What a beautiful day

Monday 25th June

A double park day ment that we got to meet up with five home ed families today. One reason why I love Mondays. The boys requested bikes at Horsham Park today so we arranged them into the boot of the car and had our first ride around for months. Bean has not lost the knack at all and even managed to push himself off a couple of times. He did have one large fall but after walking a while got back on and rode away. Pumpkin persevered and slowly walked along from the car to the play area and to the duck pond and back. This is progress from previous trips and I remember going through a similar process with Bean. 

Before we had even left the house this morning the boys had played an epic game of lego.

And Plum and I had a play with the camera phone.

During one of the many discussion I had today with other home ed mum's we talked about a babies need to cry when they are tired. Their inability to recognise 'I'm tired' and just go to sleep. As if to prove me insane Plum quietly dropped of in her chair this afternoon and I didn't even notice, not a tear or a cry to be heard!

A rather serial moment occured early evening when Bean asked to play schools. He had two bags packed with things he would need: an indoor ball, an outdoor ball, notepad and pen, various tickets for outings, wallet and money. I found myself being asked to take the role of teacher! de-ja vu. He led me through what happened at school and he did some writting, where he asked to copy the names of people in our family and he got ready to go on a school trip which involved sorting and counting the money he had.  

Bean took it upon himself to 'practice my swirls.' I remember doing endless pages of dotted patterns at school as a child and it goes to show that these ideas have their origins somewhere in a child's natural pattern of learning, they just got a bit lost on their way around the school system.


After Plum and Bean went to bed, Pumpkin woke up! We have made chocolate cake and porridge for his dinner and he has built towers and played games on my phone. It's almost like having a different child around when 1:1.

Can we build it?

The day began with daddy and Bean going out to the men's breakfast at church. Pumpkin and I stayed at home and made our own special pancakes for breakfast. He really enjoyed the mixing and of course the eating.
We hosted a couple more smalls today, our God daughter and her brother, similar ages to Bean and Pumpkin. It intriged me how the introduction of two more adventurous brains turns the direction of a favourite toy. The cardboard boxes became a house and a boat with trailer but today they also had bear and a book for the journey and were selotaped together, all because there were extra smalls involved.
I was explaining to J that Bean loved to build things and as if he had heard me he set about building throughout the house, lego here, wooden blocks there, cardboard boxes in the garden, bricks in the doorway, bedding upstairs.
I had some 1:1 time with Pumpkin this morning. I went out to buy suncream recommended to be by fav auntie #1 and he opted to come with me. I let him sit in the front of the car and we had the window wide open and he choose the music. A very special time and we should try to do it more often.







Other highlights today included: painting the patio and toys, using a variety of brushes and mops, with water; Bean chalking a hop scotch on the floor complete with numbers 1, 2, 3 (he's never written numbers before); more paddling in the paddling pool; and a lot of sword fighting.