Wet Wednesdays are never a joy but at least we are over the hump. Today marked the big day of Steph’s return to work and in true style she designed some shift patterns that involved her starting at 7am and finishing at 8pm. I don’t know where she gets it from but she’s such a hard and conscientious worker and I’m delighted she’s back. I think I got some brownie points by having a gin and tonic ready for her when she came downstairs with the homemade cottage pie in the oven.
The knock on effect of this is, of course, that I have to have (or should that be am blessed to have) more time with my little rascals. They were in good form again today, despite the weather, with us managing to bring the number of times we wanted to throttle them down into single figures. Perhaps that is a figure the Government should be publishing as part of their daily data.
A few gems today so let’s crack on with the top 5:
1. One feature of lockdown in lots of homes has been home baking. Pictures of all ages dusting off their aprons and plunging their hands into bowlfuls of flour have flooded social media. The novelty seems to have worn off recently and so it has been the case in the Low household. But E was adamant that today was the day to get Daddy involved as she really wanted to make some Toy Story cupcakes. And as much as Daddy protested and whined, he knew he was never going to get out of it and secretly knew he wanted to get involved. And so the sickly sweet chocolate icing was beaten and the batter mixed. The oven preheated and the spoon and bowl licked clean. And boy were they tasty. I wonder what I’ll get roped into knocking together tomorrow (whilst still pretending to be a reluctant baker!) 🧁
2. I sent down M with his clothes this morning so I could get him ready after breakfast. I then got distracted with E and so Steph popped down to do it. There were his trousers sitting in the middle of the living room but nothing else. She searched everywhere but couldn’t find the rest of his outfit. Had they ended up in the same place as our toothbrush heads? If so we knew we would never see them again! Daddy then rocked up and set out trying to solve the mystery. The first place I looked was M’s favourite place in the kitchen – the wine rack. He loves to put his little toys in there and often stores his dummies in there, just as a back up in case we hide them. And sure enough, tucked right at the back were his clothes. What a tinker! I did double check for the toothbrush heads but sadly no such luck. 👕
3. We decided to brave the weather at lunchtime and sneak out for our daily mile between the rain showers. M was strapped into the pushchair and we marched off whilst eyeing the black clouds. I tell you what, we set a PB for the fastest mile so far during lockdown. The usual complaining from E about Daddy having big (long) legs didn’t appear at all especially when it started to spit. M was loving it and steadfastly refusing to go to sleep as he held his hands up to feel the rain. E started wittering on about unhelpful things like “Why didn’t we bring any coats Daddy?” and “Why don’t you have an umbrella Daddy?” I’m not sure my response of “Don’t worry you won’t dissolve” quite hit the mark! ☔️
4. This afternoon also saw the rest of Goat in a Boat as I took over a big chunk of the #HomeSchooling – you’ll be relieved to hear that all ended well as Goat found Stoat and together they saved the castle from an invading army of Foxes. Sorry for the spoiler! We also did some of her online spelling and phonics but boy is it hard work! I once again don’t know how teachers do it. The problem is E knows exactly what to do but is so easily distracted. One of the tasks today was to match one of the 3 phrases to a picture. All she wanted to do was tell me a story about the picture rather than read the words. Her favourite was definitely “the log in the tub” and she came up with a lot of different reasons why it might have ended up in the bath! Creative writing here we come… 🛁
5. This evening saw a ruckus in the house. Now I don’t use that word lightly but it was a full blown sibling fight which we really haven’t experienced before. I found out afterwards that E had spent ages building a Frozen palace out of the tent, M’s basketball hoop and a yoga mat and was really pleased with how it had worked out. Her little brother has different ideas and starting pulling it all down and she saw red. Cue a blow out as she stormed out of the living room and up to her bedroom whilst screaming at anyone who would listen (I mean how could we ignore it!) about how unfair her life was and she wished she lived by herself and wished she didn’t even have a brother! A little insight into the years to come I’m sure but fortunately for today she quickly calmed down and agreed that she did still love her brother and he didn’t really understand what he was doing. 😡
LawyerLow Diaries 