Tending the Vegetable Patch: When I'm 64

What a great day! It all began with the idea that we would go to Nyman Gardens but as it was wet and cold we toyed with the idea of going bowling but both boys decided that they were happy staying at home. and what a busy day followed!

It all began with a conversation about what grown up people do and I asked what they thought they would do when they are grown up. Bean put forward the ideas of being an astronught and a pirate and Pumpkin drew and drew and drew. Fortunately my phone is now working so it is a well documented activity. His drawings are really good and it was only a few months ago that he was screwing up every bit of paper because he thought it was not good enough.

This was the highlight of the day for Pumpkin and he was pretty quiet for the rest of it...and still, both very unusual.

Bean played on teachyourmonstertoread but he is starting to find that it doesn't move on quick enough for him and you can't skip forward so we're on the search for more games and books etc that will engage with him. The tricky thing about learning to read later than the educated masses is that the books that are readable are aimed at much younger children (easier concepts and story lines) but mostly he is happy listening to us read to him and getting to grips with environmental words.

Pumpkin did decide that he wanted to make daddy some heart shaped biscuits but didn't join in when it came to it. I made them on my own. Plum was asleep again by this point and Bean bought the Lego down from his room and began building brick walls. He overlapped the bricked the way we had done earlier in the week and the way we have been drawing them too. It's interesting to watch how he plays out this new skills. He made several pyramids and then finally measured them all up against each other and joined them together. He worked really hard at it for about 45 minutes.

All this time Pumpkin quietly built a city out of bricks and played with his own Lego creations on the window sill, which has become a favourite play place for Pumpkin recently.

After lunch Plum, Bean and I went into the garden but Pumpkin wanted to was Cars (again) ...why is it that no matter how many times I watch it I still get excited and end up crying? Anyhow, we planted some garlic and thinned some snowdrops and pulled out and cleared a lot of dead plants and played football. Bean had a great time. We came in and watched the rest of Cars with Pumpkin.

The end of the day came with Pumpkin playing drums on the pots and pans, daddy making it home in time to eat dinner with us, Bean playing pairs with cvc words and writing 'real and funny' words that he could write.