I love a week, when you fall into a nice routine. This week has been busy, but we've somehow managed it all in a steady rhythm. This I like (it's not normally like this in our house!).
Swimming again this morning. Caitlyn enjoyed shouting instructions to Danny through the glass; "Go, Danny!", "Splash, Danny!", "Swim Danny!", "Jump Danny!" and "Good boy, Danny!"
Then we came home, decorated our buns and had a picnic in the garden.
Then it was off to the park. We met up with friends there and saw lots of Danny's friends from Infants and Juniors, which he will be moving up to in September.
Rebecca made me laugh today. On the way home from swimming, she said she had a bad tummy. Then she said she thought she was going to be sick. I envisaged a day, with a little girl on her sick bed and me frantically clearing up vomit from the car, the house and here, there and everywhere. As we approached the house, she had her hand over her mouth and I knew I would have to stop as soon as I could. I normally drive past our house, turn around and then park up but realised I could not do this today, so I pulled up outside the house, told Danny and Caitlyn to stay in seatbelts while I let Rebecca out of the car for fresh air and to be sick. So, I opened her car door, went to help out my poor, sick daughter. Alas, she jumped out in rude health, said "Ta da! I was teasing you!" I had to laugh, and admit I was so relieved, but also shocked that my daughter had thought up this little trick and acted it out so well. Where did that come from? Their personalities never fail to amaze me.
We're home now, have had homemade hot chocolate for me and Danny, fresh strawberries and milk for Rebecca. Unfortunately, Danny left his drink unattended, so of course Caitlyn knocked it over. Does this happen in everyone's families? Good job, I never serve the little one's drinks, hot, hot, hot! Now, time for a cuddle, then a clear up before Daddy comes home from work.
We leave for holidays on Monday...I really must start packing!
I am trying to work out how to set up my phone to work from this blog so I can add lots of photos. I will get it up and running, I really will...
Thursday 12 August 2010
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Typical Summer Holiday day
Well Danny's attending a week of intensive swimming lessons. Hopefully, this will prepare him for the weekly swimming lessons he'll be receiving in school from September. So, we've had early starts every day this week. While he splashes about, me and the girls sip water, herbal tea in flask, read books and colour in...and keep an eye on our boy obviously.
Then, this afternoon it was activity day in our local library. Danny was really pleased, as he's read his six books in the holidays, and completed his Space Hop Reading Challenge :-) . He was awarded a certificate, medal and a wrist band. I am so proud of him. With less oxygen in his blood and other (as yet undiagnosed) difficulties, he struggles with reading but he perseveres at it...and most importantly still loves books! As long as that doesn't change...I'm happy.
It was a sunny day, so we were all itching to enjoy the sun. Kids couldn't wait to go for a walk in the woods. However, I realised we had no essentials at home...milk, toilet rolls etc, so explained we'd have to go for quick shop before the woods. They got the message: no shop no tea! So, thankfully cooperated. The two eldest were (unusually!) both on best behaviour but Caitlyn (23 months) was quite a handful. Never mind...we survived!
Got home, quickly put shopping away and rushed down to woods. Of course as soon as we were down there we slowed down to enjoy the view. The thing I love about woods are even if you walk them daily (which some weeks we do) they never look exactly the same from one day to the next. Danny loved climbing trees and banks, jumping across streams and playing with BIG sticks. Rebecca likes to walk along looking at the flowers, stopping and listening to the sounds of the birds and water flowing. Caitlyn, decided to follow the way of her big brother (far more fun and exciting!) she even got quite soaked in the stream and was really muddy, but hey ho, it all comes out in the wash. They had fun. That was the main thing.
And, I got to relax. Which was an excellent bonus. :-)
Right, off to make buns for tomorrow now, which reminds me, Danny caught a glimpse of MasterChef, he asked what the program was about, and I explained. He said with such earnest, "You should be on that show, Mummy." Aw, bless him.
Then, this afternoon it was activity day in our local library. Danny was really pleased, as he's read his six books in the holidays, and completed his Space Hop Reading Challenge :-) . He was awarded a certificate, medal and a wrist band. I am so proud of him. With less oxygen in his blood and other (as yet undiagnosed) difficulties, he struggles with reading but he perseveres at it...and most importantly still loves books! As long as that doesn't change...I'm happy.
It was a sunny day, so we were all itching to enjoy the sun. Kids couldn't wait to go for a walk in the woods. However, I realised we had no essentials at home...milk, toilet rolls etc, so explained we'd have to go for quick shop before the woods. They got the message: no shop no tea! So, thankfully cooperated. The two eldest were (unusually!) both on best behaviour but Caitlyn (23 months) was quite a handful. Never mind...we survived!
Got home, quickly put shopping away and rushed down to woods. Of course as soon as we were down there we slowed down to enjoy the view. The thing I love about woods are even if you walk them daily (which some weeks we do) they never look exactly the same from one day to the next. Danny loved climbing trees and banks, jumping across streams and playing with BIG sticks. Rebecca likes to walk along looking at the flowers, stopping and listening to the sounds of the birds and water flowing. Caitlyn, decided to follow the way of her big brother (far more fun and exciting!) she even got quite soaked in the stream and was really muddy, but hey ho, it all comes out in the wash. They had fun. That was the main thing.
And, I got to relax. Which was an excellent bonus. :-)
Right, off to make buns for tomorrow now, which reminds me, Danny caught a glimpse of MasterChef, he asked what the program was about, and I explained. He said with such earnest, "You should be on that show, Mummy." Aw, bless him.
Saturday 27 March 2010
An introduction
Hello All,
Claire here, starting yet another Blog! I have had baby blogs, running blogs etc and have never kept to them! :-( My aim here is just to have a day to day family blog, mainly for me and the kids. It will be lovely to look back at in a year or so, to remind us what we were up to and to see how much the kids have come along.
Once, it's up and running, it will be nice to share with other friends and family so they can keep up with our news.
Well I'll start with a quick introduction: I'm a teacher and Mum of three - hence the Blog title, Outnumbered. Dave and I truly are! ;-) Our eldest is Danny. Danny is 6 years old. All small persons are special, but Danny is especially special to us as he has a special heart. Danny was born with Hypo plastic Left Heart Syndrome, basically the left hand side of his heart didn't develop properly, so after three major open-heart surgeries: at 4 days old, 4 months old and at 3 years old, some extremely clever surgeons have "re-plumbed" his heart to make the right side do all the work. Danny is doing really well, health wise. He is on a cocktail of heart meds, diuretics (to make him wee) and warfarin (an anti coagulant). So, he can bruise a lot and bleed a lot if he gets cut, and we have to regularly test his blood at home. We regularly have to pick him up early from school after yet another bump on the head etc. However, recently, his behaviour is more of a concern for us than his heart health. More of that in future blogs I expect! Danny is a cheeky but very caring and loving son and big brother. Danny loves drawing, science experiments, running around in the woods, studying bugs, street dance, playing castles and knights, playing pirates, playing army, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Ben 10, listening to stories and playing on his laptop or Wii. He loves any hot food; curry and hot chilli sauce are his favourite. His favourite colour is orange. He doesn't like "work" (reading and writing!)
Rebecca is 3 years old. She started part-time school in January and loves it. Rebecca is a mother hen, she loves to look after people and help wherever she can. Rebecca loves curling up with a book, doing jig-saws, drawing/painting, singing, ballet, dancing, playing dollies, tea parties, cooking, Pepper Pig, Disney Princesses and making jewellery. Her favourite food is cake! Her favourite colours are pink and purple. She doesn't like being teased.
Caitlyn is nearly 20 months old, She is always smiling and laughing whole heartily. She loves running around, climbing, dancing, playing with baby dollies, playing with her cousin Cerys, cuddling Snowy dog, peg jig saws, board books, cuddly toys, "Row, row, row the boat", "Horsey Horsey" and cuddling everyone whilst sweetly saying "Aww!" She loves eating sausages! She doesn't like not getting to do what he big brother and sister are doing! ;-)
We had quite a quiet day today. Danny spent last night at Nanny's house. I went over at 9 to pick him up and drop Caitlyn off. Caitlyn has chicken pox at the moment, so can't really take her anywhere! Rebecca has her theatre workshop at 9.30 am. While she went there, Danny and I went to the library. We were really excited to see "The boy who fell down exit 43" by Harriet Goodwin on display there. Only two weeks ago we met the author and Danny had a picture taken with her -he was holding an axe over her head at the time - and she signed his copy of the book. He chose Star Wars and dinosaur books!
Then at ten I collected Rebecca and dropped Danny off at his theatre class. Normally, classes are at the torch theatre. Rebecca and I, walk up to the post office, buy a comic, walk back to the Torch, sit on the comfy settees, cuddle up and read the comic and solve all the puzzles. But today, classes took place in the Sea Cadet Hall. So Rebecca and I walked up to PoundStretcher, on the hunt for lollipop sticks for the swimming gala I'm organising on Monday. We use them to give the children their places in the race to take to the judges (lollipop sticks either have 1st, 2nd or 3rd on them). But, we didn't have any luck in PoundStretcher. Rebecca then suggested we buy Caitlyn a Tinkerbell dress as "Poor Caitlyn doesn't have one!" We went into Bewise and saw Tinkerbell dresses...I still haven't worked out if this is coincidence or if Rebecca somehow knew they were in there. Then we went to Tesco. We enjoyed our walk. She enjoyed seeing the diggers etc as there is a lot of building work being done to extend Tesco's. She chose Pepper Pig magazines. As a treat we got some smoothies, mmm. Then, we read her comic in the car. Not as cosy as our settee in the Torch, but never mind. We went to get Danny. We waited downstairs and had fun dancing to "Walking on Sunshine" which they were dancing to upstairs.
I managed to get the lollipop sticks in Bettabuys on the way to Nannys. I couldn't resist some craft chicks while I was in there as well. Can't wait till next week to start making Easter crafts.
We picked up Caitlyn and went home. It was a sunny, dry day today so clothes were out on the line and the kids got to play outside. :-) Danny got a puncture on his bike :-(. The most fun the kids had was making an "assault course" for the ball to manoeuvre around: down the slide, around the markers and into the goal etc.
I managed to wet vac the carpet and wash the curtains. Very exciting stuff.
Rebecca fell asleep at the dinner table tonight bless her. That meant one less child to bath and one less story to read for me.
Dave is out at a gig he organised tonight. His band, Hate Gauge, are not playing at this one. Hence, me having time to write this. I will try and update again very soon! Last week in school this week...and clocks "Spring" forward tonight. We lose an hours sleep tonight :-( Better go and change the clocks now...and then wonder tomorrow are they the right time or the old time!
Love to all.
Claire x
Claire here, starting yet another Blog! I have had baby blogs, running blogs etc and have never kept to them! :-( My aim here is just to have a day to day family blog, mainly for me and the kids. It will be lovely to look back at in a year or so, to remind us what we were up to and to see how much the kids have come along.
Once, it's up and running, it will be nice to share with other friends and family so they can keep up with our news.
Well I'll start with a quick introduction: I'm a teacher and Mum of three - hence the Blog title, Outnumbered. Dave and I truly are! ;-) Our eldest is Danny. Danny is 6 years old. All small persons are special, but Danny is especially special to us as he has a special heart. Danny was born with Hypo plastic Left Heart Syndrome, basically the left hand side of his heart didn't develop properly, so after three major open-heart surgeries: at 4 days old, 4 months old and at 3 years old, some extremely clever surgeons have "re-plumbed" his heart to make the right side do all the work. Danny is doing really well, health wise. He is on a cocktail of heart meds, diuretics (to make him wee) and warfarin (an anti coagulant). So, he can bruise a lot and bleed a lot if he gets cut, and we have to regularly test his blood at home. We regularly have to pick him up early from school after yet another bump on the head etc. However, recently, his behaviour is more of a concern for us than his heart health. More of that in future blogs I expect! Danny is a cheeky but very caring and loving son and big brother. Danny loves drawing, science experiments, running around in the woods, studying bugs, street dance, playing castles and knights, playing pirates, playing army, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Ben 10, listening to stories and playing on his laptop or Wii. He loves any hot food; curry and hot chilli sauce are his favourite. His favourite colour is orange. He doesn't like "work" (reading and writing!)
Rebecca is 3 years old. She started part-time school in January and loves it. Rebecca is a mother hen, she loves to look after people and help wherever she can. Rebecca loves curling up with a book, doing jig-saws, drawing/painting, singing, ballet, dancing, playing dollies, tea parties, cooking, Pepper Pig, Disney Princesses and making jewellery. Her favourite food is cake! Her favourite colours are pink and purple. She doesn't like being teased.
Caitlyn is nearly 20 months old, She is always smiling and laughing whole heartily. She loves running around, climbing, dancing, playing with baby dollies, playing with her cousin Cerys, cuddling Snowy dog, peg jig saws, board books, cuddly toys, "Row, row, row the boat", "Horsey Horsey" and cuddling everyone whilst sweetly saying "Aww!" She loves eating sausages! She doesn't like not getting to do what he big brother and sister are doing! ;-)
We had quite a quiet day today. Danny spent last night at Nanny's house. I went over at 9 to pick him up and drop Caitlyn off. Caitlyn has chicken pox at the moment, so can't really take her anywhere! Rebecca has her theatre workshop at 9.30 am. While she went there, Danny and I went to the library. We were really excited to see "The boy who fell down exit 43" by Harriet Goodwin on display there. Only two weeks ago we met the author and Danny had a picture taken with her -he was holding an axe over her head at the time - and she signed his copy of the book. He chose Star Wars and dinosaur books!
Then at ten I collected Rebecca and dropped Danny off at his theatre class. Normally, classes are at the torch theatre. Rebecca and I, walk up to the post office, buy a comic, walk back to the Torch, sit on the comfy settees, cuddle up and read the comic and solve all the puzzles. But today, classes took place in the Sea Cadet Hall. So Rebecca and I walked up to PoundStretcher, on the hunt for lollipop sticks for the swimming gala I'm organising on Monday. We use them to give the children their places in the race to take to the judges (lollipop sticks either have 1st, 2nd or 3rd on them). But, we didn't have any luck in PoundStretcher. Rebecca then suggested we buy Caitlyn a Tinkerbell dress as "Poor Caitlyn doesn't have one!" We went into Bewise and saw Tinkerbell dresses...I still haven't worked out if this is coincidence or if Rebecca somehow knew they were in there. Then we went to Tesco. We enjoyed our walk. She enjoyed seeing the diggers etc as there is a lot of building work being done to extend Tesco's. She chose Pepper Pig magazines. As a treat we got some smoothies, mmm. Then, we read her comic in the car. Not as cosy as our settee in the Torch, but never mind. We went to get Danny. We waited downstairs and had fun dancing to "Walking on Sunshine" which they were dancing to upstairs.
I managed to get the lollipop sticks in Bettabuys on the way to Nannys. I couldn't resist some craft chicks while I was in there as well. Can't wait till next week to start making Easter crafts.
We picked up Caitlyn and went home. It was a sunny, dry day today so clothes were out on the line and the kids got to play outside. :-) Danny got a puncture on his bike :-(. The most fun the kids had was making an "assault course" for the ball to manoeuvre around: down the slide, around the markers and into the goal etc.
I managed to wet vac the carpet and wash the curtains. Very exciting stuff.
Rebecca fell asleep at the dinner table tonight bless her. That meant one less child to bath and one less story to read for me.
Dave is out at a gig he organised tonight. His band, Hate Gauge, are not playing at this one. Hence, me having time to write this. I will try and update again very soon! Last week in school this week...and clocks "Spring" forward tonight. We lose an hours sleep tonight :-( Better go and change the clocks now...and then wonder tomorrow are they the right time or the old time!
Love to all.
Claire x
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