Mummy at the School Gate

I'm sitting in my office (as usual) l ooking out of the window, and it looks like the world has stopped.  Saturday morning and one week before Chrsitmas and the roads are as dead as a dodo!  The postman has just knocked at the door with a parcel so it seems that some services are well worth the money!  I certainly didn't expect anyone to rock up to my door today.  The road outside is unusually quite ( apart from the fact that the road hasn't been gritted) and the few cars that pass by are driving incredibly carefully, although there are the odd one or two which whizz by...guess they have snow chains as is their confidence. The kids and the dogs are playing madly (particularly the dogs) in the garden building igloo's and snowmen!  At the moment we have around four snowmen of varying sizes, we did have six but Peewee decided to urinate on one causing it to collapse and Mimi kicked the other one to death!! Mimi is now sitting in the kitchen moaning that she can no longe

I always love being  centre stage and am a bit of an attention seeker (as Jude will testify as during a recent disagreement she accused me of "wanting to be the centre of attention"! True, because I always am! ), so why is it that my kids try to hide in the shadows if the focus is shone on them?  I want them to be confident, well-rounded individuals, and if that means taking to the boards and strutting their stuff while being a donkey or a star, then so be it.  I want them to do it without the fear of making a fool of themselves. There is nothing  wrong with laughing at yourself, and everything wrong about taking yourself too seriously! I'm not a pushy mother (unlike Marion, who forces her kids into delivering a word perfect performance) , and I'm not a competitive mother (unlike Stella, who'll force her poor babes onto the running track at 6 am because "they show a talent") , but base my methods on  more of  the nurturing, encouraging school of thought

I belong to a forum and have spent the last couple of years contributing my fivepee's worth.  I know I don't always get it right but try to be as diplomatic as possible without ruffling any feathers, and I think I've done not a bad job even if I say so myself.  I hope I've been supportive and looked at all angles of the picture before I throw my words into the circle. Without doubt, the forum has saved my sanity if not my life.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that "stuff" has been bad in the past year, but without the my "daily fix", I'm not sure I would've come out the other end.  I've made friends with people I've never met, and they have offered my words of support and comfort.  Some of them I have now met ( we've been going through the same stuff ), and I can say, hand on heart that they will always be a friend. However, there are some on this forum that will never be my friend.  Some that ruffle the feathers of others

I love new technology and am the first to embrace new methods of communication, but Facebook?  It is the absolute limit!! I spend hours and hours each day (when do I ever have time to work, you say?) , playing stupid games, looking at friends profiles and finding out what they're doing, and trying to find old friends who probably wouldn't add me, as they would've kept in touch with me anyway!  Hand on heart, I can honestly say, that I find it an absolute waste of my time. A few months ago, one of my "friends" kept sending me "gifts" from Frontierville. I was intrigued as she seemed to be having a better time than me and I don't like being left out. So I started with Frontierville, which was fun for a while.  I then had to install a "pit" which meant I had to join in with other games, which also meant that I had to play other games to get the gifts I needed for my pit.  So Cafe world, Mafia Wars, and Farmville joined the ever growing lis

After spending the past 2 hours in the garden clearing away the winter debris I came across a lot of poo (very clearly Bart hadn't done his naughty chore!), scattered all over the lawn!!  I have no idea who is the culprit, but Chubba has been trained to "go" in the bushes, so I have to assume the Peewee is to blame (very clearly Chubba is not doing his job either!!), unless we have a great Dane visiting! I wouldn't mind so much if it was to the side of the lawn near the borders, but as I was walking over to the veg garden I must have stepped into about 10 pats...which were the size of a cow or at the very least, the size that I assume that the visiting great Dane would do!!!  They are massive!  As you can see, from my exclamation marks, I'm in shock. Peewee is half the size of Chubba.  The bag I collected from the garden must weigh more than Peewee, himself. In fact I can honestly say that the bag was bigger than Peewee. BH told me that there was a lot of poo,

This morning after I dropped the kids off, I met up with Marion for a quick coffee before I braved the crowds.  I was hoping that it would be quite and I would get a place to park, but obviously as everyone had the same thought I spent 20 minutes fighting to find a parking space.  No sooner had I spotted one than some great 4x4 swooped in to the space I had earmarked for myself.  Luckily I escaped unscathed, but I saw a couple of arguements happening and was rather pleased with myself that I didn't have to fight with anyone. Anyway, I met with Marion at Starbucks, and all I can say is that she was red-eyed and puffy faced. I have a feeling that she had been crying all weekend. She told me that she had gone to the office after she left us last week and ransacked the office.  She found, stashed away in the filing cabinet, his credit card statement, and information that she needed to confirm what she wanted to know.  She didn't go into too much detail, except to say that she sma

I find it really easy to swear and have a list of choice words up my sleeve, which I can use on a regular basis depending on who I am speaking with.  I find it hard to swear on paper though! BH swears like a trucker and often does it front of the kids which sends them into either a paroxysm of giggling, or into lectures of anti-swearing.  Now, I'm the first one to be disgusted when I hear a small child using foul language and often blame the parents...but I live in a glass house so I shouldn't be throwing stones should I?   I don't always notice when I'm swearing and I know BH doesn't either, but being reminded by your small children that you swear like a trooper is a little bit of a shocker.  A lot of the time I do it for effect and humour, but sometimes I forget where I am.   This morning I caught Finn telling Miriam that she was a "biatch" because she was making him put his toys away.  When Miriam protested and told him he was a "scumbag&quo