NotSheep

I’m losing the habit of regular blogging here. Must try harder. I’ve just realised that apart from my post checking if the WP upgrade was working, the last thing I wrote was ten days ago. I was off-line for half that time, and it’s been too sunny to be indoors ever since. So it’s back to dredging the depths of my memory, with help from Twitter, to try to figure out what’s been happening. And another looonnnnnnggggg post. The short version: friends, sun, sea, sand, ice-cream, caravan, garden, French practice, interesting people buying stuff from me, annoying midwife. Doesn’t sound bad overall, does it?

On Friday (not last Friday, the Friday before that - it’s bad, isn’t it?) we went to visit friends who are soon moving overseas. They had a baby three weeks ago, and have three other children under six, so they’re pretty busy right now! It was lovely to see them again, and E (the mum) and I went into town together - abandoning all other children with K (the dad) - to get passport photographs of the littlest one taken. Ever tried to arrange it so that a three-week-old not only keeps her eyes open for the photo but actually looks straight at the camera? That took a while…I did get to cuddle the baby though, and that made me even think this pregnancy-business might be all worthwhile

(One of the midwives phoned me during the photo-attempt, and asked if I was going to have certain blood-tests done. I said no, and explained why - because the supplements I’m taking would make the results meaningless - and she said “well, it’s all about choice”. Which seemed good at the time.)

On the way home, Jack made me laugh when he said thoughtfully, “It’s weird that Daddy got you pregnant just by saying pregnant.” I’m not sure where that particular thought process originated.

On Saturday (not last Saturday, the Saturday before that…), as mentioned, I did a WordPress upgrade, in an attempt to correct the errors that had been appearing ever since the php upgrade on the server. It seemed to go smoothly - there are still a couple of plugins not functioning, but I haven’t actually properly looked at them yet, so fingers crossed they won’t be difficult to upgrade/correct. Once I was sure the blog was working (a girl’s gotta have priorities), we all took off to the caravan - taking two cars, so no packing people and stuff in to bursting point - yay! In fact the children shared themselves between the two vehicles to the point where we were actually driving with one child in each row of seats, which certainly made for a peaceful journey.

In the afternoon the boys took themselves off to various parts of the caravan site, apart from Barney, who spent some time in the caravan trying to get a digital tv box working - when asked why, he said, “So we can watch Eurovision tonight”. I pointed out that it was on a channel we could receive directly on the tv in the caravan, so the digibox wasn’t needed, and he exclaimed with relief “Thank goodness for that!” Should I be worried at how fascinated my children are by this song contest? During the show, Freddy wanted to know if anyone had ever entered a song just to make people laugh…hm, I’d have said that would be most of them. I didn’t stay up - after seeing the calibre of the first five or so entries (and wondering just how bad the songs that didn’t make it through must have been), I took myself off to bed, and was soon asleep.

We woke on Sunday morning (not yesterday…) to a gloriously sunny day. I was given a cup of tea in bed (and asked, “Is that cooked enough?” Er…) before getting up and hanging Barney’s one-and-only shirt over the deck to dry. He does own more than one shirt, but didn’t pack any extras. There’s always one, it seems… we spent the time doing some French revision (well, practice papers), then he joined his brothers in playing around the site with all the other children who were around. It’s nice to be up there on a weekend occasionally (although we love having the place to ourselves during the weeks too!) We spent some time down on the beach in the afternoon, and brought some of it back with us in our shoes. Scratchy left in the evening, as he’d work on Monday.

Someone (looks accusingly at eldest) taught my youngest to demand that people “say please!” when they want anything from him. This would be fine if he would settle for us saying it once, but he likes to hear it several times…

On Monday we went into the town, although I can’t remember why now. I took a bunch of kids and a bunch of coupons to Burger King and fed the lot of us for the grand total of £6, which I thought was quite impressive - and fortunate, for when we returned to the caravan, I decided it was much too hot to do any kind of heating-up-of-food, and we had cold chicken and good crusty bread with hummus for dinner. And coleslaw. Lots of coleslaw. Jack discovered he loved coleslaw, and ate half a family-sized container of it. He didn’t even stop when I told him it was vegetables

Tuesday morning was still bright, but breezier, and we hung out on the site for the morning. Freddy and Toby had a debate over a sudoku book - Freddy saying “It’s my sudoku!” and Toby arguing, “No! It’s my work!” In the afternoon, in an attempt to convince Toby to have a nap, I put everyone in the car and we drove off to a nearby town which has a lovely seafront with a great playground. Afterwards we went to buy ice-creams; the ice-cream shop owner was very interested in home-education and we’d a good chat about that. Over the years we’ve been home-educating, I’ve found that the responses I get have changed. At first it was nearly always “oh, I didn’t know you could do that!” but more and more often now, I’m hearing, “oh yes, we know someone who…”

There are two sites for touring caravans next to ours, and one of them was inhabited last week by a very small caravan and two sisters who must have been in their 80s. They were lovely ladies, and thoroughly enjoyed the company of my boys (especially Jack, I think, who took to stopping and talking to them frequently). On Tuesday evening I went out for a short walk and was asked to see if I could fix their television. One of them had asked the other how to turn up the volume, the other had said it was the second button across the front, the first had counted from the wrong end and detuned it. She was very grateful when I managed to tune it in again, telling me it would save her from hearing “Now we could have been watching tv if you hadn’t…” all evening

On Wednesday, we had a lazy morning, during which the midwife from Friday’s call phoned me again, and announced that she had consulted with a haematologist and my GP (neither of whom has ever laid eyes on me, and none of this done with my consent) and they’d all decided I needed to be taking iron supplements (er, no…) and that she had arranged a prescription. Nice of her to make all these decisions for me…I expressed how cross I was at being told it was all about choice and then it being made clear the choice only existed as long as I was making what she considered to be the right choices, and she tried to tell me that the haematologist had been my idea - which was nonsense. In the end I told her I was considering her involvement in my pregnancy and would let her know what I decided, and hung up. Very cross.

We drove home on Wednesday afternoon - it was Barney’s last chance to get to a Scout meeting before Scout Camp, and we thought it might be quite a good idea to have the info about the camp. George and Freddy also went to Cubs, and came back with yet more badges. The pile of badges waiting to be sewn on is now about thirty-something high…

I had advertised a couple of items for sale in the local paper, and got home to find the ads had gone in sooner than I’d expected, so there were lots of phone messages. I spent Thursday ringing people back about them, and a couple of people came to look (and buy). One person said, “Oh, just give me your postcode, I’ll put it in the sat-nav” - and then rang three times during the 20-minute journey for directions. The last person who came turned out to be one of those fascinating people you occasionally meet - a New Zealander who’d been transplanted here, started a hairdressing business, branched out into various alternative therapies, and then found his passion in animal rescue - all kinds of animals. He’s invited us to go and visit his animals anytime, and we certainly will

The rest of Thursday and much of Friday were spent in the garden, enjoying the sun (and wondering if we were the only place in the UK getting any, given the tweets coming from people in other parts). We’ve a patio in one corner of the garden which is quite a little sun-trap and which is also very private, due to the arrangement of houses and windows on houses and trees around the garden, so I was able to free my bump without worrying about the neighbours - although I did wonder how visible it was to the helicopter which flew overhead. The boys got their super-soakers out, and I yelled to Twitter “Super-soaker fight!” - but sent it to the wrong recipient on my mobile phone, so presumably I’ll get a phone-call requesting an explanation the next time my mother turns her phone on

I also had a phone-call from one of the midwives (not the same one) wanting to make arrangements for getting cylinders of oxygen and entonox delivered - and never a word about blood-tests or doctors or anything else - think I must have scared them). The cylinders are to be delivered at the end of next week - which make the birth seem reassuringly close, but really, let’s face it, it’ll be mid-July, won’t it?

Scratchy, having spent the last two or three years making fun of me (and the three older boys) for doing Sudoku and various other logic-puzzles, got hooked on Sudoku himself, which caused great mirth for the rest of us

(In the meantime, I’m now doing Killer Sudoku in a magazine plus Hashi, Hanjie and Hitori on-line, so perhaps I shouldn’t laugh too hard at him )

On Saturday we did some tidying-up in the garden - trimming bushes etc - and played in the paddling-pool. On Saturday evening Scratchy was filling the bathtub with water so that I could have a soak in it, when Toby went in to investigate, leaned over it - ready for bed, in pyjamas and all - and fell in. He was perfectly fine, but a bit miffed

Sunday morning was more of the same, but after my nap (er, I mean, Toby’s nap…well, that was the intention), it was getting cloudy so we put some things away in preparation for the inevitable (we thought) rain. Not sure it ever actually arrived, though, and this morning is, once again, warm and sunny, so I think that’ll be our plans for the day arranged then

The rain went away again (yay!) so we’ve been mostly outside for the last few days. I spent yesterday morning doing my best impression of Professor Sprout (not Grubbly-Plank, as I twittered - I was promptly corrected by Barney on that one - Grubbly-Plank was Care of Magical Creatures, not Herbology! ) - moving houseplants which had outgrown their pots into larger pots, and splitting some where there were several of the plant in one pot (four spider-plants, all in one pot - I’m fairly sure two will survive, I’ve my doubts about one, and the last one’s future is anyone’s guess). My Easter cacti have just started to flower; they must be following the same calendar as my babies.

I had a momentary panic on Thursday evening when I was told that Cub Camp started on Friday evening, but the source of this news was unreliable, and fortunately Cub Camp is not until next weekend.

Barney’s revision continues apace; on Friday he even argued in favour of doing more practice papers than I’d suggested. I think he has benefited a lot from going through the process of sitting this exam; even if he fails (which is unlikely), he’ll have learned a lot about exam techniques, about how it’s not just about knowing the subject matter, about planning and carrying out revision, about organising his thoughts and planning out beforehand what he’s going to write, etc.

Toby showed himself to be just as logical and pedantic as his brothers, when he fell off a chair in the kitchen and came to me complaining that he’d hurt his head. “Were you climbing?” I asked. “No,” he replied, “I was falling!”

Jack wanted to know how many days there were before his birthday. Since he just turned 6 in March, the answer was, “a lot!”

I gave the living-room a thorough clean this morning - the dust was threatening to take over. When I say “I gave…”, what I mean, of course, is that I mostly supervised while everyone else did it. But everything from the light-fitting to the floor under the sofas is now clean, and the room looks a lot better. Maybe I’m nesting. I’m not convinced the rest of the family appreciates it

All the equipment for the birth has been delivered - a couple of boxes and several cylinders of gases are now stored in the cupboard under the stairs. One of the midwives who arrived with the boxes was the one who had done the whole checking-with-doctors-no-asking and sending-prescriptions-despite-being-told-no thing, and I raised this again with her, but she’s either unable or unwilling to understand why her behaviour should bother me - and once again tried to twist the truth about who had said what - so at some point this week, I shall be telling the midwifery manager that I don’t want her on the rota. I shall also be telling the midwifery manager that I don’t require a visit from herself, and asking why it should be local protocol for her to visit all women planning homebirths. I’m not feeling terribly well-supported right now; of the five midwives who are on the rota, there’s one I’ve never met, one I haven’t seen since my last pregnancy (and I didn’t see much of her then), one I’m about to refuse care from, one who panicked at the thought of teaching me to do my own B12 injections, and one who keeps muttering about my “tendency to lie breech” (despite the fact that all of my babies so far have come out head-first, and that I’ve probably another six weeks of pregnancy left, and that only one of my babies - the first - was head-down at this point in pregnancy).

Anyway. The nesting continued in the conservatory, where I sanded and painted the shelves that used to be above the radiators in there (until we took them off to paint the radiators and walls); they’re now the same colour as the walls and providing extra space for all the extra plants I’ve got after the replanting. After that, I was ready for a bath - because of both sore muscles and arms splattered with paint - and after the bath, I needed to lie down for a few minutes, so I did. And fell asleep. Hm.

In the evening, we discovered that we are nit-ridden so everyone got attacked by the Nitty-Gritty combs. George and Barney weren’t too bad; they’d both had haircuts in the last few weeks - but Freddy and Jack both are in dire need of haircuts and have very thick hair. Toby’s isn’t too thick, but he did need a haircut, so after his hair was rinsed, I took a pair of scissors to his hair - and his ear - just a little nick on the top, but it bled and bled and bled. It wasn’t a huge amount of blood, but it took ages and ages to stop, and he’s now fallen asleep with one ear sort of folded over and covered with a big lump of gauze and a huge band-aid. It was quite amusing to watch him trying to have a look at it in the mirror though…

So I think we can forget that whole risk-of-premature-labour thing now then. You know, with me being 37 weeks and all. Looks like I was right when I said I didn’t feel the baby was coming anytime soon.

Not that it’s all smooth sailing now, of course - oh no, that would be too much to hope for. At the midwives’ visit last week - the one where I knew I had to tackle one of them about not getting my consent for various things - my blood pressure was up. Hardly surprising, really. But they wanted to check it again early this week, just in case, so yesterday another two midwives arrived - one of them I’d never met before, the other was the one who was freaked out by the idea of teaching me how to do my own B12 injections. As it turned out, she’s a lot more laid-back when she’s not convinced she’s risking her registration, and we actually got along quite well. Too bad she’ll probably be away on holiday when this baby arrives. Anyway. I knew they’d be worried if my blood-pressure was still high, so of course I was worried about that happening, and of course my blood-pressure was still high She wanted to come back and check it again today, but I said I thought the best way to keep it down was to leave me alone for a few days I’ll be away tomorrow and Thursday, and I’m certainly not letting anyone put a BP cuff on me on Friday, when I’ll be trying to get George and Freddy packed for Cub Camp, so I’m being left alone until the weekend.

I did do a bit of nesting yesterday morning, but then I ran out of my home-made kitchen cleaner, and it turned out we were out of white vinegar, which is one of the essential ingredients, so I couldn’t make more. It was horrible; I was devastated over having to stop cleaning. I had to go and sit in the garden and read to console myself

Barney didn’t go to Air Cadets in the evening, as he’d a headache - I think he’s a bit stressed about the exams later this week (as am I). Freddy decided to go to bed early too, rather than go to ju-jitsu, but I think in his case it was in the hope that he wouldn’t have to get his hair cut (and it didn’t work - he still got clippered, as did Jack). So now they’ve all got short hair, and all have been nit-combed again this evening. I am very impressed by the Nitty Gritty comb - it really does seem to get/kill all the lice the first go. Even when you find a head that’s absolutely teeming with the horrid little things, the second time you comb with the Nitty Gritty comb, there never seems to be anything left. Fantastic. Well, not as fantastic as not having them in the first place, but better than it taking weeks to get them all off. Also the people who sell it are Very Nice

(Itchy yet? )

More practice papers for Barney today, while George and Freddy spent most of the afternoon attaching Cub badges to Cub sweaters in preparation for Cub Camp. We’ve so many badges waiting to be sewn on that nobody even knows which ones belong to who anymore. I ironed the badges on Barney’s Scout shirt too, but he has another week before Scout Camp, so he can do the sewing once his exams are all over. Roll on Thursday.

Tried to find the library-books; succeeded for about half of them. I hid those in the boot of the car anyway, so that at least they won’t go walking off before we find the rest.

Toby’s ear still has a scab, but is recovering nicely from my ministrations on Sunday evening. And speaking of Toby, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this before, but he has toilet-trained himself. He’s been running about diaper-free for a couple of weeks, because he was a bit red down there and the weather was nice so he was only ever going to pee on the ceramic tiles or in the garden, but I’d left a potty in the kitchen just in case. He appeared to have no interest, but when I asked him last Monday if he’d peed and he said yes and showed me where he’d done it on the platform of the climbing-frame, I just said casually “oh okay, maybe next time you can pee in your potty”. He agreed, but I wasn’t holding my breath. On Tuesday, though, he came outside to find me to tell me he’d done just that, and when I wandered back inside, I found he had. And he’s continued to do so ever since. Zero-effort potty-training; I like that

Tomorrow: another practice paper or two with Barney, get everyone packed for an overnight stay with friends, than a hundred-mile drive to said friends’ house, in readiness for early exam on Thursday. Back Thursday, though will probably be too knackered to blog. Will certainly be twittering though

Wednesday morning: Barney did another French practice paper while I got organised to leave, and it quickly became clear that he had not been asleep early enough on Tuesday night. It was decided (by me, unilaterally) that he would be having an early night.

Late Wednesday morning: We attempted to leave town. First I discovered that the booster-seats were all in the other car (at Scratchy’s office), which meant adding another stop to our plans. Then when Barney was last out of the house, I asked him to lock the door - only to find, five minutes after we left, that he had left the front door wide open with the keys hanging in it. That meant heading home again, of course, and on the way we must have managed to get behind every kind of slows-you-down vehicle there is. A tractor, a street-sweeper, a learner driver, a double-decker bus (I have never seen a double-decker bus around here before!) - you name it, I was stuck behind it. We got home and I checked through the house and locked the door myself.

Bank, library…finally we managed to get out of town. I had one more stop to make before we really got moving, but when we did, we made good time. Barney and I talked as we drove, and he said he felt that he’d gained more from the process of preparing for the French GCSE than from the actual exams - which is how I feel too. He’s learned a lot about working out what examiners are looking for and making sure you give it to them, about making sure you answer what’s asked and planning out what you’re going to write, about preparation and revision, etc. He’s never done exams before - he left school before the first set of SATS would even have been done - so this has been a valuable experience for him.

There was great excitement from the boys as they realised that the peculiar-looking item on the back of the large pick-up truck we were overtaking was actually a climbing wall lying on its side. When we arrived at our friends’ home, Barney did one more practice paper before his friends arrived home from school and they all started bouncing about the house together.

In the evening our friends all had plans: a Scout/Cub sports evening, to which they’d invited Barney (but he needed an early night), George (but he didn’t think he was in the mood to cope without a meltdown) and Freddy (but he didn’t want to go if George wasn’t going). So we stayed at their house, I had a bath in their very deep bathtub (which, despite being very deep, still isn’t quite enough to cover my bump), and we all went to bed early. Seriously early. I think they arrived home shortly after 9, but we were all asleep before it.

Thursday morning: Friend A had offered to drive Barney to the school to sit his exam, to save me having to do so, and although I’d initially declined the offer, I changed my mind on Wednesday evening when I was feeling horrible and exhausted and contraction-y. So they left shortly after 8, and I stayed where I was and tried not to think too much about the exams. A couple of hours later, I got all the other boys packed up and into the car and went off to collect Barney. I took thank-you notes from Barney for the exams officer and the French teacher, who’ve both been so helpful about arranging this exam, along with a bottle of wine for each of them. The exams officer was surprised and pleased, and told me he’d had a look into the room when the exams were starting and Barney had seemed to be getting on with it all just fine. When asked if the school would be willing to facilitate other GCSEs in future for Barney, said they would - basically anything they do through the school that doesn’t involve coursework is probably okay, and maths (which is the most likely next subject Barney would sit) is definitely fine, because the exams officer also happens to be the maths teacher… While we were talking in reception, Barney came out with a smile on his face; he feels that yesterday’s papers went well. His friend J, who attends the school, came out with him, and begged for him to be allowed to stay over for a few more days, then, when I said no, begged to be allowed to come home with us

The French teacher was out of the school on an errand, but we left his wine and thank-you note in the office, and a while later I sent him a text-message thanking him for his help, and received a lovely text-message back saying “For goodness sake guys that is so very kind. It was a pleasure to have been able to help. Wishing you all bonnes vacances!”

We drove home without incident, and arrived back to the smell of fresh paint - the woodwork in the kitchen no longer lets the freshly-painted walls down

My friend K, with whom we stayed on Wednesday night, has had catheter ablation surgery (where they stick a needle up through your veins into your heart) twice this year - once in January, when they managed to perforate her pericardium, and again in February, when the surgery went more smoothly. As a result, she has a blood pressure monitor, which she kindly tossed my direction, to see if we could get a lower result than the midwives. The first few attempts, on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, produced high readings, and the highest one of all came on Thursday morning just as Barney would have been starting his exam papers (160/119 - scary at the best of times, but for someone whose usual BP is nearer 90/70, even moreso!) A few minutes after arriving home yesterday afternoon, I checked it again, and got a reading of 129/85. That’s a substantial drop by any standards! I checked (somewhat obsessively, I have to admit) throughout the afternoon and evening, and all the readings were between 120-something and 130-something systolic and between 70-something and 80-something diastolic. This is good news, as it indicates that the raised readings were more likely due to stress than any nasty physiological pregnancy-related process. Midwife has been on the phone this morning, asking when it would suit for her manager to visit me (answer: never, because there’s no justification for doing routine visits to women planning homebirths when you don’t do them for women planning hospital births!), and arranging to come out tomorrow morning - I’ll have a few more readings done before then

Right, time to get George and Freddy to start gathering items for Cub Camp, which starts this evening. We’ve made a good start to the packing - they’ve got a bag each. I wonder how much we’ll find of the things that are meant to go inside them…

George and Freddy both made it to Cub Camp, spent the weekend at Cub Camp, and returned from Cub Camp - all in one piece, and without any problems. Oh, sure, I was informed of a list of injuries when we picked them up - banged my arm on this, hit my knee on that, and even one “fell out of a tree” which was news to Akela - but all were reported with smiling, glowing faces, and the one complaint - that it had been cold during the night last night - was immediately followed by “but it was okay because I just put my sweater on”.

This was Freddy’s first time at Cub Camp, but I hadn’t worried about him, because all the energetic, social activity that Cub Camp involves is right up his street. When George went off for his first ever Cub Camp, I was quite anxious, but I knew Freddy would handle it just fine. He was a bit nervous when they were leaving on Friday, but I told him to expect to have fun, to be tired on Saturday afternoon and maybe even want to come home for a while, but then to expect to get a second wind and have such a good time that by Sunday he wouldn’t want to come home at all. We walked across the field where they’d camped and were greeted with Freddy’s grinning face looking up at us and saying, “I don’t want to go home!!!!”

George was the one with the extensive list of injuries, but managed to make it right through Cub Camp without a single wobbly moment - which didn’t surprise me terribly much, because I figured he’d save them up and have an almighty meltdown after getting home. But he also managed to make it through dinner and into bed tonight without a single wobbly moment. Now that surprised me. There’s hope for him yet

It’s weird, but even when everyone’s in bed and fast asleep, even after the time when George and Freddy would also be out of my sight and silent, I’m still aware of their absence from the house.

I spent the weekend not finding and going through baby-clothes and not considering baby-name options. I had a visit from two more midwives yesterday morning; they noted that I had no swelling, no headaches, no visual disturbances and that although my blood pressure was raised when they took it with me sitting up and talking, after lying down for a minute, it had dropped substantially - so they toddled off happy. And all that was after an argument with Barney, who considered it the height of horribleness that I insisted that at 9.15 a.m., he put down his GameBoy, get out of bed and have a shower. And today I did find and inflate a birthing-pool, and this afternoon after collecting Freddy and George, we stopped and bought a new hose to use for filling it, so I suppose we’re one step closer to ready. Ah, what’s the rush…I’m only 38 weeks on Tuesday

It’s been a quiet week, and it’s even quieter tonight - Barney’s off at Scout Camp. Scratchy is camping with them, and George and Freddy have promised to be helpful and cooperative and run the house for me this weekend. Normally I’d take that promise with a very big pinch of salt, but considering how well George did at Cub Camp last week and how well he’s managed this week, maybe they will actually be a help.

With Barney’s exams over, we’ve been taking the opportunity to relax - although I’m sure it would have worked better for me if I hadn’t been waking in the early hours of the mornings. I complained about contractions on Wednesday - but only because I knew they had no chance of actually being labour, although that didn’t stop several people sending me messages wondering why I’d gone all quiet later - it was because I was out! Yesterday was the busiest day - both cars were serviced, and I had to swop them over at lunchtime (the joys of two seven-seaters!) The friend I’d planned to visit wasn’t in though, and the weather was too changeable to really go somewhere like a playground, so filling in the time before collecting the second car was a bit of a pain. However it was very reassuring to hear from the mechanic that my new car had needed almost nothing done to it - they changed the oil and filter and that was about it, and they agreed with my assessment that we got a good deal

I’d a run of fairly strong contractions again yesterday evening, but I knew they weren’t going anywhere. It didn’t stop a couple of people on Facebook and Twitter getting all excited though, and the midwife who was out to visit today was encouraged by them and didn’t seem to want to believe my assurances that I would not be calling her out over this weekend. The baby was head-down this afternoon, although it could easily shift again. The sticks I pee on are all fine, and my blood pressure, although still up-and-down a bit, has been down to as little as 125/76 in the evenings, and I haven’t had a diastolic reading of over 84 in about a week - except when the midwife took it today! But all of that is at least getting everyone to stop panicking, which is a good thing. However I seem to be the only person who’s certain that this baby isn’t coming any earlier than the others - I haven’t even sorted through baby-clothes yet, but everyone else seems to be waiting with bated breath. Relax, everyone - there’ll be another three or four weeks before anything exciting happens.

Is it still considered nesting if the cause of you scrubbing the bathroom from top to bottom was that you were sitting on the loo and looked at the skirting-board and realised just how disgusterous it was?

That’s what I spent Saturday morning doing anyway. And then I spent Saturday afternoon recovering.

As mentioned, Barney was off at Scout Camp this weekend. I’ve heard it said that you’re not a real Scout until you’ve done a very wet camp. Well, I think Barney can now consider himself a real Scout. They all got soaked on a hike (at least twice) on Saturday afternoon, including when they got lost taking a “short cut” back to the campsite. Then there was heavy rain and gale-force winds overnight on Saturday. Apparently some of the groups on the site packed up and left on Saturday evening - and some didn’t even pack up, just leaving their tents (and hoping for the best, I suppose). But our Scouts are tough - and they stuck it out, and were rewarded with a couple of hours of bright dry weather on Sunday morning. Of course the Scout whose head was under the soccer net when it blew over might have preferred to go home on Saturday evening, rather than going to the hospital at lunchtime on Sunday…but a few stitches later, he’ll survive. And Barney, on arriving home, replied to the question, “How was camp?” with the word “Brilliant.”

Toby and I might have met him at the hospital, since Toby fell down the stairs. Well, not “fell”, exactly. Jack, having been told hundreds of times not to dance about on the landing, danced about on the landing - and knocked Toby down the stairs. Top to bottom. I heard it from the kitchen. Clunk thud clunk. He’s got a bump on his head and a lovely bruise on his elbow, but appears to have mostly bounced. He’s perfectly well, though - just as determined as ever, refusing point-blank to wear a diaper to bed last night (he’s been reliably dry during the day for about three weeks) and we compromised on a pair of Tots Bots training-pants - theyre little towelling underpants with a bit of spongy fabric sewn into the crotch. And he woke up dry this morning and took himself off to the potty. Grown-up or what?

Midwife coming out this morning. They want to a “wee sample” so they can test it themselves. Never mind that I’ve actually worked in a hospital lab, apparently I’m not competent to pee on a stick. Sigh.

Oh, and I’ve actually found and sorted the tiniest baby-clothes. Not laundered them yet though.

I’ve written before about how a lack of structure affects us here, and the past week has been a very good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) example. Apart from Barney’s French revision, there hasn’t been much structured study going on for the past few weeks, and since his last exam, he and I have been relaxing too. And I know that this laid-back, no-routines way of living has been largely responsible for the absolutely horrible behaviour and relationships around here recently, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope. Mid-week, it all came to a head, and I proclaimed that I couldn’t take any more. A few days later, and I think the boys are starting to see that constant bickering and bad attitudes on their part have an effect on me - and that the effect on me has an effect on them. And so I’ve had commitments from each of them, together and separately, about how things are going to be from now on. We’ll see.

With no mum willing to make an effort to organise more, George’s 11th birthday yesterday was a quiet affair: family, card, cake, candles (and now that I think about it, I’m not even sure we all signed a card - maybe someone signed it on my behalf).

Hard as it is to believe that George is 11, the real shocker is Barney, who has developed not only the beginnings of teenage spottiness (which was expected, because he’s not exactly meticulous about personal hygiene), but also a shadow of a moustache on his upper lip. You have to look hard to spot it, but it’s there. And this child teenager, who for years has been saying that he doesn’t want to grow up because it’s more fun being a child, is thrilled about it. Me, I’m just trying to come to terms with having a child who is taller than his grandmother and old enough to have facial hair.

Nesting continues apace, and I now have three very clean bathrooms, a very tidy living-room and a reasonably clean kitchen. The conservatory and dining-room still need to be attacked (the dining-room is at that stage where the main reason not to begin is being unable to decide where). But the big change this weekend is that it is now actually possible to move around my bedroom. It’s a large room, but there was so much clutter that it was actually becoming difficult to navigate. However…piles have been tidied, surfaces cleared and cleaned, and there might even be room to put away some baby-clothes - once I’ve laundered them, that is. The diapers have been washed and some of them hung to dry, and I gave away a load of them on freecycle (had about 30 replies to the offer!) Having declined a visit from the midwifery manager (why does she routinely visit homebirthers? does she think we’re doing something dangerous? are we some kind of threat?), I’ve had a letter from her instead, telling me why I’m high-risk (over 40, fat, five previous babies - all the usual unsubstantiated-by-research scare stories) and all the awful things that might happen because of it. She can’t possibly not know that I’m well-informed - the local midwives are bound to have told her - so it would seem this is either shroud-waving (even though the local midwives are also bound to have told her that won’t work) or an ass-covering exercise. Either way, it doesn’t seem particularly respectful of my right to make my own decisions, and it doesn’t very much surprise me that the homebirth rate in this area has fallen in the last three years.

Line of the day, from me to Toby: “No, bandaids don’t work on Hot Dogs.” Explanation: Toby’s favourite animal is the giraffe, and he has several toy giraffes, all of which are called Hot Dog (at his insistence - I have no idea why), including a soft stuffed one which doesn’t have much of a neck (for a giraffe, I mean), but is nonetheless nearly as big as him. And this morning, it mysteriously developed a hole under one arm…er, I mean, front leg. Toby demanded a bandaid for it, so I had to explain that this was a more serious injury, requiring stitches. Lucky he doesn’t know about medical superglue and steri-strips, really.