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Happy new year...vampire children!



Happy new year - we are nearly a week into 2018 already! This year I am mostly going to try and get more sleep and so far, everything is conspiring against me, not least the vampire child that is Izzy. Goodness knows how we are going to get her back into a routine for next week when they are back to school. Currently her ideal routine is to wake up sometime around 1 and then doze until at least 11am before slouching down in her PJs and not getting dressed until lunchtime. Obviously its incumbent on us to ensure that doesn't happen, but over the holidays it definitely seems to have become more of a thing, particularly as she will quite often go and play outside before we have noticed she's still not properly dressed! Of course the other aspect of this is she's then not tired at what I would call a sensible bedtime, so with me trying to get more sleep and her being a practising (fully fledged) teenager / vampire, we are now going to bed at the same time. I send her to her room and switch of her light, but even so she'll still be awake at gone 10pm. Hopefully school will knock her back into some sense of normality.

All this wasn't helped by Tuesday evening's sudden onset of sickness. Abi had gone off to Angie's for a few days and we were just about to send Izzy off to bed when she said she felt a bit sick. We all waited with baited breathe to see what would happen, only for her to rush to the kitchen sick and bring up her tea. Typical - she's actually eaten well for once! Immediately feeling better we all said "It's just a thing, it will be fine". We put her into bed, I went to bed (about 9:30 - its hard to get 8 hours sleep in if you get up at the crack of dawn), and within moment she was in our room, saying she felt sick again. 2 minutes later it was the bathroom sink this time. Top tip - teach your children before they are sick that the toilet is better than the sink... Poor Glenn was left to sort out the mess while I tucked Izzy up with me, looking forward to a broken night just as I go back to work properly. We got through to about midnight without mishap, except for a wide awake Izzy saying "Mummy, this is just like a sleepover, we can talk all night...." perfect - did you not hear me state repeatedly my new year's resolution?!?! At midnight however the last of whatever was troubling her came up into a bucket and then we were able to sort that out and finally sleep properly. Her like a baby, me like a parent who is trying to sleep around their hot, sticky and (only slightly smelly) child.

Other than this the holidays have passed in a whirl of socialising, walking, riding and chilled out times together - it's been just lovely. Back to work has been ok - the first week back has been very quiet with a lot of people not back until next week - and so I've been able to ease myself back in gently. Next week is also not bad (my measure of success is now how infrequently I can go to London), and then it's completely back to normal and the madness of life. This said, I have settled on a good balance regarding hours and flexible working - essentially 90% FTE over a predominantly 4 day week so that's a good position to be going into the new year. Despite all the uncertainty of the economy, Brexit etc. I feel more positive than I have in years about the new year from a work perspective.

This year we have lots to look forward to, we now have a good idea of what school the girls will go onto which helps focus all our minds, we have lots of trips away to look forward to, we have some (small!) house projects we will do at some point and Glenn has (another) new motorbike, despite telling more he had given up the road. He's bought a 'sensible' one this time - a tourer that means I can go on the back.... I have pointed out there are very few moments in the year when we can both get away together, and being on a motorbike isn't quite my idea of a romantic trip away, but even I can see maybe a cheeky weekend or two away would be a nice idea...

New Year's Day windy walk

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