Stories are usually reserved for bedtime. Actually we don’t even call it bedtime, we call it story time but the end result is hopefully two sleeping children. It’s very rare that I don’t do bedtime stories but if it is late or if one of us is particularly tired I’ll race through them pretty quick. The general rule is one story or chapter each, occasionally I break this rule. We lay in my bed, me in the middle and a child on either side. After stories they snuggle into me for a cuddle then Master R rolls over, closes his eyes and floats peacefully off to sleep while Ms R needs reminding to lay still and stop humming. She doesn’t seem to have an off button and is active until the moment she drops. Sometimes she’ll start a sentence but be asleep by the end. Even once she’s drifted off her body still jerks as though in last desperate attempts to keep her awake.
Tonight Master R chose The Gruffalo again. It has started to annoy Ms R, in fact it’s started to annoy me slightly too but at the moment it is his very favourite book. Ms R was cross with his choice and wriggled about in bed next to me so I told her to go into her own room and read a book. She stropped off grumbling that she couldn’t read. At a car boot sale on Sunday she found four Disney Winnie-the-Pooh books for twenty pence each and when we got home I read them out loud while the R’s were in the bath. After Master R and I had finished reading our story we could hear Ms R, it sounded like she was reading one of the new books so I called out to ask if she wanted to finish reading it to us and she did. She was already halfway through but continued reading it fairly fluently. At first I wondered if she was relying on the pictures and her memory to tell the story but then she got a bit muddled and instead of carrying on she stopped and muttered the sentence while pointing at the words. Once she figured it out she read it how it was written and continued with the story. She was surprised and then elated at getting to the end of the book and as I was telling her how proud I am Master R climbed across me and flung his arms round her saying how clever she is. She was genuinely thrilled and rushed off to get another one which she started but we prematurely ended because Master R was also attempting to read out loud from a different book and it was affecting her concentration. I read her a couple of chapters of Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator and once the light was out she whispered that once Master R was asleep she’d come downstairs with me. As I snuggled Master R down he whispered that once Ms R was asleep he’d come downstairs with me. So with both of them pretending to be asleep in order to help the other one go to sleep it didn’t take too long. Of course, it doesn’t always happen this way. Sometimes I fall asleep first and then they both get back up.
Buzz
Is growing and now feels like a proper grown-up cat to stroke although I’m sure she’s still got quite a bit of growing to do. We’ve been taking her to my parents house fairly regularly and she is getting used to their dog. The little ginger kitten she is wary off and growls at, the bigger cat doesn’t get too close. She’s comfortable inside the big conservatory and the garden although won’t go into the little conservatory where the litter tray is kept and the cats are fed. It is also the only outside door with a catflap so she’d be expected to enter and leave via that room. But there is still time yet. She happily walks into the cat carrier and goes to sleep when in the car.
At home she is now venturing further than our back garden and is asking to go out to play at night time. Last night I caught her following a little hedgehog round our garden. I think she’s reaching maturity and wanting to find companions, of which there are many.