Wedding anniversary

It is my wedding anniversary tomorrow. I will have been married to M for 5 years. How are we celebrating? Are we going out for a candlelight, romantic meal with champagne and music? Will we stroll arm in arm along a riverbank, talking about this and that? Will we end the day in bed together, just the 2 of us?

In a word, no.

We are going to Oxford tomorrow for the express purpose of going to the Natural History Museum. I went with the children and my mum last year and my son loved it. There are loads of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures there. He has been talking about going there all summer. So we are going this weekend. My son likes drawing and art, so we will go to either the Ashmolean art gallery or Museum of Modern Art too. All geared around his interests (until his sister can express her own interests, at the moment her interests are whatever her brother likes. I am sure that will change soon!)

We will have a rather fast, potentially stressful meal. At home we can’t get both of them to sit down at the table for more than 10 minutes before the youngest throws food on he floor and demands a yoghurt, and the oldest starts getting down from the table and either lying on the floor or running off into another room, only to be brought back and made to sit at the table until we have all finished eating!

Then, after all that, we will get the children to eat and then sit in silence in the dark for fear of waking them up!

I am not sure I would have it any other way, though. Not really. Although I am already planning for us to go away just the 2 of us for our 10th anniversary.

Happy anniversary darling!

Oh what a night

We had an utterly dreadful night last night in term’s of the children sleeping. The evening started positively enough with them both going to sleep very quickly, within minutes. Come to think of it, that is such a rare occurrence with our two that my husband and I should have known it would all go to pot later on.

So my daughter woke up crying a couple of times in the evening, which is no surprise for her. Each time she resettled nice and quickly. I stayed up working on a crocheted doll I am making, and at 1 am my son woke up crying a little and calling for MummyDaddy. He wanted to go to the toilet, and actually this is one of the first times he has ever woken himself up to go to the toilet so I was quite proud of him. He was excited that it was so dark outside, and pleased it was me going up to him. (As I am still breastfeeding his sister at night it is usually his father who goes into R when he wakes in the night.)

After going to the toilet I took R back to bed and lay down with him. We lie with him until he goes to sleep every night, and usually it takes 20-30 minutes for him to go to sleep and he then sleeps through the night. Last night I lay on his bed for 2 hours! I must have dozed on and off during this time, but every time I opened my eyes to see if he was asleep yet and I could escape, his eyes were open and he was smiling at me. So cute and infuriating all at the same time.

After 2 hours C woke up and she was screaming because Daddy was in bed with her not ‘immune. Her cries became more and more intense so I told R, who was very nearly asleep, that I needed to go and give her some milk and that Daddy would come in on my place – my husband usually falls asleep in R’a bed within 10 minutes of going in to see him. However, sibling rivalry and the need to have Mummy all to himself kicked in with R and he started crying. I could hear him shouting at his Daddy that he would only go to sleep if Mummy came in, that he didn’t want Daddy. He sobbed that he wanted Mummy, he needed Mummy; and C held on tighter to me to let me know she wanted me there too.

It was awful listening to it, both hearing how upset my son was and hearing what he was saying to my husband. I have been on the receiving end of the “I don’t want you” before and it hurts even though you know they are just lashing out and expressing frustration with their situation. I felt so guilty that I couldn’t be with him right then and there. But C needed me too and he would have been angry if he was in my bed and she was getting fed rather than him being cuddled.

It went on for a while and he was so loud C couldn’t drift off, so my husband took him downstairs to calm down. That worked only as long as he was downstairs and he started shouting and sobbing again as soon as he got upstairs. Thankfully C was able to ignore it and went to sleep so Daddy and I swapped places. My son then fell asleep really quickly once I went back in the room, the little sausage. So finally, at gone 4 am I crawled into my bed, C woke up briefly for another cuddle, and we all got some sleep.

This morning we were all in a bit of a sleep deprived haze. A haze that was familiar and not all that welcome!

I hope tonight is much better!

1 1/2 weeks left of the summer holidays

There are just 1 1/2 weeks left of the summer holidays. We still have a couple of lovely things to do as a family- we are going to the new Legoland Discovery Centre tomorrow and to Oxford for the weekend next weekend. It will be our 5th wedding anniversary, so we will spend it at the natural history museum there (the dinosaur museum to my boy). We will then have a fairly stressful dinner out or at the hotel, and then spend the evening sat in silence in the dark in a hotel room while the children sleep.

(A subject for another day, but I do find hotel accommodation for families is generally pretty awful in the UK. Sitting in silence in the dark is not a fun way to spend your holiday time, and so we often go for self catering accommodation, or back to the hotels that do cater much better for families by having a slightly separate area for adults and children.)

We have had our moments in the last 7 weeks, and there has been at least 1 occasion where I have told my husband that I was ready to sell the children as I could not bear the fighting any longer. However, I will miss my boy not being at home. I have thoroughly enjoyed it (I should say here that I have a lot of help with the 2 children from my mother, I take my hat off to those of you that manage to do this on your own, I couldn’t!)

This year I have been able to spend several hours with just my boy each week as my daughter goes off to her Grandma’s house. It has been so nice to have that time with him. I wanted to do that last summer as well, but my daughter was just too small and all about mummy then. This year it has made all the difference to my relationship with my son, and I finally feel like he has forgiven me for having had his sister.

We haven’t done anything overly exciting on those days, just a bit of baking, painting, making things. Or going to the shops to get his school uniform for next year. Even just sat on the settee watching a bit of Paw Patrol or reading a book together and having a little uninterrupted cuddle. But it has been so nice to spend that time with him. And so easy compared with the time I spend with my daughter who is constantly on the move.

I love our long, lazy summer mornings just the 3 of us. We actually have a little routine in place for the mornings now, and so rarely have tantrums then (he reserves them for dinner time usually), and when they finally stop fighting over playing with the same toys-will that ever happen?- then life will get even easier. There have been a couple of occasions where they have even played together with a toy for about 5 minutes without fighting. Amazing!

Next summer will be very different again with a 2 and 5 year old, but this one has been lovely. I will be a bit sad to see it go. Then I will drink a whole, hot cup of coffee without breaking up any fights!

(Pretending my children get on as well as these two in this picture!)

Surviving the summer holidays

We have 2 weeks left of the summer holidays. This summer holiday has last about 4 years so far- well 6 weeks, but it feels like 4 years today!

This year has been so very much easier than last year. Last year with a 3-5 month old and a 3 year old who was very angry with mummy for upsetting his world by bringing a noisy baby into it was just sheer bloody hard work, and I was very glad it was over when September rolled around. This year I have a 1 and 4 year old. The 4 year old has accepted that his sister is here to stay and the 1 year old knows no different. She doesn’t really have her own interests yet, they are mainly whatever her brother is doing. She absolutely adores him and thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread, so consequently she only wants to play with his toys, whatever he is playing with at that exact moment. He gets irritated with her messing with his toys (of course), and so they fight. All the time.

It used to be that I had to stop him from pushing her or hitting her over the head, but she is starting to retaliate- so now he still pushes, hits, screams, cries and now she does the same, and also sometimes bites him. I have become a referee most of the time! One day I will try to get them to sort it out amongst themselves, but with a 1 and a 4 year old that doesn’t work very often.

They do have some beautiful moments together, and you can see that they love each other, and really they are both patient with each other. However, when breakfast to lunchtime feels like 17 hours it is hard to remember that!

This morning one or other of them has been grumpy and crying. So I am very happy that we now have a naptime breather, and that Grandma is here today to take one out while I am home with the sleeper.

2 more weeks and I think everyone will be pleased to get back into our term time routine! In the meantime I am with 1 rather sleepy little girl.

Review: Paw Patrol at Botanical Gardens and Octonauts at Sealife Centre

In the last couple of weeks I have taken the children to events featuring characters from some of their favourite TV shows. Well, my son’s favourite shows at least. On 1 August we went to Birmingham Botanical Gardens where characters from Paw Patrol were appearing. On 7 August we went to National Sealife Centre to meet Peso and Shellington of the Octonauts crew as well as see all of the fish there.

At the Botanical Gardens (we are members so did not pay any extra to go in, but the cost was £25 to include entry to the gardens and 6 months family membership) an area on the lawn was fenced off for the characters to come into for the meet and greet.

When they arrived there were 2 of the Paw Patrol characters there, Marshall and Chase. There were quite a few Skye fans around me who were disappointed she wasn’t there, but whenever we have been to one of these things there are always just 2 of them. Marshall and Chase were led around this fenced off area and waved at or high fived the children waiting to see them. There were a lot of excitable small children there! After about 15/20 mins of this my 2 were bored and we wandered off. I think they stayed for not much longer.

There was also face painting, balloons, a bouncy castle and some merchandise available to purchase. There was a hot dog stand outside as well as the cafe inside. We did get a balloon for my eldest at an additional cost but didn’t do anything else because my son is not keen on any of the other activities.

The gardens are great and we go there a lot, especially in the spring and autumn. There is a playground, they are self contained so the children can’t escape anywhere, and for me the best thing is that no dogs are allowed in the gardens-I am quite scared of dogs, so a trip to the park is always a difficult experience for me. The cafe at Botanical Gardens has never been its best feature. The service has often been quite slow. However, they have made efforts with its appearance and have refurbished the toilets in the cafe and the serving area. There were more cakes on offer, but the children’s lunch boxes and cartons of juice or fruit shoots seemed to have disappeared. An odd choice in the summer, and an even more odd choice at an event designed to get children into the gardens with their parents. I was disappointed with what was on offer for the children.

The event at the National Sealife Centre was billed this way on the website: “help the Octonauts crew solve the mind-bending puzzles of the mystery tanks. Includes exclusive meet and greet with Shellington and Peso!” I paid £13 per ticket for 3 of us with my youngest going free as she is under 3. This did include entry to Sealife Centre and was an advance booking offer.

My son loves fish. Loves them. We have been to loads of aquaria (is that the right word?) with him and he always enjoys it. He is also a massive Octonauts fan. So when I saw that Sealife Centre would be Octonauts themed for the summer I jumped at getting tickets for him. There was also usually an Octonauts film on in their 4D cinema. I expected some Octonauts games or theming around the place-it was on all summer after all, not just for 1 day- my son was excited to meet the Octonauts and I had tempered his expectations that there would only be 2 of them there not the whole crew.

So when we arrived and the only theming was a game where you noted down letters from an Octonauts picture in some of the tanks to exchange for a badge; when the meet and greet only involved one character who simply stood there- an opportunity for the staff to try to sell you a picture they took as well, not just a meet and greet; when we did not see the second character anywhere else in the venue; when the film in the 4D cinema had changed and was no longer an Octonauts film, we were disappointed. My son liked meeting Shellington andromeda the one puzzle, but I felt that the venue were doing the bare minimum for this event. I certainly won’t rush to book for one of these events again.

I felt the same with the Paw Patrol event, the bare minimum had been done for the event and all the additional things at the venue were opportunities for parents to spend money, but even there the characters made some effort to interact with the children rather than just stand there like the one did at Sealife Centre. Why not put on a very small show at regular intervals and hold the meet and greet after that? Or get the characters to say hello to the boys and girls coming to see them. It was a missed opportunity for something really special.

My daughter loves dogs

As many people who know me in real life know I don’t like dogs. I am, in fact, scared of them.

Having 2 children I don’t want to pass this fear on to them and always try to keep it under wraps when I am out with them and we come across dogs.

It seems that I may have been over compensating however, as my 1 year old loves dogs. She adores them. As soon as she hears one she gets so excited and starts maki g her woof woof sounds. When we see them she wants to chase after then and pet them! While I am pleased she doesn’t have my fear of dogs it doesn’t half lead to some awkward situations for me.

I am not going to get a dog, however, no matter how much she begs me.