I have no kids in the house. I fell asleep in front of Angels and Demons (which I never do - so much to do!) and now I can't sleep. I am in work tomorrow and Mr Gherkin is not. Why is this happening? Aaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!

counting my gifts

I am lying in Little Pickle's room with a sleeeping pickle in my left arm and a crick in my neck. I love this. That I have time to do this and that he lets me do his. `He has hand foot and mouth disease but is a darling with it and I am exploiting the opportunity to sneak a sneaky cuddle whilst he snores in croaky dreamland.

Not too tired to blog

I am very tired. I have been up since 0535 with Little Pickle and at 0255 before that. It is 0013 now but still I feel the need to blog just to prove that I have not forgotten about this little baby too! Days are too short, nights even shorter. I will be up again in five hours and will put in a full day of "work" with my boys; yet still I look forward to hearing those first cries in the darkness from my little ones as it means that the fun is going to start again!

Always, Sometimes, Never

Great idea pinched from Whimsy Love

I ALWAYS : wish there were more hours in the day

regret eating sugar

lock up

love 'night night' time

tape stuff and never get round to watching

I SOMETIMES : remember to put make up on before leaving the house

have OK hair

get pins and needles in my arms because I sleep with them above my head

blog!

have great ideas at night that never materialise in the cold light of day

I NEVER : find time to read the books I buy

buy wedding outfits in time for weddings

leave food on my plate

do txt talk

make time for enough important people and hate myself for that

Time for Me

The hen weekend was a blast - just what the bride-to-bee wanted. There were 12 of us in 2 cottages by the beach in west Wales and we spent the entire weekend drinking wine, eating amazing food and celebrating being girly. It was a revelation for me as I can't remember the last time I was on my own for a whole day without having to be somewhere for someone. I could just be there for me which was so blissful! I had no mobile phone signal in the cottage, only when walking on the beach so I had plenty of time to just be by myself (and with the rest of the girls!) and be a girl myself - not a wife, not a Mummy, not a daughter, just me. I had forgotten what it was like to just be me and, well, what a nice girl I can be! It was good to go out and just take the things I needed and not have to cart around coats for the boys, wipes, nappies for Little Pickle, snacks for all and sundry and a pushchair! I had a wallet, cash and a phone and a jacket. All mine, just for me. It was very liberating and I spent the first few hours quite off balance and thinking that I had forgotten something or someone or that I should be thinking of someone else. It took me ages to realise that it was just me on my own. I liked it.

We spent Saturday doing outdoor activities like archery, clay pigeon shooting, pistols, baseball nets, crazy golf, scalextrix, go-carting and the competitive side of me came out. I thought I would be great at the baseball (decidedly average), good at scalextrix (crap), OK at archery (crap), good at crazy golf (good and terrible = average) OK at go-crarting (poor), good at pistols (average to poor) and OK at clay pigeon shooting (absolutely amazing!) I was disappointed with my overall performance (joint 7th) but chuffed to bits with my clay shooting! I was awesome and scored 56 points where the second placed person scored 26! Thank goodness for the performance which bucked up the rest of my scores! I will clutch on to that victory for a while and try to forget my crapness in the other things. I may become a markswoman. Shame I loathe and detest guns really! I was quite touched early on in the day when a bloke from another team who I know from about 20 years ago when I lived with my parents, came up to me and asked if the other girls knew about my "sporting prowess". I used to be good at sports in school but I had not seen Chris for years and years and was surprised he remembered me let alone that I was into my sports! That comment boosted my ego at the start of the day and made me all the more disappointed by the end!

School for Cornichon

Well the last 3 weeks have seen Cornichon start 5 afternoons a week in nursery of the local school. It has been quite stressful but is getting easier day by day. Today was good. He started crying at 9am with the plaintiff cry "I don't want to go to schooo-oool!" which lasted for a while until we went to toddlers at 10 then he was OK over lunch in a cafe (his usual crying trigger) and then did not cry at all on the ride to school nor in the waiting room nor when I left was he walked into the classroom! This is good! He responds really well when I tell him about how proud of him I am that he did not cry at all and about how I think about him whilst he is in school. Sweet boy!

Little Pickle seems to enjoy the time on his own with me too - we managed a trip around Asda at warp speed (for me!) and had plenty of time for playing with the steering wheel whilst waiting for Cornichon to finish. Poor sweetheart is not sleeping well at the moment and seems to just want me there in the room with him when he wakes. I must have spend an hour last night lying in the bed in his room shushing him - so much my lips were sore from all the pursing! I hope he sleeps well tonight as he is with Granny and Grampa tomorrow and Nana and Grampa on Saturday because I AM GOING ON A HEN WEEKEND!

I am super excited about this - it will be nice to spend some time with just girls and have a break from a male-dominated household! Don't get me wrong, I love life with 3 boys band I have never been a very girlie girl but sometimes it would be nice to spend some time putting make-upon on without any background comment or question! And there will be wine too...

Here's to a lovely weekend with the girls and missing my boys!

Get OUT of the 90s

I have finally (in the second half of 2009) taken the plunge and had my hair straightened! After having brown (ALWAYS brown) curly hair for nearly 34 years and flying in the face (or fringe?) of fashion I took the crazy step of havingmy hair dried straight in the hairdressers this afternoon! Crazy fool! E-E-Everybody has their hair straightened and I have never been one to experiment in the slightest with my bonce let alone spend half an hour drying it and straighteneing it. I am much more of a leave-it-in-rat's-tails-after-the-shower-and-let-it-do-what-it-wants-then cover-hands-with-too-much-sticky-stuff-and-rake-rake-rake-it-bigger kind of hair-grooming routine. Today I had a wash and a cut (usual nothing exciting to make it curl up again request) and the hairdresser asked if I wanted her to dry it straight or curly. "Curly please!" was my immediate response and then I challenged myself and thought about the road less travelled. I asked her to try it straight and spent 20 minutes thinking how much I hated it and it made me look blurry and plain and ill. Then the straightening irons came out, slick... swoosh... swing... and here I am with lovely smooth shiny long locks! I really like it! Mr Gherkin loves it too - he said it was like having another woman in the house! Me liking the noticing! The boys are not here so I did not freak them out with it. I am sure Little Pickle would have had his hands in it soon enough anyway!

I am sure by the morning I will be back to stubbornly wavy curly hair but it was nice to be sleek and chic for a change instead of bedraggled. Note to self : seek out straighteners on freecycle...