Being a Sap

With total and utter predictability the one night I try and get an early night I can’t sleep, so I shall share my mundane worries with the (anonymous) world.

Tomorrow I have to go to a conference and present a paper about my work.  This involves an overnight stay.  I am a grown-up, this should be no biggie (as Buffy would say).  This is how many ways I could cock up the whole affair.

Mess Monsters

There are many times since having children that I’ve wished – purely in the interests of scientific comparison, you understand – that I had webcam access to other people’s lives.  And with every year that passes I become increasingly convinced that I’m not doing the practicalities of parenting properly. 

Mission Nap

Well this lunchtime we have been trialling the Battle of Wills © nap-plan.  This has followed a week of Katie quite forcefully insisting that she no longer required a nap. 

Surprising Science

Today the older two, my mum and I went to the Science & Engineering day at the university:

Harry had originally sounded less than thrilled at the prospect of spending his Saturday in this way, and it’s kind of hard to sell the concept to a 5 year old.  But from the moment that we got there and he clocked that there were coloured footprint trails to follow, he went into excited puppy mode.  Charlotte was a done deal from the outset, the possibility of activities on a non-school day a sheer no-brainer for her.

A lunch date

The highlight of my day was having lunch with Harry, something they used to do every year when Charlotte was at the school but it’s been the first time I’ve had the chance with H.  I don’t know if they’ve thought of tying these things in with the school’s fundraising efforts, but they should as they are deeply sweet and guaranteed to melt even the most hardened old cynic. 

Terrifying Tuesdays

Tuesdays are fast becoming my most fraught day of the week.  They are supposed to be a working at home day, but once you’ve had children working at work is very much the substandard option.  It is for good reason that I am always first one in the office on my office days. 

Pottering with Style(s)

Today is most definitely going to be an unearth-shattering entry, and as I am teeming with hormones it would need to be.  Mother’s Day, which has of course involved some extremely cute cards from H & C.  Harry actually gave me his (a bejewelled windmill!) after school on Friday.  I’m not sure timing is going to be his thing, but he very expertly went through the 29 kisses with me, which is clearly guaranteed to make a grown woman well up.  Charlotte takes these things much more seriously, and carefully explained her thinking to me behind various aspects of the design at 6.30 this morning.

Exits Right and Left

It’s really been a strange day, and this is not at all the direction that I thought this blog would take.  But if I am now indeed to blog then it would be weird not to recount these incidents.

Looking over my shoulder for a beginning

I have just read the most beautiful, inspiring blog (www.edspire.co.uk) and it has convinced me that I have to finally let go of my vanity and get back to writing about my children again.  When I was pregnant with Charlotte I started writing a pregnancy, and then a baby diary, on a baby website.