Now there are only eight chicks. We didn’t see what happened to the one that disappeared; for all I know it could still be at the bottom of the nest! But the parent birds are so careful about keeping the nest clean that I think it’s more likely that it died and was disposed of.

The parent tits spend literally every moment of the day gathering food for their brood. We help them by providing meal worms periodically but they disappear so quickly; we can’t keep up with the demand! Luckily we have a big old apple tree in our garden that seems to provide lots of grubs for this growing family.

There are a couple of noticeably smaller chickens in the nest that seem quite subdued when compared to their older siblings. These are often at the bottom of the pile and I do worry that they don’t get fed enough. But I have seen them eating, and also pooing, so hopefully it’s just that they are a couple of days younger than the bigger ones.

Last week, the newly hatched chicks were naked and floppy. Now a couple of the bigger ones are growing feathers. The smaller ones have to make do with fuzz. None of them have their eyes open yet, but that can’t be too far away. In a two more weeks they will thinking about leaving the nest!

The newest development is that suddenly we have sound. The chicks have started chirping whenever one of the parents appears; they launch themselves up out of the nest, mouths agape, with surprising ferocity.

At the moment they only make a very faint, wheezy noise but I suspect this will get a lot louder as they grow.

You can really see the size difference between the big and little chicks in this video. You can also see how the parents keep the nest clean. They scoop their babies’ poop with their beaks!

At the moment Mama still sits on the nest to keep her babies warm at night, but she already finds it hard to cover them completely. Legs and heads keep popping out  from underneath her and it’s not going to be too long before she is going to have to sleep elsewhere.

If you have a child starting reception this September, you may have begun to get together a few bits and pieces of uniform.

Unless you are going to a private school with a hugely expensive uniform, you can probably pick up most items in the sales right about now. It’s not a bad idea.

But, if you have a school starter  for 2013, don’t go overboard when it comes to buying ‘ summer’ uniform. Most primary schools in the UK  do seem to have one;  it’s usually shorts for boys and pretty checked lightweight dresses in various colours for the girls.

As you can see, from the photo above, our summer dresses are yellow. Luckily the school doesn’t insist on a particular make or style, because yellow seems to be the hardest colour to find. Blue, red and green are much more common in my experience.

Schools do differ in when children are allowed to wear summer uniform; ours specifies the first half of the the first term of the school year ( Sept- Oct) and the entire third term ( April- July). But here’s the thing; the children don’t have to wear summer uniform during this time.  This is a good thing because most of the time it is not warm enough for them to be wearing summer uniform.

My girls get up in the morning, look out the window and decide if it’s a summer dress kind of day. It’s rare to have a run of more than 2-3 such days. I’m not as experienced with boys, but we do have a couple of pairs of school shorts that DS hasn’t bothered wearing yet.

So my tip for any parents shopping for school uniform is, go easy on the throttle when buying ‘summer uniform’. This is the UK, and the opportunities for your child to dress for the heat will be few and far between. Two dresses or pairs of shorts will probably do; three, if you must.

And these items are often in very good condition in second hand sales due to hardly ever being worn, so if you are not too fussy then you can get your child’s summer uniform cheaply this way.

We’ve just survived our first week of of Year 6 SATs. It’s been a tense week. Actually, it’s been a tense month and I’m sure ours wasn’t the only household suffering.

For those of you who have been through the Year 2 version, let me tell you that the KS2 SATs are nothing like the  KS1 SATs. KS1 kids usually don’t even know they are being tested. 4 years later, your child is all too aware of what is coming. They have time tables and know they are in for nearly a week of exams.

From what I can tell, our school was pretty low key compared to some. We had no breakfast clubs or after school tuition here. Our teachers had been careful to tell the pupils that the testing was actually for the school, not the children. But the kids had done practice papers and had been encouraged to ‘revise’  for homework, so anxiety levels were elevated.

I think some of the anxiety in our school was parent fuelled. There are some very ‘pushy parents’ in our school and it isn’t uncommon for their  offspring to be tutored in Year 6, with a view to getting good SATs. This reflects well on the school, I suppose, but these kids are the ones that often incite apprehension in the others. Many are also promised rewards for good marks.

Last week involved a few tears and tantrums from our year 6 DD, but actually, the previous week had been the real killer. She seemed to think that her upcoming ordeal gave her the right to run the shop, which didn’t go down well with the rest of the family. We had a fair few clashes.

Thankfully, her KS2 SATs are all over now.  We went for McDonalds for dinner last night, to celebrate.

DD thinks the exams went okay and we are expecting her to do well.  We haven’t discussed the possibility of a reward but might get her some books she wants regardless of what grade she gets. She did work hard, after all.

It doesn’t really matter what level she gets. She has already got an academic place on the strength of her 11+ results  and the secondary school she is going to tests them again as soon as they walk through the doors in September. By October half term, the stress of this last month will be all but forgotten.

But in a year’s time, our household will be going through it all over again as DD2 is now in Year 5.

Hopefully it’ll be less of a shock  next time around. Things often are when you have more than one.

Like many mums of more than one of the same sex, I get to see that many of the supposed gender-specific behaviours are actually anything but.

My girls like football, climbing things, cars and lego, as well as dressing up, dolls and colouring in. On the other hand, DS loves soft toys, fairy dresses and crafty stuff.

Since having a boy, I have seen very few real differences between the sexes. The one obvious contrast between DS and the girls, is DS’s enthusiasm for vehicles, mainly trains.

The girls had toy trains and cars of course. They did play with them but used a lot of role playing in their games. This train was the mum, this one was the baby, they were going shopping or to school or exploring; that kind of thing.

DS  will play ‘stories’ with the trains if one of his sisters is playing with him, but he’s quite happy to make endless configurations of tracks and just shunt his trains around  them while choo-chooing quietly on the floor.

And he LOVED  Thomas The Tank Engine. Anything Thomas. We have had what seems to be entire range of Thomas themed toys, cutlery, linen, clothes and books through this house at some point.

DD3 had a similar obsession with Bolt at the same age, but there was less merchandise for her to acquire. Thomas is bl**dy everywhere.

Thomas has been part of our life for years now, but this phase has shown signs of waning over the last six months. I’m not terribly sad, that little plastic smiley face creeps me out a little.

But the other day DS cornered me in the kitchen and asked ‘Mummy, Is Thomas Real?’

I really didn’t know how to answer this.  I had never considered that DS might think  TTTE was real; I had just assumed he knew he was a character in a book/on TV.  Would he be upset to learn Thomas was just made up? We’ve already had to have the ‘Santa’ talk with our two oldest girls and it was traumatic for everyone.

In the end I told the truth. Thomas was part of a story a man once made up, a book was written and some pictures drawn, then a TV program was made and now there are some real trains around that pretend to be TTTE sometimes. He wasn’t upset at all but was very interested in the idea of trains ‘dressing up’ as Thomas. After I’d said my stuff  he trotted off quite happily to play with his lego.

So the little blue train is on the way out and he’s going to leave a bit of a hole in his wake. What’s going to fill it?

DS likes Lego but hes not obsessed like he used to be with Thomas. He also likes Hama beads and Skylanders on the WiiU.

Of course he doesn’t have to be into anything really, but just in case I have any choice in the matter, does anyone have any suitable suggestions for a 5 year old?

I don’t wear lipstick, blusher, mascara or eye shadow  Ever. I used to but it made my face feel heavy and I was never very good at applying it. I didn’t like it; I just did it because everyone else did.  And I only wore it for nights out; I’ve never considered wearing it for an ordinary day at home or at work. I only ever wore make up to enhance my face, not to cover up my perceived imperfectations.

It’s not because I think I look fantastic without it. I don’t think I look fantastic at all. But I know I look like me, and that’s fine. I don’t need make up to be me. I’m okay as I am, despite what the cosmetic industry tries to tell me every day.

I don’t need longer lashes, blemish free skin, unnaturally coloured lips, or artificially reddened cheeks.

What horrifies me is that so many women feel they do.

No doubt some people will be looking at my photo and think ‘oh a bit of powder/mascara/ foundation/lipstick would make SUCH a difference’ . And I don’t doubt this, but why should I bother? I haven’t noticed people running away from me screaming when I walk down the street. Some people even smile at me and say hello. Others even stop and talk to me.

I’m not a terribly observant person, so I don’t usually notice if someone is wearing makeup or not unless it’s really obvious. But from reading various threads on internet forums, I can see that  an awful  lot of woman, maybe even the majority, wear make up every day no matter what they are doing. Some people talk about getting up before their partners and kids  do and putting their ‘face’ on. They joke they would scare people if they didn’t wear make up. Oh, come on!

Some of these women I don’t know from Adam, but others I have met many times and the vast majority of them are intelligent, strong, confident, educated, women.  Who apparently can’t leave their houses without a full face of make up.  I find that really, really sad.

I don’t wear make up  for many reasons. I don’t like the feel of it. I don’t like the tests they do on animals. It’s money I could spend elsewhere. Sourcing  ethically produced make up and applying make it takes time I don’t want to waste, and skills I don’t see why I should acquire.  I’m not against makeup though. I can see why people do it when they are going somewhere special. It’s a part of dressing up.  I’m sure no one will be surprised to hear I’m not into that either.

But I’m not hearing about make up being used as decoration in these threads. I’m hearing that women use it to cover up their ‘faults’. Their short eyelashes,  freckles,  blotchy skin, bags under eyes, thin lips; all these perfectly natural things that are part of our bodies at we live and age, have been declared undesirable by the cosmetic industry.

I have three daughters  and a son who are going to grow up and  may want to experiment with make up. I know this and am prepared for it. But if I am going to be truthful, I have to say that I would be upset if they felt they had to wear make up every single day of their lives. I hope they will understand that they are simply enough as they are.

I accept I am very much in the minority here but am interested to hear about other people attitudes towards make up.  Are there others out there like me? Do you wear some every day or is it only for special occasions? And what kind of attitude would you like your children to have when they are grown?

After the promises made by the brief, glorious entrance of spring a week or so again, you could be forgiven for believing the seasons have somehow gone backwards, and we are approaching winter again.

But a walk in the woods near our house proves otherwise.

Despite the sullen skies and the chilly wind, the new green of spring is still there, bursting out of the trees and the earth. And in some places it brings another colour with it.

New Blue and New Green.

Who says that these colours shouldn’t be seen together? I think they look stunning.

The Gallery theme this week is New, so pop on over to Stickyfingers today.

This morning when we checked on Mama Tit, she was sitting tight on her nest, as she has been for the last few days. Her mate has really got the hang of feeding her lately and seems to be in and out of the box with food all the time.

We knew the eggs were due to hatch soon, but I had expected this to happen tomorrow not today. So when Mama tit got up off the nest and something appeared to move below her, at first I thought it was a feather.

Then I had a closer look, and I saw these.

3 little chicks and 7 eggs, but no sign of any broken shell anywhere. The parents must be super vigilant about removing it.

The kids were fascinated and watched the nestcam instead of TV this morning.  There were complaints when it was time for the school run.

Sometimes mum would stay on the nest and only hop off when the male appeared with food for his offspring. Sometime both the adults would go off to find food and sometimes they seemed to struggle to feed their babies effectively.

In the end she does the sensible thing and eats the unwanted caterpillar herself.

I suppose the chicks are only newly hatched and quite tired at this stage and will become more demanding as they grow . I know they look pretty horrible at this stage but I feel quite clucky over them, in a way I don’t often get over human babies!

As for the rest of the eggs, when will they hatch? Well, about an hour later, after the school run, I checked the nest again and another three had hatched!

It looks like half a hatched egg has been pushed onto the intact egg in the lower left of the nest. I hope this doesn’t make it too difficult for the chick that is in that egg to get out.

It’s been lovely watching these birds nest, and the chicks hatch but I am now worrying that something will go wrong as they grow. I know the kids (and adults)  in this house would be very upset.

Fingers crossed that  the rest of the chicks hatch okay and everything makes it to fledginghood.

A couple of months ago my FB timeline was completely clogged with people begging me for Candy Cane lives. Oh, how I laughed as I ignored their pleas.

How could fully functional adults get so caught up in a computer game? How pathetic they were.

Well, dear reader, I am laughing on the other side of my face now. For my name is Jacq and I am an addict. A Dragonvale addict.

It all started when DH bought me a Nexus 10 tablet for Christmas.  I was thrilled to finally have a tablet of my own. We already had a small collection of iPads that wander randomly through the house but I didn’t want one of those. I am allergic to all things Apple and I wanted an Android tablet instead.

So here I was with my brand new, shiny Nexus and what were the first things I downloaded. That’s right, games.

I wanted a game that I could just pick up during the day and play for a few minutes, before putting it down again. I downloaded a few possibilities, but with a lot of them you could only go so far before you had to start using real money. Others were designed for smaller screens that my Nexus and the graphics looked awful on it. Finally I found Dragonvale. It doesn’t have to cost you anything and the graphics are crystal clear on my 10 inch tablet. I’ve been playing it ever since.

The aim of the game is to create a  zoo-like dragon theme park by breeding different dragons, and attracting as many park visitors as possible. As you increase your level in the game; by breeding, raising and caring for magical dragons and decorating your park, more options open up to you. Your dragons earn money which you can then spend on food to increase the dragons’ level. The higher a dragon’s level, the more dragoncash it makes you. The number of visitors who visit the park is dependent on the type and level of dragons in your park and how well designed it is. The ultimate game challenge seems to be to breed a number of rare dragons including the Sun, Moon and Rainbow Dragons, but there always seems to be another new challenge to take up.

The game is free for Android and Apple and if you are prepared to wait, then you can eventually get everything you want without spending a penny, and by experimenting with different combinations of dragons. But if you have a little spare cash, and want to hurry things up a little, you can use real money to buy food, gems or Dragoncash. Beware of this function if  you are letting your children play the game and you have in game purchases approved.

You can figure most things out yourself but I have found the Dragonvale Database and the Dragonvale Wiki very helpful with the breeding and racing of my virtual pets. If you have a question about any aspect of this game, chances are high that you’ll find the answer on one of these sites.

I’ve really enjoyed playing Dragonvale and it fits in well with my ‘now and then’ gaming brief. I can pick it up, collect some cash, plant some food, incubate some eggs, chose who to breed next, then close it all down until next time.  But sometimes I find myself playing it when I should be doing something far more important and my husband complains that I pay my dragons more attention than I do him. He’s probably not wrong.

And of course the kids noticed I was onto something different fairly early on. For about 6 weeks, they all took turns at helping me with my Dragonvale game, and apart from the fights about whose turn it was, all was well.

Then DH downloaded the IOS version of the game onto the iPads, so everyone has their own version of the game. Suddenly I had competition!

DD1 is hell bent on breeding every new dragon before I do, and makes a huge song and dance of it if she succeeds. She is not a good winner.

We have had instances of people accessing other’s park and selling all their good dragons or wasting all their money, and have had endless tears because a breeding didn’t result in the dragon egg that was wanted.

Then we’ve had the awkward questions; this morning DD3 wanted to know if dragons had willies…

Of course, all this madness could be stopped if I just deleted the game from all the tablets. I threaten to do this at least daily and it really works well for getting kids to do things they don’t want to. That’s a useful card to have , right?

And if I deleted theirs, then I’d have to delete mine too.  And then what would I do with my spare time?

I’d have to take up Candy Crush!