It seems like a lot of things happened this weekend, but I probably can’t remember them all.
Up and out early on Saturday with J to go to (mini) football practice at the local sports centre. I don’t know who was more apprehensive – him or me – on the way there as he only started showing any interest in playing football this summer and so isn’t as advanced as other boys his age, some of whom have been doing after-school football clubs for ages. He enjoyed it a lot and wants to go again, which is great.
The instructor was very good – he knew the names of the regulars, and made newcomers welcome. He also got people divided up nicely by ability and age, so no-one got embarrassed or frustrated – a great de-motivator in physical education. Proper warm-ups, then dribbling skills, then a short match (two matches in parallel by ability and age). J saved two goals which was excellent and didn’t do the standard primary school football tactic of joining the large swarm of boys around the ball getting under each other’s feet – he marked people a bit (as he’d noticed some other people doing this) and moved into space. There was a boy there he knew, and I chatted to a colleague who was bringing his son for the first time too.
After lunch J tackled some maths and K did some writing with his leap pad. Giving J a short break from his maths has helped a lot – he seemed much more willing to get stuck in, and it was just about the right level of stretching him. We rewarded ourselves by cutting out, colouring in and then playing the Flushed Away board game we got free from ICE. J lost, so I distracted him from sulks by going through the rather good What Does a Civil Engineer Do? thing on the ICE web site. He thought that the artificial island built for the Hong Kong airport could have been built by thousands of mini-submarines each with a bucket of underwater concrete, and then divers in diving suits spreading it out to make the island. As Penry says: could be…
Then there was painting of the salt dough Christmas tree decorations they had made at Friday club the day before, and J managed to get a splodge of primary red in his hair (at the front!). They weren’t crafted-out, and so did some peg doll making with Katy. Somewhere during the day J discovered numerous v. annoying Crazy Frog videos via a Google search – good job we have safe search turned on. J, K and L all thought them hilarious; I thought they were mildly amusing for the first 2 viewings only. 🙄
After children’s bed time I added a new smiley (more smiley Morris dancing, I suppose) to the blog – can you tell which one? 🙂 Also, for once it isn’t one I’ve pinched from Jax and Tim.
This morning we had meant to get to the advent / Christmas service for the playgroup that all ours have been to for ages (when it doesn’t clash with other things). It’s run by lovely people who do an industrial scale playgroup and then throw an industrial scale free summer and Christmas party with amazing food masterminded by the vicar’s wife.
In the end we only managed the last talky bit and the last hymn, leaving Katy feeling cheated of a good sing of good carols (more opportunities ahead, I expect 🙂 ). This was because L managed to get a bead stuck up her nose! This is a rite of passage that J has experienced (with the torn-off and rolled-up instructions of the travel cot he was supposed to be having a nap in) but K has avoided. I was imagining a repeat of the unpleasant scene in Total Recall staged in A+E after a long wait and expensive car park charge, but fortunately the emergency doctor is just down the road from us and we were put to the head of the queue (of lots of children!) and L soon re-emerged with Katy minus a small blue bead. How it got there is still a mystery…
Katy tried out an early Christmas present from me, which is a baby-wearing poncho coat made by a sling-making imaginary friend of hers. L and Katy both seem to like it so I’m happy too. Don’t think I’ll be borrowing it though!
We finally got to the church, sang the last hymn, then cleared off while they transformed it from service-mode into children’s-party-mode (armies of students guided by plans projected from an OHP – yes, it’s that organised and it shows). Katy had seen an advert in Lush earlier in the week that they were going to have a party which we thought might be fun (and we might finally get treated to some freebies 😉 ). There was nothing obvious going on, lots of people milling about, and then we spied a small table next to the tills with a plate of biscuits, a carton of juice, some cups and a box of chocolates. After J had trailed an assistant round the shop, patiently waiting for her to notice him, then losing courage, then I asked her, we discovered that this was the party i.e. help yourself while I continue being not very busy. I’m not one to begrudge free refreshments, but maybe if they’d said it was going to be refreshments rather than a party that would have been more accurate.
The real party was very good as it always is. J and L got their nails painted and K got his face painted as an excellent dog (see Flickr). J and K made a Christmas cracker each, which involved sticking some glitter on a card shape, even more glitter on your hands, and bonus glitter on the floor and your clothes. I don’t think it would take CSI techniques to find the amount they managed to transfer onto me too! As J’s nails weren’t completely dry, the lovely purple colour was coated in an equally lovely layer of dark blue (glitter). Nice.
We walked home, collapsed for a bit, watched The Sword in the Stone (I love the wizard’s duel scene) and then it was tea-time and soon the end of another day…
