Well, that was a rotten day. People said M would be testing the boundaries when she started schhol and I thought I was prepared for it, if a little unclear what exactly they meant.

Today, she cut off Tamsin’s hair. Then started on her own.

I am so sad; I love little T in bunches and now it will be months before she can have them again. It looks absolutely dreadful (here).

Obviously we didn’t go to the zoo, as we had planned. Cameron has gone to Germany (he was going anyway, he hasn’t gone there in a huff or anything) and I’m just feeling really low tonight. With an enormous to-do list for the week looming over me. No chocolate in the house either.

Well, we’ve survived a week of fulltime school. Maggie has settled easily and well, if secretively. If she is to be believed she has been having some very peculiar school dinners (yet coming home with a daily sticker for eating it all, so I tend to think her accounts of just lettuce and tomato sauce, or just a biscuit, are slightly fictional) and she has grazes on knees and elbows. PE was fun and she is making friends. Even I was found standing in a chatting circle of mums at the school gate on Friday: I felt very included. In a nice way. She’s tired, with bedtime tears, but so far not as bad as I had expected. And so looks just gorgeous in her little uniform.

I was prepared to struggle with the early starts – but that has, so far, been easier than anticipated. Once I got my head round having to be out of bed by 7.30 (it is early for us) then we’ve just done it. I was unprepared for suddenly finding myself with a toddler to entertain:  I hadn’t appreciated just how much the girls play together and all of a sudden Tamsin wants me to play with her. She is delighted when Maggie gets home (she holds her arms up and says yay! when I say it is time to go and collect her). I have a few toddler activities lined up – mostly on a Wednesday which is just manic with swimming (T), rhythm time (T) and ballet (M) one after the other. We tried storytime at the library but I was a bit unimpressed (one story then they got out the instruments and bunged on a CD of children’s songs). I very much want to incorporate allotment visits into our week too: I just need to do it for a bit and it will (probably) fall into place.

We had a lovely anniversary night out in Liverpool: the streets were shut for la machine and we were half an hour early for the restaurant (actually half an hour late into town – we had intended having a drink first – because the roads were flooded) so we walked down and had a look at it, then had a gorgeous meal at Etsu. After a bit of to- and fro-ing they even made me an off-menu lemon sour (shochu, soda and freshly squeezed lemon). Most of the restaurant was occupied by the Japanese FA so it felt really nostalgic with Japanese banter going on behind us. Tamsin, little sod that she is, slept through the entire night 8-7 without a peep for her aunty Sara, then did the same for us on Saturday. (To put this into context: she has done this twice before in her entire little life, at 3 months old. So that’s, what, 19 months of broken sleep.) Back to normal since, with 2.30 the favoured time to summons me (yawn).

It rained 10 years ago, too! (I was a child bride.)

First (half) day at school seemed to go very well. Special pancake breakfast, as requested, then we walked up the road. Hordes of parents (and children of course) but we found M her little gang from preschool and left her to it. She tells me they played outside, where she ran around with her preschool friend and also, most excitingly, H, who was her bessy mate at preschool before starting school last year. They had a story, drew a picture, answered the register, and she managed to tell them she should be Maggie not Margaret. They had a snack (at snacktime. Which is different from playtime) and I picked her up before lunch. We came home and she watched Mary Poppins. Does it get much better than that?

Fell over and grazed her knee on her way there this morning.