Yeeted it!

We're not really a gambling family (though we have a dog called Kempton, and our first date was at Kempton Races, but still, never mind).

We have, however, established a kind of tradition of doing a sweepstake and £1 each way bets as a family on the Grand National.

So Eddie dutifully wrote out all 40 names and we put them in a hat to draw out. But his bet at the bookmakers was Noble Yeats. There was a very good reason for this. 'Yeet' is one of his favourite words, and he's never heard of the Irish poet, after whom I'm guessing the horse was named. 

In case you're not familiar with the term 'yeet', a few found defintions: 

Merriam-Webster say: Yeet is a slang word that functions broadly with the meaning “to throw,” but is especially used to emphasize forcefulness and a lack of concern for the thing being thrown. (You don’t yeet something if you’re worried that it might break.) Yeet is also used as an interjection, most often to express excitement or enthusiasm.

Dictionary.tn explain that:Yeet refers to throwing something away from yourself at high velocity. If someone chucks their water bottle across the room into their bag, they've “yeeted” it. This action is sometimes accompanied by said person yelling “YEET!” as they throw it.

Gilby was on the runner-up, Any Second Now. The noise that was generated in our living room as the two horses battled it out in the home strait might have been heard at Aintree, 250 miles away. 

At 3pm on Saturday afternoon Eddie had no idea what was meant by 'book-makers' odds'. Having picked a winner at 50-1, he's got a pretty good idea now. I just hope that we haven't inadvertently ignited a lifetime a gambling addiction...

Currently reading: Front Desk by Kelly Yang. 

Post Lockdown Birthday

Eddie turned nine last weekend and deciding on a way of marking the moment was trickier than usual. Everyone else in the family had their birthday this year in 'actual' lockdown so there was no question beyond how to make it special at home together. 

Not so for Eddie.

To him, the world appears pretty much back to normal now. He's been back at school since early September, and the classroom seems similar to what he knew before. The teachers are not required to wear masks, nor are the students (unlike at secondary school where they seem to have become something of a fashion accessory). Changes are subtle. Things look much as they ever did. 

His football team are training and playing matches against rivals home and away; social distancing is encouraged, but you can't put a decent socially-distanced tackle in, and it goes out of the window if a goal is scored, in the natural joy and exuberance of that moment. Swimming classes are back on, though he isn't allowed to shower afterwards - an irrelevance to a 9-year-old.

So why wouldn't a party or a sleepover be possible?

It must seem ludicrous to him that he can be in close proximity to his friends during the school day, play on a football team with seven other players, be in a swimming lesson of a different eight kids, travel to school in a car with two classmates - and yet, because we are a family of five, only have one additional person in the house because of the Rule of Six.

It's difficult to make sense of - especially given that as a secondary school teacher I come into contact with between 150 and 200 students on an average seven period day. 

He has been on a fantasy-kick for the last few months, and so in the end we chose to do the Harry Potter  Studio Tour and experience the 'film-making magic'. Eddie was allowed to bring one friend so that we would be a legal party of six amidst the hundreds of other visitors.

In the end it was a fun day out, completed by a wand-fighting lesson, a broomstick ride, a trainride to Hogwarts and lashings of butter beer (well, one serving to share, since the purchase required remortgaging the house. Actually, the whole thing pretty much cost the price of a week's holiday in Spain, but whose counting in these strange times?

The Birthday Party

Gilby reached the milestone of double figures.

We are a long way beyond the class party these days. Yes, they were horrendous, but at least with the saving grace of being all over and done with in an hour and half. 

But, no. To celebrate, his treat of choice was to:

Take a group of friends to a trampoline park. 

Straight from school on the last day of the summer term. 

A suitably unhealthy burger and chips to follow the bouncing. 

Then all back to our garden for what is breezily termed a 'camping sleepover'.

I try not to begin from a 'deficit perspective' but there seems no other way to approach this given

the significant number of potential, actual and unforeseen pitfalls to this plan.

1. Eight children at a trampoline park.

Now, I don't know what the odds are in relation to number of visitors per injury, but I figured that our chances of ending up in casualty were pretty high. In my head, it was only a question of where the first blow might strike. Our odds were susbtiantially increased because in a fit of what I can only describe as a combination of uncharacteristic generosity and utter madness, I had booked the two hour bouncing deal instead of the single hour option. I had also failed to notice that the 'deal' was actually called 'Hungry Bouncers' and included a 'free' hot-dog. That meant that we were actually filling the boys up with two forms of processed meat in rapid succession. If they weren't going to end up in hospital through bouncing then perhaps the long-term health problems were going to get them there eventually.

2. Decibels

The noise quality in trampoline parks - and I don't mean to do them down specifically; it is generally the same in all 'soft play' establishments - is of a particular quality and timbre that generally leaves me wanting to crawl into a quiet hole after extended exposure to it. Note previous point in relation to the two, rather than one, hour deal.

3. The curse of the Golden Arches.

As a vegetarian I am not generally a big fan of the chains of 'family burger restaurants' with which we are all familiar. I object to the use of the term 'restaurant' when you are required to order at a counter, wait for your food, carry it back to plastic immovable chairs and tables, forage for condiments and then clear up after yourself, even though the person sitting at the table before you clearly didn't. And I object to the term particularly since they are not licensed to sell alcohol at all, let alone in the numbing quantities required to survive this sort of situation. When I say 'situation', I mean the kind of practices that boys eating burgers together seem to enact. Especially when they aren't actually that hungry because they have been bouncing for two hours and been given a giant hot-dog. Gilby is generally the nicest-mannered of my children, but somehow he feels the need to engage in burping, farting, food-throwing, food-wasting and fighting antics that would be unacceptable on any other day of the year, but somehow become tolerated when in the company of other people's children. Which brings me on to point 4...

4. Other people's children 

What is it and what is it not ok to refuse people's children? Three of the boys were very polite. At least to begin with. And three were not. I started getting all judgy at the lack of please and thank yous from the outset. And then there was the asking for things that had not been offered. A round of slushies were included in the two hour deal. I'm aware that I keep using the word 'deal' as though I had obtained some sort of bargain on the day. I would like to disabuse everyone of that idea and explain that in fact, attendance for eight children for two hours at aforementioned  trampoline park was extortionate and virtually required remortgaging. Nevertheless, some rejected the slushies and said that they wanted squash or coke or milk or anything that they could think of that wasn't a slushy. Grumpily, I said no and referred repeatedly to 'the deal'. Dear Jaydn - not quite enough vowels, surely? shrugged off the rejection

5. Sleep

What are the chances of that many boys in a tent, for some of whom it was their first sleepover, actually getting some sleep? The answer is, unsurprisingly, very little. Marshmallow toasting (supervised by Hearth-father while I went in search of the wine that had been so absent from our 'restaurant' experience) went on until quite late, and it seems that an injection of sugar at bedtime is not exactly conducive to 'settling down'. The torrential downpour after days of glorious sunshine didn't help. The fact is they didn't settle down. I sent Hearth-Father out at regular intervals to shush them, with fairly minimal results. The cricket game began at 5am when the rain stopped. At 5.15 the neighbour from two doors down was banging on the front door to complain. Saturday morning did not, therefore, begin in a terrifically positive way, and I did not come out of the exchange terribly well.

6. Inappropriate moral lessons

This one was definitely unforeseen. In an effort to reestablish relations with Two Doors Down, we decided it would be a good idea to send Gilby round the following afternoon with a box of chocolates and a rehearsed apology. Missing nothing, and still in his formative years, we appear to have inadvertently warped Eddie's already fragile moral code. He piped up, 'What? So she gets a present for coming round here and shouting? Are you serious?'

LegoPlannedLand

After the hell of Peppa Pig World as a treat for the big kids when Eddie was born, it has taken six years for me to summon the willpower, not to mention secure the finances, to venture to another theme park. 

I hate them. I really do. I hate all the other people who cheerfully go. I hate the herding. I despise the queue 'disguising' (that jaw-dropping disappointment as you turn what you think is the final corner only to find another one hundred people waiting ahead of you). I cringe at the cynical purchase positioning of themed toys at every opportunity, designed to make you look like mean parents for denying. I could easily go on.

So, what we thought we would do is pick the UK's busiest theme park, Legoland, for a visit during the school holidays. Yes, we know how to play it.

So, I had mentally prepared myself for the queues. But at Legoland there was even a queue for the toilets all day long. (In one building two out of the ten cubicles were out of order.)

And a disappointment was that the funicular train ride wasn't operating. A leftover from the Windsor Safari Park days I had a nostalgic desire to travel the hill this way (Worthy of a £5 discount, surely, since everything is commodified? More on that, later, in the 'lessons'.)

We had done quite a bit of research, got there for opening, knew to head to the back of the park first and had a plan of action. Here is what we achieved, in order, with wait times in brackets:  The Dragon (30 minutes), Jolly Rocker (10 minutes), Coastguard (30 minutes), Driving Licence (40 minutes - but we tag teamed the queuing so that these two, which were next to each other, overlapped), Fire Academy (45 minutes), Ninjago (40 minutes), Scarab bouncers (15 minutes) GameZone (10 minutes), Pirate Falls (35 minutes), Viking River Splash (25 minutes), Jolly Rocker (again, 10 minutes), Atlantis (30 minutes), Mia's Riding Adventure (25 minutes), The Dragon (again, 15 minutes), Spinning Spider (15 minutes).

We were there when they opened the gates, and left as they closed them, so of the eight and a half hours in Windor, six and a quarter were spent in a queue.

I am embracing a growth mindset, so this is what I have learned:

Four Lessons of Legoland 

1. Take oodles of snacks and eat in the queue. There's no time for slacking. Or lunch. Through the gate at 10am, by midday we had completed just four rides. If you can keep that pace up all day long then it averages three pounds per ride per person, assuming some vouchers have been used to enter - and as long as you just don't stop. Longest queue in the Easter holidays on a cold and dreary day was 75 minutes.

2. Play the 'no more money' mission. After extortionate admission fees, there are fleecing opportunities at every turn. £6 for the parking. £12 for a photo lanyard upon achieving your 'driving licence' in Lego City. £10 for your photo on 'The Dragon', or any other of the big rides.£12.50 for a refillable drinks bottle on entry. It was a nightmarish consumer frenzy. There are fairground-type stalls where you can 'win' big cuddly things for hooking a duck at £5 a pop. We made it part of the day's proceedings not to spend a penny more than the entrance. (It's obscene that the Ninjago Ride disgorges into the Ninjago shop.)

3. Bring alcohol. It's the only way to survive the hell. Children make good mules as their small backpacks are innocent-looking. Consumption in a queue is frowned upon, however.

4. Bring a supply of plastic covering for the wet rides. (To avoid the £2 charge for a family dryer and £3.50 for a Legoland poncho.) Or, as Gertie put it, "Three pounds fifty for a yellow bin bag? You're having a laugh!"

So, don't tell anyone but I quite enjoyed myself on the Dragon and the Jolly Rocker, and my favourite, Mia's Riding Adventure. And, apart from a slightly stressful moment in the unavoidable Ninjago shop where I had to wrestle some polystyrene nunchaku from a determined six-year-old, the kids were patient and well-behaved throughout.

But my best moment of the day was on departure when Eddie said, "I really did think that there would be more Lego..."

When People Look Smudged

Life doesn't get much more exciting than the eve of your sixth birthday; hence this morning's 3.20 am wake-up, I suppose.  Similar happened a few Christmases ago, but this is the first time for a birthday.  I did managed to get Eddie to stay in bed until 6.30 am in the end, but it was a struggle.

Everything was 'epic' today: the crossbow 'which is my very best weapon, and always will be'; the Mister Maker drawers, the Yoda cushion, the Star Wars bedding. He particularly liked the fluttery notes that came from envelopes (thank you GAS and MGM if you are reading).

One of his favourite presents was a real, actual grown-up digital camera. He was a bit disappointed when his first few pictures came out 'smudged'. I love his language choices, I really do. Part of me is sorry that he has found the delete button already and the disastrous early photographs are not preserved for posterity (I have an album full of smudges).

In other news, Gilby appears to have developed a phobia of daddy-long legs.  Slightly problematic given their ubiquity right now.



Currently reading: Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

For Sale Signs and Errant Pants

So we've made the decision to try and sell the house.  Again.

There is no more money in the pot, but we need more room.  When we moved here, Gertie was just a few months old, not yet on the move.  For two adults and a tiny baby it was positively palatial.  We bounced around in our big house, and once she did start crawling, I might even lose Gertie for a few moments. These days finding five minutes alone in the bathroom is an unlikely proposition.  Now there are the three little people.  And they are not so little.  They have this habit of just growing bigger.  And bigger.  By the day. Moving towards a time when they will want to spend increasingly long times alone in the one bathroom.

I can remember all the empty rooms when we first moved in and wondering how I'd ever have enough furniture to fill them.  Ha. Now every corner is crammed full of stuff.  Each inch of wall space is covered in pictures and photographs.  There are thousands of books.  Everywhere.  And that count might go up to tens of thousands if you include the boxes in the loft. There are plastic toys in places where toys simply shouldn't be. Like in my shoes. And behind the washing machine. It is impossible to keep tidy. And therein lies the first paradox.  Because in order to sell your house you need to be able to keep it very tidy.  So that it can be viewed at a moment's notice.  Well, we had our first viewing today.  It took me four hours to get things straight.  That's not happening every time, I can tell you. And when we came home there was a pair of toddler pants smiling up welcomingly from the utility room floor, that I must have missed in my final tidy-check.  That subsequently looked like they'd just walked there themselves.  Which I guess they might have done, being Eddie's.

So now I follow the children around hawk-like, beady eyes scanning for any potential mess-making hazard. They will be the first to tell you that this is not fun.

And the house we have our eye on is...'in need of modernisation'.  In other words, a wreck.  And a smaller wreck than our current abode at that.  And it costs more money.  But it is a wreck with the potential to be bigger.  At some point, when the childcare costs stop sucking the lifeblood from our very veins.

We tried to do a similar thing a few years ago, but the wreck of a house we wanted then sold almost before we'd got ours on the market and it felt like a blessing in disguise.

So I've got my eye on the estate agents' window these days.  Today I was drawn to an attractive property in the top right hand corner.  It took me a second to register that it was the one I already own. ( I say 'own'.  I think we might own approximately a square metre of the floor space, by now.  But another paradox:  It looks lovely in the pictures, all tidied up and de-cluttered.  Like somewhere I might actually want to live.

Adventures in Fairy Land

Gertie has just had her second visit from the tooth fairy.

Apparently, after much research (or surreptitious playground discussion), it transpires that a first tooth is very special and is worth £2, and thereafter the going rate is £1.

The first tooth came out much later than those of all Gertie's contemporaries, so the wait was long and arduous. But when it came it provoked a relentless interrogation, Jeremy Paxman style, about the minutiae of the expected visit. I came away from the conversation sweating, wondering why we ever embarked on this elaborate fiction.

First time round, the mission to place the £2 coin was aborted twice due to stirring and loss of nerve, and the tooth itself couldn't be located. Finding a tooth under a pillow in my children's room is akin to the proverbial needle in a haystack. The detailed note to the tooth fairy was removed instead, and Gertie was delighted with the money and the tooth - bonus.

This time round, Gertie decided to make a gift to the tooth fairy, sellotaping some of her doll's house furniture to a letter. A smart dining room table and chairs, no less. The tooth was eventually found, (upon a return visit) and taken this time, but now the doll's house furniture is languishing in a shoe box.

The £1 was duly spent...on sweets. I'm not sure how the 'tooth' fairy feels about that. Tell a lie (imagine!), I know exactly how she feels: down in the mouth.

The Value of Saturday Morning

Helluva week.  Celebrated a significant birthday and got all the GCSE coursework sample into the post by some miracle on Friday afternoon.

Daddy works on Saturdays, so far from being a relaxing break, the weekend routine is quite hectic.

Kempy has to be walked by 8.30am (I make this sound like a chore, but actually it is one of my favourite parts of the day) before Daddy leaves; then we rush out of the door to Gertie's gymnastics class.  Thankfully they have progressed a little bit beyond standing on tiptoes, and walking along benches, and she can now turn a dodgy cartwheel, so I feel that I am getting some value at £5 a time.

After dropping off at gym we hare down the road to Gilby's football.  Though, in fairness, that is a little grand to describe the activity of the bunch of three year olds who bumble around the football pitch.  It is week three, and much more successful now that the weather is a bit warmer.  It was a write-off last winter: we tried for a couple of sessions but then it became a case of me holding his hand on the side of the pitch while we all turned blue and he refused to get involved.  He now 'plays' for most of the hour, interrupted by frequent cuddles, snacks and general whinging.  Did David Beckham begin this way?  I suspect not.  It is a bargain though, at a mere £4.50 a session.

Eddie is not really content to sit on the sidelines and would like to get involved.  He mostly shouts, 'Ball!' and points excitedly, but since he is still not able to walk (and is now in the process of having some 'special' shoes made by the physio to encourage him) the likelihood of joining in is quite limited.  I entertain him for as long as possible, then bundle him in the car to dash back to the gym to pick up Gertie (whose class finishes 15 minutes before her brother's), and then hurtle back to the football pitch in time to see Gilby not win player of the day.  Both sporting venues have carparks a significant way away, and timing is so tight I seem to spend most of the time on the run, literally.  Probably doing more exercise than Gertie and Gilby, in fact.

All that fun, for less than a tenner...