Chapters

Michael has taken the Tines out to Styal on the train and the house feels so quiet, so empty. It's given me a taste of how it will feel when Gracie and the youngest are in school. No doubt I will be sad and miss them a lot. I have a lot of chattering in my ears these days. 

Woke up this morning feeling anxious and sad about Grace's change to Cheadle Catholic Infant School. I was excited at first. Just the thought of Gracie in her checkered yellow uniform and being a bit closer and I guess just more like school... with a new rucksack and a pencil case and a new lunchbox (probably with unicorns on it). New chapter. But I suddenly feel really sad at leaving Brown Lane behind. That was a new and long-awaited chapter which feels like it's only just begun and now it's coming to a close. I suppose life is full of chapters, and the losses of old chapters. Like the chapter with Jonny. Maybe that's what some of the sadness was really about, as I had a cry over him yesterday morning, from nowhere. I miss his friendship so much and feel so sad about what happened. Life is full of closing chapters.

So back to Gracie. She's going to be starting a whole new chapter. She'll be in a big class with a teacher and a teaching assistant, a very different ratio to what she's used to. And she'll be starting again with new friends and new routines. I thought it was going to be five mornings a week but the letter today has asked me to choose between the first and second half of the week. Think I'll go for the first. Give myself a kick start at the beginning of the week to get jobs done, hey. It will be strange having that first full half without her - now it's split over Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning. Mondays and Tuesdays are going to become my cooking and cleaning days, aren't they?! Oh dear. 

Speaking of the latter (cooking, not cleaning), I've been doing more of it and feeling good. I'm not exactly making healthy foods , particularly. I've had a go at chocolate brownies, pancakes, rice pudding, ginger biscuits... but there is something that feels so good about making food for people. I suppose it's because it's a kind of gift and it's a kind of homemaking as well. Well I suppose all homemaking is a gift. And I noted 'homemaker' as one of my roles when brainstorming roles, reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I like the feeling of giving Grace and Isaac things that I've made. They've still got sugar in, but less so, and not much processed. Plus I can see what goes in and think hmm, I might give that a tweek next time. Isaac has now eaten things with bananas in, when he won't touch them in their natural format. So that feels quite good. 

Also on my second loaf of bread. Last time I put the raisins in the top of the dough and they were thoroughly blackened when I pulled the loaf tin out, so not a roaring success. The ones in the middle of the dough were alright though. And I've noticed that the dough I made last night hasn't really risen. Not sure why? Maybe because I forgot to add salt? Oh well. It will do. Grace also had a play about with it (I got her to wash her hands first, don't worry) and I came back into the kitchen to hear her say 'I've put a headband on the dough, Mummy. Look!'. This is the headband that she wants to take back and swap for a bag. I won't mention the dough thing to the people at John Lewis.

Going to put the cot back up again today, I think. I took it down because it wasn't really getting its use and I decided to place Isaac on the mattress on the floor at bedtime. But now I've realised I'd quite like to teach him to self-soothe and fall asleep in his cot, with Starry Bear. Which has been ordered. I wonder if this could make a big difference to my life. Sleep is, surely, one of the biggest areas to work on. And at the moment Isaac - the little tyke- still wakes up in the night and doesn't know about self-soothing, because someone has never taught him. That might have been me. Another new chapter. 

Right, going to put raisins in the dough now and shove it in the oven, to await the homely smell of bread baking. Mmmm...

Isaac's most used phrase: 'let's go!'