My Little Superhero

Hayley loves a programme on CBeebies called Gigglebiz.  One of the characters, Captain Adorable, is a superhero who is always saving people who don't need to be saved and making more messes than he cleans up.  Two days ago Hayley came to me with he snuggly wrapped around her self and said "I Captain Adorable Mummy!"  It made me smile and I helped her to tie her snuggly into a proper cape.  She proceeded to run around pretending to fly and had a brilliant time.

After her bath we went to Austin's room to get his pajamas and she found my bright pink pashmena which had been left in there after Austin had fallen asleep on it.  She immediately tried to turn it into a cape and so I promised her that if she was a good girl and put her pajamas on and let me dry her hair, I would help her be Captain Adorable before bed.  She was as good as gold so as promised I tied my pashmena on and she ran to show Daddy.  Austin and I followed her downstairs where she started running round in circles to make her cape fly out behind her.  Unfortunately Hayley has a habit of looking where she has been instead of where she is going and managed to end up with her cape wrapping itself around her and she fell over.  She got up straight away, put her hands up in front of her and said "Superhero's alright!".  Brilliant!!  I think her very on cape may be next on my list of 'crafts to do'.

Minor Irritations

I'm back!  My friend Linda came over yesterday afternoon (Thank you so much - it was very much needed!) and whilst here said "I didn't know you had a blog."  So thought it was about time I did a bit more on here as I have been somewhat absent for a while, mostly due to potty training. If this was homework my teacher would surely have written 'must do better'.

I was disproportionately annoyed by a sock yesterday.  So much so that it made me think "Have I got OCD or something?!"  When I got dressed I was in a bit of a hurry as we had uncharacteristically overslept - a small miracle as anyone with children will know.  In any case I had an appointment at 10am with my health advisor and was running late.  In my haste I wasn't paying attention when I put my socks on and then when I came downstairs I realised that one of them was inside out.  I am not the sort of person who can shrug this off and think "oh well, who cares?".  So I took my sock off to right this heinous wrong.

Not my feet.  Or my socks.

Unfortunately I got distracted by Hayley taking off the cardigan I had just got her to put on and failed to turn the sock the right way round before I put it back on.  Without having realised this I put my shoes on and off we went.  It wasn't until we had come home again and I had made everyone lunch that I sat down and saw what I had done.  I now had a dilemma on my hands.  Do I turn the sock round and get all that dust and what not on my foot or do I leave the sock as it is and let it annoy me all day?  I decided I couldn't cope with all that muck on my foot and left it as it was.

I kept noticing it through the day and letting out a mental gasp of exasperation!  I was so relieved when I went to bed that I was finally able to take it off!  I can't believe that not once did it occur to me just to put a new pair of socks on and all would have been well with the world...

Adios Suckers!

Hayley has a bad habit of biting things.  Today I caught her with DVD in her mouth.  Anyway because of this she was down to one dummy having lost one and chewed through two.  The last time she chewed through one we told her that it was broken and she had to throw it away, which she did.  We then explained to her that she now only had one left so she needed to take care of it because if she broke that one it would have to go in the bin and then she wouldn't be able to have one anymore.

That day arrived on Monday.  Whilst at her Aunty Cait's I noticed that her dummy (which was in my bag for emergencies) had a hole in and that I was now going to have to face a few days of torture by means of a 2 year old's screams.  I called Jon and gave him the bad news.  Before bedtime we sat Hayley down and showed her that her dummy was broken.  We told her that she could have it for one more night and then she would have to throw it away.  The next morning we reminded her that it had to go and she threw it in the bin with no problem.

However, when it came to nap time I spent 1hr 10mins repeatedly putting her back to bed, cuddling her, explaining about the dummy in a continuous cycle until she got completely over the fact that she was tired and eventually brought her downstairs again.  I expected the same at bedtime but to our surprise she only asked for the dummy twice and went to bed with only some of the normal amount of fussing.  She refused a nap again today and wouldn't even let me take her upstairs so I didn't push it.  This meant that she was fairly hideous this afternoon throwing tantrums at the smallest thing (one being that she wanted a red ice pop, which I gave her only for her to start screaming that she wanted an orange one - cue me tearing my hair out) but by bedtime was exhausted.

She asked for her dummy on the way to bed and I said her dummy was broken and asked her what happened to it.  "It's in the bin Mummy!" like I was stupid not to know!  And she went to bed with absolutely no fuss and we haven't heard a peep from her since.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

A busy few days

Haven't blogged for a few days as I've been a little busy reading!  My friend Melanie lent me a brilliant book called The Hunger Games and it most definitely had my undivided attention (of course only in the child free hours of midday and the evening).  I'm just desperate for the next installment now!

Having said that I now feel completely sorry for myself as I'm full of cold and having chills so off for a bath and early night!

Mama's Boy

So so proud of my niece Leilani today who showed a spider exactly who's the boss.  I have completely irrational fear of spiders given that I am probably a hundred times their size (maybe a bit more at the moment...) but it's the legs!  And the speed with which they use those legs.

A few days ago whilst on the phone to my sister Cait, Jon pointed out that there was a spider poking it's legs out from underneath our fire.  I instantly pulled my legs up underneath me and put on my 'scared for my life face' and begged Jon to get it.  This was followed by much whimpering and squealing until he did get up to catch it, especially when it evaded him and headed for the bookshelf - a safe haven if ever it saw one.  Thankfully Jon managed to trap it in his bare hands (my brave, brave hero!), and asked me to open the back door so he could let it out.  I made him wait in the middle of the room until I had opened the door and retreated to a point of safety halfway up the stairs, just in case the spider made a break for it before being released.  Ordeal over.

Until the next morning.

After breakfast I went upstairs to shower and Jon was in the bathroom.  He said "Are you going to have a shower?"  To which I said "I was but if you want to go in first that's fine."  He smiled and said "It's not that, look."  I looked in the bath and there was the MOTHER OF ALL SPIDERS!!!!  It was seriously huge!  The spider from the night before had obviously gone running to his mummy, it's Italian Mama at that (you know the type, big and protective) and said "They were mean to me!" and she decided we needed to be taught a lesson.  And to make things even worse Jon excitedly called Hayley in and showed her the spider and said "Watch this!" and poked the spider and both of them giggled as it sped round and round the bath.

I had to take refuge in the bedroom until I could be certain Mama was gone.

Positional Asphyxiation

I watched CSI the other night and learned that Positional Asphyxiation is where someone is suffocated by someone else sitting on their chest.  It reminded me of a conversation that took place at my sister Cait's house on Sunday.

Our youngest sister Jess has just started dating someone and as she's the youngest we're all very protective of her.  I said to Cait that I really needed to lose some weight so when I said to David* that if he hurts my sister I know Kung Fu and Kickboxing** he doesn't just look me up and down and laugh.  Cait said "Well until then you can just tell him you'll sit on him."


*Not his real name.  Don't think Jess would be appreciate me blogging about someone she's only been on a couple of dates with, so we'll just see how things develop.

**I do actually know some Kung Fu and Kickboxing.

Thank heaven for cameras

I was watching my children today doing the lovely things they do and suddenly thought "will I remember this?"

Will I remember how Austin loves to be kissed?  How he gets a big grin even if you just make kissing noises?  Or how if you make cooing sounds to him he'll make them back?  Will I remember that when he's really happy he wriggles and kicks his legs like mad?  Or how he looks gorgeous in green?  And will I remember that for some reason during the daytime he likes to sleep with the curtains open?

Will I remember that Hayley loves to wrestle and that her favourite weapon is licking?  Or that she loves to share our crumpets or muffins, but won't eat them from her own plate?  Will I remember the exact shade her hair turns in summer and how at the age of 2 it hangs all bouncy just below her shoulders?  Or how she loves to demonstrate her boogie bum?  Will I remember exactly how when she holds my hand it feels so small and so secure?

I won't remember everything and that makes me feel incredibly sad.  For the things that can't be captured in a picture I'll have to get better at writing them down, and for the things that can, thank heaven for cameras.