Tag Archives: family

On Legoland and Workflowy

Family, Reviews, , , , , ,

It’s this week! The kids have no idea at all!

They are all coming back from their grandparents this afternoon, and I am feeling not at all like myself, having a)had an evening out with the husband, b)slept till 11am and c) had breakfast in bed….anyway, that’s beside the point. What I wanted to do with this post is share a really useful tool, that I started using for work ages ago and, pretty quickly adopted for home life too.

It’s a free app called Workflowy , available through your browser, or as an Android/IOS app. It is amazingly simple – but incredibly effective. For work, I use it as a brain dump to organise my thoughts before writing a project plan, and then to keep track of progress. For home, I am using it as a basis for the House Project  – but I also use it for packing for trips – here’s my Legoland list for example. Depending on when you’re reading this there may even be some items crossed out!!   The link I’ve shared is non-editable by others – but you can share editable lists too – which is incredibly useful if, unlike me, you don’t mind people messing with your carefully crafted system. And it doesn’t matter if I’m out and about, and think of something, because it syncs to my phone – how cool is that! (I admit that I am coming late to technology, and such clever things as syncing still amaze me!!!)

OK – I should probably make a start on the actual packing bit now. But if you want to know more, check out this video – and I’d love to hear about anything similar that you use – tweet @michelledavis or comment below!

On getting back to normal!

Family, LearnerMother,

So – the minute i allow myself to relax in the knowledge that life is running smoothly, it all goes tits up.

The kids had brilliant parents evenings, the surprise trip to Legoland is all planned and booked, the 3yo has a sleepover with his Nanny while the big ones have their friends staying over tonight. AND I have negotiated a free Saturday to go to Mostly Women Doing Digital in Swansea.

Looking good, huh?

Well. Now there is snow – SNOW – forecast for Monday at Legoland. But that’s fine, we can cope with that, I think to myself – I will just fire up the cold/wet weather project plan.*

Then I get a call from my Mum. The 3 yo has projectile vomited. Ok, we can work with this. I’ll drive to Mums’s and stay there with him, in the (probably vain) hope that he doesn’t pass it on to the bigger ones, plus sleepover friends. I’m a bit gutted as I was actually quite looking forward to spending some time with them all – but still, there’ll be another time.

So I’m driving up to Mums’s when the car starts juddering, like proper, bone shaking juddering. Oh, I think. Flat tyre maybe? I’ll get off the motorway, pull in and check it out. But as I slow down on the slip road, the juddering stops and for a few relieved minutes, I think maybe the motorway surface was just more bumpy than I’d remembered. Then the burning smell starts. And every time I go above 50, we are back to juddering. And smelling of burning. FFS.

Hmmmm. A buggered car, a vomiting child, no trip to Swansea, and a snowy and probably vomity Legoland. Life’s back to normal!

*yes, there is one. I am that sad.

On small steps with my biggest boy

Family, LearnerMother, , ,

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One of my clearest memories from having my firstborn was how utterly perplexed he seemed to be with the world in which he found himself.

Completely exhausted from labour, and terrified that I would fall asleep and suffocate him, I had put him in the little crib thing next to me and held my breath, expecting a roar of protest. Well the roar never came – and in fact, he continued to be the most placid baby I’d ever come across. But in place of the roar, was a little face looking around so confused, so worried almost, that I wished I could have popped him safely back inside me for a few more weeks till he felt ready to face us all.

That sense of not being in the right place has stayed with my biggest boy. Even in his happiest moments, he has never been completely carefree. He worries about all sorts of things – most of all about whether anyone likes him. Achingly like me as a child, he is desperate to fit in and be one of the gang, but doesn’t really know how to do it. When I watch him on the school yard in the mornings, I have sometimes felt physical pain in my gut for him as I see him approach groups only to be ignored – and then to start acting the fool to get attention, and of course isolating himself further. In the past I’ve been pretty pro-active about organising playdates for him, but over the last year or so – at his request – these have tapered off.

But just these last few weeks it feels as if there is a small, but significant change in the air. He seems more confident in himself, and his thoughts and feelings. He is definitely playing more with a wider group of friends in the playground, and in the last 2 weeks has had playdates with 2 different friends – at his instigation! – and has invited another friend to sleep over on the last day of term. He’s stayed off the ‘concern list’ all year at school, and his teacher said again at parents evening how far he has come this year.

None of that really matters to me – I would slay dragons for him as he is, however he is. But seeing him grow into himself a little, and become more comfortable in his own skin, is a lovely way to start the Spring, for all of us – but most of all for him. Looking forward to more small steps, my biggest boy! x

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