You know your Toddler has seen far too many Doctors when upon receiving Thing Two's old doctors kit to play with for the first time, he immediately puts the stethoscope on and tries to listen to your chest and back without any guidance nor prompting.

Oh. Balls

Yes, actual balls, what on earth did you think I was referring to? ;)

The Husband returned home from an errand last week with a bag of 18 plastic bright coloured balls that cost him the grand total of £1.

What can I say?  A pound rather well spent.  The toddler simply adores his new balls and Thing One and Thing Two haven't left them alone either.  It's amazing how many games they can devise with just balls. 

It's always the way isn't it.....toy boxes full of toys yet give them some balls or even better, a box and they play like there's no tomorrow.

I remember making a car out of boxes when I was a child, it was verily impressive and I drew on my Nannas silver coloured tea tray with marker pen for the steering wheel.  Oops.  Such a fond memory, I think I may harass my parents for the pictures.

But yes, balls.  Stare at a pile of brightly coloured balls and try not to play with them.  Bet you can't.

Busy Day for The Toddler

 

Thing One and Thing Two are sharing their weekly special day this week much to Thing Two's delight and Thing One's dismay due to The Mother whizzing off to Spain on Thursday for two weeks and they get picked up direct from school.

Today was the day of The Toddlers '2 year developmental check' with a Nursery Nurse from the Health Visiting Team.  The Toddler hasn't seen a Health Visitor or the like since he was 9 months old.

Pre her visit I had one of those rare moments of motivation, they don't visit often so I end up having to act on them before they hibernate again so The Toddler and I went into the kitchen to do some speed crafting, speed being because like me he has a fairly limited attention span so in about 40 minutes he'd painted (with dabber paints, less mess!), printed with stamps and played with dyed pasta and followed each task by predictably throwing everything on the floor when he'd finished.

The two year checks have significantly changed since Thing Two has one, for starters when Thing Two was a toddler you had to virtually hunt a Health Visitor down and pin them to get a check, with The Toddler they are doing the chasing.  I must say the review was more like a test, with a multitude of small tests that he was given, observed and then marked on.  Unfortunately The Toddler wasn't in an amenable nor performing mood, partly because it was in fact his nap time and he was blooming knackered and secondly because he's not very forgiving of strangers.  He point blank refused to do several of the tests and sat all stoic and sceptical.  Irregardless he's apparently at the developmental level of a 30 month old on most things and a 36 months old on others.  Not quite sure if he found the whole thing incredibly exhausting or simply tremendously boring but he went out like a light when I took him up to bed.  

Unfortunately (for me) the nap was remarkably short so we wasted some of the sunny afternoon with a wander to the shops that usually takes ten minutes yet took nearer thirty with his bubble blowing lawn mower.

Inflatable

I knew it would be small but I guess the lesson learnt here is to check the dimensions before ordering. 

Much to The Sprogs joy I presented them with a paddling pool, that is after I nearly died trying to inflate it.  I may have a large mouth and the aforementioned paddling pool may be titchy but egads, I nearly passed out trying to blow it up.

Unfortunately The Toddler wasn't as impressed as Thing One and Thing Two but I fear that may possibly be a direct result of the fact that with Thing One and Thing Two in it, it didn't leave a lot of room for The Toddler.  He did however happily prance through it whilst I was filling it, another laborious task, with his shoes on and everything.  Oops.

We have the most awkward faucets in the kitchen and no outside tap.  We have tried a multitude of adaptors yet none will fit the faucet and thus allow us to use a hose pipe so I spent a small piece of forever filling up children's buckets and the washing up bowl with water one by one to empty into the pool.

Thing One and Thing Two went in fully clothed sans shoes seeing as the awful weather is a rarity so buying swimwear would be superfluous and despite not having room to swing a cat they had immense fun and succeeded in making an utter disaster zone of the garden.  The Toddler preferred to wave a sword at them then mow the lawn.

Typically now The Sprogs have some summer attire the bar steward sun has finally buggered off.