchy.

Good: Scratchy has just phoned to say he’s finishing work now. He’s been told to get more goodies on his way home

In case I don’t get back here sometime in the next 36ish hours (bwaahaahaa, as if!), Merry Christmas!

Started the day with the whole family going for a walk - mainly because everyone was at everyone else’s throats and I knew getting us all outside would improve things. I was right too - and not just because Freddy and George didn’t actually come home until about 4pm We had a chat with a woman who caught us staring at her house (we were trying to work out if the cat on her windowsill was an ornamental one or a real one - but it blinked just as she opened the window and wished us Merry Christmas, so that settled it LOL)

Toby fell asleep in the Storchie - he usually only falls asleep while nursing, so that was a pleasant surprise. He slept for a while after we got home too, so I got a chance to spend some time with Barney, doing more of our Christmas jigsaw puzzles. Scratchy hovered too, but Freddy and George went off out to play with friends. Jack loves jigsaws, but he hasn’t quite got the concept - he insists on putting pieces together as long as they fit together, regardless of what the pictures on them are - so we mostly tried to keep him out of it

After lunch (for those that deigned to come home for it!), Scratchy went off to buy (yet more) groceries - the man’s a glutton for punishment - in fact he even asked if he should go toToys’R'Us! Should I have him committed?) and I read some email, fed Toby, cleaned up the kitchen, fed Toby… you know how my days usually go. We all sat down together and watched a DVD, then I started preparing the veg for tomorrow. Meanwhile Barney made more cranberry muffins - for tomorrow’s breakfast - and George made dinner. Yep - my eight-year-old made dinner. Penne with a tomato sauce (which he also made) and crumbled feta cheese. He did pretty well too - had to be shown a couple of things (like how to use a can-opener) but otherwise he was fairly independent. He did manage to splash boiling water all over the back of my hand while stirring the pasta, but immediate administration of cold water and lavender oil seems to have prevented much damage. He was very shocked at having done it - I think it bothered him more than me. But we both got over it, and dinner was delicious

The boys are all now in bed, though not asleep. They’d better zonk out soon, because I do believe Santa still has a substantial amount of wrapping to do…

Right. That’s me done blogging until Christmas (probably), so…

…if it’s all right with you, I’d like my present on Christmas Eve.

And what I’d like is a motion detector.

That way, when I’ve been up to the wee hours wrapping and arranging gifts around the tree (and the rest of the living-room), I can set my motion detector at the top of the stairs.

Then, if the eldest wakes the next two eldest at 4.40 a.m. and they all try to sneak downstairs to the living-room, where they could be found by parents at 4.55 a.m. with half the presents strewn around the room - the motion detector will wake me and I can send them back to bed before they get there.

In other words, not like this year!

You can’t half tell who the hardened bloggers are - hands up all those who posted on Christmas Day?

And what does it say about me? - I’ve only been blogging a few months, yet I managed two posts (one including lots of photos) on Christmas Day, and I wrote half of this one before going to sleep last night. Frustrated writer or what?

How ironic that Freddy got a motion detector (he’d asked for spy gadgets for Christmas; that was one of them) when my need for it was so much greater…

Our Christmas dinner was the best we’d ever done. We made two kinds of stuffing (as well as the small quantity in the turkey roast), roast potatoes (done a la Delia), hot roasted veg (recipe from Sainsburys mag about nine years ago, it’s become a seasonal standard here, very yummy), honeyed sweet potato wedges, cocktail sausages, proper gravy… we had a small ham joint (because Scratchy’s not keen on turkey) and a small turkey roast (because Barney is keen on tradition).

(I’d love to go vegetarian again, but living with this lot? 8-O)

I think there was something else too, I’m just still too stuffed to think straight. And all of it was just right And even better, the whole lot took a total of less than two hours in the kitchen and half of that was on Christmas Eve

A special day for Toby - he’ll never have another first Christmas. A special Christmas for Freddy and George too, in a different way, since they’ve both given up their belief in The Guy (y’know who…) - though I suspect Freddy was still wavering about it until the events of the early hours of Christmas morning!

The family’s growing up, I suppose - out of seven of us, there’s one too young to understand and only one believer. Not entirely sure how I feel about that

Kids were great most of the day (the bit after 7.30 a.m., that is). A couple of slight wobbles here and there, but mostly terrific. Lots of helping each other and helping out; I’ve a good brood here really

Scratchy liked his pressies - clothes, and something for his desk at work - it’s got the mosaic of recent fave pics I posted, with a calendar on the bottom, all clad in a PaintShopPro fake picture-mat and a nice frame.

I like my pressies too, even if they weren’t exactly surprises - the aquarium, and a couple of bottles of shower-gel which have been living on the bathroom windowsill for the last couple of weeks.

The cats seemed rather disappointed to have to be outside while we ate - they spent most of it on the dining-room windowsill. We did let them in afterwards, and they did get the stuff off people’s plates, so don’t feel too sorry for them. The fish, on the other hand - well, I don’t think anyone fed them at all

Barney is now taller than my shoulder-height. I realised this a few days ago, but forgot to mention it until now. Not at all Christmas-related, but never mind.

There’s a K’nex games machine thing still sitting under the tree. The kids have noticed it, but not really absorbed its existence yet. I’ll pull it out when the novelty of everything else has worn off. They got the K’nex roller-coaster last year - they’re not cheap, these big kits, but they are fabulous - well-designed, and they make a really good family activity. We spent about three days putting the roller-coaster together last year, with everyone working on bits of it at various times. So when I saw the games thing this year for ?25, I couldn’t resist.

Christmas Crackers! - we had a great laugh over ours! They were good’uns! A hat, a joke and a small gift in each, all wrapped in silver and white stars that were hard to pull, and gave off an impressive bang Barney got nail-clippers in his - now he can stop stealing mine George got a hair decoration - so I said I’d swop whatever I got with him (me being the only person here with enough hair to put something in!) and I got a pack of mini-sized playing cards - which suited George very well, magpie that he is. Scratchy got a pen - he’s got a collection of not-quite-posh pens (you know the type of thing, usually made by companies like JMB LOL) so that was appropriate for him Jack got a small bag of marbles, tore it open, and spilled them all over the dining-room floor, leading to a chorus of “Johnny’s lost his marbles” from everyone else Freddy got a bottle-opener - and Jack decided he wanted to trade, because he thought it was for cutting cheese Once he discovered it wasn’t for cutting cheese, he insisted on swopping back though

We had the gifts in piles for individual people this year - I like it better when they’re all in a huge spread-out pile under the tree. It looks nicer, and it contains the mayhem, as well as making it last longer We hadn’t enough wrapped this year to do that. As soon as Toby is old enough to manage without me for a day, I’m doing next year’s Christmas shopping, and I’m going to have it wrapped before Hallowe’en. There, that’s my first resolution

Scratchy back at work today, but for the rest of us it was another day of sitting about, eating, doing our Christmas jigsaw puzzle, playing - oh, and doing Sudoku of course - George having now joined Barney in that noble art. We had to post a couple of things this afternoon, so had to brave the wind and rain to get to the post-box - only a couple of hundred yards away, but far enough for Toby to fall asleep in the wrap again - and he stayed asleep for over an hour after we got home. He’s obviously cosy and comfy in it!

Ah, it’s a hard life sometimes

Most people on the blogring seem to have got 9/10 - I wonder which one they got wrong?

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!