The kids arrived home from their night at Grandma Lindsey and Grandad Lawrie’s just after breakfast. They were full of beans and had clearly had a wonderful time.
We were running low on bread (yet again!) so I took both children out for a scooter ride to the bakery. This was also to give Stephen a bit of space and a chance to relax as he wasn’t feeling great again.
With the bread collected, I then took the kids to the nearby footbridge over the railway to spot some trains. It’s got really high fences so I had to hold them up in turn to see and wave at the trains. We got a wave and a honk back from a couple of them – that always brings a smile to our faces.
On the way back we stopped off to see the friendly neighbourhood monkey. Today he was playing darts, but instead of the normal pointy metal arrows he was using fuzzy balls instead. Safety first!
Stephen tried one of our new holiday games on the kids – it’s called “OK Play” and is like a free-form version of Connect Four. Overall it was a success but there were some teething problems as the children learned how the games worked. He orchestrated proceedings so that James won the first game and was planning on letting Genevieve win the second round, but he got grumpy with her poor sportsmanship and attitude during game two so won it myself. With Genevieve chastised, he did then arrange for her to win game three.
For game four he was happy for things to just happen as everyone had a win under their belt. That was until he saw Genevieve deliberately block James when she could have laid a game-winning tile. So he had to step in again to beat her, only so that she’d learn that (1) they were playing for family fun and (2) she’s not as clever as she thinks she is. I foresee (and genuinely hope) that we’ll have many a board game battle in the future.
With the game finished, it soon became hard work to cajole Double and Trouble into behaving. In the end we opted for the lazy option and shoved them in front of a film while I made them lunch. In the interest of keeping the peace, we let the kids eat their lunch in front of the TV. There were crumbs absolutely everywhere!
I left Stephen eating with the kids and popped over the road to join my friends Gemma and Kate for a socially distanced catch-up (as well as my own lunch) in the garden. We had a lovely time chatting in the sunshine.
Stephen decided he was feeling up to some light exercise, so he shipped the kids in to the back garden and started mowing the lawn while they played around him. Apparently James started trying to dash in front of the mower and then began tugging on the power cable, so Stephen had to have a long conversation about how dangerous it could be. Rather than putting him off, this seemed to make James even more curious about the grass cutting machine. I guess that boys will be boys regardless even when they’re that young!
I finished my lunch at Gemma’s and arrived back home just as Stephen was packing away the mower. Kate and Gemma were going for a walk up to the green with Kate’s dog, and I could see that Stephen was flagging, so I decided to head out with the kids to join the walk too. We had great fun teaching Kate and Gemma how to play “Please Mr Crocodile” and generally rampaging around the green.
Once we’d got back home, I left the kids playing with Stephen as I set up dens in their bedrooms. There was a virtual Scout camp this evening and Genevieve could earn a badge by sleeping in a den. Of course James wanted to take part two, so one den soon became two.
James has become a bit obsessed with tennis recently (as well as table tennis which he calls “tabletop tennis” – adorable). Stephen dutifully started playing with him but couldn’t follow the rules. Apparently he was the “baddy” and James was the “goody”. There was even a shout of “goal” at one point. Whatever the rules were, James won the game and had great fun in the process.
We had dinner a bit later than normal as we were keeping the children up to watch the virtual campfire that started at 7:30pm. They were seriously over-excited so it was really rather painful getting them washed and in their pyjamas, but we got there in the end.
Once the campfire started they just about calmed down enough to watch it. Stephen had to take Genevieve out of the room for a bit as she was being so naughty, but overall it was an enjoyable watch for the whole family.
The various songs and skits were very entertaining, and there was a surprising amount of foam splatted in various people’s faces during the proceedings. We didn’t have any of that nonsense back in my day!
Eventually the campfire came to an end so it was bedtime, or should that be dentime? There was the inevitable overexcite at “camping” indoors and both kids were annoyingly unruly for a little while. But soon enough they were both asleep – hallelujah.
We took that as our cue to head to bed too. We scoffed down some dinner and then headed to sleep. A busy but fun-filled day.
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