The information I got was minimal, but I will share it.
* She did sticking (I knew that already (see photos))
* She spilled some counters and had to tidy them up, but she didn't mind because it was great fun
* She didn't have time to drink her juice or eat her raisins at lunchtime.
* She drank lots of water
* She ate three apples (!) at snack time
* She sat next to Megan to eat her lunch
* She didn't want to leave her PE bag there in case it got dirty
On reflection, it's all quite food based! Anyhow, she enjoyed herself, and I didn't feel the need to shed any tears. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
My Girls
Monday, September 18, 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
The Park
After reaching near insanity earlier this week after 8 weeks of summer holiday, the last two days I have done nothing bar the washing up and just gone with it. Yesterday I was hoping to take the girls to the park, but it was very wet, so I decided to go for the soft play area instead.
As we missed out on the park yesterday, we made the most of the fine weather today and set off at 10 am for the swings and slides at Whitley Common. After exhausting the possibilities there, and feeling that the girls were nowhere near as worn out as I wanted them to be, we then headed for the War Memorial Park, where two sessions on the swings and slides, with a break for lunch in between (hot dogs for us all, ice cream and crisps for the girls, and a cappuccino for me), did the trick.
Something set my mind to thinking about the park when I was a little girl, and how different the play area is now. Now, within an area of enclosed fencing, is a bark floored, safe as humanly possible, array of equipment where no child is ever more than 6 ft from the floor. There are no roundabouts (far too lethal – it wouldn’t surprise me if they we actually illegal, as I haven’t seen one for years) and see-saws have springs to prevent too much seeing and sawing. The child in me mourns the loss of the slides they used to have. The smaller one must have been about 10ft, the larger around 16. They were steep, and they were narrow, and they were very slidy and shiny. Fantastic. Of course the surface they were mounted on was good ol’ concrete, and the mum in me is heartily relieved that they are gone.
The two sky blue paddling pools that were there when I was little are gone as well. They were filled in a number of years ago, and I can’t even remember why…not safe enough, not healthy enough, too expensive to maintain, something like that. A couple of years ago, they opened a ‘splash n play’ area, which is totally cool. There are all sorts of fountains and jets of water…just ace, as I would have said when I was eight! After an unfortunate incident just after it first opened, when a number of children got a tummy bug after using it, they have spent a ton of money and installed the most fantastic filtration systems ever, apparently, and it opened properly last summer, to great acclaim from Caitlin. She has been in it every time we have been there and it has been open, whatever the weather. Hannah also enjoys it, although doesn’t actually go in the fountains; she prefers to run around the outside of them and splash in the puddles. It is less fun for me to stand in there and try to avoid getting wet, so from my point of view it was fortunate that it was closed today as the school holidays are over.
Walking back to the car, I showed the girls the stones under the trees. Every tree in the park has a memorial stone at its foot, commemorating local servicemen who have died, particularly those who were killed in action during the two world wars. Caitlin ran from one to another, eager to know what each one said, reminding me so much of myself at her age. As a child I probably read every memorial in the park. I think it is important that children start to learn about things like the tragedy of war, particularly living in a city which had its heart ripped out by war.
Visiting the park brings back other memories too, because it has been part of my life for ever. Some of the memories are among my most vivid. In 1987, Coventry City FC won the FA Cup, and that year took part in the carnival procession, holding the cup aloft in an open top double decker bus. Standing on the roadside at the edge of the park, as the bus approached, my Dad nudged me and said, “There it is kid! The FA Cup!” His face was shining with pride and joy.
The park was also a place to hang out when I was a teenager. The last day of compulsory school, our whole year walked there en masse at the end of school, and proceeded to consume just one or two alcoholic beverages. I ‘missed’ one or two A-Level Physics lessons to go and play pitch and putt very badly. I sat there in silence with my first real boyfriend, in the pitch black late one evening, just enjoying being together and being quiet. I played tennis with one of my schoolfriends, with ancient wooden rackets with missing strings. We agreed to give up when we made a five shot volley, but never made it past three.
Among my favourites is a memory that I knew at the time I would always remember. I was about twelve, and at the park with my sisters and their children. I was running and carrying my niece Emma, who was a toddler (she is almost twenty now and engaged to a soldier!) She was just giggling in that way that small children and babies do when something is just the most fun thing they have done in their life so far. She got heavy, but I wanted to keep running and to hear that giggle. I ran as far as I could, until I ran out of breath, just to hear that sound of complete and utter joy.
When I see the same joy on Caitlin’s face when she runs in and out of the water fountains, despite the chilly weather, I remember exactly why the park is just the best place in the world to go.
As we missed out on the park yesterday, we made the most of the fine weather today and set off at 10 am for the swings and slides at Whitley Common. After exhausting the possibilities there, and feeling that the girls were nowhere near as worn out as I wanted them to be, we then headed for the War Memorial Park, where two sessions on the swings and slides, with a break for lunch in between (hot dogs for us all, ice cream and crisps for the girls, and a cappuccino for me), did the trick.
Something set my mind to thinking about the park when I was a little girl, and how different the play area is now. Now, within an area of enclosed fencing, is a bark floored, safe as humanly possible, array of equipment where no child is ever more than 6 ft from the floor. There are no roundabouts (far too lethal – it wouldn’t surprise me if they we actually illegal, as I haven’t seen one for years) and see-saws have springs to prevent too much seeing and sawing. The child in me mourns the loss of the slides they used to have. The smaller one must have been about 10ft, the larger around 16. They were steep, and they were narrow, and they were very slidy and shiny. Fantastic. Of course the surface they were mounted on was good ol’ concrete, and the mum in me is heartily relieved that they are gone.
The two sky blue paddling pools that were there when I was little are gone as well. They were filled in a number of years ago, and I can’t even remember why…not safe enough, not healthy enough, too expensive to maintain, something like that. A couple of years ago, they opened a ‘splash n play’ area, which is totally cool. There are all sorts of fountains and jets of water…just ace, as I would have said when I was eight! After an unfortunate incident just after it first opened, when a number of children got a tummy bug after using it, they have spent a ton of money and installed the most fantastic filtration systems ever, apparently, and it opened properly last summer, to great acclaim from Caitlin. She has been in it every time we have been there and it has been open, whatever the weather. Hannah also enjoys it, although doesn’t actually go in the fountains; she prefers to run around the outside of them and splash in the puddles. It is less fun for me to stand in there and try to avoid getting wet, so from my point of view it was fortunate that it was closed today as the school holidays are over.
Walking back to the car, I showed the girls the stones under the trees. Every tree in the park has a memorial stone at its foot, commemorating local servicemen who have died, particularly those who were killed in action during the two world wars. Caitlin ran from one to another, eager to know what each one said, reminding me so much of myself at her age. As a child I probably read every memorial in the park. I think it is important that children start to learn about things like the tragedy of war, particularly living in a city which had its heart ripped out by war.
Visiting the park brings back other memories too, because it has been part of my life for ever. Some of the memories are among my most vivid. In 1987, Coventry City FC won the FA Cup, and that year took part in the carnival procession, holding the cup aloft in an open top double decker bus. Standing on the roadside at the edge of the park, as the bus approached, my Dad nudged me and said, “There it is kid! The FA Cup!” His face was shining with pride and joy.
The park was also a place to hang out when I was a teenager. The last day of compulsory school, our whole year walked there en masse at the end of school, and proceeded to consume just one or two alcoholic beverages. I ‘missed’ one or two A-Level Physics lessons to go and play pitch and putt very badly. I sat there in silence with my first real boyfriend, in the pitch black late one evening, just enjoying being together and being quiet. I played tennis with one of my schoolfriends, with ancient wooden rackets with missing strings. We agreed to give up when we made a five shot volley, but never made it past three.
Among my favourites is a memory that I knew at the time I would always remember. I was about twelve, and at the park with my sisters and their children. I was running and carrying my niece Emma, who was a toddler (she is almost twenty now and engaged to a soldier!) She was just giggling in that way that small children and babies do when something is just the most fun thing they have done in their life so far. She got heavy, but I wanted to keep running and to hear that giggle. I ran as far as I could, until I ran out of breath, just to hear that sound of complete and utter joy.
When I see the same joy on Caitlin’s face when she runs in and out of the water fountains, despite the chilly weather, I remember exactly why the park is just the best place in the world to go.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Flowers
These are real flowers that are actually growing in my garden at the moment which I haven't killed yet, so I thought I would make the most of it!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Confessions of a Bad Mother
Is the title of a book I am currently reading, by Stephanie Calman. The title page has an image of a dummy, positioned like a cocktail cherry on the rim of the glass. That was enough for me to know that I empathise with this woman in some way. The back cover asks “Do you give your children chicken nuggets for supper, herd them into bed and slump down exhausted with a drink?” Yes (and Hannah doesn’t even like them), yes, and YES.
Yersterday is a typical example. I refuse to allow the girls downstairs until I have come round via a coffee. I manage to organise breakfast (Weetabix for Caitlin, so some merit there, but Hannah has Honey Nut Cheerios without milk for about the 10th day in a row. Naturally, by this point they are watching a Scooby Doo video. I then lie down on the sofa for an hour with a splitting headache while the girls systematically destroy the living room and climb on top of me. In the meantime, Scooby Doo finishes, and they switch off the TV and eject the video cassette.
I manage to return to the planet by second coffee and two paracetamol (extra! With more caffeine) during which time the girls eat four rice cakes and two breadsticks each. They leave me alone when they are eating……
I am determined to get through my task list for the week, and so we set off to town in search of new shoes for Hannah (at least a month overdue – her feet are probably deformed already) and more school uniform for Caitlin. Of course, if I were a Good Mother, I would have packed a coolbag with a nutritious lunch and drinks just like I did when we went to the park yesterday with people we know and who might pass judgement on what I feed my children. Not being a Good Mother, we were equipped with two spare nappies and a packet of baby wipes, which actually I didn’t even use. The children finally received some food at 1:30 (at least an hour past normal lunchtime) in the form of a sausage roll from Greggs. The fact that the sausage rolls were initially too hot to eat was the cause of much weeping and trauma. I will also point out that Caitlin not only recognises the Greggs logo, but also calls it “the sausage roll shop”. Enough said.
I am then reminded that nothing is simple when you are a mother (maybe Good Mothers can manage these things), not even buying socks. We find a pack of 5 completely plain and boring white ankle socks for £5. About to buy them (actually Caitlin has stashed them under the pushchair - good job I noticed) when I spot 7 pairs with a nice scalloped edge and pretty butterfly design for the same price! Hurrah....but no. Caitlin wants the other ones. Tears. "I want THOSE". Hissed, through gritted teeth; "This is MY MONEY. I WILL DECIDE WHICH SOCKS." Now Caitlin needs the toilet. The queue is huge. We go down in the lift to the other cash desk. Queue even huger (sales are on). Fortunately this particular part has a happy ending, as Caitlin managed to hold on till we had paid, and I spotted a lovely pair of navy stretchy jeans for £15 while queuing.
After another hour’s shopping, I finally acquiesce to their demands for a drink….a carton of apple Ribena. A small triumph ensues when I manage to persuade Caitlin that the Ice Cream Van Ride (SAFE, and costing me 50p for two rides for both children) was much more exciting than the sort of infant rollercoaster thing that is £1 each and would have left me with the equally scary prospects of allowing Hannah to go on it versus the tantrum I would be faced with if Caitlin went on it alone.
You might have thought that I would have made an effort once we got home, but no, I was too traumatised by four hours of the back to school uniform frenzy – including an hour in Clarks - to provide anything better than Marmite on toast as the main course (OK, they did have some cheese, salad, fruit and fromage frais).
Well, my children don’t seem to be suffering overly from being inflicted with a Bad Mother….and at least I’m not the only one…..
Yersterday is a typical example. I refuse to allow the girls downstairs until I have come round via a coffee. I manage to organise breakfast (Weetabix for Caitlin, so some merit there, but Hannah has Honey Nut Cheerios without milk for about the 10th day in a row. Naturally, by this point they are watching a Scooby Doo video. I then lie down on the sofa for an hour with a splitting headache while the girls systematically destroy the living room and climb on top of me. In the meantime, Scooby Doo finishes, and they switch off the TV and eject the video cassette.
I manage to return to the planet by second coffee and two paracetamol (extra! With more caffeine) during which time the girls eat four rice cakes and two breadsticks each. They leave me alone when they are eating……
I am determined to get through my task list for the week, and so we set off to town in search of new shoes for Hannah (at least a month overdue – her feet are probably deformed already) and more school uniform for Caitlin. Of course, if I were a Good Mother, I would have packed a coolbag with a nutritious lunch and drinks just like I did when we went to the park yesterday with people we know and who might pass judgement on what I feed my children. Not being a Good Mother, we were equipped with two spare nappies and a packet of baby wipes, which actually I didn’t even use. The children finally received some food at 1:30 (at least an hour past normal lunchtime) in the form of a sausage roll from Greggs. The fact that the sausage rolls were initially too hot to eat was the cause of much weeping and trauma. I will also point out that Caitlin not only recognises the Greggs logo, but also calls it “the sausage roll shop”. Enough said.
I am then reminded that nothing is simple when you are a mother (maybe Good Mothers can manage these things), not even buying socks. We find a pack of 5 completely plain and boring white ankle socks for £5. About to buy them (actually Caitlin has stashed them under the pushchair - good job I noticed) when I spot 7 pairs with a nice scalloped edge and pretty butterfly design for the same price! Hurrah....but no. Caitlin wants the other ones. Tears. "I want THOSE". Hissed, through gritted teeth; "This is MY MONEY. I WILL DECIDE WHICH SOCKS." Now Caitlin needs the toilet. The queue is huge. We go down in the lift to the other cash desk. Queue even huger (sales are on). Fortunately this particular part has a happy ending, as Caitlin managed to hold on till we had paid, and I spotted a lovely pair of navy stretchy jeans for £15 while queuing.
After another hour’s shopping, I finally acquiesce to their demands for a drink….a carton of apple Ribena. A small triumph ensues when I manage to persuade Caitlin that the Ice Cream Van Ride (SAFE, and costing me 50p for two rides for both children) was much more exciting than the sort of infant rollercoaster thing that is £1 each and would have left me with the equally scary prospects of allowing Hannah to go on it versus the tantrum I would be faced with if Caitlin went on it alone.
You might have thought that I would have made an effort once we got home, but no, I was too traumatised by four hours of the back to school uniform frenzy – including an hour in Clarks - to provide anything better than Marmite on toast as the main course (OK, they did have some cheese, salad, fruit and fromage frais).
Well, my children don’t seem to be suffering overly from being inflicted with a Bad Mother….and at least I’m not the only one…..
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
I have a garden!
My garden has plants in that I planted – at last, after over 18 months since we moved here! I am disproportionally pleased at my little collection of flora – nothing yet is over a foot high, and not too many actual flowers yet – but still. The weeds are fighting back, but diminished in number and small in size, and those that remain are doomed to the fate of the fantastic on the spot weedkiller which is only 99p from D + M discount. The next project is something to fill my small collection of pots. Andy has helped out too, creosoting more fence and taking the rubbish to the tip. We still have a pile of bricks and some concrete posts that we are not quite sure what to do with. There is plenty of work left to do, but at least it is no longer embarrassing!
My nephew is paying my back for all the free maths lessons he had by helping with some decorating, starting in Caitlin’s bedroom. At last the hideous pink floral wallpaper is no more….the plan is to hopefully use up some lilac paint we have (if it is still OK) and do lilac at the bottom and pink at the top, with a pretty border. Probably Hannah’s room will be the same.
Caitlin celebrated her fourth birthday (eek) on Friday with a teddy bear’s picnic, or PICK-MICK as she calls it, in the park. Fortuitously the weather remained dry (the contingency was a picnic on my living room floor) although a little chilly and overcast. This did not deter Caitlin and her friend Stephen from having a quick splash in the water feature - brrr – rather them than me. Hannah managed to finish the day looking like she had been beaten up, adding a selection of scratches to the large bump on her forehead she had acquired before. Anyhow, fun was had by all, and my first attempt at a children’s party went off quite smoothly.
I have been having a Star Wars week – it is useless for me to try to watch them all in one go unless I start by 8 pm, so I am currently halfway through The Empire Strikes Back. Tomorrow we are supposed to be meeting up with some of Caitlin’s friends in the park. I haven’t mentioned it yet – I’ll see what the weather brings first.
School starts in just over a month (the reception class children start later than the others) and Caitlin’s first day is September 18th. We will soon have to get her uniform, PE kit and lunchbox sorted out. Fortunately she is very excited and not at all apprehensive. It will seem very strange for her to be out of the house all day, and after Christmas I will get a whole five hours a week to myself when Hannah starts playgroup two mornings a week (although unfortunately those days will therefore involve three journeys to and from school). Maybe I will finally get on top of the ironing, but I think I will enjoy going around shops by myself!
Ooh, I managed a cheerful post. Better stop now while the going’s good ;)
PS There is an update on Hannah's blog regarding the Birmingham visit - and I've heard nothing since, so the letter should arrive any day.
My nephew is paying my back for all the free maths lessons he had by helping with some decorating, starting in Caitlin’s bedroom. At last the hideous pink floral wallpaper is no more….the plan is to hopefully use up some lilac paint we have (if it is still OK) and do lilac at the bottom and pink at the top, with a pretty border. Probably Hannah’s room will be the same.
Caitlin celebrated her fourth birthday (eek) on Friday with a teddy bear’s picnic, or PICK-MICK as she calls it, in the park. Fortuitously the weather remained dry (the contingency was a picnic on my living room floor) although a little chilly and overcast. This did not deter Caitlin and her friend Stephen from having a quick splash in the water feature - brrr – rather them than me. Hannah managed to finish the day looking like she had been beaten up, adding a selection of scratches to the large bump on her forehead she had acquired before. Anyhow, fun was had by all, and my first attempt at a children’s party went off quite smoothly.
I have been having a Star Wars week – it is useless for me to try to watch them all in one go unless I start by 8 pm, so I am currently halfway through The Empire Strikes Back. Tomorrow we are supposed to be meeting up with some of Caitlin’s friends in the park. I haven’t mentioned it yet – I’ll see what the weather brings first.
School starts in just over a month (the reception class children start later than the others) and Caitlin’s first day is September 18th. We will soon have to get her uniform, PE kit and lunchbox sorted out. Fortunately she is very excited and not at all apprehensive. It will seem very strange for her to be out of the house all day, and after Christmas I will get a whole five hours a week to myself when Hannah starts playgroup two mornings a week (although unfortunately those days will therefore involve three journeys to and from school). Maybe I will finally get on top of the ironing, but I think I will enjoy going around shops by myself!
Ooh, I managed a cheerful post. Better stop now while the going’s good ;)
PS There is an update on Hannah's blog regarding the Birmingham visit - and I've heard nothing since, so the letter should arrive any day.
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