A busy week

Much of last week was spent getting ready (clearing the spare room and sorting out enough floor/bed/sofa space for friends to stay over, plus lots of baking and game planning) for our long-awaited birthdays party 😀

We still found time to do some Science Week things, K and L at the weekend and J on Monday, when he went to the University Engineering Dept for the Rocket Launchpad Challenge. First they needed to build a structure out of paper, held together with nuts and bolts. This had to be strong enough to hold the rocket launch equipment, so they used tetrahedra (triangular based pyramids – J asked me to explain it to you that way) because they are very strong and spread the load. Their structure was strong enough, but it was too windy outside to use the paper structures after all, so they had to just put the equipment on the ground. Fortunately it still worked, although the rockets may not have gone as far.
The next challenge was to build a rocket, for which they were given paper, scissors and masking tape. They rolled the paper around a tube the same size as the rocket launch tube, so that they knew it would fit well, then added a nose cone and some stabilising fins. After a quick safety talk and a demo of how to use the controls it was time to go outside and launch some rockets!
Meanwhile K, L, A and I had retired, with Gina, E and S, to a cafe where the children were able to play and we could chat. Intended to do lots of planning, but somehow didn’t get that far…
On Monday evening I went out to Pilates for the first time, which was great, but unexpectedly hard work; at the time it felt fairly gentle, but by the next morning I knew I had been working hard!

Tuesday should have been swimming, but Bob had problems with lifts so getting there was too awkward for us in our tired state and we missed it – which means a big gap before the next session and may prove not to have been a good thing at all. We will have to make sure we get to the pool a couple of times over the holidays.
We spent much of the day in bed, in the end, playing Blokus and reading stories 🙂 Also got the children’s capes made and started thinking of initials they wanted for their shields: a simple S for J, SK for Super K, for A an A, or possibly an S, or a B, and L came up with a different combination of random letters every time 😕
Managed to get to aerobics in the evening, which felt good even though the instructor is not great – sometimes it’s just good to be out of the house and doing something different!

Wednesday was always going to be busy and I ended up feeling totally overwhelmed and very low 🙁 We started innocuously enough, with Drama for J and K while L did some nice girlie things with her friend E, but we failed to collect a parcel on the way, just managed (thanks to last minute toilet trip for L, a few minutes after I had asked her and she had been adamant she didn’t need to go :wall: ) to go two minutes into the third hour of parking and so have to spend twice as much, failed again to collect parcel on the way back, didn’t manage to get a lift to Gymnastics for the boys as Susan and K were doing other things so needed a cooked lunch as boys out for tea but everyone was hungry and crabby by the time it was ready, failed to get bread into oven in time to take with us for boys’ tea between gymnastics and Badgers, didn’t get cakes made as hoped because had to go out to take boys – but (breathe, Michelle!) it did occur to me as we walked out of the door that I could take the capes with me and possibly get some hand-sewing done. Fortunately there were some older girls there who were happy to play with L and A, so I got a fair bit done in the end 🙂
Bob, being a sweetie and knowing I was stressed, came home just in time to take the boys to Badgers if we rushed home for tea and then got them into the car ready and nobly took the girls with him as well so I could do lots of baking – bliss!

Thursday was Tots and Nots as usual, with a bit of French, but no Latin in the end (too many not there so we’d have had to revise again anyway) and lots of eggs to decorate. Managed to collect parcels on the way 🙂 Ended up staying rather late and then leaving in a hurry to get home for some lunch and a bit of tidying, reading and playing Blokus 🙂 I made it to Body Combat, despite having been number 11 on the waiting list, so that was an unexpected bonus and means I did enough classes this week to cover our membership fees 🙂

Friday morning found J incredibly grumpy 🙁 and refusing to help at all with any kind of preparations. We have noticed before that he seems to find it very difficult to cope with treats and exciting things and almost always has a big strop, tantrum or difficult patch – a sort of self-sabotage I find very hard to deal with 🙁
The children had all been invited to play with W and E on Friday morning while Bob finished tidying and I did food things, so we asked them to do one job each (all to do with getting their room ready to fit extra sleeping children) before they went, so that Bob could hoover easily once they had gone. K and L both did their best fairly promptly, J had a strop and refused pointblank to do anything 🙁 In the end it came down to either helping out or not coming to the party and we decided the best way to get things back how we wanted them (ie him helping and coming to the party) was to send the others and keep him here. He was not very happy about this, but in all justice had to agree that it was fair and that he had been given several chances to do what was needed to be allowed to go. Emma very bravely agreed to take A as well, so we had a good clear run at everything and as J soon got over his sulks, joined in and made himself useful it ended up being a couple of hours very well spent, despite the shaky start.
The Rainedrops arrived in the middle of the afternoon and joy was pretty much unconfined 😀 Lots of playing, chatting and general helpfulness – thanks guys 😀
I think the weekend probably deserves a post of its own and I have children waiting for stories…