Summer solstice

Today, the hottest and longest day of the year, bean, 10, gets all active. We wrote another chapter of his minecraft story which we haven't worked on in months; he finished whittling his tent peg and began work on a spoon; and he spent five hours putting together a solar powered robot dog.

Pumpkin, 8, found his usual spot on the sofa and settled down to watch and play on his tablet, he also played roblox and the amazing frog on the computer, he joined bean putting together the dogbot for a while, played in the garden and the paddling pool for a bit too. His favourite part of the day was eating the chocolate brownies that daddy brought home from work after his birthday so we must get the recipe.

Plum, 5, played in the garden and the paddling pool with pippin, 2. Mostly she spent the day lying on her top bunk in the breeze of an open window, watching on youtube. She did ask if we could go to the prk but was happy with the suggestion of going after gymnastics tomorrow and meeting friends.

Pippin watched frozen twice and madagascar 2 twice today as well as playing in the paddling pool and playing with my wool, pretending it was a dog on a lead.

My Favourite Things

Hours of play with Pippin, 2, in the morning as the big three slept long. We drew pictures and face painted and watched Winnie the Pooh as we buttered toast together and played Charlie and Lola Snakes and Ladders.

The Big Three woke up several hours later. Plum, 5, spent most of the day lying on the bed or sofa and watching on her tablet. This was interspersed with playing in the garden and playing with the kitchen set with Pippin. They picked the tulips and Pumpkin put them in a vase for us.

Pumpkin, 8, played Roblox and we tried to load The Amazing Frog but there is an issue that, dispite my best efforts and following all the suggestions, we cannot access the game. He has also been helpful as i hurt my back and suggested that i think about something else instead of the pain so we sang Raindrops on Roses.

Bean, 9, dictated the Fifth chapter of his minecraft story to me which was trickier than the previous four as it involved a flashback and he wasn't sure how to make sure the reader knew that it was a flashback. We got there in the end. He also made me a flower vase from lego.

Not for saele

Friday we took a trip into town, the library twice, the playpark twice and the toyshop. Bean, 9, ordered Pokemon books from the library and a puzzle story book. We found a book called All aboard the Poo Bus which Pumpkin, 8, chose to bring home, Plum, 5, found a Little Princess book and Pippin, 2, found a Bing book.

The toyshop resulted in new shopkins, grosseries and a pop gun.

And our wander around town resulted in Pumpkin seeing our house for sale in an estate agent window. There was quite the upset to follow, for days, it might continue for days to come also.

Saturday we had no plans. Plum and Bean decided that the paddling pool should come out. We filled it with water and put the slide in. Bean and one go and declared it cold. Pippin and Plum spent more time outside the pool playing with a few toys in it. Pumpkin is immersing himself in BallisticSquid videos on YouTube. There was also more talk from the boys, specifically Bean, about not moving.

Sunday was Mother's Day. Bean had made me some things in mincraft, sculptures of hearts and words that said Best Mum. Plum took daddy to the shop specifically to buy me a present (nail varnish) which we then used to paint each others nails in the garden. We washed the toys in the paddling pool and daddy made us a picnic snack of apples and grapes.
We went to church in the morning, daddy stayed home with Pumpkin. We played cricket in the garden with the other children and Bean wanted to know if we would still come to this church when we move.

We read Bean's puzzle book at lunch time and he completes all the puzzles. And in the evening he dictates a minecraft story to me. We write chapter 1 and part of chapter 2. He has also written two signs for our house. One says 'no moov home' and the second is in our front window and says 'not for saele'.

Tea Time

On the mend can be a tricky place to be. We are happily recovering from chicken pox and energy levels are increasing however we are still growing new spots so not actually able to venture out yet. Plum, 5, struggles with this the most and Bean, 9, would like to go out too, Pumpkin, 8, is incredibly content with staying home.

With energy levels increasing, we spent the morning preparing a fairy tea party. Plum and Pippin prepared food in the kitchen set and lay out a blanket on the living room floor. I made tiny chocolate cupcakes and Plum and Pippin chopped cucumber and baby corn and pepper and we put them on cocktail sticks. I found tiny pasta in the cupboard so we had tiny pesto pasta too and some grapes. I cut some sausage rolls up small too and Plum found her fairy to come to the picnic. By the time we had finished preparing and playing, the girls were all spent and the afternoon we resumed film watching and cuddles on the sofa.

Pumpkin spent the day playing and watching on his tablet.

Bean has been working on a comic strip: The story of the Farting Cactus and later played lego with Plum. We read another chapter of Harry Potter today and Bean made me his first cup of tea...best cup of tea ever. Plum and Bean also slept the night in the living room both on the floor.

Project Work

Today we followed up on the Treasure Hunt idea that Bean, 9, had begun yesterday. We spent one and a half hours finding the rght map and resizing it on google and copying it into Publisher and drawing on grid lines and then adding them on the computer. There was lots of toing and froing of ideas about what the treasure is and how to hide it and where to hide it. He marked x on the map to show where the clues are hidden and has come up with a game plan and an invitation list. All the maps he made and clues and treasure are now in one folder ready for the event.

Pippin, 2, found the aqua draw and happily spent time drawing on it whilst Plum, 5, played on cbeebies games. She has been watching a lot of alphablocks, squigglit letters and other alphabet programmes on youtube and copying out the alphabet onto paper. In the afternoon Plum and Pippin and mummy made a dress and shoes for Lottie doll together. We had enough material to make a matching one for Plum and material in a different colour for Pippin. Plum began using the felt tips to draw on the cotton so i found th fabric pens and we drew pictures and patterns on Pippin's dress.

Pumpkin, 8, watched Cartoon Network and played Roblox. We ordered daddy the Lego present that he had found for him and talked about how much he would like to contribute to it.

In the evening we finished watching Ocean's 12 and played zombie dice with Bean and Pumpkin. The children all helped daddy unload the food shopping from the car and put things away.

Blessed

We took a planned trip to town, returning library books and getting some new ones, buying candy canes for the tree, getting kinder surprise eggs. The library has a pokemonGo display currently and Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7, enjoyed showing pippin, 2, all the differentokemon and her repeating them when they told her their names. Bean chose another graphic novel to bring home, this time he found a lego ninjago story. Plum, 4, moved the mats left in the children's area from rhyme time and put them all together in a line, she then went tumbling along them, cartwheels and forward rolls, run, skip, and jump. It reminded me to contact the local gymnastics class to see if they have space for her. We bought four boxes of candy canes, each with twelve in them, it was Pumpkin's idea that they can eat one a day until Christmas, although Pippin has already eaten four. Our trip to Sainsbury's for kinder eggs (and shopping for mummy) also ment we bought helium balloons for Pumpkin (darth vader), Plum (frozen), Pippin (peppa pig) and a Harry Potter sticker collectors books for Bean. We dropped the book on the way home, Pumpkin said he remembered that it had fallen out in the alley way down the road, so Bean set off on his own to look for it, fortunately with success.

The remainder of the day Bean and Plum were busy getting a Christmas package together for our friends. Bean made a story book and Plum drew pictures and made cards. We watched Disney's Robin Hood, there were baths and wrestling games and a game of babies. There has been a lot of sibling harmony today and it reminded me that we are blessed to have so much time together to nurture relationships and they really do enjoy each others company and find games that they are able to all play together. Plum and Pippin played doll's house together and sat on Plum's bed and watched cbeebies on the tablet.

On daddy's return home he was joined by a reporter who recorded his entrance into the house. I deliberatly hadn't said anything to the children and we had discussed that the reporter would have to take us as he finds us (i.e. it might be great but we can't guarentee what the children will be doing at that exact moment) but it was a good welcome home, as most of them are. And then the reporter interviewed mummy (he had already interviewed daddy) about the psycological effects of disrupted commuting by train on the commuter and all the time the children watched their film and showed daddy the books they had made and played happily together. It reminded me how much things have changed for us in the last 12 months. We are blessed.

See the sea swash

Thursday 26th July

Bean writes his first word

Paddling in the sea

Building a castle with a moat and filling it with water

Building a bed (first attempt made on Tuesday)

Playing diggers

A planned day at home turned out to be an unexpected second day trip to the beach in one week. This time we went to Littlehampton. It was quieter and felt cooler today than our trip on Tuesday. We went with SGS and SGG and their grandson. I went into the sea with the boys much deeper than we have ever been previously and I even had a very brief swim. We played diggers and made sand castles and dug ourselves a bed, we buried each other, moved camp to avoid the rapidly incoming tide, we jumped through waves and sat down in the sea, and Bean wrote his first word (other than his name) in the sand...'pop'. I'll be honest, as he wrote it, I was slightly worried his first written word was going to be 'poo.' Very glad it wasn't. 


Bean was amazing this morning. There's nothing like the excitement of a beach trip to encourage some helpfulness. All of his own accord he offered to help pack for the beach and he did it very well. I was amazed at how much easier it was with his help.


All three smalls fell asleep on the way home at 4.45pm. Bean stayed asleep on the sofa until 7pm when daddy came home and carried him up to bed. At this point Pumpkin woke up. We've eaten dinner, played on my phone, brought in the laundry, played Ludo and Snakes and Ladders and read some books. It is now 10pm and I would like to go to bed but can't leave a three year old up on his own. Hoping he will go to sleep soon.

And all that jazz

We had rather an unfortunate event this morning in which we arrived at our regular Monday morning place with Bean in a very cross mood continuously hitting me. There were a few other parents there. One was very helpful and opened a door for me so we weren't at the top of the stairwell but it was hard to say how the other two were viewing the scene. Bean, obviously not being at school, is by far the oldest participant in this group but successfully demonstrated today that even 5 year olds get angry. Fortunately there were some good friends of ours there and they came and tried to help calm him down, let's not forget that I also had Pumpkin (who was being very unclingy and found his own space on a chair next to me - unusual but I was grateful) and Plum in her sling. And Bean, well, he did what he always does which is very quickly stops the hitting and thrashing out and cries, then looks at his mummy and he doesn't need to say anything but I know that he knows that he shouldn't be hitting me and I ask him, 'would you like to tell me what is making you upset?' and I sit him on my lap and we cuddle and when he's ready, he talks. And after he has calmed and we have done our best to resolve what caused the upset I tell him that when someone hurts someone else and they know it's wrong and they feel sad that they did it, then we say we are sorry and 1/2 an hour later he comes to me and sits on my lap again and says 'i'm sorry I hit you mummy' and I am pleased that we have resolved his upset and that he has taken it upon himself to apologise and I knew we had done alright at working it through. Still don't know what the other parents thought but I'm happy with how it worked out. Now just got to work out how to avoid it escalating to that in the first place. 

Tried our hand at writing today. Not something that happens spontaneously in our house. I suggested we should write and say thank you to our friends and family for the birthday gifts they gave Bean. I found some special cards and gave him my pen and off we went. He only wrote two but that is two more than ever before and we had lots of talk about words and letters.

Bean got some new lego for his birthday and set about building some more ships. This seems to be quite a popular lego theme with him and they come in all shapes and sizes and of course all have to be tested out in the sink before bath time to make sure that they float.

Pumpkin has spent the day practising his forward rolls, drawing endless faces, ferrying lego men around the farm in the tractor trailer, and playing balloon with his brother.

Plum has had an unusual afternoon where by she wanted to be held all the time. Not usual for her as she does enjoy playing with a few toys or sitting and watching me busy about but that wasn't for her today, today it was all about the cuddles. This might inconvenience some and consequently my house was slightly more chaotic than normal but I had a lovely afternoon playing with my girl and I am cherishing every minute of it. Third time round you really do know how quickly the time goes.