Tuesday

After my extra busy evening last night, I didn't get everything ready to go for this morning. But I still managed to have time to make mine and Princess Lollipop's packed lunch and get everything else sorted out, and still get Little Prince to school on time! I went in to have another word with his teacher, as last night Little Prince was telling me that he has been moved places in the literacy classes three times and he doesn't know why and he doesn't like where he is currently sitting. Apparently he is sat next to his friend D, but D keeps complaining that Little Prince will mess about and wants him to move somewhere else! Teacher was, as always, very receptive to what I was saying and said she will explain to Little Prince why he sits where he does, and she will probably move him away from D and back with H, who he prefers sitting next to and who has always had a very calming influence on him. I also mentioned that Little Prince was very upset last night as he can't read his own writing, I explained I had reassured him and said that's why we and school are trying to get him some extra help and support, and not to worry and try his best. As I was leaving school I saw her call Little Prince over and talk to him about the seating arrangements and reassure him about his writing.

Me and Princess Lollipop then came down to OUR shop for our second day as working women :-) So far Princess Lollipop has built Lego, used the Lego box as a hat, ridden the rocking horse and had her lunch and a nap - so quite a busy day for her :-) She has also told her first joke!! We were playing what do different animals play, and she answered cat and cow correctly, but when I asked her what a dog said she grinned cheekily said "MOOOOO" and then collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles :-) She repeated this a number of times each with the cheeky grin and collapsing to the floor giggling, little monster :-) She knew perfectly well she was being silly as later when Mad Cat Lady visited she answered all of them correctly with no hesitation!!

We've had a number of visitors today. The first was the mum of the little boy who has the swimming lesson after Little Prince's. She walked past and saw me in here and thought I must be waiting for my photo to be taken, but when she saw me still here on her way back she called in to say hello and have a nosy :-) She thought the sleeping Princess Lollipop was the cutest thing ever - well she is :-) And she wanted to ask about having her kids photographed, so we chatted about how Mr Messy works and she left saying she would chat to her husband and be back to book a photo shoot soon :-) Then Mad Cat Lady called in for a chat and a look round. She loves how OUR shop looks now, and says it looks even bigger now even though its now full of furniture!! I showed her some of the samples we have, and although she loved the boudoir sample box, she said she wouldn't dare have something like that done lol. We chatted for ages and she told me about her building woes, she's had to sack the builders who were putting up her new garage already!! Mostly because they ruined her brand new wheelbarrow lol. The next visitor was an old lady from a few doors up the street, she said she would love to have her granddaughter photographed on our rocking horse - its been a great investment so far :-) Again I told her how Mr Messy works and what the package prices were, she didn't want the photos at her's or her daughter's house she definitely wanted photographs on the rocking horse! Just as she was leaving a Mum, Gran and baby boy came in and booked a session for next Friday on the spot!! The shoot will happen at Gran's house and they seemed very keen, said they had passed the shop a number of times waiting for us to be open :-) That's what we like to hear :-) Princess Lollipop didn't want the baby to leave, I think she wanted to keep him, he was a very cute and smiley little lad so I don't blame her.

Princess Lollipop is obviously feeling more at home in the shop at the moment, as she's messing about a lot more!! She's eaten one of the advertising postcards, she's pushed Daddy's chair all round and spent quite a lot of time running from the front door to the back office shouting "MUN MUN" (run run). She's also plucked up the courage to ride the rocking horse for the first time :-) Up till now she's barely been near it and screams and wriggles away if we tried to put her on the seat. She LOVED it and spent ages rocking back and forth :-)

Well my computer's fussy battery is almost out of charge again, and its almost time to go and collect Little Prince from school, so I'll get this posted before I lose it!!

Busy Evening

The framer arrived with the new samples, and to pick up some of the old ones with ten minutes to spare! I was really starting to panic that she wouldn't come, well it was the framing lady's husband, so he not she!!

It took longer than I thought to get OUR shop tidied up and locked up, so I was running late by the time I finally left! I rushed back to the car and zoomed over to Little Prince's school to pick him up. Luckily his class came out a few minutes late so he never realised I only just made it!! We then had to drive over to Drama Teen's college to pick her up and come back home. We only parked outside home so that Drama Teen could freshen up her make up and change from her glasses to her contact lenses. Then we were back in the car to go to the cinema, where Drama Teen was meeting Her Boyfriend to watch Wall Street. She wasn't that bothered about seeing that, but Her Boyfriend wanted to see it so she agreed to watch that one. We arrived about half an hour early, and Drama Teen had received a text from Her Boyfriend saying he hadn't even set off yet, so we called in to McDonalds. Me and Little Prince went to order while Drama Teen got Princess Lollipop settled down in a high chair. Little Prince first asked for a chocolate milk shake, then changed his mind and asked for a coffee!! When told he couldn't have coffee he asked for a cappuccino!! Even the lady behind the counter said he was way too bouncy to have coffee lol. He finally agreed that his original idea of a chocolate milkshake was the way to go!! Little Prince insisted on sitting on the high stools near to our table, and I spent the whole meal making sure he wasn't messing too much. He only stood on the stools twice, once jumping off right in front of a staff member and I only saw him hit the lights above the table once, so not too bad really!! Princess Lollipop surprised us all by eating most of her meal, she normally only eats her grapes and drinks her smoothie, but this time she ate some apple slices and a couple of chicken nuggets (AND one of my chicken selects too!!).

When we had finished eating it was time to drop Drama Teen off at the cinema to meet Her Boyfriend. She was going to pretend she had been stood around all by herself for all this time! Poor lad!!

On the way home Princess Lollipop kept hitting Little Prince with her balloon, for once he was being the sensible one and not messing with his own balloon!! This carried on with Little Prince getting more and more irritated with her and shouting more and more, until the balloon deflated!! Princess Lollipop was heartbroken and sobbed most of the rest of the journey home!! She was only cheered up by the thought of watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when we got home. Although that upset Little Prince who has decided he hates Disney!! He doesn't want to come to Walt Disney World with us next year!!!!

When we finally got home, Little Prince went crazy, probably because he'd been cooped up in the car for so long! I keep having to tell him not to jump on and off the furniture and to stop grabbing Princess Lollipop or pushing her over! Not long till bedtime!!!

New Day - New Job!!!

Well for the first time since before LMS (our 21 year old!!) was born I am starting work this morning!! I didn't sleep well last night worrying about how I would manage and how it would go, and how Princess Lollipop would cope too and if Little Prince was going to be ok!! So I was exhausted when the alarm went off, I couldn't ignore it and had to get straight up - it was so nice last week having Mr Messy here to get up and get Little Prince ready for me!! I had got as much stuff ready last night as I could, so all I had to do was make sure me and the kids got ready on time and everything would be ok.

As soon as he heard my alarm go off Little Prince came in, he said he still felt sick and too hot. I checked and he didn't have a temperature and then he started talking about when he was sick last night. He said he was "scratching his tonsils, even though I don't know what tonsils are" he then proceeded to demonstrate sticking his fingers right down his throat!! I grabbed them out again before he had chance to start gagging and explained to him that it wasn't a good idea and could make him very poorly. He seemed his normal bouncy self after that and managed to eat all his breakfast, so I decided that the sickness had probably been self induced (even if it was by accident) and that he could go to school. He was happy with the idea as he wanted to see his friends and got washed and dressed with no fuss at all.

I talked to his teacher when I dropped him off and explained about the "tonsil scratching" and sickness. She agreed that he looked his normal self and didn't seem ill at all, and was fine about him staying at school. I mentioned that I would be at OUR shop today and that she would have to get me on my mobile if she needed me to come and pick Little Prince up. I assured her it would be no problem and to call me if there were any problems with him.

Then it was time for me and Princess Lollipop to set off to work - singing Heigh Ho of course :-) Before going to OUR shop I had to nip to the bank and then go to the Bistro and pay for the buns Mr Messy had ordered for the opening day. He'd ordered them and the lady had tried to deliver them, just as he had popped out to pick up the flowers from the florists. Mr Messy then got caught up in chatting to people, lost track of time and never got round to calling the Bistro or sending Drama Teen round to collect the buns!!! The Bistro owner was a little peeved that she had arranged for the buns to be made late Friday evening, had tried to deliver them as requested by Mr Messy and he wasn't in and didn't get in touch to say what was going on!! Mr Messy was equally peeved that she hadn't called him to say what was going on too!!! As they had been kept in airtight containers the Bistro owner offered to bring them down to OUR shop later so that at least me and Princess Lollipop could have one for our lunch and then take them home in the evening.

When me and Princess Lollipop arrived at OUR shop, she immediately started shouting for Daddy and was very disappointed that he wasn't here! Everytime a car pulled up outside she got excited thinking it was Daddy again!! She eventually settled down and started to explore the mini wicker sofa full of toys and playing with the Lego I'd put in there for her. She played really well all morning, and only got a little fractious when it was getting near to her nap time. I was surprised at how well she slept in her Snuggle Sac (fleecy toddler sleeping bag) on the floor. She slept through two people coming in and two phone calls from Daddy!!

I spent all morning trying to get my laptop to charge up!! The plug socket on the back of the laptop is temperamental and will only connect if the plug is in "just so"!! It was so frustrating, I could get the thing to turn on and then it would lose the connection and turn itself off again just as I tried to do anything!!! I eventually got it working while Princess Lollipop had her nap, just as we got the two visitors!! Don't they realise I have social networking to check out lol!!

The first visitor was a Mum and her little boy, who will be 3 tomorrow asking about prices for photoshoots. She said she likes to have the family's picture taken around the little boy's birthday each year, and loved the pictures on display. The little boy was keen to get off to visit Granny so they didn't stay very long. The next visitor was an old bloke, who first asked if we could do re-prints? I said we could only copy photographs if he had the original digital file or the original negatives and if it was out of copyright. That seemed to sail right over his head!! So I suggested he bring the photograph in and we could look at it and tell him what we could or couldn't do!! He then spent the next half an hour talking (and repeating himself endlessly!) about when he used to make wedding videos. He also kept banging his cane on the floor to emphasise his many points!! I was dreading Princess Lollipop waking up and starting to cry! Luckily she managed to sleep through his whole visit :-)

Mr Messy rang a couple of times to check how we were getting on, and if we had any visitors. And also to let me know that the framer was due to arrive before 2.30pm to drop off/pick up some samples. Its now 2.35pm and she's not here!! I have to close the shop at 3pm to go and collect Little Prince from school, so I hope she comes soon!! The staff member from last week's charity photo shoot hasn't come in to collect her disc of images either!! I hope they realise that we are only open 9.30am till 3pm!!

Dramatic Sunday Evening!!

Me and Mr Messy went down to the shop after we'd got Little Prince settled in bed. Drama Teen stayed at home to look after Princess Lollipop who doesn't go to sleep until later. We delivered some more things that I thought I'd need and were just checking round to see if everything was in order for when me and Princess Lollipop started work the next morning. I was just pottering around making sure I knew where everything was, when Mr Messy's phone rang. It was Drama Teen she asked if we could come straight home as Little Prince had just been sick all over his bed and his bedroom floor!! We dropped everything, jumped into the car and raced home. When we got there Little Prince was sat on the sofa snuggled in a blanket and seemed none the worse for wear! He announced that we had to be careful going to his room as the way in was totally blocked by puke!! Yuk! I went upstairs and found that he wasn't joking!!! The kitchen roll and disinfectant spray I'd taken upstairs wouldn't be much use, I shouted down to Mr Messy to bring up the mop and bucket!! He had to search round the garden for the bucket, Little Prince must have had it out there to play with!!

Finally we got the bedroom cleaned up and Little Prince settled on his sofa bed, to give his bed a chance to air off. We'd only been downstairs for a few minutes when Little Prince reappeared - he'd been sick again!! It wasn't quite so dramatic this time and I only needed to remove the throw from the sofabed and get him settled back to sleep again, fingers crossed it lasts all night this time!!

After all this excitement me and Mr Messy were exhausted!! We settled down to watch our nightly episode of Criminal Minds. As it ended I remembered that I needed Mr Messy's help to pin up the hem of my new trousers, so that I could shorten them!! He helped me sort them out to the right length and get them pinned (I wish I had longer legs and didn't have to mess like this!!) and then he went to bed while I stayed downstairs to sew the hems. It took me ages to hand sew them, as it was really difficult to see what I was doing (I much prefer sewing in daylight!!) and they are bootleg cut, so it was a long way round!! I finally got them done and went off to bed myself. I found poor Mr Messy still fully dressed lay on the bed hugging Princess Lollipop, apparently everytime he got her back to sleep and tried to get ready for bed she would wake up again! I managed to get her back over into her cot and Mr Messy finally got ready for bed and to get some sleep. He has an even earlier start in the morning, as he is back at his regular job over two hours drive away!! Then again after the mega busy week he's just had, he'll probably enjoy being back in work for the rest!!!

Sunday

Poor Mr Messy had to once again get up early and go down to OUR shop, as he had an all day shoot there today. This time Drama Teen had to get up and go with him as I had the littlies to get ready and there are no buses round here on Sundays. Me and Little Prince watched the new episodes of Ben 10, which were on at 10am on 10/10/10!! Little Prince did wonder how I knew it would be on at 10am lol. After we'd seen the new episodes we went down to OUR shop so that we could clear the rubbish from the back storeroom. Mr Messy was between clients, so we dropped Princess Lollipop off with him so he could get some photos of her :-) That meant that I could drop the back seats and get more rubbish in the back of my car, and Little Prince got the HUGE treat of sitting in the front of the car. We made three trips to the tip to clear the rubbish, and now there is a lot more room in the storeroom, which is great as I'll be keeping the buggy in there from tomorrow. When we got back from our final tip-trip the next client had already arrived so I collected Princess Lollipop and brought the littlies back home. Drama Teen helped me get them both back in the car, and admitted that Princess Lollipop's shoot hadn't gone too well. She was extremely unco-operative and wouldn't stay still at all, she was probably tired as it was time for her nap. I arranged to take her back after she'd had her nap and fingers crossed she'll be more co-operative then! Although Mr Messy always says its much harder to shoot people you know, especially your own children! He does get some great shots on the rare occasions he does get chance to photograph them though :-)

Princess Lollipop was asleep within minutes of us getting home, and slept long enough for me to get quite a lot of jobs done, which is great as I won't have time during the day next week!! Mr Messy rang up when he'd finished shooting his last client, and he was pretty tired so we decided to leave photographing Princess Lollipop again until next week. Which is a pity as she is in a much better mood now lol. Little Prince was disappointed at not returning to OUR shop, but I distracted him with a sandwich and headed off the meltdown!! Mr Messy and Drama Teen will be back soon once they've tidied up OUR shop, ready for me and Princess Lollipop to start work tomorrow morning.

Me and Mr Messy will be going back to OUR shop this evening once Little Prince is asleep in bed, so that he can configure my computer onto OUR shop's network and sort out the business skype phone to run in OUR shop too. I'll also be able to have a last check round to make sure its all safe for Princess Lollipop to charge around in tomorrow too. I'm mostly excited about starting to work in the gallery and helping out with the family photography business (I've not had a very active role since we adopted Princess Lollipop), but I'm also so scared at the prospect of being the public face of the business!! I've not worked since before LMS was born (21 years ago!!) and don't have a lot of confidence - I just hope I can fake it enough to carry this off!!

Saturday

Mr Messy left early again to get OUR shop ready for the Grand Opening today. He was taking Drama Teen with him so that she could help out during the day. However, when I got up (after another delicious lie in) I found Drama Teen still in bed, apparently she had refused to get up earlier and Mr Messy had to go down to OUR shop on his own. He collected the floral display from the florist, a lovely modern looking Autumn themed bouquet which included the vase! We've placed a regular order with the florist for a new display each Saturday, perhaps that's why they didn't charge for the vase!

Once we were all ready I took Drama Teen to OUR shop and dropped her off, me and the littlies went to the supermarket, this time to get our own shopping rather than more things for OUR shop. It wasn't too bad taking them to the shop, on the whole they behaved themselves, so I treated them to a trip to MacDonalds afterwards. That wasn't such a bright idea!! The car park was full of builder's relocatable cabins, so we had to park in the car park next door and walk through the car park and dodge the cars which were all searching for somewhere to park. When we had almost finished eating Little Prince went off to the loo, he came back looking quite pale and whispered to me that he'd thrown up. There hadn't been any toilet paper so he hadn't been able to clean himself up properly either. We decided to go back to the car and return home and get him sorted out. He recovered and was back to himself by the time we got home. He was then able to look after Princess Lollipop in the lounge while I got all the shopping into the house and then put away. They played mostly very nicely together with not too much falling out or screeching from either of them :-)

Mr Messy and Drama Teen were both exhausted when they came back from OUR shop, after a busy day with a steady stream of customers, and people who just wanted to have a look round. Mr Messy had been offering free mini photo shoots for visitors on the first day, and had done quite a lot of those, which will all need editing. We discussed how I am going to keep a check on where the shoots/processing is up to and how to keep a closer note of each client's shoot and we need to design standardised forms to do this. I'll be taking more of a lead in this sort of administrative role, and I like to keep things organised (and both my photographers can be super disorganised!) so it could turn into a huge challenge - wish me luck!!!

Friday

Today was the last day to get OUR shop ready before the Grand Opening on Saturday. Mr Messy went out early to get more things sorted in OUR shop, and then went out to do a Boudoir Shoot, which took most of the afternoon. Me and Princess Lollipop made the most of our last day of not working and chilled out at home. When we picked up Little Prince from school we didn't have too long to get him ready before we had to go out to his swimming lesson. We met Mr Messy in the car park, when Princess Lollipop saw him she started screaming "Daddy Daddy" as soon as she saw him. She wasn't as impressed when she was put into her buggy and taken round to OUR shop by Daddy, while I took Little Prince to his lesson. Little Prince did really well in his lesson, and his teacher tried him with swim fins which he loved and swam really well with. His teacher said he did really well, but she had no chance of tiring him out this week - not that she has ever really managed that elusive feat!! After the lesson was finished we went round to OUR shop to meet Mr Messy and collect Princess Lollipop and take the littlies home. I gave them their tea as soon as we got home, poor Princess Lollipop had to sit in her buggy in the kitchen while I cooked, she wasn't too bad so long as I kept singing and chatting to her. Mr Messy came home with Drama Teen later and brought me my tea from the chippie, they had eaten their chippie tea in OUR shop - I hope they got rid of all their smelly chip papers!!