It’s been a busy month in June, some of which I’ve covered in posts on the blog. Here are a few highlights captured via the medium of Instagram.

Boys’ day out at Legoland

Following our common weekend pattern of ‘divide and conquer’, Heather took Kara down to Dorset to visit her mum while I treated the boys to a trip to Legoland. There they got to do several of their favourite rides – anything involving driving is always popular – and generally had a good day together, as you can see from the photos.

Okay, I briefly lost Isaac in the crowd for a few minutes during the pirate show, but he immediately found his way back to us quickly enough after it had finished. Phew. No harm, no foul.

Growing up fast

It’s been a busy month for Kara, who continues to insist on growing up at a rate of knots. She’s forcing the issue on potty training and has already made huge strides in a few short weeks. When we went out for lunch with my folks for Father’s Day, she insisted on trying to feed herself with chopsticks. (A good effort, but some work to be done.) And she seems to spend half her waking hours climbing in and out of every dress she owns. A future as a catwalk model awaits, perhaps?

Her speech is coming along well too. Her vocabulary is increasing rapidly and individual words are becoming complete sentences, which means she’s now able to verbalise her strong independent streak. “No, Daddy, I do it” is pretty much an hourly refrain in our household right now as she insists on pressing play on the Sky remote or putting on her own pull-up and pyjamas at bedtime.

There’s a part of me that wants my little girl not to grow up quite so fast. She’ll be bringing home her first boyfriend before we know it.

The next Karate Kid

Isaac’s been doing martial arts classes for a couple of months now, and he’s really getting into it. Of course, being the stickler for rules and instructions that he is, the discipline involved is right up his street. And it helps that at least half his weekly class involves running around the room playing games and burning off steam. But for a boy who has shown little interest in sport so far, it’s lovely to see him so enthusiastic about physical as well as cerebral pursuits.

Frites and flights

I was away in Brussels with work for three days last week – a combination of being part of an EU Sustainability Week event (good) and Powerpoint hell (not so good). While any opportunity to indulge in Belgian beer and frites is always welcome, it meant missing three bedtimes and not seeing the kids between Monday morning and first thing on Thursday.

I should have been home on Wednesday evening, but air traffic controllers at Brussels Airport decided to go out on strike at only a few hours’ notice in sympathy with their French counterparts. My flight was cancelled and I ended up having to head back into town to jump on the Eurostar, hop across to Paddington on the tube and then catch an empty Heathrow Express to retrieve my car from the airport.

Instead of arriving home before the kids’ bedtime, I didn’t get back until after my own. I was, to put it mildly, unhappy – less at the delay itself than at missing out on a bedtime I had been hoping to be back in time for. Thankfully I’m not due for another overseas trip for at least another couple of months.

And that was the month that was. July’s looking pretty busy too, with relatives visiting from afar and the start of the school holidays impending. More photos then.

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