Tomination

Two years ago, Sophie and Tom came over and spent the day with us. Today, two years later, Sophie and Tom came over and spent the day with us. Two years ago, we had just started the World Cup in South Africa. Today, two years later, we have just started Euro 2012. Who says things don’t happen in cycles?

Today Sophie and Tom were returning from the Isle of Wight, going back to London and sort of stopped off with us for a bit. Fortunately the weather was kind.

It wasn’t supposed to be. The weather report had it raining all day. For some reason known only to the rain gods, it didn’t rain at all. This meant that Sophie could have the usual tour of the garden by Mirinda while I alternated between cooking lunch and entertaining Tom.

Interestingly, when Sophie was asked if she noticed anything new about the garden, in a panic she pointed to the little orange crate bed we’d created about three years ago. This gave her time to think about it a bit and she immediately remarked that the big tree had gone. When I asked Tom if he remembered the tree he quite emphatically declared “No!”

Sophie quite liked the fence and new bed as opposed to the messy hedge that lived there before. She was also very keen on our successful roses and the plans for the Gaz pod.

But it was soon time for lunch (roasted pork on apple mash followed by treacle tart and cream) and we settled down to a rather noisy meal.

In order to encourage Tom to feed himself, Sophie has hit on the idea of letting him watch movies on his iPad. While this works, and he subconsciously shovels food into his mouth while watching Lego figures do things to each other that only a six year old would really understand, it is rather noisy for anyone else sitting at the table wanting to carry on a conversation. Still, it means we can carry on an adult chat with Sophie, uninterrupted by her force feeding him.

We had a rather lively debate about the pros and cons regarding the tattoo class and then Mirinda and Sophie went for a walk, leaving Tom with me. Our film was Megamind…again. Apparently, as they left home, Sophie asked him what movie we were going to watch. She rattled off a few films that I hadn’t seen, clearly trying to save me having to watch something for the umpteenth time but, in Tom’s opinion Gnomeo and Juliet wasn’t funny and Rio had no laughs in it. So, it had to be either Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Megamind. Thankfully, Sophie convinced him to go with Megamind.

To be fair, it didn’t really matter because once Tom has seen a film a fair few times, he tends to spend a lot of the time wrestling. This involves launching himself at me. He enjoys a bit of rough and tumble – a healthy sign in a boy of his age. Though there was a bit more rough than tumble so I wondered, not for the first time, how Sophie manages.

Mirinda and Sophie were gone for about two hours and upon their return, it was all aboard Sidney for the trip to the station for their train home. I waved goodbye and then went into the dining room to start cleaning up. Sitting on the table was the iPad. Oh dear, I thought, that can’t be good.

I texted Sophie then tried to ring her then texted Mirinda. I’m not sure who finally worked it out but they soon pulled back into the driveweay to take possession of Tom’s indispensable eating companion.

Phew! That was close.