Getting by

Sometimes a little post dinner marble action is where it's at. Isabel loves playing but as she and it aren't very stable it needs a lot of supervision. She managed very well though and it was only as we were negotiating whether it was going to be left up for breakfast or not that she knocked it down and ended the discussion.

Favourite words of the moment is 'book' (buh buh buh) and she's loving Bear on a Bike and spots random details like a hat (she's a bit hat obsessed). It's lovely watching her getting new words and signs at the moment.

The decoration is finished in the bedroom but it's going to take a while to get everything in place especially with two small helpers. The room is looking bare without mirrors and pictures up and I need to sort out curtains as Matthew has banned me from putting the old ones up. I've found a lovely old pair but they're too small to be a permanent fixture but they will help tide us over. Whilst I was moving books around this afternoon Isaac busied himself with the camera and a tripod whilst Isabel bounced on the bed. That was great whilst the tripod help his attention as two of them bouncing on the bed usually ends up with wrestling and parental involvement needed.

With two English graduates in the house (one a writer and one a would-be academic) we have just a few books around the place. Whilst I was studying I banned books from the bedroom as I spent all day surrounded by them so wanted some down time without seeing them but now logistics mean we need to move some of them at least from the back bedroom so I've started shifting them. That always leads to the issue of whether to just shove them on the shelf, arrange them thematically or alphabetically or by size. I'm half tempted to arrange them by spine colour as you see in posh interior magazines but that would frustrate me when I wanted to actually find a book. At the moment they are in blocks of plays and poetry but we will see whether this is the selection that ends up living here or whether some will make way for fiction. Whatever selection I go for the truth is that they won't all fit in here by a long way so we may have to go through a painful cull (that won't go down well). It was quite gratifying that all the Shakespeare fitted on one shelf - well until I found a copy of Macbeth in amongst the poetry...

Isabel seems finally to be on the mend from a sickness bug. The problem is our washing machine has suffered (probably from too many towels being washed at once) and so I am now still trying to catch up with washing with a broken washing machine, a house still in disarray and a husband away. One day I might feel like I'm on top of everything but mostly I settle for just getting by.