2ND BIRTHDAY HOLIDAY (AT HOME)

Who’d have thought the 2nd birthday could be so different from the 1st birthday! Last year for his 1st birthday we had a big party in the garden, invited all our friends and all of his little buddies. We made a long weekend of it and even dined out for his birthday lunch!

Life B.C.

Different to normal life now.

No invitations for a party to mark his 2nd birthday!

But it didn’t matter. There is a lot about this new normal that is fab.

We had the best long weekend, seeing bubbles of people one at a time. Actually 3 weekends of bubble time! As the queen said ‘we will be with our friends again’ so let’s make the best of how we roll now for now.

We used the weekend of his second birthday to take five days of holiday at home together as a family! In recent times when we’ve had that time together, it hasn’t included holiday. Instead it’s been full time work as well as full time parenting! So these five days were pretty damn perfect, even though on the final night the little one woke up at midnight wanting to play with his (new) cars (that i bought). I went back to work on 3 hours sleep!

I had toyed with us going away to a little cottage for a staycation. But I’m not ready for that yet. And Cornwall/Dorset/Norfolk (insert all idyllic locations here) does not need any more visitors. At all. We only moved back into our full home properly in June so we were very happy to have a stay-very-put-at-home-cation!

This year he actually gets presents and unwrapping and loved all his gifts and new toys and books! No longer do we have to unwrap as well as keep track of who gave him what, now we just have to keep pace with the unwrapping!

Obviously we did a bit of painting too, family hand prints that is. Which involved a lot of mess. And the red book update with weight and height!

No big party, but little gatherings now and then instead. If there’s something I like about the rules of only seeing small groups of people, it is that you actually get to see and catch up with the people you spend time with. Definitely better quality time with friends! And the little man loves it too, especially when older children come to visit as he hero-worships them!

We did have a little party – just the birthday boy, us and my parents. And his paternal grandparents had a little zoom party with him too. There was the big unveiling of his climbing frame. He loves it, which is good as my dad probably spent about 70 hours building it!

And there was my handiwork on the cake – a 3 tier iced victoria sponge that the little one helped to mix up, with decorated farm shortbread biscuits, and a duplo tractor on top. He was impressed with the sparkler, removed the tractor and ignored the cake… He had a little cupcake to try blowing out the candle on too!

My ideal holiday involves being in a beautiful place, with a glass or few of bubbly, with my best people. In times past that’s often involved extravagance, but covid-19 has definitely taught us that we don’t need to spend money or go far to have all of that.

We just have to stop the merry go round and get off it for a while. And slow down and relax.

And we did just that on our days off with time at home and at the beach.

We went over to West Wittering. Pre-booking for beach parking is essential, although it doesn’t keep the beach in the slightest bit quiet because the car park is big. However, if like us, you are happy to walk a while then a peaceful beach is still there to be found. We parked as close to Hayling Island as we could in the car park and walked to the end of East Head, so about a 20 minute walk from the car. Here we found next to no-one. We enjoyed the sounds and smells of the sea, paddled, played in the dunes, did some digging up of the beach and enjoyed our picnic. A lovely National Trust worker even gave us a little spade, as she had found in the dunes! We’re very glad of our back carrier and our beach tent – for time in the sun away from the crowds, both are essential.

On another day we went to another beach, which is a relatively well kept secret. I love this beach because for what it lacks in white sand it wins back in peace and quiet. We arrived on a rising tide and made the most of a beach to ourselves to explore, dig and paddle. We gradually moved our little tent and blanket up and up the beach as the tide came home and ended up having our picnic lunch right at the top!

At 12.30, we bundled our little napper into his pram and took a stroll – happily one of our favourite New Forest pubs has now reopened and is only a short walk away so we enjoyed wine and crisps in the pub during the nap!

And for a tractor mad toddler… What birthday weekend could be complete without finding some tractor and combine action too!

And what self-respecting parents wouldn’t take some time out for themselves too. If we’d been holidaying in Greece (as planned) we would have used the kids club a few hours a day… So on one day off we still took the little one to nursery but importantly we didn’t ‘go to’ work. We had a leisurely lunch as our first foray into dining out since the start of March!

All in all a great weekend. We gave the little man the birthday he wanted and he loved it. Time with us, new toys, time at the beach. And we felt like we’d been on holiday too!

Much as a I can’t wait to go and explore somewhere new there’s so much to love about not doing that right now too!