Category Archives: Sophie is parenting

The joy of sandcastles

For the last two summers, Arthur’s interest in sand hasn’t extended much beyond eating it. So you can imagine my relief (and Leigh’s delight) when on our recent holiday to Crete he began to understand the pleasure to be had from building castles in the sand.

Many a day would begin with me lying back in the sun with a book (pretty much my idea of bliss) whilst my boys readied their tools and began the digging and water gathering and moulding that would culminate in a majestic castle.

Arthur grew very attached to his little bucket and spade set, and would not go to the beach without it.

He especially loved anything to do with water. He was fascinated by a little water wheel he found that became the mechanism for filling the channel to the moat, and very amusingly got attached to a broken bucket, not quite understanding why it was always empty when he returned from filling it up in the sea.

I was not super keen on the whole getting covered in sand part, but I couldn’t resist getting involved at the exterior decoration stage. There’s something about moseying along at the water’s edge collecting pretty shells, stones and sea-worn glass that transports me right back to my childhood.

And as for Leigh – he was there! Totally rapt in the task, enjoying the banter and admiration it invited from other dads. His piece de resistance was an Arthur-sized sand car, which drew quite a crowd of curious toddlers before being washed away by the sea.

I think the inherent transience of sandcastles is a big part of their appeal – you’re working with what nature has to offer, albeit with the help of a few man-made tools, shaping it into structures that spark the imagination. And then before the next day comes the sea has reclaimed its wares, leaving behind a fresh slate for you to begin again.

I have a feeling there will be many sandcastles in our lives this summer, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else Arthur and his daddy come up with…

Postcards from Crete

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Back in the days when meaningful communication was mainly written out by hand, I always managed to leave my postcards until the last day of the holiday. And even then they were lucky to escape without a UK stamp, sheepishly sliding onto the doormat a couple of days after I’d got home. In this digital age you’d have thought it might have been easier to stay in touch. I never actually meant to be quite so absent from the blog over this past week or so. But then I suppose that is the sign of a good holiday.

So here it is, our last night in Crete, and I find myself reflecting on the days we have spent here. On turquoise waters and dramatic clouds, on delicious food and wine and impeccable hospitality.

For me, the standout moments have been those when I have dived into the bracing sea, catching my breath after a few determined strokes to turn and gasp again at the snow capped mountains overlooking the beach.

The weather has not always been perfect, but Arthur has been undeterred from his ongoing stone-throwing mission, the skills perfected on the Devon coast making him at home on Cretan beaches and providing the ideal topic of conversation to bond with his fellow toddler travellers.

Leigh has excelled in making sandcastles. A talent that has lain dormant for many years, but one which I think we will all enjoy this summer.

We all took to Chania, with it’s ancient harbour and winding streets spilling out delectable seafood – quite literally at one point when we had to pause to allow an octopus to cross our path en route from water to table.

The list we had compiled in late night chats and perusals of the guide book of places we wanted to explore lay almost entirely untouched, but whilst there’s much we didn’t get to see we loved what we saw.

There will be more posts to follow once I’m back and settled into reflective mode, but for now suffice to say that the little corner of Crete we have experienced was well worth the travels. Hopefully we’ll make it back some time to see some more, but in the meantime here are some of the many moments we have enjoyed this time round.

This week my word of the week is holiday.

(I might have been back for a few days now, but I’m still there in spirit)

Say it with a song

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Arthur is having a very musical week this week. More specifically, he is immersing himself in the world of song: he appears to be a sponge for the lyrics he hears, and is managing to reproduce them pretty accurately with very cute (and sometimes very amusing) results.

He’s always been into music – unsurprisingly perhaps given the gigs and festivals we’ve taken him to and the fact we love to listen to music at home. But this love for lyrics – or the ability to remember them anyway – is a fairly recent thing.

It started when ‘The You and Me Song’ came on the radio. Now I love this song, but I’d almost forgotten about it when Jo Whiley used it to begin her show. She often does that to me – spins a tune that returns me to the recesses of my record collection and has me hunting for my old CDs. I started singing along, and Arthur was quite taken with it too. And before I knew it he was singing ‘you and me always, and forever’ over and over again. I’d like to think it could be our theme tune.

Then, with a bit of a cultural shift, came ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. This one’s obviously been on his radar for a while, but he surprised me last weekend with an almost word and note perfect rendition of it – right up to the little boy who lives down the lane. I’m still impressed when I hear him sing it – which is good, because he sings it a lot.

The other thing he’s been doing is singing songs from the movies he’s been watching, and this is where it gets especially entertaining.

Like (I hope) most toddlers, he likes to boss me around, often telling me to ‘move it!’ if there is something in his way or otherwise not in exactly the right place. But this week, whenever he’s given me that order, it’s been like a little lightbulb has gone off in his brain, flashing up his favourite scene from Madagascar. And then, with a grin on his face, he launches into ‘I like to move it, move it, I like to move it, move it’. Seriously funny, though I’m not sure I should be laughing quite so much at my little tyrant.

This morning he had me in hysterics again. We were walking down the stairs in our pyjamas, me holding his hand as I am wont to do, and he began to sing ‘Let it go! Let it go!’. I responded in my usual gushing, proud mummy way – and he stopped, looked me very seriously, and said ‘let go’. I guess he didn’t want me to hold his hand after all.

I’m finding the development of Arthur’s language skills such a joy, and his ability to reproduce what he hears – and twist it to fit new situations – particularly fascinating. The fact that his current propensity for singing is turning our lives into one big musical is just an added bonus!

I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

My word of the week this week is musical.

Coming up for air

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I’ve been increasingly single-minded over the past few weeks. At the beginning of January, I started work on the third draft of my second novel. This was a pretty intimidating prospect – with every new draft the stakes get higher – and I struggled at first to pick up momentum. But as I got deeper and deeper back into it, helped by some great feedback and a couple of lightbulb moments, I became increasingly confident in my ability to make the changes I needed to. And as I got closer and closer to the end, working on the edit was pretty much all I wanted to do.

And then, this Tuesday, I submitted it to my agent. A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders – now all I have to do is wait and see what she thinks!

Well, I say all I have to do. My single-mindedness has definitely impacted on everything else: my blogging activity has slowed to a trickle, the laundry has piled up, and all my good intentions to do more exercise have come to not very much at all. I have also not been giving Arthur quite as much attention as perhaps I should have been. I mean, I’ve been here. Physically. But my mind has not been entirely present…

So that was my main aim this week – to begin to re-enter the real world and enjoy hanging out with my awesome son. We’ve spent lots of time at the beach, hanging out with friends and just throwing stones.

I finally put together the rebounder that’s been cluttering up Leigh’s study and is a key part of my ‘get fit for summer’ exercise plan. That was foiled slightly by Arthur’s insatiable appetite for bouncing… But I’ve had lots of fun getting reacquainted with my hula hoop whilst watching him bounce up and down.

He’s been asking after yoga lots too, so getting back into that is my next goal – we were doing so well with our morning yoga sessions but those too have suffered in the quest to get this novel finished (again).

My brain is still feeling a bit fuzzy after all its hard work, but fresh air and exercise are definitely helping. I have a growing list of ideas for blog posts, and hopefully soon I’ll find the time to actually write them!

There’s nothing quite like the buzz of adrenalin and sense of achievement that comes from bringing a major project to a close. But there’s something pretty special about the peace and space to breathe that comes in its wake as well – and that’s what I have been enjoying most of all about this week.

My word of the week this week is breathe.

Five signs that spring has (almost) sprung

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Alongside everything I have been doing this week – creeping ever closer to a completed third draft of my novel, keeping up with Arthur’s ever-expanding social calendar, and supporting Leigh through another wave of deadlines – there has been the faint bubble of anticipation. The sense that, after weeks and months of the dark and the cold of winter, spring might finally, actually, be just around the corner.

Arthur and I were at my parents’ place last weekend. Although they’re less than an hour away, and still on the sea (well, the estuary anyway), the environment there feels very different. They are surrounded by countryside, and there is no escaping the shifting seasons. So it was there I noticed spring first. It took me almost by surprise, but it has not disappeared since we returned to Brixham.

Flowers

Arthur has learnt the words for primrose, snowdrop and daffodil this week. He sought out the little patches of colour as we traversed the woodland, and I couldn’t help but notice the shoots beginning to seep from winter branches. Back home we saw that our own daffodils had finally burst out from their buds, trumpeting the promise of warmer, lighter days to anyone who cared to listen.

Eggs

For the past few months my parents’ chickens have refused to lay. The flock was expanded at the end of last year, and ever since their nest has remained empty. In the past few weeks they have seemed to call an end to their strike. Looking at the beautiful eggs they are now producing in abundance it seemed way too coincidental to have nothing to do with the coming of spring: and on doing a little research I discovered that sure enough, the longer days have much to do with the chickens’ willingness to release their eggs into the world.

We travelled home on Monday with a collection of them, almost too lovely to eat.

I am pleased to report that they were delicious.

Weather

One thing that spring can be guaranteed to bring is crazy weather, and this week has most definitely not disappointed on that front. On Tuesday, we were woken up by a hailstorm at three am – it was so insanely loud I thought for a while it might dislodge the slate on the roof. A few hours later, we woke again to pink skies reflecting off the sheen of an almost perfectly still bay, the only sound being the squark of seagulls and the distant drone of fishing boats heading out to sea.

A text came through from a friend as I was getting Arthur organised to head out to his drama class, saying that we should make the most of the glorious day. Just as I was sending my agreement, the rain rolled in. Yet by the time we were ready to leave it was beautiful once again. Dark clouds gathered before the day was done.

The weather this week has most definitely been unpredictable, but not entirely unpleasant.

Warmth

In the moments when the sun has come out, there has been no denying this week that it is starting to get warmer. There have been points when I’ve almost been able to taste those delicious summer days, children laughing as they play for hours in the great outdoors, parents watching over them whilst basking in the rays themselves,

We had music today at Lupton House, followed by the precious coffee and catch-up I’ve come to so look forward to. Afterwards us mums stood and chatted as the children played, tentatively exclaiming our delight at the warmth which filled the air.

Hope

This is perhaps the least tangible of the signs that spring is on its way, but it’s no less important for that. I cope with winter better than I used to, but still during the past few weeks I’ve felt a little like I’ve been wading through treacle just to manage the tasks which make up the day to day.

But this week that sense of drudgery has been replaced with hope, with the anticipation of spring rolling into summer, of leaving the house without a coat and returning in the evening whilst it is still light.

I suppose deep down I love the seasons, all of them, for the contrasts they bring. But I cannot deny that I have my favourites, and spring is most certainly one of them.

My word of the week this week is spring.

Adventures on the South Devon Railway

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Last weekend we finally took a trip on the South Devon Railway. I’m not sure why we haven’t done it before actually, what with Arthur’s general train obsession, but we’re a bit spoilt for choice down here when it comes to steam trains. We’ve been on the Kingswear-Paignton line lots, but having had a peek at the goings on at Totnes station when we visited the Rare Breeds Farm we were definitely keen to come back for a proper visit.

The excitement started building even before we got to the station – Arthur heard a train whistle in the background and suddenly realised where we were going. Once he saw the train tracks he really couldn’t contain himself, bouncing up and down in the sling as the train came in.

We found ourselves a compartment – naturally gloriously vintage – and settled down for the journey to Buckfastleigh. It wasn’t only Arthur who was excited – there’s something so magical about being transported by steam, and the beautiful countryside views just added to that.

It was brilliant to spend some quality time as a family. Leigh’s been working super hard recently, and Arthur really misses his Daddy when he’s not around. I do, too.

As we pulled into Buckfastleigh station, it was clear there was going to be lots to explore there. There were so many different types of trains – Arthur was in his element trying to match them all up with his favourites from Thomas the Tank Engine.

He loved the little museum too: pretending to be an engine driver, and finding some actual Thomas trains to play with.

There was even a fantastic garden model railway, being tended my some older railway enthusiasts. I think Arthur would have happily watched the trains going round until it had got dark if we’d let him.

But we did have to get back, so we made our way to the platform to find a train big enough to carry us.

The light was beginning to fade as we journeyed back along the river, but somehow that only made the whole scene more beautiful.

When we arrived back at Totnes there was one more treat in store. The Rare Breeds Farm is currently closed for the season, but an owl had come out to say hello to people at the station. He was incredibly tame and friendly. Arthur was able to stroke him and give him a cuddle, and when he waved goodbye the owl flapped his wings in return.

Suffice to say when we headed back to the car it was with one very happy little boy. All in all it was a fantastic family afternoon – we can’t wait until our next trip on this very special railway.

Encouraging creativity

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One of my goals at the beginning of this year was to try to carve out the time and space in Arthur’s routine for him get creative – and for me to work out how to give him more opportunities to enjoy arts and crafts. My mum was brilliant at all that when I was growing up. She is an artist, so I suppose on one level it came naturally to her, but I remember always being surrounded by interesting ideas and projects and materials to just have a go.

This week, I’ve finally got round to setting up a corner of the kitchen as a dedicated space for him to unleash his creativity – and to store the various bits and pieces I’ve been accumulating. My parents bought him an easel for Christmas which has centre stage, and with a bit of reorganising I’ve freed up a shelving unit. I’m certainly inspired – though I doubt I’ll be able to keep it looking this tidy!

We’ve been making some tentative steps into exploring different materials over the past month or so. Stickers and glitter are definitely Arthur’s favourites, but I think he’s gradually starting to get over his fear of paint.

As he creates his little masterpieces, we’re adding them to a gallery in the hallway. He’s really enjoying seeing his creations on display, and he loves putting new pieces up when he finishes them!

I’ve had the niggling feeling, though, that we’re only just scratching the surface of what we could be doing. I’ve been seeking out inspiration online and in a couple of great books I’ve found, but what I’ve really been hankering after is somewhere Arthur can go and get involved in creative play with other kids, where I can see some new ideas in action and discuss logistics with other mums, and where I don’t need to worry quite so much about the mess!

So when I heard a local mummy friend of mine was setting up science-inspired arts and craft workshops for toddlers and preschoolers in Brixham I couldn’t wait to go and have a look.

Our first visit to Craftivity Lab was on Wednesday, and we loved it. The workshop was held in a lovely bright, airy space split into different zones for exploring, experimenting and getting messy. Whilst everything had clearly been very carefully planned (this week around the theme of weather), Amanda was keen to let the children take the lead and interpret her activities as they saw fit – with guidance if they needed it of course.

Arthur loved the sensory tray, and was especially keen on throwing the cotton ball clouds (or were they snowballs?) up into the air. I made a mental note to get some extra ones for home to satisfy his urge to throw – even he can’t cause any damage with cotton wool…

He was soon drawn towards the painting, and although he’s still not utterly convinced he hasn’t stopped talking about rainbows since.

He wasn’t so interested in the chromatography, but it took me right back to early science experiments at school! I reckon it’s definitely one to try again when he’s a bit older…

What I think is particularly exciting about Craftivity Lab is how closely Amanda is observing the children playing and learning and creating to inform her planning for future sessions. She couldn’t help but notice Arthur’s love of throwing (to be fair, he wasn’t the only one…), and is going to build that in with some more physical activities next week. I’m already looking forward to it!

I feel like I’m finally making headway with encouraging Arthur’s creativity, and now that we’re a bit more organised I think there should be plenty more opportunities for arts and crafts fun. I’m definitely still on the look out for more ideas though – so if you can think of anything Arthur might enjoy then please let me know!

My word of the week this week is creativity.

Jump and splash

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Whenever we’ve left the house this week, Arthur has been a boy on a mission. As well as the ongoing desire to throw whatever he can get his hands on, especially if there’s water involved, he has been on the lookout for puddles – because by jumping in himself he can make an even bigger splash! Fortunately all the rain we’ve had recently has left plenty of puddles for him to play with. We wrapped up warm on Monday to catch the last of the daylight when the sun finally came out, and we’re rewarded by a beautiful rainbow over the bay. Our initial plan had been just to kick a ball about, but we couldn’t resist the temptation to wander down to the pool, our heads full of dreams of summer. Naturally a swim was out of the question (though Arthur did ask), but as we meandered along the poolside we found the biggest puddle ever and he contented himself with jumping and splashing until he was thoroughly soaked. There were plenty more opportunities to get out and about as the week progressed. Arthur’s oddmother came to visit, and he had a brilliant time showing her all his favourite stone-throwing and puddle-jumping spots. In fact we were convinced at one point that we were going to have to spend the night up at Berry Head after he found a particularly satisfying muddy puddle and spent a good half an hour filling it with gravel and jumping and splashing to his heart’s content. There is nothing like a toddler to put a positive spin on rubbish weather. Though I’m still dreaming of the day when the jumping and splashing we’re doing will be in the pool itself…

My word of the week this week is puddles.

In pursuit of sleep

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‘One step, two steps, three steps forward; one step, two steps, three steps back’

These familiar words from one of Arthur’s current favourite songs are fast becoming the refrain for our ongoing adventures in the world of sleep.

I could go on…

‘Stop! Listen! What’s that?’

Ah yes, the dulcet tones of a waking toddler deep in the middle of the night. Always, of course, at just that precise moment when you have managed to find a little corner of bliss in your own slumbers.

We haven’t had things easy over the past couple of years as far as sleep’s concerned. Not that we’ve exactly made it easy on ourselves… Embracing extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping whilst shying away from any form of sleep training was always going to elongate the process. At least that’s how it felt every time I spoke to someone who’d chosen a more conventional path.

But actually, over the past month or so, things have definitely begun to change. Once he got over the pure excitement of having the sides off his cot Arthur really began to embrace his new sleeping quarters. We even had (whisper it) a couple of nights where he slept through and woke happily of his own accord around 8am, chatting away to his toys until we went down to greet him.

And then of course he got sick. And the fever woke him every hour and all that would make him feel better was booba. And when that had passed the lingering cough punctuated all our night times and it was just easier to bring him in with us.

And then he got better. And this week we’ve had some of those magical full night’s sleep experiences again.

(I should add at this point that whilst my two year old seems to be mastering sleeping through the night I have yet to get the hang of it again myself. I’m pretty sure I used to be an excellent sleeper, but the lack of interruption is currently a little unsettling…)

But, looking at all of this on balance, I would say we are most definitely making progress. And I’m happy that we’ve done it without ever having to leave our son crying in the dark, alone.

He really loves bedtime at the moment. His face lights up when it’s time to go upstairs, and he enjoys every second of his little routine with daddy.

Teeth, the ritual washing of selected bath toys, nappy, pyjamas, stories. He has acquired a sleep sheep – at first this was a purple plastic number which conceptually seemed to soothe him, but we’ve since progressed to a silky squidgy Welsh creature which is far more comfy to cwtch up with.

I still step in for the closing moments, cuddling up with Arthur in the dark for some bedtime booba. But often now he’ll happily lie down awake, and be asleep within seconds.

Most of the time when he wakes in the night he’s happy to settle himself. The times when he cries out for us and needs our comfort are getting less frequent. Though we still always go to him then, and we still have a bedside cot in our room for when he just needs to have us close.

As I write this I can hear him fidgeting over the monitor, and no doubt after a few steps forward we’re now due a step back.

But we are getting there, and the holy grail of an uninterrupted night’s sleep might just be in sight.

In fact we’re leaving him overnight for the first time ever this Saturday whilst we enjoy a bit of well overdue romance.

And do you know what? I think he’s going to be alright.

My word of the week this week is sleep.

Solitude

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For a long time my greatest fear was being alone.

I’m not sure when it started. Possibly around the time that I stopped believing in the fairies at the bottom of my garden and realised how mean people could be.

Often I would feel lonely even in a crowd. Especially then.

It took me forever to shake that gnawing teenage angst that no-one really understood me – or even wanted to. I had friends. Some really great friends, I can see that now. But at the time my paranoia wouldn’t let me appreciate them as much as I should have.

As you can probably imagine this didn’t bode terribly well for functional relationships. In my twenties I pinballed between variously inappropriate men: some lovely, some not so lovely, but none the right person to fill that chasm in my soul, however much I tried to convince myself that they were.

I began to think I should maybe look elsewhere, and decided to give internet dating a shot. It wasn’t really my thing, but I convinced myself I was being old-fashioned. I knew an increasing number of people who had found their soul-mate online after all.

One evening, after a couple of glasses of wine, I settled down to fill in the (rather lengthy) questionnaire which would give me access to one of these internet dating sites. As I made my way through the questions, responding as honestly as I could, I couldn’t help but begin to feel excited. This site was building such a detailed profile of me that it promised to only show up ‘deeply compatible’ potential partners. Whatever idiosyncrasies I feared I may have, well, they would have them too! No more trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, so to speak. This was it: my chance to find the perfect partner.

And then the results came back.

They started by saying they were very sorry, that this didn’t happen often. Well, ever actually.

But in their database of over three million people they did not, in fact, have a match for me.

This really makes me giggle when I think about it now. And it did then too, once I’d got over the initial shock. No wonder I’d had trouble finding love, had never been able to shake that niggling feeling of being alone – there simply wasn’t anyone out there who I was compatible with!

I decided it was time to make peace with myself, to accept my wonderful uniqueness for what it was, to begin to revel in being solitary rather than being afraid of it.

It didn’t last long. A couple of months later I found my future husband (sort of online as it happens) and the rest, as they say, is history.

Whilst I think I had finally got to a place where I was happy on my own, it’s hard to put into words how wonderful it was – and still is – to have found the person I’d been looking for. We have only been together for five years, but in that time we’ve shared so many adventures.

Now that we’ve embarked on this great adventure of parenthood together I’ve pretty much forgotten what it feels like to be alone. And the little person who has shared almost every minute with me since his conception almost three years ago does not care that I’m a bit peculiar. In fact he probably loves me even more because of it.

I admit that nowadays there are even times when I crave a bit of solitude.

But then I look back at how far I’ve come, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am finally happy in my skin. And whilst it might now be a moot point, I am no longer afraid of being alone.

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Sophie is…

on a journey of (re)discovery in a brave new world.

Category Archives: Sophie is parenting

The joy of sandcastles

Postcards from Crete

Say it with a song

Coming up for air

Five signs that spring has (almost) sprung

Adventures on the South Devon Railway

Encouraging creativity

Jump and splash

In pursuit of sleep

Solitude