Painting by numbers

The weather’s been lovely here again today, very windy but lovely and sunny just the same.

We had to go and transfer some money from one bank to another, which are at opposite ends of town and I’m still on a quest for sunsuits for both children too. Also Davies had some funny squidgy faces from a cheapo shop a while back and burst one (they seem to be made from thin rubber like balloons filled with some sort of powder – should try making them ourselves really) last night which upset him so I said we’d replace it.

So we drove into town and parked up really easily as it was really quiet today. On the way we listened to the OST of High School Musical which I’d borrowed from work. Davies listened to the first song with a thoughtful look on his face and then as soon as ‘Getcha head in the game’ came on said ‘Oh, this is from that film we watched – what was it called again?’ I told him and then he reminded me that it had the working title of Grease 3 which I’d told Ady having read it somewhere, so he wanted to know about Grease 2. I told him it was rubbish! 😆 We talked a bit about how they were similar stories – set in high schools, with lots of singing and dancing and the two central characters playing out some sort of doomed love story. I likened it to Romeo and Juliet (at which he nodded, but actually I’m not at all sure he had any idea who I was talking about!). We talked about how Danny was really cool but Sandy was not so cool and their friends were really different groups and how that was similar in HSM too. But Davies pointed out that in Grease Sandy changed herself to fit in with Danny and in HSM they didn’t change but made what they were cool for everyone. Which I’d never really realised before about Grease but actually that’s a shite message isn’t it – don’t be yourself, be like all the cool kids and fit in! I asked Davies which he thought was the best thing to do – try and fit in to be cool or be yourself and be so good at it that people thought you were cool just for being you. He said he’d think about it :lol:.

We went to the first bank, kept ourselves entertained by guessing which cashier number would be called next – similar activity to listening to the footballs scores read out on the radio and trying to guess how many goals – Nottingham Forest one, Wolverhampton Rovers…nil. We got Davies his replacement squidgy face things – he went up and paid for them himself, then off to the other bank. We had a look in Claires Accessories just because Scarlett and I love it in there and then had a wonder round various clothes shops, not buying of course 😉 before ending up in The Works. I got a painting by numbers kit each for Davies and I having been telling them about them the other day and some Disney princess posters and watercolours for Tarly. She also got one of those rainbow sponge paint things which are advertised by JML all the time for about a tenner for 59 pence! A random stranger came up to Davies and gave him a balloon which he’d obviously been given in a shop which nearly caused a fight as of course Scarlett wanted one too then but we managed to calm her down. She went off again though in Woolworths when I wouldn’t double back to look at something again even though I’d already seen it once and agreed that yes, she could have it for her birthday. So I was that mother walking briskly out of the shop with one child screaming behind me and the other trotting along with his balloon bobbing about and hitting people as he walked past them. She recovered pretty quickly when I picked her up and talked reasonably to her though and apologised and kissed me which given the crowd we’d attracted I was surprised didn’t warrant a round of applause. Actually she has been being tricky again lately and I’ve been putting it down to her being tired, which it is, but I possibly haven’t been dealing as well with her as I was a while back, getting pulled into the threatening punishments and shouting at her cycle rather than being rational and calm in response. However that was a tiny episode during a couple of hours being out and about and I was thinking how lovely it was to be able to walk round town and properly look at things without having to push pushchairs, worry about children running off or generally fretting about having them with me. Actually most of the time the children are pretty good company nowadays, they ask interesting questions which make me think, hold intelligent conversations and make me laugh. I’m aware that from September it won’t just be Davies who shouldn’t be with me during school hours, Scarlett will be obviously not in school too. Even though they are pretty little as soon as they open their mouths and speak they mark themselves out as ‘not in school today’. I think that’s what was bothering me at Fun Junction really, suddenly it is obvious that they are different, just by looking at them and anyone overhearing the conversations we have will realise that. I am proud of what we do but I don’t always want to be quite so visible, all the time.

We left there and popped into the CoOp on the way home to get some bits for dinner tonight. We came home and had a late lunch before embarking on the painting by numbers. Davies very quickly got bored of it, Scarlett enjoyed painting her poster and I did most of mine. I had told the children about painting by numbers kits when we were talking about ways of copying things exactly rather than your own interpretation or creativity. I recall doing kits as a child and whilst admiring the finished product as it was indeed a good replica always feeling rather unfulfilled by it as it required little or no real talent, imagination or creativity. Always made me want to muddle the colours up at least and make 1 orange rather than blue and 2 red instead of green just to see what would happen 😆 Davies retired from arty pursuits and went to play on his Xbox – today he was playing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and got to another new level so he was pleased with that. Tarly mostly made a mess with her rainbow painting sponges, but being rainbow coloured at least it was a pretty mess :lol:.

Ady came home, the children had tea and then went out to play in the garden, they came in requiring a bath and while they splashed around for a good half an hour or so Ady and I pulled all the cupboards out in the playroom and gathered a new pile of stuff ready to be listed on ebay. The children got out of the bath and came to join us on decision making on outgrown toys. Tarly is like me, she is quite happy to let stuff go particularly if in doing so there is a chance of acquiring new stuff in return – I love clearing half my wardrobe out, selling it on ebay and then feeling utterly justified in refilling it again afterwards. 😆 Davies is a bit more reticent about getting rid of things and would happily keep rattles and stacking cups claiming some sort of emotional attachment to them despite not having seen them in four years 😆 It probably doesn’t look very different to the casual observer (not that we have many people coming round to casually observe our playroom) but it is clearer, with space for this weeks car boot bargains to slot straight in to :lol:.

Children off to bed, late dinner for us and either The Queen or episode 2 of Prison Break which we watched the pilot of last night and got hooked on straight away. 🙂