Author: katy

I’m not even going to think about the rest of August, except to mention a few highlights.
These would have to include the christening of my friend’s twins (the ones I donated EBM to 🙂 ) which was the day after the Festival of History, the CHEF visit to Knebworth where Bob took K and L on the dinosaur trail and maze trip while J and I went round the house and did the Tudor treasure trail (and then did the dinosaurs too ) and then we all met up at the amazing Fort Knebworth adventure playground, rode on the little train and had multiple turns on the very long slides 🙂 and a couple of African drama sessions. These were more music than drama, really, but definitely giving free rein to imagination and very play-based; both J and K loved them (and even L joined in where she could) and are very much looking forward to the remaining two sessions in the series.
Bob has already blogged about our stay with his parents, including various meets with other slingers and a few imaginary friends 🙂 so I guess that brings us to September 😉

September started with “our teenager” Alice coming to look after the children for a day. I had hoped to use this time for lots of sorting out, but then realised that I was preaching on Sunday (all age worship at our home church) as well as having the last of the children’s summer picnics (brunch on Saturday) to prepare for, so it was really a blessing that she was coming, but not quite in the way I’d hoped…
Saturday 2nd proved to be rather gloomy and drizzly, but there was nevertheless a small, hardy, group of us at the playground (not as many as we’d hoped, but definitely quality, if not quantity 😉 ) – the parents huddling under shelter with the food and Thermoses while the children, undeterred by the weather, played happily and were occasionally pinned down for long enough to be fed a bite of croissant or muffin 🙂
The service, despite my reservations and with help from both Bob and the children, went well. (Muses: perhaps I should start a separate blog for preaching – or perhaps that would just be another thing to fail to keep up to date! I guess at least I could just put the services in…) It was followed by coffee (and very tasty biscuits) and then a small group of us went to the Grad Pad for lunch – just making it in time before they stopped serving 🙂 It was great to have the chance to catch up with friends – and one of them was the man who had collected our Sonlight Core K books for us, so we drove home with those in the boot and spent the afternoon trying not to get too far ahead with the reading 😆

Monday was the first Mustard Seeds of the new academic year, and both J and K decided to stay for the whole session. As part of the story activity we started to learn a new poem about Creation, which I really need to get in writing, as my memory is currently appalling (sigh). On the off-chance that someone may recognise it and correect my errors, here it is (we’re adding to it each week, so this is last week plus today’s additions):
God said “Earth” and the world spun round,
God said “Day” and the light beamed down,
God said “Night” and the sky turned black,
God said “Land” and the sea rolled back.
God said ??? and a shoot pushed through,
God said “fin” and the first fish grew,
God said “wing” and the first bird soared,
God said “fur” and the jungle roared.

On Monday evening we went round to tea with J’s friend B and had a lovely relaxing time. Bob joined us after work and we stayed far too long (having made my apologies for missing a local preachers’ meeting :redface: ) but sometimes fun is more important than sleep, I find!
Tuesday again found Alice with us, this time taking K and L out for the morning so J and I could do some things together and then keeping all three occupied so I could get started on a bit of batch cooking. Having worn ourselves out on Tuesday, Wednesday was a quiet at home kind of day, curling up on the settee and reading, with the occasional foray onto the PC and lots of Duplo building 🙂
Thursday was the usual parents and tots (this week including Roman clay pot-making for the older HE children, and meeting a new HE family), followed by a toddle into town to buy birthday presents for the parties we were off to at the weekend. Also found some K’nex in a charity shop 🙂 Since school term has now started 3:15 found us at the school gates to pick up B and bring him home for tea. The children all played with K’nex for over an hour, which meant I could cook tea and also make flapjack and pound cake for Friday Club, as well as putting together a few lasagnes to freeze 🙂
Friday club has also started up again, this week with a nature walk which ended with each child choosing a tree to draw and paint. We’ll do the same walk again in a few months’ time to see what has changed and hopefully record the changes through the seasons. Must get some decent watercolours for this, as our cheap tray of paints is really not up to the job! We finished late, which meant a bit of a rushed picnic as we had arranged to meet another new HE family mid-afternoon…

Friday evening was spent getting ready for a busy weekend, including a moment of tragedy as Bob managed to break J’s Roman cup 🙁 J was heartbroken, but cheered up when he remembered that his auntie Polly is an archaeologist and has a birthday in September. His present to her is to be a 3D Roman cup jigsaw 😆

It was the second of our “school friends” picnics on Friday; an attempt, thinly veiled as half-birthday parties, for J and K to keep in touch with their old friends.
Alice (“our teenager”) came along to help us today, which made a huge difference to my mental and physical well-being!
We were running late (as usual!) so she took the boys to the playground in her car while L and I finished off, then we took the picnic stuff along when we were ready. Not a great turnout from schoolfriends though 🙁 All of one – but he made up in quality for what he lacked in quantity 🙂 We also had a friend from parents and tots and E, O, M and F came along all the way from London. It was not the greatest of weather, but that didn’t seem to deter the children from playing happily while the mum chatted. Alice was great at entertaining too, so it was a nice easy day, all in all – just a little disappointing for J not to see schoolfriends. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a better turnout at the last one (brunch on the first Saturday in September)…

So tired I’m just dragging myself from day to day and activity to activity 🙁
As might be expected, the children are picking up on this and reacting accordingly, so mammoth tantrums from J and L. K continues to be his usual good-natured self, with just the incessant questions which I know I shouldn’t complain about, but they do get on top of me at times! On Monday we came incredibly close to taking J to CHEF sports in just his pants, as he took so long to get up and get dressed. In the end we were half an hour late, with him finishing dressing and eating breakfast in the car on the way – and then throwing a wobbly when we got there because he didn’t want to join in. Fortunately Gina was able to intervene and persuade him while I ran round the corner and flung myself into a little miserable heap to calm down for a few minutes! Of course once he joined in he loved it and I didn’t see him again for the whole session 😉

After the sports session it was medal-giving for the Sports Day a few weeks ago, which the boys were both seriously chuffed about, then we went to visit our friend with the twins and ended up staying quite late so that the boys could play for a while with her older boys and I could help her a little with bedtime. It was lovely, but set us up somewhat for another tired day on Tuesday – fortunately nothing planned that day except for Alice “our teenager” coming to help. She’s on holiday from Uni, came round last Friday and the children were really pleased to see her again plus Bob and I found out she was free because her holiday job fell through, so we asked her to come and help out for a couple of days int he holidays. She did a great job of looking after the children while I managed to get lots of tiling done in the bathroom 🙂 She’s coming again on Friday, so hopefully I’ll get the grouting done then, although it’s also another picnic in the park so she’ll help with that too. The temptation to just leave her with the kids while I sneak upstairs and sleep is great, but not a great use of money, I fear. At least if I tile or tidy I can see what I’ve been doing! If I carry on feeling the way I do though paying someone to babysit while I sleep may become a necessity…

Good grief – just realising quite how long it is since I blogged! I find it very hard when exhausted to sit down and write/type coherently. Everything gets tainted with how bad I feel,so I’ve not been doing it. Now I can’t even remember what we’ve done, apart from not enough “work” because J throws a tantrum every time I suggest it might be a good idea 🙁
I read in a child development book that 6 years old is a very problematic age because children are just starting to see that there are two sides to an argument and this leaves them feeling very unstable. They’re no longer able to be certain of anything, because they haven’t yet learned to distinguish properly between the two sides they can see, so everything is confusing. I guess it’s therefore no surprise that they are argumentative, combative and contrary! Praise is lapped up, but criticism, even if only perceived rather than real, is unbearable, and they will fly off the handle at the slightest thing. This described J’s current behaviour to a T! I guess it helps to know it’s a phase, a developmental stage, rather than something awful I’ve done to him! The same book said that 7 year olds can be incredibly helpful and eager to please adults, so I’m looking forward to that 😆

Having said all that about being so tired, why is it that I found myself sat in front of the computer before 6 am today? I don’t seem to be able to get back to sleep once I’ve woken up, no matter how tired I am. L is now in her own bed, at least nominally – in fact she is in her own bed from when she falls asleep until she first wakes, which could be anything from 1 to 4am, then she comes in with us. I then feed her and eventually get back to sleep, then she usually wakes again and I feed her again and then can’t get back to sleep. Used not to be a problem, but it seems the more tired I am the harder I find it to get to sleep 🙁 Just can’t get comfortable and can’t stop all the things I’ve not done from running through my head. Maybe I should try keeping a notebook by the bed to write them down and see if I can sleep then 😕 Anyway, unable to sleep after L woke me up at 5:15 today I finally gave up and came down to catch up on emails, write some cheques I need to post and blog! Perhaps I’ll sleep better tonight without all that on my conscience!
I wonder how the mums at today’s P&T would feel if I just went in, opened up the doors and toy cupboards, sat myself in a corner and told them i felt too poorly to do P&T today, but they’re welcome to do it themselves?

Definitely a big hit!
We arrived early because I wasn’t sure what time it started (if it had started when I thought it might we’d have been late lol) so did a couple of workbook pages in the car 🙂 – definitely feels more like fun and less of a chore that way 😉
The session itself was great – quite structured, which I think suits my guys well, but with enough flexibility for them not to feel that they were being railroaded into things. Among other things we discovered that balloons filled with air burst when held over a candle flame, but water-filled balloons don’t (well not immediately, anyway 😆 ) because the water conductes the heat away. This was done in the context of the Earth being the only planet we can live on because the amount of water here keeps it temperate.
We also made a new friend in Amelia Bedelia The boys loved the stories and her literal-mindedness and have spent time since trying to work out other scenarios where she could get things wrong.
After a picnic lunch at the park with a few other families (and a lovely dog) we eventually tore ourselves away and came home. We tried again with the Diet Coke and Mentos, this time with a 2l bottle dangling from the climbing frame, but the thread holding the Mentos broke 🙁 setting everything off too early – and all over me! At least we proved that Aldi cheap Diet Coke works just as well as the Real Thing 😉
Once I’d dried off a bit we realised it was time to go and collect Bob from work if we were to make it to our blood donation session, so off we went, picked him up, dropped him off at the hall and then popped to the supermarket to get things for tea so that everyone else could eat while I did my donation – organised or what?! The children chose all sorts of healthy things, like baby carrots to dip in houmous, baby orange peppers to munch, fresh peas to shell (the cashier didn’t know what they were!) and stripy cheese (five counties) to go with Cream Crackers (does that count as healthy?) – then made up for it by pigging biscuits from the donors’ refreshments table 😆
At least this time I didn’t end up needing two different people to get the needle into my arm (as happened last time), nor did I have a lovely bruise to show for my troubles (as usually happens) – although I did have the inevitable 20 minute wait to tell the appropriate person that I had been born in Zambia, lived in Kenya, travelled all over the place, yes, possibly exposed to malaria, no, haven’t had it… The nurse this time suggested that rather than having to remember the list of countries I’ve visited ever since then (yes, all of them please!) I should just write them down and hand over a copy of the list – why has that not occurred to me earlier?

Parents and Tots is starting to be a bit more of an all-age group now, which is much better for J and will probably suit K better in future. This week S was unable to come, but another CHEF family came along instead, with boy a similar age to J and girl between K and L. They use The Story of the World (which we are about to start for this very reason) and it looks as though P&T may be a good opportunity to do some of the activities which are not really suited to younger children. This time boy plus mum took J, K and a visiting older sibling into the kitchen to make Roman coins from clay while girl did Playdough stuff with L and me 🙂
They had a great time and J and K were very proud of their Roman coins and of the feet and hands they made to do measuring. A satisfactory solution all round, I think 😀

is fab!!!

Some time ago my aunt promised my cousin’s little boy that she would bring him on the train to Cambridge to see J, K and L. They finally got round to it yesterday, but we decided to meet at Ely (also on the train journey for them) instead. We met them at the station (late due to an accident on the A14 meaning traffic was diverted up the A10 so we were travelling with lots of lorries 🙁 ) and tried to find somewhere to park, but everywhere in Ely was full except for short-stay and we didn’t fancy having to keep moving the car, so we got back on the A10 and headed up to Stow Bardolph, which I had only heard of yesterday – and it was great!
Somebody has obviously put a lot of thought into the way things are set up, so there are lots of little touches which make a big difference. As an example, the main picnic area is roofed and has thick netting around one end, which means it is lovely and shady even on a hot day (and I should imagine also sheltered on a windy one). The picnic tables are large – and there are high chairs too (yes, even outside in the picnic area!) – and it’s right by the sinks for handwashing and near to the toilet block. Another example: there are three large trampolines, all of which are sunken so that the bouncing happens at ground level and there is no need to worry about lifting children on or off or catching them when they fall.
The sandpit is enormous and largely undercover (fantastic on a day like yesterday when it was so sunny and useful too when it suddenly changed to torrential rain) and as well as lever controlled diggers has ordinary buckets and spades and a tap, so that anyone can get involved in making sandcastles, rather than having to just jostle and queue for the diggers 🙂 There is also a wooden rail with tipping wagons to push along it and a turntable to operate – lots of fun and necessitating a fair degree of teamwork.
Then there’s the straw barn. Now I remember as a child visiting my friend who was a farmer’s daughter and spending hours playing in the straw (and then suffering for it as my hayfever flared up 🙁 ) but it’s something my children have never had the chance to do until now – and they loved it!
K, L and I went on a tractor and trailor ride round the main part of the farm while J and J continued playing with sand and straw; we saw rare breed sheep and goats and managed to catch a bit of breeze whizh was worth the £1 in itself! The children all enjoyed rushing around on toy tractors too 🙂
As well as all the activities there were animals to see, but the heat had forced the closure of the petting area so we’ll have to go back sometime to see that. We did meet the sheepdogs who help look after the 100 or so sheep, though, and stroked a large and friendly goat. The small animals (and the large, but it was most noticeable with the small, especially compared with other places we have been) had loads of space and were able to chill out unmolested (ie small children couldn’t reach them 😆 ) – our favourite was the seriously relaxed ferret

We also saw lots of pigs, including some babies and a shepherd’s hut.
A well-timed rainstorm helped us to lure the children into the cafe for tea and cakes, then we reluctantly set off back to Ely and thence home.
Definitely a place worth a second visit, though 😀 (and Kath, is it anywhere near you?)