Posts in category: Personal

Does anyone else feel like the weeks are whizzing by at the moment?

I’m really not sure where the time is going, but it seems to just be disappearing somewhere.

I wonder if it’s to do with the fact that we’re starting to get back into a more normal routine, with clubs and activities starting back up again, on top of the children actually managing some full weeks at school after all the disruption of the past year.

Last week was cubs again for Rhys and swimming lessons for both the children.  And we also had the news that Brownies will be starting back up again after half term which Nerys is so excited about.

She missed so much of Rainbows with all the lockdowns, and now she’s old enough to actually move up to Brownies.  Which reminds me, I need to sort out a uniform for her at some point!

I’m just really hoping they do some fun, exciting activities when the sessions start up.  Nerys has been so jealous of the things that Rhys gets to do at cubs, I’m waiting to see if Brownies matches up to it.  Otherwise I think we might end up putting her name on the waiting list to switch over to cubs.

Rhys had to cook a vegetarian meal for his chef’s badge last week, and in the end we decided to keep things relatively simple.  So he made a hidden veg tomato sauce and pasta.

I wasn’t sure how well it would go down because it’s not something the children really eat that much (they prefer cheesy pasta to tomato sauces), but they both said they really liked it.  With all the vegetables that got blended into the sauce it was really healthy too, so I think it’s something we’ll start making more often.

Now his next challenge is to make a pudding with a vegetable as one of the ingredients.

I’m thinking carrot cake might be the way to go for this one, but Rhys didn’t seem too excited when I suggested it to him.  I’m not sure if he’d be thrilled with the idea of any pudding made out of vegetables though to be honest, even though I doubt you can taste them at all in the end result.

Do you have any ideas for any other tasty puddings that have vegetables in them to inspire us?!

We had a bit of a change to our routine this weekend.

The children’s swimming lessons, which were able to start up again last weekend, have changed to a new time.  For as long as I can remember they’ve been going at about 12.30 on a Sunday, and we’ve built our day around that.  But now Rhys has been moved up to a new class where he’ll be swimming lengths instead of widths, so we’ve had to change things around.

The swim school have been brilliant and managed to find a slot for Nerys in a class just before Rhys’ new session, so they’ve both now got lessons later on in the afternoon.

Rhys had his first lengths lesson yesterday and his teacher said he did really well and tried really hard, and seeing how tired he looked by the end of it I think he really did give it his all!

Nerys also got on really well in her new time slot, and luckily she was still with the same teacher as before so things were still nice and familiar.  We also found out when we arrived at the pool that one of her friends from school was starting that day too, and they ended up being in the same group which she was really happy about.

I think this new routine will work out quite nicely once we’re used to it, with most of Sunday now opened up again for us to get out and about.  And once we can go back in and watch the lessons at the poolside it’ll be even better again, although I’m really not sure when that will be.

We also had virtual parent’s evening last week which, like last year, was done over the phone.  We were sent some pieces of the children’s work on Class Dojo to take a look at before the phone call which was really lovely.

I always love having a bit of a nose through their books to see what they’ve been getting up to at school and see how challenging some of the work they’re doing is.  Most years I’m surprised by at least one piece of work that seems much harder than I would’ve expected from what they tell me at the end of each day!

The children’s teachers were both happy with how they’ve been getting on this year, and had some lovely things to say about them being enthusiastic learners and keen readers which has helped them a lot with their own writing as well as with comprehension work.

I just can’t quite believe that we’re already at this point in the school year where we’ve had parent’s evening.

It feels like the summer holidays are suddenly not that far away and another incredibly strange school year will soon be over.

And to think, we all thought this would all blow over in about 2 weeks when it all started last year!

I think I’m just going to stop saying anything hopeful about the rest of this school year.

I’ll just take things as they come, without thought or comment on how much time the children will actually be in school, with their friends and their teachers.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that, after another full week in school, Rhys came down with a stinking cold at the start of the week so had Tuesday and Wednesday at home.  I think under ‘normal’ circumstances I would’ve sent him in, to at least see how he went in school.  But the way things are at the moment our school are still asking that children are kept home if they’re at all unwell, even if they don’t have any of the main covid symptoms.

So Rhys had 2 more days at home, my week has been fully thrown off with that the bank holiday, but at least Nerys and I had a lovely walk home from school on Tuesday, just the two of us.

We did have to stop under this tree for a few minutes to shelter from a sudden hail storm.  But other than that, we made the most of having a bit of extra one-on-one time!

Rhys is feeling much better now and both children went off to school smiling this morning.  And while I would normally comment something along the lines of ‘hopefully we’ll manage a full week of school again next week’, this time I’m just not doing it.

If this last year has taught me anything it’s that we can be much more flexible and adaptable than I thought, so whatever will be, will be this term and one way or another it’ll all be fine.

Right?!

April turned out to be a bit of a busier month than I thought it would be.

I hoped it would be a month of getting back into the rhythms and routines of both children being back in school after the Easter break.  But as it turned out we managed a week of that before Rhys came down with some kind of bug.  He had a headache and generally wasn’t quite himself on the second Monday back at school, and that evening he had a pretty high temperature.

So we all ended up having to stay at home while we got him tested.  We were almost certain it wasn’t coronavirus, but had to check before letting either him or Nerys go back into school.

Luckily we got the negative test results in time for us all to be able to get out and enjoy the sunshine on his birthday.

That’s when we took this month’s family photo.  Towards the end of a lovely walk through Singleton Park, before we headed back to our house for pizza in the garden with Nana and Pops.

We’ve now managed another full week of the children being back in school, and I’m back to feeling hopeful that we’ll make it through to half term at least without any more disruptions!

There are a few things to look forward to as well, now we’re heading into May.

We can form an extended household again from the 4th, which means the children can go and stay with their grandparents again and we can all go in each other’s houses when we need to.

The children should also be able to go back to some of their activities outside school too in the next few weeks.  Swimming lessons are starting back up again and Rhys can go back to cubs as well, even if that’s outside still for a while.

There’s even talk of the Swansea air show going ahead this year which will be amazing if that actually happens.

What are you and your family most looking forward to over the next month or two?

You know when you say something, and even as you’re saying it you know you should stop because you’re bound to jinx things, but you still say it anyway?

I knew when I wrote recently about how hopeful I was that the children would have a full term in school after the Easter break that it was a silly thing to do.

I didn’t think it would come back to bite me so quickly though!

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that the children made it a week and a day into the new term before needing to stay home for 4 days after Rhys developed a temperature.

He had a headache last Monday morning, but still seemed fine in himself so off he went to school.  By the afternoon though he was also complaining that his chest was sore and his breathing felt a bit strange at times.  And by tea time he had a temperature.

We ordered a home test for him on Tuesday morning, and he was an absolute star doing the test with Steve when it arrived on Wednesday.  And luckily the results came back as negative by Friday morning.

It was all a bit of a rollercoaster though, with everyone stuck in limbo (and in the house) while we waited for the results to come through.

We were fairly certain it wasn’t coronavirus, but it was still such a relief to have the confirmation from doing the home test.

And the biggest relief was that the results came through in time for us all to be able to celebrate his birthday at the weekend!

With all the different restrictions still in place we still couldn’t have a party for him, but we were at least able to get out for a walk in the sunshine through the park with my in-laws.

And as luck would have it we bumped into two of his friends while we were there so he got to stop and have a play and a chat with them for a while.

Then it was back home for pizza in the garden with nana and pops, a visit from his great aunt and uncle, present opening, and then finally a late night with movies and youtube and roblox.

All in all not too shabby a way to turn ten.

Now, if we could manage the rest of this term without any more disturbances, that would be great!

Do you ever have those moments when you look at your child and it seems like they’ve changed overnight?

There’ve been times when I swear my children have grown inches in their sleep, and other times when their facial features seem to have shifted from one day to the next.

I looked at Rhys the other day and his face just looked different.  He’ll be 10 soon and I think his features are starting to change again as he moves into that strange pre-teen phase.

Nerys, on the other hand, just seems to catch me out with how tall she’s getting.  All of a sudden she can reach things that she couldn’t quite get to a few months ago.

She’s also looking different these days because she’s decided to grow out her fringe.

Most of the time at home this is how she looks, hair falling in her eyes, not quite long enough to tuck behind her ears.

On school days her hair needs to be tied back so we tend to do a ponytail and then twist and clip her fringe out of the way.  I’ve been practicing doing French plaits as a way of getting her fringe out of her eyes, and I can do a half-decent job – when I have the time!

In the mornings before school though there’s not quite enough time and I get flustered with it being so fiddly, so for now we’re sticking with me practicing at the weekends and keeping things simple on school days.

I did try just plaiting the whole section of fringe in one day (instead of splitting it into 3 and then plaiting those sections together) and that was so much easier, but her fringe escaped within about 10 minutes.

So for now we’re still just waiting it out, relying on her trusty hair clips to keep the hair out of her eyes at school.

Have you (or your child) ever grown out a fringe?  Do you have any top tips or ideas for getting through this strange in-between stage?