Our Young Rocker

Hubby has a lot to answer for! I always wanted my children to be musical. I love to sing and hubby is a guitarist, so of course music plays a large part in our household.

However while Ray loves her nursery rhymes tapes and to watch old musicals like ‘Seven Brides For Seven Brothers’ or ‘Mary Poppins’ Jay can more often be seen ‘rocking out’ to ACDC or Queen.

He was bought a plastic guitar for his birthday in August. It has been dropped so many times that it no longer plays music, but it works great as a prop. He is so attached to this piece of blue plastic that he often sleeps with it.

Tonight?after collecting Ray from her tap and ballet dancing class?I found?Hubby, Jay and baby D in the living room watching a Bon Jovi video. Jay was prancing about the room pretending to play lead guitar (he has the rock pose perfected!) his microphone and stand was set up in front of the TV and he would sing a few incomprehensible words into that once in a while, with the occasional break for a bang on his bongo or a keyboard solo.

Poor Ray wanted to put on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast so she could show us her new dance, but Jay stood in front of the TV telling Ray that it was rock time and refusing to turn it off.

Even when his dad is at work he makes me put on?the rock cds (these can be ACDC, Metallica, Meatloaf, Queen, Bon Jovi, Led Zeppelin, I could go on and on and on!) and shouts “louder mummy louder!”

I love it that he likes music, and for his third birthday we are definately going to buy him a proper childs guitar and teach him to play. But I would have much rather that he got my taste in music, which is much more sedate.

Its bad enough that I have had to listen to cheesy rock for the last ten years when hubby is home, but to have to listen when he isn’t is just pure torture. Whats worse is that?I am not allowed to sing or dance along, because apparently?I can’t rock properly. Dad is free to join in, and Aunty O got a lecture last week for not strumming the (pretend) gutiar properly. But mummy must just watch, admire and if I am lucky I get a go on the bongo!

Lazy?.Me? Never!

If a stranger was to walk into my house any day of the week they would take a quick look around and declare me the laziest housewife that ever lived. I would love to be one of those women whose house you could visit at any time, day or night and never find a thing out of place, but it just isn’t me.

In saying all that I don’t feel lazy. To be honest I feel like I never sit down.

I have three very young children (4, 2 and 6 months old) who take A LOT of care and attention. Hubby and I run a business from home, and amidst all this I am trying to make a home and forge a bit of a social life for me and the kids in a new town (well we have lived here for almost 3 years, but up until this year we didn’t know a single soul!).

I think the problem must be one of organisation. Hubby and I have tried rotas (at least 10 different ones over the years) and none have worked for more than a week. This is usually because I do my bit for the week, hubby gives up after a day and then?I stop in protest.

When rotas fail I?often try to impose rules upon myself, for instance

Thou shalt not leave the house until the breakfast dishes are washed

But what if the dishwasher is full of last nights dirty dinner dishes and there is no more room for cereal bowls?

Another rule was

Do at least two clothes washes a day and make sure to iron, fold and put away any clean laundry as and when it arises.

This just doesn’t work for me. I can cope with loading the laundry into the washing machine, hanging it out (or bundling it all into the tumble drier) and folding it (I don’t do ironing/pressing). But after that it builds up in piles all over my dining room until it collapses into an unsightly heap a week later and I have to spend half a day refolding, sorting and putting away.

The problem with mine and hubby’s bad domestic habits is that they are starting to rub off on Ray. She detests tidying after herself and can often be heard bribing wee brother Jay to do it for her. He is still at the stage where if you call him “mummys little helper” often enough he will act as a willing slave.

I feel another?clearout coming on! Every so often we blow our tops and spend at least half a day blitzing the house. The problem is that we usually give up after a few hours of clearing closets and cupboards, at which stage the house looking worse than when we began.

I console myself by saying that my kids would rather I spent quality time with them, than spent all my time cleaning and tidying. That won’t last forever though, what will be my excuse when they grow up!

Chickenpox Has Made Us Social Outcasts!

Just as Ray starts to get over the chickenpox, and stops waking every half an hour at night with the itch and pain, spots start appearing on Baby D’s face. We now have two casualties.

Typically this weekend was supposed to be packed full with activites. We had a birthday party on Friday, a meet up of our old Mother and Toddler group on Saturday and I had a hen night to attend on Saturday night.

Everything had to be cancelled, we didn’t want to pass the illness to any other kids (or pregnant women) and I didn’t feel it would be fair to leave the hubby alone with the kids if they were waking all night.

So as cabin fever set in we have been trying to occupy all our time without watching TV 24 hours a day. I felt most sorry for Jay who is perfectly well and rearing to go, but hasn’t left the house in days. Hubby took him out for a country walk in the snow on Friday evening which he loved and my sister took him out for the afternoon yesterday. It may have been to Tescos but he loves any individual attention at all, and was thrilled to be getting in a different car and to be eating grapes while being pushed around in a trolley without his sister poking his ear.

We spent this evening making cornflake buns, getting a long bath to remove all the chocolate that was left on our hands faces and legs (?)?from?licking the bowl, and then eating the cornflake buns. During all this I must have received at least 50 kisses from Ray and Jay and?was told at least 10 times that I’m a “good mummy”?who is loved “a million, million, million”!

So all in all the weekend at home was well spent, and the house is a lot tidier. We have buns, about 100 snowflakes made by Ray and homemade birthday cards a-plenty. Maybe we should try staying at home more often!

Learning To Write And Draw.

For a while now Ray has been experimenting with letters and attempting to write words such as her own name. I have been undecided in how to approach this issue.

On one hand you often hear that you shouldn’t teach your child to write before school age as you may teach them differently to how their teacher will, but on the other hand I don’t want to discourage her when she is so interested in the whole concept of reading and writing.

So I have decided that while I will not actively sit with her and pressurise her into learning to write, if she shows an interest I will gladly help and encourage her in any way possible.

Today we experienced quite heavy snowfall and could not leave the house, so in a bid to occupy the wee ones for a while I got out the coloured card, scissors, markers, glue and other arts and crafts paraphenalia. Ray decided that she was going to make a card. Jay being his sisters greatest admirer followed suit.

On the front of Ray’s card was a big mis-shapen heart, inside she made me write ‘I Love You’ which she then copied underneath, and on the back I wrote daddy’s name which she also copied, she finished the master piece with a gorgeous picture of ‘daddy’ in which he had HUGE toes, a tiny torso and the biggest smile this side of the Atlantic.

She then declared that this was daddy’s chritsmas card and asked me to hide it with the tree and decorations for him to find next christmas. Unfortunately, Ray was never known for being able to keep a secret and spilled the whole thing within two seconds of her dad coming home. But the thought was there wasn’t it.

Jay of course had covered his in coloured scribbles, circles and very basic trees (one big branch with about 4 coming out of the top) which I think is quite an acheivment for a 2 year old!He stood and proudly watched as Mr L hung the cards on the fireplace.

For a day that started so badly (we were up a lot of the night with Ray and her itchy chickenpox, then Jay woke the house at 5.45am) the children and I had such a lovely time. While watching them draw and experiment and test their abilites (which included baby D learning how to get about in his baby walker) I realised how glad I was that the snow had kept us at home, and once again how glad I am to be able to spend so much time watching my children develop. They seem to be changing every single day!

How Do You Make The Leap?

Mr Levee and I set up our own business over a year ago. We both work part-time, mostly at night when the three kids are in bed, and Mr Levee has a full time job during the day.

Day after day he finds it harder to go into work. His company have become increasingly difficult to work for and constant financial cutbacks have made his role more demanding and stressful. Ultimately the goal is to leave his ‘proper job’ altogether and concentrate solely on our business.

The problem is, we have three very young preschool children, one large mortgage, and only one proper wage coming in. We are not even nearly at the point where we could risk it all by chucking in the day job and still pay the bills.

It’s a bit of a vicious circle, we can’t afford for Mr Levee to leave his job, but while he works full time we can’t take on very much work as we don’t have the time to manage more than a few projects at a time. We can’t even effectively market our services in case we get a lot of interest and can’t meet the demand that is generated.

So whats the solution? I have no idea! Do we take the risk, get a bank loan and try the business out for a year to see if we can make enough money to support our family, or do we concentrate on Mr Levee getting a new (probably less flexible) job and ditch the business altogether.

All answers on a postcard please!

The Curse Of the Chickenpox!

Ray has chicken pox. This one caught me by surprise as we thought she had already had them last year but obviously we were wrong!

Almost exactly one year ago Jay came out in a rash on his face and neck, the doctor diagnosed chicken pox, a few days later when Ray got 3-4 similar spots we assumed that she had just contracted a milder dose.

So when a few weeks ago the dreaded illness began spreading throughout her nursery, I heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that Ray and Jay have been there already, and baby D hadn’t been in contact with any infected child.

I first noticed Ray’s spots last night. Just a few on her face, I hoped they were just blemishes and nothing serious. Imagine my surprise when she woke this morning with her face, neck, torso and everywhere else covered in horrible bright red spots.

As the day went on the spots multiplied at an alarming rate, it seemed that no sooner had I looked away and back again than another few appeared.

Our wee girl coped brilliantly. She milked it of course….she just had to have a chocolate bar because she was so sick…..could she have her favourite sleeping bag…..her favourite juice……her favorite movie, but all in all she handled the pain and itching better than I would have!

She has been quite restless tonight though. And is waking frequently complaining of a sore throat, and mouth, where the spots have now spread. The doctor has said that we are doing all we can by administering calpol, piriton (an antihistamine) and calamine lotion as often as possible and that other than bathing her in baking soda there is little else we can do.

I hate it when the wee ones are ill, I feel so helpless when the medication doesn’t work and they are so miserable and sore. I hope this passes quickly and doesn’t spread anywhere else. Also I am praying that baby D doesn’t take it, as at only six months old I don’t know how he would cope with such pain and irritation, and much of the medication is for babies over the age of 1, so he would be afforded even less relief than Ray.

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