Who’s Normal Anyway?

This past week has been half term here, which affected us only in that there were more places open and things to go out and do than usual. We had a fairly quiet beginning of the week but then Wednesday M had ju jitsu. The previous week M brought home a flyer from rollerskating all about the half term playscheme in the local leisure centre. He was keen to go to that on Thursday and Friday morning, even though he didn’t know anyone else who was going as far as we could tell. I thought that was pretty brave!

Thursday morning’s session started with rollerskating and then after the break they played on a bouncy castle. M was pleased to see his friend J from rollerskating was there along with a couple of other people he knows. He had a great time and was chuffed to get a roller skating development book off the rollerskating coach - looks like he is going to be giving the regulars more points to work on for their development. He’s trying to find new talent for the 2012 Olympics LOL.

While M was at that L and I went to Waitrose for a few bits and then came home. What is it with the snooty attitude in Waitrose? We had to wait ages for customer services to help by finding blue roll to dry the trolley so L wouldn’t get soaked from it and none of the staff ever smile, they just look at you as if they are deigning to serve you. It’s always full of old well off people, rather than anyone else with kids and the prices are silly. But it was conveniently on the way home so we went there anyway LOL.

After collecting M at lunchtime we drove to Gressenhall to spend the afternoon as it was such a lovely day weatherwise. We had some lunch in the cafe and bumped into a family we know from music, then played in the adventure playground for quite a while. L figured out how to go down the slides by himself. It was fascinating to watch him. He needed a little bit of help up the steep ramp, then he managed the wooden steps by crawling up each and standing up again (very funny with him in his wellies and waterproof trousers, because he can’t bend his feet as normal). Then he sat down and bum shuffled to the edge of the slide slope, worked out he needed to raise his feet or he got stuck, and off he slid. He was having trouble with the bum shuffle part and tried another technique, which was crawling onto the slide and then manoevering his feet round to a sitting position. He soon gave up the trying to sit and came down on his tummy instead LOL. He enjoyed himself for ages with it. Meanwhile M was racing about as usual.

We had a look around the museum for a little while after the playground. It closes for the winter and was only open for this week because it was half term. It opens again in March. They’ve redone some parts of the museum so we had a look at the changes and explored the laundry yard for a while.

On Friday M had another session at the leisure centre with games and a water fight. On the way home from dropping M off, L fell asleep in the car and slept for ages, so I got a quiet morning! We picked M back up and had some lunch out. I can’t remember what we did in the afternoon, but I was going downhill fast with a throat infection and swollen glands.

Yesterday I got up late and had a day at home, while A took the boys out shopping. He rarely has both boys and he’s not very confident having L without me around. When M was little M used to scream the place down on the odd occasion only A was there so A never got any confidence with him. A copes much better with L and vice versa, but he still worries about L getting upset if they go out without me. They are getting more practice recently though, with me going out to the ladies group at Church on a Thursday and A taking both boys to rollerskating while I’m at Beavers. I’m booking to do a first aid course in March for the whole day, so that’ll keep A busy. He said this morning he’d be glad to get back to work tomorrow for some peace and to relax LOL. I suppose he doesn’t get much time to purely do his own thing like when he used to go out with Mountain Rescue. But I rarely get time to do my own thing with no responsibilities here either, it’s just things I like doing more easily fit around what M and L are up to.

So anyway A took the boys round the shops and exchanged L’s CD player that he got for Christmas - it had suddenly come up with a wierd code not in the instruction booklet and refused to play CDs anymore. They went to the supermarket and then to McDonalds and sounds like they had a good morning. A even remembered to take L to the toilet, which sounds silly but isn’t something he has programmed in to think about usually LOL.

In the afternoon A washed the car and when L noticed he was outside he insisted on getting his waterproof trousers on and joining him. He was so sweet trying to copy Daddy.

Today A took the boys to Church this morning and this afternoon we went out to a couple of garden centres for a look around and to get bird food and ideas. But mainly a quiet day.