First Boyfriend

This week's big news is that G has her first boyfriend. They met in the old-fashioned way, at nursery.

Mrs J first became suspicious a couple of weeks ago, when she arrived to pick up G, who wanted to take an Octonauts toy home with her. "You can't take that with you, it belongs to nursery," said Mrs J. "But N said I could take it," pleaded G. The nursery leader let them take the toys as long as they brought them back, which might say something about G's negotiating skills.

Since then, Mrs J has noticed that G and N are usually the last children left in the group when she goes to collect G. Clearly, romance has blossomed during this time alone together. In the car on the way home on Tuesday, unprompted, G announced: "N is my boyfriend. And I am a girlfriend". When she got back and Mrs J relayed this news, I asked G what N was like. "We play with toys together!" she said, excitedly. All very sweet, but I suppose I'd better be ready for her to come home inconsolably upset one day, just in case.

I took this picture yesterday, during a walk at the lake at Clifton Country Park.

North East Weekend

We were in the north-east of England over the weekend, visiting G's granny and then another friend of ours. My mum lives in Washington (the original one), so on Friday we went for a walk around the Old Hall, the ancestral home of George Washington's family.

They'd long gone by the time George was born, but no matter, the historical connection is maintained. Not just through the hall, available for weddings (such as one that was about to take place when we visited), but also in the American War of Independence-themed names given to various housing developments in the 'new town' bit of Washington. However, with all the roundabouts, I doubt old George would see much of the Concord he knew in Massachusetts in the north-east version.

I've been coming to the area to visit family for years. So long in fact, that on taking G to the Discovery Museum in Newcastle on Saturday, I realised that I'd actually been there as a child myself. These days there's a huge water table at toddler height, demonstrating the bridges and traditional industries of the Tyne. Here's G having a go at a bit of crane operating:

Later, we took her bowling. It had been a while since I've been, and Mrs J was alarmed to discover that technology has moved on in recent years, so you no longer have to use inflated bumpers in the lanes when children are bowling. Bumpers just pop up and down for certain players.

So, inevitably, G ended up beating her mum, although the balls were a little bit heavy for her to manage on her own:

Changing Kit

Quick change... vine.co/v/bFzjtwxldEK

— Lorraine Jones (@raynejones) April 13, 2013

I've written before about how G now goes to ballet and then football on Saturday mornings. There's not much time between the two classes, so a quick switch of outfit is required. Mrs J captured it yesterday using Vine (it's the new app from Twitter that lets you record six-second videos which play on a loop).

This is basically the pre-school equivalent of Superman changing in a phone box. Only with the additional knocking down of a few gender stereotypes.

Scarred For Life

There are many sounds which are regularly heard around a house with a toddler living in it. Three in particular usually come in sequence: the sudden crash, the brief silence, then the wailing cry.

The longer the silence, the louder the cry, the more serious the accident. So it was last Saturday afternoon, and we rushed through from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs to see what scrape G had managed to get herself into. Scrape being the operative word, as she was lying at the bottom of the stairs with a big red mark where the skin of her nose used to be.

She'd actually only fallen onto the stairs rather than crashing from the top all the way down, so at least we didn't have to take her to A&E. In fact, she'd more or less forgotten about it within five minutes. But she's been walking around all week with a big scab directly between her eyes and it still hasn't entirely healed, because the cut at the top is actually quite deep.

This has left me wondering whether she'll always have a little mark there. Will she be late for an important date/job interview/her own wedding because she's still splodging make-up all over it, cursing the day she tripped over in the hallway? If so, at least now she'll know exactly when that day was.

On The Merry-go-rounds

Mrs J took a day off work so the three of us could go to a family fun day at Red House Farm, just down the road near Altrincham. There were various attractions including live performances from assorted CBeebies favourites, but G was only really interested in going on the rides. We had the bus first, then inevitably the train:

Then it was the bus again. G went for several goes on the top deck, a seating preference she'll undoubtedly keep throughout her teenage years:

 

There was one of those chair swing rides too. When I first tried to put G in one of them about a year ago, she sat down happily enough then burst into tears just before it started going. No such problems this time though:

It was a good day out, but pretty cold in the relentless wind, especially as G kept insisting on playing outdoors. So by mid-afternoon we were quite keen to get into the warm. But to get G to leave we had to promise that I'd do some baking with her once we got home. Here she is, all set to measure out the flour:

Easter Egg Hunting

It was a busy Sunday of Easter egg fun for G. We started off in our back garden, where G got down to the serious work of finding little chocolate eggs that Mrs J had hidden about the place.

Not that G was in the mood for sharing them out afterwards:

We then went for an afternoon at Dunham Massey Hall near Altrincham. It's a big National Trust pile, and there was a trail laid out in the gardens for little ones to follow. Not that G was initially too sure:

But she soon perked up, and particularly enjoyed sitting in this tree:

On the way around, we encountered some chickens:

And eventually G was rewarded for completing the trail with a(nother) chocolate egg. Which she is going to enjoy rather more than this photo, when we dig it out at some future social occasion:

Little Footballer

To go along with her ballet classes on Saturday mornings, we've signed G up to go to football lessons too. She has to go from one more or less straight to the other, which means changing from a pink outfit into a blue one. Her football kit arrived on Thursday, and she was very excited to put it on and run around the house in it. The excitement only dimmed when I took her into the back garden for a kickabout, and she looked at me over a curled lip and muttered "it's too windy daddy" before trudging back inside.

I was sleeping off a night shift on Saturday morning so Mrs J took her along to both ballet and football. She reported back that G had a great time at the footy, but that "her ball control is a bit of an issue". Having suffered through Scotland losing at home to Wales on Friday evening, I can say that this technical flaw may not necessarily hinder my Scotland-qualified daughter's prospects of an international call-up.

Her football skills need some work, but she did return clutching an Easter egg, which she won for doing the best colouring in her group. Up to now, colouring hasn't usually been considered part of an athlete's training programme. But given that the Easter egg is clearly far too big for G to manage on her own, I'd be happy enough for her to bring one back every week.

Scooting To The Hairdresser

I took G for a haircut last week. Or, more accurately, G took herself, scooting along like this as I ambled along in front. We were only going a few streets from where we live, but it still took ages. So long in fact, I gave up after a while and had to pick both her and the scooter up, and walk to make sure we got there in time.

We would have got there sooner if G hadn't spent ten minutes refusing to put her helmet on before we got out of the house. Every time I went to fasten the clip of her strap tightly under her chin, she burst into tears and stomped off. On about the fifth time, I managed to distract her enough with something else to finally get her helmet on, and she realised it hadn't been anything worth getting upset about in the first place. Fifth time is better than five-hundredth time, but still, I don't intend to let her make a habit of it.

Washing Up

G has got over her recent bout of chickenpox, but not before we spent last week stuck in the house with her. Some working from home from Mrs J and me got us through G's regular nursery days of Monday to Wednesday, and I was back at home as normal with her on Thursday and Friday, although I was reluctant to take her anywhere until the last of her spots had definitely scabbed over.

Which meant we had to do a lot of home-based activities, including plenty of baking. But as this picture demonstrates, it's not just the stirring and licking the bowl that G can take part in these days. She's developed an urge to help me do the washing up afterwards too.

This means that either I'm becoming increasingly obsolete in our household, or perhaps she's already thinking about her first teenage Saturday job in a restaurant. G might have to grow a bit first though, I'm not sure standing on chairs is generally considered acceptable in most kitchens.

Chickenpox

G's remarkable run of having avoided all of the main childhood illnesses finally ended this week. Nursery called on Wednesday afternoon to say she'd come down with chickenpox. Nearly three-and-a-half years with nothing worse than a couple of mild bouts of conjunctivitis means we've all been pretty fortunate, and I didn't mind too much staying in on Thursday and Friday to take care of her.

Taking Calpol ("pink medicine") is something G does quite willingly, but then it is sweet enough to make me consider a sly spoonful whenever I get it out. But rubbing the inevitable calamine lotion over G's spotty body was a bit more like hard work. Trying to attack a particularly large scabby one in her left ear, I had to virtually pin her down over my knee to keep her from wriggling, while also trying to get her lengthening hair out of the way.

I got the cream on, but it didn't last very long. Twenty minutes later, as we were sat next to each other on the sofa watching TV, G said: "Daddy, look!" and I turned to see her holding out her finger, the scab from her ear on the end of it. Almost enough to put you off Twiglets for life.