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 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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Funny things they say May edition

We were out at the shops and Lilly had brought her cuddly toy cat, and was dragging him behind her by the ribbon tied around his neck.

Daddy: “Don’t drag that cat along the ground Lilly, he’s getting dirty paws”
L: “He’s not!”
Me: “He is Lil, he’s going to be filthy”
L: “Oh, don’t you start”

—–

L (Waving her fairy wand): “I’m a fairy, I’m doing wishes! What’s your wish Isla?
Isla (considering): “Errrrrr…. BICCIE!”

Later, talking about dreams:
L: “What did you dream about last night Isla?”
I: “Errrrr… BICCIE!”

—–

We are in the car & Eve is wailing.
I (clutching her ears):”Too loud! Too loud!”

—–

Lilly in complimentary mode:

“Mummy, I love you. You are the BEST mummy I have EVER had!”

And:

“Mmmm, this toast is absolutely nice”

—–

Lilly, talking about dinosaurs:

“Mum, do you remember when there was no people and no dinosaurs? I mean, there was dinosaurs and then there was no dinosaurs, and then there was just people? And, do you know?! There wasn’t televisions like our televisions. The televisions then were black and white!! Can you believe it??”

Related articles

• Terrible twos strike again – Isla at 22 months (growingmyfamilytree.wordpress.com)
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Little boys and little girls

This week, Lilly had her best friend Daniel round to our house to play.

When you are four, having a friend round for tea is definitely up there as one of THE. MOST. EXCITING. THINGS. EVER, along with birthday parties, of course.

They certainly enjoyed themselves and, on the whole, they were both very well behaved. For us though, as parents of three little girls, it was an eye opener to see how differently little boys play.

I’ve never really thought of Lilly as all that girly, although now I realise that she probably is. She plays very imaginative games that tend to act out pretty normal circumstances and situations, but when Daniel was playing, there were lots of themes which have never crept into Lilly’s play, and which I know for a fact neither of them really understand – we had kidnapping of babies, giants, killing the police, putting joys in jail, explosions and dramatic death scene re-enactments!

At one point, D was pretending to be on the phone, reporting a crime. The conversation went like this:

“Hello, I’ve stolen a baby…

“…I’m the police, I’m going to get you…

“…I’m a big giant…

“…Ok, I’m not going to get you now… bye”

Which did make me chuckle.

On another occasion, D said to Lilly: “Kill the police! Come on Lilly, kill the police” To which Lilly replied, with genuine surprise and total incomprehension of what she was being asked to do: “I can’t do that, I’m not a kill!”

It was a little bit of a shock to us, as they are only 4! But a quick tweet confirmed that many parents of 4-year-old boys were familiar with the type of play I’m talking about.

Lilly has always tended to play with boys more than girls so far at nursery. But I wonder whether they are now reaching the age where the type of games they like to play become just too different. It will be interesting when she starts school, with a whole new group of friends, whether she tends to gravitate towards boys or girls.

And there was another eye opener for us when they sat down to tea. I was pretty pleased with myself, having laid them both a place at the table (and having managed to cook them tea while technically in solo charge of FOUR CHILDREN AT ONCE). Daniel took one look at the table and said: “I can’t eat with a GIRLY fork!” Yep, of course, the only kids cutlery we have is for girls… it has flowers, or hearts or pink on it… we had to search to the depths of the cutlery draw to find something acceptably macho – yellow with an abc pattern seemed to suffice…

Phew. Glad we had girls…

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Can a tomboy become a pink princess overnight?

Its funny, but in the couple of weeks before Lilly turned four, a few strange things happened to our little tomboy.

1. She decided that pink was now her favourite colour, not red

2. She developed an obsession with Hello Kitty

3. She made the dramatic announcement that: “I like Princesses now” when she saw a Disney book about Cinderella

Just to get this clear – this is a girl who has always actively disliked dolls and whose favourite ever toys have been Thomas the Tank Engine and Roary the Racing Car. She has never watched  Disney film – except some bits of Alice in Wonderland and Happy Feet – and she has never been into dressing up as a princess or generally interested in things just because they are pink.

But, on her 4th birthday, among her favourite presents were a box of My Little Ponies that I rather optimistically bought her, not knowing if she would like them but hoping she would one day, as they used to be my favourite thing when I was little. She loves them! And she has even seemed a little bit interested in brushing their hair and letting them admire themselves in the mirror!

All day on her birthday she insisted on being a princess, and wearing a tiara, even while bombing down the tunnel slide at the soft play.

And the Hello Kitty thing - I have no idea where this has come from! But it seems to be a total girlie fest and she likes dressing her Hello Kitty in different outfits from her extensive wardrobe.

So, has our little tomboy become a girlie girl? I suppose it is too early to say. Watch this space!

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4th birthday party fun

Well, we all surivived hosting our first proper children’s party – and I am happy to report that the star of the show had a fabulous time too!

I blogged a few weeks ago about preparation for Lilly’s 4th birthday party, and the stresses of who to invite and how many.

The party was held at our favourite local soft play place on New Year’s Eve, and we ended up sending out 14 invitations to Lilly’s friends from nursery (whittled down from a list of about 20 names that they helped us come up with).

In the run up to the day we had only had 9 RSVPS, and still had 6 we hadn’t heard from. That despite the fact that I put reminders in all the Christmas cards, grrrrr. Luckily the place only charged us for the number of children who turned up on the day, not the number we expected. As it turned out, none of the non-repliers turned up, as I suspected they might have done, and all those who had confirmed arrived, except one little girl whose mum text to tell us she was ill. It meant a total of 10 children at the party, which was more than enough I think!

We arrived at the venue about half an hour before the party was due to begin – Lilly was on tenterhooks waiting at the door for the first of her friends to arrive! As soon as they started arriving we hardly saw her, she was off having loads of fun, still wearing the tiara she insisted on having on because she was being a birthday princess!

The children played in the soft play for a while before the bouncy assault course was blown up in the party room, and they were called through. Lilly had a couple of half hearted bounces on it before declaring it “too bouncy for me” and going off to do other things! With a bit of gentle persuasion (the bouncy castle was £25 extra!) and a leg up she eventually came round to the idea of the bouncy course and managed to get a good few goes on the slide in before it was deflated again.

All the excitement of the bouncing sent some of the boy guests a little bit hyper and they were off running around the soft play and weren’t interested in the prospect of returning to the party room for a quiet spot of Pass The Parcel. In contrast, the girls were only too ready to sit nicely in a circle cross legged and patiently waiting for the more rowdy boys to make an appearance!

After pass the parcel they played some parachute games, which some of the parents joined in for and which all the children seemed to enjoy. Then it was time for party food, after the blowing out of the candles on the Hello Kitty cake and everybody singing Happy Birthday.

Isla wasn’t in the best of moods, because she’d refused her morning nap. Luckily we had Nanna, Grandad, Aunty and Uncle and Grannie on hand to help out. She played in the soft play while most of the party games and bouncy castle were going on, and then joined in when the food was served. She couldn’t belive how brilliant it was getting a hotdog, slice of chocolate swiss roll, cheesey wotsits and a malted milk biscuit all on one plate! And then they brought her jelly too! She was in heaven!

After the party, family all came back to our house for a little while, Lilly opened all her presents (spoilt rotten, again!) and we had some cupcakes which I had baked and iced to spell out ‘Lilly 4′.

All in all I think she had a fabulous day and was chuffed to bits to be four, although she did ask: “Do I still go to nursery now?” because she knows that four year olds start school!

In all it cost us just over £100 which, considering we didn’t have to do anything except decide who to invite and then invite them, wasn’t too bad, I don’t think. But I guess this children’s party thing could get more expensive once we have three all wanting parties!

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