P.T.I., s'il vous plait...

So I've neglected this blog rather terribly over the last month or so; my eternal apologies. A couple of things are to blame: firstly, my family fell into a dire bout of sickness which has meant that for the last month I have been dealing alternately with my fussy, snotty daughter and a fussy, coughing husband. Highlights of these five plagued weeks have included a trip to Mayday with a poor dehydrated gastroenteritis-y baby, sleepless nights, receiving a text from Patrick that read "I couldn't wash up bcos I was napping" and general feeling of helplessness that accompanies the illness of one's children.

The other reason that I have been otherwise engaged is entirely my own stupid fault. Over the New Year I treated myself to a double helping of stress in the form of another Uni module, which was a demonstration of such idiocy that I can now barely contain my irritation with myself. For those of you unfamiliar with the Open Uni, I shall briefly explain my current situation: I'm whinging my way through an English degree which consists of six modules of supposedly varying difficulty. You are generally expected to complete one to two modules per year as the institution is aimed at those people with full-time jobs or kids or other major distractions that mean that they only have a few snatched hours a week to read their books. They don't have any guidelines for Majorly Impatient and Easily Bored Students, though, so I took it upon myself to 'double up' with two modules at once; theoretically to minimise the risk of getting too bored and packing the whole thing in.

It hasn't worked. With one module I was fed up; with two modules I was fed up and stressing myself out trying to find 32 hours every week in which to study, as opposed to the usual 16 hours that I manage to grab when Esmae is napping or after she has gone to bed. Happily, the Open Uni are used to people doing silly things like this and are being very agreeable in allowing me to postpone the extra module until more convenient time. So I've gone back to my original study plan and I am now just on the one module, leaving me free to finish nursing my sickly charges and blog to y'all about nothing in particular (that's if, of course, anyone is still there...).

In other news, Esmae is now walking which apparently means that I no longer have a baby (sob!) but am officially a member of the Toddler Parent Club (this may or may not exist). As far as I can tell, this means that I get to do fun things like sacrifice my fingers for mincing between the sharp corners of furniture and Esmae's head, and pay £40 for shoes the size of a matchbox which will fit for two weeks...