"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."

Day 125:

I love it when Opeie shows me a picture he's found on the internet and says "Can we build this?". Mainly because it means an afternoon of sitting down with the LEGO and working something out together. Its rare that he ever wants to add Technic functions into builds but this kinetic cowboy build by Tankybrick had really got him excited. So we watched their video about 50 times to try and work out the functions. After building pretty much the entire thing no matter haw many times we watched the video we couldn't work out the final piece that got the horses moving as the video wasn't very clear. After a stressful 30 minutes or so of trying all sorts of different elements we finally cracked it. It definitely wasn't the same piece, and the horses the finitely don't run as smooth as theirs but overall it came out great and ended up being a fun afternoon building with my bestie.

"Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life."

Day 22:

This afternoon I lay out on the garden sofa and fell asleep, it was so unlike me but this 'new world' as I keep calling it is changing so much of the lives that we have become accustomed to and seriously knocking us out of our routines. When I woke up an hour later feeling disoriented and sleepy I was greeted by some lovely smelling pictures as Opeie had found his scented crayons and had a little art session. This new world really isn't all that bad so far... yawn!

"I'm spinning around, move out of my way..."

I like to squeeze as many little activities as I can in to each day. The boys had their friend Keira round for the afternoon and they were playing indoors because of the rainy weather. They wanted to make strange concoctions with their test tubes and pippets so I sorted out some ingredients and bowls and let them get on with it. The rain soon stopped and inevitably they wanted to get straight outside on bikes and scooters which gave me the idea to merge the two activities together to show them how a centrifuge works.

I explained what a centrifuge was and how they are used and then we got started on our experiment by filling two small jars with oil, vinegar and mustard. We then turned Seth's bike upside down and attached one of the jars to the reflector. We then peddled the bike by hand as fast as we could. We had to start the experiment again when I realised we had filled the jars up too far but the second attempt went perfectly and the ingredients separated which the kids found really interesting.

There is so much time in a day, you can squeeze all manner if interesting little activities in to keep the kids entertained and we all love a mini science experiment.

"I'm inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age."

I love scooting!!! but despite all the amazing fun I have with Opeie and his friends I have been longing for another slightly unhinged parent who like me has no shame at all to go whizzing around with. When me and Opeie are out together scooting about there is a mixture of reactions we get from passers by, mainly a lot of "awwwww...", and rightly so, we must be the cutest scooting duo around. Occasionally though I can see people mumbling 'look at that idiot' or words to that effect. Honestly I couldn't care less as the only thing I care about is the huge smile on my child's face and I needed another parent to share that with.

We planned yesterday to meet up with our friends Emma and Matthew from Another Last Story. Matthew is the proud owner of a brand spanking new Mini Micro in celebration of his fourth year on the planet and we hadn't yet been out burning up the streets with him so we couldn't wait to get to the park and see what he could do. I still had my Micro black in the shed and it was a great chance to load it in to the back of the car so that Emma could scoot too.

The first 5 minutes of our scooting adventure was a little hairy when Matthew decided to tackle a hill despite not quite mastering the use of the brake. As we all watched him pick up speed and fly towards a brick wall I thought a hospital visit would be taking up the bulk of our afternoon but luckily those brown cords he was wearing slowed him down and the smile on his face as he looked back said 'don't worry, everything is okay!'

As always for a midweek afternoon play date we had the playground to ourselves, which gave the boys plenty of space to run about and for me and Emma to act like imbeciles. There was a moment where I covered Emma in a handful of dead leaves and was trying to use my phone so that she could use it as a mirror to clean herself off. Sadly the excitement was too much for me and as she looked at me like a mental case I realised instead of turning the phone around I had just flicked the screen and was looking at myself!!

Our scooting venture out soon turned in to an autumnal leaf fight and of course I got buried in leaves for the greater good of two smiling children. I love this time of year, cool weather and colourful leaves everywhere. I'm not sure why but Ive always loved that point where you need a coat or warm jumper, I think I just love that cosy feeling over being a sweaty summer mess.

It seemed that even after scooting, the playground and the leaf battle, the boys were still brimming with testosterone and there was some serious energy to burn off so we hit the park gym hard. It was time to go for burn...

Then it was time to jump back on our trusty scooters and do one last lap of the park before heading home. I'm so glad that Opeie has someone to talk Micro-Scooters with now and having an extra grown up (I use the term loosely) to scoot around with really made the day for me. I'm still thinking that a Shropshire Micro-Scoot meet needs to be taking place.

I had been looking for someone worthy to give my Micro black a new home, rather than it be left in our shed to only come out occasionally and Emma definitely looked like she was enjoying being a part of the action, so the scooter went home with her and Matthew ready for their own scooting adventures and hopefully many more wheeled adventures with us. 

Welcome to the team guys x

(great shot by Opeie i thought!)