Tuesday 21 April 2015

What I learned last week...


The last few weeks have been great. It's spring, we had the Easter holidays and lots of chocolate which hurts my tummy but anyways. But unusually the children's schools holidays did not line up with Tim's teaching school holidays. This meant that for the first week Tim was home they were still at school. It was kind of awesome because he could take them to school and pick them up. The boys found this exciting and equally I found not doing it for once really exciting. It also meant we could go out in the day time together
without children!
    It was weird, we kept looking at the back of the car like Where's our children? Have we left them somewhere? We went for Lunch. We went food shopping. I forgot how easy it is without children. I could really take my time. (I'm not sure how much Tim or our bank account enjoyed that fact...)We had friends over for a tasty brunch. We hung out, it was really nice.
    But it also meant that after Easter there was a week where Tim had gone back to school and I would be at home with the boys on my own. I was kind of dreading it. I don't know why. I thought maybe it would be hard to keep them happy and occupied every day on my own. But I learned something I had forgotten.
Pretty much the one  thing that my children want the most in this whole world is to hang out with us, play with us and have our complete attention. That's it. Not expensive toys or big trips out. Just us.
I mean how long will last last? How long until they would much rather hang out with friends or play on their futurist awesome computer games? How long until were no longer funny but embarrassing? Not long I bet...
    And once I let go of all the things I 'should' be doing (mostly the 'shoulds' involved housework) and joined in, I remembered how much fun it was hanging out with them all day. I used to do it all the time before they started school. And I loved it then too. Plus the more I played with them the better their behaviour was. And the more they hugged me and told me randomly that they loved me. Lucas does this a lot. 'Um mummy...I love you.' They are older now too so we can have actual conversations that make sense.
We had a superhero day...

We played in the garden...
We went to the park...

We took loads of walks and talked about everything from nature to why poo is a funny word. It just is. We drew pictures and made comic books.We worked out how to make those damn loom band bracelets (Thank you You Tube I realise we are late to the party)
Had our first outdoor fire of the year in new handmade fire pit....

We went for after dinner walks before bed...
Nana came up and treated us to Dudley zoo which was also so much fun...

I didn't take my camera because I was enjoying being right there with them rather that looking for the next great shot. The boys are so much easier now. They didn't run off.

Isaac asked so many clever animal questions. I watched him easily make friends with a few kids at the zoo playground. He is so confident and grown up now. I felt so proud of them both.
Little monkeys...

12 comments:

  1. You have a charming life! I love being outdoors with my boy too. And I agree that right now, our children just want our focus and attention. Pretty soon they will be wanting us to drop them off a block from school! ;)

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  2. What a fun school holiday! And an added bonus, time with just Tim!

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  3. It sounds to me like you had a great holiday. A little adult time to kick things off, and then a whole lot of fun with those boys of yours. I think there was a lot of wonderful memory making.

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    1. I think so and blogging about it helps secure that memory too :)

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  4. I have to second Kim, it sounds like a great holiday. I remember the first time Mike and I spent the day without babies, it was so strange.
    I love that you had a superhero day, that sounds fun!

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  5. Kudos. You seem to have found the perfect balance.... Maybe because you are wearing a superhero cape;)
    xo

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  6. It sounds like the perfect balance! What a great way to spend Easter :). Your superhero day sounds like great fun.

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