Twenty-Ten

I’ve been feeling slightly nauseaus all day which I think is due to the excitement of birthdays and organising a party tomorrow without either my Mum or my best friend. My biggest fear is forgetting something like one of the birthday cakes, there not being enough food to go round or no-one wanting to play pass-the-parcel with Ms R.

Other than my nerves today could be put down as good example of a day of home education. Ms R got a pile of books and got Master R to choose one that she could read to him. I think he chose ‘Thats not my Dolly’ which is a touch feely book. I think it’s great that she wants to read stories to him and if she’s anything like I was with my little brother she’ll read to him lots.

There was lots of playing Nanny and Grandads and making a play area for the dolls to play in. Together we built the wooden train track and they played with that for ages while I sorted clothes. I think they also played with the plastic animals briefly. 

Ms R requested doing some of Education City so we all sat round the laptop and did a couple of activities which involved putting letters in order, identified by their sounds, to make three letter words. We’ve never done anything formal with words and letters although I have always associated the sound with the name of a letter if they’ve come up. Like ‘Thats an ’s’, it makes a ssss sound’ in just the same way I used to say ‘Thats a cow, cows say mooo’. So I was surprised that she found it so easy it was boring. Master R looked on quietly and I suspect that he was absorbing some of it.

We had a quick trip to Mums to collect some cards and gifts for Master R. When we came home Master R was asleep and Ms R requested we did some puzzles together. We whizzed through them, we haven’t progressed from simple toddler puzzles yet because she never seemed to get the hang of them before.

When Master R woke up we played with the video camera for a bit. I videoed them saying what they wanted for their birthdays, up until now Master R hasn’t known and Ms R has mostly said toys. On the video camera Master R said he wanted a DS and Ms R said she wanted a pony. Oh dear.

While I cooked dinner the Rs watched tv. Ms R likes to flick through the channels on the way to Cbeebies and today stopped at what I think might have been a High School Musical movie. She watched it and imitated some of the dance moves. They both ate two dinners, maybe we missed lunch. And now we’re going to go to bed and have stories.

Tomorrow is Master Rs third birthday.

Today was Daddys birthday. In our pre-birthday discussion it was decided that he’d have presents and cards after work rather than before.

Ms R was still in her own bed when Master R woke this morning so he climbed in, snuggled up and went back to sleep which was really nice. When Ms R did arrive she managed to climb over us and squash in the middle. Just as I was dozing back off again she started trembling and said in a voice shaky with excitement "Mummeeee, it’s Daddys birthday today" so I quickly whispered that it was but he stilll needed to wake up quietly so she woke Master R up and they went downstairs to watch Cbeebies.

After Daddy had gone to work we all had a bath and then popped round to see my parents. The Rs helped to clean the little conservatory and feed Lucky the (starting-to-look-like-a-proper-cat) kitten. Both my parents had plans so we went home again to finish off Daddys birthday cake and decorate Maste Rs while he slept, Ms R helped and was quite interested in how the ingredients tasted after being mixed together compared with before. When he woke up he used the rest of the smarties to finish decorating it disguising my carefully laid out with smarties number three. He is thrilled with his cake and kept asking to look at it again. We ate lunch together and watched the end of ‘Walking with Beasts’ and the beginning of ‘Stop! Police’. Ms R keeps asking to watch ‘The Big Cat Series’ so I must look out for something similar.

I did some more tidying (does it ever end?) and put a couple of things on Freecycle and then suggested we went round to the garages to ride bikes and scooters not knowing it was raining. We went despite the rain and I took the stabilizers off of Ms Rs bike and pushed her round for a bit. She’d have liked to stay out longer but it was cold and wet. Master R likes playing on her old scooter.

I phoned the man about our kitten to confirm when we would collect it. He thinks it is male but isn’t 100% sure.

Ms R played with her dolls house, carefully redesigning rooms and then moved on to her married Barbie couple playing out a scene where they went for a walk together, kissed, fell in love and then Barbie taught the man how to fly. It’s the first time she’s ever done the kissing and love thing, or played with Barbies.

Daddy was really late home but the Rs stayed up so they could give him cards and presents. Ms R carried his cake in to show him and led us in a chorus of Happy Birthday.

One birthday down, two to go.