One week down & a set of sore hips...

Well, that's us into our second week of the summer holidays. And... you guessed it, still not ticked off anything on our bucket list. Clearly I'm failing at holiday-parentness.

So... aside from that, my eldest is now 5. *5*! I can't bloody believe it. It feels like just yesterday I was holding this bundle of chubby awesomeness in my arms after a grueling labour of grand proportions. I'm officially no longer the parent of a pre-schooler. How time flies. As a whole, it wasn't a big birthday. We didn't have a party, on the grounds that our garden wasn't exactly big enough for the bouncy castle. I don't know who was more disappointed to be honest, me or him. However, he did wake full of the joys of spring, upon hearing the Orange Walk coming through our area. Whilst B & I groaned & rolled over trying to get back to sleep after the rude awakening, W was delighted. Due to the fact he was convinced this was his birthday parade. Seriously. What a kid. We had the option to break the news that it wasn't but he was so happy. Then opening presents, breakfast, lunch, cake, confetti & streamers, visit to Grans, journey back home to spend the night playing board games. Not an eventful day as such but apparently the "best birthday ever in his life" so wasn't a total bust. Now, I must share the cake, made by my Mum, simply because it's just awesome...

Awesomely awesome Batman cake!

So that was Saturday. Sunday was a non-event, W went to stay with his Gran & we all farted about the house, played in the garden, the usual.

Today on the other hand was mortifying. Woke up, told the kids that we were going to the swing park. Cue whoops & hoorays from said children. Then it started raining. Cue unhappy moans from children. Then the rain went off again. Cut happy cheers. So we head out, go to the shops for drinks, go to the swing park & start playing. So it's the usual, swings, slides, roundabouts, zipslide, all that jazz. Me, in my infinite wisdom, thought it would be funny to show the youngest how to go down the slide headfirst laying on his tummy. Well, after losing 5lb, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to fit down a slide intended for use by 1-5 year olds or thereabouts. I got stuck. Like, wedged thanks to my womanly childbearing hips. Talk about embarrassing. I had one kid pulling my arms trying to pull me down the slide & a few more at the back trying to shove me by the arse to get me down. Alas, to no avail. Thankfully, in the end, I had the sense to attempt to roll onto my side to unwedge myself & slid down, landing unceremoniously on my back, in the middle of the swing park with a group of kids standing over me wetting themselves laughing. That was definitely not a high point in my life. The aching hips & bruised ego didn't get me down though & we plodded on through the 2.5 hours (!) spent in the swing park. 

Totally crashed coming home to find dishes still unwashed & the kitchen a tip, I had to clean it all before I could start dinner. I think to myself "Hey, just sit & read a chapter of your book first, the dishes will wait, all the kids are playing quite happily, go for it!" I then become aware of how quiet O has become. Turns out that pouring a whole carton of orange juice on the kitchen floor is way more fun than playing in the garden. Obviously. To my shame, I think I might have actually screamed.

I swear, some days I'm convinced these children will be the end of me...

But I think we'll live to see another day. Booked a weekend away, see if a trip away from home will make a difference to the daily trials & tribulations of family life. Not likely but we can but dream...

- M

Robots, dead e-readers & the family's crushing disappointment of Moroccan food...

Well, we're already halfway through the first week of the summer holidays! What have we achieved so far? Bugger all. So much for doing something every day. Best laid plans & all that jazz. I at least half expected to get a picnic or something out of the way by now but laziness appears to have taken over. Apart from nipping to the shops, we've literally done nothing of any particular value. Whoops. I can see my plan for us to do something, no matter how small, has fell flat on it's face within days. The shame. I think that I may have been either a bit over ambitious or totally delirious to think that we'd actually manage to pull it off.

At least we've spent some quality time together right enough. O spent most of the week outside in the garden & has taken to communicating with birds. I actually watched him attempt to interact with a pigeon yesterday. W & I had a bit of fun tonight as well. Coming up with stuff to do is usually left to me but the little dude decided it would be fun to write a story together. Consisting of him drawing pictures & dictating to me what to write next to them. Kids have the most awesome imaginations ever. I wonder if it dilutes as we come into adulthood or if I've literally never had any imagination whatsoever because I try to come up with stories for him & generally fail if I'm honest. I really wish I could find my camera to share the wonderful giant/robot/mummy/dinosaur affair that we concocted together. Probably the highlight of the evening was noticing he had drawn a superman sign on his chest & then attempted to draw a cape on his own back. I swear, if it wasn't for these kids, my life would be so dull.

On a less pleasant note, I had to talk to someone about O's teeth. Oh the guilt & shame of having to confront the fact that you can't brush your child's teeth therefor they have started to rot. I actually cried. I'm so terrified that he's going to lose his two front teeth but we've literally came to a point where there's nothing else I can try but keep on going with everything we've already tried. I've never met a child so traumatised by the whole toothbrushing process in my whole life. Although admittedly I'm only 25 so there's only so many children I've met thus far. Yesterday afternoon, I actually told my neighbour I was concerned she'd contact social services due to the bloodcurdling screams coming from my bathroom at night after bathtime. It's horrendous. You've never known stress until you have a 2 year old doing the worm on your knee, screaming & totally pitching a fit. Typically, we both end up in tears. Just praying to God the dental team can sort us out because I think I might tear my hair out if I can't get those teeth brushed properly soon.

The day, as a whole, has been a little bit of a let down. I spent a large part of my morning , mourning a great loss. My trusty companion, by my side through good times & bad has passed. My Kindle died at some point during the night. What a sense of guttedness I can't describe. Now, I've had a broken Kindle before but usually it's been a result of someone's stupidity but it literally just died without warning. I was halfway through Jane Eyre & now have to wait on a copy of it coming into my local library so I can finish the bloody thing! On top of that, I'd just bought ingredients to make dinner from a recipe book I'd just recently bought on Kindle so I'm sitting with a varying set of foodstuffs & no bloody recipe to cook from! Google, thankfully, came to the rescue (not for the first time, I must add) & I managed to download the Kindle PC thingymajigger. Unfortunately, by that point it was like 7pm by the time we actually managed to sit down to eat. Then no bugger ate it! Mum put hers by "for later" (due to previous experience, I know I'm going to be scraping it in the bin at 4pm tomorrow after I go to preheat the oven & find out there's still a plate of bloody food in there!!!), Ellie pretty much just swirled it around her plate, eating a few bites of chicken here & there, & Charlie, who apparently loved it & was going to eat it all, must have eaten about half a chunk of chicken. Bloody waste of food & a total waste of my (rather precious) time! *AND* I hung a washing out & it started bucketting with rain. Thank you Mother Nature for lulling us into a false sense of security, thinking we were having summer this year!

Well, maybe tomorrow will be a bit sunnnier & manage to actually tick something off the summer bucket list. Not likely but as they say, "always look on the bright side of life" *skips off whistling*.

- M