Holly "If you are mean to me again...

... I'm leaving. I'm really going to go. One more time. I'll go, and I'll marry a REAL boy and you won't see me again. Ever. If you're horrible just one more time. Or I'll go to an orphanage and you won't see me again. Ever."

me "Ok."

"Unless you visit the orphanage."


Oh and our holiday starts tomorrow; Liam, packs..!




Honestly, boys...

I love this... my fave advert at the moment...

... and a good wee website.

DRINK WATER!

"I can't de-popcorn my head... and it's all Dad's fault!"

"Do you know what my favourite popcorn is? ... ... yummy head to toe, yummy head to toe, yummy head to toe!"

Much hilarity.

We are all at it.

Popcorn mad.

Liam Baldwin you have a lot to answer for. I'm just glad that this one wasn't the "soundtrack of a 1970s Swedish porn movie." Now that would have been some fast action.

It is now officially the school holidays... hurray! Well, hurray for some. Me, I'm working all bar two days. Not quite sure it has sunk in with Liam that he has both girls at home all day for 2 weeks...

...

... actually maybe it has because he's fallen asleep on the sofa whilst watching bad science fiction. Obviously saving brain cells, while I chatted on Skype with my friend Thomas in Finland. I love Skype and I love Couchsurfing... It is so cool being in touch with interesting people around the world.

Here is a picture that Diana in Romania sent me last night...

Daisy by Diana V - 2007

I love it. x

Thank you again, Diana. x x

We've just had a request from a lady and her family who has offered to bring us as much home-made plaited Swiss bread as we can fit in our freezers... gosh... I hope she comes... yum, yum

Essentially...

... an annoying day, full of annoying people, doing annoying things, which annoyed me...

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!


But, I'm trying to be good by getting a box of 'old stuff' together for Holly's harvest festival thing tomorrow. Not because it is churchy, far from it, but because they are going to an orphanage in Tanzania that a friend of ours has been too. In fact I'm sure I wrote about him raising a fantastic amount of money for them last year; and he delivered new mattresses to them. This year it is things such as pencils, pens etc. So I'm raiding our overflowing drawers and sending them. Along with some glue and shiny stuff and a few stickers too. Not much, sadly, but hopefully they will be enjoyed a wee bit.

Off to polish my wonky halo...

Who do you love, Daisy?

"Kate"

"Do you love Mummy?"

"No. Just Kate."

Mummy bends to lovingly kiss her youngest child. The blonde beautiful girl looks up at her mother and says:

"I love Kate. I just do. I just love her."

The other day we had to come to the compromise of her loving Kate AND Mummy before disowning started.

Tonight said spawn-of-all-things-horrid put on her Father's glasses and with a cheeky, cute grin said

"Who do I look like?"
"Daddy!"

BIG GRIN. She takes them off.

"Who do I look like now?"

Being silly I say

"Holly"

"No. I look like Kate. (a beat) Kate and you."

Disowning is still not off the cards... she's just so damned cute!!

(all that was because I couldn't remember the funny cute thing they said this morning)

Ah! I just remembered about Holly and her crisps. We buy very expensive Organix crisps for our kids because they are not fried and full of nasty stuff. They'll get plenty of that when they are older. Anyway, they love them. That is until now... school time. They have until the last few days been making up H's play piece. Then one day she announced that they were for toddlers and she wasn't eating them. Thinking that another child has been telling her this (and it is true that they are generally given to toddlers, but many kids her age and older eat them too) we tell of her other friends that eat them and that she normally eats them etc etc. She then announces that it was her teacher that made the claim that they were 'baby food crisps'. I hope that is NOT true. I don't want a teacher of all people putting my child off healthy food.

It has to be said that the claim has only been made by Holly who, tonight, (when out of no-where decided she needed to again justify her not eating the crisps), she told me that Luke (her sight neuron) had clicked the mouse on his computer and now she couldn't see the crisps, so she couldn't eat them. He then did that to all the neuron's computers so she couldn't see, smell, taste or touch the crisps, making it impossible for her to eat them.

"Oh... and I couldn't hear them either"

She helpfully explained when she realised she might have left a loophole...

... I'm going for a lie down... for a long time.

Phew... I survived the Flu Clinic!!

I was on reception today at the surgery... lots of staff shortages, still, and our newest receptionist on holiday for 4 weeks!! eek! So, a lot of Laura and I covering reception (we are the new admin gals... er... actually it isn't official for Laura yet... oh, cripes I hope I haven't jinxed her... especially as that would be like jinxing myself... NOT GOOD!). Others are helping out too, but we (esp Laura) are doing the bulk of it. Today, I was on, on my own, from 2pm, and at 2.10pm I realised Laura had left me with no instructions on how to 'do' the 'frantic flu clinic'. *Gulp* So I sneakily sent her a text saying 'help!!'. About 20mins later I got a call which basically said

'right you do this, then that, and if that hasn't been done you need to do the other, unless of course you're doing whatsit. OK? Right bye.'

:-(

I felt a bit miffed.

However, when I started looking for the said stuff and starting doing the thing, it became clearer, and I managed to cope through it with only one minor mistake.

To explain a little further; The clinic is full-on 30+ people arriving and leaving for 2hrs. It finishes at 5pm. At 5.10pm I got a phone call from Laura apologising for her less than sympathetically helpful earlier call. She only JUST got my text and the earlier call was off her own bat and on the understanding I had done it all before... We giggled.

Ok, it was funny to us.

We have a practice manager, yeehar! Well, almost. They haven't officially started yet, but they were offered the job last night. THAT is going to make a big difference and get us another step closer to normality at work. It's only taken 6 months!!! Hey, that's nothing, it will nearly be a year before our full time receptionist will have been replaced.

The other good news is that I will be getting 2 days off in the school holidays... doesn't sound like much (and to be fair it isn't), but considering that up until last week I wasn't getting ANY days off, I feel really chuffed.

We better use them wisely.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

oops... nearly forgot!

But hey, here I am... I know, I know, it's only the first day, and I nearly didn't make it to this, so I think that's pretty good.

What has happened today? See, this is why I don't bother, not a lot happened today. I was up at 7am to tend to the toileting needs of the girls, while Liam slept. I then made tea and brushed my teeth, while Liam slept. I went for a ½hr lie down, while Liam slept. I got the girls dressed with minimum fuss, while Liam slept. Then downstairs for breakfast for the girls, and into the shower for me, while Liam slept. Then dressed, while Liam sat around in bed watching me and wondering why I was a little miffed!!! grrr

Nipped into surgery work to setup something I forgot to do on Friday when I wasn't feeling well and I remembered about at 5.30am this morning. Then onto hotel work. Got everything done, just about and almost impressed my new line manager, who by-the-way has a really annoying habit of coming to have a meeting with at 4.55pm and keeping me there until about 5.30 (I usually leave at 5pm!!).

Went for a cup of tea with my mum on the way home, which was lovely especially as it was dry and sunny and just warm enough to sit outside with coats on. And after being stuck in an office with no windows all day, until 5.30, it was especially lovely.

Got home to a house full of girls; Naomi had come to ours from school and Liam had taken 3 girls to dance class!!! What a guy. :oD Very proud of him. It also works out nicely because our friend Debs will take Holly after school tomorrow and take her to shinty, so he gets an afternoon with just Daisy after nursery. Thank you very much, Debs xxx

Then tonight had a lovely bathtime with Holly and Daisy, Liam did stories and I have been sat here 'chatting' to Debs and Gaenor... excellent!

Now, I'm going to bed because I'm working all day tomorrow on reception, not my favourite job, and it's normally my day off... boohoo for me. However, poor Laura was there for a 10 hr day today, on her own with Practice Manager interviews and flu clinics happening around her... she is amazing!

OK, I'm away... see you tomorrow... ???