The trilogy is complete and the third update of the week lands at Baggie and Lucy dot com. So after the epic write-up(s) of our family holiday to Tenby what could possibly have happened to warrant this update?
If you have not guessed from the title of this update the biggest news of the post-holiday period is that on Friday 6th June 2014 Éowyn lost her first tooth. Yes, our oldest child has taken another step to remind us that they are only children fleetingly. Unfortunately, this came as a bit of a shock to us and especially to Éowyn. There was no warning, the tooth had not become wobbly, she was simply eating a corn on the cob and out it popped. Therefore we were not mentally prepared for it (and hadn’t ever really spoken to Éowyn about it in any depth) and Éowyn certainly wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I had not yet returned home from work and this probably made it worse, indeed she was inconsolable by Lucinda.
Éowyn always has been a daddy’s girl and whenever she is sad, or frightened or hurt it will always be me that she looks to for comfort. With Lucinda unable to console her, I received a phone-call from Lucinda asking me to talk to Éowyn. Therefore work was put to one side while I spoke to Éowyn. Making her tell me what happened made her focus on talking instead of succumbing to hysterics and then I could ask her the important question: ‘Did she know what this meant?‘ Somewhat taken aback by a question, she thought about it for a while but couldn’t answer. I replied that she would receive a visit from the tooth fairy, who would leave her shiny coins. This perked her up, especially after I told her that she could spend those shiny coins on whatever she wanted, although I don’t think that she fully grasps the value of shiny coins and what she could purchase with them. We also spoke about the fact that she was growing up and was a big girl. By the end of the phone-call she had calmed down significantly and now was more concerned about what had happened to the tooth to ensure that she could put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.
It seems that the current going rate for a first tooth is £2. Unfortunately the tooth fairy did not have a two pound coin but did leave two shiny £1 coins (so shiny that it looked like that the had been cleaned with Cillit Bang!). Éowyn was so excited the next morning when she woke to find the money and came running in to show me. I asked her what she would like to use the money to buy. ‘Can I buy two Kinder eggs? One for me and one for Amélie?‘ How can you refuse that?
That Saturday was another big day. As regular readers will know for various achievements both girls had been promised items from the Disney store and both had chosen Frozen related items. Unfortunately the success of Frozen has not been reflected by the availability of the items in the stores and on the website. So while we were on holiday we had charged Nanny Fran with a one week challenge to source an Elsa dress and doll for Éowyn and an Anna dress and doll for Amélie. Nanny Fran is not one to shirk a challenge and came good on three of the four. Only the Anna doll for Amélie had eluded her. A stroke of fortune, however, meant that Lucinda found one in another store and so, at long last, we had a full complement to reward the girls. Saturday was the first day that Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had to come down and bring them. As you can imagine the girls were beside themselves with excitement, both at the prospect of seeing Nanny Fran and their Aunties (for Auntie Mary was going to visit too), and the fact that they were going to receive their Frozen dresses and dolls.
You can imagine how excited they were when they opened their bags and took out their dresses. They put them on immediately and after Daddy extracted the dolls from their respective boxes no other toys got a look in that day. You will be happy to know that Ezra had not been left out. When Nanny Fran had visited the Disney store there had been an offer on Muppet related merchandise, so Nanny Fran treated her Grandson to a Gonzo cuddly toy. You can see from the photos below that not only were the girls were delighted with their presents Ezra was quite happy with his.
Not that Ezra currently deserves a present. That is perhaps a little harsh but the girls did receive theirs for their achievements while Ezra, though cute and an ideal baby from a sleeping point of view has not had any major achievements of late. As he marks his 15th month he has not yet begun to walk. His preferred method of locomotion is crawling but when that is an inconvenience (for instance when you are trying to run away with the TV remote control) he has resorted to ‘walking’ on his knees! He will not even entertain the idea of walking and will not let you hold him up. He will cruise along the furniture and even crawl to you and pull himself up on to his feet against your legs but he will not try to walk.
You may recall that Amélie was also a late developer when it came to walking, in complete contrast to Éowyn who was walking quite early. Amélie, however, just decided one day to walk, getting up and completing a dozen paces or so; maybe Ezra will do that. He has until the 4th July 2014 to beat his sister; we will watch this space.
He has, however, developed another habit, one that is not welcome. He has turned into a bit of a biter. It is obviously a developmental stage probably borne out of frustration and his inability to communicate or control his emotions. They are not play bites though and his teeth are sharp. He has left marks on both girls and myself and Lucinda. It is a difficult one to deal with as he is a little young for the thinking step, but a firm ‘No’ and then if he persists to try and ignore him is our current strategy. He is a little strange at times though, for if he is frustrated and he can not get hold of you to bite you he will bite himself. You almost feel that it is better for him to bite you than hurt himself. Hopefully this is just a phase that he will grow out of soon before he causes someone real damage.
There is one more first that I need to get you across before I leave you and that is Éowyn’s first Sports Day. Yes, it is that time of year that schools up and down the country hold their annual sports day. Éowyn’s class had been in training since their returned from half term and I regularly asked Éowyn how she was getting on. Knowing that she is not the fastest (we Bagnalls are not build for speed) I was trying to cushion her from potential upset, explaining that as long as she did her best, then that is what matters. It seems however, that the teachers had already wheeled out the perennial classic: ‘It is not the winning but the taking part‘.
Chatting with Éowyn, she seemed quite content with her ability and that she wasn’t the fastest runner, however she did say that she had come second in the obstacle race. Therefore, on the way to Sports Day I thought I would give him some fatherly encouragement and told her that the obstacle race was the race for intellectuals. Anyone can run in a straight line but running and negotiating puzzles takes a special person with special abilities.
The Sports Day was a big event with the day divided between the lower school (Nursery to Year 2) in the morning and the upper school (Year 3 to Year 6) in the afternoon. Each year had three races so you can see why it took best part of half a day to complete all races. The three races were a straight sprint, the aforementioned obstacle race and a relay race.
As suspected Éowyn did not perform very well in the straight sprint. This was due in part to the fact that she is not a particularly fast runner and partly because she was not concentrating at the start of the race and had given the other children a five yard head start. She was also slow at the start of the obstacle race. The obstacle race is not about top speed though and she soon caught up and her princess training obviously paid dividends for she came out of the ‘balancing a bean bag on your head’ stage in the lead. She increased that lead in the ‘pass a hula hoop over your body’ stage and so by the time she came to the slalom run she had a healthy lead and wasn’t caught. Yes, Éowyn won a race and was so proud, as indeed were we.
We thought that she may have won a second winner’s sticker (no medals here, just stickers) in the relay. Her team were winning with only a few legs to go. Éowyn was running the antepenultimate leg but the boy who was running the leg before her (the preantepenultimate?) had a bit of an incident. Half way down the track his trainer came off. He never noticed until he was about 5 yards before the hand over, however instead of carrying on sans trainer he turned and ran back to retrieve the offending footwear, then sat down and put it back on (which took a while) before completing his leg. In the mean time the other teams had completed a couple of legs and poor Éowyn was running against no one (as were the last two in her team). It was quite funny to watch and Éowyn didn’t seem particularly upset by it. It is just a shame that I wasn’t filming it, may have been worth £250 from ‘You’ve been framed!’
So, it has been another eventful week in this enclave of the Bagnall family and I leave you with this interesting fact: today is Friday 13th June 2014 and it is a full moon. So if you are selenophobic or friggatriskaidekaphobic you may want to stay in bed. However I do beg you to bear in mind that this is the first time that this combination of superstitions has occurred since Friday 13th October 2000 and you will have to wait until Friday 13th August 2049 for the next one. So when you look up at this year’s Honey Moon (June’s full moon has several names including the Strawberry Moon and the Rose Moon as well as the Honey Moon) appreciate this heavenly occurrence for you will not see it for another 35 years and 2 months.
Peace and Love
Baggie
