Childminding, roads, safety, temper tantrum, month of letters, London and Les Mis, Fill in the Blank, soft box, ballet

So! Through another week of childminding! It's certainly been interesting, and a little stressful if I'm honest. Tuesday and Wednesday were fine, although BB's been more challenging recently. This is mainly because she's so tired - she's getting up in the nights for her parents, and really early in the mornings too; and she's basically standing at her gate yelling at them. They keep trying to leave her to yell until she gets bored and goes back to her bed - but she's stubborn! She's always been much more of a firecracker than B, who was born with a laid-back personality! But we've had a couple of naughty steps recently, which is unusual, because normally I don't have to ask her to do anything more than twice - twice is when she wants to do something else first. But now she's being a bit pushy, and trying desperately to manipulate me with whining and telling me that she 'wants mummy' or 'feeling poorly', and the bottom lip comes out and she looks up at me to make sure I'm watching. Which I'm not, I'm afraid, because with BB the best thing to do is ignore her until she's either done what was asked or calmed down so you can tell her again.


But basically, come yesterday she must have been quite tired - and recovering from a cold, too. So she was dosed up at lunchtime with calpol, and we made the afternoon school run to pick up B. We were most of the way home, and stood at the edge of the pavement waiting to cross the road. B took a slight step back away from the edge of the pavement, and BB decided that that was the moment to run into the road. Right in front of that oncoming car. I swear, my heart stopped for a moment. Thankfully the driver was paying attention (and I cannot stress how much this demonstrates the value of the rules against using a phone in the car or other distractions!!) and he stopped. I had leapt into the road as she ran in, screaming her name. I'm not sure why - I think my first reaction was just to try and grab her out of the way of the vehicle, maybe. But I did grab her and brought her back to the pavement.

We got home safely, and nobody was injured, thank goodness. But I tell you, I have never been so scared before. I've suffered a road accident myself, and suffered the terror of operations from the dentist (which are far scarier than anyone can truly understand). But seeing BB run into the path of an oncoming car beat all. It would be devastating enough if she were my child - but she's not. I didn't want to have to imagine telling her mum that I'd let her child get killed whilst in my care! So from next week we're reinstalling the wrist-strap for a fortnight or so. Because none of us can afford to risk her getting killed. It would be too much. And you don't take chances on a child's safety. For the past 3 months, I have enjoyed having a toddler who knew about roads, and would stop at the end of the pavement if she ran ahead, and would wait for me to tell her it was safe to cross the road. And now we're going to have to rein her in. It's a little bit gutting.

So there was that major incident which rather tore me up. And then, when the girls' mum got home, BB - being tired and grizzly from everything - decided to start crying loudly, which her mum ignored (good policy on attention-seeking behaviour usually!), and it soon escalated into a full temper tantrum violence accompanied by hysterical screaming. I have never seen that from BB before. I've seen her cry, both for real and for attention. I've seen her sulk. I've seen her hit her sister occasionally when she's angry or frustrated, and I've seen her hurt people by accident when she's got carried away in a game. But I've never seen a temper tantrum like that! She calmed down eventually, and her mum then dealt with it and spoke to her. But Thursday was not the best of days overall.

But it is a Friday today! I'm going out with some friends later today, which should be nice - it's been a while since I've had the opportunity to enjoy company above the age of 5! I've also begun my Month of Letters positively, with a letter going out to I, my friend from Malvern, on 1st; and a letter going out to a theatre on 2nd. I feel this was a bit sneaky, as I had to send the tickets back so they would send me the ones for the new date I'm going - but I did include a note to say thankyou to the Customer Services team for being so brilliant!

They truly were. What had happened was that the wife and I were due to go to London and see Les Mis on 4th August this summer. Being as dumb as I was, I was the one who had booked it, and I'd forgotten that the Olympics were on. So trying to sort out accommodation was next to impossible and way out of our price range. So I rang up the Customer Services for the Delfont Mackintosh Theatre group, and a brilliant young woman helped sort me out so that we could go 2 weeks later, which would have us going down to London in the time between the Olympics and Paralympics instead. She really was lovely and helpful, and she even waived the fee for changing the tickets and talked me into a cheaper postage option. She just went above and beyond, and made me feel so secure about rearranging the tickets. So now we're going to see it on 18th, instead, and we have our accommodation booked and paid for! And going a fortnight later more than halved the price of it! So now all we have to sort out is the train journey down, and that would be better to be done nearer the time.

Last thing of note - it's a Friday! Which means I will finally be able to Fill in the Blank on an actual Friday! So here goes:

1. If money wasn't an issue, the first thing I'd cross off my Life list is to go to New Zealand with the wife. There are lots and lots of things I would love to be able to do with that money, but the most expensive and unlikely thing on the Life list I share with the wife is a trip to New Zealand and a tour of The Tribe sets, so that would be what we would do! And of course we would tour Hobbiton too...

2. The idea of adopting asian babies is something I like that other people think is weird.

3.  If my life were a movie right now, the title would be Until she burst. This is in reference to the stress I've been feeling recently, and also the amount of chocolate I've been consuming. My hips have disappeared into rolls of fat. Ah well!

4. Three things I am looking forward to this month are the possibility of house sitting in a house my parents bought, doing a bit more exercise, and doing lots of fun, crafty things!

5. My favourite song to sing in the shower is currently the theme song for 'Charley Bear'. I know. This is what happens when you're introduced to children's television. you develop favourite shows and theme songs. And this one is really good! Otherwise I'm loving Fredrika Stahl's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

6. If I found out that the production of Quavers was ending this month, I'd go out and buy as much as I could tomorrow.

7. One thing I'll never grow tired of is the wife. I'm pretty sure, anyway. I worry sometimes that she'll grow tired of me. But I don't think I could grow tired of her.

So that's this week's done, and on the right day, too!  I'm going to stop now, as I could do with showering before tonight, really!! Plus I have little else to say... oh! Here's the picture of the soft box I made:

 Not too bad I think, for something that asks you to sew round the corners of a box!!

What I like best about these pictures is that you can't see that it's filled with chocolate in various forms! It's my chocolate box, and I love it very much. Now, if I could create a lid to hide the contents, I wouldn't eat so much of them. But it is demonstrative of my positive change in attitude towards unhealthy foods!







So that's all! I will try to post soon - like, when I've made the other box. And I'll update you on where I have sent letters as and when I do. Today's letter is to Norland College with some of my forms, tomorrow's is (hopefully) to my friend E, since she's way overdue one.

Love love xx

PS. I forgot to tell you about the ballet my mum and I saw. It was Beuaty and the Beast by Birmingham Royal Ballet, and it was excellent - the choreography and casting were ideal, and the dancers did it true justice. It really was enchanting! Also I made more soup and it was yummy.