So, what did you all do with your extra free day? (not much of a bargain is it? Only 0.27% extra free… you’d have thought with all the years we’re clocking up, the least the universe could do would be to give us an extra month or even a week…)

We seem to be trying to cram in as many extra chores as we possibly can, with Akra making a start on the baby’s room (and constantly muttering about poor plaster skim and peeling paint as he goes); me sorting some shelves out, doing the weekly shop and starting to cook a lovely roast dinner; and even Akra Jr doing some living room remodelling (a.k.a. messing it up).

I’m sure I remember somewhere something about Sundays supposedly being restful?

“There’s a monster in my room!”

Goodness knows what the original noise was, it made us jump too – our best guess is that something flew into Akra Jr’s window. We had a good look around inside and outside the house and couldn’t see anything amiss, but try explaining that to an understandably nervous two year old!

He’s had a nightlight for a few months now – we gave in to his growing unease of being in the dark. I worry from time to time whether it’s good for him to never have a period of “proper” darkness to sleep in and it’s true his sleep has been more disturbed lately, but it’s hard to tell if that’s part of a normal toddler’s night fears or a negative side-effect of the reassuring light.

I’m generally more of a push-over than Akra when our son tells us he’s scared at night. I remember all to well the terror as a kid when you wake up suddenly, unsure of what it was that woke you, being all alone with whatever is out there… trying to clamber over furniture so you could turn the light on without your feet touching the ground unless a monster hiding under the bed grabbed your ankles. Maybe it’s just a sign of a very active imagination!

I don’t think I ever totally grew out of my fears of the dark – Akra still laughs about when I refused to turn the light back out after we’d been woken one night by our bedroom bookshelves collapsing with a loud crash. When Akra was working away during the week I found it very hard to sleep soundly and was hyper aware of any noise in or out of the house. If Akra Jr woke up during those times I almost encouraged him to sleep in my bed, so if there was any intruder at least I would be able to protect him – the sort of paranoia that sounds completely insane during daylight hours but makes very real sense at night.

So yes, Akra Jr came in with us last night. None of us got a very good rest as a result. I completely admire parents who manage to cosleep with their children, or perhaps they have bigger beds or less wriggly offspring. Or perhaps they’re just better at sleeping through it.

Either way, I’m hoping tonight will be a silent one.

I have been astoundingly efficient today, so I’m going to blog about it so I can generally brag and feel smug. I’ll be back to my disorganised self tomorrow though, don’t worry.

We’ve got into a bit of a rut with meals recently. The same old same old is ordered from Sainsbury’s To You every week, mainly because I do my menu planning and grocery ordering on a Sunday for delivery Tuesday. I usually forget all about it and end up rushing through it late evening, desperate to get on with collapsing for the night and mind completely blank about what we should eat. Invariably, I just copy the menu plan from the week before and change a couple of things.

Don’t get me wrong, Akra and Akra Jr haven’t been complaining about this lack of varied diet, but I’m bored and starting to worry that I’m not doing us any particular favours.

So, today I did a massive brainstorm and made a spreadsheet with everything that we ever eat on a semi-regular basis separated into the categories: breakfast, lunch, dinner, vegetable accompaniments, puddings, and snacks. I’ve been realistic and included convenience/quick things as well as a few easy cook from-scratch favourites – things that we’ll all enjoy eating without me feeling I have to spend hours in the kitchen every night. I’ve really impressed myself with the variety and range I’ve come up with from just an hour of sitting down and thinking about it properly.

Making a list like this is probably terribly anal, but I’m rather relieved that planning the week’s shop is going to be a lot less effort in future – lack of inspiration is no longer going to be my achilles heel.

Is anyone else having a problem with Technorati‘s watchlist system? I set up a watchlist for this site at the beginning of this month, and duly payed my $5 USD for it to be emailed to me daily. Paypal took it off my card immediately.

A couple of days later, I still hadn’t received an email summary from them, so I went back to the site to view a summary of my watchlists only to find there wasn’t one there – trying to set it back up again took me through to the payment area once more, so I quickly backed out of that.

I’ve sent two emails to their site querying what’s gone wrong and had no reply. Okay, so it’s only $5 and probably isn’t worth chasing, but it’s still really aggravating. Have I just been unlucky or have other bloggers had problems with this site?

Government Unit Urges ‘Fat Tax’ and in the process completely utterly loses the plot.

Okay, in between muttering “nanny state” under my breath, I can sort of see the warped logic behind taxing fast food, but apparently food groups also targetted are: “fresh butter, cheddar cheese, full fat milk” – EH?!

Oh yes, far better to have margarine with all those delicious healthy chemicals to it. No, make sure you don’t encourage dairy, don’t want people to have any bones left by the time they’re forty, do we?! Um… full fat milk? HELLO?! Vitally important for the brain and bone development children under the age of 5 anyone?!

It’s official, the world truly HAS gone mad. Full fat milk, I ask you. It’s only 4% fat! That’s 96% FAT FREE! (Hell, that’s better than a Go Ahead bar, isn’t it?! And certainly has a lot less sugar content).

Simple idea. Why not STOP selling off school playgrounds. STOP closing down the local rural primary schools forcing kids to be bussed or driven miles to school. STOP banning exhuberant playground games in case a kid trips over and sues. START spending more on decent, edible school meals. Problem solved.

… it’s an achievement if you manage to take a shower or a bath & hairwash.

Discuss!

My first draft of the front cover (thanks Alan & Miss L!)

Please keep the quotes coming – I still have the back cover to design yet!!

I am now on to the fun part of cover design for the hard copy of The Funky Mongoose. I’m trying to model it on “real” books and thought it would be fun having a few one or two line quotes of “reviews” – you know the sort… “Spectacular, exciting read – The Guardian”.

So, I’m going to issue a plea for help. Want to be quoted on the cover of a book that could have a circulation of a whole 3 copies?! Now is your chance. Quote can be silly, frivolous, completely unrelated to the book (hell, you don’t even have to read it) – this is just to make the cover more fun.

I’ll pick my favourites for the cover! Thank you!

In a fit of organisation last night, I decided that I’d like to make up a compilation CD of suitable music to play at home to relax me when I go into labour. I started to sort through the tracks on MusicMatch to see which would be appropriate.

I complained to Akra half way through, that I couldn’t find my Deep Forest album anywhere. He gave me that particular look that only a long-term partner can give when he knows you’re being particularly silly.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering,” he said. “You’ll only end up playing Five at top volume. Actually, having Radio 4 on would be just as good. I know, I’ll make a compilation CD of every Blunkett quote and news item – you’ll be so busy yelling at him that you won’t feel a thing…”

Hrmph.

It’s not often doing the weekly shop gives you a bit of a giggle, but I occasionally get a laugh out of the shortened product descriptions the various companies use online.

Now is it just me, or does “Sainsbury’s Perform + Protect Limescale Toilet Destroyer” give you the totally wrong idea for what the product is meant to do?!

Do you think that’s what really happened with the exploding loo in Hanley?