Out of the mouths of babes

Tuesday night - doing battle with my eldest over the dishwasher never a truer word said...



My daughter only has 3 main jobs that she has to do - Practise her cornet, do some reading, and unload/load the dishwasher.



At the end of the school year, all the kids get tired and ratty and to be honest dont want to do anything job-related, but as was with the reasoning on giving Aimee the dishwasher job, i think kids need to do the boring jobs so that they learn that life isnt always sweetness and light, and so the dishwasher still needs to be done otherwise we will be eating off paper plates !





So Cornet practise was done, then the complaining starts......





I dont want to........... its your job





But its boring .............. it may be boring but boring jobs still have to be done





continued on in this fashion for 35 min - would loved to say that I was cool, calm, and collected but alas not... my arguement was if you spent less time complaining and using that time to get the job done you would have more play time





Any way in the end job was done....hooray!! so off to bed she went, forgetting that she had to make her bed,



Aimee: 'There arent any sheets up here'

Me: ' go downstairs and see in the dryer - thats what I was doing today, the boring jobs so you have clean sheets'



so she turned to me and said 'THATS AN EASY JOB ITS ONLY MOVING THEM FROM ONE MACHINE TO THE NEXT' !!!



I was laughing that much - all I could say was ' isnt that what doing the dishwasher is??'



Made me think though..... thats technically all I do all day...





School Run - Move kids from home to school
Washing - Move clothes from one machine to the other
Cleaning - Move dust from one area to the other
Cooking - Move food from one place to another



Even when I go to work...... I move paper from one place to another



so basically a stand off on ONE job summed up my day completely,



My name is Andrea and I am a SHUFFLER ..... ho hum .......

Nature v's Nurture

I was always one that thought that boys and girls behaved depending on how they were raised, but how come I have 2 girls (9 & 5) who are proper girly girls, they seem to have fairy dust that follows them with all the glitter that is thrown around,they play princesses and school and are so engrossed in paint and sequins that it looks like an explosion in a factory,

Then comes along my son (2)( who's daddy is admittedly a footy nut but the football is mainly on in the evening after bedtime) who thinks nothing of using the lounge as an inpromtu football pitch and really boots the football (maybe another Gerrard on our hands), who sits under his highchair pretending to be in a car driving, and then lies under his trike with pencils pretending to fix it like a mechanic.

Maybe its a genetic link as Hubby used to be a mechanic but changed jobs before son was born, who knows, all I know now is that I now have Princesses riding round on Thomas the Tank Engines, and still go skating on a strategically placed car every now and again - ahh well crash helmets at the ready!!

spring cleaning in La La land

Being a parent involves several skills that you won’t find in any parenting book, you will need all the peacemaking skills to give Kofi Annan a run for his money and all the secrecy and espionage to put James Bond to shame. The latter of which was put into practice over the past week, I braced myself and battled my way through the waste ground that according to our house deeds is a second bedroom commonly know as my daughters bedroom. As we have our two daughters sharing a room we cant really afford to have it too messy, which is where I come in, while the kids are at school I go in like a stealth bomber and blitz the whole room, so that when they arrive home from school everything is pristine (for at least 10 min !!)
Last week it took me 2 days, I managed to get 7 bin bags full of junk out of their room, (don’t know where from) and after those 2 days it didn’t look any different – why?
It does get easier though, before, when my youngest daughter was only in playgroup for a couple for hours in the morning, I had to move fast, tidy, dust and dispose of rubbish down to the tip before picking her up, couple of times we were late, daughter all seatbelted up in car, picking up binbags that start playing all sorts of tinny, tinkly music when you pick them up, so there we are unpacking all sorts of trinkets never used but as soon as I try and throw them out they become treasured possessions (until next time !!)
Which brings me back to last week, and my 7 bags of rubbish, and the icing on the cake is a 2.5ft tall La La courtesy of the teletubbies, hasn’t been looked at for the longest time hence the top of the rubbish pile, as the clearing had taken so long we were late to the rubbish tip so had to go after school pick up. Down to the rubbish tip we go, 7 bags of rubbish into the skip, no problem, soon as we get to La La, youngest daughters bottom lip starts to wobble, oh ohh….. so back home we go, trip to the tip over, and we have a visitor with us, yes La La has decided to extend his visit with us indefinatly – so now he is back home, gracefully decorating the kitchen floor, twice I have moved him, along with the several times the baby has tripped over him…… seriously outstaying his welcome…….till next time !!!

Isnt it funny how life catches up on you!

Just the other day I went to the shops to buy a magazine - nothing unusual there but isn't it funny how your tastes change as you get older, and reflects where you are in life- years ago it was the Beano comic then, Smash Hits and all the teenage angst, through pregnancy magazines, and the inevitable diet ones to follow after the bundle of joy was born (although I'm still on the dieting ones !!) and now I am at the other end when articles are starting to look interesting in Prima and Good Houskeeping - yet I can assure you that I most certainly dont feel older than I did when I was buying Smash Hits, which brings me to today, and here on blogging, taking a few moments in the day couple of times a week to catch up, get my head straight to tackle the rest of the week as a busy, wife and mother it takes time to get organised - so through the blog as it develops hope you enjoy the little snippits that I share with you on here - and welcome to my world x x x