In the garden - October

In the garden, in September, there were tomatoes, broad beans and rainbow chard! Lots of each! E has been eating cherry tomatoes like they are lollies and we are picking a full handful every day or two. We haven't done anything more adventurous with the broad beans this year than eat them straight from the bush, or in salad, but there are plenty for both.

The blueberries are still laden but with only a few ripe ones so far.

I thought about building some sort of fruit-fly preventing structure out of poly piping and big sheets of netting to protect the apricot tree but time got away from me so I went with what we had and dragged out the mesh sleeves and paper bags from the shed. I also couldn't quite figure out how I would deal with the fact that the tree is grafted and one half always flowers/fruits well before the other - so far one half has big enough fruit that it needed bagging, and the other half is still mainly flowering with only a few tiny fruit.

And the roses are back, and glorious.

Family meal times - household rules

We had a particularly galling lunch time on Saturday, that involved E refusing to use a fork or spoon and so smearing lasagne all over her (new) blue and white dress as well as the chair (despite it's protective cushion), me taking her plate away several times and then relenting and giving it back, and lots of raised voices and general unhappiness from both of us. Sadly these kinds of episodes are not uncommon at the moment. 

After I had calmed down, cleaned up and sent E to her room to listen to CDs, I decided that we should write a list of family meal-time rules. She is a creature of habit and whilst she does not respond well to arbitrary authority, if she thinks something is a "rule" then she is generally more willing to comply with it. So later that day we sat down and wrote our list. This is what we came up with:

* Stay still;

* Sit on your chair with legs forward;

* Eat over your plate;

* Use knife and fork;

* Don't talk with your mouth full;

* Always ask by saying "please";

* Be grateful for the meal;

* Afterwards, put your dishes in the sink; and

* Wash your hands before and after.

Interestingly, E came up with almost all of them, so she clearly knew what we expect of her even if she isn't always willing (or able! I need to remember she is only four!) to comply with our expectations. Hopefully this will help - it will at least mean we can say "remember the rule about sitting on your chair" rather than issuing seemingly random demands.

Poo, snot and roses: a suburban weekend

On Saturday morning I escaped for a spot of child-free grocery shopping (the relief of walking out the door alone! the part of me that cringes that that is a luxury!). Returned home with a mountain of groceries hopefully big enough that I will not have to venture near a shop with either child anytime soon. Discovered that whilst I was gone E had amused herself by going to the toilet, not wiping properly, and then remedying the situation by wiping her hands on the wall.

Our darling eldest daughter has always been supremely unconcerned by poo. As a baby, perfectly happy to squelch around in a dirty nappy. A reluctant toilet trainer, seemingly of the view that going to the toilet is a waste of time that could be spent doing something else, reacting to accidents with all the nonchalance of one who would not have to clean it up. It occurred to me that, given she has been toilet trained for a good year, the wiping aversion may well be a reaction to the baby and connected to her apparent fascination with the fact that the baby wears nappies that someone else changes for her. I might add that this occurred to me after I had cleaned the walls and listened to myself growling "but how did this happen? why would you do that? In this family we wipe our bottoms with toilet paper!" (because we are so classy around these parts). Also after E had attempted to blame her decorating attempts on the cat.

The better part of the weekend involved a pause in the rain during which we snatched some time outside to prune the roses.

The rest of it seemed to involve snot, mainly poor baby C's, who has succumbed to E's germs. There is nothing sadder than a little baby with a cold. Thankfully, despite the constantly dripping nose, she does not seem to be seriously sick and is still managing to eat and sleep. And E is well again and returned to kindy today - hurrah! How was the weekend around your parts?

Chopping, watching, eating a carrot: everyone's respective roles in the pruning.
Aren't you glad I chose a picture of the roses rather than anything else we
encountered this weekend?!