Mini Beast

Mini Beast

So, when I left you last I  had just stepped off the hamster wheel.

Although, I feel I have just hopped straight onto another one, albeit one with slightly prettier scenery, as while I have been winding things down a bit at work, everything else has suddenly stepped up a gear at home.

With Zachy starting school in September (SCHOOL!!!!), the past few weeks have involved a couple of visits to his new classroom, where he has met his new classmates and his new teacher, while I have been given many many many forms to fill in.

As an August born baby, he will be one of the youngest in his year and this has been playing on my mind a little bit.

He was not nervous at all.  Just walked right in, zoned in on a table stacked high with dinosaurs, and as I started to slowly back out of the room, he did not look back once.  Not once!

I watched him through the glass as he happily helped himself to a fairy cake from the plate being offered around and then when he thought no one was watching, quickly swiped another!

I took this as my cue to leave.

“Was he ok?” was the first thing I asked when I returned to collect him an hour later.

“Absolutely fine!” they reassured me.

Oh.

But for every new start, something else must always come to an end.

Pre-school graduation.  A mini beasts themed party, where all the children leaving nursery to start school are given a certificate and soft bear dressed in a graduation cap and gown.

I did feel a lump rise in my throat as he took his seat beside his little buddies, but as his last day is not for a couple more weeks yet, I am saving all my best tears for then – those little drops sliding down my cheeks were actually beads of sweat, as tends to happen when you stand directly in the glare of the sun for 30-minutes on one of the hottest days of the year.

So, there is much change afoot in the Grenglish household.

Everywhere I turn, there seems to be one era ending and another beginning.

Some I am more reluctant to let go of than others.

Like my thirties.

I AM GOING TO BE 40!

FORTY!

In 5-weeks today.

I do not mind the turning of 40 so much, I do not even mind (too much) that I will be closer to 60 than to 20, but I do feel sad that my thirties will be over.

FOREVER.

To mark this occasion, and to getting off the hamster wheel, and to Zachy starting school, and to having our birthdays a day apart, we are throwing a little shindig.

If you have any advice on how to throw a joint end of 30’s/end of job/starting school/turning 4/turning 40/kids/adults/possibly Superman/probably Spiderman/maybe Batman themed party, without losing your mind, then please do let me know.

We have opted for an afternoon get together because half of the guests will need to be in bed by 7pm.

The other half will possibly have passed out by then anyway.

Yep, Rock and Roll, baby.

Obviously there will need to be food for the little people, cake, balloons and some form of entertainment that does not involve me leading them all in a few rounds of Simon Says.

In an ideal world, I would like to spend the penultimate day of my beloved 30’s drinking Prosecco and chatting with friends, old and new.

But then who will remember to put the candles on the birthday cake and hand out the party bags?

For the record, party bags are EVIL.

Whoever invented the party bag should be banished for all eternity to a small room (preferably in my house) and forced to fill 30 assorted bags with environmentally friendly, politically correct toys and organic snacks, all the while chasing RSVPs, and sticking to a tight budget of £2.50 per child.

Party bags will be the end of me.

The grown-ups are not getting party bags.

They will be lucky if our budget stretches to a packet of crisps to share, after we received the quote for the children’s buffet.

‘GIVE ME A BREAK’ I cried out to the universe.

And, it would seem that the universe listened and promptly gifted me an unexpected day last weekend with nothing to do, no-one to see, and even arranged for the Greek God(zilla) to be selected to play cricket, so my lovely lazy day was not interrupted by whichever major sporting event happened to be on the telly.

It started so well.

After lunch, we took the scooter to the park and had fun exploring the different gardens and getting lost in the maze.

We chased butterflies and birds and squirrels.  Well, I watched while Zachy did.

Then we went to the playground where I pushed him on the big swings for what felt like an hour, but was probably only like 15-minutes.  He climbed on the big frame, crawled through a tunnel and rocked on a wooden horse.  When I asked him to stop walking up the slide because there were people at the top waiting to slide down it, he threw a bit of a strop, which resulted in me picking him up and carrying him out of the playground over my shoulder.

Once outside, I tried to distract him with a bumble bee that had just landed beside me.  He came over, bent down to inspect it and then in one swift movement, lifted his leg and stamped his foot down hard on the bee.

He completely squished the bumble bee.

I was horrified.  All the other parents in the park were horrified.  I am sure the poor bumble bee was the most horrified of all 🙁

And there marked the end of our lovely day, and the beginning of our walk back home.

*****

  You can follow me on Twitter @grenglishblogfind me on Facebookand on Pinterest as Grenglish

 

Image courtesy of  Feelart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1 Comment

  1. August 15, 2013 / 9:03 PM

    I had the same experience recently with Oliver killing ants-is this formative behaviour? Poor little insects. Hope you have a fab 40th-life begins at 40 and you only flipping look 30-you need to tell me what creams you are using girlfriend x

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