It's Hard to Say Goodbye...

This weekend we took Granny home after her fortnight Easter stay with us.

Whilst it's always lovely to have Granny (although maybe not her ASBO dog) it's always sad to have to say goodbye. But as my Mum refuses to drive down to us (she hates the M25 london orbital motorway - or car park as we call it) I have to go and pick her up and take her home again. Unless she opts to come down on the train - although that would mean putting her 'beloved' hound in kennels for the duration of her trip. Something she refuses to do - and as asbo dog hates the cat - we have to put our cat in the cattery for the period of time when asbo dog is here - although I think the cat is glad of the rest.

This time it was the rabbit which bore the brunt of asbo dog's 'curious' nature (she's just playing, apparently) - and poor rabbit was 'yapped at' for hours on end. By the end of the trip even my mum said that next time she might have to put her dog in the kennel - or maybe we could send the rabbit away too. At this rate we will all be in a hotel somewhere whilst Mum and her pooch live it up in our house.

Anyway, KC decided to join me on the trip back to Granny's this time. He was very well behaved. He has discovered 'High School Musical' and watched the show three times whilst singing along to all the songs - this would be fine except he is listening to it on his headphones whilst watching the DVD - so any sense of tune is completely lost - a little like the show really.

Well, we spent a lovely weekend at Mum's and even took my Nanny (nearly 91) out for Sunday lunch... except she didn't want sunday lunch as she is on a diet so had a salmon starter followed by a raspberry pavlova (cream's not fattening apparently).

We then took her home and took mum back to say our goodbyes before making the four hour trip home.

As we were saying goodbye, KC grabbed hold of Granny, gave her a big kiss and said, "I hate saying goodbye - but I'm getting better at it."

I thought Mum was going to cry and she gave him the biggest hug ever!

But KC has always hated goodbyes - before he wouldn't even come down the stairs if someone was leaving preferring to hide in his room and we would have to force him into saying his goodbyes. I guess it comes from the idea that everytime he said goodbye as a young boy, whether it was to his birth mum, birth grandparents, foster carer's, social workers - whoever... whenever he said 'goodbye' it really was a goodbye - not a 'see you soon' or 'until next time' but a full on, proper 'goodbye'.

I don't think many 9 year olds will have said as many 'proper' goodbyes as he has... but now he is getting used to the idea that goodbye doesn't necessarily mean forever....

Easter in School

Both kids attend a lovely local church school and yesterday was a day of Easter activities, including a drama activities surrounding the Easter story. Being a little dramatic in nature the school asked me if I was able to help out and assist the school curate's wife - who was running the creative side of things.

It was great that so many people from outside the school were involved and the place was buzzing with activity.

Anyway, I was charged with leading the groups of children through four of the stations of the cross, the Garden of Gethsemane, Calvary, the tomb and finally to the steps outside the infants toilet to sing 'Lord of The Dance' in honour of the Resurrection. It was all very sweet - if a little dark and really really cold. The little ones were all given a paper cross to carry and then take home, of course as soon as they were given them all the little boys started 'sword fighting' - which made me smile. Then as my group moved on we were followed by another group led by other volunteers - which included Lea. We went to Calvary and three children were picked to be Jesus and the thieves - TJ was very upset that he wasn't chosen. He told me later that he had expected to be picked as I was helping and he would have made a very good thief. I pointed out that I don't encourage nepotism, I think he took that on board.... well, he scowled at me anyway.

Then we moved on and I heard Lea's group making a noise behind us and turned round to see the teacher leading that group telling Lea that it wasn't appropriate for him to be the 'one who nails Jesus up" in the play. And sure enough there was Lea pretending to hammer the nails into the boy playing Jesus's palms... I hurried on and we finished with our rounding rendition of Lord of the Dance and of course no-one noticed TJ and his friends shouting out 'Settee' instead of 'said he'....

After all the excitement we rushed off to pick up TJ's keyboard. He has started piano lessons, although he is a little miffed that after his first lesson he is still not able to play a discernible tune!!!! But he seems pretty keen. We bought him an electronic keyboard with a microphone... which was a big mistake as whilst TJ hammers out his middle c (the only note he knows) Lea uses the microphone to practise 'beatboxing'.

This morning both boys were really sweet - it's the last day of term before the Easter break and chocolate is at risk if they are naughty - Lea looked at me and said 'Daddy, you have definitely lost weight. I can put my arms all the way round you now and I couldn't before.' - she beamed as she gave me this weird compliment. As I turned away though I heard TJ whisper to his sister, 'I think you have probably grown and your arms have just got longer.' I pretended not to hear that....

Off to Granny's tonight for the Easter weekend... let's see how that goes!