Category Archives: Butterbean

Sunny Saturday – photos to follow

It was nice getting home from the conference. It was a good conference in Norwich, I listened, learnt, talked and networked. I even ate a rather dismal meal cooked by St Delia’s krew at Norwich City [i think the non-veg may have been better]

Unfortunately, although resolutely teatotal, had horrendous migraine for drive home, and to cap it all, exhaust half fell off car on way back! Rescue man came and said best thing was to finish the job, so slithered under the car and wrestled it off, somewhat in the manor of crocodile dundee!

So to today. staggered out of bed, suitably drugged. SB was watching cbeebies and then went onto some Dora DVD’s temporarily borrowed from Merry – thanks. so we say hola and vamanos all day [? spelling??] We really should get into gear as we have some spanish and german resources. SB finished her hama star, and BB danced and sang along to all the Dora music [very cute] and played with dolls and fun blox.

SB sowed some seeds for me, and BB pulled apart a tom – good thing we have plenty! SB also did some of the ‘learn to draw…’ pictures. yesterday she did a fantastic car and tractor, and then worked put herself a very detailed bike, with person and chain and pedals. I was impressed.

When BB fell asleep after lunch we went outside. We did some tidying up of the pond. Only 3 of the fish seem to have made it. SB was interested in the pond/roots/seeds etc visible, and went so far as to strip off and stand in it. She hated the slimy bottom so immediately got out!

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We then went into the veg patch to weed and hoe and she did some singapore maths 1A – subtracting across 10. We got there in the end! Bit of use of seeds as props. Chris took over the digging though – result! SB then helped and between them they trampled over 1/4 row of carrots – mind you, I couldn’t actually see them for the weeds – rofl!

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BB woke up, so we mostly then played in the garden, on the climbing frame and toys, and SB put on a show – swinging about making my hair even whiter!!

We seem to have loads of ladybirds in the garden, so SB and BB were looking at them. SB quite confidently remembered they would have 6 legs as insects and named various other body parts. They were 6 spots. We also looked at some ants and other creepy crawlies. So she asked why woodlice aren’t insects. i was a bit stumped, but thanks to google, I now know they are crustacea – amazing!

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BB was getting too interested in the water fountain and eating ladybirds, so we went in, and looked up woodlice. We have NASA astronomy picture of the day as our homepage and it was a series of photos showing the apparently retrograde motion of Mars – so another difficult question to work out how to answer!!

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SB ‘styled’ the pizza for tea whilst BB played run across the room and jump into my arms. I read BB some books – in particular my little pony and a squeezy truck one. SB did some explode the code 2

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We finished the day watching 1 and a half episodes of the blue planet – which SB really enjoyed, and was mostly ver attentive. Well, actually, BB is STILL awake and dancing to the chart show when not trying to retype my messages. She loves doing patacake and clapping, as well as high 5′s. She is also ‘singing’ along. Has made writing this blog somewhat dificult. SB’s last dificult question of the day was to ask me to prove cats had belly buttons…

Although at the moment, I really could do with BB being asleep, i love both my girls dearly and we have had a lovely day.

I have 4 friends moving in the next 10 days at various times, so hoping it is all going smoothly for you!

Augmenting Reality

Well, don’t we all feel like our reality could feel like augmenting sometimes? Seems a bit of posh term for it, but me and SB spent a fair while after lunch playing with this trial on BBC Jam which we came across yesterday.You need to sign up for it, and be accepeted to get the username and passoword. Though by the looks of it they are generic ones that everyone gets.

It is very much trial stuff at the moment, a bit crude and clunky, and the interactive bits sometimes don’t work that well, but it was enterntaining and you can imagine some good possibilities once it gets more refined.

Basically, what you have is simple story, that you read/listen to. Interspesed are little scenes where you use the printed materials to produce animated 3D characters on screen. You print out sheets of paper, with simple little block patterns printed on them. each one correpsonds to a specific charatcer/object , when put in front of the webcam, the software produces a 3D image on screen, by moving the printed image around, you can move the image on screen, rotate it etc. simple little actions/animations can be triggered etc.? Worth a play, other than bit of fiddling about to get the webcam to work with it, it worked fine, though it is little camera on stalk, pluged into the laptopo and could done with being mounted higher..

Other than that, we didn’t do much this morning really, moslty pottering around, waiting for Helen to go of to her conference for a couple of days. BB insisted on getting up at about 7.30 after I gave in, and then fell asleep again in her high chair about 9 grr! Did some reading with SB, a couple of Red nose Readers, some Cbeebies. SB and BB played soem chasing games together, BB kept wanting to unload the dishwasher. By bedtime I was glad once they were both settled – BB took a while as she slept a bit too long while we were augmented.

Relaxed with a beer and The Apprentice? Quite enjoyed this one, I loved the way Ruth just basically ignored the lads in her team and just went and got on with it. Poor old Tuan, just never had it in him, he was going to have to go, though I can’t see Syed making it – to inconsitent. i wonder who would ahve gone if it had been the other team, which it could easily have been it was so close.

Relocation, relocation, relocation.

Relocation being the phase Butterbean is now in.? She is endlessy finding things, picking them up, investigating them dropping them all over the place, emptying things….. You know it is.? I’d forgotten tiresome it is to have them endlessy scattering stuff about. and I suspect with Stringbeans stuff all around there is much more for her to scatter. But she is just so cute at the moment as well, so she gets away with it :-) She is very much in the midst of the learning stuff everyday phase as well, so all the time you can almost see her learning about the world.

Anyway, apologies to those wondering where we have been – we have been away at Helen’s parents over Easter. We had? a lovely time. SB spent ages playing with her cousin M, they get on so well. BB had fun ‘Rarring’ around with everyone and trying to join in with the bigger ones. I got to read lots of the paper. We all had good time. Though as we ended up going on Friday morning we got stuck in lots of slow/non-moving traffic on the M25.

Back home BB was up woth me this morning by 6.30 so we had? a good start. She almost dragged me out into the garden after breakfast . She went and got her wellies, and shouted at me until i put thme on her, then wandered off to find her coat, got me to put that on, then pulled at me to come and pointed at my coat on the hanger -? knows what she wants that girl :-) She loves getting outside. whenever the door is open, whoosh – she is off. We spent ages outside in the garden while she pottered an explored. she particularly likes finding the odd bowls/buckets of water around to investigate. She helped me hamg out the washing too – picking up the clothes out of the basket and giving them to me – she is growing up and developing so fast. Rather nice pottering around in the early-ish morning sun
Eventually went back in – I think she was getting too cold once she got wet.

after that the day got? bit frustrating actually, one of those days where time seems to disappear and it seems hard to get into things. SB got up her and BB played together for? bit, more breakfast, Sb did some maths ( a bit more of of carrying on from last week) – she asked why she didn’t get a holiday like the school children :-) When I pointed out that at school she would have to sit still at a desk fro a lot of the time, she’d have to do what she was told? most of the time etc. etc. she seemd to think the amount of? ‘work’ she has? to do isn’t so bad :-)? She did? bit of hama beading, started with? star board, she was working on a pattwer, wwhen she discovered sh could make a hexagon pattern ‘inside’ it as well, which she thought was exciting. After lucnch she spent ages on the BBC Jam site, be better when they get some more content, but she was happy.

Had to go out to get a Freecycled stereo/CD player thing, and to the farm shop for veggies, where SB did her cute, helplful, chatty girl thing.? Forget what else, but Sb watched? a bit of the Clangers DVD. Which did spark a conversation about Earth, the Universe, about he concept of ‘sky’ as SB had the idea about earth being ‘ in the sky’, though she also has the idea tht the ‘sky ‘ is all around the earth. Bit of a tricky concept sky really. We all spent some more time out in the garden, i did a couple of jobs, B got wet again.? SB triesd climbing in roller skates. BB sulked cos she could climb on the climbing frame. Then we had dinner and then tidied the playroom beforw Helen arrived homwe (rather late)

Wil try and get up todate with flickr? soon, but Helen away from tomorrow to Friday

our blogs are getting confused!

chris’s wednesday blog was about tuesday! I’ll make this one about wed shall I!!!

lovely day, some nice weather. SB and I got stuck into some singapore maths – adding to go over the 10 – ie 8 plus 4. It took a while, but she got there [and consildated it today] some she just knew, but some she had to work out how to think about them.

She also did her explode the code easily [or, as she put it, exploding codswallop!], and we read I wonder why the stars twinkle, and assorted bits about dinosaurs. She’s quite knowledgeable about stars and pointed out that there are blue giants on webland. it must have been ages since she looked at stars on webland!

We all sowed some seedsnice big’uns so that BB could do it too. She was soooo rpoud of helping out. As I explained to an anxious SB, it didn’t matter she put loads in the wrong place, I coulsort that out later [and I did!] I obviously missed excess assistance from BB with the butternut squash, as some cells have 8 in!! – may well have an offer on butternut squash to grow to any visitors we might have in the next month!

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BB is totally gorgeous, her speech is well behind josies [no, I shoudln't compare] but she is very close to speech. rather funnily, she has started to wag her finger back at SB, when SB tells her no. She is very considerd about her actions, and knows where things should be etc. She totally adores SB.

We all went into the garden for a play, some weeding, and SB helped Chris chop up some branches. [very ineffectually!]

the a gradual winddown and games playing – mostly snakes and ladders and UNO – before bed. We also read all the stories in the barefoot book tales of wisdom and wonder!

In and out

Both Beans slept all night in their own beds, which was rather nice :-) First bit of the morning was housework time – various bits a bit of a disaster zone. So I got on with that , SB started off with a bit of CBeebies. Apparently her favourite show is Lazy Town – she likes the girl – Stephanie – the main character with the pink hair :-) It’s a bit of an odd show it seems to me, but then I’ve just seen that it’s made by an Icelandic company – everything out of Iceland seems a bit weird.

Once BB was up she did some more Hama whilst having breakfast. BB has got very good at using spoon to feed herself, so does seem to actually eat stuff like Weetabix, which she used to turn her nose up at. After breakie managed to tidy vacuum around/asisted by children. got fed up again by all the random ‘stuff’ that collect on the flat surfaces in the hallway – we’ve 2 radiator covers, a shelf, a couple of small tables and a shoe cabinet, so there is plenty of scope for stuff to collect – I just went around with a carrier bag and put everything in it that didn’t belong. I think I’m going to make a weekly habit of it. Either eventually,most of our belonging will be in carrier bags , or it’ll have to be be put back in the right place.

Sat and played for a little bit whilst waiting the arrival of the chap from the council. Just clarifying whether we would need to apply for Listed building consent for the repairs we need to do to the conservatory various bits of rotten timber and repainting – a good summer project.

Then it was off to Nanny and Grandad’s. Pick up a couple of Easter Eggs, return the computer I had been tinkering with for my mum. SB ice some little cakes, played bingo game with Nanny, read some books, played for ages with the farm. She likes that becuase she doesn’t have that at home. They are all our old plastic farm animals, tractors etc. from when we were kids. I got the ‘pute back up and running, went to the Builders Merchants with my Dad (so he could put some timber on the roof bars on our car) Had lunch – with BB being a total pickle/PITA becuase she wasn’t strapped into a chair at all. BB failed to go to sleep – so was grumpy later on. SB got a little daytime fix of CBeebies on they Sky TV – which she always thinks is such a treat :-) Came home.

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Both Beans of course fell asleep straight away almost. When we got home BB was a pain becuase she didn’t want to be put down and sleep, nor did she want to be awake. SB just slept away in here dead frog postion but I could really get her awake whilst BB was being a pain. Rescued by the arrival home of Helen. Surprisingly, whilst not in bed early, both Beans did get to sleep at a reasonable time, considering the long ‘nap’ at the wrong time.

I was reading a post by Doc about goal setting, which has got me thinking about our broader educational goals, but that can wait for anothe post (as it happens I got to that post via Becky at Farm School who has a Homeschooling Country Fair – becuase of the Home School Blogger boycott)

The bit before the bit before.

OK, here is my bit of the day.

Not a good night with BB waking a wailing for bit because I wasn’t mum. At least we had plenty of space on the double bottom of SB’s bunks as she was in our bed…. Eventually got to 6.30 so I could take BB though to Helen for breakfast. I went back to sneak in 15 minutes more in bed before getting – 10 minutes later Sb appeared ‘cos she had wet the bed – our bed- on my side – grrrrrr!

So we were up and going early. She started of with a bit more Hama on the Princess, then decided that she wanted to watch a bit of Cbeebies, so she did that for a bit while I pottered around the kitchen etc. Helen off to work, SB came back for more Princess hama-ing. while I sorted out washing. BB woke up after quite a while. so we all had breakfast, once SB had finished the Princess, she went onto doing some of the Singapore maths. IIRC it was the practice book – it was quite easy stuff really, just some addition – but I reckon you need to keep going back and practising it sos that was fine., so she did that pretty quickly.

took too long to get organised and then we went out to enjoy the spring sunshine. Realised that we not been getting out and about just exploring etc. as we used to, so went for a lovely walk in the woods (had to drive a little bit to get there, not really any decent woods near us.) Had a lovely time wandering about with no aim in particular, though SB a little disappointed – ‘ Why aren’t there any trees’ to climb’ ? Did find some bits to clamber about on though. BB, got unhappy because she kept falling over on the uneven paths/ground. Chatted away about this and that as we went, why were all the leaves there, what sort they were, why some bits were fenced off to keep deer out, coppicing, fungi, what happens to the trees when they die and rot down, noticed how the roots on an blown over tree looked like branches. Should have taken a picnic lunch as by the end we had had all the snacks and were hungry. so home to mum and Baked Beans on toast.

I’m not going to Flickr, must tidy up kitchen before bed.

So i am 37

yes, I know I said it in the last blog, but it is taking a while to sink in!

Dreadful night, Shaula gave me some chocs, chris some books, SB some home made monsters – must take photo to add. Practical presents from the rest of my family!

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More reading, playing games etc has been the order of the day. After shaula left, SB did some singapore maths – rather easily, adding between 10 and 20. We read about ‘medicine’ in usbornes childrens encyclopaedia, and hippopotamuses in the DK one, and a book on why ships float. So after all a very good HE day!
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BB was particularly taken by the wacky wigglers again today when they were got out, and had a rather good go at trying to sort it out. Actually she has been totally gorgeous, chuntering and pretalking, and being quite a pickle!

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What a lucky – if totally knackered – mummy i am. SB now making imaginative games with her paper dollies, oh and watched a programme about south america, that really grabbed her imagination too.

Sweetcorn Saturday

OMG, I am 37! How time flies.

SO to the weekend, well my friend Shaula was visiting, but not due till the early afternoon, and then she missed her train, so in fact we had most of the day as ‘normal’. Sb did her explode the code 2 without a murmur, and even went on to do an extra page as ‘a surprise’ – so it can’t be that bad! We played a fair few games – snakes and ladders, uno etc. She chose some books for me to read – and I sunk into the loveliness of snuggling and reading. We did some more Greek myths and legends and some bits out of her DK family encyclopaedia – greece and giraffes!

During this time, BB had sole play with the ideal blox – and was getting rather good at manipulating them. She was also blowing the noisy things and dancing in her own wobbly style.

SB and I then went on to do her ‘sweetcorn experiment’. We sowed half direct, and are chitting half. they have all gone inot the propagator to see what happens. SB is enjoying being proprietal about lots of the seeds and their germination. I would defininately like to set her up a square foot garden in our patch – prob not this year at this rate though!

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Once BB was asleep we did some face painting. It was supposed to be egyptian, but after we had flicked through various egyptian books, SB changed her mind, and announced we weren’t going to have an Egyptian Afternoon after all. So I painted hers a sky with a rainbow as requested, and she painted mine a sea with fish.

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Wasn’t I beautiful! Chris set off to collect Shaula, and BB awoke, so we played with the coupe car we sprung from Merry’s garage.

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I think it confirmed to Shaula this was a madhouse! Shaula got to read copious books, and play pretty much every game we have. We did have wine though!

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I went to uni with Shaula, and allthough we don’t see each oither much – as both working – she remains one of my closest friends. Perfect really! Shame the girls gave us such an execrable night.

Manic day

well, I guess not really, but it felt that way as I spent the whole day wondering when my mediation request at work would be received. Only to find that it had accidentally been given early on Wed!!! Oh well. I do have a highly efficient secretary – winking at Su should she be reading this!

So what did we do, well BB was a pest last night, so neither chris nor I exactly full of the joys of Spring. Sb started her hama princess this morning – so far looking really good.

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but obviously a way to go! We then read Hercules and Jason and the argonauts from USbournes Greek legends. SB and BB had a lovely time playing with the ideal blocks, sometimes cooperative and sometimes not, and also with the dolls house.

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Today we did Singapore maths 1A – the practice book 1 was finished, as SB on a roll, and wouldn’t stop till it was. With such sterling effort I decided not to mention explode the code! SHe did it all easily and correctly, so we will move on to the next bit. TBH for some of it, she was already moving on – counting 8 by 2,4,6,8 etc. I think my general levels of stress at work for the last 2 weeks, added to some kind of ‘you are official’ compulsion have definitely skewed my parenting/educating style. SO I am relaxing! Will still encourage normals though, but not get so uptight!

After lunch, SB saw me potting up the plugplants we had got [lavender] and said she wanted to finsih them, so she did a nice job of the remaining 30 or so. Chris remembered to put a cd on – Louis Armstrong, loverly! Having played a fair amount of chase, and read numerous times that’s not my dinosaur, BB settled for a nap. I did a fair amount of seed sowing, and SB moved on to jump ahead on the ‘puter.

As Merry pointed out, BB has a weird spotty tongue at the moment, not seen anything like it before. wondered if it was hand foot and mouth, but can’t see any other blisters. She does have 2 of her canines coming through, and is very snotty. Anyway, she has played alot on the ride along, stacking bricks and dolls house today, as well as chase and cuddles with me.

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SB now a lot better, but still very quick to melt and cry – which drives me up the wall. being as unsympathetic as my mother! Both girls are singing in the bath. it may amazre you to know, but I hardly took any photos today!

Friday – Saturday

Friday was last nursey day, Helen has posted a nice piccie of SB with Vicky her keyworker below. Sums up her nursery experience for us really, she has enjoyed it, and it has been a positive experince for her. Both of her nurseries have been lovely relaxed places, with lovely caring staff. BB of course being Miss Laidback has seemed happy there as well. Thankyou to Kids Academy (dreadful name – so not what they were like)and silks Farm.She seemed ok about finishing, though I think she is worried about missing the playing time with other kids. she is really keen to start Rainbows etc. I had to wipe away the odd tear when I? picked them up. Silly I know, but I’m hopeless at this sort of thing. It’s that old end of something feeling, even though it’s exciting to be entering a new period.

Anyway, Helen wasn’t going to back until late, so just me and the girls for dinner and bedtime rituals etc. BB is? a little bit of a pain whne i haveto put her to bed becuase she still doesn’t really want to have bottles , so then just makes a big fuss for a while a lot of the time .

Saturday – Helen off to work, she was on call all weekend :-( :-(? – what did we do?? can’t quite remember – would have no doubt played her 3D Snakes and Ladders since we seem to play that every morning. I do remember that I sat for soemtime with SB and read through an old Ladybird book about how aeroplanes work (aimed at much older children)- she doesn’t like to be fobbed of she likes you to explain things properly. So much talking about the diagrams – about the forces on aeroplanes, about how they move and are controlled etc. she’s remembered from a while back about the shape of the wing being important. This tiem the thing that seemed to stick in was about? lift and gravity. They did say at nursery that she was always coming out with odd facts about things.

We went into the local town for a bit of shopping – went round the farmers market? – did well not to by any nice looking cakes, preserves etc. just some nice organic veggies, failed to buy any sock for BB in woolies – losts of new born socks, lots of 2 yr old +, none in the middle – odd. SB didn’t find any toys she wanted to buy, nor books in the bookshop with her remaining money – which given all the pink dolly tat in Woolies surprised me.

Went into the cafe for some lunch, hadn’t intended to , but it was too late and we still ahd to pop into the supermarket – lunched (cafe man gave her two little crispy cakes for free so she was pleased by that),supermarketed – Waitrose so they have good little trolleys for kids to use , which is actually useful? when you’ve? sleeping child in a buggy as well.. She is quite sensible with it now as well.

Time we got home SB was flaggin a bit, she’s no been entirley well, with a sore throat and a ‘funny tummy’ – sat and cuddled read for a bit Then we went and paid a visit to the ‘home dad’ as was – A&C and their new(ish – 4 weeks almost) baby. Spent a nice time there for a bit, but SB had a bit of a wobbly when we had to leave, as usual SB didn’t want to leave – then got all upset becuase they weregoign out for a walk and we weren’t. Obviously all to much for her, as when we got home she was just crying and saying she wanted, mummy, so we sat and cuddled on the sofa until she came home.

Had? a bad night? – she couldn’t seem to stay alseep by herself for more than 15 minutes, and wanted Helen all the times, so not a good night.