The holiday that never was

We should be in Scotland just about now, cuddled up in a log cabin after a day walking around a Loch.

But we’re not, we’re at home, listening to the dulcet tones of the washing machine on a spin cyle…

The afternoon before we were due to start our two day trek to the Highlands (with overnight stop in Glasgow for Sunday lunch with some family friends), Isla suddenly went very quiet and subdued. While I was busy packing for the planned early morning getaway, she sat on the sofa looking a little pale. Next thing, she’s being sick.

I will spare you the gory details but suffice to say there were enough episodes of illness for us to get way too scared about potential children-sick-in-car scenarios and worry whether this was a sickness bug about to sweep through all five of us while we were 500 miles from home.

We debated for a long time about whether to take the gamble, but with Isla sick again in the night, and looking so pale and withdrawn again in the morning we decided to cut our loses and stay at home.

Poor Lilly was really upset and cried when we told her, but we promised her a week of fun at home, including her favourite soft play place, swimming and a Halloween party for tomorrow. We also went to the zoo on Monday which everyone enjoyed, and Isla seemed so much better, walking for miles around the zoo without complaint, despite still looking a bit pasty.

Eve has had a bit of a temperature too for the last few days, but touch wood nobody else has come down with sickness. I guess we could have gone, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. But it was just too much of a gamble!

Today though I took Isla and Lilly swimming as promised. I decided to take them on my own as Eve is a bit grouchy lately, and Tony took her for a walk in her pushchair instead (always a winner with Eve who loves being out and about). I was a little nervous about the logistics of taking the two of them on my own, but I gave them both strict instructions to be good and they were little angels the whole time we were out.

Lilly loves swimming and doesn’t want me to help her in any way while she’s in there, she’s quite happy splishing about with her armbands on. It was funny as Isla was quite nervous of the pool at first – of all the shouting and the sounds, and at first when we got in she was a bit apprehensive of the water itself and wanted to sit on the edge a while kicking her legs and getting acclimatised.

But by the time we were ready to get out, she was stood on the edge of the pool wanting to jump in, again, again, again! So typical of my little monkey.

We’ve had a great day today and we have a little Halloween party planned for tomorrow. So our ‘holiday at home’, hasn’t been so bad, after all.

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More funny things they say

Me to Lilly: “It’s daddy’s birthday soon, what shall we get him?”

L: “We could get him a… Errr… Err….
I can’t really think of anything, all I can think of is girlie things, because I’m a girl…

(suddenly the verbal diahorrea kicks in)
“…All I can think of is a duck with a necklace!
And a pretty dress on!
And it’s cuddly!

… Or, an Easter Kangaroo!
That’s pink!
With an Easter egg!

But that’s not very man-y, is it?”

————

Hail stones were battering our widows one afternoon. Isla comes running to me:
“Muuuum! No like it! Worry, worry!”

————

Isla fell off her scooter in the garden and was crying. I ran over saying: “What happened Isla, what have you hurt??”. She struggled to reply through the tears but eventually wailed: “My hurt my scooter!!”

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Back to the Night Garden

Last weekend, we made a happy return to see our friends the Tombliboos, Makka Pakka, Upsy Daisy and Iggle Piggle.And we rode on the Ninky Nonk for one more time…

Yep, you guessed it, we went to see In the Night Garden Live, when it returned to our neck of the woods (Manchester, to be precise). And no, this is not a sponsored post – I paid £15 per head out of my very own hard earned money…

Lilly and I first went to the show when she was two and a half, in Liverpool. I thought even then that she was getting a little bit big for the TV programme, but she absolutely adored watching it live and genuinely still remembers it and talks about it quite often even now. Isla missed out that first time because she was only about six weeks old (although I had actually bought her a ticket – a touch ambitious, I realised as soon as she was born!)

Anyway after a slightly stressful journey whereby we went the wrong direction on the motorway and then couldn’t find our way around the Trafford Centre’s network of different car parks to find the illusive one that we needed we arrived just as the show was starting and dashed to our seats as the opening music began.

I was a little bit nervous about how Isla would react to the whole thing – having never been to a show of this kind before, and the fact that she can sometimes get so sensitive about things, it could have been an unmitigated disaster.

But thankfully, she loved it!

We went right to the back so it didn’t matter if the girls wanted to stand up and dance along as they weren’t blocking anyone’s view. And Isla loved listening to all the familiar songs and waving to the characters on stage. Her absolute favourite was Upsy Daisy, and she got really quite excited whenever she came on stage.

The highlight was the part where the characters all dance under the magical gazebo – always Isla’s favourite part in the programme. And we were showered with paper flowers at that point too.

All in all it was another lovely experience – and Lilly – who by now is DEFINITELY too big for the Night Garden, loved every second of it yet again.

So, another thumbs up to the Night Garden Live – and I wonder if I will be blogging about it for a third time in two years from now when Eve is big enough to go along?!

 

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…Starting nursery

It has been a busy few weeks in our household. Tony has started a new job, I am back after maternity leave. Lilly has finished nursery and we’ve been getting ready for the start of school. Eve is still waking in the night, and we’ve started weaning. We’ve organised and held a Christening. And Isla and Eve have started at nursery.

With all three girls I had a pretty similar amount of maternity leave – six months, give or take a few weeks. It was a little more with Isla and a little less with Eve, because of the various time of the year / financial circumstances.

Lilly started nursery at six months old, and was never really a problem, although she would never sleep in there. Isla started about seven months and never really settled. She didn’t sleep and she was a lot more distressed when you left her than Lilly ever was. She was ok, but we never thought she enjoyed it. She stayed at nursery until she was about 14 months and then Tony was made redundant and became a stay at home dad for a while instead.

Isla loved being at home with her daddy. But now he is back at work, and she is two years old, and for so many reasons we feel that now she really needs to get used to spending time away from us and enjoying the company of other children her own age. Watching Lilly so confidently looking forward to school is the clincher – nursery has helped make her a confident and outgoing child who cannot wait for the chance to make more friends, and we want the same for Isla in two years time.

We were not expecting this transition to be easy. I arranged with nursery that Isla would do four settling in sessions before her start date. The first one, I took her and stayed with her for the whole time. She wasn’t very sure when we walked in and asked a few times to go home. She wouldn’t acknowledge the other children, and got upset when they crowded round her to see the new girl. She liked painting but had a complete meltdown when one of the staff suggested she wear an apron! I could tell she liked the look of the slide and the cosy coupe car in the playground, but she refused to actually go on them. BUT… coming away from nursery she talked positively about the experience, told everybody who would listen about her painting and agreed to go back again the next week.

During the second session, I took Eve to the baby room at the same time. I reckoned that Eve would be absolutely fine, so we all spent a bit of time in the baby room before I took Isla next door. Then, I spent the hour going between the rooms to see both of them. Eve was absolutely fine, Isla cried and got upset everytime I went next door, although the amount of upset reduced noticeably each time, and I kept asking her: “Can mummy go next door to see Eve now?” and she would always agree, even if it was reluctantly.

So, on the third session, I dropped them off and left them for a full hour. My mum and I took Lilly to a cafe and we all talked about how weird it was to just be the three of us!

I left my mum and Lilly at the park and went back to get the two little ones. As I walked past the open window of the baby room, I heard a familiar high-pitched screaming… surely it couldn’t be?? She wasn’t due a bottle, or a sleep, or anything!

But yes, it was Eve, screaming, red faced and hysterical! The staff were trying in vain to calm her with a bottle, a dummy, anything!

Apparently, she had been fine, but then they had brought Isla in to visit her, because Isla was a bit upset. Seeing her baby sister seemed to work for Isla, and she calmed down. But it upset Eve and she had been screaming for the 20 minutes since!

After Eve was mainly calm, I carried her next door to find Isla. We spotted her before she spotted us – she was playing but her face was red and she was still gulping back sobs, trying to be brave. As soon as she saw us she exploded into tears – which set Eve off again screaming and screaming in my other arm!

Ah yes, it was definitely “one of those moments” – I’m sure any mum of more than one knows what I mean!

But, as we walked away from nursery, the sobs just about abated, Isla announced very loudly “We LOVE nursery!” which made all the staff laugh!

And, I’m happy to say that the fourth and final settling in session was a marked improvement. Isla didn’t cry at all, after the initial upset of me leaving. And Eve was happy and relaxed, even drifting off to sleep in her keyworker’s arms.

This was two weeks ago and things are still going fairly well. Eve has been absolutely fine, sleeping ok and never upset. Isla gets upset everytime I leave, but I am assured that she gets over it and has even started playing with some of the other children, a little tiny bit. Her favourite thing is the play kitchen and she spends a lot of her time there.

I don’t know whether Isla will ever be as enthusiastic about nursery as her big sister, or whether she will always have that little wobble knowing that we are about to leave her there. But Tony and I feel so strongly that this will be good for her in the long run, and it has to be done. We’ve been reading her all the ‘starting nursery’ books we can get our hands on and even Lilly has been roped in to tell Isla how great nursery is!

Hopefully this is the start of a very happy relationship, for both of them.

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Starting school…

Next week Lilly will start primary school – and she cannot wait!

Having been at nursery since she was six months old, thankfully going to school holds no fear for Lilly and I know she will go in on her first day without a backward glance.

The school Lilly will go to is the same school her daddy was preparing to enter for the first time 28 years ago, although a lot has changed since then!

Before the end of term last year Lilly had an afternoon session at the school, and a home visit from her lovely new teacher, Mrs S. She was absolutely in her element, especially exploring Reception class’s outside playarea (they have scooters and everything!) and she was extremely excited to discover the model making area inside – she wasted no time getting out the glue and creating herself a super glittery butterfly!

Her classroom even has a ‘snack station’ where the kids can help themselves to as much fruit as they like, and pour themselves a drink of water or milk.

Lilly finished nursery at the end of the last school term, so she has been off for six weeks and, although it hasn’t been as bad as we thought it might have been, it has probably been a little bit boring for her while she looks forward to school and misses her nursery friends (none of whom are going to the same school). She has coped admirably, but she does ask quite often “am I starting school next week? How many weeks to go?”

We have now got all the uniform and all the stuff we need. School meals are chosen and pre-ordered online (how fancy!) We are all absolutely itching to get started with this exciting new chapter in Lilly’s life.

The only one out of all of us who does have some nagging doubts is me. I feel a little bit sad that Lilly will no longer be “ours”. We can’t just decide to keep her off school because we’re going to go on a fun day out instead. We’ll only get time with Lilly when school term time says we can. And we won’t be swanning off to Center Parcs every five minutes because it is SO BLOODY EXPENSIVE out of term time.

Also, Isla is going to be bereft without her little buddy to play with everyday. She doesn’t realise what is about to happen, but I know she will really miss her big sister. She has just started nursery two days a week, which will help (seperate blog post to come about that one…) but it will be no substitution for Lilly. Today, Isla has been poorly and fed up with a high temperature. I sent Tony out with the other two girls to make the most of the Bank Holiday Monday and Isla and I have been snuggled on the sofa while she feels a little bit sorry for herself. But when Lilly returned, Isla was transformed! Perked up straight away and was straight off the sofa wanting to play.

All in all though, I am excited too. Lilly is SO ready for school. Ready to learn, ready to make lots of new friends. I will be so proud the day I see my biggest baby in her school uniform with her book bag hopping from foot to foot because she’s so desperate to get going. And I know it will make me think back to that moment, just after she’d been born, when I looked at this teeny tiny baby that I’d wanted so desperately, and realised it had really happened, she was mine, to look after and love forever. And now that little baby is a little schoolgirl, full of so much potential.

Will I cry when I drop her off on the first day? No.

I don’t think so, anyway…

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Birthday celebrations

Last weekend was a hectic and busy one full of birthday celebrations for Isla, who has now turned two!

On her birthday Lilly woke up at the crack of dawn (not unusual for her), very excited because it was Isla’s birthday. Isla however, played it cool and slept in for another hour and a half, until about 6.30am. Lilly was very impatient and wanted to go and wake her up!

We had put up birthday banners and balloons, and left Isla’s birthday presents out for her to find, and her cards on the mat.

I had had a little word with Lilly before Isla got up, about letting Isla open her birthday presents and not snatching them off her to do it for her – because, afterall, Isla is a big girl now!

Well, Lilly was very good, and held herself back from ripping all the paper off the presents, but she was keen for Isla to open her presents QUICK QUICK because she couldn’t wait to find out what they all were. Isla was much more laid back about everything and wanted to take her time, very carefully tearing back the paper and wanting to examine the presents and start to play with them before moving onto the next one.

We were really pleased with her reaction to the presents – she seemed genuinely pleased with them all, and has actually played with them all since. Usually there is at least one or two that don’t seem to go down too well. She was very lucky and got lots of books, a My Little Pony train (probably the biggest hit), a Baby Jake tractor, a Thomas train and the main present, A SkuttleBug trike.

Unfortunately, the arguing started quite soon after all the presents were open, mainly over who was going on the Skuttlebug or pressing the button on the My Little Pony train. In fact, we were refereeing over the presents all weekend…. grrrr!

Later on, we decided, as it was raining, to go to Blue Planet Aquarium in Ellesmere Port. It wasn’t our brightest idea – we have been there before, a long time ago, and weren’t too impressed. But we thought we’d give it another go. But we soon remembered why we weren’t keen before – it is very expensive – luckily Isla was just short enough to still be free but we still paid £42 for 2 adults and one child – if we’d had to pay for Isla it would’ve been £52! Inside is ok, but nowhere near good enough to justify that price, in my opinion. Going through at a pre-school pace (e.g. quite quick), you can see everything in about half an hour. The playground (too small for the place) was packed with boisterous big kids on a school trip, and the cafe (selling overpriced rubbish food – £6.70 for a rollover hotdog meal ‘deal’) was a bit grotty, the tables not very clean and the microwave to warm baby food /milk was dirty.

To cap it all off, Isla decided a short while into the trip that she was scared of fish. So she spent a lot of the time running past all the tanks shouting: “My don’t like it!!”

So, not particularly successful.

However, Isla DID enjoy dancing to some of the atmospheric “fishy” music, running under all the roped off queueing areas outside, climbing on a log and pressing the button in the lift. Lilly liked running around, and LOVED the travelator walkway through the tunnel under the big tank. And Eve seemed to like looking at the fish. So all was not lost. (Except the 42 quid, unfortunately!)

Off to Blue Planet

But birthday girl mainly liked the non-fish related activity!

But no worries. We all came home and enjoyed a cupcake birthday treat ahead of Isla’s main birthday cake, which was going to be for her birthday party on Sunday. I made the cakes the day before and Lilly and I iced them that morning while Isla was napping. We chose the best ones to spell out I-S-L-A all the way round the stand, with a 2 on the top. I wasn’t too happy when Daddy wandered in just before we were going to put the candles on and start singing, and helped himself to one of the cakes without thinking – leaving us with just “I-S-L”….. don’t worry, his ‘mistake’ was soon pointed out… and luckily we had iced some spares!

Isla surprised us all by being very good at blowing out the candles – although we had to relight them three times because Lilly kept blowing them out – she just couldn’t help herself!

On Saturday Lilly and I had a huge baking / cleaning session ahead of the family party on Sunday, while Tony took Isla and Eve to his parents. We made biscuits in the shape of 2s, and Lilly iced them. We also made a chocolate fudge cake, and decorated it with smarties and maltesers. We got a start on the buffet food for the next day. And then we cleaned and hoovered (well, I did, while Lilly pretended to join in!)

At the party on Sunday we had close family round, there were lots more presents, including a keyboard and Chad Valley CD player from her nanna and grandad and aunty Laura, and clothes, a drum and sticker books from her Grannie, other aunty and uncle. We had a buffet of Isla’s favourite food – pizza, garlic bread, hot dogs, nachos (ok, not Isla’s favourite, but it had crisps and cheese), cheese on sticks, crisps, cucumber and carrot sticks (also not Isla’s favourite, but definitely Lilly’s) etc etc.

My mum brought round two strawberry flans (one with and one without jelly as Lilly hates it, but loves strawberries) so we did well on the pudding front too.

We played pass the parcel and musical statues, and then Isla blew out the candles on her cake – Lilly had to clamp her hands over her mouth to stop her from giving into the temptation to blow them out too!

All in all, we had a lovely, but very tiring weekend! It struck me that, now we have three children, we have to do THREE BIRTHDAYS A YEAR. And then I had to sit down and have a glass of wine or ten  – that’s a lot of parties!

So, there you have it. Our middle baby is, as she now tells us quite often, not a baby anymore. She’s a big two year old. Wow!

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Happy 2nd birthday Isla!

My middle baby is two today… Happy Birthday Isla!

If I really think about it I cannot believe how quickly time has passed that already my little baby has gone from this:

to this:

So quickly!

But at the same time, it seems so long ago - Isla is already a big sister!  And a very good one, at that.

So, happy birthday darling Isla, you really are a ray of sunshine every day, with your cheeky grin and infectious giggles. Always in mischief and still such a sensitive soul at times.

We love you so very, very much. xxxxxxxx

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Back to work

Well, that time has come – Eve is 16 weeks today and on Monday I will be going back to work.

Yep – I know what you’re thinking – “that’s very early”.

Well, it is – and the simple reason is – after three children and three spells of maternity leave we simply cannot afford for this one to last any longer!

But it’s ok – Eve will be in the capable hands of her doting daddy, who is staying at home with the girls again (for a little while at least – but that’s a whole other story), and I enjoy my job so it’s not all bad. Plus, I’ll be able to drink whole uninterrupted cups of coffee, wander round the shops ON MY OWN in my lunchbreak and even go to the toilet without anybody following me!

I am definitely going to miss my babies, especially Eve as she is still growing and changing so much every day at the moment, and I am really worried about how Tony is going to cope – three pre-schoolers is definitely a job for two people, at least!! But he will manage and I think he will even surprise himself.

We’re both excited about the future, especially Lilly starting at school. We had a very good meeting at the school this week at which we met her teacher and toured around the classroom. We both came away feeling extra confident that she will really love school and that it’ll be really good for her.

We have had so many changes of our day-to-day routine over the last few years, I think we are getting quite good at adapting ourselves! And there is likely to be more change coming over the next few months, hopefully all for the better.

So, goodbye maternity leave. You have been great. I have spent some lovely times with all three of my babies and also plenty of time with my hubby too. But now it’s time to get on with the next chapter…

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We were there… following the torch

Well, this has been the weekend of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the world (well, the UK) has gone Union Jack crazy!

Our local town is decked out in thousands of flags, but not only because of the Jubilee, but also because last week the Olympic Torch relay came through the town.

We spent an enjoyable afternoon “following the torch”, as did hundreds of people in our town – it was something hubby and I probably wouldn’t have bothered with if it wasn’t for the children, but as it turned out it was a really nice occasion with a lovely community atmosphere.

There aren’t many times in life when you leave the house to walk to something, and all the neighbours are pouring out of their houses doing the same thing. And when we got to the road down which the torch was going to travel, it was lined with people of all ages – from a local Guide group doing cheerleading to some elderly people sitting on fold out chairs waving their flags and wearing their Union Jack hats!

We had to wait a little while before anything happened and the children did start to get a little bit bored – but they had a flag each to wave (even Eve – although I may have borrowed hers to use myself!)

But soon the convoy of vehicles started to pass and then we got our first glimpse of the torch

And then we all waved and cheered as it passed

After all that excitement, we walked up to the local pub which was holding a fun day and Lilly had a little ride on the fairground before we came home.

All in all we really enjoyed the occasion, it was something a bit different to see and experience, and it is good that we’ll be able to tell the girls when they’re older – “you were there”.

As for the Diamond Jubilee, we have been a little busy with Tony’s birthday this weekend, but we did make a Union Jack cake and watch some of the boats on the Thames over the weekend on TV. Oh, and of course the Peppa Pig special!

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Let the mini adventures begin…

It is now only four weeks before I return to work, and Tony has finished the work he was doing during my maternity leave so that we can spend plenty of time together as a family before I officially hand over the childcare reigns to him once again!

Over the last few weeks we have thought a lot about how we will spend these precious four weeks, we’ve even occasionally got carried away with the thought of a holiday – foreign or at home – but we a reality check on cost has meant that we have returned to our original plan of plenty of lovely local days out.

We started on Sunday with a trip to Martin Mere Wetland Centre in Lancashire. Hubby had fond memories of a school trip to this Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust run bird haven, so he expected great things. On the other hand, my expectations were low – bird spotting doesn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm and I imagined vast wetlands with a few birds in the distance, viewable only through binoculars (and really, who cares what kind they are?)

In fact, there were a series of different areas which you walked through all with different geographical themes. There were flamingoes, very close up, and loads of unusually coloured ducks (well, they looked like ducks to me). The grounds were quite pretty really, not just the barren, vast open spaces I imagined. There were also beavers (allegedly – we didn’t spot any), but my favourites were the otters.

You could buy a bag of bird seed for £1 which kept Lilly amused – and not ALL of it got dropped on the floor, which was a miracle good.

Lilly’s favourite thing was the slightly hair-raising walk along the stepping stones with daddy…

My least favourite bit was when Lilly anounced she needed a wee when we were exactly half way around the route – and of course the only toilets were back at the entrance…

All in all, I was more impressed than I thought I would be, Tony was less impressed than he remembered. And it was a bit pricey – all in all for two adults and one child (Isla and Eve were free) it came to about £25. I don’t think we’ll be rushing back, but it was a good start to our programme of days out.

On Monday we visited an old favourite – Croxteth Hall Country Park.

The girls had a good play on the playground before we went for a little walk (we brought Lilly’s scooter), had an explore in the trees and a quick game of football on the grass before visiting the little farm.

The only disappointment was when we sat down to eat some ice creams (the weather was lovely!) and Lilly stepped in dog dirt. It very much took the shine off the lovely time we were having as I had to try and clean her shoe as best I could before putting it back on her to get to the car – and then discovering that the pram wheels had also gone through the dirt so I had to use many more baby wipes to try and clean them… I could rant for days about how much I HATE irresponsible dog owners!!!!!

Once we got home and I had managed to wash my hands about 10 times to banish the memory of the dog poo, the girls had a lovely play out in the garden with their water table.

On Tuesday the weather was still beautiful so we stayed at home and played in the garden. Then on Wednesday we took ourselves to Chester Zoo (where we are members) and had a lovely day in the blazing sunshine. We enjoyed a picnic in a (hard to find) shady spot and visited some of our favourites – Lilly’s being the dinosaurs which are currently there temporarily. Isla finds the dinosaurs too scary so while Lilly, daddy and a sleeping Eve were looking at them Isla and I had a lovely time together watching the penguins, giraffes and butterflies. We had a lovely day finishing up with some ice lollies for everyone.

We are starting to get used to all the things we need to take and the logistics of days out as a threesome – it seems to take hours of preparation and we have a full car load of stuff (we recently upgraded our car to a proper people carrier – just as well!) But hopefully Eve is getting a little more patient and there seems to be less screaming (except when milk is due!) so the days out have become a little less stressful.

Now we’re just hoping that the fabulous weather continues for a while – we have plans for another trip to the seaside tomorrow and our first barbecue in this house on Saturday!

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