Rewind

I had a long, long complaint about yesterday which I never quite posted. And which I've just deleted. Some days are best forgotten. I think I'll sum it up as, eventually Little Fish has to grow out of the "terrible twos" doesn't she? And at five, it's surely well overdue.

There's a fair bit of not letting the sun go down on an angry day; somehow we reset ourselves for bedtime even on the worst of days. And today was a much better and brighter day.

Mog has new shoes. They might look like pink crocheted bathroom slippers to the rest of the world, but she thinks they're shoes and she's thrilled with them. And she's even happier that she can kick the right one off regularly. I'm somewhat less thrilled by that.

Little Fish voluntarily ate a teaspoon of broccoli and a dozen strawberries. I'm not myself convinced about dipping strawberries in ketchup, but there we go. I am however both impressed and infuriated by her ability to store that mouthful of broccoli, eat a plate of fish and a dozen strawberries, lick a cashew nut, and hold many conversations, and then finally spit it out in the bathtub a good hour later. This I could live without.

Mog was also interested in food for the second day in a row, and probably ate the equivalent of a whole strawberry spread out over the course of the afternoon. No choking, and I'll ignore the seizure as coincidence. Denial's a comfortable place to live sometimes.

Little Fish demonstrated her increasing fear of flies, which could make for an interesting summer.

Mog kicked Little Fish around the head as LF sat in the bathtub, thankfully soft pink slippers meant they both just giggled. And Little Fish washed my feet whilst soaking her blister in the bath; I could get used to that.

We visited the Italian Market in town and failed to buy anything Italian. We visited the shop which used to sell ballet shoes (thinking these might work as something soft which Mog couldn't easily kick off in the middle of the road), only to find it has become an amusement arcade thingy. We didn't visit that. We drank coffee in a cafe with my parents, we did a spot of Waitrose shopping, and Dad fixed my rear brake light, hurrah for Fathers!

A large police car blocked my driveway later on, calling on one of our neighbours. And was shortly followed by an emergency drain unblocking van. I'm still pondering the connection.

Little Fish was fiddling with a water damaged iPod; it sat in a bowl of rice for six months drying out but still didn't work or want to recharge. She plugged it in herself before we went out; when we came back it had suddenly managed to sort itself out again. So she's now the proud owner of an iPod touch and Mog can replace the Peppa Pig episodes on hers with more music instead.

Bedtime happened relatively smoothly; neither girl is now constipated and my washing machine is fully loaded. The sitting room floor is no longer covered in bath bubbles, pens, crayons, soggy bits of paper and confetti. There are capital As and capital Os graffittied on one of the tables but they look fixed to stay for the foreseeable future. The kitchen is not so tidy, but it can stay that way until it's a little cooler. The baby fish are growing and the tank is getting crowded.

And that's life in our house today. A mixed bag, but on balance good I think.
Tia