Lots of children!

I do sometimes wonder how my mother managed with four children, but of course they were rather more spread out than the four I was looking after this morning. By this you may gather that I made it to Barbara’s and childsat for her offspring along with my own while Barbara paid a visit to the hospital (update is that babe is still doing well in situ and showing little sign of wanting to come out yet).

The two girls played together nicely for ages – lots of mummy and daddy type games. B struggled a little more – I don’t think he enjoys being second fiddle to my dd, and I’m definitely not a patch on his mummy 😉

Small spent most of the time investigating stairs – he can now go upstairs pretty well, and if he changes his mind on the way can come back down very efficiently, but if he’s at the top, he won’t turn around and doesn’t fancy going head first (just as well, really). He can also walk very well pushing the little brick trolley – he was practising this yesterday at Jan’s as well. Today he was almost turning it round himself as well.

Since we got back we’ve investigated the Sound and Music kit that we bought the other day – dd heped build a set of pan pipes, and I

[Editors note – the following was inserted while dd and I were checking our plants]

small is covered in pasta, it’s in his hair, down his neck, all over the place. It looks like he is using yellow hair gel.[end of insert]

made her the little (little most definitely being the operative word) drum. She was thrilled with them both, so that was good. The kits are OK – I wouldn’t be impressed if I’d paid full price – but a bit lacking on wordy instructions as to what you are doing and why, which I find disappointing.

Plants – we now have peas, beans, broccoli and radishes all sprouting. The courgette is growing apace, the aubergine is flowering (beautiful too) as are the three tomato plants. The rocket has rocketed, and the lettuce is looking a bit sad. Not sure what the beetroot is up to, doesn’t really seem to be doing anything much. The spring onions are looking well – apparently throwing them around in a wind and then dumping them back into soil is good for them – who’d have guessed? The sweetcorn that I planted out a few days back is looking OK ish – not obviously growing, but not dying either.

My potato forest is suffering a bit – something has broken several of the plants. 🙁 It’s happened twice now – first time I suspected a football over the fence, but you’d have to work quite hard to achieve that. Now I’m wondering about the neighbours cats.

Anyway, dd has had her bath and is having her story now, and Small is playing with his noisy toys. I’ve got some work to do, so I’d best get on.