Height

First update of the year

Thursday 23rd January 2014Thursday 23rd January 2014Baggie

2014 has begun (in the UK at least – we will not talk about the Polar Vortex in the US) as 2013 ended with storms and flooding, indeed the floodwaters have been encroaching the Staines area and the Thames is approaching the record highs of 1947 and 1894 (and let us not forget the terrible floods of 1774!). Fortunately the new Bagnall manor although not that far from the River Thames and Staines Upon Thames town centre stands on a 1000 year flood plain, which although doesn’t completely guarantee that we will never get flooded, does infer that it would have to be a pretty weather impressive event to do so, which is just as well as I have not found my wellies yet, they must be still in one of the many unopened boxes sitting in the garage.

We may have moved in to Bagnall manor in November with Christmas but with the general malaise induced by the melancholy weather (not to mention the almost perpetual precipitation) we still have a considerable number of boxes sitting in the garage waiting to be opened. Most of the important stuff has found a new home however the bookshelves betray what lies hidden in some of those boxes.

With the New Year comes a return to routine. I am at work (not that the Christmas break affected that routine), the girls are back to school (and thankfully their school has remained open during the ‘floods’, many of the schools have closed not due to the flooding per se but because the drains are full) while Lucinda is left at home with Ezra (at least for a couple more months until her maternity leave comes to an end). Amélie is now entitled to 15 hours of free nursery tuition and so to take full advantage of one of the few government schemes we are entitled to, she now goes to TinyTots 3 days a week. This means that we only have to pay for three hours of tuition a week (and her lunches) a considerable saving for us but it does mean that Amélie has had a 50% increase in attendance. Poor little mite, although she enjoys it and it is good for her.

Ezra is growing up fast. He spends a lot of his waking hours (and to be fair to the lad he does still like his daytime naps) either standing against whatever seems stationary, included your leg if you stand still long enough, crawling around the house or putting whatever he can find that is small enough into his mouth. Has has also started cruising, holding onto the furniture and walking. Although he has not yet summoned the courage to try to walk. Indeed if you try to encourage him by holding his hands he tries to sit down, not yet interested. Not that he needs to expend any more energy to wear himself out for he is usually good at night. However over the last week or so he has been a little disturbed but that is due in no small part to his teeth. He already has 9 teeth, which I think is quite a lot for 10 month old, however we think his back teeth are starting to poke through and they are causing him some pain. We are prepared though, Bonjela and Calpol the pain-fighting duo are at hand to numb the pain enough to get him to sleep.

The biggest milestone that Ezra has just achieved is the power of recognisable words. ‘Daddadaddadaddadda‘ is the main (and most important) one but he has also said ‘Yum‘. Éowyn is convinced that he said ‘Éowyn‘ and this let Amélie to say that she heard him say ‘Amélie‘. Poor Mommy.

As part of the new year, new house regime we have decided to mark the height of our children for prosperity. It will be interesting to see how much they grow over the months and years. For those of your that are unable to see the results: Éowyn is 119.5cm (a shade under 4 feet – the height of an average 7 year old); Amélie is 103cm and Ezra is 71cm.

Anecdote of the month goes to Amélie. I was putting the girls to bed and Amélie, tries to climb into bed wearing an eye-patch. Thinking that this wasn’t a very good idea I said to Amélie, ‘Take that off please, you are not going to bed wearing an eye-patch.‘ (A phrase that I never thought that I would ever say). ‘But Daddy, I’m a pirate.‘ A fair reply I hear you cry. However the danger of going to bed with a piece of elastic around her head is a stronger driver so it was time to make a new rule ‘We do not go to bed with an eye-patch in this house, whether we are a pirate or not.‘

Now as this is only a relatively short write up so I will leave you with this nugget of information: last weekend’s full moon was the smallest full moon for 1,000 years as the full moon occurred within 2 hours of apogee (the furthest point in the moon’s orbit). It will keep that distinction until 2154 when a full moon will occur closer to apogee. Unless I live to 181 I will not see this, even the Baguettes will have to break the current longevity records to see it.

I will leave you with some photos and promise that it will not be so long until I update you all with latest events in the Bagnall household.

Peace and Love

Baggie.

A smile for Daddy

And another

Can I stop smiling?

Yum!

What’s in here?

Give me a grin

Poser

Cutey-pie

Who’s beautiful?

Daddy and Ezra

At the pizza place

Yes, I’m on the iPad, again!

The flood of 2014

The playground

No BBQ’s

Whee!

This is my swing

I said, this is my Swing!

Why?

Thursday 21st February 2013Baggie

So my resolution to keep updating this website regularly is still falling by the wayside. No real reason but life is busy at the moment and these updates have the lowest priority. We have two young children and we are trying to prepare the house for a third, so ‘computer time’ is at a premium. You may, therefore, expect this update to be full of witty anecdotes and amazing adventures. You maybe disappointed. Indeed this is probably one of the shortish write-ups for many a long month, however I am attempting to write two updates in a week so please forgive me.

The girls have been, on the whole, fairly well behaved lately (hopefully that hasn’t put the collybosh on that!) and both have continued to sleep through the night which is probably going to make the return to sleepless nights, that no doubt will arrive with Baguette number three, so much harder. However they both still have their moments.

Éowyn is growing up fast (and so too is Amélie) and she is certainly becoming more worldly wise and, obviously the way you do that is by asking questions. Unfortunately she has entered the phase where the question is ‘Why?‘. I am sure all parents have children that have gone through that phase and I am sure all children start with the first ‘why?’ in an earnest quest to understand the problem at hand. However the next 7 ‘whys?’ are just there to see how far they can push their parents. And so it is with Éowyn. I like to pride myself on knowing a fair bit about a wide spectrum of topics and so I am slightly guilty of encouraging ‘why?’. I try to answer each why with a sensible and honest answer. However, there are more ‘whys?’ then answers and after the seventh ‘why?’ I begin to run short of replies.

Not only is Éowyn growing up cerebrally but also physically. She insisted on being measured a week or so ago and so with tape measure in hand I got her to stand up against the wall to measure her: 115cm (3 feet 9 inches) which is, for those of you in the know, slap bang on the 99.6th centile line. To put it another way there will very few 4 year old girls that are taller than her. We didn’t manage to measure Amélie but I wouldn’t have thought that she was far behind. She is nearly as tall as one of Éowyn’s friends (two years older than Amélie) and taller than a friend’s daughter who is a year older than Amélie.

Éowyn, however, does have a delicate constitution. One of her friends (name withheld to protect the innocent) came to dinner after school and thought it was hilarious to burp. Éowyn politely asked her to stop belching which for a four year old was like pouring petrol on a fire and so she continued louder than before. Éowyn then pleaded saying that it was making her feel sick. The burping continued and so Éowyn completed her side of the bargain and vomited in the kitchen. A one-off you may think. Not so. A couple of days later the Éowyn and Amélie were sharing their nightly bath when Amélie’s milk protein intolerance made its presence felt on her digestive system and she passed wind. ‘Mum!‘ Éowyn shouted, ‘Amélie’s farted, and it’s disgusting!‘ Lucinda obviously found this extremely amusing but then the humour changed. ‘Mum! It stinks! It’s making me feel sick!‘ Remembering the previous incident Lucinda tried to react but not quick enough and Éowyn vomited in the bath. Not quite as funny now.

So as you may have guessed Amélie still has milk protein intolerance. However, it does not seem as bad as it was and we are gradually introducing her to more and more foods with cow’s milk protein. Unfortunately, every now and then she has a bit too much and it leaves her with an upset stomach and noxious flatulence are the usual results. Poor girl, I hope she continues to grow out of it.

Amélie is a a cutey and more of a girlie-girl than her big sister. After playing with her older cousins she has developed a liking for nail varnish. Not that we endorse it as such and we try and keep her away from Lucinda’s collection. Unfortunately that isn’t always possible and I came downstairs last week to Amélie greeting me with outstretched fingers. ‘Look Daddy, I have pretty nails.‘ From her second knuckle down her fingers were purple, the tabletop was purple and there was a stench of nail varnish in the air. Fortunately it was nowhere else and was still wet and so could be cleaned up with relative ease. The nail varnish is now under lock and key!

Lucinda’s bump is still growing (2cm bigger than average) and our son is a little wiggler. I don’t think he gives Lucinda much rest and I hope that this isn’t the pattern that is going to continue into his first few months of life. He doesn’t like his environment being restrained at all. If Lucinda puts anything on her bump, he will kick it off. If you put your hand on her bump he will give you a good kick. We have encouraged the girls to touch Lucinda’s bump and Amélie will kiss the bump while Éowyn will put her hand on the bump. When she receives the obligatory kick she doesn’t get upset, she just says that is him saying hello. Which is a nice way of thinking about it.

So the countdown enters it’s final phase and still Lucinda’s bag is not packed and the house feels far from ready to accept a fifth inhabitant, so I will leave you here (with a very poor number of photos) and get on with the list of tasks that I have been given.

Peace and Love

Baggie

A Princess Party

Princesses!

Boo sucks to you!

Put a smile on your face

What are we cooking big Sis?

A bowl of laughs!

Flaming June! We have movement!

Friday 3rd June 2011Tuesday 7th June 2011Baggie

Apologies for the language in the title but it is doubly apt, both in terms of the weather we have been promised for this month and the fact that it is June! May flew by so quickly and as you regular readers will have noticed I only managed one update all month. Very remiss of me, you will be going off and reading other websites if I am not careful!

As you will know May is quite a busy month at work with the end of many of the sporting seasons that we cover. Not saying that June and July are empty but let’s just say that the freelancers are picking at bare bones during those months at mediahouse. This we hopefully allow me to spend a little more time with the family and take precious days off to take advantage of the weather (and the Merlin passes!).

With all this time between updates no doubt you will be expecting a plethora of anecdotes (is that the collective noun for a group of anecdotes?) and a gallery of photos (again?) unfortunately you may be a little disappointed. I have been a busy boy!

The biggest news of the last few weeks is that Amélie has begun to move. I hesitate to use the word crawl, she kind of creeps. Not in a commando elbow over elbow kind of creep more by sheer willpower and energy-sapping full body motions. But it is movement. Like her big sister this initial movement has primarily been in reverse. It is that Goofus bird syndrome all over again. Amélie however is still not rolling over on her own accord. I think it is because she has learned that if we put her on her back and she cries loud enough, we will either roll her over or pick her up, or Éowyn will go over to her and see what the matter is and entertain her. Éowyn is very good like that. She seems to know exactly what to say or do to make Amélie laugh. Amélie will quite often have complete giggling fits when her big sister makes strange noises, or pulls silly faces at her, and Éowyn seems to revel in the adulation from her little fan. Thus I don’t believe it to be laziness, the lack of desire or the inability to roll but merely an extreme manifestation of tool use; where other members of her family are the tools!

Amélie has had a bit of a torrid time of late with her teeth. Not that any have come through yet but she is definitely feeling the pain of teething. Her little cheeks are red, she is dribbling and anything that is within reach is stuffed into her mouth and given a good chew. If you put yourself in their little booties, it must be an awful pain and not knowing what it is must make it worse. Although it is something that we have all been through and it hasn’t affected us that badly. However teething certainly affects the parents. With Amélie is so much pain she finds it hard to sleep. Understandable. However that in turn means that Mommy and Daddy aren’t allowed to sleep either. Three days of sleep depravation is difficult. We had forgotten how difficult it was. I don’t think that it is helped by the fact that we now also have Éowyn (in a nice way). For when Éowyn was going through the same at least we only had to care for her. Now we need to be fully compos mentis with her during the day after we have been up all night with Amélie. Also I was on shift work so it wasn’t a case of no sleep but I only need to get through one more day at work. Now it is no sleep for three day and I still have 4 more days at work!

Éowyn is using the slight perceived weakness and the fact that Amélie is seemingly getting more attention to push the boundaries again. She knows the pattern of how we ask her to do things. Nicely at first, then more firmly, then more firmly then a three second count to punishment (naughty step, quiet time, telly off, etc). She is now waiting until 2 of that countdown before even moving to do what we have asked her to do, when previously it was rare that we would even begin to count. She is a little minx and it can be very frustrating on less than 3 hours sleep.

She has also has begun to bite. We were warned about this but other friends that about the age of 2 ½ years that kids find that they can hurt each other with biting. Well, Éowyn has discovered that too! However I think that may have been cured. She had bit Lucinda a couple of times but had not bitten me. Not until the other night. She bit me on the arm and it hurt (in fact it drew blood!). In a mixture of pain and anger I shouted quite loud (louder than I normally shout, although still relatively calm) at Éowyn and told her that she was naughty. Unfortunately not only did my voice come out louder than usual, it also came out deeper than usual (and for those of you than know me that could be quite scary). It did scare Éowyn and she was quite frightened to come to me for a while. In fact I had to sit with her and give her a cuddle to make her feel a little less scared. I did explain that the reason Daddy shouted at her was because she had bit him and that it was naughty to bite and that she was not to bite anyone again. It seems that although it wasn’t the method that I would have chosen it has worked, for she has not bitten since.

Apart from the biting, Éowyn has been a joy (as always). She picked up a cardboard roll (from the centre of the toilet roll) out of the recycling bin the other day, put it to her eye and said ‘Ah-arr Captain!‘ in her best pirate voice. We then had to be pirates for the rest of the night. Not that I am complaining, it was great fun. I have also introduced her to the delights of my favourite show when I was a child, The Muppet Show. I have a number of Muppet Show DVDs and so we sat a watched one together (to try and wean her off CBeebies and Toy Story 3). I wasn’t sure that she enjoyed it, although she did sit there and watch it. The next day, however, she said, ‘Daddy, can we watch Kermit the Frog again.‘ That’s my girl!

Continuing the pirate theme we took her to Legoland (those Merlin passes are wonderful things) to see the Pirate show they put on (which as an aside is very well coreographed and well worth watching if you are there). We explored a little more of the park that we hadn’t visited last time (although again we had chose half-term and it was quite packed), but because of the number of people we didn’t get to go on many things. However she completely surprised us by asking to go on a ride on her own. It was one of those ride where a swing is suspending on a carousel. We explained that if she went on it, that she wouldn’t be able to get off until the ride stopped. She was happy with that. She we sat her in a swing on the inside of the ride (so it didn’t go as fast) and was delighted to see how much she enjoyed it. In fact she was swinging the seat from back to front to try and make it go faster. No fear!

Before we visited Legoland we had decided to measure Éowyn, to find out how tall she was. So we got her to stand against the wall and we made a little mark with a pencil on the wall and measured it to the floor. She is 98cm tall (just over 3 foot 2 ½inches in old money) which for a 2 ½ year old is quite tall. Unfortunately we didn’t factor in the barrier this broke. So while Lucinda was on the phone to her Mom and Éowyn was desparately vying for her attention a little light must have go off in her head. She picked up the very pencil we had used to mark her height and went over to the same piece of wall and drew all over it. I suppose we deserved that one! Fortunately in light of the kitchen upgrade we had already decided that we were going to redecorate the remaining downstairs living areas and so that has just cemented that decision. Thanks Éowyn!

We have some sad news in the past week, Lucinda’s parents West Highland Terrier Harvey was put to sleep. He was an old dog that had lived a good life but he was in a lot of pain and there was nothing that the vets could do. It doesn’t make the decision any easier and it doesn’t make the pain any easier to bear knowing it was the right thing to do, especially for Lucinda’s dad. We have tried to explain to Éowyn but she is a little too young to understand and with probably just forget that he isn’t there any more, which will be a shame as she would quite often lie on the floor next to Harvey. He will be sadly missed.

I will leave you with a few photos and a promise not to leave it so long before the next update.

Peace and love

Baggie