How many more days of spring break?

Frost is on Spring Break from school. This means I have two munchkins with very different needs and schedules at home all day.

Frost likes high volume, high activity days interspersed with hours of "castles" and "miniatures" and epic battles with small guys. He also likes TV and in the absence of that - following me wherever I go. He has a high need for social interaction and even when he is playing on his own he is often calling out "Mummy, come and see... I have set up a battle and I want you to see my guys!" There are an infinite variety of "Mummy, come and sees" of course. I am guilty of sometimes tuning out when I am busy and then not having a clue what he is talking about - something I am trying to improve on but I seem to have a limited capacity for thought these days and cannot keep up with all the GUYS Frost is into - Warhammer, playmobil, lego, star wars, knights, Avatar, Trolls, Ben 10, Spongebob and his ilk. All these and more crop up in his daily narratives.

Meanwhile, Wren is content with peace and familiarity. He likes to nap in his swing, his bed and his sling. Only one of these can make it to the park so I have been carrying him a great deal. Wren also likes quiet and me looking at him uninterrupted. I have been very interrupted recently.

Today, was a very good day for Frost. He has gone to bed content and exhausted. I also had a good time but by nightfall Wren was all zonked and out of kilter. He has just fallen asleep in the swing where I put him while I prepared his medicine. I have no idea when or how I should transfer him to bed. Its never happened before.

This morning, Wren and I went to our Listening Mothers group while Brandi watched Frost for a couple of hours. Frost had a great time (as always) and they went for a walk and retrieved the football and Frisbee which had been thrown over into Freda's yard - again.

There was a brief interlude for lunch and then we headed off to Annie's Playground where we met Laurie and her family. The idea was for Frost to play tennis but after a few balls he preferred to run around chasing and throwing balls with Dylan so we got to hit a few balls ourselves. This was great in principle but Laurie and I are less than skillful - I am less skillful than Laurie's less-skillful and Laurie thought she needed to see a chiropractor afterwards. Thankfully, Barbara (Laurie's mom) was able to send balls back to us most of the time.

We reconvened at Laurie & Erics and admired their new paintwork while Frost and Dylan played quite happily for hours. Wren had some waking times but basically slept and nursed on my lap for hours on end which suited him fine but had me less-than-adept at meeting his needs for the rest of the day since he kept falling asleep unexpectedly and then being up for hours. I didn't realize how accustomed I was to putting him down to nap and getting a hands-free break. Still, he was very soft and warm to hold and his fuzzy little head smells great.

I had a bit of a meltdown with Frost and Joshua this evening after I was asked whether Frost could watch Joshua play video games longer instead of having books. I was like "WTF?" - how is it that this question was referred to me at all. Its clearly No No No. Anyway, a drama ensued in which Frost accused me of denying him all the things he loves in life (digital media - all of them) and forcing him to read books because "YOU enjoy them!!!" [stricken and accusatory face]. I was at a loss for words so I just listened and said we are doing books. Later, snuggled up reading a folktale about a Little Singing Frog, I asked Frost if he really doesn't enjoy book time. He replied that "I don't like the sound of it but when we are reading the books then I like the books. Well, it depends - I like it if they are good books."

Clearly, I must maintain standards at bedtime reading if I am to compete with the offerings of the small screen.

I tried to read Wren The Big Red Barn but he fell asleep too soon so Frost and I read it. He found it very entertaining and loved to count the eggs under the hen and find the tiny mice playing at night. We had a conversation about nocturnal animals.