85 days ago our home and lives changed completely FOREVER!!!! The rooms we had ready, the car seats we bought and the mountains of toys we had given to us by friends and family finally had little fingers to play with the toys, get sticky fingers all over the car windows & even nimbler fingers to pick the wall stickers off the bedroom wall in an arc the size of a 2 year olds reach.
Our whole family has totally embraced its latest additions, from my 92yr old grandad to our 9 year old nephew, who wrapped up his own toy diggers to give as a birthday present to one of his new cousins. Our 20 year old daughter is totally adored by her 3 younger sisters who were 2, 3 & 5 only 85 days ago and are now so quickly older and, in their opinion, wiser. Some of the cute toddler phrases have already disappeared but we feel so lucky to have those early memories & are sure that conkers will forever be known as “wonkers”, “toetats” formerly known as tattoos & “a car with a flat”, also known as a campervan. But perhaps the most memorable comment was after a visit from their social worker we were all sat on the floor chatting about the visit, saying that one day soon we won’t have a social worker & our gorgeous 5 year old, the thinker of the trio, screamed “Yay, you mean I really am staying forever!”
85 days is no time at all to learn each other’s funny ways, and that goes for all of us – we are all still learning what makes things easier, how to calm conflict, who likes broccoli today when they didn’t like it 3 days ago. We are all still learning though, and learning from each other every day, they share bits of their past with us in the same way we talk about things we did when we were small.
We were lucky enough to have our gorgeous girlies at the beginning of summer so were able to spend hours playing in the garden, or at the allotment and just exploring. They love being outdoors so walking up a mountain in August all dressed as minions seemed like a fun thing to do. They were very keen on planning a holiday, something they had unfortunately never experienced before, so with a lot of planning and testing out the “party bags” (sleeping bags) we decided to give it a go. We put the tent up at home first and tried out the sleeping bags in their own beds, talked about what happened on a holiday (apparently you have a stick of rock and go to the beach!) We chose somewhere close enough that, if things weren’t going as we had hoped, we could easily pack up and come home. We spent days picking what things they wanted to take from home and what things would be here when we came back – it’s a good job we have an 8 seater mini-van !!!!! We had more cuddly toys than Hamleys, Pop-Up Pirate, enough crafts to last the winter and enough bedtime stories an insomniac would struggle to get through……… Our thought was to let them choose the things they feel are important and made them feel relaxed at home – we read ONE story, didn’t play dominoes or matching pairs once & poor old Pop-up Pirate stayed in his box! They adjusted so well to being away (it was only 2 nights in Brean) and if we hadn’t been hit by a vomiting bug (not pleasant in a tent) the holiday would have been a roaring success. They had the best time ever and talk about it all of the time & are already planning the next holiday !!!!!!
So 85 days really isn’t long but feels like a lifetime and its impossible to imagine life without our little ones now and in another 85 days we will have another big milestone – their first Christmas at home – we have planned already what we have for breakfast and we NEED candy canes on the tree & in the middle of august spent the evening singing Christmas songs – we think they wanted to make sure we knew the same ones as them ! We are sure the next 85 days will be as amazing and briefly challenging as the last but each one is a step closer to another big family event – but never as big as the one 85 DAYS AGO
