Climbing Walls...

Well, its actually been quite an uneventful week.

Both kids have settled back into the school routine and this week we have our nephew - their cousin - staying with us having a post exam break before his graduation next weekend up in Cambridge. He has offered to take the boys punting... I don't think he has any idea what could happen... nor have I!

TJ has returned back to his normal cumodgeonly self - he has agreed that he will go back to school - but he is not going to learn anything. So I was nicely surprised when he came home yesterday telling me all about the 'healthy' food he has been learning about - its healthy to eat fruit and vegtables (he named most of them) and chicken - but not KFC (which disappointed Papa who loves the stuff) - lots of water and chocolate... and cake... and sweets. I was a bit shocked by these last three until I overheard him chatting with Lea - their plan was that if they told us these things were healthy then we might let them have it more often. I'm not sure which of them was the architect of this fiendish plan to fool the parents but it did make me smile and hats off to them for their ingenuity. I shall be giving them double brussels sprouts this weekend!

The school are organising a sponsored climbing wall today - we were asked to sign the consent forms and send in the sponsor money 'before' they actually did the climb. I dug my heels in and refused to send in the cash unless I had evidence that these two actually went up the wall. (Despite being professionals at driving me up it!)

Lea has already said she won't be doing it - she didn't even want me to sign the consent forms. She is terrified of heights. Something I have noticed recently is that Lea is becoming more and more fearful of things - I don't know if its just a stage or if it points to a further drop in self esteem. Of course, she could just be scared of heights!

TJ also refused to climb the wall - I told him it would be fun and we should all try new things - besides, I added, it was to help raise money for the school. "But I don't like school," was his considered reply, "so why should I raise money for it?"I really couldn't argue with that.

Then this morning he decided that he would be climbing after all - I sent in the forms but wrote on them that I will not be parting with any money until I know they have both at least tried to climb the wall!

Papa has gone to Madrid for a business type conference thingy and the cousin is off to a friends birthday party tomorrow - so it will just be me and the kids this weekend. Although TJ was quite disappointed that I hadn't gone to Spain with Papa and left them in the capable hands of their cousin. Apparently, he is a lot more fun than me and, I quote, "He would have to let them do what they wanted!"- Needless to say as much as I shared my youngest child's sentiment that I would love to be in sunny Spain with Papa sipping sangria while he attends a dull meeting, I simply couldn't be quite so mean to their poor cousin - it might scar him for life!!!!!

Farewell Cousin...

So the children said farewell to their Singaporean cousin this weekend. They were pretty upset but were soon diverted by a trip to London's large toy store, Hamleys. In fact we managed to do our farewells just outside the shop and the kids were practically pulling our arms off to get inside.

Although, afterwards he first person they wanted to show their presents too was their uber cool cousin. (who by now was probably being severely reprimanded by his Dad for being suspended from school. But that's another story.)

The upshot is that, due to the fact we live in the middle of nowhere, cousin M has decided that he would like to come back for his study break. Obviously, he managed to get quite a bit of studying done whilst he was with us - well, whilst the children were at school anyway. So we look forward to seeing him then, providing his mother doesn't barbecue him over the Easter break.

The remainder of the weekend has been spent in domestic bliss... well, we like to think of it as bliss, in reality I cleaned out all the animal cages - the kids have practically a zoo as you know - oddly enough they don't seem to show the same enthusiasm for their pets when it comes to cleaning out time, leaving me with up to my elbows in guinea pig/rabbit droppings and smelly sawdust. Does Papa help? well usually I would say no, its usually about this time that he finds something really important that needs doing immediately. However, yesterday he decided to help TJ clean out his guinea pig... however, rather than taking the cage into the garage, as we would normally do, he decided that he would clean it out in TJ's bedroom... Needless to say, the bedroom ended up covered in sawdust and stank to high heaven.

I brought the hoover up to clean the mess left behind by TJ and Papa... and Benjy the guinea pig of course. TJ took one look at the vacuum cleaner and suddenly asked me if he could use it. I looked at him, "Are you sure you want to clean the floor?" I asked. "Please, please, can I do it?" He was practically begging me. I put on my best 'I'm not sure' look. "I don't know if you'll be able to clean the whole room," I said. "I can," he implored, 'I can do the whole upstairs if you want."I thought about it. "Ok", I told him, "If you can clean the whole floor upstairs properly, then I will let you use the vacuum cleaner."

He was so pleased and spent nearly half an hour cleaning, moving furniture to get to the dust, checking for dirt. By the end he asked me if he could stop as his arms were hurting. I checked his handiwork. "That's pretty good," I told him. He beamed, "Can I help you again?" he asked. "Of course you can!" I said - inside I was grinning from ear to ear. "Great,' he replied, "that was more fun than playing Skylanders!"

If only we had known yesterday we could have saved a fortune in Hamleys!