Swings and Preschool

Hi Guys,

It was a really good morning with my children the other day.

It started with Jakes third day at preschool, I went in with him to get him settled and after about an hour I managed to get him to leave my side to go and play with some toy animals, at this point I managed to sneak out so he wouldn’t notice.

After this I went and picked Mia up and initially we went to feed the ducks alongside the canal. This was good fun, Mia loved it and spent the whole time just staring at the ducks, probably wondering what they were.

We then went to the local park where I gave Mia her first ever go on a swing. I have to say, she looked so tiny in the swing, but she absolutely loved it! As I pushed her, she was giggling her little head off. It was amazing to see!

When I took her home and then got a call from the preschool, Jake just wouldn’t stop crying for me and was inconsolable.

I quickly went to the preschool to make sure he was ok and when I went in he just gave me one of his glares, as if saying “how could you leave me!” But very soon got over this and gave me a great big hug!

As it was near the end I stayed for the end of his morning, what happens is all the children sit down on the rug for story time followed by their choice of songs. Jake being Jake asked for “Moo Cow,” which the preschool teachers had never heard of, so he settled for a bit of Old McDonald had a farm instead.

After this we went home and Jake told his Mummy that he was crying but it was ok because “Daddy came for him!”

Thanks for reading

Darren

Jakes first day at Pre-school

We had a very exciting week this week; it was Jakes first day at pre-school.

To try and build up the excitement we started the build-up on Sunday, randomly asking him during the day, what is he doing tomorrow, so that we would get the reply “pre-school, yeah!” The only problem was we were also did this just before he went to bed, which then resulted in Jake deciding that he kept needing to go to the toilet after bed as he was getting over excited, school boy error!!

Next morning we woke Jake up early, at 7.30 to get him ready for pre-school. We got him washed, dressed, a breakfast of weetabix, washed again due to the weetabix being everywhere!

As it was Jakes first day, we were able to go with him, so Louise’s Mum came round in the morning to look after Mia whilst we piled into the car and went to pre-school.

Luckily enough for Jake, some of his friends already go there, they are Oakley, Keria-May and “Mummy” Donna, who is one of the people who works there, but he was his normal self when he first went in, hiding behind our legs as there was a lot of people there who he didn’t know.

After a while, we managed to get him playing with some play-doh, but myself and Louise then stood up and stepped back so that he would be able to play with it without us watching over his shoulder, this seemed to work, he even started showing his play-doh to the people who worked there.

Then it was snack time, Jake was in heaven, they give him his all his favourites, pita bread, grapes, apple and some milk, he loved it!

Next he decided to go into the little play house that’s there, he was in there for a little while, so I thought I’d pop my head over to see what he was doing and I caught him ironing!! I was thinking, what are you doing, you are a boy, but he then looked up at me and gave me the biggest smile which showed me he was enjoying himself, so it was ok. For some reason he then decided that he want to put some toy fruit into the washing machine as he thought it was dirty!

The disaster struck, Louise had to pop out so Jake was left at pre-school with just myself, Jake then decided that he had been abandoned and started to cry, so I picked him up and gave him a cuddle and told him Mummy just had to pop out and will be back in a minute, so he cried even harder!! Bless him, he loves his Mum, but I’m a bit worried about what he’s going to be like when neither of us our there.

After a while, I did manage to calm him down, just in time for story time. So we went to sit on the rug with all the other children to listen to the lady read the book ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt,’ which went down very well. This was followed up with sing song time, which had about 15 children and 1 Dad singing along to the songs, with the Dad (me) trying to be as quiet as possible whilst doing it. At this point Louise had come back and I think she was quite embarrassed about me singing, well more how bad at it I was!

After this it was home time, with Jake buzzing about his first day, I hope that he quickly gets used to us not being there with him!

Thanks
Darren

Christmas part 2...........

Hi Everyone,

24th December was a lot of fun for me; I spent a lot of the afternoon with Josh and Jake following Santa on Google, with Jake getting more and more excited as the day wore on.

After talking to Jake for a while and explaining that we needed to leave something out for Santa and the Reindeer as they have a long journey and will need to keep their energy up. I asked him what he thinks we should leave them and received the reply “Pizza!” After some haggling I managed to convince him that we should leave Santa a mince pie and a glass of milk plus a carrot for Rudolf.

Next morning we all got up and went downstairs quite early, we went into the living room and saw their Christmas sacks were full, at which point Jake got really excited as he saw that half the mince pie had gone and the carrot had bite marks all across it!

After we got their minds back on the presents, we all sat down and opened them together; quite amazingly they took it in turns present by present, rather than a mad free for all!!

Jake was rather pleased with his Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys, but had to keep protecting them from Mia as she would see them and randomly dive at them. I think all the children were pleased with what Santa left them.

Late Christmas morning we went over to Louise’s Mum’s for Christmas dinner, which was a good traditional Turkey dinner with all the trimming, it went down very well with everyone.

After dinner we then opened all the family presents, which again was really nice as everyone took their time in opening the presents to really appreciate them.

Once that was all out of the way we got Josh’s karaoke machine out, which was great fun, we had Louise, her Mum and Josh vying over the microphone, Jake dancing around the room with Louise’s Nan in the background and myself, Louise’s Step-Dad and Mia sitting on the couch thinking how mad they all are.

After this I decided that I was going to have a go, so I put on Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen and proceeded to ruin a brilliant song, but thankfully Jake rescued it. About halfway through the song I picked Jake up so that he could dance with me, when he decided to take the microphone off of me and started singing “la la la la la,” this was a massive improvement on me!

And there you have it, a massive build up to one day, which thanks to my family lived up to all my expectations.

Thanks
Darren

Christmas Part 1

Hi Guys,

Sorry that it has been a few weeks, I have been busy with Christmas and the children.

I have had a very exciting Christmas; as at two Jakes is now at an age where he understands what’s happening and it is also Mia’s first one.

The build up to Christmas started in November this year as Jake started making us listen to Christmas songs in the car every time we went anywhere; he would insist on playing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer on a loop, despite my protests, but I have to admit, I do really enjoy watching him singing along!

Early December we decided to put the Christmas decorations up. This was great fun and all the children got into it, Jake was diving into the bag, pulling out decorations and hanging them on the tree really nicely, in-fact he was doing it better than myself and Josh.

On the weekend before Christmas we took Jake and Mia to see Santa, this started off as a nightmare as we spent the Saturday driving around Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead to find a Santa where you didn’t have to pre-book as we didn’t release that you now had to pre-book – They never had that when I was little, I think!!

We ended up missing him on the Saturday, but thankfully on Sunday we found out that Mead Open Farm (mead open farm website) has a Christmas display and it was fantastic, they had a Santa’s grotto, a winter wonderland walk, a ride where you go on Santa’s sleigh around lap land and a place where you can also write a letter to Santa.

To build up Jakes excitement, we allowed him to carry his Santa’s ticket to Santa’s Grotto, where like a big boy he handed the ticket to the lady Elf before we all were shown through to Santa. This is the point where Jake decided to clam up; he sat down next to me and hid his head into my side whilst occasionally peeping at Santa to see if he was still there. Mia however was sitting in her push chair just staring and trying to play with Santa!

After telling me to tell Santa that he wanted Woody, Buzz, Hamm and other Toy Story Characters Santa gave Jake a golden ticket, this ticket allowed the children to pick any gifts that they wanted from Santa’s work shop.

As the shop was too small for Mia’s push chair I offered to wait outside with Mia whilst Louise went into the shop with Jake. Personally I think this was a mistake as Jake then came out with a tea set for himself, a girl’s tea set! He did however make up for this by choosing a cuddly toy elephant for Mia, which she loves.

After this we queued up to go onto the Santa sleigh ride, this involved sitting in Santa’s Sleigh (which moved) and flew through Lapland. I the asked Jake if he enjoyed flying on Santa’s Sleigh, to get the reply “programme finished”, I then tried to convince him that he really did fly on Santa’s Sleigh to again get the reply “no, programme finished!”  There’s just no fooling some people!

Next we took a walk through the Winter Wonderland, which was really pretty and both the children enjoyed it. There was a bit in there where Jake sat down and wrote a letter to Santa with Louise’s help. As he was doing this I went with Mia to a little wishing well which had a moving Polar Bear display just above the well. As soon as Mia saw this, she burst into tears, so I had to very quickly move on.

After this we had a look around the farm at the animals and then went home.

Christmas part 2 will be coming to you on Monday…….

Thank you for reading and please feel free to add any comments.

Thanks

Darren

myLot User Profile