Blue skies

Climbing trees, walking, feeding ducks with Grandma and painting the house with water. We like sunny days!

What is a shark made of?

This is the question I was asked before I opened my eyes yesterday morning. We spent the day moving through many others, including: 'What is the sea made of?' 'Where is Greece?' 'Are cats made of bones, like humans?' and 'What is snot made of?' Nice.

This little boy has become the most inquisitive little person I've ever met. He's always been intrigued by everything, wanted to know how things work and where they come from, but suddenly it's a whole new level of questioning. I'm lucky to be able to hear all these questions and talk about the answers with him, I don't know if a pre-school or nursery would be quite so freely able to spend an afternoon finding worms to see why they don't have legs or making food really, really slowly so we can see how everything goes together to make something else.

That doesn't mean I don't have a moment of 'argh!' with most of the questions, though! They're fascinating, funny and interesting but it's also a little exhausting! Today, especially. On Monday my wonderful childhood friend, who has lived abroad for many years, came to visit us. We had a wonderful, relaxing lunch and talked for hours. She also brought me a lovely box of rich, Belgian chocolates.Yesterday afternoon, my biggest girl expressed disappointment that we hadn't saved a chocolate for her - surprising, as we hadn't actually opened them yet... but somebody had. He'd 'suddenly wanted them', and had eaten every last one in the space of three minutes while I brought the shopping into the house. They were very strong, dark chocolate, so I admire his persistance in getting through the whole lot - one would've given me a headache! He finally managed to stop singing and rocking at about 9.30pm, and woke up today at 4.30am. He's been like a live wire all day, alternately yelling manic questions and bursting into floods of devastated tears. He fell asleep in about two minutes tonight, so I hope normal service will be resumed tomorrow - and perhaps I'll keep chocolates on a higher shelf in future!

Sunshine and smiles...

 We went to dartmoor zoo in the sunshine - a rare family trip as I don't really like zoos (and our weekends usually disappear in a haze of cricket, gigs and gardening) but we all had a great time. The zoo is set in beautiful grounds and most of the animals have plenty of space and the children really loved seeing such amazing creatures - my littlest girl especially loves animals (although she calls them all dogs - still no need for other words in her little world...) and my boy fell in love with a tiger, standing outside her house listening to her snoring!

 Of course, a highlight of the day was the ridiculously expensive play corner. Slightly annoying as the website had promised unspoilt grounds with only fields for the children to play in... but how could we resent for long anything that makes this big girl grin like this. It was great to see these two playing so happily together.

 And then a beautiful walk with friends the next day gave an aspiring climber a chance to get stuck in a few trees...

and the rest of us the chance to appreciate how beautiful this area is and how very lucky we are to live here.

And last night, we decided to go and watch the olympic flame procession - alternating between feeling patriotic and feeling frustrated at the amount of sponsorship and corporate branding involved in what ought to have been a community event... - and we ate fish and chips on the seafront. Here's a very patriotic baby, allowed to hold the flag the children had pilfered from somewhere along the way for the first time all afternoon and making the most of it!

Some lovely days, making a change from what has become the norm - being indoors and watching the rain! I could get used to this sunshine...

Learning all day long

Wow, we just came downstairs after doing some puzzles and building some walls (with mega-blocks, not cement, much to the continuing disappointment of a small boy who loves the building site opposite our road...) and I thought it was about 3.30pm. It was 5pm! Luckily, the biggest girl has been on her climbing course this afternoon so we've just been able to completely lose track of time and it's flown by! So my instant tea-saviour (pasta and pesto) is cooking while I blog...

The children have been so happy doing their own thing this week - we've spent two days at Forest School with them delightedly splashing through the puddles and caking themselves in mud, and today we went to a singing session in our town and have spent the rest of the day learning and playing all at once. We discovered some brilliant letter magnets that stick on the radiator and can be matched up with words and pictures, so that amused a certain little man for ages! We also discovered a good way to make a den out of our dining table - and isn't reading so much more fun by torchlight? We found a couple of books we hadn't read for a while, too, which made it extra special!

Incidentally, I haven't eaten wheat in a couple of weeks (yes, even the birthday cakes were gluten free!) and today had a bit of bread for lunch - it was awful! My stomach really aches and I've felt tired all afternoon - I really don't know why I bother! I've been juicing, and the difference to my motivation and wellness is brilliant - I've finally felt able to start some writing projects I've been thinking about for months and it's really exciting :)

Another day, another party...

 So, Phil normally gets a leftover fairycake from his son's birthday with a candle stuck in the top. If I remember/can find a candle. This is the peril of having your birthday a couple of days after your son. Definitely an ill-advised option. This year he was thirty and was in such denial, you'd really have been forgiven for thinking it was eighty-five (except by him. He certainly would not have forgiven that confusion.) and so we decided to force him into a celebratory mood and held a BBQ party, complete with a huge birthday cake dedicated entirely to him. It took quite a few people to help him eat it, though! The weather held out ok and we borrowed a gazebo so some people braved it but the rest of us brought our barbequed food inside and added it to the remains of the buffet after the tinies had eaten their way through quite a few things...

It was a lovely day and despite the enormous amount of washing up, I quite enjoyed the whole thing! Phil loved it and was really glad we'd made the effort. Happy Birthday Phil!

One of those days...

No, she is not bleeding from her eye socket. She isn't unhappy either, she found the whole thing hilarious but didn't feel like smiling for the evidence shot. Her big brother is now aware of two things:

1. You should never facepaint a baby without checking with a grown up
2. You should never facepaint an eye.

Whether he'll remember these things, or whether we'll have a similar exciting event while preparing breakfast tomorrow, who can say! After a minor panic, we realised it washes off quite easily and she doesn't seem to have any left in her eye...

A long day, which has pretty much carried on in the same way it began. The newly four-year-old is suddenly determined to do his own thing regardless of logic and consequences, which means being extra-vigilant and spending more time shouting warnings than I'd like. I'm still in the endless school/not-school dilemma and days like today really suggest he's not ready for a 28-1 ratio of children-adults and needs more time to develop his individuality and confidence. He's growing a lot, eating masses and stammering a lot, so I know things will change really quickly and I don't want to feel that we're restricting him or keeping him from having a community (where we live, the community IS the school and EVERYONE goes) if he could gain a lot from being part of it. On the other hand, if he's allowed to develop at his own pace and we can create enough community elsewhere (which we can't do without driving to groups about 20 mins away) that may be enough for him. I've never worried so much about something that wasn't a life/death issue! I think I just need to keep reminding myself that nothing is fixed. We know he's not ready right now, so just need to keep re-assessing where we are NOW rather than trying to plan the next few years all at once.

Ah, another blog post which has gone off on a tangent. Some things are predictable, after all!

Beltane Blessings

Things that are making me smile today:

My boy telling me 'a big four year old is coming in' before he enters the kitchen
My littlest girl snuggling in and giving me a great big bear hug
My biggest girl asking me to help her find ways to relax and de-stress (she's cracked the concept fifteen years before I did...)
Making Beltane crowns for the children at Forest School

Sharing a sunny morning in the woods and dancing around the Maypole (well, more like crawling, really. One in the sling and one on my back, threading his may ribbon around my neck. Maybe I'm lying about the smiling with this one. It was a nice idea.)
Singing spring songs
Watching all of the children making cards for Daddy's birthday - even the tiniest girl can draw a picture (of sorts...) now

Things that would make me smile more:

Not having just burned the pitta breads so that they now resemble bullets and have to go straight in the bin.
Getting some sleep. Any amount would be an improvement on the last three weeks. 
Having two minutes to write a blog post without having one child on my lap trying to dismantle the computer and the other standing on the chair behind me, apparently trying to break my neck in a very loving way.
Not being yelled at and made demands of constantly for hours and days on end.


Hmm, I feel very much in need of those ways of relaxing and de-stressing myself at the moment! Breathe. Breathe more. Does anyone have a contact number for Mary Poppins?

Beltane Blessings to you all, sending love and attempting positive thoughts!xxx