Poppy has started attending nursery every morning, she finishes nursery at noon then she comes to visit grandma for the afternoon. Grandad works in the building the nursery is housed so he picks her up and drops her off to me, it's only a few minutes from our house, and then he returns to work until his finishing time of 2.30. Poppy has lunch with me then we find something to keep occupied until grandads return when, weather permitting, we walk the dogs in the woods with Poppy looking for butterflies, squirrels, fairies, the big bad wolf, the Gruffalo, or whichever game she wants to play on our walk. I say walk but to be honest I can no longer walk far at all, in fact I've not been able to walk far for a long while now, so I use a mobility scooter these days, out of necessity. I didn't want to, I fought against it for a long time, but then came to the conclusion that I could either stop in the house a lot while grandad, Poppy and the dogs have fun, or I could bite the bullet and give in! I can honestly say it's changed my life, now I can get out, go through the woods, thankfully the paths are usually quite good, except if the rain has been particularly prolonged and heavy causing a fair bit of mud! I can get to the shops, library, park, go round the lakes, I have regained independence, and wish I had done it sooner. I refused to use a scooter for years because I thought someone had laughed at me and my confidence was shot. I stopped in the house a lot of the time, only going out if someone took me in the car, that's not living! I'm glad I can now get out and join in with the world.
Poppy has grown up with me using my scooter and it doesn't bother her a bit, in fact she loves to hitch a ride with me, we sometimes find we are riding a horse, at times we hide from grandad behind a tree, we hunt for butterflies, squirrels and fairies, we have fun!
I can't get down on the floor to play with Poppy, I would never get up, but we adapt and do puzzles, draw and paint, read books, play with her dolls, all kinds of things, and she is so good, she realises I can't run around chasing her, can't throw her about and do the rough and tumble play, but we occupy ourselves and grandad and especially daddy are very good at all the more physical games! Daddy is very good at holding her upside down which she finds hilarious!
Poppy has mostly grown out of her afternoon naps, I say mostly but on the odd occasion she drops off for an hour like she has this afternoon, hence giving me a little time to write this! I must admit her not having her naps has made it a little harder for me and I'm sometimes struggling at the end of the day, only because of my physical difficulties, not because she is any problem to look after, she's very good. She's woken up now and asking for a drink and biscuit so I had best go and see she's OK.
I shall try and keep up to date a bit more often from now on!
