Los of Positives

So many I'm almost losing track :-)

We celebrated Princess Lollipops 5th Birthday and she had a Pirate and Princess Party at an indoor play centre. She was of course a pirate, as being a Princess would be "Yuk"!! Although I did win a minor victory and get her to wear a pirate themed tutu I'd made for her :-) She had a wonderful time and is thoroughly enjoying being a Big 5 Girl :-)

We have finally built up enough credit again with the domestic heating oil company that they've agreed to supply us with oil this week YEAH. I'm so looking forward to being warm again!! We haven't had any oil since we had a tank full stolen and it's been a child and difficult winter!!

We found out from our electricity supplier that we are massively in credit and once we supply them with a meter reading they will credit the money back to us :-) We have more than enough to fix the broken shower, and it will be lovely to have a shower again instead of a bath, especially in a heated house :-)

LMS is home for the half term and it's always lovely to have her here :-)

Drama Teen is home for a week next week and it will be lovely to have her here too :-)

So everything is looking positive and rosy and I like it :-)

My New Job

I've started work as a part time nanny for two youngsters in the next village. I was very nervous before I started, but I've done my first week and both me and the youngsters survived, so I can't be doing too bad :-)

There has been a huge upheaval in the youngsters family, and they (especially the older girl) have been over indulged and there hasn't been a lot of consistent discipline, unfortunately she is now quite a demanding little girl, who definitely doesn't like the reintroduction of discipline! She spends quite a lot of the time telling me she doesn't like me, which I just ignore, she'll get used to it and be a nicer person for it too (fingers crossed lol). The younger boy is only a toddler and doesn't really understand what is happening and why his world has been turned upside down, and as the new person on the scene, it's obviously my fault. But even though I've only been looking after him for such a short time I'm beginning to see a thawing in his attitude, I'm even occasionally allowed to cuddle him already :-) They are both lovely children and I'm sure once we've all got used to each other it will be a lot easier for all of us :-)

Princess Lollipop is finding it very difficult to get used to Mummy not being around constantly, and also the fact that I'm looking after other children. I think she feels all my care should be given to her and she doesn't want to share me with anyone. I've had to give her a lot of reassurance that although the youngsters are nice children and that I do like them, that she is my precious girl and I love her. She has also been a bit rejecting of me preferring to go to Daddy for comfort, which has been pretty hurtful and left me feeling quite tearful. I know why she is doing it, and know that I've just got to keep reassuring her and get used to it when she wants Daddy not me.

Finally Back

Between me being ill, the Littlies being ill and off school and then trying to catch up with everything, and starting my new job, I've not had the time or energy to blog. But we are all feeling better, I've survived my first week at my new job, so I'm blogging again.

I've still had plenty of positive despite all the illness etc The fact we live in a country with free health care (although I do realise we pay for the NHS through our taxes) and me and the Littlies don't have to worry about affording the medicines we needed to help us recover :-) The fact that I've got a supportive and helpful husband in Mr Messy, so that I can go out to work and not worry about the Littlies as they are in the capable care of their daddy :-)

Shopping

Me, Mum and Princess Lollipop went shopping in the local charity shops today. I bought quite a lot of bits and bobs to upcycle for Princess Lollipops office and spent less than £10, bargain :-) There was a huge thunder storm when we were out, but we had been persuaded by the very persistent Princess Lollipop to take her to Macs, so we were warm and dry :-) Ialso bought Princess Lollipop a butterfly fairy wand and she had great fun skipping along in front of us spreading her magic around :-) Her greatest adventure was going on the bus, which isn't something she gets to do very often!
When we got back Mum and Dad's neighbours were trying to get into their house, having locked themselves out, Mum had the genius idea of letting them climb through her loft into their own loft and gaining entry that way. It worked and they brought a bunch of flowers round later as a thank you :-)
Me and Princess Lollipop watched the new dvds Drama Teen had bought her, and after a late tea it was bedtime for the tired Princess. She settled pretty quickly bit didn't stay sleep very long before she was back downstairs cuddled on my knee, after she dozed back off I managed to get more of her name cushion embroidered. And Mum raided her stash to find me some of the right shades of embroidery silks to finish the last two letters, thanks Mum that saves me a drive to the shops this week and means I can get on with the last letters and then start on the decorations :-)

Great Day

Today has been lovely :-) I had lunch with my friend S and her gorgeous baby boy, and even managed to sneak some cuddles from him :-) Then after school me and Princess Lollipop drove over to Drama Teens University Halls, to have tea specially cooked for us by Drama Teen. It was a lovely vegetarian stir fry, very delicious :-) Although Princess Lollipop ended up swapping hers for plain pasta and chicken dippers, followed by lots of biscuits! We took Drama Teen for a quick trip to the supermarket, and after dropping her back off at her Halls we drove over to my Mum and Dad's house for a sleepover :-) Princess Lollipop was on top manipulative form and managed to get Grandma to play snakes and ladders, make her a hot chocolate and persuade her to let her eat a jelly! And it was already way past her bedtime when we arrived!! I drew the line at Princess Lollipop getting a bedtime story too, and finally got her to bed, she was asleep almost instantly, poor tired plum.

Catch Up

I've been to both my Craft Classes this week and whilst there carried on working on the name cushions for the Littlies birthdays. Little Prince's one is finished, but due to how I've placed his name and the decoration it looks a bit unbalanced! So I'm going to embroider a meandering trail of horse shoe prints in the space and hopefully that will solve the problem. Princess Lollipop's cushion with her initial in the style of a Superman logo, topped with a crown is totally finished, I just need to insert the cushion pad and sew up the open edge. I'm making her a second one with her full name and more girlie decorations and I got that started today. She will appreciate the Superman one more I'm sure, but I'm really enjoying making these cushions and can't resist making her a totally girlie one, so it's more for me than her!!
This morning I met up with a couple of friends for early morning coffee (Diet Coke for me lol), company and chat :-) It's the first time we've all got together since Christmas soooooooo it was lovely to have a proper catch up, rather than the snatched conversations we have at the school gates :-)
I've also been looking about on Pinterest to get inspiration on how to paint the "mini Welsh dresser" I've bought to make Princess Lollipop an "office" she adores writing letters and sticking things with sellotape, so I think she'll really love it :-) And I'm having loss of fun planning it all too - win win :-) I bought the paint and some cheap brushes (Mr Messy says I never clean them properly so I don't bother any more, I just buy "disposable" ones!) So I'll be able to get on with that as son as I get a minute!!
The tumble dryer broke down, with a full load of washing inside it and another waiting in the washing machine!! But the repair man was able to come the next morning and fix it there and then, it was something we could have done without (especially after just having both cars fixed!!) but at least it was repaired quickly and relatively cheaply :-)
So it's been an up and down week, but mainly ups :-) This positive thinking is getting to me :-)

Struggling to Find a Positive :-(

Today I explained the concept of a "Get Along Jar" (both pick a forfeit to do something nice for the other person when they've been fighting) to the Littlies. Together we tried to think of suitable forfeits and I told them if they started fighing they would be picking a forfeit from the jar. It didn't take long!! Then Little Prince kicked off, as he usually does when we try something new, copied of course by Princess Lollipop! What should have been a quick 5 minute job turned into a huge battle, ending up with Little Prince not allowed on his new PlayStation game again today and Princess Lollipop carted off to bed!! Hopefully as they get used to the new rules it will be less stressful, fingers tightly crossed. The rest of the day they managed to "just" bicker constantly rather than actual fighting and somehow that was even more grading on my nerves than the all out warfare earlier!!
I did manage to get Princess Lollipop bathed and get hair detangled and styles with very little fuss, which now I think about it is a huge positive :-) And after a yummy tea, cooked by Mr Messy I had a relaxing soak in the bath, another positive. Writing these post does help me to look back on my day and remember the positives among the chaos :-)
Once the Littlies were in bed me and Mr Messy relaxed in front on the tv whilst I enjoyed the chocolate he'd bought for me :-) Chocolate is always a positive :-)