My son is 10 now, which means that for the past 8 years we have had toddlers and pre-schoolers in this house. Yep. I might need some sort of certificate. 🙂
Like probably loads of mums to the under 5’s that little oasis of calm in the middle of the day when your babies (generally) go down for a nap is something you might guard with the snarly madness of a rottweiler. That time for me is ..making tea time, doing washing, tidying…and then maybe a cuppa before the inevitable school run crazy hour.
Thing is generally your pre-schooler is going to drop that sleep long before they start school so that period of time in the day after lunch before school can stretch out before you like a line of peppa pig characters. I have for the most part of the 8 years had an older toddler and a younger one. The younger one needs the sleep, the older one doesn’t. So we are often times confined to the house. Which is good for getting jobs done but not so great when you are a lively 3 year old who looks blankly at you when you say in your best cbeebies voice ” HEY you want to help me sort some socks!!!” IT will be SUCH fun!.
So what do we do? Walk that fine line between allowing the one eyed nanny take over the entertainment so you can get some stuff done or give over the whole afternoon to building track, play dough and crawling around on your knees pretending to be a dog.
Lately I have started to try and plan these times..not all the time but when i can. This time can be so often just be the same, for me, the toddler. They are yellow days when things merge into others, days fly past and my little ones can just be passengers on the journey that revolves around my older kids. I have started doing regular baking with my pre-schooler. To break up these yellow days when it is so easy to let the afternoon gallop by and Im aware that as one of 5 she gets little time by herself and this opportunity will disappear in September when she starts school.
This week we had lots of lemons, they were on offer in Aldi..so when life gives you lemons…well we made biscuits!! Seems appropriate on my autumnal theme week that we go with lemons. They turned out to be pretty yummy too!!
