Blog – My adventures in parenting

Quick thinking, exhausting holidays and crazy parties!

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There are very few dull moments in Newman Towers and the last few weeks have not been an exception! The first six weeks of this school term have been all about finishing my novel, and after a lot of hours spent with my laptop, I have now taken a break for a few weeks which is a good thing as they have been full with other stuff.

In the school holiday, I took the little people to Holland for a few days. Hubby had to work so it was just the three of us. We had great fun going on the ferry and catching up with family. It was brilliant spending some quality time with my sister and even better seeing my awesome nephew. Jacob idolises him and it is great to see them all get on.IMG_1154

We all had a lovely time (including hubby who had a weekend all to himself), but it did mean that the little people went back to school rather tired as we got home at 21.30 on Sunday evening.

On the Tuesday it was the dreaded Halloween! I dread not because I don’t let my little people trick or treat. Normally we do something else special on Halloween but because we had just been away it didn’t happen. I’m sure they’ll live. 🙂

On the same day, another one of Elisabeth’s teeth came out, she had been wobbling it for ages so she was very pleased. Now a few months ago, her front tooth came out and I nearly forgot about the tooth fairy……..now you can see what’s coming…….this time I didn’t nearly forget about the tooth fairy…….I actually did!!!! Elisabeth came downstairs in the morning with a trembling bottom lip

“Mummy, the tooth fairy didn’t come.”

Ahhhhhh!!!!! Quick!!!!!! Think of something!!!!!!!!!!

“Maybe the tooth fairy was so scared by all the Halloween costumes yesterday that she was too afraid to come out?”

“Yes, that’s probably it, maybe she’ll come tonight.”

Pfew, that was close! The tooth fairy actually came that day ready for when Elisabeth came home from school. Nicely done, even if I say so myself 🙂

To finish off the crazy weeks, my dad came to visit over the weekend to celebrate bonfirenight and our 12,5 year wedding anniversary. For some reason it is tradition in Holland to celebrate this, according to my dad it’s because the Dutch love a good party but because a lot of marriages don’t make it to 25 years, we celebrate at 12,5 as well 🙂 no idea whether it is true or not, but any excuse for a party is fine by me!

It was complete chaos with 4 kiddos under seven, 9 adults, food, drink and lots of fireworks, but it was awesome. A perfect way to celebrate.

I have to admit though, that after all that fun, it is quite nice for things to get back to normal for a bit…..until Christmas that is………………

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Mummy, my yawn hurts

Published on by elskenewman21 Comments

I love it when kids don’t know what something is called and, rather than ask me, make up a word themselves to describe what they mean. With Elisabeth we never really had this pleasure, she talked very early and never really said anything wrong.

Jacob however, is the absolute master at this. He has always been very good at communicating what he means without necessarily talking or using the correct words. When he last had a cold he said:

“Mummy, my yawn hurts.”

He meant that he had a sore throat, which makes perfect sense because when you have a son throat, and you yawn, it can hurt like hell. Easily worked out. Nice job Jacob.

Now this morning we were getting ready for school, so the school uniform goes on and just before we leave we do socks and shoes. A brand new pair of shoes, which he loves. But just as we are walking out the door I can see that he is limping a little.

“What’s up Jacob? Are your shoes not comfortable?”

“No, they’re hurting my foot wrist.”

“Your foot wrist?” (just checking I heard right)

“Yes, my foot wrist.” (said in a ‘surely you know what a foot wrist is’ kind of tone)

“Do you mean this?” (Me pointing at his ankle)

“Yes, my foot wrist.”

“Ok, that’s your ankle.”

“Yes, my ankle.”

“Ok, when you get to school ask your teacher if you can take off your shoes if it hurts too much.”

(At school talking to his teacher) “My foot wrist hurts.”

Love him!

Frunt teef

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It’s amazing how quickly kids grow up. It feels like only days ago I could hold Elisabeth in just one hand. Now she is nearly as tall as one of my best friends – admittedly my friend is 4ft10 so that is not a massive challenge, but Elisabeth is only six. And not only that, she has also lost her two front teeth to make room for her grown up ones!

Elisabeth had her first wobbly tooth when she was 4. I was so not ready for this, I thought it wouldn’t happen until she was at least 6! Clearly I was wrong. Anyway, little 4 year old Elisabeth was very excited because when the tooth would come out the toothfairy would come! 

Wouldn’t it be lovely to just for a few days to go back to that world where there is a toothfairy, a Father Christmas and an Easter Bunny? 

The first few wobbly teeth were all excitement but the two front ones have been a bit troublesome. They took ages to come out and it hurt when she ate, dinner often ended up in tears until she as fed up with it and asked me just to pull it out! Brave girl. 

The first of the front teeth nearly caused quite a drama. Elisabeth had put the teeth in an envelope with a drawing for the toothfairy in it. It was all ready to be swapped for a few coins. A few hours later I’m in bed all ready to go to sleep. I am dozing off and all of a sudden I am up right in bed…

OH NO! The toothfairy!

I had totally forgotten about the toothfairy! So there is me in my half asleep state, wobbling down the stairs to find some coins – please let me please have some coins!!! – and write a note from the toothfairy. Phew, close call. I can only imagine how distraught she would have been waking up and realising that the toothfairy had not come! 

For the second front tooth Elisabeth wrote a note with a question to go with the tooth…


Just in case you can’t read it, it says:

To tooth fery how do I eta a apple with no frunt teef

Love from Elisabeth

To be so innocent again that your main concern of the day is how to eat an apple with no front teeth.

Jacob and the big world…

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A couple of weeks ago, Jacob went for his first day at pre-school. He was super excited and so was I because the first day I was allowed to come with him. So after lunch I changed him into his school uniform which he wasn’t partuclarly keen on but the promise of some chocolate seemed to help quite a lot (bad parenting, I know). 

He had great fun for the first hour, lots of new toys and a great outside space – pretty much Jacob heaven. But then it was tidy up time……and sitting still on the carpet and singing songs…….and having to wait until everyone finished their snack before being allowed to play again – pretty much Jacob hell. Not the best of starts.

The next day he seemed happy enough to get changed into his uniform (probably thinking he would get chocolate again) and walk to school. He seemed a bit cautious when going in but was ok. I was the one who was worried. I could see him spend all afternoon on the ‘thinking cushion’ (their version of the naughty step) because of not listening. Imagine my surprise to hear at pick up that he had been perfect and he had listened really well! I was proud of my boy, he’d done well.

Last week he started to realise that this isn’t a temporary thing and he was going to have to go to school every day now, apparantly this was somewhat unexpected and on Thursday he cried and didn’t want to go in at all. The teacher took him in and he was fine all afternoon but later that day he told us in tears that he doesn’t want to grow any bigger, he wants to stay small. It was rather heartbreaking, he obviously just wants to stay at home with mummy bless him. 

Unfortunately Jacob, that is not how things go in the real world and school is something you are going to have to put up with every day for a very long time, poor little lamb ❤️❤️❤️

I’m back!

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It’s been a while. A long while. A way too long while since I even logged on to WordPress, let alone wrote anything! But I’m back, well I’m trying to be (I imagine Arnie saying “I’ll try to be back” wouldn’t have made quite the same impact – ha ha).

Jacob has recently started pre-school 3 hours a day, and the weeks leading up to that, a lot of my sentences started with: “Well, when Jacob goes to nursery I’ll have a bit more time to do that…” so I planned to do a lot of things, and I mean a lot of things.

First things first though, I increased my hours at work. Working only two days a week is lovely, but it does not help ones financial situation much, so half of the hours Jacob was going to be at nursery I agreed to work. Luckily the amazing company I work for are really flexible and were happy to let me do the extra hours from home.

After taking off time that I spend walking to school and back to do the now 3 school runs a day, this leaves me with about 3 hours at home to do other things. In those 3 hours I decided to do the following:

  • Go for at least 2 runs every week
  • Cook lots of meals to go in our freezer for the busy days
  • Write at least 2 or 3 blog posts a week
  • Become a domestic goddess whose house is so clean it barely looks lived in
  • Catch up with some friends I haven’t seen for a while
  • And write a book

All of that in 3 hours a week.

I don’t think I need to explain why this hasn’t happened. Although in the first two weeks of Jacob’s new adventure (for details of this you will have to wait for my next post) I did go for 1 run, cleaned and tidied up our dining room and generally got the house in a state that, although it very much looks lived in, you don’t stick to the kitchen floor anymore. And the best bit is that I have actually finished the first draft of my first ever novel – eek!

Oh, and I have just written a blog post, but obviously you already knew that 🙂

 

Tough cookie 

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When you have kids, life can change in a moment. An amazing fun day can turn into a nightmare within a fraction of a second if a child hurts himself, or a rubbish day can turn wonderful just because of something  they say or do. And then there are days that go a bit like this: good-bad-wonderful-slightly annoying-horrible-nice and quiet-nightmare-lovely-thank God they are in bed!  Last Frifay was a bit like that……

Everything started off fine, Jacob was awake at his normal time (6am)  and Elisabeth slept quite late (the closer it gets to half term, the longer she sleeps). Elisabeth got off to school ok and I treated Jacob to some tv time, he has come down with a bit of a cold and as last time he had one we ended up in hospital for two nights because he had an asthma attack I thought it would be wise to keep him as calm as possible. This worked for a little while, but he is two and a half after all and they can sit still for about two and a half seconds. It didn’t help that we started him on preventative asthma medication the day before. He has never taken this before and reading the potential side affects freaked me out quite a lot (it was a huge list but it was the suicidal tendencies that really got me!) but I thought ought we should at least try it. He wasn’t himself all day, all the little naughty things he normally does seemed to be magnified and I really struggled to get him to listen, I say struggled, I mean failed! Luckily he had a nap so I could get some chores done and sit down for a cuppa for 10 minutes. 

After school we went for a playdate atone if Elisabeth’s best friends and it was there that it became really clear that he wasn’t himself. Normally he loves playing there and he plays really nicely with the girls. But not yesterday, I actually took him home after only  being there for a little while, luckily Elisabeth was able  to stay a bit longer and was dropped off home a bit later. Jacob calmed down a bit after coming home but he still wasn’t right. 

We sat down for dinner and both kiddos tucked in happily (sausages always does the trick) and all of a sudden for no apparent reason Jacob falls down from his chair, head first into the floor, the very hard, tiled kitchen floor. 

It felt like my heart stopped for a second or two. I scooped him off the floor and checked for blood, thank God there was none. After a few minutes of screamin he said “I’m all better now mummy”.  He is a tough cookie and clearly recovers from a shock like that a lotquicker than me! 

After all this we had a lovely movie night watching “Tangled” with popcorn and lots of cuddles, but my word was I tired after all that! 

Kiddos talk

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“Fishin!” is what Jacob shouts when he is finished with his snack, dinner, or whatever else he happens to be doing. This is an improvement to what he did before, which was throwing his hands up in the air and shout: “Silly!” 

He is the complete opposite to his sister when it comes to talking. Elisabeth didn’t really say a word until she could talk in full sentences and she rarely said anything wrong. Jacob however is not too fussed about the correctness of his words, as long as we know what he means he is happy. So we get “fishin”, “bicyscle”,  “stool” (for spoon), “ass cream” (for ice cream), “ups and down”  (for  upside down)  and “mana” for banana. 

And whilst Jacob is trying to get his words right, my darling Elisabeth says things like : “you’re the best mummy in the world, even better than the Queen!” 

Happy Friday everyone!