What is wrong with this kid?

I am off for a well earned rest tomorrow. A wonderful three day weekend away with my scrapbooking pals, licking and sticking and recording great memories for our families to share. Just what the doctor ordered after the Christmas break, the Snow Days, the February half term and the long Easter holidays ... I'm pooped with it all!

I already have my photos, my patterned paper, ribbons and glues. Just need to pack my clothes and I am off on the open road straight after school drop off. I was upstairs for maybe five minutes selecting comfy clothes when Molly called out that I had to "come quick - Daisy is in your office and has your pen". Nothing new there then.

This is the sight that met my disbelieving eyes ... she is completely covered in thick, black permanent marker pen. Her response? "I am a pirate, girls love pirates, do you love pirates? well give me a cuddle!!"

Guess I need to print out one more photo before I leave then?

A New Invention

You remember that old ad for 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner - "Why take two bottles into the shower?" Dais has just invented her own new product, and it looks set to revolutionise the beauty industry.



My hobby is scrapbooking, and I find it really relaxing to spend an evening (and sometimes even a weekend) with my scrapping pals, licking and sticking, playing with pretty papers and creating keepsakes and memories for the kids to look back on when they have children of their own. We all have boxes of photos from our own childhood, but couldn't really tell you where we were, when it was, who was in the pictures or what we were doing there. Journalling on the layouts about the little things helps to preserve some of the "moments in time" that can easily become forgotten amidst all the noise of the early parenting years.



For this reason, I have more than my fair share of glues, inks, stamps and all manner of items that Dais can use to redocorate ordinary household items. The discipline is often referred to as "Altered Art" - turning a plain box into a keepsake, redecorating a notebook - you get the idea.



Dais has taken to this form of art with gusto and most of our house has now been "altered". Her current favourite medium are my acrylic dabbers - especially the copper one. She has nearly finished the playroom now.



Anyway, this week's new discovery is a pre-inked stamp in bright pink that can be applied directly to the lip area. The world's first truly "all day lipstick" Clever girl Dais!

Feb Snow Dais

It seems like everybody has been off school/work forever this year. Christmas holidays, Snow Days and February half term. Will I ever get back into my normal routine?

I suppose you can't blame the kids for enjoying the huge February snowfall though. It kept them completely amused for days, despite the mountains of extra laundry. Wet hats, coats, gloves, scarves, trousers and socks on every radiator in the house as well as a slightly springy carrot and something suitable to wear for "Mr and Mrs Snow-le-bitz" as they christened the snow men!

Her sister would enjoy the daylight play time, making snowballs and sculptures, but it was not until the sun had set that the Phantom Snow Eater would venture out. When it was really freezing and the thick flakes were falling, Dais was out there eating it all. Tongue out, licking and crunching away until Daddy came home and she could pitch him into one more sledding trip around the garden.

One evening when we were all exhausted, we finally managed to talk her into coming back inside. I told her to kiss Mr and Mrs Snow-le-bitz goodnight and so she asked me to hold her up. I felt my heart melt a little as I knew this would be one of the moments I would probably always remember.

As I held her eye to eye with Mr Snow-le-bitz, she lent in lovingly and, crunch - bit the end off the spongey old carrot. Well, that's one of her five a day taken care of then ...

So the kids have finally broken up from school. The tree is up, the cards are sent, just the mound of wrapping to be done. There is no point putting parcels under the tree before Christmas Eve, as a certain person cannot resist tearing them open - regardless to whom they belong.

When we were in town the other day, Dais clicked herself free from the stroller and dashed into 3 Mobile. She had managed to tear the shiny paper off several of their window display xmas parcels before I could steady the teetering pushchair and race in after her.

We have quite a few "heritage" decorations inherited from Mr Nichols' youth. These obviously hold a lot of sentimental value for him, so we try to keep them up high and away from her prying fingers. On the way to bed the other night, she managed to squeeze her little arm through the bannisters to grab for the 40 yr old Christmas Bell hanging from the hall ceiling. Lucky enough, I managed to wrench her back through and her flailing arms only knocked the door bell chime off the wall and into a thousand pieces - phew! (The poor old chime box looked like something from a Tom & Jerry cartoon with the springs all going "boing").

As her sister's school had an inset day last Friday, I decided to take the bull by the horns and try the visiting Santa at Willows challenge ahead of the Christmas holidays. I got my timing pretty spot on and arrived just as two large groups of school children were leaving, but before it got dark. Cut the queuing time down to a mere 40 minutes! Needless to say, they were forty pretty fraught minutes of Dais clambering over the lovely grotto displays and trying to shin up tinsel covered posts, but we got there in one piece and I hadn't even used my "fish-wife voice".

When we were finally ensconsed in Santa's room, she discovered his large brass handbell (for alerting the elves he was ready to receive his next guests).. The only way we could get her to sit still for the photo was by ringing it rather loudly and insistently.

Mind you, it was all worth it as I discovered her innermost desires as she sat on his lap and answered the question "what would you like for Christmas?" Her answer? "Toys!"

And then she was three!

Have the last 18 months been a very long case of the "terrible two's" or is she just built like that? Since she has just turned 3yrs, we are holding our breath to find out.



When asked what she wanted for her birthday, all she would say was "Bucker-woo" - the bucking mule game we all remember from our own childhood. Tiny pieces of plastic exploding across the playroom floor? OK, I can cope with that. As the day drew nearer there were urgent requests for playdoh, anything with Upsy Daisy on it and all things Pepa Pig. This will be a completely new language to you if you don't have a 3yr old.



On the eve of her birthday, we were buying balloons and her SpongeBob birthday cake in Sainsbury's and she completely fell in love with a doll from High School Musical that sings with it's own microphone. As anyone who has tried shopping with a manic nearly 3 yr old will tell you, you come to a point where you would give them your spleen if they would just get back in the trolley so you can get out of there.



The day arrived and the family came over. We all sat around watching her opening her presents - Buckeroo, Playdoh, Upsy Daisy bedside light/torch and lots of Pepa Pig characters. She blew out the candles and handed around the cake. It all went really rather well.



In the afternoon, they were invited to a friend's party and had a whale of a time jumping about, eating their own body weight in Wotsits and generally making their tights filthy. When we got in I had to dig the foot spa out of deep storage to prize Molly's sticky tights off, and then we all settled down to a relaxing tea. As the family were having a normal conversation, it struck me that Dais was nowhere to be seen and upon closer inspection I found everything she had been bought that day bobbing around in the foot spa. The tiny pieces of plastic and Pepa Pig characters were OK but the High School Musical microphone is definately a gonna.

Pirate Daisy

I'm quite good at Shepherd's Pie, though I do say so myself. I've found that if you take a Homepride Sauce and add nice mince from the farm shop, potatoes and veg from your own allotment and grate cheese over the top you come out with a pretty tasty treat. More than that, it doesn't take long.



When it's a "Seppards Pie" night (as Dais calls it) I can be pretty confident that I can ignore most noises from the playroom coz I'm only going to be a minute. I could hear her calling out "I'm Pirate Daisy" but I figured that would be her and Molly in their Peter Pan outfits dueling with their plastic swords, so cracked on with my culinary family treat.



When I finally set the oven timer to 30 mins and leant back to relax against the cupboards, this is what met my gaze ... Molly had indeed created a Pirate Daisy with a thick black permanent marker she had pinched from my office.



After I had scrubbed rather unsuccessfully at the marker pen for a while, I decided the rest would come off in the shower tomorrow morning and turned my attention to making their beds, putting out their pyjamas and closing the curtains for the night.



When I returned to the kitchen I found that Dais had created her own new hot drink blend. She had tipped all the coffee into the sugar and all the sugar into the coffee with a liberal smattering around the kitchen floor (right in front of the oven). After sweeping everything up and wiping the bottom of my sticky slippers, I decided a cuppa was in order and to my surprise the new Daisy blend was really rather good. I usually have to take one spoon of coffee from the top pot and then go to all the bother of adding sugar from the bottom one. This way I only had to add 2 spoons from the Daisy blend.



Nice one Dais!

Eating in Public

We've not long been back from our family holiday. I can thoroughly recommend the location and the accommodation was excellent. The only problem was it was the first week of August in England!

It rained continuously which rendered my choice of "cottage next to secluded South Devon beach" a bit redundant. It soon started to feel like a week of rainy Sunday afternoons ... still got to find something to amuse the kids. A bit of a busman's holiday then ...

One evening we decided to risk taking Dais out to eat in public - never a great idea. We drove around tiny country lanes, splashing through enormous puddles to find a pub that was not fully booked on a Saturday evening. Finally we came upon the Golden Hind and, leaning into the wind as we crossed the car park, came up with the last free table in the area.

Luckily it was a corner table. We were able to put Dais on a bench next to the wall while the rest of us penned her in. Whilst waiting for our order, Dais treated us to a song, accompanying herself on the copper pans hanging from the walls to add some rythmn. She made herself a great "cake" in a little pot on the table created from the sachets of sugar, salt, ketchup and tartare sauce and by the time the meal arrived, was under the table shouting "Ready, aim ... fire!" with the miniature brass cannon decorating every table to underscore the Golden Hind theme.

Most parents would feel pretty stressed feeding their child fishy nuggets under the table, but remember we had been out in public for nearly an hour and she hadn't set light to anything yet.

We were so delighted with the breakthrough, we decided to stay for pudding.

Cheers!