Back from the Island!

Wow, it has been a long time since I last updated this blog! So many things have happened that I haven't written about, little things like funny comments Sylvie has made and big things, like her going on holiday with her granny and grandad.



Let's see if I can do a round-up!



I'll start with the last week.



Sylvie was on holiday on the Isle of Wight for 10 days, coming back last Sunday. Her Isle of Wight grandparents have been talking about having her visit on her own for a while, but it is a bit difficult to set up because of the distance and the (expensive!) ferry crossing. My parents decided to holiday on the island this year though, and offered to take her over with them. This means Sylvie has had a wonderful time wrapping two sets of grandparents round her little finger - my parents on the Friday and Saturday morning when they arrived and the following Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, and my parents in-law for the week in between. She also got to spend quite a bit of time with her cousins and saw other relatives while she was there. On her return, on being asked about it, Sylvie wasn't hugely forth-coming, but my mum had bought her a 'journal' activity pack which her granny filled in faithfully every evening for her complete with photos, so I actually have a pretty good idea what she did while away.



I was a little disappointed that Sylvie didn't take many photos - I sent her off with two cameras, one waterproof (good for the beach, caching, etc) and one with a flash (for indoor pictures) but she only took a handful of photos on the indoor camera and didn't even open the waterproof one. I suppose she was too busy enjoying every minute to stop and take any pictures. We have arranged to go back to the Isle of Wight for Davy's birthday, so we may find some opportunities for her to snap away then instead.



We didn't see her until Monday - we knew they were not going to get back until late on Sunday so we arranged for my parents to put Sylvie to bed at their house rather than ship her off on another car journey when she was shattered. We went round there in the morning and I spent the day trying to get information out of Sylvie about her holiday and discovering where all her stuff was - I had given in to the genetics inherited from my mother's side and sent Sylvie off on a week's holiday with enough clothes and toys to last a month or more!



Davy was very pleased to see his sister, his little face lit up and he clapped enthusiastically when he saw her, then reached out for a hug.



One thing I knew to ask Sylvie about was what she had got for her birthday from her Isle of Wight granny and grandad - it had seemed a bit daft to post a large parcel to us when Sylvie was going to visit them in a couple of weeks, so we had arranged that they would keep her gift for the visit. Sylvie happily informed me that she had got clothes and a 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' game and activity pack. We played the game together with her cousins, which was an interesting experience - Sylvie has vowed not to cheat at games any more as this was the only way she could get the ban lifted that we had imposed on board games after her rabid cheating got too much for us to enjoy playing with her, but her elder cousin had made no such promise and cheated without compunction leading to a few altercations as Sylvie felt if she was under oath not to cheat he should be too. Throw into the mix her younger cousin who is a bit young to play properly and a little brother who needed to be fielded constantly as he excitedly tried to join in and eat the counters and it was quite a fraught game! Luckily, it was short!



My mum told me afterwards that they had played the game with Sylvie on the Saturday, and Sylvie had declared that the game was 'a bit young for me.' My mum told her that it was therefore a game she would be able to play with Davy quite soon which made her happy. It is quite a simple game, but it is fun to play so it's lack of challenge isn't really a drawback.

My mum also told me Sylvie had asked my dad a question along the lines of 'Where did everything come from, because there must have been nothing there to start with' (my mum couldn't remember the exact wording, but this was the gist). Her grandparents thought it was quite a profound question for a newly 5 year old. I was more amazed that she was actually asking any questions at all! She hasn't 'let me in' on her thoughts for months.



We had a good day, spending a lot of it outside in the lovely weather and enjoying a barbeque for lunch. In the afternoon, Sylvie and her cousin drew pictures. With both of them having just returned from a holiday, the topic was uppermost in their minds and they both did 'Art' on the holiday theme. Her cousin started out doing a very good picture of a car and caravan on a camp site with an excellent drawing of his bike, but he stopped that when he saw Sylvie was doing a beach scene to do the same (which caused a bit of a fight over the yellow pen).



I was impressed with Sylvie's beach too - she coloured in an area yellow and drew a stick figure and a sand castle on it. While she did this, she started talking about how the sand is a different colour in the areas where the sea makes it wet, that it is darker, more brown than yellow. She put a brown area in to represent this, and in between she coloured in a green band which she told me was 'the grassy stuff the sea washes up' - the seaweed line on the beach. She added blue for the sea. The level of observation that showed amazed me - it would not have occured to me to add those details into a beach scene even now, let alone at 5.



After 'Art', things went a bit downhill as both Sylvie and her cousin were showing the effects of a tiring Weekend and they started fighting. Daddy arrived before things got too out of control and after loading up the car with all her stuff we took Sylvie home to a surprise - while she was away we had re-arranged the living room into a completely different layout.



The driving force behind this was that at Christmas we had looked at wall-mounted DVD holders in IKEA and had planned to get one with our Christmas money until the car required something expensive done to it. I decided that I would use some of my birthday money to get the holder as our DVD's were stacked in precarious piles that weren't good for them or us, and Davy had started eyeing them pointedly. They didn't have the one we had looked at a Christmas, so we spent rather longer at IKEA than we had intended and came home with a rather more expensive (but nicer!) one plus a couple of other things we hadn't intended to get, including a wooden chair that has something that is probably a squirrel but could be a cat on the back. This was purchased as we thought it would be a good replacement for the plastic one at my parents that the children use but which doesn't look like it will last much longer. We had taken it round while they were away and Sylvie had been the first to spot it. It was a big hit with her and her cousin and even my dad liked it - he's not a huge fan of IKEA furniture, but this little chair is very solid and well put together (far better than the plastic one we looked at first for the same price!)



Anyway, in order to get the new DVD storage into the house, we heeded to move some things, the new position of which meant other things needed to move too. The new layout is actually far better as it gives the children more room to play without blocking the route through to the kitchen, the coffee table isn't nearly as encroaching on the space and I don't have to draw the curtains to keep the light off the TV in the mornings any more. The downside is that the one radiator in the room is now behind the sofa.



Sylvie was pleased with the new layout, but less impressed with Davy's new-found interest in her teepee. He hasn't been inside yet, but he does like pushing the door open and dumping toys inside/taking items out, which isn't good as Sylvie keeps a lot of her small toys Davy shouldn't have in there.



She was a very tired little girl and was quite difficult in the evening thanks to this. She also showed the signs of being under different influences for a week by trying to get out of eating her dinner ("I ate everything at granny's, except the things I didn't like.") She was late going to bed which wasn't the best thing for her behaviour (she got very hyper and weepy) and nearly lost her bedtime story. She came home halfway through the 4th Dr. Who book - I am going to have to re-read these myself to fill in the chapters I haven't read yet. They have turned out to be pretty good stories considering, and I want to know what happened!