For the first time since I have been looking after Alicia on the Wednesday mornings we got through to her collection time without tears. We have found it is less traumatic for her if I go and collect her myself from the nursery, rather than have Dan (daddy) drop her off and she is normally quite happy to go with me so long as I can keep her occupied which mainly involves a walk to the park or duck ponds.
I now have a secret weapon: Strawberries! It seems we both share a common bond with the desire to consume as many strawberries as possible, so I made a point of taking some strawberries with me yesterday. I managed to persuade her not to take along half the nursery toys and got her fastened in without so much as a protest scream and off we went.
The plan then was to walk over to the park, swings and toddle about, strawberries and a walk back to meet Dan, but Alicia wasn’t in the mood for walking, made it quite clear she was happy sitting in the pushchair, even refusing to get out for the swings. So after a couple of laps round the pathways and a pause to watch the planting off the flower beds I took her over to a bench and asked if she wanted some strawberries. I got a definite nod and we were in business. See here for a short video:Strawberries
When she had finished I took her through the town centre and discovered that pigeons fighting over chips and stale bread is, to Alicia, as entertaining as Meerkats or penguins, especially when you can charge into a mass of them and send them up into the air. She is also rather taken with buses and makes a strange circular motion with her right hand which was clearly related to the “wheels on the bus go round and round…”
She managed to stay awake until we got near the Villiers Primary School where I intended taking her to watch the sports day. I had guessed right, it was indeed sports day but, she fell asleep a few yards short of the school and so I took her back to meet dad.