unexpected

This week was to be the busiest week ever! ...Well, for us, anyway. We had outdoor playdates (monday) and walks in the woods, teatime play dates and shopping in town (Tues), a trip across to the next county to meet cousinB and FA#2, grandma and pops for bowling (wed), the cimema and gymnastics and swimming (Thurs) and a scheduled home day to recuperate (Fri) We don't normally schedule quite so much but they were all things to good to miss. I was super organised and planned our meals for the whole week and even got a head start on the cooking, which was going to prove very useful.

And then...following on from Beans sickness last Thursday, we had an enforced day at home on Monday as Plum had her turn. We managed a full on day on Tuesday but Pumpkin had got the taste for home days and was really reluctant to go anywhere. This is usually a transition issue, moving from one place to another, but today it endured as a persistent request to be at home. As usual though, he refused to come home at the end of the day. We had arranged to met a group of home ed friends at Slindon Woods but, due to Pumpkin needing some persuasion to leave and getting stuck in traffic, we missed the meeting time. We stayed anyway and walked through the woods in the rain. The boys had a great time measuring puddles with sticks and wading through mud and running in and out of the trees. We plan to return next week to go mushroom hunting. We also stopped by the Slindon Pumpkin display on our way past. We discovered lots of different varieties of pumpkins and really enjoyed looking at all the different shapes and names.
We made it home for just about an hour before we had to go to town for a few things. I try to avoid town with the smalls now as it generally becomes too stressful trying to run the errands and keep happy troops in tow but today was the last opportunity we had to buy glowsticks in preparation for our cinema trip on Thurs and we needed to get Bean's feet measured too. We also bought pumpkins ready to carve. And then we journeyed on to our friend's house. A friend we made from our NCT classes over six years ago and the smalls still get on together well and we continued our Star Wars education by resurrected our friend's dad's old star wars figures. Totally amazing how he could remember the names of all the characters!

Wednesday took us bowling and meeting up with my family followed by a play in Dunorlan Park where we continued our recent dragon theme by riding endlessly on the wooden carved dragon. All feeling very sleepy on the way home. Mummy curled up in bed early, not able to go to sleep as Plum is constantly in need of mummy in the evening, just for cuddles and company, but i cannot sleep until she does. 

And then it was mummy's turn to be unwell. And it looked like the trip to see Planes at eh cinema as part of the National Youth Film Week would have to be cancelled along with gymnastics except that daddy came to the rescue and took them off to see it. And mummy relaxed at home. A friend then took Bean and Pumpkin to gym and they went to play for the afternoon, including going to their friend's french lesson and arrived home just before daddy, who then took over again. Plum came home about lunch time and pottered about the house as mummy lay on the sofa and watched movies and we took a sleep together in the afternoon. The boys enjoyed the french lesson so much they are asking to go back.

And Thursday night was Pumpkin's turn to be unwell. We spent Friday morning together at home but Bean went o our friends again in the afternoon and Boy's Brigade. Pumpkin was so upset to be separated from Bean and spent the rest of the day looking forlorn whilst playing on the ipad and watching iplayer. He really didn't eat very much and was very lethargic. 

And then Saturday came and daddy is feeling unwell. I've never known him to be sick so feeling unwell is as bad as it gets but sometimes that can be worse, can't it? Pumpkin and mummy haven't quite recovered but the boys were keen to go to the park so as soon as there was a gap in the rainy weather, off they scooted. It didn't last long as the rain came down again. The rest of the day has been a lego, cars, balloon play, iplayer, ipad, guinea pig cuddling, hours in the bath, nerf gun shooting, building train stations from cardboard boxes, kind of day.

And in amongst all of this, Bean has been requesting more reading words games, help me read a book, making words with bricks, let's change the words of the story, and enjoying that he can recognise some words. Which, apart from the fact that he is learning to read (which makes my heart sing) is exciting as he is enjoying learning to read.