Fun and friends

Today began with a roll-over from yesterday when my parents were amazingly kind (as ever) and had Freddie for the entire day - and said they would collect the other two from school for me - so I could catch up with a whole load of paperwork and phone calls that are nigh-on impossible to get through with a small person climbing all over you!! The complication arose at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon. I had an hour and a half left of precious child-free minutes to squeeze in filling out the most horrible but important form that I had put off to last when I suddenly remembered I had promised a lift to a friend's children and she was totally reliant on it so I had to leave there and then (so glad I remembered in time - hadn't put it on the calendar!!) to go get some children from school who weren't even mine - d'oh! At moments like this I can choose to feel stressed and panic-y or to tune in to 'the spontaneous flow of the Holy Spirit' and go with it! Thankfully I just about managed the latter :) A knock-on effect of this though, was that plans altered with my parents who had collected Eddie at lunchtime (he often just does half days) so Eddie and Freddie were at their house and I now had Bilbo because he wanted to come with me when I turned up at pick-up time for my friend's kids. So rather than meeting me later to hand them over after Green Warriors after school club that Bilbo had been intended to go to, they offered instead to bring Eddie and Freddie to my house. This was where the problem occurred that affected today: Freddie fell asleep en route to my house at 5 o'clock!! Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!! That is really bad! It would mean Freddie would be up late which, when you're a single parent, means everyone is up really late - because I can't take anyone to bed until he's in bed because I can't leave him unsupervised like I can the others while getting him to sleep... Again though, I managed to not stress and to go with the flow (just!) and we had a lovely l-o-n-g evening playing in the garden with water squirters and what-not (thankful for the light nights on this occasion!)... I avoid screen time as much as possible at times that I don't need to rely on it so that there is enough novelty value for when I do so though it was tempting to put a screen on because i was tired, I resisted because I knew I would be needing it later to occupy the older two when it came to Freddie being ready for bed (it's pretty much the only thing that I can be fairly sure won't disolve them into an argument or into making a huge mess while I'm unavailable).

Freddie went to sleep around 10pm in the end and the others were then asleep by 10:45pm - so all this meant there was no precious evening for me last night and a 'lie-in' on this school morning... (That'll teach me for not putting things on the calendar!) ie Eddie was practically still asleep while I got him dressed and carried him straight from bed into the car where he had fruit for breakfast on the way to school! We arrived after the bell but not by much. I know I could have woken him up earlier but it's more important to me that they're not tired in the day than that we are bang on time for school. I expect the teachers would share my view... And today was one that required lots of energy because it was sports day - yay!! Bilbo was really anxious about it because he didn't know what to expect so his teacher gave him a running order of the day to look at when we arrived at school which really helped him. He saw that he had tried out and enjoyed most of the activities before when his class went to the venue we were using on a school trip - so he was ok then :) Freddie and I went to watch and had lots of fun. It was at the English Institute of Sport which has a full-scale running track but indoors (it's where Jessica Ennis trains). So the venue is massive - quite overwhelming. We commented that it was like being outdoors but that someone had lowered the sky! Sitting in the seats, the people on the track looked really small! Not that I did sit down because Freddie was loving exploring the place and playing with the balls etc. I had to watch him in front of the ball-shooting machine mind!! I had fun running round the track after Freddie when he took off at speed; the children were cheering him on!! It was a great place to hire for our sports day because they have exciting things that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise like a professional long jump with a big sand pit to jump into (needless to say, that was a winner with Freddie!) and high jump, as well as kid-friendly javelins etc! I loved seeing Eddie and Bilbo loving it so much, big grins on their faces :) Bilbo took the hurdles very seriously; he is a super fast runner; good energy-channeling!!

After sports day we went to our friends' for tea which was just lovely. We know them from school first but they joined our church at the same time they joined school so we know them through church too. The dad is the vicar actually! He shares the leadership of church with a Baptist minister as well because we are 'ecumenical' (not that I'm into denominations). Pippa had put so much thought into our visit, it was really touching and very worthwhile because it meant everyone was able to relax and have fun as there was plenty to keep them occupied. Their children are older than mine so they're past the stage of needing to be as hands-on as I do at the moment so just for us, they put out a paddling pool and water squirters, bought bubbles, put out toys like Duplo and cars etc for Freddie, and even provided supervised decoupatch which mike, the dad, sat and did with Bilbo for ages! Bilbo is very into craft whereas Eddie loved the water play so it was just great - and sausages followed by ice lollies for tea! Who could want more?!?? The boys really enjoy their company and Freddie especially gravitates toward Mike whenever we see them so he revelled in the chance to be held by him almost the entire time we were there! It means a lot to me for them to have that male attention :) And I was able to have a nice chat with Pippa which I hadn't expected being that all three boys were there! So it was lovely for all four of us - and hopefully for Pippa, Mike and kids too (though I didn't think to help tidy up before we left..) - yay! The kids were super settled upon return too, and bedtime went really well :) My language of love , for those familiar with the term, is definitely quality time - and words of affirmation - so this evening did a very good job of filling up my love tank!