LawyerLow Diaries

And so the cycle continues. Another working week done. Another weekend to look forward to. The only thing that seems to be changing is the tolerance levels of all 4 of us. The kids are pushing our buttons and if you ask them I’m sure they’d say that we are pushing theres. 
I’ve seen a lot on social media this week of people getting out and about and taking advantage of the gradual lifting of restrictions. We haven’t done any of that and the toll of staying home as much as possible is really beginning to show. The weekend therefore couldn’t come soon enough and we’re going to make a conscious effort to find a change of scenery in as safe a way as we can. I just want happy kids and I’m sure they want happy parents!
Anyway, we are all in the same boat and you’re not reading this to listen to my moans(!) so let’s push onto the top 5 and see if there was any excitement today:

1. Don’t you hate it when schools hold events or special occasions and you don’t get advanced notice so you can plan? Well today felt a little bit like this as E unilaterally decided that there was an in service day for her #HomeSchooling but hadn’t notified us. I’m not sure what “teacher training” she expected us to do but there was definitely a steadfast refusal to do any work all morning no matter how much coaxing or bribing went on. Given how great she has been throughout lockdown we need to get back on top of this quick before she permanently turns into a teenager at the age of 5 which is combined with toddler tantrums! 😲
2. By pure coincidence the new reading books for E arrived just after lunch together with some new stories for M. That acted as a catalyst to at least get some reading done this afternoon but I wouldn’t exactly describe it as a full day at school! In fact M started playing on his Numberblocks app this evening doing some simple addition and we think he might have done more schoolwork than Emma today! The new books are great and have lots of rhyming which E really enjoys. She has a bit of an obsession with the letter W so apparently the only thing that rhymes with E is We, Daddy is Waddy, Mammy is Wammy etc. Just wait till I reveal that no words rhyme with her favourite colour purple! 🤯
3. M has finally discovered Duplo which is a real godsend as he played for ages this morning just building up a little car and dancing round showing off his design before promptly dismantling it and starting all over again. The only negative with him discovering “new” old toys is that both he and his heroine (his big sister) insist on bringing them downstairs into the living room. You remember, the adult living room that was cleared of all toys earlier on in lockdown. So after having a good old moan at them about this, Steph came upstairs to speak to me. When she returned they had very kindly moved a bunch of toys out of the living room. What great kids! Only problem was they had moved them all into the kitchen so that was the last room in the house completely overrun with toys. What is a man to do? Well lock the door, get on with some work and pretend it isn’t happening! 🚙 
4. E appeared in my room today with an incredibly guilty looking face. She waltzed in and announced “Hey Daddy. How are you doing today?” That in itself is a concerning opening line but when it was followed up with “Would you like a cuddle?” I knew something serious was going down. I suspected part of this was linked to her refusal to do her work but I sensed something was really off. So I ran. I ran down the stairs looking for the carnage. Looking for the damage. Looking for the injury. M seemed fine. Steph was in the kitchen and she was fine. What was it? I had just about calmed down when I saw it. My darling little boy had found the felt tip pens and had decided to draw all over our TV screen. It made even drawing on the wallpaper kind of manageable. How can one 2 year old find his way into so much trouble? 🖊 📺 
5. We have been really good during lockdown and tried to stay away from takeaways. After a pretty tortuous week we decided that tonight was the night for a little treat and so we opted for an Indian. It was lush! Even Steph enjoyed hers although after tasting it initially she announced that “it smells really bad but tastes really good.” It smelled like a curry to me but hey ho!! The only negative was the fact that my stomach is clearly not used to takeaway and was complaining it was full far too early on. I’m embarrassed to say that I couldn’t finish but not to worry, I still managed to get through the third naan bread and extra side of onion bhajis – it was only the little tub of side salad I had to leave. I’ll remember not to order that next time! 🍛

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After getting over the hump yesterday we are heading downhill at great speed. Often, getting to the weekend quickly is a good thing but things are getting ever so slightly strained in the Low household. Despite everyone appearing to sleep well, the lockdown exhaustion is definitely kicking in. Either that or last night’s furry chicken is causing some strange side effects!!
I wore a suit today for the first time in over 3 months. That is by far the longest I’ve gone without my usual work attire for almost 14 years and it was very odd. But at least it’s been broken back in ready for my forthcoming court hearings – I’m relieved I made bail in the meantime just to help out with the childcare. 
Not an easy top 5 today but here we go:

1. Now with my limited experience of running it definitely involves getting motivated to go out especially if it’s an early morning run. Imagine my surprise therefore when Steph rolled out of bed and suddenly announced she was going for her next run with E. Off they went to pound the wet paths and yet again made me feel like the couch potato of the house. I’m going to have to do something about that but in the meantime us boys are just going to chill. Apparently during today’s run E invented a new game. It involves her acting out something but you can’t speak during it whilst the other person has to guess (clearly a completely new concept that’s never been thought of before!) 🏃‍♀️ 
2. Today we realised that E has actually finished all of her workbooks and worksheets from school except for her RE folder. Clearly we have been prioritising wrongly! She cracked on with her online learning however and started her latest country project for our window display – South Africa. This was all about animals and at one strange point she crept up on me making a strange wailing noise and holding up her picture of an elephant in front of her face. Fortunately I quickly realised she was trumpeting and not in pain. It’s one of those parenting skills I’m still developing as identifying what she has drawn in her pictures is a huge challenge and she’s very offended if I can’t work it out. 🇿🇦 
3. Steph received a call today from the health visitor to carry out M’s two year check. As with most things, this needed to be done remotely but he’s still doing really well with the only slight black mark being his speech. I personally found this surprising given how chatty he is but apparently he should be forming three word phrases. Steph tried to reassure the health visitor that it wasn’t a cause for concern as he can definitely say “Let It Go” but this wasn’t enough. I’m tempted to get her to come and live here for a couple of days and see if she wants him to talk more!!! 🙉
4. M has continued with his lifelong mission to seek out trouble, and if he can’t find any, to create his own. His favourite toy today, for no apparent reason, was a beautiful crown on a headband which he kept putting on his own head and then on top of everyone else’s, whilst finding it completely hysterical. You don’t really know how it feels until you have been crowned by your son live on a Zoom Partners Meeting! The biggest problem I find is that he has already mastered his ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ facial expressions making it incredibly difficult to tell him off. I do already feel sorry for his nursery teachers as they won’t know what they are dealing with until he gets dropped off on his first day! 🤴 
5. I’m doing this as my last one for a very specific reason. I should know better than to make confessions in a public forum but needs must. Daddy was summoned to the spare room/ playroom this afternoon by E as there was a humongous spider sitting in the middle of the room. Steph was there too but is definitely not a spider fan and was quite happy for someone else to deal with the situation. In fact when it was first spotted, E led Steph from the room telling her to “be brave Mammy”. Daddy was sent in but sadly he missed the spider and it has escaped and hidden somewhere unreachable. I had to tell a small white lie that I had caught it to make sure they would go back in the room – I’m going to be in so much trouble when my diary is read! 🕷

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Over the hump! And over 13 weeks since the Low family lockdown started which means we’ve now spent a full quarter following the rules and staying at home as much as possible. Things have been pretty good recently but today ended up being a really tough day. I think it’s because everyone is exhausted, especially the kids who were just acting like zombies all morning. Grumpy kids make for snappy parents and it certainly wasn’t a house of bliss today!
Sadly for Steph she took the brunt of the kids playing up as I was busy working as usual. She’s a brilliant mam (even when she doesn’t think she is) and does a great job sneaking into my home office to grab the kids when they burst in during my Zoom calls. I never knew she could move like a ninja!
I’ve written (unbelievably) 455 so far in this diary and here are another top 5 to add to the record:

1. M is growing up and developing so quickly. I guess he’s at that age. I think he’s reached the point where he’s learning to use tools, a bit like with the Neanderthals. Unfortunately he doesn’t use them for good. Whether it is smacking E in the head with a hairbrush or drawing on the walls with a colouring pencil, you can literally see him grinning as he identifies some trouble and then implements his plan. Today he had a fruit salad for breakfast and when we turned around he had edged over and was happily scoffing E’s bowl as well. And he knew. You could tell that he knew. That sparkle in his eye gave it away. I’m not sure if I want that sparkle to stay but boy does it keep up on our toes! 🐒 
2. Our very tired girl was definitely not up for #HomeSchooling this morning. She has been an absolute star recently so I suppose the bubble was always going to burst at some point. She just didn’t want to do anything other than watch Sarah & Duck (another very strange programme) no matter what Steph tried. It came back to bite her however when on the way back from our lunchtime walk she asked if she could have some ice cream when we got home. She was told no because she hadn’t been well behaved in the morning and that basically was the end of the world. We had a full on meltdown but once that drama had passed she suddenly was happy to do some schoolwork. I suspect she’ll be asking for ice cream tomorrow… 🍨 
3. M finally went down for his afternoon nap and E was finally getting on with some schoolwork so Steph had nipped upstairs to speak to me. The next thing we hear E calling up “there’s no toilet roll and I need some to wipe my bum because I’ve had a poo.” Fair enough I hear you say, but we didn’t expect the next line “oh, I need you to come down NOW. There’s a bird here.” We were a bit confused by this, and even more so when we came downstairs to find Emma standing in the kitchen with her pants round her ankles pointing above the sink where a little bird was flying around. Inevitably Steph freaked out and it was down to Daddy to shoo it out of the window. That’ll teach us to keep the toilet roll well stocked in the downstairs toilet! 🦅 
4. I smelt a very fine smell wafting up the stairs this afternoon and it turned out my wife had been marinading some chicken for our tea. It was something I was really looking forward to, and did know it was coming as we had lunch out in the gazebo (marquee!) and turned round to see M smearing the marinade all over the patio doors having reached up and grabbed the spoon. Having built up some excitement for my tea, my bubble was burst when she asked me to smell the chicken. I asked why and she explained she thought it had smelt a little funny this morning. The tale got stranger when she then told me that she thought the chicken looked furry but she had “stroked the fur” with a knife and she thought it was okay. Talk about putting a man off his tea! It tasted fine to me but I guess we’ll know tomorrow if I’ve been poisoned! 🍗 
5. I’m not sure if this is allowed as it didn’t involve us directly but it was a particular highlight of the day. We heard from Steph’s dad that he was out on the bike today and rode past a family out for a little walk. Now to be fair to him the two children did look the absolute spit of E and M and that’s clearly what caught his eye. And we also know all of the grandparents are really missing the kids and can’t wait until they can have cuddles! However the parents with these kids looked nothing like Steph and me but that didn’t register and he slammed on his brakes right next to the little boy who was by the side of the road. The mam came running over to find out why some strange man had stopped next to her darling boy and Jim had to apologise and try to explain that he thought they were his grandkids! It made me laugh a lot – I bet he was mortified! 😆

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So there we have it. Another day ticked off, or in my case another line scratched into my bedroom wall as I tally mark my way through lockdown.
Today was a strange day. The kids seemed full of the joys of spring and were bouncing with energy whilst Mammy and Daddy both felt exhausted and at one point took matching his and her paracetamol as we both had a headache come on at exactly the same time. Steph thought we might tire E out by taking her for their latest couch to 5k run first thing but if anything that seems to have just energised her!
With Steph still furloughed, work continues to dominate my day and the kids dominate hers. I’m sure there are points each day when we would give our right arm to swap over but when all is said and done we know we are doing the best we can. 
Anyhoo, enough of my rambling and here does with the Tuesday top 5:

1. We went for a family walk at lunchtime just to make sure the boys got their daily exercise and even more importantly that M had his nap. Sometimes it can be hard work motivating E to get a head of steam on our walks but today she was flying. The trick, as I learnt from my wife, was mobile maths. Why I had never thought of it before is beyond me but it was all about distraction. Whilst we walked, we took it in turns to ask each other some addition or subtraction questions and amazingly E didn’t stop once as she was too busy working out the answers or coming up with ridiculous questions for her Daddy to work out. I’m not sure if I was more impressed with how much her maths has come on or the fact we set a PB for our daily mile! ➕ 
2. The #HomeSchooling continues in earnest and it’s so much easier when there is an appetite to learn to begin with. We are continuing with our international themes and the Russian doll painting is well under way. Somewhat ironically we have been watching the BBC’s Salisbury Poisoning drama but decided against including that into the syllabus. In a controversial move Steph has overlapped the end of Russia with the beginning of Sweden. I’m unsure as to whether this contributed to the outcome but I was confused why there were poos stuck to our window. It turns out they are Swedish meatballs. Who knew?! 🇸🇪 
3. There was another E classic today as she struck up a conversation with her Mammy. 
“When I have a baby I’ll be a Mammy. And you’ll be a Grandma and Daddy will be a Grandad or a Grandpa.”
“That’s right E.”
“And then when I’m a Grandma, you’ll be a Great Great Grandma.”
“No, I’ll just be a Great Grandma. Like Great Grandma Marian.”
“Oh. But when that happens you’ll be really old. You’ll need a stick and walk about like an old person.” (As she walks about the kitchen hunched over and shuffling her feet.)
I suppose better that than E planning on us being Great Grandparents in our 50s! 👵🏼
4. After all their exercise today, tonight definitely called for a kids shower. Once again they played really nicely and got a good clean. Weirdly right at the end E lay down in the shower tray and closed her eyes. When I asked her what she was doing she simply replied that she was listening to the water and it was telling her just to sleep there and wake up when the Coronavirus was gone. It seemed to be a cross between Moana and Sleeping Beauty. Notice there was no Frozen 2 reference there as today we broke the pattern and DID NOT watch that film. Clearly 9 days in a row was just a bit excessive even for E. You just know what she’ll ask for tomorrow though! ❄️ 
5. After the shower we were trying to calm the kids down ready for bed but they were completely hyper. Steph brought out her excellent distraction technique again and convinced them to sing nursery rhymes. Bless M has learnt all of the actions and so we were treated to a medley of Wind the Bobbin Up, Heads, Shoulders,Knees and Toes and Twinkle Twinkle. I’ll try and catch a video tomorrow when we get the encore as it was gorgeous and he just grins throughout. I need evidence so when he’s a spotty and moody teenager he can see what a little star he is! 🌟

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So how was everyone’s Monday? It’ll come as no surprise to you that the kids had a whale of a day, as they seem to do every day. Daddy had to go into the office and once again I really missed them. Mammy was in charge and didn’t seem to love the hyperactivity as when I arrived home she immediately passed the baton to me and scarpered upstairs to have a break!
Given that I was in the office I missed most of the excitement today but there are still a few gems to make the top 5:

1. We had an early wake up call this morning as E was apparently bored waiting for her GroClock to tick to 7am and so just went and woke M up. She then went downstairs to find a screen, before being busted trying to break into the fridge to make herself a mocktail for breakfast(!). This left M to barge into our room and jump on top of me. He’s worked out that our phones have facial recognition so instead of thrusting it into my hand to unlock it, he just pushes it into my face trying to get access to iPlayer Kids. It’s a really beautiful way to be woken up. 🥴
2. Almost as soon as I had left for work, E was asking Steph if she could watch Frozen 2. She was told no but ended up with a compromise whereby she was sitting doing her schoolwork listening to the movie soundtrack. And once again she’s done really well with her writing, spelling and maths. She was so engrossed this morning that the “fun” activities planned, for example painting the Russian dolls, had to be put back 24 hours. Who are we to interfere when she wants to work hard?! 📝
3. Now I wasn’t here to help with E’s schoolwork during the day but she took great delight in showing me everything when I got home. One page definitely stood out. It was within a section where she was learning about time and basically it was the fun activity at the end of the page. There were three boxes and in the first she had to draw a picture of something she does in the morning, in the second something she does in the afternoon and in the third something she does in the evening. When I saw this I was a little confused as she appeared to have simply drawn the same picture three times. I quizzed her about this and she patiently explained (in a patronising voice that no 5 year old should be able to use!) that the first picture was her eating breakfast, the second was her eating lunch and the third was her eating her tea. No idea where she gets her appetite from! 🍽
4. For the second week in a row, my Monday finished with an online yoga session. Steph seems to be enjoying it more than me as she can just sit and watch me try (and fail) to bend my body into unnatural positions. Tonight I tried the fish pose, the tiger pose and the dolphin pose. I’m not sure I looked like any of those animals but I did a damn good corpse pose at the very end. There’s a lot of flexibility and balance I need to work on but I suppose that’s all part of the challenge. It also occurs to me that without the Covid-19 lockdown I probably wouldn’t have ever tried yoga. Always looking for the positive! 🧘‍♂️
5. I’m finishing tonight with some sad news. I managed to secure a place to run the Great North Run this year for Brain Tumour Research but hadn’t announced this as lockdown happened and I had a feeling the event might not go ahead. Today this has been confirmed and I won’t get the chance to compete in my first ever half marathon. This makes my top 5 just because it’s such an important cause and I’m feeling hugely disappointed as I’ve heard so many brilliant things from people who have competed the GNR in the past. But I’m determined to just see this as another opportunity to set myself another challenge. Watch this space! 🏃‍♂️

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Well there we have it. Yet another lockdown weekend completed and everyone is tucked up in bed. After the excitement of yesterday, today was a slightly more sedate affair. E had some difficulty letting go of her “I’m the boss of the house” role and ordained this morning that if she couldn’t be in charge then today should be Mammy’s day. In an unexpected turn of events (which happened so fast I suspect it was all pre-planned between them!) Steph immediately replied saying “Sounds good. I choose to do nothing today so I’m off upstairs to read a book and the kids are all yours today Daddy!” 
At least the weather stayed dry and we had the chance for some outdoor activity, coupled with the usual mooching around the house. I can’t believe tomorrow is Day 90 of this diary, and of our lockdown experience. Who knows what the new week will bring. 
But before then, here’s a quick top 5 to round of this week:

1. The big challenge today was taking E out to try and teach her to ride her bike. We did try once before with limited success but I was feeling positive, motivated and to be honest a little cocky that I could get her going in short order. There was only one problem with my plan… E! Now she does want to learn but has already picked up some pretty impressive debating skills and likes to talk a lot. As you can tell, she’s inherited a lot of attributes from her Mammy! After a bit of running around, catching her, coaxing her, bribing her, kissing her knees, shouting at her and cuddling her we finally gave up and came home to admit defeat. And then in the last 20metres she decided she could do it!!! I’m so proud of her but we need to keep it going to make sure it wasn’t a fluke! She even said tonight after her bath that she wanted to go out on her bike again tomorrow but doesn’t want to be naked – I didn’t know that nude riding was on the cards! 🚲 
2. Feeling buoyed by E’s success, and with my leg still hurting and putting me off from running, I decided to dust off my own bike today and went out for a little ride. I only wanted to do a little bit of exercise, but boy it was fun, and without any planning I ended up going 16 miles. Even the sun came out a one point which caught me by surprise. I need to remember for my next one to wear a face mask however. Not to prevent the spread of Covid-19 but to stop all the bugs and insects flying into my mouth. There’s only so many times you can tell yourself that the protein is good for you as you swallow them down! 😷 
3. Today saw the arrival of Steph’s latest online purchases which were a set of Russian dolls together with some paints. Weirdly the whole Russia theme seems to have turned from a one day thing into almost a week much to the confusion of some of our neighbours who don’t understand what the Russia thing is all about. They’re going to be even more confused when we move onto Sweden and there are pictures of meatballs, ABBA and IKEA stores stuck in the window! Before then however I think the girls are planning on painting the dolls tomorrow, if they can prise them away from M and he has decided they are his new favourite toy. 🇷🇺 
4. It’s the big news you’ve all been waiting for – yes, E decided to watch Frozen 2 yet again to make it a nice round 7 days in a row. Fortunately it timed perfectly into my bike ride to I missed the whole thing. She is delighted with her new Elsa dress and has worn it for 2 days now, only getting out of it for her bike ride and that is only because Daddy insisted it would get stuck in the wheels. The highlight of today’s screen time was however during the adverts. Now those of you with little delights will hopefully relate to the frustration of them wanting absolutely everything that pops up during the adverts. There could be 12 things advertised during one changeover and Emma will want or need every single thing. It’s relentless and very annoying! So imagine our surprise when a new doll came on the screen and E announced “I do NOT want that toy. No way!” It shows our differing parenting styles when Steph said “ok well that’s a change” and I said “I’ll get if for your Christmas then!” (just to wind her up!) 📺 
5. Daddy’s supervision was not all plain sailing as there were screams of pain and crying echoing through from the living room as I was making the tea. I went through to find E curling up in a ball on the floor crying and M lying on top of her cuddling her. After calming her down I discovered he had hit her on the head with the iPad and he was sent to sit on the naughty step. Instead he went upstairs to find his Mammy who came down and fixed everything in the way only she can. This included a magic kiss on E’s head which made the pain go away and telling M to say sorry, hug her and kiss her, which he did (twice). I have so much to learn but at least I have a cracking teacher! 🤕

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A wet weekend is underway but lots of excitement in the Low household! Despite a later than usual night last night, including an impromptu midnight visit from E, coupled with an early start from M, we couldn’t ignore the fact that E has had an amazing week doing her schoolwork and we are so proud of her. So we decorated the house last night and declared today “E’s Party Day”. This essentially meant she got to call all the shots and decide what we did, what we ate etc etc.
You will not be surprised to hear that she took to her new role (self declared as being “Boss of the House”) like a duck to water. She ruled with an iron fist!
Given that is was all about her, I’m dedicating today’s top 5 to my gorgeous daughter:

1. After the excitement of finding the decorations downstairs, E set about making decisions about her day. Very early she ordained that Daddy needed to go to the shops and we needed cake and party food. I mean, what’s the point in having a party day named after you if it doesn’t have the key components? I told her she’d need to write a shopping list for me. So this is what she put on it: cake, small spicy sausages (cocktail sausages), milk, hummus and party food. If only Steph’s shopping lists were so to the point! 🛒 
2. Off I went to the supermarket, with a sneaky little stop off at Blackberries Patisserie to surprise E with some very tasty cake to celebrate her special day. Wow those are some mighty fine treats! One thing Steph had asked me to pick up whilst out was ingredients for a cocktail. Emma cottoned onto this at lunchtime and wanted to try, so she was made a mocktail. This went down VERY well and soon she was knocking them back. I suppose she was just copying what she sees every evening/afternoon/occasional morning. 🍸 
3. Another pretty unsurprising part of the day was the movie-a-thon. I mean if E is getting to choose and it is wet outside, it was always going to be likely. Fortunately for me, she decided she wanted to watch Frozen 2 (for the sixth consecutive day!) whilst I was shopping so I managed to avoid becoming a blubbering wreck on consecutive days. This afternoon featured a rather strange unusual mix of Winnie the Pooh feature films alternated with Julia Donaldson adaptations. Matthew missed most with a mammoth nap and Steph joined in for a short period. Not the most exciting party, I grant you, but it left me to put me feet up and read a book! It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to do that! 📖 
4. We’ve established that M is a growing boy and feeds constantly. We’ve also finally realised that he really isn’t a fan of traditional mealtimes and would much rather just snack 20 times a day and skip all meals. Whilst it can get frustrating at points, he’s impossible to be mad at because of his cheeky grin and loving approach to most things. He came for biscuits this afternoon, as usual, and took a spare for E, as usual. Steph followed to just make sure he didn’t sneak it into his mouth on his way through but to his credit he just laid it onto her tummy as she lay watching the end of Stickman. It’s true sibling love and something I’m going to miss a lot very soon when it disappears! 🍪 
5. Tonight we had burgers for tea and then I hosted my weekly quiz for the swimming club. Whilst I was busy doing that, and Steph had nipped to the toilet, unbeknownst to both of us E had climbed up onto the windowsill in the living room and was hanging out of the open window chatting to the neighbours. I mean credit to her for her very rigorous compliance with social distancing but you can imagine Steph’s face when she walked in and just saw the legs sticking out! 🦵🦵

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Love a Friday. Such a good day and some would say the best day of the week. It’s been a hard week for lots of reasons but everything has felt manageable as when bad news has arrived I could just walk down the stairs and my three rocks are right there. Maybe #RemoteWorking is the way forward after all. 
Even the weather isn’t getting us down despite being stuck indoors. I think middle age is creeping up on us as we’ve caught ourselves saying things like “it’s actually a good thing as the garden needs a good water”. Need to shake that off pdq!
We have lots of surprises lined up this weekend for the kids so can’t wait for tomorrow to start. But in the meantime here we go with today’s top 5:

1. You know E must REALLY love her brother when she takes herself off to the naughty step, not because she has been badly behaved, but because her brother has been and is sat there by himself all upset. She is so patient and caring with him (puts us to shame) no matter how awful he is to her. Anytime he pulls her hair or steals her toys or rugby tackles her she just says “It’s fine Daddy. He’s just a baby. He doesn’t understand.” I’m not sure that’ll still be her line when they are both teenagers! 😇
2. An incident between Steph and E:
E screams at her Mammy because she’s asked her to put her glasses on. She then comes back with them on.
“Mammy, the reason I’ve got glasses is because I knew the coronavirus was coming.”
“…”
“I brought them home from school so I can see”
“I know, that’s why I asked you to put them on so you could read the words!”
E doesn’t bother to respond to this and certainly won’t admit Mammy was right so she just sits silently and starts getting on with her work! 🙄
3. Another E special:
E – “M why haven’t you eaten your sausages? They are healthy.”
E – “Mammy M hasn’t eaten his last sausage. He’s not allowed any snacks until he does.”
M walks into kitchen to the cupboard.
E – “M your not allowed anything else until you eat your sausage *gives M sausage* he eats it. Then he asks for more food.” 
Gannets I tell you!! 🐷 
4. This afternoon’s movie was… wait for it… Frozen 2! E’s choice for the fifth day in a row. What was special about today’s showing was the start was delayed until Daddy finished work so we could snuggle down together and eat popcorn and cry together at the sad bits (you’ll never find out if that’s true or not!) What surprised me the most was that not only did E seem to know all the words to all the songs but I found myself singing along too. I’ve heard them so many times I just get swept up into it. Even M loves shouting out “into the UNKNOWWWWWWN!” Bets are on for what she picks for tomorrow! ⛄️ 
5. Now I’ve been really good in recent weeks at not sharing any flash points between my wife and I particularly when it comes to our offspring. They inevitably would conclude every time with me saying “I told you so” and then getting a slap so that can get pretty repetitive. But today’s was a cracker so here we go. It’s teatime. We’re all eating together which is lovely but we know M will be fussy. Steph has cooked a great meal of turkey (which we call chicken so that E eats it), mashed potato and roasted root veg. We are all tucking in and commenting on how lovely it is, when M starts his usual games. He jumps down from his chair and starts banging on the cupboards for something else. I say to Steph “don’t give him anything else – he’ll soon come back and eat his tea.” After 2 minutes she gives in and gives him waffles. He refuses to eat them. I say, “definitely don’t give him anything else. He needs to learn.” He eats a little bit of the waffles and crushes up the rest and scatters them across the kitchen floor. Steph says “just give him a yoghurt otherwise he’ll moan all evening.” So I do but then walk away and say “he’s all yours!” Before I know it there’s screaming coming from the kitchen as he’s scooped out the yoghurt and is smearing it all over his legs. I was already upstairs running the bath knowing exactly what was coming… I told you so?!? 🤷🏼‍♂️

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Thursdays seem to always be really happy days in lockdown for some reason. The week since M’s birthday has flown over and only 51 weeks until his next one. It started with Steph and E going out for their latest Couch to 5k run early doors and weirdly it just seemed to set all of us up for the day, even though the boys just hung out at home waiting for them to return. 
Daddy is continuing to spend most of his days on the computer listening to the sounds of joy and laughter wafting up the stairs and feeling left out. Every so often there is a scream or a cry or a yelp and I realise that the kids are bullying Mammy again and I should stay upstairs where it is safe!
Today had me thinking about favourites so that is the theme for today’s top 5:

1. As advertised yesterday E took on RUSSIA making a lovely little window display so our poor suffering neighbours can see what she has been up to every time they pass by. She can point to where it is on the map and we just need to get her Aunty Nic to teach her all about the capital city (her specialist subject). The Russian dolls are great and definitely my favourite. As well as this she continues to really impress us with her #HomeSchooling effort – she seems to have decided she wants to finish everything in the home pack and who are we to hold her back? 🇷🇺 
2. I forced myself to take a lunch break today and after we ate I gave E the choice of what to do with Daddy before he went back upstairs. I told her to pick her favourite things. So she picked playing and specifically hide and seek and musical statues. I mean what a perfect combination?! I was loving my lunchtime dancing (to the Frozen 2 soundtrack of course) but the judge kept saying E was moving which she protested about “my chest is moving because I’m breathing. I’m allowed to move because I have to breathe!” Not sure where this left me as I wasn’t allowed a similar exemption! 😤
3. I heard the music from today’s afternoon matinee reverberating through the floorboards and was sure I recognised it. Probably because it was Frozen 2 for, what I think is the third day in a row. Now I quite enjoyed that film (controversial I know) but I’m not sure I’d want to watch it on repeat, even if it was my favourite film. On the other hand Steph let slip that she’s still welling up when she watches it. I have reminded her that the happy ending will always be there but I’m just heartless apparently. I’m hoping they might be all Frozened out by the weekend as I’m thinking I might introduce E to the Godfather films instead. 🐴 
4. Today was another chance to use my favourite software discovered during lockdown – Zoom. It was such a novelty to begin with as users skyrocketed for both work and leisure purposes. I had 3 calls today and definitely am now suffering with a bit of Zoom fatigue. There’s a whole etiquette developing and also a weird unspoken competition on the issue of backgrounds and holding screens. Inevitably my competitive nature seeps out sometimes and I’ve been playing with my Zoom settings and downloading new backgrounds. I do worry that when we’re allowed to meet people again I’ll forget that there’s no mute button and I’ll utter something unmentionable! 💻 
5. I was shocked today to see the kids’ favourite TV show trending on Twitter today. I was, inevitably, intrigued and had to look into that a bit further. I was even more shocked when I found out that Paw Patrol was apparently going to be banned due to the depiction of Chase a police dog! Now whilst I have lots of issues about Paw Patrol which may in itself lead to an entirely new blog in the future, I’m not sure it deserves to be taken off air in response to the BLM protests. I later discovered it was a joke but who knows what to believe on social media? I mean whoever heard of a boy obsessed with toothbrush heads – seems a bit far fetched! 🐶

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A wet and windy Wednesday in lockdown and a stark realisation has come over me this evening. Since Steph was furloughed I’ve been able to work more normal hours but in reality that just means more hours. And it means I’m hardly seeing the kids at all – we’ve not even been out for our lunchtime walk for the last couple of days. It sank in tonight that the kids have now latched onto Mammy and aren’t even that interested in me when I am downstairs. Sad times given the amount of fun we have had recently but tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity to get back to the right balance. 
It’s been lovely to have some slight easing of the lockdown restrictions and the ability to meet people outdoors which of course coincided with the end of summer and start of autumn, well according to E. Who wants to sit in my garden in the rain?
Anyway, I was pretty dependent again on Steph to feed me a top 5 to share with you all:

1. Today’s #HomeSchooling was definitely a game of two halves. This morning E smashed through another pile of work and finished yet another workbook. I’m really proud with how she is applying herself. After lunch however there seemed to be a sea change and she just wanted to watch Frozen 2 (again!) You’ll remember it’s her new favourite film and there was something weirdly comforting to hear the songs wafting up the stairs, as they were the same songs we heard every hour on the hour on every day we were in Disneyland Paris and she insisted on watching the Frozen parade multiple times a day! Ah, happy times! 🙉
2. We have finally found our way with school topics for the next few weeks, which is a relief as we’ve had a letter from E’s school confirming her class will not be returning this academic year. We broke the news to her, fully expecting an upset little girl, but to her credit she took it very well. She took a physical step back but immediately announced “Mammy and Daddy. It’s fine. You know I’m upset but I’m not that upset and I’m fine being here with you two and Matthew and I can do my work. And the one good thing is I like the food here and I don’t have to eat the school food!” Always looking for the silver lining bless her. So she’s here to stay and they have decided that she wants to study some countries of the world, starting with Russia apparently. I’ll be interested to see what she produces for that but I’m happy to sample the vodka! 🌏 
3. During my very brief conversation with E at lunchtime we had a strange exchange which made me chuckle. I found one of her babies hidden in our bedroom so I tucked it under my shirt when I came downstairs. She noticed the big lump and pulled it out. “Oh, I’ve had a baby” I suggested. 
“Don’t be RIDICULOUS Daddy. You can’t lay babies, you’re not a Mammy!”
“Lay a baby?”
“Yes Daddy. Only mammies can lay babies not daddies.”
“I didn’t know mammies laid eggs.”
“You’re being silly now Daddy. Mammies don’t lay eggs; they lay babies. And you can’t do that. Unless you dress as Mammy and she can dress as you and then you can have a turn to be the boss of the house.”
I think Steph has brainwashed them and they genuinely believe she’s in charge!! 🥚 
4. M is clearly planning on growing, yet again, as he is constantly eating. He just keeping dragging up to the cupboards and pointing at his mouth. Steph succumbs very regularly and he is doing a good job of cleaning us out of biscuits. She thinks it’s really cute as she always gives him 2 and he carries one through to E and gobbles the other. Except today when he was busted pretending to take the biscuit to E but actually was shoving both in his mouth before going back for more. Like father like son! 🍪 
5. Tonight was our weekly work quiz, hosted for the first time by Steph. She put tons of work into preparing it and it all went very well. We packed the kids off to bed nice and early so we could set up and they were remarkably quiet. Until half way through the quiz when E snuck down the stairs and started trying to negotiate staying up. As soon as the quiz finished she was taken back up and M started, so he had to come down and start playing bowling. He loves lining things up and counting them but doing this at 9.30pm isn’t ideal, and I’m not sure missing all the pins with his throw and kicking them over instead actually counts. Still so much to teach him! 🎳

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