DAY 58 – 14 May 2020

Restday, Thursday, Workday, Quizday… everything seems interchangeable these days. Looking back I had a pretty good day although it has felt incredibly long. I can feel tiredness begin to creep in earlier and earlier and perhaps my runs are catching up with me. Tomorrow is due to be a busy day as well so I think the weekend is coming at the right time!
E continues to excel with her work ethic. She’s smashing the schoolwork set for her and even received a couple of certificates from her teacher in the post today. I asked Steph about the theme for today’s #HomeSchooling and have been told there was no theme – just work. To be frank that sounds just lame and I am worried my regular readers will be sorely disappointed. It might be too short notice for tomorrow but if anyone has any great ideas for themes next week, please let me know!
There’s a definite family theme with today’s top 5 so here goes:

1. During handover at lunchtime I came down the stairs to hear E shouting for me,
“Daddy, you need to come. M has found a shell. And it has some water in it”
Now, I’ll confess my initial thought was he had grabbed a soap dish, or better still just one of E’s toys but the reference to water did worry me a little. So I came down to find M outside sat on the patio. Holding a snail shell. Sticking his finger into it. And squishing the snail so the gloop was oozing out. And starting to lick his fingers. He is genuinely a disgusting little boy who clearly has a desire to be French! But he’s still my little boy and therefore I’m obliged to say I wouldn’t him any other way but perhaps he could leave the snails alone in future! 🐌 
2. After a bit of quizzing tonight I went out to the garden to tidy up the kids’ toys. “Get them outside” I said to Steph this morning, “they need to burn off some energy as they’ve been cooped up too much recently.” I mean it was well intentioned and certainly M had a good long nap this afternoon after being in the garden for the most of the morning. But what I discovered outside this evening was a layer of chuckie stones all over my lovely lawn. E knows it needs a cut this weekend and so I’ve been on my hands and knees picking up hundreds of stones. What has my life become? 😫
3. E took some lovely photos of M this evening and rushed over with the iPad to show me. I told her what a lovely sister she is and it was a lovely family moment where everyone was just in a positive mood. Until E replied: “We need nice photos of M so we can remember him when he dies.”
I asked her what on earth she was talking about and as usual she spoke to me like I was a naive idiot! “Not everyone survives Daddy and so M will die sometime. But before that I want to marry him as he is my best friend.” Bear in mind this is the boy who has been pulling clumps out of her hair all week. My heart just melted! 💝
4. We’ve been trying hard to keep in touch with family and friends and inevitably talk about them a lot in from of the kids. Sometimes they latch onto these conversations and today E overheard us talking about my dad. “Can we go and visit Grandpa when the Coronavirus goes away?” Of course we can I replied and she got very excited! “Yippee! I love staying for sleepovers at Grandpa’s because he lives in a hotel!” 
“A hotel?”
“Yes it’s like a hotel because there’s lots of doors and we have to go up in a lift.”
“You mean he lives in a flat E?”
“Whatever Daddy. I think it’s a hotel!” 🏨 
5. Pinkie promises in our house are sacrosanct. They cannot be broken and I think it dates back to when I first told E that if you break one, your pinkie falls off. I was trying to get her to eat her tea tonight and she was conducting her usual negotiation – what’s in it for me Daddy? She wanted to stay up for the NHS clap so there was a pinkie promise that if she ate everything on her plate she could stay up for that. But whilst making the promise she added in that she would tidy the living room, clean the kitchen floor and do the washing up. I’ve no idea where it came from but apparently she wanted to help Daddy with “his chores”! Who knows what her Mammy has been teaching her. Anyway, when trying to pack her off to bed we found her with a dining room chair pulled up to the kitchen sink ready to wash the dishes. I’m thinking we need to harness this enthusiasm and get a big clean going over the weekend – maybe that will be tomorrow’s theme!! 🤙