The Big Induction

I'M SULKING

Just home from the school induction for my youngest daughter. It was wonderful I already knew it was a good school but from the PTA doing drinks and nibbles through to the teaching staff and dinner ladies it was all perfect.

So why am I sulking?

My baby is leaving, I could have cried through the day in a life of the foundation children. What a contrasts from my feelings with my first child going to school. I was thrilled and excited for her, but now 5 years on I am devastated about loosing my baby. Maybe because it's an end of an era or is it because it felt like only yesterday my eldest started school.

I desperately want to put the brake on life I have loved my time with my girls as babies but every day it is obvious my baby is growing up and my big girl is getting bigger.

I feel the same emotions I felt leaving my eldest to go back to work. I hated that feeling so much I started my own business

I have worked so hard at my businesses to make sure I wouldn't have to go in to full time work when they both went to school. I am glad I have achieved that goal as it's important to me to be at the school for drop off and pick up and i knew full time work wouldn't allow that.

So with tears ( and that is so not me) rolling down my face I will raise a toast to the Small Furry Hotel and all those that have stayed here for being my 3rd baby that has given me the opportunity to have a flexible work life balance and keep me busy when my girls are not at home.

Picture is the week we started www.smallfurryhotel.com My little girl has gone from baby on my hip to professional bottle washer and filler

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Brownie Camp

In less than 4 weeks my little girl will leave nursery it will be a really sad day for me and that part of our life comes to an end. My youngest being an October baby is really ready to start school and can't wait to get her uniform and be skipping up the road to school with her big sister.

Unlike her sister she will start full time straight away. This year we were given an option of when they could start full time. My eledest daughter was very upset that her group couldn't stay for lunch like the older group. So I discussed it with the girls and we have opted for full time straight away.

I found with my eldest daughter it took her a while to not come out of school exhausted. Back them we did lots of clubs, which I think looking back was too much. So this time we will hold off with clubs till the January.

My Eldest daughter who is 8 is off on her first Brownie Pack holiday later in the year. It goes wthout saying she is very excited. I really enjoyed Brownine camp as a child even if it was a little like Borstal back in the 80's. My three memories were

1. I picked up a Marmite sandwich instead of a chocolate sandwich. Another Brownie told me Marmite tasted of Ear Wax which put me off a little. I was then told I would have nothing else till I ate it.

2. We were bored one night doing arts and crafts. One Brownie stapled her finger and then several other Brownies had a go.

3. I also remember "The Jobs" I can not stand drying dishes and so I developed a phobia which I manged to sell to the other Brownies and Brown Owl which ment I got to wash the dishes - job done out to play and leave the other poor Brownie to dry endless dishes. Mind you I was taught how to wash dishes properly at the Brownies.

Funny the way the world has changed I had to sign to say I was happy for the leader to use plasters bandages etc and I had to sign to say I was happy if they cuddled my child if she needed it.

Anyway the girls will have a marvelous time with all her friends as Brownies is a Great Organisation for Girls

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Jobs for Toddlers

Lots of my customers seem to be starting families so I thought I would share some of my experiences of having babies/ young children with pets. In this post I will mostly discuss small animals.

Our babies were born into a home full of animals. However for the first few weeks of my babies lives I had all my animal looked after by others so I could get to grips with the baby without worrying that the animals would suffer. Within four weeks I had my brood back together, pets had had a nice holiday I had had time with the baby.

For the first few months nothing much changes but then the toddler emerges and is desperate to try everything.

At this point you have three options
1. re home pet ( which I don't particularly agree with unless the situation is desperate)

2. Try to keep the Toddler away as much as possible from the pet.

3. Start to slowly introduce toddler to pet and enjoy your pet together ( my preference)

If a parent likes pets usually the child will. If the parent doesn't like or is scared of pets then the child will be the same.

My advice is involve your toddler in the care of your pet ( under your supervision at all times). Everything will take longer but if you relax and start to involve the toddler you will all start to enjoy the experience.

My girls first started their career in animal care by filling the food bowl, they can do this from a very young age. Eventually I direct them to to feed "top draw orange bag etc". So by the time they are pre schoolers they knew their colors and felt quite important.

The next job is filling the water bottle. It will get filled infill, splashed about but who cares kids love water. My girls started filling bottles from a bucket, then they learnt how to use a tap. Now at 4 and a half my youngest can un screw a bottle fill it and put it back together and put the bottle on the hutch and run. She will also tell you the water will be yucky if left too long so we must do it every day.

My girls also love the dust pan an brush. They start very young using them as drum sticks. We then have hours of sweeping bedding over the pan and throwing it over the bin bag! But by 4 years old my girls are seasoned sweepers!!!

When they are ready they start to help me change the bedding. It is lovely to see them trying to arrange the clean bedding. Once they have finished all their jobs we give the pet a stroke. The girls are then very proud of the jobs they have done and slowly I am teaching them how to enjoy caring for their pets.

I always instill in my children we always wash our hands after caring for the pets and they must never deal with their pet alone.

I use caring for the pet as an activity, therefore I can never understand why people don't have time for their pets when they have a baby. Life for everyone changes when a baby comes, change is not always bad it's how you deal with it.

Hope you enjoyed this post
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Update

Well I gave an hour of my life to my last post and lost it. How that happens with automatic save I do not know. Well my last "lost" post was all about my trip to Warminster in my caravan. We had a lovely time and remembered why we had it. We were only 20 minutes up the road but it felt like we were on holiday. The girls had a great time riding their bikes round and round. By the end of the weekend they were taking on the big hill. I asked them not to do it as they would fall off and hurt themselves. My 4 year old told me it would be ok and she would look after herself. Ten minutes later WAAAAAAAAHHHHH yep she has come off her bike. Daddy is feeling terrible at this stage I am not. My view is I told her she would hurt herself she didn't listen and she did!! Hopefully she will learn enough of these lessons so when she is older and I tell her she will hurt herself riding a motorbike at 100mph etc she might listen. I comforted her and we discussed the safety issues of taking your Dora bike with stabiliser full pelt and still peddling down a rather steep hill. We agreed that she could use her grazes for show and tell lol as she was now very proud of her war wounds!!

My favorite part of the weekend was when my youngest daughter said to my eldest daughter. " Have you finished with that boy yet as I want a go with him" they were referring to a 5 year old boy who was pretty speedy on his bike.

My youngest only has a few Weeks left in nursery and she is already taking about leaving her friends, it's all very sad and emotional. On a brighter note the nursery is having a Pirates and Princess party and we have donated a free hire of our Pirate and Princess castle.

A few weeks after that and we will be heading south in our caravan for our two week summer break in the South of France.

I have a mound of preparation to sort out before we go, leaving my brood behind takes a lot planning.

Enjoy your wet Sunday all our guest at the Small Furry Hotel are enjoying a day in as it is so wet. here is a video from yesterday. The little pig in the background is really pleased to see his friend Click here move the cursor to 1 min 20 sec. The piggy starts doing bunny hops with excitement. He even does them in the house

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The importance of getting away

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