Don we now our gay apparel

Davies and Scarlett have been really into playing with each other today. They have periods like this sometimes when they just enjoy each others company so much and play together all day, even when there are other children around. I’m sure school attending siblings are close too but I love the fact that not only would they actively choose each others’ company a lot of the time they are also having so many shared experiences and are genuinely best friends.

So this morning they played with some foam shapes in some very imaginative game about a monster fish – they were even talking about it later in the car and planning what was going to happen next. 🙂 I did some sorting out for NicCamps Spring Camp 2007 and wrote out address labels for my ebay parcels.

Then we went off to MM. We were making decorations in preparation for next week’s Christmas party so I took some white paper, a compass and scissors and cut out circles to make paper snowflakes with. Allie had gone one better and printed off templates from an internet site so we had lots of snowflake options available. Kate had brought some ‘corn for popping’ (just like in Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!) which we spent time threading – Davies really enjoyed that, he decided he wanted to do it and went and sat with Kate really happily. 🙂 I love his confidence with other adults nowadays, it’s been hard won at times and still feels worthy of note. Tarly and I ripped up strips of paper and coloured them with crayons to make some paper chains too.

Davies went off to make chocolate crispie cakes with Sam – again, really nice to just observe him from a distance while I sat chatting and threading popcorn and Tarly sat beside me eating it. Interesting chats about the future of Home Ed, times of doubt about doing it and how we would love for our children to have the chance to learn things from people who are passionate and knowledgable about things they are interested in – like the very best teacher you had at school, the one who really inspired you and encouraged you.

Davies and Scarlett both disappeared for a bit and were to be spotted having a great time joining in games until it was time to spray the popcorn threads with gold and silver spray. Lots of spray on the popcorn, lots on children’s hands and enough solvent fumes to have us all happy and chilled ;).

We came home, I had some late lunch and wrapped my parcels while the children carried on their game with the introduction of geomags too. We drove to the post office because the weather was horrid again. We bumped into a neighbour in the queue so stood chatting to her for a while. All of the staff in the post office know us now – so the young girl who works there stood helping them choose some sweets while the older woman processed all my parcels and told me to get them to write to Santa and bring their letters into the post office. I imagine one day it will occur to them that the children are in there at all sorts of hours and are old enough to be in school, but for now they seem to love having them to visit. 🙂

Once home I left the children to get on with their game and went and did some trying on clothes ready for tomorrow. I realised that on some level I must have always known I was going to work in a library as I have almost embarassing amounts of clothes perfectly suited to such work. I have 12 skirts FFS! 😳 Wonder why I seem to wear mostly the same clothes actually now…. Sorted the kids’ tea out and Ady came home.

We’d been watching CBBC (or as Davies calls it ‘green cbeebies’ ) earlier so that got left on and they watched Raven, which Davies claims to love, some cartoon about dragons which I paid no attention to and then Blue Peter which I stopped and watched too. Partially in horror at the crap presenting but mostly for nostalgia when they made the ‘here’s one I made earlier’ stuff. 😆

Read them number 4 in their Christmas Carol advent calendar books, and then Scarlett’s traditional ‘3 stories’ in bed – wonder if that will go up to four from Wednesday? 🙂 I’ve been getting lots of cuddles from her today mindful of the fact that cuddles from 3 year olds are limited period only now.

Part of our ‘shopping list’ this weekend on our charity shop trawl was ‘Barbie stuff’ as Tarly is getting Barbie and accessories for Christmas. We only managed to find one item – a Barbie pushbike. Today though Ady popped into a charity shop next door to one of the stores he was visiting and found two massive bags of Barbie furniture marked at £4.99 each. He scrabbled round in his car and managed to gather together £7.00 so went in and offered them that – which after some heartstring tugging stories of his little girl (probably backed up with pictures from his mobile phone) they accepted. He was still not sure he’d got a bargain but when we opened up the bags and spread it all around he agreed it was £7 very well spent. 🙂

There is loads of stuff there including a couple of beds and wardrobes, a kitchen and washing machine, tables and chairs, a nursery including cot and highchair and some bookcases etc. So hurrah for some sort of CSC type intervention stepping in and paying off all our trawling with pretty much exactly what we were looking for on ebay yesterday and in charity shops today. 🙂

I’m actually feeling really quite nervous about tomorrow, glad it is just a half day and that Ady will be home with the children. It’s been just shy of seven years since I last had a real first day at a job and back then I rarely stayed anywhere for more than 12-18 months so first days were not that rare an occassion. But I’m a bit out of practise for remembering everyone’s names, modifying my behaviour and looking polished so although I’m sure it will all come back pretty soon, I’m feeling a bit rusty and apprehensive about it tonight.