Turning Into Your Mother! (and other Easter Fun)

Oh Dear! Anna is turning into her mother!

As is now tradition in the Gibson household, we took part in the National Trust Easter Egg Hunt at Chirk Castle again this year.

Since Anna was 1 and a half years old, we have been taking part in this annual event. Obviously, the first year was more of Anna having a good ride in the pushchair while James and I looked for lambs. In fact, this is an extract from the Post I wrote when we embarked on our first egg hunt (it also explains how it all works, for those of you interested)

Today (Easter Monday), we went on an Egg Hunt at Chirk Castle (near Wrexham) with the prize being a chocolate egg for everyone that found the Easter hunt answer. It was fantastic. We were a little worried that the staff would judge Anna to be too young for the event (not realising that her Mummy and Daddy were big kids!!) but they didn't bat an eyelid! Basically, our task was to find 6 pairs of lambs (pictures) that were hidden around the castle and gardens. The initial letter of each lamb's name was the clue and once you collected all of the letter clues, it would be an anagram of the answer. For example, the green pair of Lambs were called 'Isabelle' and 'Ian' so the clue was I. Unfortunately, each pair of lambs were not hidden in the same place, which meant that there were 12 hiding spots to find. At first, we thought it was going to be easy after finding the first 3 clues within the first 10 minutes. It was only when we realised that the castle and gardens are rather large that we realised that this may be more difficult than first thought! By 1pm, Anna was asking for her lunch ('Forget the stupid lambs, I'm hungry' thought Anna.) However, by the time we came back outside, the snow was falling fast and within 10 minutes, it was blizzard conditions. Despite being wrapped up warm, the combination of the wind and snow meant that we couldn't see much but we still had 2 lambs to find!!!! However, by this time, we had found at least one lamb from each pair so we knew the answer was 'Spring'. It was just a matter of principle now that made me want to find all 12 clues.

With each year that passes, Anna has shown more interest and taken part with more enthusiasm. This year, she excelled herself.

Anyone that knows me well enough can confirm that I am rather competitive and won't give up anything until it is achieved. It appears that our daughter is even more competitive than me and won't give up until she succeeds.

It was 1pm and we had just spent the last hour looking for the 12 lambs. We had found 11 and there was one baby girl lamb to find. James and I were starting to feel hungry so suggested that we go for lunch and continue with our search afterwards. Anna gave us a look of pure disgust and said

" Why do we need lunch? We have to find the other lamb. The baby girl lamb needs us. Lunch can wait".

James and I just looked at each other with tummies rumbling and proceeded to follow Anna as she lead the way, holding the map and telling us that we would need to completely retrace or steps!

In the end, we could take it no longer.

"Anna, we need to eat otherwise we will faint. We will look for the last girl lamb after lunch and we promise that we will not go home until we have found her'.

Anna just shook her head slowly, probably thinking 'Quitters'.

I am pleased to report that, after a short stop for Lunch, we did find the last lamb hiding in the woodland. (In fact, I confess that it was my fault that we missed her on our first attempt as I dismissed the woodland as not being part of the official egg hunt trail. I was wrong!!!)

Unfortunately, Anna and I are starting to get reputation for being rather competitive and unwilling to give up without a fight! This eater, we also went on an egg hunt with our friends to Delamare Forest. Our friends, Lisa and her little girl, Annabel had been on an egg hunt a few days before but had not found the all the clues to get the prize. Therefore, when starting out on the egg hunt at Delamere, Annabel asked her Mummy

'Will we find all the clues and get prize at this one Mummy?'.

Lisa turned to Annabel and said

'We have Louise and Anna here. We will get all the clues and a prize I'm sure'.

Unfortunately Anna and I also lived up the reputation by being the self-elected 'leaders' of the trail and, clutching our map in our head, strode purposefully in front leading the 'team'.

I am not proud of myself for being so competitive but I do like the idea that Anna is unwilling to give up easily even if that does mean that her Mummy and Daddy end up having a very late lunch!

Driving Anna Mad!

I have always confessed to being a rubbish driver! However, it was finally confirmed recently when my daughter decided to make it quite clear what she thought about my ability behind the steering wheel as well as turning into a teenager, all in in one single comment.

Last Friday, we found ourselves in a familiar car park. However, due to some building work going on, the usual exit had become blocked and it meant cars were having to ignore a 'No Entry' sign to reach the alternative exit (I think the builders had just expected drivers to use common sense and ignore the said sign). However, being the type of person who never likes to get in trouble (being the sad boring person that I am), I refused to believe that we should ignore a 'No Entry sign'. Ultimately, this resulted in us going in a huge circle around the car park and ending up in the same place with no way of getting out. I drove round in a huge circle FIVE times, telling an increasingly frustrated Anna and James that I couldn't just ignore road signs and there must be some way out of this bloody car park whilst still abiding by the highway code. Cue lots of impatient sighs from Anna and James.

It was on the sixth attempt at trying to find my way out of the car park (resulting in just going round in a big circle again), that Anna reached her peak of frustration and uttered the words...

"Mummy, this is so embarrassing. Just get out of the car park".

I didn't expect to hear that I was an embarrassment until Anna was, at least, 13 years old!!! I don't even know where she got that word from as she hasn't been hanging around any teenagers, as far as I am aware!!

(Thankfully, I came to my senses and ignored the 'No Entry sign' and departed the car park as quickly as possible! If Anna hadn't been so vocal, we may have still been going round in circles even now!)