Monster & Teeny

Monday - A rare Bank Holiday with A off work. We went up to London for the day so I could take Monster to the Pixar Exhibition at the Science Museum. I’ve been wanting to take him there for weeks and had originally planned to leave Teeny at home with either A or my parents but we realised it was due to end soon so we all went and Mum, Monster and I went to the exhibition while Dad, A and Teeny went round the rest of the museum.

It was quite pricey to get in and clearly aimed at an older audience than Monster but I had hoped it would be something he would get something out of now and be able to refer back to as well. He loves films and wants to work in some area of cinema and animation (or so he tells me with all his five year old wisdom ) so it was great to have some illustrations of things we’ve talked about, some real life story boards and models of characters from Monsters Inc, The Incredibles and Toy Story all of which are firm favourites of his anyway and there was stuff there which I am sure we will talk about in the future.

There was a short film shown on a massive screen which was good but by far our favourite bit was the Toy Story zoetrope  which we watched three times and discussed at length how it worked. That clearly went in as two days later he brought me a jointed figure, told me to keep blinking and moved the joints so it appeared to be running - he told me that blinking is the same effect as the strobe lights used in the zoetrope display and that moment alone probably justified the entrance fee for me!

We had a long bus ride round looking for somewhere to eat our lunch and ended up in Holland Park for a picnic and a play before heading back to Victoria via two bus rides. Lots of chatting about London generally, spotting things through the train and bus windows and lengthy games of noughts and crosses too.

Tuesday - Half term meant we enjoyed a lovely day at a local garden centre attraction with some friends who’d normally be in school and their mum, Mel. Monster, Teeny and their friends L & L spent a lovely couple of hours dashing round the various attractions and completing a flag treasure hunt and a round of crazy golf. We had a picnic lunch and ice creams in the cafe. Lots of pirate role play for a lengthy game on a wooden pirate ship too.

Home for some hama bead play.

Also worthy of note was Monster putting his own shoes on and then helping Teeny with hers while I was tidying up the geomags. Cute!

Wednesday - I had the doctors first thing where the children sat and played with a strange plastic toy with eight legs on wheels and antennae made from springs - an interesting to listen to conversation between them about what species it might be (’But Monster it can’t be a spider, spiders don’t have antennae!’). We also discussed how if someone mentions a body part being itchy you automatically scratch it on your own body, so much fun making each other scratch eyebrows and elbows for the rest of the day.

Another picnic lunch taken to the park to meet up with SIL, cousins and another family from our local HE group. It’s a fab park with huge open spaces, a playground and an area in the middle with trees surrounding a bike track. Monster and one of the older boys headed off into the trees together so Monster enjoyed spending time with an older friend for an hour or so. We stayed until the wind drove us home again, where the children did some drawing, dot to dots and watching Discovery Kids.

Thursday - A quick walk round the local shops turned into a letter hunt as I tasked the children with finding all the letters of their names. Monster on the way there and Teeny (with Monster’s help) on the way back. They found them all, on lamp posts, drain covers, house nameplates, car registration plates, the post box, the board with the local newspaper headline on outside the newsagent and the road names signs.

Parent 1 and 3/4 of the children from HEMUK arrived at lunchtime, so the children played, watched films and generally had a great time while P1 and I moved round the house infront of them drinking tea and chatting. They stayed for dinner and left us with a tent to borrow for Kessingland next week.

Friday - First thing we did food shopping for the week. I never used to take the children unless forced to and it was always an ordeal but I have started to take them along more and actually they are pretty helpful now and seem to get lots out of it if we are unhurried about it. They can identify most of the fruit and veg now even if they don’t eat much of it and Monster has started to look at the flags on the packaging and chat about country of origin too. We also talk about cost, ingredients and what we can use foods for as we go. Monster is also now familiar enough with the geography of the store to dash off and get any forgotten items too.

We came home and I set about putting the tent up in the garden as a practise run - far better to have gotten the swearing and red faced through sheer effort out of the way in the relative privacy of my own garden than waited for the audience of next weekend! I managed it and was quite proud of myself and the children sat in it drawing and proclaiming it ‘the best tent ever!’

Saturday -  I had a very long lie in while A and the children did some gardening, heaped various items ready for camping in a tidy pile in the garage, inflated our air bed to test for holes, set up the camping stove and lanterns to test they were working and cleaned both cars inside and out including hoovering. I did some baking and then A and I took the tent down together.

My Mum arrived at lunchtime bearing luxury lunch items so we had a nice lazy afternoon in the garden and the children played with sand, water and a wide variety of bugs and insects.

Sunday -  We packed our final picnic of the week and headed off to the local Springwatch event  where we had a fab time. It was free and there was loads to do. We watched sheep shearing and nabbed a couple of small bits and talked about how it is spun into wool and can be dyed, we made badges, butterfly prints on sticks, potted up sunflower seeds and made decorative pot covers, made animal footprint casts, clay coil pots, coloured in masks, made bird feeders, pledged a promise to help save The Earth and stuck it on a footprint sticker on an inflatable globe, looked at bats, stroked a crab and generally had a great time.

Then we dropped the children off with my parents while A and I went and collected a porta potty from some kind folk from freecycle which I hope will make all the difference in turning our tent into an en suite!