Living 2008

The rain and winds continued.

We left late for my grandparents as both children decided to share Colins bath but that was probably a good thing. I think that when the weather is bad and the children are excitable then an hour is possibly too long for my grandparents. We’ve been going weekly for over a year now and I’m really pleased at how comfortable my children are there, happy to kiss greetings and farewell and able to chatter to them about what they’ve been doing. Occasionally age shows in my grandad, I’m not sure how long people live for after they start being old. He’s in his eighties.

We popped by to find Mum home so stayed there for most of the afternoon. Master R ate fruit (apricots, apples and oranges) and they both had a flat egg for lunch. Ms R wrote us all a To our names From her with lots of kisses, she doesn’t need help with any of our names anymore but still asks for help writing From. She also played with Baby Annabell. Master R did some general running and jumping around and a bit of scribbling. We played ball together for quite a while, his ball skills are amazing. He can catch the ball when I throw it to him and when he bounces it on the ground, he also seems to have a good aim when kicking it and just gets so much pleasure and laughter to see where it will go next. They both watched a bit of tv and Ms R played on the computer a bit with me dictating what letters she needed to type into google to find relevant sites.

We stopped off at the library to return old books and find new ones. I couldn’t find anything that really took my fancy. Ms R chose a book about a rescue centre and puppies which seems to be part of a series but on reading the first chapter reveals that the main (human) character is twelve so might be a bit old for us. She also chose a big book that seems to be a compilations of chapters from various fairy tales which meant we read one chapter of ‘The Snow Queen’ and one chapter of ‘Peter Pan’ none of which really made sense. Master R chose a storybook which we may have had before about a witch. The problem I’m finding with the toddler/young childrens story books is that alot of them seem to be about or aimed at other cultures and while I think it is great that our local library can offer a diverse range of books to suit every religion or culture we actually live in a predominantly British town. I know we do, most of the kids I went to school with still live here and are now grandparents. I don’t have an issue with books about or aimed at other cultures except that I don’t find them very easy to read and often don’t understand the story. As horrifying and possibly rascist it might seem to some I’d rather read a story about a fairy who is worried about her first day at school than a man who creeps through villages talking to worms. Master R also chose an older childrens book which I read the first couple of chapters of and might finish on my own before bed, it didn’t engage either of them so that one too was probably too old but I can’t wait to find out what happens next. It’s called The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo.

Mum gave us a cauliflower that she was otherwise going to throw out and on the way home we stopped off to buy chips so we had cauliflower cheese and chips for dinner (Colin was working late hence the cheap, cheesy and meatless meal).

I read stories downstairs tonight knowing that I wouldn’t fall asleep reading on the sofa. Master R curled up and closed his eyes after his story so I carried him up and put him to bed. Ms R was a bit more resistant but eventually managed to fall asleep in her own bed with the help of Baby Annabell and with me popping up to her for a cuddle every couple of minutes. I’ve heard footsteps since though so suspect she is already in my bed.