My older girlfriend

Had a lovely weekend this weekend.  Adam (Matt's best man) came down with his daughter Leia who is 4.  Unusually for Tom, he accepted her straight away, no shyness, no clinging to me.  She bossed him about and he was quite happy to be bossed about and went wherever she asked him to go.  Fantastic, this meant we could all relax and didn't really need to involve ourselves that often - how lovely.

Splashing in Granville

After a make your own pizza and a catch up we took Leia and Adam to Granville for some fresh air.  Leia was on good form, running this way and that and even treating us to an impromptu performance of some songs.  She was a pink blur full of energy and not at all shy.  Tom just followed in her wake and managed to keep up (but no singing from him).  They both enjoyed splashing in the puddles, so much so that Tom had to be stripped down to just his top before being allowed in Adam's car to go home.  We tried to get a good photo of the two together, but neither would stand still.

The plan for the evening was to go to the Donnington Fireworks.  Leia really likes fireworks, we weren't sure about Tom, but thought we would give it a go.  We gave the kids an early dinner of hotdogs and then walked down.  Then it all went wrong.  The bonfire was supposed to be lit at 7.00 and the fireworks started soon after.  The bonfire didn't get lit until 7.30 - not a good start.  Then we waited and waited and waited.  Not great with two little ones.  Leia got herself some sparkly pink hair which amused both of them for the wait (don't you think Tom looks great - very Baby Spice!) It got to 8.45 when I finally found someone to ask what was going on.  Apparently there had been congestion on the road, so they decided to delay everything (great! - if I was stuck in congestion I would turn around, not think that the fireworks would be delayed for me!)  They finally started at 8.50.  Tom cried immediately, but I think by then he was just too tired to cope with anything new.  I took him home, leaving Leia and the boys behind, but apparently Leia, who was also tired by now missed Tom and followed quite soon afterwards.  So, a complete disaster - thanks Telford!

Baby Spice?

On the good side, both children went straight to sleep, so we grilled ourselves some hot dogs and burgers in the lounge, watched the football and then went to bed ourselves, not exactly the night we had planned.  As Adam had predicted, Leia was up dead on 6am.  I could hear her shouting so went down to check on her, Adam was still spark out and he looked so tired last night, I couldn't bring myself to wake him up.  So I stayed with Leia and we played in her bedroom for a couple of hours until the boys were up.

We took Leia and Adam to Cosford in the morning.  Tom and Leia continued to play really nicely - at one stage they were rolling on the floor kissing and hugging each other - how cute!  After inspecting all the planes, buying a 'nellow elicopter' and a play in the 'fun & flight' area we continued on to Codsall Station pub for fishfinger sandwiches and to watch the trains (there weren't any due to engineering works!) before saying our goodbyes and heading our separate ways.

A very good weekend - haven't seen Tom so animated and play so nicely with someone for quite a while, so good to see.  We also risked Tom in pants for the weekend and he did really really well.  At Cosford he had his first wee on an adult toilet - he enjoyed it so much he did it 3 times, looks like we have wee wee sorted - can't believe it has been so easy.