Monster & Teeny

Monday  Too hot And too hot makes me and the children tired and grumpy. We went into town first thing and bought some cakes from the bakers for lunch. When we got home we started talking about Monster’s birthday party. He is not six for another couple of months but he has been planning a Wallace and Gromit themed birthday party for about three months already and wanted to start organising for it. So we’d written out the guest list, the catering planning, some ideas for games and other general stuff and decided that the first action point was to book the venue. The hall we used to hire for Home Ed group last year, and where we had our big Halloween party too last year is perfect for such ocassions and is dirt cheap too - so I rang and got that booked up. Next Monster designed an invitation and we hooked my printer/scanner/copier machine up to the laptop and scanned it in and emailed it to all the invited parties. Way in advance again but as many of them will have long trips to come and will need at least one overnight stay to do so it seemed wise to give lots of notice. He was very interested in how the psc worked and thrilled to see his picture suddenly appear on my laptop.

 We also did some snap it kits - Monster had a frog and Teeny a butterfly which we’d bought ages ago at our last trip to the Science Museum so they coloured them in and then I cut them out and we played with them for a while.

Later Monster had Bagders and I sat in the car and read my book. They played outside this week so I could actually see and hear them through my open car window which was interesting. Monster is quite a different child without me around and I always enjoy the sneaky peek into his world when he is not aware I’m watching.

Tuesday  Another day with a fair amount of tired and heat induced grumpiness but we also squished in some plasticine making for the children - Monster made an excellent volcano complete with erupting lava gushing down the sides and Teeny made me a very ornate ring which she constructed around my finger telling what precious stone she was adding next ‘here are some diamonds, and some sapphires and now some emeralds’ so the chat we had about birthstones and semi-precious stones and minerals clearly went in from a couple of weeks ago then.

In the evening I had book group, which is at the local library so I collected a few books on origami, papercraft and modelling and sculpting while I was there to bring home for them.

Wednesday A trip to the vets first thing for our cat to have a check up. We’re not great at getting out of the house generally so to manage it prior to 9am is always tricky . The children quite enjoyed being at the vets - they’ve both been with me seperately on different ocassions so they quite liked being there together and pointing out the different things they’d spotted previously to each other.

Home again and I made some cheese scones to take to the park for a picnic and had a long phone chat with SIL as we weren’t going to be seeing each other which ended up with us arranging to meet later in the day after all. Then we set off to the park to meet some other local Home Educators including Lucy with R & R, a couple I’ve met several times before who HE their 9 & 10 yo grandsons and a brand new lady with her 9 yo daughter who finished school last week! A really nice mixture with loads of experienced HEors swapping stories and tips with some new, enthusiastic and excited HEors. The children all mixed really well and I was most amused and pleased to look round at one point and spot Monster playing with a 10yo and Teeny deep in conversation walking round the field with a 9yo.

We left there and headed to the beach to meet up with SIL and cousins J & M. We had a lovely couple of hours on the beach. SIL swam in the sea with Monster and Teeny, we walked along and got ice creams and then the children clambered about on the rocks eventually standing on them as the tide washed in and crashed on the lower ones playing some inventive and exciting looking game. They were gradually joined by four other children from the beach ending up with 8 children of all ages playing together as the sun made all their shadows grow long and the sand and salt dried on their skin. Lovely

Thursday In the morning I had some problems with my laptop so while I started to sort that out the children played with magic sand in bowls of water. Once I’d given up sorting it out as beyond me we looked through some of the books I’d got from the library earlier in the week and decided to have a go at making some salt dough pots with animals. So we mixed up a batch of the dough and sat together looking at the book and copying the ideas, then made some of our own interpretations. They are drying still, once dried we will paint and varnish them. Monster has been playing with playdoh, plasticine and any other modelling medium he can lay his hands on (including memorably opal fruits in the back of a car on a long journey ) and is really rather good at it. Teeny showed similar promise by making a very recognisable duck and following several of my tips for making shapes and attaching them to each other. We looked at various other paper based crafts and came up with some ideas for future salt dough projects too.

Then we headed into town to the small local library to sign the children up for the Reading Mission. Teeny sat and played on the computer in the children’s area while Monster and I walked round the library doing the first ‘mission’ of spotting some characters hidden round the shelves. The completed forms were handed in to enter a prize draw. They chose some books each and as it was lovely and cool in the library we sat and read a couple of stories too.

Once home A read them a Charlie and Lola book and they had a long, cool bath.

Friday In the morning we went to Tesco for a few bits and pieces, which was ridiculously busy so I was very impressed with the childrens’ all but impeccable behaviour in there - and the fact that Teeny begged with me in the vegetable aisle to buy some peas in their pods for her.

 Before we’d left I’d got out my old jewellry box and we’d sat and looked through my ‘treasures’ including childhood rings, bracelets and watches, various huge and gaudy earrings from my teenage rebellion period, some ‘nice’ bits like 21st gold keys and lockets and other bits with stories attached.

On the way to Tesco we listened to one of the Horrible Histories cds we’d got free with cereals last year and have never opened. This was Terrible Tudors complete with the Henry VII song which the Portico children performed at Kessingland so we all enjoyed learning that and both Monster and Teeny paid huge amounts of attention to the rest of the reading too including making comments and asking questions as it went along.

 Monster made his own sandwich for the second time this week (oh, where did my helpless newborn go?) and they played with funblox while waiting for Ali and F to arrive.

Once they were with us the children pretty much disappeared outside with the bribe of Fab lollies assisting to persuade them.

Saturday In the afternoon we headed off to the Portico   where we had a lovely afternoon and evening with the BOGOF bonus of Layla, Si and C arriving for the evening. A had to go to a work party so was off for a few hours but the rest of us had a lovely time eating, drinking, singing, chatting and playing. Bliss There was also a very HE moment where seven children put a strawberry in the microwave for one minute and we all analysed, smelt and tasted the results.

Sunday Started nice and slow (which was all I could manage after the excesses of the previous night ) with bacon bagels, the Sunday papers and the children playing quietly or at least in another room! We headed for home around lunchtime and had a quiet afternoon at home with a lovely roast dinner in the evening.