Thursday photo #326

With the children having been off school for so long, it is ridiculous that I haven’t adapted a bit better. When I look at things logically, I realise that the girls really need to run off some energy during the early part of each day. Not necessarily first thing, but by lunchtime at least. There have been a couple of days this week when that hasn’t happened and everything seems so much more fraught.

Just add water

I often hear it said that when children are struggling, just add water. It works in most situations here. When my girls are winding each other up, arguing or generally not giving me a moment’s peace, water usually does the trick. Usually we’d swim at least a few times each week during school holidays. Half an hour to an hour in the pool in the morning always makes for a more pleasant day.

With this year being rather different, it has only been over the past couple of weeks that I’ve taken them to swim in the river. I’m not sure why that was really. Possibly because I was worried about taking them on my own while my husband was at work. But having been once, I realised that it wasn’t too difficult at all. So, we’re making it a regular thing. I’ve found somewhere local where we don’t need a paddle board or life jackets for the girls because they can stand if they need to. So, that will be our regular haunt.

At the weekend, we met some friends at another river spot where the girls can’t stand up. Because they’re still so little, I put little inflatable buoyancy aids on them. We also took the paddle board so they could alternate between swimming and paddle boarding. Lia swam virtually the whole way at a pace that was quite staggeringly fast. Libby paddled most of it. And as for Bubbles, she wasn’t going to miss out either. She swam a bit, paddle boarded a bit, walked a bit and leapt onto somebody else’s paddle board. We were rather relieved she chose someone we were with. It could have been rather embarrassing if she’d jumped onto a stranger’s board. All the time, she was chattering away in a staffy squawk that we rarely hear from her. I think she was a bit worried about us all swimming and felt somewhat responsible.

Family dog walks

Over the past few weeks, we have got into the habit of going for dog walks with my sisters and their dogs. It’s quite unusual for me to walk with anybody because I tend to just take Bubbles out for a run. But it has been lovely to turn dog walks into a family affair. Sometimes we grab a drink at a local coffee shop or pub. Often though, we just explore the local area.

I know things are starting to go back to normal now but dog walks and river dips are two things I want to hang on to. They can be done at no cost at all and are a great way to connect with family. I hope these are new found habits that will stick.

Thursday photo #236

The girls are heavily into colouring their hair at the moment. They only use hair chalk so it washes off as soon as they wash their hair but in the meantime, they have been sporting some very interesting rainbow looks.