Sometimes €10 for a bit of decorated cardboard is a bargain

Life teaches you many things along the way, and the lesson I have learned over the past couple of weeks is:

No child should be allowed to know of the existence of sequins until they are at least 8 years old.

And in case that's not enough:



Gold lame fabric will suffice in an emergency for wiping a child's bum, but it will look so odd you'll laugh.

So, sequins.

I am so over them. Admittedly, it's my own fault. When Orla chose a plain pink Schultute I rejoiced at the money I was saving. And I also figured it would keep her busy on a little craft project for a few hours. *sigh* how wrong can I be?

I asked her how she'd like to decorate it and she said she wanted love hearts and sequins. I let her choose some fabric to cut hearts from (gold lame- I'd been thinking of a pretty pink gingham, but she looked at me in disgust, and well, turns out bling is cheaper) and of course, guess who ended up cutting out the hearts. Then she wanted sequins glued round the edges of the hearts. I poured them out, gave her the glue, showed her how to apply it, and set her off. 5 sequins in and she was fed up. "Can you just help me a bit?"

Well, sure I can! To give her her due, she stuck around for a minute watching me do it, and then went off to do something less mind-numbing. And so I sat for hours, glueing individual sequins on, all the while thinking it was utterly ridiculous and I should just leave her to decorate the damn schultute herself, and how I was a total mug and should have realised that sequins were a bad idea, and that there were probably children her age sewing blooming sequins on t-shirts in India in intricate designs.

Once completed, my lone typing finger ached with a fresh rawness from applying a few thousand sequins. Orla gave her nod of approval but declared that it needed something 'more'. Wracking my brain, I suggested that perhaps a bit of potato printing might be just the ticket. And so I carved a nice heart shape, let her loose with my acrylics, and bam! She just splodged it on so carelessly it actually looked like a potato, and not a pretty heart.

Well, hey, I'm not spending hours sequinning just for someone to come along and ruin all my good efforts! So guess who ended up doing the potato printing?

But you know, it just still wasn't right. Or so I was told. Couldn't I just add some more sequins to it all over? Well, sure I could! I don't need lunch like the rest of you! And couldn't we do something with the extra gold fabric? Absolutely! Let me just lose a couple of hours of my sleep staying up hand sewing it to the top edge!

You think we're done? Oh no. We're heading back to Scotland tomorrow and plan on buying some large fake colored jewels to stick on it... All this effort for 10 minutes of ceremony.... *sigh*

If you fancy reading some more about Schultuten, try this: Schultute: a very rough guide

Wherever we go... Hugo!

Do you remember we had a date with Hugo?

Hugo in Tiergarten

Well, much to our own surprise, we had him to stay for a sleepover. I'd mentioned that we would be happy to have him should his owners ever fancy a weekend away, and it just so happened they did. It was brilliant fun. And it was a really great experience for the kids. I think they learned a lot from having him here.

Hugo and his pack.

He came on Sunday morning and we let him settle in and have a good sniff around the place. I made best use of Hugo's visit by getting the kids to tidy up all their toys in case Hugo swallowed small bits and choked on them. Hugo had no intention of eating any of their toys, but still it kept them nice and tidy for a couple of days. So it was worth it for that alone.

We took him on a good long walk around Tiergarten. His 'mum' had said that he enjoyed long walks, so that's what we gave him walking via Hansaplatz to the English Tea Garden then on through Tiergarten to the playground and a little picnic and a rest, then straight through the middle of the nude sunbathing area (can I just say Stevie chose the route: Hugo hardly knew where to look for all the sausages on display) and then back home via the boating lake, the Zoo, and then I 'think' we might have stopped off at the American Festival of the People in Breitscheidplatz on the way back.

He's the perfect size for little girls.

Not knowing Hugo's routine very well I tried taking him out again after dinner, and again at bedtime. He wasn't very keen on going out after dinner, and when it came to the bedtime walk he just looked at me as if to say "Seriously, you want to go out again?" and then refused to leave the apartment.

The kids were thrilled to have Hugo to stay. Stevie less so. Mostly because he was being selected as a test subject to see if he *really* was allergic or just pretending as I suspected. "What a hassle" he kept muttering, until after a couple of hours he realised that Hugo was in fact a miniature fraction of the hassle of our two kids. I think he particularly appreciated the fact that you can walk with Hugo attached to you and he's not trying to pull your arm from it's socket by spontaneously swinging off it, and he doesn't whine and moan every few steps about 'how much further' it might be. He was a joy that way.

It was such a big learning experience for us all. The kids learned so much over the course of a couple of days about how Hugo is different to a person ("Are you sure he won't talk AT ALL???", "Why is he not having lunch???" "Couldn't we help him use our toilet?"), we learned that Stevie is allergic, in the sense that it was as if he suddenly developed a really bad cold and was sniffing away all the day, but not so allergic (eyes puffy and red and streaming) that it would completely put me off. But we also learned, or rather I did, that now is not a good time for us to have a dog. Man, being a grown-up actually sucks.

If we got a dog, then it would be *my* dog and I would be the one to look after it and take it out, and the trouble would be that it just wouldn't always be practical to take the dog out given we have the two kids. Hamish was getting a bit bored of going out walks all the time (though admittedly Hugo could have been walked a lot less, but my only dog walking experience was my springer spaniel when I was a teenager, and she enjoyed a lot of walking) so I am sure there would be a lot of arguments about having to accompany me on walks with the dog on rainy, cold, or snowy days. On top of this, with Stevie often away with work, I just couldn't take the dog out at night if the kids are in bed. We can't just stick the dog out the back door when we live in an apartment, and even though it is likely we will move back to our house with a garden at some point, it made me think about how the kids get narky at even 7 o'clock when I'd need to walk it at it's early evening walk.

So much as we loved having him, we had to hand him back, and we all miss him quite a lot because he added to our family. And I still think it's crap that I have to be a grown up and can't just follow Hamish's instruction of "just tell his Mummy that he's ours now".

The tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips!

Afterwards we made pink fairy cakes which are proven to improve your speech.

Let me tell you a story. About a year and a few months ago Orla went for her U8 test, which is a development check for 4 year olds. I wrote about it here, and mentioned that the one issue that they seemed to find with her was her speech. The doctor said that I needed to take her to speech therapy and gave me a referral for a woman who would carry this out in English. Given that Orla was starting school in September I planned on making the appointment pretty soon afterwards, so that it didn't interfere with her education. But strike me down, for I am an unbelievably lazy bisem, and I didn't make the appointment. As I said in my post at the time, I wasn't overly concerned, I just felt that she spoke 'young' and given that she did her speech test in German, I didn't think she could be expected to pronounce words correctly in her second language. 

One of the things I find funny here is that almost all of the English-speaking expats I know here in Berlin have their kids in speech therapy. In fact I have friends who have met some of my other friends through their speech therapist. And I can honestly say that I would have said that those kids spoke clearer than Orla and had very little need of a speech therapist.  

Anyway, today Orla had her U9 check. And once again she had her speech tested. He was over the moon at her progress, and asked which speech therapist she had seen. I lied because I thought he would give me into trouble and said she'd seen one at school. Actually that's not even a lie. She has *seen* one, but she hasn't done anything with her. Anyway, he was so pleased he says she can stop now. Well, what do you make of that?

I have to say that I was quite amused with the questions Orla was asked as part of her test today. They struck me as *very* German. After being asked where she lived - Berlin, we moved on to two of the most important topics for a German child.

Question number 2: Do you know how to correctly use a pair of scissors? (Well, it is important if they can hold you back a year at school in Germany if you can't!)

Question number 3: How do you know when you can cross the road? (Ha, ha, ha! This was followed by further questions about when you know it's not safe to cross, etc. Orla even got a bonus point I think for also mentioning you should never step into the bike path!)



On the subject of U8 tests & speech therapy...
The rain in Berlin falls mainly on the graffiti-covered buildings

School's out for summer!

The school year: September 2011 - July 2012

What a year! It seems like hardly any time at all since Orla started school, and now here we are, Reception year done and dusted. I tried to get her to pose the way she had on her first day, but there was no chance. Apart from the fact that she has just about completely outgrown that little hanky of a skirt and tiny polo top; the big difference is that she is well and truly knackered. A year at school takes it out of you. I'm not sure exactly how much she has learnt, but her reading is coming along really well, and I think she has a natural ability for maths (like her dad) when she's not busy talking non-stop (like her mum).

Looking at her, it seems at first that she hasn't changed. But she's so much taller, her legs are bruised and bashed to bits from tripping over in the forest, her fringe has *almost* grown out, and her feet are at least 2 sizes bigger. In this past year she's learned how to swim, how to cycle, her knowledge of society and the world has grown, and she's been to some really awesome parties! She's starting slowly to come out of her German-despising shell, and she's made some really good friends.

I've been looking forward to the school holidays. I've been needing some nice long Orla time, just to enjoy her company. I'm saying this now because I know that in a few weeks I will be banging on the door of the school begging them to open and take the wild animals off my hands.

And of course, this year I can also beg them to take Hamish too! He cannot wait to start!

Jubilation

Funnily enough, I haven't heard of there being that many Jubilee parties at home in Scotland. In fact, of my friends in England that I have spoken to recently, I'm not sure that even one of them was doing *something* for the Jubilee beyond trying to avoid all the news coverage on tv.

And yet, here in Berlin, there has been quite a lot of Jubilee action. Patently abroad is where you need to be in order to muster up the enthusiasm for a party. We were invited to 4 Jubilee parties yesterday. Since we were invited to a staunch republican's party yonks ago, that was the one we went to.

Essentially, I think it was just a good excuse for a lot of us to get together, the kind of get-together that always seems too much of a faff to be bothered with at home. So it was good fun, and the kids (for it was all people from Orla's school) had a great time. We even had imported British weather just for the occasion, which was, um... lovely.

Stevie was feeling a bit tired though, and he's got a sore back, which might have something to do with us just having driven back from Bavaria. For oh yes, we spent the past few days down south visiting Legoland Deutschland & the Playmobil Funpark again. We got back on Saturday evening, and as I was baking for the party, that meant I got to spend last night getting Orla ready to go back to school today. Because of course you can guarantee that if you've been away for the best part of a week, come back and partied then of course it goes without saying that a fancy dress outfit will be required for the following day. Meet my vision of modern monarchy, Princess Orla:

Today they're having a Jubilee party at school and the kids were to come dressed up, ideally incorporating the theme of red, white, and blue. Because they love to make things easy o us parents. I struggled a bit with the royal theme. I would have loved to have dressed her as a corgi (too hard, & I thought (wrongly) too warm for this time of year), or as the Queen (as she is today, but where would I get one of those dress coats and matching hats and handbags in an age 5, and I'd still like to coordinate the look with a couple of corgi puppies on a lead - too hard and beyond my sewing abilities), and then I thought of dressing her up as the Queen as she looked when she was 5 years old, but when I Googled photos of her, she just looked like any other 5 year old in a fancy dress. So I just went for a nice easy solution: Princess Orla, a crown, a sash, and a robe.

I am never sewing with crushed velveteen again. It was quite hard. I could have done with an overlocker to edge it, and I gave up completely on adding an ermine (white fake fur with black marker pen) edge to it. The sash doesn't sit right because by the time I got on to it Orla had been asleep for early 4 hours, so I couldn't fit it on her properly. I also had to sew three ribbons together for that as I couldn't get anything Jubilee themed here. I do wonder whether when we go back to the UK I will continue to make outfits for the kids or whether I shall just go back to using good old Tesco.

Anyway, in other Jubilation news: today we have been in Berlin for exactly 2 years! 

The social conscience

Both kids had a big long sleep yesterday afternoon, more than likely because of the heat, so we were able to go out last night for some after-dinner fun. A trip to the park on the bikes, some ping-pong for me and Stevie (though we were battling through that fluffy pollen which was coming down like snow), and some climbing and swinging, and zip-wiring and so on for the kids. Afterwards we stopped by the ice-cream cafe, and it was all very nice. We were just heading back home with Hamish beginning to drag behind on his balance bike, and Orla scooting on ahead on her proper bike, when she turned around and shouted back along the street (quite concerned) "Mum! Dad! There's a little boy out walking on his own! You need to get help!!", except it wasn't a little boy, it was a dwarf, who rather confirmed he was at least 25 years old when he turned round to look at us.

Normally, I can only hack one cringe-worthy experience a weekend, but this weekend we've decided to spoil ourselves rotten and have two. This morning we had the Stolpersteine ceremony in front of the house with all the neighbours. We gathered at 11am and Stevie's big plan was to take the kids bikes with us so that they wouldn't get all restless, noisy, and annoying, and instead could have a little cycle around in the background.  Anyway, the thing went off without a hitch. Our neighbour spoke eloquently about her research over the past 2 years, and told us how difficult it had been to find information about the residents who had been taken away. The stories of the former residents lives were moving and the whole thing was quite emotional. At the end, our neighbour laid 8 roses out on the pavement beside the Stolpersteine; a rose for each one. I was surprised and quite chuffed at how well our two had behaved throughout, it struck me that they recognised that it was a solemn occasion, and they behaved accordingly.

Well, at least until Orla came cycling out of the building as we were all stood around chatting, and in everyone's full gaze, cycled right over the freshly laid roses. I kid you not. Roll on tomorrow. It's a bank holiday, and I'm hoping for a hat trick.

Cheep, cheep! But not so cheep for the over 3's

MACHmit: there be giant chairs for people with cameras to have fun, and craft stuff galore going on.

This morning Orla and I went to MACHmit, the children's museum on Senefelder Strasse in Prenzlauerberg, which is sort of north-ish as regards Berlin. I hadn't heard of it before, but another blogger had alerted me to the fact that there are baby chicks hatching there up until the 22nd of April on a daily basis. And that's all the information folk like me and Orla need to know we want to go.

Even the baby chicks knew I got a new lens for my birthday that I was a bit clueless with. They tried their best to be in focus, but alas, all was lost.

 I mean what price do you put on seeing baby chicks hatching into this world? Well, I discovered it's probably not Euros 4.50 each. Maybe for me and my jaded adult eyes, but I can't help but think it's rubbish when they make you pay an adult price for anyone over the age of 3. Not of course that the chicks are the only thing going on there. In fact there's quite a bit, including a pretty ace climbing area of ups, downs, tunnels, and bridges. Our independent critic, ahem, branded it "Better than Bambooland". Really? Cause it's 3 floors of climbing, slides, trampolines, balls, blah, blah, blah, and something I've just found out is called a 'Wabbelberg'. But there you go, awesomeness cannot be measured in ball volcanoes alone.

The climbing thing with bridges so high off the ground floor it'd make a normal person crap themselves. Toilets, incidentally are in the cellar. 

Admittedly the place does look amazing. It's inside an old church which to say it's been converted is an understatement. The main part of the museum is on the ground floor and you then go up wooden steps and through a little gate to get to the play bit. Here you have access to both sides of the climbing area, which are joined together by a number of bridges - you can see just one of, I think, 4 in the photo above. Kids over 5 are allowed to go in climbing on their own, whereas poor misfortunates with under-5's must accompany them. I took full advantage of Orla's recent 5th birthday to not go in as I thought I might actually freeze with fear on one of those bridges, and have to get a school group of 8 year olds to shove me across.

Outside of the play area there are tables set up with activities for the kids to do, though most of these seemed set up for groups which had booked. They were making cheeping chickens out of plastic cups  and that sort of thing. There's also a cafe up there which looked quite nice, though all the chairs had crap screwed on to them like scrubbing brushes which was either meant to look 'arty & creative' or was for the sensory deprived. Who knows, but it was enlightening at least for me as I realised I quite like my chairs 'plain' so I've saved loads of time not starting a chair-enhancement project in the dining room.

Anyway, ignore me. I set out with the wrong mindset for this place, purely because it took us SO long to just get there. I don't venture into Prenzlauerberg all that often, and days like today where we started off on the U-bahn then had to change to a replacement bus service at Potsdamer Platz, then went about 800 metres to the next U-bahn stop, got back on, only to have to change back onto a bus again to get as far as Eberswalder Strasse, and the have a little walk to get to MACHmit, and then we couldn't stay much longer than an hour as we had to get back to collect Hamish from Kita.

So overall, we'd say 'Yay!' to the climbing place, & the baby chicks, and 'Urgh!' to the pricing and well... that's about all. So that's good, isn't it? Sounds like a hearty recommendation to me!

Links:
MACHmit: Senefelder Strasse 5, Prenzlauerberg, Berlin 10437
Bambooland: Goerzallee 218, Lichterfelde, Berlin, 14167

H,h,h,e,e,a,a,l,l,s,s,s....C,c,c,o,o,n,n,r,r,a,a,n,n,n.....

This month we're reading....literally. At the weekend Orla read her first words. We'd been talking about phonics at school and then she picked up a copy of Living etc and started sounding out some of the words on the cover. And it all started with the 'for' in 'Go for bold'. Talk about thrilled? I was over the moon!

Man, I was sure she was going to be a 'heat' reader as well. But I guess we'll start on the Miss Gray's Interiors Reading Programme for Young Ladies. Once we've mastered 'Living etc/Elle Decoration', we'll take it to the stage two, 'World of Interiors/Wallpaper', and finally ramp it up with intensive study of 'Architectural Digest'.

As for the photo above, this is Orla just home from school, having discarded her uniform and clutching September's Living etc which she took to school with her in her bag to demonstrate to her teacher. I had to put a hand to my eyes when she told me that she'd told her teacher that I was 'so proud of her for reading my magazine'*, but hey, she still deserves the piece of celebratory cake.



*Note to self: must remember to leave some James Joyce/ Goethe/ etc lying around for the kids to pick up.

Under a bush, down memory lane

When I was in primary school there was a boy in my class who ran away from home and hid and slept in a bush for two days before being discovered. As I recall, nobody seemed particularly concerned (well, we were only about 6 or 7 at the time), and it just seemed the kind of thing that he would do, and I suppose I just thought he'd be back at school within a few days. And he was. The thing about this boy was that he was a little bit of an oddball. A bit of a loner, a bit of a loser, didn't really talk much, oh, and often turned up to school wearing his pyjamas under his uniform. That's the bit that sticks in my head, and that's why I can totally recall this boy and his name and where he lived and what he looked like. Unlike most of the people I went to primary school with, I would probably recognise this guy if I saw him in the street.

Without ever having consciously thought it, I suppose I have always wanted to make sure I never had a kid like this boy. I have no idea what his home life was like, I just assumed it was the same as mine. Normal. But who knows. I wouldn't have known at that age what might have been going on at home, and maybe things can't be ok if you feel the need to go and hide in a bush for a couple of days. I've been thinking about this boy a bit and wondering what he's doing now. (He's not on FB so maybe he's got more of a life than me).

Yesterday Orla came home from school missing her school sweatshirt which I discovered was in with all her soaking wet swimming things. According to her, her teacher told her to put it in there. Not anything at all to do with the fact that she hates wearing it because it's too big. Anyway, peeking out at the top of her polo shirt I caught sight of a pink t-shirt. My automatic reaction was to assume that we must be into 'hinting season': where teachers and Kita careworkers drop subtle hints to me to tell me that my kids aren't wearing anywhere near enough clothes. 'Bugger!' I thought. Is it that time already?

On closer inspection, it became apparent that it wasn't the teacher dropping hints, but in actual fact her father quite possibly being asleep when he started dressing her. For Orla was wearing her Minnie Mouse pyjama top underneath her school uniform. Oh the shame!! It wouldn't have been quite so bad except that she'd had swimming so there was definitely someone who saw it, but most often it's not the actual class teacher that takes them to the swimming pool. So to top it off Orla decided that she would like to show her teacher her Disney Princess knickers (as you do) so I can be pretty certain that she saw her pyjamas too. Oh, the double shame! Eek! Incidentally, her teacher said 'Nice...'. Though I would have thought a 'Wow! Cool! I've got those too! Gleiche!' would have been more appropriate.

And now I am wondering whether the boy in my class who sometimes wore his pyjamas under his uniform maybe just had to dress himself or had a really tired father.

Motherhood: the Grandma edition

Orla & Mamie share a joke about smocking. Orla at 10 weeks old. 

Orla has been saying for a couple of weeks that she'd like a baby. Not me having a baby, but one of her own. She has plans to have two: one girl (named Lucy of course, the same as her pillow, fluffy dog, ceramic dog, and countless dolls and toys), and one boy (named Ben). I told her that she might have two girls or two boys or the boy might come first before the 'Lucy-Baby'. 

Orla: "What do you mean 'just boys'?"

Me: "Well, look at Granny Margaret; she had Daddy, Uncle Craig, and Uncle James. No girls."

Orla: "Does she know that's a pity?"

Me: "I'm sure she thinks that most days (laughing inwardly)"

Orla: "Did you want a baby when you were my age?"

Me: "No. I'm pretty sure I wanted a dog."

Orla: (Incredulous) "Why didn't you want a baby?"
Me: "I just didn't. I think I preferred dogs."

Orla: "Didn't you know then that it would be nicer living with me than living with Mamie?"

Me: "....I guess not."

And now I'm left wondering if she would prefer living with a baby than living with me.....sniff. 4 years old and ready to move out. 

Wake Mummy up before you go go.

 The day before school. Opening the Schultüte. 

 Modelling the Schultüte. Maybe I should have stuck the little boats on the other way up to make it more 'wearable'.

 This was meant to be her 'first day of school' photo, but there was too much dancing for joy for me to get a good one.

Arriving at school, deliriously happy at the prospect of driving lessons.

The big day is here at last. Orla's first day at school. Can you see how happy she is to be in the midst of English speakers? Thrilled! That's putting it mildly. I hope that it's everything that she imagines it will be. And if it is, then by the time she gets home not only will they have thrown her a special party to celebrate the fact that she is a "real princess" (Dora the Explorer's words, not mine), but they will have taught her how to drive. Which will be really handy, as it's an extraordinary long journey to get to school on the school bus and back.

The bus picked her up at 7:30 this morning. Or rather 7:31 as he pointed out to me on his watch. I had thought of going on the bus with her on the first few days to make sure she wasn't overwhelmed by the whole experience, but I'd been told that there would be a teacher on the bus and she would be fine. So, instead we all got into the car a little bit later and went to the school to meet her at the other end. They didn't arrive until nearly 9am, which seems like a long time to be on a bus getting to school. Especially when you have the same thing at the end of the day and won't get home until 4:50pm.

I'm expecting her to be utterly exhausted when she gets home. She's never been to nursery or Kita for this many hours, so she won't be used to it. Nor is she used to getting up at 6:30am. She generally likes to rise some time after 8 and have a leisurely breakfast. It was a bit shattering for all of us quite honestly. Especially as Hamish hasn't slept properly in the past 2 days and has been crying every hour of the night. Quite why, I haven't worked out yet, but there's something brewing.

Hamish of course is devastated that he's not getting to go to 'big boy's school'. I would happily send him to be honest. For all my previous uniform moans, it is a great school. So, unlike the traditional mother crying at the school gates, I was really pleased to see her so happy and excited, and anyway, Hamish was crying enough for all of us. He does understand that he's not old enough yet to go, but says it's not fair, and I said what's not fair is that they chose yellow as a major colour component in their uniform when very few people can wear it. He just nodded and cried a bit more, recognising that this was indeed the case for him.

Yesterday, we did the Schultüte presentation thing yesterday morning. I had been told that she would have to take hers to school with her on the first day and then found out last week that she wasn't. So it was nice to be able to see her opening it at home. Hamish got a little one too. His was filled with Haribo, choclate buttons, stickers, a little car, a zebra, and any other bits and bobs I could find. I rushed to make his as I suddenly realised he would go bananas seeing Orla with one, especially if it contained anything edible. As it was he was desperately jealous of her school supplies. The Schultüte is meant to contain stationary items such as pencils and pens and rulers and all that malarky along with sweets and little toys. In Orla's I put some pencils and so on, along with hair clips and bobbles that she'll need to keep her hair tidy for school, and a purse (though I doubt if she'll need that yet), a Disney Princess toy, and the same sweeties and chocolate that Hamish had in his. Both were very happy indeed - especially as the cones doubled as hats. Bonus.

So now I just need to get used to my new wake up time and avoid being a minute late for the bus and we're sorted. I have the feeling it might take me some time to get used to it. I could barely think straight this morning when I was making her packed lunch, so I hope I've not accidently packed my toast in with it. So here's to the start of school and all that it brings. And I just hope that she loves it for a long time to come.

Slightly annoyed from Berlin

I've just written an email of complaint suggestions for ...um.... service improvement to Orla's new school. As in the one she's not even started yet. Yes, I believe in starting off on a good foot! Don't think I haven't been stressing over whether she'll be in negative house points on day 1 though.

We had our appointment at the school uniform shop today. Us and everyone else. You have to collect a number when you arrive and then wait until it's your turn. When it got to us, it turned out that they only have about half of the school uniform in a size that would fit Orla. Now Orla, although small, is not unusually so. I have her GP and Kinderarzt growth charts to prove it. But nonetheless, the school shop doesn't stock her size.

I half-joked "Where are M&S when you need them!" to which I was told by a member of staff that they had previously bought school uniform from there (whether for the shop or for personal use wasn't made clear) and should order some. Now that really annoyed me. Both the school handbook and the uniform order sheet state that the uniform must be ordered through the shop. And given that it's just 4 days before Orla starts, I don't have time to get her uniform from there. If we'd had this appointment even a month ago then we could even have bought it in the UK, tried it, taken it back and exchanged it. And for a lot less money too.

Instead I felt compelled to spend 44 Euros on two skirts that are too big and which I either have to spend more money on to have them professionally adjusted or have to re-sew myself. And for that price she could have had 14 M&S skirts that do fit.

On top of that they seemed to have no navy shorts for sport left for her to even try. I was told just to go and buy some plain navy ones from somewhere else. Unless you live in Germany, you probably don't realise that this is mission impossible. Germany doesn't believe in stock replenishment (I may have mentioned my horror at this in earlier posts) and now the shops are empty of anything summery and are currently in the midst of selling fleeces, rainwear, and tights (for boys). They don't even have schoolwear as the German schools are already all back from the summer break. Handy, huh? So far I have checked 3 stores, and frankly, I had better plans for how to spend my last few days with Orla before she starts school than scouring Berlin for shorts.

There were a few other things that annoyed me like the fact that they couldn't have decided what house Orla will be in before school starts, which means I need to beg Stevie for a loan of the car just to get out there to buy a coloured t-shirt, but hey, I hate to moan....:-)

Girls Week

We're having 'Girls Week' this week. Hamish is back at Kita, and Orla and I are spending some quality time together. Mother and daughter time. We've never really been able to do too much of that, she was only 15 months when Hamish came along, and normally I have them both together and don't have much opportunity to spend one-on-one time with them.

So before she starts school I thought it would be nice if we spent some time doing some of the things that she would like to do. Admittedly, we've also had to do some things that she hasn't wanted to do, like picking up documents from the doctors and taking Hamish for his U7 tests (that's the standard age 3 tests here), but we've also gone to the cinema and saw Cars 2 in German ( and because the German schools have gone back it was easy to explain the bits that she didn't understand as we were the only ones in the cinema. And we went to an ice-cream shop, and we went shopping for art supplies and things for her schuletute, and we've done some craft projects.

And because I knew it would make her really happy, I finally got my act together and finished sewing the dress I've been making for her. It's been hanging on the outside of her wardrobe for hmm... months, so it was about time. I also managed to make a drawstring bag to hold her school tights in which was easy-peasy and I'm rather chuffed with. We've also done some baking and some craft projects, and while my house is now awash with sequins and Hama beads which keep appearing in the oddest of places (like Stevie's dinner), we've had some really good fun. If you want to see more of the bouncy bed pink dress photos then head over to fiona gray . paints.

On not facing the problem head on..

Monday morning 10am. Orla should be at Kita, but she's not. We've had a weekend of crying in the night, bad dreams, talk of bad girls, and requests to go to 'English school, not Kita'.

If she doesn't want to go, then I'm not going to make her. It's made me wonder what I would do if she was to get bullied at school. Obviously I can't just take her out and we'd have to tackle it some other way, but while I can just take her away from a bad situation, then I will. Especially, when she's still so young, it doesn't seem fair to force her to have to not only deal with the bullying, but deal with it in a foreign language.

I'm looking forward to some me & Orla time. It feels like we don't often get to spend that much time when it's just me and her. Especially with Hamish only liking his mummy and not really wanting to spend any time with his daddy.

Today we started things off by heading to the shops to get Orla a pack of printer paper to draw and paint her way through (and we may get a few sheets to actually use in the printer), some necklace elastic to make beads, and we had a look in the Lego shop to see if there was anything good for Hamish's birthday. There was. He would happily have everything in the shop.

And then we went to a cafe. Orla was particularly impressed by the proper little cup for her Kinder Cappuccino. It made her feel grown up, and today, that's just what she needed.

I'm wondering though whether I should just let her have a break from Kita for a few days and then maybe take her back. The teachers have said that they'll keep an eye on things and stop any further bullying, and I wonder if she needs to see that, and not just have me remove her thus just avoiding facing it. It's very hard to know what is best. Especially when my feeling is that at her age you just don't need to have to deal with this crap and feel worried for days about returning.

Time flies when you're potassium-enriched.

My Orla, my Orla.

Isn't it odd how one minute you are up to your eyeballs in nappy changes and bemoaning the number of times the same shoulder has been puked on in the one morning, and then all of a sudden you turn around and you're signing the school bus contract for this September?

You'd think that by now I'd be getting marvellous sleep then, wouldn't you? Last night Hamish came through and joined me in the bed at 3am and wanted to chat. At 3:30am he eventually told me the reason why he couldn't sleep and had been chatting for 30 minutes: he needed a banana. At 3:31 I stood in the kitchen peeling a banana. At 3:32 I returned to my bed to find Hamish lying fast asleep in my place, so I sat on the edge of the bed and ate a banana in the middle of the night.

Then I went through to the spare bedroom and fell asleep and around 4:15am I woke up to the sound of Orla stage whispering in my ear "I've been to the toilet all by myself and I have done a wee-wee". For me, no news is good news. When do you actually get a good night's sleep? Will I ever get to boast to the other mummies "Yes, Orla was sleeping through at 8 years!"

My daughter, the Hallmark greeting card.

Honestly I haven't trained her! I swear! Orla came up to me and told me she needed to give me a special kiss. I asked why and she said "Because you're so pretty, and you do all the tidying up and cleaning, and do nice things for me". It practically brought a tear to my eye.

I'm just glad she doesn't have many people to compare me with. If she knew that fluff in the corners of the rooms, and 2 washings backing up waiting on me taking one out of the machine 12 hours after it finished its cycle was a sign of a mummy who possibly doesn't do all the cleaning and tidying up she should in favour of more fun things, perhaps I wouldn't have got that kiss.

So there we go, nearly 4 years I've waited for that feeling of being appreciated. Yippee!

We've been invited to a birthday party over at workingberlinmum's where the theme may be 'What I want to be when I grow up'. Orla will look lovely dressed up as a Greetings Card Copywriter, and so easy for me! Hamish of course wants to be a Professional Tiger when he grows up. I'm not concerned. I'm sure there will be a degree course in that somewhere.