Roll over, Roll over

Saturday 4th August

We have nothing planned this weekend except the arrival of Bronwyn, an elderly Golden Retriever who is coming to stay for 10 days.


After yesterday's trip to Battle we found the story online and pictures of the tapestry. We also found an animated version so the boys have been repeatedly watching head chopping, eye poking, limb amputation, in moving tapestry!

We had very few toys out today and mostly there was colouring and sticking and making occurring. Except for Plum who played with this large wooden hammer for ages. She definitely hit herself at least once but was most distraught if you took it away from her. Today is also the day she mastered rolling from her back to her front, although I haven't seen it yet. She whizzed around the living room floor mostly turning and shuffling rather than rolling but it wont be long.


When daddy suggested taking the boys out (with a bike ride in mind) they both jumped up and went to play happily in the garden! 

Plum has been enjoying celery during her food trials and this week we remembered to keep the bulb and have placed it in water to watch it grow. I have included the first photo, shot after two days.

Daddy measures the boys monthly on our wall. The markings in the photo are two months of growth from Pumpkin, it measures one inch in two months. At least this gives reason to his large appetite and unusual sleeping patterns in the past days.

Plum

Saturday 7th July


Mummy and Plum had a girls day today and daddy took the boys to Amberely Museum with SGS and his grandson. We went shopping in town where Plum wooed the crowds with her big saucer blue eyes and curly hair and winning smile. We drop roasted a freezer and hoovered and made a lovely sausage flan for tea. I was most intrigued to discover that her sleeping is not altogether improved by the lack of boys. I have been wondering if her daytime sleep would be better/ longer if the boys were not disturbing her and we were not constantly moving from car to sling to car to buggy etc. sometimes she will be happy with ten minutes and sometimes 2hours, sometimes half an hour and sometimes an hour. She doesn't seem to have any repeating pattern to them. Nor does she have a standard 'bedtime,' not even variable within an hour of each other, sometimes it's 6.30pm and other times it's 9.30pm or anytime on between. She definitely moves to her oun rhythm! 

During the afternoon we went to a birthday party. Plum enjoyed sampling yellow and orange pepper and some carrot sticks. She has also eaten this weekend, avocado, porridge, rhubarb muffin and broad bean risotto. She particularly liked the broad beans. 


 We did end the day with a family movie night. We struggle to find films that Bean will get past the opening sequence of. He gets very nervous about anything mildly traumatic or frightening and doesn't like it when things go wrong. But today we watched the Disney version of Robin Hood and he loved it. It was funny enough that even in the frightening parts we could show him the funny side of what was happening and tell him how things were going to work out. I should also mention that I found a copy of Cars on the market this morning (which we know he loves) so that has been put aside for the next movie night.

Plum

Plum is one of my favourite words.

One of my favourite photos of Plum

I have favourite words, not because of their meaning but because of the way they sound or roll around the tongue. Plum was probably the first word I realised I liked because of this reason. Since then the list has grown. 
Our family is also growing and Plum is the beautiful word for our beautiful little girl. She is just 10 weeks old but I can't remember life without her. She is a blessing and a joy.

Plum loves her mummy's milk; gazing into her mother's eyes; watching her big brothers; cuddles with daddy and music. Her brothers adore her and she is never left wanting for kisses and cuddles!


Today was her first trip to London, specifically The Natural History Museum. Obviously she slept for most of it! 


It was a spontaneous trip as our good friends were unable to make a visit to our house as originally planned. At 9 o'clock daddy suggested he take the boys out for the day to London but I was feeling well rested and thought that Anna and I might like to go too. No-one was dressed at this point and we had made no travel preparations. By 10.20 we were on a train to London all washed, dressed, packed a lunch and evening meal prepared! Quite the achievement.


This journey saw us moving seats three times, many thanks to Harold the conductor for helping us find seats together where we could also park a buggy on a very busy train. The journey there also consisted of daddy testing out his new app that identifies planes in the sky, brings up a picture of it plus all its details including where it is going. I'm not sure if the boys found this interesting or not but the lady sat next to him was definitely intrigued. The boys had a snack and Plum took a feed. We also took the opportunity to make a decision about what we were actually going to do once we got to London. Bean would have liked to repeat our last trip but that was a long outdoor sightseeing tour which we didn't want to repeat in the rainy weather.


We took a bus to the museum, headed straight for the toilets and then sat in the basement picnic area for some lunch. Randomly bumped into friends of daddy's, also bringing their children out for the day and sitting next to a group of headteachers from Uganda, all wrapped up in their winter woolies and looking rather bemused by the whole thing. 

Bean feeling his ribs.

Putting together the
human skeleton.

The investigate centre was our first port of call. We thought the boys would enjoy the bones display, which they did but they also spent a long time using the microscopes and magnifying glasses and rulers to explore a whole range of other things. Pumpkin was particularly taken with a tray of different skins. He also managed to use the computer system quite easily which surprised me. It took me about 10 seconds to realise that it wasn't touch screen, this is a long time when you're standing there hitting the screen! 


We also took the boys to the mammal exhibition that includes lots of bones as well as the whale. I found a bench and Plum fed again. It was down a dead end and I rather enjoyed watching a large number of people realise they had gone the wrong way and have to turn around to find the way out. 


Everyone was a little tired by now and we had run out of food. As it is officially our holiday we went to a cafe and had muffins and cake before making our way home. The return journey was a little fraught but the boys had some lovely moments playing Pirate Squid Bones with 3 pipe cleaners each. Daddy had made them into people for them. Plum fed again but mostly enjoyed sitting on daddy's lap. Thankfully the slow cooker had been turned on and we had supper ready for when we got home. 


A very tiring day but very worth it.