February 2012

Dear Georgie,

February brought us snow, pancakes and chocolate cake - coldness and comfort in almost equal measure! We all played in the snow, even me!




I managed a mega snowball to make the biggest snowman we have ever made (despite my pregnant size - although I did need help from other adults to roll it into our front garden!).



And very handsome and long-lasting our snowman was too! And there was much snowballing between ourselves and the neighbours...




You, Lexi and Daddy all made another snowman in the park while I was busy shopping, which was named the Gruffalo Snowman (?)



You guys also 'helped' me make a cake for Nanny and Grandad, who both have birthdays in mid-February, and you were all kind enough to help to eat it too!



It was yummy!



We've been braving the parks, despite the cold...



and playing with Auntie Izzie...



Your art work is getting even easier to appreciate too - I think if it keeps coming in as thick and fast as it has been, each blog post will have to end with a gallery of photos (bad things tend to happen to original works, so I try to photograph as many as I can - especially as you use a wipe clean magnetic board to create many of your master pieces!)



This is a self-portrait which you kindly gifted to Nanny



This is a mouse


This is a pretty neatly coloured in koala


This is a ghost


Another very flattering self-portrait



You've been pretty tired after school - I even resorted to sending you to bed super early - 6pm or 6.30, at first because I couldn't hack the histrionics that your fatigue seemed to induce - you cried all the way to school and all the way home again. Going to bed earlier actually seemed to help you, and I have discovered a good way to punish and reward you is to either take five minutes off your bed time or give you an extra five minutes to stay downstairs.



We've managed to meet up with/visit Willow and Dylan a bit more - they kindly took you to Willow's Farm recently, which you obviously enjoyed...



And of course because all we did all month was eat, we enjoyed pancakes long past pancake day and sometimes we even have them for breakfast on a school day!





You have been helping me style my hair...some very original looks...


And reading to (and being read to by) Grandad.

I think we'll all be a lot happier when the weather is slightly warmer and we can get out a bit more - watching TV and playing inside are all very well but you are quite outdoorsy and seem to be itching to run and jump and play outside, which is all to the good. Bring it on!



We love you very much, even when you're tired and cross, (and even when I'm tired and cross!) and we wouldn't swap you for anything.

Love from your Mama xxx

January 2012

Hi Georgie,

I haven't taken many pictures of you guys this month - no particular reason, I guess I have felt like we all dash about so much there are very few opportunities to take a picture of a little girl who rarely sits still (even while watching tv!)

You are still developing and hoarding your skills base - your swimming has been coming on really well and you're back stroke in particular seems very strong - you steam across the pool on your back in a way that kind of takes me aback, although about two feet from the side of the pool you almost always stop and check that you aren't about to bash your head - I get it, but maybe you can learn to reach for the side with a hand?? :-D I wish I could take pictures of you at swimming but it's getting increasingly hard to take a picture at any swimming pool, and at your lessons it's explicitly forbidden (a world gone mad!)

Your reading is also impressing me - not just because you are actually reading words now but because you seem to want to read so much. I have to admit that I find this very pleasing because I remeber my own thirst to read (even when my teacher didn't want to teach me to read yet - things were a bit different then!) She held up this book to me and said 'What does that say?' I remember thinking, 'I'm asking you to teach me to read and you ask me what something says?! Do you not understand the question?!' I said, 'I don't know. But I want to know' and she said 'It says 'Red' - if you can't read the word red, you're not ready yet.' I remember thinking that was plain dumb, but I must have convinced her eventually because here I am, reading and writing. I often hear you sounding out the words on road signs, on tv, or as you try to write captions for your pictures.



Your art work has also recently become more representative of what you purport it to be - I know that sounds like I'm really unimaginative (I guess maybe I am!) but the upside of this new surge in realism is that now when you say 'Guess what it is!' I can more often oblige you with an accurate guess rather than either admit that I don't know, or say something evasive (yet hopefully encouraging) like ' Wow! I love all the wiggley lines, why don't you tell me about it!' and then hope for some clues!



We recently started using the Wii and its Just Dance game, which has caused a lot of hilarity in the house. You both love a good dance - it's just we probably need A LOT more space or someone's going to get hurt!

Your ipod stopped working a while ago, I can't rememer exactly when, but this was the result of several months of your messing with it, pouring water on or near it etc. and so we decided that you will have to get along without music at night. We may get you another one for your birthday, but we felt it was really important that you understand that if you break something expensive, something that was given to you as a privilege, that it not be immediately replaced if it is abused by you. I was braced for a lot of fuss but actually after a day or so you seemed to accept it and you haven't complained about its absence once.

We did notice however that you have been staying up really late and playing and reading (there's was a bed side table lamp on in her room because she was scared of the dark and the night light was apparently not light enough). We axed the lamp too, in an effort to get you to sleep earlier (you have been hell to get up in the mornings, have been crying all the way to and from school, seemingly purely out of fatigue), and that also went surprisingly well.

I go through periods of being totally unable to tolerate behaviour from you and your sister that is ordinarily admittedly annoying but not the end of the world - I have a few hours every day where all I feel is overwhelmingly tired, which when pushed turns into uncontainable irritation. I think it's pregnancy related - that is not an excuse. I do apologise and explain and I think you get it, but I am trying to maintain a grip on my emotions, despite the galloping hormones. Bear with me xxx

So that's January - back to school, it's cold, it's a bit dark but we're still here, and all is well! I'll try to take more pictures in February.

Love you Porgia,

from your Mama xxx

September, October, November and December 2011 (SORRY!)

Dear Georgie,

Ok so clearly I have fallen behind with your blog again - I blame my uni course, the fact that I'm pregnant again (!) and the school run, which has brought its own special brand of crazy to week days.

School

So anyway, school.....let's talk about that!



You seemed a bit shakey about the whole thing for a while there - very sad still about missing your friends from Fleetville, a bit unsure about going into a new classroom. It didn't last long though (during October half term you couldn't wait to get back to school!)



You've been invited to several birthday parties, girly ones, a bowling party and a soft play party. You loved all of them but predictably particularly liked the girly ones, because it gave the an excuse to wear your purple party dress.



You love to tell me how well behaved (or not) you were during the school day - the chart above helps you all keep track. Everyone starts the day on 'blue sky'. If you do something especially good (showing initiative, being particularly polite etc.) your peg gets moved from 'blue sky' to 'sun shine'. Good behaviour can rise from there to the stars (I think you're not destined for the stars on this chart because the kids that make it there seem to do so by being very good at tidying up, which is not your forte... ;-D)



There's also some kind of thing about pebbles - each child can earn up to three little pebbles, depending on how good the whole class has been. The idea is that when a jar is filled to the top with pebbles, the whole class gets a treat, but apparently boisterous boys keep knocking the jar over and so you all have to start accumulating the pebbles from the beginning. So YOU say anyway xxx



You seem to be learning to read and write and a respectable rate, and you appear to enjoy it.



You like using Lexi's magnestic writer, white boards, my iphone apps and more recently your Innotab to practise, which wastes less paper and at least offers you the opportunity to do the same thing in a bunch of different way.

I try to not be a pushy parent - it's kind of hard to know where the line is between being helpful, supportive and encouraging re your school work and being unhealthily invested in your academic achievements. I'm still feeling my way on that one, so bear with me, and if I get it wrong (along with a whole raft of other things, I'm sure) then you can come and tell me all about it and I'll try to be cool about it (I'll try!)



I took these pictures of your classroom just before parents' evening, where we received a very reassuringly consistence character report from your teacher, Mrs Thomas. My favourite quote out your learning journal was:

"We're going to pop Jesus on the cross and when he dies we'll wait for him to come back to life."

Spot the child who goes to Sunday school! (It made me laugh, luckily it made your teacher laugh too!)

First School Photograph



Down Time



We do the usual park on the weekends, during school holidays and even after school, (or we did when it was still light, back in September)



You guys seem to like playing together and although there are the inevitable fights, she gives as good as she gets, albeit in a different way. You both boss each other, but you are pretty good at sighing, muttering 'bossy pants' in her direction, with varying levels of love and frustration in your voice, and giving way to her. But you do like to tease her, and of course, she's two, so she is very easy to coax into apoplexy. Sometimes though she over-reacts on purpose, in an effort to get you in trouble, with varying levels of success (I'm an elder sister with a younger sister - this too was done to me by mine, so Lexi doesn't get away with it as much as she otherwise might!)



You're still loving the princesses thing - you got a whole princess room for Christmas, having seen Lexi's Peppa Pig new room make-over this was a major request that was actually pretty easily done (thanks eBay).



Luckily you Belle dress still fits because you love it (unfortunately Lexi is cultivating a love for that dress and is growing into it as fast as you are growing out of it - there will be tears! But hopefully no actual blood...)



Of course Spencer Bear is still very important, even though he's mainly a stay-at-home-bear these days, now that you're so grown up.



You still sleep with him and still occasionaly try to smuggle him into school. And why not!?



For some reason teeth brushing is an area of enormous conflict between you and Lexi - even though there are two steps (and more recently, two chairs) to stand on, one tooth brush each and and more than adequate sink for the both of you, twice a day you howl at one another, wail about wanting more opportunities to rinse your toothbrushes under the tap and spend more time spitting than actually brushing your teeth. Sometimes it takes all my will power and love for your tiny teeth to make me take up your brushes, set the stage for toothbrush conflict and call you forth to do war upon each other.

Baby Charlie


12 week scan pic

After some long discussion, Steve and I have settled on Charlie for the new baby's name, whether it's a boy or a girl. You have made several impassioned pleas for the following:

Boy

Spike
Henry
Harry Potter

Girl

Evangeline
Stripe

But you seem to have accepted Charlie (so far). You keep kissing the bump and trying to get it to tell you whether it's a boy or a girl. You can't seem to decide (we won't have to wait long, hopefully we'll find out this coming week, on January 6th.)

First Nativity



You were a shepherd in your first ever nativity play and you even had a line, which we practiced at breakfast:

"We're sorry we didn't believe you!"



And let's not forget the songs that you sand (with actions), over and over and over and over and, well over again. Such hits as "One starry night! A beautiful angel came to a hill....", "Three Kings were riding (it was a bumpy road)" "Deep in the night, under a star in stable". Goodness. That was a LOT of singing. But you were very good, and on the day you didn't falter in your rendition of any of the songs even once. Well done! We were super proud. I took video footage but we have been asked not to publish it to the web. So I didn't.

Christmas Outing



We went to see your Auntie Izzie in Wimbledon park, and went to the Winter Wonderland Fair, which was a lot of fun, even if the weather was overcast and freezing and the burgers we bought were severey over-priced!



You had a brilliant time, Liz bought your ride tickets and went on most of the rides with you. You and I went on the ghost train together but I thoughtlessly (cruelly???) didn't tell you that there were no actual ghosts in there and, worse yet, I screamed theatrically throughout the whole ride, so you just buried your head in my arm and clung to me, shouting "I don't like it!" So sorry about that, I hope I haven't scarred you for life...









Christmas Eve

We went to The Vineyard carol service, which was very festive and alot of fun.



Then we set out mince pies (which Seska got to before Father Christmas,) a carrot for the reindeer and, unusually, a gin and tonic to slake Santa's thirst.



Christmas Day



Father Christmas obliged you with a lot of presents that, thank goodness, you seemed and still seem to be genuinely thrilled with, which is always very satisfying.



You each got a scooter, a hard hat, a hi-vis vest, a light for your scooter, a hand-held game console and some games, and then family and friends picked up the slack on the good old amazon wish list. And man do you love your safety gear! You wore it all through Chirstmas dinner, while scooting and would put them on all the time over pyjamas or day wear if I let you (sometimes I let you just to enjoy the giggles that overcome me.)



You also enjoy your Innotab (it's like an iPad but designed for kids - I have to get you off my iPhone somehow!!)

A Family Christmas



Auntie Izzie came for Christmas, always a welcome event!



On the wine (as usual!)



Georgie, Lexi, Gran and Grandad



Daddy and Gran were in charge of making Christmas dinner, and very very nice it was too!



Gran and Gramps also did a lot of chopping and peeling...



Nanny and Grandad also came to spend the day with us too.



Nanny and Grandad, taking a welcome and mainly deserved coffee break!



As Lexi gets bigger, and her ability to speak increases, I get to listen to (and giggle at) these amazing little conversations and games that are developing between you. Although you are sometimes still cross with her, and you tease her, in general you're pretty kind and almost entirely non-violent, which is a relief for now but could change at any time. Generally you're quite cute together. You currently have a regular arrangement that Lexi puts both your shoes away when we get in and you hang both your coats up (Lexi can't reach the coat hooks) - I hope that mutually beneficial arrangements like this continue to characterise your relationship...we'll have to see!



I feel like I spend a lot of time telling you off, which is a shame because you ARE great - you just seem to like to test the limits ALL THE TIME! I try to make sure that I take every opportunity to praise you when you deserve it (aiming for appropriate praise - I don't want to overdo it and turn you into one of those children...shudder...)

Being pregnant right now and not the most patient person in the world in general, I am aware that my tolerance levels are not as high as I would like, and so I am very sorry for being a bit snappy and cross from time to time. I try hard not to be that way, and I try to apologise at the time when I realise I have over-reacted. I'm hoping that at least this way you can see that 'even' adults can be naughty and cross, and, more importantly, when we are, we should, we can and we do apologise and make amends. I'm only human, it's the best I can do, but I'll keep trying to do better. You are a big part of my life - a relentless, exasperating, exhilarating, fantabulous part. I wanted to give you this poem for this post, I know it's a touch morbid, but we have spoken rather extensively about death - after all, what do I know about death more than you know. Your grandad says that dead people, on passing on, either know all of the answers, or none of the questions, and I guess he's right. This poem was read by my cousin Jenny, at our wedding. I love it, and I love you.

The Life That I Have by Leo Marks

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

You are a continuing delight; a neon, scooting wonder; a rabid, writing wriggler and my very favourite Georgie.

Happy New Year, my darling,

Love from your Mama xxx