Coping with Two

I've touched on the fact that Jamie is at University at the moment, but I don't think I've fully gone into details. He finished his Open University degree earlier in the year and scored himself a place on a Master's degree to study Creative Writing.  It's technically a full-time degree, so he spends two days a week physically at University, and has gone part-time at work, working 2 half-days and 1 full day.  I thought this was going to be incredibly difficult, having a new baby and a husband with so many commitments, but actually it means he's around a lot more than he would otherwise have been, even if he is constantly trying to find some peace and quiet to do some writing.

Friday is his full day in work, and at the moment it's really the only day that I'm left alone with both children for any prolonged period of time.  I haven't quite got the hang of it yet (and the state of the house is testament to that) but I'm getting better all the time.

Today, I came up with a Winter Walk Treasure Hunt (I had to be careful to omit the word 'treasure', or J would have been expecting an x-marks-the-spot and Actual Treasure) to keep us busy, and act as my activity for the day to boot.

I found this tiny clipboard in my stationery drawer and scribbled down the first 5 things I could think of (the first on the list was 'a crane', because there had been a crane at a house round the corner earlier on.  When we got outside, I could immediately see it had gone, so I changed it to an unimaginative 'bird'.  Will do better next time.).  I gave it to J and he almost exploded with delight.  We then spent about an hour getting our coats and boots on, and stuffing drinks and snacks and tissues into J's rucksack, and persuading him he didn't need to bring Tiger with him, and yes he did need to wear a coat and a hat, and no we couldn't leave Little J at home, and could he please not walk back into the lounge once he had his wellies on but wait patiently by the door while I got her in the sling and PLEASE I'll just be a minute and stop hanging off the coatrack and don't hide the front door key okay ready let's go .

Finding 'something unusual' - a pile of chopped logs

One of our last-minute Christmas presents for him was the Early Learning Centre digital camera, and at half-price with an extra 20% off it was a mere £17ish.  He was very excited about it when he opened it, but hasn't paid much attention to it since.  His treasure hunt list said he had to take a photo of everything he found today, so we took it with us and took photos of all his finds.  I mostly took photos of him finding his Things, and was pleasantly surprised with how they came out.  The ones he took were much more out-of-focus, but I'm sure he'll get the hang of it in due course.

 Finding an evergreen tree - Holly

It was extremely muddy and surprisingly warm, so we came back very dirty and sweaty.  After a feed for little J and beans on toast for big J and I, we all decamped upstairs and had baths.  I had a bath while J read to little J, then I bathed her while he got undressed, then he bathed himself while I dried and dressed her.

Back downstairs, she fed again as he watched Room on the Broom for the seventy-billionth time, and we ended the day warm, clean and snuggly.  I even had him in bed and asleep by 7.15, which I haven't managed even with Jamie here for weeks.

To anyone who's had more than one baby for a while, I'm sure you're laughing at me and my feeble attempts at a normal life.  But right now, it feels like a huge achievement merely surviving the day, let alone getting out and about and doing something that J deems fun.  I even managed to squeeze a nap in before Jamie came home and J woke up for another feed.  I can totally do this ;)

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Day Four

Sport: Walking
Distance: 1.48 mi
Duration: 01 hours 02 minutes 24 seconds
At: 04.01.13 15:12

(info courtesy of runtastic)

Idyllic picnic

Somehow, we all seem to have contracted Norovirus over the last week.  I know my immune system was already low, having just had a nasty cold over the half-term break.  We had no inkling that anything was wrong with Jacob, however (apart from not wanting to eat much), until a scream at midnight last Wednesday brought us rushing into his bedroom, where he proceeded to vomit spectacularly everywhere.  After cleaning everything up, he slept fitfully all night, screaming, writhing with pain and throwing up every half-hour or so all night long.

A couple of days later, and I spent the day in bed, feeling too nauseous for words, but unable to do anything other than groan.  At midnight, sure enough, I was more sick than I've ever been in my life.  Repeat all night long.  Jamie was the last to succumb, waiting until Monday, at around midnight (it was like the witching hour for us!) he was dashing for the toilet.

Anyway, the upshot was that they didn't want me in school, and on Wednesday I was still feeling rough as anything, but in desperate need to get up and off the sofa, and into the fresh air.  Jacob wanted to go to the river, and as it was nearly lunchtime, we packed a picnic and left Jamie in peace for an hour.

It's only a 10 minute walk through the woods to the river from our house, and I often forget that we have such a special place on our doorstep (it's slightly sullied by having a carpark attached, which is at the end of a short road which branches off from the local motorway service station, which boasts a McDonald's.  People 'in the know' buy their McD's, bring it down the track and park up to eat it and chuck their rubbish willy-nilly out of the window.  And you don't want to know what goes on there at night but it's well known as a local dogging hotspot.  I'm really selling this, aren't I?!).  For those properly in the know, you keep walking past the carpark, follow the river along its winding course, then put your picnic blanket on the banks of the river well out of sight of the carpark and earshot of the road.  Silence, except for birdsong and the rippling of the river.

And when you've finished sitting in this patch of sunlight, feeling that everything is perfect in the world and your child is really an absolute delight and actually, your tummy doesn't hurt any more, you can lie back and watch your aforementioned child burn off some energy by exploring the clearing and playing king-of-the-castle on the concealed tree stumps in the long grass.

...and then saunter back along the river path, seeing if stones or pinecones will float or sink in the river...

...and investigating toadstools.

And even though it's only a 10 minute walk from the house, when you get home you'll remember that you're a) half-way through a pregnancy and b) just recovering from a serious stomach bug, and therefore spend the rest of the afternoon lying on the sofa.

Here Comes Science

Over the last couple of weeks, Jacob has developed a burning passion for Science.  I'm struggling to recall exactly how it came about, but each and every day I have around twenty-billion requests of "Can we do some more Science please Mummy?".

So far, we've done lots of bubble blowing (experimenting with different-sized and shaped wands), colour mixing, gravity (with a slinky on the stairs - didn't really work as the slinky was a cheap plastic one.  The real ones are surprisingly pricey) and water (pouring and measuring and bubbles and more pouring and splashing and pouring).  We also have 'science baths', where we hypothesise what kind of objects will sink or float, and then try them out.  Again and again and again.

I've been researching science materials and activities online, and it seems pretty much anything with an element of discovery can fall into this category for preschoolers.  There's a great resource of activities here at Productive Parenting, where you can choose your child's age and the learning category and get a list of activities from their library.  Pre-kinders has a load of great ideas and some printable materials.  I've started pinning some bits and bobs to my Preschool Science pinboard but haven't found much yet.

Of course, the best resource of all is the They Might Be Giants CD and DVD 'Here Comes Science'.  I could happily watch this all day.

Mostly, we're just having fun, and it's great having a focus to fill our days.  We try and get out for a nature walk in the woods that surround our house most days, where we can look at the weather, the seasons, learn about plants, and chuck stuff in the river to see if it floats or sinks (this is a very popular activity).  On Thursday, we set off into a slightly damp day, one of us sensibly bringing an umbrella along.  By the time we'd walked for 45 minutes and got a good couple of miles away from the house, the heavens opened and it POURED down.  Jacob looked down at my jeans, which were soaked from the knees down, and said "Mummy, I think we need to go to a waterproof shop and get you some waterproof trousers when we get home".  In his wellies and full waterproofs, he was happy to skip along in the ditches beside the path, splish-splash-splosh-splishing to his heart's content.

When we got home, we stripped off, wrapped ourselves in towels, and had some hot chocolate.  I've just found out that my over-the-road neighbour is going to be homeschooling her daughter.  Right now, I'm pretty jealous of them.  I could get used to this.

Working from home

It's coming to the end of my Easter holidays now, and while the 2 weeks off have been blissful, I've spent most of this week a) coming down with J-cub's lurgy, b) revelling in J-cub getting better but dreading him going back to all the germs at nursery and c) thinking about how much I miss my maternity leave and being a stay-at-home-mum and how much I don't want to go back to work on Monday.

I'm consoling myself with the thought that it won't be overly long until the Summer holidays, and hopefully I can wangle myself out of working during the holidays as much as possible.

Which I'm apparently quite adept at doing - yesterday was the only day during the holidays I'd agreed to work, and talking to my boss on Tuesday evening I persuaded him to drop my charges off here rather than trekking out to work at their house.

They are totally enamoured with J-cub and all his toys (despite being just 10, they spent the whole day making sweeping statements such as "We didn't have cool toys like these when we were babies, we just had a jack-in-the-box"), and weren't too old to enjoy lying in his ballpit and stacking cups for him to knock over. The two boys shared their lunch with J-cub and proclaimed BLW to be much better than 'shoving spoons in his mouth', and while he napped we played Star Wars Monopoly with the Clone Wars DVD playing in the background.

Later in the afternoon we went for a walk through the woods, stood on the railway bridge and waved while a coal train beeped and whooshed below us, leaving the boys with hair standing on end and bright red cheeks, ate ice-creams and had a rather awkward conversation about breastfeeding.

I really shouldn't complain about my job, it's not really like much work goes on ;)