Making It Up

as we go along

Soa

Sometimes I forget the important things

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And I need a little reminder. Today we were sent a WeekendBoxClub box for review and knowing that I’m away this weekend, I thought I’d get started on it straight away.

I’d forgotten how lovely it is to spend one to one time with Smallest, focusing on her and just doing something for her. I often read, or have her drawing while I’m working, but I don’t often work alongside her. And today I did. We made pom pom animals.

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The kit was fabulous. It contained everything needed except scissors. (And even I can find scissors. ) which meant there were no delays or excuses, we could just get stuck in. And we did. I don’t think it took the full 30 minutes allotted (I do like that the cards have this level of detail on them. )

The whole box is very carefully thought out, from the minimal packaging, recyclable wherever possible, to the colour coded envelopes to go with each activity. At £10 for a one off box it might seem a little pricey but that’s a set of 5 activities, creative, educational and environmentally aware, and paying for the convenience of knowing you’ve got pretty much everything to hand seems a good deal to me. The subscription model offers much better value though.

Do take a look at the website, WeekendBoxClub and if you want to try it out, use the discount code WBJAX and do pop by to let me know how you get on.

After we’d done the pom poms, I did make the carrot soup as well, it was rather nice, if a bit spicier than I expected.

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(Yes, that picture was part of an ad campaign. That’s my homemade carrot soup 🙂 )

What, if anything have you learnt or remembered today?

History with added flowers.

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It was history etc today. Slightly odd in that Big didn’t come with us, she was at a Kentwell friend’s birthday party. Shame the dates clashed as there were several extra participants in history she’d have loved to see, but that’s the way it goes.

There’s apparently something coming up about tulips in the chapters we should have read but haven’t, so I took some more Baker Ross flower crafts with me, which were very well received even if they weren’t actually tulips.

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Slightly annoyed that in the kerfuffle over a not lost at all ds (anyone spotting a theme? ) I seem to have forgotten Smallest’s fimo of St Basil’s and misplaced her Pabobo penguin but am hoping Chris can find them.

Linkage to be added tomorrow.

How we home ed a toddler

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With books for pre writing skills

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And fabulous solid poster paints

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Which were so good Small had to get in on the act

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(It should be pointed out I drew the heart. )

Shared reading books.

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And a sleeping babe. He won’t fit in there much longer.

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And that was our morning. There was some education for the big children too, more of that later.

The fabulous solid colour poster paint pens were in the wonderful box of stuff received for review from Baker Ross Ltd. Much more on that to come.

Highs and lows.

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New question at the dinner table tonight, tell me how your day has been.

Mine has had highs and lows. The highs have been very high, the lows disgustingly low. So I managed to do my yoga this morning and ran at lunchtime, knocking another 20 seconds off my best time this year for 1.2 miles (am now under 12 minutes). And my new lovely shiny Samsung Note II arrived. It’s mine, all mine.

The lows however were not good. Smallest is potty training, and we’ve had a run of excellent days, so I’d stopped asking her every couple of hours. Big mistake. Huge. Today we’d damp pants before we left the house, damp pants less than an hour later at the leisure centre and then, worst of all, full scale the-other-thing-that-isn’t-damp. Let’s just say wet wipes weren’t really up to the challenge and we ended up heading for home with her wearing Tigerboy’s emergency disposable nappy, where I put her straight in the shower and scrubbed my hands raw.

There are some things about being a parent I don’t like. This is definitely one of them. It occurs to me that I was a bystander in previous potty training outings, as in both cases the child concerned was with someone else more than they were me. I suppose it would be wrong to send her to nursery just so sometime else could sort it out?

I don’t understand why we’re having the problem. I know she can do it, she just doesn’t seem to care about being wet or dirty. I’m considering a reward chart, wondering whether that would make a difference. I hate the idea, I want her to do it because she wants to, but maybe stickers would help get over this hump?

Suggestions in the usual place please.