A high drama of new youth, parenthood and smelly nappies

Posts from July 2008

12:42pm Saturday, 26th July 2008

so much has happened this month.

3 weekends ago cole set off down the m74 to the lakes to deposit G with uma and oompa. it was a long round trip and whilst it was sad to see G go it was also very exciting for cole and p to spend some quality time alone together. G had a fab week away, as did cole and peta in his absence with a trip to the cinema (to see Indiana Jones), a meal out at wannaburger and plenty of lie-ins. yay!

the following weekend uma and oompa brought G back home so we had a celebratory BBQ in the hope that summer might eventually rear it’s head. it didn’t.

last weekend we enjoyed a visit from moomin and the first rays of sunshine in our scottish summer. on saturday we all headed off to stirling to get G some shiny new wellies before a lovely trip to inchmahome priory, a ruinous building on an island in the lake of menteith, scotland’s only lake (all the other ones are lochs). a lovely afternoon was had with walks around the priory and grounds, feeding the ducks, and football.

on sunday we headed into edinburgh. p was working so moomin, G and cole set off for coffee before a trip to Dynamic Earth. Cole decided to shell out on a year pass for him and G but sadly, G absolutely hated the experience so not sure when will be going back. Dinosaurs and loud, dark rooms not condusive to bairn fun alas!!

anyway, that brings us to this weekend. we are currently enjoying a very lazy Saturday, taking the opportunity to post up some snaps too so have a peruse to see how our wee yin is growing daily!

12:51am Wednesday, 9th July 2008

02:06am Saturday, 5th July 2008

t-minus 2 days…

gethin will be whisked away by uma and oompa on sunday and being his first prolonged trip away from his parents, our original feelings of joy and liberation are slowly getting replaced by nervousness and trepidation. To be honest, we are missing him already – even though he hasn’t gone yet.

gethin has been in our lives pretty much 24-7 since the day he was born, 27 months ago, and whilst i would be the first to say we probably do deserve a break it is hard to imagine what to do of an evening without the wee one (let alone how we will ever manage getting out of bed for work in the mornings!).

we have always strived to raise gethin in a close and loving environment and have worked very hard at being parents first and ourselves second. parenting books such as the dreaded gina – ‘it puts the lotion in the basket’ – ford adorn the libraries of parents throughout the land but the approach of working children around the lives of their parents is one that has never appealed to us, even if it means that our social life is near non-existent.

what then will we do? cinema? fancy meal? nothing? so many options and we have forgotten them all.

the funny thing about packing bairn off for the first time has been compiling the list.

the list outlines the dos, donts and needs; the user manual; the rules for our 2006 model bairn. a guide for the modern grandparent in maintaining and entertaining this little thing that has dominated our lives for so long….for seven whole days.

we have always felt we were quite liberal parents but my god, the list makes us seem quite stringent. 3 pages of favourite toys, agendas, meal suggestions, bedtime protocol and the like. all that’s left to do is compile the bairn phrase book with phoenetic translation of all the gethisms that are elusive to all but the most trained ear.

no doubt both gethin and the grandparents will be fine – it will be great for them all to spend some quality time together and also for gethin to spend some time away from his parents (and us from him). but can’t help but feel that as soon as he is in that foreign land called england we will miss him greatly.

12:35am Wednesday, 2nd July 2008

what a fun few days and it has been lovely to see gethin back to his normal self after a week plus of grumpiness. we had a fun saturday, although peta was feeling poorly, so with ryan and shelley visiting we (all but P) headed into Falkirk to the cinema for National Treasure 2. much popcorn was eaten and fizzy drinks quaffed – to the point where cole and G had to run out midway for a pee. G rather comically decided he wanted to use the urinal like daddy does (despite still being in nappies) so cole had to hold him over the urinal, nappies round ankles, whilst much gurning ensued.

after flicks we headed back into linlithgow for softplay – slightly diverted by the orange marches in grangemouth which were quite intimidating. never quite understood the need to overtly display ones religion so aggressively in the face of anyone who happens to pass.

anyway, after breaking through the amassed ranks of grangemouth, we headed off for Gethin to brave the soft play area whilst cole, ryan and shelley braved some lunch and coffee before dropping our visitors off at the train station to return home to edinburgh. saturday evening saw the christening of Ben and Ruthie’s daughter, Poppy. it was a lovely event and after a brief downpour, the rain held off for the outdoor baptism and subsequent sheep roast. gethin had fun with his compadres in crime – wren and casper – and cole had fun drinking Ben’s home brew, meeting all the lovely people and supping on some rather tasty baked bean wraps.

sunday was stay-at-home-dad day again for cole with G before an evening at friends watching the euro 2008 final. after 22 years of hurt as a spanish supporter it was great to see them finally win something and to do it playing so well – plus had a sneaky bet on them to win the tournament so now a few quid better off. also, it is great to see the baton of perennial underachiever pass on to england. muhawhawhaw

gethin’s childminder has gone on holiday for a few weeks so cole and peta are having to juggle childminding duties with friend denise (or ‘deese’ as Gethin says) at moment although, drum roll please, uma and oompa are taking G away for a week next Sunday. with the exception of 2 days when we moved house (which, to be honest, wasn’t really all that relaxing) this will be the first time G has been away from cole and peta for more than a day so nervous and exciting times ahead. what to do with out evenings? how will we cope? can we cope a day without changing nappies? might put that money from the football towards a meal out for me and P – something we’ve done once since gethin was born. let’s hope G is on his best behaviour for the grandparents!!

the young boy has been really good fun this week – he is enjoying dancing and particularly breakdancing and moshes along to his favoured tunes like a true punk (daft punk and the white stripes have turned out to be some of his favourites). after a fortnight or so of him being quite a pain (he has had yet another ear infection) he is back to his old loving, caring and fun self, full of hugs and kisses and inquisitiveness. he continues to enjoy jumping off tall things (no injuries yet) and is particularly fixated with cars and tractors. a junior mechanic in the making me thinks. sadly for all of us he’s not been sleeping too well this last week or so which we finally discovered is because he thinks there are monsters in his bedroom. poor wee guy – it’s almost like a rite of passage to think that evil things lurk under the bed/in the wardrobe.

elsewhere, our garden is coming along nicely. the wet summer we have been ‘enjoying’ has brought the best out of all the flora – good and bad – and our courgettes and potatoes are now flowering which i think means they’re ready for the picking. cole made 8 jars of gooseberry jam with all the fruit we culled the other week (and some lovely gooseberry jam turnovers) and the raspberries have had to be tamed as they seem about to take over the whole garden. some ruthless pruning and tying was required on sunday. we may even have our first strawberry before the week is through.

sorry still no snaps. will instruct peta to get on the case as soon as possible!