Had a very, very productive morning this morning. Lots of cuddles on the sofa and watching early morning (up before 7 – urgh!) TV together and chatting about it as we did so and then they were tasked with giving me an hour to get some work done before we went out.
During my hour I got the fourth load of washing in the machine (I know 🙂 ) and hung all four loads out, got dinner cooking in the slow cooker (beef cooked with red wine, oxo cubes beef stock, chopped up onion, lots of garlic, stirred in gravy just before serving to thicken, served with small potatoes roasted in their skins, peas and sweetcorn – and no Sar, we really didn’t have ANY veg the other night 😉 :oops:), did TWO CVs and was continually interupted 🙄 We then had a standoff when I asked them to put the geomags away before we left the house. They had a 30 minute, 20 minute, 10 minute, 5 minute, 2 minute and well you’ve blown it we’re not going anywhere warning. I divided up the task between them to offer accountability and responsibility, encourage team work and offer the chance for individual failure and success (Sir Alan would have been proud 😉 ) and eventually gave up and yelled Very Loudly.
That did seem to do the trick though 🙄
So we were nearly half an hour late arriving at soft play but that was actually A Good Thing as Julie and Lucy had already both arrived, Rebecca had started playing with Maisie and Julie and Lucy had started talking. I’d be lying if I said that Maisie and Rebecca were not delighted to see Tarly and that Julie and Lucy looked slightly relieved to see me, but I think it was good bonding for them all and the six children all ran round together really happily while the three of us really chatted about all sorts of things rather than me trying to keep up two seperate conversations. So that was nice 🙂
We all had lunch there and then went back in for a further play / chat before Lucy headed off. I spied an opportunity for getting a child-free 15 minutes or so in the library by leaving my two under Julie’s beady eye but blew it by telling D&S what I was about to do infront of Jack and Maisie who imediately decided that they wanted to go to the library too, so we all ended up going.
As we walked in it just so happened to be the beginning of Storytime in the childrens area which sounds very similar to the one The Beans attend with crafts afterwards but none of the children were up for sitting down and listening having just left frantic soft play environment, so I had a quick peep round the fiction but it really is a huge library which needs proper planning by going in with a list and having an idea of whereabouts the books might be residing. Davies played on the computer which has this oversized alphabet keyboard and mouse set up which actually I don’t like (can’t see the point really) and Tarly sat looking at books – she loves books that child, wouldn’t be at all surprised if she just teaches herself to read by hearing books read to her once or twice and then working out what each word is from memory – she was doing it with a book we borrowed and Dad and I read to her once each and was pretty accurate with most of the words.
Davies and I sat on some of the cushions for a while and read a couple of Dr Seuss books and an excellent one called When Mum turned into a monster – which I heartily recommend for every mother and child I know actually 🙂 We borrowed that one! We left with a huge pile of books – I think all three of our tickets must be nearing their limit now.
Got back to the car and remembered that I needed to get some food shopping – the poor children were really tired by that point so we went to Sainsburys via my parents and I dropped them and a couple of library books off with my Dad while I nipped off on my own – I was adamant I’d get my childfree time in some capacity today 😉
When I got back Davies had discovered a pair of little Wallace and Gromit figures that my Mum had got him and was full of excitement about it so I told him the phone number for my Mum’s work and he dialled it and asked to speak to her – I was fairly shocked actually, he’s answered the phone a couple of times but never dialled a number and he didn’t falter over any of it – talking quite happily to the woman on the other end asking for my Mum and saying ‘Ok, thanks then, bye’ and hanging up when told she wasn’t there. She rang back about an hour later and came home. Ady joined us on his way home and we had a really nice couple of hours.
The children were exhausted and fell asleep really quickly, I’ve emailed my CVs across, we’ve had dinner and I’m looking forward to the countdown to the weekend. Tomorrow we’re off to see Ali & Freya and then it’s Friday Family Film Night with added KFC tomorrow night 🙂