Sunshine & stories...

Nice sunny day in Scotland again today. Was extremely chuffed being able to get out with the boys again & get plenty of fresh air. Started off in the back garden kicking a ball around & playing on the swings when inspiration hit me, chalk stories. Asked the 3yr old if he fancied getting the chalks out again & he was more than happy to oblige. So we sprinted around the front & got started. I drew a picture of a lady & we began writing our own chalk story. We both took turns adding pieces onto the story with new drawings. We ended up with a pretty great story about a princess, a dragon, a castle & an evil witch who turns princesses into bunnies...

The poor bunny Princess Mummy was turned into.

Our story with our princess, dragon, witch & castle.

To be honest, it was a pretty fun & quiet day on the whole & I don't really have much to say tonight. Which is weird because usually there's some disaster to share. 

What I did however realise, is it's only a short time until the summer holidays. I solemnly swore that this summer, we are not making the same mistake we made last year. Granted, the weather wasn't particularly nice but we spent most of our time indoors, watching TV & not doing anything particularly fantastic. But this year, things are gonna change. After making a conscious effort to try & do more screen free time I realised this can't be temporary. Whether it's days out, days playing board games, playing in the garden or doing something else fun, this summer has to be fun, family-orientated & totally freaking awesome!!

- M

Funny moment of the day came courtesy of the eldest on his way home from nursery this afternoon with his epic Star Wars spelling skills. "Mummy, cream soda sounds like Master Yoda." You really had to be there to appreciate how funny it was.

Dough, wraps & little white lies...

Well, first nursery run after the 3yr olds poorly spell last week. Ended up so early we went into the room too soon & got asked to leave & wait in the cloakroom. Oops.

The end product of our clay models from yesterday turned out pretty well. Everyone had fun & we were left with rather cool keepsakes to hold on to.

 W decided his smiley face was best black & yellow & has decided that although intended for Daddy, he's planning on taking it to nursery tomorrow to show his teacher. Be prepared for tears if the bloody thing breaks.

Check out the epic moustache on my rather fetching paperweight. Now *that* is a tash & a half.

Ellie decided to mix up her own colours as she preferred pastels & Charlie decided on bright & fabulous.

In all, it ended up a fail-win if there is such a thing. Yeah the clay models might not have ended up exactly what we had hoped for but we all worked together & the kids had a blast.



Between nursery run & painting, we had a borderline nervous breakdown in the middle. I bought a wrap after selling my Close Parent carrier (Ollie was getting too big for the stretch) & decided that I was going to brave a back carry up to the nursery to pick up Wilbur. Not a good idea to decide on such a thing 20 minutes before due to pick said child up. After faffing around, finally getting him on my back & done up properly, pleased as punch that we were ready to go... the damn tails weren't long enough to tie. Sweating & out of puff, on the verge of a full toddler-style tantrum, it was time to admit defeat & put him in the pushchair. In the midst of all this, I neglected to keep an eye on the clock, ending in a power walk, partway uphill in rather blustery winds with the rain threatening just around the corner. Not a good look turning up at nursery looking like you have a birds nest on your head, sweat pouring down my face, breathing like I've just ran a marathon. Attractive.

Moral of that story, practise wrapping more thoroughly before acting like a smart ass & thinking you're 'the shit' when really you're just shit >_< (YouTube videos on different carries are definitely the way to go & make sure the carry you're doing is compatible with the length of wrap you're using!)

Then, whilst making dinner for the kids, I notice the baby is behind me & is way too quiet. Now I don't know if any of you have had any experience with Moon Sand or Moon Dough but it's an acquired taste. You either love it or you hate it. Well, up until tonight, I damn well hated the stuff. It's messy & a total pain in the arse. To the point where we stashed it beside the fridge out of sight of the children until the end of time. BUT since the youngest has eyes like a hawk & Inspector Gadget-esque extendable arms, he espied it while my back was turned. Turning slowly, unsure as to whether I really want to see what's going on behind me, I found this:



Now, my first reaction in my head was 'F************K', my second was to usher him into the living room & hoover/sweep the lot up. But I thought to myself, what the hell are you doing? It's not doing any harm, it's a bit of mess that can be cleaned up, stop being such a miserable cow & join in.

So it turns out that Moon Dough is actually kinda awesome. We were able to mould it into balls that were super hard & we could throw off the walls etc but crumbled into nice fluffy dough with agile little fingers pressing their way inside. Also, with such a young child, it's pretty hard to keep doughs etc of different colours separate so it all inevitably ended up smooshed together. But instead of going mucky brown like Playdoh, because it's a grainy, sandy texture, it all swirled together & made a rather awesome multicoloured swirly material. Ultimately, after dismissing it so suddenly at Christmas 2012, I can now admit that actually, it's pretty awesome. He ended up occupied, the two of us playing together for a whole half hour on the one activity. A record for the most easily distracted child who has ever walked the earth. For any parents contemplating purchasing it, I totally get your hesitation but if you don't mind clearing up a bit of mess, go for it. Was easily scooped up, put away & swept up any straggly bits laying around.

On the whole, a relatively quiet day from what I'm used to so a welcome moment of tranquillity in what's typically madness & mayhem.

- M

PS Amusing moment of the day would have to be lying to the eldest about his baby brother peeing on his bed so he wouldn't throw a wobbly at bedtime. I'm going to hell. For the record, I didn't make him sleep in it & wasn't a total lie, I just said the bed was wet because Ollie sat on it once we came out the bath. He's currently curled up in the other bed blissfully unaware of the atrocity that his poor matress experienced, but I feel rather guilty for my little white lie. All to save myself having to get the baby back to sleep incase his brother's potential drama king reaction woke him up *hangs head in shame*

Modelling clay fail & pointless tantrums on a lovely spring afternoon...

Woke up this morning after my epiphany yesterday about getting out more & it was raining. Fantastic... 

Kids were pretty disappointed that the afternoon at the swing park was cancelled but we decided to do some crafts. We settled, after a tough debate, on modelling. So I hunted online looking for recipes for home-made modelling clay. There were so many recipes with so many different ingredients so I gave up & made it up as I went along, a bit of this & a bit of that. So I mucked around a bit until I got the perfect texture as follows:

1 cup of boiling water + 1 cup of salt + 1 1/3 cup of flour

Kneaded it for about 5 minutes until it all gathered up into a dough. Not too dry, not too sticky. Perfect. It moulded really well, held together & didn't get all over the place while we were using it. 

So divided it amongst four of us & had to decide what each of us were going to make. My plan was for a heart shaped paperweight (with a rather fabulous moustache my darling son helped me make), the 10yr olds plan was for a wee heart shaped figurine type thing, 8yr old had people & animal figures in mind (namely a man with a hat, a goat & a chicken) & the 3yr old wanted a smile for his Daddy. Please excuse our makeshift mess mats, really must invest in some instead of looking like tramps on crafty days...

Unfortunately, after baking in the oven (140C for about an hour/hour & a half), it appears our clay models have risen. We used plain flour so I assumed this wouldn't happen. Cue a rather unhappy 10yr old girl on the brink of tears. We chopped the bottom of the base slightly to even it out but unfortunately it's a bit sticky in the middle so here's hoping that overnight it'll harden. So if anyone decides to use the recipe I used, don't. I'm clearly shit at making up my own crafting products so do yourself a favour & find a recipe from someone who actually has a clue as to what they're on about.

Onwards & upwards though as tomorrow it'll be time to paint them (& we all know how awesome it is clearing up after 4 kids painting, particularly when one of said children is a young toddler!!) & hope that the bottom of my darling sister's creation has dried or else it'll be WW3 tomorrow morning. Will update if she hasn't torn the house down around us!!

On the whole, it was a relatively peaceful day. Well, apart from a massive hormonal pre-teen tantrum over what I'm still not entirely sure. Apparently I was wrong about something & I appear to be the worst sister in the world worthy of some seriously bad-ass insults. Classics such as "Well you're a total liar then because it was clearly not like 10 minutes ago" (Fair enough about half an hour then) "Oh well it's like another 20 minutes, how stupid are you?" & (after being told that she was in the wrong for what she did) "Well you're just ugly." *minds blown*. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Just sayin'! Another day, another drama. Lemme tell you, if that's what a pre-teen girl is like, I'm glad I have boys! 

- M 

Oh & I must share a funny story before I go. Boys both fell asleep in our bed (we part-time cosleep with the youngest) as 3yr old wanted a cuddle as I was nursing the baby to sleep & conked out. Decided I would move the 3yr old later on once I was heading up to bed after doing the shop (online of course, I'm not THAT negligent) & left them sleeping on opposite sides of the bed.

About half an hour later, there's sobbing & hollering from the baby. I run upstairs, exasperated by the interruption from the intensely pleasurable meal planning, to find the 3yr old sound asleep with the baby half asleep attempting to latch on to his brother's nose & becoming pretty pissed off that it wasn't quite what he was looking for. Brilliant.

What's that yellow thing in the sky?

In a surprising turn of events, we woke up to a sunny Scotland this morning. So the plan was to get outside, play & get some much needed vitamin D & fresh air! While trying to come up with some fabulous game or crafty activity to do, it came to me that we never just go out to play any more without purpose. So we grabbed some street chalks, a ball & headed out. Unfortunately, the 8 year old brother was glued to the screen & we couldn't prise him away, so it was just the two boys & 10 year old sister for the afternoon.

Bamboozled by the mysterious fiery yellow ball in the sky, the boys seemed rather surprised to be ushered out the front door without full Arctic proof gear on.

So it started with a box of sidewalk chalks (we used crayola ones we managed to get for a bargain in a local shop) & a smile...

But apparently, said smile wasn't good enough as it wasn't anatomically correct...

... but in comes 3yr old to fix it...

At this point, 15 month old is more interested in digging about & pouring them onto the path...

... but eventually joined in the fun.

I actually remembered just how much fun it was just doing normal 'kid' things that we did when we were younger. But as an adult, realised that it's more than a bit of fun as we were counting, identifying different shapes, doing the alphabet & practising writing skills, so it wasn't just like an afternoon spent goggle-eyed in front of the pc or the PS3, we were all getting something out of it.

The rest of our time outside was spent on the trampoline, playing on swings & running around so hopefully some half decent sleep is on the cards (highly unlikely).

But it wasn't all without it's drama. Between a seriously mistimed fall (Ollie falling faced down just as I kicked the ball, connecting with his head), scaring the shit out of each other screaming (bloody bees), a near miss from faceplabting downstairs (prevented thanks to my epic catching skills) & trying to see who could consume the most bacteria (prize goes to Ollie putting a used dog toy in his mouth, note that we don't actually have a dog!!!!), we still had our moments. But where's the fun without some heartache?

In amongst games of hopscotch, drawing & copying letters etc, I realised that it had been ages since we had just been 'outside' with no toys, no gadgets brought from inside into the garden & just doing something exclusively together. Today, I made a promise to myself to get outside more, even if it's regular Scottish weather & we have to go out in hurricane & downpour proof clothing to jump in puddles. We spend way too much time indoors, way too much time on technology & too little time focused just on us with nothing else to think or worry about.

Technology, toys & gadgets have taken over & it's inevitable that we're going to get sucked in & at one point or another it's probably going to bite us in the bum. Today I was bitten. Hopefully, we can start as we mean to go on because realistically it's NOT healthy to have so much screen time & it's going to affect our relationships if we're playing a PS3 game with each other instead of one on one communicating & working together at something. Technology has it's place & it's a wonderful thing but maybe it's time to step back, take a look at how often it's being used & see if we're using our time as wisely as we could be.

- M

Germs, schools, nurseries & children, every parent's kryptonite...

Well, all of the children have been back at school just short of a fortnight & already the germs are a-flying. They've all come home from nursery & school with the cold. Which is fine, a cold is a cold, common & harmless for the most part but still rather unpleasant for everyone involved.

3 year old son has the cold, was up during the night last night coughing & spluttering to the point of vomiting. Tonight, pre-bedtime, he was howling that his ears were hurting. Looks like a trip to the doctors in the morning if it carries on. Poor dude was sobbing & after a dose of paracetamol, fell into a rather unpleasant looking sleep. Sounds of snoring thanks to loads of mucusy crap making for not a very restful sleep for anyone.

15 month old son has the cold, last night turning into a croupy sounding cough (thankfully didn't come to anything) & waking up in pools of snot. Always a good day when you have a baby literally hanging off your leg every time to move because he's feeling to rubbish. Plenty of nursing to give him comfort & make him feel better, leaving dried in snot across my chest & biting due to not being able to breathe through his nose thus hanging on for dear life. Nothing sexier than a snotty cleavage now is there?

10 year old sister has been off school today as her throat has been giving her grief & she's been feeling like crap the past few days but thankfully appears to be on the mend so of the 4 giving me the least to worry about.

8 year old brother is currently feeling it the worst. Since coming home from school we've had coughing, tears, nausea & snot so far. Unfortunately out of the 4 children, he always seems to be the one who complains most when unwell so obviously it's been high drama this evening & is probably going to be a very long night between children. 

As luck would have it, Mummy dearest is nightshift, partner is nightshift & 21 year old brother is asleep in his bed so lo & behold I'm left to deal with the 4 bug ridden children on my own. Fantastic!

I swear it's moments like that which make me seriously wonder why everyone doesn't home school. I bet there would be no sick children. Nurseries & schools seem to be a festering pit of bacteria & all the children are competing with one another to see who can get ill the most often. Between horrendous sickness bugs (always my favourite to deal with - note gratuitous use of sarcasm), chickenpox, colds/flu & *insert other common children's illnesses*, it's driving me batty that out of the 4 there's always at least 1 of them unwell at any given time. Urgh.

Hopefully they'll all be better soon though because however frustrating it is for us Mums & Dads, it's so much worse for the kids to be unwell when there's nothing we can do to help. Looks like a few days of cuddles & rest are in order until everyone is back to their regular selves & being the little weapons of mass destruction that they should be. Now it's time to contemplate whether to stay up crafting & watching telly because one of them will be up soon or go to bed & risk being awoke in half an hours time with a coughing/vomiting/snotty mess.

Wish me luck,

- M 

Peaceful parenting, it's not always so peaceful...

I like to think that I'm a peaceful parent. Most of the time I am pretty easy going, patient, have a long fuse & like to connect with my children & sort out our differences in a fairly gentle manner.

But OH MY GOD sometimes kids really push your buttons.

Picture the scene...

Standing in the kitchen, sweat pouring down your face. You have a 15 month old on your hip while you make a family sized macaroni & cheese (where the sauce takes about a year to thicken), cook sausages in the oven & cook a lentil casserole at the same time. Pretty intense, huh? Add to that said 15 month old has a cold, sorry, man flu & is covered in snot & trying to fight his way down your t-shirt. Deep breathing, stay calm, count to ten.

The heat gets too much, you have to escape the heat into the living room for a breather & proceed to sit down on the couch with the baby & nurse him. No sooner than baby is latched on, all hell breaks loose. 8 year old brother starts fighting with 3 year old son. It's chaos, nobody is listening. You finally break up that fight & 10 year old sister decides she'll be the protector of all children & put on her Supergirl pants & attempts to beat seven shades of shit out of her 8 year old brother. There's a few seconds of calm... The 8 year old springs into action, rising from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix & kicks 10 year old sister thus causing another fight. Meanwhile, attempting to nurse 15 month old, save 3 sets of food from setting the house on fire & becoming virtually unedible, it gets too much. The noise, the chaos, the devastation. *SNAP* That moment where you just can't take any more & end up hollering at the top of your lungs. A-HA! There! Have that, that'll stop you in your tracks. Oh wait, the house is still a sea of entropy. Another holler & another until finally, a wave of calm.

Sitting on the couch, awash with sweat, 15 month old long gone, snot covered & joyful. Clothing disheveled from a failed attempt to breastfeed. Ashamed.

Yes, tonight I took the peace out of peaceful parenting. And any parent out there who can honestly turn around & tell me that they have never had an experience where your children have drove you to the brink of a nervous breakdown, you're either a liar, or I'm delusional in thinking I'm normal.

To all those gentle parents out there who have ever had a "moment", please don't be ashamed or kick yourself. Forgive yourself & embrace these moments, because one day you can look back & laugh at how naive you were those 9 months you thought you'd be a "perfect parent".

- M

Oh & for the record, I ended up eating the lentil casserole cold, the macaroni & cheese was disgusting apparently & W wasn't feeling well so didn't eat the sausages. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. 

First blog entry...

Well this is awkward. It's pretty rare that I'm lost for words but I'm currently at a loss as to how I'm supposed to start this.

I suppose a brief introduction is a good idea.

Hello, I'm Marianne, 24, mother of two. I'm a bit scatty, a bit weird, I love my children & family is my number one priority in life. I'm far from being the perfect mother but I do try my best to be my children's idea of perfect.

We're a (tandem) breastfeeding, part time babywearing, part time clothing bumming, co-sleeping, gentle (well, as gentle as possible) parenting family.

At home there are 8 of us (!). Myself, my partner Billy, our two sons, William (3) & Oliver (1), my Mum & my siblings Charlie (8), Ellie (10) & Jordan (21), so it's a pretty busy house with all sorts of chaos happening on a regular basis with usually my Mum & I trying desperately to hold the whole thing together.

Sounds like fun doesn't it?

Well, now that's done, I might as well get on with it...

Enjoy!