My God this PC is slow today. Anyway, still dizzy and I'm getting a little hacked off with this now. Would like to get back to health please. Really bad headaches all day and it's affecting how I interact with the children which is the worse thing...

Went to NA today. It wasn't raining but still a bit damp. No matter, for I have the Mudseeker as a boy who would find the grottiest puddle even on the niceset day anyway, so having a bit of mud around really isn't a big deal.

He ran around. I chased him as much as my head allowed me to do. Then we saw a squirrel and I told Boss he had to be quiet and to stand still to watch animals otherwise they would run away, and I was gobsmacked to see how quiet and still he could actually be! We watched the squirrel for a long time - burying his food and covering it over. Then we saw some robins and other birds. Then Boss decided he was David Attenborough and gave me a running commentary (in whispers) to what exactly was going on. Apparently, according the new documentary, squirrels are "ferocious animals with enormous teeth who bite bigger than any dog and are bigger than Africa". Right.

Then we fed the animals and one hen pecked his thumb and we had another documentary at how "ferocious" the chickens were and that if "they were veloceraptor they would hunt in packs and kill you". Lovely.

The woman at NA told me that from next term they will be charging £1.50 for the first child and 50p for each extra child. I hope they don't include Jaws in this new price banding as it will mean I will have to get my money's worth and let him crawl through the undergrowth... hm...

Whilst driving home we saw a bin lorry with it's lights flashing. Now ordinarily this would have Boss having a hairy cannipury with sheer ecstatic delight and glee, so I said "Oh LOOK - a BIN lorry", to which I am treated with a bored "Yeah"... then, "I'm not interested in Bin Lorries any more actually. I prefer dinosaurs and lions, and mandrills and baboons and tigers and chimps and gorillas.". OK actually. Sorry actually I mentioned it then. Stoopid me.

Over lunch he sat pensive and I asked what was wrong and he said, "You see that?" gesturing towards the pot garden, "that is FMs that is. See - there's the pond and there are the trees and there *develops big silly grin* there is the MUD that I play in" *grin continues unabated*.

We do some painting after a long while of not doing any. Today the colour was red-orange.



Then we observed our seeds etc and wrote our observations about the leaf colour change in the carrot in the journal.

We spent some of the afternoon dressed up and playing picnics. We cooked our "food" and arranged the picnic blanket and he informs me that he wants to have a picnic at Burghley - in the trees where people can't see us. *shrugs*



And thereafter Jaws pretty much trashed and crashed through our picnic, almost swallowing whole one piece of wooden fruit (!!) meaning picnic time was over and we read pterosaur and dinosaur books and he asked lots of questions about Romans. I think Story of the World purchase might be in order...

Playtime (in fact ANY time) is becoming a little bit more labourious now that Jaws is very mobile. Things are trashed and taken and chewed and sat on and if he doesn't get his way then he squeals with ear-shattering resonance until we either die of head pain or give in and let him trash whatever it was we were attempting to play with. It has come to a point that I have noticed that Boss now doesn't take any toys out and just wanders around aimlessly. We have tried putting Jaws in a travel cot - but no room and high squealing; we have tried reinforcing the areas that we don't want Jaws to go with cushions the weight of sandbags, but no use as he clambers over them and/or moves them. We are essentially under seige in our own house by a scheister holding us over a barrel for complete attention and toy-usage.

Geez whizz this age IS hard.

Then before bed Boss did a few more lines of his weaving before my brain almost caved in and we did not read any LW&W at all today. Hm.

Plus Jaws destroyed the play sink. It's in pieces. Need glue. Lots. May tie Jaws to a post in the garden at this rate. He could eat grass. That would be two jobs in one; if I was in Human Resource Management that would put me in line for promotion...