Eve did not, as Louise predicted, say “Where’s daddy” a lot yesterday… The kids accepted that I was at work & got on with things. It would have been nice to have been missed, but that is just vanity, really.
It was an open day at Jack’s school – a sort of ‘see how your child is getting on’ type thing. It would have been good to be able to go to that, but it was not to be. Jack bought home a picture book & a writing book that he’s been working on. Makes you happy & proud to look through it. I can’t say whether he is particularly good at anything, as I have little criteria on which to base anything, but that is not the point. The existence of a book of his drawings & his writing of his name is enough to give a parental warm glow.
Jack went off to sleep better last night. These exceedingly warm days seem to cause him problems relaxing off to sleep. He had been late off to sleep for a couple of nights previous & was getting a little tired & irritable because of it. We still count ourselves lucky though as they are pretty compliant regarding sleep. Although it seems to have been very difficult to convince him to relax, he’s not been foolish or irrational about it all. Just wriggling – saying that he cannot get comfortable, & chatty, as he cannot ‘switch off’. Normally I read him to sleep, but if I’m worn out, I’m in danger of falling asleep before he does. I get a brisk’ “Read daddy!” to remind me that I am supposed to be awake. The bedroom he & Eve are in is pretty small, & if there’s the 4 of us in there, it can get a little too warm as well – thus if Jack is too uncomfortable he is better moving into our bed to drift off to sleep. We can put him back into his own bed when he’s fast asleep proper. He usually finds his way back to us before the morning. Eve usually drifts off of her own accord. It must be part of her ability to keep herself occupied in general, but once in her cot – she accepts where she is, & generally will slip into sleep slowly. She was however jumping around in her cot before sleeping yesterday, but her afternoon nap was a little late. I laid her down & put my hand on her head, or chest, & she sloooowly drifted into sleep. A few smiles, but mostly sleepy nodding off. Sweet. Eve more or less sleeps through. She occasionally stirs in the night,out as I have said – she is very self sufficient.
You have to wonder if it’s because she is the 2nd child & as Jack does demand a certain amount of attention, she compensates? I was a 2nd child though, & I’m sure that I was probably more demanding when a young one than my elder brother.
Neil has announced that he & Jess are having an engagement party come September! EEP! It will be in the south east somewhere, as that’s where her parents are… so we will have to start mentally preparing ourselves & putting something aside for the train fare.
Sometimes you think a car would be a nice thing to have, but on the whole I am glad we have excluded one from our lives thus far.

Louise is going to the dentist in Hebden Bridge this morning. Just a check up. One of the benefits of pregnancy is the free NHS stuff; there are areas like dentistry & opticians that you have to pay a nominal fee for, but not in pregnancy.
Jack was in the garden 1st thing this morning playing with his wheelbarrow. It’s another ‘early’ birthday present. He was not keen on the idea of going to Hebden Bridge, but has come round now. He wanted us to stay doing the garden. Granted there is a bit to do -weeding, lawn privet hedge trimming, but we are better off going to hebden with Louise. He made a long exhausting fuss over the principal, but has accepted it now. We go in 5 mins.

Lawks – I knew I would be neglecting making daily notes, but I’ve not been writing much at all. I have been using the eMate for writing, but I have managed to install a bit of new software that allow it to read an ATA flash card (with PCMCIA adapter) – so that I now have 4Mb of storage – wooo! Some teething things like it causing the eMate to ‘reboot’. Normally you can just open the lid of the eMate & start typing – it stays in ‘sleep mode’ while not in use, awaiting use. Don’t see a logical pattern to the reboots, but as the software is still in the Alpha testing (not even Beta testing before release) then it’s not really unexpected. The fact that it works is wonderful in itself… must get round to writing a thank you to the s/ware author…
Decorators did the ceiling. Took 2 days – one for the papering, & one for the painting & putting up of the border. All very pleasing & looking good. I say it took 2 days, but the man hours were considerably less – they didn’t hang about. The colour we ended up choosing for the ceiling was a little spur of the moment is a little more intense that we would have chosen. Yellow Ochre nearly. Bit lighter, naturally. Nice & warming, but leaves us with a quandry over what colour to do the walls. I had initially envisaged a light apricot colour – twixt ping & orange, however this is too ‘sherbet’ for Louise’s tastes. She seems to be leaning more to a linen colour – which is a bit too … ‘gray’ for me… sigh… As the ceiling is leaning more to an orange yellow that we initially realised, we may get some form of warm light yellow. Still at the ‘looking at samples’ stage.
I’m supposed to be decorating as well this ‘holiday’. Not had a lot of a chance thus far. Perhaps I will… at some stage. I’ve ‘primed’ the wall to which I am going to put some of that polystyrene wallpaper as an insulating under thing. We’ve decided that this is most likely what we need to cure the ‘cold spot’ on (presently our, but to be the kids) bedroom wall. Oh I did manage to tidy the kitchen ceiling a little as well & do a spot of ‘once in a blue moon’ tidying up while Jack was at school the other day.
Jack had ‘sports day’ on Friday -so I had to go to that! He did very well… all his class did because there was an awful lot of hanging around between races. We’ve just put a film in to be developed, so we’ve bought a new film… so I took a few pictures. Nice aspect – chaos of a few kids running at the camera. The sports day was held in the local park, so there’s the trees going up the hill at the back of the park in the background hopefully.

Well – the decorators were supposed to be here between 9 & 9:30 – now I start to type at 10:25 – they arrive…
17:25 now. Tea time soon. They stripped & papered the ceiling & return tomorrow to paint & put the border up that we diligently chose last Saturday. They’ve taken a sample of the border as a reference of the paint we’d like them to get. I hope it s not interpreted too dark. We’re hoping for an off white yellow thing – not a full blown muddy yellow.

Wheee – last day at work for a little while! Holiday starts tomorrow!
Did not play on the mac at home – did not collect my eMails (not that I had any – I checked this morning) – did not web page messing about. Jack simply could not get off to sleep… It was not as if he was not tired; on his was home from school Louise said that he was saying that he wanted to close his eyes & go to sleep. He would have if she let him, she thinks… But he could not ‘switch off’. I read him stories until I fell asleep a couple of times. He said that he wanted to move to our bed, so I indulged him. Interestingly he then said he wanted to be left alone to sleep – so I popped down stairs (ooh – 9:40 already). Now then, the windows are open, as it’s so hot at the moment. It took a couple of minutes before Jack trotted to the top of the stairs to report that he heard a strange noise, so I went up & stayed with him a bit. He muttered about this ‘strange noise’ – wondering & wondering – so I tried to tell him that as the windows were open it must have been outside… Which made no difference. So I eventually realised I would have to be more reassuring, & explained that he was OK now as he was in mummy & daddy’s bed.
Dozed off myself again, as I was woken at 10:15 by Louise. Took Jack back to his bed & went… to bed (after a bit of tidying up outside). It did not feel productive, but it did rest me well – all that dozing as I was trying to get Jack to follow into slumber & not staying up late messing about on the computer.
(train home) On the way home – I am on Holiday now! Just a little chore of sorting a staff web page tonight & that be all – my time be my own… I can… um… decorate to my hearts content (hey ho). I would imagine I will be writing less, as I will have less ‘idle time’. My daily train journeys are wonderful for this little bit of free time. Tweaked my web page while at work (oooh – naughty – company time!) to include an old photo of me. Was taken (ahem) some years back by a lad I was doing an “Enterprise Awareness” course with. Created especially for arts orientated individuals as a year’s prep before going on the old “Enterprise Allowance” scheme. Read as: a year’s nonsense course learning about tax & marketing oneself. The reward? No hassle from the Job Centre for a year & no obligation to take up the old Enterprise Allowance. I recall it quickly became clear that the Enterprise Allowance, although a little more than Income Support, was not really something I could maintain, as you would need to show a semblance of being able to make something tangible… not really possible with small press comics.
“So then Mr. Schroeder, lets have a look at your accounts…Hmmm… I see that you have spent the majority of your monies on photocopying…”
“Yes, well, that’s for the printing of my comics which I’m selling.”
“Selling — oh, good. So what are the returns on these?”
“Um… Well… There’s a couple of Central London comic shops that have taken 5 copies Sale or Return… & I’ve given away about half of them”
“Given Away? OK, so how much money have you made this month Mr. Schroeder”
“I was supposed to make money?”

6:30 in the evening. Outside again, Jack is helping our neighbour Caroline again. She’s trimming a bit of privet hedge & he is helping to clear up by looks of things. Eve has just popped inside… oh hang on… i can hear her up to something in the porch… Ah – she’s only trying to put one of Jack’s sandals on. Too big, but it nearly stays on. She’s got a real thing for shoes. She was putting on her boots just now… then kicking them of… then I’d put them on… then she’d kick them off… & so on.
Ah – she has another of his old shoes on now.

Her language is coming on – she plainly misuses words. “Hamish Ball” is one of those things that can mean a lot of things. Neighbouring lad Hamish has left a ball here, so that’s where the word has come from. She is starting to use “where?” a fair bit – asking for things – & she even says “why?”. She loves chattering. “oh dear” is when something has gone wrong. Another general exclamation is, “Ee-aye, ee-aye, oh” (as in ‘Old Macdonald had a farm….’).

Hmm yes well – all this box in room juggling feels a bit like a perpetual motion machine. We got the back room sorted. We thanked Caroline for helping out keeping an eye on Jack. It was not something that was intended – Jack just slipped off – but she said it was a pleasure & she enjoyed it. Jack enjoys the idea of gardening. He has a little area in our garden where he digs & plants things – like – um – twigs & plants he & Hamish have uprooted, & paintbrushes… Hamish even buried some money in there once! Buried treasure. Jack & Hamish sometimes go off searching for treasures, & come back with all sorts of things – like – um – wood & um – bits of metal – shiny things. They had a horde of it once in a little area where someone parks their car (at the front of their house) at the bottom of the street. I have even (horror of horrors) thrown away a pile of treasure that they left on the back street just outside our gate. Meany daddy.
Yes, anyway – a good start has been made on clearing out the back room. Perhaps it is a good thing that we are forced to do this every so often as it makes us throw away a lot of accumulated, but possibly useful – um, things … ok – rubbish. Perhaps adult treasures, then.
I worry that I still have not heard in regard to my taking a holiday. It is supposed to start this week & it would be… a tad frustrating (GRRRR) if it was lost due to me not having been got back to on the matter.

A few moment before bathtime.
The kids are playing on bikes on the back street one more.
Eve has just passed by on Amber’s tricycle saying, “Hiya dadi, hiya dadi, hiya dadi”. Amber is Hamish’s younger sister. She is a couple of months older than Eve – can’t remember how many. She had foolishly left her tricycle in our yard, & Eve has not removed her bottom from it in about an hour. Heh – she is now telling off Jack for sitting on the wall at the top of the street.
Our excursion to Bradford yesterday was exhausting. We walked many miles in search of a border, & miraculously we found one in the end. At the noted tacky home improvement emporium; Fads. A terracotta coloured border textured, with a spiraling yellow stitch motif. It should work well. Not over decorative, not twee, & hopefully the right sort of colour so that it doesn’t make the rest of the paintwork seem grubby. Phew.
Today I started off inexplicably tetchy. No real reason. Still, got on with getting Eve breakfast & Jack on the Internet while Louise had her shower. Slobbed it a bit when Louise came downstairs, & then Louise got tetchy & started fretting about the fact that we needed to get the back room cleared as the decorators are due this week, so we had to move some things upstairs, but to do that we needed to move some of the things that are in the bedroom at the moment (that used to be in the attic) back up to the attic, but the floor has not been completely cleaned in the attic as yet – so not that much can go back up…
Kids are bathed & bed.
Frayed nerves are I guess understandable. I got on with moving some boxes. Louise started tidying & sorting in the back room, Jack wet off to watch & help Caroline, our very good next door neighbour do some planting in her garden & Eve – well – she pottered about amusing herself. It’s amazing that she manages that… Jack used to demand your attention, but then I guess, he being the 1st, we indulged him in that.