Making it up

BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | Are children made to learn too young?

Particularly enjoyed the comment by Doug - why do all children *need* to be able to read and write by age 7? Very odd thing to say if you ask me.

I’m avoiding like mad. I *hate* packing.

We haven’t got a kettle or a cool box yet. Half of the washing is still wet. Some of it isn’t even washed. The weather is foul. Dd is bouncing off the walls, and Small has just figured out how to bounce off the sofa. Oh, his timing is excellent!

Lunch.

Packing.

Pay bills, finish off bits of work tonight.

Chuck everything in the car and leave by about 9.30 in the morning.

Aaargh…..

Didn’t fancy home ed group this morning - it was cold and wet, and Small got me up early again, then was up again at 7.30. Urg. I’m really not good at mornings. Especially after late nights.

Anyway, dd seemed very attached to her tv this morning - didn’t even want me to read to her She was watching Tiny Living - Barney and then some other equally enthusiastic and musical American youth show. After that though, one of the Birth Story type programs came on. I expected her to turn over, but she realised that a baby was going to be born in the program, and she wanted to watch.

I was rather torn. While I am all for her knowing how it all works and how babies are born, the whole American medicalised approach is something that I’d rather she didn’t encounter too much just yet. So I ended up sitting watching with her, discussing in in great detail and explaining how it could be done differently. She knows that Small was born at home (she was here early on, and came back first thing next morning) and that she was born in hospital, and she seems to be a little sad about that. (Probably picking up on my own regret there). Then she pointed out that she couldn’t be born at home, because our house hadn’t been built then! Gotta love her And she’s looking forward to seeing the next baby born at home (she’s got big plans for this baby and I’m not even pregnant yet!)

Early lunch, and then we set off for our afternoon in and around Doncaster. First stop, the Range. Excellent shop - and I didn’t dare wander round it properly. Managed to find the camping stove I was looking for reasonably easily, so grabbed that, and also a four pack of solar lights for £14.99 (hope everyone else is bringing theirs!) Also managed to refrain from buying wetsuits, more camping chairs, extra insulated mugs….

Then to Tickhill, and art. Turned out our new teacher (we’ll call her M ) had been doing some research into what art means in schools. Apparently an awful lot of it is to do with getting ready for writing and maths - work on co-ordination and pen control, pattern matching and so on. We already cover that with other fun stuff (dd loves mazes, spot the difference, we use cuisenaire rods and all sorts of shapes and wooden blocks for building) - I’m more worried about art for art’s sake iyswim. So M had a table full of stuff, big stack of paper, some poster paints all ready, and we were at it for nearly two hours. They painted, drew, observed colour mixing, used feathers, sponges, printed with potatoes, did wax rubbing, drew from shells in front of them - I was seriously impressed. And yes, we’re going again. Dd was incredibly well behaved (as she usually is for other ppl) which was just as well, as for once, Small was having an off day.

It was odd being back in Doncaster. M is my best friends mum. I spent a lot of weekends and holidays at their house while I was growing up - I’ve known them well over half my life. In fact, it’s probably 20 years this year…ooh! For our 10 year anniversary we went to see Fiddler on the roof - think we’d better plan another celebration! Anyway, we drove through Doncaster from the big shop, and I hadn’t bothered looking at a map, I knew that I would find my way and I did fine. But there’s an odd deja vu - being in a house I practically grew up in, but as an adult, with my children. Relating to someone who was a mother figure to me as a peer - very strange, but also enjoyable.

Got home in time for the tea, bath and bed routing to start up, and got all children in bed by 9.30. Now the big question is do I clear off for a really early night, as I’ve all the packing to do tomorrow (nothing like being prepared, and I’m nothing like prepared!) or do I get my henna out from the kitchen, plaster my hair in mud and sleep with it wrapped in a carrier bag? Decisions, decisions!

OK, so I’m struggling for a title here.

Let’s see. Small tried to get up at 5am this morning, and took a little while to settle down again. Then he got up properly at 8 - I was really struggling to keep my eyes open though! Thank goodness for dp and my cup of tea…

Got downstairs, and dd brought me her book over even before I got to have breakfast! So I guess that is going well… Funny, as I’m really not sure how much of it she’s taking in, and when I’ve tried longer books with her in the past she’s rejected them within pages, but if she keeps asking for it, I’ll keep reading.

After breakfast we tried a recorder lesson. That didn’t work nearly as well, so I quit that one while we were behind. Still we tried it again, much later this afternoon, and she did manage to produce a decent note, so I felt that was quite an achievement. She’s a bit worried that it isn’t the right kind of recorder though, as it’s different to the picture on the book. It isn’t a proper recorder (it’s all one piece for starters) but it’ll do until I get my head round what I want in the way of instruments for her and ds.

Other activities for the day involved a visit from grandma, another reading lesson with a naturetrails Pooh book (almost wish we’d kept up with the magazine, but rather an expensive way of getting the nice little books I feel!), and she made a father’s day card for grandad (which she sealed without showing to me, so I’ve no idea what she drew or wrote!) After mother had gone, Small and I retired to bed, and dd played with her Katy Cat playset - I love listening to the stories she makes up, but I needed sleep!

And then the highlight. We made pizzas! I used to have a lovely cookery book that I used when I worked with adults with learning difficulties - it was a student cookbook, very straightforward, cheap, easy, quick recipes. About my level, so that I could work through them with other ppl. I lost the book in our move here (it’s probably in the garage somewhere!) so I can’t use the other recipes, but I used to use the pizza base myself, so I can remember it. There’s lots of kneeding and rolling out of dough, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she’s really good at it all - she used to do it at her nursery apparently. So that is something that we could do with keeping up with I think. The downside is that she didn’t like the pizza, so she didn’t eat it, and we had a major scene about it. Oh well.

Oh, and I nearly forgot. We gave Grandma some more of our new potatoes for lunch, and dd sampled them and thoroughly enjoyed them. So I think they are a bit of a hit. Hopefully some more of our veg will make it at some point (if the greenhouse survives the winds!) and we’ll be able to introduce some other home grown fresh foods to our diet.

as we headed out this morning to softplay with Sarah and Kirsty and their respective children. Softplay turned out to be big enough that the children can bounce around without being too horrid to each other, and the babes enjoyed their area - Small found a climbing frame he could manage, which even had a little slide. Reasonable cost as well - £2.50 for two hours play for the older ones, with a free drink too. We adults didn’t get much chance to chat, but it was nice to catch up in the odd minute inbetween dramas.

We all retired back here for lunch, which was remarkably disaster free considering that we had 4 adults and 6 children in this not too big room (the heavens opened again as we arrived home, so there was no chance to kick them out in the garden). Then everyone departed about 2ish, leaving me with a rather hyper young lady.

I came to a conclusion yesterday, and it was that you are all right. There are areas in my parenting that I still need to work on, and there always will be. But overall, I’m not doing too badly. When dd came out of her exam yesterday, I asked her to put her shoes on, while I wrestled with Small. She couldn’t see them instantly, and just lost it, yelling at me, trying to hit me and being downright rude. There wasn’t a lot that I could have done differently there - I didn’t make an unreasonable request, and I remained calm while sorting her out. So if something as little as that is going to cause her to fly off the handle, OK, I’m going to have to work with her to learn to control it, but it’s not something I need to beat myself up about. So thank you all for your support (which I’m sure I’ll need again!) while I worked that out.

Anyway, so here we were, with her a bit hyper and Small bumbling around the floor as usual. I’d printed out a worksheet from one of Merry’s links the other night, and I decided sitting her down with that could well be a good idea. So I produced it, we talked about it, and she sat down very happily to have a go.

She’s a bit of a perfectionist, my daughter. Can’t think where she gets it from. Any numbers that weren’t up to her standard were scribbled out. I was quite pleased to discover that she’s got the whole concept of numbers from 0 - 9 sussed, backwards and forwards, and as I rather think it was the first time she’d written some of them out, I thought they were formed pretty well as well. But it took ages, with loads of encouragement throughout - not to figure out the answers, but to get her to accept her penmanship! Small sat in his high chair and scribbled while we were working - he doesn’t like to be left out

After that, we read some more of Thursday’s Child, which is going down very well. Turned out she could remember quite well what had been happening yesterday in it, word for word in some parts, which surprised me rather!

After tea we went and investigated the potato buckets again, and look what we found!I thoroughly enjoyed them, and tomorrow we’ll see if we can find a few more and dd can help cook them too.

Right, I’ve spent most of the evening on this blog post and its associated piccies (although we’ve also had another long chat about giving birth, as you do, thanks for the inspiration, Barbara!) so I think it’s time for a hot chocolate and off to bed. Night all.

SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Comment | The hidden toll we all pay

I think this is rather interesting, although I admit to having struggled rather with some of the terminology in it. This sentence, for example, confused me for some time: “A historic coincidence of the rise of neo-liberal capitalism with a feminism articulated in terms of professional success has helped to promote a concept of the self only available through high-status paid work.”

I think what it is saying overall is that downshifting (another marvellous term) is good for the individual, but I could be wrong…

It was dd’s first exam today, for ballet. I took a picture - can’t believe how grown up she looks.

I hope it went well - but I’m not sure when I’ll know. We’d had a quietish day beforehand - let dp have a lie in for fathers day, took some time over lunch. I went up in the loft and got the baby walking device down - I’ve got a piccie of that to post later as well. Then we got all organised for the exam - put her hair up in a bun, got her dressed into her gear and set off.

Should have been there in oodles of time - you were supposed to arrive 20 mins before the exam time, and I’d left with an extra 15 minutes to spare - so how come I was greeted with “they’re waiting for you”? Aargh…

Anyway, she was a bit stressed about the fact that they had to go in to a different room to normal, and I was a bit stressed over the fact that they took her cardy off (that leotard is getting a bit on the skimpy side, Alison, think we’ll have to go for the next size up, d’you want it back for T?) but it all went very smoothly. Got to sit listening to mothers discussing nurserys and schools which was nice

Afterwards we were told that she is to move up to the next class, which seems to be rather more traumatic to her than the exam was. It’s at a different time and in a different room and she is already getting worked up about that, although she won’t be there for the next couple of weeks.

Once home we got to talking about stories about ballet, and I hunted for my copy of Ballet Shoes and couldn’t find it. So I got out Thursday’s children by another of my favourite authors, and started reading that. I was surprised that she stuck it for nearly half an hour, it was rather more hard work than I’d remembered, and probably quite considerably more difficult than anything she’d listened to before. I think that the one to one attention (small was napping) was probably a large measure of it, but she genuinely seemed to be enjoying it too. Hopefully we’ll do some more of that tomorrow.

Right, it’s somehow got terribly late while I’ve been investigating some new image optimisation software (link is in the link section, do look it up if you have problems with image file size for blogs!) so I’m going to call it a night.

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Hm, not quite sure this is me, but always worth a giggle. Thanks to Sarah for this one.

Small has got a cough.

He’s very proud of it. He practised it all night. Which was nice. Not. Made me really glad that I went up early for once, and even more glad when dp left us up there til 10 this morning. Also explains why Small is already in bed - he hasn’t napped at all today, and so I’m hoping that he really is down for the night. I can hope, can’t I?

Anyway, I decided that it was time to make a major start on digging this place out, so I’ve been trying. Why does everything take so long when you are being ably assisted by a 4 year old and a 1 year old? Small has discovered climbing - he’s obviously going to be really into it. As soon as I get the camera out I’ve got such a cool piccie of him in dd’s chair.

Educational activities have actually occurred in and amongst - picking up a set of word cards, dd started sounding them out - turns out she can do that after all. I pushed it a bit after than - got one of her reading books out. Took some doing but we made it through, eventually. Watched her playing with Small’s wooden blocks and she was having a great time making various different shapes out of them, and really playing with the symmetry and so on. Never know quite what to do though - she put two triangles together and said “look, a diamond” and I said, “well, it looks more like a kite to me” and that was obviously completely the wrong thing to say.

I’m quite bad at this. I know that I’m nowhere near encouraging enough. I’m so terrified of her getting hyper and out of control that I’m permanently reining her back instead of encouraging her to let go. I’m turning into my mother! aargh….but at least I’ve recognised the tendency. So maybe I can learn to reverse it a little?

The good news of the day is that I have indeed located an art teacher! My friend from school (will find that picture too) mentioned that her mum, conveniently located near Doncaster, has just finished an art course. I’d kind of assumed she meant a hobby art course, evening class kind of thing. Nope - she meant a 4 year part time HND in fine arts. She’s done sculpture and ceramics, painting and drawing, and she’s really happy to have a four year old come over and do art with her! Fantastic - and I’m betting I’ll get to learn something to. We’re going over Wed afternoon for the first time.

Right, must go and water plants before tea.

I’m getting a bit tired of posting about what a horrid time I’m having with dd, which is why you didn’t really get a post from me last night. It’s nothing desperately unusual, just screaming, stamping, shouting, throwing toys and basically doing just about anything she can to wind me up. She’s really good at it.

And then we’ll do something like this afternoon when I took her for a haircut, and she was an absolute dream, waited patiently for 20 minutes in the queue, sat and did everything the hairdresser asked her to, was an angel. Moments later out of the shop, and I’m dragging her along by the wrist dying of embarassment with her screaming and hitting me, but hey, at least I know that she can behave when she feels it’s in her interests.

So to recap on what we’ve been up to:

I’m trying again to not do much on the computer during the days which is difficult as I’m desperate to get some paperwork done before our hols, and I’ve two or three sites to finish as well. I’ve tried to organise activities and do things with dd - we made presents for Barbara’s new baby and Beth, and she made herself a bracelet, we’ve done hama (another flag and another flower), we’ve read together (which is a biggie - I am so wrong parent when it comes to reading!) and I’ve tried to be available for her. But it doesn’t work terribly well - although I am not trying anything that is too difficult for her, she tries to give up instantly she finds anything the slightest bit complicated - so it took 40 minutes to do a 9 by 6 two colour hama flag. As for the present for Barbara’s baby, well! Blood, sweat and tears, as I told Barbara (though I do wish I’d taken a photo before we gave it away).

Today we went out shopping for more camping stuff and met up with Kirsty and then went on to a softplay area, and she managed to play with M for quite some time without any major fallouts (although she tells me that she didn’t actually play *with* him. Sigh).

And now she’s out of the bath and into the bedtime routine, so I need to go clean Small. His newsflash - he managed two steps unsupported last night - from my knees to my hands And he is showing an interest in drawing - finds himself crayons and paper and he’s away. And he’s still cute.

There’s a body of ppl from the MP camp planning on going to see this during the hols - now I’m agonising over whether dd would cope. We’ve only done two cinema trips, and the first was amazingly disastrous (Little Polar Bear), with nightmares for weeks after, and the second (The Cat in the Hat), fortunately went mainly over her head. Should I hope for third time lucky?

Oh, and I suppose if we do want to go, we ought to see the first one?

and found some nice piccies.

Particularly liked this one, taken at Hesfes.

We are not having a good day.

It would appear that we have been altogether too exciting over the last few days, and my highly strung dd is somewhat overwrought. So far this morning we’ve had stomping, screaming (”I hate you, I hate this house”), slamming doors, throwing things at me (rather accurately - thanks for the throwing practise Tim! ) and the icing on the cake, shutting Small in the hallway when I nipped upstairs to replace the nappy buckets. I didn’t realise he was out there with the stairs…but thankfully I got to him in the nick of time.

So we are going to be having a very quiet and controlled afternoon I suspect. Which is a shame, as I was hoping that we might go out to get her hair cut. Never mind.

We were up late last night drinking wine and chatting with my friend - I’ve been friends with her since I was 14, and it’s the kind of friendship where it doesn’t matter if we don’t talk for a little while, or see each other for a couple of months, we just pick up where we left off and it’s easy.

So today was spent mainly with her and dd playing together - dd adores her (could be something to do with them sharing a name ). I had a bit of support work to do as well, so it helped having someone else around. After lunch we went out to the shops, hoping to get dd’s hair cut, but we failed with that one. Did manage to get some blonde hair grips so that I can practise putting her hair in a bun for her ballet exam. We also bumped into one of her nursery class mates, complete with family, and have set up a playdate for a couple of weeks (ie after the next camping hols!).

That led to another of those conversations - where do you go to school?
I don’t.
So then A asked me, where will she go to school in September?
So I just said she won’t.
But I’m going to school.
Yes, most ppl do.

Which seems to be a reasonable conversation, so I might use that concept again.

Bought some stuff for a nice tea and headed back to the car, discovering I’d missed a call on my mobile while we were shopping. Rang home and eventually raised dp, to discover I’d missed the call from Barbara, announcing the safe arrival of her little girl. Aww….

We had a pleasant tea, then my friend had to go home (she lives in York, so had a little way to drive). Late bath for the offspring, and now I’m just chilling out a little - I’ve spoken to Barbara and she’s home and doing OK, tired but happy.

If I could get Small to admit it’s time for him to be asleep, I’d have it all cracked!

isn’t it?

We’ve been out in the garden, but under the gazebo - Sarah and Ruth and tribe visited, but it turned out to be too hot for children to keep their tempers, so after a couple of hours playing, they went home for tea. We did have a joint phone call from Barbara while they were here, in which many suggestions for home based birth induction came up, although I’m not sure that I should discuss all of them on a family friendly blog!

We went to the library this morning - dd found the missing library book! It’s been lost in action for well over a year, we’d already reported it missing. The librarians were quite pleased to see it back.

We’ve got Heidi to try as a chapter book - they are quite long chapters so I’m not sure whether they will work too well as a bedtime story. I remember adoring it as a child - I’ve got a copy myself, but this one has got glorious pictures in it, and dd does like her pictures. Small enjoyed playing with the board books as well, and the librarians are starting to recognise us and recommend books. I think they could be useful allies in our home ed quest!

After lunch I spent quite a bit of time on and off the ‘puter and ‘phone, sorting out a group visit to the Suffolk Wildlife Park for our next camping holiday, which is approaching quite rapidly now. Need to buy a stove! Kirsty rang to say she was in a rather good camping shop, so we might have a trip up there later this week. Dd spent quite some time out in the garden painting the beads that she made last week, and Small spent some time drawing (well, ok, scribbling) as well.

Now he’s just waking up after a nap on the floor, and I’m trying to persuade dd that she might like some tea, but she’s still rather hot and bothered, and uninterested in food. She doesn’t know, but my best friend from school, a lady she calls Gug, is staying over tonight after a meeting in Cardiff, but I don’t expect her for another hour or two. Does mean this is probably it for your blog entry for tonight though!

I do sometimes wonder how my mother managed with four children, but of course they were rather more spread out than the four I was looking after this morning. By this you may gather that I made it to Barbara’s and childsat for her offspring along with my own while Barbara paid a visit to the hospital (update is that babe is still doing well in situ and showing little sign of wanting to come out yet).

The two girls played together nicely for ages - lots of mummy and daddy type games. B struggled a little more - I don’t think he enjoys being second fiddle to my dd, and I’m definitely not a patch on his mummy

Small spent most of the time investigating stairs - he can now go upstairs pretty well, and if he changes his mind on the way can come back down very efficiently, but if he’s at the top, he won’t turn around and doesn’t fancy going head first (just as well, really). He can also walk very well pushing the little brick trolley - he was practising this yesterday at Jan’s as well. Today he was almost turning it round himself as well.

Since we got back we’ve investigated the Sound and Music kit that we bought the other day - dd heped build a set of pan pipes, and I

[Editors note - the following was inserted while dd and I were checking our plants]
small is covered in pasta, it’s in his hair, down his neck, all over the place. It looks like he is using yellow hair gel.[end of insert]

made her the little (little most definitely being the operative word) drum. She was thrilled with them both, so that was good. The kits are OK - I wouldn’t be impressed if I’d paid full price - but a bit lacking on wordy instructions as to what you are doing and why, which I find disappointing.

Plants - we now have peas, beans, broccoli and radishes all sprouting. The courgette is growing apace, the aubergine is flowering (beautiful too) as are the three tomato plants. The rocket has rocketed, and the lettuce is looking a bit sad. Not sure what the beetroot is up to, doesn’t really seem to be doing anything much. The spring onions are looking well - apparently throwing them around in a wind and then dumping them back into soil is good for them - who’d have guessed? The sweetcorn that I planted out a few days back is looking OK ish - not obviously growing, but not dying either.

My potato forest is suffering a bit - something has broken several of the plants. It’s happened twice now - first time I suspected a football over the fence, but you’d have to work quite hard to achieve that. Now I’m wondering about the neighbours cats.

Anyway, dd has had her bath and is having her story now, and Small is playing with his noisy toys. I’ve got some work to do, so I’d best get on.

Spent the day at Honley show, which was nice

Got there just in time to miss seeing my sister come first in the novice pony section, which is rather a shame, but we did manage to spend an hour with her at the stables. Quite amused to discover that Small is not the slightest bit scared of any animals, including the extremely large German Shepherd who lives at the stables. Said dog half-inched Small’s sandwich, right out of his hand, under my nose at that! Monster animal. He then spent the rest of our visit in an empty stable…

Met up with Jan and Jonathan and spent the afternoon together. Dd has a big thing for Jan’s C - bit of hero worship going on there I think. That was the cause of the only fallout this afternoon - when dd wanted to be next to C at all times, but another of C’s friends got in the way. It was sorted fairly quickly, and other than that, dd did pretty well all day. We saw donkeys, horses, dogs, poultry, craft work - the children spent ages watching a woman with a spinning wheel. (In fact we did chat with her as to whether we could hire her as a children mesmoriser!). Small was entranced by the brass band and an mechanical organ, but he does find being carted around rather frustrating now. Time to learn to walk methinks!

Then as we were all a bit tired, we retired to J and J’s for tea - well, eventually, after I found my car! This is the drawback of parking a fiesta in a field, especially when you’re not even sure which field…

After tea, the children put on another show. It was a circus apparently, and they were very clear about what they were doing and who was supposed to go where and say what. It was the first time I’ve seen dd do anything quite like it, so that was rather good too. And I always enjoy chatting with Jan and Jonathan - enlightening conversations all round.

Reasonable journey home, but a late night all round. So I think I’d better set the alarm so that I can get to Barbara’s in the morning…

We still had a bit of whining, stamping, shouting and general unpleasantness, but we also had a great deal of helpfulness, with the occasional nice hug and kiss sprinkled in too! So obviously all I need to do is recarpet the living room in six inch foam, chuck some play balls about and provide amenable playmates, and we’ll be sorted!

Hm, maybe not.

To recap from the top - dreadful night. Didn’t go up til after midnight as Small didn’t go up til after 11 (and I really do need that little bit of adult space), then dd woke up at 1am to tell me she couldn’t get to sleep (?!) and again at 1.30 to ask me to be quiet. Sigh. Small needed three feeds during the night and then I was hauled out of bed before 8. Well, ok, woken up before 8, think it took me a while to haul myself out of the pit. Not helped by the fact I had a stiff back, so started the day doing a pile of stretches before I even hit the floor.

Being up at that time should have meant I had plenty of time to get organised to meet Kirsty at 11 as we’d planned. So how come I didn’t leave the house til 10.50? Hm?

Oh well, at least I managed the packed lunch, and found all of Kirsty’s stuff that I’d brought back from Hesfes. I did find it all didn’t I? At the petrol station got a text from Kirsty saying to call her, so did that from the next layby, and apparently, despite the website stating categorically that play was free, Magna were attempting to charge her to enter the adventure playground! Not impressed. Quick change of plans, and we headed off to a shopping outlet that we knew had both an outdoor playground and a softplay. Quick shower of rain later and rather windy too, so we didn’t last long outdoors. But that turned out to be pretty good as the softplay area, despite being quite small, was great for them.

Highlight of the visit for me (apart from lots of time to catch up with Kirsty, which was really good) was when I went to start to build the softplay car, and suddenly I had lots of children helping. Kirsty’s Alex was particularly amusing as well - I helped her out of the ball pool and as she tootled off back into the main part, I got a “thank you Jax” which cracked us both up.

After about two hours (seriously) letting the children run off steam, with remarkably few fall outs (was very impressed at how well dd and Marcus did together as they really didn’t get on at Hesfes) we went a shopping. Bad news for the credit cards…toyworld outlet had a number of John Adams “educational kits” - so I came away with Optical Science, Sounds, and Colour and Light. Chucked in a Hula Hoop (pink and sparkly of course!) and the whole lot just came to £20, which I thought was pretty good.

Trip to the bookshop next, fatal. I got a couple of history books, a winnie the pooh flap book, a Noel Streatfield, a vegetarian pasta recipe book and a couple of drawing books for just over £10. Ah well.

After this, back to Kirsty’s for a cuppa, and wonder of wonders, dd did share her stilts. Small’s acheivement of the afternoon was when he picked up a pencil, found himself a piece of paper and started to try to draw. I was impressed, and so was Kirsty, she found him a chair and sat him at the table - how cute? Why was my camera in the car at this point?

Reasonable journey home, with Kirsty’s excess playballs and bead thingy on the back seat as well - I really need to sort this house out!

And a lovely evening as well, so pretty good day all round.

Dragged myself out of bed before 9 this morning and managed paperwork, washing, washing up and a bit of yelling before we went off shopping. Was due to pop into my friend Sarah’s shop* to pick up some trousers (new clothes for mummy - dd was quite shocked!) and managed that, as well as a bit of a wander round the flea market and town in general. Got one bargain in the charity shops - a pair of stilts for dd. She was thrilled with them - to the extent that she carried them back to the car without complaining once!

We were actually on time for her ballet lesson, which has got to be a first. She went in without even looking back today. Poor Small was a bit put out as I wouldn’t let him crawl off down the hall, but chasing him around must have tired him out reasonably well as he’s (whisper) asleep in bed just now!

Got back from ballet and dd rushed off into the garden to try out her stilts. She can manage them fine, which surprised me - she’d tried out a friends (albeit of a slightly different design) a week or so back, and couldn’t walk a step. Strange. So I think today we’ve done lots of physical education, with a bit of real life in there too, and we’ve managed without quite so many tantrums, so that has to be a plus.

Got plans for tomorrow - bit more socialising, with some more phys ed thrown in, so here’s hoping we’re on a roll.

* have just added link to Sarah’s blog to my blog links - please feel free to pop by and say hello!