Holiday's End

The last day of the Easter holidays. Sigh.

About fifteen minutes ago, Gertie was practising her flute, Gilby had finished some reading (he's been inspired by a Tom Palmer football book) and was working his way through some maths problems (for fun) while Eddie was quietly doing some finger-painting.

"I've nailed this parenting lark," I thought to myself.

You know the rest:  Somehow this all morphed into a game of murdering Ninja death warriors and I now have two broken bits of furniture and one child in tears because they smashed their head into wardrobe doors.

"Best to write a blogpost," I thought to myself.



Currently reading: Virginia Woolf A Writer's Life by Lyndall Gordon

Things That Go Bump in the Morning

Gilby tumbled from his cot yesterday morning; a sure sign that it is time to move to his bed. I have tried to make that move as attractive as possible: he has a racing car-styled bed with dinosaur bedding. Wouldn't be my own first choice, but I have tried to appeal to the things he likes. It hasn't made any difference. The bravado displayed in the morning about wanting to sleep in his new bed has completed dissapated by the evening, and there is no chance of getting him to even try it.

Gertie was singing 'Jack and Jill' quietly to herself in the car this afternoon. When she got to the part about Jack falling down and breaking his crown, I couldn't help but think of Gilby and his dramatic cot-side topple. But as she got to the next verse about the mending of the broken head with vinegar and brown paper, she stopped.

"That's just silly!"
"What is?"
"Jack trying to fix his crown with vinegar and brown paper."
"You're quite right, it is very silly," I agreed, musing at her four-year-old perceptiveness.
"He'd at least need sellotape as well..."

Yes, of course he would. Perhaps I should get Gilby some until he is willing to make the move to his bed!

Bunnies, Bangs and Things that go Bump in the Day

You know how you have those days where the sun is shining, the kids are happy and everything goes right? Yes. Well, today was not one of those days.

We were heading off this morning to our local farm park to take part in a pet show, bringing along 'Bella' the rabbit. Except that we received an email to say that we couldn't bring the rabbit along if it hadn't had all its vaccinations. It hasn't. This news did not go down well, particularly as I had been using the pet show as a bribe for good behaviour during the week. So we had to take a toy rabbit instead. Needless to say, we did not win the show. No rosette for us.

And then on the way home...well. We've just paid a small fortune to have some new fencing done in order to create a larger parking area (the nice men finished the job at about midday), and yet I still somehow managed to hit our neighbour's car whilst trying to manouevre mine. It would not be controversial to say that they are not the most easy-going of neighbours. I have not plucked up the courage to make The Phone Call yet.

Daddy is singularly unimpressed. Especially given the fact that I now have about three metres more space than I did when we left the house. Though, to be fair, this would not be the first time I have alluded to my lack of spatial awareness, particularly where parking's concerned. 'Oh dear,' said Gilby, with characteristic understatement.

And then Gertie's little friend, Jenny, came round to play this afternoon. Her mum dropped her off just as Gilby was going down for a sleep.

'Perfect,' I thought. 'I'll get some ironing done while the two of them play nicely together.'

But then the next thing I heard was a terrific clatter and some horrendous bumps followed by some screaming. Both girls had been pushing against the stairgate and the whole thing had come away, so they had surfed down the stairs (no carpets as we are trying to sand the boards at the moment...) from top to bottom and landed in an undignified heap in the kitchen. End result? Two hysterical three-year-olds, lots of tears, an apologetic phone call to the other mum, chocolate, cuddles, plenty of applications of Mr Bump, and miraculously, no trip to casualty.

Glass of wine, anyone?