A day in my life

It's the 14th again, so time to join Little Jenny Wren in blogging a day in my life.

It's Saturday, that wonderful day in the week when I don't have to set the alarm clock. 6.49 AM not withstanding; I do quite like to be able to sleep until I wake just occasionally. Mog had other ideas though, and decided 4.36 was the perfect time to demand my attention.A sleepy pad change, and then I carried her through to the playroom to watch early morning television. Very early morning; she had the choice of a couple of different test cards, politics or American sitcoms. Tempted as I was to leave her in front of the test cards for an hour and a half, the channel showing sitcoms was going to switch to children's programming the earliest, and in the meantime I thought she might enjoy the laugh track.

Mog settled, I headed back to bed. 5.28 and a doorbell caught my attention. A little early for the postman but since I'm hoping for a parcel some time soon, I thought I'd better check. Must have been from Mog's sitcoms though as the doorstep was empty. Back to bed again until 6.41 when Little Fish started calling. Telling myself that an early start would mean she'd be tired earlier this evening so the day would be shorter over all, I went in to rescue her.

Digging Little Fish out of bed can take some time these days. The new mask for her Nippy, whilst comfier for her, has more straps and clips than the old one so takes longer to take off in the morning. It doesn't help that LF quite likes the fact that it breathes for her, so as I unclip it and switch it off, she holds it ever more firmly to her face, grabbing the last gasp from it before it gets put away for the day. Once she's out of that, then it's time to extract her from her new sleep system; hip strap, knee straps, a careful amount of pressure to keep her knees from springing up and hitting her in the chest, and a gentle hug/carry to the bathroom to start the getting up process.

Little Fish clean and dressed, we join Mog in the playroom and watch some weekend cartoons whilst the girls eat breakfast. Next stop, Mog to the bathroom for some cleaning and dressing type activities. I leave her lying on the shower bench for a few minutes whilst I find myself some clothes. She is annoyed that I have removed her from the television, and Little Fish is annoyed because I have been paying attention to Mog. So I find myself whistling tunes from Cats to keep Mog happy, whilst dressing myself in a bizarrely hyperactive over-energetic revere-striptease type fashion to keep Little Fish giggling and stop her from tugging on Mog's gastrostomy.

Finally all three of us are dressed, hair brushed, nails clipped, 2 girls in wheelchairs, shoes located and feet inserted. Time to freeze down yesterday's milkfest bakes:

I spend some time turning the bathroom from this:

to this:

and then repeat the process in kitchen, sitting room and playroom, trying to keep Little Fish close to me so that she doesn't immediately undo every bit of tidying as we go along. I take yesterday's peelings out to the compost bin:

and stop to admire this lupin:

whilst at the same time wondering in what possible way it could be considered blue, which is what the label claimed.

Suddenly it is 11AM, and time to head out to preschool for their summer fete. Instead I sit down here and blog the first part of this; the fete lasts three hours, so we can be fashionably late.

It was a good fete. I didn't know the preschool had been running for 25 years; I must be older than I think I am because I remember the housing estate where it's run being built. And in my head it's still new!

Lots of stalls. Little Fish enjoyed printing her own Tshirt
and Mog particularly enjoyed getting a tattoo.
She is now the proud owner of a henna squiggle on her forearm and keen to show it off at school on Monday. We had a communal burger for lunch - Little Fish ate the bun and ketchup, Mog had the onions and melted cheese, and I had the slab of meat. I'm not convinced about the fairness of that! Little Fish decorated her own biscuit for pudding, and then we enjoyed a pot of strawberries. No prizes from the raffle. Shame; whilst I wasn't too fussed about the round of golf or the plane flight, the girls would have enjoyed a party at the local soft play den. Still, at least we didn't win the aftershave or one of the many hideous children's bags .

Home again, and we were distracted in our walk by muted megaphones and a giant crane which appeared to be standing over my house. Wondering what on earth our neighbours might have been getting up to, we discovered it was in fact the local pub having a bungee jumping session.
The view from out back garden - they didn't quite come knocking at our back door, but it wasn't far off!

A lazy few hours in the garden - Mog stretching out and kicking the snails, Little Fish sitting in the bathtub, and yours truly reading a book and dreaming of a nice G and T . It wasn't all relaxation; I also managed to hack mow the lawn
and pick all the grass out of the decking.

Next we had concert by Mog and Little Fish - LF provides the percussion by hammering on our metal table with her fists, and Mog provides the vocals by collapsing into fits of giggles. I get to sit at a safe distance wearing earphones and enjoy the fact they are entertaining each other without my assistance.

Tea time next. Salmon glop from yesterday's cookathon for the girls, followed by cakes from the fete. Fruit loaf for Little Fish (finally, someone living here who likes fruit cake), chocolate and banana cake for Mog, and a chocolate cornflake thingy for me. Munch munch yum yum.

One happy Little Fish suddenly mutated into a whinge-monster, so I threw her into bed at about half past six. Changed Mog and threw her into a pair of pyjamas. Now LF is fast asleep in bed, and Mog is sitting here with me giggling and just beginning to twitch a bit. So medicines for Mog will finish her day in about ten minutes, after which I shall enjoy some of the aubergine bake for my own supper, and read the latest Joanne Harris.

So how was your day?
Tia