Please note how this is phrased! I don’t really “do” looking after, but playing is fun…….
It is a drive of about an hour and a quarter to visit my great-nephew and oldest great-niece and a two hour train journey to visit the younger great-niece. Guess which I see most often?
In a recent visit to the older ones I started off by colouring in mosaic shapes on a bear. It is a long time since I last did colouring in! Quite fun, but a bit boring after a while, so the bear never got finished.
Then we played with the hobby-horses – rather energetic.
They belong to my great-niece but she let me borrow one. It kept throwing me off at first (!) but calmed down when it got used to me.
Great-nephew thought we should have races, so we did – but that was really energetic. He didn’t like it when he didn’t win, either! He was 5, nearly six – when do they grow out of having to win? Or being male, do they ever grow out of it? It was the same with the “butterfly elephant” game, later – if he wasn’t winning he would spoil it for everyone.
After the horses we played cars – trying to see which goes furthest/fastest. A “bridge” made of 2 table mats over a support was added, but we weren’t very good at getting things over. They were either too slow or we didn’t get them going in a straight enough line. We used a smaller support, added blu-tac to hold the mats still and when we got to the radio controlled car we also used a scarf to increase the grip.
Later, my great-nephew showed me some of his skill in reading. While my great-niece calls me “ganny” (she has 2 perfectly good grandmothers, but great aunty is a bit hard), my great-nephew managed to call me “great ‘Lepton’ ” which I totally approve of – well naturally I think I am great, so it is nice to have someone agree – even if it isn’t quite what was meant!
My most recent visit to my younger great-niece started off with her being shy – she forgets that she knows me as I don’t visit often enough. By the time we got back to the house from the station, I was sort of accepted and she was prepared to show me what she does. She had taken “baby” to the station but baby has no clothes! I suggested baby was cold, so was told to wrap her in a blanket.
We then played with a balloon and then went on to building a tower – pretty good, but she hasn’t got the idea of moments yet so I had to help with an extra support. She is good on the colours.
She then showed me her dancing, for which she had to have a special dress – trousers won’t do! Mind you, the dress went on over the clothes she was already wearing.
The music for dancing was “Wheels on the bus”! this was followed by other similar songs, in which we joined a bit – NOT with the dancing!
My nephew made lunch and then he, my great-niece and I went to the park. We took “baby” (still no clothes!). Great-niece went on the swings, pushed by her daddy and I went on the big swing – having checked there was no age or size limit. “Baby” was then allowed to go on the roundabout, great-niece went on the slides and she then pushed baby on the big swing.
We stopped at the library, which is next to the park on the way back and it was then time for me to catch the train home.
I also went to my great-nephew’s sixth birthday party. It poured with rain all day, which made the drive “fun”, and the party had 15 five and six year old children (14 boys and one girl!) and 2 three year old girls and was lunch at pizza hut. Orange or blackcurrant have lots of sugar (for energy?), bread sticks make good swords, balloons like to float up and be rescued by adults…….. Enough said!
So is this fun? Yes, mostly, but it can be very tiring. They grow up so fast, with great nephew already at school and oldest great niece starting school next September, so I have to make the most of them wanting to play now. All too soon they will be stroppy teenagers and I will be boooring…..