Go to bed!!!!

This weekend two days, two different ways. Both nights went to bed way too late (like 2 a.m.). Saturday morning had to wake up with the kids who on a week day have to be dragged out of beds at 8, but on weekends won't sleep later then 7. Today I refused to wake up so V. obliged and got up with them. He fed them and played with them while I continued to sleep. Mind you, they were so loud that I was dreaming our house was full of people and kids and pets and don't ask how the kitchen looked, but it was good that I could sleep until half past ten. Woke up groggy with a headache but still I was a different person.

Yesterday I was pissed off all the time without a specific reason, short tempered, yelling a lot, badly handling everything, from kids to cleaning and cooking. Today I've cooked, cleaned the house, played with kids (a little), prepared parcels for the shop, did two loads of laundry, and had patience for things that would have made me mad yesterday. Like Ana wanted ice cream before lunch, took it from the freezer, and would not put it back. And when I took it away from her she went ballistic and smashed her plate to the floor into pieces. So for the first time I took her into the corner for a time-out, and to my surprise she understood and stayed there crying for a while, then we talked about what happened, she calmed down, came to the table and ate nicely. Who would have thought?

Now could someone please force me go to bed no later then 10:30 p.m. so my kids would have a nice mom tomorrow?

Father's day

We have prepared a little surprise for father's day at the low budget end. I fell in love with the silhouettes ever since I've first seen them on Molly's blog. After that I've noticed them here and there on the web, NieNie makes her children's every year and hangs them on the entrance hall, Lu made wonderful ones last year, but I've never made time to try it. Until now. And I have to thank Lu for that. She decided to make stencils on a T-shirt with her boys' silhouettes this year. I have considered the idea also but in the end I made the simple paper ones. I've used Molly's method: take pictures, upload them on the computer, crop and adjust the size of the pictures to fit the frames, trace the contours with a soft pencil on baking paper, then cut with a scalpel both through the baking paper and the black paper, put it in the frame with white background et voila!

The background doesn't match the matting, I'm gonna have to change that later. The CD is also part of the present. I don't know much about Michael Nyman's music except that I love the soundtrack of Jane Campion's "The Piano" (as well as the whole movie). This CD is not exactly what I hoped but I think I'll grow to like it. Hopefully V will like it too and will not read this tonight to spoil the surprise.

So making the silhouettes was easy and it was fun for the kids. They didn't really help much but they enjoyed watching. I mean, there was playing and bickering and even screaming going on next to me while I was working, at some point I've lost my nerve and went to the other room because "I can't do ONE thing with you guys!!!", which has upset terribly Andrei. He started crying and gave me a heartbreaking "Mommy, you are mean FOR us", which woke me up. I've apologized to them, hugged them, told them I was sorry and I shouldn't have said such a thing, and "Let's try to work together!". All was well after that. They were excited to see how their form appeared from the black paper, and can't wait to give the present to daddy.

Here are the pictures I've used:

I think Ana's profile is a bit too small but I wanted to have her ponytail in the picture. Our frames are quite small, they hold 9x16 cm pictures without matting, but with bigger frames it would be even easier to cut the silhouettes.

Now will have to pack everything and wait till Sunday. Happy father's day to everyone!

The up-date for last week: Ana has had chickenpox. We've been together at home and she was a trouper. Barely had any fever, playing happily, we've been cooking together, painting together (so I've had my share of fun). On Wednesday I had to go to work so she had fun with daddy.

That's her doll's dummy in her mouth. We've thrown her own away more than one year ago and she still misses it.

And so, coming to this week's news, daddy is traveling abroad and we are on our own. This is the first time since before Ana was born that I'm alone with the kids for such a long time. I am anxious to see how we'll do. Piece of cake ! I'll have to

-feed kids in the morning

-take the kids to school/ day care by bus/bike

-prepare parcels for the shop and take them to post office (bus/bike)

- work from home until 4 p.m. (meanwhile tidy -up the house, start first washing, unload machine, start second load )

-pick-up the kids from afternoon club/ daycare (again bus/bike)

-cook dinner

-feed kids

-do homework with Andrei

-keep kids happy (draw, read, play, cook, watch TV)

-bath kids (keep them from killing each over over GoGo's or something else)

-put kids to bed (start at 7:30 so they would sleep at 9:30)

-clean up the " remains of the day"

-hang laundry, iron the dried stuff, load washing machine for next day

-prepare parcels for the shop

-finally go to bed

-wash, rinse and repeat.

Also tomorrow Andrei's friend will come with us in the morning and afternoon to and from school, tomorrow evening they go together to this club where they build cool mini models for cars and planes and ships, and on Wednesday Andrei has soccer practice. And a million other little things, like preparing a surprize for father's day.

And have I mentioned the laundry? We'll go to the library one evening, we'll have friends visiting us and try to make the best of the situation.

Also, let's not forget the laundry!

Yes, we'll be fine!

Wednesday, Nov 4th

It seems I can't keep- up with writing AND posting in time. The last two days have been chaos. The kids were ill so they have been at home with me. Andrei has lung infection AGAIN and he is taking Amoxicilin , Ana is mostly OK , but poor souls I had to drag them with me to run my errands walking, changing buses, cycling. It was very hard on Andrei, but they were both cheered up with a little Kinder chocolate egg. There's nothing like a little bribing to get you out of trouble.