Trouble in the sock pile

So socks. Five people means ten socks a day (if everybody changes them as often as they say they do) which is seventy a week. That's 140 in a fortnight. 300 in a month.

Some people don't find this problematic, because they're organised, diligent, hardworking, and just don't HAVE a big heap of laundry or a special shopping bag for unpaired socks. For the rest of us, this is a problem that we just wade through and hope one day somebody will invent shoes that can be worn without socks that don't stink or give you blisters and that still keep your feet warm enough. Or we'll all evolve a fuzzy layer of fur on our feet that will negate the need altogether.

So, just by chance, I, like many others on the Internet, discovered these:

Some smarty pants stuck poppers on socks and is selling them at about $6 a pair. Naturally, I'm far from willing to pay that price for socks, however handy they are. Especially for five of us.

So instead, I bought some of these:

From this ebay seller. I've bought 50 each of the kids' three colours (all their stuff is colour coded in red, blue, yellow where possible) and 150 in transparent for the grown ups and a pair of the special pliers for attaching them to stuff.

When they arrive, I will begin the task of attaching them to all the paired socks in the house, colour coded according to the owner. The children will then be persuaded to attach their socks together prior to putting them in the laundry. Failure to do this will be easily traced to the owner of the socks due to the colour coded poppers and additional training put in place. When they come out of the washing machine, all paired up and popped together, I'm going to be so happy.

It just occurred to me that a boy popper only attaches to a girl popper, so that that big stack of black socks that need snapping together run the risk of losing their mates and ending up in same sex pairs.

We'll see how this actually goes.

An ironic twist on bedtime troubles

So that the kids could have a playroom to trash with their friends while the mummies drink tea in the sitting room, we decided to stick the three of them in the smallest bedroom, allowing enough room for their three little beds, three little wardrobes and a couple of recycled bedside tables. The goal was also that they should not be distracted by toys and the TV etc. while trying to sleep.

What we ended up with, however, was three years of hell. Isaac does not like to go to bed. Obviously he does, because screaming is no defence against Mummy's Rules and their application. However, whatever we do in terms of quietly settling the boys at bedtime (stories, darkness, warmth, gentle soothing music, lavendar, cctv) we've ended up with them all up pillow fighting, building bridges from one bed to the other with the side bars of their beds, or just jumping stark naked on their beds singing "Gangnam Style" with no regard for my threats. 

On the rare occasions that the little ones don't have Isaac to distract them, they're out like little lights, and it's Isaac who is getting out of bed with complaints about thirst, insomnia, snoring, mysterious noises, the need to pee (sometimes at 5 minute intervals) and I've just run out of ideas. Even the usually sedative effect of phenergan have no impact. 

Even exhausting days running around Kew Gardens
don't make him sleepy.

So, last night, with two tired little ones who just needed to get to bed, and what with it being a Friday, I just didn't bother to put him to bed. I told him to get a book and sit on the couch with me. Then I watched TV and ate biscuits and occasionally defined tricky words for him until at 9.05 he closed his book, rubbed his little eyes and quietly put himself to bed, went straight to sleep and wasn't seen again until morning. This is unheard of.

I heard the kids getting up watching TV and playing quietly in the morning, and eventually dragged myself out of bed sometime after 9 - NOT a common treat, I assure you - but was surprised not to find Isaac causing chaos somewhere. I poked my head round the bedroom door to find him on his bed with my iPad, quietly chewing his way through a triple pack of Juice Fruit and with a bag of popcorn by his side. He smiled, I asked if that was his breakfast, to which he said it was, and I left him to it. 

So, the outcome of this accidental experiment is that just not bothering to put Isaac to bed leads to a far superior outcome all round. All three children fell asleep earlier, Isaac read most of his school reading book, and woke up calm, happy and relaxed and was (even more unusually) happy to play quietly by himself for nearly the entire morning.

Although I'm a strong believer in the idea that children should be neither seen nor heard after 8pm and that they should just go to bed and be quiet when I tell them to, I might have to actually change my strategy for the sake of everyone getting enough sleep. And he only caught 5 minutes of post watershed broadcasting, so I guess it's okay. By not doing it my way I sort of get more of what I want and can get up off the couch less. Oh the irony.

Feels like digging in the sea

Today I put the new desk (£60 from Ikea, an upgrade from the £50 Argos jobbie which didn't even have all it's screws when we got it) into the desk corner, took apart the old one a bit (not difficult, what with all those missing screws) and dumped it.

After sitting at my swanky new workstation for about ten minutes, I realised that it really was time to do something about the draughty window. It's a very fancy window, but as draughty as it is pretty. So I dug out the ancient dusty pack of draught excluder and tried to figure out how to stick it on. Turns out the glue was all dried out and it wouldn't stick to the wood at all. It would, however, stick to the sole of my shoe. And when I say stick, I mean properly stuck. There's still a bit on there. Anyway, after ten minutes of farting around with it, I gave up and shoved the whole lot into the bin, and jammed a rolled up carrier bag into the window jam and shut it. As an emergency measure, it worked well, stopping the worst of the gail from coming in, so I left it at that and answered some emails.

Until the hail started. I'm not sure whether I saw it through the window or felt it spattering the backs of my hands as I typed first. Yes, that's right. I excluded the draughts but not the falling ice crystals, which somehow got in anyway. I think I'm beaten.

Told you it was pretty.

Sometimes less really makes more feel like more

So after all that, it's March and the bear egg is still in the back of the cupboard from clearing the table for Christmas dinner. I'll drag it out at some point.

Today, however, I drowned my sorrows in golden syrup. I decided to make Danielle Raine's flapjack recipe  again, but this time try harder not to burn it. Here's what I ended up with.

Don't look at the gunk on the tiles behind the stove. You know yours is the same. I'm going to clean it tomorrow. Probably.

So it looks like a huge quantity of flapjack, but it really isn't. I made the amount in Danielle's recipe and stuck it in two standard sized tins and squashed it really really really flat all over. Then after it was baked, I cut each tray into a ridiculous 36 small bars. That makes 72 from one pack of butter and half a bag of oats.

Why so small? Because being allowed to have a THIRD flapjack is far more exciting for a greedy little boy than being given one large one, which, lets face it, is eaten just as quickly. The possibilities for bribery are bewildering.

And yes, the two pieces missing were eaten by me while still warm and went very nicely with a well-earned cup of tea.

The Great Bear Egg Debate

A great deal of yelling took place last night. Proper angry kid yelling. And a clear division formed across the dining table.

The big issue? Whether the hairy brown object on the table was a bear egg or a coconut. Mummy, trying to encourage imagination and fun, bought the bear egg at Waitrose the other day for the princely sum of £1.

Isaac and Adam have agreed that yes, it's a bear egg, and have made some efforts to steal guinea pig bedding for it's nest. Ben, however, despite being the youngest, has made his views clear. It's a coconut, and we're all morons. We can make it a nest, take turns to sit on it. But it WILL. NOT. HATCH.

We'll see, small cynical child.