Squidge 49 and 50 weeks - walking and a new tooth. Fidget and her letters…

On the Monday back from holiday we had to wait in for scaffolding to be put up on the house. The next day the scaffolding was all finished and we were sitting in the front room. Fidget noticed the sign they had added to the front of the scaffolding and said “what does that say?”. I asked her what letters she recognised and she slowly started to sound out the following (phonetic) letters:

“S”

“C”

Andrew’s letter

“F”

“F”

“O”

I repeated back to her the letter sounds and asked her what word it sounded like the start of (she doesn’t know L, D and G yet) and she said “scaffolding!”. I think she was as surprised as I was that she had actually read a word. She really likes her letters, but so far isn’t so bothered by numbers or colours. She can recognise the following (mainly their uppercase forms), and usually starts by saying it is a persons letter eg “Ellis’s letter”.

A for Andrew, B (she just knows as the letter), C for Catherine, E for Ellis, F for Faith, H for Honour (even though it is not pronounced but she doesn’t seem too bothered by this), I for Isabelle, J for James, K – “kicking K”, M for Mush, N for Naomi, “O” (with associated surprised expression), P for Peter and Paul (so if she sees a P she says "little dickie-bird!"), R for Robert, S for Sophie, T for Toby, U for Umbrella, X - “Daddy do an X!” (which is when you have stand so she can crawl through your legs).

Squidge was 49 weeks that Tuesday, it was a busy day and I forgot to get a picture. Fidget at 49 weeks…

On Wednesday 15th, Fidget was back to nursery and Squidge and I took a trip out to Bath. The park and ride was full when we got there, so we went back to a nearby pub for lunch…

Squidge is too heavy for the sling so I thought I would try out the big carrier. It was ok, and Squidge certainly liked the elevated position but it was really rather heavy.

On the Thursday I picked up both girls from nursery just after lunch and then we met up with Naomi and Iestyn on the cycle path for a walk. I used the big carrier again, but it was pretty hard going. It was a nice walk but I was absolutely shattered by the time we got back.

On the 17th we had to stay in for a furniture delivery, but we did have a chance to walk out to the park. It was a really beautiful crisp early autumn afternoon, so we took a bag and went looking for pretty leaves and conkers.

On Saturday 18th Fidget and I had a go at turning some of the leaves into a great artwork. I made a couple of creatures from a conker and shell.

In the afternoon Uncle A arrived! He is moving down to Bristol to start a PhD at Bristol University and is going to live with us until he sorts his own place out.

Sunday it was getting a bit cold, Squidge has inherited Fidget’s dressing gown…

I had bought Fidget a few long sleeved t-shirts from the supermarket as the weather is getting colder. She had seen Uncle A dressed in his red stripy t-shirt and when asked what she wanted to wear – dived into her drawer and brought out her red stripy t-shirt!

On Monday 20th we were at home most of the day. We walked up to the shop. Fidget is really noticing letters around her. The walk back was quite slow - Fidget stopped to read the letters on every manhole cover and street sign!

Later on we went across to the park. Squidge is walking really well so I just popped her shoes on and didn’t take the pram. I carried her along the road and then she walked through the park to the play area. She had a great time…

Squidge is walking pretty confidently now and is also climbing up on everything.

Squidge had an afternoon nap and Fidget decided to make an artwork for Uncle A, using the puffy paints from Mush…

The next morning (Tues 21st) I got the hairdryer to the picture to fluff up the puffy paint…

Squidge was 50 weeks

her 4th tooth is on the way through (2nd one on the top front)

Fidget at 50 weeks

Fidget now…

them both now…

Uncle A has been cooking evening meals for us while M has been working late and in London. On Tuesday we had fish with roast potatoes…

On the morning of Wed 22nd, Uncle A stayed in with Squidge while she napped and Fidget and I walked down to a nearby school that we are looking at. We have to make the application for Fidget’s school place this autumn for her to start next year – crazy! She really liked the school, we went into the 1st classroom to look around and she saw the playthings in the corner – shot through the children in the class and settled herself in the corner playing with a doll and cot.

Later on, Uncle A treated us to some tunes on his Ukulele.

As the afternoon drew on, I was trying to find something to entertain them both. I got out the pencils and some paper and they both had a go at drawing. Squidge did really well, she was quite happy sitting and drawing for about 10 minutes and creating her first proper artwork.

Holiday days 8 & 9: the journey home

The girls slept until 7.10am – hurrah! We had to be out by 10am, so there was lots of too-ing and fro-ing packing up and cleaning and eating up lots of leftover food. Fidget had a croissant she couldn’t finish so I said I would save it for later, I put it in a plastic food bag and put it in my handbag, which then went in the corner with other bags waiting to be packed. Later I noticed that Squidge was quietly sitting in same corner. I went over to investigate and found her sitting with the croissant held in both her little pudgy hands, happily and quietly munching away. She had found the handbag, dug down, pulled out the food bag and extracted the croissant – monkey! I would have taken a picture, but seconds later Fidget arrived and started crying “that’s my croissant!!”

We got out by 10am and set out for Locronon. Our sailing was at 11pm that evening, so we had plenty of time to entertain ourselves on our way back. Locronon was quite a touristy spot, supposedly the prettiest town in Brittany or France or something. It was pretty but the touristy nature did detract from it’s charms.

We had a wander along the streets, looking in the gift and craft shops located in every other building. We walked up to the church and had a look round. Fidget made straight for the candle lighting…

We had a mooch around and a photo-call on the church steps…

We walked back to our car and stopped at a restaurant on the way. Fidget’s meal came with a choice of desert and she chose chocolate mousse. Our coffees came with wrapped up sugar cubes that I found very aesthetically appealing, I couldn’t help playing. I built a totem tower that was 5 packs high. I was really proud of it, as the packs were stacked on their folded paper surfaces – which believe me – makes it well ‘ard.

We drove on to Chateulin…

Squidge was asleep when we arrived, so we parked up by the river and chilled out in the car.

Fidget popped over to play in Granny and Grandpa’s car…

When Squidge woke, we had a walk across the river to look at one church. Again it had fab windows…

and Fidget continued her personal candle lighting quest…

we then strolled back across the river and up a hill towards another church. At the top of the hill we found the church was closed.

We walked back to the town, we really needed a sit down and a cup of tea and the girls needed their tea. We found the perfect spot, a patisserie and cafe called “Histoire de maccaron”.

The girls shared a yummy tart and we all had fab cakes.

We picked up some sandwich ingredients at the super-u then drove on with the plan being to stop at an “aire” or rest-stop to get the girls ready for bed and feed Squidge. I didn’t really get an impression of what an “aire” actually was from the description – I was expecting something more like a motorway services with loos, a cafe etc. But no – it was a parking area off the motorway with a portaloo and picnic bench!

    We did our best, I had to nip up into the tree-line with M holding up a scarf for me to change into a feeding bra! Feeding Squidge in the car wasn’t very effective, as she is pretty long, so I had to have the doors open and sbe was far too interested in what was going on.

We drove up to Roscoff, but Fidget was being a pain – she wouldn’t sit properly in her car seat and kept leaning right out to the side, leaning forward or sliding forward. We had to stop in a carpark, get Fidget out and give her a timeout sat on the kerb in her pyjamas. It worked and we managed to get to the port without further incident. Fidget was still bouncing off the walls for most of the time we were in the ferry queue. Just before we got on the ferry we noticed that Fidget had finally crashed.

On the ferry we picked up the sleeping girls and went to find our cabin. This time we had a large 4 birth cabin with cot for Squidge. As Squidge had not fed well, I fed her again when we got in, so she went down really easily. Fidget was fast asleep and went into her bunk no worries. It was really nice to be in the 4 birth. I had my own bed! Squidge’s cot sat between the two bunks with room to spare. During the night I heard a bump and Fidget called out something, so I just said “it’s alright – go back to sleep”. When we switched the lights on in the morning, she was on the floor – waking up from sleeping ontop of the discarded clothes – ooops – sorry Fidget!

Our palatial cabin…

We met up with Granny and Grandpa in the cafe onboard for breakfast, where we said our goodbyes.

We docked about 6am, we were home by about 9:30 on the Sunday morning and were shattered.

The kids were on good form…

We had a wander around the garden picking the produce that had been growing wild… It had been a brilliant holiday. Thanks so much to Granny and Grandpa and to teamChallis for such a fun time!