26th January - Auntie's Birthday!

Today was our day for visiting my mum and dad and typically both children decided it was a good time to sleep in! Grr! Why do they only do this on days they actually need to get up to go places?

Sylvie was very reluctant to get out of bed, so I suggested we take 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' with us. As a form of bribery it worked extremely well with her going from half-asleep and whiny to bouncy and enthusiastic in seconds. She was so enthusiastic, she was asking for 'Storytime' as soon as we had arrived before I had my coat off!

I persuaded her to have breakfast first, but she finished hers before I had started mine so grandad read her two chapters. Not being convinced she had actually been listening, I asked her what had happened in the chapters read to her. This question got an 'I don't remember' but when asked more specific questions ('What did Edmund do?, Who did he meet?' etc) she was able to answer. She must have thought I wanted a verbatim repeat of what she had just heard with the general 'What happened?' question from the expressions on her face!

My brother was there and got into the 'Narnia' swing, hunting down the video of the BBC production we had seen as children. Sylvie was very interested in this and wanted 'Media Studies' after 'Storytime' and settled down to watch it. She only watched a small amount before granny and my sister arrived and the room got too noisy and full of people for 'Media Studies' so we turned it off on the understanding that she could take it home with us to watch later.

Her auntie's arrival brought a special treat - she invited us all out to lunch for her birthday, so after Sylvie had a spot of 'Free Play' and a bath while I went out with my mum to try out the butchers she uses, we all got presentable and headed off to eat. The meal was very nice - Sylvie had been trying to chivvy us out the door to get there quickly because she was 'starving' so I ordered a plate of garlic bread to come before the food to take the edge off for her (and try to keep my nephew occupied with something other than attempting to wake Davy!) and it turned out to be some of the best garlic bread any of us had ever had. It did the trick for Sylvie, but was less effective with her cousin - it turns out he isn't too keen on garlic.

I had a very nice chicken concoction and Sylvie had a child's meal of fish fingers, chips and peas (though the child in question was probably a teenager, it was a huge portion!) I took some of her chips and we told her before she started that she did not need to eat the large mountain of peas that covered half her plate. She managed all her fish fingers though.

We played a short game while we waited for the food, were I asked her to find something (a rosette, picture of an enormous cricket bat, a lifeboat etc) and she tried to spot them. She found all of them without much difficulty apart from the cricket bat - she needed some pointers to find that. After the meal, I introduced her to the concept of 'Gambling' - there was a fruit machine in the corner and I took Davy over to stare at the pretty flashing lights. Sylvie followed us and asked questions about the machine - what it was for, how it worked, what the buttons did etc. I answered them to the best of my knowledge while making strong suggestions that, while pretty to look at, fruit machines are not great value for money!

Once back at granny and grandad's, it was 'Free Play' until her daddy arrived to collect us. At home, daddy sorted out the binoculars-camera Sylvie had had for Christmas as she had filled the memory card with pictures testing it out (the pictures turned out to be mainly shots of the TV showing an episode of Dr. Who!) ready for her to take them 'Birdwatching' tomorrow. I was pleased with the quality of the pictures and the size of the memory card (she got 94 pictures out of it) though it was clear that it is definitely a tool for use in an outdoor/well-lit environment! A bit of a drawback for Sylvie who had been using it to take pictures of anything and everything in the front room.

Sylvie had two more chapters of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" for 'Storytime' at bedtime. I'm impressed by her interest in this book. She is sticking with it even though it has to be read to her over a period of days and she is asking questions and making comments about it that show she is thinking about the story and the differences between the book and the film. Revisiting the book for the first time in about 20 years, apart from making me feel old (!) I am finding it fast-paced and the chapters relatively short (not quite how I remember it, but I have read some real doorstops with much slower build ups since I last read a Narnia story and experience shows it in a very different, and pleasing, light!) The pacing is certainly helping to keep Sylvie's interest, with something major happening in every chapter and each one ending on a cliff-hanger so there is always a hook to keep her wanting to hear more. I am not sure if it is enough to sustain her interest to the end though - there are 17 chapters which, at 2 a night, means we won't finish the book until the end of the week!

25th January - Lots of Places to Go!

After Saturday, with basically consisted of 'Dance' in the morning (where she tried to convince us she needed new ballet shoes!) followed by a lazy day of very little, today was very busy.

Sylvie started the day by watching 'Night at the Museum' over breakfast then after getting ready for 'Gym', we wrapped up her auntie's birthday present and wrote her cards to take with us - we planned to drop in on her with them on the way home.

At 'Gym', she did well, not throwing any strops and actually attempting to to run up to and jump onto the springboard without stopping like she usually does - the practice session in town obviously hit a cord! Davy made friends with the daddy of a new little gymnast and got given a tour of the leisure centre office by the receptionist - as usual he showed a great interest in the computers!

After gym it was off to my parents where we checked to see if my sister was likely to be at home later and asked if there was anything they wanted from the shops. This led into a discussion about meat and my mum suggesting I try her butchers for my meat rather than getting it from the supermarket. After arranging for us to go to the butchers together tomorrow, we headed out to the shops leaving Sylvie with her grandparents. She apparently had some 'Free Play' before spotting that granny had her ironing board out and deciding to join her. She fished out her toy iron and board and had some 'Home Economics - Laundry' copying granny by ironing all the dolls clothes alongside her.

After leaving granny's it was off to auntie's. She asked Sylvie if she should open her present there and then (her actual birthday is tomorrow) and Sylvie said "It's up to you, you decide!". We stayed a while talking and Davy and Sylvie played with the toys their auntie keeps for visiting children. She showed Sylvie a toy lorry that deposits dominoes in lines ready to be knocked down which Sylvie loved. I reminded her of the time we looked up some footage on Youtube of dominoes being knocked down to create huge pictures and we talked about how hard it must have been to set those all up by hand. She played with the toy for ages, learning how to make it move in a curve and deciding to try and get it to make a complete circle which took some time as it was a very wide curve and needed constant restocking with dominoes. She nearly managed it but it was just too big and she ran out of space to complete the last bit. She enjoyed knocking them all down though!

Once home, we had dinner and Sylvie impressed us with her behaviour - I made tortilla wraps with a beef in ale filling (nice mix of cultural food!) and she set about trying it happily after exclaiming "Oooh, something new!" a big change in attitude from the recent past! She had a good attempt at eating it but she really wasn't fond of the filling and after a few mouthfuls she emptied it out and just ate the tortilla. It turned out she needs some practice at eating wraps though - she managed to drop quite a bit of the filling while trying to eat it because she was waving it about the way she does her sandwiches. She even managed to get some in her juice! Because she had tried it willingly and given it a good chance before deciding it wasn't for her she got her pudding.

She was quite tired and asked to go to bed soon after dinner. I asked her if she wanted to start 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' and she said she did. I was pleasantly surprised to find how short the chapters were and how quickly the action got going (it has been a few years since I read the book!). I also really liked the edition - it had all the illustrations I remembered from my childhood copy buy inked in with colour on really good quality paper, perfect for Sylvie. She got two chapters which finished with Lucy's return from her first trip to Narnia. She tried to get a third out of me, but I promised another two each night until it was finished and she was happy with that. The library has the rest of the series in the same collectors editions so if she likes this one enough we might look at borrowing the others at a later date.

NB. Just realised I didn't do a post for Friday, which was an interesting day! Sylvie didn't do a lot of different things but after a morning of 'Free Play' with her toy daleks she spent the afternoon engrossed for hours with a bowl of water and a lot of micellaneous toys and kitchen utensils just messing about. She spent hours at it, until the towel she was sitting on got too wet for her, and took in a spot of 'Marine Architecture' as she tried to make a boat that would float without sinking or falling apart. She enlisted my help and after we tried a number of different designs which either were waterproof but sank (or in the case of one of her designs was to big to fit in the bowl!) the final working design was one made of bubble wrap folded like a paper boat but with sellotape holding it together at the folds and a bit of cardboard 'deck' holding the sides out. It was a fun problem-solving session!

21st January - Crafts and Trivial Pursuit!

It may be noticed by those who check in on this blog regularly that I have been a little erratic posting of late. I ascribe this firmly to my son. My general habit is to type up the day after Sylvie has gone to bed However, Davy has settled into a pattern of wakefulness between the hours of 9pm and 12 midnight, the time I usually use for this. It is hard to type while a small boy whimpers for his mummy's attention and even harder to cuddle him and type, especially since he started trying out the keyboard for himself. I am therefore trying to play catchup at odd times leading to a bit of a backlog. Thanks to a nice long 'Free Play' session for Sylvie coinciding with an actual nap for Davy today I have managed to catch up a bit on this weeks entries!



Today was a relatively busy day. The morning was occupied with 'Free Play' and 'Media Studies' (Dr. Who yet again! I am going to have to hide those tapes!) and 'Art' - Sylvie wanted to make some cards for her Sleepover friends so she used her Christmas art box to produce some pictures and then dictated to me what should be written on them. She made some very nice flowers on one and made a nice print that was supposed to be the sun on the other by painting a foam shape yellow and folding the page on it, though she spoiled the affect a little by painting over it with red - probably my fault for telling her that the sun has more colours in it than yellow! She stuck some glow-in-the-dark cybermen stickers all over it too.



It would probably have gone on longer only the post arrived bringing with it a letter from my bank that made me decide it was finally time to close my account so we took a trip into town before lunch so I could do that. Unsurprisingly there was a queue so things took a little longer than I had hoped but the process was actually relatively easy and painless. Sylvie got bored with the 'Fiscal Management' task and took herself off to play with the wooden beads-on-wires table while I sorted it out. Sylvie also posted her cards while we were there. We got home in time for lunch.



After lunch it was time to get ready for the library. We set out later than usual thanks to our trip into the town but this actually worked in my favour as I knew it was going to be a bit of a barren day for borrowing books - I still haven't managed to track down some of the books we borrowed before Christmas! The librarian renewed them for us but it meant that Sylvie had no room on her card for any other books so I said she could take one book out for her and one for Davy on my card.



Since I had forgotten to look out my old copy of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe last time we were at my parents (as I had told her I would) and having had my memory jogged by having to return the film, I checked the library and found they had a copy which Sylvie decided would be her one book. I read a couple of story's to them then it was time to head downstairs for the Play Ranger session.



Today the Rangers had brought a lot of crafty bits that included some circles of card that Sylvie used to make medalions for her Catty's with. Working with one of the Play Rangers she made an elephant one, then on her own one with Catty's name on, one that was supposed to be a rabbit and one that was supposed to be a cat. Then she decorated a mask.



They had also brought a large bag of shiny squares so I drew a mirror shape for her to fill in with the shiny bits. She thought it was a great idea but while I was finishing it Sylvie spotted the Spacehopper the Rangers had remembered to bring specially for her which was a far more attractive proposition so I did the mirror while she bounced!

It looked like she was going to be the only one there again but halfway through a Polish family we know a little came in. I had a nice chat to the little boy's mum while our children played.



Sylvie needed a bag to take home all her bits (she had also been given a cat mask the Play Rangers had had a go at decorating which she has decided will make a nice present for her friend. I'm not so sure - they covered the eye holes with googly eyes and it has a somewhat scary look about it!) Luckily I have taken to keeping a folding shopping bag in my bag which proved very useful for carting it all home.



Once at home, she decided to decorate a painting - I had caught her sticking shapes on then painting over them and had pointed out that if you paint, leave to dry and then stick the additions show up better and aren't a single uniform colour so she decided to try it. When finished, she claimed it was a cat and wanted to post it to her cousin. I suggested that maybe her daddy could put it through his letterbox on his way to work rather than using a stamp to send it a mile up the road! She was then desperate for daddy to get home so she could tell him this plan.



When daddy did get home, I expressed a desire for Chinese - having had it so recently I now have a craving for more! He was keen to have some too and Sylvie was enthusiastic as I said she could try some of my sweet and sour chicken balls. Sylvie decided she and daddy should walk to the Chinese and daddy indulged her, even though it was raining. Unfortunately it turned out that Wednesday is their day off and the shop was shut, so they went to the chip shop instead.



After dinner Sylvie wanted to play a game with daddy so they broke open the Trivial Pursuit she had got from MacDonalds at the weekend. It proved to be a big hit and Sylvie thrashed daddy soundly! She surprised both of us with her General Knowledge, answering questions that included:



Is the Ganges India's most sacred mountain, desert or river?
When taking part in the ancient Olympics did athletes wear togas, sandals or nothing at all?
Have men walked on Mars, the Moon or Venus?
Is the main court at Wimbledon called First Court, Major Court or Centre Court?



Since she answered all but two of her questions correctly, she either had the most incredible luck or she knows a lot more than we thought! I think all her 'Media Studies' is paying off - she certainly never learned about Centre court from me, I can't stand tennis!



She wanted another go before bed, but there wasn't really enough time so she asked for 'Perudo' again and we had another 'Maths' session with her estimating who had got the biggest total from looking at the individual dice as before. It was daddy's turn to take her to bed and after a while I thought they had got lost, daddy was taking so long to return. It turned out Sylvie had picked her ladybird classics copy of 'The Secret Garden' for 'Storytime' which is not a short story even in this abridged form. Daddy didn't read all of it as it was so long - and he hates the story! Sylvie loved it though, it fed her new found love of 'secrets'!

22nd January - Going to be in the paper AGAIN!

We had something of a frantic morning today. Having been told by the Play Rangers yesterday that there was going to be an official 'Park Opening' today at 1.25pm with photographers from the local press taking pictures of the councillors, Play Rangers and a class of children from the local school. They invited us to pop along, we thought it would be a good opportunity to give them the copy of our Park Project we had started for the Play Rangers to keep.

Assuming that it would take about an hour to print everything off, Sylvie and I started it at about 10.30am, after breakfast and some 'Childcare' (letting Davy explore our faces with his hands and playing with him). About halfway through however, a spanner was thrown in the works by the printer ink running out. Since it was a fairly new cartridge I was surprised and annoyed. Checking the clock, I thought we had just enough time to go and get a new cartridge as Argos, which sells them, is just across from the bus station in town.

We got there only to find they were out of stock. The assistant who told us this was very helful and directed us to Cartridge World. It was a bit of a walk and they didn't have the specific one we asked for either, but they did check and found us another one that was compatible with our printer, and was both cheaper AND held more ink! This practical lesson in 'Fiscal Management' cost me about half the price it would have done getting the 'right' one but meant we got back about half an hour later than I had intended.

While Sylvie had lunch, I tried to finish the printing but had to stop before the last few pages were finished in order to get to the park in time. We took what we had anyway to show the Rangers and they were very impressed, the photos reminding them of how the area used to look. We talked about were the old playground used to be and it's layout, pointing out where things used to be while standing in the new one. The Play Rangers are looking forward to getting the finished product!

When we had arrived it was to find the Play Rangers, councillors and press there but no children. While Sylvie and Davy had a play on the swings and roundabout, a phonecall confirmed that the school had decided not to send the class out when it was raining this morning. by lunchtime it was a beautiful day and the school is just the other side of the park, but they stuck by their decision. This meant that Sylvie was the only child availible to join in the photos! Being the 5000th attendee was a bit of a bonus as it made up a bit for the school children not turning up in the eyes of the local press.

After a bit of persuasion she posed next to the councilor by the climbing wall (she thought the photographer wanted her to actually climb it so refused until assured she would only have to pretend she was about to!) and had pictures taken. Sylvie then played with the equipment while I asked about which paper the photos would be in. I explained we had missed getting a copy of the one with the Mayor's Parlour picture in it as we hadn't known which issue to look out for and the Play Rangers said they would get us a photocopy of the one they have. They also said to let them know if we miss this one as they get sent the issue with the pictures in and can do another photocopy if they need to.

Sylvie played a little more after the Rangers left and would have liked to stay longer, but Davy was getting very unhappy thanks to the wind so we headed home.

Sylvie entertained herself with her new art box for a while then disappeared. Her daddy came home to her sitting on the stairs claiming to be giving her toy cats 'a haircut'. He assumed she was pretending, then realised that she was actually cutting their fur! He stopped her just as she started on her ginger cat, but poor Fluffy Catty, who was first in line, now looks like he has been to the vets for an operation on his rear!

She got very upset at being told to stop and took herself to bed - whether it was because she was thwarted, caught in the act or hadn't realised toy fur doesn't grow back we aren't completely sure - so daddy offered to finish reading the rest of 'The Secret Garden' ladybird book he had started yesterday (a sacrifice on his part, this is definitely not his favourite story!) which made her a lot happier.

She wanted to keep her deeds secret from me but daddy told me everything. She has got into wanting to keep secrets - after dinner when I asked her to find the lid of her Trivial Pursuit box she said she wanted it's location to be 'her secret' then sighed and said "Oh, but what can I have as a secret then?" when I explained that the whereabouts of the lid of a game box isn't the best thing to keep hidden.

Dinner was a slight disater - I cooked baked potatoes and bolognese sauce, but the potates turned out to be bad inside and had quite large amounts cut out before we could eat them. Sylvie's was ok, but she decided she didn't want to risk it after seeing ours! She did, however, eat the sauce all up without more than a token protest that it wasn't chicken nuggets and chips, and in good time too. I was pleased to see that and let the potato pass - I thought her objection reasonable in this instance! - so she got pudding.

It was my turn to take her to bed and I was interested to see she picked 'Puss in Boots' for 'Storytime.' Those ladybird books that have been sitting at the bottom of her bookcase for years untouched are finally starting to excite her interest at last it seems!

20th January - Visits, Mice, a Story and a Fight about reading

We went to my parents today, the original plan of going at the end of the week changing after I got a phonecall telling me the Birdwatching course for families I had booked us on which was supposed to start today was being put back a week in the hope that a few more people would enroll. I have a sneaking suspicion that they may get an influx of people just turning up on the day instead of putting their names down first, but I will take the phonecall at face value!



Sylvie didn't want to get up and had to be coaxed out of bed by daddy. Despite this, we managed to leave the house in good time and got in a bit of 'Astronomy' as Sylvie spotted the cresent moon out of the window -it was remarkably clear today- and we talked about why it appeared to move about as we went round corners and bends in the road.




At granny and grandad's, there was a little 'Childcare' as Sylvie shared some of her breakfast with her younger cousin, feeding him off her spoon, and played with Davy. Then she had a spot of 'Nature Study', going out with grandad to see if the naughty mouse that has invaded his car and eaten through his seatbelt had got caught in the trap grandad had set for it. It turned out that the mouse had evaded the trap itself but had had a good nibble at the bait (a lump of chocolate - a favourite of mice as well as Sylvies!) so no mouse to study today! She did get a quick lesson in how to set a mousetrap though, as grandad persevered in his efforts to catch it.


Once the conservatory had warmed up, Sylvie went in there for some 'Free Play'. After lunch, she played with one of her little cousin's toys, a Leapfrog 'phonics pond' designed to teach letters to children. She was attracted to it when I was showing it to Davy - it proved to have buttons too small for him to press, requiring fingertip control rather than whole palm bashing. Sylvie played with it in various modes, but got fed up with it quite quickly because it wasn't giving her long enough to find the letter before assuming the lack of button-pressing meant no one was playing and turning itself off.



She wanted to play My First Monopoly with grandad, but he had to go out so she was promised a game later. She asked what else she could play, so I suggested she use the laptop. She thought that was areat idea and asked for a 'Horrid Henry game' so we checked out his official website. She tried the dot-to-dot, and was just beginning to show frustration with finding the (admittedly very small!) numbers as she hit the 20's when a glitch in the site stopped play. After listening to a story on the site, she dictated her own 'Horrid Henry' story to me while I typed it - it has a rather loose storyline that is definitely autobiographical!



Horrid Henry’s book with chocolate flowers and chocolate sweets.

He’s being horrid and putting things that aren’t sweets on his plate but his mum and dad try and stop him doing that so they put the non-sweet stuff back in the fridge. They put the sweet stuff on Henry’s plate and the non sweet stuff on Peter’s plate. Peter had been good and eaten a hundred million of the sweet stuff so she gets some of the non-sweet stuff .
Then mum hears the telephone ringing and she goes to see who it was. It was Sylvie, Peters best friend and Henry decides to stay over too so they both stay over. And then Davy, Sylvie’s little boy was born.
Then they went to Sylvie’s granny and granddad’s on the Isle of Wight and showed them Davy and soon, after one night staying there they went back home.
There is a laptop with Davy’s name on it and it is a musical laptop that he gets music from every time with a few buttons to press that make music. Then Henry got sent home. Then Peter was horrid and he got sent home. Then Peter went back for his bunny rabbit and Henry went back for his Mr Kill because they wanted their cuddly toys for bed. Then they went home again.
The End.


When granny and grandad returned, Sylvie, her cousin and granny played the game of My First Monopoly Sylvie had been promised, but it was cut short by a phonecall from my sister, who hasn't been well, asking if my mum could pop some things round. My mum decided to take them round straight away and Sylvie and her little cousin went with her to visit their auntie.





They all arrived back at the same time as my oldest nephew got home from school. Sylvie joined him in an afterschool snack of chocolate spread sandwiches and yoghurt, though she only ate part of her yoghurt. I hadn't realised that my mum had given that to her rather than fromage frais so at first I told her she couldn't have her chocolate if she didn't finish, but I let her off when I did - for some reason Sylvie has always loved fromage frais while something, probably the texture, puts her off yoghurt so I avoid giving it to her.





Sylvie and her cousin went into the conservatory to play, but after a while Sylvie emerged in tears, followed by her cousin who was asking if I was teaching Sylvie to read. It emerged that her cousin had asked her to prove her skills by reading the writing on a toy and then been somewhat scathing when she wasn't able to. (The toy in question was a tiny oil drum around 5 mm high and the words were 'chainsaw 2 stroke oil'! ) After some soothing and explaining, it was tidy up time which actually went without protest. Sylvie and her cousin then positioned themselves by the window on the stairs, watching for her daddy's car.





Daddy arrived a little later than anticipated having forgotten we were at my parents today and gone straight home after work. Once home, we had dinner then Sylvie wanted to play a game with daddy before bed. I suggested the 'guess what I am thinking of' game she had played with me yesterday, but after a couple of goes it was apparent her heart wasn't really in it and she said she wanted to play the dice game from yesterday again, so we all had a spot of 'Maths' before bed again.



Once again, the book for 'Storytime' was 'The Cat who got Carried Away.' I think I will check to see if the library has any more in that series tomorrow.

19th January - Sewing and inventing games.

Today is a Monday and normally we visit my parents on Monday's, but the house was in such a state I decided I really should stay at home and at least attempt to rediscover the floor!

Davy was not terribly compliant with this so I only managed to clean and tidy in fits and starts but I did at least manage to bag up the baby car seat that he no longer fits in to go in the loft, giving a bit more space for toys!

While I was doing this, Sylvie enjoyed some 'Paleontology', playing with some new dinosaurs, and another marathon 'Media Studies' session courtesy of CBeebies. The dinosaur play was interesting - one dinosaur was apparently carrying some of the others on it's back, perfectly innocent in Sylvie's eyes but very amusing to my adult vision!

She wanted to start putting together the monkey handpuppet I had bought her a couple of days ago, but I asked her to wait until Davy was asleep so I could give her my full attention. As it turned out, however, she didn't need much help at all. I threaded the needle for her as the wool supplied was fraying a little and she was having trouble getting it through the eye, and I tied the knots at the start and end, but other than that she managed all the stitching and sticking herself (pre-punched holes). I did hold the ears in place while she sewed them on and untangled the thread once or twice, but I was able to leave her to it for the last half while I did a little more cleaning. She was very pleased with herself for doing this without help!

The tidying had revealed access to some toys previously buried - Sylvie took advantage of this with so 'Free Play' with her Catty and one of her castles (involving sticking poor catty down the tower and claiming he was stuck!) and fishing out her set of huge dominoes and setting up some 'Mystery Trails' for her daddy and I to follow to reach 'treasure' at the end. Earlier in the morning, she had asked me to help her look out some 'treasure' to play 'Hide and Find', specifically 7 items, and I think these may have been the treasures at the end of the trails. Unfortunately, I had to ask her to pick these up as they were presenting a bit of a hazard in the kitchen.

Just before her daddy got home, Sylvie started a guessing game. She suddenly said I had to guess what she was thinking of (picked up from an episode of The Fimbles she had watched earlier I think). I wasn't quite sure of how she wanted me to play, so I started with 'Is it an animal?' which set her off giving me descriptions of the things she was imagining. "Not an animal, it has legs and feet." (my first guess, 'table', was greeted with "No, but you are close." It was a 'chair'.) This was followed by further descriptions, including "It's from the sea and has eight tentacles", "It has fins" with a hand positioned over her back (octopus and shark) and a couple of others I guessed right off from her descriptions. I never knew she was that good at this game!

When daddy came home, he read a story to Sylvie and Davy (one she had got me to read to her just after lunch) while I made dinner. It was beef casserole and pasta which to our surprise Sylvie ate all of despite a short crying fit when I responded "All of it." to her query of how much she had to eat to get pudding. The prospect of chocolate gateau and me being very restrained on the amount of casserole I put on her pasta seemed to be the key!

Before bed, because she hadn't had chance to play the Mystery trail game she had organised for us, we got out a dice game we had been given for Christmas (Perudo) and invented a new way of using it to play with her that turned out to be a big 'Maths' game - 5 dice each were shaken in the cups then Sylvie told us how many of each number we had rolled, lined them up smallest to largest and guessed who had the largest total amount. She had to count the 4's and 5's each time until I showed her that since a square has four corners the side of the dice that has one spot in each corner and no more is always 4 and the 5 is the same but with one more spot in the middle. She worked out the others herself. She was very good at estimating which was the greater total based on the individual dice numbers too, though the time two of us both rolled a total of 16 confused her a bit!

Then it was 'Storytime' with daddy - another reading of her new favourite book, The cat that was carried away. Apparently she loves the maps!

17th and 18th January - A Sleepover!

Well, Sylvie had a great time this weekend! Her daddy's friend finally got round to organising the monthly role-playing sessions he has been promising for ages and since he lives just up the road from one of Sylvie's friends (S) we arranged a meet up with her family and a boy (K) who is the same age as Sylvie and his family who we 'know' on line but had yet to meet in real life. The meet up arrangement turned into a sleepover for the children at the friends house.

We planned to leave straight after Sylvie's dance class, so I had planned to have everything ready to go last night. Thanks to a little boy who was extremely determined to stay awake for as long as possible I only managed to get Sylvie's bag ready, so my husband took her to her dance class then came back for me once she had gone in. I still managed to forget the camera unfortunately! I also managed to forget Sylvie's sleeping bag, but luckily it wasn't needed.

Sylvie came out of 'Dance' with a timetable for show rehersals. The dance studio they attend puts on an annual show at the Civic Hall every year around the end of March. The children are expected to attend all the rehersals relevant to them and now she is doing tap as well as ballet it means double the rehersals and double the costumes all of which are charged for, so double (at least!) the cost. We shall also need to do some juggling with regards to 'Gym' as the rehersals overlap with that. I was also reminded about my Chaparone license - I got one last year as I helped out backstage thinking it would be good for Sylvie to have me there on the first night and I need to renew it so I can do the same this year. Ah, the joys of showbusiness!

It is worth it though - Sylvie was well and truly bitten by the performing bug last year and has been waiting impatiently for it to come around again. The sheer joy on her face when she learned it was that time of year again was priceless.

Once Sylvie was dressed and Davy changed, we got in the car and headed out to the motorway. Sylvie took the opportunity to try out her new art station which daddy had fixed to the back of his seat earlier. She spent the first part of the journey drawing what she termed 'A water picture.' I asked her if she was drawing fish and she told me "No, just a shark. The shark has eaten all the little fishes."

We stopped for lunch and arrived at the site of the meet-up - an indoor soft play centre - a few minutes after half past one, our estimated time of arrival. It was a good to meet everyone, though conversation was a bit harder than I had hoped as the play centre was very noisy! Sylvie renewed aquaintance with her friend and they charged off together holding hands after their respective daddies sat down after playing with them.

The sleepover had been arranged over e-mail a day or so before between Sylvie and S (Sylvie had been asking to have one with this particular friend for a long time, ever since she first had her cousin stay the night!) and while we were at the play centre her friend's parents asked if K wanted to sleep over too. Sylvie was a little put out that she was going to have to share her friend for the evening with a boy she didn't know too well (she pouted a little but no major strop!) but came home the next day delighted with the arrangement, saying "Now I know him I really like him!" and wanting to see him again.

Everyone left at around 4pm as the children were flagging having arranged to meet at the local Borders at 10.30am the next day to redistribute offspring. We arrived a little later than intended (we thought the journey was around 5 mins but was actually twice that length plus a stop at a level crossing we hadn't bargained for!). First reports on the sleepover were very good, with the children obviously enjoying each others company and a quick rundown of what they had been up to including the words 'well-behaved'! I checked our friends blog when we got home to see the pictures - they were kept nicely busy and had a lovely tea plus 4 stories at bedtime! (1 each plus 1 extra) Needless to say, Sylvie is very eager to do it all again soon and she has been invited back.

In Borders, I had less time to chat with the others than I had hoped as I was quickly accosted by Sylvie who wanted me to read her a book. Thinking it was a quick read, I agreed, only to find that the thin book which was part of a reading scheme wasn't a 'One sentance a page' thing as I had assumed, but was actually reasonably text-dense for something with so many pictures and was split into (admittedly short) chapters! By the time I had finished it K's family were getting ready to leave as they had things to do that afternoon.

The 'Sleepover Three' each chose a book to buy and they all chose the same thing - 'The Cat That was Carried Away' by Allan Allberg. Sylvie flirted strongly with the prospect of another Horrid Henry book, but decided she wanted the same as her friends. It is a very nice book and was bedtime reading Sunday night.

We said goodbye to K and went to MacDonalds with S and her mum. The plan was to feed them so they would have a nice nap in their respective cars as they were both tired out from an exciting weekend. It was the first time we had taken Sylvie to MacDonalds, though we have been in other fast food places with her. She ordered fishfingers and chips like S (though S called them 'starfish legs') and ended up eating S's fishfingers too! She also had a taste of daddy's milkshake (his favourite item on the menu - he loves thick shakes!) but was singularly unimpressed.

Sylvie and S both discovered they had the same freebie in their meal box - a Trivial Pursuit game - which looks like it will be fun to play. Also while we were there, a staff member came round handing out balloons. Sylvie accepted one with enthusiasm, but later when she was getting in the car to go home it blew away in the strong wind. She was very upset, so her daddy took her back in to see if she could have a replacement. Sylvie was pleased with this arrangement, saying "Can I have a pink one this time?" as she left the car! By sheer luck, she was given a new one straight away that was bright pink without her saying a word about the colour!

On the way home, Sylvie drew another 'water picture' this time of a shark with babies in it's tummy (star stickers!) and an underwater tent to live in (sellotaped on red cardboard triangle!)

Once home, no one felt like doing much, certainly not cooking, so Sylvie and her daddy went out to the chip shop. It was shut however, so they came back with Chinese. Sylvie, who had sausage and chips, was very interested in my chicken balls and has resolved to try some proper Chinese next time we get take out.

Daddy went out to do more role-playing and Sylvie and I explored the art set she had got for Christmas together - there is a lot more in it than first glance suggested! - before bed. It was a fantastic weekend, with her one regret being that while she had taken Scruffy Catty with her, poor Fluffy Catty had been left behind and had missed out!

15th January - A trip to town

The morning started with a strop from Sylvie - she was not happy about my plans to go to the Breastfeeding Cafe "I don't want to play with baby toys!" was her reason. This is news to me, she happily plays with Davy's stuff often in preference to her own! Once again I went through the explanation that she could take her leapster and some drawing things with her and no, she didn't have to share them if there were other older children there.

Eventually she agreed to the plan for the morning - the one she had known about yesterday! and became happier, crossing off the day on her calendar and discussing the silliness of the word 'fifteen'. This was brought about by her initially trying to call it "five-teen" and me explaining that while the numbers after it (and 14) follow that pattern, 15 doesn't.

We left later than I intended - Sylvie had asked to see the end of the TV programme she was watching, a children's 'how to draw' show, and then Davy, with his unerring sense of timing, needed a very dirty nappy changing. There weren't many people there, and while Sylvie revelled in the time she spent chatting to the Health Visitor, she was throughly miffed that I had a long conversation with her too. According to Sylvie, our purpose is to get there, get Davy weighed as quickly as possible and then leave. Mummy having adult conversation while she plays is not an option apparently!
She did do some drawing - it looked like random scribbles until she brought it to me and asked me to write 'WOOL inside and on the back of this paper' on it. It seems the 'Media Studies' session watching the drawing show had made an impression - it had been showing how to draw a cartoon sheep.

I had a nice long chat about birth experiences and the merits of cloth over disposable nappies with the Health visitor and other mums, much to my little girls disgust, then stopped to check that the Birdwatching course I had put our names down for was still going ahead - I had been told they would phone to confirm but it turned out that that wasn't true for the free courses they run of which the Birdwatching is one.It starts next Tuesday so I was getting a bit concerned I hadn't heard anything until I spoke to them! While I was doing that, Sylvie used the toilet on her own. Worthy of note here as I usually have to help her because for some reason the building designers had seen fit to put a heavy fire door on the entrance to the children's toilet that she hasn't been able to open in the past. Today, she showed that her physical strength must have increased over Christmas by managing it alone.

We then caught the bus into town to get her some Scotch eggs as promised. Sylvie requested we get 'sausage rolls and a cake' from the bakers and insisted though I suggested a cafe as it was so cold and windy. In the end, we brought the cake home with us as Sylvie got overcold sitting on the bench to eat as I had told her she probably would.

We popped into Wilkinsons to get drinks and check out their art supplies - they have a nice cheap selection of craft stuff and Sylvie had asked for one of their sew-your-own hand puppets to keep the elephant one she got ages ago company. We spotted a travelling art set while we were there that straps onto the back of the cars front seat and folds down to reveal a drawing pad and art supplies. I couldn't justify buying it for her so soon after Christmas, but Sylvie had enough accumulated pocket money in her purse to get it herself, so she came home with it very excited. We added a few bits to it ready to put in the car for our trip at the weekend in the evening after it was shown proudly to daddy.

It took us a while to find her some 'meatballs' as she likes the mini ones and the places we tried only had the huge ones, but we found some in the last shop we went in on our way back to the bus station. I asked her if she wanted to pay for them herself, but the 'Fiscal Management' must be paying off because she said "Well, I could, but I want you to buy them." She did get her Dr. Who magazine herself however. Normally she would do this on Saturday but as we are heading off to see friends for the weekend it seemed prudent to do it today. She actually still had enough accumulated pocket money to do this without me having to give her next weeks early.

Once home, Sylvie ate the last of her lunch then got out her bucket of Duplo lego. Buying the travelling art set had reminded her that we had arranged for her to sleep over at her friend's house and she excitedly ran around collecting all manner of junk she claimed to want to take with her and putting it in the lego bucket. I persuaded her that she didn't need to take the lego as her friend has some of her own so quite a bit of the junk was transferred over to the bag she will be taking her night things in.

After that, the lego attracted her attention again and she engaged in a little 'Architecture', building an arch. Her initial design proved to be quite flimsy as she wanted a 'step' in the top which made it fall apart whenever it was moved. I showed her a way of making it stronger but it got rid of the step, so we discussed and she tried out a few designs before settling on one that had an extra pillar supporting the middle, making it look like the letter 'M'.

After dinner, we wrote some very late birthday cards to relatives, forgotten in the spate of illness. The first one from her and Davy, Sylvie copied out all the words onto lines I created for her but it became apparent she was a bit to tired for it - she got very upset and nearly gave up when the pen slipped a bit and made a mark she didn't like and objected when I explained that the ball in the nib of a biro rolls best if the pen is on an angle after she wondered why it didn't write well when she held it vertically. It was obvious she couldn't concentrate properly, so after encouraging her to finish the last word and writing one for her, I did the second card. She asked to do her brother's name though. I was surprised that she wanted to write Davy's rather than her own, but she explained that his name has less letters than hers!

I also showed her the 'caligraphy' method for making an 'm' after she complained that she can't do them 'because I can't make my pen go back up the line'. Her 'm's do look like a couple of wavy mountains, but it is obvious what they are supposed to be. This wasn't good enough for her though, so I showed her how to make one arch then lift the pen off, move it to the top of the arch and ceate another attached to it. She was very pleased with this and happily used that method in the card.

She went to bed then, and was joined in 'Storytime' by Davy, who had been asleep but woke while daddy was reading. She doesn't know yet, but daddy is leaving for work later than usual tomorrow because he is going to an out-of-office meeting. She will be so pleased to have him around in the morning, but I can almost guarrantee a strop when it is time for him to leave!

16th January - The bookcase is now ready for books!

Sylvie got up before me today, happy to find that daddy was not going to work until quite late thanks to a meeting he needed to attend away from the office. She loved her unexpected daddy and daughter time, but as I had predicted got very pouty and clingy when daddy had to leave. She seemed to think that if she demanded it, he would not go to work and take us all out on the trip we are doing tommorrow today. She has got a bit impatient lately and has far more trouble waiting for things than she used to 6 months ago.

I had planned to post the birthday cards after breakfast, but my dad rang to say he was coming round to fix Sylvie's new bookcase to the wall so we had a morning of DIY instead. He brought my youngest nephew with him which was a source of both enjoyment and supreme annoyance to Sylvie - as happy as she was to have someone to play with, someone who didn't play 'properly' (putting the dolly in it's high-chair backwards), climbed all over her, thought everything he saw was "Mine!" and thought her protestations were funny enough for him to repeat the offending behaviour to watch her reaction was the cause of some tip-top screaming on her part!

She also threw a fairly major strop on being asked to tidy up a bit so Grandad could have access to the kitchen. Once again, she proved that 'Home Economics - Tidying' is by far and away her least favourite subject! It took a long time, and persuasion that included the removal of her new toy cybermen, to get her to put her lego from yesterday in it's box and her art stuff in it's home. She got told off for throwing a couple of things in anger when told not to just dump her things on the sofa but to put them in their rightful homes! One strategy she used to avoid picking up her lego was to build with it, creating a 'dog with lots of seats on top' as she described it! She lay on the floor crying for a bit after finally doing what she had been asked, then on realising she had no audience announced she was going to bed and stomped upstairs where she was promptly climbed on by her cousin. One day, she will finally accept that she gets more space to play if she puts away the things she isn't using, but I'm not planning to hold my breath!

The one bit of putting away she did want to do was to start putting her books on her bookcase once it was fixed in place. She set to this with a will, but it also led to a strop, this time because her cousin tried to help and she wanted to do it herself!

Sylvie also got a short lesson in 'Childcare' as I introduced my nephew to a new experience -the shower- thanks to a large amount of sticky stuff in his hair that was suspected of being snot (he has a cold). From his reaction, it is not an experience he wishes to repeat any time soon!

After Grandad left, it was 'Media Studies' (Dr. Who again) and lunch. After this, Sylvie was filled with Sleepover enthusiasm so I got her bag and she filled the pockets with;
2 pink bracelets, 2 pink necklaces, the innards of a Kinder surprise egg filled with 2 pink rings, 1 toy snowman with magnetic hands and feet, 1 tweeting blackbird keyring, a small pack of playing cards and a bag containing all her animal finger puppets. Later, in the evening, I wrote out a list of the contents so if she did get them out at the sleepover they could be counted back in again without too much headache!

I had meant to spend the rest of the day getting ready for our weekend away at a lesiurely pace. Davy had other ideas and spent the afternoon and evening alternately whimpering and screaming as he fought the onset of sleep fiercely and successfully. It was midnight before he finally gave in and I was too shattered to do anything except crawl into bed and hope there would be enough time in the morning to get everything done.

Sylvie indulged in some 'Media Studies' and some 'Art' while I tried to deal with Davy, including using a piece of wrapping paper she had found to wrap up trinkets for 'Donna's party' (Donna being one of her imaginary friends). She wanted to stay up late again, but we put a little pressure on her to go up earlier than she has been as tomorrow will be an early morning followed by a long day. She saw the force of our argument and went up without more than a token protest. At this point, Davy succumbed to sleep for long enough for me to have 'Storytime' with Sylvie, but he woke up again after 10 mins. I really hope he is easier tommorrow!

14th January - A day of new experiences!

We slept in this morning - Davy has taken to staying awake as long as possible during the day and then sleeping until after 8am (makes up for not actually going to sleep before midnight I suppose!) It's a nice change from Sylvie who as a baby would wake at around 6.30am every morning!

Sylvie and I got up before Davy and she put the CBeebies channel on herself. This is the first time she has managed this as she usually can't remember which buttons she needs to press so needs some assistance. Today. she just told me she was going to do it and the numbers she was going to press. After I verbally confirmed she needed to press 7 then 1 (rather than 1 and 7 as she has asked) she did it. I'm not sure whether to be pleased she has learnt a new skill or to shudder at the prospect of continuous CBeebies! I have been able to switch it to CITV or another children's channel without her being able to switch back if it got too monotonous in the past.

After a quick chat on 'Childcare', brought about by Davy grinning in her direction from the other side of the room, where she asked if he could really see her - she knows his eyes have been gradually changing and increasing the distance they can see since he was born and wanted to know if he was smiling at her in particular or just at thin air. I said even if he couldn't make her out properly he was probably aware there was someone there and that it was his sister. - out of the blue she made a stange request!

S - "It has been ages since daddy made a milkshake hasn't it?"

Me - "Well, daddy likes milkshakes in warm weather and it hasn't been warm for ages."

S - "Perhaps he should make a milkshake today. I think it might get warm today."

(Today, as it happens, was a very cold, icy day with layers of frost on rooftops and daddy had to use the chemical de-icer on the car door before he could drive to work!)

It led to a quick phone call to daddy to relay the request (It gave him a laugh at least!). He said he might contemplate it but he felt it was really a bit too cold for a milkshake today.

She wanted to play a new game on the Playstation - RugRats - so I sat with her and helped her figure out how it worked. She is getting much better at moving people around using the arrows but gets frustrated by the way they walk into walls or overshoot objects sometimes.

Just before lunch, the postman came, bringing the application to join 'Storm force', the RNLI's children's club, which Sylvie has saved up the membership for out of her pocket money. I had e-mailed and asked for it as I didn't want to cut out the one in her Dr. Who magazine. She was very excited to have it at last and was eager to fill it out. It brought in some 'Fiscal Management' as I explained they needed a cheque, which Sylvie can't do, so I would use one of mine and she will pay me back from her savings when the membership pack arrives. She watched me write the cheque and I told her what each bit I was filling in said. We checked, but Sylvie has used all her own stamps so she stuck one of mine on the envelope.

She played some more Rugrats after lunch (which was just cheese for Sylvie at her request) while I tried to hunt down all the library books that needed to go back. Without a massive amount of success! That's what tidying and rearranging furniture does for me! The librarian renewed the ones I couldn't find and Sylvie gathered together half the library to take out - I had to make her pick 5 each for her and Davy from her massive selection, the librarians are good about letting her go over her limit by one or two as they know us well, but 20-odd is a little beyond what they are willing to do!

I had remembered to ask her if she wanted to take her pocket money before we left the house and so she also took out a DVD. She gathered a selection off the shelves, lined them up on the floor and decided by a process of elimination based partly on me reading the back of the box to her that 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' was the film for her. She had seen the end of the film when it was on over Christmas and when she realised that was what the "one with the lion on the front" contained, she decided she wanted to see it all.

A slight blip in behaviour, caused by me asking her to put away the books she wasn't taking out while I chose some books for myself, neither of which she approves of, was headed off speedily by my telling her we were going to the Play Ranger session once we were done in the library. Her mood changed rapidly and she was very eager to get downstairs. The Play Rangers are indoors until February due to the unpredictable weather, conveniently in the big sports hall in the same Community building as the library.

We got down there to find we were the only attendees. It looks like illness and the tiring effect of going back to school has greatly reduced the numbers from what they were around Christmas when the indoor stuff started. They had some very good activities on offer too - new equipment in the shape of magnetic tangrams and Origami on the craft table and good sized spacehoppers for burning off physical energy. Sylvie had a go on a spacehopper first, but tipped off it and got upset, saying it was too big for her. Later though, she decided to have another go and it was discovered that one of the hoppers was a bit smaller. This, coupled with being shown a new mounting technique, meant it suddenly became her favourite activity and stayed bouncing away until the end.

Prior to this, she tried the tangrams and showed a bit of a flair for it once she got the idea of the game. Oddly, she seemed to do better on the ones where there was an actual picture to fill in rather than just an outline with a blank space. while she worked, she told the Play Rangers all about our plans for tomorrow (breastfeeding cafe, bus to town for some Scotch eggs and cake). She also had a go at the Origami. she tried very hard, carefully folding the paper, and might have been very successful had the pattern she was following not turned out to be one of the harder ones that had all of us adults puzzling over the instructions! I finished it off for her while she spacehopped.

Davy had a go on the spacehopper too - I held him round the waist and bounced him on it gently. He loved it and tried to make it bounce himself whenever I stopped! He also tried the Origami, but since this involved him grabbing the paper and trying to eat it when I wasn't looking he was quickly persuaded to play with his rattle instead!

Sylvie came home with her Origami, a sort of rosette thing, and a bird one of the Rangers had made. She was very pleased with herself. I'm glad we went, she was more alive this afternoon than she has been since Christmas, obviously she really needed to get out and do something new after being cooped up for so long.

Once home, she immediately sat down to watch The DVD. We had talked about it on the way home and I had said I have read the book and seen a number of adaptions of the story and as is usual preferred the book. Sylvie asked if I had the book, and when I told her it was probably at granny's somewhere she resolved to get hold of it so she could hear it and see if it was better herself. I warned her it was quite long and we wouldn't be able to read it in a single sitting but she informed me that that was ok, we could put something inside it to mark the page and she didn't mind hearing it in bits. I shall have to remember to look it out next time we visit my parents.

Watching the DVD, it became apparent that the bits she had seen over Christmas had made a much bigger impression than we had thought as she obviously remembered them in a fair amount of detail. Afterwards it was clear that a lot of her play is going to involve her climbing into cupboards to see if they are magic for a while!

Today has also been struck by a new phenomenon - a sudden desire to be 6. She has been desperate to be 5 almost since she turned 4 and prior to leaving for the library she got the calendar I wrote out yesterday to ask how many days it was to her birthday now. I showed her how to cross off the days so she could see it getting closer and had a conversation with the librarian about it which showed that the information she had learned yesterday about her and Davy's birthdays was well retained. However, on our walk to the library everything was 'When I am 6 I will be miles taller/run faster etc.'

She was starving by dinner and actually demanded I start cooking at 5pm because she hadn't had any lunch. I pointed out to her that that was her own choice and I was not cooking until daddy was home. I made pasta and bolognese sauce which was not apreciated by Sylvie. She ate quite a bit of the pasta as I had been fairly mean with the sauce knowing that she would be more likely to eat it that way. when she got to the sauce, she claimed to have had enough. A reminder that there was chocolate cake for pudding brought out her 'Negotiation Skills'.

First she sighed and asked how many mouthfuls she needed to eat. Then on being told all of it bar a couple of very large lumps of parsnip she tried tears. When I sat down to eat my cake, she changed tack and anounced "I will only eat my food if I can see Narnia again." We happily obliged and she ate it all!

She was very late going to bed - it was 10pm, and she would have stayed up longer only I insisted she turn in. I might have let her stay up for longer if she hadn't started to claim she was bored!

5th and 6th January - Playing castles and labyrinth.

Monday was a day of 'Free Play' with Sylvie's cousin. Having spent the night at Granny and Grandad's, she got up just in time for his arrival whereupon they both disappeared into the conservatory and spent almost all day in there playing with Sylvie's Playmobil castle she had taken with her specifically to show to her cousin. I didn't see much of either of them until well after lunch when Sylvie came out followed closely by an upset cousin who made it clear he wasn't happy she wouldn't play the game he wanted after spending most of the day playing with her castle!

Spotting a need for mediation before a fight broke out, I suggested they play Sylvie's new board game, Ravensburger's Amazing Labyrinth, with me. I had brought it with us on the off-chance and was very pleased I had! It kept them occupied for about an hour. I was very pleased with it too - the game is very flexible in terms of difficulty of play as how hard it is depends on the ability of the players to think up strategys to reach their treasures while preventing other players getting to theirs. Both children found it very stimulating but also both showed a marked tendancy to focus on trying to block their opponents rather than thinking about their own route through to their treasures, leading on more than one occasion to them blocking themselves off as well as the other players! They didn't seem to mind though - putting one over on each other was apparently far more satisfying than winning!

After two games, they had a little more 'Free Play' before it was time to tidy up, a part of the day greeted with the usual enthusiam (nil!). I asked them to bring the Playmobil out to me so I could check that all the small pieces were present (the only disadvantage to Playmobil is the size of the bits) and got something of a shock when they brought it and I found they must have spent a lot of the 'Free Play' discovering which bits came off! I had to put a lot back together including trying to remember which person had which beard and getting into an argument with Sylvie over which crown was the king's and which the queen's. She was quite emphatic the big one was the queen's while the more delicate-looking one was the king's but I was convinced it was the other way round. (On Tuesday I checked and found out she was right, so I grovelled appropriately!)

I got a bit stressed as instead of looking for more bits Sylvie tried to play with the ones I was trying to check over and I ended up shouting at her. Not my finest moment! Granny took her back into the conservatory to look for the beard I knew we were missing and came back with that and the wizard who for some reason had taken up residence in the toy farm's tractor shed and so had been previously overlooked.

The Labyrinth game had made quite a big impression and Sylvie tried to get her daddy to play it with her after dinner. We explained that there wasn't really enough time for a game before bed but daddy said he would be happy to play it with her as soon as he got home from work on Tuesday. She was happy with this, and that's what they did while I made dinner. They took a break to eat and then finished off the game afterwards. Sylvie wanted to play again but had to put it away as it was getting late and the way she plays (trying to block daddy rather than trying to get to her treasures) meant the game was somewhat extended past the suggested playing time on the instructions!

Other than this, Tuesday was a fairly unremarkable day. I was tired and the weather wasn't great so we stayed in and had a lot of 'Media Studies' with Dr. Who and Sylvie got in a lot of 'Free Play' with her Dr. Who figures. (For some reason, her new Dalek Sek human hybrid ended up bandaged from head to toe!)

7th January - Egyptology!

Sylvie seems to have started to need more sleep over the last few months. Instead of going to bed around 9pm and getting up at 6.30am, she has taken to sleeping in until 8.30 or later. This would be a wonderful opportunity for a lie-in, if it weren't for Davy. In fact, it means that rather than being rudely awakened by having a stuffed cat beinjg shoved in my face to a chorus of "Meiow! Meiow!" I am now being woken by the sound of raspberries being blown loudly by my son. It is a strange experience to be up and about before Sylvie is awake.

The morning began with 'Archeology', as Sylvie decided she wanted to use one of her Christmas presents before breakfast this morning, her 'excavate the mummy' kit. It's a pyramid made of plaster that has a sarcophagus, a mummy and 4 copic jars buried inside it. You chip away at the pyramid with the plastic hammer, chisel and scraper to find and extract the items which are then washed and painted. She had a good go at it, but her chiselling ability is not exactly perfect (hardly surprising considering it's the first time she has tried it!) and put it to one side without uncovering any of the items so she could eat her cereal.


I sat at the computer to feed Davy and found the song 'Bright Eyes' on You tube - something I have been meaning to for a while as I have had the song in my head for some time. It played with clips from 'Watership Down', and when Sylvie wandered in, attracted by the music, she stayed to watch the clips. Her first comment was how sad the music was, and then being so visual, she started to relate the pictures of the bunny rabbits to the song.

She insisted on playing it over and over and asking questions which led into some detailed explanation of death and the beliefs surrounding it (she wanted to know why the bunny in the snare died, and about the image of the rabbit's spirit leaving the body etc.). The rabbit in the snare seemed to touch her deeply and she kept stating how much she loved the "bunny that's captured". She stated that she didn't want to die, came up with her own 'afterlife' solution which I thought was lovely ("I think the rabbit's spirit turned into a cuddly toy after it left the bunny's body.") asked to see/hear the other versions that You tube offered and finally allowed herself to cry while watching one that simply showed nature images rather than the cartoon bunnies she had got very attached to in the short time she had known the song.


I had told her the bunnies and music were from a film and she wanted to know if I had seen it. I said I had watched it as a little girl. I really hope she doesn't decide she needs to watch it - I find it a hard film to watch as it is so emotional. Sylvie, however, deals with such things by watching/listening to them to death until the impact is reduced, as with the song, so it won't surprise me if she asks to see it.


Eventually, she went back to her breakfast and 'Media Studies' - she asked for Beauty and the Beast or Dr. Who, so I put on the cartoon, Dr. Who having been watched to death lately! Later it transpired that Beauty and the Beast has enhanced her vocabulary - she started using the word 'Hideous' after watching it. Specifically, in the sentance "Davy, you are hideous!" My suggestion that this was not a nice thing to call her brother was dismissed thanks to the subject of the conversation grinning madly at his sister whenever she said it. I told her it meant 'ugly' and that at 6 months old, Davy is prepared to grin at anyone who talks to him, especially his sister, whatever they are actually saying.

After breakfast, she wanted to do some more excavation on her pyramid, but she was finding it hard. She had a good bash at it, but said it was making her arm hurt and asked me to take over, which I did. It took me quite a while to find the first 'artifact', and before I did we were surprised by the return of daddy. He had come home from work with a nasty stomach bug and went straight to bed. When he got up later, Sylvie confused him by telling him about the 'dead bunnies' when I explained about looking up 'Bright Eyes', he laughed - Daddy is not, it seems, a fan of the film!

Sylvie was getting a bit bored as it was taking so long when I finally hit the first copic jar, whereupon she got very excited. She brushed it off, helped me carefully remove it and washed it in warm water while I looked for, and found the mummy itself. That was quite labour intensive to get out, being very stuck solidly in place, so while Sylvie danced about claiming she was going to ask Father Christmas for another one next year I was hoping he wouldn't!

We stopped for lunch before hunting down the rest of the jars. It took a couple of hours to get them out and clean them, so I said we should wait until tomorrow before painting them as I didn't want to have to stop her half-way through for dinner. She was looking quite tired too and spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the sofa watching TV. She didn't eat much at all for dinner, saying her stomach hurt.



Unfortunately, the day didn't end with 'Storytime'. It seems Sylvie has come down with whatever her daddy has got, hence the stomachache, and she was sick at midnight. It appeared she was lying with her face on her arms at the time so I was faced with the unpleasant task of striping off sick-soaked nightdress and washing down a very unhappy half-asleep little girl. I don't think we will be doing much tomorrow!

Fisrt week of January - Feng shui (or, rearranging the house to fit the Christmas pressies in!)

This week, Sylvie has learnt a lot about Visual - Spacial Approximation (looking round a room and saying things like " I think the door will still open if we stick the bookcase there") Fiscal Management (if the delivery fee costs more than the item you are considering purchasing, move it yourself or don't buy it) Measurements (using a tape measure to determine the chances of a new bookcase actually fitting in the car) Detection (looking for the tape measure and screwdrivers) Improvisation (testing various out objects as hammer substitutes) Construction (ok, putting together a flat-pack isn't exactly major craftsmanship, but it did involve nails and screws!) and Innovative Decor Makeover (using the stickers she found in her Christmas stocking to decorate her new bookcase.)



Yes, we spent the week attempting further reorganisation of the house, starting with Sylvie's room.

Wednesday was ear-marked for tidying the front room while daddy took the car round to granddad's for a little TLC. Something expensive had occured to the cooling fan electrics on Christmas Eve and grandad thought he could fix it. Sylvie decided she wanted to go too - daddy was not at work, ergo it was a 'Daddy day' as far as she was concerned. After ensuring she understood that a) it was bitterly cold outside and b) if she went she would be expected to be outside with daddy and grandad while they worked on the car as granny was at work and finding her still adamant, I wrapped her up in layers of clothing and waved them off.

Davy prevented me tidying much and they returned sooner than I had expected. The problem with the car was looking to be even more expensive than we had imagined as they had found finding and replacing the correct faulty part would mean practically dismantling and rebuilding the whole front of the car, a job that was a bit too much even for grandad. The car will require the services of a garage. Because of this, the aquisition of a DVD rack was put on indefinite hold, but we decided that since Sylvie's book collection was overflowing her small bookcase a new set of shelves was needed. After talking to her, it was decided that she would put £10 of her Christmas money towards it and we would put in the rest.

Daddy and Sylvie went out to IKEA to get the bookcase on Friday (Thursday was a 'lost' day as I had felt very under the weather and we all spent the day in quiet contemplation of the TV. Sylvie also requested we save the wrappers from the Quality Street chocolates we got for Christmas as she had artistic plans for them - she went on to use some of them to make a collage. She also spent a lot of time playing with her new Dr. who figurines - after she was in bed we found all her daleks had aquired balloons over their eye stalks. We didn't ask.)

While they were out I managed to clear half the living room - the half of the floor that hadn't been seen for months. Davy was very good and sat and watched me for a good hour without grumbling (I would have preferred it if he had actually slept for more than 10 mins, but at least he wasn't screaming!).

They were gone for longer than I expected and when they returned it was with a surprise. They had gone out to get a white bookcase (Sylvie had wanted a pink one so we had explained that since the only pink one in the catalogue was backless and more than £60, buying a white one and painting it pink would work the best.). They returned with a bright red one! Apparently the last white one had been sold that morning and given the choice between waiting a day or so or getting a different colour, Sylvie had exercised her 'Decision-Making' and gone with red.

I was a bit unsure how it would go in her pastel-coloured room, but after spending the afternoon building it, it didn't look too bad when it was in position. To Sylvie's annoyance, we wouldn't let her put more than a couple of books on it as it is too tall to be stable without being bracketed to the wall and we wanted to ask grandad's advice about that. (We were glad we had waited when we spoke to him on Sunday - he was less than impressed that only one bracket was supplied and on hearing it was the stud wall the bookcase was to go against suggested an entirely different fixing method to spread the weight better.)

Saturday was earmarked for changing round the computer desks. This is a major job we had been talking about for over a year but hadn't got round to. Sylvie spent most of the day either in 'Free play' in her bedroom or in 'Media Studies' watching Dr. Who on video while we took apart one desk and stuck the bits in the loft then brought down the pieces of the other one and put it together.

This created masses of mess as the stuff on the desk was parked in any available space, including the area I had tidied a few days before. There was no way we could make lunch as the kitchen was overflowing with junk so Sylvie and daddy went to get take out while I took the opportunity to clean the area the old desk had obscured and arranged the cupboard part of the old desk as storage for our laptop and playstation.

Once the computer was up and running, we just stopped, exhausted, leaving the majority of the tidying for Sunday. Sylvie, having been a bit neglected during all of this got clingy and then a bit stroppy when her tired parents couldn't respond the way she wanted. Daddy took her to bed for the second night in a row to make up for this.

Sunday was gym in the morning for Sylvie. She did well on the bars and floor - somersaults in both cases, backwards and forwards. It was nice to see her confident and smiling on the bar as she was assisted in 3 consecutive back somersaults which she would never have attempted a few months ago. She was about normal on the trampette and box vault (ie. not very confident) but disgraced herself on the beam - the coaches rotate the order the children queue up in each time they change apparatus, and after being first on the trampette Sylvie found herself last on the beam. Because of this, she threw a major strop and refused to use the beam at all then 'Neanderthal walked' over to the next area (the floor). She perked up here as the coach let her go first again!

We had a little talk afterwards where daddy and I tried to explain that by refusing to take part, she the only one losing out. Her only response was "But I hate being last!" so we ended with telling her if she did it again we would have a word with the coach and ask that she not go first on anything for a while. We also emphasised that she needed to speak to people rather than just physically showing she was not happy as the coach obviously had had no idea what was wrong with the beam incident and later Sylvie was upset when stickers were being given out which turned out to be because the other children had taken the dominoes she had been playing with for their own structure while she was taking her turn on the vault (the coaches leave toys at the end of the mats for the preschool class to keep them occupied when waiting their turn). Again, she expected the coach to work outr what was wrong from her body language instead of speaking up.

We went round to see my parents afterwards and made arrangements for Sylvie to stay the night. She wanted to come home as we had promised she could decorate her bookcase with her fairy/butterfly/heart stickers and she was desperate to do that, but she also wanted to stay at granny's, so her daddy said he could drop her back round theirs when he went to his role-playing game at 7pm.

Unfortunately, daddy had obviously been hit hard by the same thing I had had on Thursday and spent most of the afternoon in bed. I spent it helping Sylvie with her stickers and trying to persuade Davy that sleep is actually a good thing. He didn't agree. Loudly. Hence, the tidying didn't get done. The house is still a tip, but at least it is a well-organised tip!

Oh, I nearly forgot to add - Sylvie had the following conversation with us on New Year's Day;

S - "I think me and C (her cousin) will get married. But who will Davy marry?"

After disabusing daddy of the idea that cousin-cousin marriage is illegal, we talked about how we were in our twenties before we met and that she and Davy had plenty of time to meet other people they don't know yet they might like to marry.

S- "Well, I think me and C will stick to one another until we meet someone else we might marry. C and I are practicing."

It begs the question, practicing what? exactly!?

She also anounced that "My mind is revolving!" over breakfast!