Old friends and new beginnings

So, it's been an emotional few weeks. Saying goodbye to nursery and looking forward to new beginnings has been the focus of the last 7 days.

I was dreading the last day at nursery. I cried, they cried (the staff, not the boys. They were a bit nonplussed by the whole situation) and we miss them terribly already. Thankfully the assistant manager also has a little babysitting sideline I left armed with her number and the perfect excuse to see her again AND have some grown-up time out.

Now we look forward to a new era. Max started pre-school on Monday and as much as I was fretting over the thought of him doing something ALONE for the first time in his little life, he was amazing. Clung onto my hand for dear life until I sat him down on the mat with the other children and shyly nodded his little head when they called his name in the register but he was fine.

Not a tear shed from him or I which, given how my insides were twisting at the thought of him there with a bunch of strangers (albeit professional, warm, friendly and CPD-checked but still strangers) was nothing short of a miracle.

Come the afternoon, I collected a happy, giggly little boy armed with paintings and full of stories of what he had done on his first day at 'big' school. Phew, success!

The next day we hit a big milestone. The big, heart-wrenching, gut twisting emotional roller coaster that is the First Day At School. It's fair to say I've not been looking forward to waving my little (big) boy off at the gates and I am so grateful for his excitement at the whole thing as I'd have been in bits if he wasn't comfortable with it.

He too bimbled in without a care and quickly quashed all my fears in one fell swoop, proving I don't give him enough credit for his independence and ability to fit in.

Silly things worried me:

What if he doesn't know where to put his bag?
Parents of reception children accompany them into the classrooms and pegs are clearly labelled with names and an animal for each child.
What if he needs help changing his shoes? (they wear slippers in class)
Of course he doesn't. He's well old enough and wears velcro shoes
What if he doesn't make friends?
THEY'RE FOUR. Kids aren't like us, they'll pretty much talk to any other kid about anything. Common interests: dinosaurs, space, Peppa Pig.

There was an incident today which if I'd have thought about before would have sent me into a mild panic. The kids are given boxes of raisins at snack time. Finn said he was last there and there were no boxes of raisins left. At this point my heart sank at the thought of my little boy bereft at the shortfall in dried fruit snacks but when I asked him what he did he just said "I asked Mrs Phillips and she got me some more". See? No panic, no fuss, just a sensible, confident kid. You go, Finn.

So there we go. The dawn of a new era. A few muddled weeks await with afternoon sessions here and morning session there (and some very late nights on the laptop making up for lost work time no doubt but hey, this ain't about me) but so far, so good. Everyone's happy, we're settling in and ready for this next exciting step in our lives. I'll just leave you with the obligatory 'first day at school' photo. How grown-up? *sobs*

Up, up and away!

Ever have a really good idea for something to do, thinking it'll be a real treat for the kids then it turns out to be a disaster with them not actually caring about the thing? Yeah, that happened yesterday.

We thought the Bristol Balloon Fiesta would be fun for the boys now they're a bit bigger. They love to watch balloons overhead so we thought they'd get really excited about seeing a whole bunch of them, close up, taking off right in front of their excited little faces.

Wrong.

It started so well. We bought advance parking online for £6 (it's £10 if you don't pre-book) and went straight through to a designated car park, all easy, straightforward and stress-free so far. None of the gargantuan queues I remember from my childhood.

A short, downhill walk to the house at Ashton Court took us on a route through the fairground rides to get to the balloon field. This is where it started to go wrong.

Finn decided he wanted to go on a ride which we decided to say no to as last time this happened he cried when it started, tried to get out and they had to stop the ride so I could yank him off.

So we had tears agogo until we got to the balloon field and the sight of the magnificent hot air-filled beasts stopped the tantrum in it's tracks. Until a guy came past with a handful of silver kids helium balloons and ruined our evening.

Finn decided he wanted one. Cue hysterics for the next hour or so. By this time the balloons were inflating and the mass ascent was underway. It's an amazing sight and if you ever get the chance to visit the fiesta, I'd recommend timing it around an ascent.

Unfortunately Finn didn't feel the same. The tears stopped momentarily if an interesting-shaped balloon went up (hello, WoodyWoodpecker!) but all the cuddles, talks and 'wow, look at that balloon' -ing wasn't working so we had to abandon and head back up to the car.

So an evening which we thought would be brilliant for the kids turned out, rather disappointingly, not the fun family adventure we'd hoped but hey ho, you live and learn, eh?

And Max had a great time. He played, he danced, he gazed at the balloons lifting up, up and away. He ignored his brother and had alot of fun. 1 Out of 2 ain't bad, hey?

Angst

Kid loves to dance

Three

I tried to do this before we went away, to post on his actual birthday but it turns out preparing for a 2 week break with 2 children takes up quite alot of time. Who knew?

Anyhow, here is a clip of my boy's life so far. 3 years in 3 minutes...



P.S. How do I make it smaller so it fits better - anyone know?

A Spanish-French adventure

This week we returned from probably the best holiday we've had in years. My brother got married just outside Girona and we took the opportunity to make the most of it and have a 2 week Spanish break.

Thanks to my fear of flying (and not being able to pop valium or get wasted on vodka as I would have in times gone by) we booked a ferry to France, 3 stops on the way down and prepared ourselves for a 4-day adventure with 2 under-5s.

I was apprehensive about the car travel and wondered how the boys would be but I prepared activity packs for them, plenty of snacks and drinks and an iPad loaded up with Peppa Pig and they were fine. They slept ALOT in the car which was great for the journey itself but my God did we pay for it in the evenings when they became incredible non-sleeping children.

We stopped in Tours, Sarlat-La-Caneda and Carcasonne on the way down. We then crossed the border and drove to the wedding venue in Fares and from there spent a week in Crespia. We only had 2 days to travel back up so 2 looooong days of driving took us to Limoges and finally Caen to get our ferry early morning.

We stayed in some beautiful places. Notably Les Petites Chamilles, just outside Sarlat, run by the parents of a friend I met through Twitter, L'Arcada which hosted the wedding and Hostal Nou where we spent the largest chunk after the celebrations.

The wedding was incredible, a 4-day celebration surrounded by friends and family. My parents are divorced and, though amiable, it's not often I get to see them both in one place so to have them, my brother plus my aunties, uncles, cousins and step-siblings not just together in one place but all dancing, laughing and enjoying each other's company was something special indeed.

All 3 places were located 'off the beaten track' and run by the most friendly, welcoming hosts we could have hoped for. Hostal Nou is owned by a Catalan family. As well as her day job as a teacher, Elena cooks the most amazing meals for the guests in the evening (saying they're 'amazing' actually doesn't do her justice. She went to cooking school for 2 years and the standard was unlike anything we've had for a very long time) runs the business with her husband and looks after her boys, age 2 and 5. The word 'superwoman' doesn't cut it for this lady!

The boys fell into a routine of waking at 9 (heaven after years of 5:30 starts!) having a siesta in the afternoon, eating with us at 9 then going to bed at 11. It worked really well and what struck me most about both France and Spain is the inclusion of children in everything. Going out of an evening, familes are all out together and it's perfectly acceptable to have toddlers at the table in restaurants at 9/10pm. They were given much attention everywhere we went with a pat on the head and a 'guapo' welcoming them in.

I won't drone on any more about the holiday itself, just to say that we had an amazing first proper family holiday. Lots of fun in the pool, taking in some beautiful parts of the country, immersing ourselves in the culture and eating some fabulous Catalan cuisine.

To sleep or not to sleep?

Um, not, in our case.

When Max was a baby we co-slept for a month or so as he wouldn't go in his Moses basket and it made for easy feeding in the foggy first weeks.

Since then he's never slept in our bed, something we've actually been quite pleased about as we went though a spell of major problems with Finn after he was ill, slept in our bed for ages (comfort for him, peace of mind for us) then we had HUGE problems trying to get him back into bed. It resulted in very little sleep (me) and loads of tears (both of us).

Buuuut...When Max and I were ill last month, we slipped into the habit of sleeping together. He was so poorly he just wasn't settling so it made sense to have him in with me as he just wanted cuddles the whole time. To be fair, I was feeling rough and that's all I wanted too (apart from paracetamol, ibubrofen, Vicks Sinex and Beechams. Quite a cocktail) so we enjoyed a few weeks of restful nights snuggled in together.

Sure, he looks cute. Not so much at 2am with feet in your ribs

Now, however, it's not so enjoyable. He's going to sleep fine in his own bed but sneaks in, ninja-style in the dead of night. The proceeds to kick, punch, squash and duvet-hog for the remainder of the night. The time has come to get him sleeping all night in his own bed again but how, without the trauma we had with Finn?

I've had a few good suggestions on Twitter which I'll try but does anyone else have ideas for no-cry solutions? I'd love to hear from you if you've had a similar experience. My sanity depends on it.

Bertie

We have a colourful history with camping trips. In the 10 years Andy and I have been together, we've not once had a camping trip which hasn't seen some kind of drama. We've had floods, breakdowns on the way home (resulting in us sleeping in the car), flat car batteries (resulting in us sleeping in the car on a racecourse. Yes, really) snowstorms, God awful campsites, illness, stir-crazy toddlers. You name it, it's probably happened to us.

So, we thought we'd make our lives a bit easier, and more comfortable, and buy a campervan. We sold our second car and used the proceeds to buy Bertie, a 1982 Bedford camper. After a few more disastrous trips under our belt, the final straw came at Easter when we found ourselves on a campsite (read: in the middle of a field) with no working showers, filthy toilets and no facilities bar the aforementioned 'amenities'. Smelly grown-ups, bored kids. On the day we were due to come home the county saw the worst snow it had in a number of years. Stranded, unable to leave with no food or clean clothes I'd fallen out of love with camping and was set to sell Bertie.



Except I wasn't quite ready to give up that easily so a few weeks back we booked one final make-or-break trip. The rules: I book the campsite, We don't travel too far and it must have facilities for the children. So I found a gem of a site in Devon and off we went.

It was fabulous. The sun (remember that?) shining helped and the campsite was superb. I was just at the end of my illness and Max was still not 100% so we decided on a weekend of Doing Nothing. No day trips, no sightseeing (my Dad lives in Devon so we have plenty of chances for that) just spending time together and relaxing. In the broadest sense of the word, with 2 pre-schoolers around.

Tell you what, I'm booking all the campsites in future. Wi-fi, freshly baked bread, an indoor pool, adventure play for the kids and an OFF LICENCE. Amaze. We played, we swam, we ate, we read and, er, watched DVDs. The boys aren't ones for sitting colouring, crafting or reading (yet). To little, too much energy. The trick, we've discovered, is to go somewhere where there's plenty to keep them occupied. Happy kids = relaxed parents, yes? They spent the entire break running around, playing, making up games, pretending to be puppies and having a ball. I'm already looking forward to our next trip.

Starting school and freaking out

Last night we made a visit to Finn's primary school which he starts in September. Now I'm proper freaking out. We were sat in a hall listening to the headteacher talk about settling new kids into school and I found myself fighting back the tears. What's wrong with me?

I should be ok, right? I've had 5 years to prepare for this, he's totally ready and beyond himself with excitement. Don't get me wrong, there have been times when I've been overwhelmed and found myself counting down the days until the boys start school but it's suddenly all happening too fast and my baby is all grown up.

We went to a 5th birthday party last week and these kids were so different to Finn. Compared to these boisterous boys with their name-calling and rough and tumble, he's so little and innocent. It's inevitable that he's going to become more independent, form his own opinions and become his own little person outside of the influence of me, his brother and his Dad and I'm looking forward to that and seeing the person he'll become but it's laced with a sadness at the loss of precious time I'll have with him.

I find myself anxious now at what are probably very silly things, like how will he know where to go? Will he be frightened if he doesn't know where to put his stuff? Will he know what to do if he needs to go to the toilet? Things which will all be explained to him, of course but most of all I'm worried about him feeling frightened and alone.

The school seems great. Yesterday was reassuring and they are obviously used to silly parents like me with silly concerns and they were quick to say that the kids are eased in gently and will have 6 weeks of half day 'settling in' sessions to get used to the routines. They even get to wear slippers in school for the first 2 years to help them feel comfortable which is very cute.

So, I have the next 3 months to 'make the most' of my time with Finn. Though how I do that has always been a mystery to me. I guess we'll have lot of days out, lots of play and get some good quality time in. It's going to be tough on his brother, too as he's been a massive influence to him since the day he was born. They idolise each other and I know Max will miss him as much as me.

A good thing to come though is the fact that I'll have lots of one-to-one time with Max. Time we've never had. Come September, I'll be starting the application process for him, to start next September. Lord knows what I'll be like when that day comes. Time to have another perhaps...

Bristol: the M Shed edition

FINALLY we have sunshine. I'm not going to bang on about my rainy day woes but lets just say they have been plentiful. Andy's brother and sis-in-law were visiting from London Town so we decided to take a trip into Bristol (something we don't do nearly often enough, I LOVE exploring the Harbourside) and visit M Shed.

M Shed is a museum dedicated to the history of Bristol. Perfect for families, it has lots of interactive exhibits to capture the imagination of little visitors. As well as the big old bus which is always a big hit, they are also displaying the pirate ship used in Bristol-based Aardman Animations' lastest film The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists.

And of course, no day in the sunshine would be complete without an ice cream at the end.