It's a girl thing.

It's a Boy are the 3 little words every expectant parent should be hoping to hear! If you are hoping for a girl you can expect many years of ripped wall paper drawn on walls, spilled nail varnish and much more mayhem!

When I was expecting my middle child I was over-the-moon to hear it was a girl! How naive I was.. I didn't even think about the time my sister spilled my nail polish all over my bedroom carpet or the time she spilled syrup on my bedroom carpet and even if I had aren't these things any child would do? No. only girls. Boys are angels. sure you can expect a few bugs in their pockets when you do the laundry but compared to girls they are saints. I am glad I have 2 boys and only one girl because it is hard enough to cope with my one girl.

I am going to take a moment now to explain that in this blog and future blogs I will be referring to my eldest child as Blue, middle child as Pink and the youngest as Red.

Now, a few months ago I was in a rage because Blue had got Pinks hair tangled in a toy for the second time and we had to cut it . Pink is my only girl, my little princess and I want her to be beautiful but it seems something always seems to go wrong with her hair! I was so angry I wanted to give blue away but looking back that was silly, I'm sure blue didn't mean to get his sisters hair tangled.

The past few weeks have been infuriating. I expected pink would have went through the drawing on walls stage a long time ago but she has only just started! my wallpaper is ripped and drawn on in just about every room! today she got into the peanut butter and spread it everywhere. she's soaked the bathroom floor countless times. I am not going to sit here and write every little naughty thing she has done that would take too long. I just want to warn expecting parents what they are getting in for if they get a girl.

You can absolutely believe it's a girl thing.

I once resented that my brother seemed to be favourite but I know why that is now. I don't have many memories of being a child but I do remember getting sent to my room for something and being the smarty pants that I was I peed on my bed and when my mom found out I just said well you told me not to come out.
a boy wouldn't do that. a boy wouldn't pour nail polish on the carpet or syrup like my sister had. it's a girl thing without a doubt.

I realize many of you reading this may have a daughter or lots of daughters, and I hope you can proove me wrong that girls aren't that bad but this is how I see it.

I have many years of mayhem to come with pink and one day she will be grown into a woman and then she will be her husbands problem! well I'm sure that's what my mom thinks about me!

Unpacking.. STILL!!

Last November we moved home. It was hard work moving and getting organized in fact we still haven't quite finished. Along each wall of my bedroom is stacks of boxes still containing books, Dvds/Cds, arts and crafts, ornaments, towels, even a big box of miscellanious things. I am so fed up of looking at the ugly cardboard boxes and have began my mission to clear them out!

I am planning a trip to ikea to get an underbed storage box for the towels and a storage unit for the arts and crafts, but in the meantime I have began unloading the dvd box. I have slipped all my dvds and cds into those dvd folders and binned their original casing, such a space saver! One box emptied.

Next I emptied the contents of the miscelanious box onto my bed. My first reaction was 'Great now I have nowhere to sleep tonight' antincipating it to be an impossible task to find a place for everything. some of the contents in this box were holey socks (bin), underwear, donalds watch (hey I've been looking for that!), a hammer, alan keys, and that tiny black screwdriver I spent ages looking for at one point!, there were many other items amongst the miscelanious but I don't want to spend all night listing every item as I haven't quite finished clearing the items from my bed and would like to sleep at some point tonight. I am a good bit closer to finding a place for each of the items in that miscelanious box and soon that will be 2 boxes emptied.

I'm not stupid though, I don't expect to empty every single box, for instance where would I put my hundreds of piggin ornaments? or the books that never get read but get kept 'just incase'? I will be happy though if I can empty enough boxes that the remaining ugly brown boxes fit neatly under my bed out of sight.

So, on with the mission! hopefully I will be finished by the time we've been in our 'new' home for a full year!

puddle suits are designed for puddles...not rivers.

 Since the kids puddle suits arrived the other day we have been desperate to use them but it hasn't rained! We decided they would be useful at RSPB nature reserve whatever the weather and took them along today.

 Today at RSPB was the last of the summer events and I decided to keep The youngest out of his backpack carrier for a change, let him get wild and messy. Today was river dipping day. It started with some raft building for the swans and my husband and I took it in turns to chase after the youngest between helping the older 2 with their rafts. The oldest had a great time building the raft, really enjoyed it but I don't even think the middle child noticed I was building a raft for her.

After lunch we headed over to the river to launch our rafts. It wasn't a long walk to the river but as we had never been before and weren't sure how long it would take and with the youngest trying to wriggle his way out of his daddys arms it seemed like a long walk. the middle child went straight for the river with a net ready to start river dipping while the oldest was quite eager to launch his raft.

As soon as the middle child set down the net to launch her raft the youngest grabbed the net eager to have a go at river dipping. Since we never bought my husband any waterproofs it was me that was left running into the water to catch our youngest. He just couldn't resist the water he was in it more than he was out. I put a bit too much faith in my waterproofs though. I stepped in too deep and felt water seeping into my waterproof walking boots and quickly scurried back out of the water.

 

When we arrived back at the car I took off our middle childs wellies and puddle suit to discover wet clothes up to her bottom  and As I poured the water from her wellies I thought to myself today would have been a better day for shorts t-shirts and crocs! On the contrary, I was greatful that our youngest had his puddle suit because he quite enjoyed sitting in the mud and while his socks and the bottom of his trousers were a little soggy his bum was clean and dry. All in all I think the puddle suits did pretty good keeping us dry but next time we will stick to puddles with them!

Wombat Stew!

Firstly I would like to thank my very good friend who sent us the book 'Wombat Stew' a few years ago. We have enjoyed this story time and time again.

Today, after reading the book again we decided to pretend we were Dingo and make our own Wombat Stew, However, we were clever Dingo's and did not take the advice of Wombat's friends!

I asked the children to take a look in the fridge to find some things we could put in our stew they put in some onions, carrots, swede, celery, potatos, and for 'wombat' we used slice. the children done absolutely everything to make their stew I didn't help much at all. they even chopped the celery and slice themselves and put all the ingredients into the pot.

They had so much fun making their wombat stew but as dinner time approached my middle child said 'I'm not eating that!' I replied 'but Dingo tried the stew he made you've got to' she said 'I don't like to eat wombat' I had to explain to her we weren't using actual wombat that the meat we were using was the same meat she eats for lunch at her grandas every sunday and with that she tried the stew and you can see from the picture they both enjoyed it. The eldest child even asked for seconds!

and we continued to chant:
Wombat Stew, Wombat Stew, Gooey, Brewy, Yummy, Chewy, Wombat Stew!

Enjoy the Noise!

I often complain about my children and find myself wishing I had more alone time with my husband or indeed just myself. I sometimes wish they would sit still and keep quiet and I find myself looking forward to certain ages. I get tired of constantly being surrounded by mess and find myself wishing they would help tidy up more. Often I think about what it would be like to have just one child.

my eldest and middle child went to sleep over at their cousins tonight and on the journey home the ride seemed calm and peaceful. My youngest didn't even seem to notice they weren't there which was my fear at the time. But as my husband my youngest and I got out of the car I felt that first pang of emptiness. It was awkward walking the short distance from the car to the door without the 2 older kids racing ahead bickering about something or another. We had only our youngest to entertain and get ready for bed and it was of course much easier than fighting with 3 to get in a bath and into bed. But as I put him to bed and the house fell silent I found myself missing the battle of getting my middle child into bed. I missed the 'I need a pee' 'I'm thirsty' 'Read me another story' 'Stay with me' I had peace to do what I wanted much sooner than usual and I didn't really enjoy it, I just missed the noise! I can clean my home without them running around undoing everything I've done but I don't really want to, the mess is comforting. I am glad that they are only gone for one night and I hope they atleast miss me half as much as I miss them!

I am thinking about the future now and it scares me. I dread the day they all move out, even though some days I tell myself it will be good when they are grown up. I see a clean house with only the sound of my own thoughts. I used to fantasize about time to read books and write stories and indeed clean the house, but now it just seems so bleak.

I am grateful that we have the freedom to home school our children and for all those precious hours I get to spend with my noisy messy children because as lonely as one night with two out of three children at a sleepover is, it will get so much more lonelier when they are all grown and it will go by so fast, I don't want to miss any of it!

I may scream at my kids for being noisy or messy or naughty but I honestly couldn't dream of having them any other way! I Can hardly wait til morning when the noise and mess is back!

Photographs captured in digital

I wanted to make a huge family collage and got the photographs out to begin selecting which pictures to use when it suddenly occured to me we stopped using our trusty old spool camera just before our youngest was born and switched to digital. I decided I couldn't start my collage until I printed off some pictures of my youngest (who is over a year old). I never realized how many photos were living inside my computer, uploaded from the camera and never printed off. Not just all of our favourite photos but often the 5 awful pictures we took to get the result of our favouritres.

My husband and I were up late last night looking through the photos on the computer selecting which to delete and which to keep. We haven't finished yet we will pick up where we left last night when he comes home from work. In the mean time I started sifting through the camera to delete the ones we deleted from the computer last night. If i remember, when we print off the ones we have decided to keep I will delete them from my camera and have a fresh start!

It is just unacceptable that we had no photos in print of our youngest. I am so excited to FINALLY get them printed and hope this arduous task of sorting the keepers from the rubbish is finished soon so I can order them. Then the fun will begin, chopping up those long awaited photos and turning them into a BIG beautiful collage to display proudly in our living room!

Photos captured in digital are captured and held hostage for years don't you think it's time to set them free?

Kids and the 6th Sense

I believe there's a bit of 6th sense in all of us. you know what I'm talking about de ja vu intuition and the likes of it. but children just seem intuitive on a whole other level. For instance tonight all the children were playing in one of their bedrooms and I decided to pull a chocolate bar out of the cupboard and have it to myself. No sooner did I open the wrapper to discover my youngest standing behind me as if he sensed I was going to have the chocolate without him. Luckily there was more chocolate in the cupboard so I ate mine and pulled one out for him then the other 2 came running in. another 2 chocolates came out and my stash shrunk before my eyes.

From when they were babies they always seemed to sense when I was getting ready to relax or eat something. If they were asleep and I started cooking or eating they would instantly wake up demanding fed. or if I settled down in front of my favourite tv show they would begin crying again, perhaps it was all coincidence but I swear they have always had it in for me. momma must never relax.

I know I don't have it that bad though, so I ate plenty of cold meals and missed a few bits of my favourite tv shows. my poor husband hasn't had a decent sleep since we had kids. even now my youngest seems to sense my husband creeping into bed. every night we put him to his cot and he is sound asleep, I can go to my bed and not hear a peep out of him but as soon as my husband get's into bed the sixth sense seems to kick in and the youngest wants him out. that's my place beside momma he seems to think. the only times he has slept a full night in his cot was always when my husband was working night shift.

Call it coincidence if you like but I am convinced it is a 6th sense. and I hope as they grow their sixth sense will weaken so I can enjoy a sneaky chocolate and my husband can enjoy the space in the bed beside me without the youngest kicking at him.

Learning to Love Nature Again.

Children are so in touch with nature, I vaguely remember as a child my brother and I loved to play with little beasties we called 'roly polies'. As I got older though beasties became disgusting and creepy to me and I would scream at the sight of just a tiny insect. I'm not sure at what age I lost my interest of nature. I remember in 8th grade I went on a trip called outward bound with some classmates. It was the most rewarding experience of my life, I learned so much and got so much out of it. I really enjoyed being in nature and I didn't mind lying on the ground, it never even occured to me what could crawl all over me, I was there in the middle of nature and none of natures living creatures bothered me one tiny bit, not even the mosquitos.

I have recently become a member of the rspb nature reserve and my eldest child has began showing an interest in beasties. I can remember as toddlers the sight of an insect would set them screaming (probably my own doing.) but watching now as they pick up little creatures and handle them lovingly, gently I feel proud. we are all learning about nature when we visit the rspb, not just the kids and I am really enjoying it. It brings back those lost memories of roly polies. It's not just the beasties though, touching plants and recognizing their different smells and textures. As a child I would pick anything out of the ground but as an adult picking any plant leaves me thinking I need to wash my hands. I don't want my children to feel that way. I don't even want to feel that way anymore. I want to get back to nature enjoy every bit of it. use all 5 senses - touch taste smell see and hear! I don't want to panic and feel I need to rush inside when it rains. I want to enjoy every bit of the weather for weather is a very important part of nature! So I am about to buy waterproofs for all the family so that we CAN enjoy nature the way we should. We will not stay home on rainy days anymore. Many interesting creatures come out when it is raining and we will be joining them.

I am learning to love nature all over again and I hope that my children will never forget how to love nature, I don't want them to get swept away by what society thinks is acceptable. Nature isn't dirty, it may be messy at times but it is wonderful and I don't want them to lose sight of that.

Blogging Debut

I always wanted to be a writer but the more children I had the more my dream seemed to slip away, Memories of spelling and grammar were replaced with memories of cute and funny things the children did. Then as they grew I found those cute funny memories being replaced by the naughty things they did and I always wanted to write a journal so I would remember those precious moments but I got 2 entries then never seemed to find the time to continue with it and so it is now I have decided to make my Blogging debut, let's hope it is more successful!

I can't remember going out much when I only had one child but when I had 2 outings became fewer and far between and when the third came along I practically went into hibernation! with the help of some friends I have started to take the children on outings again, some weeks it seems we are never in, but if all my friends are unavailable and my dear husband is at work we tend to stay in because just the thought of venturing out with the three children on my own brings a sense of dread. So the children have become used to the fact that if we are going out we are going to see some friends.

All week I had been looking forward to today for the events that kelvingrove museum had on. I had invited a friend to come along but she was unavailable which was fine because my other friend was coming anyways until the day before when something came up and she couldn't make it either, in desperation I invited another friend who never got back to me so I faced the fact if I was going to Kelvingrove I was going alone.

This morning I barked out orders at the children; eat your breakfast, get dressed, hurry up we're going to be late! I was then asked why? to which I replied we're going to Kelvingrove then I was asked who we were going with to which I replied we are going ourselves and they could not seem to take it in. They kept naming friends we usually meet and asked if we were going to see them there and I kept telling them no. I raced around frantically making sure we had everything we would need pondering over and over again whether to put Teo in his pram or backpack carrier. I put him on his pram to put his shoes on and he would not come out of it so that solved that problem. though as I stepped out the door and saw the stairs looming before me I soon wished I had taken the backpack.

With my trusty day tripper ticket travelling was easy as ever. the children were surprisingly well behaved on the train and bus and I was pleased with my decision to take the pram. My biggest fear was without a friend to remind me where to get off the bus I would get lost in Glasgow but that prooved not to be a problem either. today has been a wonderful day and I can feel the sense of dread washing away. I am now pondering whether to take the children to east kilbride myself on Monday as the friend I usually travel with will be unavailable this monday.

I am proud of myself for getting out without company and proud of my children for showing me that they CAN be well behaved in public!