Inflatables

Is it a slide?
Is it a bouncy castle?
Whatever it is, our family gathering wouldn't be complete without it.

All families have their different traditions. Whenever Chells come together we choose to inflate this, whatever this is, and watch with amusement as the kids hurl themselves down it. They begin in a conventional manner with an 'on their bottom slide', but being the adrenaline junkies that they are, soon come up with more adventurous ways to get their adrenaline fix.

What's that in the background?

The masked assassin

About to pounce/bounce

Collision imminent

It was a near miss
Shemily remains in one piece

The Long Drive

With our families living at opposite ends of the country, no matter where we live, it's always going to be a torturously long drive to visit them. We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we said  'I do'. However, blinded by love, we never really considered the implications of what 3 youngsters confined to their car seats for 5 hours would do to our sanity.

This weekend past we embarked on the 5 hour drive North.
The little darlings behaved impeccably on the way up.
But the journey back down wasn't as successful.

I blame the weather; warm temperatures and clear skys.
Although only a mediocre 19 degrees outside, inside our dark green heat absorbing greenhouse of a car, it was stifling.

Twenty minutes into our journey I provided Shemily with her third drink and received an abhorrent look from AC.  He wasn't happy about the potential toilet breaks and nappy changes that could result.

The further south we drove the hotter it got. The hotter it got the more irritable the children became. The more irritable the children became the more irritable we (the parentals) became. By the time we reached the Midlands we all needed a break.

We parked by the only patch of grass suitable for a 'run around' at Leicester Forest Services.

Rolling with the Big Boys in the HGV car park

The barbed wire was a cause of concern

We struck Gold. On the other side of the embankment we found a field. A place where we could stretch our legs without the worry of the kids throwing themselves in front of a lorry. We frolicked around until the novelty of it all wore off. We all got back in the car feeling good again. 

London Calling

We usually celebrate special occasions with a box of Coco Pops. So I was stunned when AC declared my 28th birthday should be commemorated by a trip into London to see Wicked. With our traditions cast aside he got a bit giddy and even booked us into a 5* hotel the night before, AC and Myself that is, the children remained behind with their Ginger Aunt. A night away wouldn't hold the same appeal with 3 over-excitable octonauts in tow.

Any expectations we had of the hotel were exceeded shortly after booking in when we stepped into the lift. It was gold.

Already more than satisfied with our choice of hotel we were blown away when we entered our room to behold this view.

Tower Bridge behind Tower of London

Now for a good nights sleep and a lie in. The Ginger Auntie wouldn't be enjoying the same privilege.

What the heck? We awoke the next morning at 06:10! At least it was to the hum of London traffic and not to the pounding of my bladder by the jumps of a small child.

We spent the day doing the one thing we usually can't - relaxing. After breakfast we went to Hyde Park for a lie down. After a while we took a break from resting so AC could throw sticks up a tree in hope of freeing a plastic snake he'd spotted. He thought it would make a nice gift for the A-Bomb.

It wasn't meant to be. The snake remained entwined in the branches despite his MANY attempts to free it. We consoled our selves by having another lie down.

The rest of the day was spent drifting between sights, sitting down, and eating.

Wicked was excellent. It was completely unpredictable, there were as many twists and turns as one of AC's ballet routines. However, I was relieved when it finished. I was beginning to feel the repercussions of the 06:10 start and longed for bed. We headed home.

About 300m from the station, the coach we were intending to get home passed us by.We legged it. Finally I was reaping the rewards of my recent jogging efforts. I felt like I was flying through the streets at superhuman speed. And I wasn't out of breath. 

We ran straight to our gate and AC struggled to get through the automatic door to the coach that was leaving. 

But he couldn't. 

Because it wasn't an automatic door. 

It was a locked door. 

We watched as the coach began to pull away. 

The coach driver took pity on us (thank goodness) and signalled for us to go out the side door where he stopped and allowed us to board. How nice. It was worth the trip to London just to experience the warm fuzzy feeling that came over me.

Say Cheese

It was a quite a few months ago now that Missy lost one of her front teeth in a freak accident at home. Whilst launching a full blown assault on her uncle-to-be she fell mouth first into the piano stool. There were tears, but they weren't accompanied by the high pitched squeal that usually indicates any real harm... yet.

I made my initial examination; she had a fat upper lip and it was quite obvious that her tooth was no longer there.

Further inspection revealed the tooth wasn't missing, it was hiding! Finding the tooth in different location than what I was use to sent me into a mummy panic. I explained my findings to Missy. Big mistake. The cries turned to shrieks and my mummy panic escalated into a complete mummy meltdown.

I took her to see Daddy at work.

Daddy, "used gentle digital pressure to reposition the labially luxated deciduous incisor. The tooth mobility, fracture of the labial cortical bone and the sheer lack of periodontal infrastructure to allow initial healing made the chance of saving the tooth low. Patient compliance would not allow splinting and a 'hands off' approach was determined as the treatment outcome."

We went home to console ourselves with Ice cream. The metal spoon was more than the tooth could take. Thankfully it came out. A missing tooth is better than a deformed tooth.

Although sensitive about her changed appearance, Missy makes the most of it.
She's a strong believer in special privileges for people with missing teeth.

The Bodge Job

The A-Bombs hair recently began to look like the style his dad use to sport as a boy of the same age. The mocking in more recent years of his mother for such an astrocity niggled away at the back of my mind and spurred me into action.

He's had his fair share of bodge jobs in the past but over the past couple of years I've honed my skills and have become a dab hand with the kitchen scissors and felt ready to progress to clippers. After all clippers are idiot proof.

Clippers have always been a 'No No' before. The screams that normally result from a haircut are deafening enough without introducing a device which makes a noise as harrowing as the drill at the dentists. However I was eager to give them a go, thinking of the slick styles I was capable of with the scissors, the prospect of what I could create with the Remington Groom Professional filled me with excitement.

Check out the tapering

How do you like your hair?

Obviously I'm not going to allow him out in public like this. I'll let AC finish it off tomorrow.