Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
This morning we popped over to Cardiff Bay and it seemed to be a time for The Boy to experience some firsts.
He went down a helter-skelter, with daddy, for the first time.
First time on a carousel, with mummy who has been cut out of course!
First Cadwallader's ice-cream sundae!
Kate's a bit busy this week setting up the marvellous Parent Blogger Network on Netmums, so our apprentice Listographer extraordinaire Keith is hosting the Listography for her. Not content with running such a tight-ship as he does, he has decided to set himself five challenges for the Summer holidays with his children.
I have been counting down the days 'til the Summer holidays start since Easter. It's now only three more weeks to go (or six days in school, one on a course and one as INSET. See told you I'd been counting them down. Do you want it in minutes?) until I get to have six fantabulous weeks with my gorgeous bundle of mischief and I can't wait. We have a few necessary items to do and some fun things as well.
Here goes:
I know! I'm a bit worried about this, and also thinking 'ewww' a lot. Guess I'm going to be getting very familiar with poo over the next few months hey?
It is an abyss of detritus. I now open the door, stand in the two square foot that are clear because the door pushes the stuff out of the way, and sigh. Then I close the door and declare to hubby that we need to tidy it soon. It is horrendous. There is a computer in the corner that we don't use anymore because we have the laptop. It's only use is as a print server and storage device for some photos. There is a bed-settee covered in The Boy's outgrown clothes that need to be boxed and put in the attic. A step-machine and abdominal roll doo-dah, both pointless and serving as a clothes rail at the moment. Countless cardboard boxes that are either from The Boy's toys (keep the boxes, the toys sell for more at a nearly new sale in the original packaging!) or from review items (they might come in useful!) and jiffy bags. Plus a gigantic wooden bowl that's about three foot across which my dad made, but now I have a baby it is impractical to keep on the dining table or it gets covered in playdough, paint and Dairylea. The room needs sorting out for God's sake!
I'm contemplating the possibility of a sibling for The Boy at some point. I was fortunate not to gain any weight (at all!) with The Boy, but I can't be so certain next time around. I want four stone gone by November 24th (my 10th wedding anniversay). Or else!
I do not want the weeks to whizz by and not have done anything in them. Weekends will be spent doing things as a family unit. Week days will hopefully be filled with socialisation (for him and me), craft activities and playing in the garden.
We are rubbish at going to bed before midnight and our son wakes up at half past six. It is impossible to survive on that, it needs to stop now! Along with this, we need to get The Boy off the habit of being cuddled to sleep. I think I've built it up into a bigger thing than it is, but he will learn how to go down by himself. Won't he?
This was the song that we had The Boy singing this morning en route to the beach for a few hours. Between the pair of us we managed to concoct the vast majority of the song to chant as we drove through the plushy, thatched villages of the deepest and richest parts of the county.
Following our revelation yesterday morning that actually if we got up and did things in the morning rather than laying-in and dossing around the house until 2pm, we managed to set off at 10.30 with a picnic, bucket and spade in hand. By 11.15 we were parked three rows back from the beach, and set up on the golden sands.
The best thing about Southerndown beach is that it has a vast expanse of sand but also lots of rock pools towards the top end. This was fantastic because it meant that we only had to trot down to the sea twice; both times were for splashing in the sea, not collecting water. Also meant that the sun heated up the little rockpool by us, and we could rinse The Boy off when we eventually packed up to come home.
We had such fun there; it's an absolutely beautiful beach which was used as the location for 'Bad Wolf Bay' in Dr. Who. Unfortunately I didn't see the Tardis or Mr. Tennant there, not sure I'd have liked to see his scrawny legs anyway.
It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't waste the morning!
I'm shattered, I really am!
For the past year, The Boy has religiously had his nap between 11 and 1pm every day. If I've tried to make him last longer, the poor sausage starts falling asleep and getting tetchy. Hand on heart, so do I! I need him to have a kip around then as well so that I can have a little break. The only problem with that recently is that he's been taking longer and longer to get to sleep then, and then he doesn't wake up 'til nearly two. By the time he's had his lunch it's half past two (which is craziness when he's having his tea at 5.30pm) and I'm beginning to go bonkers not having done anything!
And so I've had the marvellous idea to change his sleep times.
My mum has been under instruction this week to give him his lunch at 12pm on the dot and he needs to be in bed by 12.45. She's stuck to it and he's fallen asleep more easily. Of course, we have to do the same thing on the weekend don't we?
Only that now means we don't get our lie-ins anymore!
Whose clever bloody idea was that then?
However, we have been busy bees today: up, breakfast, drop hubby's car off for an MOT, go and have photos taken under a 'free' deal, play in the park, home for lunch, nap time and all by 1pm! We then both needed a little rest at the same time as The Boy, and then we rounded the day off with a quick shopping trip to buy new shoes and wellies. Because you need wellies in July when it's 24°C.
But now, now I'm knackered!
I started to lose the plot this afternoon so decamped us to the patio where I set up the art easel, sand table, water play table and laptop. We spent nearly two hours out there having fun until daddy came home and rescued me from the ramblings of a two year old!
There's not much more relaxing after a long, hot afternoon at the beach that a cool shower to wash away the salt, sea, sand and sun-cream. Even more relaxing is knowing that your little one is dropping off happy and clean but exhausted next door on nice, fresh bedding.
It has been sweltering today, a marked contrast from a fortnight ago on The Boy's 2nd birthday when it widdled it down torrentially all day. The sky has been azure blue with a few wispy clouds here and there, accentuated by the criss-cross of the jet planes ferrying holiday makers around the world.
Of course on a day like today there is only one place to go: Barry Island (our nearest blue-flag sandy beach).
Only that's where everyone else in south-east Wales had decided to go. The road leading in and out was chockablock with cars crawling along at a snail's pace. I veto-ed the decision to go to the usual Whitmore Bay (the Island's main beach) and the alternative Jackson's Bay; instead we ventured into the unexplored Watchtower Bay and Old Harbour. At the top of the bay lay the skeletons of old boats ready for exploring by curious little boys at low tide, at the entrance to the harbour is a huge expanse of silky soft, golden sand.
Better still there were about ten families over the entire ares! Whereas around on the main Barry Island beach, we'd have had to fight the seagulls, rubbish and chavs to find a metre square to set up on! The cross is where we set up 'camp', in the protection of the harbour walls.
We had great fun! The Boy, daddy (especially his ears) and I were slathered in our new sun-cream (UltraSun Professional Protection) and built a whole load of sand-castles, trotted down to the fast-receeding water's edge and paddled away to our hearts content.
Definitely going there again as opposed to the usual beach; no chavs and no fairground noise!
It's the Summer Term.
This means several things in the world of a primary school teacher, but specifically two events. One will see me wielding a paintbrush and asking children to sit still and stop blinking while I apply copious flourishes of pink swirls to their newly adorned butterfly faces. The other will mean standing around for several hours, being bored out of my skull, repeating the same instructions over and over again.
So as I watch the eleventy billionth child stand in the hoop and pull it over their heads, while the adoring parents of little Susie coo and gasp at her falling over the hurdles again, I shall try and desperately muster up my best fixed smile. I will impersonate a parrot "dribble the ball around the cones and then run back down the right, I said RIGHT hand side back to your team mates" and then I will more than likely fall off my perch with utter numbskulling drudgery.
I'll admit it here and now. I bloody hate Sports Day.
It's not as bad as it used to be when essentially I was on crowd control for two hours while the children watched their faster and stronger class-mates winning every race. We now do a carousel of activities involving every child in every class. I will be organising the obstacle race. It's quite fun the first time, but the fifth I could cry with monotony. By the eighth rotation, I may well be found trying to crawl along the ground behind the beanbag race to escape to a better world. A world without whistles and hands up and score sheets and "get behind the line!"
Of course before that delight, I have the Summer Fayre. This, I am bitter and twisted about. It's on the same day as CyberMummy so I can't go and have fun there. Instead I am destined to spend two and a half hours painting pink butterflies (what about a frog? No? You want a pink butterfly. An alien? No? Ok, what about a purple butterfly? No? It has to be pink does it?) on children's faces. That is after I have had to turn up at 9am on my day off (!) to help set up. I am peeved.
Only 10 working days left, but God I wish they'd pass.
Shhh! I might scare it off by saying this but, do you think summer might be on its way?
This morning, after dropping the car off for a quick service (pah!), we ventured out in the pushchair for a jaunt up town. Well, him in the pushchair, me 'jaunting'. The sky was azure blue and the sun was beating it down. Very quickly I regretted wearing black, but the rather scrummy frappucino from Starbucks soon made up for it (did you know you can have skimmed milk frappucinos now? Significantly less calories, surely? Means I can have a big one!). We went to the Under Fives playgroup for the first time. They put an apostrophe in the 'Fives' which really annoyed me but I refrained from rubbing it out. Just! The Boy had a fabulous time and I wondered why I had never been there before.
The day went a bit haywire from there on in, mainly because I had mild hysteria that the 'quick service' turned into a 'you need new brakes and a new pollen filter' situation. At the start of the month you can do without double + the amount that you first expected going out the bank.
Yesterday was a much better day. Yesterday saw us trotting off to Barry Island with Little Miss Cheeky and Oldest-Friend for fun in the sun. She brought along her older children, both boys; Curly-Mop and Football-Mad, who commandeered a decent section of the huge beach as their football pitch. Little Miss Cheeky and The Boy had great fun digging for water and building sandcastle, while Oldest-Friend and I had a good old chin-wag and avoided footballs and flying sand.
We were very comfortably ensconced in our cocoon of oblivion; stunning canvas windbreaker from EcoFriendlyBags and parasol, which was bought from Lyme Regis beach years ago. I must be a snob here and say how nice it was, not only to be shielded from the wind, but also to be shielded from some of the sights on the beach! Put it away woman, cover yourself up mister (who looked 11 months pregnant); I don't want to see it!
Anyone fancy winning one of those windbreakers from EcoFriendlyBags? You can over here.
