Pre-school

The First Night

Thursday 14th March 2013Monday 18th March 2013Baggie

The second update in a day! Now that is unusual. I trust that you have all voted for your favourite name, if you are reading this before 05:25 (GMT) on Friday 15th March 2013 then you still have time click here to cast your vote.

So for the first time for one of our children (and let us face it probably the only time) our son spend his first night at home. Éowyn spent her first night in an incubator in ICU away from Lucinda, while Amélie spent hers in a cot at the side of Lucinda’s bed in the Joan Booker ward of St. Peters. But because junior arrived at Oh my god it’s early in the morning he was able to be discharged by the both the paediatric and midwifery teams and released into the wild.

Nanny Fran also stayed the night to give us a hand and give Nanny and Granddad a night off too so that they could recover from the previous night and looking after the girls. Éowyn and Amélie convinced Nanny Fran to read them their bedtime stories and Lucinda put her head down while I looked after my son in the lounge. He had fed continuously from the moment he was born until lunchtime (or at least it felt like that for Lucinda) but then had only had a couple of feeds for the rest of the day. He had obviously filled up and was waiting for his digestive system to kick in before he needed to eat again. His digestive system did kick in and the pooey nappy that is the sign that his digestion is working made an appearance.

Lucinda managed a whole 3 hours sleep before I woke her to feed junior. He fed and I managed just over an hour’s worth of sleep before the first of the sleepless nights that we will no doubt experience over the next few months. I managed to sneak off a sat away fro everyone with him for a couple of hours but had to wake Lucinda at 04:30 for a feed. I then passed out while Lucinda fed him. At 05:15 the girls woke up but thankfully I never heard them and they went downstairs where Nanny Fran looked after them. Junior then decided that he would finally go to sleep and so Lucinda and I managed to sleep until 07:00. It seemed like bliss!

As Éowyn and I left the house to go to school a little egret stood on our lawn as if it had flown from Africa to pay its respects to the Bagnall boys – and I thought it was supposed to be a stork that delivered the babies! Éowyn looked forward to going to school because she was excited to tell everyone that she had a little brother. I returned home where Lucinda, Nanny Fran and I had a relaxing day with Amélie and junior. It was nice especially half keeping an eye on the voting of the name that you guys like. It seemed like a strange idea when I first thought of it but it has seemingly really caught all your imaginations and although junior hasn’t yet got a name I feel that he is a part of all your lives already.

Amélie was a cutie all day and kept requesting to hold her brother. We thoroughly encouraged this but she is a little heavy handed with her and quickly gets bored holding him but it is all good in the bonding process. Nanny Fran left in the early afternoon and then I collected Éowyn from school. The teachers said that she had been tired, I feared that this meant that she had been naughty but no, she had just been quiet and not her usual self. We put this down to excitement and the fact that she had been awake since 0515. So we had a quiet afternoon and got them to bed early.

Dinner (Tea, if you speak English correctly) was provided by Nanny and Granddad who cooked a Shepherd’s Pie for us and used the excuse (not that they need one) to come round for a munch of their latest grandchild. It is so nice to have them so close and they will see a look of their second grandson.

The girls are in bed and junior is being quiet and all is good with the world. I leave you with the latest photos, a bumper crop compared to yesterday and ask you to tune in tomorrow for another update (if I can manage it) and to view the results of the name poll. We will announce the name as soon as we have managed to convince ourselves that we have chosen wisely.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Father and Son

Just thinkin’

Mommy and son

Big sister

Sister’s kiss

This is my brother

Holding my brother

Nanny Fran, Amélie and the boy

I am very proud

Granddad and Grandson

A kiss for my bro

Nanny and Grandson

A week at Nanny Fran’s

Sunday 3rd March 2013Friday 8th March 2013Baggie

A second update in just over a week, I’m trying to make amends for the lack of activity in 2013 thus far. So what warrants this activity? In a word (or two) half-term. The first half term of the year was the first half term since Nanny Fran’s retirement and the last break before Baguette number three makes his arrival. Nanny Fran therefore kindly offered to look after both girls for the week. Obviously we asked the girls if they wanted to go to Nanny Fran’s for a sleepover and the answer was an overwhelming, yes. Indeed they were excited for the entire lead up to their Black Country adventure and spoke of it constantly for at least the week beforehand. Thus, Sunday morning while Lucinda was completing her antepenultimate day of work before thirteen and a half months of holiday and maternity leave kick in, I drove the girls up the M40 and their home for the next 5 days, West Bromwich.

As is the norm these days ‘Muppets – Soundtrack’ CD was fired up and before Starship’s ‘We built this city’ had begun both girls were asleep and so I could continue with Daddy’s choice of music. As we approached West Bromwich they awoke and as I pulled up outside my childhood home both girls got out of the car all excited to see Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz and quickly made themselves at home. Since they were so settled I decided that I would head back home after lunch.

And so a week away from the girls (and a week off work) began. It was a very strange feeling and the house seemed very empty (and quiet) without them, however it did allow us to get on with all the jobs that we felt needed to be done in order to prepare the house for Baguette number three’s arrival.

So what did we do? Task one was to move the girls in together. We had decided that we wanted to move the girls in together to free up the box room ready for the new arrival, and although the need for that bedroom is at least three months away (he will be in our room for the first few months), we wanted to move them in together prior to his arrival. The reasoning behind this was to prevent his arrival being associated in the girls’ minds with a change in circumstances. Life is going to change enough with their little brother’s arrival without the loss of their individual freedoms. So, what was, Éowyn’s room was emptied and bunk beds were built and then furniture returned. This also gave us the opportunity to deep clean the entire room and organise their many toys. The beauty of the bunk bed arrangement means that they have a lot of floor space on which to play.

Although this sounds like a relatively quick job, it did take best part of the day. However we did finish early so that we could take advantage of an evening without child responsibilities and go out for a meal and actually relax in each other’s company without entertaining small ones at the same time.

The second day we spent out of the house primarily looking at cars. As previously mentioned the imminent arrival of number three means that Lucinda’s Nissan Micra was a little too small. We spent sometime researching cars back at the tail end of the summer and we poised to make the decision until Lucinda’s appendix interrupted the process. Now we had the opportunity we decided to see what was on the market. We knew the type of car we wanted: A second-hand Ford S-Max. We knew the specification that we were having, the price range we were willing to pay and the extras we expected to get. Not expecting to see the exact car we wanted we headed to a Ford dealership that we knew had a large selection of S-Maxes to put our names down and give them the specifications we were after. We looked at a number of S-Maxes and then amazingly we found one that fitted our requirements. A test drive and conversation later we put our deposit down and arranged a pick up for the following Tuesday.

Lunch beckoned and then time to make another purchase. This one not as expensive but just as important: a new mattress. After an hour or two of trying out mattresses across a number of bed showrooms before we found the one that we both felt was the most comfortable and again a conversation later we had made our purchase and we had a second successful day had been completed.

Excited about our purchase (the car) and thinking that it would be nice for the girls to talk to their parents we decided to ‘Facetime’ (other videtelephony software is available) the girls. Unfortunately that was a bad idea and one we will not repeat should they stay with Nanny Fran in the future. Both girls became very upset and insisted they wanted to come home. This in turn upset us, even though we knew that they were fine, but their upset continued into the night which caused Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz to have less sleep than they are used to.

The remainder of the week was spent getting plastic boxes of new born clothes and toys out of the loft and cleaning the house from top to bottom. Lucinda is in full nesting mode something that is very difficult to accomplish when there are small ones running around and preventing full nesting behaviour.

Friday was Lucinda’s penultimate day at work and the day that I picked our little ones up and they got to see their bunk beds for the first time. But more of that in a later write up. But what did the girls get up to in West Bromwich? If you ask Éowyn then it was nothing. Whenever Éowyn has been anywhere and you ask her about it and what she has done the answer is always nothing. ‘Éowyn, what did you do at school today?‘ ‘Nothing.‘ ‘Éowyn, what did you do with Mommy today?‘ ‘Nothing.‘ So we found out off Nanny Fran.

As I mentioned at the start of this write up Éowyn and Amélie ran into Nanny Fran’s house all excited on the Sunday morning. They made themselves at home almost immediately getting their toys out and settling in for the week. Then Amélie put her toys and they she went up to Auntie Liz and asked for her nails to be painted. Auntie Liz obliged and so I was surplus to requirements.

The next day Auntie Liz had taken the day off work and so the four of them headed off on an adventure to Hatton Adventure Farm at Hatton Country World. They spent the best part of the day there playing in the various playgrounds and visiting the farm animals. There is even a petting zoo and the girls got the chance to hold a Guinea Pig. Amélie was apparently the more bold of the two, volunteering to hold the rodent but Éowyn took some convincing, and would only stroke it so as not to allow her younger sister the upper hand.

Tuesday saw Auntie Liz at work and so Nanny Fran had them both to herself. So Tuesday’s adventure was contained to the town of West Bromwich. They paid money into their bank accounts and headed to Nanny Fran’s erstwhile workplace. Again the girls were very well behaved but again Amélie was more bold than her elder sister greeting all of Nanny Fran’s ex-colleagues and even kissing them good bye as they left.

Auntie Liz took Wednesday off so Nanny Fran had support for the second day of the week and more adventures were had including a trip West Bromwich’s Dartmouth Park. So Éowyn’s summary of ‘nothing‘ as you can see was somewhat misleading. In addition to the adventures there were visitors to Nanny Fran’s house and visits to various friends in West Bromwich including a trip to see Great Grandma.

I am not sure who enjoyed the trip to West Bromwich the most the girls or Nanny Fran. Neither am I sure who was the most tired after the week in West Bromwich the girls or Nanny Fran. It was unfortunate that the weather particular wintry (it is winter) which meant that there weren’t too many attractions open and also it was a little too cold to spend too much outside (for Nanny Fran as much as the girls!). Therefore when it warms up a little and Nanny Fran has had a chance to recover the girls will have to go up for another extended visit. This will appease the girls since they were very upset to leave Nanny Fran’s and didn’t particularly want to come back home (that’s a nice thing for us to hear – we are only their parents!).

So Lucinda is now on maternity leave and the countdown is nearing its conclusion therefore stand by for the big news in the next week or so.

Peace and Love

Baggie

On the farm with Auntie Liz

What’s in here

Hmm, lamb!

What is it?

Just stroke it

It’s mine!

Going for a drive

Like this

Can you dig this?

First to fall

I win

And down

Auntie Liz’s girls

Look at what I have found

Nanny Fran’s iPad

Like my balloon?

The best pressie ever

Up, up and away

She’s a model

Pinned ya!

Nanny Fran’s gang

Center Parcs: A Winter Wonderland

Monday 28th January 2013Sunday 1st January 2017Baggie

Well I haven’t started 2013 very well have I? It is nearly the end of January and there has not been an update since just after Christmas. I must pull my finger out if I am going to top the 30 update mark for this year, especially since it is going to be a very busy year. So what have we been doing this year?

January is usually about getting back into routine after the build up to and holidays around Christmas and this January has been no different. The new Christmas toys have found their places among the other toys that the girls own. Éowyn has returned to pre-school after the Christmas break and my work has returned to ‘normal’ after the foreign leagues’ winter breaks and the busy Premier League period.

The countdowns to the arrival of baguette number 3 and the move of my work’s premises are rapidly drawing to their conclusions and there is still a huge amount of work to do for both. With the former in mind and the fact that I still have some days left from last year’s annual leave to use up we decided to take our last break as a family of four. But where to go?

January in the UK isn’t usually the most inspiring of times and so we decided to head to Center Parcs at Longleat Forest, The reasoning being that if the weather was particularly poor that there would be plenty of indoor fun with the sub-tropical pools being the biggest draw. And so Monday we headed West to the Wiltshire/ Somerset border and the delights of Center Parcs.

We need not have worried too much about the weather because for a change the weather was typically wintry with snow lying on the ground. That may sound like an oxymoron and I am not sure if I am the only one but whenever the weathermen forecast snow I get as excited as I did when I was a child. I know that it is only crystallised rain but snow has the ability to make everywhere look pretty, especially when it decorates the denuded deciduous trees and covers the unkempt lawns of suburbia. However it is amazing how poor the UK reacts to any lying snow. The papers are full of the big freeze, blankets of snow and how public transport has ground to a halt. Other countries must look incredulously at our ineptness. Temperatures of 0ºC isn’t really a big freeze (OK, technically it is freezing – but only just), an inch of snow isn’t really a blanket (more a sheet) and because we don’t really experience these conditions very often (although they do seem to be getting more regular) it really isn’t worth the large scale investment in equipment to ensure we can completely cope (although I thought we coped a lot better this year than we have in recent years).

Fortunately there were a couple of days of little or no snow and although the temperatures had not crept high enough to melt the lying snow the roads were clear and so our journey across country was not overly affected by the snow. When we arrived at Longleat we were greeted with a winter wonderland. Center Parcs is set in a pine forest and the snow on the branches and on the forest floor made us feel like we were on a skiing holiday in Canada or Scandanavia, the wooden chalets adding to the effect. We could not have picked a more perfect week to spend at Center Parcs.

For those of you that have never stayed (or even heard of Centre Parcs), it is a holiday park set among woodland with various sporting activities that you can get involved in. There are swimming pools, boating lakes, horse riding, fencing, archery, tennis courts, badminton courts, squash courts, snooker tables, zip-wires, adventure playgrounds, bowling lanes, in fact nearly any sport that you care to turn your hand to. The accommodation are multi-bedroom self-catering chalets (or villas as they call them) set so that you are not overlooked by your neighbours and, apart from unloading and loading, no cars are allowing in the complex, they must all be left in the car-park. The breaks are Monday to Friday or Friday to Monday and so cars are only allowed on Mondays and Fridays. It works well. Each of the houses come complete with a log burner which really adds to the atmosphere when there a snowstorm blowing outside. We hired a two bedroom villa (the girls shared a bedroom for the first time) for a Monday to Friday break.

You are not allowed into the villas until 1500 and the cars have to be back in the car-park by 2300 but you are allowed to park up and head into the complex on foot and take advantage of the amenities prior to check-in and so we did. There seemed to be a complete rush to attempt to get the cars in at 1500 and we were not prepared to fight the wave and so wandered around until a little later before heading to the car park and moving in.

There was more snow Monday night and so the forest looked even more magical when we woke Tuesday morning. Lucinda had a mum-to-be massage booked for Tuesday morning so she tottered off to the other side of the complex while I looked after the girls. Half way between our chalet and the Aqua Sana Spa was The Pancake House and so we decided that it would be a good place to meet up after Lucinda’s treatment. So after getting the girls wrapped up against the cold we headed out to explore. However the exploration was not to last too long and we never got the pancakes. Partway to The Pancake House we passed though the Village and in the Village there was a wishing well and pond. Éowyn asked for some coins to throw into the wishing well and so both girls fleeced Daddy for some money (I had better get used to that!). They threw the money in, made a wish and then asked for more to make another wish. That did not work with Daddy and so the girls begun to play in the snow and headed off in two different directions.

Wary of the pond I told Éowyn to keep away and not to venture too close and she appeared to be heeding me. Suddenly Amélie began to scream. She was standing in an inch of snow shouting ‘Daddy, I’m stuck!‘ I turned to comfort her and try and explain that she was not stuck when I heard a splash and a scream. Éowyn had obviously not been listening and had fallen into the frozen pond. With my heart in my mouth I ran over a dragged her out. She was soaked and shivering so I loaded them both into the pushchair and rushed back to the villa. Fortunately the villa was very warm and the inferno-like towel rail had warmed our towels to body temperature (and probably beyond) so I stripped her and wrapped her in a bath towel to warm her back up. As you can imagine I was a maelstrom of emotions but what it did highlight was the fact that neither of our girls can swim and so with the opportunity that we had at Center Parcs it was something that I wanted to remedy.

Center Parcs, Longleat Forest has a sub-tropical swimming complex with a number of different pools, with various slides and a wild water rapids. One of the pools is a heated outdoor pool which with subzero temperatures and falling snow was quite magical. Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed it and it was the pool that she made a bee-line for each day. The water was about 1.4 metres (4 feet or so) deep and so was considerably out of her depth and bedecked with arm-bands she made significant progress over the week going from clinging on to me with all four limbs to confidently treading water and doggy-paddling refusing to allow me to touch her while she was swimming! It made the holiday for Lucinda and me and was worth the money that we spent on the holiday alone. We now just have to keep going and ensure that the confidence does not wane, because she thoroughly enjoyed the freedom it gave her and even in the big pool with the wave machine on full power she bobbed confidently telling me how much fun it was.

Amélie, did not enjoy the pools as much, she was like some kind of monkey-limpet (what do you mean there is no such animal?) clinging on to you with all four limbs. We could occasionally prise her off us and get her to float, which she would happily do until she realised what she was doing then would return to the vice-like tetrapodal embrace. We will have to work on that one!

With more snow falling throughout the week many of the outdoor activities were cancelled (the boating lake for instance was frozen) so were concentrated on swimming, soft play, air-hockey (Éowyn was particularly good at this) and eating! Longleat Forest has a land train to save you some of the longer journeys and so we took full advantage and completed a circuit of the complex onboard the miniature locomotive (as Grandpa Pig would say).

So all in all it was successful mini-break with Éowyn gaining confidence in water and both girls sleeping from 1930 to 0730 each night. Now whether that was because they were completely worn out with the day’s activities, the country air or because they enjoyed the comfort sharing a room (a precursor to something that they will have to get used to very soon) or some combination of all three we can not tell but we are not complaining. As you can guess we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Center Parcs and I am sure that the fact that there was very little mobile phone coverage and that we got undisturbed sleep were factors it was probably more because there was a thick sheet (not quite a blanket) of snow on the ground throughout our stay which made it feel that we had gone on holiday somewhere magical.

Obviously there have been a number of other minor incidents over the last few weeks but I don’t wish to detain you any longer than necessary and you are only here for the photos but our thoughts are with Lucinda’s dad who had knee-replacement surgery on Thursday. He was discharged on Saturday and all has seemingly gone well but he now has the healing process to go through but hopefully he will be back on his feet (literally) soon.

So you may have had to wait a while for it, but I have kicked off 2013 with an essay and a half and a promise not to leave it as long next time, now here are the photos and there are plenty on our Flickr page, feel free to peruse.

Peace and Love

Baggie