Making It Up

as we go along

family

Questseekers and cousins.

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Friday morning, we managed to locate all library books, and persuade Small that he needed to take some of them back. He was not very happy about this. He hasn’t read quite a few of them – he tends to start reading them and then get distracted on to something else, which is not a huge problem in itself, except that he doesn’t want to take books back until he’s finished them. And one of them was unrenewable as someone else had it reserved. Hm. He’s supposed to be reading it this weekend but unsurprisingly hasn’t got very far.

Dragged them off down to the library and did the whole Questseekers thing – two lovely ladies who are volunteers staffing the desk rather than the harassed librarian from last time. Who apparently did it all wrong 😉 For example, they shouldn’t have put stickers on their clouds, you only put stickers on when you’ve read books and then they can tell where to put the cloud stickers on the wall – they move along as you’ve read books. So Big’s cloud that already had three stickers on was all wrong, and they were quite stressed, until we managed to scrabble around and talk about three books and then all was happy again 🙂

We came away with a postcard, a bookmark, two more lots of stickers and happy children. They do enjoy this sort of thing. I’ve also discovered that they seem to hold baby clinic in the library – complete with changing mat, weigh scales and so on. Big was quite aggrieved as she couldn’t get to several of the children’s bookshelves because of the set up. I didn’t think it was terribly appropriate – I think that there far too often ppl treat babies and children with very little respect and stripping them off in a public room like that definitely qualifies for lack of respect in my book.

Guess we’re unlikely to attend baby clinic then 😉

Home via the post office to send off various bits that I’d got parcelled up, and then the coop to take pictures of Sylvanian Family toys. Small found this very stressful – he was in a toy dept and I wasn’t buying things for him. And there were lots of things he liked. He did very well – got somewhat tearful and told me about the stress but didn’t get loud, stroppy or obnoxious.

Headed back expecting to have time for a quick lunch and a tidy up before guests arrived, but my phone rang and it was them, a couple of streets away, but here. Walked round the corner and flagged them down and then just enjoyed seeing cousins together again.

Small and Princess get on ludicrously well. In fact, I think she’s the only age peer friend he has in that way. Bil is very easy to have around – he even makes cups of tea for other ppl 🙂 Older boys were mainly happy to entertain each other and Big vacillated between them and the younger children, not quite sure where to put herself.

Took them all down to the beach, despite the threatening showers, and let them get wet in the sea instead. Small somehow managed to set out without his paddling stuff, despite us getting them out of the cupboard together, so he ended up paddling in his pants and a very thick layer of factor 50 suncream. Really felt for him when he sat himself down on the ground and said “I’m so silly”. Aw.

Bigger boys got very wet, Big going out nearly as far and the smaller children bobbing about on the edge, and then getting stuck in with buckets and spades. Then we treated them to icecream and dragged them home again.

Tea for the children achieved fairly easily and then after some negotiation, they settled down with a film (Ice Age 2 : The Meltdown

I think) and Tim and Bil cleared off for a drink, with the promise of a takeout on the way home. Kids ended up watching a second film (Spider-Man

) and having a ridiculously late night, as well as eating supper (fruit) and second supper (chicken balls). Dunno where they put it all given they are a pretty scrawny lot!

Oh, and I think I missed out the drawing and the moshi monsters 🙂 At one point, while watching the film, they were all drawing as well, it was very quiet and industrious. And while I was making tea, they distributed themselves around the various computers and all signed up for moshi monsters and chatted with each other online. Despite being feet away from each other 😆

Not a lot of parental chatting time due to the late bedtime for children, but still nice to have garden guests. And yes, there is loads of room for weekender tents in the garden 🙂

Sunday at Kentwell

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Up early on Sunday as we had a freecycler coming round to collect two divan bases from the garage. In the end she took all three, and now we have half a garage clear. And Tim will be taking L’s stuff up to her in a couple of days, so that’ll be another couple of square feet 😉

After that I pottered around and put together a picnic lunch, and we slowly gathered ourselves and went off to Kentwell via Hadleigh. I think the Hadleigh detour was partly so that L could say hello to somewhere she used to live, partly so that I could buy extra salad for lunch, and partly so that Tim could show me an area of Suffolk with gentle rolling hills 😉

Hadleigh seemed nice. They are still fighting off Tesco as apparently they have been for years, and I popped into the Solar coop which was absolutely heaving at just before lunch on a Sunday. Good range of stuff though.

Then we had a very circuitous drive to Kentwell, with probably half an hour added by various road closed signs, where apparently the roads were not closed at all. Irritating. But we got there, and indulged in our cloak and dagger operation by going and picking up a very large not-very-tudor bag from near Ye Bob. Took that back to the car and ate lunch in the baking sun before going in to start our wander around the grounds with a second visit to the military pavilion.

Lovely to catch up with Bob, although a little disconcerting meeting a friend with a cod piece. Small was desperate to head off round the grounds to find some topiary he’d spotted on his plan, but we insisted on going a little more slowly and taking in some of the sights. This resulted in us being accosted by a tudor dentist/doctor offering remedies for his “melancholie humor”. Took a little while, but brought a smile to his face eventually. Then he was distracted by the Leonardo da Vinci air screw and accompanying tent, complete with skull and heart in a jar. Those fascinated him, as did the model platonic solids, some of which are at least passingly familiar from Montessori 🙂

Then we went on to find the topiary, passing the rather hungry carp on the way. Quick trip inside the house to see the gentry and then out through the front door where we came across the maze. Small was having a great time exploring it, then one of the men from the da Vinci tent stopped to tell him how to do it properly and that mean he was there for ages.

Worked our way round past the dyers and sculpture, via a peacock to see if the fayre was starting. It got underway eventually but in the meantime I went and found Ye Katy in the cott. She was on her own, so we had five minutes for a chat, although I was very impressed she stuck with the tudor lingo throughout 🙂 Eventually the rest of the family came to find us, and managed a drink from Katy’s pot which was lovely. After that Tim took Small for another trip around the maze, and the rest of us went to find the stableyard cafe, but got distracted by the forge.

Was worth getting distracted there – they had a chainmail set and when Small caught up with us, let him try the head piece on. It was very heavy and rather oily, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, or at least not until it was time to try to get it off his hair!

Drink and icecream later and we walked back down the front lawn past some women weaving/ sewing. Tim went back to Bob to look at more pointy things while the rest of us went off to spend tudor coins in the market. At around about this point the heavens opened and there was a brief heavy shower. We should have cut and run for the car at that point as it did stop for a little while, but we didn’t, and we played run from tree to tree and then Tim made a dash and heroically brought the car round to where the rest of us were sheltering.

Rain didn’t dampen our spirits though, and a mile down the road it wasn’t raining, so we had another detour and called in on the graves of Lily’s grandparents in the grounds of a very beautiful Catholic church.

I was quite surprised by my emotional reaction to the graveyard, which was that really, I wanted to be somewhere else, but Big provided ample distraction by having a meltdown over needing the toilet despite having gone less than 10 minutes earlier.

I honestly wish she would just get over this particular little concern. We’ve been to the doctor’s and checked that there is no physical problem, if anything I suspect that she doesn’t drink enough so has rather confused her body’s signals, but bar holding her down and pumping liquids into her I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Whatever I was supposed to do in that graveyard I certainly didn’t and all in all, it was a very difficult 20 minutes or so.

Back in the car and back home, very tired all around. Family pizza night which was lovely, and then tired children packed into bed and tired adults got to unwind in the living room for a while, but a much earlier night that we’d been having, as L had a train booked for 10 in the morning.

Saturday beach trip

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As previously mentioned, L needed a lie in on Sat morning, something to do with us all staying up far too late chatting 🙂 Plus she arrived here with a stinking head cold, and while she could have done with some pampering and lying around time, instead she had these two smallish ppl desperate for every second of her time 😉

So we didn’t go swimming – didn’t think it would help the cold or the tired but eventually it becamse obvious that getting out of the house would be a good plan, so after a leisurely lunch time (and finally getting through to the swimming teacher and arranging Small’s lessons starting Tues at 5), we dragged ourselves off down to the beach. At the house it was grey and a little foggy almost, so we all set off in jumpers, and I didn’t even pick up the sun tan lotions or hats, and I laughed at Big who insisted on taking a towel so they could paddle.

Halfway down the high street and I wasn’t laughing any more, nor was I wearing my jumper. The sky was blue, the sun was out and it was seriously warm. Only problem with that was the lack of suntan lotion, and I tried two shops, neither of which had any. Ah well, it was quite late in the afternoon, so I just hoped 🙁

We spent about an hour on the beach and L was the only one who didn’t paddle as converse all stars and skinny jeans are not really conducive to the endeavour. Small was having a fantastic time, hoiking his trousers up around his knees and leaping and screaming. Even Tim enjoyed it I think 🙂 Eventually L and I dragged Big away from the water so we could visit the Remnant shop, and Tim followed on with Small a few minutes later. Got the rest of the fabric needed for the teddy bear (yet to work out where I’m going to source the enormous amount of stuffing required!) and discovered that they do teddy bear joints in there. And animal eyes. So we bought large blue eyes, and looked at the joints, and the woman helping us this time said she thought the pattern (Simplicity 3787) was just plain wrong, and that joints of that size would result in a russion body builder bear. She advised getting started with it and then looking to see what size joints appeared to be required and coming back in at that point. Which seemed like good advice 🙂

Called in on D and S on the way back for a drink and sat in the garden while the children played, mainly amicably. And then home for a chinese take out – slightly better than the indian take out from the night before, so looks like I’m just going to have to get my curries from Sainsburys. Or learn to make them myself!

Mainly quiet but with added scan excitement.

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The children are thrilled with the presence of L, their big sister, and consequently ignored my existence all yesterday morning. Not a big problem as far as I’m concerned 😉 It’s great that they adore us so much, and lovely that she reciprocates 🙂

By lunchtime though I was trying to wrangle them into getting organised for our hospital appt, part of the reason L was here this week was because of my 20 week scan, and the kids were wanting to come along too. The local hospital has a policy where you can take in one adult and any accompanying children, so Tim had volunteered to stay home so that L could be the adult. Appt was at 2.15 and for once we were there with minutes to spare. Dunno why we rush tbh, never get seen anywhere near appt time!

The kids had taken books on my advice, which amused them for a little while, then Small took to crawling under the chairs. Sigh. I think we were eventually called in 20 minutes late, but the afternoon improved from there. Our first encounter was with someone training to be a sonographer – she said she was going to start the scan and do some measurements before someone else came in to finish up. She spent about 20 minutes exploring and we saw everything, right down to toe and finger bones, it was incredible. The children were amazed and it was such a good idea to take them 🙂

Then we waited for a while and then a second sonographer came in. She was even more thorough and went through quite literally from top to bottom. We saw brain, four chambers of heart, kidneys, stomach, bladder, before she focussed on bones. Both legs down to the feet and toes, could only see one arm as the other was curled up to one side, but fingers. Got a full shot of the face at one point and Small amused her by saying it was cute – not a standard response it would seem. She was also really good with him, explaining what various bits of anatomy are and what they are for. And then she got to the important bit, checking what we are having. (Important given that she’d already said everything looked absolutely fine and normal 🙂 ) She had another cose look, and then said looks like a little girl.

Small was not impressed. He is desperate for a brother as he already has sisters. I think he’s got some idea that a baby is going to be an instant playmate for him, and despite the fact he plays with Big constantly, he doesn’t want another girl, he wants a boy. So he wasn’t happy. The sonographer tried to tell him that meant he was extra special as the only boy, but I don’t think it took. Nice try though.

Then we waited for the paperwork to be filled out (actually I waddled rapidly to the loo, bliss!) and I gave Small a cuddle. I think he’ll come round (he doesn’t have a lot of choice!) but this was why I wanted to find out now, so that he has time to get used to the idea. A baby is going to be a big enough shock without the disappointment at that stage of it not being what he wanted.

And then we came home.

Kids were full of the scan to tell Tim, then they started making things out of paper. They spend a lot of time doing that sort of thing. L and I slipped away to a pharmacy to get her some Happinose – she’s arrived with a stinking cold and keeping her up late chatting hasn’t really helped. So of course Tim cooked really lovely food for us and we watched Running On Empty and sat up way too late again.

Means our planned swimming trip this morning has been put off while L has a lie in, but as I found the whole box of DVDs last night, the kids have been consoled with Fantastic Four – Rise Of The Silver Surfer. I’m waiting, less than patiently, for a call back from the swimming teacher I’ve been trying to track down all week (at least today they took my number, but as she was supposed to call me back just after 11, I’m not sure they did anything with it!) and this afternoon we’ll try for a camping shop trip.

Tomorrow we’re going to Kentwell 🙂

Jax the fire marshal

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Forest school yesterday, and the first time that we had a clash on car requirements, as Tim had arranged to go pick up L from London at the same time as forest school. Fortunately Em has three spare seats in her car, so Tim dropped us there on his way and we got a lift. I am going to have be more organised with writing events in the diary so that we don’t clash too often!

Of course, this glosses over the fact that I got up at 7.30 (shock, horror) to do tidying and making of lunch and so on and ended up running around like the proverbial wrangling children. Small has got to a stage where he doesn’t want to get dressed first thing, so that’s a battle every morning (but don’t worry, when his eardrums settle down, all these problems will be solved, 😉 ).

So, Forest School. It was a gorgeous day (weather sites were forecasting between 17 and 21 degrees, Em’s car said 28 by mid afternoon, and I think I agree with the car!) so being under the trees was lovely. Anna the ranger started off with a health and safety talk and elected me fire marshall, only person allowed to feed the fire and responsible for making sure everyone followed the fire rules, although one of the two older boys immediately volunteered as my assistant. This meant that I got to spend the session sitting on a handy tree stump next to the fire, handing marshmallows to my (and Em’s) offspring (I am a good mother, this time I remembered food to cook on the fire) and bossing other ppl’s children around. Right up my street really 😆 Amused by the fact that this was only my second campfire though – I did used to have an open fire way back when I lived in Durham, but I’ve never done open air fires before. Oh well, I learn fast!

So two hours of smoking later, plus assorted playing with mud (both children made mud faces on trees, I have pictures) and Small spending time with puppets (he does like puppets) and we retired to the picnic area to have lunch. Em rushed off to attend a slingmeet in a localish park, and I had a pleasant couple of hours with Helen and Nadine. We did talk about the idea of a home ed fete, similar perhaps to the Brownie fun event the other night, and open to the public, time to put across a friendlier view of home education to the public?

There was also chat of how to find a celebrity campaigner – it is time to recognise that there is no such thing as democracy in this country, and what we need is a headliner who can get us positive headlines in the newspapers and make it obvious that the government is just being a bully for no good reason but to deflect attention from its own failings. Various names being bandied about atm, but I don’t see how we get anyone on side.

Em came back about half two, and we loaded up and ran for home so that we could have cups of tea and further chatting. Even got on with a bit more crochet! Big had a nice time playing with R (E had gone off with Helen previously 😉 ) and Small was thrilled to find L at home, so he did what he used to do with my mother and brought as many toys as he could to show her. Funny boy.

Em headed home, and Tim and L took the kids for a walk down to the beach, leaving me to discover that Murray had just come on court for his match. Took me about 10 minutes to stabilise the media centre enough to be able to watch, but then I was very happy, and I got to finish the pieces for the crochet item 🙂 Just sewing up to do now.

Tired kids home for pizza, shower and bed, which did result in some wailing from Small at one point or another, but in the end they settled and we adults enjoyed a pleasant take away and lovely evening chatting 🙂