The boys were up before 6 again today, fortunately daddy takes care of them as he is up getting ready for work. Plum also woke early, before 6 and fed for an hour before declaring that she was not going to go back to sleep, which is very unlike her.
We had a lovely time playing Lego, building boats and using the weaponry to fish with. We had a good chat about all the different ways people fish all over the world and what to do with the fish once they were caught and sustainable fishing.
For the first time today Bean expressed his desire not to go somewhere that we had planned to go to and we had to have our first ever conversation about us needing to go to places for others, not just for him. I'm sure it will be the first of many, I'm not really sure he understood the concept.
Little Verse was none the less popular once we arrived and the boys made two great hats after listening to the story of the precious pearl. Pumpkin then helped to give out the biscuits.
Gymnastics is ever popular too. Bean absolutely loves it. He's not a natural at it and things take some work but he tries and tries and is so happy to be doing it. Today he walked backwards on a beam and jumped two footed onto and off the spring board, both new skills for him.
Pumpkin insisted that we should have a play in the park, understandably. We had a couple of goes on the swings (as always) and watched the Zumba class. Then we noticed that Plum had dropped her toy. We had to retred our footsteps to find it in the lift. Pumpkin was very pleased that he was the one that found it.
We also managed to squeeze in a library visit too. It worked out well actually and we picked up some books on frogs and a crafty book for making gifts (yes, i'm thinking about Christmas already) and the boys chose some story books. The only down side was paying for a second car park in one day. This is the last month I am paid any maternity money and we are going to have to think even more closely about our pennies. It looks like we will have to learn to walk around town more and avoid paying for car parks.
We're at home now, watching Iplayer, planning on having a look at those frogs books and the Lego is still out so I'm sure that'll get another look in.
Pumpkin has been thoroughly enjoying riding his bike and missed it yesterday so requested a ride today. We planned on going to the park. It has a nice big hill to ride down and has helped Bean enormously in learning to ride. We also planned some strawberry picking. This years lack of effort in the garden means that the planting, growing, harvesting cycle has not occurred at all (although the fruit trees are beginning to produce) so I thought a trip to a strawberry field might rectify some of the lack. And lastly we arranged to meet friends again at Warnham Nature Reserve to spot some of those illusive frogs.
Fa#3 was still with us and we packed a picnic and headed off to the park, only to be reminded when we were packing the bikes that Pumkin has a flat back tyre. I found two bicycle pumps and we set up on the pavement outside our house and attempted to pump it up however we couldn't get either option to work and the tyre remaind flat flat flat. I tentively suggested he took his scooter which initially went down really well, until we arrived at the park and he decided he really could ride his bike with a flat tyre. There were a few tears and a little ride in the buggy before we got to the top of the hill and he decided that riding his scooter would be okay. Bean was initially worried about going down the hill on his pedal bike but I ran along side him and he did amazingly well, making it all the way to the bottom without falling off or panicking. This, of course, is something I couldn't have done if fa#3 hadn't been there too. We went and fed the ducks. I hadn't packed much bread for them as they are often over fed and not hungry, today they seemed eager to eat all we had. We then turned back towards the car bt Pumpkin wanted to go to the maze. The boys ran around the maze, I fed Plum and the rain began. Just some drizzle to begin with but it slowly and steadily became more than drizzle. We headed back to the play area, toiletted, changed nappy and lost Pumpkin. We found him back at the pool watching the swimmers and I explained that we were worried about him and he had gone too far away. He was most unconcerned himself.
We had a quick pit stop at the post office to collect a parcel and the rain came down some more. We made the decision not to go strawberry picking and went and lunched in the car at the nature reserve.
Considering all the rain that we have had so far this year this is the first time that we have picnicked in the car. Very British. My consoling thought was 'at least we're out and about!' I had also packed our waterproofs, not just rain coats but all in one waterproofs. We put them on, transferred a sleeping Plum into the buggy, who suprisingly remained asleep and went for the second time this week for a walk with our friends to try and find some baby frogs. It was perfect weather for frog spotting. We walked the same route as before and a couple of froglets were spotted by our friends' mummy but no one else got to see them. We did see the biggest slug that I have ever seen though, it gave me the shivers! And I feel a mini project on amphibians coming on. Bean thought it was 'amazing' that some animals could live on the ground and in the water. Creation is amazing. As always the leaflet including the map of the grounds was popular and Bean managed to locate us and our route on the map. Pumpkin's evaluation of the trip was 'we haven't seen any frogs mummy, that's disappointing.' this is the third or fourth time he's used the word disappointing this week and I'm hoping that it's just a new word that he's excersising and not representative of his overal evaluation on life!!!
Daddy's coming home a little later from work tonight than normal and it will be the first time that I'm going to be faced with bedtime on my own. All three smalls head to bed within an hour of each other and this results in washing, stories, changing, feeding and nursing and bathing all happening at the same time. With daddy here we have got a rhythm in place which works well for us at the moment. Thinking it might be an out of step rhythm tonight and hoping that we all cope with it.
Update: Daddy came home at his regular time so all is well. We had a post dinner flurry of activity from Bean including: catching ants in his pooter, writing and reading two stories, dressing up as a motorbike man and riding around the garden and making the flower petal wheel that we picked up yesterday.
