we wouldn’t need workbooks, points rewards systems, timetable charts or anything. It was one of those days that just comes together and everything works, everyone is happy and life generally is good 🙂
Started well after excellent sleep by getting up when the alarm went off and getting myself organised before the baby stirred. Then Small finished off his first sudoku and did several more pages from my Daily Challenge calendar (excellent christmas present from an auntie 🙂 ) including anagrams, cryptic clues and those odd clues like 14 D in an F. I’ve no idea how he knew how to do the last ones, he said that he hadn’t looked at the answers, but he got them all right. He was mainly doing those while I was changing soa and getting her ready, and we all managed to leave the house by 10.15 without any cross words at all (some kind of record!).
We were heading round to Tim’s brother’s to do the Big Garden Birdwatch with them as they have fed the birds for ages *and* don’t have a cat, so usually get a much wider range of more birds than we do. Of course, someone was working on a roof two gardens down, so the birds were rather thinner on the ground than they might have been, but it was still a good hour. Or so I’m told – I went off into the front room and watched Andy Murray instead 😉 Shame he lost, but it looked like a good match, and the scoreline really didn’t tell the whole story.
Once that was done, Tim and his brother went off for their constitutional and the children and I walked into town for some fresh air. Part way there Small started jigging so we detoured to the library for him to use the toilet and then of course we had to look at books 😀 Small chose a graphic novel about Flash and Dr Seuss Oh Say Can You Say?
and Big got The Hip Handbag Book
on my ticket as she hadn’t brought hers out – then again, we hadn’t expected to go to the library 🙂
On the way back home we called into Halfords to look at bikes – last year’s challenge was swimming and I think that’s been achieved very satisfactorily, so this year’s challenge is bikes. They don’t have a huge choice in there but I wanted to get an idea of what was available particularly for Small. As we weren’t buying anything there and then he wasn’t very happy with it all, and so we quickly moved on to the Red Cross charity shop.
I was very good, and didn’t buy the bundle of wool that had tempted me through the door. I really need to do rather more stash busting before I do any more stash building 😉 However we weren’t quite as restrained with the books. They do a deal in there where it’s only £1 for a bundle of children’s books, and we picked up two bundles that featured lots of books about nature. The children have rather got into the idea of nature recently, sparked by RSPB and birds in the garden, so I thought following up on that was a good plan. Small found a little lion he wanted too, and Big a bundle of Harry Potter poster annuals, and for evenings I picked up an audio book of Stormbreaker
to see if we can head back to calmer evenings.
Waiting to pay, the baby woke up. So I was stood there swaying and jigging in that “try to put the baby back to sleep” dance. Despite this the woman behind the counter didn’t notice soa until she shouted, and at that point the woman leapt a mile. Funny 🙂
Given that I’d not brought out any shopping bags, it was quite an effort to get back home in the requisite number of pieces, and we made it moments before Tim. Though apparently it was his second attempt 😉
Late lunch, and then eventually we sat down for a family film afternoon, and watched Iron Man
. It went down really well – even Big, who had turned her nose up to begin with, really enjoyed it. I thought it was great, and Small is rather sad that it has to go back to Lovefilm. I’ve said that I’ll look out for a cheap copy for him.
Family meal cooked by Tim, cheeseburgers, chips and beans. (I had halloumi.) And children into bed without any arguments.
An excellent day all round. We rewarded the children’s lovely behaviour with 25 bonus points each 😀
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