You are the sunshine of my life

My angel is now six, and it's high time for a review. Laura loves school, but would prefer not to go to after school club...well, who would?. Her best friend is still Chrissie, but they aren't going to be in the same class next year. Luckily she has Sofia.




She still loves her soft toys, and now has a favourite - a small pig called piggly. She still loves pink and purple and barbies and make up. She loves her red hair, but doesn't like the curls.




She still loves singing and dancing, and is starting to show an interest in musical instruments.

She still loves cuddles and kisses and tells me she is never going to leave home.

Santa Claus is coming to town...

Merry Christmas one and all. (Is it me, or is Santa getting younger?)

Walking in a winter wonderland

Today didn't quite pan out as expected. I expected the usual dull work day, although I was due to take Lauar to school as husband is in London...but then it snowed. Boy, did it snow. Up early, and tuned it local radio (who were doing a stonking job) and finally at 8.05am, like almost every other school in the area, the announcment came that laura's school was closed. She prompted got dressed,and raced outside to enjoy it to the full...




By 9.30 we had built a snowman, and had a snowball fight!





Laura declared this to be the best day in her life ever.

However, for this 5 year old it got even better. Look what happened later...



She lost her first tooth.

Life's what you make it

And here are some images of my life (well, my life as a mum) over the past few weeks.


We did baking during half-term, and as everyone knows, licking the bowl afterwards is the best bit.





Laura has joined Rainbows, and this is what she made at her first meeting.





We had a halloween party.



It was fun!

I believe in Father Christmas

OK...Mum, Dad, friends B & M...you win. I WILL start taking Laura to Church tomorrow.

"Mum..is Father Christmas always with us?"

"No, that's God."

"But, does Father Christmas watch over us?"

"No, that's God too."

"But is Father Christmas higher than God."

"No, trust me, Father Christmas is nothing to do with God."

It's just my imagination

So, we had Laura's parent/teacher meeting last week. She has two lovely teachers this year: Mrs B and Mrs L. Mrs B was actually her teacher last year too, so I'm pleased she moved up with the class. We didn't know Mrs L last year, but she is great - very approachable (but also young...I'm struggling with this "professionals in my life who are clearly younger then me" business, and it can only get worse as I age.

Laura is not as advanced as some of her classmates in reading and writing, but they have no concerns, She will apparently get there when she is ready. But, we are informed she is absolutely top of the class as far as her imagination goes. They encourage the children in storytelling, and Laura is so good she actually takes the rest of class along with her in her fantasies.

We are quite used to her vivid imagination at home, but it's nice to see something like this being acknolwedged as useful. Right now, she is downstairs driving to York. Earlier she told us all about the her secret other life as a vampire. Apparently there is a secret door in her bedroom wall. The door and the handle are painted the same colour as her wall, so that is why we haven't seen it. After we have both gone to bed she goes through the door, turns into a bat, and gets into her coffin. "OK" says I. "What's your vampire name?" says Peter. "Alice?" says Laura. "Not very likely" says I. "Vampirer" suggests P. "Rubbish" I say. " makes her sound like she is a vampire in a porn flick. And anyway, neither Dracula nor Orlok gave away their predilections in their name. No, it needs to be gothic. How about Anastasia?" Peter rolled his eyes (probably still thinking about the porn flick). Laura smiled...."Anastasia....yes".

We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried line

As I put some washing in the machine yesterday morning (one of the many advantages of working from home!)I realised...too late..that I should have taken a photo of the clothes Laura wore over the weekend, as they were a perfect summary of what we did...let me explain:

Splodges of green paint down the side of her top = we went pottery painting again. She painted a flower, I did a rainbow.

Brown marks on the collar and sleeves = we popped into Farrah's afterwards for a chocolate ice cream.

Large brown stains all down the front of the "Dorothy" dress = we made chocolate buns on Sunday.

School's out forever

Well, we are back from our jollies. A full report and the obligatory 80 million photos will follow....shortly. But I had to share todays little smile....

Laura does like to pick her own clothes, so most of the time I just grit my teeth and let her get on with it. Frankly, it's not worth the argument. But today is a corker - she is apparently missing school, so is dressed in full school uniform, including socks, shoes and hairband. She really is several sandwiches sort of a picnic, and I cannot imagine where she gets it from. We are going to the library this afternoon, and what she doesn't yet realise is that there is no bloody way she going out of the house in that get up!

We are the champions...

Laura had her first sports day a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I was in London, listening to university librarians discuss the future of library management systems.......

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it...

Not me, I should point out. Laura. She slept with me last night, because Peter was getting up at the crack of sparrow fart to go to London. Anyway, she woke up when the alarm went off (result!), leapt on me, and proceeded to inform me why she was so excited:

1) she is starting packed lunches today. She is absolutely giddy about this. Her best friend, Christina, who is the benchmark for everything at the moment, has packed lunches, and for the summer term, so will Laura. I do feel a little guilty that she is so happy to take sandwiches. Mostly she has had school dinners since starting school because I can't be arsed to make her lunch....ho hum!

2) now this one is a massive working-mummy, guilt-trip jobby. She was beside herself with joy because i was taking her to school this morning. Not just dumped early in pre-school club, but actually taking her to the classroom, and helping her hang up her stuff on her peg. Actually, i enjoy it too. It's nice to see some of the other mums, and the weather was lovely this morning, so it was a very pleasant stroll back to the car. When I did a bit of pick up and collecting after I came back from South America I resolved to try to re-jig my working hours from time to time...y'know...do a long day one day so I can do the school run the next day. But it is difficult to be consistent - I'm off again for three days next week....

Month end catch up - fully illustrated!

Well, it has been another busy month chez Robinson, or chez this particular Robinson. I spent a aweek in The Netherlands, a week in Dublin, Ohio and then a week in bed with tonsilitis. Any connection, d'ya think?

Dublin was snowy. In fact, they'd had the worst snowfall since 1910 the weekend before I arrived. Anyway, usual round of looong meetings, but lovely company in the evenings. First pic of a fantastic evening at Jennifer and Scott's home, complete with homemade Missisippi Mud Pie in honour of Jenny's (not Jennifer the hostess) b'day.



The week ended on a bit of a frustrating note......the short version includes the clocks changing in Ohio, but not in Colombia, a videoconference, changing flights and the equipment breaking down. End result - an extra night in Dublin, but a visit to a lovely french restaurant! Bet you're intrigued now! HOme, and the afore mentioned bout of illness, and then.....it was Easter.


Laura's hair is now long enough to scrape (!) in to the world's tiniest pony tail. This makes her very happy:




We had an indoor easter egg hunt this year ( and yes, she is wearing shoes with her nightie. We bought them the day before.)



Mummy got a very big egg for Easter:



And it snowed:

Note to self: must do better

In this instance "must do better" with Laura's religious education. While not being full on, i have tried to bring her up in a vaguely christian...specifically catholic environment..and thought I was doing OK. Till we had this little exchange in bed this morning:

Me: So, what special time do we celebrate Jesus being born?

Laura: (thinks for a minute) At assembly?

Me: No...think again...a special time when we remember that Jesus was born?

Laura: (Again, thinking hard) World Book Day?

Me: (Sigh) No darling, at Christmas. We'll talk about this again.

The most important day in my daughter's life so far....

And before I started blogging I still had to check the calendar to remind myself of the date. No so important after all then?

Anyway, Monday 17th September was Laura's first day at school. She started at 10am, and got to have her special friend with her most of the day. I was pretty amazed that only one of us cried, and it wasn't me for a change.

Here she is in her

uniform, little poppet. She started full time straight away, and she is in Mrs Britton's class.

And so, we are about to start week 4. For the first two weeks we had tears every morning, but on the Monday of week three, she proudly announced that she hadn't cried at all that day, and so it continued all week. Whenever we ask her what she did at school she says "can't remember", but this seems to be a common affliction amongst receptioners.

The local paper publishes pictures of all new starters so if you go here and look for St Roberts you might be able to spot her.

Princess Laura

So, my girl was four years old a fortnight ago. What can I tell you about our little princess as we start to count down her last few weeks as a pre-schooler?

Well, sometimes it is a bit like having a four year old teenager in the house, but I guess that is mostly our fault for not being consistent enough in our discipline....but hey....(almost) anything for an easy life.

Laura loves pink and purple, in that order. She is mad about Wizard of Oz, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (both screen versions), Disney Princesses (I think Sleeping Beauty is her favourite, but that might have changed), Scooby Doo and Tom & Jerry.

She has bright pink crocs, and has worn them everyday for the last 16 days.

Her best friend is Hattie, and she is very fond of Chelsea (friend not FC). Her boyfriend is Jack Packwood, although I'd prefer it if it was Jack Geen.

She doesn't yet have a favourite soft toy, although she is pretty partial to a Panda I bought back from Schipol Airport a few weeks back. Those who know me well enough will understand the significance of that!

She sucks her thumb. Those who know me well enough will also understand the significance of that! Her thumbs have names. She has her sucker thumb, and her stroker thumb. You can guess what she does with the first. The second strokes her nose while she sucks the other.

She is my princess and I cannot imagine my life without her.