Subtle Hints

Thomas has started Preschool in the last couple of weeks and he only goes on Monday and Friday mornings at the moment, I thought he might like easing into the idea.
However on every Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday morning since when I get ready to head downstairs with Alice its how to a wail of screams cries, attempts at getting picked up and the occasional shoe thrown behind me down the stairs from Thomas.

Clearly Thomas is ready to move on up in the world sooner that Id thought! and so while his name has been added to the Wednesday mornings waiting list, Im having to try and keep up with ways to keep my ever more troublesome two year old entertained.

When me and Alice got back from this mornings preschool pick up after Thomas's extremely charming hints that he'd like to go out (attempting to put his own coat on, picking up unmatching shoes and pointing down the stairs!) I thought why not drag them over to the local museum.

St Johns house museum is only a 5 minute walk from our house and I can remember going there when I was in school! Not much has changed to be honest. Its got some nice toy displays and quite alot that the children are allowed to use, a mocked up victorian classroom and kitchen whish the kids enjoyed a run around but probabaly need to be a little older to really get a feel for.

We also went upstairs to the fusiliers museum which the kids had a ball in trying on different soldiers hats and coats and making mischief with the special night vision camera and box that they have.

The staff were lovely and friendly and the kids had a great time. For a raining day this was the perfect change of scene from just being stuck at home without breaking the bank!

I think we spend all of 60p on two postcards.

So next time your bored why not check out your councils website and see what free museums are around your area. Even if you think your kids might be a bit young for the actual content these museums are often relatively quiet and make an ideal change of scene for kids without breaking the bank.

Particular recommendations include:

Roman Alcester

Museum of London Docklands: Mudlarks Play Area

Raystede Animal Centre:

On the Move part 1

Right,
well we are on the move right now, and by this time next week I will *hopefully* be lying in bed in our new house with the kids fast asleep! Hopefully..

We have had the er blessing of having moved house several time since having the kids and to be honest hadnt pictured moving again for several years, but circumstances must so the packing has begun!

Obviously we are already experiencing all those niggling annoyances that go with any more for anyone. However this time around with two tots in tow there has been a few additional challenges, and theres still a week to go.

Firstly there has been the confusion about what this all means - are the toys going, are they being given away, no just moved to the new house, 10 begrudging minutes later life is relatively calm again.
Then theres the eternal question - 'Will Santa find the new house?!?' now this ones important this year in a way it never has been before.
Alice has been reassured that as the new house has several large fireplaces all should be well on the Santa front, she seems sumwhat unconvinced still!
Iv also been informed (by Alice) that she will definitely be on Santas nice list this year, however Thomas still has some work to do as he's currently languishing down in the Naughty pile!!

So poor little Alice and Thomas have the prospect of what to them is a life altering change to deal with, and so far so bad really.
On the surface all is well but when you look underneath you can see the strange reversion to some extremely dare i say it 'baby' like behavior.
The smallest of reminders even, not tellings off will lead to floods of tears, public places cannot be left without a screaming toddler in tow while morning are back to being early mornings.

We're trying our best to make everything as stressfree as possible for them as much as us and if anyone else has suggestions then please share!

As they will have to share a room post move we have begrudgingly put them in together in the house for the last week, which is so far working out fairly well. (At least in so far as they have both ended up sleeping in the end!). Hopefully that can be one thing which stays constant post move that way.

Also I have good intentions (time permitting) to have the house already christmatised by the time the kids see it, hoping this will sweeten the deal.

Last but not least is the large bag of new (now I say new but these are actually just toys I was given by my lovely friend as her 2 had outgrown them!) toys never seen before by A&T incase some distraction tactics are needed!!

Right well iv only mentioned a tiny slice of our lives in a very rambling sense but it shall have to do for this evening as Im off to the last of nod any minute!

Tech Kids?

On Thursday the other half had a job interview in London, and so we decided to go along too and make a day out of it as it happened to be the day Alice has no playschool.

On the way down there I popped the post code into my trusty Iphone for it to do its thing and direct us there, however in normal tech style it got us into central London and then the battery died! Leaving me to wing my way to Dulwich Village solo. I HATE driving round London, and the other half hates being expected to direct and so we ended up asking a few strangers (much to his manly disgust) and getting there with literally 1 minute to spare (having allowed 3 hours for a 2 hour journey anyway).

It was then really annoying that I had no battery left as we couldn't separate for the rest of the day for fear of being lost in London!

Interview over we decided to catch the train into the city to show the kids some sights. Alice was entertained by the journey for a few minutes but all Thomas wanted to do was jump out the buggy climb on seats and scream..every non-parents nightmare to sit by. This was obviously really annoying and stressful, and for us a lesson in not taking our two toddlers into central London any time soon.
But I couldn't help noticing several other parents toddlers around Alice's age (3ish) had very quite children sitting still in their buggies. On closer inspection these kids were playing with the apps on their parents phone's (or so I thought). I've let Alice do this in the car, or when we're waiting for food out etc and I don't see a problem with it at all, but I was pretty appealed when I saw the mother of one toddler get out her own identical (£400) phone and start texting and calling.
Several times her little girl looked up to her and said she was bored, to which she was told to practice her typing on Note, and listen to her songs.
The poor little girl although quite and still looked absolutely bored as hell, while her disinterested mother played with her own phone.

Looking round London in general there was definatly a running theme that it was okay for toddlers to have their own, sim card free smart phone purely to use as a toy. Im not entirely sure why but this just made me feel really sad. Don't get me wrong I know we live in a modern world and kids need to be getting to grips with technology younger and younger but this just seemed a step (or 2) too far to me.

Id rather take my screaming/bouncing/annoying kids any day over that. It seemed really sad that parents just expected children to be entertaining themselves presumably because they'd spent so much money on these phones. I dont know if this was a status thing or intended to provide genuine entertainment to a tot, Id love to hear other peoples thought.

Im not sure if Im just being a dinosaur, but id rather be penny thrift and living in smalltownsville with colouring books and crayons for my kids any day.

Where did cbeebies go mummy?

Well today Alice attends a 2 hour playgroup without me at our local Childrens Center. I have to drive most of the way as and it is about a 40 minute walk so if I were to walk back with Thomas it would be time to walk there again by the time we were home! As I do have to drive though I dont park directly opposite the childrens center, I try to find a space a few roads away so that Alice is able to walk in, as I'm a firm believer in walking being great exercise and that this will set a good example to her for the future (also means she's that bit more likely to want a nap this afternoon, great).

For this 5 minute walk however I have gotten tired of carry a now fairly heavy and extremely wriggly Thomas! So today I popped Alice's old trike in the back of the car, Its not one of those fancy smart trikes, but it does have a parent handle on it and a strap around the waist. To make it more suitable for a rather unstable Thomas I used a length of strong strap/ribbon off a posh shopping bag. I hemmed the end of it and cut a small hole, unscrewed the trikes seat and popped this underneath.
I had also made a loop so that the original tummy strap was able to fit through this, so that now Thomas trike has a more supportive harness.

Another easy way to do this if you also have a trike with no harness is to buy a set of toddler reigns but instead use them to attach to the trike.

Thomas thought this short journey outside the house on trike was amazing and it was also fun to use its basket at the back to grab some milk and bread at the shop. Using the trike was also handy as Thomas now gets very upset that he doesn't get to stay too when Alice is at playschool so at least there was the promise of a fun journey home!

Alas two hours have flown by and it is now almost time to do it all again, and all ive achieved is a luke warm cup of tea and a load through the dishwasher, I have also been wondering why Thomas was so ratty for the 10 minutes its taken me to drink said tea and write this, only to notice his beloved cbeebies has turned into Wimbledon! Thomas clearly doesnt think sports coverage is the best use of our license fee!

I often pop the tele on to BBC2 for the kids TV as I find it a reassuring link back to my own childhood when kids TV used to run out. Despite my best efforts CBeebies and Disney seem to be near permanent fixtures of our home! Not sure how I feel about that, certainly didn't do me and harm to have to watch antiques roadshow on a Sunday or Wimbledon in the summer or haven forbid turn it off because the world was actually more interesting than the Tele!