Night of the Slepus

Arya and Ducks

The plan was a simple one: Have a lazy weekend, just the three of us. It mostly worked.

After a late arrival on the Friday, we went out on the Saturday and enjoyed a day in Ely in the glorious sunshine. There was a bit of an event on for the city's arts festival, and we picked up some flyers and most notably a thing about Ely Cathedral's resident's pass, which means I can get free admission if I prove I live in CB6, so expect pics of Arya running wild between the pews any time soon.

Chocolate babychino; that might
have helped.

As a red letter moment, Arya drank her first babychino! She also, for good measure, helped herself to one of the two gluten free cherry bakewells I traditionally buy when we go to Costa and have always previously split with Hanna. I guess this is growing up.

Unfortunately, Hanna took a fall, so we opted to defer going to the playground after we got back to Littleport and had had super-posh spaghetti carbonara (with pancetta and chorizo left over from last weekend but one's paella.) In retrospect this was a mistake. Arya had been out of the pushchair for much of Ely, including trying to appropriate a kiddie car while I was buying drill bits in Argos, but it wasn't really energetic enough. Much of the rest of the day was spent locating Dr Bear (as the bear her maternal grandparents bought for her on the day she was born, and who now wears the Build-a-Bear surgeon's scrubs, has come to be known.) She found his scrubs - discarded after she insisted he be undressed - and was determined to find him. She'd wanted to do this last weekend, but I missed him due to his being concealed in the middle of a shelf at eye level.

Currently what she loves about
swings is being pulled way, way
back and released.

All in all, not getting a playground trip or anything left her sleepy-but-energised late in the day, such that bedtime was a bit of a struggle. She wanted Mummy and let me know it when I took her to bed, but after a short time she shuffled over and snuggled up for sleep, tiredness winning out. She stirred a little in the middle of the night and called for me (always moving,) and by the time I'd settled her I drifted off beside her, an advantage of her sleeping in the other big bed. Hanna got a bit freaked out, as she hadn't heard me get up.

On Sunday it was grey and wet, but we went to the park anyway, since we weren't making that mistake again. On her insistence, Dr Bear came with us. Arya was canny enough not to try sliding down the wet slide, even after Mummy gave it a dry off and shifted the immense puddle, but apparently it was dry enough for Dr Bear. Afterwards, she flatly refused to allow him to be placed in the washing machine, which at least shows a good grasp of the fact that some things ought not to go in the washing machine.

Slepus and Dr Bear

The afternoon was very sleepy, and we mostly watched TV and played with her 'Key House'. We watched Cars 2 again early on, and she was delighted to see a truck with Cars characters on the side pulling out of the playing field (a fairground was packing up as we arrived.) Post-playground she cuddled up with Dr Bear a lot, Dr Bear being a surprise hit this weekend given that he has normally been a bit of an outlier. By comparison, Babby was apparently on the outs. I could not even guess why.

The future of British medicine. Or
banditry.

Not that this stopped her dropping him down a wet slide and leaving him in the mud for Mummy to pick up, while Daddy hummed the Lonely Man Theme.

She was a bit of a trial this weekend with that boundary thing, but I think I managed to crack another of the obstacles that has seemed insurmountable. She will not say thank you for her dinner after she's eaten, but I think that is because she associates 'thank you' with the act of receiving something. If I were to place her plate in front of her when she was sitting, I suspect she would say thank you without prompting, but when she comes to the table and finds food there, it makes not sense for her to say thank you; not because she is ungrateful, but because it isn't the situation she's been trained to say thank you in.