Okay, so its not that unknown. She’s only three so what could she possibly be hiding in her bedroom? I’m talking about Meghan’s room – technically, Meghan and Emelye’s room since they now share but since Emelye is only here twice a week, its more Meghan’s room. Her room at the moment is a complete mess. Its not a big room anyway and with two beds – one a high sleeper, Meghan’s is underneath – two wardrobes, a chest a drawers and a mountain of toys, we’re lacking space as it is. One day next week when she’s back at pre-school, I’m going to gut her room. I’d do it with her but she’d just get in my way and want to play with everything so its just easier if I do it myself. I’m heading in there with protective clothing, a couple of black bin bags and my mind focused on making that room look less like a play area and more like a bedroom.

To be quite honest, she probably won’t even miss half of the toys I get rid of. She has a toy box at the bottom of her bed and its full of toys that she’s not even had out for at least a year. She has a huge, huge pile of soft toys that I really need to sort through. I’m the worst at keeping soft toys and I think most of them are mine anyway so it’ll be hard for me to throw them out. I’ll be donating them all to the local hospice for them to sell in the shops.

Wish me luck and hopefully I come out alive and don’t get eaten by that monster under the bed she keeps telling me about.

Meghan’s skin is quite dry recently. Its always been a little bit dry but over the last few months its gotten worse. I don’t think having the heating on helps at all but at least we’re getting warmer weather now. I bought her some moisturiser this week and I put it on after her bath tonight. I’m going to put it on after her bath every other night and see if it improves. It can’t be nice for her to have such dry skin. The skin on my hands is horrible but hers is all over. She only has a slight bit of eczema from Alex and I’m hoping it doesn’t get much worse than what it is now.

Its a little vacant over here. Again. I’d even forgotten about my paid blogging and then when I looked about thirty minutes ago, I had loads and I’ve had to do three to catch up so that they don’t disappear. PayU2Blog have given me two extra posts for being a good blogger too which is great. Every little counts after all!

We’re having lots and lots of tantrums over here at the moment. Meghan has turned into this moody little girl that wants everything her own way and will scream and cry and shout if she doesn’t get it. I’m trying my very best to keep my temper and nine times out of ten I can just about do it. The only reason I try my best not to raise my voice or lash out (we don’t do smacking in my house. A tap on the hand if something very naughty happens but that’s rare) is because I don’t want Meghan thinking that its okay to do that. Because its not. You see all these kids on Supernanny who are totally out of control and hit their parents and their parents shout back at them and throw them about, and they wonder why their kids turned out like that. I’m not saying there are not times where I have lost my temper and shouted at her but I try my best to just walk away and have even one minute of peace to calm myself down. It usually works and then I have the patience to calm Meghan down too. I know the temper tantrums are going to get worse as she gets older so for now, I’d probably better appreciate how subtle they are now!

My plan for the rest of the day is to not come online. I’ve done everything I need to do this morning including blogging about five times between here and Love Duckie. Meghan has been a tornado in the living room so I need to clean that quickly before we go out for lunch. When I get back I need to walk Daxter and go to the shop for milk and bread. I then plan on getting the rest of the clothes dry that I washed yesterday and tidying the hall, stairs and landing. Tonight, I plan on getting in bed for 9PM to watch Celebrity Big Brother and then put The Dark Knight on. I bought it two days after Christmas along with Hellboy 2 (which I have watched) but I haven’t got around to seeing it yet. I saw it at the cinema and I can’t wait to watch it again. Hopefully my evening goes to plan because I’m looking forward to chilling out all night.

Everyone says this, “I have the best kid ever.” You always think your child/ren is/are the best child that has ever been born and even along with the tantrums and the hitting and kicking and screaming, when they’re behaving themselves, all of that, which even though only happened half an hour previous, just totally fades away. Its probably a good job too because otherwise there would probably be a Parent Protection Agency and all us stay-at-home mums and dads would have been taken away for mistreatment by now. But I can honestly say that although Meghan has only just turned two and I know the worst is yet to come, pretty much 65% of the time, we have nice peace of quiet in my house.

Meghan is very independant. She likes to play on her own, go on Youtube on her own (dare you ask her to sit on your knee so you don’t break your back leaning over), draw on her own, read on her own, climb the stairs on her own and another long list of things. One thing you must do is tell her if the back door needs shutting. She likes to shut the door after Daxter has come in from being in the garden and if you do it, and she finds out that you’ve done it… well, just open the door again. Please. She won’t let me brush her teeth or wash her face for her anymore. I’m pretty sure soon she won’t let me wash her hair anymore. She tries to get dressed but it just doesn’t happen so we go through an argument most mornings. Its so good that she likes to do things on her own because I’m pretty much the same. I like to be left alone for a certain length of time during the day and I think she must have learnt that from me. Don’t get me wrong, during the day she has her moments where she wants to sit on my knee and won’t leave me alone and I love those moments. Like I tell Meghan, “Meghan cuddles are the best cuddles in the world!”

All this independance is lovely. I think its great that she wants to do things for herself all the time and would rather learn how to do it than have me keep doing it all the time. But why, oh why, will she not go on the potty? Being toilet trained is a very independant thing but she seems quite content to let me change her nappy several times a day even though she has some Peppa Pig knickers in her drawer (the novelty wore off after a week) and Elmo knickers on the way. I’m quite tempted to just throw the nappies away (well, more hide them from her) and just make her wear her knickers so she has to use the potty/toilet. I know thats very cruel but I’m about ready to hire someone just to potty train her so I don’t have to. She’s scared of both the potty and toilet which is the problem. Do you any of you parents out there have any tips on potty training?

Meghan loves to play games, either on a games console or online. I honest have no idea where she gets it from! I’ll end the sarcasm now. She loves to play Mario and asks for that game specifically either on the Gamecube (we haven’t upgraded to the Wii just yet) or on my NDS. The NDS is a bit of a problem right now. She has been ‘playing’ on it constantly for about a week until the other day I hid it. I’ll start by saying that the reason I hid it is the same reason I use the word ‘playing’ lightly. When Meghan plays on my DS she opens and closes it, deletes and overwrites my games and turns it on and off. She’s learnt how to turn it off and on and then select the game again so thats her favourite thing to do. I’m very anal about keeping my things looking new and having all her dirty, sticky fingers all over my screens just makes me want to cry. So yes, I hid the DS and told her Amy has it at her friends house. I’m a terrible mother I know. I’m hoping if I leave it long enough, she’ll totally forget about it and stop mentioning it. Its been about five days now and every time Amy comes over, she asks her for the ‘game.’ I’m guessing I need to give her another week. Or two.

I don’t know about anywhere else but Bonfire Night in the UK usually starts around September. Around the middle of September, you start hearing the first few, odd fireworks going off and you frown. You frown because its September – two months away from Bonfire Night and because where the hell can you buy fireworks in September?! They become a bit more regular at the beginning of October and then by Halloween, you just can’t get rid of them.

That’s when all the problems started. On Halloween, we took the kids out trick or treating and throughout the night, there were fireworks going off. Meghan didn’t seem to bothered by them although she kept pointing them out all the time. On the way home, we all had to take turns holding hands with her while she was in her pram. She kept saying she was “a little bit scared” and was getting quite upset. I thought it was a mixture of tiredness, feeling overwhelmed and the fact that she hadn’t been out in the dark before – well, what she would remember anyway. She wasn’t too bad when we got home but was falling asleep on the couch so I took her up to bed. She heard a firework go off and she said “Firework” which I replied with “Yeah, fireworks! There will be loads on Wednesday. We can watch them.” This comment started her off crying her eyes out so I told her they were all gone and to go to sleep.

From that night until this Sunday/Monday, every single night was a nightmare. Meghan has always been a really good sleeper. We started on a routine when she was about six months old and since then, we rarely have any problems. Those nine days took me at least two hours if not more to get her to calm down and go to sleep. As the week went on, I lost my patience easier and easier to the point where I probably left her longer than I should have done which although wasn’t very nice, worked best for both of us. She didn’t want me storming in her bedroom, shouting at her when she was scared just because she I didn’t know what to do to help her.

We’re still have the chatting to stop me leaving the room and her shouting “Mummy?” for about five minutes before settling herself down but it looks like we’re back to normal. All until New Year. I hate the Millennium for making fireworks at New Year the standard thing now. I never liked fireworks much anyway, but now I really hate them.

With things at home being a bit rubbish right now, the cleaning has really fallen behind. I really should be cleaning right now but I also need to go out and do Avon and I’m trying to avoid both. At the moment, I just don’t want to be doing anything at all never mind doing things that involve going out of the house or even moving. Anyway, as I was saying, we have so much cleaning to do because we’ve just been neglecting it all for days. I’m really behind on the laundry which I’m catching up on right now, there are loads of dishes in the kitchen sinks and the living room really needs a hoover. At least I’ve already kind of sorted out bedroom out earlier so that’s one less room that needs doing. Hopefully I get a surge of energy at some point in the next few hours so I can actually make the house look half decent.

Halloween was good by the way. We took both kids trick or treating around near Alex’s mum’s house. Meghan got tired quite early into it (we only started out at about 6.15PM and she’s usually getting ready for bed around 7PM) and wanted to be carried everywhere so me and Alex kept swapping. They got enough sweets and chocolate to last them a while but me and Alex keep dipping into them, haha. Meghan is now scared of fireworks too which is not helping at all when it comes to bedtime. I don’t think it helps that she’s been out in the dark twice in a row. She’s never usually been out in the dark before – not that she’ll remember – and all the loud noises are really scaring her. Hopefully by the time Bonfire Night comes around, she’ll been used to them. If not, I’m in for a long night.

Yes thats right. Today we had two breakthroughs. Both concerning food and both concerning Meghan. Do you want to know? Do you? Number one, Meghan ate chicken. Number two, Meghan ate green beans! I know this might not seem like a lot to anyone else but from a child who only eats pasta and pizza (must be my Italian roots), this is amazing! I don’t know what I did differently today to make her eat it but I don’t really care, just because she ate it! She didn’t touch any of her potatoes but to be quite honest, I was expecting her to eat nothing and she ate half of her chicken breast and all of the green beans. Lets ignore the fact that she only had three green beans but I only give her three because like I said, I didn’t expect her to eat anything. Lets also ignore the fact that she only ate her lovely honey mustard chicken when it had been dipped in tomato ketchup. She ate it. That’s what counts.

I was looking online the other day for new crib bedding for Meghan and then I realised that even though she needs new bedding, there’s probably not much point buying any. I’ll be making the change from a cot to bed at some point in the next six months. I don’t know how or when but it needs to be done. I like her being in her cot because she can’t get out. I’m dreading when we have those nights where she won’t sleep and she keeps getting up and down out of bed all night. I have been thinking how we will make the change over. I’ve heard some people put the mattresses on the floor first before they move them into the actual bed but some people just put them straight in the bed.

How did you make the move from cot to bed? Did it cause a big argument and end in sleepless nights or was it easier than you thought?

For the past week, its been gradually colder. I have been trying to stop myself from putting the central heating on for this long every morning when I wake up and have woken up cold. This morning, I submitted and turned the heating on. I didn’t want to do it until at least October but its just cold! My weather meter on Firefox tells me its 13°C but I don’t believe that for one minute because it feels so much colder. The reason for not wanted to turn the heating on for a while longer is that gas prices are ridiculously high and I know that once I get used toi a nice warm house, I won’t be wanting to turn it off again until next Spring. I guess I’ll just have to leave it on for thirty minutes at a time and leave it at that. I’ll have to invest in a few jumpers and cardigans.

I’m awake this early because I’m waiting for a clothes delivery from Marks and Spencer for the kids. We spent quite a lot of money on clothes a week and a half ago and they are only just being delivered today. I hope they come this morning before I get Meghan dressed so that I can put her in the new clothes. To stop this happening again (the mass spending in one go) I’m going to revert back to what I used to do and buy one thing every week. For one she’ll have more clothes and it spreads the cost over the weeks rather than having to spend £200 in one go. There are still a few things Meghan needs to complete her winter wardrobe so I look forward to buying her bits here and there. Its just a shame me and Alex can’t afford to do the same. I think we need clothes more than the kids.