My fingers are wrinkly

I've just done the washing up for the first time in goodness knows how long! It was odd; it's a job I hate normally, but today I found it OK. Humming along to the radio and musing over recent events. The house is quite quiet with the children all playing upstairs (they are supposed to be tidying their room, but I can hear the bathroom taps going every now and again - that'll be 'hairstyling' *sigh*) and the dog asleep, the cat sunbathing (yes - SUN!) and Liam is out at his tutorial, doing a rehearsal test in preparation of his exam soon.

I'll be pleased when the end of his course arrives, I hope we make the most of his time between this year and next. He has his exam in two week's time, which will mark the end (although I'm sure he has some reading he will still want to do) and then he will start the next part of his course early next year.

I've been missing having him around. OK, we might not do much (TV, internet, tidying up), but it's nice to just have him in the room. Sometimes he is in the room, but then I have to remember to be quiet, and not bring up sudden random conversations to pull him away from his work. I don't mind this, it's the tutorials taking up our weekends, and sometimes the evenings that I have to work at not resenting. I know how important this is, not only to him, but possibly for all of us, if he really does get a good job at the end of it. I really do believe that he can become a barrister if he puts his mind to it, and that would be fantastic for all of us, and worth the hours of study. I just like family time together, and it's already hard enough with ballet on Saturday and kung fu on Sunday.



More so now that Scarlett has extra ballet on Saturday of course (smug mummy!). She seems to be doing OK, today was her second lesson, and as Liam is at his tutorial that meant I had to take her. And as I had the boys with me, that meant I couldn't hang around to watch much.
I wish I knew what bits we could practice at home with her. I've never done ballet, never really done dance either, but I would Love to help Scarlett on her way. She was happy to be taking part - she was beaming! - and she seems to keep up well, not getting tired or bored.
This isn't the first time I've been a proud mum for her - and Frazer too actually; on Wednesday Frazer's percussion classes begun again, he does half an hour after school normally. When his time was up, I went upstairs to speak to Fran, the music teacher, as I knew she was up there talking to Leigh, the percussion teacher, and I want to get Frazer started on an instrument now that he is in the juniors.
Fran said that Frazer had never put his hand up when music was suggested to them! Trust him, my little shy boy, I'm so glad I spoke to her now. She and Leigh instantly said how well Frazer does in percussion, and suggested that he stay for the full hour from now on - starting that day! Then Fran asked why Scarlett wasn't doing percussion yet and I said it's because she's only in year one (percussion classes start year two, other music lessons from year 3) and Fran said what a shame this is, because "Scarlett is one of my wonderful pupils..." I was surprised at this! I knwo Scarlett does well academically, and socially, but I have no idea when it comes to music and PE etc.

But to better this, Fran actually asked Leigh if there was space for Scarlett in percussion! Leigh said that there is, but it's not supposed to go to a 5 year old. Fran suggested Scarlett start, but stressed that it would have to be a big secret. So here we are, teaching our child to keep things quiet already. Scarlett stayed for the second half hour of percussion with Frazer (I was surprised! Thought that would be next week) and I went to speak with Fran.
She seems to be a lovely teacher, she's so passionate about music and getting children to enjoy it all. She agrees that Frazer could do very well with an instrument - both she and Leigh were shocked but pleased when I told them that although Frazer hasn't shown any subject that he excels in, he did learn how to play 'London's Burning' on the xylophone in 2 and a half days for his class assembly!
But Fran believes that you can't just shove a child on to any old instrument - it needs to be one that they really want to learn. But having said this, the school only do certain instruments beginning in certain years. Violin is year 4, guitar is year 6 - I think it's dependant on the person teaching and how sensible the children are to learn at that age. She did say that she would look in to seeing if there's violin places available, as Frazer is sensible enough to go in to a group with older children.
They also teach Double Bass, Piano/Keyboard, Brass and a few other instruments, it's a pretty good school in that respect I think. She's also thinking of the keyboard, as he does so good in percussion and it's not far off the xylophone that he did so well with. This would also be good as we have a keyboard/electric piano here at home. But mostly, Fran has encouraged me to get out plenty of classical CDs, to take Frazer along to live performances if I can, and get him in to music as much as possible to see what kind of instrument and music appeals to him. So that is my mission for today, I've not done anything yet. We do have lots of classical CDs - Scarlett Loves them to practice her dancing!

Thursday evening was Rowan's turn to make me proud. He had been invited along to a friend's birthday at the bowling alley. Rowan LOVES bowling. He'd only been once before but even though it was about a year ago, he remembered it very well! He was so good on the night, very social, very polite, played nicely and very much enjoyed himself. We didn't get home until nearly 9pm though!
I expected him to be shattered the next day, but he was fine - then again, he had his nap at nursery on Thursday before the party! He keeps doing this, but the staff don't mind. Rowan just takes himself off to the little bed in the home corner, or the sofa in the reading area and goes to sleep - he doesn't care at all what people might think! It's quite a common occurrence now, but I don't mind, if he needs the sleep then he can get it, at least he can sleep through children playing and stuff.
It turned out that I was the tired one! My smoke alarm was playing silly buggers with us, from about 3am! Finally got it to be quiet at 4:30 - but I wasn't sure how I got it to stop beeping. It wasn't the full alarm sound, just an intermittent beeping, like it had a low battery - but it runs off the mains! I think it must be the battery though - I've done now what I was scared to do on the night and pulled the whole thing down. I was worried that if I did this it would never stop beeping! Like Phoebe in Friends...

Friday saw another appliance break. I was absolutely shattered last night and falling asleep as I loaded the dishwasher (flylady routines have gone out of the window this week) before bed, but then I couldn't shut the door.
I spent so long shifting things around in there and removing pots and pans that I ended up sitting on the floor to do it! I called Liam in eventually, and he figured out that it was actually the catch at the top of the door. We can ram the door and get it to shut, but it wont hold there. I have no idea why this should go though - we've never been hard on it, I've looked after it quite well I think, apart from never buying those cleaning products to flush the thing out. I was going to soon, as it was getting a bit grimey. I've never even pulled it out to try to figure out why it's been leaking for ages (not a huge leak) as I've been scared that I might break it!

Oh well. A big fat pants to that. Today I've been washing up, and now it's taken me so long to blog this horribly long ramble (yeah, sorry about that!), I no longer have wrinkly fingers!


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