An accident free day

Well, potty accident free anyway!

Ben fell on the stairs yesterday and has a small bruise on his left cheekbone, today he fell on the new laminate in the hall and has another small bruise about 1/2" below the original bruise!

On a more positive note he stayed clean and dry with no accidents and a poop in the potty instead of on the floor like the last couple of days, LOL.

Photos, toddlers and dry underwear!

Today was school photos day at Harry's school. I took Ben along to have his photo taken, then went and had a cuppa at Sam's and then we went to toddlers - we took the potty along and apart from a small amount of wee in his pants Ben stayed dry the whole time and used the potty at Sam's and then at toddlers! He really seems to be getting the hang of this no nappies lark!

Masterclass

Tom has been selected to take part in a year 10 maths masterclass. He didn't want to go in the beginning but having discussed it with him he can see the benefits and will be going weekly on a wednesday after school. He'll be starting AS level maths. He's also taking part in an after-school project to build and race an eco-friendly car. They were hoping to have a race this weekend coming but the teacher didn't get their entry in on time so they'll have to find another event to go to.

Charlie

Ben has his friend Charlie here to play this afternoon. Charlie is three and went to pre-school this morning. At the moment they're having fun playing in the sandpit and on the slide in the garden.

Poop!

My blog seems to be turning into a toilet diary, LOL.

The last couple of days Ben has been keen to have his nappy off and wear 'big boy pants'. Yesterday he stayed dry from 2pm until bedtime and today he was dry from 7.30 until 10am (when he went down for a nap) with two wees in the potty and then when he woke up we took off his nappy and he poo'd in the potty! To begin with he looked a bit shocked that there was poo in the potty but as soon as I told him he was a clever boy he looked really excited!

More Pee

In the last couple of days Ben has got really enthusiastic about the potty. He loves to be naked from the waist down. On sunday he weed on the floor too many times to count but today he had his nappy off for 4-5 hours (apart from 20 minutes to go to school and pick Harry up) the floor stayed dry and he peed in the potty twice. One time while I was cooking dinner he went totally independently and came running in to the kitchen excitedly saying "wee wee chair". I wasn't planning to potty train yet but I'm taking the lead from him and he seems keen - we'll give it a go and see how he gets on.

Pee!

Tonight Ben asked to have his nappy off, sat on the potty and did a wee! He was so pleased with himself he kept going back and trying to do some more, LOL

Coloured Rice!

One of the mums on my online mums group posted about her children playing with coloured rice and how much they enjoyed it. I decided to try it with Ben today and he loved it. I made red yellow and blue and I talked about the colours before we mixed them all together. The result - Ben calls the whole concept "blue".

I gave him the rice on a baking tray with a selection of toys and as you can see he had a really good time with it.

Another fun day out

We had another fun day out today as we decided to go and watch the cycle racing at Warwick. There was a variety of races and stalls including an area to try out unicycling, hulahooping, diabolo etc. Tom took along his uinicycle and had a go - making it look easy! There were some serious races aswell as the fun things and just before we left there was a nasty crash when one chap appeared to clip the barrier and as we left he appeared to be unconcious on the ground and was about to depart in an ambulance.

A fun day out to Woburn Safari Park

Yesterday we took all the boys to Woburn Safari Park and we had a fabulous day. The weather was good the boys behaviour was fantastic and it was just a lovely fun family day. We arrived around 10.30 and went straight through the safari drive where we saw lots of different animals including zebra (Ben's favourites), elephants, lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, bears, wolves and many many more. After the safari drive we went and had our picnic then saw the on-foot exhibits including wallabies, ostriches, monkeys, penguins, sea lions, a huge snake, lemurs, lorikeets and ducks. The boys all played in an adventure playground, Colin, Tom and Harry had a go on the pedal boats and then we went to see the birds of prey.

A birthday

Today is my Grandad's 98th birthday! It's been a while since we've seen him and his wife Kate so I must arrange to visit them again soon.

A dry day for a change

Yesterday was the first dry day we've had in what feels like months and as Ben and I had no other plans we decided to go to the park. Ben spent almost the whole time on the slide, carefully climbing up and sliding down then shouting "bore bore" (more more) everytime. He walked up to the park, then on to school to collect Harry and then home again - he was quite worn out by the time we got home!

Hopefully the weather will be OK at the weekend as we hope to have our postponed trip to the safari park on Saturday.

Colin went and collected the guinea pigs' new hutch last night and they are now happily settled in their new pad. It took them a while to get used to the ladder down into the run but they seem to have got the hang of it now.

Church Dedication

This has almost nothing to do with being a mum but I wanted to share!

My church has been closed for most of the last year due to some major building work going on. The church fell far short of requirements in a lot of ways - disabled access was nigh-on impossible, the heating was inefficient and very expensive to run, there were no toilets or even running water. A small sympathetic extension was built and toilets with baby changing facilities (i guess that kind of brings the subject round to children!) installed. Under floor heating has been put in, the bottom of the bell tower will soon have a kitchen installed and two areas at the back of the church have glass screening to create areas for meetings/sunday school/creche etc. The hope is that the church will now be suitable to be used much more widely by the village community. This evening was the official re-opening and rededication service which was very special. I took part in the service by reading a prayer and leading Bishop John to the kitchen area of the church to ask for his blessing on it.

An accident

Tom and Ben were playing chase this morning, Ben went to grab Tom who ducked out of the way and Ben fell flat on his face. He started crying and saying "nose" so I picked him up to give him a cuddle. When he didn't stop crying quite quickly I pulled him away from me to have a look at him and we were both covered in blood! It was coming out of his mouth and it looks like he's torn his frenulum. It stopped bleeding quite quickly but it looks like he also has a bruise coming out on the bridge of his nose. He's having a nap now and hopefully he'll be OK when he wakes up.

ETA: He was absolutely fine when he woke up and 24 hours on there is no sign of the injury. Little ones heal so fast!

Aaaaarrgghh - Teenage boys!!!

Tomorrow Tom and Harry both go back to school. Yesterday I asked them both to ensure they knew where their uniform was to save the last minute scramble tomorrow morning. Tonight I planned to iron all the uniform and went to get Tom's as only Harry had brought his down. Tom had got out a shirt he should have thrown away ages ago as it's far too small. It turns out that the two shirts he has that fit were both still dirty from the end of last term seven weeks ago! So now at 9.45pm the night before school starts I'm having to do laundry that should have been done seven weeks ago!

Change of plans

Yesterday we went to our friends' for dinner and to pick Tom up after his weekend with Matt. Later in the evening I developed a nasty stomach bug so we've changed our plans for today and are all staying home and will re-schedule our trip to Woburn Safari Park for another day when hopefully the weather will be better, or at least dry, too.

It's probably a good thing that we didn't go as Tom slept in until 10am after barely sleeping at Matt's and Ben decided to take a four and a half hour nap!