OK

I have re-started my DIE-et, because let's face it, any diet that lasts two weeks is lame. I have had stomach illnesses that last longer. My last attempt failed because I got really ill and dizzy and couldn't even interact with the real world on the level of plankton, let alone give a toss about what I *looked* like.

Well, things change, and when you see a really fat woman walking towards you and your first reaction is "What the hell is it???! What does she LOOK like???" before realising it is your own reflection in a plane of glass (actually two planes, because you are so big you just can't even get those hips in one frame anymore), you know something has to be done. This cannot go on forever. I will either explode, become a social embarrassment (more than I already am) to my kids, have a heart attack or renal failure (maybe even both) and will have to start wearing jog pants for the rest of my life. This I cannot stand the thought of. The jog pants scenario is too damn icky for my subconscious to handle. I have never been "thin" apart from when I was 22 and I went through a total skinny phase where I just didn't eat anything and I walked everywhere. I was a size 8 and weighed 7 stone. I would like to be able to not look 6 months pregnant. That would be good. I know *sigh* EXERCISE is needed for this, but the thought of jog pants has got me caving into this necessity. I look bad. You know some people have bad hair days? Well, I'm having a bad face life. I know my mother looks at me as if to say, "Where is the D that we used to know - the one that woke up with perfect make up and lip gloss? Where has the D gone that was shiny, and thin, and nice to look at?". Er, hello - I'm over HERE - two for the price of one. That's me.

So code-name 'whale project' is underway. So far today I've had two oatcakes and a glass of orange juice and some green tea. I am filling myself up with water and later insha'allah I will have a meal and not eat a damn thing after 6pm. I have heard of a diet that lets you snack on ice cubes. I'm not that low. I will stick to cardboard, I mean, Ryvita.

Talking about whales, what have we done today?

We continued our whale project by recapping what we knew. Then we read how there are mainly two types of baleen feeders - the gulper/rorqual and the skimmer. One gulps and the other, well, skims. Duh.

So we did some experiments to solidify that.

The first was to take a balloon which had lines (rorquals) on the "belly"; we placed it over a tap and filled it up. Yes, we saw the rorquals expand so we realised that gulpers need to rorquals (grooves) to allow the belly to expand in this way. He liked this experiment. A. LOT.

The grooves/rorquals expand

Then we let the balloon go and he got a look at spouting. He liked that too.

Thar she blows

So we moved on to how they eat. For the rorqual experiment we practised gulping a mouthful of water and spitting it out through clenched teeth. Once that was mastered we added some hundreds and thousands for our 'plankton' and re-did it. What did we discover? Yes, the food stayed inside the mouth where we could eat it. Very good.

Hundreds and thousands plankton - no I don't use bakery aisle goods for cooking

The skimmer - paper in a bowl and a sieve.

We wrote it all out, printed it off and stuck.

I would like to do an experiment when we move onto toothed whales with parsley, carrot pieces, a comb and some tongs. We need also to do a bit more on what baleen look like. Insha'allah might do that tomorrow and move onto the Minke which we started a bit today.

Then we did some work in our notebook - he dictated what we did yesterday and 'coloured' some pictures in. Not quite getting the 'pride in work' ethos, nor what the freaking lines are there for *rolls eyes*. We looked too at the car door seed and wrote that observation to our notebook too.

Let me explain - a tractor-trailer, a rabbit and a goat. Or if you like, a tractor-trailer, a long-ear mutha being shot through the heart and the horned King of darkness

We read another chapter of CW and whale books galore and some other story books.

For a treat he watched The Snowman on CD. Then he watched.... David Attenborough!! whilst ordering us all to SHUSH and retelling everything St. Dave said verbatim just after he said it. It was a looooooong hour.

We played in the living room and did some weaving, finishing about a quarter of it. I checked for mail (yes I always remember mail near the END of the day) and Boss was delighted to find yet another eBay present on the doorstep - this one solely about toothed whales. And we haven't covered them yet so he did enjoy it immensely.

Jaws occupied himself by doing laps of the living room whilst furniture walking. He is getting faster.... masha'allah... and now he is climbing. *SHRIEK* He keeps looking keenly up at the bookshelves on the wall and cocking his leg up as if saying "one day... you are mine". So far he has ripped the number poster, managed to pull half the arabic numerals off the wall, trash Boss' bookcase, almost pulled the curtains down. Twice. And satisfied himself by trashing the playkitchen:

Read another chapter of CW before bed and we await the curtain-call for Charlotte tomorrow.

I'm going to go nail everything down now. Bye.