I was trawling through old posts on The Potty Diaries this afternoon, checking for links to this piece in the Saturday Telegraph 4 years ago so I could compare and contrast with this piece in last Saturday's Guardian. Why? Well, mainly so I could marvel at how much the blogging universe - or at least, the one I'm part of - has changed in the last five years. Take a look at both pieces, if you have a moment, and you'll see what I mean.
But that's not the point of this post.
The point of this post is that whilst I was fruitlessly searching the blog for a link to the Telegraph piece (thank god for online archives), I realised how much more I used to post about my children than I do now. As they've grown older, the number of times they get mentioned on here has decreased; perhaps because I've become more conscious of their privacy, perhaps because my own world has expanded since I started blogging. Probably it's due to a little of both. But reading back through those old posts, two things struck me. Firstly that actually, I like reading my own writing from back then. It's funny. Probably funnier than what I write now. Almost certainly more honest - but that's a subject for another post. And secondly, that - assuming I continue to save what I write in some fashion - this blog is providing one of the things I started it for; a record of those moments I would like to somehow bottle and hold onto from my children's lives.
So here, for my posterity, are two more to add to the memory box...
Boy #2
We're trying to minimise the chances of summer learning loss - and perhaps even make some progress over the next few weeks - by working on Boy #2's reading skills over the holiday. UK residents with children aged 4 - 6 years may be familiar with the epic adventures experienced by Biff, Chip and Kipper in the Oxford Reading Tree's series of phonics books, and today Boy #2 was - very slooooooooowly - working his way through one entitled 'The Mud Bath'. In it, Dad falls flat on his face playing football, covers himself in mud, and goes home to take a bath. Whilst running the bath, he is distracted by football on the television, settles down to watch it on the sofa and - well, you can guess the rest.
Boy #2 found this hilarious. Although not quite as hilarious as I found his comment when the Dad - somewhat inevitably - sat down to make himself comfy on the sofa.
"He's just so, so, so, PREDICTABLE, Mama!"
Boy #1
Taking children to Amsterdam for the weekend is a great idea; there's lots for them to do and see, as I wrote about here. However, one should never lose sight of the fact that for many people Amsterdam is empahatically not somewhere they would take the children, and that the city caters more than adequately for people who visit it for much more adult forms of entertainment than playgrounds and museums.
I won't dwell here on a close shave we had with some red-lit windows other than to say that I think I very possibly should qualify for a Quick Thinking Mother of the Year Award; "Look over there (on the opposite side of the street) boys! Who can spot the tallest steeple on that building?" as we moved smartly past the ladies on show. No, instead I wanted to share with you Boy #1's reaction to a rather questionable poster for a forthcoming festival near Amsterdam. It featured a very ordinary-bodied woman in a bikini, with milkshake dripping suggestively down her front. There was no avoiding these posters; they were everywhere, so Boy #1 noticed one, as I knew he would.
There was a sharp intake of breath. Then, "That's inappropriate, Mum..."
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But that's not the point of this post.
The point of this post is that whilst I was fruitlessly searching the blog for a link to the Telegraph piece (thank god for online archives), I realised how much more I used to post about my children than I do now. As they've grown older, the number of times they get mentioned on here has decreased; perhaps because I've become more conscious of their privacy, perhaps because my own world has expanded since I started blogging. Probably it's due to a little of both. But reading back through those old posts, two things struck me. Firstly that actually, I like reading my own writing from back then. It's funny. Probably funnier than what I write now. Almost certainly more honest - but that's a subject for another post. And secondly, that - assuming I continue to save what I write in some fashion - this blog is providing one of the things I started it for; a record of those moments I would like to somehow bottle and hold onto from my children's lives.
So here, for my posterity, are two more to add to the memory box...
Boy #2
We're trying to minimise the chances of summer learning loss - and perhaps even make some progress over the next few weeks - by working on Boy #2's reading skills over the holiday. UK residents with children aged 4 - 6 years may be familiar with the epic adventures experienced by Biff, Chip and Kipper in the Oxford Reading Tree's series of phonics books, and today Boy #2 was - very slooooooooowly - working his way through one entitled 'The Mud Bath'. In it, Dad falls flat on his face playing football, covers himself in mud, and goes home to take a bath. Whilst running the bath, he is distracted by football on the television, settles down to watch it on the sofa and - well, you can guess the rest.
Boy #2 found this hilarious. Although not quite as hilarious as I found his comment when the Dad - somewhat inevitably - sat down to make himself comfy on the sofa.
"He's just so, so, so, PREDICTABLE, Mama!"
Boy #1
Taking children to Amsterdam for the weekend is a great idea; there's lots for them to do and see, as I wrote about here. However, one should never lose sight of the fact that for many people Amsterdam is empahatically not somewhere they would take the children, and that the city caters more than adequately for people who visit it for much more adult forms of entertainment than playgrounds and museums.
I won't dwell here on a close shave we had with some red-lit windows other than to say that I think I very possibly should qualify for a Quick Thinking Mother of the Year Award; "Look over there (on the opposite side of the street) boys! Who can spot the tallest steeple on that building?" as we moved smartly past the ladies on show. No, instead I wanted to share with you Boy #1's reaction to a rather questionable poster for a forthcoming festival near Amsterdam. It featured a very ordinary-bodied woman in a bikini, with milkshake dripping suggestively down her front. There was no avoiding these posters; they were everywhere, so Boy #1 noticed one, as I knew he would.
There was a sharp intake of breath. Then, "That's inappropriate, Mum..."
This was a sponsored post
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