September

I love this time of year. The smell of freshly sharpened pencils (yes that was a “You’ve Got Mail” quote). I really get the New Year feeling, must be the academic in me never letting go of the start of the school term! It’s been a part of my life for 36 years! And now...it’s going to be part of BigR’s life. Today is BigR’s last day at nursery and tomorrow afternoon she goes to school for the first time. By rights I should be at work but I’m at home as LittleR was unwell yesterday. Still the illness only last 8 hours and she was wolfing down food yesterday afternoon. Back to normal (but obeying the 48 hours illness rule).

Big R is ready for school. More than ready. She’s 5 in less than a week but...all of a sudden I am not. I think I’m mourning the loss of our flexibility more than anything. Wondering if she'll be OK (I know she will). Still I guess it’s a big change for us all. And she can’t wait to be able to read herself. So today I had a moment of what it’ll be like when the ABO is on earlies and BigR is at school. I spent the morning with LittleR and we did ‘jobs’. She’s good company! Loves pointing out babies – ‘Baby! Shhhh’ and anything emblazoned with ‘Minnie’, ‘Kitty’ or ‘Peppa’.

We went to Ikea to get a few organising bits and a chair for LittleR to (hopefully) stop the squabbling over who gets to sit on the chair. I love this time of year to clear stuff out and get stuff done. So with that in mind, I treated myself to a new notebook and some paper tapes there too (it would’ve been rude not to) but managed not to overdo it too much! We had a coffee (me) and some cucumber snacks and animal biscuits (LittleR, oh OK and me) Then, we stopped off to get some new bedding for BigR’s big girl bed.

Now LittleR is napping and when I’ve finished this I’m going to do some of the necessary domestic jobs (clear away lunch, hang out the washing, tidy up the toys again)...and arrange my dishwasher tablets into their new container. That really pleases me.