Thoughts of a flea-brained mother

Dude is on his way to being entirely toothless. Another one fell out on Friday while he was brushing his teeth, and yet another one is wiggly! I have warned him that it may be a diet of soup and porridge for him. He thinks it's hilarious - being gross is his favourite pass-time. Well, he is a 6 yr old boy!

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Since the bird-feeding-tree has lost all its leaves I have started re-filling the birdfeeders. We have fat-balls, peanuts, niger seed and hulled sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds go fastest, followed by fat-balls, then peanuts. Niger is a very poor last favourite. I rarely see any bird there. Even the goldfinches (Niger is supposed to be their absolute favourite) ignore it and scoff the sunflower seeds.
This morning I counted 7 species while eating my breakfast:
goldfinches, sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches, a wren (ok, he was hopping on the fence behind the tree, but still), collared doves pecking at the spillages on the ground, and, joy of joys, a greater spotted woodpecker!!!!

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Good mother/bad mother. You judge.

Bad:

Yesterday Pip had his bestest friend over for a serious Lego session, and what did I do? It was a gorgeously blue day, so I winkled them out of the bedroom and outside to help me fill my new leaf bags, which I ordered the other day. They weren't impressed and being press-ganged into child labour, although things looked up when I offered them 50p a bag (there were 5 bags) each to spend at the Church Fair that afternoon.

Good:

This evening Pip and I painted designs on his 'design a car' project for cubs. They got given a piece of wood, about 2.5" by 6" by 4", a few metal washers and the instructions to turn it into a car by adding bits/ taking away bits/ decorating it. They were allowed help since it was bound to involve saws... I now have red and yellow gloss paint on my fingertips from holding it in the wrong place. *sigh*