Knowsley Safari Park

Saturday started off with me surprising H with a new Kylo Ren Lego set and a trip to Knowsley Safari Park. He made his Lego men first and asked if he could take them with us, I said no (I always say no to Lego going in the car...) his Dad said yes just to get him out of the house! 10 minutes before we arrived O fell asleep. We woke him up when the first animal (some kind of deer type thing) came up to the car and then we stupidly unclipped his belt and let him free in the car. This is where it all went downhill. The wildest thing in that safari park was our baby/chimp hybrid. He was in the boot, pressed up against the windscreen, sitting on the gears, pushing his dad's hands off the steering wheel, whacking the radio volume up to full, knocking the gears into reverse as we were driving... The only time he stopped was when he saw the monkeys which he loved, not surprisingly, he clearly recognised them as long lost family. 

These are the bits where it looks like we had a perfect day...

All Lego men still present and correct...

This was him being really interested in the rhinos...

And this was him loving the lions that were walking right next to him and infront of the car...

(Watching a film- hilariously it looks like H is asleep, he wasn't!) 

And this is when he saw a pigeon. A sodding pigeon...

We headed to the carpark to use the loo and after a big tantrum he ran towards the rollercoaster in the pouring down rain. H hates rollercoasters (as do I) but agreed to go on because it was only a baby one. As the guy was about the hit the button to set it off Oscar had another tantrum whilst trying to climb over the top to come and sit next to me instead of Chris so we apologetically swapped places. Now I know it was only a baby rollercoaster but in my defence it was really fast and flingy, my heart sank when I realised it went round twice, Oscar on the other hand was screaming one of his few words 'again!!!' Even Harrison liked it!  

When we came off the sea lion show was due to start so we went and queued up (still in the rain) got seats right at the front, Oscar was bored of sitting after about 30 seconds so Chris walked around with him until the show started and then miraculously he sat still for about 10 minutes of it but Chris eventually had to take him out about 5 minutes before the end. I want a sea lion. 

We left right after the sea lion show as Oscar had gone way beyond, the second we got back on the motorway we heard the fateful words 'I've dropped my Lego men!!!' Doom. 

We went straight to B&Q to make a busy board for Oscar that I'd seen on netmums a couple of days earlier and decided it would be a great thing that he might actually play with since he doesn't do conventional toys. Oscar was asleep again at this point so Chris went into B&Q but as he slammed the door he woke him up. Harrison went into full meltdown mode because he couldn't find Kylo Rens hair. I decided to get them out and into the shop. Cue more screaming because the hair still hadn't been found and now I had the audacity to ask him to leave the car. Oscar wreaked complete havoc on the shop, there were hooks, wires, plug sockets, doorbells etc chucked all over the place with me running behind trying to clean up the trail of destruction. He came out with red marks all over his face and head where he had fallen over and run into things!  Back in the car to more meltdowns over the Lego hair, back home to even more tantrums over the Lego hair. I looked for it, Chris looked for it for a long time to no avail. (Probably because the car is covered in golden nuggets cereal and pasta that have been chucked around it over the last few days!) 

I'd told Harrison at B&Q that because he was being so 'challenging' we wouldn't be building his Lego set today and he'd have to wait until tomorrow, when we got home I stupidly backtracked and agreed that if he was good for 1 hour then we would build it. I didn't think this was an unreasonable request for a 6.5 year old, he is good for 6 solid hours at school so surely 1 hour at home was doable? WRONG!!! He cleverly went upstairs to play for half an hour of the hour so that he could stay out of trouble but then I called him down for dinner. Oscar was sitting watching The Wiggles on my laptop, Harrison stormed in and shouted that he didn't want to watch that, pressed the mute button and pushed the laptop away, Oscar then screamed because he couldn't see it and Harrison pushed him across the bench. I, very calmly, told H that we wouldn't be doing his Lego because he hadn't lasted the hour, we then had a full hour of meltdown madness. You know, that hyperventilation  state they get themselves into and can't get out of? He said it was my fault because I'm annoying. Bahaha! Chris and I ended up having to feed him his dinner between sobs once he had calmed down a little but I refused to back down and told him we could do his Lego tomorrow. He turned into angel child for the next 45 minutes (clearly in the hope I would change my mind) getting his brothers pyjamas out on the bedroom floor ready to put on, bathed himself, took Oscar to brush his teeth etc. I thanked him, told him he'd been very good but that it didn't change anything! What would you have done? Would you have backed down or stuck to your guns? I know I'm a stubborn old boot and probably take it too far at times but in the meltdown hour he was hitting me and his brother etc, he has to know there are consequences to his actions and that we will follow through on those consequences. Needless to say we both turned to alcohol during all of this and now wish we'd bought some chocolate beforehand! 

I haven't even told you about the hour and a half long meltdown that Oscar had this morning before we'd gone! Let's just say it was a day of meltdowns and leave it there! 

(I built the Lego once he had gone to bed so he has it in the morning when he wakes up. I'm a soft touch. They're just so damn cute!!) 

Cheeky Monkey

We have a house full of various lurgies this week so have all had very little sleep and are frankly feeling like crap! It seems to be going round judging by how many kids have been off school so i thought other people may need something to cheer them up too.
Here is a video I took last week of me trying to change Oscars nappy. This was actually a fairly easy one in comparison to normal. Fear not, I have cut the part of the video where I actually changed his nappy because no one needed to see that!

Parklife

This is why last minute park trips pre school run are ill advised...

I don't think he actually went on anything properly come to think of it... oh no wait, he went on the slide because there was a big puddle at the bottom of it.

We obviously then had the tantrum over getting back into his pram where he actually managed to get himself arched backwards so much in that rigid way that they do, that I thought he probably managed to pass gymnastics level 6 right there and then. Monkey.

(Sorry about my annoying voice!)

This morning

I don't even know where to begin. I got cocky, I went to Tesco to grab a couple of bits thinking I could trap him in the pram. Arrived, opened the boot, no pram. I had a bowl of dry cereal in my bag so I bribed him into the seat of the trolley with it and started rushing around the shop. He started to get cross so I got him an Ellas kitchen fruit pouch to eat in the trolley, he finished it super quickly so I gave him another one, this is where it all started to go wrong. He squirted the whole pouch all over himself, the trolley, the floor and me. As this was unfolding the shop tannoy went with the staff member saying 'Staff announcement, this is a code 6!' Staff started walking quickly towards me saying 'ooh code 6!!' (At this point I assumed Code 6 meant small ginger terrorist on aisle 7 needs to be ejected from the store immediately! It didn't, they walked past us with disgusted looks on their faces when they saw the state of us.) I baby wiped everything as much as I could then carried on rushing as quickly as I could.  

Got to the tills and passed all the rubbish over to the cashier sheepishly, as I was unloading the trolley he climbed out and got on the conveyer belt and started jumping up and down, I whisked him off, plonked him back in the trolley and went to start packing the bags, he then climbed out again on to the bit where you pack your bags, at this point the cashier stood up and helped me pack 'ooh you've got your hands full with him haven't you!'... She has no idea. 

Get home, settled him down with a film and some snacks, decided to make some cupcakes and cookies, he was quiet which he normally is when he is watching a film so I thought I'd gotten away with it. How wrong I was. I nipped my head round the corner to check on him and was faced with this...

You can't see the full extent of it here but it's basically pear juice, apple juice and squashed pear all over him, the bench, table and floor and he started dipping Woody's boots in it and crushing the pear with them. 

I grabbed the kitchen roll, dettol wipes and cloth and started cleaning it up (whilst possibly shouting a few profanities) and he wandered off laughing and treading sticky pear fit throughout the house, I stripped him down to his nappy and ran upstairs to get him more clothes then came down to this...

No he didn't have a monkey on his bum, I've added that to try and save some of his dignity, but he had whipped his nappy off and was looking very pleased with himself about it. I put another one on him, got him dressed, mopped the floor which was now ridiculously sticky and then went to find him again, he had opened the boxes under the stairs with his birthday presents in and thrown the clean pile of clothes that was on the stairs waiting to go up all over the hallway. At this point I gave up, we have now come to sit down in the lounge and watch Tangled. My days of attempting to be a domestic goddess are over before the had even begun.

The good news is it's nearly nap time for him! Hurrah! 

The even better news is the cupcakes I made are amazing and paleo which basically means I can eat them all in one go whilst he sleeps! 

Can you believe it's only sodding Tuesday. 

Evil steps

The step. A common object in most homes with children, it helps them reach the sink to wash their hands, helps them reach the worksurfaces to help in the kitchen etc. In my house it is known as a bad behaviour enabler. I spend my days swearing at the step every time I find that the chimp baby has carried it somewhere to do something naughty. This can be to the toilet sink to flood the bathroom, to the kitchen sink to chuck all the clean dishes into the water with the dirty dishes, to help him climb onto something else to reach something that has been put up high out of his reach, to get to his brothers Lego starwars sets, to turn the oven on (yes really) and to get into the chocolate cupboard. The step is the spawn of the devil in my eyes. The bad behaviour enabler. The bane of my life. I end up having to hide it if I'm going to the loo so that he can't create havoc in the 30 seconds I'm gone. It's currently living on my toaster although it's only a matter of time before he finds something else to step on to be able to reach the sodding step. Incase you haven't yet guessed, I'm not a fan of the step. 

Playing games

I am quite competitive. Okay I'm fiercely competitive. My husband and the majority of my friends refuse to play games with me because I turn into a psycho bitch from hell the second the lid comes off the box. In fact my husband won't even hear the word 'Monopoly' mentioned since we had a game about 9 years ago and when I realised I wasn't going to win I flipped the board (accidentally on purpose) when I stood up. We've had screaming rows when playing Win, Lose or Draw and on the same team because he's so bloody slow at it, it frustrates the hell out of me (although I do think he's purposefully slow to annoy me).

Anyway, my 6 year old seems to have taken after me and is a terrible loser, tantrums and tears if he loses in most things and has now managed to finely tune which games he'll play with people based on whether he thinks his chances are good of winning or not. Last night he wanted to play Dobble, now I don't know if you've played it before but it can get a bit fraught. My nieces and nephews made me play it with them for the first time at Christmas and I lost my voice through shouting so much. I had words with myself before we played last night to be good, let him win, he's only 6, he's never played it before etc, and then dealt out the cards. My husband was standing next to me as we were playing (probably to make sure I didn't cheat or get crazy) and whilst trying to let my son win I felt the need to show him that I could win if I wanted to. The aim of the game is to find a matching picture on each card to put it down and the person who gets rid of their cards first wins, I was finding the matching picture but not putting it down to give my son a chance to get used to it, but pointed repeatedly to the picture I'd found so that my husband could see that I wasn't actually losing 😂. Anyway by the third game of letting him win he started to get a bit smug so I thrashed him, he had a strop, I had a strop, my husband played with him instead, let him win twice, he got smug again, husband clearly decided he couldn't cope with the smugness and thrashed him. My son dealt out the cards to play one last game with me, he started without telling me he had and I said 'It's fine, I'll give you a head start but I'll still win!!' My husband then started helping him, I tried my hardest, got a bit shouty, it got very tense, he won. He did exactly what I would've done had I won, he jumped up and shouted 'yes!!!! I won, you lost, HA HA!!' At this point I'd normally have stropped off muttering something about the fact it was two against one and he cheated etc but something in me made me start laughing at the likeness between us and give him a big hug. He has got a lot of bad traits from me (the game thing being one) but has somehow also managed to get a few good things from me thank goodness or he'd be a right arse! Anyway I feel like it was a good lesson to him that you have to learn to deal with losing every now and then! (I'm totally going to make him play again tonight obviously as can't bear the fact that I had to go to bed a loser, I'll just play until he loses then send him to bed... Just to help him become a more balanced individual of course!!) 

Lets try this again...

9 Months since my last blog, I'm doing pretty well at this aren't I?!

I mentioned my youngest in my last blog, he is now 23 months old and still terrorising me. We call him the hybrid baby, he's part human, part chimp and part arse. He is however, hilarious! He can't yet talk, he's no where near being potty trained or any of that nonsense that we had already done by this point with our 6 year old, however as my husband says 'by God he can climb!!' He can get to anything and everything. I've had to start hiding kids steps from him, I even balanced one on the top of the door the other day whilst I ran to the toilet to try and minimise the damage he could do to the house in that 30 seconds. I went to visit a friend in hospital the other day, we went to the cantine for lunch, I turned my back on him to pick which drink I was having, turned back around and he was up on that  ledge thing that you slide your tray across as you move through the queue. I've still no idea how he got up there. Here is a picture of him making sure the Calpol on the kidsafe, high shelf was still accessible to him...

More naughty baby antics to follow x