A better day...

It was like deja vu this morning. Car all packed, lovely day planned, children sitting/sleeping peacefully in the back... car won't start. Last week I cried. We missed our lovely Natural Learning Group on the farm and I spent most of the day feeling annoyed with the universe! Today it wasn't a full moon, so I had a more balanced approach to the disappointment...

We made cake first of all, experimenting with banana and carrot to replace the sugar and eggs. Really tasty but too much bicarb and no butter substitute that I'm happy to use has presented itself yet so too dairy-fied for Finn and Evie, really. Coconut oil is amazing with things like roast potatoes, I've discovered (having put off trying it for months!) as you can't taste coconut at all, but I can't get past it in cakes. Anyway, then we had a snack lunch and then 'relax' time.'Relax time' is new in our house. It's especially designed to preserve my sanity and give this little boy a chance to wind down, recharge and regain some calm for the rest of the day. He often sleeps in the car or the pushchair but finds it really hard to sleep at home so this has been a great introduction to some of our days. Finn loves helping me to get the blankets and cushions out on the floor, then we all lie down and listen to some relaxing music, courtesy of youtube. Sometimes it's a brief interlude in the chaos - a few minutes without water being poured on the carpet, toys being thrown in the toilet and paper being ripped up all over the place - and sometimes it ends like this, with my two babies (and me!) fast asleep in a pile of cosiness on the floor.

This little lady woke up first, in a lovely mood! Then Finn woke up and we carried on with the youtube theme, looking up lots of silly nursery rhyme videos and playing the instruments along with them. Finn's always loved music and Chloe has recently been teaching him samba rhythms so it was great to watch him encouraging Evie to drum too! And he gave me very strict instructions on how to play the xylophone!
Chloe had the school magazine club after school, which Phil is able to pick her up from as it's his early day. It's lovely not to have to walk up to school and today it meant we had time to go and explore the play house when the rain stopped. This is one of the reasons we bought this house! It's such a lovely garden and has been so well-loved. This play house was lovingly painted by the previous owner before we moved in, although his children are grown up now. Chloe and Finn both love this little space and I must admit to being very envious of it! We put the toy kitchen stuff out there as the house is smaller than our previous house so there isn't any space for them inside, so this afternoon Finn cooked potatoes (rocks) with salad (weeds) for Evie and I to savour...
Quite the little chef! A lovely day, in the end. I lost the will to live at tea time, when stir fry turned into rice-all-over-the-floor, but luckily Phil was happy to swap bathtime with hoovering time, and for once I preferred the option of more child-time to a quieter but infinitely less appealing clean-up. I suppose that's another sign that we had a good day, as usually I'm itching for some breathing space by this point! And the car battery is all charged and ready for another attempt at a farm day tomorrow... fingers crossed!