Category Archives: Molly

Sunshine, Sweat and Washing Lines……..

We have been sweating our what-names off of late – the British Summer seems to have arrived with a vengeance and is making up for all the times when it failed to make an appearance………Most people are thrilled to have all this hot weather – sadly, I am not one of them!!! It is a well known fact that the heat and I do not agree with each other so I have been doing my best to hide from it at all costs – which is a shame as it means I am not really getting to enjoy my lovely new washing line!!!!! Putting the washing out generally involves dashing into the garden, a la Linford Christie, pegging it out in record time and then retreating with almost as much speed as I went out there to admire it from the safety (and coolness) of the house! It is a sad fact that my most exciting thing of late is the arrival of my washing line but there you go…….

The Girls, on the other hand, are loving being out in the Garden and it is a struggle to persuade Isabel that she has to put her clothes on before she can go out there – we are also having to explain to her that she ought not to dash out there without her knickers on…….somedays the neighbours get rather more than they bargained for!!!! It is lovely to watch (again from the safe cool zone that is the house) the pair of them run round with the dog – and just at the minute, the dog succumbs to the heat far sooner than they do!!!!

Molly is busy getting bigger by the minute – her language is amazing now and we were impressed to learn yesterday that she knows (and can say) her own name………….we were momentarily disturbed that when we asked her what her name was she grinned and said “Dog!” but we sorted that out pretty quickly!!!! She can also count to 10 with a bit of coaxing – she generally misses out 2 but who needs the number 2 anyway???? I fear that we will have a job to get in her into the pushchair in the not too distant future – she is very quick to say “walk” when you unclip her car seat but has an objection to holding your hand…..she wants to run free and torment the innocent trolley pushers in B&Q and Sainsburys!!!

Isabel is on holiday from pre-school now but will be doing 5 sessions a week when she goes back in September – and she’s not the only one who is looking forward to this!!!!! It’s hard to believe that it’s only 12 months until she heads to school – where has the time gone????? For now, we are getting ready to send her on a little holiday to Aunty Catherine’s house mid week – when it was 1st mentioned she informed me that “she didn’t really want to go” but soon came round to the idea when it was suggested that she might need a suitcase of very own to take with her!!!!!

We have had Granny Pies staying with us as well which he Girls have loved – someone who is always happy to read stories and play buses/aeroplanes with the garden chairs is always welcome in our house!!! Amusingly, Isabel marched through one afternoon and declared “Err, Pies, I’ve had a wee and I think I’ll do a poo next time!” – neither Mummy or Pies quite new what the correct reaction to that was!!!!

Not a lot is on the horizon just at the minute – there are no Wedding Dresses in the pipeline just at the minute and Daddy is busy at work as usual…….busy gearing up for what is rapidly becoming his “World Tour of Work” and that will see him away for 80% of September in Kiev, Istanbul, Brussels and Mello (which is in France in case you wondered, which I know I did……..)!!!!!

Flying, Walking, Talking and anything else you can think of!

Hmmm, that whole feeling bad about it being 2 months since we last posted an update thing clearly didn’t give me any kind of boot up the rear to make a more concerted effort – we are now another 5 months or so down the line & people must think we have spontaneously combusted!!?

We are still here mind, all present and correct – so I will attempt to fill you in on what has been happening over the last few months but you’ll have to forgive me if I leave things out/repeat myself!!!!

Most of February was relatively uneventful and was mainly about getting ready to go to NZ – we managed to fit in a trip to Grandpa Peepoo’s house and then Grandma & Hompy came to stay and to inspect the new abode which we had pretty much managed to unpack by that point!!! Isabel carried on going to pre-school which gave Mummy and Molly some quality time together and also gave Mummy a chance to squeeze in some much needed sewing time (for a Wedding Dress and Isabel’s Bridesmaid’s dress).

At the end of the month we packed our bags and headed for Heathrow with Mummy wondering how on earth we were going to manage 30 hours on a plane with 2 under 3’s!!!???? We needn’t have worried though – all credit to them, the Girls were brilliant and behaved impeccably. We had the odd moment where their tolerance levels bottomed out (but didn’t everyones???) and it didn’t help that Air New Zealand managed not to order dinners for them!!!! So we made it, just about in one piece (though they did also try to lose our pushchair in LA and then make us miss our connection to Wellington by bringing our bags out last!) and arrived rather blearily at Jode & Bretts house for the 1st part of our stay! We had a wonderful time doing not very much at all other than chilling out and catching up with friends, drinking copious amounts of wine (nice one Brett!) and setting the world to rights! The end of our trip saw us move accommodation and also brought about the reason for the trip in the 1st place – Uncle Paul and Aunty Rachel’s wedding!!!!! Isabel looked fab though did as suspected and freaked out at all the people in church so walked down the aisle in floods of tears with her hand clamped firmly over her mouth! A marvellous time was had with lots of memories to bring home with us!

The NZ trip wiped out a large chunk of March as well and what was left of it was pretty mundane day to day stuff mixed with a generous helping of jet-lag…lovely!!!!

Early April had Mummy delivering the Wedding Dress she was making just before we went to NZ and saw Daddy gallivanting off to Paris on a work trip! Mummy then began work on another dress (keeping her well and truly out of mischief!) and we all began gearing up for Isabels 3rd and Hompys 75th Birthdays at the very beginning of May! We had a small gathering of under 3’s at our house to celebrate the Birthday before we headed off for a long weekend in Devon, her actual Birthday and a lovely family celebration – we attempted to introduce a new tradition that involved showing us your Birthday knickers in order to take a picture of them but strangely Isabel was a lot keener on this idea than Hompy was!!!???
The following weekend, Mummy and Daddy managed to escape for the weekend CHILD FREE (thanks to Aunty Crassin!) which was brilliant and the 1st time we had done since either of the Girls were born! We had a lovely time in Bath and managed to catch up with Mr AND Mrs Dibens which is a very rare thing thanks mainly to Julie’s training schedule so it was all the more special!

We have also been keeping a close eye on Miss Isabel who has become rather deaf over the last few months – we have now had an appointment with the nice Dr at ENT and the conclusion has been that she has a very bad blockage of wax in her ears but beyond that her hearing seems to be Ok thankfully. Continuing with drops coupled with an appointment in early August is the current treatment which may become a procedure under anaesthetic to remove the wax but we shall wait and see on that one!

Molly has also been busy of late, walking and talking – the walking was taking a lot longer than the talking but we are pleased to report that she has been a fully fledged walker for about the last month…the turning point for her seemed to be the arrival of the newest member of the Winchurst household, an 8 week old Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel called Tana (as in Umaga, former All Blacks captain and NOT Mrs Ramsey!!!) – watching him run riot around the garden seemed to fill her with envy and so she just decided to get on with it, much to everyone’s delight!!! The talking thing has been happening since the beginning of the year but now she is basically completely comprehensible which makes our life a lot easier – she’ll ask for the things she wants such as “more milk please!” although we particularly liked “Hooray! Sausage!”!!!

The next few weeks are taken up with visitors and then a trip to Devon for Sarah and Simons Wedding and a chance to introduce Tana to the rest of the Winchursts which we are looking forward to. It’ll also be the 1st time he is allowed out for a walk so we’ll keep you posted on how that goes – though don’t expect an update before October or you’ll be very disappointed!

Birthdays, trips away and a Chicken named Delia!

Last weekend, we FINALLY made it to Grandpa Peepoos house – you may remember that our last attempt to do this ended with us sleeping in the car (which really isn’t easy when you have 2 small people in tow!) then abandoning all hope of ever getting and arriving back home roughly 13 hours after we had left!!!

Saturday was Mummy’s birthday and she is still waiting for the Wisdom that apparently comes with age to kick in!!! We had a lovely day – in the morning, Mummy had a Dress consultation with one of her Brides-to-be so present opening was delayed until after lunch! The rest of the day was spent lounging in the garden drinking Pimms and then feasting on the luscious BBQ food that Grandpa Peepoo had whipped up……..the weekend was made especially nice due to the fact that not only was Aunty Jecca there, but Aunty Catherine came up from London for the weekend so fun and frolics was bound to ensue! Sunday saw more lounging in the garden, visits to see Daisy, Doris and Delia (the newest members of the Radcliffe household – they are Chickens in case you were wondering…….) to see if they had produced any eggs and a wander into Upton to have a nose at the Water Festival that was taking place over the weekend! On Monday, mummy had another Dress consultation (this time with a different Bride-to-be) so Isabel and Daddy went off in the car to do a bit of Geocaching whilst Molly had a snooze (it’s a hard life!!!) – sadly, their searches proved fruitless (that’s not strictly true, they did stop to eat a few wild Blackberries on the way!) but Daddy hopes to go back next time and see if we can find what we were looking for! All in all, a most productive and enjoyable weekend!

This week has proved to be pretty quiet – having mastered the fine art of sitting up and eating solid food over the weekend, Molly has spent most of the week developing a very unorthodox yet highly effective crawling technique!!! If she sees something she wants and you put it out of her reach she goes straight after it!!! A good example was her urge to get Isabels sparkly Peppa Pig stickers this morning – after removing them from her (though not very far) several times, Isabel was getting cross………Mummy made the point that she’d have to put them somewhere that Molly couldn’t reach them if she didn’t want her to have them – with that, she thought for a moment and then hurriedly stuffed them up the leg of her jeans that were on the floor…….a cunning plan if ever I saw one!!! We are expecting Molly to be truly mobile any time now – this adds the whole logistical nightmare that is stairgates into our everyday existence…….we were fortunate that when we moved here, Isabel had pretty much mastered the stairs so we didn’t need them but they will soon become a necessity!!!

We are now gearing up to go on our holidays – lots of washing and packing to be done which Isabel is bound to help with………Mummy bought her a new swimming costume on Wednesday which, once we got home, she was encouraged to try on for size – she liked it so much, and was so proud of it that she refused to take it off for the rest of the day…….lucky then that we had been and done the jobs we needed to as people may have looked at her a bit funny!!!! She is, needless to say, very excited about the impending trip and I’m sure she will talk about it and what we got up to for many weeks to come!

Injections, stickers and Wailing Banshees……

We had a lovely time the weekend before last in Devon – it was nice to get away for a few days………a change of scenery is always a welcome thing, and Isabel is always happy when she has a garden to play in and furry creatures to chase!

Last weekend we had a quiet time at home – the weather was a bit hot for Mummy’s liking, so a gentle stroll to Costa Coffee, a drool in the window of Ernest Jones (for Mummy anyway!) and the home to watch the rugby was a much as could be mustered! We had the usual upset from Isabel whilst Daddy (justifiably) shouted at the Referee during the Rugby – lots of “Isabel too scary!” meant that we had to try and explain that Daddy wasn’t cross with her and that the ref. was just rubbish but I’m not sure she was convinced! Sunday was much the same, though we swapped rugby for Cricket and Golf and generally attempted to recharge our batteries in time for Monday!

This week, Molly has been busy exercising her vocal chords and working on her crawling – she spends her days alternating between screeching, blowing raspberries and “Da da da”ing (and sometimes combines the 3!) whilst also getting up on her hands and knees and rocking backwards and forwards…….this afternoon, she got into the all fours pose and proceeded to pull herself forward a couple of inches – this was great until Mummy frightened the what-names out of her by clapping and yelling “Clever Moo-moo!” which caused her to fall flat on her face! She is still an expert at navigating her way round the room on her back and, like her sister, is developing a selection of Yoga poses – whilst Isabels preferred pose was the “Downward Dog” Molly favours the “Crab” which is very impressive……particularly given that Mummy and Daddy couldn’t do it, even if you paid them!

Isabel has got wind of the fact that we are (hopefully, provided it doesn’t rain too much!) going to Grandpa Peepoos house for the Bank Holiday weekend though that is apparently not soon enough – she has got up everyday this week and announced “Daddy home soon! Big snuggles, go Peepoos house in car!” (the fact that Daddy is either still in bed at this point or has just left for work seems to be a little lost on her!)……I’m opting for the tactic of telling her we aren’t going today but we are going “soon” – by the time we do go, I fear she may have got bored of waiting and will no longer want to go!?? She’s also taken to telling Molly “No Molly! Not yours! Leave alone!” or “Molly! Stop screaming!” – I wonder where on earth she might have heard that before??!! The only trauma to have occurred in the world of Isabel just recently is that she had to have an injection at the end of last week – she was quite happy until she realised that SHE was having the jab and not Molly, and this was only when she looked down and saw there was a needle in her leg! Luckily, she was instantly placated by stickers – and was even allowed to keep the whole sheet which is virtually unheard of!! (The nurse must have been feeling generous – either that or they had an excess of “I’ve just been Vaccinated!” stickers………I was a bit concerned that they might have been intended for the local vets, but Isabel didn’t seem to mind!)

Getting Bigger is very hard work!

After the excitement of our attempted trip to Grandpa Peepoos house the weekend before last, things have been a lot quieter in the life of us Winchursts – something we are very thankful for!

Yesterday I discovered that Molly’s teeth have FINALLY decided to put in an appearance, with the sharp edges of the front 2 at the bottom beginning to poke through – we are hopeful that this will mean that some of the excess grumpiness will begin to subside……..and that the torrential downpour down her chin will also start to dry up a bit! (Molly in dry clothes – imagine that??!)
This morning she has been busy putting the world to rights by shouting “da da da da da” almost consistently and VERY loudly – according to Isabel “Molly is a noisy Baba!”……I couldn’t agree more! (though I was excited at the same time as this was the 1st time she had said it – shame it was “da” not “ma” and that she had to say it quite so much………)

Isabel has continued to entertain us with her creative play – this morning, she put her plastic movie camera over her shoulder and declared that she was “Off to work Mummy! See you later! Kiss please!”……..her choice of work related equipment would suggest that she is succumbing to the influence of both Aunty Jecca and Uncle Ken – and perhaps a bit of Mummy if she continues to want to go out in her heels and oh so fashionable bag?! Mummy has also been having a job to persuade her of the joys of tidying up – this morning, I put a large pile of toys away and went to the kitchen…..when I came back she said “Look Mummy – toys back!” and sure enough, the pile was back in its original position! After failing miserably to explain to her that the toys were much better off IN the box, I opted to incarcerate her in the highchair in the hope that the toys may at least stay put away for more than 30 seconds!

This weekend, we are heading to Devon for an en mass gathering of the Winchurst Clan – it will be a long weekend as Dan has managed to wangle both the Friday and the Monday as days off!! All we have to hope now is that the weather continues to be nice! Fingers crossed……..

New gallery

For those that haven’t already spotted it, Kate has added a new gallery of photos. There is no particular event or occasion behind them – they are just a selection of the more recent photos Kate has taken. We hope you enjoy them. As always, click the photo below to go straight to the gallery.

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Molly has her half Birthday!

Even though I am finding it hard to believe, Molly is exactly 6 months old today! She marked the occasion by going to bed at 10.30pm and not waking up until 5.30 this morning – by my count, that’s 7 hours in a row and pretty good by anyone’s standards!?

She is now thoroughly bored with this baby lark and would very much like to be able to follow her sister on the great adventure up the stairs, but that isn’t going to happen for some time yet – we have just about sorted out the sitting up unaided (though someone still needs to be in grabbing distance!) and she can get to anything she wants by rolling……..you can almost see her figuring out in her mind which way she needs to go in order to get there!

She has cheered up considerably in recent weeks – she’s a lot more relaxed with people and not so reliant on having Mummy on hand…….having said that, we do occasionally have moments when only Mummy will do and she will scream her head off until she gets what she wants!

Though there is ridiculous amounts of dribbling and chewing going on, we still have no physical evidence of any teeth – given how much she enjoys chewing on my fingers, I am slightly relieved by this fact but it would be nice for some to actually break through so we can past the grumpiness and on with some serious teeth nashing!

We don’t think it will be too much longer before she figures out about crawling – and then we will really be in trouble!

[Note: to celebrate her half birthday Mummy took some photos of Molly and has posted them in a gallery. To access it, click here.]

Bedtime adventures!

Yesterday, as expected, saw the arrival of the Big Bed!! (Although it isn’t actually that big but, compared to Isabel, it’s pretty big!)

So, Mummy spent about an hour putting it together and putting the bedding on (which had proved to be quite an event in itself with both sets having to go back to be exchanged because there were bits missing!) and just as the last of the poppers were being done up on the duvet cover, fairy footsteps could be heard stomping up the stairs! As soon as Isabel saw it, she shot over and jumped in – we took this, and her refusal to get out even for chocolate, as being a good sign for later on when we would actually want her to be in it!

Two or three trips up the stairs to see her new bed ensued during the course of the day until eventually it was time for bed! As predicted, because she could get of bed she did but it wasn’t as bad as we had thought – she was in and out whilst Mummy was collapsing down the travel cot (with the occasional shout of “Oh no Mummy, tent broken!” coming from the Girls room!) but once that had happened and we had obliged her by bringing some milk, she settled down for the night. Trips in to deal with Molly during the night found Isabel at all sorts of angles but she still slept through until 7.25 this morning – Mummy was doing her best to stay in bed as long as possible so was listening to what was going on but refusing to get out of bed……..until Molly started to cry! Once in the Girls room it was discovered that Isabel had got out of her bed and had gone and climbed in with Molly – which would probably have been fine had Molly been awake when she did it!

So we are hoping that things continue to go smoothly and that we don’t have too much trouble getting her into, or persuading her to stay, in bed – now if we could just persuade Molly to sleep through the night, we’d be laughing………

Drum Roll Please……..

The Big Bed is on it’s way!!!

It’s only going to be about 10 days later than we’d originally anticipated – John Lewis are blaming the manufacturer and I’m sure the same would be true in reverse, but at least we know it is coming now and the bedding is all here and ready to go so, with a bit of luck and some self assembly, we should have the bed up and sleepable by bedtime next Monday (2nd July).

Continue reading Drum Roll Please……..

Bedtime excitement and the blank canvas of walls…..

We have started the process of “The Big Bed Move” this week – we had been hoping to do this once Isabel’s new bed had arrived but Molly’s growth rate out did us and we had no choice but to de-squash the littlest Winchurst by transferring her into the cot! I had been slightly concerned that Isabel would object to her beloved sister mustering her way onto her turf but she doesn’t seem to have cared a bit – in fact, she gets rather excited at the prospect of bedtime in “the tent”, which is what she is calling the travel cot………..the only slight hiccup is her new found excitement at being able to talk to Molly and therefore delaying sleepy time for either of them! I was particularly displeased yesterday morning when Isabel decided to arouse from her slumber at 6.45am (which is VERY early for her!) and proceeded to say “Hello Molly!!” at the top of her voice until she got a response – I’m pretty sure that Molly had still been asleep up to this point but clearly felt that if Isabel was awake then she should be too.………the only plus side was that by 9am she was exhausted and promptly went back to sleep! Needless to say, she was extremely grumpy all day yesterday – Isabel seems to be the only one who copes well with the early morning starts!

Continue reading Bedtime excitement and the blank canvas of walls…..