Pre-school

A rainy Bank Holiday May Day

Monday 7th May 2012Thursday 9th August 2012Baggie

So after the wettest April in recorded history the drought continues and May doesn’t seem to be much of an improvement. Indeed with the May Bank holiday looming we are living with the threat of ground frosts killing our spring plants. Glad the Met Office predicted it all (not!) but at least they have updated their prediction for the next few months (apparently there is a great than average uncertainity, i.e. we don’t know!).

Work is still gearing up for its busiest period for me, the conclusion to all the football seasons and the inevitable last day of the season shenanigans. Hence the lack of exciting trips and a dearth of photos to delight you with this time, hopefully as my busiest period comes to an end I can begin to spend a little more time with the family.

Work was in the way of seeing Nanny Fran for her birthday but not so the following weekend. So although Lucinda was working until the afternoon the house was full of travelling Bagnalls, as Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz made their way down from West Bromwich and Auntie Mary across county from Woking. Éowyn is always exciting when Nanny Fran and her Aunties visit and this was no exception. She even tidied her toys away before they came. I think as soon as Amélie comprehends the notion that people can plan a visit, (i.e. grasp the idea of the future) then she, too, will get over-excited at the proposal of a visit from Nanny Fran. With Nanny Fran retiring at the end of the year then it is quite possible that those visitis will become more frequent.

Éowyn entertained her elder relatives with Amélie as support act. Éowyn even let Auntie Liz plait her hair, something that she will not let Mommy or Daddy do, but it is Auntie Liz! They also cheated Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz at snakes and ladders, you have to watch them!

Amélie is going through one of those rapid learning phases. A couple of weeks ago it seems that her vocabulary was limited to the usual half a dozen or so words, but that is rapidly increasing and it probably will not be long before she is constructing complex sentences, ‘Mater, pray tell your opinion on Boris Johnson retaining the Mayorship of London?‘ Perhaps not that complex. The current favourite sentence (if you can call it that) is ‘Dad, dad, dad, dad: look!‘ Which is usually followed by her taking a large bite out of what ever she is eating and making a real show of finishing her mouthful.

She has also begun to enjoy playing with Éowyn, not that Éowyn appreciated it all the time! Although one game that they both enjoy playing is hide and seek. Although Amélie’s notion of hiding is to stand by the wall and close her eyes and giggle when you find her. When it is her turn to hide, she will stand there counting up to 10 (more of a long continuous word onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten than what strictly could be called counting) but with her hands over her mouth rather than over her eyes. She then runs around giggling while trying to catch you. She is very good at hide and seek, for an nineteen month old.

Amélie is also very good at eating her food and it is rare that she refuses food or doesn’t finish her meals – unlike her big sister at the moment. We have been introducing her to the Alpro Soya Milk for Toddlers, mainly with her breakfast. She doesn’t seem overkeen but neither is she rejecting it out of hand. It is to be expected and the nutritionist has told us that even if she grows out of her Cow’s Milk Protein Intolerance the chances are that she will never be that keen on milk or dairy products. We just have to ensure that she gets her required calcium from other foods.

Éowyn is back at pre-school and seems to be enjoying herself. We think she is really going to miss her friends at the start of next term when many of them going up into the infant school, while she has to wait another year. One can understand why there is a cut off date but surely a staggered start to school would be better, Éowyn is only 6 weeks younger than some of the children that will be going to infant school in September and is equally on a par in terms of development to most (if not all) of the children that will be leaving. We fear that there will be more displays of naughty behaviour as she will be bored and not challenged, however on the other hand it might do her good for I think she is part of a little gang. Not that we think that she is being influenced by them, indeed on the contrary it wouldn’t surprise me that she is the ringleader and at the very least there is a lot of mutual influencing. So breaking that little clique may be a very good thing. We shall see.

She thoroughly enjoys herself there and I asked her the other days what is her favourite thing that she does at school. ‘Dressing up,‘ she replied. So what do you like dressing up as then I inquired. ‘A Unicorn,‘ came the surprising reply. Although given her name maybe not that surprising.

I will leave you now to shelter from the May cold and perhaps leave you with a timely reminder of the old English proverb: ‘Cast ne’er a clout ’til May be out.’

Peace and Love

Baggie

A kiss for Nanny Fran

Snakes and Ladders with Auntie Liz

Hello!

Helping Mommy wrap the presents

Éowyn Vera Bagnall

Mommy and Amélie

Mommy and her daughters

‘Hello!’

Just in case we get a summer

Sisterly love

It’s a bit cold for summer dresses

Right, I’m off!

Paschal Playtime and the Great Easter Egg hunt!

Tuesday 10th April 2012Friday 29th March 2013Baggie

April is here and the promise of Sunshine has disappeared in a blizzard, not a metaphorical blizzard, an actual blizzard. Admittedly not in the South East of England but across great swathes of the country, Aberdeenshire for instance which was basking in the warmest March day every recorded in Scotland a mere week ago is now under 8 inches of snow. Must be a sign that the Easter bank holidays are here and children are off school.

However before the Artic low pressure begun to dominate our weather we managed to squeeze in some out door fun to wit: The First (and possibly The Last) Great Bagnall Easter Egg hunt; held at Lucinda’s parents we invited many of Éowyn’s friends, fourteen in total. So we arrived early Sunday morning armed with chocolate eggs and buffet food. Éowyn’s cousins Lauren and Maddie were really excited and came round to help and, of course, Lucinda’s parents helped get everything prepared. Fortunately, although it was a little chilly to begin, the ground was dry and we could hide the eggs around the garden, in flower beds, against trees all easily accessible since their were, on average, only 3. Amélie, the lazy monkey decided to have a morning nap and slept through the whole of the preparation – which actually was probably the most helpful thing that she could have done!

We managed to prevent the early arrivals from heading off into the garden but that involved distracting them with the variety of bikes, cars, prams, doll and balls that Nanny and Granddad have accumulated over the years of being grandparents. Éowyn tends to regard them as hers, unless of course her cousins are there so she was a little perturbed to see so many children playing with ‘her‘ toys. A quick father to daughter chat about sharing and then a little distraction technique and she was fine and didn’t complain for the rest of the day.

The Egg Hunt kept the little ones occupied for a good 20 minutes or so and all managed to find some eggs to fill their baskets. We then turned our little ones and the egg hunt into a utopian communism by means of the sharing blanket. We had bought enough eggs so that all could have one big one, three little ones and a kinder surprise egg. Amazingly all the children loved the idea of the sharing blanket and all happily sat cross-legged around the perimeter of the blanket while the eggs were shared. Then it was party food for everyone. By mid-afternoon everyone had left and we were exhausted, however it was so much fun and all the children seemed to enjoy themselves that it would be nice to turn it into an annual event – I think we may have to persuade Nanny and Granddad!

Obviously, Easter isn’t just about Easter Eggs and Éowyn prouded came home from pre-school just before the holiday and announced in the car on the way home that she has learned all about Easter. Lucinda was driving and asked what had she learned? ‘That Jesus died on a hot cross bun.‘ Lucinda said that it was a miracle (pardon the choice of word) that she didn’t crash the car. Poor Éowyn was none the wiser and when I arrived home from work proceded to tell me the same thing. I haven’t actually corrected her and occasionally she still will bring it up, especially when there is an advert on the television for hot cross buns.

Amélie is still enjoying having a room to herself (and so are we!) for she is sleeping through the night and, indeed, slept through until 07:20 one morning. Sheer bliss. However, she is still a cheeky little madam and ‘Swiper’ in disguise. However she gets away with it because she is so cute and will give you such a cheeky grin when she knows she is up to something naughty. Éowyn’s Easter Egg stash was the lastest casualty of our own veritable swiper. Éowyn and Amélie were in the lounge while Lucinda was getting showered and dressed one morning. Lucinda came downstairs and entered the lounge, Éowyn was happily sitting watching Peppa Pig while Amélie was hiding her crime out of sight of her big sister, although the half-eaten egg in her hand and the chocolate smeared around her face betrayed her guilt.

We still believe that Amélie has her Cow’s Milk Protein Intolerance and the above crime seemed to confirm that assumption as she cried throughout the next night and seemed to be in pain. Some things seem to be OK and we have introduced her to Soya products now so she can join in with the yoghurt eating and milk on her cereal. She has an appointment to see the dietician next week so we will see where we go and what is the next step.

Éowyn’s behaviour has been fantastic of late. She has been very well behaved and more than that is seemingly revelling in being good. Whenever she is good I have been telling her that I have been proud of her and this encouragement technique seems to reap rewards. In fact she said to Lucinda just the other day, when Lucinda dropped her off at Nanny and Granddad’s, ‘I am going to be a good girl and make Daddy proud.‘ She was and she did! We have been a little reliant on Nanny and Granddad with pre-school shut for Easter holidays, myself and Lucinda both working and Jo, our childminder taking holiday too, it doesn’t give us too many options – apart from wasting precious leave from work. Unfortunately we don’t get the same kind of annual leave entitlement as a teacher.

Before I leave you to the current crop of photos another amusing ancedote from the vaults of Éowyn. We have an extensive Disney collection and Éowyn enjoys watching films, something that she inherits from her father (and grandfather Bagnall) before her. She asked last week while at home with Lucinda, if she could watch Aladdin. Lucinda dug the DVD out and put it in the player. The film started and Éowyn said ‘This isn’t Aladdin!‘ Lucinda confirmed that it was but Éowyn was adamant that it wasn’t. ‘I want the real Aladdin,‘ she said, ‘The one where there is a man on a motorbike and some cats in a basket and he throws them into the river.‘ Lucinda’s film knowledge is not as encyclopedic as mine, especially when it comes to children’s films, so Lucinda asked me when I got home if I knew what she meant. I said that it sounded like the Aristocats. So we put the Aristocats on and asked Éowyn if this was the film that she wanted to watch. She confirmed it was and so I explained that it wasn’t called Aladdin (or even ‘The Real Aladdin’) but it was called The Aristocats. I asked her to repeat it and obviously not really knowing the word repeated what she thought she heard: ‘The Embarrassing Cats‘. Much better title in my opinion.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Lauren and Maddie’s cakes

More of Lauren and Maddie’s cakes

A hidden egg

Painting our eggs

The egg and spoon race

They went that way!

I like the swing

Higher Granddad

Mommy and Éowyn

Smile for the Camera

Nanny and Amélie

Granddad and Amélie

I’ve just swept that!

Peep-po

They are my toys!

Mommy and her daughters

Three Generations

Hello!

Bundle!

Static!

Giz a kiss!

Chilling with the Grandparents!

A well-deserved ice-cream

All too much!

Is it really March?

Friday 16th March 2012Thursday 3rd January 2013Baggie

After the once in four years update without photos (I think there may have been one very early on) we are back on track. A new month has begun and the weather has truly turned vernal, despite the fact that spring is still over a week away. Not that I have been able to enjoy much of it since I have been in work 11 out of the past 12 days. That is not strictly true as for two of those days (one night) I was away in Switzerland with work. First work trip away for 6 months and Éowyn wasn’t too pleased. In fact, she was a little off with me when I returned and made me work to get back in her good books.

Éowyn has been in our good books of late, as her behaviour continues to improve. I am not saying for one moment that she is a little angel but there has definitely been an improvement. However she still knows her own mind and can be extremely stubborn, if there is something that she doesn’t want to do it is extremely hard to convince her otherwise. This is something that anyone who has to look after for any length of time will attest to. The staff at playbox are no exception. This week saw the equivalent of a parents’ evening, except that is was a Thursday morning. Unfortunately I was a work so Lucinda had to go solo and without anyone to look after Éowyn and Amélie they had to go too! The school report was nothing that we hadn’t expected, Éowyn can be stubborn and wilful but she has a good imagination, and is very clever (more of than later). In fact her and one of her friends had built an impromptu stage and put a singing performance for the other children. Everyone was really impressed with them because there had been no encouragement to do it, they just did it off their own backs and both enjoyed doing it and the other children enjoyed watching them. So we have a little starlet in our home.

She also uses that imagination for other things. One that made me laugh the other day happened just as I was putting her to bed. Instead of me reading stories to her, she said that she would sing songs to me. Fine I thought. So she got a book off the shelf, turned to the index and asked me what song I would like. I asked her what songs were in the book and she began to list the usual nursery rhymes. ‘Sing me Humpty Dumpty, please.‘ I ask. ‘The new version or the old version?‘ she replies. That caught me by surprise. ‘The new version.’ I answer.

“Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall. He didn’t fall off. A man sat down beside him and they had a chat.‘ Maybe she needs to work on her rhyming but I love the thinking behind this. Humpty Dumpty obviously only fell off the wall once, and that is all anyone remembers! He must of sat on that wall many times before and nothing happened, but the one time you fall off someone makes a rhyme about it and you are immortalised as the idiot that fell off the wall.

The staff at Playbox though have realised that Éowyn’s stubborn streak makes reprimanding her very difficult at times. So their new approach has been to encourage her good behaviour rather than chastise her bad behaviour. So when she does something good (like tidying the toys away) she gets a sticker and a little certificate. We now have a collection of them adorning our fridge. It certainly seems to be working at the moment. We will see how it pans out.

The encouragement method is something that we do with Éowyn quite often and at the moment she has two big projects. Both involve posters adorning our walls. One is a list of fruit and vegetables and the other is the numbers 1 to 100. Éowyn used to be so good at eating and would demolish anything that was put in front of her, but lately she has been slipping into bad habits and only eating a small range of foods. Obviously it is a control thing, at three years old there is very little that you have control over in your life but eating is definitely one of them. So instead of making it a big thing we have turned it into a game. The poster has a number of fruit and vegetables and everytime Éowyn tries one she gets to put a tick sticker next to it. If she likes it, she can put a star sticker next to it. If she manages to try all of the fruit and vegetables on the poster by Easter then she gets to choose her own Easter egg.

The other poster (with the numbers 1 to 100) was brought to try and challenge her. The idea being that we will get her to be able to count up to 100. So we got the poster out, said that if she can learn her numbers then she will get a Susie Sheep toy to go with her other Peppa Pig characters. ‘OK, Daddy,‘ she says, ‘let’s have a go.‘ Lo and behold she counts up to 100 without any assistance. Too clever! However, she still hasn’t quite earned her Susie Sheep yet because she can’t identify specific numbers. For instance if you ask her to point to number 85, without fail she points to 58 and likewise with other numbers. I think it is quite common that kids read numbers right to left, rather than left to right (maybe our Western numerical system is wrong) when they begin to read, so we will work on that and then she can have her Susie Sheep.

The big news of the last couple of weeks revolve around Amélie, not only has she finally given up crawling and taken to walking full time (about time the lazy monkey!) but we have moved her out of our bedroom. The original plan, was to wait until she slept through the night and then move her into Éowyn’s room as we thought it unfair to disturb Éowyn’s sleep. Unfortunately, she has never been a good sleeper and after 18 months of sleepless night we noticed a pattern. Whenever Amélie woke up disturbed she would look for Lucinda and start crying to be picked up and cuddled. However, if Lucinda wasn’t there then she would settle herself back to sleep. Therefore the decision was made to move her into the box room, which is my office/library. After a day of dismantling cots/computer desks and de-rigging my technical set up Amélie now has her own room (ish). Has it worked? So far so good. Even the 0600 cry for milk is no longer too early because there hasn’t been a 0100 and 0300 wake up call prior to that. Why didn’t we do this 12 months ago? It doesn’t matter for it is done now!

Again, I must end this update on a sad note. My Uncle Roy (my Dad’s youngest brother) passed away last Wednesday succumbing to the cancer he has been fighting for the last few months. He is the third of the five brothers to pass away (after my Dad and Uncle Pete). Our thoughts are with my Auntie, my cousins and their children.

Peace and Love

Baggie