Today:

• Akra Jr and Li’l Bhaji woke in the night at 2am and 5am respectively.

• Li’l Bhaji managed to kick me right in the left eye – hard enough for me not to be able to open it properly for a good couple of minutes afterwards (although no permanent damage done, fortunately).
• Akra left his lunch behind.
• Cleaners turned up over an hour late resulting in a very grumpy and overtired baby (as I couldn’t put him down for his nap).
• I forgot that a money box Akra Jr had made at nursery was still in the bottom of the pushchair… I folded up the pushchair and crushed it :(
• Akra Jr had a small nose bleed.
• Li’l Bhaji has a long cut on his bottom. I have no idea how and only a vague idea when he managed to do this. Fortunately it doesn’t look too deep – just a surface scratch (but enough to draw blood), unfortunately it looks very sore.
• Akra Jr had a major melt down due to overtiredness and had to have a nap in the middle of the day.
• Akra was late from work, making the evening meal juggle even more stressful.
• The wind blew off the pot Akra Jr was growing a sunflower in (well, there was a seed and some soil and we occasionally remembered to water it), losing all the soil and the seed.

It didn’t surprise me at all when I noticed that it was Friday the 13th… So, how was your day?

Update: Akra has just managed to drop something on himself in the garage and bruised the top of his back/neck. Not serious, just sore… Is it the end of the day yet?!! Please?!!

I know this site is doing some odd things at the moment – not least freezing up for me when I’m in the behind-the-scenes admin screens. MT is rapidly becoming bulky, slow and unreliable for me.

I do have big plans to move this site over to WordPress and Akra has started to design a new site for me which should be all singing and all dancing (and more importantly, be an awful lot more stable) but has been rather snowed under with work and not been able to work on it for ages and is unlikely to be able to for a while yet.

So, please accept my apologies. And please do stick around and bear with me. I am aware it’s less than optimum, and there are plans to do something about it. Eventually. ARGH!

A quick snap of my gorgeous Li’l Bhaji who is no longer a baby today – he’s now the grand age of 1 (*sniffle*!)

I have discovered a niche market for a brand new invention for the nursery.

You know those screens you get to hide everything when you’re having a caesarian? Well, one of those, only baby sized for the change mat to stop the little toe-rag having a rummage every time he gets a Heineken Poo*.

*those really gross sticky poos that reach parts other poos don’t reach…

Does anyone else’s husband/partner/significant other pick up waif and stray computers on the way home?! The number of computers in our house was almost down to under double figures, but he’s just adopted this sad and lonely Mac he just found lying around…

… so much for my dreams of an uncluttered desk in the new study!

I meant to post this wonderful article on thrift in the Times a couple of days ago, but the excitement of spending too much on birthday parties carried it out of my mind…

It’s actually a really good read, if only because it’s positive, funny and very well written. It’s actually inspired me to get back into watching our money more carefully rather than just put the fear of god into me like most money articles seem to do. I did once have my budget well under control, but it’s creeping onto the side of unruly again with the extra expenditure the extension has entailed. I can and will get it back under control again.

Mental note for next time – shopping locally doesn’t just make sense for foodstuffs.

It was time to get Akra Jr’s feet measured again, and as his shoe size hadn’t changed for a long while it was sort of inevitable that he was due for a new pair (his old pair being substantially battered too – we certainly got our money’s worth with them), but with school coming up in September, wanted to get him a pair of trainers and a cheap pair of sandals for the summer, saving the pair of shoes for “best” for later.

Also, now Li’l Bhaji is cruising well, and he wants to spend more time outside with walking toys, it was time to get him some soft cruising shoes too.

So, off we trot into town ready for Clarks to bleed us dry yet again… *sigh*. At least this time we had chosen a Sunday rather than a Saturday, so there wasn’t a huge queue. However, we still ended up there for a good forty-five minutes with a sales assistant, though extremely helpful, really did not know her stuff with small children, a bored pre-schooler, and an extremely pissed off baby who did not want his foot forced into yet another inappropriate shoe. The first batch she brought out were “real” shoes NOT cruising shoes as we’d emphasised at the start – horribly clumpy and potentially very damaging for little feet. Li’l Bhaji then started getting wriggly and curled up his toes in protest, making it almost impossible to get any other shoes on. She couldn’t answer questions on prices, ranges or the “special club” thing you’re supposed to get with the first pair of shoes (at least Li’l Bhaji being a second baby, I wasn’t that gutted to have walked out without a dodgy blurred polaroid of a fed up baby with new shoes… first time around though I’d have been a bit upset). I hate the fact that Clarks don’t put price tags up anywhere obvious making comparison (and budgeting) really difficult. I hate the fact that I feel a captive audience because of the impression you get that if you buy cheap shoes elsewhere they might not have been fitted properly and you’re dicing with damaging the delicate bones in your child’s feet.

We came out with £44 of footwear and a pair of sandals on order, because (surprise) they didn’t stock the one we wanted in Akra Jr’s size. And to be honest, it really is my own fault and laziness for not researching elsewhere. Now I have done my research and I have a couple of names of smaller chains in town who stock a wider range of children’s brands including Startrite. At least we’ll be better prepared when we get to do it all again in six weeks time… argh!

The party is over. The party was a success. The party is done for another year – yay!

Highlights: lots of fun games, a big blow up tunnel maze, food that was actually edible and lots of fun pressies to take home.

Lowlights: out of my final list of 19 children that was confirmed with the community centre party company last week, 1 child cancelled two days before as they were away for the weekend, 2 children didn’t bother to reply to the invite and didn’t turn up, 1 child came down with conjunctivitis and 5 children went down with chickenpox. So it was a rather more cosy party of 10 making it a very expensive party per head – ouch! Plus, the party ended with Akra Jr losing his newly given birthday boy helium balloon.

Still, we all had lots of fun and a party isn’t a party if the host doesn’t sob his heart out in the corner for at least part of it.

Thank god it’s over.

One major achievement this year is that Akra Jr managed to cope with his fear of the “Happy Birthday” song a bit better. Yes, for some strange reason, our eldest LOATHES having Happy Birthday sung to him – it’s a huge phobia. No idea why as to our knowledge there has been no bad event associated with it – maybe it’s just the whole centre of attention thing. It might be connected to the fact that he used to hate clapping as a baby too. Either way, he’d been worried about it all week but we made a deal that he would always be cuddled while it was being sung to him. At nursery, his favourite nursery worker filled the roll, today he buried his face into my shoulder until the singing had stopped, then cheerfully blew out his candles. Bless.

Next stop – Li’l Bhaji’s birthday on Wednesday. Will I survive May intact?!

So. Today is the day where my little man turned four years old. Wow.

I just can’t believe that he’s 4 already – it’s gone so fast. I am immensely proud of him and can’t believe that Akra and I have created this exuberant, cheerful, good-natured little being (he certainly didn’t inherit most of those traits from me *grin*)

He’s been a little star today and had a fantastic day with more excitement to follow tomorrow (his party). Unfortunately, we’re down by almost half the guests due to a bout of chickenpox doing the rounds! Still, I’m sure they’re all going to have tons of fun (and most importantly, it’s being held at the community centre, not my house!)

Crap local MP who I tactically voted against because he always passes the buck whenever I contact him and is generally up his own arse just telephoned us to see which way we voted.

Here’s a clue mate: you’re supposed to do the canvassing BEFORE the General Election not after it.

Twunt.