Doing Something Different

Today was a small adventure day. Lately, our schedule throughout the week has been pretty rigid:
Monday - baby swap
Tuesday - play group
Wednesday - baby swap
Thursday - singing time @ library
Friday - baby swap

It's great to have a sense of routine, but we've needed to switch things up a bit.

Yesterday I needed to stay home to await the arrival of my shiny new residency card (well done, UKBA), so we skipped baby swap. Plus, I wasn't sure I felt like running much in the cold and occasional flurries. Instead, I brought E outside with me when I took out the rubbish instead of leaving him inside, distracted by an episode of Small Potatoes. I bundled him up and let him run around in the grass outside our building, and once the rubbish was all cleared out, we took a short walk into the close opposite us on the mini-roundabout. We'd never been up there before, so it was just nice to give him a chance to stretch his legs while taking a small peek at part of the neighbourhood we hadn't yet explored.

Today, though...today we had a playdate with a friend. Lesley and I work with the kids at church, and she often watches her granddaughter during the day. So, I phoned up play group to tell them we'd be skiving off today (I just said we couldn't come...they didn't press me for details), and we popped over to Lesley's house instead to let the kids run around her playroom and then go outside to the lake to feed the ducks.

At times, it wasn't so much feeding the ducks as it was keeping clear of the giant swans. Seriously. That big male swan looked of a size to eat my kid with no problem. Luckily, it never came to it, but I was ready to test the theory that I could kick a bird in my boots. When a bird is larger than my child; there's a problem.

Ethan and Sienna seemed to have a good time watching the swans, geese, ducks, and seagulls devour some fruit loaf. Well, at least until that daddy swan got a bit too close for comfort. I snatched up E, and Lesley did the same with Sienna. Poor Sienna was worried for the safety of her toy pushchair, and kept shouting: 'Nanny, he'll get the buggy! Don't leave it!'

After the fruit loaf was exhausted, we moved away and tried to feed just the ducks. That never turns out how you want it to. In the end, I was manically tossing bread crumbs, just to keep the swans from getting it into their heads to jump up on the bank with us. Like I said, I didn't really want it to come to blows with that bird.

E wasn't too keen on sharing the bread that we had, though. Rather than feeding it to the ducks, he much preferred that I feed it to him! Though he was quite chuffed to watch the little mallard that hopped up onto the bank to get first choice of all the bread crumbs. Alas, I don't think he can yet equate this guy with the cartoon Duck he knows and loves.

After feeding the ducks we had a lovely lunch of spaghetti, which E rounded off by having 2 pots of yoghurt and a few bites of an extremely tart kiwi. I was impressed that he enjoyed it as much as he did. By that time, though, we were long overdue for a nap, and so, after a bit more playing to wind down, we bundled back up and got in the car...where he promptly fell asleep.

So today has been a good day for us so far. E has now had his first experience feeding ducks (long overdue, really), I got to hang out with another grown up, there were no power struggles about eating banana slices at snack time, and I've got some new clothes to mix into his wardrobe. I'm sure those will start making an appearance soon.