A Pain in the Swings

Play parks seem such a simple, cost-free, and fun way of spending time with your children. So when I saw what a sunny morning it was I wondered why I hadn't taken the kids in so long. There is a small but very adequate playpark less than five minute's walk from home, so I set off with the double buggy to give B a couple of hours' peace and quiet.

Less than half an hour later I suddenly remembered why we hadn't been to the park in so long. We head straight for the swings as usual. Boy and Girl sit side by side in the baby swings and we indulge in the usual Ready, steady, go! and Got your feet! Got your tummy! Got your nose! Both babies are in fits of giggles, grinning at each other and generally the picture of happy families. After about 10 or 15 minutes I try and persuade Boy to try playing on the slide or the roundabout for a change. He shakes his head, so I push for another five minutes. Now Girl is getting cold. Out she comes and gets wrapped up in the buggy.

I gently extract Boy and nudge him towards the slide. He climbs the ladder, with a bit of help then stands at the top whining incoherently. In the end I have to lift him down and he runs straight back to the swings. A familiar creeping sense of foreboding has suddenly come across me. After another five minutes, my hands are numb and Girl is turning slightly blue. The sun may be shining, but let's be real here: it's Galway, and it's February.

The usual snack and chugger bribery has failed. Eventually I drag Boy kicking and screaming from the park just in time to run into a friend taking her pink and smiling baby out for a morning stroll. I try to swap buggies without her noticing but she's too smart for me. Boy is headbutting the side bars of the buggy and wailing as if I have just deprived him of the only pleasure he has ever experienced. This tantrum lasts half an hour (yes, I timed it). That's longer than we spent in the park altogether. Eventually he falls asleep, nose smooshed into the front bar of the buggy, just moments before we reach home.

It may be a while before we go to the swings again. There is plenty of other fun to be had: watch this space...

Friday Fun

Today has been a somewhat frenetic mix of playing with friends (Boy), gossip with other mammies (me), puking (Girl), sleeping (Girl and Boy), cooking (me), eating (me, B and Girl), more puking (Girl), refusing to eat (Boy), tantrums (me and Boy), jogging in the rain (me and B), cutting, gluing and colouring (me, Boy and B), eating glue (Girl), yet more puking (Girl) and collapsing with exhaustion (all of the above).

It was great to catch up with a couple of friends this morning, and Boy was thrilled to see his little girlfriend. No clever activities needed, just a lot of shrieking, banging, running in circles and cuddling. I got to hold an ADORABLE three-week old baby, and I introduced another friend to the joys of feeding her almost-2 year-old toddler a lemon for the first time (with camera at the ready, naturally).

Morning Stroll

Had a parcel to post today, so set out for the Post Office at 10am for what should have been the 20 minute gentle stroll there and back. This turned into a 3 hour hike - due not to any detours, but only to the incomprehensibly slow pace of Boy, who acts as if sitting in the double buggy is an admission of weakness and takes any encouragement to do so as a personal slight. After keeping Mammy and Daddy awake for most of the night, Girl passes out the second we step out the front door and stays asleep for most of the morning.

The 2km walk to the shops has its own familiar waypoints. Stage One is the tantrum that invariably occurs as we pass the first coffee shop and Boy realises we are walking straight past. Stage two is The Wall. The Wall is an excellent distractor from Stage One. Its primary reasons for being are to be walked upon or jumped off, although today it manages a hat trick, serving as train tracks for Wilson-Chugger. Chatsworth lies neglected in Boy's buggy seat. Action Chugger lies in the river, where Boy threw him during Stage Four last week.

A single early tulip has somehow appeared in someone's garden and I show Boy how to smell it. For the rest of the morning he stops and sniffs every plant, blade of grass, mossy wall and ivy covered telegraph pole, letting his breath go with a delighted "ahhh". I draw the line and the old cigarette butt he picks up to sniff.

Stage Three is the third coffee shop. By this time Girl is snoring hard, Boy is practically walking backwards he's so slow, and I am desperate for a breather."The usual?" calls the waitress as we enter, reminding me just a little too hard that we come in here just a little too often. Boy remembers his manners: "Peas", as his espresso cup of milk is set down in front of him. When the toast arrives he bawls "Mammylade! Mammylade!" but the waitress is on the ball and three little portions of marmalade appear immediately. I hide two of them, as usual.

When Girl wakes up and unabashedly steals the last of the toast it's time to leave and resume the snail's crawl to Stage Four: the river. We used to feed the ducks at the bridge regularly until one day I realised there wasn't a duck in sight and Boy was just as happy standing by the river eating stale bread. Now I just use "The Ducks!" as a way to keep him moving in the right direction. By the time we reach the river the shops are finally in view and it's a race to get to the post office before it closes for lunch.

Stage Five: just yards from the post office an escalator beckons and Boy takes the requisite tantrum. Luckily the tractor ride provides a speedy distraction. I have never yet put any money in the tractor ride, but that doesn't seem to bother Boy and finally at five minutes to 12 we reach the Post Office. The Long Walk Home follows much the same pattern, although we manage without a coffee break. Wilson-Chugger gets driven along the walls and windowsills of the opposite side of the road and by the time we reach home Boy has finally succumbed to the buggy, ready to pass out for his afternoon nap, while Girl decides this would be a splendid time to wake up, just in case Mammy got ideas above her station, like the possibility of getting some shut-eye herself. Ah the joys.