Seven Day Diary

Below I have relayed some diary items for the last week. As I published them following the day it happened, it starts from the bottom upwards. Reading back on an evidently rainy week, there are reoccurring themes such as nap time. I'll probably relay more of my experience of house husbandry in the future but, for the time being, I'll write about other things on the blog as some of the themes below may read as quite humdrum and repetitive if I continued as I left off.

Saturday 23rd May 2009

We had spent the afternoon at Mum-in-Law’s. Some Aunts and Uncles were visiting from Suffolk. The weather had been welcomingly sunny and Ed had a trial run out in his newly bought ‘lightweight’ travel buggy. It had been a long afternoon and he was ready for a rest. He grabbed his Mum’s wrist, and sought to lead her away saying the words ‘come on’. There’s no section in our Baby Record Book for noting the date he has said this – so for the record, this verbal coaxing was made at age two years, two months and ten days.

He fell asleep for the journey back but woke when we stopped at Handforth for a few shopping items. Being in the car in this hot weather was understandably not going to be to his likening. While waiting for our shoppers to return, I opened the windows and played my free CD of ‘The Tides’ then tuned into Loose Ends on Radio 4. He was still discernibly discontent. Hmm, I’m going to have to work on this. I got out his Iggle Piggle sketch pad, a somewhat babyish copy of ‘That’s not my Teddy’ and then, more winningly, some white chocolate milk buttons. I pointed out noticeable things from his back seat vantage point while hoping Mum and Aunt would return soon. They returned after forty minutes loaded down with shopping bags. Next time, I should be better prepared for scenarios like this, I thought. Either that, or volunteer myself to accomplish an altogether quicker bout bit of shopping.

Friday 22nd May 2009

If I brave a long walk with Ed in the buggy, I try to break up the journey with stops so as not to stretch the boy’s patience. This morning, I needed to go to the Vets for some anti-flea pills for our dog. We passed a park but the day was overcast and dank so I attempted the fifteen minute walk in one swoop.

By Devonshire Park Road, Ed was registering his discontent by taking off his shoe and lobbing onto the pavement. His sock followed shortly after.

Foreseeing a lot of stops where I stopped and wrestled with his foot as I haplessly sought to put the shoe and sock back on, I headed on to the Vets to complete the job. The lady who sold me the pills was sympathetic. ‘My five year old was once the same’, she said.

Coming back, the heavens well and truly opened. The nice traffic-free private road, Davenport Park Road seemed to provide a bit of respite from it. In Bramhall Lane, people hovered in shop fronts that most readily provided shelter. Pounding rain, noise from traffic and my bawling two year old kicking and thrashing against the rain cover combined to lowered the spirits. I pushed Ed to the sanctuary of the Funky Monkey Coffee Shop.

Thursday 21st May 2009

We got some ‘heavy rain’ not long after I started the twenty minute journey to our toddler group. I put the rain cover on but Ed wasn’t happy. I suppose having rain splayed vision takes away from the view. Fortunately, a long road we passed through had enough overhanging tree branches to provide shelter and I took his cover off.

When Ed made loud demands for a biscuit by jostling to the front of the queue, I tried to encourage him to queue patiently behind everyone else. Later, when he got irked over something, he would scurry from the room we were in, down the hall and to the tea counter. By now there was no queue. During biscuit therapy, it proved to be a difficult job to get him to say ‘please’.

In the afternoon, he reclined on the sofa, spent sporadic short periods in his bed and rested his head on a pouf. ‘Time for a nap’, I thought. I took him out in the buggy but he did enough to hold out against sleep. With the coming of age there are obviously going to be less and less naps, but it made for a fractious afternoon of behaviour from him.

Wednesday 20th May 2009

Taking the dog out with us and the buggy can be a fraught affair. One or the other, or sometimes both, can make things difficult by causing a scene. So when I saw another dog galloping across the Park lawn to square up to our Molly, my spirits sunk. The dog’s owner caught up with her dog, warning it: ‘Aah, aah, aah!’ From the buggy came Ed’s voice: he impersonated this with his own ‘Aah, aah, aah!’ It wasn’t the most advanced of expressions that he has come out with of late.

I decided we’d go to the Art Gallery. The pictures are hung well above his head height so he can’t wrench them down and he seems content to get out and have a wander within such a space. When we arrived there something was going on, however, with a table set out by the doorway entrance to one of the halls. I was told that the place was closed to the public for a private function. It was 10:30pm. An introduction on the wall outlined how they were trying to break down the barriers between the art and people viewing it. Well letting people in to see the artwork would be a start.

Tuesday 19th May 2009

After an hour and a quarter at the soft play centre, Ed headed in the direction of the exit door. There wasn’t long before the Story Bus rode into town so I got him a pastry and we sat on a park bench for his 'on the go' lunch. Having devoured this, he left some debris of pastry flakes and bounded off over the grass in the direction of the play facilities. The weather was overcast and not looking good. I lured him away from here with promises of boarding the Story Bus.

With five books under our arms, we headed home. I could see that Ed wasn’t going to have a nap in the buggy - he certainly wouldn't have one at home. We had, by now, been out for several hours so we returned. The absence of napping time creates a lull in the day and made the second half of it top heavy - I am presented with the 'challenge' of more time than I had anticipated in seeking to amuse and occupy him.

Monday 18th May 2009

Ed has finally adapted to ‘Circle Time’ at our Tumbletots group. He applauded the end of songs enthusiastically and at one point, during apparatus play time, sat down in a position where he would have been sat if Circle Time was still going on. At the end of the group, when everyone was back in the circle holding, stretching and waving an elasticised sheet, he was minded to get on top of it. Still, he didn’t protest loudly when I stopped him from doing this.

Coming back home past the Park, there was a window of brightness. We called into the play facilities. Two adults were there with their children, discussing the impossibility of getting a pre school place in the vicinity and the difficulty of having to travel far and wide to where places are available. We had fifteen minutes of brightness where Ed went on the slide and kicked a ball about before the heavens opened. We all put the rain cover on the buggies, bid our farewells and left.

Sunday 17th May 2009

I took Ed out in the afternoon as we went to buy some nappy bags. He fell asleep soon enough. Coming out of Asda, I was compelled to put the rain cover on Ed’s buggy. The rainfall got steadily heavier and, on the way back home, I was drawn to whatever bits of shelter that I could grab, including under some trees that towered over school railings. Opposite the school was a towerblock where some building improvements had been going on. A proportion of this was fenced off and some children at the adjacent school had helped in designing colourful safety posters which attached to the fencing and warned of the dangers of going too near this site. One such poster had fallen off, and a child’s efforts lay on the saturated pavement as the rain pounded away.

Conveniently, Ed woke up and chirped away as I entered the last part of our Close. I got in, removed my soaked jeans and dried and dried my hair in a towel.