On international ‘be late for something day‘ Ezra began his journey through full-time education. Yes, the youngest of our three children has now reached the age deemed by the UK that compulsory education should begin and thus all three of the Baguettes are at school. They are growing up too fast! Read more
Firsts
Amélie’s first visit from the Tooth Fairy
With a recent general write up; a write up for Éowyn’s birthday and one due for the return of the Badger Moot you may not be expecting me to spoil you with another at this time and you would be right. However, as I am sure you can tell from the title, Amélie has recently had one of those special moments that deserves to be relayed without delay to you and it doesn’t seem right and fitting to squeeze it on the end of the Badger Moot – it is much more important than that.
So as the title suggests, (well, more tell you outright rather than suggests) Amélie has lost the first of her deciduous teeth. If you recall, Éowyn lost her first tooth at the beginning of June 2014, 5 months younger than Amélie was on the 28th October 2016 when she lost hers, under more dramatic circumstances (this is Éowyn we are talking about). Éowyn wasn’t mentally prepared for the loss of her tooth that came out while she was eating a corn on the cob for she had not noticed it was loose and so when it came out it freaked her out completely. It took a phone call from Daddy (who was still at work) to calm her down.
Amélie, on the other hand was more than prepared for the loss of her tooth. She had noticed it was wobbly on the last day at school a week before it actually came out. However, this caused Amélie some major concerns mainly because her tooth had become wobbly the day we were due to go to the Badger Moot in deepest darkest Dorset, so if it came out while we were in Puncknowle how would the Tooth Fairy know where she was? (Indeed, who else would know where Puncknowle was?) I am sure, therefore, it was sheer willpower that meant that we had to wait an entire week and our return to Bagnall Manor before her tooth came out. We didn’t have to wait long, it was less than hour after we returned that the tooth fell out. She had obviously dropped the effort of keeping the tooth in and although she had eaten 23 meals since she had noticed it was wobbly the first meal back home finally caused it to fall out. The offending article was a piece of chicken in yellow bean sauce from the local Chinese takeaway that was our welcome home meal.
I was half expecting the spare ribs to be the culprit but as she bit into the chicken it must have loosened because she suddenly spat it out complaining that there was something hard in her chicken and there in the half-chewed meat was her tooth. There was then a moment of panic where she thought that she was going to bleed to death (Amélie can be a little dramatic – but not as dramatic as Éowyn!) but when she realised that she wasn’t bleeding and that it didn’t hurt, she became excited that she was going to receive a visit from the Tooth Fairy.
During the week leading up to the loss of the tooth, Amélie had asked me why do Tooth Fairies collect teeth. This caught me on the hop and I wasn’t quite prepared for the question, so I turned it back round and asked the girls what they thought they did with the teeth. Now I was probably expecting answers such as:
- They turn them into money
- They turn them into stars
- They build their houses out of them
- They make them into jewelry
- They plant them and grow fairy flowers
- They grind them into fairy dust, which they use to fly
- They give them to new babies who don’t have any
- Or they just collect them
I wasn’t expecting the answer that Éowyn gave: ‘They grind them into powder which they give to the Sleep Fairies who sprinkle it in your eyes to make you sleep at night.‘ I quite like that answer and is far better, or at least more kid-friendly, than some of the ideas that were going through my mind. I have encouraged Éowyn to turn that idea into a story.
So, with her tooth wrapped in a square of toilet paper Amélie was quite happy to take herself off to bed in anticipation of the booty that the Tooth Fairy would bring. She was not disappointed for this was her first tooth so the reward was greater than it will be for subsequent teeth (as it was for Éowyn – you’ll be glad to know that Brexit has yet to affect the tooth exchange rate). Indeed, the next morning Amélie awoke to two shiny pound coins (so shiny they looked like they had been dipped in Cillit Bang) that lay under her pillow in place of her tooth (the Tooth Fairy must have run out of two pound coins). She was delighted with the cash and squirrelled it away.
Amélie’s permanent tooth has already erupted from her gum so it won’t be long until her gap is no more and indeed as it grows out it might push some of the neighbouring teeth out. Will she catch up with Éowyn, who has only lost 4 teeth to date? You will have to keep popping by to find out, for if that happens you can rest assured that I will let you know.
Peace and Love
Baggie
Ezra’s first day at nursery
Monday 22nd February 2016 saw an important step in Ezra’s life – his first day at nursery. It is tradition (on this site) that such an important step is worthy of an update all to itself; this is it.
Ezra turns three in slightly less than three weeks and currently the UK Government pay for all pre-school children to receive 15 hours of childcare (e.g. nursery) per week. They are entitled to this from the term after their 3rd birthday until they begun full-time education. Therefore Ezra will be entitled to this for the Summer term when the schools return after the Easter break. However Ezra has never been to school, or to a childminder for over a year, or indeed spent a significant amount of regular time away from Lucinda and thus we felt that it was a little unfair for him go from 0-60 (o.k. 0-15 hours) in one fell swoop therefore we decided to ease him in gently with two mornings a week.
The decision of where to send him was far easier, we only had one place in mind. Indeed his name has been down for over a year because we so wanted him to go there. When we moved to Staines and applied to change Éowyn’s school to the nearby primary we also had to look for a nursery (pre-school) for Amélie. Éowyn’s school has a nursery but you have to commit to either all mornings, or all afternoons there is no provision for children to stay there all day. This did not suit us for Amélie (and it doesn’t really suits us for Ezra) as we prefer 3 full days (and pay the extra half day) rather than 5 half days. Therefore the decision for Amélie was the second closest school, a further thirty seconds down the road, Our Lady of the Rosary (or Grocery, as Amélie used to call it).
Our next door neighbour Kathy works at Our Lady of the Rosary (so Ezra, as Amélie before him) would have a familiar adult face and it has recently been awarded ‘Outstanding’ by an Ofsted inspection; this, coupled with our familiarity of the school, made it a very easy choice. Hence why his name has been down for over a year.
We took Ezra for a couple of taster sessions and he got on really well so I think Lucinda was more nervous than Ezra as we prepared him for his first day at school. We arrived in good time (we have to set out earlier now as Ezra’s school starts at 08:30) and he wasn’t at all overawed by the enormity of the set he was about to take. He confidently strolled into the classroom and immediately begun playing. Amélie said hello to all her old teachers and it felt like he had been going to school for months. We kissed him goodbye and left him quite happily ironing pizza (as you do) and thus begun our new school routine. I dropped Éowyn and then Amélie off and returned home before leaving for work.
Lucinda picked him up three hours later and the staff said that he had settled well. He had played nicely and there were no tears. Our little boy is all grown up. It is slightly upsetting to think that he didn’t miss us, but that is surely what we are trying to achieve. The only down side was that he refused to have a nap when he got home because he is a big boy, but crashed out in the pushchair (he is a lazy big boy) on the way to pick his sisters up from school and couldn’t be roused until tea-time.
So another step on the journey of life has begun for our youngest child. When did he have permission to grow up?
Peace and love
Baggie
Got my water bottle
Off to school – Huzzah!
Not at all worried