A Pirate's Life for Me

Friday 8th June

Bean has had an interest in pirates for a few months now and is always keen to find new story books about pirates. Today saw the pirate game resurface, turning the sofas into boats and the table into an island and the floor was the sea (which I have to swim across to get from one room to another.) Eventually the pirate costumes came out, Bean went to make a flag for the ship and Pumpkin found treasure (a book...I love it!)

I wanted to make some banana muffins today to use up the over ripe bananas we had. The boys are never very keen in activities I may have set up for them si when I casually asked if anyone wanted to help make them I wasn't expecting the enthusiastic response that I got. Bean joined me first followed by Pumpkin a little later. The recipe I've got is mostly in cupfuls and spoonfuls so worked really well. Bean did most of the measuring and Pumpkin did the mixing. I was even more surprised when Bean stayed to help make the lentil loaf for lunch too. This time we used the scales and he measured and mixed everything, I cooked the lentils and chopped the onion. He was so very pleased with himself and said, 'I'm a very good chef like cousin J.'

This was quickly followed by an unexpected arrival in the continuing pirate game. Inspired by his new cowboy birthday outfit (thank you fav auntie #3) the wild west met the high seas! The drawing is of the horse that Bean wanted me to get for him, the giant bear is what we improvised with using some children's reigns we had lying around.

A trip to the library in the afternoon led to more reading than we normally do (more than the recommended 5 a day is common in our house) Bean found Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and a couple of picture books he liked the look of and I found an atlas which had flags from every country on the end pages and pictures and statistics and global placement ...I was really quite pleased with it...we'll see how Bean likes it. The following two pictures are taken by Pumpkin who prefers to use my phone for pictures and video than for games. In the second of the two photos I am reading to Bean whilst feeding the purple dotted Plum.

Plum has just started to reach out and touch my face which is such a lovely feeling. We met a lady today, who we met during our unfortunate time in hospital. She was asking me when they (that is our babies) should be rolling over. This is a question several people have asked me in the last week and it is something I am glad to say we have avoided most successfully third time around (when should they...? Is yours...? How long before...?) As it happens she rolled for the first time last Saturday from her front to her back but I still have no idea if this is considered normal, early or late and nor does it bother me...she is happy and healthy and a pure delight.

Oh, I do Like to be Beside the Seaside

We started our day early and had bacon and eggs for breakfast. The boys mostly sat and listened to the new CD Bean ordered for his birthday whilst I packed a picnic and did the laundry before we headed off to the beach. They also spent some time playing around on Google maps as I had it on to get directions for today's adventures.


I love car journeys with my boys. Bean is full of chatter and questions. Today he wanted us to work out how we were going to share the jubilee cheesecake we are planning on making with the Queen and is most perplexed as to why people will be celebrating if we are not invited to Buckingham Palace, and who is invited? He also wanted to know the name of every village and town we drove through and who lives there. There were some real areas of beauty on our way to the beach as we have to drive over the south downs and on more than one occasion he exclaimed 'Wow' or 'that's pretty' or 'it's beautiful here.'


Today was definitely one of those days when you think there really is no need to holiday anywhere else, we have it all here. The beach was beautiful and sunny and cool. Our friends have the perfect spot, close to all the amenities, the sea, a shady play spot in the trees. It was perfect. The boys played in the sea for hours, although Pumpkin did express at the end of the day that he didn't like getting wet. They were far more courageous than they have ever been before: jumping over the coming waves; having races into the sea; sitting down with their backs to the sea and being pushed by the coming tide; Bean even went under at one point and it didn't phase him at all, he just laughed.


They also spent a long time playing in the enclosed small shady tree spot and I even spied some more climbing going on. There were a few attempts at sandcastles but the sand was too dry.


Plum refused to sleep all day, although she did dose off a couple of times as I was feeding her. One sleep was rudely interrupted after about 3 minutes as the wind blew the picnic bag on top of her. She finally gave in about 4pm and slept for about half an hour. She was perfectly happy most of the time but her demeanour changed for the better when I took her with me to the toilet block with Pumpkin. Maybe the combination of wind, sun and sand was a little over whelming for her.


The car journey home consisted of a massive game of I-spy. In which I  realised that Bean's understanding of initial sounds is progressing dramatically and Pumpkin still insists that every time it's his turn he spies 'something beginning with D' and it's always a dingo!


The only real downside was, even after three applications of factor 50 sun cream, I burnt my feet and legs. The boys were fine.