Living 2008

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.

We had home ed group today. It takes us about forty minutes to get there by car so plenty of time for conversation or music on the way. Today we conversed. Ms R was wanting to know what a quarter of a year was. She knows about halves but didn’t know about quarters so we talked about how sometimes I cut the sandwiches into two pieces and sometimes I cut them into four. We talked about a quarter and three quarters which was fine and how we say half instead of two quarters which took a bit longer to understand. So she now knows that she is five years and a small sandwich old.

For some reason marriage came up again. Ms R is thinking that she’ll marry her best friend when she is grown up and just borrow some seeds when she wants to have babies. She’s thinking that Daddy probably has loads of seeds left over because we only used two of his and you usually get loads of seeds in a packet. Master R really wants to marry Ms R when he grows up and is quite happy to let her have some of his seeds to make babies although his not really sure where men get seeds from, maybe Daddy will give him some when he’s bigger. Ms R is grateful for his offer of seeds but thinks he needs to find someone else to grow his babies for him as she’ll be having her babies with her best friend and he needs to find someone else to marry because when you grow up you need to find a new person to bring into our family. It seemed that I wasn’t really needed in that conversation so I mostly kept out of it other than to say that usually men didn’t give their seeds to their daughters or sisters and that was why it was best to find someone outside of the family to marry. I’m not really sure where the marriage thing has come from, we are married but it’s not something I’ve been especially promoting.

Screen printing (aka putting pictures on t-shirts) was the activity at home ed group today. I really enjoyed it and the Rs loved their t-shirts. It was lovely to see the children running around in a group outside afterwards. From what I saw Ms R was an active participant and Master R was managing to keep up. I was told of their kindness for making a new person feel welcome so that was good too.

After we got home we visited my Mum. Ms R cycled her bike and I cycled mine with Master R on the back. It’s quite a long way for a first cycle ride but Ms R did really well and was clearly very proud. She cycled along mostly on the path ringing her bell everytime she saw a pedestrian and singing a made up song about how happy she was riding her bike which got smiles from everyone we passed.

Mum has a new kitten, it’s ginger and gorgeous.

At bedtime Master R is enjoying our set of lift-the-flap Noddy books and I am reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator for Ms R which I’m enjoying because I’ve never read before but I think she is struggling to follow because there are so many words that she has never come across before (like president and bomb) which probably make it incomprehensible. They also both requested a poem after their stories although I suspect this is more to do with delaying sleep time than a genuine interest.

We used the seafront bus to get to the swimming pool. It was busier than I expected and we couldn’t sit all together but while Ms R wimpered and insisted on holding my hand across the aisle Master R was in his element sitting in between some senior people all independant and grown-up. It’s great being able to look out of the window instead of concentrating on driving and being higher up we can see more, it always prompts lots of conversations. They run every ten minutes and I love the idea of using them but it annoys me slightly that the prices are always different because they seem to charge us for travelling between two completely different stops than the ones we are actually travelling between. I’m not sure if this is down to human error or if they are on commision.

The swimming was great. Ms R spent lots of time swimming under water, sitting on the bottom, jumping in and coming down the slide as fast as possible. She also managed to float on her back which had eluded her up til now. Master R is eager not to be left behind and although he wouldn’t go down the slide by the end he was dunking himself under too.

Ms R started Rainbows, I sat and watched. She was a bit quiet and at one point I thought it wasn’t going to work but when given her options she chose to join in. Theoretically it ticks our box for socialisation but in practice it ticks our boxes for structure, following instructions and learning in a group. Not that I really have boxes to tick because I’m not that organised, but if I did…

The Rs have enjoyed doing a mini painting-by-numbers kit. Ms R got the right colours in the right places and was very proud of the results. Master R splodged colour all over his, not worrying about the lines but making sure he didn’t leave any white bits and he was also very proud of his. Ms R wanted to know why she had to use certain colours in certain places and I explained that she didn’t, but if she did she’d get that result. She also wanted to know why she had to do what the Rainbows leader said and again I explained that she didn’t, but if she wasn’t going to join in there probably wasn’t much point in us going. Sometimes she seems to want to be told what to do but when she is she questions it, which is great.

When queueing to buy toilet paper Ms R told me how many rolls there were by working out that there were six in each of three layers. I pointed out that it was written on the packet as well and she seemed genuinely surprised. I’m confident that she knows and understand values up to twenty. It’s interesting that once she knew there were eighteen she talked about eighteen being made of three lots of six so she can see the sum both ways. I never really got maths at school but maybe that was because when I was doing multiplication I certainly never understood that the answer divided by one of the numbers would equal the other number (and even as I was writing that I had to check that it really worked). My maths only improved once we were given formulas to work out answers, then it became easy. As long as I could remember which formula I needed for which sum I could get them all right.

We’ve planted some more flowers. They both really enjoy planting and watering and take delight in seeing them blossom. Most days they get excited because they’ve spotted another flower on the tomato plants or the peas have grown taller. We rooted some mint in a glass of water and they were pretty impressed by that.

We saw and listened to the local secondary school band playing on our beach green over the weekend. The music was awesome and we talked about the variety of different instruments. I think Ms R would have sat listening for a lot longer, I know I would have done, but Master R was impatient for the promised ice-cream. We are no closer to getting a sound out of the plastic flute which is a pity because we’d all love to play a tune on it.

The Rs have been doing a lot of dancing to Elvis Presley at Nanas house and they love his music. We’ve been listening to Queen in the car and they like clapping along to the beat. We’ve been looking after Nana while my parents are away so have spent quite a bit of time in her company. It means that they’ve had plenty of opportunities to play with the children from the flats. Ms R has a special friend there who has just had a birthday (I’m guessing sixth) and they spend some time chatting together and some time playing in larger groups. I keep an eye on them from inside Nanas house and they are often sat in a large circle playing a game or running around in a gang. I don’t know which of the women is the Mum of Ms Rs friend and I don’t even know the girls name. I feel I should find out because it would be nice for the girls if we met up in the school holidays but maybe part of the magic for Ms R is that it’s a friendship that hasn’t been orchestrated by me. There hasn’t been any tears but today a toddler was trying to hit Master R. A couple of the older children did a good job of keeping the toddler distracted and one girl came over to assure me she’d look after Master R so all was well.

One of this weeks library books is Tom and The Tinful of Trouble - Nick Sharratt & Stephen Tucker.  Ms R read the first couple of pages by herself, it sort of happened because the first word was Tom and I pointed at it and said "Oh look, you know that word" so she read it, and then read the next one and next one. She read words that I didn’t expect her to know and made logical guesses at words she didn’t. When she reads it’s clear that she sees past the words and into the story, she doesn’t punch each word out as an individual test. While reading chapter books is good for the story content and my interest it seems that reading picture books are good for helping her to read. I found a poetry book for 30p at the library, I wish I could dine with a porcupine by Brian Moses which we are enjoying and we’ve also just returned Seaside Poems by Jill Bennett & Nick Sharratt. Ms R likes the musical and rhythmic sound of poetry and is asking lots of questions around the subjects of the poems.

Buzz is growing and now has the shape of an adult cat. I heard a female cat calling the other evening and panicked a bit that it was Buzz but when I did the box shake she came running from upstairs. We seem to have a couple of extra tom cats passing through our garden and I’m aware that we need to make a decision fairly soon about when to sterilise her. She is developing a warm, soft, bulging tummy but as she’s only about five months I’m thinking that I’m probably over feeding her. We’ve been taking her to visit Nana with us which she doesn’t overly enjoy. Today we needed to have her out of the house for a couple of hours so I took her to Nanas and after carefully taping up the catflap left. When I returned she didn’t immediately come to greet me and I feared the worst when I saw the lounge window wide open. Thankfully she was on the bathroom window sill but Nana had also thought she’d gone missing at one point and had gone outside (leaving the door open) to try and find her. It would be really great if Buzz could get used to Nanas house so that she could stay there while we went on holiday but I know that Nana can’t be expected to spend a whole week with all the windows and doors closed. The other option is to try and organise someone to come to our house twice a day to feed her. Mmmm, still thinking on that one. 

Yesterday we took a trip along the coast as we had a parcel to collect. It happened to be right near where Nana used to live with Dick after they retired and before he died. So we parked by the park that was at the end of their garden and the Rs played whilst I reminisced about our Sunday visits there, the games my brother and I played and thought in amazement about how lucky we were to be able to roam so far. My brother and I would wander along to the end of the green and come out at the back of the castle which had all sorts of exciting bushes, rocks, trees with low branches, hills and valleys to play in. For a few years there were also two very little shetland ponies tethered and we used to play with them too. The Rs and I walked along the lane passing The Old School House 1896 and entering the very large beautiful church which was originally built in the early 1200s. Lots of history there which mostly went over our heads but both children very much enjoyed looking at the stained glass windows and other churchy things that we’re not too familiar with. We were in there for a while before they started itching with the temptation to run around and climb the bell ropes so then we wandered along to the Roman fort to look at the medieval castle. There were little pillars with information on which we read and talked about, Ms R was really interested in it all and seemed to keep waiting for me to tell her more, unfortunately I didn’t really know anymore. At one point she said it felt like a dream because she couldn’t really believe that once it was really a proper castle and people lived here. It’s history is quite fascinating so I think I must look out for some re-enactment dvd’s.  

Master R mentioned how lovely the kittens were that we’d seen the day before and asked if we might be allowed to see them again. He thought we could take my Mum and Lucky because Lucky would just love to play with all those little friends.

Today when we woke up Ms R wanted to read me a story. She offered me a choice of three and eager not to appear too pushy I opted for the picture book without words. So she removed that option from the list of choices because she thought I’d enjoy a more grown-up book instead and then chose a Peter & Jane book for me. It was the first one and she read it all the way through. She was very proud of herself and pointed out a couple of times that she read it all the way through and it only took her five minutes. Then Master R wanted to read it to me but got cross because he didn’t know the words so she sat by him and helped him to read by whispering the words into his ear. So she actually read it twice.

Then we popped in to see Nana. Ms R read the book to her and she was suitably impressed. Back home I attempted to make two birthday cakes. They’ve come out the right shape (one square, one round) but don’t look all light, fluffy and moist. More like a brick. I’m guessing it’ll be the sort of sponge that tastes better with custard but am hoping to disguise it well with brightly coloured icing. The children only eat the icing anyway.

I nearly let slip to Master R about the kitten. I said that maybe next week we’ll invite friends round rather than going out and he started complaining so I said "Well I’m sure you’ll want to show them your kitten". Ms R jumped on me and pulled all sorts of faces and Master R said "But we don’t have a kitten" and I quickly said "I meant your white cat" meaning the soft toy that we found and played with earlier. So Master R agreed and started listing other soft toys that he could share with his friends and Ms R gave me the thumbs up sign. Wish I could get that kitten out of my head.

We saw our friends at the farm. There were some younger cows in pens who all got up and came to look at us, Master R tried to feed them hay but they were quite shy. One licked his coat though and took the hay so he was really pleased. The soft black yard cats followed us around again so he delighted in that. Everytime he beckoned it went to him and rubbed itself all over him. And he fed a polo to a pony which he enjoyed. Ms R started with her hand over her nose but I sat her on a hay bale and went off with Master R and when I came back her hand had left her face and she was chatting away to our friends. They both enjoyed playing with the young girl. Ms R suggested that the young girl pretend to be a young girl so that she could be the Mummy and Master R wanted to be her Daddy and then they all walked along hand in hand. It was very cute.

The Rs joined me in bed this morning and Ms R wanted me to read ‘The Snowman’ by Raymond Briggs, as it doesn’t have any words in it I suggested she ‘read’ it to me from the pictures, which she did. After she finished I thanked her and said it was nice to be read to instead of always being the reader so she said she’d read me another book, she came back a moment later with Peter and Jane 2a and read it to me fluently even putting on a cross voice when Pat the Dog was trying to get the fish. I was really surprised and other than asking after a couple of words she new them all. She was reading it fast enough that often the sentence would unravel without her realising she’d read a new word, then at the end of the page she’d go back and ask if that new word said what she thought it did.

Oh we did so much today.

We visited the little (soon to be not anymore) post office to post a letter and buy penny sweets. As I was queueing to post the letter Ms R helped Master R with sweet counting, not sure why but she told him before he paid that he might have change and he did. It was lucky really because she overspent by a penny and when the lady told her Ms R just froze on the spot looking mortified. Thankfully Master R raced over with one of his pennies.

For some reason the conversation on the way to home ed group turned (once again) towards marriage and babies. Ms R really wants to marry one of her cousins because she doesn’t want to marry any of the boys that we know and she really really doesn’t want to marry a stranger. I explained that in mine and Daddys case we started out as friends and just got more and more friendly until we ended up married which seemed to reassure her. She then decided that there was a female friend she’d be happy to marry but wanted to know if she’d be able to have babies if she married a lady so I explained that she probably would be able to have babies but would require the help of a man. Master R then wanted to know if he married the said friends brother if he’d still be able to have babies. I explained to him (once again!) that he’d need a lady to grow his baby for him and he said that maybe Nanny would do it as she was good at growing things. I don’t know why or how we get into these conversations and I really try not to offer fuel for more questions when answering them. Whatever next?

The home ed group was good, we all played with playdoh for a bit and then went into the hall for a drama session. Both the Rs seemed quite into it but I needed the toilet and took the opportunity to make an important phonecall, Ms R couldn’t stay in without me. She wanted to do the drama but needed me to be in there with her. She knows the venue and the adults and the children yet still she couldn’t join in without me being there too. It’s perfectly inline with who she is and wasn’t unexpected although as she now appears so confident in so many areas I half thought she’d stay. Master R did stay for a while but when he noticed that we’d left he came to make sure he wasn’t missing out.

After the group we popped by to see my Dad, he was very welcoming and chatted to the children. Ms R found a scratch card and was looking at it with him and telling him how much he could have won if he’d got three of other things reading numbers like twenty pounds and seventy pounds and knowing that seventy was more than twenty which isn’t something we’ve done heaps of. She then settled down with a piece of paper and pen and wrote Mummy and her name underneath, then she told me how many letters her name had, how many mine had and how many they were different by. I’m guessing that seeing her do this sort of stuff is very reassuring for my Dad that she isn’t missing out educationally by not going to school and I just love that she does it in front of him. If there’s anyone in the world I want to impress then it’s my Dad.

We left Dad for the library to return most of many books. I try to set a one book rule but they always find another and another that they just have to have. We seem to be choosing quite well lately. Master R chose Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen which I absolutely fell in love with, it was so sweet that I was struggling to keep my voice steady as I read it and I’m not usually such a softy! Together we chose a childrens non-fiction book about foxes which we all enjoyed, it sort of backs up what we’re reading about in The Children of Cherry Tree Farm and will hopefully reassure Ms R that foxes don’t eat people. I picked a first experiences book about visiting the dentist in the hope that it will encourage Master R to open his mouth next time we go and he was very interested in that and there were a couple of other books which we haven’t read yet.

When Ms R was two I wondered how anybody ever had any time for educating. What with the preparing and feeding of three meals a day, snacks, assisted toilet trips sometimes requiring complete outfit changes and impromptu naps there didn’t seem to be any time left for anything else. As she’s got older and manages eating, dressing, toilet trips etc herself the windows of opportunity have become longer and more frequent. However there are still days when I over-estimate our windows and under-estimate the time needed just to meet their basic needs. Today was one such day with me bouncing through having finished the boring stuff (tidying up and putting some washing on) and announcing that we had a whole hour to fill before we were due to leave for my grandparents. I suggested that if we left now we could do a library trip on the way or that there was time for a quick bike ride. It was met with requests for help to finish breakfasts, the need for a running commentary so that Master R could get dressed all by himself (which he did, socks, pants, everything and he was so proud he told everyone we saw) and then help with shoes, brushing hair, etc. That was our hour gone and felt to me a bit like a lost opportunity. I can honestly say that there is no way I’d cope with getting children to school everyday.

My grandparents were thrilled to see us. In the usual stereotypical way Grandad played ball and then rough n’ tumble with Master R making him giggle and Ms R sat down to do stuff with Grandma. First she made her do some mini aquadraw mats and then they played Trumps (Endangered Speices) together. I made them both look at our holiday photos.

On the way home the Rs decided they’d like round eggs and eggcups for lunch (as opposed to flat eggs) so we stopped off at the butcher shop and brought a whole tray. For some reason eggs look more appealing in a cardboard tray than in a plastic box, thats how they came when I was a child and they seemed to get just as much pleasure out of choosing their own as I used to. The had boiled eggs and soldiers and then crushed the shells into the end of our garden.

We visited my parents and took my Mum to B&Q to buy some bathroom furnishings. Ms R wanted to go somewhere ‘fun’ (meaning somewhere artificial and expensive) and I told her that there wasn’t anywhere suitable close because all the children her age are in school during the week and she replied very indignantly "Well why don’t they think about the home educated children?"

The sun was shining so back at my parents house the children played on the trampoline and I followed Mum around her garden and greenhouse admiring all the new life. It freshly inspired us and we raced home to plant carrot seeds and two potatoes. I put the old coffee table glass over the top. I’m eager not to get so left behind this year; last year we planted our potatoes too late, our sunflowers didn’t bloom until December and our Christmas amarylis has only just flowered. Afterwards Master R informed me that he’d picked off the green bits that were on his potatoe before planting it, I’m not sure if it’s worth waiting and seeing or if I should just dig it up straight away.

Master R is still enjoying Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore. Ms R and I have now finished My Naughty Little Sister by Dorothy Edwards and she’s asked if we can get a sequel. We are now reading The Children of Cherry Tree Farm by Enid Blyton which is a great hit, she’s already asked when we can go to see the lambs being born (despite hating it last year) and we’ve had lots of discussions already about things like the difference between rabbits and hares, frogspawn and the way foxes sniff a trail etc and we’ve only just started.

Ms R requested a day at home to play today.

We tried on various summer wear in preparation for our holiday in a couple of weeks and now have a list of things we need.

Ms R played My Little Pony tv games for a while and then they played with the train track together. They played outside briefly with footballs. Upstairs they played dog racing on the double sided chalk board easel and Ms R ‘read’ a favourite book to Master R.

We made mini doughnuts with another Christmas present and talked about the ingredients, how and why they changed and about not being able to change them back again comparing it to water and ice as an example of something that could be changed back. Meanwhile they ate loads and got covered in sugar. Eventually I got bored with pouring tiny amounts of batter into the machine and stuck the rest in the frying pan to make a huge chocolate chip pancake type of cake which is really nice cold.

By lunch time Master R and I were needing to leave the house so decided on a trip to a shoe shop looking for summer shoes. There were no summer shoes but plenty of wellies, duh! We found a book shop full of beautiful books, we filled it with delighted exclamations as the children fingered new books and recognised favourites. The shop was small and empty except for the sales lady and one other customer. Having explained to the Rs quietly that we didn’t really have spare money to buy books but then agreeing to buy Master R a sale book, Ms R then kept asking if this book or that book was cheap enough to buy. As if that wasn’t embarrasing enough at the point that an unsavoury odour wafted past Master R said in his clearest and loudest voice "Aw Mummy, your bottom really does smell". It wasn’t me, no really, it wasn’t! Anyway Ms R came away with the first ‘Secret Seven’ book by Enid Blyton.

Master R requested a trip to the park but as it was after school time I suggested a bounce on Mums trampoline and they liked that idea. We stopped to buy daffodils and purple crocuses (or tulips) to leave in a vase for Mum and we bounced happily together for half an hour as the sun went down and turned the sky pink.

I cooked bolognaise and Ms R cooked spaghetti for dinner and after Daddy and Master R bathed Ms R and I bathed together trying out different bubbles and bath accessories.

In bed I read Master Rs new Thomas book, I don’t find them easy to read and they don’t seem to make much sense to me the first few times but he liked it. I expect after a couple of weeks I’ll get it. Then I read the first few chapters of Secret Seven to Ms R deciding that as the chapters in Mr. Twiddle were more like individual short stories rather than a continuation then it wouldn’t be a serious crime to not finish that one first.  

Today was a short day for me.

The Rs both woke before six excited about Cousin Cs birthday party and the possible arrival of an uncle to stay.

I went to bed and was woken by Ms R informing me they were about to leave for the party and asking if she looked okay which was followed by the arrival of said uncle so I got myself up and dressed and took them to the party myself.

It was a great party held in a hall with a large bouncy castle. It was interesting to see that Ms R towered about the children she would have been in class with had she gone, I never think of her as particularly big. The boys got quite rough with each other by the end of the afternoon randomly pushing each other over. Cousin C is the first baby I ever cuddled so it was nice to celebrate his birthday with him. We missed last years thanks to chicken pox.

Apparently Nana asked if Cousin C would like to grow his hair long and curly like Master Rs and he said yes . Little chance though, the children all looked really fashionable, like mini men in a nightclub with short styled hair, shaped shirts and designer jeans. Almost seems a shame. Three out of the twelve boys invited from his class couldn’t come as it was their Dads weekend to have them.

Once home the Rs recieved presents from uncle. Ms R got a Just Married Barbie and husband in a car (groan) and says she likes it so much she wants the whole Barbie set. Mmmm.

Uncle showed us some instruments he’d made out of wood. Ms R danced to the sounds and Master R just watched mesmerised. Daddy had a go too. They both had a go with his harmonica. We have various blowy things (recorders etc) but all are well hidden away as Ms R never got past just blowing as hard and loud as she could. Master R got the hand of blowing softly and actually trying to make music. He’s a very interesting combination, liking to play football and kill monsters one minute and trying to make music and do fairy twirls (looks like real ballet!) the next.

We finished the day to Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson (author of The Gruffalo). We’ve read it every day since borrowing it from the library and Master R is word perfect (I leave the rhyming words off and he says them). I like it even more than The Gruffalo. And of course, another chapter of Mr Twiddle.

We had an early morning visit from my sister-in-law, well, early for us in that we were all in a state of dress ranging from pyjamed to naked. It probably felt like mid-morning for her as she was on her way back from the school run. She gave us a party invitation and then we chased her away to get ready for our day out.

We would have been early ourselves had we not just carried on driving instead of turning off and going twice as far again. We got there in the end though and managed to have discussions on a couple of landmarks which we’d not have seen if we’d gone direct. With three out of the four children being girls who don’t like dinosaurs even Master R doubted his bravado despite his usual random phrases of "I’m not afraid of anything", all four children were itching to hit hysteria at every hint of dinosaur which meant the ‘educational’ part of our visit was over very quickly. Playtime was good though with the children running off to play together. It was a really great day out and on the way home we resolved to try and go somewhere every week.

When we got home we investigated a noise round by the garages and found a man with a pretty big remote control vehicle. He saw us watching, offered us a look and explained how he raced remote control cars and also repaired them. I think he’d have been happy to talk to us for ages about them but with my total lack of interest, knowledge and warm coat we thanked him and moved on.

We are reading a Mr. Twiddle book by Enid Blyton at the moment which Ms. R is really enjoying. It’s predictable enough that she knows whats coming and it makes her giggle and sigh. It’s a little bit irritating that she keeps pointing out words that she recognises and asking me why they are there, what the rest of the sentence says and whereabouts I am although at the same time very reassuring that she has a natural interest and seems to be progressing towards reading without any real effort from me.  

Wednesday we house/child sat for friends. This involves us getting up, fed, dressed and out of the house by eight thirty and every single time I marvel at how the majority of families manage this on a day to day basis, they deserve a medal or gold star or something. We had time for everything except teeth brushing which we did once there.

Ms R did lots of writing peoples names on pieces of paper and hiding them for said people to find, her and her accomplice showed each other how they write their names and names of their family members.

Master R and I cuddled and chatted lots.

In the afternoon we saw my Dad. Master R wanted a second packet of crisps without finishing his first packet (having not realised there were those ones in the cupboard). He puts on the cutest, politest little voice full of pleases and negotiations when he wants something, then begs pitifully while declaring love and stroking me before resorting to authoritive shouty "Well I am going to anyway!" behaviour. He stomped off and got the said crisps which he cluctched protectively while I put his boots on him and then when I asked them both to put them back in the cupboard (my Dad had given Ms R a second packet thinking that I’d lost that battle) my Dad offered to hide them in a safe place for next time and Master R willingly gave them up. I’m really trying to solve disagreements without shouting and was very proud of myself. It seems that calmly repeating myself over and over works although I’m aware that there is a fine line between that and nagging, really don’t want to be remembered as a nagger.

We shopped and found some moist wipe things in the bathroomy aisle that I suggested to Ms R might help her be a little more independant in a certain area, and much to her delight they have although her pretty detailed narrative of it all makes me feel like I haven’t moved very far from the situation. I’m not sure if that mirror in the bathroom is a good thing or not.

I read stories downstairs again but Ms R is finding it too tempting to wander off and do something else instead. I accepted this for a bit after a discussion on a certain list about some children needing to move around while listening to stories. When her lips started to move I stopped reading and listened. She was saying ‘hand’ over and over again, fast and then slowly and then she was dissecting it so it went a bit like this; "Hand, h-and, haannd, h-a-nd, hand, h-an-d, h-a-n-d, hand" and then she realised I’d stopped reading and asked me to start again. I’m not sure if she was just separating out loud the sounds in the word or if in her mind she could see the letters that made the word. It’s irrevelant I guess but interesting and very reassuring from my stance.

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.

The Rs slept mostly in their own beds last nights. Both appeared sleepily at some point before midnight needing to be directed back and snuggled up and Ms R joined us in our bed at some point so I carried her back. She’s asked for a Baby Annabell canopy which is currently residing unbeknown to her in the boot of the car, I don’t like using bribery as such but I have discussed with her the possibility of having nice things for her bedroom (such as a Baby Annabell canopy) once she starts actually sleeping in there. This morning when she woke up she woke Master R up and they both came to tell me in very proud (and loud) voices how they slept in their own beds before going downstairs for breakfast and Cbeebies. Ms R told me she’d dreamt that we were out shopping with the whole family for Christmas when we saw red daleks, we weren’t scared because they looked like they were inflatable or something but they were moving around and were friendly. Master R got the wooden puzzles out and Ms R made me a card with ‘zero, one, two, three, four’ written on the inside copied from the puzzle board that just happened to be next to her at the time. It’s the first time she’s been interested in copying things, usually she likes me to call out the letters. Her letters are starting to be similar sized and are quite box like.

We had high winds and heavy rains but that didn’t deter us from heading East to home ed group. We’d barely left when Master R listed the friends he knows who are in possesion of a Dr Who sonic screwdriver. That in itself was fine (bearing in mind we’ve never actually seen Dr Who) but then he went on to say that Ms R doesn’t have one because (drum roll please) "…she’s a girl" . Erm no, she doesn’t have one because she doesn’t want one,

"But she plays with girls toys because she’s a girl and I don’t because I’m a boy"

What? Where’s he getting this stuff from? I asked him what things are ‘girls toys’ and he said

"Babies and stuff like that" but didn’t know who said they were for girls or why they were girls toys, he just knew they were . So we talked to them about that for a bit but I’m sure they were just thinking that I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, I told them my brother used to play with dolls with me which had them asking why in surprised and disbelieving tones. A little later he asked me if he’d be a lady after he’s been a man, he’s asked me a few times when he’ll be a lady. I’m surprised the whole boy/girl, man/lady stuff is coming up at this age but it seems important to him at the moment.

We all did some lego and then they did some drawing. Master R did a quick scribble on the corner of a large piece of paper, asked me to fold it in half for him and then gave it to me as a card. While Master R and I started on lunch Ms R spent ages doing a chalk picture, folding it in half to make a card and writing ‘To Mummy’ on it. She declined several invitations to make pasta necklaces and one to make scones and then wished all the way home that she’d made a necklace, I wished she’d made scones. She was a bit lost without her usual friends although spent some time pushing a little boy on the ride-on, lounging on the chairs in the sports hall watching with interest the behaviour of the older boys and playing ball with another boy. Master R spent our time eating and chatting. By the time we came out the rains had gone and the sky was blue.

Once home they settled into some train track playing with Colin and then I helped them both make birthday cards for my Mum. Together Ms R and I made a 3d butterfly card with some of the printed card she got for Christmas. I told her she’d have to write smaller to fit all the words on and she did, her writing looked less all over the place smaller and it meant that the second half of words didn’t have to go underneath the first half. Every so often I feel like I should be ‘doing’ something with regards to her writing, a little bit of that ‘catch it [interest in writing] quick before it passes’ attitude but then I remember that I’ve decided not to think about formal education until she’s seven so shove that worrying thought and all it’s implications (what sort of ‘doing’ would I/should I do?) out again. Master R stuck Ms Rs left over bits of card haphazardly onto a bit of paper.

Colin again cooked us a nice dinner. Beef which turned out to be lamb. Master R didn’t think he could wait any longer for dinner (it had been at least half an hour since he’d finished that carrot) and had an angry moment where he stomped around hitting things (like the wall and the sofa) and grabbing at things with the intention of throwing them. He managed not to throw anything and quickly picked up the one item that he had dropped when I intervened with a loud ‘Oi!’ It slightly concerns me that his anger gets so big that it displays itself violently and aggressively but I’m reassured that he knows he shouldn’t be behaving like that and modifies it so that it’s not as bad as it could be, ie he’s not completely out of control, just very physically expressing himself. I like to think that if I can help him to deal with his feelings at this age as opposed to passing them off as ‘being two’ or ‘being a boy’ then it’ll help when he’s a teenager and he’ll manage not to do those daft teenager boy things like breaking windows, punching walls and graffitiing that they all do around here.

We finished ‘The Faraway Tree’ by Enid Blyton the other day so had short stories again. Ms R chose a Noddy book which was mine and has an inscription on the inside cover ‘To Sylvia from Grandma 1955′. By the way, I’m not Sylvia and it wasn’t given to me in 1955! I wonder who she was and if she realises that something that was new and treasured by her is still bringing joy to young children today. It’s not bringing a lot of joy to me though, much as I like Noddy I’m not great at reading a longer book more than once so with the incentive of not having to finish it we’ll be at the library tomorrow.