Blockage

I currently have a blockage in my blogging mojo. Irrigation pending, I will be back very shortly - post blog-fog x

Sorry Freddie

So H Bomb goes to nursery 1.5, sometimes 2 days a week.

a) he loves it (never plays up!!) often bear hugging his besties Elliot and Thomas first thing in the morning before making a beeline for the cornflakes. They have pet fish and an amazing playground and garden.

b) I am supposed to be returning to work 4 days a week in September so it gives him that 'constant' in his life.

c) it gives Freddie some one-to-one attention.

d) it enables me to get household chores and admin done -eminently difficult with someone perpetually tugging on your leg asking for you to retrieve the 8th Fireman Sam figurine from behind the sofa - oh that's where my now expired spa voucher is... Manicured feet are overrated anyway.

e) look at me justifying sending my baby boy to someone else for a day.. And a half, sometimes 2. Despite knowing it truly is good for him and the above reasons - I am afraid I do get strong pangs of guilt. Oh joy.

So this morning I dropped H off in his room (left Fred flirting with Jade in reception) and he insisted I sat down next to him and his cornflakes (actually today he chose weetabix because they came in individually wrapped packets just like a little prrrresent) and sing 'Incy Wincy Spider' to him (there are actions..). So I obliged and once I was done, went to pour him some milk before leaving. I love that he is too young for - the sight of his mother waving her hands in the air at the table in front of his mates at 8am - to ruin any kudos.. Anyway digress...

I picked up the milk and it was warm, WARM... guilt, oh yes, there you are again. My (big) baby boy gets warm milk on his cereal at nursery. He has never had that at home. I must make good.

We get home and out comes the weetabix. No microwave. Right. Fill the kettle, boil kettle, sit cup of milk in bowl of boiling water, sing 'twinkle twinkle little star' to placate my (little) baby boy, wait for milk to heat, wait for milk to heat, repeat waiting. Pour warmed milk into weetabix, mush it up. It's gone quiet. Turn around to baby fast asleep in high chair. Epic fail. More guilt.

I guess all that flirting must have been exhausting.

Bag of spinach

So Freddie might have chicken pox, and so could Henry, but they might not. Thank you doctor for making that clear.

Freddie (seemingly suffering more from the mysterious ailment) has been indulged with baby biscotti (that's a new one), rattles, fluffy rattles, chewy rattles and the odd adoring glance and song - still belts out a squeal that would have the most savage of Alsatians sprinting tail betwixt the legs. Screaming, gurning and wailing that is, until I detour to our local supermarket... 

Once I had ticked off the free coffee, loaf of bread and passed the summer BBQ promo with my toddler yelling 'daddy beer' at the top of his lungs, I fling an unsuspecting bag of spinach in the bottom of the buggy .. Between Freddie's legs. 

A bag of spinach which became almost impossible to wrestle for when at those wonderfully technical, impossibly slow, 'self' check-outs (I worked out that I average 2.5 people per shop and 4 'please wait for an assistant' prompts from the terribly proper automated voice). People are staring, wondering how it is possible for such an insipid squeal to come from such a beautiful (yes, yes, I know) little baby. 

Post payment, flung back into the bottom of the chariot of fun - this bag of spinach is the gem that FINALLY kept my (usually adorable) incredibly grotty little boy - SILENT, silent aside from the content rustle as he tugged and chewed and batted the bag of iron rich greens for an entire 20 minutes. 

Popeye was definitely onto something.

Olive xx

Helllliiiiiicccoooppttttaaaaaaaarrrr

Now I know we should all be cutting up fairy liquid bottles, making toy aeroplanes and encouraging imaginations in the wigwam at home (!) but one benefit to living with a Boeing  747 passing over your skylight every 30 seconds and a perpetual 'gentle' hum of emergency vehicles etc (great white noise too) is that you can take two ratty little ratbags out your front door and have them mesmerised by helicopters taking off and landing inches from the buggy - within 15 minutes. Mesmerised. For free. Then 40 minutes later it's time for a quick spin round 'Pets at Home'... 

And would you look at that?.. It's the weekend.

Thank you Battersea Heliport. Over and out. x

Fireman Sam to the rescue

I think Fireman Sam saved our house (along with many awkward moments in public by bribing away a tantrum with the promise of another repeat episode of Norman Price's terrible shenanigans in Pontypandy). I actually do. 

There is an episode, I think i have only seen 6 times, where Mike Flood's cooker sets alight after a power cut. Sam said 'always switch your cooker (oven, aga, range) off when you aren't using it'. 

Well we had an electrician over just after we had been away for the week and he told me, some jargon I didn't understand but that translated to - 'good thing your oven fuse was off or you might not have had a home to come back to'. So never mind the expensive Neebosh Health and Safety exam I took in October last year (thank you work), Fireman Sam nailed it this time. again.

Fruit bruises and spiders

Apparently I now love bruised, blackened fruit and spiders......

I don't want the boys to be difficult eaters (Hmm) so when H Bomb took his recent dislike of anything remotely 'DIRTTTYYY' (ever so slightly marked) - I took it upon myself to show him that 'it's perfectly ok - look mummy will eat it', in goes my 6th segment of bruised banana in 2 days. I have become far more diligent in assessing my fruit before purchase, especially after yesterday when I 'took one for the team' by chowing down on an unsuspecting (by myself and my prey) maggot in a slushy piece of pear. Amazingly I remained unflinched but I am beginning to think I will be the one with a disorder. Pears have been struck off my 5 a day menu. 

And spiders. I am not, or was not - a fan. Don't know why, I won't jump onto a chair screaming for their father (the boys not the spider - weird scenes of Aracnophobia spring to mind) to save me but I just don't like them that much. I want the boys to fear only strangers and bogeyman so have actively encouraged an appreciation of insects, spiders... I think I ONCE said about 3 weeks ago oh look 'a lovely little spider' and I seem to have spawn the next David Attenborough. On holiday in Greece Henry would demand that daddy took him outside at 7.30am  every day to 'look for spiders' and dear daddy who cherishes his boy-time kindly obliged. The fascination has not waned and along with singing 'Incy wincy spider' 15 times on repeat in his cot before passing out at night (actually very cute) he now demands I touch or pick up every one we see - I have come to realise we house many, especially in the downstairs loo regardless of the amount of times they 'must have gone outside to the water spout'/an early grave...... Spider lovers please don't hate me - I am actually growing fonder of them by the day.

The last stand at the Bandstand

I asked H as we left the house at 3pm if he wanted his scooter. 'NO MUMMY'. Ok.

So I stuffed the golf club, 3 x ball (various sizes), his neeee naw fire car and digger in the bottom of the buggy on top and around Freddie who is cramped in. 

We get to the 'bandstand' about a mile from home where he has demanded we go and then tries to steal 2 pink scooters, I tell him he can't and explain that he can play with his when he gets home. Tantrum 1.

He then sees a boy with a ball and tries to take it, I get his out and he throws it in my direction, flings his entire body from side to side akin to a soaking wet spaniel shaking off its water laden coat. Tantrum 2.

He sees a boy eating a wafer so I buy him one and he has one bite and decides he wants his ball, another boy walked within a 2m radius and he starts crying 'my ball MY ball', which I (apparently stupidly) told him wasn't a nice way to talk to other boys. Tantrum 3.

We then start playing a running game and he sees another boy with Toby ('well let's say he's square') and Percy ('pulls the Mail on time') and he starts crying 'Thomas' (because ALL trains are Thomas apparently no matter how many times I try to explain their difference)... I tell him he can have the fire car, he carries on screaming, I get the golf equipment out and show him how not to hit a golf ball, I tell him we can find Thomas when we have fish fingers later and try to reason (yeah right), I try a number of bribes (episode of Fireman Sam, naughty step, won't see daddy later) but he is sobbing inconsolably 'T T T Thomassshhhhhh' and pretty much sitting on poor little 'Hugo' with his trains and I eventually decide to throw the hat in and (after a princely 8 minutes at the bandstand) take him home. 

By the time we get home he wants to go back to the bandstand.

In the beginning

Just another mother choosing to share the 'ups' and 'downs' of the incredible journey through motherhood... Perhaps hoping to make someone, somewhere laugh or even feel less fretful and manic when the proverbial hits for the 20th time before 8am!!.. I don't want to seem ungrateful or perpetually sardonic. I am so incredibly lucky to have 2 awesome and beautiful little boys, they bring me and their father indescribable amounts of joy and pride but my Facebook photos perhaps don't show the full picture of parenthood and family life (because who wants to see the wee and poo and wailing and food fights and mess... Well perhaps people do and perhaps I should exit Facebook soon but that's for another forum)..

I will mainly share the strange, the irksome and bewildering - that I encounter on my ever evolving trapse through parenthood so let me just once more caveat - I ADORE my boys, my hearts wells up to think of them each lying in their little beds right now (for how long though??).., they are perfect, innocent, beautiful little beings that make me laugh, smile, melt. I am not sure what I did to deserve them and I hope serve them very well as a mummy.

I think that will do...

People, when I actually manage to:

* think straight
* find the iPad
* get 10 minutes of peace

I give you the Madness of Henry (26 months), Freddie (6.5 months) and Rosie (401 months)

Potty potty mouth

Xx