Junk Modelling

Yesterday evening was.... difficult. The boys actually went to bed pretty well, even if it did take a while; but then I found myself trapped. I'd swapped the boys over so they were sleeping on different sides, the aim being to stop Ben kicking Steve at night, and to stop Charley climbing over Ben as he tries to come find us. He is quite a heavy lump when his fist or foot is pushing down on your stomach or windpipe. So I escaped eventually, galvanised by the prospect of a nutella mug cake, only to remember (after panicking because I thought we'd run out of nutella) that I'd not washed the microwave tray since this morning when my porridge boiled over. So I had to wash up after making the cake batter. And only got halfway through washing up before Charley woke up. And forgot to take my phone up with me, thinking I wouldn't be long re-settling him. And ended up staying there. And falling asleep eventually, held hostage by an eleven month old. Steve said he came to bed about 1.30am, after finishing sanding all my clay stars for me, hoping I'd re-appear! Charley suffered last night, couldn't stay asleep, I think his teeth are really bothering him. We ended up getting up at 7am (that's VERY early for us, given we're not normally out of bed until closer to 9am) after several hours struggling to sleep, and stumbling downstairs for calpol.

So, we were tired today. I had that mug cake for breakfast (with creme fraiche and a token strawberry for a nod to healthy living) and let me assure you it requires sharing: I coukdn't face any more food for hours, and had to have a mid-afternoon snack of brocolli, yellow pepper and houmous before I could even look at chocolate again. Thankfully order is restored, I had chocolate for supper :)

We had a lovely surprise visit from Jo and Connor this morning, and I really hope we do it again next week although I promise we'll get dressed for next time! Charley was fast asleep again by the time they popped round, practically unheard of for him to nap that early, and sure enough he was napping while Ben was at preschool this afternoon. He went a little stir crazy later which was fixed by going to the chip shop with Steve though!

I have struggled to keep my eyes open but finally got chance (thankyou Steve xx) to paint some of my clay decorations. One more batch to cut and bake, and another colourway to paint: I'm getting there! It's so much easier when you've finally decided what you're doing!

This is Ben's first junk model - it's an alligator, with fins. The first time he's tried to do the tape by himself! And out of his imagination. My whole perspective on junk modelling has changed from this. I used to see crazy creations that kids had brought home, gathering dust, and I vowed to at least teach my kids to make stuff worth keeping if all it was going to do was gather dust. But Ben PLAYED with his alligator! It's not survived the day but it was great to see him make it, and great to play with him with it too :D

Charley has come down with yet another cold, to add insult to his teething suffering. We are suffering virus after virus after virus at the moment. It is very wearing.

He's on and off me and Steve this evening, so I'm going to try and get some more bits done for cards!

(Backblipped for yesterday!)