Got a witty, profound or just plain silly caption for this picture? Then leave it in the comments below!
Then click on the little boy’s head here & you will be magically transported to the funsome Mammasaurus’ blog for many more pictures crying out for a witty / pithy #satcap caption. Have fun, I know I do
At our activity group at the Nursery this morning there was lots of lively music & dancing, they banged on a proper snare drum with proper drumsticks, they rattled, they tambourined. Often sitting around looking a bit tired while aiming encouraging words at our young charges, today even the grown-ups were joining in. The ‘Funky Monkey’ dance was especially popular.
There were bananas, raisins, toast & drinks + teas & coffees for the grown-ups, then we all trotted out to the wonderful new garden there, funded by Lottery money. We first sat around on tree stumps & rugs while the host read ‘We’re on a Bear-Hunt’. Then we then walked around the garden enacting the story.
Back inside for more music, then we had an enactment of ‘The Gruffalo’ read on CD by Imelda Staunton with a backdrop & puppets. Jake’s performance in the role of ‘Fox’ was masterly & he did an especially good job in the running away scene. And he showed extraordinary versatility in swapping roles when later running around the room scaring everyone as ‘The Gruffalo’ itself.
More music, dancing & playing, then we sang some action songs, old favourites like ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’, ‘Incey Wincey Spider’. And finally the goodbye song, addressed individually to each child.
They had an especially great time, but it was sad. Probably because it was our last ever activity / playgroup there. There were a lot of goodbyes. I wonder if the twins might have picked up on some of this as we’ve had a difficult afternoon & evening; they’ve been very grizzly, possibly unsettled.
They’ve been at these groups since they were babies, from about 6 months I think. That’s most of their lives. The staff there have watched them grow & develop, & some I think have come quite attached to them. There are some terrific & very able people there, & we’ll all miss them. Losing all this, & for we parents too losing the regular contact with other Mums & Dads, will be a huge wrench.
Getting the twins off to sleep on Saturday night was…a bit different.
We’d given the Mummy a night pass; she was out having dinner with a friend, or some such frippery. Between the two of us we’d got as far as getting us all into bed together, as they still co-sleep.
Usually the Mummy is in the middle sandwiched between children, with me on the side reading stories. After they’ve finished their milk & seem settled enough I’ll get up & sing a song* while slowly turning down the light. I then sneak out while quietly saying goodnight to each of them & she stays with them until they’re soundly asleep before getting back up herself.
Tonight however roles were reversed. I was on my own, in centre stage where the Mummy usually is. She’d read the stories, turned off the light & made the Daddy’s exit. I was flying solo! In the dark…
Jake at least did seem a bit unsettled. He grizzled for quite a while, probably 10-15 minutes, them went into a stint of ‘Tree Fu Tom‘ magic spell-casting.
This basically involves raising the arms in the air, pushing them quickly out in front of you & shouting “Eh, Eh, Go!”. Again. And again. And again. He’d been doing this a lot between bath & being dressed for bed, but in front of the mirror so he could admire his smooth moves.
Now children learning by repetition is fine, but not when Daddy is trying to get them to sleep. And he wants to get up & watch the rugby. That he hadn’t been able to during the day when it was shown live. And that he had already accidentally seen the result of earlier despite trying hard not to due to a fleeting glance at twitter. Grrrr….
By this time Ellie was fast asleep. The ’Tree Fu Tom’ sleep spell I was throwing in Jake’s direction had rebounded onto her, obviously. Ellie falling asleep is usually a cue for Jake to point it out to us, often loudly: “Lellie: aleep!”. Also to Ellie: she clearly is unaware of the fact that she is asleep & obviously needs to know. This is always followed by “Shhh, Ellie is sleeping”s, & carries on until he seems satisfied that everyone has been thoroughly briefed on his sister’s current status.
So he chatted & moved around a bit more, probably for another 10-15 minutes, but thankfully soon calmed down, settled under his “banky” (trans.: “blanket”), snuggled on my shoulder & – again after a while – fell asleep. I snoozed too then & when I thought he was unconscious enough very carefully extricated myself & crept out.
I actually managed to watch all of the rugby I was hoping to, & I was still busying myself with that vital work when the Mummy came back. Suitably impressed, I might add. With me, that is, not the rugby. Although that was great too…
So one up for the Dads, I say! Getting two toddlers to sleep by yourself? Yes: it can be done!
* the CBeebies goodnight song, if you must know. “The time has come to say goodnight, to say sleep tight ’til the morning light….”
For The Crumby Mummy’s ‘Terrible Twosday’ blog hop. Click the pic for more!
Got a witty, profound or just plain silly caption for this picture? Then leave it in the comments below!
Then click on the little boy’s head here & you will be magically transported to the funsome Mammasaurus’s blog for many more pictures crying out for a witty / pithy #satcap caption. Have fun, I know I do
Ellie has taken to’ bear-walking’. It’s something that babies do as they’re learning to walk: on all fours with the arms & legs raised, knees & elbows off the floor, bum in the air. Like a bear, funnily enough.
I think she may be having the toddler equivalent of a mid-life crisis. She’s just turned 2: she’s getting old! So she tries to go back to the ‘good old days’, when life was simpler. When she didn’t have to worry about which shoes to wear, or have to decide between ‘Peppa Pig‘, ‘Tree Fu Tom’, ‘In the Night Garden‘ or ‘Bubble Guppies‘.
So she was bear-walking around the lounge today, shouting “Bear-walking!”. And of course, Jake was meant to join in. So it became “C’mon! C’mon, Jake! Bear-walking!”. Quite a sight…
Jake this evening had grabbed the Mummy’s watch & had put it around his wrist. He then, looking straight at me, wagged his finger repeatedly in my face shouting “Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba!”. Me: “Are you being Mummy?”; him: “Yes!”, with a big smile.
I found this somewhat funnier than the Mummy did when I told her later…
So that’s my mad household, why not have a look at others’ in Chris’ ’Things They Say & Do’ blog hop at her ‘Thinly Spread’ blog.
Please stop making the world crappier than it should & could be
“May all your nails be rusty”
More-than-you-deserve regards,
Still annoyed me
——————————-
Dear Jallie
When I ask, or even tell, you not to throw more food on the floor that you means you stop. It doesn’t mean you do it again deliberately. Especially with that look on your faces.
The same applies to pouring water out of the bath onto the floor, pouring drinks onto the floor / into the toy train / onto Peppa Pig, or running away when I’m trying to dress you.
You’re 2. I get it, OK?
Love, Daddy
—————————–
Dear Oh Thou Great Billjobs, God of Technology & All Things Gadgety
You know I’m a gadget-freak & I that I love Tech. And it clearly amuses You to ensure that most of the Tech I own only half works. While it is gratifying to know that You have a sense of humour, it would be greatly more gratifying to have things in my life that I so depend on to actually do what they are supposed to.
One of the things you lovely people out there in the blogosphere & the twitterverse may have noticed is that something I sometimes eloquently articulate upon bang on about with insightful profundity monotonous regularity is music, my love of it, how I listen to it a lot, how my iPod Touch is now up to (just a sec…) 8,735 tracks so far, & how I should have been a singer in a rock’n'roll band. I even have a twitter account specifically for tweeting what I’m playing on my iPod, via YouTube. At least I don’t drunkenly tweet random lyrics late at night anymore as much as I used to…
So it makes sense for me to feature music in my blog. With the sad demise of Musodad’s blog I feel moved to blatantly take advantage try to pick up where he left off & do a post where I put up a few songs that have recently taken my fancy for one reason or another & write some words about them.
And… some may also have heard me mention that it’s Jallie’s 2nd Birthday today (yay!). So that gives me an obvious theme then for my first, & possibly last:
Warning: may contain traces of soppiness. I’ll try to add a little sarcasm & some bad jokes where appropriate.
Altered Images: Happy Birthday
An obvious place to start: it was either this or the Bjork-lead Sugarcubes’ “Birthday”. Altered Images’ lead singer was the scrumptious Clare Grogan: not only Gregory’s Girl, the object of Dave Lister‘s unrequited love (& the true Kochanski), but also the scourge of Craggy Island & Father Ted when she turned up there to tell him & the boys a thing or 2. So I’ll take her over Bjork any day! Also: Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” is a bit rubbish. And I don’t care if it’s about Martin Luther King.
U2: Two Hearts (Beat As One)
Say what you like about U2 & Bono, & most of us do, this is just a great rock song; from the pre-Joshua Tree “War” album. You know what I think of now when I hear this? Jake & Ellie inside their Mummy, entwined together, separate yet one, apart but together now & always, like two hearts that beat as one.
There ya go: soppiness, with rock’n'roll!
Steve Miller Band: The Joker
This was Jake’s early theme song. Yes, we give our children theme songs: doesn’t everyone? From a very early age he’s exhibited a terrific sense of humour, getting & making jokes long before we’d have thought a young child would. OK, some of the lyrics aren’t appropriate: if I find he’s a smoker or a midnight toker I may have to have words. And I don’t know what the “pompitous of love” is but I’m pretty sure I disapprove. But it’s a good song.
Elton John: Tiny Dancer
I adore this song: Elton John at his very best. It’s almost worth watching the film “Almost Famous”, about the ’70s music scene, just for the Tiny Dancer sequence. Shows the ’70s wasn’t just prog, punk & disco!
My Tiny Dancer, of course, is Ellie. This was my early theme song for her. She’s loved to dance virtually since she could stand, & has been much better at it than her Dad for at least that time. She’s always sung beautifully too.
I also used to jig her about to this, substituting in “Ellie!” & lifting her high up in the air at the appropriate moment. She loved it! Then she’d usually throw up all over me. Happy Days.
Bob Dylan: Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
Jake’s current theme song: “Come on the juice, come on the cake: you’ll not see nothin’ like the mighty Jake”. He has a great sense of humour; it’s sometimes a mystery where he gets it from…
Donovan: Mellow Yellow
Ellie’s current theme song: “They call her ‘Ellie-belly’ “…
I’m starting to think that the quality of the songs we choose for our children may be on the wane…
Beyoncé: Halo
From the ridiculous to…
Beyoncé: a bona-fide Superstar, supremely talented, ravishingly beautiful, jaw-droppingly sexy: you name it, she’s got it. And this song is just epic, beautiful & moving. Her music was playing in the operating theatre during their birth, & I’m pretty sure ‘Halo’ was playing as they were delivered into the world. I even gave it its own little post.
I can’t now listen to this already beautiful song without being profoundly moved. It’s Their Song. It always takes me back to those mad, magical moments when they came into the world & into our lives. They were so wanted for so long, & it took so many tears & trials before they finally became a part of us. When they did ‘it was like we’d been awakened’: “Baby, I can see your halo: you know you’re my saving grace”.
Happy Birthday, Jake & Ellie. We love you.
I warned you that there might be soppiness! I can’t think of any sarcasm or bad jokes at this point, sorry. Maybe next week…
One afternoon this week the twins kept yelling at me repeatedly & excitedly what sounded like “Bum! Bum!”. This is odd even by their standards. I couldn’t work it out. I kept suggesting possible words that they might be saying, to which they responded “No!”, then more “Bum! Bum!”, getting increasingly agitated. Eventually I figured out that it was a new cbeebies programme, ‘Tree Fu Tom‘. We’d watched the first one the day before & they absolutely loved it, jump-up-&-down-&-yell-with-excitement loved it. I’d kept it, in case of emergencies (as you do), but when I went to find it on the Box it wasn’t there! Apparently they’d asked the Mummy to put it on earlier, she’d watched it with them, didn’t like it & deleted it! Thanks! (I’ve kept all the episodes since; I quite like it too, but don’t tell anyone…)
We live in an odd house. Whaddya mean you’re not surprised?! It’s tall & thin – unlike me! – & has 3 storeys. The bedroom & nursery are on the top floor, the lounge & kitchen on the ground floor. We carry the twins all the way downstairs for their morning milk & breakfast, then usually back up again for a morning play & to dress them, then back down again ’til their bedtime. It’s OK when we’re both at home & we can take 1 each, but when I’m looking after them by myself it can be tricky. I have to carry 1 up or down then come back for the other. Almost always there’s grizzling & upset by whoever’s been left behind, although by the time I’ve come back they’ve usually calmed down. Thursday however I was getting ready to take them back downstairs. As usual I’d decided to take first the one who was most keen to go, this time Ellie. I explained to Jake, as I always do, that I was taking Ellie down then coming straight back for him. Instead of making a fuss he just sat there quietly, saying “Ellie then Jake. Ellie then Jake”. He was still sitting still, quiet & calm, when I came back up for him: what a little star!
On Friday they played together in the most independent & cooperative way we’ve yet seen. They were taking turns – that’s right, you read that correctly; I’ll write it again: taking turns -without any prompting at all from us, in getting into a stroller & pushing each other around. There also appeared to be a ritual involving a pretend onion on a plate which had to be carried by the occupier of the stroller & transferred with great solemnity as they swapped over. The Mummy & I had our flabbers truly ghasted & were very tempted to leave them to it, get a brew & go watch telly. But it was nearing their bedtime so we didn’t. I did take a stroller upstairs though so they could carry on!
Another eventful week! I’m looking forward now to reading about others’ in Chris’ ’Things They Say & Do’ blog hop at her ‘Thinly Spread’ blog. Have a look, it’s a great read!
And I’ve just realised, as now it’s past midnight, that’s it’s now their 2nd birthday!
Laughing Together
