29th September - Apples and Football

After an energetic day yesterday, Sylvie was overtired and got up in the night to be sick, something that seems to be associated with waking up before her body has had enough sleep - on this occasion needing the toilet seemed to trigger it. She slept afterwards and woke up seeming perfectly fine, so we continued with our usual plans of visiting my parents. Sylvie went in her nightclothes thanks to her auntie's suggestion from last night that she do so so she could have some more sleep once she arrived at Granny's. As the have a fine crop of apples in their orchard, I took a casserole dish along with the intention of making an apple pie. Sylvie took her Goody bag from the party with her and got grandad to play with the whistling balloon with her for a bit before her cousins arrived.

We were surprised to find her older cousin arriving with his dad and younger brother as he usually goes to school on the bus, but thanks to his long day the day before he had been allowed a lie-in so his dad was taking him to school. He and Sylvie took advantage of the few minutes they had together for some 'Free Play', then after he left my dad invited Sylvie to help him collect some apples for my pie, so she didn't get any extra sleep but had 'Farming - Harvesting module' instead. They optimistically brought me enough apples to make about 4 pies, so after getting Sylvie some breakfast (the very last of her favourite cereal and some toast, not porridge and Nutella as she had decided yesterday despite it being offered). Sylvie was very keen to watch and learn how to make apple pies, so for 'Home Economics - Cooking module' she helped me a little, passing me apples, helping me remove the apple corer (a wonderful device my mum owns!) from the apple and asking questions.

She moved on to 'Art' and 'Writing' after a while - there were a lot of apples! - but came to watch me make the topping for the pie, a cakey mix rather than pastry due to a lack of available flour, and put it in the oven. After lunch and some 'Childcare', she had a little 'Media Studies' followed by 'Free Play' until her cousin got off the bus. Then it was time for 'Modelling' - posing with her brother and cousins for a nice photo for her auntie's picture frame - after which she went out with her cousin for 'Outdoor Activities' with his new goal post and football.

They came in for gloves at 5pm and I went to get them, coming back to find they both had been given the ice cream they had asked for, despite me telling them Sylvie couldn't have one as she would be getting her dinner in an hour and hearing her cousin relay that to my mum. Luckily the dinner I had planned for tonight was kievs and chips so I knew there was still a fair chance she would eat it, but she was too full to finish it all and didn't even ask for her chocolate afterwards. Grrrr!

We nipped out before dinner to take our park photos. It was getting dark, so they weren't the best. It looked quite similar to Saturday, and if it hadn't been obvious that the bin and bench had been removed we might have thought nothing had been done today at first glance, though we did notice then that the path we used to walk on up to the playground had been dug up. We got back just in time for food and we all ate to 'Media Studies'

She had no interest in the apple pie - fruit is for playing with not eating as far as she is concerned these days - so I took her to bed at her request before her daddy and I ate ours. She took some Dr. Who magazines with her for me to read the 3-part cartoon and invited davy to come to "as long as he doesn't scream." she dealt with her 'Personal Care' very well, though I had to hurry her when I realised she had spent more than a minute spitting toothpaste foam into the sink and trying to make more by rolling it round her mouth and forcing it between her teeth.

After 'Storytime', she asked for 'Music' to be her Avril Lavigne CD "but they are still in daddy's car. Can you get him to fetch them?" (The CD's were bought for Sylvie as she showed a real liking for the music, but daddy likes it too so she sometimes has to 'Share' on car journeys.) Daddy went and fetched them, grumbling that they had been at the bottom of her CD pile and hadn't been touched for months until he had unearthed them and brought them back to her attention! She fell asleep listening to the music.

28th September - Cousin's Birthday Party.

Today started with 'Art' as Sylvie drew a companion piece to her portrait of 'Daddy' , a study in brown of her baby brother. She has only really started drawing people in the last month or so, but she has a very good sense of scale - we always know which pictures are of Davy because they are always tiny! Her adults are always much bigger. The photo is her showing the two pictures to Davy, who appeared to be very appreciative!

Having well and truly broken the 'no chocolate for breakfast' rule, already admittedly pretty shaky once she got a taste for chocolate-flavoured cereal, I broke out the Nutella so she could have some on toast for breakfast. After a relatively leisurely early morning, we left in amazingly good time for 'Gym'.

'Gym' was a scene of triumph for Sylvie - rocking onto her back then up into a sitting position again, the move she had been trying to get for months, the only one left on the list of skills for her next badge, the one that has thoroughly frustrated her and led to special 'Gym' sessions with daddy to try and crack it, she FINALLY! succeeded at! She was ecstatic, and we were extremely pleased for her. She has been trying so hard to get it right, but something finally seemed to click today and she was able to hold her knees just right - loosely enough to be able to use her legs to pivot herself back up to sitting but not so loose that she let go completely. Her delight lasted through her session on the bars where she was excitedly eager to try everything asked, but dropped off during her turn on the vault - it seems that succeeding at the floor exercise has produced a regression in jumping off things and she started insisting on holding the coach's hand again. The coach, who is now wise to her, wouldn't give in to her which brought out the 'Neanderthal Walk', Sylvie's very overt way of expressing dislike silently. She perked up again when given the pay slip for the Gold gymnastics badge at the end, however.

After 'Gym', we headed to my parents house to meet her cousin for present-opening and cake. His actual birthday is tomorrow, but being a school day, he was celebrating today in full. He had opened some presents at his own home, and brought the Transformer he had got with him, much to the delight of Sylvie's daddy! Everyone had 'Puzzle-Solving' as the adults as well as the children attempted to turn it from robot to lorry and back again without the instructions. Sylvie was fascinated and watched intently until her cousin decided Optimus Prime really wanted to use her for target practice, when she hid her face, giggling, instead.

She was a bit sulky when we first arrived as her cousin's other cousin was also there, so she displayed her usual grasp of 'Social Skills' by refusing to play unless she could have her cousin to herself and pouting if he went to play with the other child who she ignored. She wouldn't even go outside to look at the football and football net her cousin got as presents to begin with, though she was in a better mood after food and went out for a short time then. She behaved well during the present unwrapping though, bringing him the cards and gifts we had bought one at a time and not attempting to open any of his presents herself or tell him what was inside them - she usually can't resist the latter!

At 3pm, Sylvie went off with her auntie to her cousin's 'official' party - an hour of fun at the Snowdome in Tamworth, sliding down the snowy slopes on rubber rings, followed by a tea of chicken nuggets and chips with 20 other children, most of them her cousin's classmates and strangers to her - and took in 'Social Skills', 'Winter Sports' and 'Negotiation' (I found out when she got home she had done the first run on her own but got her auntie to take her down on her lap the rest of the time as "I go too slow and keep stopping" on her own - an unexpected response from my definitely-not-a-risk-taking-speed-freak daughter. Apparently more weight makes you go faster.) She was returned to us at about 7pm. Her auntie had taken her to her granny's first and she was so tired they asked her if she wanted to stop there the night as we were intending to go round in the morning anyway. She exercised some 'Decision-Making' and refused as she wanted to show us her goody bag and thought we would miss her.

I got a phone call at 6pm while she was there, a little voice saying "Are you wondering where I am?" letting me know they were running a little late. She was exhausted but still insisted on coming home when I also independently suggested she stop at granny's. She ate her slice of cake while her auntie gave me a quick run-down, including the arrangement she had made with Sylvie that she could travel to my parents tommorow in her night things and have some more sleep once she got there, an idea that appealed to Sylvie enough for her to ask to wear a nightdress to bed (she usually favours sleeping in her underwear unless it is very cold). She also excitedly showed me her goody bag, but we said we would save trying out the whistling balloon for tommorow as she was really too tired to chase after it.

She was asleep before her daddy finished reading her her story. It was a really good day today!

27th September - Tidying up!

Today started with 'Negotiation' as Sylvie decided she didn't want to go to 'Dance' without Davy being able to watch her. We reached a compromise with my suggestion that I take him in to show everyone then leave the room before the class officially began, though that would involve us being a bit early for once. She agreed and popped out to the shop with daddy to get some bread for breakfast. They came back empty-handed - the shop wouldn't open for another half hour which was too late for us so once again my 'no chocolate for breakfast' rule flew out of the window as Sylvie got the last Mars Bar before we left for 'Dance'. I showed Davy off as promised and Sylvie came out of the class with a form requesting permission for her to take an exam - Bronze Mime. Enquiring, I found that it involves the children going before an examiner in small groups of around 4 and pretending to be a fairy, a butterfly, a train and a horse, which sounds Sylvie's sort of thing!

After 'Dance', we went home via the local shop for a loaf of bread so we could have lunch before heading off to the supermarket for a weekly shop. Having discovered we had overspent on our food bill rather a lot last month, I decided to try some more 'Home Economics - Household bills' by writing out a menu of relatively cheap meals and only buying enough food to make them rather than getting plenty of food to fill the freezer, so I wrote out a shopping list, a rarity for me. I also decided to try going without bought puddings and chocolate bars and go for making cakes at home since I had all the ingredients except eggs to do this. Sylvie was somewhat unimpressed by the menu, but we told her that since she often refused to eat things we had cooked that we know she likes, we had no incentive to give her different food to ours. There was further 'Negotiation' as she begged for chocolate and was told she could only have some if she bought it herself. She decided she would use some of her pocket money to buy a packet of Kit Kat Chunky's along with her usual Dr. Who magazine. The shopping list idea successfully reduced our weekly spend, and Sylvie had a lot of fun helping me collect the items on the list, as well as 'Fiscal Management'- getting her own goods which we all treated as a separate purchase, with her standing behind us in the queue, paying herself and having her own bag to put them in.

Once home, I decided something really had to be done about the state of the front room - it had reached the 'can't see the floor' stage again - so I started a really big tidy/rearranging of the room that included putting together a set of drawers and swapping some toys between the front room and her bedroom. At the start of this, Sylvie was enjoying 'Media Studies', but soon took an interest in my activities as moving things around so much brought to light lots of treasures she has not seen for a while, in particular her puzzles which have been stored in the spare room since Davy was born. Consequently, I found myself tidying some things away twice as she took in 'Puzzle-solving', 'Mazes', Art' (she drew a picture of her daddy with a lovely banana-shaped head!) and 'Free Play' (with her castle and garage). She was also delighted when the tidying revealed some of the lost Geomag balls.

We remembered we hadn't taken our park 'Project' photos just before dinner so we went out quickly, leaving Davy with daddy, to take them as Sylvie was very enthusiastic to do so. She ate all her dinner and afterwards had 'Writing' - birthday cards for her cousin - and also wrapped his presents with minimal help ready for his party tomorrow. She chose the pink paper over the blue and used her own scissors to cut it and her own sellotape to stick it down. She asked for a bit of help folding the corners in, so I showed her how to do one and she did the others. My role was to hold the paper in place while she got the sellotape on. The end result was a little baggy but with everything inside the paper and no tape stuck where it shouldn't be!

It was my turn to read to her, a 'crazy Camelot' book tonight, and after 'Storytime' she put on the jolly phonics CD my tidying had relocated and sat attempting 'Reading' along with it in bed. She was asleep within 10 minutes. A busy day, really!

26th September - Lots of medical appointments!

Today Davy had an appointment for his first set of injections, to Sylvie's delight ("Oh, good! I want to see that!") - she isn't sadistic, she just fancies herself as a doctor - so my sister gave us a lift. She had an appointment of her own to go to so the plan was that she would drop us off, we would go to the playground next to the surgery afterwards and she would pick us up from there. The appointment was at 9am, we slept in until 8.30 which is a huge lie-in for Sylvie, and we got up to find we had run out of bread, no cereal Sylvie will eat and an energetic morning on the playground ahead of us. I didn't want her to leave the house on an empty stomach, there was no time to nip out to the shops and we would have no opportunity to get food while we were out. Hence, Sylvie had a healthy, nutritious breakfast of Kit Kat Chunky.

Arriving at the surgery, I went to get out Davy's Red Book (Child health record) only to realise it was still sitting by the computer at home from where I had checked his weight (for yesterday's blog!), so Sylvie had her first real taste of 'Beaurocracy' as the nurse informed me that it was now illegal for her to give the injections without the red book 'In case computerised records were lost'. What? I don't understand! After all, I don't have a personal health record book doctors can't do anything for me without! I suspect the real answer is one the nurse wouldn't really want to voice. Whatever the reason, we had to leave with Davy unimmunised and a new appointment for a week on Tuesday - normally I could have just popped home for the book but the surgery has been without a nurse for a while due to illness so there were no gaps in the appointments for me to do that. Grrrrr!

Because we spent so little time there, my sister took us with her to her appointment and then on to my parents as she had to drop off something for my dad. We ended up spending most of the day there. Sylvie was pleased to find her older cousin there - he had had a medical appointment that morning too, and was waiting to go back to school for the afternoon lessons - so they played together for a while then Sylvie accepted the invitation to accompany him on the journey to his school. I've a feeling this was supposed to be a salvo in the 'Put Sylvie in school!' campaign my family have been waging - they have such faith in my abilities! I was happy for her to go though, as she loves being with her cousin and has less time with him now he is in full-time school.

When she came back, I made her lunch while Sylvie had a spot of practical 'Childcare', watching her younger cousin with Davy. He is very loving towards the baby but does tend to try and investigate his eyes and ears by poking them with his finger, so Sylvie was stationed next to them to stop her cousin if he started to get a bit rough. Then it was out into the garden for a spot of 'Woodwork' with grandad. We had brought her tool set - real tools but childsized - with us a few weeks ago as my dad not only is better at using them than me and therefore better at showing her how, but there is always plenty of wood about to use. Grandad had said he was going out to do some woodcutting and Sylvie was ecstatic ("Well, what are you waiting for! lets get going!") - but she came back in claiming grandad wouldn't help her. Grandad's story was different - he had tried to show her how to hold the wood when sawing it, but she had refused to hold it and had given up when he wouldn't hold it for her!

She had a go on her auntie's brain game instead - she has a real talent for the matching games it plays. We went home via our old guide leaders house as we were going to introduce her to Davy, but she wasn't in. There wasn't much day left after that, but we had time to go to the park for our 'Project' before daddy got home. While we were there, Sylvie heard the distinctive jingle of an ice cream van, and demanded an ice cream, so we had a spot of 'Logical Argument' - I said we had no money with us, if we did have there wouldn't be enough as we were both down to coppers in our purses and it was too close to dinnertime for ice cream anyway. She said "It's not Faaaaaiiiiirrrrrrr!"

Once home, there was some 'Media Studies' - Bagpuss, my favourite children's programme, until daddy got home. She wanted to watch TV with him, even offering to change to something he liked instead - Disney's Robin Hood - but daddy wanted to play his saxaphone, so she joined him on her recorder for a jamming session of 'Music'. Davy listened in while I started dinner.

Dinner was interesting - she tried the unfamiliar fish after protesting she didn't like it when she saw we were eating Mars Bars for pudding, but dispite apparently liking it (no funny faces or gagging noises, a willingness to put more on her fork without being asked) she lost her pudding when it took her 2 hours to eat the last 2 mouthfuls. After watching her chew the same bit for half an hour, I gave her 5 mins to finish it and eat the second. It was a long 5 minutes, but she not only didn't swallow it before the time was up, she still hadn't swallowed it before the end of her bedtime story with daddy. Hopefully tomorrow's dinnertime will be better!

25th September - Childcare in abundance.

Davy decided morning had come early again today so the morning was a little like yesterday, with me trying to catch an extra hour in bed after feeding him only for Sylvie to get up just as I lay down. Unlike yesterday however, it was not very successful thanks to Davy having a bad case of wind which led to a stint of practical 'Childcare' for Sylvie while I took a hasty shower to wash out the baby sick my son had charmingly deposited in my hair. She entertained Davy with talk and toys, and wiped his face when he had another go at expelling his stomach contents. This made us later leaving for the Breastfeeding cafe than I wanted, especially as I had wanted to talk to the health visitor about Davy's less than perfect latch. I also had to forego attending the 'Birthday Party' for Sylvie's slitheen (one of her Dr. Who figurines) which she had invited me to last night while dealing with Davy. We did manage to do a little bit of 'Modern Languages - Spanish' during his feed however, as the Spanish words sticker book I had ordered arrived this morning, to her delight.

When we eventually headed off, I brought the camera for our 'Project' photos and Sylvie brought her doll Anabelle in the hope that she could get her weighed. The Health Visitor was happy to do it and even wrote the weight down on a card with Anabelle's name and the date for her. We had a spot of 'Maths' as we compared Anabelle's weight (1.04 kg /2lbs 5oz) to Davy's (5.14 kg/11lbs 5.5 oz) and worked out that he was 5 times heavier than Annabelle. She declared her intention of getting the doll weighed weekly like her brother, but I explained that since Annabelle didn't drink milk she never got any heavier. Sylvie responded with "She drinks water and that turns to milk inside her."

There was further 'Childcare' as Sylvie tried to entertain a hard-done-by Davy who was objecting to being put down while I read some literature the Health Visitor had about latching on, some 'Social Skills' as Sylvie actually spoke to the little boy who was also there again (admittedly it was to tell him not to when he helpfully tried to give Davy a toy to play with, but at least it was a form of verbal communication which is a start!) and 'Performing Arts' as she put on a little 'show' with a duck, a tiger and a butterfly and a poem she had made up which actually had one or two rhymes for my enjoyment.

We had more 'Maths' on the way home - we had tried counting slugs again on the way there but it seemed they had sensibly decided to stay away from the path today so we didn't see many (though we found some amusement in spotting some squashed tomatoes that had been dropped along the path.). So, to satisfy the counting craving, we counted the lamp posts we past coming back. Sylvie set the criteria - only count off the ones we actually walked next to, only the grey ones and no broken ones (some were missing their glass). After we counted 5, she declared that we were going to start a new 'group', with the next one being number 6 then counting down from there 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I also had a lesson in 'Road Safety' as Sylvie decided we were going to reverse roles with me as the child and her as the mother, and I was 'made' to hold 'mummy's' hand to cross over the road as she gave me a lecture on it.

At the playground, we took our photos - they now have two diggers breaking up the ground - and Sylvie wanted to know why the barrier had been taken down at certain points (to let the diggers in as they can't be lifted over.) She was not impressed when the workmen all downed tools while we were watching, and even when I pointed out it was lunch time she seemed to think if she wasn't hungry yet then they shouldn't be eating either!

Once home, I used the computer while she had 'Media Studies' with Finley the fire engine over lunch. I declined her demand that I join her, reminding her that she knew I didn't like the cartoon as it was a remark to that effect that drew her to checking it out of the library in the first place so while she is perfectly at liberty to watch the DVD she has hired with her own money she needn't expect company. (I should know better by now, whenever I voice a dislike of a TV show it immediately becomes her 'favourite' even if she has never seen an episode.) After the DVD finished, she had 'Music' and 'Structural Engineering' as she played with her Geomag while listening to a CD of children's favourites. I took the opportunity afforded by a sleeping baby to give our frankly unhygenic bathroom a thorough clean after a short foray into 'Geneology' "Who borned you, mummy? Who borned daddy? Who borned Granny? Who borned me? When Davy grows up, he can be a daddy can't he? But not a mummy because only girls can be mummys.".

While I fed Davy, we had 'Technical Studies' as I showed her which buttons did what she wanted to achieve on the video remote and explained that the 'Stand-by' button on the remote has a slightly different function to the big 'Off' button on the TV and how to tell which had been used to switch it off. There was also some tidying (under protest) as I had found leaving her to her own devices had meant losing all sight of the floorboards. She had put her Geomag away of her own accord however, which was nice to see - no more lost pieces now! She also happily grabbed the dust pan and brush to 'sweep up the dust' under the shoe tidy when she realised a toy she wanted had gone under there. She couldn't reach it, so she gave me her torch and I spent a few minutes lying in said dust fishing out a surprising number of lost treasures which led to her disappearing up to her room for 'Free Play' with them, leaving me with the dust pan and the large amount of rubbish that had also got under there.

Sylvie remained in her room playing something complicated involving spaceships and dinosaurs until after daddy came home. While I cooked the dinner, daddy was coerced into some 'Reading Comprehension', reading a 'Dr Who Fact File' book and asking her the multiple choice questions in each section. She then threw a strop over dinner - not having been consulted on the menu she appeared convinced I was trying to poison her with veggies - and stormed up to her room. She reappeared all smiley after daddy had a little word to say she had "just wanted to tidy up some stuff in my room, that's why I went." A nearly convincing cover-story! In the end she ate almost all her dinner and asked me to bring Davy to 'Storytime', which was conducted by the light of her camping lantern again.

24th September - Back to the play ground.

Having been woken at 5am by Davy who obviously thought I had slept long enough, I went back to bed at 7.30am as Sylvie was still asleep and I saw no point in wasting good nap time. With her usual innate sense of timing, she woke as I snuggled down but trotted off downstairs to see her daddy who was up and about getting ready for work so I stayed where I was hoping for half an hour before she needed me. I woke again at 9am to Davy starting to stir and Sylvie coming up the stairs. Her daddy had given her breakfast and she informed me that she had come up earlier but "you looked so lovely asleep I thought I'd leave you asleep." which was a very sweet, if slightly guilt-tinged, moment.

As we went downstairs, she informed me that she wanted to watch Monsters Inc. again as it was due back at the library today. She also informed me it was her favourite film ever and dropped definite hints that she wanted to own a copy which I steadfastly ignored for the time being. This led into a marathon 'Media Studies' session as she decided she wanted to watch it as many times as she could before having to take it back in the afternoon (4 times one after the other in the end!). This session brought to light the fact that she knows more about the DVD player than I do (in order to replay the film before the credits finish you have to press the 'skip' button twice - 'Root menu' just makes it start at the point you left it at when you press 'play' again, as was patiently explained to me when I used 'menu' instead of the 'skip' button as she had requested.). It also led to a typical 'Sylvie' moment where she explained to me that Boo, one of the characters in the film who has been one of her imaginary friends since we hired the film, "will have to hop back onto the disc for us to play the film. She will have to get on it to take it back to the library too, but it will be alright, she can leave it when it's there cause there is still a picture of her on the disc." I had an image of future borrowers being puzzled by a blank space wherever Boo should be in the film! I love the way her mind works sometimes!

She played with her Geomag set for part of one of the showings, first trying to build a car and then a tree house, which unfortunately kept collapsing as soon as she tried to get it to take it's own weight - her 'Architecture' and 'Mechanical Engineering' skills still don't include an understanding of weight distribution and structural supports - but she experimented for a while trying to change the structure to get it to stand up on it's own, some of which looked promising but not quite right. They were quite a bit more sophisticated than her usual attempts which usually consist of long lines or circles so something is evolving there. She then carefully put it away after I had had a little chat about 'Respect for Tools' - the last time she had used the set she had refused to put it away, and consequently had lost 4 of the linking balls and she agreed with me that she didn't want to lose any more.

She also put some of her 'Childcare' skills into practice with her little brother, insisting on holding him rather than me putting him down while I loaded the washing machine. I supported her arms with cushions and she cuddled my screamy baby on the sofa for me. She was happy to hand him back as he was loud and getting heavy, but looked after him beautifully for those few minutes. Davy was also the centre of a 'Biology' discussion as he has started to lay down some fat, or 'big wrinkles' according to Sylvie, and we talked about how babies store fat ready for when they start to move about. She compared Davy to her 'Baby Annabelle' dolly, saying he weighed more than the doll. I suggested that if she brought Annabelle with us, she might be able to weigh her on the baby scales at the Breastfeeding cafe tomorrow which she thought was a good idea.

In the afternoon, we headed out to the library with a large bag of books and DVD's to return. We also took the camera so we could continue our playground 'Project'. At the library, Sylvie had to use 'Fiscal Management' as she wanted 2 DVD's but could only afford one if she was going to carry through her intention of buying a drink to take to the park. She picked one (Finley the fire engine - oh, how much fun will this weeks 'Media Studies be!) and some books which I read to her while we were there before leaving for the park.

At the park, the weather started to look ominous, but in the end just went dull and windy. The playground was completely gone with all the equipment and railings gone and a huge mound of soil imported from somewhere that from the plan we have will support the new climbing wall and slide. We took our photos then Sylvie had some walking races against Boo ("because she can't run fast.") while we waited for the Play Rangers. They were interested in the progress of the playground development too and walked around the area looking at the progress with Sylvie before getting out the toys, her favourite being a giant frizbee that is bigger than she is. She ran off all her energy before we went home, where she indulged in some more 'Media Studies' with the new library DVD. She was very tired and went to bed as soon as dinner was over, before 8pm.

23rd September - A New Park at Last!

I got up this morning after a very good night's sleep (the growth spurt is over! Whoohoo!) to greet the postman in my dressing gown. He had bought something for everyone - a wedding invite from one of daddy's friends, a machine washable changing mat for Davy, a new Gym leotard for Sylvie who has definitely outgrown her old one, and 'The Unschooling Handbook' for me. Sylvie was pleased with her new leotard and decided to wait until daddy got home to try it on so he wouldn't be left out. we then got ready for 'Social Skills' at the Play and Stay group, which meant raincoats and brollies thanks to the drizzly weather.

As we were walking through the park to the get there, we spotted indications that work was about to begin on the revamping of the playground, which was a very exciting moment. The playground as was was in terrible condition, with missing parts on the climbing frame, no swings as they had been removed for safety reasons, and no maintenance for years. We knew they would be starting soon and had a good idea of what the new playground would look like thanks to our visit to the Resident's Forum Open Day, but it was wonderful to see it actually begin. I suggested to Sylvie that it might be nice to to take some photos of the revamping, so on our return we began our first long-term 'Project Work' with 'Photography' by taking the camera to the park and taking pictures of the now fenced-off playground as work started, taking up the old railings. We took a few photos, trying to find the best spot to get the best image. Sylvie chose a spot below the playground (the first photo here) and I chose one closer to the fence at the side (the second picture). The plan is to go out every day (if possible) and take pictures from the same spots to track the progress as the playground changes.


After the playground, we did a little 'Maths', counting the number of dead slugs the recent rain had enticed out of the grass onto the path to dry up in the sun/get squashed by passers-by. There were loads, but we lost count at 38 when an approaching dog took too much interest in Sylvie for her liking. As we approached the building we were aiming for, which is part of a school complex with a nursery and primary school as well as the 'Early Years' centre, we had to walk past a burnt-out motorbike some less-than-outstanding citizens had obviously been practicing their arson skills on, so we had 'Citizenship' as I reported it to one of the staff as something they should know about.


At the Play and Stay, it was very busy so Sylvie was not at her best, declaring she was going to 'Stay near you, mummy.' and not speaking to anyone, even the adults. She wouldn't ask a father if she could get past him to reach the steps to the slide and took a toy from a mother without saying anything. She did, however, copy another child in 'Art', drawing round her hand on black paper with chalk - she did a bright green outline with red fingernails that looked just like a 'monster hand' and decorated it with star-like images, the big yellow one being the sun and the little white ones being fireworks. She also had me sit with a lot of cuddly toys in front of a mirror to 'watch a show' about 'travelling to other Earths.' They staggered the juice and toast time with it being so busy, and Sylvie sat at a table all on her own as the other child she was sitting with moved, looking all lost and lonely, so I moved her to the adult table with me where she was much happier.


We talked about 'The Art of Communication' on the way home, with me pointing out that she would have got more goes on the slide if she had spoken to the father, and that she always gets upset if others take things she is using without asking and others feel the same if she does it to them. We also talked about dogs as we met some more out and about, and she declared she didn't mind small dogs but doesn't like big ones, though she will like them "when I am an adult." which makes a certain amount of sense since, at 4, she still shares the same eye-line with some big dogs.


After lunch, we had 'Home Economics - Household bills module' as a representative of a billing company knocked on the door and I made the decision to switch to them based on the improvements they could offer me in terms of price and service. Sylvie also practiced 'Reading' while I was doing the paperwork, looking through my new book which she claimed she could really read, and trying to interest the saleswoman in Dr. Who by showing her the competitions in her magazines.


Then it was 'Media Studies' with Sylvie deciding to watch all three of the library DVD's one after the other as they are due to be returned tomorrow. During this, she got out her stickers and an 'Angelina Ballerina' activity pack her granny had given her which turned out to contain a height chart. She decided she wanted to have it up in her bedroom, so after playing 'Hunt the Thimble' - or in our case, 'Blu-tac', we had a spot more 'Maths' as we stuck it to her wardrobe door, adjusted it to get it straight and measured her (Just over 3 foot 3, or 101 cm according to the chart). We couldn't measure me since apparently people over 4 foot tall don't do measuring themselves with Angelina Ballerina - the chart didn't go higher than that. There was also some complicated 'Free Play' with her Dr. Who figurines, the animals from her old peg puzzle and some (invisible) characters from Dora the Explorer, which she stopped for a minute or two for a spot of 'Home Economics - Make-do-and-mend module' - she noticed one of the 'pretty bags' (gift bags we kept for keeping her ever-expanding amounts of stuff in) had a slight tear and fixed it with her sellotape.

When daddy came home, there was more 'Car Maintenance' as he had bought a replacement bulb and Sylvie wanted to help him fit it. After all this she went to bed with no dinner again as she wouldsn't eat her food - either the sweetcorn on her plate was polluting the rest of the meal or it just looked like too much as it filled the plate, but whatever it was she just sat with it in front of her after asking for butter on her potato and didn't touch any of it despite knowing it would be taken away if she hadn't started before mummy and daddy finished. She asked to go to bed once it was taken away and she seemed very tired which might also have contributed to refusing to eat, even agreeing to a shorter story than usual. She did 'Personal Care' - brushing her teeth - properly herself without any protest, which considering how sleepy she seemed was unusual as she usually tries to avoid it or get me to help when really tired.

21st and 22nd September - It's all a blur!

Thanks to sleep deprivation brought on by a busy few days and a growth spurt from the milky fiend Davy who has been waking up every 2 hours for a feed, yesterday and today have passed in a haze of zombification and I don't remember everything we did. What I do remember is what follows!

Sunday morning was 'Gym', luckily not until 10am, which allowed Sylvie and daddy a lie-in - little Davy had other plans for mummy! I didn't mention in Saturday's entry that about 10 mins after they left for Dance, daddy returned home having been sent back to fetch Catty, the scruffiest, most loved little toy cat ever. She left him behind again when going to Gym, but thankfully didn't decide to demand someone went home to get him this time - she would have been disappointed, as Gym is 3 times as far away from home as Dance.

Sylvie tried very hard to do the gym skill she has been practicing with daddy, but she is still not quite able to get back up properly, so she didn't get her badge again. When a couple of other children recieved badges, we thought she might throw one of her famous strops again, but she confined herself to a few seconds of pouting and was her usual sunny self after that. Either she is becoming more mature, or she had realised that the badges given out are the ones she already has and are 'lower' than the one she is trying to achieve now.

We went to my parents after Gym - we usually do this but this time my dad was going to help run a service on our car, changing filters, etc. so Sylvie got some 'Car Maintainance' in as she decided to watch. We also went there again on Monday and got in some 'Double Childcare' as I was left to watch my nephew while my brother and my dad went to collect a rather large item on behalf of another relative. Sylvie got a little cross with her cousin as she decided to put his train set together for him, but as fast as she was laying the track, he was pulling it apart.

I tried to get a very tired girl to nap in the afternoon on Sunday, but she adamantly refused, insisting she was not tired. She napped with Granny on Monday though - the weekend caught up with her and she had to be woken to get up in time to leave the house, so was quite happy to have a sleep after lunch.

Other than this, I know she did 'Art' - a little stencilling, some drawing, colouring the tips of every finger in black felt tip and getting into trouble for it as she has been asked not to do this any more. I believe there was also some 'Telling the Time' with her daddy as I heard him telling her she was nearly right about the time but had got the clock hands a bit mixed up so it wasn't as late as she thought. There was quite a bit of 'Free Play', some 'Writing' that involved her putting wriggly symbols between the lines in an old diary, 'Typing', which she called her 'homework', insisted was printed off and was so determined to do she spent the hour I was on the computer trying to find some things for her grumbling that I was taking too long.

She took the 'Typing' very seriously. Instead of bashing the computer keys at random as she usually does, she chose them very carefully, starting with a 'S' just as she has said she would when trying to oust me from the computer. She also asked for the first time about how 'big' and 'little' letters are made, so I showed her the keys that give you capital letters and the symbols along the top of the non-letter keys and she played with them for a while before asking for directions to get it printed off.

I also recall some 'Fashion Design' involving a conversation with her Granny over outfits, and rather a lot of 'Media Studies' that at one point involved an introduction to the delights of 'Blackadder' as mummy and daddy had a craving for something a little more grown up than the usual diet of cartoons before dinner on Sunday. There was also a little more 'Car Maintainance' on Monday evening as daddy tried to change a bulb with grandad's help - it should have been a few minutes job but the covering was so tight it needed grandad's tools and more like half an hour to get at the bulb to change it. And then it turned out daddy's spare bulb wasn't the right one for the job. This made us late leaving my parents so we had 'Home Economics - When Take-out is a Good Idea module' and went to the local Chippy to get a dinner we would be able to eat before 8pm.

20th September - Busy, busy, busy!

Below are photos of the picture Sylvie made onFriday to send to the lady who gave her a toy dog. I put the relevant peg puzzle pieces she drew around next to each one as she had obviously tried hard to copy the features of each piece onto her drawings. I thought some were more successful than others, but I really liked the beak on the duck and the fin on the fish.

After her morning 'Dance' lesson, she came home to
more 'Art' as she made a card to post with the picture so the lady would know who had sent it to her. This took a little longer than I had hoped as she wanted to stick things on the front rather than draw on it which meant I had to fight with her glue to get any out as it is nearly empty. Then, after a minor 'Maths' interlude as she put a stamp on the envelope ("I've got 6, so there will be 5 left.") we popped down the road to post the letter.
















She tried a spot of 'Gym' while walking to the post box, attempting to walk along the kerb edge without 'falling' off. She got a bit over-excited that she managed it and tripped over, grazing her arm and leg, so when we got home we had 'First Aid', cleaning up the scrape.
I had made plans to take her to the town library, as I had found out from the local library that they were having a Fun Day for National Year of Reading. Before we could leave, however, I had to feed Davy, so while I was doing that Sylvie had 'Modern Languages - Spanish', as the DVD I had bought had arrived while she was at 'Dance' and she was keen to watch it. She enjoyed it enough to want to watch it again, but I told her to wait for later as we needed to leave if we were to get there in time to enjoy the activities on offer.

We were a little later getting there than I had wanted, but not too late to enjoy the day. They had authors and illustrators, face-painting and balloon animals, quizzes etc. Sylvie was overjoyed to find they also had a life-size Horrid Henry wandering about the library, one of her favourite literary characters. She wouldn't get too close to him though - he was a bit bigger than she expected! She picked up one of the card 'Horrid Henry' masks being given away and proudly walked around wearing it for a while, occasionally offering it to miscellanious strangers to try on.

We attended the Book Illustration activity first, where a lady who illustrates and sometimes writes children's books was talking about her craft and getting the children to make their own 'lift-the-flap- page. She showed us lots of bookas she had been involved with, some that aren't on the shelves yet, and for one book showed us the sketches and letters from her editor that gave us a good idea of the amount of work it takes to do her job. She had a pop-up book that she had done the illustrations for and she explained that creating the pop-ups - the 'paper engineering' - was a specialist skill that only about 12 people in the country are able to do and is a good line of work if you have the talent and inclination. Iam keeping it in mind as a proffession to suggest to Sylvie when she is older - she loves cutting and creating with paper!

For the lift-the-flap activity, Sylvie was quite happy to draw the 'surprise' that goes under the flap (a red bird with a round smiley face and a pencil drawing of her brother Davy) but had no interest in actually colouring in the tree it was supposed to be sitting in. The lady tried to get her interested by showing her how to draw leaves and she did oblige by putting a few green splodges on the treetop, but she was far more interested in putting the flap on. I managed to persuade her to decorate te flap a little, but she refused to colour in the pencil drawings of apples she had done, so we called it finished at that and went to get a late lunch.

While getting some food from the bakers, we had 'Social Skills' as Sylvie accosted the slightly older boy in front of her in the queue to show him her lift-the-flap picture and explain gleefully that she had a Horrid Henry mask and he didn't. Why she is perfectly willing to go up to random strangers in the street and give them her life story yet finds it so hard to connect with any other child attending any form of organised activity I haven't quite figured out yet. There does seem to be an age factor - if they are bigger than her they are good to talk to, otherwise she ignores them. After a chat with an old lady sitting next to us as we ate, we went back in for more fun stuff.

Unfortunately for Sylvie she just missed out on the face painting, an activity she loves, as the lady doing it had packed up ready to start making her balloon animals. Sylvie forgot her disappointment at the prospect of getting a little white balloon kitten though. After this we rang daddy to pick us up and had lessons in 'Observation' and 'Deduction' as we did a 'Find the Book' activity while we waited for him, hunting through the library for small copies of well-known book covers hidden in the library. Sylvie got a big yellow balloon for finding them all. She also asked for a 'Goody bag' - we had seen a lot of bags with a poetry competition activity inside but had missed out on getting one earlier. The nice librarian went to get her one, although we wouldn't have had time to do the actual competition before the Fun Day ended, so we took it home to do later.

Daddy picked us up and we then had a slight rush to change clothes and get ready to leave the house for more 'Social Skills' - one of our friends has a new job in South Africa and it was his leaving-the-country party. It was a 2 hour plus car journey, and we hoped Sylvie would sleep in the car as she had had a busy day, but 'Childcare' intervened, as Davy woke up screaming for food after an hour which woke her. She tried to calm him down by singing and talking to him, then patiently used his feeding time to catch up on her 'Information Technology' courtesy of her Leapster and Dora the Explorer. Davy screamed most of the rest of the way there too as he was suffering with wind that he just couldn't seem to shift.

When we arrived we found that, due to the lovely weather, the sit-down meal we had been expecting had morphed into a barbeque, but Sylvie was not too keen and asked to go inside after a while where she had more 'Modern Languages - Spanish' - she had brought her new DVD with her to show everyone! Our host has a large collection of DVD's in his house, and Sylvie used 'Observation' and 'Maths' skills to inform me that "I've spotted something on the second one down!" - on the second shelf from the top was his collection of Dr. Who DVD's! We also found a Cyberman mask, and Sylvie wanted to know "Did you cut off a cyberman's head?" which our host happily answered "Yes!" to. We played with the mask a bit and found it had buttons to make it light up and distort your voice.

After ice-cream, and the end of 'Spanish', Sylvie wanted to leave as she was very tired. Once again, her little brother decided this would be a good time to demand food, and I suggested our host might let her watch one of his Dr. Who DVD's while Davy fed, so she and most of the other guests sat down for a bit of 'Media Studies'. It was late when we left - after 10pm - but Sylvie was extremely well-behaved with no strops occurring and was very polite and chatty to the other (all adult) guests. She slept in the car and got into her own bed at about 1pm. A very busy day!

19th September - Learning with Dr. Who.

The morning started with 'Childcare' as Sylvie tried, and succeeded, at getting big smiles from her little brother. Then it was 'Gym' with daddy before he left for work. I heard her as she waited for him giving some sort of talk on the subject to her toys - "My name is Sylvie and this is a very important skill to know." She did her own little stretching warm-up while waiting, and also tried a handstand with me which ended in a bit of a hand-splat but wasn't bad for her first try. It was followed by 'Media Studies' over breakfast. Monsters Inc. has definitely been a hit with her!

After some 'Free Play', we did 'Comprehension' and 'Writing' - finding the answers to the competitions in her Dr. Who magazine (answers somehere in the text) and writing them down to post them off. This led into 'Physics - Properties of matter module' as for these competitions I rip a sheet of A4 in half to get 2 sheets of A5. She discovered that the ripped edge was different in feel to the unripped one - "Feel mummy, this side is soft, but the other side is stiff and leaves a mark on your finger!" I explained that that was because the structure of the paper had been weakened along the 'soft' edge by the stress of being ripped. Then, while she was waving the two pieces of paper about, she made the discovery that "If I wave them like this it makes a wind! It's like having a fan!" which led to her asking me to fold one of them into a paper fan for her.


In the latest issue there was also a competition asking for ideas for a Dr. Who film, so we had 'Storytelling' too, with me acting as scribe as she dictated her ideas. Sylvie came up with this;


"I'd like to see one with the Daleks in, exterminating everybody. The doctor would be trying to stop them but he nearly gets exterminated. At the end he gets to the tardis and then he regenerates. It gets to the real end and then he meets Rose at the real end. This is on a planet. I don't know which planet but it is certainly a planet. Then he meets some Daleks in the TARDIS. They break through the door by banging on it so he gets some really strong screws to put the door back so the Daleks can't get in any more, and then he got exterminated."

I prompted her a bit with one or two questions, like 'Where does this all happen?' and 'is anyone else there?' but the actual ideas were all hers. I then had the task of pruning it down a little to meet the 70-word limit of the competition, but I included the full transcript too so they can see it was her own work and not mummy pretending to be her 4-year old!

We also took in 'Manners' and 'Art' as we wrote a thank-you card to the magazine for responding to the e-mail about the broken pen so nicely. I wrote a little note from me and did the dots for Sylvie's Thank you. She joined them up and drew a picture of 'Donna climbing up two steps' on the card.


Since she has got into sending off these competition entries she has been buying her own stamps out of her pocket money and this used up the last of them, so after posting all her letters in the post box (which she was delighted to find had been moved to a spot where she can reach the slot without having to be lifted up) we had 'Fiscal Management' at the post office, buying more stamps.


It was a beautiful day so we had 'Outdoor Activities' at the park before we went home. While we were there a little girl we know slightly also arrived so Sylvie was able to exercise 'Social Skills'. As is pretty much normal practice this meant she ran around playing her own game (Catching Boo from Monsters Inc. in this case) and ignoring the other child while the other child followed her around trying to get a look in in the game. This little girl was persistant enough to finally elicit some interaction from Sylvie, though Sylvie was horribly inclined to boss her about once she acknowledged her presence. She did manage to play nicely for a while, but she was too deeply engrossed in her game to mind when the other child left. I'm not sure Sylvie even noticed she had gone at first. It was a shame as this little girl was willing and able to take part in the imaginary games Sylvie loves so much, and I thought she might enjoy playing with her.


Sylvie was very tired after the park and actually requested a nap "until daddy gets home". Since daddy was going to be home in half an hour, she played in her room until he arrived. On the way home, we had 'Logic' - she had informed me that she was afraid of cars, which I thought was a response to getting into trouble for running off yesterday so I tried to reassure her that there was nothing to be afraid of while walking on the path, only to be told "I pick something different to be afraid of every day. Today it's cars."!


Over dinner, there was 'Physics - Refraction module' as on draining her drink, Sylvie spotted that things looked smaller when viewed through the bottom of the glass. She played with this effect for a while, waving various things across it, then when she got a refill checked to see if the effect still existed though the liquid.


After dinner, she had 'Art'. While walking to the park, we had touched on 'Community and Culture' as she happily informed me that she "loves everyone in this land, and two houses on the Isle of Wight. And everyone loves me." We discussed who might love her, and I happened to mention a friend of her Isle of Wight granny who gave Sylvie a toy dog the one time she met her. She remembered this conversation, and decided to send her a picture. She got out an animal peg puzzle, drew around the shapes and filled in the features, trying hard to copy what she could see on the puzzle pieces. Then she did some 'Writing', getting me to dot out the name of each animal next to the pictures. At the end of 'Art' we had a spot more 'Community and Culture' as I was just in time to stop her putting one of her Dr. Who stickers on it - the little Adipose baby was admittedly very cute, but I thought the caption 'Fat Attack!' could be taken the wrong way. I pointed out a couple that were more acceptable and she picked a captionless sticker of the TARDIS. She intends to post it to her granny tomorrow so she can deliver it to her friend.


Then it was bedtime and a very tired girl picked a very long story which led to the first major tantrum she has had for a very long time. It was partly my fault as I knew she was tired and how I handled her behaviour was guaranteed to set her off in that situation. It was an unfortunate ending to a very good day. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

18th September - Fireman Sylvie

Today started with 'Media Studies', with daddy roundly critiquing Little Princess School to mummy in private after watching it with Sylvie over breakfast. She put on Dora saves the Mermaids after he left for work, and while watching her watch it it occurred to me to ask her if she wanted to learn the language Dora speaks. She said yes quietly the way she does when she thinks she will catch trouble if heard, but repeated it louder when asked. So I found a DVD and sticker book on the internet to further this interest in 'Modern Languages - Spanish.' Hopefully they won't be a waste of hard earned cash, but since her daddy learnt Spanish at school and could therefore satisfy her craving for 'daddy and daughter time' by helping her with it, it might well prove to be a good investment.

Later we headed out for 'Childcare' at the breastfeeding cafe, and she chose to go out in her fireman's outfit. As it was, for once, a beautiful day, I took a spare outfit in case it got too hot for wearing a plastic suit. When we got there she showed no improvement in 'Sharing' as the second she saw a small boy was already there playing with the toys she started to sulk and demanded to go home. I explained that we weren't leaving, we were there for mummy and Davy's benefit, and took her over to the toys. She lay on the floor looking fed up and refused to interact with the little boy despite him trying hard to engage her. She even went so far as to cover her face with her arm when he spoke to her. She perked up a little when presented with juice and a chocolate biscuit, but came over to demand we leave again while Davy was being weighed.

She had negotiated a visit to the park afterwards, so we stopped off there for some 'Outdoor Activities'. We had some bubble mix with us so she ran about trying to catch bubbles after playing her favourite 'Doctor coming to inject you with a big needle' game (she is always the doctor) and another reappearance of 'Stuck in the Mud'. Then she raced her imaginary friend Donna around the football pitch before asking to go home.

On the way home, she was a little so-and-so, and earned herself a lesson in 'Obedience'. I let her run on ahead of me on the understanding that she stops when I call and waits for me at roads which she is usually very good about. Today she did neither, looking back at me laughing and saying 'No!' when called upon to wait. Consequently she was told she would be sent to bed for a nap after lunch without any pudding as she had been warned would happen. Initially, she was irate, but calmed down quickly and actually took herself to bed without a word said by either of us after she had eaten. She fell asleep quickly without any playing, so possibly her behaviour had its root in tiredness. She slept for about 3 hours, waking at around 5pm, but she didn't come down until she heard her daddy arrive home, prefering to play in her room. She apologised at daddy's prompting for running off, and she was much sunnier for her nap.

While she was asleep, I managed to take advantage of the nice weather and mowed the hayfield in my back garden until it resembled a lawn again. Now the long grass is gone, hopefully we can get out to have some 'Outdoor Activities' on the lawn if the weather stays nice over the next few days.

While dinner was cooking, there was more 'Media Studies' which daddy was told he had to do too. Luckily for daddy, mummy persuaded Sylvie to try 'Monsters Inc.' instead of Little Princess School which earned daddy's undying gratitude. She didn't eat much dinner - she seems to be in a 'not very hungry' period at the moment - even though she liked the food and there was ice cream roll for pudding she only ate a couple of mouthfuls before asking to go to bed. She did, however, achieve something we have been trying to get her to attempt for over a year now and used her knife to both help load up her fork and cut up her potato. This gives us hope of complete success in 'Cutlery Use' in the near future!

'Gym' was given a miss due to the 'Media Studies' with daddy, but it was arranged that if she was awake daddy would do 'Gym' with Sylvie in the morning before he went out to work. She also got daddy again for 'Storytime' as Davy is in growth spurt territory and was feeding constantly in the evening so I delegated my turn which Sylvie was perfectly happy with. She would have daddy every night if she could!

17th September - A surprise in the post

The days studies began with 'Negotiation' and 'Healthy Eating' as Sylvie tried to persuade me to let her have Smarties for breakfast. Since the rule is 'chocolate for pudding at lunch and dinner yes, for breakfast, no' in order to try and prevent her overdosing on the stuff, she tried to persuade me that "They aren't all chocolate. Only SOME of the outsides are brown." Since mummy has been a chocolate addict since childhood herself, with Smarties a fondly remembered part of that formative experience, that argument fell on stony ground!

After breakfast, the post bought a nice surprise for Sylvie which probably counts as 'Social Skills - Interaction and Communication module'. The week before last she had bought her usual Dr. Who magazine but found when we got it home that the free gift was damaged and unusable. I suggested we e-mail the company to see if we could get a replacement and Sylvie was enthusiastic. I finally remembered to do this on Saturday this week and this morning a packet arrived for her containing a letter of apology and the next issue of the magazine which they hoped would make up for not being able to send a replacement gift. It certainly did satisfy Sylvie, who was very excited to get such a special package and letter addressed to her and put it to one side without opening it so she could show her daddy when he got home, though eventually the lure of shiny new stickers proved too much for her and she got those out a 5pm before daddy arrived. I was personally impressed with the prompt and very reasonable response to my e-mail - well done to BBC Worldwide!

After this it was 'Information Technology', playing her Reader Rabbit - Reading game with my assistance. This might have gone more successfully if she didn't have such a good eye for patterns - given a choice of 3 words she would invariably click on them in 'bottom, middle, top' order, sometimes even before the actual word she should be looking for had been spoken. Since this method is actually quite successful this must be classed as a lesson in 'Maths - Pattern recognition module' rather than 'Reading'!

While waiting for it to load up, she sang a little made-up ditty that went something like this (the words aren't an exact replica as I couldn't remember it precisely but it is close enough to get the gist!)

"The cow and the beast, the cow and the beast. They had a fairy car, the fairy car was great and the fairy car did wait. They drove the fairy car and they parked the car, and two beasts came along and stole all the car, and then drove it to the proper houses, and they had lended the car to the beasts."

After 'IT' we had 'Media Studies', or possibly 'Social Skills - How to drive mummy round the bend module', as she put on Superman again. She must have seen the thing at least 10 times this week as she starts it again as soon as it finishes. We also had 'Empathy', once when I slipped and fell down the last few stairs and got her a 'needs improvement' mark ("What was that noise? I was nearly asleep and you woke me up!" "I slipped on the step. Are you worried about mummy?" "Noo, I'm angry, I was trying to sleep!") though to be fair she might have been more concerned if I had actually been hurt. Later, though, she climbed up beside me while I was feeding Davy and moved my hair "So Davy can't get it and pull it."

Lunch had to wait a few minutes while she prepared "Twirly pasta for the kids", but she ate all her sandwiches (bar one crust which she tried to hide behind her back!) and finally got to eat her Smarties. Then it was off to the library. She already has more than her full quota of books out (the librarian knows her and lets her take out a few more than the official 10 book limit) so I read her a few books she picked out then she took out some DVD's with her pocket money. I now have to look forward to a week of
'Dora saves the mermaids' and 'Little princess school' in 'Media Studies' alongside Superman which she has personally assured me she intends to keep watching too. In self-defence I have taken out 'Monsters Inc.' to vary the curriculum!

After the library it was off to the park for 'Outdoor Activities' with the Play Rangers, a scheme run by the council where people with bags of outdoor toys go to the towns parks at set times during the week to play with the children. Sylvie loves this and is her normal chatty, bossy self with the Rangers. Today they had bats and balls with them so Sylvie showed a surprisingly good grasp of the game of tennis though she completely failed to hit the ball back once despite her best efforts. They moved on to playing catch with the ball at which point Sylvie took complete charge of the game, directing the Rangers to throw the ball to her up the slide, then to swap places so she could throw it to them. This was quite difficult as it was a sponge ball, but Sylvie kept trying until she succeeded, even after announcing "I'm rubbish at this!" The Ranger pronounced her "Very determined."

Sylvie wanted to leave early as all the running about had made her thirsty and we didn't have a drink with us which mummy was roundly chastised for "You should have brought a drink! Why didn't you bring one? I will remind you next time!" (We didn't have one because we have never needed one before!) On the journey home, we had 'Biology' - "If I put my hand here I can feel my heart moving, but if I take it away I can't feel it." "Being thirsty makes my tummy hurt. Without drink I will die!" , 'Childcare' - she had taken her dolly with her and announced "I don't know what to do with her. She's always waking in the night!" and glimpses of an unwelcome (on my part) return of an old game she played solidly for about 2 years that I thought she had forgotten where she pretends to be stuck and has to be rescued, but with the charming embelishment this time of being stuck in "gooey, sticky sick" instead of mud.

Once home, there was 'Social Skills - Manners module' (Mummy does NOT get you a drink top up unless asked politely!) followed by 'Media Studies' - watching the library DVD's which she pronounced she 'loved' while covering herself in the stickers from her Dr. Who magazine. When daddy did get home, he was coerced into reading the cartoon strip in the magazine. It was also daddy's turn to read the bedtime story - yet another Thomas book!

16th September - Dogs in the Park

These pictures are of the book Sylvie has spent a few days making. The first is the front cover which took her some time to complete. (I helped her stick down the ribbon how she wanted it as she was getting frustrated with it pinging off the page.) The second one is the words she asked me to help her put inside - I did the letters in dots and she went over them. Sylvie dictated the text.

Today started poorly for me as I got very little sleep last night, partly because I was tossing and turning, partly because Davy decided that last night would be the night to break his track record and wake up at 3 in the morning after sleeping nicely through the night for a while. I nearly gave 'Social Skills - Groups module' a miss, but didn't want to disappoint Sylvie who had been looking forward to it so we traipsed out of the house at 20 past 9 to attend a local 'stay and play' group. Last year, we attended a different local group but it didn't suit Sylvie as it was fairly rowdy with lots of ride-on toys but not too many 'quiet' activities so we stopped going after the one friend she had made there left to go to nursery. Lately though, she had been asking to go back so I thought I'd try this other one when I heard about it and it is much more 'her' with craft activities, a beautiful covered outdoor area and more things like toy farms and dollys. It also has a special baby area with bouncy chairs, play mats and toys and mobiles which I like for Davy.

So far we have been twice and while she has been a bit withdrawn around the other children as usual - noisy groups overwhelm her somewhat and she gets a bit clingy - she tells me she really likes it and doesn't like leaving. Today she commandeered a dolly and pram (she brought the dolly into the baby area and showed off her 'Childcare' skills) did the craft of the day - sticking bits of wood to a hedgehog shape - played in the sandpit a little and investigated the toy kitchen.

On the way home, we had 'Dog Handling' as we walked through the park. We followed and caught up with a lady and her little girl who had 4 dogs with them. They were off the lead and racing each other to fetch back the ball-on-a-rope the lady was throwing for them. Not so long ago, seeing a dog on a lead going the opposite direction on the other side of the road would make her scream in panic and try to climb up me. Recently she has been much better, allowing me to lead her by the hand past a dog keeping me between them, but I was very impressed with her today when faced with these 4 loose dogs. She held my hand but actually walked next to the little girl and had a conversation with her without panicking at all dispite the dogs running up excitedly with the ball every so often. She did complain that the barking was too loud, but chatted away easily about how she would prefer a cat and how she would do everything for it if she had one. It definitely helped that they were very well-behaved dogs that showed no interest in Sylvie and left her alone.

She was fascinated when, on reaching the road, one of the dogs disgraced itself by running off the path into the road and was chastised by being put on a lead. After we parted company, Sylvie suddenly gained a pack of dogs of her own, 5 apparently, with a 6th at home asleep on her bed, and spent the remainder of the walk home chasing her imaginary dogs who were naughtily running off and putting them on leads as she had seen the lady do. Once she had caught all 5 we walked sedately to the chemists then home for lunch where she tied her dogs up in an invisible kennel in the garden. I was so pleased to see this. I don't mind her being a little wary of strange dogs but the sheer panic she usually exhibits when she sees one is crippling. Hopefully today marks the beginning of a more peaceful relationship with animals of the canine persuasion.

After lunch there was 'Media Studies' (Superman again) and 'Information Technology', playing her Reader Rabbit games on the laptop. She excitedly informed me that she could finally do the 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' game by herself, which involves clicking on the right arrow symbol to move towards the donkey the right number of squares in the right direction, avoiding obstacles. I have usually had to help her with this one before.

After 'Free Play' - running around with her imaginary friends and for some reason looking for boys under her table ("Any boys in particular, or boys in general?" "Just any boys.") daddy came home and after 'Social Skills - Negotiation module' where Sylvie tried to logically persuade her daddy that he really wanted to watch the Superman DVD with her again because he hadn't seen the end yet today, they both went up to her room for 'Gym', keeping up with Sylvie's intention to crack her last skill to get her badge. I could hear her saying "I CAN do this!" while daddy was coaching her in what to do with her head and arms. I admire that determination so much, when she gets it into her head to learn something she perseveres until she has it mastered no matter what the setback. It makes a stark contrast to the whiny "I can't, it's too hard!" over tasks she is not so interested in.

I went to bed for a nap as last night had really caught up with me so to her delight, Sylvie and daddy then had the evening to themselves, with 'Reading' - the words on daddy's T-shirt attracted her attention ("That's a dragon - and that says dragon!") and daddy told her what the apostrophe in one of the words meant - and 'Home Economics', cooking dinner together.

Since she had had daddy all to herself for a few hours, Sylvie was happy enough for me to take her to bed instead of trying to wheedle him into taking my turn. After 'Personal Care', brushing her teeth with daddy's toothpaste because it is foamier than hers and produces enough to spit into the sink, we pretended her bed was a tent and I read her a Thomas the Tank Engine book by the light of her new lantern. After the story she claimed "That was a short story!" Not really, darling!

15th September - Practical skills

First, a photo of a 'card' Sylvie made for me. She has a thing for pretend birthdays and is always making some sort of birthday thing for family, toys or imaginary friends. She told me that this is my name on the card, but I thought it was an extraordinaryly good drawing of a dragon in profile. I got her to show it to her daddy and he immediately said 'Dragon' too. Either she is a far better artist than I thought or this is an amazing fluke. I am leaning to the latter based on her own belief that she wrote my name!

Mondays are when we usually visit my parents for the day, so we set off in the morning with two hungry children in the car - Davy because he hadn't woken until he was put in his car seat and Sylvie because she always has breakfast once we get to her grandparents due to her habit of lingering over her food. (She has been known to take an hour to eat one bowl of cereal.) She was hungrier than usual today as she had been put to bed without eating her dinner yesterday after refusing to touch any of it, or even to sit at the table in front of it. Hunger doesn't agree with her and she was acting very tired even after eating, only perking up when a nap was suggested to vigourously refuse it. This meant that her morning consisted mainly of 'Media Studies' (Cbeebies) 'Childcare' (building the train set for her little cousin to distract him from her toys) and 'Emotional Development' (sitting on my lap hugging me and telling me that she loves me.) There was also 'Manners' and 'Sharing' - graciously accepting the present her Granny and Grandadd's had brought back from their holiday for her (a child's pink lantern) and letting her little cousin, who is fascinated by lights, have a quick play with it.

Granny managed to persuade her to try for a nap, and, after a session of 'Home Improvement' - being caught messing with the bedroom curtains instead of sleeping - she had a snooze and woke in a much brighter mood. She had a spot of trouble with 'Personal Care' as she managed to get her dress twisted around the sleeve while trying to put it on and needed a bit of assistance to sort it out.

After a late lunch her older cousin's bus arrived and they spent the next 2 hours playing outside. This involved a session of 'Car Maintainence' - while Grandad was busy trying to fix his ride-on mower, they raided his tool shed for his car jacks and spent a happy time using them to raise and lower their toy ride-in car. They were very industrious, showed a surprising amount of understanding of how jacks operate dispite never being formally shown and required copious amounts of Swarfega to remove the grease from their hands afterwards. Photos of this exist, but only on my parents camera.

Once home Sylvie had 'Gym', giving me a personal display of warm-up moves she does in her classes at the weekend, before dinner then it was 'Social Skills - Negotiation module' as she persuaded daddy to take her to bed instead of mummy whose turn it was because "I miss you so much while you are at work."

A fairly quiet day for me but a very busy afternoon for Sylvie!

14th September - Antoid day!

I had to include this photo! She actually did this a few days ago but I only got round to taking the picture today. She had wanted to take some pictures of her little brother, so I lent her my camera as her Fisher Price one is currently out of commision. She took three photos, impressing me with the way she didn't cut his head off as she usually does. She asked for them to be printed off, so her daddy did them on a page of A4. She cut them out and stuck them along her beds headboard using stickers from her Dr. Who magazine. I like the initiative she showed, but mainly I love how it shows the obvious delight she takes in her brother.

Today began with 'Media Studies' and 'Art' before breakfast. Art was amusing. During Friday's art session with the oil paints she had declared that she was learning to be an artist. I told her she was already an artist, since anyone who creates art is an artist, and what she was learning was how to be a better artist. I also hinted that learning to be better was something all artists spend their lifetimes doing. She must have latched on to this in some fashion, though at the time her declaration of "I'm a very good artist." suggested that she may have missed the point. Today though, she sat down to draw a person with felt tips - one of the rare occasions where she chooses to actually draw something representational -and I could hear her explaining either to herself or to one of her imaginary menagerie "You draw a big circle for the face, then you put two dots here for the eyes......." As she described each bit she pointed with her finger where it should go before drawing it in pen. Teaching herself to be a better artist perhaps?

Breakfast was a lesson in 'Trying New Things'. The supermarket has annoyingly stopped selling her usual breakfast cereal and we haven't found anywhere else that stocks it yet, so her daddy had bought her a different kind to see if she would like it. She was very good about it, no strops over not having any of her favourite cereal and actually trying the new stuff willingly. Unfortunately she didn't like it which didn't suprise me much, but I was pleased she had given it a go with some enthusiam rather than like she was doing us a favour for a change!

After breakfast it was 'Double Gym'. Sylvie has had a recent surge in physical confidence and has actually tried things she refused to in the past. The last few weeks at her gym class at the sports centre she has actually jumped off the box vault without assistance. Yes, this is no great skill for most 4 year olds, but Sylvie has always been very cautious with things like that and it was a huge break-through after watching her insist on a helping hand from the coach for over a year to finally see her take the plunge and do what every other child in the class has been able to do since they started. The class do a badge scheme, and Sylvie only has one more skill to master before getting her next badge. Unfortunately, she is having a really hard time mastering it which has been the cause of a few sulks after gym lately. Last week she was convinced she had done it, but on further discussion "I didn't use my hands to get up this time! I used my elbows!") it became clear to us that she still had a little way to go and were a bit concerned how she would take finding out she hadn't got the badge today. We were impressed that she took it well and put all of her little heart into cracking it. She got very close but didn't quite get it unfortunately. After a quick pout though, she made an arrangement with her daddy that he would help her practice that skill every day after he comes home from work and was enthusiastic enough to try and drag him up to her room to have a go before he had even got his shoes off once home. After the at-home gym session it was lunchtime and more 'Media Studies - Folklore module'.

She then spent some time with her daddy on the computer while I attempted to continue painting the garden fence while the baby slept. When I came inside, I found Sylvie having 'Physics - Electronics module' with daddy, who had got out a 'Build your own robot antoid' kit he had been given years ago and had not used, though at least part of the time Sylvie was indulging in 'Free Play' with the bits while daddy tried to work out exactly what it was the instructions actually meant. Sylvie was keen to help during the times when daddy knew what he was supposed to be doing however!