A long babble about today, and a little of the C word!!

Today has been lovely for lots of reasons. Craig was off work so waking up with him still here is a huge novelty. The boys jumped in our bed too and we all watched TV and chatted about what we will do today. Danny only goes to nursery two and a half days a week, and Connor won't start till April next year so no one had any plans. 

We went to Craigs favourite place... GAME ergh... Seriously they should have a wife and girlfriends sofa in there.. I've never really got into gaming, minus spyro gateway to glimmer on the ps1 I was amazing at that!  Anyways, Craig really is and has always been into gaming and I've spent many a bored trip to GAME waiting for him and wondering what that smell is. It always smells funky in there. I fear Craig's passion may have rubbed off on the boys....

We decided to buy some wii games for the boys. Marvel something or other as they are both hulk crazy. Connor has a toy hulk with no off button (wtf!?) you move or shake it and he either roars, shouts hulk smash, you're no match for the hulk or no one shakes the hulk raaahh
.. He takes everywhere with him, even to bed. It's great when he turns over at 2am.. and my mummy ears (Instant wake up) hears "you're no match for the hulk!" coming from my son's room. You've just woken me up at 2am you green bastard, try me.
A toy story game and Mater's tall tales (the tow truck from cars) which Connor loves and has the little wrestling (yes car  wrestlers....  Here's the link )  figures which are his prized possessions.

Craig got a game too so all three boys happy. We spent a lovely afternoon in two teams (me and Danny vs Craig and Connor trying them out and me and Craig grumbling about having to sit on the floor and how we shouldn't have sold the old sofa!)

  

 I got this 2016 diary and calendar which was a bargain and is really pretty! I'm thinking I can use it to plan posts about random things rather than treat this as an online journal...Maybe I'm not sure which way I'll take this yet. 

I had a few bits to take back to the garden centre too, some Christmas lights I'd found in the clearance section and these two hideously annoying Christmas spinners that sang jingle bells at about 1,000 decibels in the most monotone way I've ever heard.  I didn't think jingle bells could be sung in a grumpy way but they cracked it!!  I thought they were cute when I brought them for the boys but Connor broke his in about 2 minutes and Danny would not stop pressing it so Mummy was mean and squirreled them away!  I got a credit note and me, I can't wait. Money, vouchers,  credit notes they burn a hole in my pocket I can't control myself. I went back and told Craig I'd got the note rather than a refund and that Christmas bits were out and the kids inside us both did a little skip and we had to go spend it!
Christmas was never a big deal when I was growing up. We didn't have any big traditions or anything that really stands out. Craig's parents are Christmas crazy (his Mum has literally just tagged me in a Facebook post !)

I remember when I first met Craig back in November 2004 I went over to his one Sunday in the December and it was like a grotto had exploded. They even had decorations in the toilet!! A santa loo cover!! Christmas crackers the pair of them.
Up until I had my boys I was... A total scrooge.  The whole thing was a total pain for me. But now,  thankfully I've well and truly been infected by the Christmas bug and look forward to it and making it magical for the boys every year. Last year I went crazy for  elf on the shelf, but instead of the super creepy weird elf that 'watches the kids ' creepy creepy creepy we have Eddie the elf a friendly little knitted elf who comes to visit us in December to 'bring Christmas magic and be part of a family at Christmas '. Last year he was riding on dinosaurs, had a snowball (mini marshmallows)  fight with spiderman and buzz lightyear in the playroom and even was caught fishing in the fish tanks with a little rod made from pencil and string! Cheeky Eddie!! The boys loved him and this year they will be 4 and almost 3 so will enjoy it even more! I'm considering making or buying another elf so they can get upto mischief together ( and also so when the boys are all grown up and have children of their own they can carry this on with their childhood elves!! Awwh :-D) This is about my level of sewing though. A 'stick man' I made for Danny a year or so ago because it's his favourite book.

His leg is folded over but I'm warm and comfy under the duvet and not moving now!!

Eeeekkk it's coming on on TV this Christmas too!! "a stick!  cried the dog and excellent stick! The right kind of stick for my favourite trick! I'll fetch it and drop it and fetch it and then, I'll drop it and fetch it and drop it again!!" Haha! I love reading that part in my silly dog voice!!

We were looking at getting a new Christmas tree as ours isnt very grand. It's tall and slim....and white. I love it though because all the decorations have a meaning to them and they are all blue and silver. I think blue and silver would look odd on a green tree so I didn't fancy buying a new tree plus all new decorations so instead we brought some really bright white lights for it as the ones we usually  use are a bit old and dull. It was a toss up between multi coloured ones and white but I won with my white ones. It looks so much more magical and icey and frosty. Can't wait to put it up and see how it looks this year!!
We came home, and later had a parcel delivered. A few Christmas and birthday presents!

 This is a masha and the bear tree house playset for Connor that he will LOVE. It's the Bear's house complete with his fridge, table chair etc. Masha and the bear is a quirky little Russian cartoon about a little girl (who is an absolute hooligan basically the girl version of Connor)  and her friend the bear. It's very slapstick which he loves (like the old Tom and Jerry cartoons which can have his rolling over laughing) so when the toy shop,the entertainer,  started stocking masha toys this was a must have!  I'm hoping to get him the 50cm plush bear for his birthday in January too :-D.  Craig and I clearly have great timing with a child's birthday either side of Christmas!
Connor is so much easier to buy for. He loves anything with wheels, he can play really imaginative games (we once played with his toy castle that was under attack from the dragon, luckily the ninja turtles arrived shortly followed by fireman sam! Buzz lightyear then locked the dragon away with the paw Patrol... Hope they didn't become dragon food!). He generally loves and cherishes his toys and is usually seen with a backpack full of his current favourites. He is also an avid lullo or gruffalo fan. This is an extra connorey picture!

Sorry for the ridiculous scribble on his face but photos of them in masks and facepaints and the backs of their head I'm okay with sharing on here just not full face ones, call me paranoid but I can't even bring myself to use them as my Facebook profile or cover photo!


The dinosaur adventurer kit is for Danny. It has a hat,  stickers, binoculars and a few other bits in it. This is right up his street! Danny is a much harder child to buy for. He doesn't really go for any character stuff he's not a lover of cars or anything obvious. His prized possessions are his camera, binoculars with a light on, and his collection of Schleich dinosaurs and animals. Which I love too because I used to collect similar things as a kid, stuff like puppy in my pockets!   Some of his favourite dinosaurs have found their way onto my display unit in the living room... Kinda like it though!  For his birthday in a few weeks I'm putting together an explorers kit with stuff like a bird whistle, compass, stop watch,  torch, bug pots, notepad and pen, night vision goggles and a book of wildlife. Can't wait to see his face!  I'm going to wrap each individual Item!! We are also planning a trip to the natural history museum to meet some dinosaurs!!  Eek!!
Danny will be so happy because he asked for scissors and glue today to cut up the argos book with some things he would like for his birthday / Christmas.  When he gave it to me I was fully expecting to see a load of stuff. But there was the wild pets spider he had asked for, robo turtles, a dinosaur and a red car. When I asked him about the car he said it was for Connor!  Then later on Connor gave Danny his last rolo....literally! Under all the headlocks and fist fights they love each other really!!

Now I have a date with the sofa and my weekly Daryl Dixon fix....Oh Craig will be there too!!

Thanks for visiting!
XxxxX

Another lesson learnt

I just want to start this evening by saying thank you so so much to everyone who has read, shared and commented about what I've been writing!  I'm enjoying it so so much. I love having something to think about again. I have wanted to do something like this for ages but just thought I'd never have anything remotely interesting to write about! It humbles me that so many people have even clicked on what I've wrote, let alone read it! It's doing wonders for my self confidence and I really do feel like I'm finding myself again a little more after each post. My head is buzzing with little ideas, I may even start writing little stories or poems or something.  Maybe. Baby steps Grace!

Now, I read a lot of parenting blogs. I particularly love  Scary Mommy I love how blunt and easily relatable this one is, and The Bubblelush  is a written by a lady who has her own very young children and is also a foster mum. I came across her when I was looking into becoming a foster carer.  She is an absolute angel. One day I'd love to be like her.
Anyways, I came across this post from Fatherly  http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8248234
And it is pure genius, 100%.  When I first began to read it..treat your child like an adult my initial thought was... Errrr you serious!? But it works! It so works. I really needed some help with Danny. And this was it!
A little background..  Danny is 4 next month (oh my god!?) and he is super freaky. Honestly, he is scarily intelligent. I'm not just saying this because I'm his Mum.
You can have full blown conversations with him, and have done for ages. He can recognise words and numbers, write his own name as well as Mummy, Daddy Connor and Jade (his key workers name). At his last parents evening at nursery she even said to me she is having to get work for him to do from the reception class because he can do everything they have in the nursery!?
 He was walking by 10 months old. I can't remember him ever not talking, he was fully potty trained day and night by 2 years old.  He can work a self timer on a camera. He dresses himself, gets himself ready every morning. His understanding of the world is ridiculous for his age and he hates anything that should be at his level programmes etc because he says they are boring! He loves documentaries about animals and dinosaurs and when I let him choose a dinosaur book to buy (he LOVES Dinosaurs) He was insistent on an encyclopaedia and loves looking at all the pictures and when I read it (I can barely pronounce half of it) to him. Stuff we have brought for him for his birthday / Christmas is meant for at least double his age. He's basically a 7 year old (okay, maybe not quite but just to try and explain him) in a 3 year olds body.
However, this does have a downside. He gets bored so quickly. When he's bored he reverts to what I call the Danny monster. He screams, shouts, pings about,  he plays with one thing and quickly gets bored, he winds up Connor something rotton and that leads to fights. He tells Connor to do naughty things and starts getting really.....arseholey!! He's a lovely boy don't get me wrong,  he's polite and very very sensitive but he needs and craves constant attention.
Back to the article.  As I was reading this Danny was popping into my mind over. We have a few behavioural approaches. He has a sticker chart for eating his dinner (he's a sod for not eating his dinner, it's too hot,  this bit looks funny blah blah.) He would rather talk about complete nonsense or something like "mummy why is the dogs poo orangey and mine is brown" at the dinner table.. Ergh. It's quite exhausting answering 1000,000 questions a day!
 The chart only works because he wants to complete the picture. It's like a sticker jigsaw chart. If he is particularly awful he gets sat out on the step which he hates and just gets angry about...and will try to have a debate with me about how grossly unjustified it is. Seriously, he's exasperating!

 At nursery they have a "black cloud" which is basically a traffic light system, but my word he's terrified of it. He is the best behaved little angel at nursery because I think he would be totally hysterical and refuse to ever go back if he ever got put on it. One of his friends got put on it last week for something totally unrelated from him and he was distraught about it! Burst into tears as if she had been put in the chokey or something!? (They don't have one of those at his nursery!) I think it's more the public embarrassment of being naughty than anything else.
Danny and I can clash, which leads to power struggles, which are silly really and just remind me of the I'm big you're small argument in Matilda (must have Matilda on the brain today!?)  I just felt that the step at home was just frustrating him more. After reading the article that day I thought back on the entire day and really tried to think how I acted with the boys, Danny in particular. I wouldn't let him help me with chores, told him to be quiet and to wait a minute loads and loads of times even said oh why can't you just go and play with something for a minute and leave me in peace (argh bad Mummy).  I cut his food up, picked his clothes and brushed his teeth. I pretty much chose everything for him. Wow, how annoying! How did I not realise what a total control freak I was being! Poor boy no wonder he was frustrated and playing up. He wanted my attention and I was snipping at him for no real reason. I felt a bit shit.
 Today we were at home all day, so I saw it as my chance to try this treat him like an adult stuff out. He chose his outfit (although I did have to persuade him to get dressed at all because he said well why do I have to, I got dressed yesterday!? )  I let him help change and make the beds, yes it took longer and no it wasn't as neat as I do it but wow he was so excited and pleased with himself!  He helped me wash up, Connor did too and water ended up everywhere but it was funny! I gave him the chance to choose what we all did this afternoon,  a choice of something arty, a film or all playing buckaroo. He picked arty so I got out the clay and I made a leaf with Connor but let Danny do his own thing. He asked me to help him make a leaf too. We all made a pumpkin tea light holder and with the remaining clay he made a 'pumpkin face' it was hard not intervening but I'm glad I didn't because he did it and it was really good!

 He helped me fold the washing and even  though I had to re do the lot he loved sorting the socks. He even helped make me and Craig coffee! I had to hold back and not take over when he wasnt getting the right amount of coffee or sugar on a teaspoon. Seriously, I'm so controlling apparently!!  He was so amazed when I said he can lift the kettle. Turns out he makes a pretty good cup of coffee!
Now I'm not going to just let him do whatever he wants or let him try out all kinds of dangerous activities. I'm his Mum not his buddy and I'm raising gentlemen not hoodlums!  It could of been a fluke but by giving him some of the control he reacted by giving me the respect and attention he should. Respect is a two way street after all. I wing this parenting malarkey every day and I'm always willing to learn and take advice. All I can do is my best for them :) From this I've learnt that actually he is a fully fledged little person with his own thoughts, wants and feelings. That my little Danny diddles doesn't need me to do absolutely everything for him anymore. That I need to let go of him a little, loosen the apron strings, that he isn't a baby anymore. That my little boy is much more capable than I allow myself to believe
That my little boy..... Is growing up.

XxxxX