Tag Archives: boys

Being a mum of 2 boys, General

Special Times

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mumof2_boys, special times

 

I love those moments in time when I sit and watch the boys having fun with their dad and it’s times like that when I think my heart might explode.

Dads just seem to have such a different way of playing and making fun and it’s lovely to be a spectator. I often catch the boys having a game of ‘throw the paper ball into the coal bin’ or in the case above ‘throwing the pebble into the sea’. Along the way they modify the games and fine tune to ‘throw the pebble to hit the middle of the wave’ and it’s hours of fun doing just that.

And so for those reasons – this is my #magicmoments for this week

oliversmadhouse

 

Also joining up with #MondayClub from http://thevoiceofsarahmiles.com/ and http://diaryofthedad.co.uk

Being a mum of 2 boys, General

Sunny days

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Water Fun

 

 

It’s amazing what a bit of warm sunshine can do and in our house …it means one thing…water fights with the hosepipe!!! (Sadly – we couldn’t do this much last year with the hosepipe ban)

 

Waterfight...here we come!
Waterfight…here we come!

This week’s magic moment is a short one – which says a lot as it means we were having so much fun enjoying the sun.

 

 

 

 

Being a mum of 2 boys, General

How 3 4yr olds made my day!

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Gift, weeds, flower, pretty, mumof2.comYou would usually think that a 4 year old may make you a little crazy and that 2 4 year olds was a bit nuts and agreeing to look after 3 4 year olds at once would send me in search of the gin!

I have to say – it doesn’t and I look forward to the days when our son’s 2 friends come over for a play date. This past Wednesday we headed off in search of fun at Duxford Imperial War Museum as the sun was shining.

We were spoilt on arrival with a jet doing some aerobatics and the boys just squealed with delight! It was such a joy to watch their excitement and enthusiasm. What completely made my day was that each one of them went in search of these tiny daisy flowers (yes weeds to most) …they came up to me and asked me to close my eyes and gently placed a flower in the palm of my hand and then asked me to open my eyes.

Their faces were smiling and waiting in anticipation for my reaction and it was a priviledge that they chosen me to give their little gifts to. They would then run off and go in search of another one.

To some these are mere weeds but to me they were in a moment in time and so beautiful. I hope to remind them one day of how thoughtful, kind and complete gentlemen (yes age 4) they were.

Just before we left, the jet went back up and put on another display. One of the boys asked me why and I told him it was just for us. He again asked why and I said because we are so special. His face lit up again and with a big smile he said ‘ Just for us!’ and then ran off to tell the other 2 that it was doing tricks just for them.

Honoured that it was me that day.


Being a mum of 2 boys

Come now fisherman!

Dangerous beach toy

For those of you who had a guess on Would you let your child play with this? – here is the correct answer and full image.

Whilst on holiday, we were out walking along the sand dunes and came upon a whole lot of gorgeous shells…then some fishing line…and narrowly missed standing on an extemely sharp, new knife (not the one in the image). It was a chilling experience and seconds before I found it, the kids had walked within millimetres of it and I dread to think how the outcome would have been had they stood or fallen on it. I  found a safe spot to dispose of the said knife.

The next day, once we were over that incident and had shown the kids to keep an eye out, we were back on the beach and I was putting the beach towels up when our 4 year old piped up ‘Look what I found! Another one!’ A bit confused as to what he was trying to tell me – he brought his little hand up and in it was the knife above.

This time – there was the initial chill that went through my body after the shock of making sure he hadn’t cut himself and then confusion and then pure anger! The questions racing through my mind :

  • How on earth did he get his hands on it?
  • How had I missed it?
  • How can fishermen be so careless and selfish? (with silent swear words in amongst those I spose I should add)
  • How many more knives?

And plenty more. He answered very casually  that it was right next to my foot where I had stepped back to start setting the towels up. No he hadn’t touched it the sharp side.

As you can see – it must have washed up on the overnight tide as it is pretty rusty. I also think it was probably a good thing that we had shown them the one from the previous day and thankful that we hadn’t stood on it whilst jumping in the waves where we would never have seen it.

Being a mum of 2 boys

A pigeon pair…nope happy with just boys

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mumof2.com boys

It never ceases to amaze me how ‘forward’ people can be when things don’t conform to the norm (whatever that is?!). I remember the ‘do you think you are having a girl?’ question was asked during my second pregnancy as we were already had a son. The polite answer was ‘We’re not sure…it’s such a different pregnancy to our first’ which was immediately met with the ‘Ooh! a Pigeon pair! One of each…just perfect!’

The next phase of this conversation develops once we had our second son and the question changed to ‘So are you going to try for a girl?’. The polite answer was ‘No, we’re really happy with what we have been blessed with and always agreed that 2 children are enough for our family’. This was met with one of those half oops not sure how to respond ‘I see’ sort of looks and nods of a head.

The actual thought processes to these discussions went more like this :

  • Actually we’re having a boy and only my supportive husband and I know this and are really pleased because we don’t really care if it’s a boy or a girl, we’re just really happy that we’re both healthy.
  • Are you being completely unthoughtful?!? Does our youngest son’s feelings not count?
  • Not everyone needs to have 1 of each and in all fairness, I’m not a girly girl and so having 2 boys suits us completely.
  • Whether it’s 2 boys or 2 girls or more than that or less or a ‘pigeon pair’ – there are loads of people who would give their right arm or entire body just to have 1 child!

What I am trying to say is that everyone is different and ‘abnormal’ to some is normal to others. We love our boys and wouldn’t change them for the world. We balanced our house with our girl dogs!

Being a mum of 2 boys

The simple things

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The boys waiting to see whose stick came out first, simple fun, mumof2
The boys waiting to see whose stick came out first

I am not a creative person and wish I could be more imaginative yet I love how there are so many simple things do to that don’t require much more than a little imagination and effort.

Our boys love :

  • Playing pooh sticks (the game from Winnie the Pooh) where you race twigs/sticks on a stream, river,canal
  • Climbing trees when we find some on walks that are easy for them to climb
  • Collecting sticks (yes random I know) – I have had to relegate their stick collection to the garage or garden. We’re still trying to figure out if they can ‘regrow’ their sticks on trees by throwing them back into the tree…
  • Flying kites or kite wars. Kite wars is not my favourite of the two as it usually means me running over and trying to stop the kite line from being cut by the warring kites
  • Riding their bikes/scooters
  • Playing marbles
  • Running up and down our passage way and sliding near the end (it’s a boy thing!)
  • Playing hide and seek (in and out the house)
  • Puddle jumping
  • Waving at trains (they could do this for hours…not sure if I have train spotters in the making)

The list goes on – but it’s lovely to see that so many simple things provide so much pleasure and at times it’s hours. And so what if they get a bit muddy – there’s nothing that a nice warm bath and a cup of hot chocolate won’t fix.



Being a mum of 2 boys

Why is ‘why?’ sometimes ok and other times not?

why. mumof2

 

We’re having the ‘why?’ moments in our house. We’ve had the ‘why’ moments for a very long time and I have noticed over time that the tone of the ‘Why?’ has changed. It used to be the little ‘why?’ as the only word to show their inquisitiveness. In fact one day, I decided to accept the ‘Why?’ challenge and managed to answer 24 why related questions in a row.

It started out for instance ‘Why is the sky blue? to which I answered ‘because the sun shines on the blue sea and so the sky is a reflection of the sea’ (or something along those lines)  and the next question was ‘Why?’ to which I responded with ‘well the sky is made up of air and lots of little spots that are like dust and so it acts like a mirror’ (or something along those lines). The next question wasn’t a straight why but ‘why is there dust in the sky?’ and so I answered about pollution and bits of air and other things and so the conversation went on. We ended up going round the houses and I thought I was doing pretty well at around the 15th why mark (whilst driving I might add!)

By the time we got to number 20 why I started to feel like this was the Spanish inquisition and by the 24th one it was absolute torture and I gave up the challenge by answering with the traditional ‘Just because that is how it is ‘ which is a complete cop-out, but I needed to reserve the remaining mental energy for the rest of the drive home, dinner, bath and bedtime.

I kind of feel like those kind of why’s deserve the answers to help keep the enthusiasm of finding out and learning.  The more recent tone of the ‘Why?’ has recently changed to one of questioning every instruction I give ,with the added whine to it. I may say ‘Please get your shoes on it’s time for school’ to which I get the obligatory ‘Why? and so I start answering (habit I guess) and then stop and go ‘I’ve just told you why you need to put your shoes on’ and sometimes I don’t even answer and get met a few more of those.

The trickiest part of all of this is helping our eldest son understand when it’s right to question and when it’s plain rude and cheeky. I have started to tell him to stop questioning me on every instruction I give him, yet I don’t want him to be someone who just does something because someone has told him to. My supportive husband and I don’t have the answers as to how exactly we can help both him and I through the learning process and I’m sure we’ll figure it out.