Tuesday 20 March 2012

Busy and Sleepless

Well it's been a busy few days, but that's the way I like it! On Thursday night, I caught up with a couple of my school friends, Anna and Mel, who I haven't seen for 15 years! It was fantastic fun, like we'd just been apart for the weekend rather than half our lives! We just picked up where we left off, there was no awkwardness and I definitely learned a lot about what has been going on in the years between - perhaps a little too much! Ha ha!
But I had great fun, and I can't wait to do it again soon.

Apart from that, just been busy with the boys, as always. Cant'e remember if I've mentioned it before but a couple of friends of mine started a new group at our local Surestart centre called Little Acorns, for children 0-5 and their parents. Anyway, they've not only got a great woman in to talk to us about potty training, tantrums etc, but also once a month, the Surestart centre gets creche workers in who look after the kiddywinks while the mums go into a different room for tea, biscuits and what we call a 'parents forum'. It's basically just to share our worries, get advice and be an adult for an hour or so, whilst knowing the kids are safe and learning and having fun. This week we were talking about sibling rivalry, something which I've been lucky enough to only have a mild case of with the boys, as I think Onur doesn't really remember a time when Kaya wasn't here! Of course they do the usual sibling fighting, but I think because Kaya is almost 18 months now and reciprocates, Onur won't usually start. Indeed, it's Kaya instigating it most of the time, terror that he is!
Anyhow, the boys had so much fun this week with the creche workers, painting and playing with water outside because it was a lovely day, and it really was nice to just have a tiny break from them and be me for a while instead of being mummy :) They're also trying to organise some trips for the kids, fire station, farm etc. which will be brilliant if it happens!

Kaya's been a bit poorly this week though, took him to the doctors this morning and they gave him ventolin and a baby inhaler thing, to help open up his airways. He also prescribed amoxicilliin despite telling me there was no infection present! So I haven't given it to him, because what is the point! At least the inhaler SEEMS to be working - they went to bed at 7 and it's now half past 8 and he's still sound asleep...fingers crossed! Onur had the same thing when he was a similar age, actually a bit older as we were in this house so that means Kaya was born so Onur was at least 21 months. In fact I think he was about 2. But anyway. The inhaler helped him too and after that he slept right through so fingers crossed I have the same result this time!

Again, I can't remember whether I already wrote about this, but I didn't get the NHS job. To say I was gutted is an understatement as you guys know I put my heart and soul into the volunteering, and I just felt like the timing was right too, what with Onur starting school next month. But no, not meant to be, and the weirdest thing was that the reason given was that I'd failed the literacy and numeracy test. Yes, I was shocked too! OK my maths isn't wonderful, but it was pretty straightforward really, so I'm shocked at myself. I KNOW it wasn't the literacy because, hello, this is ME, Mrs Pedantic Spelling and Grammar Police :) But apparently the pass/fail margins are ridiculously tight so...
It got me and hubby talking about other jobs, and after seeing something advertised at the school Onur is going to (albeit three days too late - *facepalm*) for a school receptionist, I had a lightbulb moment and thought about how working in a school, either as a teaching assistant or in an admin position, would be really  good because I could work it around the boys really easily and be home when they are more or less. So I've started looking into that.

Wow, I have written much more than I expected to! Now I need to save this and go and do a quick tidy up, as my aunt is coming tomorrow morning to look after the boys so I can go to ongoing training and as Onur says to me, she "doesn't like mess!"

Friday 9 March 2012

One Of Those Days...

Where do I start? The bowl of the food processor we bought two weeks ago fell off the counter and cracked, the door of the tumble dryer fell off, the kids were insane and the house was a wreck. I've managed to bump my toe into the wall not once, but twice and have now developed an attractive limp and Kaya babbled on and on and on ("Baba. Apple. Broom broom. Broom broom broom broom apple baba etc etc!") for 45 minutes before going to sleep.

At least now they're both in bed, Berat's coming home early tonight and there are tea and biscuits!

The week didn't start wonderfully to be honest, as I found out on Tuesday that despite being shortlisted and called to do a numeracy/literacy test and a presentation to the panel for the NHS job, I didn't get called for an interview. Although I did feel better about this on Wednesday when I went into the office and everyone was really nice about it and said that the process had changed a lot since changing NHS trusts and not to take anything personally.

We went over to Sev and Arif's last night, our friends from Cyprus who moved here a few months before us, and we had a really nice night, as always. Her son is 4, so he gets on really well with the boys, and they play nicely most of the time! We took the opportunity to sit down and play a game of Okey (Rummy) for the first time in ages, it was a lot of fun.

Berat's new obsession is beating me at Monopoly, and I am an extremely bad loser. I blame my family for always letting me win when I was growing up!

And that's basically it for this week. I've been going to a really good group at the Surestart centre on a Monday, called Little Acorns. The boys love it and it's good for them to play with other children. They also have a woman come in and do talks and answer questions, this week it was tantrums which, at the moment, I am lucky enough not to have too many problems with! But the talks are really helpful. They also give the kids healthy snacks like fruit and cheese, and being a Surestart centre it's all free!

Right, off to find something to watch on TV, and perhaps hop to the kitchen to find some painkillers...

Back In The Habit

It's so hard when you've not been writing for a while. Some of you know I had a blog somewhere else on the web for almost 10 years. I met some of my best friends there, and I have some wonderful memories of that site, but the sad thing is, it's changed. A lot of the people have changed. I mean, yes, people change, but I suppose where some have moved on in their careers, some have moved on and started families, perhaps our common ground shifted? Who knows. All I know is that when I read the blog posts on that site, I find myself rolling my eyes sometimes; something I would never have done before. Even when I post, I don't feel the same reaction from people I once did. A large part of me thinks that the problem is that I ended a friendship almost two years ago now, and we unfortunately had a lot of mutual friends. A lot of them got caught in the crossfire. Although I am sad that I lost some friendships, I am glad that it sorted the real friends from the fake ones, if you see what I mean. It also made me more wary of people to be honest, and I suppose in a way I lost some respect for some people, who would say one thing but their actions would never reflect what they had said, and you had to wonder whether it had just been said for your benefit, to make you feel better!

Anyhow. I suppose I needed to get that off my chest in order to start afresh here, which I hope to do! I also want to update my cookery blog, which is like, two years old now as I'm pretty sure I started it when I was pregnant with Kaya!!