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.
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