Children's Books

Ok, so let me just admit right now, straight off the bat. My attempt at NaNoWriMo was a washout. Not only do I not have the attention span to write something of that length, but my efforts were also thwarted by goings on at home, Mikey deciding to stop sleeping and then illness. I haven't written anything to do with my novel for about a week, I did get further than I expected though. It turns out that this attempt was the most words I've ever written for one project. Blasts my 10,000 school essays out of the water, so that's something.

I did not plan the novel well, I had nothing before I started writing it which really hindered my efforts. I may still finish it one day, but not today.

While writing it, however, I was blessed with pure unadulterated inspiration. The most magical idea for a children's book. I adore children's literature, I'm not talking about teen lit, which I dislike for the most part, or board books for babies because for the most part they're pretty dull. But things written for children between the ages of 4 and 11, I could just sit in the children's section of the library and read all day. 

As I don't have an older child of my own, I'm going to have to ask here. What sort of books do your older children enjoy?

Waking Early

I'm still sick, but it's getting better. A weekend of playing the new Mario game for Wii and generally resting has been lovely, the husband even announced that Saturday was my day off and didn't let me do anything. How sweet!

We got all of our groceries for Thanksgiving, I need to write out my cooking schedule and I'm going to start cooking on Wednesday. I'm excited but nervous, I haven't ever cooked for this many people before. I don't need to make dessert as one of our guests told us that he makes a mean pumpkin cheesecake and is going to bring some. That is a godsend for me because honestly I am so bad at making sweet things, which is a shame for someone with such a sweet tooth.

Talking of sweet things, I have been either over-indulging or not getting enough exercise because my plan of fattening up like a bear for winter has gotten ahead of itself. I'm getting more wobbly around the edges. I blame all of the lovely autumn/winter food and the fact that I can't walk as much because of the weather. It's ok though, the extra layers are keeping me warm.

Today is the beginning of a whole new era for Mikey. I'm starting to wean him, it's going to be interesting as it's the only way he knows how to get to sleep and that's the only time he nurses. But lately he has been refusing to nurse because he doesn't want to go to sleep, so it seems as good a time as any to wean him. We're going to be taking the side off of his crib and doing a new bedtime routine. I'm guessing it will take a couple of weeks before he gets the hang of it.  For what seems like the millionth time, I'm getting out all of the sleep guides and manuals to try and work out a good routine for him. Poor baby really isn't much into sleeping, there's so much other stuff that he wants to do. I think I will be so exhausted from the effort that I'll end up falling asleep in his room with him anyway. It's totally worth it to get my boobs back to myself after nearly 2 years but it seems like only yesterday I was exclusively pumping and battling to actually get him to do it.

I woke up before everyone else this morning, it was only 7am but I really enjoy how quiet the house is in the mornings. It was clean because no one had yet woken up to trash it, I made myself some coffee and read some blogs before starting to write this. I think if I went to bed earlier I'd quite like to get up before everyone every day, I really feel like it gives me a headstart. I think my husband has pretty much the opposite body clock to me though because he likes to stay up late and sleep in. Perhaps when Mikey starts sleeping through the night I'll be rested enough to get up early every day. I have my fingers crossed that weaning him will really help, after all why wake up if there's nothing to wake up for?

Mikey just woke up and is pretending to talk on the phone. He's talking to Elly from his favourite cartoon. He says "Hi Elly, *incomprehensible chatter*, uh huh, uh huh, *chatter* no, bye!" He's really an explosion of words these days. I have to go because it's breakfast time!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

One of those days...

Ever have one of those days? Stupid question, I'm sure everyone has.

Today I woke up with a sore throat and blocked sinuses. I dragged myself heavily through a day where nothing seemed to go right, I suppose that happens when you're feeling under the weather. I burned my lunch, accidentally put something in the dryer that wasn't meant to be there, Mikey whined all day even at the park. All I wanted to do this evening was curl up in my pajamas with a nice cup of tea, ginger and lemon, perfect for colds. Perhaps re-watch the last episode of Criminal Minds, because my teen crush was in it. Although he's looking a bit worn out these days, I didn't recognise him at first.

Anyway, Mikey had other plans. It's now 11pm and I just got him down to sleep, it's taken since 9pm with plenty of screaming and crying (mostly his).

I'm now finally making my tea and I'm going to lounge around reading some blogs for an hour or so and then go to sleep.

At the moment I'm reading:

Serene Journey
Raptitude and
Zen Family Habits.

Searching for some kind of inspiration.

You know, one thing that went wrong today turned out pretty good anyway. I bought the wrong kind of sugar from the German store on accident, instead of normal granulated I bought sugar lumps. Adding sugar lumps to tea is much more fun that regular sugar, plus if you're so inclined you can try and balance them on the tea bag, watch them soak up the tea and make bets on how long they'll stay there (a surprisingly long time).

hazelnut cottage

Beautiful Jewelery and photography by Hazelnut Cottage on Etsy. Visit the shop or the blog. I may have to do some hinting to my husband, christmas is approaching after all.

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