Day Off Day :-)

I took Princess Lollipop to Tiny School this morning and then had the whole day to myself, thanks to Mr Messy picking Princess Lollipop up and taking her back to OUR shop with him. I had a really productive day - I took all the Christmas decorations down, got them all back in their boxes and even sorted out the ones we don't bother putting up any more and bagged them for the Charity Shop. Then I sorted out Princess Lollipop's toy tubs, got rid of loads of MacDonald's Plastic Cr*p, a job I can only do when the children aren't here!! The cuddlies that have migrated downstairs from her cot are now back in their original place and a few got assigned to the Charity Shop bag too!! So long as only a few things disappear at once, they don't seem to notice!! I also rearranged some of the toys in the lounge and moved the dressing up rail to a much more sensible position, Princess Lollipop doesn't agree and keeps demanding to know "WHY my dwess ups dere now?" She'll get used to it soon, she adjusts to changes a lot better than Little Prince does. I also gathered up all Mr Messy's "stuff" from around the room and its now in a huge pile on the fireguard!! Normally I'd dump it all in his office, so its out of my way, but as I want him to clear out his office to make my it my Craft Room I can't!!

I've decided the next job is to clear one of Little Prince's downstairs bookshelves and put them on the spaces in his bedroom bookshelves, to create room to move Princess Lollipop's books onto the shelf, instead of exploding out of the now too small tub. I'll probably do that tomorrow if Princess Lollipop has a nap, if she doesn't then I'll have to postpone it till next time she's at Tiny School. I can't do it at weekend because Little Prince will insist on helping and then insist that nothing can move as he likes it where it is, I've mentioned my plan and hopefully presenting it as a fait accomplis will forestall any arguments about moving the books! Wish me luck with that one lol.

After I'd had some lunch and a rest, as my back was killing me, I got all the usual ornaments that had been displaced by Christmas decor put back. And then did a really thorough vac and dust all round the room, I thought I might as well as I had to move the sofas back to their usual positions anyway so it made sense to move them a bit further and vacuum under them too. I was still vacuuming when Mr Messy and Princess Lollipop arrived home from OUR shop, which didn't impress either of them!! Princess Lollipop doesn't like the vacuum cleaner and insists on having someone to sit with if I'm vacuuming and she's in the room.

I eventually finished just before Little Prince returned from Y's house. Little Prince began to run in circles round the lounge, excitedly exclaiming "I've got so much room" over and over again. After about 10 minutes of this we managed to persuade him to play on his iPod Touch (his favourite Christmas present) for a while before it was time to get ready for bed. As usual he took ages and ages to get ready for bed, he gets so distracted!! After the first time I shouted to him to hurry up, I had time to help Drama Teen empty the dishwasher, do all the hand washing up and clean the worktops, and he still wasn't downstairs!! He came down pretty quickly after the second "call" probably because he could hear that I was losing patience with him over how long he was taking!! Once he'd had all his medicine I took him upstairs and encouraged him to sort out the pile of clothes on the floor and take all the washing to the laundry baskets, and then tucked him in. Not long before Christmas he finally agreed to try reading other books than Harry Potter (an obsession that has lasted over a year!!) and I left him reading one of my old Famous Fives quietly to himself :-)

Back downstairs I finally got mine and Mr Messy's tea in the oven while he chatted to his Mum on the phone. Drama Teen joined us for tea, although she ate one of her pastas, rather than have the same as us, it was lovely to have her eating with us rather than her eating in her room. After tea she helped me get all the boxes of Christmas decorations put away in the upstairs cupboard, my back was feeling considerably worse, so I wouldn't have managed without her - thank you so much Drama Teen.