EMP in the US

So just a quick note to say that I’ve just noticed England’s first game is against the USA! How appropriate. Also, for all of you too lazy to google and bookmark, here are the fixtures:

World Cup Fixtures

The boys had their last day at childcare yesterday. They got a good send-off. They brought home farewell books to remind them of their time here, which was really cute:

There was even a picture of Thomas asleep, with the label “The one day you did actually take a nap!”.

Last night, David suffered for Ollie, worrying that Thomas had this really cool bed, with stars, and Ollie was stuck in the dark in an uncomfortable bed. So I decided to do something about it. I sawed 10cm off all the legs on Ollie’s bed, making it lower, then I decided it might be fun if just the foot end was under Thomas, so the beds are now in an L-shape. (So I actually needn’t have done all that sawing, but hey!). I took the canopy off Thomas’ bed, because apart from everything else, it makes it very difficult to tuck him in and read to him and give him a cuddle and kiss. Instead, I have found the old bed guard we used to use when he was first went into the grown-up bed. This is only slightly higher than the side of the bed already, and probably isn’t guaranteed to help them at the age of 4, but I think it will help me more than anything. I’ve been sleeping very badly since we turned the bed over, I think because I’m subconsciously worrying about Thomas falling out.

Anyway, this is what the room looks like today:

Incidentally, I found the post which talks about Thomas sleeping in his bed for the first time, which is when he was nearly 2.
old blog post. Thomas never got a cute toddler-bed like Ollie.

I forgot to mention in the Thomas post that another thing he has been doing to annoy me is to try to turn his bed into a massive slide by lifting the mattress and placing toy-boxes under one side. All the toys inevitably fall out of the box in between the slats and under the bed… grrrrrrr.

So, along with other reasons, I decided to try and turn his bed upside-down (don’t worry – it’s from Ikea – it’s supposed to do that). The idea was to put Ollie underneath. This is what it looks like:

The boys seem to like it:

However, the first night, I was awoken from deep sleep by a thump and a yell of “Thomas NO!”. Needless to say, in the milliseconds it took for me to sprint 4 paces into their room from a horizontal position, my brain had imagined all sorts of horrors. I expected to see Thomas sprawled on the floor, fallen from the new height, but he was completely zonked out perfectly in the middle of his bed. So then I looked at the under-bunk. Ollie had managed to fall out of bed on the wall side!? He had obviously been dreaming, or, assumed that his pain was Thomas-related, which it usually is! He was stuck. So we fished him out, replaced the cushions that were specifically placed there to stop that happening, and he was asleep again within seconds. I, however, was actually shaking when I got back into bed, and continued to tremble for the next 2 hours it took me to fall asleep again.

Poor Ollie, I know I sometimes describe him as a devil, but he is currently sporting a 3rd nipple, which doesn’t help his case:

So, what about this heat then? It was around 35 degrees C here yesterday?!! Thankfully a breeze picked up today, but yesterday was unbearable. Thank goodness a friend came to our rescue and very kindly lent us a couple of fans:

I have been walking the boys a lot lately – trying to build them up for our trip to New York City. We walked to Storrs Pond last week and saw lots of tadpoles. You might be able to spot them in this picture in the bottom right corner, near the dead fish with its head under a log.

Today, we missed the bus to storytime, so I made the boys walk into town. The heat was unbearable, and Ollie was already crying with rage at having missed the bus. However, I made them stop for regular sips of water and doused Ollie with sun cream, and we made it. It was worth it – the library was a lovely air-conditioned haven from the heat.

Then in the afternoon, we braved the heat again, but this time everyone had sunblock, hats and water. We walked to Storrs Pond again, and dipped our toes in. There were lots of people swimming. I caught a couple of tadpoles in my hands to impress the boys. (My own boys that is).

We walked from there to the School playpark where the boys still found the energy to play, though they were definitely flagging. We even then walked home. The boys were totally exhausted, and actually so was I. I was really proud that they had managed this odyssey in the heat of hell. If they could manage that, they should be able to brave the heat and bustle of NYC.

Ollie, incidentally, has learned how to “pump” himself on the swing. This has come much earlier than it did for Thomas, so I’m pretty glad. Hopefully this is the end of endlessly pushing kids on swings.

I took this photo of Thomas, at the play park after our epic walk. I think it really captures the way he worries so much about everything:

So there seems to be a heatwave all over the world at the moment (yes, you’ve told me a million times not to exaggerate) so on Sunday we went to the play park early for a play date with some of Thomas’ school friends. We had a really great time! By noon it was getting intensely hot, so everyone retreated indoors for some lunch. Just before she left, my super friend Karoline suggested we went for a walk in the Pine Park in the afternoon, where it would be shady and the kids could dip their toes in the stream. It was an inspired idea, so off we went!

It’s a really beautiful walk and the kids seemed to love it! The stream though, was dry, so we actually made it to the Connecticut river to dip toes in:

It was jolly cold, apparently.

Then a quick rest and a snack gave a good photo opportunity for kids sitting on a log…

This gives you an example of how beautiful it was:

…and that was just half the posse! We do make up quite a crowd, with 3 ladies and 8 kids! I got to remember how nice it feels when a kid just wants to hold your hand. (not your own kids obviously – duh!).

And, as I said in my last post, I was impressed, and relieved, that the boys managed a busy day without a meltdown at the end.

I have decided to dedicate an entire post to Thomas to report on some of the things he has been up to. He has been suffering from antibiotic-resistant ear infections for the last couple of weeks, (though the antibiotics did clear up his eyes).

So, Thomas. I have been lamenting lately that he is naughty in ways you can’t predict, and I don’t think he’s trying to be naughty. For example, I came in the other day to find my bathroom sink full of soil.

His constant curiosity has its benefits. I found that he had changed the toilet roll for me.

He is still heavily into books:

He impressed me this morning. David brought him home a Tintin book in Danish, from his Copenhagen trip. Thomas actually sat down with the Danish copy and the English copy together. “‘Nej!’ must mean ‘No!’” he observed. And then he said “Oh, here’s a word we already know: ‘farvel!’” that his bedstemor had told him to say when Skyping the other day. It seems that reading in Danish might not be too much trouble for him. Thankfully Danish is written phonetically, so much easier to work out than English.

He also made me laugh the other day when he corrected Ollie on his language. Ollie came out with, “I’m so not going to misbehave!” and Thomas replied, “’so not going to’ doesn’t make any sense, Ollie!”

One last thing to mention is the unpredictability of his behaviour. Often when he is tired in the evening he can become whiny or even weepy. This is exacerbated if he has been at a friend’s house and has to come home, whereupon he will break down in floods of tears, and tell me I’m the worst mum ever in the world, and that I’m spoiling everything for him etc etc. So on Sunday, when we had been out all morning at the playpark in scorching heat, and then went for a 2-hour walk in the afternoon with friends (will blog about too) I expected him to be in bits, but apart from a slight moan on the last 2-minute stretch back to the car, he was a delight! He was even delightful when we got home. This totally baffled me. He still took ages to fall asleep – still being awake well after 9.30pm.

He has also been eating a lot more – often having two helpings for dinner. I’m already nervous about the amount of food these boys will consume as teenagers!

So, actually, I have had quite a lot of energy lately. The boys, while tiring are becoming easier. They can play well together for quite long periods of time now, which means less of the constant demand for attention that can be so wearing.

On Saturday last, Thomas was still recovering from his illness (when will these antibiotics ever finish?!?) so I left him at home with his dad, and took Ollie on a bit of a trek. We climbed Balch Hill again, but David was busy fixing the car, so we actually walked from our house. The bottom of the hill is populated, so there are roads, but they are steep!
This is halfway up one of the roads:

Then I took a short-cut through virgin forest (ok I may be exaggerating a tiny bit). This was hard-going as we were constantly climbing over and around sticks and branches and fallen trees, oh, and did I mention it was steep?

Finally, just as Ollie, who had been practically flying up the track (in the woods, when we found it!) started to wilt a little. (I was gasping for breath, though I think I was also fighting off some sort of EN&T infection) we saw a lighter patch above us. We got our prize at the summit, as we had come to see a kite-flying event. There lots of people and kites to see. We sat on a bench for a while to get some rest and devour some cookies. It had taken us just over 1 hour to get there.

After a little while, we set off for home again. We took a different path this time:

This path was much straighter than on the way up, but it was even steeper! I was worried Ollie would fall, and just roll all the way down! He loved it and kept trying to run down!

Finally we hit the main road at the bottom, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to get a good photo of Ollie with some forget-me-nots.

Ollie did need a bit of carrying for the last stretch – there was no nap time that day, and he had walked for 2 hours. I think he did really well. I don’t even think Thomas would have managed it, at least not without lots of complaining! I really enjoyed it, and can’t wait to do it again. On Tuesday morning, we walked to Storrs Pond which was great too. We saw lots of tadpoles. I’m hoping to get the boys’ walking ability to a good level before we go to New York City, to get as much as we can out of our visit.

I apologise if these last few posts aren’t quite up to standard, but, quite frankly, you are infringing on my “Lost”-watching time.

I have to dedicate an entire post to this, as it has been a significant part of my life for the last few weeks.

A long time ago, a friend suggested I get into “Lost” the tv series. We had missed a significant amount of episodes at that point, so we decided not to start halfway into it. Recently, however, with US TV somewhat lacking, we’ve been finding other things to watch in the evenings. Then we found the College library where you can borrow DVDs for free. So, we thought we’d try Lost, right from the beginning.

My friend was sooooooooooo right. I totally love it. And so does David. As a result, our lives have been put on hold as we immersed ourselves in this warm pool of escapism. We have been watching 2 or 3 episodes per night, and having to force ourselves to go to bed at midnight, or even 1am. This has totally been ruining the boys’ lives, as I’ve been bleary-eyed and grumpy the next day. I won’t sit here and discuss its merits and reasons-for-watching, as I wouldn’t want anyone else to succumb unnecessarily.

Thank goodness we have now made it through nearly 6 whole seasons, and have nearly caught up to first-time airing shows.

I am so looking forward to getting my life back.

So, today was David’s birthday, so like a good wifey, I thought I’d make a cake.

I made one, it was perfect, beautiful:

My plan was to slice it round the middle and put filling in, which is something I’ve done before, as it was a good size for our family when we didn’t have a cake tin. This would have been great, if I hadn’t then gone and dropped it. The beautiful surface was totally damaged. AAARGH! So, I had to make another one. (which is actually the one in the photo above). Thankfully that turned out ok.

Then I thought I’d just cover it with icing sugar, as recommended in the recipe. Then, as an afterthought, I thought I’d write something like “Happy Birthday!” on it. This was a big mistake. I don’t know why I couldn’t foresee, that writing icing doesn’t really work ON TOP of icing sugar. So, my first letter became an oddly-shaped alien blob. Still, though, I love my husband, so I struggled on. I decided to draw him a picture instead. He spent many hours making my instrument, so I spent many minutes creating an artistic representation of it on his cake. I was just starting to get the hang of this, when I dragged my sleeve through it all. AAAAARGH! Anyway, this was it looked like:

Even with the number ‘3′ representing the tens, it was quite an inferno!

I’m afraid, there was only one present, but I think it went down well, and David made the most of it!

So the cold developed, and I am feeling pretty rotten, with sore ears and throat and streaming nose etc etc. Ollie is simply a snot-face, which he is often anyway, so I’m just going through more tissues than usual.

Thomas, however, took the worst of it this time. David found him with gunky eyes this morning, so we made an appointment to see the doctor. She checked him out thoroughly and decided that, because the eye problem didn’t start until later, and Thomas’ ears also looked bad, she decided it was no longer just a virus, but a bacterial infection that was spreading to his ears. She has given us some antibiotics for him. I really like the boys’ doctor. She is so nice and great with the kids. She herself had her first child while still at med school!

I’m glad we did get the antibiotics, as Thomas who was still full of beans and jumping around this morning, started to slow down a lot by lunchtime, and even fell asleep for a nap (highly improbable). He woke up from his nap with a sore ear, which means the infection must have been starting to take hold. Here he is in his dressing-gown with a cookie for comfort. You can see his right eye looking a bit puffy.

…is a book by Giles Andreae that I liked so much, I bought a copy for both grandfathers. Have a look for yourself. Also, I didn’t know this, as I only got into him via childrens’ books, but he is also Purple Ronnie (the greetings cards).

So this post is for the grandfathers.

We have all come down with a cold again, which means a lot of sitting around doing nothing. The boys were surprisingly good yesterday, and managed to amuse themselves for the whole afternoon without involving a screen! Thomas has suddenly got very interested in chess, so I let him have the chess board and a book I bought him called “Chess for Kids and Parents” though in this case, I’m afraid, it definitely didn’t involve a parent.

It is interesting to watch him discover more and more chess concepts. He understands the concept of checkmate, but as yet he cannot spot all the different escapes/attacks easily, so he needs a little help to confirm whether or not it really IS mate or not.

Ollie too found something to keep himself occupied.

I was able to make us some soup to ease all our throats and give us all a vegetable injection. I’m feeling much rougher today though, so I’m afraid the cartoons are already on.