A few random things, because I feel the need for an update but last night The Daddy came home with not-one-but-two bottles of wine and then somehow after drinking the one it made perfect sense to drink the other, except the second one was a white and I have started to realize that white wine makes me feel less than good. Also, I may well have drunk more than my fair share of it and then worn thermal PJs on what turned out to be a very warm night and woke up this morning WISHING I WASN’T HAVING TO WAKE UP.

Dehydration is a killer and not a promoter of incisive thought, and the only rapid solution for me is to guzzle vast amounts of Gatorade. I happen to quite like Gatorade, but there was no way I was fitting in a special trip to the supermarket today so, *sigh*.

I suddenly realize that I don’t exactly promote myself here as the picture of health and vitality. Please know that behind the scenes I sometimes even eat fruit and vegetables and am a “Yoga Master”.  At least my Wii says so, during my six-weekly workouts, although it occurs to me that it also has the T-Bot convinced he is an ace at bowling when in real life, let’s just say he is very familiar with the gutters. But right now, I’ll take it.

At the moment I am drowning in parcels. Coming in, going out, of all descriptions. Family, you have been very  generous, and I can’t wait to see the kids faces on Christmas Day. I am so sorry I have to repay you by not managing to get your Christmas cards and in some cases, gifts, to you before the day in question. Um, Happy New Year? And truly, sorry…

I also did most of my Christmas shopping for the kids online this year and those boxes are arriving. I am secreting everything in our linen cupboard for now. (Look at me, all la-dee-da, pretending I have linen, rather than a motley collection of old towels and mismatched cotton bedsheets). Exactly how stupid am I? I forgot to remove the “linen” first. So that cupboard is fairly groaning and also I can’t find a towel without waiting until the kids backs are turned and hurriedly pulling everything out.

I am still getting Christmas orders, which makes me happy, and they need to get turned around and shipped out as quickly as possible also. Did I mention that the staff at the Post Office know my children well? Some shipping I can do online, but with my current setup it is not always possible. I need to change that, urgently. But sometimes change is such hard work.

Something else which makes me happy: tonight the T-Bot and Baby Sister are “camping out” in the T-Bot’s room. I put their mattresses down on the floor and they pretend the room is a tent. They went through a stage of wanting to do this quite regularly, and then T-Bot grew up and wanted to read in bed before sleeping, instead of snuggling in to tell ghost stories. He also realized at some point that little sisters are a pain. But he was in good mood tonight, and willing to tolerate her sharing his space. She went to sleep with a big smile on her face.

We are really getting into our stride with school, and now that we have a routine, of sorts, it is becoming more or less second nature. I am willing to admit, though, that it was a mistake taking Baby Sister out of “school at school” (as it is now called) on Mondays. I thought she could join in our activities but in reality, between her and The Wictor, T-Bot and I can never find a quiet moment to get anything done. So I decided that we will do what we can on Monday mornings, and then have science hour on a Monday afternoon.

This week we tried some activities from our Usborne Book of Science Experiments: we made a worm farm out of an old apple juice bottle and put pieces of cement and mortar chipped off the house into a glass of vinegar (scary, what vinegar will do to mortar in just a few hours). My favorite activity though, was a real crowd pleaser. We dropped raisins into a glass of Sprite and watched them go up and down, up and down, “like that man who tied balloons to himself and floated away” (T-Bot. What have they been watching now? ). Then, as usual, I got out the balloons. The Wictor discovered that if he threw his balloon onto the lawn over and over it would oblige by popping, and then he could whine for another. Baby Sister just wanted to bat her balloon and make it float. And the T-Bot made an artificial lung with his by putting it on the end of his Airhogs rocket launcher and pumping air in and out.

I know, that all sounds quite impressive doesn’t it? Come visit me on another day, when I will still be in my pyjamas at 11am.