Mud & Mischief

My back is stuffed again.

I was sorting out a big pile of yarn with Mom (don’t ask) yesterday morning, when there’s a knock on the door. I jumped up, hopped over the stash of bags and stuff and tripped slightly over the stair gate we use to keep RJ out of the kitchen.

Get to the front door, open it to see a delivery bloke there with a big box in hand. I take the box, turn to put it on the floor in the hall and next thing you know, I’m on my knees.

Delivery bloke looks scared and about to bolt. I think it’s only his loyalty to the small electronic gadget in his hand which requires a signature that is keeping him at my door. That and it probably administers an electric shock if he dares leave the premises without a scribble on the screen.

Mom obliges with a scribble and I spend the next ten minutes trying to regain my feet with what I can only describe as a 240v charge coursing through my lower back.

During the course of the day, the agonising muscle spasms relax their hold somewhat, and by bedtime it just felt like there was a taser attached to my right buttock.

Today hasn’t been much better. I had to dig out my old elbow crutches to help me walk about, as it’s bloody inconvenient and a tad distressing for the children when I collapse in a heap without warning when my sciatic nerve goes on the blink.

So, I have come to a decision. One of the things my doc pointed out was the excess weight around my waist that is a contributing factor to the stress on my lower spine. It’s not exactly a spare tyre, more like a full set of spares for the Michelin man. I am going to set myself a goal of shifting a stone in weight (14lbs for my North American readers) by the beginning of May. I’m 36 this year, and we’re of on holiday the week before my birthday, so I want to be able to wear a regular swimsuit instead of the maternity one I’ve been clinging onto for the past 9 years. No, I’m not brave enough for a bikini and I don’t think Portugal is ready for such a sight.

Slimming World is going to be my diet of preference. If that hasn’t shifted a few pounds by the end of the month, I’ll switch to the Rosemary Conley one, as I’ve a couple of her books. Here’s crossing my fingers and locking the fridge door that I can achieve my goal.

To everyone for lovely comments and emails and cards. It’s feels good to know there’s so many people thinking of us.

The funeral is on Friday afternoon - my Mom is coming up to sit on the girls, as I don’t think it’s appropriate that they go to a funeral yet. They’re still way too young to fully comprehend what’s going on. Although Myf did show she has at least grasped the edges, by asking if we could go to Poppa’s this afternoon, as opposed to asking to go to Grandma’s. I think she does know what it means in theory, but it’ll probably take a while for the reality to sink in.

Piglet’s temper continues to amaze and astound me. Where does she get that hellion streak from? Terrible twos nothing - this is full on screaming, defiant rage. And her excema is worse, so it’s probably combined with that. She’s completely off dairy, so I have no idea what is making her arms flare up like they have. And her legs, the back of her neck, top of her buttocks… poor little mite. Although she did announce the other day that her left arm was her picking arm and her right arm was her scratching arm. Eurgh, revolting child.

She made me smile in the bath tonight though - I was leaning over the edge holding her yellow boat. “That’s MY pirate ship,” she states in that defiant tone that means she knows she’s being obstreperous. I just stare at her and say ‘manners’.

“Please may I, uh, this is MY pirate ship.” Clutching it to her chest.

I give her the raised eyebrow.

So she puts the ship back in my hand.

“Thank you Mommy, please may I have my pirate ship back please?”

All big blue eyes and damp curls. Little cow.

Tea and Myf seem to be enjoying school. Tea is delightful, whimsical, very hard on her clothes, has perfected the blank vacant blue-eyed stare, autistic-ly stubborn and uncommunicative at times, capable of babbling for 20 minutes straight without a breath at others, is by turns clingy and independent, and is actually perfectly lovely.

Myf is 6 going on 16, with her “Kevin and Perry” attitude and bullying manner towards her sisters. She’s also very loving, bright, smart-mouthed, eats everything in sight (except meals that involved potatoes that aren’t fried or rice - wants bread and butter instead), stroppy, opinionated, and bloody minded. And I don’t have a clue how she ticks. Still.

And Piglet (in addition to the previously mentioned temper) is adorable, selectively deaf, bolshy, rude, huggable, grey-hair-inducing, bad-tempered (had to mention it again), precocious, incredibly loud and still the baby. Just.

I remember reading about a book called ‘Raising your spirited child’ and think I’m going to have to search it out, as Piglet is developing definite ’spirited’ characteristics. ie, she’s too bloody minded for her own good. I have absolutely no control over her whatsoever. Which is depressing to admit, but I think I need help! And I’ve tried everything from the ‘naughty step’ to smacking her hands, to taking away toys, to ignoring her, to getting down on her level and ‘discussing’ it - I wonder if they do those electric collars you can get for dogs in Piglet’s size? As it might just be the only thing that can stop her in her tracks when she’s tear-arsing away from me towards a main road.

I have resorted to using a wrist strap, and she is oh-so-not-amused. Even patient explanations of ‘walk holding my hand and I’ll take it off’, couched in terms ranging from baby talk to grown-up Anglo-saxon have failed. One of those studded harnesses you see people walking Bull Terriers in would be useful.

Here’s a gratuitous Land Rover pic, to reassure you all that normal service will be resuming shortly. “Seeing Double”.

Taken at the Gaydon show a fortnight ago, ours is on the right.

Have noticed a distinct lack of anything remotely educational in this blog lately. So thought I’d try and rectify that, and list all the neat stuff Myf has been learning in the last couple of weeks.

A few new words added to the vocabulary.

Counting how many times in one day that Mom says ‘bloody’ about something.

Calculating the spread value of a box of lego 45cm long by 28cm wide and filled approximately 8cm deep, give answer to the nearest single decimal place, allowing for extra coverage under the rug as well as on top of it. If it doesn’t reach the skirting boards, factor in the addition of a box of cuisinaire rods, the Barbie accessories and the tub of pattern blocks.

Count how many times Mom says “bloody” when she sees the results of the experiment and calculate the percentage increase caused by said experiment over a standard day’s worth of “bloody”s.

Read the directions on how to assemble a 600mm wide kitchen unit. Collect (when Mom isn’t looking) all tools listed in the instructions and put them in a nice neat pile on Mom’s computer chair.

Start a bar chart for the “bloody”s when she can’t find her drill bits and screwdriver.

See if Piglet’s scream really is enough shatter glass by removing, at every available opportunity, which ever toy she is quietly playing with.

Test Mom’s patience to the limit by adopting a ‘Kevin and Perry’ style teenage attitude and do things whenever she is so buried under kitchen stuff that she can’t extricate herself in time to stop the bloodshed.

Ok - that backfired. Am now more pissed off than I was at the start of this. And the best bit? My builder just went to get his hair cut. He is so dead when he returns…

(edited to remove password - have cheered up now so thought I’d share)

Oh yes - we have room to move. In fact, the playroom is now an integral part of the downstairs rooms. Yesterday they fitted skirting board, loft hatch, cleared the floor and removed various bits of machinery. James brought home a huge piece of carpet that had come out of his parents’ house a while back and spread that out on the bare concrete. He vac’d it, put the dining table, 2 drawer filing cabinet and a few stray boxes in one corner, and suddenly, we have a table to eat at and a huge big empty space in the dining room! The children are ecstatic, and have spent today demolishing all three rooms. Why is it the mess created expands exponentially to fill the space available?

And the reason for the flurry of activity? I lost my temper (eta with the builder!)

And I don’t mean I got annoyed, irritated or snappy with him. Yesterday morning, I lost the plot completely, for a variety of reasons, not least being the fact he’d left his phone at his mother’s and therefore hadn’t had any of my texts to say he had to pick up the plasterer along with half a dozen bags of various plastering compounds at 8.30am. So 9am came and went with no plasterer, 10am came and went… at this point I should have been heading out of the house to pop to Asda then over to Kirsty’s for lunch.

10.20 and I found the phone book, rang his mother, got a tad upset at her and asked her where her son was as it was a week until Christmas, I had three small children in my house and no kitchen or running water. She said his phone was sat right in front of her on her table.

20 minutes later, he appeared, very sheepish and looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. When he told me he’d ‘lost’ his phone, I saw red and, well, let’s just say I’m a little ashamed of myself.

I turned into a screaming banshee. Never, ever, in my life before have I had someone back away from me going ‘calm down’. I think I genuinely scared the kid. I dragged him to the kitchen window and pointed out the hideous mess out there, telling him in no too uncertain terms that I was rather pissed off with not being able to let my kids outside. Drragged him to the front of the house and pointed the skip and piles of concrete and sand and stuff out there and told him the neighbours had been complaining. Dragged him into the kitchen and pointed the appalling mess, into the dinig room to point at the dust and the crap and the piles of everything onmy dining table and that my kids were having to eat on the living room floor due to his fucking imcompetence and that I was *this* (holds up finger and thumb an inch apart) fucking close to fucking killing someone and that he was at the top of my fucking list and that he better pull his fucking finger out before I lost the plot completely…

*draws deep breath*

I have no idea what I must have looked like, as I was a swearing, sobbing, furious, screaming mess. I have never lost my temper like that before. Ever. It was most disturbing. And also, in some ways, most theraputic. He’s now tiptoeing round me like you’d tiptoe round a live cobra…

But I have had one of his ‘lads’, Aaron, here all day, clearing, tidying, shifting stuff, doing bits I’m pointing out; the plumber is here plumbing in my sink (poor guy didn’t know I had a list of stuff for him to do - he thought he was here to tighten up a drippy joint). Aaron is now fixing the skirting boards in the kitchen. I’m also having trouble typing as I’ve got yet more plasters on my fingers, but I also have a nice stretch of counter top and my cupboards along the far wall are all fixed and level and in place ready for me to put the doors on when the plumber has gone. Will blog pictures later.

There - see if anyone googles the name and finds that. And to illustrate the statement -

My kitchen window as it looked yesterday evening, until I spent until gone 2am clearing all the cupboards and surfaces.

Half way through trashing the kitchen. Chap removing tiles isn’t a builder, just a friend of the builder. Brick dust and crap everywhere.

And this is what it looks like now, at 11pm. And James and Dale are still working, James had to remove the rest of the rubble and crap that they left lying around all over the place in piles.

And the stupid fucking idiots didn’t do the one thing we asked them a dozen times to make sure they did - they didn’t seal up the two doors out of the kitchen into the rest of the house. So the entire house is half an inch deep in brick dust and grit and crap and I absolutely fucking furious. I put Piglet in her bed tonight, a very poorly coughing, rather warm Piglet, into a bed that was full of dust. I shook her duvet out and got a face full of crap.

I did these today - put 6 base units together, as our builder is unlikely to get the wherewithal to do them before Valentines day. This little far corner of the new kitchen looks halfway habitable, doesn’t it?

Appearances can be deceptive. Am also having trouble typing as have shredded hands chipping off tiles, clearing up rubble and putting units together. I like flat pack though - must be my masochistic streak showing.

The contents of the old kitchen, strewn all over the dining room, and half an inch deep in dust. So much for stacking all the plates and cereals and stuff on the table so we could use them over the next few days. Extra crunch in your cornflakes anyone?

And a final image of my lovely truck, parked on a pile of screed that has set absolutely solid. And as it’s halfway across the drive, we’re having trouble fitting both trucks on said driveway. As it won’t move (having been left out int he rain by the idiot builders), James decided it needed some ornamentation.

are mutually exclusive.

And there was me vowing to only blog positive stuff. It’s one bloody thing after another. Ho hum. Engineer supposed to turn up today - never arrived. 25 minutes on hold, finally spoke to a nice chap who then couldn’t get through to the service engineering company. I didn’t laugh that much at him - but filled him in, at length, on the number of menus I had to go through (14, redialled twice, got a totally different set the second time) to reach him.

Engineer now coming out Friday. Same day as TV chap. Hopefully between them they can resurrect the Movie Channel and Boomerang, or I’ll be facing a mutiny.

Myf finished Explode the Code 2,though, with honours. There’s a dictation bit in the back, kind of a test - she did it perfectly. Apart from putting a few stray ‘c’s in words like drinck. Excellent spelling - the 10 lines read:
1. brick blinck drinck
2. cross crest crust
3. slept swept swift
4. stand stamp stink
5. held help honk
6. drink drift drips
7. grand grass grant
8. spill spend slept
9. trunk trust truk
10. lift left felt

Ahh, that’s where that stray c in drink came from - the truck in line 9. I am very very proud of her for doing that - she then announced that was fun and can we do some of that everyday. Oh, I think we could manage it.

What should be my new kitchen.

I’m standing with my back to the gate we normally come in through, the back door to the house by my right shoulder. New white kitchen doors on right, opposite that, over pile of wood next to hutch is door to store room and laundry room.

The playroom. Complete with two inches of dust, uneven floor, missing bits of skirting board, cement splathered doors, hole in the ceiling (top left behind wall). And when you consider that black chair my normal perch, you can see why I’m not impressed at having to sit amongst that lot!

Just a small section of the crap that’s lying around in my beautiful garden. Can’t even safely get to bottom of garden to retrieve the duvet cover that’s been on the line for days.