Having friends to stay

OK, so back to the parenting stuff, this is supposed to be a parenting blog after all.

Recently we had some friends stay over a few nights and I think it was a great time all round. Our friends travelled up from our old stomping grounds in the NE of England, via the train and ferry, which by all accounts they enjoyed, something out of the ordinary.

It was good to see them after so long and the kids, a boy almost exactly the same age as the little man (less than 2 weeks difference) and a girl a little older than the young lady (about 12 months I think) got on like a house on fire.

Apart from all the fun and games that were had, especially by the boys, there were a couple of things that struck me and its not the first time I've seen it with the two boys either.

Now the little man is not what you would call quiet, not in any sense of the word, but the other boy is or at least, is when his not got a friend to follow! But anyway, the things that struck me most were about how children follow each other. The little man hates fish fingers, won't touch them, but our guest loves them, and got super excited about having fish fingers and chips, which in turn, got the little man going. So now we've had fish fingers and chips half a dozen times in last few weeks. The same can be said for beetroot, although I'm less keen on beetroot as he's discovered you can paint you face pink with it!

Its great that he's trying new foods, foods we've failed to get him to eat in the past, even though we've been eating them ourselves.

This also went the other way when we went swimming. Now the little man is a bit of a water baby, from the first time he went swimming at 8 weeks old to today when he's usually the first one in the pool at his lesson. The young lady is not far behind, you've got to keep a close eye on her at the pool, otherwise she'll be in before you know it. Our guests on the other hand aren't so water friendly, they live near the beach so paddling isn't an issue but swimming is a different matter. It took a while to get in to the changing rooms, but after that I think the enthusiasm of the little man rubbed off and all 4 bairns were soon in the water and enjoying themselves, even if at one point one of them said "I'm not going to swim because I don't want to get wet" while sitting chest deep in the toddler pool, not sure how much wetter swimming can make you! It came to a bit at the end where only the bribery of a trip to the café would get the boys out of the pool!

This is very reminiscent of the last time we all went swimming, that time we had screaming in the changing room as he didn't want to swim and screaming on the pool side as he didn't want to get out!

Its funny what effect children have on each other, both positive and negative, its just a shame that you can't limit it to just the positive!

Hopefully we'll get some more little visitors up soon!