New Skills

A warm November is the sign of a bad Winter – or so they say…

Wednesday 30th November 2011Thursday 9th August 2012Baggie

We are two weeks closer to Christmas and I still have no presents or indeed made any effort towards purchasing them. Nothing new there then (although I have looked on Play and Amazon and bought stuff for myself -it’s a start!). It is with this in mind that I now start a 10 day break from my place of employment. I hesitate to use the word work, as Christmas shopping, visiting friends and relatives, preparing the house for Christmas and looking after the children is also work, I just don’t get any money for that!

So, again since this write up comes on the back of a couple of busy couple of weeks at work so you must forgive the brevity of amusing ancedotes and photos. It has become more of a discipline for me to continue with the updates when I am busy and not let the impetuous slip for as you will notice I have seriously missed the target this year in terms of updates and am currently only averaging 12.85 days between writes ups as opposed to 11.41 days last year and 11.77 days the year before. OK enough of the geekiness and back to the task in hand.

So with the 25th December less than a month away it is all geared to getting ready for the big day and Éowyn is, probably for the first time fully comprehending the idea of Christmas, i.e that Santa brings you presents not the religious aspect of the year. We are trying to temper the fact that she will get what ever she wants and the incessant stream of advertising aimed at children is not helping and the phrase ‘I want one of those,’ is heard umpteen times a day. However, it is giving us the opportunity to use the notion of Santa to our advantage. ‘If you are not a good girl then Santa will not bring you any pressies‘, although in fairness to Éowyn we have not had to say that to her that much because she has been relatively well behaved. We haven’t resorted to the tactics of friends of ours who pretend to call Father Christmas whenever their child misbehaves and asks him to take away a present. We’ll save that for when we need to wheel out the big guns.

We are, however, trying to use the notion of Santa in an attempt to stop Éowyn from sucking her thrumb. She has always been a thumb sucker. The nurses in the ICU at St. Peters tried to encourage us to give Éowyn a dummy when she was born (it seems to be one of the factors in preventing cot death) but, much to our relief, Éowyn kept spitting it out and so never had a dummy. Thus her comfort became her thumb, which is handy in some ways (never gets lost!) but at the age of three we feel that it is high time that she stopped, at least during the day. So, the power of Santa is being invoked by trying to convince her that only babies suck their thumb so if she is sucking her thumb then Santa will think that she is a baby and therefore only bring her baby presents and not big girl presents. Will it work? Watch and wait.

Amélie, obviously, is oblivious to it all. As indeed she is oblivious to the fact that her parents need more than 3 hours continuous sleep. Amélie doesn’t seem to understand the notion of a good night’s sleep and the best we can ever expect is to be woken at 0500. It is starting to get a little tiresome after 14 months! We had initially hoped to be able to move Amélie into Éowyn’s room earlier this year but until she sleeps through the night we are of the opinion that it is unfair on Éowyn that unfortunately means she is still in with us. However, now that Lucinda is back at work it is becoming more important to train her, if not to sleep, then not to scream like she is being murdered when she wakes in the small wee hours of the morning.

In the daytime Amélie is completely different and a little cutie with a very different personality to Éowyn. She is much more of a mommy’s girl than Éowyn. Éowyn was, and indeed still is, a daddy’s girl which, considering the amount of work that Lucinda does for her, much be frustrating for mommy. Amélie has redressed that but it can be equally frustrating for Lucinda as Amélie will follow her around incessantly, hanging onto the back of her legs whenever she has her back towards her. As if to illustrate this Amélie’s favourite word (not that she has that many at the moment) is ‘mommy‘. She can also say ‘daddy‘ and what sounds like ‘big sister‘ (much to Éowyn’s delight) among others but it is ‘mommy‘ that she constantly mutters. However, in the last few days that has been replaced with a new favourite: sneezing! She sits there pretending to sneeze. She then looks at you and gives a cheeky grin. You can start her off by saying ‘Bless you‘ and off she goes.

Amélie still has not taken her first unfettered steps. She spends a lot of her time on her legs cruising along the furniture but has not yet attempted to let go of the sofa and walk across the room. If you hold her hands to encourage her to walk she just sits down refusing to entertain the idea. This is probably down to a number of reasons: there really is no need at the moment: she is the Usain Bolt of crawling and can cross the room in a blink of the eye; her sister will carry toys for her so she can concentrate on crawling and the wooden floor is more slippery than carpet so probably doesn’t install confidence when taking those first steps. We’ll see if we can encourage her to make that next stage before Christmas; another of the items on the list for the week off.

So with that in mind I will leave you with this one thought. This apparently has been one of the warmest Novembers on record and one of the mildest Autumns on record (for the UK) and apparently the old weather lore states that: ‘A warm November is the sign of a bad winter’ (hence the title of this write up) as does the similar pearl of wisdom ‘Flowers bloomin’ in late Autumn a sure sign of a bad winter comin’ (not sure if that second statement is supposed to rhyme but if it is, it is a bad one, if it doesn’t they why does it look like they have tried to make it rhyme?). I have no empirical data to back up either of these statements, or indeed if they relate to great swathes of the world or just to a small town just outside of Scunthorpe (Winterton, perchance?) but I thought that I would throw it into the public domain and test it this winter. Obviously it will prove nothing either way but perhaps 30 years of study and a supercomputer (or at least a piece of paper and a propelling pencil) will, so come back to me in 2041 and I will let you know.

Enjoy the photos

Peace and love

Baggie

Wrapped up warm for Winter

Coo-ey!

I see you!

Let me play you a song

It goes like this…

One more for the lady in the corner

Fun at the park

I like the swing

I like the swing too!

What lies on yonder horizon?

It’s cheeky!

Look at me!

Lesson one: the emotional phonecall part one

Lesson one: the emotional phonecall part two

Lesson one: the emotional phonecall part three

Stand in the place where you live

Monday 21st November 2011Monday 21st November 2011Baggie

Is it just me, or is this November more depressing than usual? The usual anticyclonic gloom has truly spread it’s November mirk over the land, Christmas is over a month away and coupled with the darker nights, even the news (as reported by the Daily Mail – so it must be true) that this is probably going to be the warmest November (in the UK) in recorded history hasn’t raised the mood.

There is, however, some news from the Bagnall household that may just disperse the melancholy: Amélie has begun to cruise. She has gone from being the Usain Bolt of crawling to bipedal movement almost overnight. OK, she had not taken her first unfettered steps but she is pulling herself to two legs at every available opportunity and every opportune object that stays still long enough (even the back of your legs when you are doing the washing up). This presents itself with more issues, for her reach has now increased itself tenfold. Those little arms can reach, almost Mr Tickle-like, further than you would believe and always to the one thing that you don’t want her to have. Hence the lack of photos on this upload as Lucinda’s camera is one of those shiny things that Amélie has become besotted with and it no longer works as it once did. However, it has given me an idea for a Christmas present for Lucinda. Shh!

There is a second reason why there are not some many photos as usual and that is because I have not had so many days off work as I have in recent weeks. It is still manically busy at work so on some days I have left the house before the girls have woke and am back just as they are going to bed. Then, the days off I do have with them Lucinda is working and so at the moment there has not been the collective family events and thus such photographic opportunities. My working does have others effects especially on Éowyn. Last weekend we were chatting and she said, ‘Daddy, do you have to go to work tomorrow?‘ I replied that I did and she wandered off to her table and took out a sheet of A4 paper and her crayons, furiously scribbed away and wandered back. ‘Here’s a map, Daddy, so you know how to get back home,‘ she said handing me the finished picture. There was a tear in my eye.

Éowyn has been very good of late. She has seemingly left her terrible twos far behind and I can not remember the last time she sat on the thinking step or even was threatened with sitting on the thinking step. Indeed, she has been very thoughtful and polite and is truly a pleasure to be with. She has also begun to really enjoy going to pre-school (Playbox) and seems to have made many friends this term. At the end of the last school year we were undecided as to whether we should be sending her there as she didn’t seem to be enjoying it but perserverance has paid off and as of January (when she is entitled to 15 hours of childcare paid for by the government) she will be going there three days a week.

Éowyn also has inherited her father’s (and grandfather’s) love of films. At the moment she is going through the back catalogue of Disney films. She knows Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast inside out (as indeed Toy Story 3) but her current favourite is Lady and the Tramp. At least it gives us a rest from Peppa Pig and Dora the Explorer (her current favourite television programmes) and I’d much rather sit down with her and watch a film for at least it is a fixed, defined duration. Watch the film then do something else, rather than the ending stream of television programming punctuated with endless adverts for toys and games (I want one of those) that she doesn’t need. All you parents out there are saying welcome to parenthood. Thanks!

Christmas is rapidly approaching and myself and Lucinda have promised ourselves that we will be more organised this year. We have to be with two children and are both in employment. So presents are being bought (internet shopping is a wonderful thing) and days are being booked off to attempt to get ahead of the game for since both of our jobs are shift based, the Christmas period is no different to any other day of the year, we will be in our respective places of work. There is no two week break for us. I always remember when I first got my first job in television and some friends were disgusted that we would be expected to work during the Christmas holidays and I replied ‘What do you do on Christmas day?’ ‘Eat, drink and then fall asleep in front of the telly.’ ‘Exactly, someone has to be pressing the buttons at the other end to make it all work.’

So with that in mind I will bid you adieu and once again apologies for the less than usual number of photos below and I promise to do better next time.

Peace and love

Baggie

The arms of Morpheus

Beating up my big sister

Now where have they parked the car?

Off to School

Bye Daddy

Are you coming Mommy?

What does this button do?

This is very interesting

The end…

Don’t worry Daddy, it wasn’t a wee; it was just a fart!

Sunday 25th September 2011Baggie

You may be forgiven for thinking that I am falling out of love with this project as the frequency of updates has dropped significantly of late. There was a strong start to the year but it has certainly lessened of late. Is it the fact that I have reached the century and sat back upon my laurels? Nothing quite as prosaic; the culprits are simply the combination of work pressures and wanting to spend time with the family. Work is a necesary evil and this website wouldn’t be this website if I didn’t want to spend time with the family, but with the long winter nights drawing in and Éowyn back at pre-school then there may be more activity in the coming months.

So what has happened through the month of September so far? The month started as it has done for the last 45 years with Lucinda’s brother’s birthday. To celebrate this singular event (note for younger readers: In 1949 RCA Victor produced the first seven inch vinyl discs and because of their five minute recording length became the de facto format for singles. They revolved at 45rpm, hence the pun) the greater Cathrall clan headed into Windsor for a chinese meal. It was good to all get together but I now appreciate the a couple of things slightly more than I did. The first is how difficult it is to enjoy a meal and hold sensible adult conversations while you have one eye on one child (and encouraging her to eat) while you are bouncing the other on your knee. However it does lead to the second: the appreciation of the invention of the chopsticks. When you only have one hand free they are very useful tools for shovelling copious amounts of chinese food into your mouth.

Then came my first weekend off in two months. So it was family time and time to concentrate on sorting the finishing touches to our decoration and on helping Éowyn with her toilet training. Bar a couple of accidents she has done really well so far and wouldn’t even dream of wearing a nappy in the daytime now. Ready in time for the start of the new term and her lengthened days. Last school year she only did two mornings (Mondays and Fridays) at school. With her approaching the age of three we have decided to increase that to two full days with the idea of introducing a third in 2012. Our little girl is growing up. Last year she wasn’t always keen on school and she would often say that she didn’t want to go to school (although she always seemed to enjoy it when she got back and told us what she had been doing that day). This year she seems full of it and looks forward to it every day. This is possibly due to the fact that she is doing full days now and so can settle in more rather than just being there for a couple of hours before we came to pick her up.

To celebrate her first day back at school and her migration to ‘big girl’s knickers‘ we decided to pay another visit to Legoland (the Merlin Pass has definitely earnt its money this year). With many school children back at school Legoland was eerily quiet. It was fantastic. We decided to head straight to the newest ride (and the one that usually has the longest queue) the Atlantis Submarine Voyage. A combination of ride and aquarium with over 50 species of sharks, rays and fish. It was fantastic to watch Éowyn’s face as the submarine (or strictly speaking a semi-submersible) glided through the million litre fish tank looking as sharks swam passed the portholes inches from your face. This was the first time that Éowyn had been out on an extended day trip without wearing a nappy (we were carrying a potty around with us – but being Legoland we didn’t get any strange looks!) and so we were quite conscious of asking her whether she needed to go to the loo. So after the ride we headed to the public conveniences to ensure that it did not slip her mind. Lucinda and Éowyn were both impressed that the toilets in Legoland had smaller bowls for the younger visitors and so Éowyn didn’t feel at a disadvantage when using it.

It was approaching Amelie’s next meal time, so we headed to one of the eateries and the adults had tea while Éowyn enjoyed a glass of milk and an ice cream. Then the heavens decided to open. The UK summer has been particularly bad this year (as predicted by me in May) and so it seems a theme that every visit to Legoland has been a wet one. This one took that one stage further. The rain was literally bouncing off the ground and many of the rides closed while the worst of it passed by. We sheltered for as long as we could (and managed one more ride) then decided that once again after sampling only two rides we would head back to the car park and thence home. We are so glad that we invested in a Merlin pass, it doesn’t feel like quite a waste to turn up and go back home before you have exhausted yourself by queueing for every ride.

Sodden, we decided to head home via the local carvery and take advantage of meat and two (well 6) veg and no washing up. As we got to the restaurant we asked Éowyn if she wanted to use the loo. So off Lucinda trotted with her. A little later she is still fidgeting in her seat, so again Lucinda asks her whether she needs to use the loo. Again, off they trot to the loo. On her return from the loo and across a semi-crowded restaurant she shouts, ‘Don’t worry Dad, it wasn’t a wee; it was just a fart!‘ As all eyes turn to see who she is shouting at you have to laugh don’t you? Some people might find it offensive, but hey we have all been there and better that way around than the alternative!

Both of my girls have been on their best behaviours of late. Éowyn’s recent spell of good cheer has continued of late and her bad behaviour seems to be behind her and her sojourns to the thinking step have been very few and far between. Perhaps it is because she is being treated like a big girl with her ‘big girl knickers‘ added to the fact that we have taken the bed guard off her, bought her a new duvet and given her a night light that she can control from her bed. She is growing up fast. While Amélie is definitely growing up too. She crawls around all over the house getting into everything and emptying whatever is in easy reach all over the floor. The minx! She is also beginning to make tentative attempts to reach up so it may not be long before she starts to cruise. Then the trouble really starts!

Amélie is excellent throughout the day, and has now learnt to settle quickly at night and so by 1930 is usually asleep. However, her internal bodyclock alarm is set to 0530 and wakes every morning at that time. It is becoming a little tiresome for she will not go back to sleep after her bottle and if we are not careful her crying wakes Éowyn so it forces us to take her downstairs which means that we are up too! It is ok for me when I am going to work but poor Lucinda then doesn’t get the chance to go back to sleep for the rest of the day. Thus by the time I get home, knackered, from work and want to sit and relax, Lucinda is ready for bed because she, too, is knackered. Not condusive for a great evening.

Lucinda starts back at work at the weekend (something she is obviously not looking forward to) so with that in mind we have begun to introduce Amélie to Jo, Éowyn’s childminder. Amélie is far more chilled out that Éowyn ever was (that probably says more about us than Éowyn) and was non-plussed with being left with a stranger. Bodes well for the future. While Éowyn was quite happy being the big sister looking after her younger sibling. That is one worry off our minds and Lucinda can concentrate on getting back into the swing of employment. At least she will be practised at getting up for an early shift!

I will bid you adieu and prepare myself for the fact that my youngest child will be 12 months old next week.

Peace and Love

Baggie