Day Eight

On the eighth day of chicken pox, we went out, hurray. I took Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, to the little play park near our house. We were out for an hour and they were exhausted! We played on everything at almost hyperspeed and then we did it all again. We had a extra long go on the swings when an inquisitive cat arrived and was loitering for a stroke. We played hide and seek and then one more go on everything before heading home.

Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, opted to stay home and played lego together. When we got home from the park all the smalls went into the garden. Plum had plans to eat lunch out there. She got the playdough out, Bean got out the bug hunting kit and he and Pumpkin set to finding insects, Pippin had the bubbles out.

After lunch, grandma and pops came to visit. Plum showed them her new bedroom and Bean finished off the natural coaster he was making them so that they could take it home with them. Grandma played online games with Plum and Pops played with Pippin.

Once they had left Pippin promptly fell asleep on the sofa and Plum lay on the sofa watching on her tablet. The boys were watching Cartoon Network.

We watched We're Going on a Bear Hunt and Scooby Doo movies in the evening. Pippin, Plum and Bean had stories with daddy before bed.

All is not lost

A quiet morning, all the smalls were busy doing their own thing. Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, taking it in turns to play roblox. Plum, 5, lying under the duvet on my bed watching Youtube and asking if we can make giant gummy bears. Pippin, 2, playing Peppa Pig toys.

In the afternoon we went out to Explore and Play. There were four families there today. Bean made a coaster covered with twigs for grandma and pops. Pumpkin covered a coaster with a single measured sheet of tissue paper and then drew a emoji face on it. Plum made a coaster look like a rabbit using two lolly sticks for ears and a twig standing on end for it's nose. Bean and Pumpkin also played a game of monopoly together. Plum and Pippin painted pictures and make pizza and ice cream with the playdough. Plum's friend V arrived and they made a playdough village together and painted and did duplo.

Coming home was difficult. I upset Bean as i hadn't heard him ask if he could lock the door of the church venue. Plum was topless and it was freezing so i took her to the car and left Bean to do the door again but he was upset that he hadn't done it in the first place. Plum was then upset because Bean was supposed to be thinking about whether or not to play a game with her when they got home but now he was crying, and so was she. Pippin was crying because she was tired.  Bean disappeared to his room when we got home, Plum sat on the stairs, i cuddled Pippin on the sofa. We found Peppa Pig on dvd and ahe calmed after a while. I went and saw Plum and tucked her back under the duvet on our bed with food and a drink. I took drinks to Bean and Pumpkin. Pumpkin came downstairs and played his minecraft card game with me. After the children had eaten dinner Bean and I had a cuddle.

In the evening Pumpkin made a slide upstairs by turning a chair side down and then they made a second one by placing pool noodles on top of a pile of bedding and bean bags on the double bed.

When it came to tidying up it appeared that Bean had lost both his bean bag and his watch. His bean bag was fairly easy to locate as it is big, it was in our wardrobe. We will have to look for his watch in the morning when we have light and there aren't others sleeping. He's a bit upset about his watch but the good news is that it is in the house somewhere.

Sleep tight

The morning was Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, playing in turns on Roblox interspersed with food and drink requests and "mummy come and look at this" and "mummy can you read yhis for me?" Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, played mummies and babies. They use the wardrobe in our room as the school and the bus, the laundry basket is the bath, the bed is the bed. They use the toy laptops as their ipads and the dollies go too. We made chocolate chip muffins together and played with the peppa pig toys too.

Then FA#2 came to visit. She brought birthday presents for Plum and Pumpkin. Pumpkin got a superhero lego set and got to putting it together straight away. Plum played board games with her all afternoon: orthello, jumior cranium, snakes and ladders, princess games box, gobblt, monopoly. Bean played the minecraft card game with me and then we played monopoly together uninterrupted for a whole game. Pumpkin had an uninterupted game of Roblox on the pc.

With FA#2 here i managed to fit in hoovering and dinner prep and laundry (of sorts) too. Our new tumble dryer was delivered yesterday, a welcome delivery after over a week of no dryer, and just in time for the washing machine to break down.

Bed time was a bit epic even by our standards. I bathed with Pippin after we had finished Plum bathed followed by Pumpkin. Meanwhile i planned to read Pippin stories and breastfeed and sleep. Plum sat on her top bunk and watched youtube whilst i put Pippin to bed. Pippin finished breast feeding and then started crying for daddy, "daddy home" for over half an hour before we left the bedroom. Pumpkin had been waiting almost 45 minutes by now for me to help him out of the bath. I took Pippin and Plum downstairs, five minutes later Bean came to ask if he could go to bed now (cue stories for Bean) I asked if he could wait five more minutes as daddy would be home soon. Daddy came home and took Bean to read him stories and Pumpkin became upset because he wanted his last turn on Roblox. There were a lot of tears from Pumpkin. We offered him to play on the pc downstairs and tried to distract him with the offer of food but neither of these worked. We talked through him having the first go tomorrow and all his feelings of disappointed and frustration and anger. Finally daddy offered to do stories in another room so he could have a few minutes play. This resolved the issue. I made toast for Pumpkin, Plum and Pippin. Daddy took Pippin to bed who went peacefully to sleep. By now it was 2 hours after her normal bedtime circa 10pm now. Pumpkin took himself to bed a few moments later (about an hour earlier than normal) and Plum asked if we could go to bed too, we read a story first and changed our pyjamas.  By 10.30pm everyone was sleeping including daddy.