Category Archives: SB-PE

When can it be bedtime?

Posted on February 9, 2006 by HHaricot | 6 comments

Well, we did the experiment at lunchtime, and have just reviewed the results after tea. rather unsurprisingly, vinegar, diet coke and brown sauce made the shiniest coins. red wine made one of the [a canadian one] shiny, and the other [english] not. milk and bicarb made no difference. So we went back to teeth and looking after them.

In the afternoon, SB did another heart sticker thing for valentines day and rather a lot of jump ahead maths. We had a peer at the crystal experiment. The stones are still floating, and very little on them, but obviously a nice crystal growing on a preciptate on the bottom! So will be a success ater all.

I took my eye off the banana loaf, so it is a bit overdone – not too dreadful though! She and chris picked up her library books from the library, and so we had a readathon! The afternoon was finished with her ballet class, and she and chris cycled there and back on the tandem.

of course massive wailing to actually get her out of the house on time. How is it that my teeth can grit so hard, and yet i manage to get words out? i am trying not to shout with frustration, but am aware that both of us need to perhaps work a bit on our tone not sounding so violent as well! It would help if she could, for once, just do something without lots of i’m justs, walking off, and sundry other delaying tactics. She does actually want to go though. i think the fact that we had yet another broken nights sleep doesn’t help any of us really.

BB has done lots of dolly loving – i’m sure she is nearly saying baby. Also playing with this metal car she has taken a fancy too – and doing a brr kind of sound with it. She has also dived head first off the sofa. Didn’t cry though – is that more worrying?? oh, and lots of dance mat moves! i like the twirl around [in slo mo] move she now has too.

Both girls ate the stirfry nicely – well done particularly for SB as she’s not keen on peppers, cashews or courgettes, and they were all included, though I made sure she mostly had brocolli and tofu. And before that, she had tidied her bedroom as well. So she really is a helpful girl, just at her own pace not ours!

There is wailing upstairs at the bath. So i’ve had ooh, 9 mins on my own!! Other plus of the day, was my argument with Catipol1 about bank chrages, whih they took off – after a concerted discussion with someone more senior.

These are just some other photos I liked

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Posted in Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, science

Vegan cakes and alum crystals

Posted on February 7, 2006 by HHaricot | 3 comments

luckilly not in the same mixing bowls. oh, and by the way, I have popped the Tate Modern photos on the blog and on flickr

SB and BB did the library crafts thing with Chris in the morning, and made hearts, the theme was valentines’s day. Unfortunately, they left the bookbag and new books there – cue much wailing, and only realised after library shut. So must go fetch tomorrow. luckilly the mudpud book bag is somewhat distinctive! Anyway, before lunch she whipped through 4 pages of explode the code without any difficulties [though I had to explain what a mutt was], and we went on a read a red nose reader, and the first of the letts active readers ‘ratman and the big cat’.

Whilst there, she ‘buyed’ a my little ponies video, we had a chat as she noticed I ‘bought’ so we might not hear buyed much longer. We then watched it. It was a little bit frightening TBH, and a very odd storyline [even if I was only half watching, with the guardian in the other hand!] about stolen shadows.

We were both relieved when it finished – though possibly different reasons! And decided to make carrot cake. No carrots – so chris sent out, and instead we started a crystal from tescos testtube crystals kit. Nice simple kit, and for just under ?3. Aluminium, so we had a good discussion about safety, washing hands etc etc before starting, and mixed it all well. the ‘stones’ appear to be plastic, and you have to sandpaper them to key them. The main problem though, si that they don’t sink!!! Not sure how this experiment is going to work with floating stones! Especially since we have one on string – which is also floating on the surface. If I bought the kit again, I think I would use garden stones instead. Interestingly, they suggest you put in food colouring to make the crytals cool colours. Obviously haven’t done that this time, but will def go for it another time. Anyway, thats 2 different tescos testtubes that are fun. Have 1 more to try.

Carrot man returned [oh, BB is asleep during this btw!] and we made an adapted recipe vegan carrot cake - hopefully it will be fine. one for Melrose, and one for saturday. [ps, they are being frozen, so won't be stale] Do any of the children other than mine like carrot cake? Otherwise can make a sponge too for sat. Then cakes for children and adults.

We also did lots of mental subtraction and addition. though the sums SB gives me are sometimes quite unusual – in the dame slap style! Started the origami kit she got at the tate modern, neede Chris’s assistance with the instructions though!

SB then did some starfall while I played with BB. Mostly peekaboo and pop-up animals. BB most put out though when got left behind and SB and Chris went to her swimming lesson. i made a curry [incredible mild] for tea. BB and I did more messing about together. It is nice to be able to give her undiluted attention. SB is getting better at letting me do this without taking over, but I suffer from parent-not-at-home-enough-guilt when we do it. Silly really, as SB gets all that time when BB asleep to herself.

This evening we have read a couple of just so stories, and about henry the 8th, Mary and edward in the tudors -history of britain. SB dissappointed that didn’t get to elizabeth, so will read that when she has finished her bath.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, science, writing

the weekend

Posted on January 22, 2006 by HHaricot | 8 comments

actually, am feeling simmering at the moment, so blog should cool me down. Having spent 45 mins or so putting SB to bed, 15 mins later I spend 30 mins or so failing to put BB to bed. I just can’t bear my whole evening being taken up by getting children to sleep. [or not]. Have unceremoniously handed BB to Chris. She has – however – taken 4 oz from a bottle for me, so not all doom and gloom.

So to the weekend, lets see what I can remember? on the overtly educational, we have done explode the code – SB happy to do it, and races through the pages, so not bad. She has done loads of webland, going forwards and backwards through the ‘editions’ that we have. When we started with webland, I used to sit beside her reminding her to listen to the stories to do the games, where as now she flicks all over the place with great confidence. She also seems to remember a lot of it now. on the IT front, there was a fair bit of cbeebies as well – particularly the stories.

Seed sowing, and discussions around that. [and counting – she was particularly taken when I clumped the broad beans in multiples of 5 so I could add them up more quickly than she could count them, and I saw her later on having a go with this idea.] SB read some of the easier books to me. She is getting confident to try and sound out longer words – though not very good at blends. We have gone swimming, read a number of books – the theme has been loosely underwater/seas or the poles. So looked at the globe, a book on the poles, and her underwater jigsaw books. taking in finding nemo characters!

A great hit of the weekend has been a buy from ebay – a snappit build a donkey and cart set. It was supposed to be part of her birthday present, but why not spread things out. She has put it together and taken it apart numerous times over the weekend – initially using the picture to get things right, and then just remembering.

We have also done lots of drawing – and played around with chalks on dark card as well today. She has written bits to go with all her pictures – the last even spelled by herself – lov SB to Chris [asked me about the H] lots ov lov [she remembered love doesn't have an u anyway!] We have been having a chat on and off about silent letters – like w in write. She had remembered k in knee from a discussion over a month ago.

Our Jenga -alike has been used to make forts, castles and patterns, and she has spent a lot of time with the dress up flower fairies, making stories for them to act along to.

A lot of the time SB has been quite self-contained, so that I have had a lot of 1 to 1 time with BB. She is being giggly and silly at the mo – so quite a laugh! Though she does try and feed me all sorts of rubbish as we go along – plastic pigs were todays menu, and specks off the carpet – lovely! She has her lower molar on the left rhough, and the upper one is nearly though. She is always keen to play with SB, and I loved watching SB try to feed her tea. It seems that although there is quite an age difference, they do get a lot out of each others company.

No doubt I’ve missed lots of stuff out. It seems that mostly I have juggled 2 children’s needs fairly well – for a change! That we have done more educational things than I though whilst having fun. They do just slip in don’t they!

Next week we reall must take down the Christmas tree, and tidy SB’s bedroom before Barbara visits.

Oh, and I have calmed down. It is past 10, and my evening will start with Sir Robert Winston [I wonder if BB is asleep?]

Edited to add: AH, flickring and I have rememerbed what I had forgotton – my friend Katrien , who used to live in Ely with her family, popped in on Saturday, as they are moving their final things – to Belgium. Somewhere nice for us to visit one day! And I have promised SB a barge holiday one day – like angelina ballerina. She does wish she had the box set of the books…

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, gardening, General, geography, literacy, numeracy, SB-PE, writing

Getting going

Posted on January 17, 2006 by Daddybean | Leave a comment

a bit of a slow start to the morning due to feeling tired and lethargic, nothing much really happened between getting up and getting girls into the car to go to my parenst house. Had nice time there SB did some painting, sat with Nanny making some little William Morris cardboard boxe, A bit ofreading, playing with a few toys, such as some of the old toy cars from my childhood. Butterbean beaning around as usual, trying to sneak up the stairs – open treaded bare wooden ones so not very toddler friendly.

She even got my Dad to read bit of a book to her, which is pretty unusal, not because he doesn’t really want to, but becuase he finds sustained reading a bit hard work as this ability was affected by the brain damage he suffered with his botched operation (years ago when I wasn’t even 2) and he finds it hard to concentrate on the words. Bit unfortunate that the book she had picked was a rather wordy one rather than nice simple book with not so many words. Anyway, it was nice to see.

Had nice lunch there, went out to help my Dad measure up their garden. BB insisted on coming out as well, so got rather wet tights as the grass is damp and she has no shoes yet, she also kept scampering down the drive, where there is no gate yet. Guess it’s time to get some shoes. Got home with just about enough time to get swimming stuff organised, then off to swimming lesson for SB. home, pasta tea, Helen home, happy children, bath and bed. SB is getting to sleep much better recently.

Re BB and sleep, plan is to move her out into spare room /bathroom – it has a bath and handbasin, but shower doesn’t work and proper guestroom has a handbasin so not really used as a bathroom anyway see if that will help.

Alison and the gang are here tomorrow along with Merry and co – upping the ante on last week there will be 10 kids here – kitchen and play room in particualr are disaster zones, half wonder if there is any point in tidying them up

A game of 2 halves

Posted on January 15, 2006 by HHaricot | 2 comments

I know, I’ve used the title before, but it was.

had a migraine on waking – actually almost certainly stress induced about returning to work – wondering what the chaos will be ike, and the penalty for being away.

So, CHris took beanies for a swim while i took the meds and slept it off. At least it worked! on returning, I could hear Chris doing the ulysses story, and perhaps a few fairy tales as well.

So i got up at lunch time full of resolve! So we had a fun afternoon. In no order, we face painted - rofl! me as Im not quite sure by SB, and her as a piggie and CHris as a bunny [mpre rofl] by me!

did some drawing and colouring and sticking. Read various story books, played with the fuzzy felt faces, did 4 pages of explode the code [in under 10 mins as allowed her to choose which writing bits to do, but she had to do all the rest - she did half the writing]

She then told us her present best friend at nursery lives in this village. Now I’m not sure exactly how best friends they really are, as you don’t hear loads about her like we did about rosheen in leeds, but… we have decided to see if her mother would allow her to come to tea after nursery one day, or around to play – so the mum can meet us, or mett at the park etc. Seems a logical place to try for a village friend who she can meet up with perhaps when stops nursery. May well not work out as time so short, but worth a try. SB doesn’t really want to stop nursery, so we may well keep her there until Easter [last possible] – particularly if cements some sort of local friendship.

So SB then wrote a letter to the girls asking her if she would want to come and play, and we will write a more detailed one for the parents. if i’d have known they were local, I’d have made an effort to say hello at the nativity.

over tea SB keen to do some mental maths as well, so we were exploring the concept of adding in tens for the first time, as she seems to be getting there with her understanding of tens and units. Otherwise I told her a few stories and then she chose some cbeebies rather than playing a game, having tidyed p without any fuss. We had a lovely and easy bedtime, both are currently asleep, so Iwill watch the videoed child of our time. Missed the stephen poliakoff thing though as forgot about it – grr.

BB as pootled about quite happilly today, highlights are always the ramming things into the wrong holes with increased frustration until she puts them in the hatch – in fact she would go for this option first if my hand wasn’t there! A bit of drawing at the same time as SB – though a fair bit of crayon chewing too. She loves the mini keyboard toy, and is very certain of which buttons noise she likes the best. She also makes a special sound for whiskey cat – if i was truly besotted I would say she is saying whiskey, SHe isn’t but…

Can’t find id card for tomorrow, which includes the carpark chip. Unless i find it, I will have to pay ?10 in the visitors carpark!!!!!!! [over 4 hours you see] they prefer you to park and ride, and i might do that if actually get out of the house early enough = always a problem!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, writing

Not so bad in the end.

Posted on January 14, 2006 by HHaricot | 2 comments

Just a few moments of teeth grinding [see both posts below]!!

Started well [after a poor show of a night, but not our worst] with Chris bringing me breakfast in bed – croissants in fact!

i got up, after reading the guardian magazine cover to cover, and pluged into reading Sb archeologists dig for clues, and persephone again from usborne’s greek myths. We read this earlier in the week, and she got the night and day stuff with the globe, but had to be reminded of seasons. Today she did both straight off after the story. We agreed that the persephone one sounds nice, but not so nice for persephone!

meanwhile BB was quite happily playing with the maths cubes, bringing them to me to be joind up, and having some incomprehensible sprinkle and collect game! So SB wanted them, and did a bit of number bonds on them, so we got out the singapore maths… We are supposedly slipping into the routine slowly, and this bit of singapore maths 1a doesn’t challenge her at all, the whole idea is she whps through it, feeling very good and gets the hang of doing it without it being a struggle. She has always liked match and sort books, and what we do here is far less complicated than the mental/verbal maths she likes to play all the rest of the time. sigh. Oh well, BB was pottering with the aeroplane from the porticos, so SB learnt a new word – aviatrix. [my father wnated me to be called Amy, but veto'd by my mother!]

Sp after lunch, I thought I would rescue the day while BB was asleep by making the much wanted lemon curd. After all, Jan promised home made stuff tastes nicer, and not lemon crud at all. She is right -n my opinion. Will get SB to try eating it for breakfast!

However, as I needed to regroup, she and chris went outside and ended up making lovely sandcastles and decorating them with things from the garden.

I got BB up and had a play with her. BB is finally starting to follow a pointed finger now to find things, so we were sort of playing this game. When SB came in and helped we changed tack!! She is so vocal, and very easy to understand, even if her only word is OOK – shouted, and a pointed finger if you are in doubt what to OOK at. Child of our time is on this evening, and I will watch. Reminding me to find the wooden bricks again for building with.

Finally SB and I did something easily without a fuss! We told stories around her hama glow in the darks in the pantry – taking it in turns to make up alien stories. She then did a lovely sticker picture for me, and wrote on the back of it. I think for us, not doing much of the writing int he workbooks, and just doing it as required outside of them is working well. It means she is happy to do the explode the code, and will sometimes volunteer the writing, and is happy to write SB mummy and daddy [even if mummy had no y]. Her pen holding skills have always seemed a little behind her peers, and since she can do this much, i can’t see any reason to try and push her forward until ready.

As a final regroup. we made from the usborne fairy cookbook mini fairy slices – well, nothing like when I had finsihed adapting! but rolled out puff pastry with pizza type top. Yummy though. SB and BB both hoovered up all the spare ingredients – mozarella, frozen peas and sweetcorn, and the ever popular olives. i have promised SB that I will have a recipe pages bit on this blog.

They are now in the bath, and we will again try a cot experience early as poss for BB. might work one day.

oh, and we finished off with a bit of the yoga DVD as well. Sb quite likes the salute to the sun. I can’t weightbear on broken arm yet.

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Posted in art and crafts, Cooking, General, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

still shattered

Posted on January 10, 2006 by HHaricot | 6 comments

and must flickr!

quick blog then – as will again try for an early night! We hve a plan this time, that if BB wails after a reasonable feed, Chris will sleep with her in spare room, and just bring her back if he really does think she is hungry – controlled feeding – sigh. We are both sad to resort to this, but I just can’t go on with a maximum of 3 hours sleep, and also incessantly feeding. The last 2 days I have tried to stuff food into BB at every opportunity to make her less hungry at night. We’ll see if it works.

So today, having incessantly fed last night, I had a lie in. SB and BB went to the library, both to change books and for the story telling and crafts session. This itme on the senses. BB getting into it now as well. SB loves choosing books, both for herself and for BB. I was up when they returned, so did the usual reading marathon!

We followed about 4 books with 2 pages of explode the code 1, with me agreeing she didn’t have to do the writing today. After lunch I had a phone call from a friend who is happilly on maternity leave with her 4th child, and also contemplating work life balance. I had promised SB we would do some baking from the usborne fairy recipes she had got from the library. While I got out the stuff, instead of finishing the page she had left of explode the code, she did 2 more fresh pages. She has decided that without having to do all the writing, it is quite easy! She is also being funny by trying to work out how many syllables things have [though she is sure she means sentences!]. So dalek speech all over, both for letter sounds, and for syllables!
We baked some biscuits [vegan] for tomorrow, but haven’t iced them. I am debating whether to ice them first thing, or have that as an icebreaker [so to speak!] when Merry and girls and Kris and girls come. During this, SB did lots of mental maths unprompted, as we do things in cups, she was trying to keep a hang of all the cups we had used, and how many ingredients etc. Just simple counting and adding, but growing confidence to just do it.
We failed to get the christmas decs down though – may make a stab at it this evening, though planning a very early night!

SB had her first swimming lesson today, and was very happy with it. only 2 of them were without armbands, and they seem to have done lots of things and she thought it was great. so thats good. I stayed at home with BB, and had a good hour of solid, uninterrupted interacting and playing – we both found this a lot of fun.

girls in bath, but I hear a lot of wailing, so imagine BB about to come down – oops chris not happy. Must go!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, literacy, numeracy, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

Whirl of a weekend

Posted on January 8, 2006 by HHaricot | 6 comments

katy and B arrived for the weekend friday lunchtime, which was great. we were disorganised as usual and grabbed the little beans from nursery. Cue the girls disappearing smartish! SB gave a guided tour which involved redressng both of them as princesses and off they went. Much, much later on the resurfaced to listen to the twelfth night story from while the bear sleeps and some apple tree farm books.

A few other standoffs were eased with colouring,games: hungry hippos and don’t wake dad, but actually they got on extremely well, and the standoffs were low key affairs. What amazed me totally was that after an exceptionally rowdy baths they had fallen asleep by 9.30 – what a result! It gave me and Katy plenty of time to natter, discuss wish lists etc etc.

Next day – to our shame, Katy was up first to accept a parcel before either of us had surfaced. In our defence it was cos BB had been absolutely appalling at sleeping! however, it was our seed order = hooray! SB and I pored over the packets, and she decided which were her favourites – in particular the popcorn sweetcorn!

big girls ran around, and BB pootled at our side being adorable. She is definately saying an approximation of look -ook, and pointing at the same time. SHe is a very inquisitve girl, and loves pressing buttons, and also the wacky wiggler cogs. her dancing also improving, with bobs down as well as wiggles, swaying and head shakes! quite the mover and groover. She was also doing lots of drawing – at one point joining in with the big girls – and this was great! Funnily, B kept calling BB ‘Small’ [from making it up] for the first evening.

After lunch the big girls made carrot cake with me, with all the labour absolutely divided equally – I do love using cups! Amazingly it rose as well!!! i must finally be getting this cake making busines [Merry, I need a prairie muffin badge before I ruin it!]. They did some Hama whilst it was cooking and then iced the cake [rofl - would you like some cake with that icing?] and ‘decorated’ it with sprinklies. At some point the playdough came out too.

What else? well, more demonstration of their imaginations, a start at a wacky wigglers robot, hide and seek, excellent 10 number bonds with hungry hippos [ha ha] and some attempt at the 5 times table using all the hands available [maths then!], a show performed by the light of some of the wackly wigglers for us too. Lots of singing of christmas carols in particular.

they went to bed eaily enough but not straight to sleep, they weren’t particularly noisy, but certainly shattered the next day. BB not quite so awful at night – thankfully. Poor katy, spending her weekend with zombies in a shambolic chateau!

Next day SB voluntarily got out explode the code – amazing!! Though she did tell B it was boring. We finished the wacky wiggler, and then did Yoga for children – as Katy had brought the DVD. Thanks Katy, just what i was after! Lunch, some violin playing and the home time. SB was gutted when they left to go home, and wished they lived next door. A few melting moments due to extreme shatteredness! I had a great time nattering as well, so a succesful visit, and looking forward to seeing katy and family in feb.

After they had gone we unwound, did some explode the code, lots and lots of painting, read loads of books together – SB remembered she hadn’t had her 12th night present, so we did today as 12th night read the story again, and got the little token present to go with the story. [another dressing up dress 2nd hand from ebay]

she has had lots of bumps and accidents, so ether drop down exhausted or expecting a growth spurt. BB ecstatic that SB playing with her again, especially when she read BB 2 of her books. Both have been lovely and cuddly this evening. BB coughing at rattling a lot though, so have given her some ventolin that gp gave us a while back but wasn’t sure whether to or not. hmm, wait and see.

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, Cooking, gardening, General, literacy, music, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

so far so good

Posted on December 31, 2005 by HHaricot | 3 comments

we have had a good day today so far.

Sb did 4 pages of explode the code 1 – 2 more than she said she was going to do. She’s getting good at it, though does have to ask me for the americanisms [pal and gas and going to bat!] Today she didn’t want me to watch her do it either, and just came when she had a query – excellent!! So whilst she was doing that, I played roll the ball and run to Mummy with BB.

I then read to her the new years eve section of the barefoot book while the bear sleeps. this has been a good buy, and has stories for various dates though the Winter calnedar for various faiths and cultures. todays was African American. We did think of making a bean soup/stew like the story, but when I found some recipes, SB decided she didn’t fancy it after all. instead, I took the leftovers of mashed potatoes and some sweetcorn and made fritters with them for lunch. With some fruit, so not as entirely unhealthy as it sounds!

Sb then did some of the story and numbers section of jump Ahead 2000 year 1 – again all on her won, with me in the room for advice. SO BB and I played click clack caterpillar , funky footprints, chase and read some of her books.

We all played Mummies and Daddies [surprise] and SB was a working mummy ballet teacher – dancing and singing galore! while BB was our baby. When they stopped for an apple, I read the first China section from story of the world which included the silkworm story. SB remembers silkworms from another barefoot book – the silk road – so we had a bit of a discussion about them and materials. we found China on the globe. SB decided I was to be a geography teacher, so we went through the lattitude, longitude, equator, seasons and day and night thing – which she seems fairly comfortable with now. Since Chris and I did the trans siberain train journey in our youth, we chatted about that, and the different ways of getting to China and how long they mght take.

Chris and Sb then fixed her tassles to her bike, and have gone off for a ride to the park. BB and I had a play and I sang some folk tunes. She is fitfully sleeping as I type, but must wake by about 3.30 at latest [will be 1 hour] so that we break the really late night crapness for my sanity sake.

Its nice to get back to a bit of normality. I keep trying to work out how I could effect change in my life so that I get to do more of this. I discussed it at some length with my clinical director, but my job doesn’t make it so easy. And I do enjoy my job, so woudln’t want to change it altogether.

I’ve also been fiddling with family tree, as inherited from cousin Anne who died this May – she had traced part of it back to 1600′s. After popping it onto genes reunited [thats your fault KatyB!] was immediately contacted by someone who had been working with Anne to trace part of it. So thats another thing i would like time for.

Ah, the cold beans are back – time to go back to my life. SB demanding hot chocolate, and Chris says she can have it if she can spell it – meanie!

edited to add that we finished the day with playdough – lots of it, pretend baking, monster making etc etc. vietnamese stew with rice for tea – so very healthy!

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Posted in Books, Butterbean, General, geography, history, literacy, numeracy, SB-PE, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

type 1 Parents R Us!

Posted on December 16, 2005 by HHaricot | 4 comments

I am not sure quite why I had the gall to complain – well, I wasn’t really, just laughing at myself!
anyway, as a tried and convicted flickerite……

Today was Mudpud group end of year bash. Resolutedly with no Christian theme as it is multifaith. Actually, I am going to digress immediately.

SB wanted to know why all the usual people weren’t there, and to use Merry’s phrase, I said the scarf ladies weren’t there because they were Muslim, and knew that a Chrsitian church hall was bound to have loads of the usual Christian decs. this was a bit of a gloss, as they all had other apologies, but a good way of introducing faith and how you must respect each other. As we have the Hannah and her grandmother book, and a few other faith type books, we have discussed Islam before, and talked about Eid when it was. She wanted to know how you knew which god was right – a bit deep for bedtime really. SO I discussed that it was the one that you felt comfortable as having, either because your family had had that God, or as you grew older and looked into these things, that God was the one that you felt was right [I think most of the scarf ladies are converts] I always find this more dificult being an agnostic. However, I guess if we do it often enough, I will feel more comfortable, and she will have an open mind. Although Chris’s family are very religious [baptists], I don’t want their religion to be the automatic default one should she choose to follow one. To that, I may struggle to go the the church Christingle this weekend with her, or to the carol service next weekend.

for those that do Christingle – do I have to make an orang and candle thing, for most C of E, will it be OK just to turn up and look hopeless? Is there a particular form to follow?? AArrgh.

Anyway, we took along a dancing ladies craft made from paper plates – though mostly called angels by those doing them, they didn’t actually have wings, and I cut them to have crowns instead of halos. There was also a decorate the snowflake from Merry, and a decorate a biscuit. SB was rather over the top with the decorating [surprise surprise], but Amelie exceeded all with her snow lady – totally whited out by cotton wool!

the bouncy castle brought was a fab idea, and a great hit with the children. A food spread and party games completed the very enjoyable no faith end of term party.

on our return, SB insisted on wrapping up some christmas presents [sorry to the recipients!] but did write their names and hers on a tag. lots of roller skating being different animals. Again the T rex was best, though the grasshopper quite amusing.

She is being a reluctant to go to bedder again – this time she came down because she thought she saw a dragon peeping around the corner. I suggested that could she ask it to live with us, stay in the utility room to replace the boiler, and we will feed it catfood with the occasional treat, and it can have all summer as a holiday!

www.flickr.com

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Posted in art and crafts, Dance/drama, General, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

Category Archives: SB-PE

When can it be bedtime?

Vegan cakes and alum crystals

the weekend

Getting going

A game of 2 halves

Not so bad in the end.

still shattered

Whirl of a weekend

so far so good

type 1 Parents R Us!

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