The latest thing in Podling entertainment...

Play dough. Tom is obsessed with play dough at the moment. We are eating, sleeping, breathing and, in Lily's case, eating the stuff at every given opportunity. This wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that Tom doesn't so much play with it as sit in his chair issuing demands.

"I wanna red star.", "I wanna blue star.", "I wanna BIG letter 'A'.", "I wanna little 'z'.", "I wanna rainbow","I wanna purple bear", and so on ad nauseum.

I get to sit there and make all these things, whilst simultaneously trying to stop Lily from eating the play dough, which she does the second I take my eye off her. At least I can be confident from the sheer quantity she has ingested that 'a little of what you fancy' whilst probably not doing her any good, at least does her no harm!

I started off enjoying these little creative sessions, but you can only cut out so many play dough stars before it starts to get tedious. One of the drawbacks to Tom knowing all his colours is that he wants the same shape made in all the available colours. Mark and I bought them a pack of play dough with ten colours last weekend, so that's a lot of repetition. I keep trying to encourage Tom to make his own shapes as well, but he is happier to supervise me and then destroy each thing as I hand it to him. It keeps the Podlings amused though and there isn't much I won't do to keep my babies happy!

May contain shot

It's not often I can boast that about our tea, but, according to the packaging, last night's tea may indeed have contained shot. It didn't, but it could have done, which left me with a lovely domestic goddess glow after preparing our meal! I was quite impressed with the meal I made for Mark and myself last night, which is why I feel the need to boast of my culinary prowess! We had roast pheasant, gravy, roast potatoes (made from scratch, of course), broccoli, carrots and peas. Someone in Mark's group at work has an orchard and recently gave us some cooking apples, so I used some of these to make an apple and cinnamon crumble, served with custard, for dessert. It wasn't even a special occasion, I just felt like going the extra mile last night. It was so delicious and I definitely felt like a Good Wife for giving my husband such hearty fare!

(BTW, my friend Matthew will be totally unimpressed by this tale. He and his wife have a small farm in New Zealand and never buy meat. What they don't raise themselves, Matthew hunts for. They are, in fact, raising a piglet called 'Spit Roast' for Christmas dinner. Makes my shop-bought pheasant look a bit pathetic really! Hi Matthew!)

Snow!

I couldn't believe my eyes, but sure enough we had snow this afternoon. In fact, it snowed quite heavily for a couple of hours, though it was too wet to settle anywhere other than on the cars. I can't remember the last time I saw snow this early in the winter (is it even officially winter yet?). I love snow, so I guess that's one of the advantages of moving north. Think I might need to invest in some warmer clothing though! I really feel the cold and I'm missing that Westcountry Gulf Stream!

Storytime

The parents amongst you will know how it is when your child gets a favourite story. It becomes THE story...you get to the end, and lo and behold you have to start it all over again. There are dozens of books that make me groan inwardly when I have to read them just once, let alone over and over again, but Tom's current favourite is not one of them. "Marvin wanted more" by Joseph Theobold is about a little sheep who is fed up that all the other sheep can run faster and jump higher than him. As with many of us, Marvin thinks the answer to his problems is to eat (ah, we've all been there Marvin!). In fact, Marvin is insatiable and eventually devours the entire world, which, as you might expect, makes him feel a bit unwell. The moral of the story, in short, is that if you eat too much you will be sick! My mum-in-law gave this book to Tom a couple of years ago, and I never get tired of reading it to the Podlings. I just love this book! If you are planning on giving a toddler a book for Christmas, may I heartily recommend "Marvin wanted more".

Ground, swallow me up!

OK, all you mums who read this blog, what embarrassing situations have your children got you into? I only ask because misery loves company, and boy was I embarrassed earlier this evening!

I was taking the children upstairs for their bath. We were halfway up the stairs when there was a knock at the door. I couldn't think who it might be as we don't know anyone here and we never get visitors. I bundled one Podling under each arm and carried them back downstairs. I could see through the glass of the door that it was the police, but I couldn't think why they would be calling here. Thankfully, Mark had just rung to say he was on his way home from work, otherwise I know I would have thought they were here to tell me some awful news! Maybe they were talking about neighbourhood watch, or perhaps some crime had been committed and they wanted to know if I had heard anything? I opened the door to two very pleasant police women one of whom smiled and asked if "everything was okay because we've received an abandoned 999 call from this address".

"Ah," I said, my heart sinking as I flashed back twenty minutes to finding the phone off the hook, "That would be my daughter!".

Earlier today, Tom had come into the kitchen as I was clearing up the lunch things to tell me that "Yiyi's ringing on the telephone!". I had gone into the playroom to find her sat on the sofa chatting merrily away into the phone. I took it off her and moved it out of her reach...or so I thought! At about 5.45pm this evening, my 17 month old daughter called the police! You can imagine my embarrassment! I was suitably chagrined and apologised for wasting their time, but they were exceedingly pleasant about the whole thing and left with smiles on their faces. I, as you can guess, was not smiling!

Gotta love that baby girl!

So, that's (thus far!) the most embarrassing situation one of my children has got me into. Tell me yours...

"Silent sorrow" by Walter Langley

A happy home

"Bricks and mortar make a house,

but the laughter of children makes a home"

- Irish Proverb

Remember, remember...

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason Why Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot."

We took the Podlings to their first fireworks display on Saturday. Tom thought it was wonderful. Held in Daddy's arms, he gazed with open-mouthed delight at the beautiful display of light and colour. Quickly catching on from the other children in the crowd, he was soon calling out "Hooray!" (well, actually it was "Hooway") with every bang. Lily on the other hand, was less impressed. She didn't mind the quiet fireworks, but was quite upset by the loud noises and buried her head in my shoulder, often crying with the loudest bangs. I think she'll enjoy it more next year. She was still a bit too young to go this year really, but we didn't want Tom to miss out.

It wasn't all bad for Lily though. As a treat, we took them to McDonald's for tea before the display and Lily had her first beefburger. Does it make me a bad mother, giving my daughter a beefburger at the tender age of 17 months?! Bad mother, or not, Lily loved it, so at least she enjoyed some of the evening's entertainment!

Lily's first burger

(I should probably point out that the fireworks photo is just a random picture from the Internet, not one from the display we went to!)

Random Pictures presents...

Taken about two weeks ago, this picture shows two bleary-eyed Podlings shortly after getting up. They both like to relax with a bottle of milk before starting their day. In fact, it's not really worth trying to talk to Tom until he's had his milk...he's not a morning person at all! Can't think where he gets that from!

At last...

I finally managed to get a picture of Speedy Gonzales zooming across the kitchen in my slippers. How she hasn't fallen flat on her face I'll never know!