This time I split the trip in two and we stopped off the night in Manchester, visiting my friends Bx and A for the night, setting off in the morning and reaching my parents by 11.30am! In time to go swimming at the local small swimming pool that afternoon!
Ds1 and 2 both managed to swim with armbands on and ds1 declared he wants to learn to swim without his armbands... but wants a teacher to teach him on his own.. so we are looking for some suitable lessons.
The ponds were full of fish, frogs and their spawn and tadpoles, and dragonfly larvae! The bigger boys were forever hunting for caterpillars, snails and spiders... they do love their minibeasts!
We visited the Aquarium at Maryport Marina... it full of wildlife that might be found around the Solway Firth. We visited The Gin Case-- where there's an art and craft Gallery, and more importantly (to the kids) there was icecream, a play area and animals! The 2 bigger boys were able to bottle feed 2 goat kids... which I think was the highlight of their trip there!
We also did a couple of trips to Rookies playcentre in Wigton, one time we met up with an online friend of mine and we talked babies and slings.
While we were up there, I went out on my own for an evening -- it was our 20year school reunion of the 5th year graduation of the year 1989 from Nelson Thomlinson Secondary School! I spent all evening talking to old friends and a lot of people I knew of but hadn't really talked to whilst at school! It was a fun night.. tho the turnout could have been much better.
I also met up with a couple of other school friends who didn't make it to the reunion.. I met with J, who has two daughters age 8 and 4 and had a lovely afternoon in the sun with her and her sister and mum. I also met up with M and his lovely wife H and their 4 week old baby daughter L--- so cute and so tiny... you forget how little babies are when they are first born!
Around this time (mid May) ds3 was learning how to crawl... well as of now, he's expert at it and ds4 is playing catch up and also getting quite good! (help!).
Ds2 is leaping over walls and climbing everything in sight including the ladders tied up against the house! So we are discouraging him by taking him inside each time he does this.. as if we make it more difficult for him, he will only see it as a challenge!
While we were at my parents ds1 asked my mum "Gran, where are your mum and dad?", well my grandparents have been dead a long time and when told this it hit him what death and dying really meant.. we had a long chat trying to explain and lots of cuddles and tears... he asked me "to stop having birthdays so i won't get old and die", and he also said that after 10 he doesn't want any more birthdays. Ds1 also said "but mum, if you die, I'll really really miss you" (which is lovely to know but also quite heartbreaking).
Ds1 also copied a picture of a (very simple) spider that I drew and labelled.. I'll scan his pictures in.
The journey down was long.. we stopped off 3 times and I was just about to give up and stay the night in a motel..however the motel was full.. so we had a Macdonalds and carried on... they all fell asleep and we got home safely and not too stressed.
We joined in the local home ed group meet and after ds1's initial strop we had a lovely time chatting to the kids and adults there... the babies were cuddled and looked after by a group of teenage girls and ds1 and 2 played with some other kids and also did some digging in the new vegetable patch.. we must go there again.
Ds1 constantly asks questions about animals and insects and birds, and interestingly enough about numbers "what's 1 and 1 and 1?" and "2 and 2 is 4 and 4 and 4 is 8!" He's a whizz on the pc and can navigate around and open up his links to his webpages or play games on the pc.. he likes watching daddy play games on his pc and does a running commentary.
Ds2's speech is coming on now... we can understand a lot more of what he's trying to say, and his balance, coordination and activeness is amazing!
Ds3 can now crawl and pull himself up, he makes random noises..... ahhhh, and razberries are his favourite sounds right now. If he's helped to standing and given two fingers to hold onto he can step out and walk.
Ds4 is sort of crawling... he moves his hands and one foot and the other knee, his vocal skills are more advanced than Ds3s and he can make bbb, brbrbr, ddd, and mmm sounds, he can also pull himself up on occasions. He's trying to keep his balance when stood up and keeps letting go of supporting fingers! Ds4 also loves the door bouncer and can bounce on both feet or lift them totally off the floor to try and swing!
In the past months I've also done a few babyshows selling and demoing some slings and a babywearingcatwalk demonstrating to the ABM conference how lovely all our slings are.
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We are still managing getting around by slinging the twins and using a single buggy for ds2.. not sure for how long that will be possible for... I am hoping to avoid a double buggy forever! I sometimes use a FBS meitai and Connecta (see pic^^), sometimes a stretchy wrap on my front and the FBS or connecta on my back, very occasionally now I use a single wrap for both, and also occasionally I use a stretchy wrap on my front with a woven on my back.
We went to the supermarket the other day and Ds1 chose dinner.... Whole herring!
So we had a small biology lesson while I cleaned and prepared the herring..pointing out the finsbones, gills, and the heart and the guts of the fish. Neither of the big boys ate much fish... I think it was down to the numerous small bones there were still left in the fillet... next time I might get a different type of fish!
Ds1 also asked recently where ham came from... so I googled for some not too gory way to explain it to him... I found some diagrams that showed how a half a pig was cut up and a short video that was very informative.. tho he didn't watch all of it.. it was just enough to know what part it came from I think.
I was hoping by now that the babies would have settled into sleeping better at night... and certainly some nights are very good, however I'm still finding that they are having trouble getting to sleep (possibly due to the excitement of starting to move) or waking frequently in the night, this means that getting out and about to groups and to do things is very random and depends no how much sleep I've had the night before, I'm also reluctant to commit myself to taking them all out places more than twice a week.
I am able to manage more outings if I can leave 2 at home with daddy.. so I've managed to take the big boys out to the park or swimming a few times now that the babies are taking food, and I can also take the babies out.. leaving the bigger boys at home with daddy.
Ds3 is having trouble latching on at the moment too.. his teeth don't seem to be being covered by his tongue and as a result I'm quite sore and tender in the nipple department! I must research on how to solve this problem... Ds4 tho seems to have got better at latching on now he has teeth.
I think that covers most of what's happened the last few weeks... I'm sure I've probably forgotten something.
OOh and thinking sticky pregnancy vibes for my good friends Bx and A... who have had 2 embryos implanted 3 days ago... burrow in littlebits and grow strong! Good luck to you all.
xxx
