This week I joined the gym in a bid to get fit before Christmas. As part of my membership I get 2 hours a day creche time which means I can go early, Jimmy can have a play while I burn and then we’re free for the rest of the day. My gym also has a soft play and because Florence and Jimmy are members too they get to play and swim as much as we like – know what we’ll be doing all winter then!

It’s typical of course that after the first gym visit my knee started hurting so badly it makes me cry out if I lean too hard on it. My body is literally screaming old lady at me and instead of the step and body pump classes I had planned I’ve had to join Aqua Aerobics with all the golden oldies! Oh well, hopefully next week it will be better and I can punish myself in the way I envisaged. I find I have the drive and impetus if I go in the morning rather than later in the day and I absolutely love that feeling of having just worked out. Endorphin city here we come!

I left the gym yesterday feeling so super proud that the ladies in the creche had said how good at sharing Jimmy is and how brilliantly he plays with other children. But… You know what they always say, pride comes before a fall! We have been having a couple of our little friends to play most weeks while we do a pal a favour in an interim childcare black spot for her. For the most part they play together really well and spend the afternoons giggling… However, Jimmy has bitten one of them every time she’s come over for the last week or so. Obviously I’ve told him off and made him apologise but yesterday he did it AGAIN! What happens to the kind sharing friendly boy from the morning to make him a vampire to his friend in the afternoon? As I tended to her bitten arm I saw she actually had bruises from his bites on previous days and her poor little arm looked like a map of Jimmy’s dental records. I WAS MORTIFIED!

What could I do? I put him in isolation in MY bedroom (no toys in there) while the other children played in the living room and then after a bit I sat him on the work surface in the kitchen while I made supper. He wasn’t allowed to play for the rest of the day until my friend picked her girls up and then it was time for bath and bed. He was devastated and kept saying he wanted to play with his friends but I stood my ground. I don’t know if the punishment has gone in as a consequence and whether it will mean he will think twice but I hope so… Time will tell.

So, this week has had a bit of a bite really but onwards and upwards for the next! I’ll be at that gym every day, especially as when Florence was laughing at sucking her own tummy in to make it super skinny she looked at my attempts to do the same and said ‘but your tummy doesn’t really go in does it Mummy’! It will Florence, oh IT WILL!

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