One word? When seven would do…

Well probably more spring in the air than love, but I really like that record and found myself singing it while hanging the washing out using the wrong words 🙂

Yep that’s right hanging the washing out – first load on the line in 2005. Which makes me shudder a bit that such a fact is not only worthy of even being thought in the first place, let alone being blogged, but it is so there 🙂

Yesterday was a good one – popped into Littlehampton on the way to meet Julie to take back a couple of items i had bought last week and looked crap when I tried them on at home, bought a couple of bits in the DP sale, went into a charity shop and picked up 4 books for a quid (which I have not got out of the bag yet so can’t remember what they were!) and a ‘thing’ for Davies. I say thing cos I am not sure what it’s purpose is really – it is old and is marked ELC PLAY & LEARN and is made of red plastic. It has alphabet letters, a few blended sounds (like TH and SH), some coloured dots on it and is of the style of guess who? so you flip them up or down to discover a picture begining with that letter. Obviously has a educational value somewhere just not sure what! Davies loves it though so for £1.25 it was worth buying just to keep him quiet!

Whilst in Littlehampton Scarlett fine honed her latest skill. In the style of Max (from Max and Ruby) she has taken to using one single word, whilst pointing a very accusing finger at complete and total strangers. And ladies and gentlemen, that word is:

BADDY!!!!

Yes. Quite embarassing that isn’t it?! And then of course, once she has drawn attention to this poor innocent stranger Davies then swoops in to take up the chant too – they could ruin someone!

They did a bit of this on the train on the way home from London but using my most excellent parenting skills (okay bribes, threats and chocolate!) I stopped them, but there in the heart of Littlehampton (my favourite quote about the town ‘I don’t go to Littlehampton – I am always afraid I won’t come out alive!’) where frankly every other person could well be a baddy of some description this is less likely to be smiled at and laughed off than fronted out with ‘and who are you calling a baddy? EH?’

The first target was a man (well I think it was a man) wearing a bright yellow jumper (as might have been donned by Philip Schofield in his early broom cupboard CBBC days when he was a wild n wacky kids tv presenter working with Gordon the gopher as opposed to his current CV of This Morning with Fern and Test the Nation with Anne Robinson (who looked younger than him last week!) with stains down the front. He had a pair of lopsided glasses on, very odd mullet style hair, walked with a rolling gait suggesting some sort of intoxofication, mental health issue or both, carrying his anorak – Davies actually drew her attention to him by nudging her and indicating with a sideways head movement towards him. Scarlett drew herself up to her full 2 foot sitting in her buggy, loud and proud, brought out her finger and taking a deep breath pronounced in her clearest and loudest voice ‘BADDDDDDDIEEEEEE’. The man / yellow jumper wearer / drunken druggie loony / baddy looked over to check who the baddy was – just in case he was not alerted to the fact it was him by the distinct lack of anyone else around at all Scarlett pointed and proclaimed again, even louder. Davies joined in, I put my head down and walked as quick as I could past him. Davies got the brunt of the the telling off but it has not stopped them as they have been pointing to people walking by this morning and saying it 🙁 On the plus side in the re-telling of this story after a couple of glasses of wine, it got longer and more embellished and is now the new family catchphrase 🙂 Mum and Dad are off to Hong Kong, Thailand and Dubai tomorrow for three weeks so it could well sweep the world! You heard it here first folks 🙂

Anyway we did escape Littlehampton with our lives and purses and went to this new soft play place which has only been open a week. It was so new and shiny Julie and I didn’t know ourselves! We spent ages stroking the clean primary coloured instead of dirty faded crash mats and rigging making comments like ‘where’s the gaffer tape doing an inefficient job of mending the vast tears in the coverings?’ ‘why does it not smell of socks and nappies in here?’ and ‘you know I sort of miss that lucky dip experience of putting your hand in the ball pool and wondering whether you will pull out an old plaster, a condom or a skanky tissue’. The kids had a whale of a time and Davies is definitely coming on with his confidence and ability at climbing and stuff – thanks to TT2 and regular soft play he is far less worried about heights, slides and pushing himself slightly further than he is comfortable with.

We had lunch – which was excellent both in taste and cost and then Davies and Maisie managed to get themselves up to the very top of the scariest slides I’ve ever seen – they open for teenagers in the evenings and I’m not even sure how they managed to get up so high on their own but Scarlett and I intrepidly followed them to the top. Scarlett just clambered straight into one of these tube slides and whoosed away like the kid down the chocolate tube in Willy Wonka, laughing with joy as she went, Davies flatly refused to go down it but could not get back down the steps way and Maisie had a sudden attack of nerves and clung onto me. I saw no option but to go down the slide myself with Maisie then go back up for Davies as I couldn’t leave Maisie alone. It was sooo scary 🙂 Probably won’t be doing that again! My own (not insignificant) weight, added to a toddler’s weight and no use of my arms for holding onto said toddler meant we hurtled down at about 400mph and if it were not for very good non slip matting at the base would probably have been propelled by our own momentum into the next county! And I won’t even start talking about how my jeans refused to stay round my waist prefering instead to offer all spectators a charming view of my knicker clad arse in unflattering positions as I clambered around the place!

Thoroughly worn out we left there and went to collect my Dad and brother to bring them over to our house for the afternoon. Father, brother and children happily installed (Dad reading the Sneeches to Tarly and brother building wooden traintrack with Davies) I headed off childfree to Tescos which was nice! Frazer left to go out for the evening, I managed to change both kids beds and bath them with some assistance from Dad and they were all but asleep by the time Ady got home from work (late again, caught in M25 traffic hell 🙁 ) Ady cooked dinner and Mum arrived after having her hair done. A fairly pleasant evening and for once they were ready to leave voluntarily by 11.30 instead of us having to go into our pantomine act of yawning, looking at the clock and talking about an early start tomorrow every few minutes.

Scarlett slept through last night, which was very welcome 🙂 Doubt she’ll do it again tonight though as we have a friend coming over so she is bound to put in an appearance just before bedtime 🙁

This morning we have done TT1 which was slightly less than a success really. It is quite hard to manage the two of them there as there is not very good continuity between different bits of the session during which they both get bored and start to charge around the room. Several of the other older children do join in but I always feel that it is my two who are ringleaders and will be viewed as the disruptive rowdy ones. They both had a moment this morning – Scarlett screamed at me and tried to slap me – it only lasted as long as me telling her off very firmly before she came for a cuddle and said sorry but I would really rather not conduct all that infront of 15 other mothers. Davies just would not sit down so I sent him to sit in the corner by my bag and watch from there for a while until he felt able to come and join in properly. In fairness to them every other child is much younger and I am not convinced it is possible to hold children with such a wide age range – which is why it will be interesting to see how it differs after Easter when they will be with 2.5 – 5 year olds only. If it does not improve I won’t bother paying for more sessions and I will try them with something else as it is no fun for me to sit there feeling shown up by my kids while they are either forcibly restrained from running round or constantly told off for doing it. The whole point of it for me is to get them used to joining in with more structured group activities and to have some fun – running around is something they can do for free in a park. Anyway a break for 3 weeks now so we will see how it improves when we go back.

Ady got The Incredibles for them on DVD this moming so that has been watched once already and is promised again when we get back from TT2. I must make myself some lunch otherwise I won’t have time before we need to go.

Back later…