A Trip to the Farm... And a Muddy Puddle...

Today, finally, the rain lifted and we were able to get out of the house once more.  We decided to go to the local farm to see the animals and have a ride on the swings.  The first thing Little Man says when we mention the farm is "wee, wee!" (swings), followed closely by "trrrrrrrrrack!" (tractor).  We've been visiting this farm quite a bit recently, introducing the children to some real animals (beyond our cat), like the ones we might see when we go on our holiday to Coombe Mill in a couple of weeks (the first time we went, one of the sheep bleated right next to Little Miss; it made her jump a mile and she cried for ages.  She's a bit more used to them now!).

The Daddy packed the bag up while I got ready (a shower in peace - bliss!)  They were both very excited and we decided to take their LittleLife backpacks and let them walk round instead of using the pushchair.  

Not long ago I read a post by Multiple Mummy called 'Walking with toddling twins. What was I thinking?".  Indeed.  My heart went out to her as I read about her journey to and from school to collect her older son, with 'props' (dolls' pushchairs, in this case) - things like this really are twice as hard with twins, and on your own, too?!

Well today I was with The Daddy so I thought it would be fine.  Silly me.  For most of the first half hour Little Miss refused to walk and I had to carry her round, and Little Man wasn't much better either.  They're really getting a bit heavy now to carry for any length of time, and because we didn't have the pushchair, there was nowhere to dump the bag either!!
But they enjoyed a ride on the tractor:

seeing the rapidly growing piglets with their mummy in the barn:

 watching the calves in the field:

and having a chat with the Shetland ponies:

It started to get very warm so we had to take their jackets off, and then Little Miss decided she didn't want her backpack on any more so it had to be carried.  Along with her.

We headed to the tractor yard but before I knew it, moments after I took this photo, Little Man found and fell into the only muddy puddle in the yard.

He just walked, lemming style, straight off the little mesh platform and into a good three inches of mud and water.  Great.  You can always rely on a boy to find the mud...  He stood there rubbing his hands in the mud while The Daddy tried to whip wipes out of the bag (I was covered too by now), so I grabbed him and headed for the sinks.  Cue much excitement and flinging muddy water around.  Oh how I longed for the pushchair and small, non-mobile children...

His jeans were thoroughly smeared but of course there were no clean clothes in the bag (as I mentioned above, The Daddy packed it but did I check to see if we had clean clothes in there before we left? Er, well, no...)   He was quickly popped into a swing to distract him from rubbing his (now clean) hands in The Mud:

(I would just like to point out that I am not an anti-mud mummy - far from it, we just weren't really equipped to deal with it and he still likes to put everything in his mouth including, if necessary, muddy fingers...)

Here's Little Miss having a giggle on the swing with her daddy:

Next, we ordered some lovely buttery crumpets from the tea shop and ate them in the sunshine:

And then the children had a wander round the picnic area, checking everyone out!

Nothing is ever simple with small people, especially twin small people, but they had a lovely time and it was so good to be out in the fresh air again!  I don't think I'll be taking them on my own without the pushchair any time soon though...  Maybe when they're about 12?


I'm linking this up with Coombe Mill's Country Kids and Multiple Mummy's Family Frolics.