Not good, this does not feel good

but alhamdulillah, despite my limited parenting abilities at the moment, Biryani's language skills are taking off and so communication is a little easier = slightly less frustration on her part. So for example, words like 'bowl' 'spoon' 'milk' tell me she wants some cereal and she can nod or shake head as to which one.
H continues his interest in numbers, now almost mastering counting to 100, which took a bit of patience on my part to have to listen to repetition of this task on numerous occasions. He is today starting to learn it in Swedish, hopefully I haven't taught him too wrong pronunciation. He also finds big numbers such as thousands and millions interesting. He starting himself up on minus, but tends to ask backwards so 'whats 2 take away 9?' really means 7. He's talking a lot now in Swedish to most people including kids outside nursery. He also initiated a conversation with a little girl at nursery today which surprised me. His greeting to his friend in the morning is the equivalent of 'poo sausage' but hey at least he's communicating!
That's all I can write just now, looking forward to Spring for various reasons. Had first snow today although didn't settle.

Nearly didn't post

Do not feel at all like sitting at the computer, all I want to do is curl up under my duvet for the next 6 months or so. But I have an electricity bill to pay online. Actually I was just lying down for a nap yesterday and heard a big explosion in the distance. I thought about it as it reminded me of the news clip of a visiting Japanese (?) dignitary being totally shocked by a bomb blast while the Iraqi President (?) not even flinching. Then in the papers today it was actually a house fairly near us that blew up to smithereens due to a gas explosion. The occupants had managed to get out beforehand and the fire brigade arrived 2 mins after the blast so no one was killed. SubhanAllah it shows how qadr is, a few minutes delay can make a big difference.
Back to education, well S's Swedish homework for the rest of the term is to watch a Swedish kids programme once a week(!) and write a synopsis and note a new piece of vocabulary. Normally S does not want to watch any Swedish programmes, which I was never too concerned about but in fact it was quite an interesting programme, science and technology, just up his street. Shame about the garish music. M got some more craft sets for Eid, but what does one do with a felting needle?. It looks quite lethal and I have put it safely away for the time being.

...not a leaf falls, but He knows it.

Surah 6;59

A trip to the beech forest, and the park whilst feeling slightly better, the autumnal colours are irresistible.

Some photos now the cable has turned up

Dates like I'd never seen before, they were quite nice.
While I was sleeping.....
So guess what I was doing once I'd got up!

Happy half-term - not

From 6 am this morning I was awoken at approximately 10 min intervals as it was S's turn to throw up, from 6 ft up bunk bed to clothes/ toy ridden floor. Miracuously only one shirt and some plastic, washable toys were affected, but mental note, thereis another reason to keep floors clear of stuff, apart from the obvious tripping risk, general stress that mess causes plus remembering what colour the floor is. Plus H decided to announce he had a bogey which I should be grateful for as others might have just smeared it on the wall (how do you get dried- on snot off textured wallpaper?sorry, I've been house-bound with 4 sick kids all week, cabin fever, lala lala).
We are now down to last toilet roll and out of kitchen roll, and DH has decided to stay one more day away. Now I have been contemplating having to get everyone ready to go to the corner shop including myself, but feel faint thinking about it, so have managed to find a muslin square (I do not mean a niqab;)) as a hanky and some 'tvättlappar' which are unknown in the UK I think, but are special paper that don't disintegrate when made wet and are used for all manner of things from cleaning kids faces to bums. So can use them as kitchen roll and for the other bathroom. We are down to the basics here and I am sometimes living from hour to hour, oh there's a coup in Pakistan, this should be much more concerning right now...

Affliction eased, a bit

Many thanks for well wishes, may Allah reward you. Feeling relatively better, enough to let DH go off to Norway for a couple of days. All of kids have had their turns at sickness/ diarrhoea, plus colds. So half term has been a bit of a 'vegetate in front of screens session,while Mummy snores away in bed' type thing. Yesterday they found some whiteboard pens and did some spelling and hangman games. H still into his addition. Biryani on her way to being a parrot as will now imitate words as best she can, in any language. She usually leaves off the last sound so 'map' and 'man' are the same. 'Cat' is still a v cute 'meeow'.
We did make it out to the forest last weekend when felt a little bit OK and saw the beautiful colours of the beech leaves, gotta find the cable first to upload the photos. We're back on the old computer due to last weeks mishap and its amazing how many bits and bobs are required to get the computer fully functioning.