Nanny Fran

Amélie’s Fourth Birthday

Wednesday 8th October 2014Monday 20th October 2014Baggie

I think it catches me by surprise every year how rapidly September comes around and thus how quickly the year turns and also how quickly my children are growing up. As you can probably guess from the title of this update, my little girl Amélie turned 4 last Sunday. Due to the fact that the start of the academic year, in the UK, is the 1st September this makes her one of the oldest still at nursery. This is despite the fact that she, like Éowyn before her, is probably more than ready for reception and full time education. Nevertheless another year at Mini Tots looms for her.

Amélie’s birthday sits in the middle of a busy birthday period. Not only is it just under three weeks before Éowyn’s birthday and the day before Auntie Liz’s birthday it also sits in the middle of our N.C.T. group’s crop of birthdays. As many people in the same situation do, when we were expecting our first child Éowyn we joined an N.C.T. group and although that was six years ago we are still in touch with 5 of the other couples. We may not meet up as often as we used to as a group (individually we often see each other) but in an attempt to keep the group spirit alive we arrange a joint birthday party for the kids, somewhere in the middle of their birthdays. As a coincidence this year’s N.C.T. birthday party fell on Amélie’s birthday.

A stroke of luck in part due to a busy European week for our Premier League big boys and in part due to the Ryder Cup (go Europe!), the bulk of the Premier League games were on the Saturday and the Super Sunday game was my beloved West Bromwich Albion v Burnley. Not a game with a large interest from foreign broadcasters even I will admit, therefore I decided that my (work) team could safely handle this one by themselves and I could start to claw back the days work owes me, by being off with Amélie on her birthday and attending the N.C.T. birthday party for the first time in years!

Not only was I off work but Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz decided to come down for a few days. Again, a little bit of a coincidence with Auntie Mary buying Auntie Liz tickets to see Kylie Minogue at the 02 for (and on) her birthday. Therefore Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had double the excuse (not that they need one) to come for a visit.

The venue for last year’s celebration was deemed a success and so Alice Holt was once again chosen as the venue for the party. Alice Holt, a few miles outside of Farnham, is a woodland managed by the Forestry Commission. In addition to the woodland, it has a Go-Ape adventure playground and this year has been home to the Gruffalo Trail. Indeed, Lucinda took the kids on the Gruffalo trail during the summer holiday, so it is somewhere we know quite well.

We parked close to the wooden chalet that would be the venue for the party and were surprised that we were the second family to arrive, especially since we had to wait for Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz to drive down from West Bromwich (an early start for them). Thankfully with the trusted S-Max we could squeeze Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz in the car save them driving any further. We unloaded the car (kids and party food) and had a look around the chalet. It appears that we had been upgraded from the chalet we had hired last year (not that I know!) and this one was much bigger, with its own toilet facility and resident fox and badger (stuffed you’ll be glad to know, taxidermied, if that is indeed, the proper term). Not the best taxidermy for the fox looked like it was quite surprised when it died, or at least when it was stuffed! The badger on the other hand seemed to be smiling, perhaps he saw what happened to the fox!

It seemed to be a shame not to take advantage of the Indian summer we were experiencing (indeed the temperature peaked at 25C, not bad for the end of September) so we decided to tackle the Gruffalo trail en masse. It was a good walk to build up an appetite for the party food. The kids were all well behaved but perhaps a little bored with looking for the Gruffalo characters in such a large group. The most fun they had was when they found a branch across a dried up creek. They it was a bridge over boiling lava and they all took it in turns to walk across it. Who says that kids today have no imagination. It is amazing the fun you can have with a fallen tree branch.

So after party food, some party game and even a birthday cake (baked by Claire) we headed back home to celebrate Amelie’s birthday. Regular readers may recall that at the beginning of September Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz flew to New York for a mid-week trip. Éowyn and Amélie were so excited about Nanny going to America because there are some toys that are available in America that are not available in the UK (a demonstration of the power of the internet that they even know that) and Éowyn had handily written a list so that Nanny Fran wouldn’t forget.

As usual Amélie was truly spoiled with the presents that she received (including the ones from America!) and as usual Daddy spent more time extracting them from the packaging than Amélie did unwrapping them. Thank you all for your presents. I think that Éowyn was as excited as Amélie about the presents that she received and we had to stop her hogging them before Amélie had got a chance to play with them. Amélie (and Éowyn when her birthday comes around) is going to have her first proper bike for her birthday from Mum and Dad. We know it is the wrong time of year but there should be some fine days over the winter, and so hopefully by Spring they will both be confident on two wheels. You will have to keep popping by to see how that goes.

I will leave you there, as if I manage to find the time there should be a veritable plethora of updates over the next month or so. Again you will have to keep popping by to see how that goes!

But before I leave you there is one thing left to say: ‘Happy Birthday Amélie, love from Mum and Dad’

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS West Bromwich Albion made it three wins in 8 days with a 4-0 defeat of Burnley. Maybe it will be a good season after all.

On the Gruffalo trail

The NCT group

Welcome to my barn

And this piece

goes

…here

Face painting by Auntie Liz

Half-way there

Finishing touches by Amélie

With Nanny Fran!

Nosy neighbours

And is madam happy?

Cake!

I’d rather have cake

Ready for the off

Birthday girl

It’s you!

Bipedal Motion and the Return to School

Thursday 25th September 2014Saturday 11th October 2014Baggie

Once again the update has been delayed and the gap between write-ups has widened further than I would prefer. As per the last few months the shadow of IMG casts long over Team Bagnall and so I have been unable to put fingers to keyboard and regale to you the tales of our corner of the world. I will attempt to remember the past month and so you will have to forgive any memory lapses or curtness of writing over the next thousand words or so.

As you can perhaps guess from the title it has been a momentous month, even if I have not been there to share it with the family that often.

But first let me take to back to the last Thursday in August. Friends of ours Kerry and Dave were due to be wed the following day (Friday 29th August 2014) and so we needed to find babysitters for our brood. Unfortunately both Lucinda and I were due to work Saturday and Sunday so we were looking for at least three days of babysitting in a row, a tall order for anyone. Up stepped Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz which was very nice of them and the girls were very excited, however it did mean that we had to drive to West Bromwich to drop them off. The girls are always excited to see Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz but there was an added edge to this visit but more of that later.

Unusually (ahem), I was at work on the Thursday so Lucinda packed them in the trusty S-Max and drove the 120 miles to West Bromwich. With Kerry and Dave’s wedding the next day she stayed in West Bromwich just long enough to rest and have some lunch before saying goodbye and heading back home. She was slightly concerned about leaving Ezra as we had not left him that long before and she was concerned how he would react. She need not of worried as he simply waved her off. Not only was he not bothered but to rub salt in the wounds of the separation, he decided that being 120 miles away from Mum and Dad was the perfect opportunity to take he first steps! Yes, the little blighter decided that genicular locomotion was no longer in vogue and decided to totter to his feet and begin the usual plantigrade locomotion favoured by humans. So, disappointingly, both Lucinda and I missed this huge developmental stage.

Lucinda arrived home Thursday evening and when I got home from work we both commented on how empty the house felt, even though all of the kids would have been asleep there was still a sense of emptiness.

The next day was the Wedding; the venue Random Hall. Random Hall is 16th Century cottage (somewhat extended) set in the Sussex countryside a short trip outside of Horsham. As this is within shooting distance of Staines Upon Thames (about an hour away) we decided that we would drive there and back and not look to stay. This meant that one of us needed to be the nominated driver and as Kerry is ostensibly Lucinda’s friend and many of Lucinda’s (and Kerry’s, obviously) work colleagues would be in attendance. For those of you that think that the internet is an evil place and no good can come from it, Kerry and Dave met on the same dating website as Lucinda and I, so good things do happen in cyberspace.

Random Hall was an excellent, one stop venue and a fantastic day was had by all. Kerry looked beautiful and Dave passed muster! The only slight downer was the fact that we were both semi-conscious that we would be working the next day, it would have been nice to have been able to take advantage of a sans-child weekend and really let our hair down. No such luck.

A weekend of work followed and before we knew it Monday morning arrived and we were heading back to West Bromwich to relieve Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz and collect the Baguettes! We left early because Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had a big day the next day and was the cause of the excitement from Éowyn and Amélie. Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz were leaving early the next morning to catch a flight to New York. Yes, Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had booked themselves a short trip to the Big Apple. Now why would Éowyn and Amélie be excited that Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz were going to America? The power of the internet unfortunately.

The girls have discovered, on Youtube, an American lady who plays with dolls and films herself doing so. She is either in the employ of the toy manufacturers or is just slightly crazy and has lots of spare cash, or some combination of all three. She always has the latest dolls and makes little stories with them, much to the delight of the girls. I have to stop them watching her and actually encourage them to put the iPad down and actually go and play with the dolls themselves. Whoever she is, it works. The girls are always interested in the new dolls that she has bought and we had always managed to put them off wanting it by telling them that they were only available in America (which in fairness, they quite often are). Therefore imagine their delight when Nanny Fran announced she was going to America! Éowyn began writing a list for her and Amélie so that Nanny Fran could load up with presents. The upside of this was that we had warned them before going to Nanny Fran’s that if they misbehaved that Nanny Fran wouldn’t buy them anything. To be honest they didn’t need that (they wouldn’t dare misbehave for Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz) but it was a good warning nevertheless.

The weekend also threw up another of Éowyn’s misheard lyrics, this time Ghost by Ella Henderson. The actual lyrics are: ‘I keep going to the river to pray‘; Éowyn instead sang: ‘I keep going to the river to play‘. Coming from a non-religious household, I can understand where she was coming from and a more enjoyable way to spend time by a river in my humble opinion.

The second part of this update is the fact that September marks the advent of the academic year. Éowyn has begun year 1 while Amélie still has a year before she starts full time education. Both girls have had a little shock going back to school. Éowyn, because there is much more focus on work this year and she no longer has free-time in which she is allowed free reign to discover her talents; Amélie because a lot of her friends have left Mini-Tots to embark on their education journey, leaving Amélie as the oldest at Mini-Tots.

Although this has been a bit of a shock for the girls, it will no doubt all be forgotten in a few weeks. Amélie is making lots of new friends and Éowyn is thriving on the work focus and it is good for her. She is racing through reading books at the moment and has already progressed through one level and the next level is in her sights. There has been an improvement in her writing and she has already earned one ‘Magic Moment’ (the reward system employed by her new teacher Mrs Harris). It is safe to say they are settling in.

Éowyn’s imagination is developing and will stand her in good stead if she pursues her latest career choice: author. She enjoys writing and will quite often write books for us. Yes, books, not stories. She will fold sheets of paper and loosely bind them into a book before crafting her story. Her stories are quite good and have a defined beginning, middle and end. She carries this imagination into her play and some of her character names are quite impressive. My particular favourite is Sharon Von Poopenwrench. Have no idea where she got that from!

Ezra, too, is a cheeky little fellow at times. I was playing with him and pretending to be a sleep replete with comic snoring noises. As Ezra crept nearer and I suddenly ‘woke up’ and surprised him. He thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened and was positively chortling. So I did it again. Again, he thought it was a riot and encouraged me to do it again. After about the tenth time it was becoming a little tiresome, for me at least. Ezra had other ideas. When he realised I was not going to do it again he put his head down and started the fake snoring. So I put my head down and did it a few more times. The next time I refused to do it, Ezra once again put his head down but still I refused to do it. So he grabbed my head and pushed it down, he was a tenacious little monkey.

So with Amélie’s birthday a few short days away and Éowyn’s just under three weeks later I will leave you with the knowledge that I have to update you sooner otherwise two of the biggest events of the year will have been missed.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Cheeky boy

The finished house

I can walk!

What are you looking at?

What?

Is it still there?

Just out for a walk

Tight turn

Out for a stroll

Richard and Lucinda

Gis a kiss!

The Happy Couple

Anna?

Amélie’s first day

New hairstyle

Looking Northern

Ey up

Looking for a space

Pony treking

Saddle up

Living up to my name

Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

Painted ladies

Those pesky kids

Whoa!

Push me!

Whee!

Push me sister!

Push!

Asleep!

A visit from the Tooth Fairy

Friday 13th June 2014Saturday 14th June 2014Baggie

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