Jake has at last lost his top tooth that has been threatening to fall out for what seems a very long time.
Mia is an utter poppet. She is in a dress and tights phase at the moment and refuses to wear anything else.
This evening I heard her crying so I went to investigate. She had evidently had a bad dream and continued to cry for a long time. She soon calmed down and fell into a deep sleep. Pet lamb.
Taggie version 3 or is that 4?
While Amy was valiantly getting her dissertation proposal finished this weekend, I decided to head to Bluewater to search for Mia’s birthday present. We wandered around for ages going from shop to shop. I bought her a pair of slippers as a birthday present from Jake. I also bought Jake a nice dressing gown and some ‘foot eating shark’ slippers that were in the sale for £7.
Alas later on in the day while man-handling the multitudes of bags I had attached to the pram I dropped her taggie. We quickly rushed to John Lewis hoping that they would have a Taggie in stock. Luckily they did, it was smaller and a different colour but Mia, bless her, was happy. She is such a little poppet :-).
On Sunday I decided to tidy up Jake’s toy boxes. This simple activity turned into a mammoth exercise in completely cleaning, dusting and rearranging Jake’s room that took all day. I moved one of his bookcases to the opposite side of the room and pushed the bed over to the window. This gives Jake much more floor space to play, and shows off the lovely colourful rug.
Hey, it’s a new year
Well here we are in 2013. It has an ominous ring to it what with the unlucky connotations of trece. Today is my first day back at work. One of my resolutions was to cycle to work ‘all the way’ which means a 60 mile round trip. Unfortunately this was not to be and I am typing this at home in the loft room while on my lunch break. I can hear the children playing downstairs which makes me kind of sad to be missing out on the family fun. Gabriel and Laurie have come round for a play and Jake is in his element showing them his new toys. Anyway, my inability to get up at 6am to turn the pedals ended up being a good thing. Looking through my emails I saw that our office has been flooded, so the advice was to work from home until the level of the Thames subsides.
This morning Erin, Fiona and Deon left after having spent New Years Eve over here. This year we all made it to Hilly Fields at midnight with at least 200 others to cheer as firework displays went off all over London in a panoramic display of noise and colour. Prior to midnight we played Just Dance 4 to much hilarity trying to mimic Psy and Gangnam Style. Copious amounts of alcohol added to the general sense of merriment.
The children loved Christmas as expected. Jake was the proud recipient of a number of Skylanders Giants, while Mia received a new baby doll to look after. She has named her Baby Eyelash. Her previous name was Baby Nearlythree but this moniker has fallen from favour. Boxing Day was nice and relaxed round at DK’s just slobbing about watching telly, eating and drinking.
Yesterday, to combat the general gluttony of the festive period we took advantage of the only clear, dry day to take a long walk to Greenwich Park. It seemed that most residents of London had the same idea because Greenwich was heaving with bodies milling aimlessly about. The tearoom in the park was packed so we decided to head for the Maritime museum. When we got there we found it closed after a fire evacuation. So on the town itself. We tried to get into a number of Cafes before we found a free table in the Waterstones Cafe. It wasn’t big enough for all of us but the fact that we were in a book shop meant we could browse while the children and one adult sat and had their coffee.
Bike video
Mia, who doesn’t watch any TV or DVD’s or anything like that has taken a bizarre liking to a video featuring Danny Macaskill and Chris Hoy. Every evening after stories she will ask for ‘bike video’ or ‘derny bike?’. Here it is in all its glory.
All change
I decided the other day to upgrade Mia’s cot to a ‘big girls bed’ now that she is doing so well with her potty training. We went into the attic room and retrieved the mattress and extra items required to turn the cot into a Stokke Sleepi Junior.
When I studied the instructions I saw that there was an interim size which only required taking one of the cot panels off. The next step up is the Sleepi Junior which includes the mattress, mattress support panels and under bed storage box(which is currently serving in Jake’s room as a soft toy repository). I will see how she gets on with this before stepping up to the real ‘big bed’.Mia was rather excited about the prospect :-).
School, bikes and lego
So Jake is back at school and has moved his classroom upstairs into year 2. New uniform, new year, and very smart he looks in it too! Mia has been a little poppet and continues to delight us. I tried to make a start of the potty training at the weekend. The result? Number of wees done in the potty: 4, number of wet knickers: 3. You could say she has a way to go but she is getting there. I mentioned to Sara this morning that we have started potty training and told her to play it by ear. I don’t want her to stress about having to potty train Mia alongside her other charges all of which are about the same age as Mia.
Jake has been getting very excited about the imminent release of Skylanders Giants which are out late October. The Hero Factory lego figures are still dominant though and not just with Jake. All his friends are into them too, including Antonia who doesn’t even have any! Jake has also become fond of Spotify and likes to grab Amy’s laptop when his friends are over. He has even created playlists for his friends. Not sure how he worked out how to do it! His favourite tunes at the moment are by Jessie J and The Script, although he still likes a bit of Joe Satriani :-).
Jake’s cycling is coming along nicely. On Sunday we took a trip to Hilly Fields. I suggested he went down the grassy hill half-thinking we would not want to do it. To my surprise he went flying down and at the end shouted. “I love it!”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EGHV69y2fw
I have started collecting Mia on the bike using my new Yepp Maxi bike seat. I sold the Burley Trailer to fund the purchase seeing as Jake is now riding his bike. It is a great bit of kit and Mia loves riding in it :-). I took her for an inaugural ride in June/July and she fell asleep within half an hour. I only realised this when I felt her helmet rhythmically tapping me on the back as her head lulled forward. Bless her. The seat itself is made from the same material as crocs so is very comfortable and easy to clean. To fit the seat onto the bike you have two options. A seatpost mount and a rack mount called an easyfit carrier. I opted for the rack mount because I already have a rack that I use for commuting.Fitting the seat it very easy. You bolt on the easyfit carrier and then simply place the seat onto it. It is locked into place by pushing a red button and at the same time turning a wheel which causes the seat mechanism to lock onto the carrier. You then adjust the foot rests, attach the wheel guards and click the safety webbing around the seatpost.
A great feature is that you can lock the seat onto the bike. Once locked the red push button is disabled preventing the grey knob from being turned and therefore securing the seat. Of course you can just unscrew the four bolts holding the easyfit unit on the rack, but this would take time and hopefully deter any opportunistic tea-leaves.
Wet and wild June
This is the entry for June. We’ve had one week of nice weather and the rest of the time it has been wet and cold, but now that I am in my shorts and sandals I refuse to give them up! Of course the major events this month were the Queens Diamond Jubilee, Father’s Day and my 44th birthday, not particularly labelled in order of importance I hasten to add.
We managed to buy tickets for the River Pageant Festival in Battersea Park. The journey to Battersea was uneventful and not particularly stressful considering the number of people milling at the intervening stations. We followed the throng from Queenstown Road station to the park and dutifully queued up to gain entrance all the while waving our Hello sponsored flags. Jake, Mia, Antonia and Bea were very excited. Once inside we mooched about looking at the various attraction. We particularly liked to 1954/53? bandstand playing genuine 50’s swing music. Of the river pageant itself we didn’t see diddley squat. It was heaving with people and looking at those closest to the action they had obviously been there a while. Missed a trick there! It was a fun day out but we could have been better organised and had to be content with a partial view of one of the giant screens while being rained on intently.
Father’s day saw us back in Battersea, this time to the tented eden that is the rear of the Secret Garden pub. We had out lunch and some drinks there while the children ran around scaring away the other patrons :-). Afterwards we all headed for Battersea Park. The weather was good for a change. We had fun on the pedalos. Mia kept saying “boat!” so we just had to try one out! We had myself and Mia at the front and Amy and Jake pedalling in the rear. Competition kicked in and there was some wild pedalling to beat Colin, Adam and Teddy’s pedalo. After this we hired some recumbent bikes and a Nihola box bike. Jake loved this as did daddy!! All in all a brilliant day out. Thanks Amy!
My birthday weekend saw dropping the children off at Granny’s while Amy and I ventured into the heart of Kent to The Grasshopper Inn near Westerham for a free meal that Amy won when we were there on Mothers Day. I’d like to say that it was a good experience but the food was average and the service dire so I will leave it there. Suffice it to say that we will not be going back any time soon.
Amy is in the States as I write this. I have had 5 days flying solo. Jake has been playing Skylanders. We went out on Saturday and I bought him a new pack of three because he did brilliantly in his spelling 14/15 and had an excellent Year 1 school report. Mia has been in turns lovely and also very grumpy particularly after waking. I think she may be having a growth spurt but in the end who knows? I tried to give her plenty of rest this weekend as I thought that maybe she was just tired. I think it helped a little. Yesterday Jake was at Annabel’s party which was a drop-off affair. Mia and I spent a delightful couple of hours exploring Manor House gardens. We saw the ducks, studied squirrels, had an ice-cream in the Pistachios in the park(same franchise as the new one on Hilly Fields) and even dodged the rain by hiding in the old ice house which was open for tours.
Mia’s interview at St. D’s
Mia has been very chatty lately. Today she had her St Dunstans school ‘interview’. It wasn’t really an interview, just a general chat about the nursery. Good job really because when Mrs Scard handed Mia a red brick Mia said “Yellow brick!” Pet lamb 🙂
Afterwards Mia said “Me Like teacher”. What an angel! So she sailed through that, we have just got to wait a year until she starts as well as paying a wopping £500 deposit. Eek!
Sunday in Highgate
Last Sunday we ventured North Of The River to Holloway Road to visit Grandad and Auntie Paula. The journey involved a number of train and tube journeys which both the children enjoyed. I was in my element taking various Instagram pictures detailing our journey.
When we arrived we had a quick rest at Paula’s flat and then headed for Highgate Cemetary. This involved two hideously packed bus journeys. Not easy with two children and a buggy. Jake and Mia loved it of course and even got to ride on the top deck.
The cemetary is very impressive. I was amazed at the number of famous people buried there. Of course the most well known is Karl Marx but I also spotted Malcolm Maclaren and (don’t panic) Douglas Adams.
Mia was rather taken by Paula’s dog Wesley,an ex-racing greyhound. She kept saying “Where Wesley gone?” and then looking around. Jake was a very grown-up boy and had the important job of holding Wesley’s lead when we took him for a walk later on.
Jake cycles!
I took Jake to Halfords to buy a new helmet. I wanted him to get excited about riding his bike and also to give him an incentive for getting rid of the stabilisers. To this end I left the shop £50 worse off. We bought not only a new helmet, but some cycling mitts and a set of elbow/knee pads.
When we arrived home I retrieved the bike from the shed and we headed for Hilly Fields. I chose the flat path that loops to the right as soon as you enter the park. Armed with a rather large adjustable spanner I raised the stabilisers to their full extent. Jake climbed upon his steed and carefully we set off. I was bent double holding onto the back of the bike seat trying to keep Jake upright. We did a couple of runs in this manner with my back protesting fervently. On the third run we speeded up and I began to momentarily let go of the seat. Hey presto! Jake was cycling solo albeit in a wobbly fashion. This was a classic dad moment :-). After a few more runs I could sense Jake was getting the hang of keeping his balance on his own. To my surprise as we returned up my hill to the park gate, Jake asked to remove the stabilisers.
Well there’s not a lot more to add. With every run he got better and better and after half an hour he had cracked it. In fact I exclaimed to Jake ‘you’ve cracked it!’ and he thought the bike had cracked 😉 so I had to explain what it meant. Before heading home we tried the long gently sloping hill that dissects the middle of the park. Jake pretty much rode all the way down on his own.
Later that afternoon, so as to strike while the iron was hot, we all headed down to Ladywell Fields for another session. Mia in her buggy and Jake on his bike. Jake again improved immensely, smiling proudly as he sailed past Amy and Mia with my good self running behind. Jake decided that he wanted to cycle the whole way round, not just Ladywell Fields but the athletics track too. He did all of this himself bar starting and stopping safely(that’s for the next lesson). As you can imagine I was immensely proud :-).