History and hoolies!!

Hi. Well here we are again, the holidays.yippee!! the children only seem to be at school for a few days when they break up again, ho hum..We decided we would brave the lovely(?) British Spring weather and take a trip out. We ended up at Hampton Court palace, In leafy Surry, 3/4 of the way round the M25. I bit the bullet, relented and took a personal dvd player for the journey, with my boy in the middle, precariously balancing it so his sisters who sat either side could also watch. I don't usually agree to electronic entertainment, instead preffering to play I-spy,red car, blue car, spot the sheep and so on, but the thought of sitting in an endless traffic jam with 3 hungry , ( picnic in the boot, D'oh!) excited, bouncy small ones made me relent. What a good call!! The journey was peaceful and we all arrived with excited smiles on our faces to the very grand home of the noble King Henry V111.

Once we'd have enough of living in Royal Tudor England we decided to see what else we could poke and play with.There was a small indoor play area, (adjacent to the gents toilets nice,) in which the girls tripped over themselves to get to which had 2 rather bouncy, noisy 6 year old boys shouting and throwing various balls around in it. My nanny/mummy training was tested with their rather distressed looking Granny who had, obviously had enough for one day. If she asked them once to get out of the ball pool, she must have asked 20 times, sadly, the request fell on deaf ears as the boys continued to shout and be complete hooligans. When a ball flew past my daughters' ear at warp speed, it took all my resolve not to wade straight in there and remove the little horrors myself.
I did feel for poor Granny though, she obviously does not carry out her threats, as they took no notice of her, but , of course, being British, I said nothing and just sighed with relief when they finally left! I think the threat of King Henrys' henchmen with their swords scared them off. Hurrah!!

the wonderful world of work

Hi, just a quicky today as I'm off to have a cuppa with my new boss!! After a very busy 8 years out of the working enviroment I've actually managed to bag myself a local nanny position. My new charge isn't even 1 yet, so lots of material and inspiration to follow!

As a friend pointed out today, one baby will be an absolute doddle compared to the last  time there were tiny wailers in my home, just one!! Imagine!! Just gotta try and remember how it's done now, that part of my life went by in a bit of a sleep deprived, grumpy blur!

My 2 5year old daughters are soooo excited, although they are rather dissapointed that he will not be 'staying the night'. I'm not! My 8 year old Son does not seem as bothered either way, I think as long as the tot doesn't wreck the numerous, dust collecting lego models that are strewn throughout the house he'll be cool
with it all.

Here goes....wish me luck..

holiday 'heaven???'

Well, it's been booked! The holiday en famile 2011. Hurrah!! Having 3 children does prove to be difficult when booking the annual holiday as we find out year after year. Most travel companies, on line and 'real' only seem to think that a family room or apartment needs only be for 2 adults and 2 small ones, or 3 adults and 1 small one. Yeah, right, like that must be so popular!? We have managed to get a 2 bed apartment which we (not sure about our luggage) can comfortably squeeze into, but, hey, it's only a week!

The girls are sooo excited about wandering around the pool edge with their ice-lollies slowly and stickily melting down their arms, whilst o.h and me are on tenter hooks waiting for the mad dash n grab when one (or both) fall, spectacularly into the water. I'm sure we're not the only parents who come home from our week in the sun feeling like we need another one.........on our own, to recover! My parents are coming too though, so lots of babysitting opportunities for them and escapism for o.h & me. Just a bit concerned my pa will have a thousand heart attacks just watching the 3 of them within 10 meters of the pool! Then I'll be worrying about him worrying! What joy. I'm soooo glad it's all inclusive so I can at least take the edge off!! 

Anyway, I'm off now to find the fake tan.................

school ruuuunnn!!!!!

Hi, all back to school today after an initially busy half term, didn't take long to get back into the swing of things. You know, the running manically out of the door, searching frantically for shoes, p.e kits, book bags, lunch boxes and reading records.....x3!!

No, not that bad really, I'm really quite an organised person, trouble is my children aren't, so however much I can do in advance, it all goes to pot if any of them (or all ) decide this is the morning they'll have a lie in, or take a leisurely breakfast!

Here comes the counting/bribery again... "If you haven't got your shoes/coat/ gloves (still freezing in March) on by the time I count to 5, then there'll be no show & tell, or tv after school etc. Although this threat has to be the final one as tv is sometimes chilling time whilst I prepare tea for everyone, so I have to be pretty late to threaten that gem!!

Once out the door, laden down with it feels, all our possesions, the walk to school generally takes around 20 minutes, but can be reduced if we take the scooters and meet up on the way with various school buddies, also using the same mode of transport with frantic parents trying to catch up with either a dog or small person in tow!!

I'ts good to get back to 'normal'!!

half term hoolies.

Hi, spent a fun and busy day in London this week with all three smalls. I reckoned it could've gone one of two ways; horrendous, due to the fact that it was well, London, in half term or, as it did, really well. (Thankfully).For the week preceeding I was using the day out as a bargaining tool to get the children to behave well. I had to be carefull though, as doing this can sometimes not  work out quite as well as it did. I knew that if I threatened not to take them due to hooligan behaviour, then I would not be able to take them. Period. Once a threat like that has been made then it's not retracted in our house, sounds really mean I know, but if they know I'm not serious then they take no notice and we get nowhere!!

It worked a treat and we had a lovely family day out, the hoolies behaved and we got tradionally lost  on the underground!! We even managed to nudge some adults out of the way to watch the shark feed! Why these adults stroll aimlessley around a predominantly child orientated attraction in half term is beyond me!?
We finally found the restaurant we had set out to invade and the girls managed to cover their entire little gorgeous faces with the most redest, unwashable pasta sauce in the whole of our capital City!! At least it was the end of the day and we only had confussed,sideways glances from harrased commuters, no doubt on their way home to their own little zoos!!

Aaaarrrrrrrr, I just love half term!

Hi, just grabbing a few quiet moments..quite rare round here, especially at the weekend! We're all feeling rather well and 'with it' today as the sticker reward system we have in place is actually working!! The girls, (5year old twins) don't sleep vey well for one reason or another, usually full bladders, bad dreams about T-Rexs (?!), or ,my favourite............aching trousers!! We decided enough was enough and drew with the girls 2 reward charts, them each recieving a sticker the morning after they had slept through. Fab!! They even had a ball choosing which stickers to use.

We have now had one whole week of uninterupted, lovely, blissfull sleep. I would recommend this to any one in the same situation, or for treating any situation/behaviour that needs to stop. For more long term effect we'll just make the charts longer, with little treats to keep their interest up, and a bigger treat at the end of the month. I'm off now to read my book.................now, where did I leave it??

About me

Hi, I'm Andrea, a busy mummy to 3 littlies. my big boy is 8 and  my twin daughters are 5. Prior to having my own I was a nanny for 16 years for lovely families in Cambridge, UK. I have had in my charge children aged between 2 days and 11 years and loved almost every minute of it! Being a nanny has proved invaluble to me in my role as a mummy. Being able to draw on my experiences is helping me raise happy, well adjusted children. I'd love to be able to share these experiences, help and learn from others.

Like most mummies,the biggest change to my life was becoming a parent, which was a change that took some getting used to, but once in the swing of things, was great fun, even with no sleep!

The next challenge came when I found out I was expecting twins! This is when my 'training' really came to the fore, testing everything I had learned and more. A whole new ball game I think is the phrase.