Category Archives: Out and About

Weekend

Posted on October 17, 2005 by | 2 comments

Quick bit of catch up before I get over takne by events. Bit of a downer as Helen was on call all weekend (home on Sat at about 5 or so, but not until after 9pm on Sunday) Upside of that though is that she is off all this week.

So Saturday, for us not at work was a pleasant day. Stagecoach in the morning, the time before passed with breakfast, playing, a bit of reading, finding various things to put in the car. Dropped Stringbean off at Stagecoach, me and Butterbean poopped into town for bit of shopping for lunch and further unsuccessful look for nice kiddies wellies (why is that so hard?) – problem is I know I’m not going to be able to trump her current stripey wellies, which are just so good :-) Back to pick up SB and then off to meet Helen at work for lunch and a BB refill. Had a nice lunch there and SB did a little bit of the Gettay and dubay handwriting stuff (Helen blogged that bit below) .

Headed off after lunch into the country park so SB could ride her bike – lovely sunny afternoon. Plan was to take off her stabilisers, but she changed her mind, so we just rode/walked around the country park for bit which was good, though SB disappointed we couldn’t find any trees to climb. Also disappointed that all the bits that there were to play with in the education room the other week with the ‘Roman Britian’ thing weren’t there any more :-)

Stopped off at the cafe for coffee/cake/ice cream then headed off again. Stopped off due to popular request at the playground on the way home for swings, climbing, more bike riding along the river etc. Eventually prised SB away from the playground and got home not that long before H got home from work. Tea for beans, then SB seemd to spend most of the pre bedtime on Barney Bear and such like websites. not in bed as early as expected given the late night the night before (Not sure when she went to sleep, but was stil awake when I went to bed at about 1 am.)

Sunday – we had an ill Bean. SB complained of a bit of tummy ache in the night. In the morning she was seemingly ok at first, but then was little bit sick and didn’t want any breakfast. A bit later she had glass of milk and was promptly sick about five minutes later – though the good girl did make it to the toilet each time. Said she still wanted to go swimming, so we got organised and did that Spent about half an hour there. BB as ever enjoyed bobbing about, splashing, almost floating and is starting to hang on the side all by herself. SB didn’t actually do that much swimming, but lots of jumping in, ‘Dolphin dives’ as she calls them – a sort of duckign unde the water move. Think she found it bit tiring though as normally we have to prise her out of the water. Once we got home she collapsed on the sofa under a duvet and watched various videos. BB was out like light as fter swimmign as usual. Spent some time pottering about doing few jobs, sitting with SB, and doing bit of reading to her as well. by the time BB woke up, SB was dropping off. Wouldn’t normally let her sleep in the afternoon, but she had a mildy rasied temp and hadn’t eaten anything and had been a bit sick again so I let her rest whilst I fed BB and played with her.

Don’t really know exactly waht happened for the early evening. SB did eventually eat couple of slices of toast and did by then seem to be perking up. Was hoping to try and get them both into bed before Helen came home, but SB had had a sleep and now felt bit better, she was going now where for bit . And BB was being very resistant to sleep as well, even though she obviously was ready for it. Was just about to try and get Sb into bed when H camwe home so she stayed up for bit longer. Still didn’t get to sleep until about 11 pm turned again though….

Today they are so far iostly playing with Helen whilst I try and knock this house into some sort of domestic order. Back to the grindstone :-0

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Posted in Butterbean, Dance/drama, language, Out and About, photos, SB-PE, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Sleep…? how quaint an idea

Posted on October 15, 2005 by | 4 comments

Edit – Ahh, like buses, two blogs have come along at once – my take and Helen’s take below :-) Ah well leave as they are I think

11 pm, SB still awake upstairs – and she’d had bit of late night last night as well. Fell asleep on the way back from the puddlers group and when we got back I just couldn’t get her to wake up. Ah well, means that she was full of energy for when Helen came back from work.

Morning disappeared soon enough, with a trip to Tesco’s, Staples, sorting out an activity for the puddlers group (and then leaving the materials behind…..Grrrr…..), a few house chores. Group was good, as Merry has blogged elsewhere, it’s turning into nice little group (or even not so little), Shame we don’t live little bit nearer when it comes to travelling to it. SB always enjoys it, she spent ages today cutting colouring etc. to make T-Rex stand up model. She took great care in carefully cutting it all out. Taken by Tammy’s comments re recent evidence that some dinosaurs had some sort of feathery covering rather than scales she stuck feathers on it -Fluffy T-Rex any one :-)

She also enjoyed the ‘make a skeleton in the ground thing with bits of pasta’ activity, as well as making, and more importantly, noisly throwing around paper Pterosaur. I’ll get some piccies of them tomorrow, (forgot the camera again, but Merry has some nice ones)

Once home whilst SB snoozed, BB woke up, so me and here played for bit without interupption, she is getting gradually better at standing, and is happier about holding onto things other than people, and almost lost the lopsided crawl she had. Just starting to cruise the furniture a little bit. She had dinner while I had a cuppa, and then Helen came home just as I was starting dinner. Work seems to have been a crap last couple of days, and she is on call all weekend :-( Does have next week off though, and no plans for us to go away anywhere until the weekend)

SB seems to have got into Story of the World, I was looking at it last night and she wanted me to read her a bit, so we did the first chapter, and I heard them reading the next bit about the Ancient Egyptians earlier. She’s been resistant to books with lots of words and not many pictures until now, so maybe we’ve reached another little milestone, she even let Helen read her a bit of the Faraway Tree at bed tiome last night. Might get hold of Winnie the Pooh and try that now, before she get’s too corrupted by Disneys efforts ;-) anyway, been looking at the SOTW Activity book and itching to ahve ago at some of those things – by the time we’ve finished hacking the garden some more should be plenty of long wooden bits and stuff – just right for building a nomads hut . What say you Merry and Tammy – maybe next week?

Chose a little Usbourne Pocket Science book about how cars work or somesuch as her bedtime reading – fascinates me how she loves to sit and listen to this sort of thing, even though some of it must go over her head. didn’t blog it on Tuesday, but we sat and I read her a Ladybird book about Aeroplanes. It was not at all simple stuff, and I didn’t read the text verbatim, but we did look at the diagrams and pictures whilst I talked about Aeroplanes, the shape of wings, lift and other forces on the plane, different types of engines, controls etc.

SB bedtime update 00.22 – still awake……….. Time for our bedtime though

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, history, Out and About, science, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

bump – what’s that big red thing doing there…? [edited to add photos]

Posted on October 11, 2005 by | 1 comment

Walking along the road today with Stringbean, there was a wail from behind, and turned to see her holding her head. There was a nice big red easy to spot letterbox and she had walked right into it……. Cue parent trying to be/seem sympathetic whilst keeping straight face :-)

Wel yesaterday, after dinner H went off, we played for bit – SB made a ‘castle’ out of the Jenga type bits, then we let ‘Butterbean the Destroyer’ loose on it. She was bit like a little wind up toy/robot. Put her down on the floor, she locates the target, makes a bee-line for it and then -GRAB! Evening ion genral was bit hard work. SB was fine, got her settled no probs, but BB was a bit of pain, wouldn’t settle to sleep properly, but didn’t just want to be up and scooting about the place. Took her until about 10pm to settle, and then there was abad night where she was awake for 1-2 hours or so in the middle – doersn’t drink enough milk from the bottle I think sometimes. did get to not wake up until about 8.30 though (only a parent could say that…)

Today we paid a visit to Nanna and Grandad, though soemhow the morning until 11 disappeared without trace, or the washing being put out before we went. SB didn’t want to come and have breakfast , she was playing in her room, by the time ashe was down of course me and BB had finished……

So departed with kitchen a disaster zone, absolutely lovely day, weather gorgeous, it could have been summer. Had a nice time at grandparents, BB was her cheerful exploring self, SB played a few games and read with Nanna. Then we went into the town and got some shoes for SB, looked for wellies but found none suitable/right size/ cheap enough, pottered around , getting a few other bits, and then ambled back – nice just being me and SB (BB stayed behind)

Back for lunch – BB had apparently been keeping grandad on his toes. And whiled away the afternoon. Sb spent ages playing with the farm animals etc. that she kept from when we were kids – so a little balst from the past for me. Nanna took SB out for a ride on her bike which she enjoyed, I did a few jobs for the GP’s, BB, eventually snoozed.

Before we came back, SB manged to make freinds with a little girls next door (she could hear kids palying, and kept going out side to see if she could see where they were.) managed to make contact I think through the fence, the the little girl came round for a little bit, then SB went round there. so that was nice. Though probably next time she will just be on about visiting the little girl .

Shame we don’t have any neighbours for her to pop and visit – it’s busy road through the village so not the sort of road to easily meet people on. We did wonder if we should have got a house on quieter nmore ‘estatey’ road – but you never can tell waht things are goign to be like, and anyway, didn’t find suitable enough house in such a location. But she did used to love popping next doors to visit or old neighbours in Leeds

so back home, timed it so SB at least would fall asleep and stay asleep – that worked. Sadly BB spent all evening again until almost 10 fussing. So I had a late dinner, emailed/blog-ringed etc., and now it’s time for the sack, with the kitchen in even more mess…..

Nighty night. :-)

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Posted in Butterbean, Daft Stuff, Out and About, photos, Stringbean

My Beautiful Baby

Posted on September 27, 2005 by | 6 comments

As reminded, it will be hard to keep calling her this, as she graduates soon into toddlerhood.

I feel really blessed with my girls. they are both happy and loving, and make my home life a joy. [yep, even when SB being super clingy/awkward/loud and BB being snack attack queen all night!]. Sometimes I concentrate so muich on the what we did/ HE bit of this blog that perhaps I don’t emphasise the gratitude i feel for the time we have, and the deep contentedness I have. OK, I want to spend far more time actually with them, and the work/life balance is totally wrong for me, but they have 2 loving, caring parents spending time with them, and are less fussed which one it is on the whole. Good thing I’m not on ‘just a minute’ as lots of deviation and hesitation in this post! I also think that the blogs concentrate more on SB because of it being a home ed blog. IRL is not so organised, most things are done with both of them, and splitting my time. I am trying to do seperate things too – easier with SB when BB asleep than the other way round. Anyway, in summary, life flows on here with lots of fun and laughter as often as possible.

BB is very mobile now – in a funny crawl way. She has her left foot leading, and drags her right knee – very odd. also tends to spin her round in a circle, so she has to sit up and readjust her direction frequently. She is very proud of this movement, so seems unfair for the family to laugh at it, but today needed laughter too. She regularly stops for a bottom in the air position too! She can pull to standing, and loves walking holding onto hands. She is a lovely communicator. Smiley and loving. she waves and gesticulates, rars, babbles, points. She strokes my arm gently while feeding, and when investigating something new, often uses this gentle stroke first. She loves music and rhythm. She is mad for chris’s throwing abouts. She, unfortunately likes all the flashing lights associated with laptops! She is an explorer, peering in and at everything with great concentration. She is also the great baby destroyer at the moment, scrumpling paper/books, SB’s jigsaws, puffling the games and constructions. pulling at hair and lips is also a favourite. She loves the limelight, but is quite happy to explore on her own. She has more freedom than SB – partly because we give her more, but also she likes it, whereas SB has always been an interact with me/join at the hip type. She also clearly adores SB – just as well it is mutual. physically she is still a lovely chubby bundle, but some of her bracelets are now disappearing. she has 5 teeth now [and don't i know it sometimes!]

today was the funeral of aunty peggy. due to my not particularly good state, we managed to get the time wrong, and got to the crematorium 2 hours early, so went to pizza hut for a buffet lunch, and then tried again. SB still recovering from tiredness and cold, so the delay wasn’t good for her, and BB needed a sleep. however they wer both reasonably good, though at the end i did feed BB [seemed odd, but aunty peggy wouldn't have cared, she was always showing her breast prosthesis to all and sundry after all]. I like singing the lord is my shepherd anyway. Oddly, at the end uncle robert and his family left one way, and aunty peggy’s side went to the wake arranged by her brother reggie. Does this mean that he doesn’t feel part of our family any more?? or maybe just to upset to go ahead with a wake at this time. brother reggie is an odd concept. All my life I knew Little Nanny had a brother who didn’t gel with the family and was?disowned. She han’t seen him for years etc. however she has been writing apparently for 5 years, and they finally made contact at uncle harry’s funeral earlier on in this year. So I got to meet him. lots of family came. including cousin Liz from Germany [Anne's twin]. stayed late to talk. will flickr

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6 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Butterbean, General, Out and About, photos, Ponderings

The Grandparents have landed

Posted on September 27, 2005 by | 11 comments

Well, half of the 2 sets anyway.

Main event of the day was the moving of my parents. They have moved house from over 200 miles away to less than 20 (not coincidence of course, it was to be nearer us – well grandchildren really I suspect) It’s been a longish term plan of theirs, they’ve just been waiting for us to settle on where we would be living.

Nearest I lived since leaving home is about 70 miles, but for the last 10 + years it’s been about 250, so a bit of change there, kind of weird really. Stringbean is of course excited. I’m sure that there will be time of adjustment, but I’m pleased that they are nearer. My Dad has found long drives incressingly difficult in recent years. Now as well as us they are much nearer other relatives, so much less travelling for them. And it’s quite likley that he may have to give up driving at some point , so they are much better situated for coping with that (my mum doesn’t drive, though she once rode an orange moped). So me and SB were waiting today to pop over and visit them, but it was bit later than planned.

SB not been entirely well today, complained of painful throat when eating and didn’t have much breakfast or lunch, though seemed ok otherwise, though not keen on normally ‘keen on things’ such as baking cakes, so didn’t do that. Did make card for Nanny and Grandad for their new house, and we remade the Happy Street track (yep, still there Jax) that ‘Butterbean the Marbeliser’ had demolished last night like a mini Godzilla, and read few books before trying to entice her into breakfast. Me and BB had breakfast whilst SB fiddled about and ate half a small Petits Filou. She disappeared off to ‘Happyland’ and played for a quite bit by herself, so me and BB grabed the opportunity to have bit of one to one time playing. Always fun, as she is such smiley chuckly girl. She also enjoys a bit of rootling about on the floor, so she did bit of that whilst I did few a domestic chores, her baby grow distubingly grubby afterwards though (I hate kitchen floors, they just get to dirty too quickly….).

SB moved onto a Muzzy CDROM on the computer, and then onto the CBeebies website, BB had some milk and went off to sleep, so then I sat and helped SB with the above. After a bit, we went outside and poked around in the garden, looking for beasties, talking about Autumn and winter, where the weeds come from, what we are going to grow where etc. She was now flagging bit, so inside for some lunch, of which she ate little. So dosed up on Calpol, she settled down under a duvet on the sofa for an afternoon of vids and DVD’s.

When Helen came home later, she had perked up a bit, esp. as mum came bearing gifts of magazines, and Playdough :-) (And Mmmmm, it was real Playdo, there is nothing like the smell of the real thing) Eventually my mum rang to say they were in their new house, so I got ready to go over (I had to collect some goldfish they had brouight up from their pond) SB had been goign to come, then said she was goign to stay, then decided at the last minute to come. She did a really good job of trying to stay a wake in the car in the way – just dozed off near the end. Saw the new house, sorted out a couple of simple things for them, had litle bit of chat etc. popped to the chippy for tea, SB ws trying to eat her chips, but was really tired by now, she was almost falling alseep over them – ‘can we go home now’…I think she fell asleep in the car in about 2 minutes.

House seems quite nice if you ignore the decor in some (most?) places. a bungalow would ahve been the sensible choice, but they could find one suitable in their price range. My dad has got his ‘bionic leg’ as we joke about it- nothign quite so grand really. He is paralysed down one side, and for many years now has had to wear a leg caliper to support his foot, but this is heavy and awkward. His been fitted with pretty new thing they are trying out, which basically stimulates the muslces in the duff leg to lift the front of the foot as he walks, which stops him tripping, and means he doesn’t need the caliper. He only got it this week, so early days but seems to be working well.

We are now getting to the stage where I am more likley to be popping to them to sort something out, rather than them helping us to do stuff, which feels a little poignant, though my Dad is disabled he was always active, and in my head is still the person who was up on the roof fixing it when I was teenager, or helping us fix rotten windows and build brickwalls in the garden in the old house. Though he’ll not be doing that now (though they did help us with the fixing up of the old one before we sold it). It’s Helen’s Aunty Peggy’s funeral tomorrow, what with this, and all the things happening for Little Nanny thisd year, there is a bit of a sense of the generational baton gradually being passed on here I feel.

BB looking very grown up today (though not as much as josie, not enough hair), pulled out a load of next size clothes to sort out for her. I put her in one of the favouritist pairs iof dungarees we had for SB, still looking cute :-) Bit of a tear in my eye though as I remembered SB wearing them, was she really so young not so long ago – less than 2 months to BB’s first birthday – excited, sad? I’m not sure.

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Posted in Butterbean, moving house, Out and About, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

What an excellent weekend – edited to add photos!

Posted on September 25, 2005 by | 2 comments

Had some great company, from the ‘making it up’ family. [who have also beeaten us to blogging!] SB and Big racing about together and BB and Small also doing a fair bit of interaction. Took so many photos, have given it a flickr set

On Saturday, all the children were fairly exhausted still from a late night, so we did ‘managed interventions’ [LOL] to keep the humour going and their awakeness untill an acceptable time for bed. This included sticker pictures, icing [and eating] muffins, book reading and indoor/outdoor changes of venue. It worked quite well really. Its nice to see how well they all get on bearing in mind the short time they have known each other, and the few times they have met. got some nice Flickr photos. Small was being a bit of the daredevil on the climbing frame, but escaped with minor bumps and bruises only [a relief!]

SB also restarted Stagecoach – she missed the first one last week. Having been reluctant to go, we were discussing this beign the last one, but she returned full of enthusiasm – we will wait and see.

Bedtime well managed, and peace had descended by 8pm – wow! Allowing for a fair bit of adult natter time and general gossip/setting worlds to rights and catalogue drooling. We weren’t quite as good at getting an early night. Jax appeared to also like the melon vodka.

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Sunday
Well, Merry has beaten me to the blog! Anyway in the morning, the girls were still shattered, and played well for most of the morning, and then were played out really – well they have done well. We did though dress them in matching princess fairy outfits [bridesmaids dresses to you and me!]. SO I have now worn my voice out [as if] by reading every princess story in the barefoot book, half the faeries one and to general amusement, fox in socks, which I will consider sending Big as a present!

Merry and Co from Patch of Puddles joined us for lunch [chaos!] and then we went to the romano-british day at Hinchingbrooke Park. We were rather late getting there, and had missed the battle, but I did enjoy the rather gory Boudicca story. The lady in the roundhouse was informative, and SB enjoyed just looking about. She didn’t think there were any romans there, as they weren’t wearing togas, or the bright red of the army [though we did miss the fight - and she was disspointed about that] As we walked pased the spinner, she said she knew it was spinning, and she had seen it before, so didn’t need to again! So something def going in then!! ‘quietly making noise‘ were also there, and Sam, and SB had a jump over dinosuar pit/midden [depending on viewpoint] competition. They both lost!

The display room was good, and all the children enjoyed the sandpits/archaeological digs. there were some tesserae to make mosaics, and bits of moasaic tiles. SB particularly proud to get a free postcard. On the display, it said various freebies for schools and entry to various local digs etc, so may follow that up, as it seems there is quite an interest from the children. The archaeologists had fluorescent safety jackets with official archaeologist on the back – Kewl!!

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Said goodbye to the various families as we all went back our different ways. SB just about persuaded to stay awake, and we used up the rest of the pyramid templates. The house is VERY quiet!! A total disaster zone, as 3 mini tornados and a baby destroyer of worlds have certainly left their mark [s]. I’d better start on the happy street [and flickr in a bit!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, geography, history, literacy, Out and About, photos, SB-PE, socialisation

Short Blog

Posted on September 24, 2005 by | 3 comments

well, for once I’m going to be succint as we have guests.

yesterday I finally went to the emergency dentist to have tooth done – should have gone ages ago as cracked filling was spearing my gum. Still painful today, but in an aching something done way, so much better. the emergency dentist at the hospital was a fab woman.

Jaw ached so much, that I called it a day at lunchtime though and came home, just in time to nip off with the beans to puddlers. [my first!]

that was very nice! will def go if free from work for whatever reason. It was an egypt session, so we made tammy’s fantastic sugarcube pyramid – from the story of the world activity book. Rather unfortunately, she told me that the activity boook comes with suggested stories to buy, all available from rainbow resources, so Jan may be main another order when this one comes through!

other bits of fun – heiroglyphics, scarab beetle seals, making a paper pyramid and sand camels. I rea d a few books as well. tick box, tick box, tick box!!!!!! Hopefully Merry took a photo with our beans, that I can nick from flickr!

Home again home agian quickety quick, as imminent arrivals from ‘making it up’. I say imminent, but although Tim did OK, Jax got caught in traffic from hell. Big and SB instantly disappeared to play, and eventually all 3 were intently happy streeting.

any thoughts they might wear tthemselves out were, of course,erroneous. eventually a midnight socks the survivor tape did the trick. they still woke up promptly though, an BB had given us a dreadful night. luckilly i am coming too whilst blogging. may even get dressed!!

guinness back as well

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, General, geography, history, literacy, Out and About, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

The long and the short of it.

Posted on September 23, 2005 by | 1 comment

Bwahh! just shut the wrong window – goodbye post….. Luckily it wasn’t too much written.

Took the tandem out with the trailer as well for it’s first run as a full rig – ‘The Beanmobile’ :-) To nursery and to ballet class – a few car-replacement miles to justify it’s purchase.Stringbean thought it was great having Butterbean as well. Lovely Autumn morning to be pottling along. SB seems much happier now about going off on her own into things. She’s happy now to run off to get cuddle from ‘her’ nursery nurse, always used to like me to stay for bit first, and goes off into ballet without a second thought. Good to see, as she was always happy to do this, but the move left her seemingly much less confident. Excited to have all the gear for her ballet class, though ‘Bad Daddy’ forgot to sew the little bits of elastic onto her shoes, but they stayed on fine. Quite why the teacher wants skirts above the knee when the skirts in the shop all seem to be longer than that I don’t know….. bit more sewing to be done eventually I guess. Supposed to have little basket as well. Outfit is mostly in blue though, I’m sure there are ploenty of disappointed little girls who would have preferred all pink :-)

She of course looks just so cute :-) in the outfit. Piccies will soon be on Flickr.

That’s about it for interesting things from today, a bit of mising catchup from Tuesday:

Morning started unsually with bit of TV – she asked to watch some TV, and had managed to pick the time when CBeebies starts on BBC2, so got to watch a bit of that first, prised her away for breakfast by promising to video a bit.

Breakfast was followed by finding library books, getting dressed etc. – always seems to be plaver when we want to get out, then she wants to take her dolly pushchair as we almost ready to go out :roll: , Amble round to library, drop off the books for checking back in, settle down for story time – BB seemed quite attentive as well. Then probably SB’s favourite bit of the colouring and glueing and sticking – it was a mermaid so she was happy with that. She is always the last to finish as she always wants to do two…..

Bit of a chat afterwards about HE and stuff, given pointer to a dance shop in local town, so planned a visit to finish kitting SB out with her ballet kit. home to give BB some milk whence she promptly fell asleep and slept for about 3 hours :-) – she had had very bad night – a lot of crying – I’d ended up taking her into another room, but she still continued for bit. So me and SB had peaceful time, reading some of her library books, having lunch, watching the bit of recorded Cbeebies – Balamory, hanging out washing, whilst SB ‘helps’ – eventually decided she would be the ‘peg giver girl’ and clambers on the climbing frame – latest trick seem to be to climb along the top of the ‘jungle run’ handlebars with a foot on each one.

Main thing is that we finally started on doing something with the ‘Muddlepuddle postcards’ (a bunch of children on the Muddlepuddle email list sent postcards to each other) Pinned the map to the board, joined postacrds to location with some red wool. It’s looking very good, but still not finished as we ran out of pins – ands while we must have loads, they haven’t surfaced from the boxes yet. SB got very good at stringing the wool, tying knots and cutting it. Will do a piccie when it’s finished. However the list contained 28 other families we only seem to have 20 recieved – is it time to ‘name and shame’…?

Somewhere onong the way, SB disappeared upstairs to play with her dollies for bit, while I was on the telephone, so I left her to it to grab a bit of valuable ‘me’ time for a bit of quiet reading of the Grauniad and drinking of tea. Helen was due back from work pretty late, and a bit of kid free time is very good for keeping things on an even keel later on.

Once BB (eventually) woke it was some quick late lunch and then we whizzed off to do some shopping. Dance shop was tedious, becuase all the new classes have started and we caught the after school ‘rush’ – well it’s atiny shop, so only afew customers, but only one salesperson, so it wasn’t goign very quickly. So we had to wait what seemed like forever. SB – and BB were good though waiting so long. SB pleased to have the gear now. Popped into closing down baby shop and bought a couple of fleecy winter hats for the girls each for ?1.50 each – SB talked me into buying this fluffy plastic Tiara thing as well……

Time for quick hit on Waitrose and then home for dinner. SB was fine really, but did come out rather to often with ‘can we have’, ‘I want these not those’ etc. I was flaggin g a bit, so came out with the old chestnut ‘ I’ve just spent loads buying you your dance stuff, I don’t want to hear anymore I want’s or we will take it back’ :-) – one of those ‘did I really say that’ moments…… Ok empty threat , but it had the desired effect :-)

Home for dinner, a bit later than normal, and BB seemed starving, she wolfed it down and was making a fuss > Helen didn’t get home until about 8 – 8.30, so SB pleased to still be up when she got home, so she had bit of late bed time. BB of course was just happy for some proper nosh. Spagehtti and sauce from a jar (Lloyd Grossman, rather nice actually) was just about all I could manage to get for tea for us by then.

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Posted in Books, Dance/drama, geography, literacy, Out and About, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Blogbumping – 2 for the price of 1 again!!

Posted on September 18, 2005 by | 1 comment

We had a lovely day at the Portico yesterday, and caught Merry and girls there as well – so a really nice and wild time had by all the children. SB loved it. We were well chatted, well served on the food and drink, and general all round lovely – thanks.

The children where variously clothed in the copious amounts of dressing up options on offer, and spent a lot of time getting soaked by making waves with the pool. I didn’t get to see much of SB, so tickled Amelie as my surrogate daughter – she has a similar all arms and legs quality to her!

BB and Josie were obviously interested in each other, rather than playing together. A certain amount of anything you’ve got, I’ll have went on. Josie showed off her superspeedy crawl, while BB showed that she can at least crawl now [mercedes vs trabant!]. For 2 weeks difference, Josie looks decidedly older. i think its the more hair [as well as crawl and stand expertise!]

We were in Reading for a course of mine, so stayed the friday night in football stadium hotel – gratis [v nice]. The family are getting used to being conference families, and SB aquiring a checklist of expectations. Luckilly left to ourselves we usually camp or hostel, so the obvious differnces between what we are prepared to pay and what we accept are not so noticeable! Very nicely, the company paid for the families meal as well as me on the course dinner. Not expected – chris said he would have had pudding had he have known. While we were at the course, I had thought he would get to the Portico’s bright and early, however, since breakfast was free, he was doing the 6 breakfasts until I explode thing, and then BB crumbled a samosa over sparkly suite – oops.

Overt HE stuff – Today I have been at work most of the day, home hopefully for the night – but depends as on call. Chris took the beans swimming, and SB swam 2 widths – not bad. BB loved it [no surprise]. Not sure what else they have done? When I got home, we read loads of phonics books – with SB reading the hot fox one. played with her fairy castle, did part of a GB jigsaw, did the whole of the DK travel the world game, and played a sort of rummy with a set of happy families cards – which SB picked up the concept very quickly, so not bad. L:istening to classic fm, and did some discussion on happy/sad.

We also had a chat about Aunty Peggy dying. Sb asked if she was now in someone elses tummy. A moment to grasp she was thinking about rebirth [we have read some buddhist tales] I explained no-one really knew what happened, that you can believe that you go to heaven, or that you are reborn [but don't remember], or that you think perhaps there may be nothing else, but memories. I believed that Aunty Peggy now lived in my heart, and the heart of those that loved her. SB liked this idea, but is going for the rebirth, as she is sure she has lived before. She then asked if God was real – so I admitted I wasn’t sure, but lots of people did, and lots of people didn’t, and it was something she would decide herself. She does. We had a cuddle and moved on.

BB has enjoyed crawling around and exploring the house. Her new found ability is causing SB some distress as all her things [like the jigsaw] are puffled up. I did suggest doing it on the table!

Am Flickring – so some photos being added to last week – especially a gloriously pouty SB photo – so go back and look!!!! [well, when you see some have been added to here though!]

www.flickr.com

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Posted in General, geography, literacy, numeracy, Out and About, photos, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

aaargh

Posted on September 18, 2005 by | Leave a comment

webmarshall ate another post thinking there was gambolling [purposeful sp] going on!
AAArgh
anyway, nice time yesterday at the Portico, with Merry and co as well.
children had lovely time, as did adults.
lovely food provided.
was a really long post, so be glad it was eaten I guess, as I don’t have the heart to do again. [why didn't it eat the aunty peggy one, I had copied that one just incase?]. I copied this one, and it published without a hitch??

might flikr tonight. At work [again] at the mo

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Posted in General, Out and About, socialisation