?Oh Wow!? being Stringbean?s favoured statement of exclamation when she finds something surprising, exciting etc. I love it, it seems to sum up so much of the wonder and excitement in some much in childhood.
Playing catch up again, why does my mind seem to be such a blank when I sit down at the ‘puter?…
Thursday first
Helen was doing another all day course in town, so the day was arranged around getting her fed. Luckily, Butterbean is less fussy about the bottle than her sister was, and though she’s not exactly a fan, will drink well enough from a bottle (given that this is only the second time that she has had to have one). If anything there wasn?t enough in the bottles to fill her up, but it was enough to keep her happy when she wanted a mid morning feed.
The girls and me went into town and met Helen so that Butterbean could have a good fill up. They had three xmas trees at the place we had to go, which impressed Stringbean ? she loves to go up and touch the various decorations for some reasons, then pottered about until she finished. It was cold and windy, Butterbean was wrapped up snug though and kept me warm (!) in the sling. We went to the German Chriskindle Market nearby that is here every December. Bit too cold for browsing really and not exactly busy on windy Thursday. But Stringbean went on a Carousel and enjoyed it (last time she saw one she wanted to go then changed her mind) ? she was the only one on it ? not a good day for trade me thinks. Some lovely wooden toys – I mostly restrained myself. She bought a little wooden decoration on one stall, and I bought a wooden jigsaw type thing of European countries. The jigsaw isn?t that hard and she can do it ok, but I thought it might be a good way to learn the countries. All the names are in German, so extra education value there as well 
Here she is playing with it later:
It was too cold to sit outside munching the enticing looking Garlic bread so we headed off to a caf? for some lunch. Stringbean amused the till lady, she likes to pay for things at the moment, so I gave her a tenner to pay. She took the change, went to give it back to me, then changed her mind and said, ?it?s my money now? as she pocketed the change?
Anyway, nice ?Happy Mummy? moment after we got home:
And I cooked roast Potatoes and roast Parsnips with dinner ? yum-yum. And Stringbean munched happily on the Parsnips, which I don?t remember her doing before.
Friday
Had vague plans to maybe go swimming with Stringbean this morning, but she got up a bit later than normal, and I?d already started trying to sort out the disaster that was the kitchen, so I carried on with that through the morning, while playing with Stringbean, helping her out etc. played with her Europe jigsaw, made couple more cards by herself, made various ?constructions? using the card blanks, general playing. Whenever asked if she wanted breakfast she was ?too busy?, we eventually had brunch of baked beans on toasted with saut?ed cold baked potatoes at about 11.30. She cut up the potatoes into chunks mostly by herself, though with close watch taken by me as she wielded the sharp knife. She does know how to use it safely ? keeping her fingers out of the way etc. but of course a 3 year old ?knowing? something and ?applying? that knowledge aren?t the same thing. It would probably scare some people, but I?d rather she know how to use a knife safely, and to respect them (she knows not to touch the sharp knives if one of us isn?t with her). It?s only fairly soft things she can cut any at the moment really anyway.
Once Mummy was up (Butterbean wanting to feed much of the night..), she had to tell endless stories involving the stuffed animals off of the mobile above Butterbeans cot, afternoon involved tidying up the living room and back room where most of the toys live, doing some maths ? adding up, she can 3 numbers up now ? as long as they are small enough and we have been reinforcing the ?teens? using the Advent calendars though she does pretty much know them as far as I can tell., some letters ? words that start with certain letters. It ended with cuddling time. I took Butterbean off for a nappy change, when I came back Stringbean was lying on top of Helen, and said that she wanted to cuddle Mummy herself -she has probably feels that she has missed out bit here, so me and Butterbean went off again, and ended up snoozing on the bed together which was nice
Browsing the web later, I was reading some stuff on the Well Trained Mind website and came across this. Posting it onto the Muddlepuddle list lead to some discussion, as well as on ?A patch of Puddles?. Not sure really what I think of it at fisrt glance it seems a bit intense, but re-reading it probably nor more so than any other home with 4 kids all doing stuff, maybe it wasn?t so much the amount of work they were doing, but the kind of work and the approach.
I feel that I want to spend sometime reading and thinking more about what sort of approaches we might want to take with Stringbean, just doesn?t seem to have been too much time for that this year, we just want to get on with moving down south and get on with life ? just the small matter of selling our house??.
Well my aim was to get today blogged while it was still today – almost managed it, maybe I?ll fiddle the posting date
