Monster & Teeny

As in, Monster is now Official School Age.

 I’ve been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks and trying to pick a day. I wanted one which was as typical as possible and of course what I have come to realise is that we simply don’t have typical days here any more. So this is a sort of representative day for us inasmuch as it has some time at home with the children doing their own thing, some socialising with friends and some time doing family stuff - so while we don’t necessarily do all of those things every day it is a good roundup of the sorts of things we do fairly regularly.

 This morning:

We watched some early morning children’s TV together and then I spent some time checking emails while the children were supposed to be getting dressed. Teeny had gone to get some books from her room and Monster was ‘reading’ them to her. He can’t actually read but they both know the book so well he was able to work out what it said anyway. I love it when they do stuff together like this, he is very patient and encouraging to her and I like to think it is a reflection of me at my best he is emulating

Once they had actually gotten dressed we headed out. I needed some sunglasses so we called into Matalan which is on the way to where we were going so we popped in there and ended up getting a pair each

And then we arrived at Ali’s. You can catch the adventures of Ali over at www.wherethedaysgo.blogspot.com  

The children did a variety of indoor and outdoor play including ‘creating grey sand’ - which involved mixing the sandpit sand with the ash from the incinarator handily located next to it, various games involving the swing, the sandpit, the slide and the trampoline, sticks, spades and slugs.

And some indoor play including climbing on and off a table for F and Teeny, which demonstrated some excellent turn taking;

 and some drawing, paint pen and sticker pictures cos as Monster proclaimed ‘there is nothing more fun in the world to me than making pictures!’ He did a fab one of Wallace and Gromit with Gromit in the background. He explained to us that Gromit was smaller because he was in the background and when I asked if he remembered what it was called when things looked smaller if they were further away and bigger if they were nearer, expecting the answer of ‘perspective’ I got the reply of ‘yes, an optical illusion!’ There was then a bumble bee in the conservatory incident which was causing some level of hysteria in the smaller occupants of the house so I released it back into the wild and we suggested they draw some pictures of bees instead. This netted some excellent results with F doing a really good smiley bee picture complete with stickers;

Monster doing a picture of a bee, a tree, a bee hive in the tree and himself;

and Teeny did a picture comprised entirely of dot stickers which I didn’t get a picture of but had a definite bee quality to it. There was also a portrait of a rainbow from F and a portrait of F from Monster. Monster also did a picture of some honey and wrote ‘Thank You’ and his name to the bee, for the honey.

Oh and Ali got to show Monster something on her laptop, while me and Teeny ate cakes

We had a lovely time there and the children all played really well but by nearly five o clock there were indications they’d all had enough by the level of whining coming from the garden and the frequency of children, Teeny in particular, coming in for cuddles. So we headed for home.

It’s only about a 20 minute drive home but as Teeny was fading fast we didn’t listen to music we played I spy (with colours rather than something beginning with…) instead. We got home to find A already here and doing stuff in the garden so the children joined him out there for a bit which seemed to restore their good humour and revive them again.

Monster did some excellent trike riding. Now I know that many a child has long since mastered bike riding and even without stabilisers by a younger age than him but he so rarely gets the chance to practise that even working out peddling has been beyond him for some while. So he is now ready to graduate to the proper bike with stabilisers on we’ve had residing in the garage for years waiting for him. Love the look of concentration on his face in these pics;

Then they came in for a snack - and just to prove that they don’t only eat tinned food, here they are, eating at their own request, a banana and a carrot!

Normally this would be bathtime followed by bedtime, but last month we instigated a new once a month on payday treat of Family Film Night. This involves a trip to Blockbuster Videos to choose a dvd and collecting a KFC on the way home to be consumed infront of the film.

So tonight we selected The Emporers New Groove which we watched tonight, and as the special offer was three films for five pounds for seven nights we also selected The Wizard of Oz and Honey I shrunk the kids. We’d planned Home Alone thinking the children would enjoy the slapstick element to it, but they didn’t have it in.

I went into KFC while the others stayed in the car. It was heaving!

Home to enjoy the food and the film, followed by cuddles and chocolate on the sofa

The children were in pjs by the end of the film and both fell asleep within minutes of going to bed.

Not normal, not typical, but neither are we, so this is as representative as it gets around here!