We’ve done so much the last couple of weeks, I just wish I could remember it all.
We’ve had friends visiting to play and to meet Buzz. Different sets of friends seem to bring different issues to deal with. Ms R has the personality of a roller coaster ride, things are either floaty flowers and romantic music or heart stoppingly close to murder. She knows how to get the most out of every emotion. Master R is usually very confident but is quickly reduced to tears if it is pointed out that he is the odd one out for any reason, now we are back to him wishing he was a girl. But, we love having friends and the hours of quality play and socialising far outweigh the occasional negative five minutes.
We visited the sheep farm and although we didn’t actually catch any lambs popping out we saw some fairly new arrivals. This year we also took a tractor ride over the hills to see the lambs play, some calves, hares, a bird of prey, various other wildlife and stunning views. Questions about how the lambs got into the sheep and why sheep don’t get married. We’re getting extremely close to full blown reproduction education. The answer to ‘How does the man get his seeds into the woman’ sounds so bizarre when I rehearse it in my head, maybe I’ve somehow got it wrong. Ms R has also wondered quite loudly why boys and men even have a certain parts of their anatomy, as it was more of her thinking out load rather than a question I treated it as such.
Master R and Daddy surprised me by doing a letter lotto game together. It involved Master R holding the letter up so Daddy could say it’s sound and Master R then matching it to a picture beginning with the same sound. I was rather impressed at how little help he needed. When we play eye-spy his every turn begins with "Uh" although the thing he’s chosen never begins with that sound. He’s also got out the wooden baby puzzles of his own accord and done them all by himself, maybe not necessarily a huge achievement in itself but I’m sure it was only a month ago that I got them out and despite trying he couldn’t do them with me.
Ms R has had her stablisers removed from her bike and we’ve been taking it to the park with a hill for her to free wheel down. To start with she wasn’t sure about the idea but she quickly loved it and runs back up the hill pushing the bike for another go.
Master R picked up a book and told me he was going to read me a story. It was a simple learn-to-read type of book, he really wants to be able to do everything that Ms R can do. He opened the first page and read "A shop" and then pointed out to me in the same rather patronising way that I’ve done to him everything about the picture of the shop, when he turned the page and read "Here is a shop" while running his finger under the sentence I caught my breath. For a moment there he really had me convinced that he had gone from not being able to identify the first letter of his name to reading. Then every page after that he ‘read’ "Here is a shop" long after the story had moved away from the shop and was focusing on other key words.
Ms R also found the letter lotto, probably because it had been left out rather than pure coincidence. She raced through every letter really quickly placing it on it’s corresponding picture and insisting that Daddy said "Correct" each time. She’s been really into playing schools lately and we’ve had a lot of "Pretend we’re going to school and these bags are our school bags" and "Pretend you’re the teacher and we have to do what you say" and even "Pretend we’re on an airplane with our teacher going on holiday but you couldn’t come". She is building up a very rosy picture of what a teacher is and what school might involve. We’ve even had a whole day of playing school where she completed two pages of an activity book and drew a picture with an ‘animal’ theme. I asked her if she was thinking about going to school as she now appears ‘ready’ but she said not until she’s eight.
Buzz (who is almost definately female) has settled well into the family. Both children take the responsibility of feeding her and I take care of washing her bowls and cleaning her litter tray. Master R spends a lot of time picking her up and carrying her around and I now feel she is beyond frightening so spend less time telling him to leave her alone (except when he puts her in small boxes or bags for ease of transporting). Despite all this he is the one that she lays with for story time and sleeps next to in the night. She showed signs of having worms so we de-wormed her and the children at the same time. They were both very keen and swallowed the pill easily after a brief explanation about worms.
Ms R has been doing a lot of mixing paints to make new colours. Up until recently brown was the unintentional result of most things, now she can’t make it even when following a code.
We went to the theatre to watch The Gruffalo.
Books we’re reading/read.
‘Going on a Bear Hunt’ with accompanying DVD, now we know the tune we sing it all the time.
‘Tiger‘ by Nick Butterworth. Currently very appropriate and very cute. It is Master Rs story choice but is simple and repetitive enough for Ms R to read.
A Beatrix Potter box set.
In the Garden.
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We have planted some potatoe seeds and put the rest in egg boxes under a makeshift greenhouse (old coffee table glass on bricks).
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The carrots planted in a toybox look like three lines of grass but don’t seem to be changing much.
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We have planted six of last years pea seeds.
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The Rs planted loads of sunflower seeds into individual pots.
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We have two tiny pots with our apples seeds in.
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One border with kids flower seeds sprinkled on and sticks criss-crossed over the top to try and distract next doors cat.
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Cress seeds growing in kitchen towel roll and an ex apple-pie foil case.
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Two tiny tomatoe plants, a Ferline and a Totem currently inside.
To look at that list you’d think we were experts, we’re not but will consider ourselves now if all of the above comes to harvest.
Things they’ve said.
Ms R about the delivery of Grandmas birthday card:
"I ’spect the postman would get very tired legs riding his bike all the way to Grandmas house"
Here’s a picture.