for me!
The children attend Brownies and Beavers, and on Tuesday Big starts swimming lessons. I offer a variety of other opportunities to get out and about, and they take me up on walks to the beach, library outings, shopping. They aren’t much into groups though, which means I don’t get to spend all that much time with likeminded parents, my loss rather than theirs it would appear.
So yesterday I cruelly and maliciously overruled them, and dragged them out to a park in the sunshine. Oh, I’m so uncaring.
First of all though, we went down into town and bought sun tops, as they’ve grown out of all their previous sunsuits. I do like sunsuits. They protect those delicate shoulder areas, which are the bits that pretty much always burn on me, so I just like not having to worry about them so much. And Small had a bit of a tantrum over his birthday money – he’d seen this Spiderman 3 – Webworld Playset
in a shop window in town, reduced from £39.99 to £19.99. A little research showed that we could get it cheaper online, but he’d have to wait to play with it.
Hm, waiting. Not a good thing. But neither was the idea of handing over his £20 cash and getting only 1p back. So minor meltdown later and he was agreed that we were ordering it online when we got home so that he will hopefully get it some time next week.
Equipped with sunshirts, we returned home and I whipped up a picnic that took ages to prepare. Should have just given them a sandwich while I chucked everything else into a bag, but at least I’ll know better next time.
Arrived at the park at about 2.30, just in time to overlap with Em for half an hour or so. Got to chat more with WF 😉 and sat down next to a mother who is home educating her 8 year old son by default after he was permanently excluded from junior school, related to some special needs issues. She knows Em through a sling forum (I think it was) and we had a lovely afternoon together especially given that Big and her 8 year old C really hit it off together. It’s unusual for me to see Big playing with a boy, but they had a great time, especially in and out of the water play area (which is particularly fab). Am hoping I have some photos of my two getting soaked that can have other semi-naked children removed so that I can share them!
Home later than I’d expected with tired children who therefore didn’t hold it together desperately well during tea time. Slotted them into bed eventually, along with some Usborne Spotters, which are going down extremely well. Then spent the evening agonising over the post below while watching much television and eventually went to bed far too late. Which of course meant I slept in this morning. Guess that’s one thing I’m never going to get the hang of.
Ooh, eta, forgot my resources splurge last night! Spent more Amazon vouchers on California Dreamin’ – The Best of The Mamas & The Papas
for Tim, ACE Spelling Dictionary
and Understanding English – Spelling for Key Stage 2
for Big, along with KS1 Success Workbook: English
for Small. Rather agonised over the latter, wanted to get him a workbook of some sort as he does enjoy them, but really couldn’t quite work out what would be interesting for him. He’s an odd mix of abilities, his reading is excellent although I do sometimes suspect his comprehension lags slightly behind the words he processes. And I know his sequencing ability is not good, so I looked at some books around that kind of area, but it’s really difficult to work out online from a three page sneak peek which books are going to be any good.
Oh well, if this one isn’t, it hasn’t actually cost me any real money, just the opportunity to buy something else 🙂
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