I hear thunder

spot the mistake

Bean took this photo

Geese in a hurry

Our first attempt at rolling down a hill

Plum enjoying a feed

What a day!We drove to Leeds Castle again today to meet fav auntie #2. We checked the weather before we went. It looked questionable but reasonable ie. cloudy, sunny and a few showers. With this in mind I packed fleeces, socks, wellies, raincoats, and spare socks, all for the boys. 


The car journey there was great. Bean got the maps out again and I showed him where we were before setting of and he directed me all along the green road to the blue road. I got warnings of every round-a-bout and bridge and it was a real eye opener into what he has been absorbing during all our previous discussions involving maps. He also said 'I want to live in Horsham, it's so fun and my children will love it.' Brilliant. Not only does he appreciate the town in which he lives, he is also considering where his children would enjoy living, very thoughtful.


It wasn't long after we arrived that Pumpkin mentioned his foot hurt. FA#3 took a look and burst out laughing. We all had a close look at his feet and discovered that he had literally two left feet! The worst part of it is that I checked the sandals on his feet before we left. He decided then that wellies would be better.


We walked up to the castle a different route today and spent more time running than observing the gardens. The gaggle of geese intrigued the boys as they were hurrying very determinedly in one direction. We talked about where they had started out from and where they were heading and why.


We went into the castle today which I don't remember going in before but FA#3 said that it has changed alot and has more to see. The boys picked up a costume spotting quiz which they loved and they really enjoyed looking at all the armoury and weaponry. I'm glad we have membership or annual tickets for these places as we do speed around them sometimes and repeat visits mean we get to see different parts on each visit.


Lunch included some fun with an inquisitive peahen (and rather cheeky, I thought.) 


FA#3 had a deadline today and we planned to have a play on the play area and then a quick wizz around the maze. FYI you cannot have a quick wizz around this maze. I went in with the boys and FA#3 sat with asleep  Plum. We got completely lost and spent half an hour wandering around, our only point of reference were the various shaped puddles!


The thunder began to roll and we could see the rain coming. The boys had already decided a train ride back was on the agenda so we headed to the pick up point. FA#3 waited for the train and I started to walk as the train is not buggy friendly. I walked the train route as it's direct but unfortunately through the open grounds. The rain game, spotting and spitting, the rain came splotting and splatting and then the rain came sideways and torrential (imagine someone throwing a bath tub of water at you.) I took temporary shelter under a canvas sheet but as the rain was blowing sideways this wasn't much use. The train stopped to collect us poor souls but as the buggy is not compatible with the train I had to walk on, although the rain had calmed a little. 


The end result was that the boys didn't need any of the spare clothing I had taken with us and I drove home with no trousers on. The rain continued on the drive home, the motorways were no faster than 30 mph and like driving through a river. When we got closer to home it became apparent that our home land was dry as a bone and hot and sunny! Wouldn't have swapped it though. Love days out with my sisters.

Read Read Read

Friday 29th June


Having a reading kind of day today. Bean has built a reading den and we have had a friend over to play and he spent a long time reading books with the boys. As well as this they played hide and seek together and some kind of adventure involving the moon man! I'm not 100% sure as I was upstairs doing some planning for camp this year but there was a lot of laughter and excitement coming from the garden.


Plum has a cold and it probably accounts for why she was so grizzly yesterday. She is definitely a little under the weather but is sleeping better today so this helps.


Pumpkin was up at 5.30 this morning feeling hungry (he had refused last nights dinner) consequently he feel asleep during one of the stories and slept for 1 1/2 hours on the sofa. He must have been really tired because he fights sleep more often than not unless he's on a car journey.

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.

Peace is flowing

Sunday 8th July


After spending the morning at church we spent a peaceful afternoon each following our own pursuits. For daddy this meant preparing for the evening service and I played around with some froggy stuff, mainly information and pictures. The boys watched some Iplayer, played aeroplanes in the garden, some games on the iPad, playing with the tractor and parking it in doorways, painting cardboard boxes and some Lego. There was an extreme lack of arguing and it felt to me like a relaxed type of day. We bathed mid afternoon to wash of the paint and Plum had a long late afternoon sleep. All these things worked out perfectly as daddy was off to the evening church service and I was left to do the boys' bedtime. As Plum was awake, fed and happy, she sat with us for stories and settling. Daddy arrived home just as Plum was going to bed about 8.30pm. Peace all around.

The precious pearl

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.

I want to ride my bicycle

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.

A Rose by any other name

Thursday 5th July


We said goodbye to Km today but before she went we managed to fit in a game of pirates, hiding treasure around the house and going in search of it, dressed up and cutlass in hand. Bean also built a train track and we managed two breakfasts.


Plum had had another disturbed night, waking every two hours. She is starting to take in some of the food she is playing with and I'm wondering if her stomach and digestive system are in shock! But you can never be 100% sure, it might be a growth spurt or just the need to find mummy.


After saying goodbye to Km and dropping her off at 9am, fav Auntie #3 has come to play. We took her to one of my current favourite places, Nyman Gardens. Today's children exploration included a flower spotting quiz which both the boys took up and a flower art creation which I have collected the pieces for and hope to complete with the boys later. We explored many a flower, leaf and tree and ran around the rose garden whilst mummy and fa#3 collected handfuls of fallen rose petals. The aroma was overwhelmingly delightful.
The house as always was beautiful and both the boys were able to recount the story of the burning roof. They have a great game for the children, 'find foxy' which is as simple as it sounds. The staff regularly move a toy fox around the house and you have to find him. It originates from the days of the last owner who played it with visiting children of family members. It's a great way of getting the boys to look at each room and discover a multitude of other things along the way. 
We also managed to explore some new areas and found a round house, where the boys climbed trees, swept the floor, spied on passers-by and played mummy's and daddy's. Pumpkin was the daddy, got the breakfast and swept the floor.


The rest of the afternoon was helped along by some I player and fa#3 going for a walk with Plum. I managed to squeeze in making the dinner, baking snacks, and cheese scones. Daddy surprised us by arriving home early and we all had dinner together. This was followed by some playing in the garden with fa#3 and daddy bathing Plum. I was suddenly childless! Plum has been continuing her food journey and has been enjoying the smell, taste and texture of nectarines, plums, porridge, soup, celery, sausage and chicken.