Petits Haricots

so contemplating between these two!

choices choices!!

the deependers tablecloth. oops. it turns out that it was very non-resistant to spilled acetone… many sorries!

today started all stressy with a mammo. don’t get me wrong, i want the mammo, i am happy i get the yearly mammos, but… and also my knee really really hurts! and then there is all the other things i worry about at present!

So up and out, listening to our french repetitions on the way there! we can’t do the really fast one at all, and just started on verbs! abandoned kids to get mammo – and picked up a parking ticket too – aargh! back and did some science! we did chromatography of chlorophyll, having a good chat around chlorophyll and what it did, other porphyrins. we did get some really good chromatograms. unfortunately one of the beakers had a crack, and acetone gradually seeped out unnoticed onto the tablecloth. it was not resistant to acetone unfortunately. i am way behind on flickr, but some great photos. no doubt will be first seen at the manor born!

Girls also did music theory, recorder and clarinet. latin, SB didn’t do french for some reason [not sure]. Nice chatting afterwards whilst drinking tea. returned in time to send SB off to brownies and for BB to join together all the chocolatey stuff. SB has yet to do hers… I managed to see GP, who has given me stronger antiinflamm and says i should return next week if no better. BB was perfectly behaved, especially as we got there early [as usual!]. i had take dino mags with me, which we read, and she recognised and named mary anning and ichthyosaur – well, i was impressed! she is an entirely different child on her own. actually at latinetc she managed to hold it together about babybiff ‘ruining’ her game and actually return with the issue unresolved. small steps, but proud of her!

oh yes, we played a lovey dino game with the duplo, and i felt much happier just floating along with the plot! [the t-rex kept eating my cavemen!] and then watched the first prequel of starwars whilst having tea. althogether a bit of a haven of a day [on the whole]

monday was mostly a tidying bedroom day! SB got an elastic science kit through the post, so we all had a go, both with the elastic gun [yep, BB scary, she has all the moves too, eek] , and making the bouncy balls – not entirely successfully. SB also got this book

which has had a real thumbs up!

today was a golf lesson, some normals, swimming and BB’s dvd – also a thumbs up!

and me?? my knee REALLY hurts from falling down the stairs! i had lots of love and hugs with kids [always needed!] and slightly worried about mammo tomorrow, though it is routine!

as anticipated, we didn’t so much spring forward as groan and try and squeeze some more sleep out of the morning! BB crawling into bed and being my diplodocus egg kinda stopped that, the she was a turtle, and then… SB had been up watching tv for 2 hours. that girl never sleeps. and it caused a prob later on…

so here we are, all up, and the girls decide to do some more egg making. we had a chick and some eggs last year, and kept the packaging, so have made that a mould too! SB puts chilli choc and mint choc as her mini eggs. she far prefers the plain chocolate. we all smile, laugh and get on with things!

bit of a contretemps over SB doing her clarinet prac at the same time as bb’s sock puppet show, but we duck and dive, and both get to do their things. we finish card making, and go and race outside being v noisy!

After lunch sb and i play a game, we read story of the world, we do some wii olympics. i think we are getting better. BB has some moments of losing her cool, but we cuddle, snuggle and do chip chop cherry tree and the world seems better. the girls patch things up and go off and play happily. i feel a bit of a spare part. i make the curries for next weekend, i sow some broad beans and water the seeds the girls have sown.

they rush back and fill me with their brightness again, and we thread crystals into our alleged supersaturated solutions, for them to dissolve over the next few hours. oh well. SB and i play another game whilst bb cheers us on with her lizards and frogs, and then it is teatime.

Fter tea, sb questionauts and wiis with me and chris, and then i snuggle bb with part of a video. then its bedtime and an allmighty fuss and ruckus. i get it all wrong. I am sorry SB, i should give you more patience and time. i love you dearly and expecting you to have a management strategy for bb’s blowouts when chris and i barely do is too unfair of me, and it backfired and you ended up v upset. hopefully our hugs and snuggles and love yous help you forgive me. i do this too often though, even tho it is on my highest priority list. patience for my elder, dear, patient daughter, who has a deep soul and heart, which she wears on her sleeve. xx

my keyboard being a bit awkward about placing the l’s, so forgive me if some are missed out!

wed = latin etc day. i liked that fact after serious amounts of reminding, SB took her clarinet and music, but gina pointed out that she took no reeds!!! i remember turning up to a violin lesson with an empty case, so can’t comment much! lol!! we drove to latinetc listening to a new french cd. we do a lot of listening to french cd’s when i drive! this series is supposed to help you speak with a better accent, and is more repetition based. SB had asked for something a bit different, and i saw a good price on it and had a go:

it isn’t such a good price now, and the series is quite expensive!! what did we think?? well even bb had a go at the repetitions when slow. SB and i kept going as they got faster and faster. i think we were both enjoying it! i don’t think it is a good only resource tho for children, and maybe even adults! but my current plan is to randomly or sequentially put on one of these for all the journeys in my car [as they are usually under 30 mins hops]

which will cover our diverse likes and needs, and me we don’t get particularly bored with anything, and hopefully move on!! we tend to listen to french at least once on longer drives when i am in the car too… I must get back into the habit of reading them a french book at least once a week tho. my list of to do gets longer doesn’t it!

ok, back to latinetc – we were actually early!! french, latin, music theory and bells, and nearly clarinet went on. I got to chat a lot with merry, which was v nice, as we are often in separate rooms! And i did science, which was fun. the group that we call the littlies is maturing into a very sensible, considered and careful group that are a real pleasure to be involved with. they listen, concentrate and try, question me and think around the subjects with great enthusiasm. we first looked at broad beans we have been growing at home through a light maze, which was felt to be quite cool. they then set up the flowers in coloured water experiment. we then opened up our bacterial plates. those which had had nitrofurantoin on them had grown bacteria. those with amoxycillin had grown a mould… we rediscussed antibiotics and their sensitivities for different bugs. they then all very carefully scraped and transferred a small portion of bacteria [slides off easily] or mould [has grown into the agar] to a microscope slide. dropped with a pippette a single drop of water on it, and most of them then successfully put the coverslip on top. we then looked at all of them. the full sunshine meant we could do this at power 200 as well. [and yes we had gloves on, washed hands and dettol wiped the surfaces!] i repeated this with the older group. we then all looked at the flowers, and segments of the stems under the microscope too. i think the groups, at least for science, should get a name that isn’t age or ability related, perhaps i will suggest different 6 names to each group to poll from [atoms, quasars, comets, molecules, mitochondria etc!]

back at home we had great fun making way over the top birthday cards for dad!! and SB made him some mixed fruit and nuts dipped in chocolate. those dried mango slices cut up are delish!!! BB started her easter egg. must do SB’s too! brownies and judo finished the day!

today has been a tots and nots day. clarinet with reeds with gina! music theory paper. some house tidying and bits and pieces in the afternoon, and then lots of huggles and snuggles when i came home from work! 2 new coats fo SB from ebay [age 10-11!] which she is v happy with, and some isopropyl alcohol for an experiment… also our new toothbrushes! SB loves her electric one because it vibrates rather than whizzles. BB not so sure! i get to try ours out tonight!

SB! woohoo SB, well done love. She is really pleased as she wanted a ‘merit or extinction’ [glad we got a merit!] and practiced really hard before the exam. She has now started practicing some grade 1 clarinet pieces to take to gina. bit more worried wrt scales, as i can’t find anything for her on the clarinet, and will say the wrong named note if i don’t concentrate, as it is a transposing instrument.

So today, well chris has worked hard, and the room of doom not so doomy! ‘parently bb and sb went in and said ”ooh a table, we can use that for craft” which was the plan, about 5 years ago! SB did some painting of her craft kit, which we bought a while back at centreparcs in the sale, rather than our usual craft emporium. I think the usual emporium prob cheaper than a holiday to centreparcs plus a sale purchase, so would recommend it!

BB did some painting by numbers, and they both then made an easter basket. i got given the easter basket of BB later filled with spring flowers from the garden so v happy! they moved on to a mixture of normals type things including some of the nallenart l’art de lire for SB and bonjour mes amis 1 vid for BB [she likes the cat and singing frere jaques!]

then sowing a variety of seeds – i should have reminded chris that those potatoes should be planted from the potato council! ph, and chris has hacked back the vine in the conservatory ready for the rebuild. we are v much hoping it stays alive! a fair bit of playing outside, looking at spring flowers and ladybirds.

SB did some clarinet and piano prac with me before off to swimming. BB didn’t want to go, but as i had fallen down our stairs rather than walking them, and really pulled my knee, i didn’t want to go with them. massive kerfuffle, and she didn’t swim in the end.

Home and delish veg casserole and dumplings watching monsters we met part 2 – we are enjoying these, tho i prefered the first one with the clovis

or

and contemplating this for the girls