Dear Boys - Letter of Life 1 (Family Friday)

My Dear Boys

This blog was started to give you a written memory of your childhood.  As the blog is developing it is becoming more than that, because as well as accounting for our time and memories together, I am finding that I am enjoying writing about parenting from The Mother Ducks perspective and that is helping Mummy keep a clearer mind and is really quite therapeutic.  Good for Mummy therefore Good for Daddy and Good for Children!

However, I do want to keep a good memory book for you boys so I am going to try and do it in this format, my Dear Boys letters.  Let's see how it goes shall we.  Good.  Then let's get started.

This week we have mostly been... on our annual family caravan holiday.  By the time you read this, that sentence should make you smile and hopefully say 'oh we've got one of those coming up!'  What made this one so special was that Nanny and Grandad were again with us on this break, Daddy didn't have 'work to do' so was there both in body and mind, J2 was no longer just a sleeping and eating bubba (sometimes throughout the holiday this was seen as a positive and negative!) but best of all we discovered that there is such a thing as an 'Adapted Caravan' so we could wheel J1 in and move him around the van just as everyone else could!

Now this letter isn't going to be a blow by blow account of our day to day activities, number one that isn't interesting for anyone and number two I just don't have the time, but I like to look at things more in a 'What have we learned from this experience?' manner so here we go:

We learned that both you boys love to swim.  And mummy loves you to swim because it uses up pots of energy and J2 was having the best naps in the afternoon.  Unfortunately our house doesn't have a swimming pool though.  We also learned that both you boys prefer to have Daddy in the swimming pool, this suits Mummy as she learned she really is turning into her mother when she heard herself bellow 'Stop getting my hair wet!' as Daddy and J1 blasted her with the water gun.

We learned that J2 can hold his own in the Playground and even at 18 months old went for the biggest bit of equipment with no fear.  I suspect that this fearless gusto is not going to subside as you get older...

We learned that with or without remnants of Hurricane Katia, at the Races you WILL get wind burn on your face.  I wish I had a photo of us all glowing after Day One of the Races, but maybe luckily for you two, I don't.  We also learned that Daddy's habit of talking to anyone and everyone can pay off when you get a 60-1 tip that comes in.  A final point about the Races is that when Mummy has marked a horse because it's what she always says to J1 (Too Many Questions!) you should never change at your mind at the last minute, because it will come romping home and be 18-1 (not that I was or still am bitter about it...)

We learned that Mummy and Nanny enjoy an hour at the Bingo, just because it's 60 minutes of peace and quiet, but, if the Bingo caller is too fast they can't keep up and resort to collapsing in fits of giggles and getting glared at by the 'serious' players (although how you can be a 'serious player' when there are only 20 people playing is a bit of a mystery to me).

We learned that when you are taking a caravan holiday with 2 children that don't sleep through the night, the whole party will need matchsticks (and/or strong coffee) to keep their eyes open in the morning.

We learned that our two beautiful boys have the ability to make us smile, no matter how tired, wind burnt, jaded about missed horses, told off at Bingo, bad hair day subjected to we are and nothing beats that.

To our next family holiday.

All my love - Mum. xxx

(BTW I am aware that this is a Family Friday post being blogged on Saturday but we didn't get back until yesterday and there was much sorting and washing to do!)