Monster & Teeny

Monday - Bank Holiday. Often A has to work Bank Holidays but this time he didn’t. We had’t actually planned anything much. I had a lie in and woke to find everyone else watching Little Shop of Horrors, which has become the new family favourite with Monster already learning the words to all the songs.

We went downt to the seafront where there is always a Bank Holiday market and wandered round that looking at all the tat for sale for a while before walking down to the beach. A took lots of pictures, Monster sat on a rock as close to the breaking waves as he could get (which of course meant he got wet!), while Teeny and I clambered on rocks and collected pebbles to put on our cat’s grave. We couldn’t find anything resembling the beautiful pebbles we’d seen on the beach in Wales the week before which had inspired us to use painted pebbles for decorating the grave though, so I think we may think again on that.

We then popped over to BIL and SIL for chatting and playing.

Tuesday In the morning there was much playing with the brio-alike wooden train track. Monster has a fairly large collection of this amassed over several years but it has always been one of those toys I wanted him to have rather than he was desperate for himself. Bet all our children have some of those . He was doing lots of vocal working out for how many straight and curved bits he’d need and counting how many bits he’d used when he’d finished.

In the afternoon we made some posters for decorating the hall his birthday party will be held at. About six months ago he started talking about and planning a Wallace and Gromit themed birthday party for himself. He has always had passions for a film or TV character starting with Buzz Lightyear when he was about 2 years old but I think Wallace and Gromit have been the most enduring. We have made all sorts of replicas of the characters including papier mache, plasticine, air drying clay and drawn pictures laminated. We have all the films and a massive collection of car boot sale and charity shop cuddly toys, I have hand sewn a Wallace for Monster and a Totty for Teeny and the obsession has generally spilt over to all the family. When he first talked about a party we did things like made job lists to plan the guest list, the venue, the party games, the themed food etc and although I have facilitated it - and placed limits where necessary really this is something he has planned and created. 

We dug out paint pens and a roll of paper and made large posters of all their favourite characters together.

Today was also, unfortunately the day when various struggles I’ve been having with the children came to a head. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons and excuses for both their and my behaviour but on a day when Teeny had me questionning my anti-smacking policy, Monster had me questionning my Home Educating ideals and they both had me looking up adoption agencies and considering breaking them up for parts and selling them on ebay something had to change! After debate with A and lots of serious thinking we have formulated a plan and things are improving. One of the biggest issues is that I get so little time away from the children that we inevitably get simply fed up or bored with each other’s company - tbh I would feel the same about any individual I spent 7 days a week with, A included! I actually really enjoy my own company and it is so rare I get to spend time alone I end up resenting everyone around me for simply being there. I also think Monster - at 6 is going through a classic phase of being a boy and needing to do the boisterous, physical, loud and silly thing that six year old boys round the country get to do in their playground time at school each weekday. Now I can’t replicate that but I can work towards at least providing him opportunity for more physical exersion and try and find some channel or outlet for all that energy in a production manner. To that end I’m looking at pursuits like football for him and of course Badgers starts again next week which I’m sure will help too.

We also decided to put into place our long term plan that both children periodically go off to work with A for the day.

Wednesday Our regular date with SIL, J & M and Lucy, R & R at the park. Lucy came round in the morning for a while first and then we headed off to a new park and met up with Julie there. It’s a local park which has had some massive injection of cash from somewhere (local council? lottery grant?) which has been spent on some fantastic play equipment. There must be about 20 pieces of equipment all really different and exciting to the usual swings, slides or roundabouts. It was also pretty heaving with children. Our six all played for a while and Monster made friends with various children - always makes me smile when I hear a strange child calling him across a playground by name. I love it when they are old enough to be making friends independantly of the people I introduce them to.

The children then wandered off a bit further into the rest of the park playing various games and settling into various different formations, duos and trios which is always nice to observe. Eventually we all collected ourselves together and followed them as they were starting to wander further than we were comfortable with. Unfortunately during the moving from one location to another somehow Monster managed to get seperated from the others and ended up doing the sensible thing and going back to where we’d first been, only to find we had gone. So I was up where I thought he’d gone to frantic with worry and he was down where we had orignially been upset that we’d gone without him. Two older women had seen his distressed and managed to help him spot Lucy as I continued to wander further away shouting his name and imaging all sorts of dreadful possible scenarios. After a very teary reunion we all walked further up the hill together to see lovely views of the sea and settle back down for chatting and the children to play in the long grasses. A reminder that we need to be more sensible about arranging a meeting place in the event of getting lost and also that we probably need to cover some sort of stranger danger type stuff too. I like to allow Monster, particularly and Teeny to a lesser degree at least some of the freedom that I enjoyed by their age when I was allowed to ride round the block on my bike, go to the local shop for sweets and call for friends who lived in the same street and play outside our houses. I don’t necessarily think there are any greater dangers to my children than there were to me, just that we are more aware of them and I would rather educate the children and equip them to make sensible decisions than shelter them completely and allow them no freedom. 

Thursday  As planned Monster went off to work with A for the day. By all accounts they had a lovely time, with Monster having McDonalds breakfast and lunch, learning a fair bit about what Daddy does each day at work and having some time on the beach in Dover looking at the channel tunnel entrance, the white cliffs and various other south coast landmarks.

Teeny and I enjoyed similar one to one time at home with some time spent cuddled up reading stories, loads of baking and cake decorating, Lucy, R & R came round for lunch and the girls did some girlie playing with make up etc, we did some jigsaw puzzle, spoke to Monster and A on speaker phone as a family conferance call and popped out to get some bits and pieces for Monster’s party.

A lovely day which we all got a lot from and will repeat again very soon, with Teeny having a go at going out with A too.

Friday In the morning the children played with geomags while I did various online bits and pieces including making reservations for Film Week. A and my Mum arrived in time for lunch and then Mum and I headed off to collect Monster’s reserved birthday present from Argos, some new nightdresses for Teeny and various cake making bits and pieces ready for Monster’s birthday cake.

While we were gone A had got out an Argos catalogue each for Monster and Teeny and drawn them a three storey house each on a poster sized bit of card and they were happily cutting out things from the catalogues to arrange in each room of the house. Teeny’s was a symphony of pink with lots of pets, fairy themed accessories and fluffiness. Monster’s was more minimalistic and included lots of electrical equipment and gaming stuff.

Saturday Lots of dvd watching and popcorn eating for the children and A while I went and had my hair cut. In the afternoon Monster and I made some airdrying clay models.

A and I went out in the evening to a friends’ 30th birthday barbecue - in the rain! So my Mum & Dad babysat and were subjected to lots of bedtime story requests and yet another viewing of Nanny McPhee!

Sunday We had planned to go out for a picnic and walk with BIL and SIL but the weather was atrocious so we stayed in instead. More dvd and popcorn eating with an hour or so of watching home videos of when the children were very small babies including the week that Teeny was born in. She was born on 6th December and we had been videoing Monster opening his advent calendar each morning. So a lovely countdown on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of me, heavily pregnant helping him open the door and talk about what picture was behind it and then on the 6th there was a 2 hour old Teeny sat with us as we opened that door.

In the afternoon I finally got round to photographing and listing pages and pages of ebay outgrown clothes etc.