Ode to Mr Scheffler pumpkin effort

And Lo, it came to pass.....

So Laurie has reached the age when he has clocked the meaning of Christmas. To a three year old this is clearly all about some fat dude bringing you gifts, despite my best attempts at explaining that it was all about this little baby who liked being nice.....I may have got a bit stuck when trying to explain the concept of a whole religion to a little boy to whom the most influential beings so far have been a polar bear called Captain Barnicles and a slightly ineffectual postman .

His current viewpoint however is helpful on one hand, as he can be threatened for the next 4 weeks with being especially good (particually when in ear shot of the chimney, which is a direct line to the big man himself). On the other hand we have  4 weeks of continious 'Is it Christmas yet? Will is be Christmas tomorrow?'' Is Father Christmas making my presents now? and so on and so on. Parents of years previous I salute you for not breaking under the pressure and bursting the Santa bubble early, if only for a bit of peace.

In their wisdom PreSchool has got the kids to produce a Christmas list by cutting items out of toy catalougues.  Laurie has chosen a kitchen, a remote control car and some Fireman Sam stuff. Fortunalty my son is easy to read and the car and kitchen are already in progress. I just hope he is not materialistic enough yet to notice the car was 99p from oxfam and the kitchen is a homemade adapted cabinet. Well budget is small.

I shall resign myself to the weeks of Christmas build up from now on being sctattered with Christmas lists, letters to santa and perculiar renditions of festive musical classics. He can currently only remember the 'Atchoooo,Atchooo,Atchooo' bit of 'When Santa got stuck up the chimney', which promises unpredictable things for the upcoming PreSchool concert.

We tried a really nice red cabbage recipie a work collegue suggested the other day. Definalty a possibility for the festive period- maybe if we both practice a bit Laurie and I will both be ready in time. Providing I've not turned into Scrooge by then.

One for All and All for One

We're half way through Movember and the world has a distinctive flavour of Musketeer with a large percentage of male friends and collegues starting to support some impressive (and some less impressive) facial furniture. Having a tricky meeting with a gentleman colleague sporting a handlebar moustache was made all the more challenging today as I wafted in and out of confusion,fascination,repulsion and focus. The latter being made all the more tricky by the fact lack of sleep is still a major factor in my ability to concentrate.

Mol has been under the weather and very unlike her usual chirpy. Days of winging and clinging and snot and calpol and explosive nappies have run into nights of wailing and screaming and winging and clinging and calpol. Here at Team Anonimum headquarters we have been stretched to our limits of temper and are trying hard to keep our eyes on the happy family prize. Now if only the cat could stop choosing to torment her night time play things by my pillow or understand the concept of the naughty step things may stay just the right side of 'over the edge'.

Tonight, we had belly pork with roast spuds, greens and onion gravy. Mol decided she was a fan of the gravy and was allowed to dip her potatos into the jug, basically only as it was very sweet and she hadn't really eaten anything for a few days. At the end of the meal she was fully embracing the Movember movement with some creative oniony gravey top lip and chin (and eye and hair and elbow) decorations.

D is for Doofus

This week I seem to have been taking a generous dose of stupid in my morning decaffe. Yesterday my school run, buggy or car conundrum, was soon solved on finding I had left the car door wide open after transferring a sleeping Laurie the night before. The good news here was that due to our genteel location, everything lay relativly untouched. The bad news was the only thing to touch it was the massive rain storm which had drenched Laurie's car seat.

So descision made, I was a rather fraut cagooled Mum who dashed up the road (not at all looking the relaxed sporty parent on the Phil and Teds ads) pushing two heavy kids and trying to dodge the puddles, horse poo and other country treats. How I smirked at the man who over took me dashing his son to the primary, at least I wasn't tht late! I smiked some more to myself as I saw him plus son, both looking quite cross, retreating back up the road. Really, who takes their kids to school on inset day, don't these paople read their term dates?

I was busy congratulating myself on approaching the preschool having made it from home in under 10 minutes when it dawned on me the roads were unusually quiet. The car park too was pretty quiet. I started to wonder if that email I had recieved and intended to open entitled 'term dates' may infact have contained some useful information. As I arrived at the gates I met another Mum (looking condiserably more glamorous having stepped daintily out of her 4x4. I had wondered about walking casually past and pretending I had been hurrying at such speed to get to the stop and shop. I decided against it as out of the two, taking the boy to school on and inset was far less shameful than racing to londis. After feeling a little like the kids who turned up to school in uniform on a mufty day, Other Mum and myself laughed it off deciding to never mention it again.

We trudged back up the hill, snowploughing the fallen leaves on our way trying to plan an alternate mornings activity....much of which consisted of trying to dry out a sodden car seat.