(actually, another two days)

Bank holiday here today [now yesterday] – so no work (at least, not paid work). Had a leisurely-ish day. After a completely dry night (Joshua and Bethany too) we started the day very pleased with ourselves. Had a bit of trouble deciding what to do. I did some more wallpaper stripping while Libby had a relaxing bath – (until Bethany joined her, at which point it became distinctly less relaxing!) By then the children were pretty much climbing the walls, so we resorted to the park.

This kept us going until it started raining – at which point we returned to the car or cakes. (Libby had ‘accidentally’ forgotten her purse, so we couldn’t go to the café!)

That got us through ‘til about lunchtime.

In the afternoon, we faffed a lot, until Libby had had enough, then I took Joshua and Bethany for a walk – it finally happened. My choice, me, my children – a walk. And I’m not even thirty.

It was quite nice though – we walked a portion of my cycle route to work. Up a road and back through a ‘meadow’. This was J&B’s first encounter with a field, and they were quite taken with it. Joshua was particular happy to roll around in the grass, and Bethany enjoyed mincing around complaining about the grass “hurtin’, hurtin’, hurtin’”. Maybe not the best place to wear a skirt – but a good excuse to complain!

Then we got chips from the chip shop for tea – obligatory Bank Holiday behaviour.

The walk obviously tired Bethany out completely, because she kept nodding off at the tea table, and ended up snoring away in her chair while we finished tea! We put her in bed at 5.30, clothes and all!

Incidentally, we have now had two stereo-dry nights, and even more pleased with ourselves.

A funny thing happened today (that’s funny in the pure comedic ‘funny when recounting it later, but distinctly unfunny at the time’ sense).

I arrived at work on my bike this morning, only to find that I’d forgotten my key to the office. This wouldn’t have been such a problem, but of the five other keyholders, only one was scheduled to be in today.

However, the incessant ringing of the phone behind the door convinced my colleague and I that the missing keyholder was actually off sick. This was confirmed when 9.00 came and went and my usually prompt colleague had not arrived.

I therefore resigned myself to the inevitable, and returned to my bike for an extremely warm and sticky ride home. Record breaking time, and managed to give Libby a heart attack on my return. Nevertheless, I reclaimed my keys, changed most of my clothes and returned to the office. Understandably (I hope) I took the car this time – I figure I’d paid my dues for the day.

Naturally, on my arrival at the office, I discovered that my keyholding colleague was not off sick, but had had a doctor’s appointment, rendering her slightly late. Being the conscientious type, she had been ringing, to let me know she was going to be late. Not very late, mind you, just late enough to arrive about 5 seconds after I’d left…

On an entirely separate note: I have today eventually got the ‘messenger’ network to bend to my will today – and spent my entire lunchbreak chatting with my brother. The first time that the two blog worlds have coincided, I believe.

For those who are interested, try www.msn.com, and look out for bossas@ntlworld.com. Soon we’ll all be just one big happy cyber family…

The Toddler Diaries 'Only children'

Nice but busy day on Saturday. I had applied to my accountant earlier in the month for a budget for summer clothes. Haven’t got any so thought it was a reasonable request. He came back with a very favourable reply, so Wendy, Caleb and I spent the morning clothes shopping. My new strategy to clothes shopping, to limit my selection to one shop, worked extremely well. I detest trailing around shops looking for clothes. My advice is: find a shop you like, that has a good selection of clothes that suit you and don’t bother looking anywhere else. That’s unless you really like clothes shopping. We hardly noticed Caleb was with us; he sat in the buggy and looked at himself in the mirror in the changing room. Bethany went shopping with Daniel to buy some sandals and Joshua went out with my parents to his favourite charity shops. I think it’s good for kids to get individual attention every now and again. It’s a completely different dynamic and helps you get to know them as an individual. It also makes you realise how easy it is with only one child!! Although annoyingly, when I only had one I didn’t find it that easy. It’s all relative!!

In the afternoon we headed off to Ruislip Lido, minus Daniel who was left to enjoy some peace and quiet (second weekend in a row, last Saturday he went to watch the new Star Wars). We all had a lovely time eating ice cream, messing around on the sand and in the park and then finally a trip around the lake on the train.

After dinner, having rediscovered my feet for the first time this year, I decided to paint my toenails. Of course Bethany, much to her daddy’s horror, had to have hers done too. This is the girl who when I lost her in Boots last week shouted, “it’s OK mummy, I’m just looking at the makeup, I love it”. How old is she?! I thought Joshua wouldn’t be interested in nail varnish, but when he saw that Bethany, auntie Wendy and I had it on and he wanted to be included too. Wendy painted his big toe hoping that would be enough but he just looked at her indignantly, “What about the other toes?” and when she had done that, “ What about the other foot?” When she had finished he looked down at his purple nails and smiled “I don’t think I’ll wear socks in bed tonight mummy”! At least it’s better than lipstick.

Sunday we had a lazy day. We went to church in the morning and disagreed with the preaching on predestination, and then spent the afternoon relaxing. Tonight we are attempting to get Joshua and Bethany to sleep without nappies. They’ve spent the last half an hour shouting down the stairs “ I need a wee, I need a poo” a great tactic to get us running upstairs. I’ll let you know tomorrow how well it goes!!

The Toddler Diaries 'Not as good as it sounds'

We were all set to go to the park yesterday (Thursday) morning, but as soon as we got in the car it started raining. Optimistically we headed for the park anyway but the rain didn’t stop, so we opted for soft play instead. Josh and Bethany had a great time (apart from when another child yanked some of Bethany’s hair out) and I could hardly drag them away. Even Caleb enjoyed sitting amongst the coloured balls and watching the other children play. Bonus Cappuccino free with a child’s ticket, muffins only 75p (but we didn’t have one).

In the afternoon the sun came out and we spent the afternoon in our pants (not me of course, I don’t think South Oxhey is ready for that) playing sand and water and painting the big green T-Rex from Toy Story. The paint quickly went away after Bethany managed to cover herself in the space of a couple of minutes. Caleb sat in his bouncy chair getting his dose of vitamin D and doing baby aerobics. It’s a good job these are involuntary because otherwise most babies probably wouldn’t bother with them, Caleb included.

Had a rummage around the shed this afternoon. Quite a quick one, it’s not very big. Looking quite optimistic on the decorating front. We have paper, paint, wallpaper paste and even a table. It’s funny how these things appear in the shed when you have no memory of buying them or using them.

Sadly we decided to let Brian ‘return to the wild’ this afternoon. I’m sure he’ll have a much happier life in the garden than in our gloomy kitchen in a box.

Reading back through the blog, it sounds like quite a nice afternoon, it wasn't. Caleb was not a happy baby and just wouldn't settle which is not like him, Bethany was just being two and tired and Joshua was oblivious to anyone else. ("Mummy, can you cut my Dinosaur out, mummy can you glue my dinosaur, this is whilst Caleb and Bethany are screaming on supersonic mode and I'm not sure who to deal with first) In the end I had to call for reinforcements and the Calvary arrived home early from work. I just wish Daniel's boss could see what he's coming home to, then he'd understand a bit better. It's not like Daniel is coming home to a book and a Pinacolada more like a Piranha and her offspring!

The Toddler Diaries 'The life of Brian'

We have a new member of the family, Brian the snail. Josh and Bethany found him yesterday (Wednesday, just so you’re clear on the day Wendy) on their little table eating cake crumbs. They rushed down this morning to see how he had settled into his new home, an ice cream tub with air holes punched into the side. Brian clearly favours minimalist retro chic combined with a touch of natural foliage for his interiors.

We had a great time at the toddler group yesterday. They’d designed the craft in Joshuas’s honour, (literally) a collage of Mr Incredible. He was thrilled, I’ve never seen him do craft so quickly. He normal can’t be doing with craft (unless it’s making Disney Pixar characters) especially if it’s making butterflies or flowers. Of course when we got home we had to find all the other characters on the internet, print them out, colour them in and cut them out, Joshua loves finding little projects like this for me to do, to keep me out of trouble!

Managed to get more wallpaper stripping done last night. Have located 6 rolls of paper in the shed to put on the walls. In the name of this no budget project I’ve decided to mix together all the paint in the shed so I’ll have enough paint to do all the walls. I told Daniel it would be called shed white, “shed brown more like”, he replied.

The other exciting event of yesterday was Caleb had to go to the doctors. He’s quite chesty and his breathing has been quite heavy. I thought maybe I was just being neurotic, but the doctor said he has asthma and gave me an inhaler, nose drops and some antibiotics to give him. True to form, Caleb doesn’t seem too phased by any of this, although he doesn’t really like the antibiotics.

The Toddler Diaries 'Sick day'

Everything was getting on Bethany’s “nerve” today. Josh found an animal which turned out to be an ant and asked if we could take it to the shops. He also proudly informed me that he was making patterns with his bogey in the carpet. The day didn’t begin very well as Daniel had an early start and I woke up with a migraine. I spent most of the morning on the sofa in between emptying potties. Josh and Bethany were very good and spent a long time being very quiet in the dining room. I’m not sure what they were up to, but they were quiet and that’s all that mattered to me. So far I haven’t found any evidence of naughtiness.

After lunch I struggled up from my sick bed for a visit to Tesco. We’d completely run out of nappies for the big bottomed pair and had had to borrow some to keep us going last night. In Tesco I realised why it’s much better for me to shop online. Everything in the store seemed to be on offer and it was very tempting to pick up a lot more than I’d come in for, because it felt like I was getting a great bargin. I held my nerve and only succumbed to a 'by-one-get-one-free' yogurt, total cost 38p. The lady in the café in Tesco (yes we were wining and dining [or is that whining and dining?] again) gave Josh and Bethany a hat each, because Bethany had complimented her on hers. They were fascinated to notice that all the people working in the café were wearing crowns too. How generous of Tesco management to give their staff crowns to wear!

The Toddler Diaries

Another crazy Monday morning. Success in the charity shops, found a Toy Story puzzle for Josh and a white handbag for Bethany, actually quite stylish. Her philosophy is, you can never have enough bags, shoes, hair accessories or really anything pink. After the shops we decided to make fairy cakes, good fun to make and nice to eat. Unfortunately Josh cracked the eggs by the squeeze and crunch method, moving on from the more traditional and probably less messy, tap on the side of the bowl method. Consequently we had to spend ages fishing out eggshell. Then Bethany tipped the whole bag of sugar into the bowl, so we had to add more ingredients to balance the whole thing out and make an impromptu fruit cake rather than have 300 fairy cakes. I think we’re winning the cake competition now Wendy. (Flapjack, fruitcake, fairy cake and banana cake.) In the middle of the cake making frenzy the Tesco man arrived with the shopping, Josh did a wee on the potty in the middle of the kitchen, I made lunch for everyone eating mine on the hoof and predictably Caleb woke up for a feed.

As I sit here typing this I observe the Carnage around me. Bethany has rearranged the porch. I’m sure she is quite pleased with the rearrangement but I have to disagree, as you can’t get to the front door. The hoover is still out where I started hovering but got waylaid in the middle. There’s a bag of rubbish to take out the front and another bag of recycling. The wet washing is waiting to be hung out and there are cakes and the debris of cake making and lunch all about the kitchen, not to mention all the toys, dressing up clothes and books that cover every available space. I remember when I used to hoover once a week, now it’s more like three times a day. The depressing thing is it doesn’t matter how many times I clean and tidy up in a day it doesn’t make any difference. Trying to explain this to Daniel I reckon it’s like going into the office everyday to find the set of accounts you did the day before had all been undone and you’ve got to start again. There’s a reason women don’t get paid to stay at home with kids, they could never pay you enough.

Having finally hung the washing out it now looks like it’s going to rain, but Caleb has chosen this moment to have a long feed. I haven’t finished cooking the dinner so it won’t be ready before the other two start climbing the walls. It’s one of those annoying recipes that you haven’t read properly, so when you come to make it it says marinate over night. A couple of minutes marinating was as good as it got. I’m just hoping the potato wedges will cook really fast because I haven’t managed to make them yet. I actually managed to tidy the hall, but I’m now watching Bethany put all the books on the floor and someone has tipped out the toy box. Realise I’m rambling, but it’s quite therapeutic to bang it out on the keyboard.

Remarkably Josh has taken off his Mr Incredible suit. He spent some of the afternoon with a fireman’s hat playing with the hosepipe in the garden but the rest of the time I think he was being himself. Daniel will be pleased, I think he was beginning to worry about this obsession.

The Toddler Diaries 'weekend away'

Had a busy weekend. Headed over to Reading on Saturday afternoon to leave Josh and Bethany so we could go gallivanting in the evening. Gallavanting isn’t really the word, but we did go out for a barbecue and weren’t back until after 10pm, that’s late for us. Caleb wasn’t so impressed with the whole barbecue thing, well actually I think it was the Eurovision song contest that put him off, so slept in his moses basket. Spent the night at my parents house. Remember looking at the clock at 5am and thinking, only an hour to go. I was right, well almost, 6:10 am the pitter patter of tiny feet on the stairs, actually that’s not true, more like a herd of elephants shouting “we woke up”. Josh and Bethany only have on and off settings, there’s no gradual waking up process. Once they’re awake that’s it they’re on and it’s full volume. Believe me it sounds very loud at that time of the morning. Daniel conveniently was sleeping in the loft so chose to ignore the dawn chorous and had a lie in. My parents were interested to discover they could be ready for church by 8am with such an early start, bet they don’t try it again next weekend though!!

We lunched at pizza hut (we had a voucher) . Sorry no comparisons on muffin prices but lots of ice cream and dolly mixtures. We were all tired after this so headed back to Watford. Bethany and I started stripping wall paper (it was something to do) which she seemed to enjoy but it is to quote “very hard work mummy, I’m not quite there yet. You need to be very patient, incredibly patient” I’m not quite sure if she understands what she says when she comes out with these statements but it’s amusing to listen to.

Comic interlude

As I am now up, thought I'd share a few gems from 'AccountingWeb' (calm down, it won't be as painful as you think - its from the 'Gossip Channel').

Firstly, 'New words for business':

• Blamestorming - Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible
• Seagull manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, poos on everything and then leaves
• Mouse potate - The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato
• SITCOM's - [us] Single Income, Two/Three Children, Oppressive Mortgage
• Xerox subsidy - Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from your workplace
• Percussive maintenance - The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it working again
• 404 - someone who's clueless
• Ohnosecond - The miniscule fraction of time in which you realise that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all')
• WOOFies - [them] Well Off Older Folk

And from 'The Genius of Peter Kay' - Questions:

• Why is it called Alcoholics Anonymous when the first thing you do is stand up and say 'My name is Bob, and I'm an alcoholic'?
• Why does mineral water that has 'trickled through mountains for centuries' have a 'use by' date
• Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp no one would eat?
• Why is it that when someone tells you that there are over a billion stars in the universe, you believe them, but if they tell you there is wet paint somewhere, you have to touch it to make sure?

And from 'The Genius of Peter Kay' - Universal Truths:

• Nobody ever dares to make cup-a-soup in a bowl
• The most embarassing thing you can do as a schoolchild is to call your teacher mum or dad
• Every bloke has at some stage while taking a pee, flushed half way through and then raced against the flush
• Its impossible to look cool while picking up a Frisbee
• You never ever run out of salt
• There's no panic like the panic you momentarily feel when you've got your hand or head stuck in something
• No one knows the origins of their metal coat hangers
• Despite constant warnings, you have never met anybody who has had their arm broken by a swan
• The most painful household incident is wearing socks and stepping no an upturned plug
• You know you've turned into your dad the day you put aside a thin piece of wood specifically to stir paint with
• Everyone has an uncle who tried to steal their nose

[Libby: What I want to know is why was he looking at this at work?]

The Toddler Diaries 'The rough with the smooth'

Had a good night with Caleb last night; he slept in his cot until 5:10am, fed for about 5 minutes then went back to sleep and is now happily snoring away with Daddy. I on the other hand am up with the terrible twosome, both of whom are dressed (Peeps in his Incredibles suit) and it’s not even 6:30am. (Thank goodness for real coffee).

Just to bring you up to date with events for the last few days: Daniel cycled to work for 4 out of the 5 days, pretty impressive for someone whose previous encounters with exercise consist of getting in an out of the car and looking for the TV remote. Friday he had to go out of the office to visit a client, so needed the car, plus it was pouring down.

Thursday we had lovely day in spite of the rain. Bethany was fascinated that it was raining in the back garden and in the neighbour’s garden. The rain stopped play, or at least outdoor play, so Joshua and Bethany decided it was time to head for a café and their favourite museum, the Disney Store. As a professional food critic team, we thought we should test a new café, so went to the one in John Lewis. Highly recommended for children’s food and the panoramic views across Watford. Joshua was in his element watching cars and trains, fire engines and Postman Pat vans drive far beneath him. He kept shrieking with delight in between munches as he saw yet another exciting vehicle. Bethany was not so enraptured by motor vehicles but she enjoyed herself looking at the little girl on the next table, also dressed in pink so obviously a soul mate. To continue with my survey of the price of muffins in Watford’s eating establishments, John Lewis has the most expensive by far. Good quality I’m sure, but £1.85 is a bit over the top, especially when combined with £2 for a cappuccino.

I committed the unforgivable sin of washing the Incredible suit on Thursday evening and being the terrible mother that I am, forgot to hang it out to dry over night so it was too wet to wear on Friday. Josh couldn’t get into it fast enough this morning, having asked me every five minutes “Is it dry yet?" for most of Friday. He wanted to wear it wet, so I let him put it on so he could feel what it was like. He said he liked wearing it like that. What a boy! - of course I made him take it off again.

Thursday and Friday Bethany did exceptionally well with her potty training. She only had one accident and seems to have got the whole deal much quicker than Joshua. What a relief. It’s quite strange having only Caleb in nappies. At least my accountant is pleased, it reduces the monthly budget by a bit (or at least until we find something else to spend the money on!!)

Just for those doctors out there who work really long hours here’s a break down of my normal week.

Travelling 5 hours

Washing up 5 hours

Laundry 6 hours

Cleaning and dusting 6 hours

Vacuuming 5 hours

Cooking 9 hours

Child care 84 hours ( this is if they’re up at 7 and in bed at 7!!)

Because I haven’t really got enough to do, on Friday afternoon I decided to start re-decorating our bedroom. Daniel says he doesn’t mind as long as he doesn’t have to do it and it doesn’t cost him anything - I’ll do my best. Actually he really likes the décor in that room, but my survey of people that he requested revealed that 75% of people disagree. To be fair, my sample size was only 4 people and it was rather biased (Me, Daniel, Wendy and Rachel). Anybody else who would like to support my case please comment. Joshua and Bethany loved stripping wallpaper and it was quite fun until they started throwing the paper up in air and pretending it was snow. I just hope they don’t get any idea about striping wallpaper in other rooms of the house.

The Toddler Diaries 'Potty Training'

Rather manic start to the day everybody seemed to be performing at once. Change Caleb’s nappy, Bethany does a wee in the potty, hooray, Bethany does a poo on the potty hooray, Josh does a poo, Bethany does another wee, Josh does a poo, change Caleb’s nappy again and finally before we leave, Josh does another wee. This is all before 9:30am, I must have run up and down stairs at least 10 times emptying potties and washing hands.

Bethany is doing quite well now with the potty but she’s also getting quite cunning, claiming Joshua’s doings as her own and drinking lots of drinks all in the attempt to get more sweets, (a dolly mixture is her reward for going on the potty). We spent the morning at a toddler group making collage butterflies. Not a very interesting detail but I’ve told you just to satisfy Wendy’s curiosity as to what we did in the morning. She’s a detail junkie.

Actually got all three of them asleep after lunch and managed to tidy the desk, which I’d been meaning to do for ages. I’m sure you’re fascinated by the excitement of my day! We spent the rest of the afternoon making characters from Sesame Street out of toilet rolls. Caleb spent a long time (well over 2 hours) just sitting in his bouncy chair watching the proceedings and commenting from time to time. I can’t believe how easy he is, he’s a real pleasure to look after. I think I feel more relaxed (or at least as relaxed as I get) with three children than I was with two, quite puzzling. I’m sure getting enough sleep has a lot to do with it.

Well, I must go, Bethany is lifting up the potty and dropping it on the carpet and shouting ‘splash!’ (Yes, it is full. I’m feeding Caleb so haven’t got round to emptying it). Drastic measures need to be taken!!!

The Toddler Diaries 'Sleeping beauties'

An early start to the day, Bethany woke up at 5:30am but was persuaded to go back to bed until 6am when Daniel got up with her. Consequently, Daniel left the house on time, on his bike for the second day in a row. Are you impressed, I am. If I'm honest I thought he'd only last a day. Even the rest of the motley crew was ready and raring to go at 9:30am, so it was out the door and up the hill to visit Niamh. It's not really a big hill, but it feels it when you're pushing a double buggy with a baby and two rather heavy children hanging off the front and back. I'm sure these buggies are not road tested with children in them. They're only easy to push when there's nobody in them.

We had fun at Niamh's, painting, playing with trains, stroking the guinea pigs and in no time at all it was back down the hill (much easier) in time for lunch. Big mistake repeated from yesterday, left Bethany alone at the table to finish her lunch. Not a good idea but Caleb was asleep, she takes ages to eat her lunch, and I wanted to get a few jobs done. Yesterday she took a bite out of nearly all the cookies, today she covered herself in yoghurt and did a wee on the chair. Ended up giving her an impromptu shower to get all the yoghurt out of her hair.

Decided to head off to Tesco to get a few bits. Bethany amused the lady in the queue behind us when she told her that she loved her bag. On the way home was merrily having a conversation with Josh & Bethany in the back when I realise it's all gone quiet. The combination of an early start and a busy day and they've all conked out. Transfer Josh and Bethany to the sofas where they carry on sleeping, Caleb wakes up so talks to me whilst I'm making pizza. Bit of a dilemma, am enjoying the piece and quiet, so don't really want to wake them up, but don't want them up all evening instead. Eventually woke two grumpy sleeyheads up at 5:30pm. Bethany was back in bed at 6:40pm and Josh stayed up a bit later to watch the Incredibles with daddy and Caleb, the first all boy viewing!!

The revelation of Joshua

Joshua was blessed with further revelation on his road to maturity yesterday: "Poos come out this side; wees come out this side". This explains why, when it comes to wiping, he frequently addressed the wrong 'side'! Its remarkable the amount of stuff you take for granted as an adult, which you've actually had to learn along the way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday was a fairly nice day - from my point of view anyway. Saturday is almost always a great joy to me, and a huge disappiontment to Libby. Principally this is because I'm not working (so the day is good by definition), but for Libby, who still expects Saturday to be totally different, nothing much is.

However, yesterday was quite a good 'achievement' day. Libby:

- took the 'big' children to the tip (for them, that was considerably more exciting than it might sound) and managed to bring them back;
- steam cleaned most of the carpets in the house (and the dining chairs);
- did most of the decorating of Bethany's side of the bedroom - this follows the same template as Joshua's side, but in a considerably more girlie-stylee. [Its amazing how it can take us 6 months to get round to tackling these things - and then take about two hours to actually do it. I think its another distinguishing feature of 'baby time'.].

I:

- took Caleb up the road and procured our white wristbands from Oxfam;
- unearthed Libby's bike from the shed, and 'spruced it up'. Not quite as onerous a task as it may sound. It was in fairly good nick, considering how long its been in there;
- played with Joshua's electric trains. (These are really old and give to us a while ago by a family whose boys had grown out of them. Unfortunately Joshua has not really grown into them yet, but is nevertheless very keen. This means a major amount of supervision (and discipline) is required to 'have fun' with them. The picture on his face when he gets the power to make them start and stop makes it pretty much worth it though. I think 'glee' is the word);
- finally got round to nailing down the slats in our bed. Had become a bit fed up of my ankles bouncing around on the floor, and falling right through when sitting down to put on my socks.

[from the length of those descriptions you'd think I'd done more - but I just span my bit out more!]

By the way, the 'sprucing up of the bike' has come about because our beloved council, in its wisdom, has decided to close one of my main alternative routes to work for 12 weeks. This means that everyone going in my direction will now have to go my way. So (wait for it) I've decided to try cycling! I expect I will do it once, and then not be able to move for a week. But, as Libby points out, that's even more reason to do it!

We will keep you posted...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an aside, its really nice now that Caleb has got a bit more robust and more able to interact. This means that Bethany gets to play with a 'real baby' - which keeps 2/3 of our children quiet at a stroke. Turn the TV on, and...hey presto...a blog!

However, as she is now rather vigorously 'washing his hair', I think its time to intervene. Anyway, its almost my turn for the bathroom.


Adios...

The Toddler Diaries 'Friday'

Sorry about the lack of blog yesterday but wasn’t really in the mood. Newsflash from yesterday, success at last, the target has landed, in other words Bethany did two poos and wees on the potty. To be completely truthful, she was aided slightly by my mum who noticed the beginning of a straining face and produced the potty at lightning speed. Still it’s a start. Today we had even more progress, she said she needed a wee and then produced one on the potty. Chocolate buttons all round. Don’t panic, that’s one button each not a whole packet. Well actually two.

This morning Mr Incredible and the fairy princess went to Rainbow kids. Bethany now insists on walking instead of going in the buggy, which is good for her but rather hairy for me and very bad for my stress levels as she veers towards the busy main road. Still, on the up side the buggy’s lighter and we did all make it home in one piece.

Interesting incident at the shops this afternoon. Noticed Joshua looking at a toy in one of the shops, didn’t take too much notice. Half way home realise he still has said toy, and no we haven’t paid for it. Completely oblivious to what he’s done! Return boy and toy to shop and pay for item. Fortunately it was only a charity shop!!!

After this we decided to make brownies while Caleb was asleep. I asked my little helpers to break the chocolate into a bowl. Stupid I know, but I was so focussed on getting the brownies done before Caleb woke up that I didn’t think it through. When I looked to see how they were getting on they were merrily munching their way through it. Of course they were, what was I thinking!! Bethany managed to cover herself from head to toe in chocolate, and I had to steam clean the kitchen floor (thanks mum). I think it’s bath night again.

The Toddler Diaries 'Early warning system'

Breastfeeding and potty training don’t really go well together. It’s very difficult to leap up in time when Bethany informs me she’s doing a poo. A slightly earlier warning system needs to be implemented for everything to work smoothly. As this is not in place she produced another lovely brown parcel for me in the hall – mum any chance of borrowing that steam cleaner again?

It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to get ready to go out this morning. 6 pieces of toast and two accidents later we were finally ready at 10:30am. With Bethany resplendent in purple dress, colourful tights, pink wellies, a pink necklace, her shades and a handbag containing her mobile phone; and Joshua in his Mr Incredible outfit (of course) we went to Carpenders Park toddler group. I think we made quite an entrance. Fortunately I’ve got used to all the funny looks we get from passers by and Joshua’s indignation when people think he’s Batman or Superman – get with it people! This afternoon I had to wrestle with Mr Incredible to remove his suit - it’s got to be washed sometime!! I suggested he spent the afternoon dressed as something else, or even - shock horror - himself!

After Bethany produced another poo, this time in the garden, I decided enough is enough: she will be potty trained. I’ve decided to bribe her - nothing like the thought of chocolate to focus the mind. I’m sure this isn’t the recommended technique but it worked well with Joshua. She consequently spent most of the afternoon either sitting on the potty or trying to think up alternative ways to get chocolate out of me.

Alas still no wees on the potty, but we had a fun afternoon and early evening going slightly crazy with T-shirt transfers. Apart from me everyone in the family now has an item of clothing emblazoned with a character from the Incredibles: yes, even Caleb!! Bethany completed the day by doing yet another poo, this time in her nappy, but as she whipped it off at lightening speed the contents went flying across the room and landed at my feet!! All I can say is hurry up with that steam cleaner mum!!

Sorry about all the references to poos, but I can only work with what I've got - Ben's got Tuscany I've got Bethany!

The Toddler Diaries - 'jabs'/The Wanderer Returns

Not much to write today, everybody fairly well behaved and no accidents. We took Caleb to the Clinic this morning to have his second lot of jabs. I hate doing this, but he was fine, he didn't cry at all. In fact I don't think he even noticed. Fat thinghs, definately the way forward!! This afternoon we had three other children to play and had great fun dressing up, playing in the garden and in the sand pit and rolling down the path! It's lovely having friends to play, but 6 children under 4 leave an awful lot of mess to clear up! (I guess I can't really include Caleb in this, he doesn't make much mess).

I'm going to hand over to Daniel now, it's about time he wrote something and I'm suffering from blog fatigue.

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Hello peoples. Long time no blog. In fact I feel conspicuously uninspired.

Life is trundling along, and I think Libby gets the most 'interesting' bit. I continue to go to work and 'do my thing'. Its slowly getting less busy after the January-April madhouse, and we haven't had any major disasters yet.

Libby has given you the low down on all the small people, but I have to say that Caleb is definitely an angel-baby. Just what we ordered! And he's cute as well. I don't know if he's easier because we're more relaxed, or we're more relaxed because he's easier, but we don't seem to be having any of the stresses we had with the other two.

At night he starts in his bed, and lasts 'til somewhere between 1 and 4. He then comes in our bed for our feed, and on the odd occasion follows this by returning to his bed for a couple of hours (if I stay awake long enough)! It doesn't seem to make any difference to us whether he goes in his bed or ours, which is nice. We've both the developed the ability to go straight back to sleep after being woken in the middle of the night, whatever time it is. Consequently we're not really suffering from sleep deprivation at all.

I commented to Libby earlier that I remember when Peeps was little that I wondered how any future babies could ever compete - but they can!

Toddler Diaries 'Details you didn't want' (except Wendy)

I hate computers. I have already written this once and as I was saving it the computer crashed and I lost it. It’s never quite the same second time around.

Saturday was a lovely day, well at least for me. Daniel took Joshua and Bethany to soft play and out to lunch and I had nearly four hours to myself. I had to laugh when they came home (the time to myself had helped me regain my sense of humour). They hadn’t been in the door 10 minutes when the house, which was unrecognisably tidy whilst they were away, was again a tip [with clothes, toys and nappies strewn across the floor] and Bethany had done a huge squishy poo in her pants. What a homecoming!

Sunday we spent in Reading at my parents house. They were hosting a 60^th birthday party for a close family friend. Joshua spent the entire afternoon glued to the television watching the Incredibles in his Incredible suit; Caleb slept, and Bethany mingled with the crowds and engaged in the small talk of a small person, which is generally entertaining for big people. She is much better at the whole mingling/small talk thing than I am - I hope it lasts.

This week started well when Bethany came and told me she had done a poo in the hall. She had. Fortunately it was fairly compact and came away cleanly, what a relief. I had only just finished wiping up the wee she had done on the carpet in the lounge. We were cheered up by our very friendly postman who brought us another parcel. Amazingly the postman knows auntie Rachel and they had obviously got together to arrange a little treat for us. Thank you auntie Rachel.

After this we decided to engage in some retail therapy. Joshua bought a little Simba 'The Lion King' soft toy (because we really don’t have enough Disney toys and need to enlarge our collection!!) Bethany purchased a pink bead necklace (or 'twinkles' as she calls it); pink sparkly wellies, and a Barbie duvet cover and pillowcase. (Not my choice, but she loves it). Total cost £2.95. We also, joy of joys, got a Barbie video (it was Bethany’s turn to choose) and some books from the library. At least Daniel will be pleased, he didn’t get to finish watching the last Barbie video we got out, and was secretly a bit miffed.

The afternoon ended with Bethany producing another poo, which, when I followed the trail, started on the patio and ended up in the dining room! I really do not appreciate these diversions whilst I’m making the dinner...actually, I don’t appreciate them full stop!

Toddler Diaries 'A cranky day'

I am extremely cranky this morning. The troops woke up shortly after 6am, far too early for a Saturday morning and then started tickling our toes and tunnelling their way up under our duvet. Which eventually resulted in pulling the duvet off. This may sound funny but believe me it was not. It is not even 6:30am and I am already downstairs, rather this than trying to have a lie in with a bed full of chimpanzees. (I don’t mean Daniel of course - he's more of a gorilla!) Peeps has already dressed himself in his Incredible outfit and he even has pants on. We have a daily battle to convince him that the black pants incorporated into his suit aren’t real pants and that he needs to put pants on as well. Bethany has dressed herself as a princess, or so she says. In reality she has on the dress she was wearing yesterday, which unfortunately is dirty and on backwards and inside out - nice try though!!

Josh’s obsession with Disney Pixar characters is at its height at present. Aside from wearing his Incredible’s outfit continually (Oh we managed to buy a preowned version of the Incredibles in Blockbusters last week. He doesn’t know about this yet so please don’t mention it if you see him!) he is obsessed with the Toy Story films. This week he has asked me to move the houseplants around, so they are in the same position as the plants in the house in Toy Story 1. He wants Caleb sleeping in his room because Andy, the boy in the film has his baby sister sleeping in his room. Yesterday he moved the chair out of his room. When I asked him what he was doing he said “but mummy Andy doesn’t have a chair in his room.” He has also asked me to call him Andy, presumably when he’s not Mr Incredible, which isn’t often.

We haven’t had a great couple of days and this has contributed to my crankiness. I was ill on Thursday and Daniel heroically took the morning off work. I have to say it was quite amusing to observe him getting Bethany and Joshua ready to go to the shops in their usually inimitable style. I felt better on Friday morning so we went to Rainbow kids. Bethany did five marble paintings and Joshua spent most of the time playfighting with Joel, his fellow devotee of Toy Story. Friday afternoon was very difficult. It was one of those afternoons when three children seems way too many. Joshua kept wiping his nose on the furniture and Bethany was well into her striptease routine, which goes something like this: she takes all her clothes off, including her nappy (she takes her nappy off every time she does a wee or a poo - lovely!!) I decide, OK she can wear pants and we’ll give potty training a go. She refuses to go on the potty, and wees etc all over the carpet. I get fed up and put her nappy back on, she takes her nappy of and then we start again!! As I type this Bethany is removing her nappy!!

Caleb continues to be a lovely baby. I know I don’t mention him very often but that’s because he’s so good and there’s nothing really to say. This morning Daniel has put Caleb in the highchair and given him a few toys to look at. He’s smiling away to himself and just loving it. I should say that he can’t sit by himself yet, we’ve just propped him up with pillows.

Not sure how to finish this, so I think I'll just stop. Feeling slightly less cranky, hopefully will feel better tomorrow!!

The rest of the family

Elastagirl

Mr Incredible in his PJs

Elastagirl

Caleb

Caleb

Toddler diaries: Real coffee needed

"Not Tesco again!"

I broke my cafetiere at the weekend, two days of instant coffee was enough; I need all the help I can get in the morning, and instant coffee just doesn’t cut it. So it was another trip to Tesco, but this time I remembered to brush my hair and had even washed my fleece! We still got lots of looks though, as I let Joshua wear his Incredibles outfit, complete with gloves and mask. It was a fairly uneventful trip. Mr Incredible used his powers to persuade me to buy himself and Elastagirl a drink and a doughnut in the café. He really blessed me by waiting until we were at the checkout before announcing he needed a wee. We had to abandon our tray of food and leg it to the disabled toilet, well as much as you can leg it with two children, a baby and a supermarket trolley. Mission successfully accomplished, we reclaimed our tray and paid for it - £1.88 for three drinks and two doughnuts. Not bad, even Daniel would approve. That’s compared to £1.60 for one muffin in Starbucks!!! I think we can only go there when accompanied by rich benefactors - any offers welcome.

PM: Not great. I wasn’t feeling very well and the oldest two were driving me crazy. Decided to take some time out by myself with Caleb in the lounge. In the short time I was away the dining room had turned into a war zone. Bethany was covered with felt tip and glue, there were stickers everywhere, felt tip on the dining chairs, and to top it all she had done a wee on the carpet. A little later, with order restored, I decided to put them all in the bath. While drying Caleb I was quite pleased to see Bethany and Joshua getting into the bath by themselves. However when I went to look, Bethany had done another wee on the bath mat, on top of one of Mr Incredibles gloves (the sacrilege) and Bethany was in the bath half dressed. Oh happy days!! At least they were both in bed asleep by 7pm. Unfortunately Caleb has decided he’s hungry and just woken up again.

The Toddler Diaries'Bank Holiday'

Not a particularly funny day blog wise, but a nice day nonetheless. We spent the morning at Cassiobury Park, playing on the swings, walking in the woods and going on the little train. To add to the fun we were even given two red balloons, saying 'Vote Labour'. We're not political, we just like balloons. Had a slight accident in the woods, as Joshua's aim went slightly awry. Cleverly we had forgotten to bring the nappy bag from the car with the change of clothes, so he had to walk back through the woods with soggy trousers. When we got to the car we realised we'd actually left the bag at home, so he had to travel home with no clothes on at all!

PM: Joshua and Bethany went to sleep for about three hours. The peace would have been complete, except that Caleb decided to stay awake and Daniel fell asleep. We had chips for tea, always a nice end to a nice day, no cooking, and no washing up.!!!

Toddler diaries: 'picture perfect'

Bethany Boo.

Caley-B

Joshua 'Peeps' as Mr Incredible

Borrowed my parents camera so I could provide a visual update of my beautiful offspring. They were actually complimented for their wonderful behaviour today in the church we were visiting; slightly surprising given their track record over the last few weeks. Even Caleb was excused for farting and slurping through the preach. No offence was intended, he is only 11 weeks after all. The problem with his farts is that they are disproportionately loud in relation to his size. In fact they are very adult sounding. I get a lot of funny looks when he's in action. I generally smile sweetly (actually I don't think I've ever smiled like this, but you know what I mean!) and point to his bottom. Unfortunately people just smile knowingly, I'm sure they think it's me trying to blame Caleb for my wind storm!!! Just to make sure his presence was felt, at the end of the service, Caleb produced a really leaky poo (for those of you not familiar with baby poo, it closely resembles chicken korma) and threw up everywhere.

We spent a lovely rest of the day with my parents and sister (auntie Rachel, the doctor lady who lives in Sheffield) enjoying the English sunshine, going to the park and eating lollies. Unfortunately, the good behaviour of Bethany didn't last when she started picking my mum's flowers after she had been told not to. When I had a little mother to daughter chat about this, as she clutched a rather droopy bunch of Blue bells, she said, "but mummy, they're Boo bells". Clearly she didn't understand why it was she couldn't pick a flower that was so obviously named after her!