Merry go round moments – week 32.

Family fun: top shot.

With our girly, everything is about this book at the moment! We read it, we watch Michael Rosen perform it on youtube, she does the floor puzzle, we role play the bear and people. I love the way she gets temporary ‘book crushes’.

Memories are made of this.

First ‘mumumumum’ from the little man!  Of course, it just so happens to come during meal time…erm, every time…but hey, I’m going to say it’s ‘mummy’ and not ‘yummy’!  I feel as though it’s a mother’s prerogative to live in happy denial at such times.

 

Laugh out loud.

Our girly, plotting ways to get exactly what she wants.  She’s pretty good on the potty training front now, but she knows that she will still get a lot of praise and bonus points for telling us when she needs to go.  So she’s totally nailed the excuse for getting down from the table midway through dinner, when she’s eaten all the good bits she likes already and doesn’t want to eat the rest.  “Mummy, I just need a little little wee.  No, a poo.  No, a wee.  So I’m just going to get down and go, and then I’ll come straight back.   Okay?”  Yes, and we just saw those pigs fly too!

 

Quick quote.

I love this quote.  It could have been written for our little miss.  She is absolutely her own glorious palette of colours.

“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

Khaled Hosseini

Music makes me happy.

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird.  Nap time battles seem to be a thing with our two.  Our girly was never one of those babies who slept for hours at a time, anywhere you put her.  And (sadly for me!) neither is the little man.  So, this week I was shocked when I put him down for his morning nap, and he slept for two and a half hours straight.  In the end I actually had to go and wake him, because we needed to go pick up his sister from nursery.  That has never happened before!  I had a Lynyrd Skynyrd album playing on repeat in the background the whole time.  Perhaps I should play it every time if it brings that kind of magic?!

 

Good times.

We bought a bike with stabilisers for our girly this week.  She thinks it is the best thing ever. It has a little basket on the front for her to give rides to catty and baby (they’ve had a lot already!) and a little rack on the back for her to strap her picnic bag to.  It’s so sweet watching her concentrating on making the pedals go round.  At the moment, she is still spending a lot of time spinning them in reverse and going nowhere, but when she does get it right and she actually moves forward a way, her entire face lights up with joy and pride.  It’s beautiful to watch.

 

 

 

Merry go round moments week 14.

Family fun: top shot.

I thought he looked absolutely adorable in this hat, but he squirmed every time I tried to put it on. Perhaps he knew it was a novelty hat?! And that dribbly face…first tooth on the way!

 

Memories are made of this.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, spent with my husband’s family, including our two wonderful nieces.  All the adults got to play ‘pass the baby’ and get cuddling time in with the little man, whilst the girls all played together, seemingly oblivious to their age span of nine years old down to two and a half.   I was able to sit back and just savour the moment, watching the way our girly idolised the two bigger girls, who seemed equally thrilled to have such a young playmate to cosset and love.  It was beautiful.

 

Laugh out loud.

Children’s eating habits – a total conundrum! I’ve been trying since my girly was first weaned to get her to eat pasta, with absolutely no success. And I’ve really tried!  Plain, buttered, with sauce, with cheese, white, wholewheat, spaghetti.  You name it, I’ve tried it.  A few days at my mum’s, and she was practically eating her own body weight in pasta.  Unbelievable. Still, it is a new habit which I am pleased to say has stuck, so I’m not complaining too loudly.  It certainly makes mealtime menus a bit more diverse at last!

 

Quick quote.

‘Wherever we are, it is our friends that make our world.’

Henry Drummond

Music makes me happy.

Daddy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow. There are so many things about this holiday which have been ‘firsts’.  Or at least firsts at an age where our little girl has been properly able to engage with the experience and remember it. This week we took her to a zoo, and predictably, we sang this song over and over on the journey there!  The place is a very small-scale affair, but with a really genuine focus on animal welfare and walk through enclosures, which give incredible opportunities for meaningful interaction with the animals.  I thought it was fabulous.  The first thing we saw when we arrived was a pair of hens strutting around the entrance.  Our girly has a bit of a thing about chickens, so that was her at fever pitch already!  But then walking through the wallaby enclosure and being able to stroke them, and then going through the lemur enclosure, where they were climbing up my legs for a closer look…well,that was just the icing on the cake.  It was a super exciting day for our animal lover girl (and her mummy, if I’m being really honest!).

 

Good times.

Going for a super-posh tea tasting and afternoon tea experience at the Wedgwood Visitor Centre, with my sister-in-law, who I am also lucky to be able to call a dear friend.  It felt very luxurious, both as an experience to be savoured in its’ own right, but also as the opportunity to be able to spend some real quality time with a good friend.  In fact, we worked very hard to make time during the entire trip to catch up with really good friends.  Those friends that you just know will always be there, even when thousands of miles and multiple time zones separate you. It was utterly blissful to be able to see each other properly face to face, hug each other breathless and then settle down for serious cake eating, tea drinking, and talking about the minutiae of our lives.

 

 

Merry go round moments – week 13.

Family fun: top shot.

Focusing intently, saying ‘stick, stick, stick’ as she carefully patted each picture down. This was a favourite activity, at home and at school, during the entire holiday.

 

Memories are made of this.

An opportunity for our girly to spend the whole week with her granny at the Montessori nursery she works at.  No surprise that she loved every single second of it.  I have always been interested in Montessori, and increasingly Reggio Emilia principles as well.  So at home, our day, and the way we play and use our home environment is all very heavily influenced by these philosophies.  Being able to go to a truly fantastic Montessori nursery this week was such a treat for our girly.  By day two she was already clamouring to go to ‘my classroom!’.

 

Laugh out loud.

When there is only one Christmas day, and there are two sets of family wanting to spend Christmas with the children, the only thing to do is have an early ‘faux Christmas’ with one lot of family.  That way, everyone gets some of the fun! 20th December was that day with my family.  And it was such a treat to witness the joy it gave our two and a half year old girly.  It was her first real experience of the madness of Christmas.  And she had us all laughing as she got into the swing of gift giving and receiving.  Well, actually she would pick up the presents from under the tree and get half way to passing the gift to the intended recipient, before getting carried away and ripping off the wrapping herself.  Nobody seemed to much mind.  Not least because the present itself was of no interest and was quickly handed over; it was mostly the excitement of unwrapping that was getting to her!

 

Quick quote.

‘Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.’

Wayne Dyer

Music makes me happy.

When Santa got stuck up the chimney.  This one has cropped up before, but this week I got to see our girly up on stage at her nursery school for the week, dressed up as one of Santa’s elves, and singing her little heart out.  She was doing all the actions and just over-flowing with pure joy to be singing and being part of something so fun. Definitely a ‘proud-mummy-crying-at-the-back-of-the-hall’ type moment!

 

Good times.

There were so many good times this week, it is hard to choose.  Going to the park and swinging and sliding, swinging and sliding, swinging and sliding until all of us were cold and in need of some sustenance and the chance to warm up indoors.  Or our girly, rapt, watching a pantomime production of Jack and the Beanstalk with her daddy, Aunty Gill and granny.  Or her huge excitement at being surrounded by very confident ducks, swans and geese, looking for a free feed, down by the river.  Another week full to bursting with great days of family fun.