David Currie

I was on child minding duty today. We had a good morning with a trip to the swimming pool where both children had a great time. It’s the pool where Emma has her lessons and she certainly seemed at home paddling up and down with a froggy float (it was fun time) and jumping in from the side (although still trying to ensure her head stayed above water). This afternoon we headed in to Southampton for a bit of shopping. I can’t claim it was all that successful. We spent the first half an hour waiting to pick up my wedding ring (now without a break in it and also looking very shiny once again). Duncan and Emma had their feet measured – still 6F and a marginally larger 10.5G so no new shoes.

We did manage a few purchases before heading back to the car. A decided we should pick up an IKEA catalogue on the way which required us to descend to the first floor in the lift. I mistakenly still pressed button two – the floor for our car. We let the floor pass… and then the lift ground to a halt with the doors open adjacent to a blank wall!

The buttons no longer responded so we hit the alarm. There was a series of modem like noises from the speaker and then nothing. We tried again. More noises. I had no mobile reception but one of the other people in the lift did and she phoned her Mum who phoned the number under the CCTV. After leaning on the alarm button for a couple of minutes we also eventually raised someone on the intercom who dispatched assistance. It turns out that they had been ignoring the alarm up until then – apparently people are always setting it off. So, the moral of the story is that it pays to be persistent. Mysteriously, when they finally prised the other set of doors it turned out that we were on the 10th floor! Somehow the lift must have taken us to 10 instead of 1 and consequently opened the doors on the wrong side before shutting itself down.

965Emma brought the class pet home with her last Friday – a beanie dog that goes by the name of Playful Puppy! For the weekend that followed, every sentence started with ‘Playful Puppy this’ or ‘Playful Puppy that’. He comes with a diary so we had to make sure to get some good pictures of him when he accompanied us on a trip out to Farley Mount. He enjoyed the ride on Emma’s bike, climbing on the play equipment, building a den etc.. In some ways it’s a shame that Emma was only the second recipient of Playful Puppy this year as I’m sure the diary must offer a wonderful insight in to the out-of-school activities of each of the families. Thankfully Emma’s attachment to Playful Puppy waned as the week drew on and, needless to say, we left him at home the day we were supposed to return him. Thankfully I’d cycled in with Emma on the tag-along that morning so I could nip back and retrieve the errant dog.

962Duncan had his second birthday this week. Leading up to the event Duncan’s stock response to any reference to the event was “No Birthday”, accompanied by a shake of the head. When the big day arrived he seemed to warm to it though. In a slightly unfair twist of fate Emma was off school with an INSET day but Duncan must have enjoyed his time an nursery as, most unusually, he was keen to go again the following day! As was to be expected, Emma was very excited and did a good job of feeding Duncan with presents for him to open. Several presents were playing catch-up with big sister: an umbrella and a big towel with a digger on for example. By far the most popular present had to be the model tractor which is now never far from his side. And the terrible twos? Perhaps not terrible but he certainly knows how to be naughty…

956Thursday was Emma’s first proper day at school (well, afternoon). After a couple of visits to the school in the past few months, we had a visit from her teachers (they job share) and teaching assistant on Wednesday where Emma got to show off the scrapbook she has been putting together over the summer (she’ll show it anyone who shows the slightest interest!). We’re still not quite sure what the purpose of this visit was: whether it’s to meet the child in the comfort of their own home, have a chance to have a quiet word with the parents, or just have a good nose at where they live!

Thursday morning was set aside for the older half of the year and so it was that, after lunch, Christine got Emma in her new uniform and walked her to school (about 3/4 of a mile). There was apparently a bit of wobbling when they parted but I’m not sure on which side this was! Anyway, when I went to pick her up she seemed to be very happy. She’d enjoyed the tracing, painting, story time, outside play… In particular, she is delighted that she gets to bring TWO new books home EVERY DAY! She was certainly happy enough to go back in again on Friday afternoon.

We now have another week of afternoons and then a week and a half or mornings that eventually stretch in to lunchtimes before we can finally settle in to some sort of routine again. In the meantime, Duncan has moved up from babies to toddlers at nursery which seems to have unsettled him a bit. Hopefully he just needs a little while to get used to a new set of faces. It does mean that he gets better toys to play with though!