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.

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!