Canopy

Beautiful and hot and sunny today.

Out in the morning for coffee with friends, then on to swimming for Bean. We raced each other to get to swimming: Bean went with Steve in the car, and Bear and I took the bus (the idea was to try and get Bear to sleep!). I think we might have won initially, but Bear wasn't asleep by the time we got there so we took a detour along to the shop for apples and pork pies to eat afterwards.

Such a privilege to watch Bean and his class swimming. After last week doing a volunteer swim, completely unaided and unassisted 10m length, Bean appears to have been a bit of a trendsetter - this week they ALL wanted to swim unaided widths of the pool!! Quite an amazing thing to watch, this group of 4-5yr olds repeatedly swimming widths with no floats or much assistance.

We went via the carwash to get home, eating our funny picnic in the car as it got pulled along through the carwash. Bean used to be utterly terrified of automated carwashes. Bear just watched, curious.

And then an afternoon in the garden. Paddling pools out to cool them off in (the tadpole pool has been emptied out and cleaned - I don't think there was anything left alive in there except fly larvae), cars out to play with, the remainder of lunches nibbled on. I got Steve to put a bedsheet up as a canopy for the boys over the paddling pools as the sun was so hot. We don't use suncream a lot because I want them to build up some natural sun defences in their skin and would like them to have as much chance of building up their Vitamin D stores as possible, so I try and make sure that they are either covered up during the hottest part of the day or that there is plenty of shade available.

And then Steve went out to set up for tonight's Jubilee Oscars. We did some gardening then. The plants needed watering so we emptied the paddling pools into buckets and watering cans. Thankfully the air was still hot enough to dry the boys' clothing off before we came inside later. I stripped a 4m length of earth cabling for the copper to wind around some plant pots to hopefully stop the slugs and snails eating the sunflowers when we pot them on tomorrow; and we planted out a few garlic cloves together. Bear helped by emptying out the pots full of compost.

Dinner was beefburgers and dippy sauces, out on the bench in the shade and the heat. Bear LOVES dipping sauces! Then bathtime and bedtime.

Bear has discovered throwing things. He's very curious about how different things react to being thrown. Tonight while I was with Bean, my heart was weeping as I watched him systematically throw everything at the top of the stairs down the stairs. Including half the contents of the linen basket. There was no malice or thoughtlessness in his actions, just pure curiosity - what happens with this thing? Does the same thing happen with this one? My goodness but I hope this phase passes fairly quickly, that he learns what he needs to learn quickly...

Bedtime was fun. Bear was full of emergy, Bean wanted to sleep but kept laughing at Bear who of course loved the attention. But at last they both fell asleep and, in a complete opposite to last night's awfulness of them not being able to sleep without me next to them, tonight they have even managed a transfer into their own beds without waking up.

I have actually been able to tidy their toys up in peace.

I might even get some crochet done.

Happy.