Splash

Ben: 3 years 9 months 3 days
Charley: 8 months 1 day

Up. Washing up. Breakfast. And Ben was outside playing with his big bucket of water within an hour of getting up! Of course he wasn't dressed. I did tell him it might still be a bit too cool to climb into the bucket yet though. He had fun painting the shed with water using the waterpistols, he's figured out a way of holding them so that he can use his thumb to pull the trigger because his forefingers aren't strong enough yet. He made several pools of water for some unfortunate woodlice to swim in, then made a "big waterfall mama, come and see!" Charley and I went outside as well so that I could re-fill the bucket a few times, and then Charley proceeded to crawl. I guess what was over the edge of the blanket (ants, woodlice, stones) was far more interesting than his new picnic rug thing! I got a real non-frustrated-crying crawl on video. Must get round to putting it on the 'tube. I'll link when I've done it, once I'm back downstairs!

Instead of having lunch I took the boys to tesco. Needed new clothes for me and Charley. Took the car, followed the satnav, got there in one piece, bought clothes (and a diecast Francesco car which Ben is utterly thrilled and chuffed and pleased about), got lost on the way home until the satnav caught up with where we actually were rather than where it thought we were.

Once I recognised where I was it was fine! At which point Ben piped up, "Where's Libebeth's house?" (Elizabeth's house.) I told him it was the other way. "I want to see Libebeth. Can we go to Libebeth's house mama?" Well no, we need to go home really. "Are we home?" Have we stopped, Ben? "Yes." No Ben, we're still moving. So we're not home yet. "Is this our home?" You tell me, does it look like our home? (Traffic lights.) And on it went.

Until we got home and discovered we were locked out as Steve was, incredibly, STILL in the shower. And our remaining set of keys were in his bag. Inside.

"Mama I need a wee..."

So off we went to Elizabeth's house after all because her mummy and daddy, the fabulous Blake and Bella, had looked after the plants (and the house!) for us while we were away so it was a good excuse to call in!

Moral of that little story: Listen to Ben.

We ended up staying most of the afternoon. Ben stayed more while Charley and I went home to get my insulin and Steve, and we came back for noodles and play and chatter and a generally lovely evening!

Got home to find that in our distractedness before going back out we'd completely forgotten to shut let alone lock the back door... am half expecting to find a random cat somewhere in the house!!