Again it has taken me longer to update you than I had hoped that it would. This is nothing to do with the fact that I have hit the 100 mark and given up but as you can imagine it has been a busy time with a variety of demands on my time and so updating this website suffers. The demands on my time are coming from all angles. It is a busy time at work (when isn’t it?) with the end of the majority (apart from the Russian Premier League) of the football seasons (and hence much of my work – for a couple of months until it all starts again!) including the last day of the English Premier League (with the unusual feeling for a West Bromwich Albion fan of knowing that we have been safe for a couple of games and heading for a mid-table finish!). It has been quite manic with the kitchen build which has effectively turned the whole house upside down and now that it is complete, it is taking longer than expected to put it all back together again. Juggling this with the usual family commitments has not left a lot of time for dallying on the computer. In theory, therefore, this should be a fun-filled update jam-packed with interesting ancedotes. Please don’t be too disappointed.
The end of April has seen much of the country take nearly two weeks off work. This has been due to two four day weekends in succession. The first was the belated Easter weekend, the second was courtesy of the second-in-line to the British throne’s marriage to Catherine Middleton and the May Day bank holiday. I had to work the Easter weekend (football does not stop for Jesus or the Easter bunny) but managed to retain the second weekend off. Hence I could sit and watch with billions (more strictly milliards) of others around the world the first major royal wedding in a quarter of a century. We sat down as a family and tried to get Éowyn interested in this major historic event. However we were greeted with ‘This is boring. Can I have my programmes on, please!‘ We tried to explain that it was a wedding of a prince and one day they will be King and Queen. ‘No Daddy, I want Toy Story 3 on.‘ I maybe thankful of this one day. As soon as the television schedules began to return to some semblance of normality (none of your normalcy nonsense) we headed to the Stanwell Moor street party. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the street and it wasn’t much of a party, so we made our excuses and headed to Lucinda’s parents for a cup of tea and a cake. Bit of a shame really, we were hoping that it would have been a good excuse for a party. They just don’t do street parties how they used to!
The next day we headed up to West Bromwich to wish Nanny Fran a belated birthday. Éowyn was so excited to see her Nanny Fran (and Auntie Liz) and kept everyone entertained (and on our toes) for the whole weekend. Nanny Fran saw a big jump in Amélie too, for since she has been taking her solids she has really begun to fill out. She is thoroughly enjoying her food and will demolish her meals with consummate ease, even calling for seconds! She has even begun to grab the spoon and start feeding herself if she thinks you are not feeding her quick enough. She is still a little bit of a lazy minx though. She still has not begun to crawl, although with the power in her legs maybe she has decided that crawling is a waste of time and will just wait until her legs are strong enough and begin to walk. It is still wonderful to see how much Éowyn loves her little sister and will often lie next to Amélie or sit next to her or ask to hold her. To think that we feared that she might be extremely jealous and in all fairness to say that there is no hint of jealousy would be a lie but apart from always stealing Amélie’s things (‘I am sharing with her!‘), Éowyn has the makings of a very good big sister.
Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed herself at Nanny Fran’s, especially when Auntie Liz put her face-painting skills to good use and turned Éowyn into a tiger. Tigers are definitely Éowyn’s favourite animals and she will quite often pretend that she is one. With the added bonus of a stripy face we all had to endure being on the tiger’s menu. Although with her mop of hair she looks more like a lion with a rather impressive mane. One of the things to do while at Nanny Fran’s was to get Éowyn’s hair trimmed, unfortunately with the bank holidays it seemed that everyone had the same idea and with no available appointments it was left to Lucinda to hack away at Éowyn’s fringe so that at least she can now see without constantly brushing her hair out of her eyes.
The weather that had been so kind to us throughout April has continued into May. It has been a little cooler, but apart from the odd shower has been relatively dry. This has been a blessing while the kitchen has been done. It has meant they we could get out of the house and not worry about where we were going. However the good weather seems to have bought the insect life out of their winter hiding places. Wasps, and mosquitoes seem to gravitate to our house. Éowyn is not too keen on either (much like her parents) but strangely seems to detest mosquitoes more. She calls them midgiebugs and fears that they are going to eat her. Not sure where she has got that one from. However, all this glorious weather this early into the year is bound to mean that the height of summer will be a wash out.
Éowyn is now back to school and seemingly very happy there. Although before she went to school on Friday she said, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go to school it is yucky!‘ Lucinda told her that she had to go to school and off they went. They walked into school and Lucinda took Éowyn’s coat off to hang it on her coathook, when she turned around Éowyn wasn’t there. She had wandered off into the classroom. Lucinda asked her if she was going to say goodbye to Mommy. She just turned waved and that was it. We are glad that she is happier at school and has seemingly made at least three friends. Hopefully the skills she will learn at pre-school will be easier when she moves up to school proper.
I think I have stolen enough time today so I am off to dandle Amélie while accepting pretend choclate cake and a nice cup of tea from Éowyn as I sit in her hairdressing salon.
Peace and Love
Baggie
