Amos has returned. He had a good time, went to the cinema, science museum and made brownies. Was, as expected, very blase about travelling on the train by himself, despite not having done so before.

The girls are driving me madder, as they tend to. Constant bickering mostly, though covering half the dining room in flour when I wasnt looking didnt impress me greatly either. They were making biscuits.

I still have Hallie here, who has in general been fine. She does have a tendency to fuss over the oddest things. Its an attention seeking thing, and I refuse to play that game. Once she realises this, shes fine, and amazingly is no longer bothered. All of them are going to a non halloween party tomorrow, and I think she can go home after that. I will probably take advantage of them all being elsewhere and go to tescos :-\

When not trying to referee children, I've mostly been addicted to a game on facebook, Bubble town. I cant get past level 13 though :(

Having slept as much as possible, and done very little for a couple of days, I am at least now feeling as awake as I get. And am definitely looking forward to the resumption of peace when children all go away again!

Its now 10 months since I last had any alcohol, and its moments like this when I jsut about have kids in bed and asleep that a glass of something cold, dry, and wine like really appeals. Roll on January \o/

I want to sleep. All the time again :(

I wish I could work out what triggers these periods of such tiredness. I forget how bad it is too.
And its so fecking frustrating, I can get so little done when asleep or wanting to be asleep.

Its half term, so no morning rush, but I do have the kdis around. I've put Amos on a train and he's gone to his aunts (exes sister) for a couple of days, and have gained Hallie (friends daughter) til, erm, she goes home again. Most the time its more peaceful as having someone else here reduces the fighting a little

Nothing else to report. I am off to try and stay awake til I can get away with sleeping again

I have just been listening to radio 4 and quite frankly I'm shocked. I know there was a warning at the start of the show that it contained strong language, but I didnt expect it to be THAT bad!!

Prepare yourselves, unbelieveably, and before the watershed, Marcus Brigstoke said, ....Ironing !!!

I will be complaining ;)

I keep forgetting to blog. Oops

Went to a quiz at Amos' school last Friday. The pta is new, been going for about a year, so werent very many people there, but I had a very very good time. Really enjoyed it. Abby won a box of choccies in the raffle (she was the only one of us with any money) and we were invited to join another small team, that was mostly teachers. We came 2nd \o/ This is actually better than first, except from the bragging point of view, as 1st got 2 bottles of wine and 2nd got choccies :-D

Saturday I did nothing \o/ Sunday I did nothing \o/ Well, I beat the girls at cluedo, did a jigsaw with Amos, went to church, washed up, cooked, all those sorta things, but not much else. Went to the pub as usual. Won the quiz \o/

This week I have looked after Jonathan for 3 days while his Mummy was at work. Not for much longer though, as she goes on maternity leave soon, and does appear to be counting down the number of shifts she has left ;)

Nothing much else happening. Cat seems to be fine now. I shant take him to the vets to check, I'm poor enough already ty.

Oh Holly had 'Myths and magic' day at school yesterday. Its halloween related in my mind and I dont really like it, but never mind. Holly doesnt own any dressing up stuff like that, but Bethan had a spare outfit she borrowed. Theres a certain irony in her going as a devil!

Abigail came out of school and Tuesday and announced it was parents evening. What, today? says I. Yup. Shit

However her teacher still had lots of spaces, and so we dutifully returned 2 hours later and got told shes perfect :-D Always works hard, always happy, polite, pleasure to have in the classroom. Doing very well, in top sets for everything they are setted for.

Then Wednesday I had a routine parent teacher meeting with Amos' tutor and got told similar. Thud. Thats first time ever with him. You can tell she's only his tutor and doesnt actually teach him ;) However she did say, attendance is excellent, behaviour ditto. Doing well, amazing high cat scores (no, i dont really know what they are either). Apparently it shows that he's very intelligent. Dozy woman told me this news as if I didnt already know it!

I moaned about homework, and she was 'grateful for the feedback'. Encouraged me to email her over anything. I also pointed out that their targets for him were way too low. She was saying stuff about being a level 6 by the end of year 9. He's a level 6 now fgs!! Well, a couple of marks short, so ought to be damn soon. I did also for the first time ever get told what his reading age is. 15. This I'm told is impressive, and that most 11 yr old boys are way below their actual age even. Once again, it is not news to me that he is an avid reader! She mentioned their library, he and I pointed out that he's already on his 3rd book from it.

The lovely Claire has been having a clear out, and she has kindly given me a new (to me) bed. So I took the old mattress to the tip and happily threw it away, and let Amos destroy the base. Apparently the wooden frame is being turned into a go cart. I'm not asking. With the room bedless, I even painted some more. Thats 2 more walls down \o/ Once i've sorted through/moved the rest of my stuff I can do the last one and finally it will look something like a grown ups room. Then all I'll need to do is find a grown up ;)

Today I spent the morning at the vets. What joy. The silly cat appears to have been in a fight, and one leg is swollen. He limped his way to his breakfast this morning :( He's been jabbed with anti biotics and I have anti inflamatory's to give him for the next few days. £66 !!! Lets just hope he gets better, or I get to take him back and hand the rest of my money over next week

Nothing else worth blogging about.

I am stressed. Very stressed. Fucking kids. I dont agree with Amos' schools current approach to homework as it is, but thats a different rant. Suffice to say he has had 3 weeks to do some history thing. He has to pick a person, event, discovery or invention, and produce some work on it. It is due in tomorrow, he has jsut started it. He keeps moaning he doesnt know what to do, thinks that a scribbled bit of paper will do, and whenever i've asked/suggested anything has jsut grunted dunno, and done fuck all

So I've got a bit of paper, written his intro for him, done him a structure for it. Told him what thing to put where, explained that he cannot just use wikipedia as his sole source, and found him some other suitable pages on the net. He keeps wondering off to watch fucking scrubs, and does not seem to understand that i'm pissed off that he's wanting to use my laptop for all this. There are 3 pcs in this house, one in his bedroom ffs, this one is MINE.

So powerpoint isnt working cos i need a licensed copy blah blah. I have one, I jsut dont know where the authenication key thingy is. So I told him, use open office. I dont have that on my pc he says. Fucking download it then! I am perfectly prepared to help him with his homework, but I am not writing it for him, nor am I going to accept the argument that 3 or 4 scribbled lines, full of spelling errors, is better than nothing, and therefore in his mind, will do. Something that is meant to have taken him 3 weeks WILL involve a draft version!

I have now burnt dinner while trying to sort him out too

Someone, please, tell him that teenage behaviour is for TEENAGERS, and that he is 11!! He's been a total brat recently, winding up his sisters loads, irritating the hell out of me, and got kicked out of church youth group for part of it yesterday for being a little git there too.

Rant over. And now, I dont yet feel any calmer, so dont chose now to annoy me!

Oooooh, forgot to say. We won the quiz last night!! We are happy bunnies :-D