Chinese New Year Crafts, Chickens and Children

Chinese New Year Crafts

Chinese New Year paper dragon

Thursday is our toddler group day, and this morning we set up a Chinese dragon craft to celebrate the new year which falls on Monday 23rd January 2012.  Together we made a few of these sweet paper dragons which were a slightly modified version of this one.  C + H weren't that interested in making them at the group - they never care about crafts when there is a huge hall to run around - so we happily finished them off at home.

"K" and I have been running the group for one year now and it has been customary to pass the responsibility on to other mums, to share the task.  The group has been running for at least 35 years, and is a village institution!  Nobody feels able take it on though, so last week we held a meeting to propose a rota scheme.  Hardly anyone turned up today!  I do hope it's just a coincidence...

Chickens

Our cockerel

Our new additions have been providing much amusement, and a brilliant anchor outdoors.  It's been a little easier to get the boys outside first thing in the morning now that they have an exciting reason to go.  Especially lovely given the bright, crisp mornings and pinky sunrises we have been blessed with here.  On their first few days with the new chickens, the boys were so impatient to greet them that we were the ones waking up the cockerel rather than the other way round.  Richard, our cockerel, is quite a character.  A very gentle soul, who seems to need more time to find his courage and voice.  One late afternoon, as the hens were making their way indoors, he decided to fly up into a tree and managed to get his wing stuck in the dense patch of twigs.  All his flapping made his predicament more sticky and his distress cries were echoing round the darkening farmyard.  After we cut away at some of the branches, the cockerel managed to find an exit and dived to the ground, making a quick and rather embarrassed dash for the henhouse.  I couldn't help but giggle along with C + H!

Another fun chicken story (I have already grown rather attached to these 4)... Late afternoon a couple of days ago, and I was making my way across the garden to close up the chicken house for the night.  Suddenly I heard loud squawking and saw two of the hens jump on top of the henhouse, flapping their wings and hopping up and down.  Richard the cockerel ran straight across the grass, jumped over the fence, shouting and cursing in chicken talk, and obviously very unhappy!  I couldn't see one of the hens, and my first thought was that a fox had got her, frightening the others in the process.  I picked up a stick and made my way quickly into the run, opened up the nestbox to get a good look and saw.... a kitten.  Curled up sleeping in the straw.  Quite an over-reaction from our cockerel don't you think!?  The missing hen had simply gone to sleep on her perch, apparently oblivious to the small nestbox visitor.

Children

These children NEED time outdoors

Our children have all been quite grumpy recently.  I am trying to blame it on the amount of bugs that have been going around, resulting in sleepless nights, tiny appetites, and reluctance to step foot outside. In our house, tired, hungry slightly unwell boys cooped up inside = fighting, screaming, and difficult behaviour.  Add to the equation an unwell baby, a frazzled mummy and an overworked daddy and I suppose it's no wonder I haven't really enjoyed the last few weeks.  We always problem-solve this sort of thing.  Tom and I sit down together, and we think 'right, if we do x,y,z then we should see improvements' and sometimes it works but a lot of the time it's just depressing because nothing changes and we can't see what we're doing so wrong.  I sometimes feel guilty that we want to homeschool the children when we are so far from the parents we want to be, and should be, and will never be the parents they deserve.  I often hear the term 'good-enough' parent, but it's the sort of advice I'd give a friend, without following it myself!

However, there have been good bits - of course there are many good bits.  In between all the fighting, there has been much big brother-baby bonding and nothing makes me happier right now than to see the 3 of them laughing at the same jokes, and playing on the rug together, and connecting.  The twins help with Rupert so much that I wonder how I'd cope without them.  If he cries in the car, they are the ones than can turn it into giggles.  If he bumps his head on the floor, they know how to talk to him to help him understand "these things happen in life".  That's what they say to him, in the sweetest tone, and it works.  They have been teaching him animal noises, and it fills them all with pride.  They value him, and he adores them.