Living Arrows 2019: Week Sixteen

If I’m late writing this it’s not my fault. You can blame the long weekend and a chocolate overload; Easter has well and truly put me off kilter, I’ll be thinking it’s Tuesday all week at this rate! Usually the bank holidays are a bit of a wash out but with the glorious warm weather we’ve had over the past few days, I can honestly say it’s been an absolute pleasure. In fact, it’s been one of my favourite weeks for a long time.

Last week was a bit of an odd one to start with. I work alongside both of my parents and last week my mum went and retired! Having worked with them for twenty years now it did make me feel incredibly emotional. I spent most of the start of the week welling up! This week my dad retires too and we’ve got lots more celebrations planned so I’m sure it’ll be just as much as a sob fest for me, although at least this time I’ll be prepared! That, combined with Easter has meant lots of celebrations and family events last week, and even more to come over the next few days… the healthy eating has taken so much of a back seat that I think it’s in the garage by now!

We kicked off our long weekend on Thursday with an impromptu trip to the beach with friends and it was heaving. We’re so lucky to live where we do and there’s nothing like a sunny day in the school holidays to remind you that other people think that too! We played in the sand, let the kids run free and enjoyed an ice cream back at the car afterward, something I’ve not heard the end of from the toddler!

That evening we followed it up with a pizza party with my family, hosted by the toddler who stayed up late enough to eat a couple bites before passing out in bed ten minutes later. Dinner out with the kids in the evening for the first time on Friday along with a local running event for Dave in the daytime meant we were out and about all day so we opted for a lazy Saturday at home sorting the garden and getting it a little more shipshape for summer. A roast with family on Sunday and more chocolate than you can shake a stick at ever since. We are stuffed, exhausted and more than a little sun bleached; but that’s what you want from a double bank holiday isn’t it!?

Him

I could write about seeing him interact with my family, I’d wax lyrical about watching him play with his friends but the highlight of my week has been seeing his joy at the Easter bunny. Yes, he’s 99% sugar fuelled at the moment. A busy weekend has meant late nights which never seem to result in a later morning – why is that?! Despite me managing to squeeze a couple of naps in for him here and there, he’s entirely wiped out but that doesn’t seem to slow him down.

Sunday morning he woke me up with tales of the Easter bunny being in the garden. Easter’s not really a big thing for us other than a chance to see family and friends, but we’d gotten a few eggs to hide and a larger egg at the end to find. This kid is awful at hunting for things (or rather, lazy at looking!) so rather than let him loose on a wild egg chase, I put a note with each one saying where the next was. He can’t read but he is learning his letters so each time he’d read out the letters to us and we’d sound it out for him… the poor kid; every day’s a learning day, right? Anyway, a few clues and eggs later and he found his ‘prize’ in the sandpit; a Paw Patrol mug, bowl and egg along with his sister’s Milky Bar egg that he seems to have somehow claimed. By the leaping around like a mad thing you’d have thought he’d won the lottery!

Her

This one’s highlight has to have come from her outdoor adventures. She’s a little troublemaker in the making if ever I saw one. At the beach she’s there knocking down the toddlers’ sandcastles and eating mouthfuls of sand. In the garden she’s crawling in and under the mud kitchen to play peek-a-boo. She’s throwing herself on us, exploring the world and making us adults a little greyer at the same time.

This week I’ve loved seeing her outside in the garden with her brother. She watches him constantly and attempts to follow him as much as possible; we managed to sort the garage out on Sunday whilst they played together in the garden behind us and it was just perfection to watch. She’s borne the brunt of the later nights and missed naps and as such has woken frequently each night but I’m trying to soak it up as much as possible.

So many times this week I’ve looked at her and realised that she isn’t a baby any more and as much as it thrills me, it scares me as well. That aside, I can’t wait now for the summer to come properly. I already know that she is going to absolutely thrive outdoors – even if that does mean leaping off of things and eating everything she can find.

Oh and finally, this week she’s found a new hobby: throwing things down the toilet! I caught her this weekend with one foot in the potty, one on the side and leaning over the edge of the main toilet bowl. So far I’ve scooped out the toy kitchen ketchup, a model pig from the farm and the toddler’s socks – luckily the toilet’s been clean each time but I won’t be pushing my luck, from now on we are toilet lids down!

This post is linking up with the Living Arrows series over at What The RedHead Said. If you’d like to see more of our weekly updates, you can find them here!