To infinity .. and beyond!

Listen to that.. go on, just for a minute.. stop and listen.. 

silence! absolute and total silence! It is bliss!!

Whilst I absolutely love and adore my 4 year old daughter with every ounce of my body (that's one helluva lot of ounces btw), this morning is absoulte heaven. She has gone back to school. 

Although Isabelle is only 4, she's what you'd call an old 4 year old. She's growing up in a pretty much adult world, and can converse with you at any level. She has a great sense of humour (although her made up jokes are particularly bad), she will say things or do things just to make you laugh. I have just spent the last 9 days with her, just me and her alone until 6pm when her Dad gets home from work. She talks incessantly. Moreso than me (which may be hard to belive for those that know me!). She is a sponge for knowledge. She has to know everything (the in's and out's of a ducks arse as my late dad would say). She wants to know, how, why, when, what if... As much as I love passing information on to her (thank god for google!) when you are asked questions for 11 hours a day it gets tiring. Very tiring. My poor brain aches. All hail to the school teachers! 

This week we have baked, drawn, created, gone to the cinema, painted and various other activities that I can no longer remember, just to keep her occupied. I have to teach her to sit and chill out occasionally and that life doesn't have to be run at a billion miles an hour (although that's how her dad does life too). She constantly has to 'be doing' something. I have a pile of paintings (at least 30) that I can't throw away because she remembers every single one. And this week she has been making bags out of two sheets of A4 paper, cellotaping them together then making a handle for them. She has made at least one for everyone in the house. She has also made notebooks (again from A4 paper, but folded in half to include 6 pages each, with a pocket on the front and two crayons in) for everyone in the house and Russ's girlfriend. She has drawn so many pictures I've lost count. Yet again, we have to keep them all because she remembers every single one of them. She then goes to great lengths to tell you what is in each picture and why. 

It is one of life's absolute pleasures, drinking in her enthusiasm and her zest for life. I did struggle with 'which is the biggest planet mummy?' and other questions on the solar system because I just never learned about it. (thank god for google again). And then she launched into telling me why no one lives on Mars and Jupiter, but that she really wanted to go and live on the moon. She'd take her hat and gloves and scarf of course because it's really cold on the moon (apparently) and she'd have to have an oxygen tank so she could breathe (she really does know far more about the universe than I do! although I do know there's no atmosphere on the moon) and she then spent time designing her house that she would build on the moon. Of course she'd have to take tools with her because there are no shops on the moon to buy them from. She's got it all planned out. But then she'd like to move to Mars because it's a very pretty colour. She couldn't possibly go and live on Saturn, although she'd like to because of the pretty rings that Saturn has around it, but they're made from gas and rocks and you'd really struggle to get through them to land on Saturn in the first place. (yes, this is all from a 4 year old!)  If she carries on yapping at the rate she does, I may well send her into orbit anyway LOL. 

On another note, I've started my patchwork quilt. OMG how therapeutic was that? Although it did involve Isabelle's creativity (she wanted to choose which squares went where, and I had to explain about not getting the same pattern square or the same colour square in the same place as the last row), I really did enjoy doing it. Well, I did until I ran out of squares! I definatley underestimated how many squares I'd need. The next lot should arrive tomorrow. Mark was really impressed and told Isabelle that she has a very clever mummy (aww bless him) followed up by his 'whiney little boy face' saying he wants a patchwork quilt for himself. What? You're a grown man! yes, but I really really want a quilt for myself so I can snuggle up under it on the sofa at night. (oh good grief) OK, I'll make you one when Isabelle's is finished. To which he put on his really excited face and rubbed his hands together and said to Isabelle, mummy's going to make me one too.. hooray! (insert rolling eyes here). But at least I have another quilt to make when Isabelle's is done, and it'll keep me busy.

So now I'm off to put the kettle on and enjoy a bit more silence before I get stuck into trying to clear up this whirlwind / tornado stricken pig sty.