NotSheep

It’s been a quiet week. Ish. Because let’s face it, when you’ve five children, you don’t get much closer than ish to quiet without throwing them all out, and while I’ve sometimes been tempted, I haven’t really got the energy…

Mostly I’ve been parenting by remote control - that is, I’ve been sitting about and trying to keep tabs on what’s going on around the house without actually getting up and going to look. Freddy’s magnetic-rod episode resolved itself, to everyone’s relief (although I have to admit that a sizeable chunk of my relief was that my part of the process was over) - and that’s as much as I’m going to say on that subject. Toby realised that when counting to ten on his fingers, he didn’t have to take one hand at a time - that he could go right thumb, right pointer finger, left thumb, right middle finger, left pointer, etc. I love watching their faces as their minds figure these things out.

Before getting up on Wednesday, I sent various children to various rooms to ensure they were tidy. In some cases, I asked specific questions: Were there toys shoved in the corner between the two sofas in the living-room? Was there anything on the floor behind the door? - and so on. Assured that everything had been tidied, I emerged from upstairs, only to (re)discover that the children’s definition of “tidy” was very different to mine, and that “no” in response to “are there books under the table?” actually meant “yes, about 24 of them”. Hrm. We were expecting guests - them and us using the excuse that I needed a tiny bit of pink yarn for mice’s noses (and why on earth would I have any pink yarn here?) - so I felt obliged to at least provide a clear path from the front door to somewhere they could sit and have a cup of tea, so further orders were barked instructions were given. Shortly after receiving a text-message from the guests telling me they’d be here in about thirty minutes, I was informed by Barney that he’d been in the bathroom, throwing up. Lovely. He went on to spend most of the rest of the afternoon in the bathroom, repeating the performance. He did occasionally emerge - long enough to throw up on his bed, for example, and later, long enough to go into George and Freddy’s room and throw up in a corner there - and not say a word about it. I only discovered what had happened when I went into the room and thought “ew, it’s a bit whiffy in here”, headed for the window to open it and stood in something wet, which I am absolutely certain was only the spilled water from the cup he’d had (and the only reason I have for my certainty is that I want it, okay?) When asked why he hadn’t said anything, he told me that he thought that Freddy or George would tell me - they’d both been there at the time - but apparently neither of them had noticed a thing - either the act or the whiff

At one point I sent a text-message to twitter saying that Barney was sick - or rather, thanks to predictive phone-text, “pick” - and shortly received a twitter back from him telling me I meant “sick”. Not too sick to be pedantic then.

Despite the necessity for regular jaunts upstairs to check on Barney and the fact that I was already tired, I enjoyed seeing our guests - I hope they enjoyed it too. I realised, after they left at dinnertime, that they’d brought a bag containing food which I could have provided for them for dinner

By the time my own children had been fed, it was too late for Freddy and George to go to Cubs, and Barney was certainly in no fit state for Scouts, so they missed yet another week (they’ve missed the last few because we’ve been away). Not much we could do about it though.

On Thursday morning I took George for an appointment with an Occupational Therapist. The appointment was for a very specific reason, but of course, with the NHS operating the way it does, we had to waste an hour on a basic assessment of his motor skills - none of which has ever caused anyone concern. I could have told her this in the first ten seconds, of course, but that’s not the way the system works. I’ve come home with a “sensory questionnaire” to be completed and returned, which I will do, despite my lack of faith that we will actually get any help from that direction.

In the evening, Jack and Toby decided to settle the argument of who should get out of the bathtub first by playing rock-paper-scissors. They managed to get an extra ten minutes in the tub by doing this, as it was just too cute for any parent to have the heart to drag one of them out

Barney finally pulled out the molar that has been loose and annoying him for the last week or two, then mentioned that he’d a collection of teeth, all of which he was planning to leave under his pillow in order to make a small fortune from the tooth fairy last night…er, yeah, sure.

As for me…I’ve been making children of all ages happy (although admittedly none of them are my own). I’ve been knitting hats with skulls and crossbones for a friend who fell for those I’ve made my own children - two of the three she requested are now complete, and I should be able to get some orange yarn tomorrow for the third, so she should have them next week. And the biggest kid I’ve made happy this week was C, friend of Barney, son of my friend K, whose Pokemon website crashed in January and who has not been able to figure out what the problem was or how to fix it. It was a fairly straightforward fix - a corrupt portion of a database, but of course as with all such things, you have to be able to diagnose the problem first, and the host had disabled the tools which might have provided a button saying “fix this”, so it had to be done with text commands, which isn’t difficult, but you do need to know what the commands are! - and it took probably ten or fifteen minutes of my time to get it all up and running again - and he is now very happy. I’ve said I’ll put a shout-out to his site here, so those of you who have any interest in Pokemon (i.e. not me ) - please click on the image below to take you to his site - leave a comment and you’ll make him even happier.

I’m trying to think of what has happened in the past week, as this blog has been populated almost entirely by twitter updates (I usually have them set so they’re not visible on the front page, but since I’ve been away from the internet so much recently, I changed it on a temporary basis), but for some reason I’m having trouble remembering anything that happened prior to Friday night. Odd, that…

Okay, so let’s resort to the tweets again to aid my failing memory. Monday was spent catching up on things which needed done - like phone-calls to the mortgage people (I can’t believe we’ve been here three years already) and organising mobile phone contract cashback documents. George started to sew on Freddy’s new ju-jitsu badge - why the heck do they need to be so gigantic? They really are unreasonably huge. George wimped out part-way around it and someone else finished - I’m assuming Scratchy, since Barney doesn’t sew unless sat on, and my hands were much too numb to be poking needles through ju-jitsu gis with them. We had Toby’s last speech therapy appointment for a while - the therapist is now off on maternity leave, and in traditional NHS fashion, no replacement has been arranged. She’s pleased with Toby’s progress, however, so he’s down for review in August or September when she returns - although how long it will take her to catch up is anyone’s guess.

In the evening Barney went to Air Cadets and came home with a camp permission form with no dates. I’m told it’s sometime in the summer. Freddy went to ju-jitsu, did his grading, and came home with a brand new shiny green belt - although he did hide it and try to fake me out that he hadn’t qualified, but just as I was about to commiserate and say he’d do better next time, his serious look fell apart

Tuesday - ah, now that I read my tweets for last Tuesday, it all comes flooding back in glorious detail. I’d a slow start, with my body not particularly keen to cooperate with my head’s intentions, but we did manage to pack for the caravan and make it out of the house around lunchtime, when Scratchy brought the car back from work. I left him back, then went to the library to return books, but found the library closed until 2 p.m. - since it was only about noon, I wasn’t waiting. Then I went to the bank, only to discover that the most convenient branch had closed - or, as they euphemistically put it, “transferred”. But I don’t think it counts as a “transfer” when the branch it has transferred to already existed, and I had no intention of fighting the horrendous parking situation around that branch. My next errand involved dropping off a letter which had been delivered to me instead of to the person who needs to deal with it, except that I couldn’t remember her address and couldn’t get hold of her on her mobile. Thwarted again. I stopped to buy fuel for the car, and carefully made my way in beside the pump on a small, busy forecourt - bear in mind that I had four bicycles attached to the back of my car by way of a carrier designed for three - got out of the car to find a sticker over the pump saying it was out of order.

Briefly considered going home and back to bed, but decided to press on. I’d hoped to arrive at the caravan in time for a late lunch, but having wasted so much time on unsuccessful errands, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen, so I decided to buy lunch on the way. That, however, required cash - of which I had none (having not been to the bank yet…) so I needed both a cash machine and a food outlet. I found the cash machine and asked George to do something, only for him to say in a rather pathetic voice, “I can’t, I’ve thrown up all over myself.” This led to an exchange on twitter between me and several other parents who were somewhat incredulous that he had not said anything and that I had not noticed. As I pointed out, he was two rows behind me and the only person beside him was Freddy, who was immersed in DS-play so might well have missed the entire episode.

I got George stripped and cleaned up as much as possible by the side of the road, found a clean tee-shirt in his bag and got him back in the car wearing that and nothing else. He was adamant that he was hungry, but it was clear that lunch was going to be a drive-through experience - fast food restaurants might not be very formal, but they’re a little more formal than tee-shirts with naked boy-bits hanging out below them. So drive-through it was.

We made it to the big town near the caravan without further incident and I stopped to buy food supplies for the next few days - and also bought new tee-shirts for me, as none of my old ones cover my bump. I asked where the men’s tee-shirts were and a staff member took me there and tried to help - asking what colour I preferred etc, but frankly the only thing I was bothered about was that they were the largest size available. I spent £8 on four tees - living it up, as usual and then we drove the few miles to the caravan, where I put George in the shower (once I remembered how to turn on the water) and told him to get clean underwear and socks from his bag. “I can’t, I didn’t pack any.”

Deep breath. Several hours earlier, I had stood on the landing, looked George in the eye and said, “Do you have clean underpants and socks in your bag?” - and I’d asked at least three times, because, you see, I know George. And each time, George had replied in a very definite and here-I-am-being-sensible-for-once voice, “Yes.”

So there was George, sockless and commando for the next few days - and wearing the same denim dungarees for the next few days too, as he’d only packed one extra pair of trousers. About five sweaters, but only one pair of trousers…

Why do I do it? Well, here’s a view from the road approaching the village where the caravan lives. See that gorgeous blue sky? See that thin dark blue stripe at the bottom of it? That’s the ocean.

And here’s a view of part of the beach - the busy end. Admit it, you can see the attraction.

The boys spent the rest of the day scooting about the site on their bicycles, playing in the playground, etc - all of which left them very ready to go to sleep when bedtime arrived (and I can’t say I wasn’t grateful!) Mostly. Barney took Toby to my bed to cuddle him to sleep, as he often does in the caravan. Ten minutes later, Toby came trotting back to me at the other end of the van. Investigation showed that Barney was fast asleep. Toby, however, kept bouncing about for another hour…

They didn’t even wake up early on Wednesday morning - it was about 8.30 before anyone started to emerge. It didn’t take Barney long, however, to start being annoyingly pedantic (I can’t think where he gets that from…) so I thought of something we needed from the shop in the village and sent him to get it. I offered him the choice of cycling on his own, or walking with Toby - he chose the latter and the two of them had a lovely outing together. Meanwhile I fixed the sweater I was knitting for the baby (the sleeves weren’t wide enough when it was made according to the pattern), and added a hat to match:

We went down to the beach in the afternoon, well wrapped up in coats and hats, but it was a tad windy down there so we didn’t stay long. Back at the van we had hot chocolate to warm up. The difference in wind-strength between the beach and the van was quite amazing, given what a very short distance it is and that there’s really only one row of buildings between them!

On Thursday morning the making of my breakfast (by Barney) was rudely interrupted when the gas ran out - I tried to move the thingy to a different cylinder, but wasn’t sure it was properly connected (it can be quite difficult to connect at the best of times, and having hands that couldn’t feel much of anything wasn’t helping) or if the second cylinder was also empty. Having checked the forecast before leaving the internet home, I knew that this was to be the dullest part of the week, with the possibility of showers, so had planned to go into the big town. I finally found a bank to go to, and we topped up our supplies (bread and milk - and smoothies, to make up for the fact that I really don’t do fruit) and went to the library, where the boys had a great time exploring a new-to-them library, and borrowed every Doctor Who book they could find, as well as a fair few others.

Back to the caravan for lunch, followed by hunting around the caravan park for the bloke who maintains it - he’s a very pleasant, helpful man (and, according to Barney, looks like Bruce Willis) and when I explained the problem he came straight over to check. Both cylinders were indeed empty, and he put one of them in his white van and went to get me a new one, then attached the new one for me.

At about 4.30, I was feeling a bit shaky, so I asked Barney to watch Toby and went to lie down for a little while. I woke an hour later. This unplanned nap led to a bit of a burst of energy after dinner, and after hearing the weather forecast for the next 24 hours (cold overnight, windy with showers for Friday), I decided to drive home on Thursday night rather than wait until Friday (and have to pack and load the car, including bicycles, with even-number-than-usual-because-it’s-early-in-the-day hands). Barney helped me clear the caravan out, and when the others returned on their bikes, they all helped get everything into the car and get the bikes on the back - I was very impressed that within 45 minutes of the decision being made, we were driving away. Most of the children fell asleep on the way home, although not until after Jack had thoroughly discussed infinity with anyone who’d listen to him - except that he kept calling it “insanity”.

Friday was largely uneventful until 8.33 p.m. when I had what at first appeared to be the world’s strongest Braxton-Hicks contraction but which rapidly turned into sweating, fainting and feeling at least as bad as I did a few years ago when I had septicemia. That whole story is already on the blog, a few posts down from this one (or one post down, if I’ve altered the twitter-feed settings again), so enough said. I spent the weekend taking it easy, peeing on sticks and encouraging Barney in his efforts to polish his presentation for his French GCSE aural. I finished my fingerless gloves, and having been nagged throughout their production by Toby - “Dees too big for me! You make me gloves now?” - I also made him a pair of mittens, shaped like little mice - except that I haven’t a scrap of pink yarn in the house with which to make the knots for the noses, so they’re not quite finished. On Sunday morning I was playing a Mika CD in the living-room when Jack came in looking angry and said, “Can you turn that off, because it’s annoying me!” Erm…hang on, isn’t it supposed to be the parents who say that to the kids?

Early in the evening my neighbour K (the one who was so helpful on Friday night) came in to see how I was; about ten minutes after she arrived, George came into the room to tell me Freddy had swallowed a magnetic rod. He’s supposedly the sensible one… in accordance with advice from the children’s hospital, we’re still waiting for it to re-appear…

Today, I’ve been very tired. I can’t think why…

A fitful night last night for several of us, I think. Certainly I didn’t sleep well, and I suspect Barney - on the other side of Toby, who was beside me - didn’t either. I did wake him to try to get him to move to his own bed before I went to bed, but he was a bit sleep-stupid and looked at me as if he didn’t know who I was, so I left him. I wished later that I’d made him move though, as he kept stealing all the duvet - we were using one that wasn’t big enough for the bed, because Jack had thrown up on the big one earlier. So every time I woke and stole the duvet back, Barney woke too, and grumbled under his breath. Scratchy, sleeping in a recliner chair beside a hospital bed, certainly didn’t get a peaceful night, and Jack didn’t go to sleep until 10.30, then was woken twice to give him a nebuliser treatment - or to try, as he’d decided he was having nothing to do with it. His oxygen levels remained good throughout the night though, so they decided not to force the issue, and this morning he was up and cheerful by 8 a.m.

I headed into the hospital soon after 8, stopping on the way to pick up breakfast for Scratchy (who I figured wouldn’t have been fed) and me (who I knew hadn’t eaten) and Jack (who I figured would be put out if I brought breakfast for everyone except him ) I wanted to get there early to see Jack, of course, but I also wanted to be there before the consultant did his rounds, as I wanted to ask about the oral steroids and antibiotics, and I know better than to expect Scratchy to get the whole story. Hearing that Jack had had a good night oxygen-wise made me optimistic that we’d be able to bring him home, so I took clothes for him, but just in case, I also went prepared with books and toys, as well as my knitting, and arranged with a friend for her to take the other boys later in the day if Jack was kept in for longer.

I arrived to find Jack eating his fourth slice of toast - but he still perked up and said “Thanks Mum!” when he spotted the pancakes I’d brought him. That was about all I got out of him, however, as he was much too busy watching the Cartoon Network to be bothered about things like talking to parents. Shortly after I arrived, a nurse came over with two syringes of meds - steroids and antibiotics, so I asked her about them and then, when her only real reply was that the doctor had ordered them, I asked if they could wait until after rounds, so that we knew more about what was going on. She was fine with that, and we didn’t have long to wait for the consultant. He examined Jack and asked us all the same questions everybody else had asked in the last 24 hours. I questioned the oral steroids and was told they hardly ever gave IV steroids on the ward - so Jack could have had the IV line out last night, but anyway…I also asked about the antibiotics, and the consultant looked a bit at a loss, and asked the junior doctor on rounds about it. She said that she had felt they were unnecessary, but the other doctor who’d been on duty last night had ordered them. That was the same doctor who’d told me, an hour or so earlier, that it was almost certainly viral - so much for avoiding the overuse of antibiotics! The consultant agreed that they really didn’t seem necessary, so at least Jack avoided the second dose of those. He did get a second dose of oral steroids though, and we got to hear the words we’d been waiting for: “I think he can go home today.”

It took a while to pry Jack from the television screen in order to give him the final (we hope) dose of steroids, teach him how to use an inhaler and spacer, remove his IV line and get him dressed, but we were out of the hospital by about 10 o’clock. Jack didn’t stop talking the whole way home in the car, so we were reassured that he was on the mend! He’s to use the inhaler for the next couple of days and then play things by ear. He seems much, much better now though, and has spent the day full of energy as usual - I thought he might sleep this afternoon after missing so much sleep last night, but there was no chance.

It’s incredibly stressful having a child in hospital - not just because you’re worried about the child, but also because of all the extra arrangements that have to be made for who will be where when and what will happen with the other children. The two girls who were on Jack’s ward had both been in for weeks - I really don’t know how parents manage that or longer stays. Most of the staff were very pleasant - one of the reasons I usually head for the Children’s Hospital rather than the nearest Casualty is that you know you’ll find staff who’ve chosen to work with children rather than those who just tolerate them as a necessary part of the job. We really only encountered one nurse who was unwilling to do everything she could to help us, and one doctor who was less than communicative (the one who saw Jack on the ward last night). The consultant, when I told him I’d be questioning everything, said “That’s the right way to do it!” - which is an attitude I’ve noticed is usually found in doctors who are good at what they do and confident about their abilities - the ones who aren’t so great at their jobs are more defensive, in my experience. I did find it frustrating that most staff just did things without notice or explanation though - I know sometimes there isn’t a lot of time, but just a few extra seconds can make a big difference, and sometimes the explanation could even be given while they’re doing whatever it is - for example, when the nurse was putting anaesthetic cream on the backs of Jack’s hands while we were in Casualty, she didn’t tell us what it was or why it was being done - I knew what it was and figured out what it was for, but she wasn’t to know that, and it wouldn’t have taken three seconds to explain while she smeared it on and covered it - and knowing allowed me to prepare Jack for what was going to happen. Small things like that can make a big difference to patients and their parents. When Freddy was not much more than a year old, he fell onto some broken glass and split his forehead open - there was masses of blood, pouring down through his eyes and through all the layers of clothing on both of us - and when the bleeding had subsided in Casualty, the doctor said he’d be going for a skull x-ray. I spent the next two hours thinking they thought he might have a fractured skull, when in fact all they were doing was checking for fragments of glass in the wound. A second to add “…that will show up any glass that’s left in the wound” would have saved me those two hours of worry.

I don’t mean to complain - the hospital staff were very good and caring, and I’ve no complaints about the treatment apart from the unnecessary antibiotics. I’m just getting it all off my chest really. It’s been a very stressful weekend for all of us; I’m glad it’s over and hope we never have to repeat it or anything like it.

I woke up this morning still trying to decide whether to go to the caravan today or wait until Tuesday (Toby has another speech therapy appointment on Monday, so no point in going tomorrow). As it turned out, the universe had plans to take that decision out of my hands.

Jack was a bit off-colour and waily at bedtime last night, but he gets that way when he’s not well - he tends to get miserable for a few hours, sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up bouncy and full of life again. He also tends to breathe quite heavily when he’s ill, but it never lasts long. Today was different. He was normal-sick (for him) in the morning, and I decided to go to Ikea and pick up a few things for the caravan. When I got home at lunchtime though, he’d thrown up and his breathing was very laboured. It was somehow not the same as it usually is when he’s unwell. I decided I was worried enough to take him to Casualty.

He went in pyjamas with a fleece blanket around him, and insisted on being carried in (not an easy task to carry a six-year-old when you’ve a bump the size of mine). When we got into the waiting-room, I sat him on a chair and he promptly threw up on the floor. I talked to the receptionist, who sent us through to triage. They weighed him and took his temperature, then sent us through to a treatment room. The doctor couldn’t hear any breathing sounds in his lungs, but his oxygen levels were pretty good (97%). It was obvious he was working hard to breathe though. Two nebuliser treatments later, they said his lungs were quite rattly. They took blood, put an IV line in the back of his hand, and gave him a dose of intravenous steroids. A chest x-ray was ordered, and he sat with an oxygen mask for the next few hours. Eventually it was decided he should be admitted for observation - just for a few hours, possibly overnight but maybe going home at bedtime. By the time he was taken to the ward though, it was after 6 p.m., so there was no going home tonight. I asked him who he wanted to stay with him - me or Scratchy - he chose Scratchy. To be honest, I was too relieved to be offended - the thought of facing a night in a chair by the bed wasn’t thrilling me or my pelvis.

On the ward he was taken off the oxygen mask but his oxygen levels remained good. Another doctor came and examined him, and he got to see his chest x-ray, which showed quite a lot of trapped air around the edges of his lungs. The doctor said it was probably viral and ordered another nebuliser treatment; by the time that was given it was nearly 8 p.m. After the treatment, I left him on his own for a while so I could drive home and get Scratchy. I took Scratchy to the hospital and came home, glad to get a chance to eat something and lie down.

They said there’d probably be more nebuliser treatments overnight, but it was hoped he wouldn’t need more IV steroids. However Scratchy has texted to say Jack has had oral steroids - I don’t understand why, as that was the whole point of the IV line, and it’s still in place. He’s also been given oral antibiotics - again, I don’t understand why, when they were fairly certain it was viral - and I can’t say I’m pleased, as he’s never had antibiotics before and I’d have preferred to keep it that way if they weren’t actually necessary.

In fact he’s never had any kind of medication before - not so much as a children’s paracetamol. He’s never spent a night in hospital in his life - none of my children has, except for Barney, who spent the first two nights of his life in hospital because I was daft enough to give birth to him in one. I don’t think Jack has ever even been on a hospital ward to visit anybody before. So all this has been a bit of a shock.

I hope he’ll be home tomorrow, but was warned by one of the nurses that it could be a few days. Before he was admitted, I asked if he could come home this evening with a nebuliser, but apparently it’s not possible to arrange a nebuliser on the weekend

Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed a bit of cyber-swearing this morning. I also did some real swearing down the phone to a friend, and a bit of weeping down the phone to Scratchy, out of exhaustion and sheer frustration.

Here’s the story.

About three weeks ago, I asked for some blood-tests, particularly a B12 level, as I’ve been so tired lately, and I’ve a history of B12 deficiency and it does leave you knackered. So the midwife came out and took the blood and sent it off for checking.

Last Tuesday, I got a phone-call from the midwife to say that my B12 was low, and so was my folate. It might sound odd, but I was quite glad to hear the news about the B12 - although the injections are nasty (they’re intramuscular hurt going in, then sting afterwards and leave you feeling bruised), they work, and it’s much easier to fix this than some other, more generalised cause of fatigue. And they work fast - I felt much better last time after only the first two or three of them. So I was quite keen to get going on them. But it has to be prescribed by a doctor, so she rang the midwife at the GP practice.

The GP rang me. Lots of “well we need to get these levels up” etc., and wanted me to have three injections a week. I said if she wrote the prescription, dh could pick it up and fill it that evening, and one of the community midwives could come out the next morning (that would have been Wednesday of last week) and give me the first injection. But oh no, that wouldn’t do, they had to be given in the treatment room at the surgery. Last time, the midwives gave them to me. At home. No problems at all. But this time I’d have to traipse into the surgery three times a week for them, although maybe after the first few we could see if the midwives “would be comfortable” giving them to me at home.

They’re midwives; if they’re not comfortable with intramuscular injections, they shouldn’t be doing the job.

And since the practice midwife was off all week, I’d have to wait until this week to start. So much for “we need to get these levels up”.

We’re a one-car family, and Scratchy takes it to work except when I need it (then he catches a bus in and I pick him up). So me going into the GP practice for an injection involves:
- Scratchy taking the bus (and the associated cost and extra time)
- me getting myself out of the house (which isn’t always the easiest thing to do at the minute - bear in mind that B12 deficiency leads to extreme fatigue)
- me getting five kids organised and out of the house - I could leave the older ones at home, but then I’d have nobody to watch the younger ones while I was actually getting the injection
- us all sitting waiting for my turn to go into the treatment room
- me bringing everyone home again
- me going to collect Scratchy when he finishes work (there is a bus, but it leaves a lot later than he finishes)

So at least two and probably nearer three hours out of my day - three times a week. Exactly what a person needs when she’s exhausted - extra stuff to make her more tired.

We finally arranged for the first injection to be given this morning, but in the community midwives’ office at my nearest health centre, rather than the practice where I’m registered. They seemed to think this would suit me better, although in fact it makes no difference at all to me. It’s a little closer, but I still need the car and it’s actually much more difficult to get parked. The community midwives are only in their office from 9 to 10 in the morning however (they’re out in the community, regularly driving past my house, the rest of the time). So this morning, Scratchy took the bus and I got all the kids up and fed and dressed etc and organised all the things that needed to be done this week - optician for Barney, vet appointment for Cass to get her stitches out, etc - for today, since I’d have the car. And I went to the health centre and got the prescription filled at the chemist there, and then I climbed two flights of stairs along with a two-year-old so that I could get the injection.

There was only a student midwife there, and a minute after I went in, she took a phone-call. All of the midwives except for one were at a meeting somewhere else, and the phone-call was from the one midwife who was supposed to be there to do my injection and cover the phones. She was phoning to say she was stuck in traffic.

And she said: “So just tell Deborah to go home and I’ll come by later and give her the injection there.”

If they’d just agreed to do that in the first bloody place I’d have been having my fourth injection today, rather than my first, and I’d probably be feeling a lot better by now! But oh no, that couldn’t be done, regardless of all the hassle it causes the patient - but if a midwife gets caught in traffic, well, it’s no bother at all.

And of course having rearranged everything else in my life, I wasn’t here all day today, so I didn’t get the injection at all. Will they decide they’ve caused enough trouble and come out and do it tomorrow? I’m stuffed if I know. Despite my needle-phobia, I’m off to google to find out where I can get needles and how to give it to myself, because I’ve only had two antenatal appointments this pregnancy and I’ve already had enough with being part of the bloody stupid system.

I will blog the rest of my day later, when I’m not so ranty.

I’m hiding in the dining-room; there are eight children here at the minute, several of whom are grumpy (all mine) which cannot be impressing the guest children, though all of them are being very polite about it. A friend had an appointment with one of her clients in this area this afternoon, and since her eldest is on half-term this week, she collected her other children from school and they all came here. My friend then left to go see her client and she will, I hope, be back soon, as dinner is almost ready to hit the table.

We spent most of the morning cleaning the conservatory, which has, for the last few months, been nothing but a holding pen for the dogs when they come in mucky from the garden, which is every time they come in, because the garden is like a field, but not as clean and tidy. To stop them from traipsing mud through the whole of downstairs, we’ve been leaving them in there until the mud dried up and/or fell off them. This has been a reasonably effective technique for keeping it out of the rest of the house, but another consequence was that the entire room - walls, windows, floor, furniture - became covered in a thick layer of mud, loose dirt and dog-hair. Four of us attacked it this morning with mops, large sponges and buckets of soapy water, and about three hours later, it was…well, cleaner. Not really what you’d call clean, but certainly a sight better than it had been. Everything will have to be washed again to get to that it to actually clean. The floor has been mopped seven times and still isn’t clean, but at least the colour is visible again. The vacuum cleaner had a nervous breakdown part-way through the process, but recovered later, and fortunately we’ve a smaller one upstairs, so I was able to use that in the meantime.

Barney spent the morning trying to work out what the tune in his head was; when he hummed it to me, I thought it sounded like the theme-tune to Star Wars, but when he figured it out, it turned out to be David Bowie’s “Starman”.

By lunchtime we were all wet, soapy and mucky, so I sent the boys upstairs to shower in turn in my bathroom (the family bathroom has a bath and a shower attachment but nothing to hang it on on the wall, and no shower-curtain). I went up to have a shower myself once they were done, and discovered that someone had been at bottles of moisturiser and make-up, and moisturised the toilet-seat. Then my shower was interrupted when Barney arrived to tell me he could sing Starman in French: Il y a un homme d’étoile, attendant dans le ciel… Hippy Hothousing Homeschoolers

The midwife rang with my blood-tests results. The good news: my iron-level is great. The bad news: my folate level is low. The good/bad news: my B12 is also low. The reason this is both good and bad news is that it means I have to have B12 injections, which hurt going in and then sting afterwards, but they are very effective and this will probably help my energy-levels a lot. The midwife annoyed me, though, when she said, “So with this, do you still want to go ahead with the homebirth?” - since she knows how I feel about hospital birth, I think this meant she really didn’t understand the results. She phoned the GP, who phoned me and emphasised how important it was that I get these levels up - she wants me in the treatment room at the practice three times a week for injections. When I asked if the community midwives could do it at home (as they did last time this was a problem), she wasn’t keen on the idea - largely, I think, because she doesn’t want to hand over something she sees as medical to the midwifery team. But the practice midwife, who will be the one giving me the injections in the treatment room, is off until next week, which means I won’t get started until then. So: urgent enough to take up a couple of hours of my time, three times a week, but not urgent enough to let the midwives get on with it at home (which would have allowed me to get the first injection tomorrow). And everything I’ve read says that when both B12 and folate are low, it’s important not to supplement folate without supplementing B12, so I won’t get started on that until next week either. Argh, I feel a treadmill slipping under me…

It’s been one of those very strange days when all sorts of unexpected things happened. I’ll tell you about Monday and yesterday first, because - well, because they happened first, and that’s what I’m like.

I realised over the weekend that my driving licence had expired. In November. How did this happen? Don’t they send reminders? Well, yes they do…but somehow my address change never got processed after we moved, and I was a bit busy having a baby (Toby) etc, so it never occurred to me that the new bit hadn’t arrived. I never use my licence - a bank teller asked me for photo ID once and I started to look for it in my bag, but the next teller over said “oh, it’s all right, I know her” so I never took it out and looked at it. If I had, I might have realised that the address was wrong, and then I might have told them again, and the reminder they sent out might have been sent to where I actually live.

I phoned the licensing people on Monday and a helpful man there told me what I needed to do and pointed out that until I did it, my insurance wouldn’t pay any claims. Oops. So getting it sorted out moved rather rapidly up the to-do list. One of the things I had to do was get photos taken and have them signed by someone who has known me for at least two years and is a “respectable” person - which made me think hard, because we don’t have a minister and the doctor I’m registered with has never actually met me and the only teacher living in the street has only known me since last summer. Eventually I remembered a friend who doesn’t live too far away and is a teacher (though whether he’s respectable is definitely up for debate, as he and his wife were the first to agree).

George cut out lots of circles in the afternoon, so that I could use them with Beavers for Pancake Puppets. Meanwhile I browsed for other pancake-related activities we could do, and phoned my co-leader to check that the cooker in the hall was working. And got frustrated with Twitter’s recent flakiness.

Barney went to Air Cadets on Monday evening - proudly wearing the t-shirt they gave him last week - and Freddy went to ju-jitsu. George announced he was too tired, then took great offence when I told him to go to bed right after Freddy left. But y’know, if you’re too tired to go out, it doesn’t make any sense to stay up until the time you’d have come home if you’d gone out in the first place. In the meantime, Jack and Toby played in my bedroom with a VTech phone thingy. Jack was ordering in: “Can I order two ice-creams? Cold, with a stick in one of them and a stick not in one of them.”

On Tuesday morning, Scratchy arranged to work from home for a while so I could run out and get photos taken for the driving licence application. Somehow he thought he’d be at work by 10. Given that the chemist (nearest place to get them done) doesn’t open until 10, I’m not sure how he thought that would happen. He also thought that he’d be here with five children and still get some work done…heh. I got home and did some work with the boys and got more frustrated with Twitter’s recent flakiness.

Tuesday evening: Beavers. I took all the cut-out circles and various other bits of equipment with me, including the ingredients for making pancakes. We split the Beavers into three groups to make their pancake batter. Then we took them into the kitchen and…discovered the cooker was not working.

We talked about pancakes, played games, made Pancake Puppets and sent each Beaver home with a cupful of pancake batter. We told the parents to look at it as an easy breakfast the following morning. Not sure how that fits in with using up all the eggs and butter etc before Lent, but there you go.

Afterwards I went to visit my maybe-respectable-maybe-not friend and he signed all the things I needed him to sign. By the time I got home, it was nearly time to collect George and Barney from SJA Cadets, so I dropped Jack at home and the neighbour’s son at his house. My neighbour told me that I’m “an idol in this house” - I’m not sure how much of that is because I have five children and how much is because we home-educate. We were talking about getting them all up and out in the mornings. I’m in two minds about this: both he and his wife work full-time, and I really don’t know how anybody manages to do that and also manage children and their schedules, but also - well, they’ve only got a six-year-old and a teenaged daughter, so it does look from my perspective as though it must be fairly straightforward. I suppose we’ve all got our own ideas about what’s difficult. Anyway, I went to get Barney and George and finally got everyone home and to bed, having warned them that we needed to be up and out early today.

We had to be up and out early because Cassie was booked in at the vet’s to be spayed. They only do one spay a day, and they do it first thing in the morning so that they can keep an eye on the dog all day, so you have to be there by 9 o’clock. I reckoned that leaving at 8.30 would be okay - and I’m sure it would have been. Unfortunately I was woken by Toby jumping on me at 8.29. I haven’t leaped out of bed as quickly as that in a long time. Much shouting at everyone to get dressed etc - poor Jack was rudely awoken and almost dragged out of bed. Older children dressing and chivvying along younger children, many orders being given. We were pulling out of the driveway exactly eleven minutes after I opened my eyes. So it turns out I could do it if I had to - but I really don’t want to!

We got lost on the way to the vet’s (it’s a very rural practice), but got there with just a minute to spare. The four parking spaces across the road were taken, so I parked across the back of one car and told Barney to come and get me if I needed to move the car. I talked to the vet, filled in all the forms etc - and then two police officers came in and said, “Is that your Chrysler Voyager out there?” It turned out that someone had parked on the other side of the road - probably marginally more legally than the way I was parked, if there are such things as gradiations in the legality of parking - and between us, we were blocking the way of a large truck. And a police-car. Actually I don’t know if the police-car just happened to come along or if the truck-driver called them, but either way, I abandoned Cassie and ran out to move the car - and give Barney an earful for not coming to get me. Oh, he’d seen the truck. Oh, he’d even told the police officer where I was. But did he come and get me? No. And just as I was turning the car back onto the road, the text-message that Barney had sent me arrived: Car needs moved.

I provided all the children with a drive-through breakfast and took Toby to get new shoes. He has reached the dizzying heights of a size 5. No longer will it be true that his shoes are almost as wide as they are long Next stop: play resource centre, where the pickings were slim but at least my membership card hadn’t (quite) expired. Conversation with Barney en route about the ethics of animal-spaying: “Isn’t it sort of like genocide?” Well, I can see the reasoning, but I definitely think the pros outweigh the cons. I realised I didn’t have the vet’s telephone number with me (result of earlier speedy exits) and that I was supposed to ring at 1 p.m. to find out when Cassie should be collected, so I phoned Scratchy and asked him to google for it. A few minutes later he rang Barney (on top of everything else, my phone battery was dying) and told him he’d phoned the vet. Uh…beginning to see where Barney gets his (in)ability to follow simple instructions! (Not shouting at all now. Oh no. Of course not.) Oh well, one more reason for the vet to think I’m a moron.

And then off to the driver licensing office with my forms and my passport and my photos and my cash. The licence will take about two weeks to arrive, but will be dated from today, so at least I’m now driving with insurance.

Hm, what did we do next? Home for lunch, I think. A game of 20 Questions in the car. Barney: “Hey, guys! I have a really good one! It’ll only take one question!” Jack: “Is it a frog?” Barney: “No! It has to be the question we usually ask first!” Freddy: “Is it alive?” Barney: “Yes! You figured it out! It’s a live. Get it? It’s A Live.” Uh, right. Me: “So what exactly is A Live?” Barney: “Isn’t that really a philosophical question?”

Home and found the vet’s phone number myself and phoned at 1 p.m. Cassie was doing well and would be ready to leave at about 3. Good stuff. Checked the post and discovered a letter from the Education Board - oh, had they finally noticed us after only nearly seven years of home-educating? But no…it wasn’t addressed to me. Or even my address. It was, however, addressed to the Scout Group where I take Beavers, with the actual postal address of the Scout Hall on it. Not that we get post delivered there…but how on earth did it make it to my mailbox, in the next town, when it didn’t have my name, house number, street name or postcode on it? The mystery was solved when I remembered one of the other leaders I’d met at the Cubs Quiz a couple of weeks ago - he works for the post office and apparently they get confused because they can’t deliver to some of the Scout Halls - so they just give anything Scout-related to him and he figures out what to do with it. He must have remembered where I lived and decided that was the quickest way to deal with post for our Group

Also in the mailbox: a card about a parcel delivery. What could that be? I haven’t ordered anything recently. It said to collect it tomorrow, but I don’t plan on having the car tomorrow, so I took the chance and went to the post office anyway - and noted with optimism that there was a ParcelForce van right outside it. And yup, there was my parcel. Remember way back in November when I bought something from Ebay Canada for George for Christmas? It was posted to me on November 13th, and the Canada Post tracking system had it on their website as leaving the country on November 22nd. But it didn’t arrive in December; George was very understanding when I explained to him just before Christmas and said that he’d get it when it got here - but by the end of January, I’d given up hope of ever seeing it. Well, we saw it today. George is now the ecstatic (his choice of words) owner of a pair of Vector Prime and Wing Saber transformers.

(Oh, and can anyone explain to me why in the UK, where we call it “the post”, it’s “Royal Mail”, but in Canada, where they call it “the mail”, it’s “Canada Post”?)

We brought Cassie home too, all shaven underneath and acting subdued. The vet brought her out to the reception area from the back of the surgery and said “She’s just lovely!” Yeah, she is

And now…George and Freddy are at Cubs, Barney is leaving soon for Scouts, and I’ve got a website to work on. It’s a simple website, but the person who wrote it did so using Microsoft Publisher, so the code is 95% rubbish. I volunteered for this - it was a plea for help on Freecycle - but the bloke whose site it is has said he’ll service my oil boiler for nothing in exchange, which I think works rather well all round

Another midwife visit yesterday, for her to take blood. I’ve declined most things but asked for hemoglobin (and other things necessary to calculate true iron level) to be done and also for a B12 check; part of me hopes one of those is abnormally low, as it would mean I could actually do something about the exhaustion. I have horrible veins; it takes an age to find one that looks half-decent and then they usually collapse seconds after the needle goes in. The first attempt yesterday resulted in less than half a millilitre in the bottom of a tube - that’s about one-tenth of a teaspooon. Second attempt didn’t get anything at all. L kept apologising but there was no need; I already know it’s me! She left me a bunch of booklets and leaflets, all of which went straight in the bin after a single glance, since I’d either a) read them before and knew they were useless, or b) opened them to a random page and discovered something which was evidence that they were useless.

I did a couple of very fast errands in the morning before she came, then came home and got the boys settled to some studying. They’ll be doing some more this afternoon; it probably sounds awful to be making them study on weekends, but there are things that work much better when there’s an extra adult around - to keep everyone out of the way when Barney’s doing past papers for GCSE, for example.

When we were at the science centre on Tuesday, a friend filled my car with boxes of things she’d been clearing out in preparation for moving overseas, so I got to those this morning. Books, jigsaw puzzles, toy animals (which led to a look of wonderment and delight on Toby’s face), and a marble-run which has already been packed into a box to be given to someone else. It had been out less than an hour and there had been several fights over it, and when Barney physically attacked Freddy to get him to hand over a marble, I decided enough was enough. Barney did not take well to this decision and stormed off (we don’t care about him, we don’t care about anything he wants…) including taking himself off outside in his (short-sleeved and short-legged) pyjamas. It’s cold enough that he was back indoors less than a minute later. He sulked for a while after that, but cheered up while eating lunch (he forgot he meant to be cross LOL)

Freddy sat down and did a KS2 science sats paper, but got very cross about one of the questions, and claimed it was “impossible to answer the question without breaking the rules!” It turned out that the question asked him to “draw a conclusion”, but there were line for him to write on, so he couldn’t draw anything…

The Toby-induced-smile-of-the-day came when he walked into the room on tiptoe; Barney missed it, so I said to Toby, “”how me how you can stand on your toes” and he did - one foot flat on the floor, the other foot on top of it

Yes, that’s me. Missing. Missing in action. Well, more missing from action really. I’ve been sick for nearly a month - I’ve looked back in this blog and discovered that I started getting sick on October 20th. That’s way too long. I’m tired of being sick, and sick of being tired. The flu has just wiped me out - left me in bed, shivering and shaking and then too weak to even do that. Yes, I’m whiny. Get over it. Somebody has to, and I’m not doing any kind of job of it.

The boys have been generally fantastic. They’ve kept things ticking over, made breakfasts and lunches, fed and walked the dogs (who have otherwise been sadly neglected), looked after me and each other. Oh, I’m not saying they’re perfect - George and Barney are currently grounded with no computer games or DVDs after sending numerous horrible text messages to one another - more of an exercise in how-rude-can-we-get than anything else, but nasty enough that they haven’t even complained about the severity of the consequent restrictions on their lives. They should count themselves lucky: if I wasn’t so knackered I’d probably have said no tv at all, but since I’m using it as a babysitter when I just can’t do anything but lie down, I figured I’d be punishing myself more than them. Otherwise they’ve all been helpful, notwithstanding the grumpy noises emanating from their room right now (they’re tidying up - in theory). Toby has been getting raised not by a village, but by his siblings, and he’s learned some interesting new skills. As well as impressions of stroppy teenagers and Joey Trebiani, he’s also now been taught the hand-sign for “Live long and prosper” - he can’t keep his ring-finger and little finger together though, so he goes and borrows Barney’s mood-ring and puts it over the top of the two fingers so that he can do it right

I think I’m over the flu now, apart from the odd bout of coughing, but I’m still very low on energy - I do tend to take a bit longer to get over things sometimes, ever since my bout of CFS, and it’s often frustrating, but this has been beyond reasonable. I dragged myself to Beavers last week because the only other option was to cancel it and spend hours on the phone trying to get hold of all the parents, but I missed this week’s meeting, which is really annoying since it was not only Investiture and Swimming Up, but Jack’s Investiture and Freddy’s Swimming Up. Freddy wouldn’t have been going anyway, being grounded, and Jack can be invested next week. I’d have liked to see all the rest doing it though; there were three others Swimming Up, all of whom I’m going to miss, and about seven new boys and one girl being invested.

I have to get out of bed and the house tomorrow though, because Toby has an assessment with the speech therapist. I’m supposed to be going out tomorrow night too, to a Pampered Chef thing, but whether I make it remains to be seen. Next week sees dental appointments for all of us, a review for Toby with the paediatric cardiologist, and Barney’s 13th birthday, so I really need to be much more energetic before then.

I’d never have been able to do school-runs for the last few weeks; at least with home-ed, we’ve been able to do some bits and pieces when I’ve been able (that is, when I’ve been able to sit up rather than lying in bed or curled in a ball). Barney was looking at literal and figurative language, and described figurative language as being used in fiction, to which I replied that although it often was, it certainly wasn’t exclusively used for that. That led to a look at the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est”, and how Wilfred Owen used figurative language to describe his experiences, which then led into some talking about war. By fortunate timing, there was a documentary on about Owen, so we watched a recording of that, which gave us all plenty of food for thought. We’ve just received a shipment from The Book People (five boxes! - I only order once a year now that they charge more to deliver to us than to any other part of the British Isles) which included the Usborne Internet-Linked Histories for both the First and Second World Wars, and I think those are subjects which will make for some interesting learning over the next few months. I daresay I’ll learn just as much as the boys will: I wasn’t keen on History as a school subject and it took more than a decade after I left school before I realised that actually I was quite interested in the lives of everyday people through the years (rather than the politics and plans and dates of battles, which was what school history lessons always seemed to focus on). Over the last few weeks, we’ve read Carrie’s War together, and worked through a nice little literature study of it that I found on-line somewhere, and we’ve plans to “do” Anne Frank’s Diary shortly, so it will all tie in quite nicely. Funny how that works.

Right. I’m going to lie down again now, in the hope that I might have gathered enough energy to get up by Christmas.

It’s been nearly a week since I posted anything here. The reasons? We haven’t been doing anything much, never mind anything interesting (because I’m sick). I haven’t been spending much time upright (because I’m sick). I didn’t want to turn the blog into a whinge-fest (about being sick). I haven’t been in the mood (because I’m sick). Are you noticing a theme here?

All right, a very quick whinge and then I’ll move on: I’ve barely been out of bed for the past week or so, and I’ve not been well since about October 27th, if this blog is to be believed. That’s way too long to be laid up without going out of your mind. I hope that I’m now on the road to recovery: the barking cough which shook my entire body has mutated into a loose (and very productive) cough which only hurts above the waist, and I’ve been fever-free for about 36 hours now, I think. And I’m sitting up for long enough to write this - all I’ve done in the last few days is read lying down and write a few brief comments and responses to emails when I’ve been able to sit up for five minutes.

Right, that’s enough.

So, let me think whether there’s been anything worth blogging. Mostly the boys have been entertaining themselves, with the older ones taking responsibility for doing lunches etc. Having older kids is very useful at times like this, although I do wonder about their priorities sometimes. They taught Toby a new line. His speech is gradually improving and his brothers have been delighted to hear actual words, so at lunchtime yesterday, they set about teaching him more. And what did they teach him to say? “How you doin’?” - à la Joey Tribbiani. Like he needed coaching in how to flirt

We hope we’ve found a place where Barney can sit a couple of GCSEs next year - French in June and probably Maths in November. It’s a private school; I’ll have to call them and talk to them once I get my voice back.

I’ve been cruising around teh internets for Christmas presents, and have managed to find most of what my children have asked for. Jack has just told me what he wants, so I’ll have to start on his list soon - though one item’s already purchased and the rest of it includes “my very own hairbrush” and “loads of rulers and new pencils” so I don’t think I’ll be up at 1.30 a.m. bidding on ebay items from Canada, as I was with some of George’s items. (I won the auction, and I hope my brother-in-law is going to collect the items for me today. Much relief, since we weren’t able to source these anywhere else but ebay, and even on the US site, they were going for two to three times what we were willing to pay. And no, it wasn’t good for a sick person to be doing that in the middle of the night. And yes, I do have a snipe program, but I woke about the time the auction was due to close and I’d only have been lying awake wondering if I hadn’t looked. And since I was up, it made sense to ping my sister-in-law on instant-messenger to see if they’d collect it for me.)

We’re back at Beavers tonight; I would skip it for myself but one of the other leaders “booked off” for tonight months ago, and the other one hasn’t got her warrant yet. It would be more effort to ring all the parents and cancel than it is to show up and hide in the corner for an hour. We’ve got a professional soccer coach coming in to do soccer skills with the boys, so once we’ve done the opening ceremony and collected subs, I can sit back and watch for the next fifty minutes, until it’s time to close and send them all home.

And that is enough of me being upright for now, so I will see you when I emerge from under the covers again - soon, I hope.

I have a cough and a sore throat. I’m achy, feverish, nauseous, whiny and completely uninspired to write anything interesting. So instead of moaning, I thought I’d show you the postcards we’ve received from Postcrossing so far.

Hello! Here is a little bit of Germany, Cologne for you! The city is very beautiful and always offers a pleasant atmosphere for foreign people. Take care and happy postcrossing. Ana Claudia.

Hello and greetings from rainy Finland. My name is Sari and I live in Mäntsälä, which is a county in the southern Finland. I work at the health central as a food service superior. Best wishes and happy postcrossing. Yours, Sari.

Hello! Greetings from Australia. Canberra has a population of around 300,000 people. It is currently Spring. During Spring, there is a festival called ‘Floriade’ where 1000s of flowers are planted in amazing patterns. From Claire.










I just heard Jack (5) asking George (10) to play chess with him, saying, “I’ll go easy on you.”

In keeping with our barely-there-weekend, we’ve had a couple of non-days around here. Jack has been sick and waily - he makes a kind of coo-ing noise when he breathes when he’s sick; I’m never sure if he’s just trying to convince us he really is sick or if it’s something I should be worried about. He doesn’t have any trouble breathing when he’s well though, and even when he’s sick, his colour’s usually good. He and Toby are sitting watching television as I write, and Toby is copying the coo-ing - which is half-cute and half-irritating because, really, one doing it is enough.

We did very little all day yesterday, although George and Freddy did go to ju-jitsu in the evening, and while they were there I went to pick up an Imac from a freecycler and walked Cassie. When we got back to the school where ju-jitsu happens, everybody coming out made a huge fuss of her, and she was in heaven with all the attention.

Today we’ve done not much more than yesterday; George in particular has had a rough day, with several wobblies today and one full-blown meltdown. He doesn’t want to go to SJA Cadets tonight; he says he’s not up to it. I don’t know if he’s right but I don’t think an early night will do him any harm. Barney’s going though, so someone (i.e. Scratchy) will still have to go out.

Toby and Jack have had a bath (before dinner) because Jack needed it and there was no hope of keeping Toby out even if I’d wanted to. I cut Toby’s hair before he got in; it was so long it was getting in his eyes.

I have, as mentioned in my tweets, upgraded my WordPress installation to 2.3. I’d been running 2.1, and there were lots of changes between that and 2.2, so lots of little fiddly things needed sorted out, but I think I’ve found them all now. If you notice something that isn’t working, let me know.

We’ve done 15-item-pick-ups in various bedrooms and both dogs have been fed and trained. Barney and George are playing a game in the kitchen - something which looks remarkably similar to Yahtzee, though they insist they made it up. Is it bedtime yet?

I would like to post about our exciting weekend, to tell you about all the interesting and stimulating activities we’ve undertaken. I’d love to tell you how we spent the weekend bonding as a family, enjoying each other’s company and engaging in amusing pursuits.

Unfortunately I can’t. Well, I could, but I won’t, to quote Mark Twain (or somebody).

I spent almost all of yesterday in the dining-room, surrounded by teetering piles of paper, sorting, categorising, allocating, grouping, organising, ordering and filing. The boys spent most of the day entertaining themselves, which seems to have involved a great deal of sitting in front of a flickering screen, and Scratchy spent his time feeling sorry for himself because he was sick. By the evening, despite not having been in the same room for five minutes, he had shared his germs with me, so after dragging myself out of bed this morning for long enough to nearly finish clearing the dining-room table, I dragged myself back to bed. I got up later and had a hot bath, but it didn’t do any good. I mean, it made me clean, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

We don’t have a bath in the master bathroom - just a shower - so I had my bath in the kids’ bathroom. You really know you’re a mother when, while your bath runs, you clear the bathroom floor, clean the toilet, hang up the towels, put away the bath-toys and water the plant on the window-sill. It could have been worse - I have been known to clean the reachable bits of the bathroom while I was actually in the bath.

Toby has finally fallen asleep, at 10 p.m. He’s at that awkward stage where he doesn’t always need a nap, and so often sleeps late in the day, resulting in him being bright-eyed and bouncy-tailed long after me. Jack is also coming down with whatever this bug is, so he’s doing his usual thing of starting to wail as soon as I sit down or lie down. I really hope he’s better tomorrow, because I am so not in the right place to be dealing with a day of it.

Still falling over after Saturday at the zoo. If you can’t see the post-of-a-thousand-photos below this one, you’re not logged in.

Yesterday, being a recovery day, was pretty much a non-starter when it came to getting anything done. I thought about painting the woodwork in the powder-room - which would finish it off nicely, since it looks so much better now the walls are painted - but couldn’t be bothered. We might be painting the hall, stairs and landing a bit sooner than expected, though, since one of the dogs managed to remove a section of wallpaper during the night. I think it probably all came off in one piece and then she chewed it to bits. We were Not Pleased. Hence this evening, when I’d left George and Freddy at ju-jitsu, I went to the pet store and bought a crate. I had hoped not to need one, but I’ve been-there-done-that with chewy dogs before, and a crate is by far the best option. I bought one big enough for both of them to go in together and they’ve settled into it well and happily this evening.

Otherwise today…the older boys have done some studying. Barney and I have been having - and I really think this could only happen in a home-educating household - competitions to see who can solve quadratic equations the fastest. I never really “got” quadratic equations before - despite having collected A’s in both GCE maths and additional maths and doing some OU maths courses - but I found a fab tutorial on-line which made them no more difficult than filling in numbers, and I am pleased to say I’ve conquered them Barney, however, never had any trouble in the first place; they’re yet another bit of maths that he grasps intuitively.

Toby has been very, very cute - and more than occasionally challenging He likes to run - he’ll back up all the way across the kitchen to maximise the available distance His speech is also coming along and he’s making more effort to say specific sounds now. I’m getting called “Mummum” regularly now; given how long I’ve waited, I’ll settle for that Apart from his speech, he’s doing all the things on the leaflet the HV gave us last week - some of them he’s been doing for a long time (he started using an ordinary cup when he was about seven months old) and he’s doing some things that, according to the leaflet and the HV, children his age don’t do (like playing cooperatively with other children). So all is good

Tales from Earthsea tomorrow, courtesy of Schools Film Week

Do you want to know the biggest problem with having a larger-than-average family? The one thing that makes you wish you’d stopped at one child? The most frustrating issue in today’s family-with-five-or-so-kids?

You do?

Well, I can tell you. It’s socks.

In this house anyway - obviously I can’t speak for all families with five-or-so kids.

For years we’ve had a box in the bottom of the linen closet, into which all socks and underwear have been tossed after they were laundered. When the boys were younger, once every week or two we’d sit on their bedroom floor and sort through it, pairing them and putting them in piles according to who owned them. That worked well when a) I was the one who decided which socks to buy and b) there weren’t five pairs of feet involved. For the last couple of years, we’ve just used the box, with no sorting: when a child needed a pair of socks, he would go and find a pair. Except that as often as not, said child would complain that he wasn’t able to find a pair that fit. Quite how that could be the case when there are 72,406 socks in there, I don’t know, but that’s what they said.

Last weekend, as part of the Big Clear-and-Clean Project, we went through the box. It took four of us sixteen hours.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. It was a pain in the neck anyway. The all-in-one-box system clearly isn’t working anymore, so it’s been abandoned - in fact I’ve removed not just the box but the space on the floor of the linen closet where it used to sit. The upstairs vacuum cleaner is there now. (Yes, I have an upstairs vacuum cleaner and a downstairs one. Henry for upstairs, smaller Henry - known here as Henrietta, though I see there’s now an actual vac called that - upstairs. The downstairs one gets used every day, and having another upstairs means it’s easier to vacuum upstairs, so it gets done more frequently. Plus I got the second one off freecycle.)

Anyway, socks. Apart from the pairs of socks which have been given to various children to put in their sock-drawers, I have a big bag full of socks which don’t appear to have a match. I also have a box full of socks which have been matched, but which nobody admits to owning. Most of these are black, grey, or dark blue.

I remember reading advice from someone a few years ago who said that she’d bought a bunch of identical socks, all the same size, colour and design, which fit all of her children - the point of this was to eliminate any necessity for matching up pairs of socks, and the those-are-mine/yours-no-they’re-nots. Obviously she didn’t have children who were both twelve and two years old. In fact of all my children, the only ones who could actually wear the same socks would be George and Freddy.

Last year, I tried to buy them all socks which would make it very clear who owned what. The idea was that all the socks belonging to one child would be the same colour - or at least have an easily-distinguishable design, such as black-with-coloured-heels. I had no idea how difficult this would be; they don’t seem to make multi-packs of socks in one colour. You have to buy a pack with one pale blue, one dark blue, one pale grey, one dark grey and one black. And if you buy that for one child, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for maneouvre when it comes to choosing colours for the others.

I am still looking for ways to manage the socks - and the laundry in general, really. Googling these issues mostly produced suggestions like “store them in drawers in the laundry room” - which would be fine, except that my laundry/utility area is in the garage, so they’d be cold. (I know someone who keeps all her kids’ clothes in the laundry room, and makes them get dressed in there. If I had a heated room, I’d do that too. She also has a laundry chute. It’s almost sad how jealous I am.)

I haven’t written anything here since last Wednesday, and there’s no good reason. It’s not as if I’ve been busy doing anything else - quite the opposite, in fact. With no car, we haven’t been going anywhere. My friend S came over on Friday with her children, but apart from that, we haven’t even seen anyone else. I’m starting to feel cabin-feverish; I really, really hope the car is fixed by the end of tomorrow, because then I can spend the rest of the week going places. I also really, really hope the car is fixed by the end of tomorrow because we’re running out of certain grocery essentials.

If we’d had the car, we’d have probably been away at the caravan this week. Usually we can’t go until a Thursday, because of Beavers on Tuesday and Cubs/Scouts on Wednesday. But there will be no Beavers or Cubs or Scouts for the next two weeks, because the roof on the Scout Hall is being replaced, and the builders are starting today. As a result, I’ve a load of Beaver equipment in the garage - and also as a result, we’re going to have to re-arrange our programming for the next few weeks. We’re going to finish this year with lots of planned programmes we never used - but that will just make it easier to programme next year

Since we’re stuck in the house, we’ve been getting through as much “school” stuff as possible. (I still, after more than six years of home-ed, haven’t come up with a good name for the formal and semi-formal bits. Any suggestions?) I figure if we do lots of that now, we can take time off once we’re mobile again

I’ve also been getting lots of clearing out done, though most of that was done before the car went kaput, so maybe it’s just a phase I’m going through. Which reminds me, I’ve still got a moan about socks in my drafts…

Last week, after our flat tyre was replaced, I noticed the car was making a strange noise. We tried to get it looked at on Friday, but the mechanic was too busy. By Monday, it was worse. The mechanic said it was a wheel joint (or something like that - I’m really not very good at car-mechanic type stuff) and it’s not going to be cheap - and the part he needs won’t be in until next week. In the meantime, he recommended that we not drive very far, because it might seize up.

So here I am, without a vehicle, for nearly a week.

I did risk driving to Beavers last night; the only other option was cancelling it and we had a visit to the library planned. The library is only about 300 metres from the Scout Hall, so we set a trail for the Beavers to follow, using stones and bits of twigs to create trail-signs, then gave them a sheet of what the signs meant - it went down very well Barney and George missed Scouts and Cubs tonight though, and we’re missing a home-ed outing that was planned for tomorrow And I have no idea how we’re going to get groceries. Public transport around here is very limited, and the only shop within walking/cycling-back-with-groceries is currently closed because it’s being rebuilt. Hm.

Apart from that, it’s been a fairly typical couple of days. Barney’s mood improved dramatically after a decent night’s sleep, and we’ve been doing lots of education-type stuff - well, with no car, it’s not like we can go anywhere anyway.

Otherwise, highlights of the last few days have included:

Four of our five Postcrossing postcards have been registered on the site as “received” - which means there should be some postcards on their way to us soon - and I’ve had a message from someone in Belarus who particularly wants a postcard from this area, so we’re going to exchange cards with her too.

George and Freddy spent some time following the links from the Usborne site, from their Internet-Linked Romans book. (Every time I say that, I have visions of centurions with laptops.) They landed on a quiz site in which every correct answer gave them a chance to score a goal against a famous person. They were in fits of giggles aiming the football at GWB’s head

I noticed Jack using his hands for emphasis - he’s been doing this for a while, but it was only yesterday that I realised who it reminded me of: Ali G. What’s that about then?

I had a look at Education City and considered whether it might be worth a subscription. I don’t think we’ll go for it though, as I’m not sure what’s available on the site justifies the cost of registering at least two and possibly three children.

Jack, trying to sound out the word “crisps” - which he calls “crips”, which complicated it slightly: “cuh, rr, ih, sss, puh, sss…” - then, under his breath, obviously trying to make the picture fit the word: “packet…”

Freddy, using “the words in the box” to “fill in the gaps in the paragraph”, wrote “The sun is… opaque.” Well, yes, I suppose it is. I think they might have been going for something else though

There was something at dinner tonight that made me think I must blog it, but I can’t remember what it was. I wouldn’t have remembered half of this post without my Twitter archive; I really must have another look at updating my Wordpress installation so I can use the Twitter plugin to stick my tweets in automagically.

For the first time this week, I was actually awake and functional all day long - certainly moreso than yesterday, which was largely spent almost-horizontal. George and Barney did go to Cubs and Scouts respectively in the evening, though George’s friend R didn’t make it, since he had too much homework. He’s in his last year of primary school, and his mum (a nursery teacher) spoke to his teacher, who told her that two hours a night is about right for that age. Astonishing.

Cubs and Scouts went well, apparently, and nobody brought any badges home to be sewn on, which is just as well since most of the last lot aren’t sewn on yet.

This morning George cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast (muttering all the time - he mutters a lot) while the others did their jobs around the house. Barney seemed particularly helpful this morning; the reason for that became clear later

By lunchtime George and Freddy had done some maths and Barney had worked through quite a bit of his French textbook; it’s mostly just refresher for him right now, but he’ll soon be at the same point as George (who’d gone ahead while Barney was away). I’m not sure how it’s going to work - maybe they’ll work together, or maybe Barney, not needing to absorb the vocabulary and structure, will forge ahead - but we’ll work it out when we get there. When Freddy went off to investigate what we could have for lunch, he reported back that there was nothing to eat. I was a bit disbelieving, and sure enough, investigation revealed a wide variety of options in the Big New Fridge alone, before even opening the cupboards. Lunch was more or less a fend-for-yourself affair; Barney was the last to eat and I had to laugh as he walked into the kitchen and announced, “Right, hand over the bread and nobody gets hurt!”

Scratchy did some errands for me at lunchtime - a shower and shower-rail that I hope will work in the boys’ bathroom (it’s too long for a standard curtain-pole) and a copy of Anne Frank’s Diary, since Barney and George are going to do a project on it. We’re reading Carrie’s War