You don't need to know that, but it's my blog so I'll bitch about it anyway. But at least the stomach's doing better.
But still. Seeing as I have nothing better to do, why not waffle on about something to take my mind off things? Why not indeed. So here we go.
Part of the busy run up to the Christmas period involved a spot of decorating, just like the year before when I redecorated the kids' bedroom. The plan then was to give the kids something a bit more suited to their age – less babyish – with a view to preparing things for when they would eventually have separate rooms. So Tom, who would stay put, got to pick the colours and went for a combination of light mustard and what was disturbingly akin to Communist-China-red. Which was... vibrant.
Tom also wanted bunk beds, which was fine by the both of them because Tom got the top bunk and Rosie got the bottom bunk, which she turned into a sort of nest. Nana made some purple voile curtains to go around the bottom bunk and enclose the space, and she also got a tea set so Rosie could have tea parties with her teddies. It ended up that any kind of random 'arty' crap got hung off the top bunk as she felt like it, including the cros Bríde Rosie made.
With Tom being an early riser and Rosie being very much not, however, she ended up deciding to move into her own room a little sooner than we were anticipating, so she could get an extra hour or two in the morning without Tom interrupting. This meant following through with the promise that she could have it decorated to make it 'hers.' Naturally Tom decided that he wanted a revamp again, and seeing as he couldn't think of anything else he wanted so dearly for Christmas, I relented. After much deliberating Tom went with a space theme and he picked out the darkest blue he could find and asked for myriad glow in the dark stars (and a glow in the dark moon. There had to be a moon). It was better than the plane crash idea from last year, so that was easy enough, and voila:
He eventually decided he wanted the glow in the dark stuff concentrated on the wall opposite his bed, so that he had a whole wall of night sky. He has the rowan charm at the window and now he has a cross up as well, from earlier this month. I made him a moon-and-stars plaque to hang up on one wall (the clay didn't dry flat for some reason so it's a bit skewed but he still liked it), and after knitting Rosie some hearts for Samhainn, which I turned into a rowan charm for her, Tom asked me to knit him some stars. He picked out some yellow wool and I set to it – picking out a six-pointed star pattern because the five-pointed pattern required fancy needles I don't have...Except when I finished it, I realised that the particular yellow and the star pattern looked disturbingly like the Yellow badge a la Anne Frank. Oh dear. Mr Seren strongly agreed and I can't bring myself to let Tom have it hanging in his room, so I've said I'll have to think of something else.
My mother-in-law had given Rosie some curtains she'd made for my nieces but never used, and she also gave me the spare material. Tom decided he liked the fabric so asked for curtains (I had to make blinds in the end). After much loud swearing at the sewing machine, which refused to sew, I ended up having to do it by hand. They haven't fallen apart yet, which I consider to be the height of my achievement in adult life so far, but I should probably confess that neither do they draw up as well as they could if someone who knew what they were doing made them. But Tom's happy, and that's the main thing, right?
Rosie's room was a different kettle of fish. Initially she decided on a space theme like her brother, but with a BIGGER MOON. Then it was an under-sea theme, and there had to be dolphins and a mermaid please. Then it was back to space with the built-in wardrobes painted to look like the TARDIS so she could put her favourite teddies into it at night, so they could have adventures while she slept. But then she decided on a delightful combination of chartreuse and coral pink, which was fine until I realised she'd picked out the most expensive paint possible. So then it was orange and red, please, until we got to the DIY store and Mr Seren convinced Rosie that the colours would clash horribly. So, under Mr Seren's guidance, we ended up with this:
'Mango' and 'Jellybean Green,' with 'Jazzberry' to bring the two together. Rosie briefly contemplated having a pink ceiling, to bring together the walls with the curtains, but I vetoed that one on the grounds that she'd already exceeded the two-colour limit. Also: Grounds of taste. She wanted some pictures up on the wall, to create a "Wall of Wonder," so I offered her some spare frames that weren't being put to use. She ended up deciding to keep the pictures that were already in them, so in the end only had to choose one more picture for an empty frame. She wanted a picture of the dogs, Eddie and Mungo, and we put up the cros Bríde she made last year and some other bits and pieces she liked, to break up the photos:
The one Rosie chose – of the dogs frolicking – is bittersweet considering our oldest dog, Eddie, is starting to struggle a lot. He's coming up to 15 now, and since Christmas he's become basically incontinent. This past week he's not been able to manage more than a toddle up and down the road close to the house without being absolutely knackered, and while he's happy enough in himself to sit out in the garden while it's raining (I've no idea why he loves it so much) and merrily pee all over the place, a decision will have to be made pretty soon as to whether –when – it's a kindness to let him go than linger. It's one of the most inevitable things when it comes to looking after a pet, but it's no less gutting.
In the meantime, the kids are ignoring the fact that the inevitable is likely to be sooner rather than later and are pinning their hopes on being able to get a husky puppy (not bloody likely), because cute and fluffy is a happier thought than old and decrepit. They've been keen to know where he might go, once the end does come, though. Tom likes the idea of Eddie hanging out at the beach, while Rosie likes the idea of him coming back again, because then we might meet him again. Coming to terms with having to let go is hard.