12th February - Prince Caspian is a hit!

Well, it appears my theory on Sylvie and books may need to be revised!

After breakfast and 'Media Studies' (Dr. Who, what else?) we headed out for 'Childcare' at the breastfeeding cafe. On the way, I asked Sylvie about last night's 'Storytime'. I was interested to see if she recalled the story as my theory - that she needs to see it first in order to absorb it properly - suggested that she wouldn't remember much and I wanted to know if she was getting anything from hearing her second Narnia novel, 'Prince Caspian', or if she was perhaps asking for it because she knew we, her parents, liked it rather than for her own sake.

Her response to my question "So, what happened in the story daddy read you last night?" was not encouraging - she said "I don't remember. All the Narnia stuff has been whisked from my brain." However, I tried a different tack, asking if the 4 children from 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' were in it. I knew they were, and I wondered if 'what happened in the story' might have been a little too open-ended for her to know where to start. My suspicion was correct - the floodgates opened in her brain ans she gave me a detailed discription of the story so far!

"Yes, they were in it. They were going to school and they were surrounded by white stuff and trees! They were at the bus stop. No, they were going on a train, sorry, it was the station, and there was all this white stuff. Then they were by the sea and they went paddling. They had some lunch, but only one of them had sandwiches so they all had to share. Susan had 2 apples."

This was by far more detail than I was expecting! The '2 apples' in particular was interesting - when I told my husband what Sylvie had said, he couldn't remember 2 apples, so I looked at the book. It turned out to be a throwaway line that had Susan saying something while 'throwing away her apple core and picking another'. In fact, Sylvie remembered more of the details of the chapter than her daddy did. I am no longer concerned that she is getting nothing from the book.

At the breastfeeding cafe, while Davy's new-found reverse-crawlling skills were admired, Sylvie played her Dora the Explorer game on her Leapster while periodically asking if we could go yet. She eagerly offered her services to the Health Visitor when it was time to tidy up, jumping quickly to her feet and saying she would do it when she saw the HV picking up baby toys without any encouragement. Now, if only I can get her to do the same at home!

On our way out, I asked if the Early Years Centre was doing anything for half-term. The receptionist said not, but suggested we come along to the Childminders session at 9am on the Friday as they were having the fire, police and ambulance services in to show off their equipment and talk to the children. I think we will try and make that if we can.

I had promised Sylvie I would take her into town after we left - we had forgotten to give her her pocket money last weekend thanks to our trip to see friends and she hadn't had last weeks issue of her Dr. Who magazine. They are issued every Thursday and I had meant to take her yesterday morning but forgot (oh, that sleep depravation!). I held out a slim hope that there would still be one or two places with last weeks issue still in stock - we have occasionally seen them changed over on a Friday instead of a Thursday in some shops, but of course the week we wanted them to be a little late with the changeover, every shop had had it's delivery of new stock on time and since policy is to send unsold issues back the same day no shop had any left. We will have to ring the back-issues department (much to Sylvie 'Impatience' I-want-it-now's disgust!) but we picked up this weeks copy which partially made up for it.

We popped into the town museum too - I wanted to see if they had any half-term activities (they usually have some 'Art' going on for the children) and while we were there we looked around. They have a new display on World War 1 in the White Gallery and art by the Birmingham Arts Circle in the Yellow. Sylvie was more interested in getting at the drawing materials and Noah's Ark in the permanent gallery though. Davy chewed a crocodile and enjoyed the puppets too. We discovered that the museum tea-room, which was shut down by the council who subsidise it last year on the basis that it was not making much money, had reopened (on the basis that without it, visitor numbers to the museum had dropped off.) so Sylvie used her pocket money to buy herself a huge wedge of chocolate cake and a drink.

On our way back to the bus station, I spotted a Letterland video in a charity shop and offered to get it for Sylvie. She was adamant that she wanted to pay for it though, so I told her to ask how much it was. She boldly went up to the shop assistant to ask and found that yes, she did have just enough money (50p). We also came home with a 'storage solution' to my recycling problem - the bags we keep the recycling in ready for kerb-side collection each Friday constantly seem to be trying to overwhelm the kitchen floor, so we popped into Argos and bought a coat rack to hang them on out of the way. Now I just need to borrow my dad's drill so I can put it up and provide Sylvie with a shining example of DIY(hopefully!)

When we got off the bus, it was snowing quite heavily. A few flakes that landed on us were very clearly of the beautiful, classic 'snowflake' star-like variety. I was quite excited and showed them to Sylvie. In my experience snowflakes tend to land clumped together or partally melted so it is quite rare to see their natural shape with the naked eye like that.

It was then 'Media Studies' time until dinner was ready. Or at least, until Sylvie fell asleep on the sofa - it was a tiring day! She woke in time for dinner but was less than impressed with it, partly because she was still tired. She ate a good half without complaint though, which is a far cry from a few months ago!

She needed to be told to go upstairs at 8.30pm, probably due to the afternoon nap more than anything else, and I read her 2 more chapters of 'Prince Caspian' which tantalisingly ended on a cliffhanger, with the reader being told the next chapter was an explanation of some of the strange things that were confusing the children in the story. Sylvie can't wait to hear it tomorrow!

11th February - Moon Sand and Rugby!

Sylvie watched Dr. Who over breakfast, then I suggested we fish out the Moon Sand her Isle of Wight Granny and Grandad had given her for Christmas once Davy was asleep. She has not played with the set yet and I had put it away where it wasn't immediately obvious to her so I suspected she had forgotten she had it.

She was very enthusiastic - she has discovered a love of sand over the last 12 months - and spent hours playing with it. She made houses with the bigger moulds and used the people and animal moulds as dolls, creating an imaginary game that lasted until lunchtime. The 3 colours of sand got well and truly mixed together, but unlike playdough it doesn't form a brown mass (well, not yet, anyway!) and produced a pretty, blotchy effect. It was messy though! The set came with everything inside a carry case which is used as a tray for the sand but as expected some of it escaped. I am really going to have to invest in another cheap plastic table cloth to protect my floor - I had to throw the last one when it got stuck together with glitter glue.

Sylvie happily swept up but the stuff was determined to hang around, particularly by sticking to the outside of the carry case. Static electricity seemed to play a big part in the difficulty we had in cleaning up.

After lunch, we got ready to go to the library. Davy for once had timed his sleep pattern perfectly and woke up at the right moment. The library was the scene of his big moment - he pulled himself up to standing unassisted for the first time ever. He has always liked to stand and will hold himself rigid when you try to sit him down to 'encourage' you to support him in a stand, but this was the first time he did it independantly, reaching up to grab the child's bench and using his head for extra leverage. The bench was low enough for him to do this unlike out furniture at home and heavy enough that he couldn't pull it over, unlike his activity cube and 'round-and-round' - Sylvie stood for the first time using the round-and-round but he is too strong so it moves when he tries it.

I had asked Sylvie if she still wanted to hear the other Narnia stories, and she was enthusiastic, so I said we could get one from the library today. I offered her the choice of 'The Horse and His Boy' or 'Prince Caspian', explaining that one took place before the children had come back home through the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, while they were rulers of Narnia and they weren't in it much while the other followed on from after they got home. She specifically requested Prince Caspian, so I found it for her. Oddly, it and one other in the series were not the lovely coloured versions that the others were, but that didn't worry Sylvie.

She made new friends in the library - the usual librarians weren't there, one was off and the other was collecting new stock, so we met a totally new lady and one who has covered once or twice before as well as a work-experience student. Sylvie chatted away happily to them and entertained them throughly, practicing her 'Social Skills' to the full. The course of the conversation led into a lesson on 'Coincidence' as after asking what Davy's name was Sylvie gave his full name which made the new librarian exclaim that his first and second names were the same as her brother's. It is not a common combination - she said it was the first time she had met another person with those two names - and we chatted a bit about Welsh ancestry as it also turned out that the name combination had been derived from family names on in both cases and has a strong Welsh flavour.

I read a couple of books to Sylvie and Davy, including an Usbourne version of Cinderella that had beautiful pictures but was lacking in the actual story department - Sylvie wasn't impressed and decided not to take it out. In between, I extracted Davy from under the bookshelves a few times - he is now on the move, in a backwards direction, and I am constantly having to help him out of gaps he has wedged himself in while trying desperately to crawl.

It was then down to the Play Rangers, where we had a great session but learned that after next week they won't be around our area any more. The original intention had been to make our park a 'Key' park with regular sessions held there but they have been given too many new parks to promote for the 'Key Parks' plan to work - there aren't enough Rangers to cover all the new parks and keep 'Key' ones. Next week is half-term and they will be outside running two sessions in the week rather than the one so it should be a good farewell and they do plan to hold some sessions over the summer too. I may look into the local youth club to replace this session - Sylvie has suddenly developed an interest in joining in group activities and I was told she may be able to sign up for their 5-9yrs junior club now rather than waiting for her birthday. It's held in the same building as the library so she will at least be familiar with that aspect.

While I was getting this information, Sylvie was trying her hand at rugby (or at least some mad running game with a rugby ball) with two boys and two adults. This is something she would never have done before Christmas. Even the Play Rangers commented on how she has 'Come out of her Shell'. The last growth spurt she had brought with it dramatic changes in how she relates to other, unfamiliar, children, no longer 'blanking' them if they want to play with her, and a willingness to take the plunge and join in much sooner than she used to.

I expect she will always be someone who needs to watch awhile before doing what others are engaged in - Sylvie is after all very much a visual learner - but she no longer seems to need to pluck up courage to get involved, she learns how the game is being played then starts playing instead of worrying about what could go wrong. It has made her seem suddenly very 5!

Had we put her in school, we would either not have seen this happen yet as she would have been forced to engage in group activities before she was ready, or everyone would have put it down to the influence of having to engage in group activities rather than an age-appropriate stage of development. I now have to look forward to the 'rigidity of thinking' stage which seems to characterise 5-7 year olds, where thinking seems to set into the idea that everything must be 'either/or' - black or white, no grey. I've a feeling that that may be a stage I will have trouble coping with!

When she got tired of Rugby and the foam bowling game that she also had a go at, Sylvie came to the craft table and tried to make a cat out of heart shapes. She wanted me to cut out her hearts for her but I wouldn't. She is perfectly capable of cutting out but she is frightened of 'going over the line' so always cuts leaving about an inch between her scissors and the line which then makes the shape less than perfect. I explained to her that if she didn't do it herself she would never learn how and it would look good only with practice. She wasn't happy but when she realised I meant it, created her cat without any more fuss. The hearts weren't terribly heart-shaped thanks to her need to leave so much excess around the cutting line, but it did look like a cat when finished.

On our way home, Sylvie discussed the moonlight. This interest was triggered by 'Media Studies', watching the werewolf episode of Dr. Who.

Daddy did 'Storytime' tonight - I was completely wiped out thanks to Davy's horrible sleeping habits and couldn't keep my eyes open, so I passed on my storytelling duties in favour of a nap. Sylvie chose to have the first chapter of 'Prince Caspian', no real surprise there! I will be interested to see if she sticks with this story as I have noticed a trend with her in that her favourite reading material always seems to be things she has seen on TV first - Horrid Henry, her longest literary love, was introduced via the cartoon on CITV - while things she has not been able to 'see' hold only tepid interest for her. I have a theory that she needs to watch a story on film in order to be able to properly visualise it when only hearing the words so Prince Caspian may be at a disadvantage - the same 4 children are in it, but the rest of the characters and the landscape are very different as is the style of the story. Time will tell I suppose!

5th - 10th Februrary - That was the Week that was!

It has been some time since I updated the blog - a whole week seems to have gone by without me checking in! There are reasons for this - Thursday and Friday Sylvie was very off-colour. No actual illness that could be pinned down, but definitely not right. She spent the whole of Thursday sitting on the sofa watching Dr.Who videos, very lethargic and off her food. The way she had seemed after waking from her improptu nap on Wednesdaqy evening apparently wasn't an artifact of sleeping in an uncomfortable position on the sofa and waking before she was ready but the start of a mild illness.

It was a real shame she was unwell then too, as we had some great snow and daddy had been told to stay at home by his boss thanks to the road conditions, so we had been all set for 'Fun in the snow with daddy' day. Sylvie just was not up to it though.

Friday she was still under the weather in the morning. To my amazement, she asked for milk with her cereal. Sylvie never has milk with her cereal, she doesn't like it, but apparently her throat was hurting her and she thought it might help. I gave her what she asked for, but as I expected she ate very little.

By lunchtime, she was a little perkier and actually wanted to go outside and build yet another snowman. I said we would go out once Davy was asleep so she went to play in her room after she had eaten while I settled him. It went very quiet though, and when I took Davy up to bed and looked in on her she had climbed into bed and gone to sleep. She didn't wake until after her daddy got home around 6pm - she had slept for at least 4 hours! It had obviously been what she needed as she was back to her usual joyous self when she came downstairs but again it was a shame she missed out on snow time.

The weekend we spent away at friends - daddy was 'troll-killing' (role-playing) and we had arranged to meet p with K and his family. However, road conditions meant that they couldn't make it (we had been close to deciding against the trip ourselves but things improved more than we had expected at our end and phonecalls to the friends established that things were ok on their estate). So, after Sylvie's 'Dance' class, which included putting her name down to take part in the show Finale and THEN finding out it meant buying an additional costume (Agghh - they are £30 each and we had already committed to two, one for her ballet dance and one for the tap dance! Anyone know where I can get the seeds to a money tree?) and popping into the butchers for our weekly meat where we bumped into my brother and his family we headed off South.

We stopped at the indoor play centre where we had met up with Sylvie's friends last month so the children could work off some energy through 'Physical Exercise'. The car park had the worst conditions we had seen on our journey, very icy and required care walking across it. Once inside, Sylvie was much more confident about going off on her own this time - not only was it now a familiar place to her but there were a LOT less children using it so the noise was at a much more acceptable level and it was easier to move about. Sylvie went down the big slide independantly, had a go on the climbing wall with help (she can get up, but not down!) and made friends with a little boy by helping him build a wall out of huge foam lego bricks.

Davy also enjoyed the play centre - I took him into the 0-4 bit where he grinned like a maniac at his reflection in a giant mirror, had a few goes on the slide, was surounded by toys that other children kept bringing him and practised his standing skills by hanging on to a small climbing net.

At our friends house, Sylvie occupied herself with the large collection of Dr. Who DVD's they own and charming people over dinner. The combination of the DVD's and the willingness of the hosts to indulge her made her pronounce that she wanted to come back there 'one day'. She even asked them if she could! Davy discovered ice cream for the first time and decided it was worth grabbing people's bowls to get at. I had forgotten to pack a book for 'Storytime' so I made one up at bedtime about a cat going off in a ship to seek it's fortune. It was a bit hit-and-miss, but she liked it (and so did Catty apparently!)

We headed off early, about half past eight, so Sylvie could attend a rehearsal for her 'Dance' show. We had said she would probably be a bit late and been told that was fine as some of the session was to be measuring up for costumes anyway. In fact, we made good time and missed a lot less than we thought we would. She came out bouncy, and with the costume bill.

Unfortunately, we were without daddy for the rest of the day as while waiting for her to finish 'Dance' he had suddenly realised his phone had been left behind at our friends house. Since it is a phone supplied by and needed for his job, he had to drive all the way back to retrieve it. I spent the afternoon trying out an idea I have had for making a little exra money (desperately needed if we are to keep Sylvie in 'Dance' outfits it seems!) and made up a couple of T-shirts to my own design. Sylvie helped me a little and then agreed to model them so I could see what they looked like on. She is very interested in this little business idea!

Daddy was home in time to do 'Storytime', though it had been touch-and-go due to an unexpected and heavy snowfall late afternoon that slowed his progress right down. We had expectations of more snow fun in the morning, but it rained and washed the new snow away.

Monday was an unusual day - we went round to my parents who took us in to the hospital to visit my sister who had unexpectedly been offered treatment for an ongoing condition (we had had a phonecall at dinner on Saturday to tell us about it). The journey there and back took in 'Observation Skills' as grandad told her to look out for certain snowmen the local populace had been busy making over the week, in particular three that had been lined up next to the bus stop to look like they were waiting for the bus!

My sister was doing remarkably well and even managed to carry Davy (a wriggly lump!) a little. Sylvie was pleased to see her Auntie and keen to show off her new t-shirt - I had designated my practice shirts hers as there were a couple of minor flaws that meant they were not saleable quality but perfectly ok to wear. It was admired and my sister had some excellent suggestions of her own for designs I could use.

Sylvie and her cousin got a little bored in the hospital room and my sister is being encouraged to use the stairs so we all trudged down to the waiting room where the adults had hot chocolate and the children played with the toys. Sylvie found a 'Happyland' hospital and played with that all the time we were there. Davy sat beautifully at the 'beads on wire' activity table - I wished I had had my camera to take a piccy! - before trying to eat it and also had a good chew at a Noah's Ark.

On the way back, we stopped at Aldi so my mum could do a spot of shopping and I went in too for some veg. They had some children's activity books for sale, and I picked up a phonics workbook for Sylvie as it looked useful, with activities that require the child to pick out the individual sounds in whole words, something I know she has trouble with. She was excited to get it, not least because it had gold stickers for completion of each activity - nothing like the prospect of something shiny to capture interest!

She didn't look at the workbook immediately though as her older cousin came home and they played together. He spotted it eventually though and wanted to look at it. Sylvie didn't want him to as he tends to behave in a superior manner when it comes to academics as he is well ahead of her in this area and, being 6, is somewhat scathing if she can't do something he finds 'easy'. In the end, he promised to be nice about the book and Sylvie agreed to let him look. He was beautifully behaved and interested and after he left with his family, Sylvie did the first page of 'Pre-Reading Skills' - drawing a circle around the pictures of things that began with a set letter.

She needed quite a bit of support to do this. Some letters she was very clear on, but some, like n and h, she found very hard to distinguish between. The best way of presenting it to her was to give her the letter sound to listen for, then say the name of each picture one after the other before letting er pick, rather than saying them one at a time and asking her 'does it or doesn't it start with...'. She spotted the differences between the list of words much more easily than the similarities between the single word and the letter sound.

Tuesday I was somewhat neglectful of Sylvie. She spent most of the day watching TV or playing in her room while I took the plunge and made up some t-shirts to sell. It took most of the day and Sylvie was eager to help but there was not much for her to do. Her lack of involvement with me really showed that evening when her daddy came home and she clung to him like a limpet - we have noticed before if I have spent less time with her than she needs during the day she gets very demanding of her daddy in the evening instead. It happened a number of times when Davy has had a night of constant waking, leaving me too exhausted to do much during the day. I made a promise to do more with her on Wednesday!

Oh, and we have had a rethink about Sylvie's bedtime. She has lately started to go to bed late and get up late which has caused a few problems with getting her up in the morning for things like 'Dance' and it eats into mine and her daddy's evening as we wait for her to go to bed before entertaining ourselves with our own things. So over this week, we have trialled a new bedtime idea - Sylvie can still go to bed when she wants but unless she asks to go up earlier we will take her up for 'Personal Hygiene' and 'Storytime' around 8.15/8.30. She can still play in her room after this (as always) but if she has something on in the morning we will wake her for it in good time rather than letting her sleep until she wakes.

I don't really like waking her before she is ready as it makes her queasy (it seems to affect her stomach and the couple of times she has been car sick have occurred on mornings where she has had to be woken) but we want her to regulate her own sleeping patterns and that means accepting the consequences for staying up late on evenings when she knows she has an early start the next morning. We have (mainly!) stuck to it and it seems to have worked out quite well so far.

4th February - An energetic day!

We woke up to find it had snowed again in the night and melted patches now had a light sprinkling covering them again. Once again, Sylvie wanted to go out and play in it after breakfast. (As an aside, breakfast was chocolate cereal and chocolate cake, since she missed out on eating her cake last night because she fell asleep.)

She watched a little of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe again, but disappeared part way through to do something upstairs. Then she got ready to go out. She had slept in her clothes because I hadn't woken her so she was fully dressed when she got up. She decided she wanted to wear her newly made Cyberman T-shirt 'all day' though, so she took off her top and replaced it with the T-shirt then put her cardigan back on - inside out.

By the time she did get outside at about 11, the sun was shining and she asked if it was warm enough to go out without a coat. I told her it wasn't, so she bundled up and headed out to check on her snowmen and throw snowballs at the conservatory again.

When she came in, she asked for a cooked lunch. We usually have sandwiches, but since she asked I made her chips and mini kievs. It was partly responsible for us leaving for the library later than usual as I hadn't allowed cooking time when I suggested lunch! The other reason we were late was that I tried to check our library accounts online before leaving only to find the system was down. In the end, we only had time to pop up, check in a pile of books and the 'Dinosaur' DVD and take out a couple of books Sylvie randomly selected (her current favourite method of chooing library books - grab the first one you come across because it's fine as long as it's a book, it seems.) before heading down the the Hall where the Play rangers were. They thanked us again for their copy of our 'Project' when we got there.

A lively game of football was going on and Sylvie joined in enthusiastically. I was impressed with the way my usually shy child dived in with the 'Team Sport' and took to something new so easily. It helped that she was familiar with some of the people playing but she wasn't phased when unfamiliar children joined in too. She was one girl playing with 2 adults and 3 boys (2 of whom were considerably older) so she was at a slight disadvantage but the other players considerately ensured she got the ball occasionally and she even picked up a little lingo, shouting "I'm on it!" while chasing the ball. Sylvie did however attempt to even up the odds in her favour when she got the ball by picking it up, running behind the goal to nip out the other side and post the ball into the net while the goalie was wondering where she was going. It seems her talent for 'Cheating' doesn't lie soley with card or board games!

When she was tired of football, she went over to the craft table and made a chain of brightly-coloured cotton reels (shop-bought. When I was young I just had to ask my mum for some out of her sewing tin! Now few people sew. Times change.) and ring pulls off cans. They all fell on the floor a couple of times thanks to ineficient knot-tying (mine!) but she persevered and collected them all up to start again.

After this she decided she wanted to make a 'shaker'. She was very specific about the materials she wanted and we came home with 3 short, thin cardboard tubes sellotaped together filled with heaven-knows-what.

Sylvie had a 'Maths' moment as we were packing away at the end. I can't recall exactly why, but as part of a conversation with a Play Ranger she announced that she could count to 13. I pointed out that actually these days she gets to 15 consistently so she started to count. she got to 14 then started at 1 again without stopping. When I asked what happened to 15 she said she had got muddled that time through so had decided to start again. This time she got to 15 and followed it with her favourite made-up number, 'eleventeen.' I asked her what comes after 5, which was enough of a cue for her to count '16, 17, 18, 19, 20' without stopping. After 20, Sylvie said she didn't know what came next, so I asked her what came after a zero. She said 'one' and I told her that if 20 is a 2 and a zero, the next number is 2 and a 1, twenty one. She then surprised me by counting from 21 to 27 easily and quickly. I always knew she 'got' the pattern once past the teens but this was the first time I have ever heard her rote count that far.

At home, we tried to get a little tidying done before daddy got back. I wanted rid of the box his Christmas 'robo-bank' was in so I gave it to daddy to put on his computer desk and keep his loose change in. Sylvie was fascinated with it, watching him while he sorted out the setting and deposited some coppers in it.

While I made the dinner, the long day caught up with her and she fell asleep on the sofa. She woke as I was dishing it up and she didn't seem quite herself. She didn't touch her food (not much of a surprise, there was gravy involved!) but also seemed to be suffering from a stomach ache. Eventually after sitting for ages, she asked to go to bed. I hope she isn't coming down with something!

3rd February - Another snowman

The day began with Dr. Who over breakfast. Sylvie was keen to rewatch the episode we had taped last night. After 'Media Studies' she wanted to get her playdough out and spent some time making stars and butterflies.

It was the first time I had let her get out more than one colour at a time, but she asked for them and I didn't say anything, just opened the lids and prepared myself for a lot of brown to put away. As it turned out, she was very careful with it, only balancing the different colours on each other rather than pressing them down and then carefully separating them to put them in their correct pots when she decided she wanted to pack away. Without any comment from me on either count. Progress on the 'Home economics - Tidying' front!

She then asked for her playdough hairdressing set out and wanted to give the plastic doll 'pink, brown and yellow sriped hair' like the picture on the front of the box. I explained that it was up to her, but that once the three colours were mashed together we wouldn't be able to seperate them again. She said she was only planning to use a bit, and in fact initially tried to use so little there wasn't enough to extrude through the plastic scalp. She again tidied up nicely with only a small reminder to put the lids back on the tubs, and swept up the playdough bits that had missed the plastic mat she uses for this.

She was desperate then to go out and see her snowman. One of the first things she had asked in the morning was whether he was still there and she wanted to reaquaint herself. I asked her to wait until after lunch as she had been saying she was hungry and I didn't want to call her in in the middle of something to eat. She asked for cheese on toast and went to her room to play while it cooked. She rewatched Dr. Who while eating it. We had a slight 'Debate' over the advisibility of leaving a video playing downstairs while doing things in the bedroom upstairs - I thought it should be turned off, Sylvie felt there was merit in leaving it on to come back to. I don't believe this will be the last of this debate!

She was a little later getting out than I had intended thanks to a lttle boy who thinks sleep is the enemy refusing to stay asleep once put in bed and having to persuade her that a pair of knickers, a cardigan and some gloves was not a suitable outfit for snowplay. Once her 'Fashion' lesson was over and she had put on some trousers, some socks and a long-sleeved top as well, I helped her get her plastic bags on over her gloves and she went out by herself again into the snow.

It hadn't snowed at all today and the sun had been shining (I had even contemplated putting washing on the line but decided it was too cold to actually dry anything). Consequently, when Sylvie excitedly asked if she could make another snowman I said she could try but I wasn't sure if the snow would be any good. After asking if she remembered how to make one and being assured she did, I left her to it to feed Davy. When I checked on her 'Ancient Customs' progress, rather than the misshapen lump I was expecting to see, she had managed to roll two reasonably good-sized snowballs and stuck them together. It actually looked quite good! She was in the middle of reinforcing it's neck when I saw it and I had to take some pictures!

It was a good thing I did get these pictures because when she tried to put facial features on her snowman (a potato nose which Sylvie was delighted with and a couple of pieces of frozen brocolli I have been meaning to throw out for months and were greeted with less enthusiasm - "But they're frozen!" "So's your snowman!") the poor quality of the melting snow finally showed through and the head split and fell off. I spotted her trying to fix it and nipped out to help. In the end it did look like a misshapen lump but I was very proud of her efforts in 'Construction'!

After throwing a few snowballs at the conservatory and yesterday's snowman (who also needed his face repaired after the sunny morning) she came in and asked me for the laptop so she could play her Reader Rabbit games.

She spent some time playing her harmonica, but gave up once Davy started joining in! He was screeching away in time to the 'music', stopping when Sylvie stopped. She was not fond of this and gave up until he was asleep saying he was too noisy for her to hear her music properly! (I have heard a similar comment from my husband when he has been trying to play his saxaphone and been joined by Sylvie on the recorder!)

Just before daddy got home, I got my ironing board out for the first time in years! Sylvie had got a cyberman 'C' iron-on transfer in her last issue of Dr. Who Adventures - the free gifts were more generous than usual (and they are usually pretty good!) because it was the 100th edition of the magazine. I thought we ought to use it before it got lost or damaged. Sylvie had a plain white T-shirt given to her in the goodie bag she got when accepting her 1000th Play Ranger attendee award from the mayor before Christmas, so we found the T-shirt and used the transfer on it. I ironed it on, Sylvie peeled off the backing paper. It came out quite well!

When daddy came home we were discussing whether to go out for Chinese or not. Sylvie, who was pro-going to get Chinese, suddenly piped up "Daddy, please! You need the exercise!" After being tickled into submission with daddy laughing and telling her he wasn't going now she had said that, she excused herself; "But it did make you laugh! It was just a joke!"

In the end, Sylvie and I wrapped up warm and walked to the Chinese takeaway while Daddy stayed at home with Davy. Sylvie had wanted daddy to go but had to settle for me. We had a nice walk - the snow on the paths wasn't as slippy as I was expecting and it had a pretty glow in the light from the street lamps. We had a nice chat to another customer while we waited for our food then talked about Sunday trading laws and early closing on the way home (Sylvie wanted to know why the Chinese was shut on a Wednesday and I ended up talking about how it used to be a legal requirement for shops to shut at certain times in the week.).

At dinner Sylvie had her first taste of Sweet and Sour chicken balls. She had a little rice to go with it, but didn't eat it as the chicken balls filled her up. Then she got a little hyper demanding I make cakes. I had promised her that whatever happened we would make cakes today. She has been asking for weeks but I have been putting it off as last time we made them Davy woke up at a crucial point and refused to sit and watch us, screaming to be picked up instead. I didn't want to experience that again! Since Davy had refused to sleep all day, I had told her we would do it after dinner when daddy could watch him.

After licking the bowl, Sylvie said she was going to go upstairs for "a bit of a lie-down" until they were cooked. It came as no surprise to find her fast asleep on top of the covers when I went to tell her they were ready to eat. I lifted her legs to get the duvet from under her and since she didn't stir I covered her over and left her to sleep. The cakes will wait until tomorrow!

Davy had a busy day today too - I finally allowed him to do what he has been after for weeks and sat him at the computer to let him play with the keyboard. He actually managed to hit some letter keys and do a little 'typing' in a word document, but mainly he bashed away at the alt keys and space bar. He was not happy when I took him away before he beat the keyboard to death! Later, when we made cakes he sat in his highchair by daddy and had to be moved over a little so he couldn't keep grabbing at the laptop.

I also showed him Sylvie's old shape-sorter for the first time. He found the shapes very chewable! To my surprise, he actually managed to put the circle in the sorter. It looked quite deliberate as he did it straight after watching me do it and he seemed to be trying to copy me, banging the shape over the hole. I'm not ruling out total fluke though!

28th January - Park Project FINALLY Finished!

Today started out with a fairly lesiurely morning, starting with 'Media Studies' - another watching of the BBC version of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe followed by 'Information Technology' as Sylvie rediscovered the CBeebies website - it has been a while since she used it.



I also received a phonecall about the 'Birdwatching' course. Appologies were made for not being able to reach us to say it was cancelled yesterday and it was explained that while they hoped to run it at some point soon they were postponing it indefinitely as they still only had us and one other family interested in it. I offered to pick up some posters tomorrow to drop into the library in an effort to increase publicity - I do find they don't do a great job of getting information out about these things. I had read about the course in a book on Community learning I had happened to pick up before Christmas, but the Early Years Centre didn't put out leaflets until the week before it started and as far as I could see only in their own building. They jumped at the offer, so we will be collecting them tomorrow after the Breast-feeding cafe.



At about 12pm though, I suddenly remembered I had intended to finish printing off the park 'Project' so we could give a copy to the Play Rangers this afternoon, so while Sylvie had lunch I rushed to get it finished. It took longer than I had hoped so we didn't get to the library for our usual time but arrived an hour later at 3pm. Sylvie remembered to take her money so she could hire a DVD and settled on a Disney film called 'Dinosaur'. While I helped her find the right money, her ticket, etc. Davy made friends with a little boy by repeatedly grinning at him like a maniac until the lad patted him on the head.



The Play Rangers had brought a laptop and some digital cameras with them for the children to make a 'film'. Sylvie and the two boys who were also there ran around taking pictures of anything and everything which were then put on the laptop and turned into a montage while the children played skittles and football. They burned a CD of the 'film' for each of the children to take home. Sylvie also did a drawing which was quite interesting. It was a picture of her and Catty at the beach, but she claimed it was called 'Black beach' because the sand was black.



We handed over the 'Project' to the Rangers, which turned out to be a spot of 'Community Service.' They were impressed enough with it that they decided to take it with them to a meeting to show off the success of their playground regeneration programme. Now we just have to get round to taking a copy to the mayor as we promised we would!

27th January - Birdwatching!

Today was a little hectic - I had planned to go into town early so that Sylvie could get her magazine as she hadn't had the opportunity at the weekend and I could make a few purchases before going out to start our Birdwatching for Families course. However, we were late starting, partly because I got caught up in doing a spot of purchasing on e-bay (Davy needs the next size up in clothes and nappy wraps already!) and partly because Sylvie was watching the 'Narnia' video we had borrowed from my mum's. Her daddy had put it on for her at Sylvie's request when she got up this morning, and she seemed to be enjoying it a lot.

I caught some of it and was impressed with how well it stood up next to the new film. It followed the original plot of the book much more closely and had all the magic that I felt was missing from the film (not just atmospherically but literally - in the film the witch only seems to have one spell, the ability to turn things into stone with her wand, but in the BBC production you get a much better demonstration of her magical powers). Sylvie must have been impressed too because she asked if we could see the others - she had heard me discussing with my brother yesterday which of the other books in the series had been made into TV productions and was keen to see them herself. Well aware that the video belonged to granny (though I'm sure granny wouldn't be too upset if we kept it!) she asked if we could buy our own copy. I checked e-bay and found there were a number of sets of all 4 of the BBC TV productions for sale some of which were pretty cheap, so since granny doesn't own the others I put a bid in for one.

After a quick lunch, we headed into town where I gave Sylvie her pocket money and she bought her Dr. Who magazine. I didn't get all of what I wanted but I did get a few art supplies for Both myself and Sylvie. I took her into the art shop to see if I could pick up some rub-on transfers but they didn't have any I particularly liked. Sylvie was fascinated by them though, (especially the way they come supplied with their own lolly sticks!) so I bought her a set of her choosing to try out for herself.

We missed the bus I had intended to get and had to get the next one, meaning we arrived home at the time we should have been arriving at the Early Years Centre for the Birdwatching course. I had toyed with the idea of getting off the bus at the stop close to the Centre, but since I had a couple of bags of shopping, wanted to use the pushchair for Davy rather than the sling I had for the trip to town and had promised Sylvie she could take her new binoculars-camera to watch the birds with I decided against it. Both the pushchair and the binoculars were at home and I wanted to off-load the shopping so we went in the house and straight out again.

We got there about 15 mins late, to find that the course had been postponed again. They had tried to get hold of us to let us know but us being out yesterday and this morning had meant they couldn't reach us. The person running the course had had an accident, and there were still only two families signed up for it so it was going to be rescheduled for later in the spring. Sylvie was very disappointed, so I suggested we did a spot of 'Birdwatching' on our own and try out her binoculars on the ducks and swans at the pond in the park. This went down well, so after getting a drink of squash - needed after our mad dash to get there! - which we drank while reading a book and changing Davy, we went down to the pond. We took in a little 'Childcare' on the way as Sylvie wanted to push the pushchair. She had a little trouble steering as she still isn't quite tall enough to see over the top of it.

Both Sylvie and I took pictures with her binoculars. I tried to help her use them as she has a habit of pointing them at the ground and complaining that she can only see grass! I told her to look at what she wanted to see, then bring the binoculars up to her eyes rather than her eyes down to the binoculars. She didn't quite get the hang of it but understood enough of what I was saying to finally see the ducks!

It started to get dark and drizzly so we went home with Davy asleep in the pushchair. We left him in it rather than disturb him - I had flashbacks to Sylvie as a baby, I used to do the same with her after a walk - and Sylvie and I tried to tidy a little before daddy got home.