We're going out to play

Saturday 21st July


After a disturbed night where Plum slept beautifully in her strange surroundings but Pumpkin didn't, I got to lie in until 9 and even grabbed an afternoon nap thanks to the large number of family about. 


 FA#3 played with our collection of slings today and Plum was a very willing model. Plum also demonstrated blw successfully, mostly sucking the topping off pizza and making a mess!  


The boys played happily in the garden with L, 7, and J, 3. Lots of chasing games, hide and seek, moving garden furniture to perform shows to each other and water fun with the hose pipe. This did end when Bean sprayed water at the cat flap, obviously spraying water through it and into the kitchen. There were also a few wet children and clothes about. We sat in the garden and Plum felt the grass between her toes for the first time. 


Bean has made colouring books for everyone today by stapling two or three plain pages together and drawing a picture on the front cover. I find it interesting what he absorbs without explicit teaching, he's worked out that books have a front cover, multiple pages and bind together (usually) on the right. 


Bean and Pumpkin spent considerable time building towers with blocks and seeing who could build the tallest one without it falling over. This game then moved on to building a city with different designed buildings in it. It's worth noting that Bean's were always symmetrical. Pumpkin set about putting stepping stones between the buildings as it turned out they had built it on water.

Bean blowing across the top of nan's bottle collection to make music for me

Packing up to go home, Bean wanted a sling for his bear

Eureka!

Friday 20th July 


A trip to nana and granddad's today. We are planning on staying the night too which involves a lot of luggage, mostly because we have to take all our bedding. We all share one room and the boys sleep on the floor, it's a bit like a camping adventure! 


We've had a real science type day today. It's not often I look at our day and categorise it into school defined subjects as so much blurs from one category to the next. But today... Bean asked what oil was as I was cooking French toast (aka oeuf pain) and what would happen if we mixed it with water. Investigation number one. 


Lunch involved chicken on the bone and Bean wanted to find out what was in the middle of the bones so we kept them and cut them open later in the afternoon. Imvestigation number two.  


Nana's garden was well watered by the boys and nana showed them wear to put the water so that the roots of her new fig tree would be able to drink it up. Investigation number three.


Daddy also took the boys to the park whilst Plum and I had a sleep together (precious times) there has been some craftiness (of the sticking variety) playing with Russian dolls, computer games and videoing on mummy's phone. Bean also helped with a large portion of the packing and unpacking today completely voluntarily and although it makes the process a bit longer it is so lovely to have a willing and helpful helper. The boys especially enjoyed taking the bending and suitcase up in grandad's lift, going along for the ride too.

Plum enjoying a story with daddy

Puppets made without following the instructions

Watering the fig tree

Drinks in the garden

Nana's Russian dolls

Making books

Playing with our food!

Cuddles with nana

Forever blowing bubbles

Saturday 23rd June


A day trip to nana and grandad's ment a less relaxed Saturday morning. I cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast and discovered our kettle wasn't working at the last moment so fruit juice and no caffeine! We headed off to arrive about 11 am just in time for coffee and tea, yippee! The boys were both really tired so the journey there ment they got to rest even though they didn't sleep (although I have no idea how they didn't.) 


 Bean spent the rest of the morning colouring and Pumpkin got busy with the tractor. Daddy and Km went off to the shops to buy lunch (and a new kettle) and after feeding and changing Plum, I read some stories with Pumpkin and played with the vehicles with him. There was definitely evidence of tired children over lunch. Plum wanted to sleep but Pumpkin wanted mummy (usually a sign he would like a sleep but also seems to coincide regularly at the moment with when Plum needs me.) There was some loudness of play and aggravating each other between Bean and Pumpkin whilst eating lunch (too much for nana to bear) and daddy sat between them. This caused further tears from Pumpkin. He did calm once I returned from settling Plum but only after much dramatics. Things did settle down and the afternoon involved some watching on the I player, games on the phone, stories, photography, more vehicle games. 


Bean, Plum, and mummy took Km for a tour around Whistable. A walk down the high street saw a parade of vintage cars go by as they were heading home from a nearby festival. We also looked at the independent shops, quirky buildings, got blown down the sea front, saw The Favourite, checked out nana and grandad's old house, and walked down the alley way named after grandad. 


 Bean found a bubble blower when we got back to nana and gandad's. We made some bubble mixture together and Pumpkin and I made a bubble blower for him from a pipe cleaner. All those years playing with young children does come in handy sometimes! As it happened K found actual mixture and Bean found some more blowers. Pumpkin insisted that he needed water in his mixture. I did try to explain to him that it wouldn't work anymore but we filed it up anyway...it worked perfectly well. Not that clever after all. 


Grandad ordered a take away for daddy's birthday meal and we all enjoyed some Indian food together. Daddy opened presents from his family and ate a lovely coconut and lime cake made by bfg... Yum yum. During this meal the boys simultaneously played a game with the vehicles and two wooden figures. They created a story involving slugs and snails in the engine, robbers and burglars, getting stuck in pink goo, saved by licking dinosaurs, giving rides around a tourist route and other seemingly unrelated oddities. It was a joy and a pleasure to watch and daddy speculated whether I thought they would be future Cohen brothers. It did remind me of an article I once read by a women who had been home educated where she explained that all her and her sister had done for years was play Barbies and now they right sitcoms and plays together.