All goes in…

Off to the cinema this morning for Spirited Away, another filmeducation showing. Last week’s was at a different Brighton cinema – slightly easier to get to, but more importantly with FREE parking. Oh and a half hour later start time too.

Last year I was very discerning with the filmeducation films I chose, striving for a balance of ones the children would have actively liked to have seen and some I thought would be ‘educational’ or otherwise worthy, with the cinematic experience being enough for D&S to buy into seeing them too. This year there were at least two films I would have really liked to have taken them to but couldn’t as they clashed with my working days this and last week so I was a bit more grabby choosing whatever was showing on the days we were free. Last week’s Earth was always a bit risky being a documentary rather than a story and indeed Scarlett was restless a little over half way in. However it was worth it as we have had endless imaginative play with the toy animals at home recreating some of the scenes, lot of watching of whatever other nature documentaries they have found while channel flicking back at home and various chats about food chains and hunting and migration.

So today was a film I simply chose as it was showing today. I should probably check myself a bit for grabbing something for nothing and paying the price really as parking was £7 😯 so with petrol too I’ve been kicking myself for not checking out train times in advance (would have been way cheaper and we could have spent a couple of hours in Brighton too rather than dashing back to the car park to avoid ticking into the next 15 minute charge – can you believe that’s how parking is charged, in 15 minute blocks!?). Anyway, it was just us and one big school party so we took our usual seats down the very front and settled in. I’d looked at Spirited Away online and noted it was a Japanese film and even said to someone (Julie I think) that I hoped it wouldn’t be a subtitled version. Never a truer word spoken though and sure enough that’s exactly what it was. Which is, you know, tricky with two non-reading children in a cinema really. 😆

Scarlett got fed up fairly quickly so curled up on my lap and chewed by bag strap (that child is so not ready to be parted from her dummy!) which was great because then Davies could snuggle up too and I gave occassional dialogue translations for them. The story was actually fairly complicated but told very well through the pictures without the dialogue (infact it could almost have done without dialogue and still been followed) and very beautifully animated with all of it handpainted apparently. It also had massive amounts of different culture type stuff in it with the movie being Japanese and the subtitles being American so that was interesting when something like ‘you’re a bit fresh’ came up for me to translate further into ‘cheeky’. What with the subtitles, the film being 2 hours (yes that’s two hours people, 120 full minutes of whispering translations with a child on my lap crammed into a cinema chair) and then the 7 quid carpark fare I was all prepared to consider the whole thing an official Fiasco. But both children utterly insisted they’d enjoyed the film and once home spent ages drawing scenes from it and talking about it, followed by Davies wanting to know more about oriental writing and me getting a book about China out and showing him that and then him writing his own version with translations underneath. 😯

They did lots of other drawing too actually. Scarlett drew her cat wand (an accesory from a hallowe’en dressing up outfit) very well and then assembled various things from her bedroom (a jewellry box, a teddy, some ornaments) and drew them. Still life has never been my scene at all and Davies works along similar lines to me, creating his own interpretation of something rather than copying from a picture but that is clearly her thing and she did a fine job of it. She’s also, presumably from watching Davies, got the idea of colouring a whole sheet of paper with backgrounds and horizons too. I guess this could also be from not having seen many other children’s art work, unlike most children her age, so quite literally drawing what she genuinely sees such as sky all the way down to the ground or whatever else is rising up to meet it etc instead of the blue stripe at the top of a page. I’m sure the constant landscape of the beach has probably helped both children with that concept with sea meeting sky being something they see almost daily. Davies made a book which he did the illustrations for and dictated the words to me. It was pretty basic (Davies the dinosaur is a triceratops (pic of one), Mummy dinosaur is a stegasaurus (pic of one), Daddy dinsosaur is a Tyrannasaurus Rex (pic of one), Scarlett dinosaur is a diplodocus (pic of one). One day Harvey the volcano erupted with lava and Mummy dinosaur, Daddy dinosaur, Scarlett dinosaur and Davies dinosaur ran away. Then Harvey stopped and they all lived happily ever after, the end.) story -wise but the illustrations were excellent, totally recognisable as what sort of dinosaur they were and again with full backgrounds. He also did a couple of Doctor Who pictures and then cut out and coloured a pumpkin for Hallowe’en.

I cooked them some tea which they sat and ate while watching The Sarah Jane Adventures then it was time for Davies to go to Beavers. We’d been talking about it all afternoon and he was telling Scarlett how much he thinks she’ll like Rainbows when she goes because he sees some of the crafty stuff they do at Rainbows displayed in the church hall and ‘it’s all the sort of stuff you like Scarlett, like rainbows and unicorns and cutting and sticking’. :). Ady arrived home just in time to walk him round so he headed off only to reappear with him again ten minutes later.

I didn’t totally get to the bottom of what had happened but there had been some debacle with the keys to get in and they had all been waiting outside for ages. Ady had been on his phone rather than talking to Davies and when they finally got in the hall Davies had wanted Ady to stay with him. He’d then decided he didn’t want to go in at all and started to get upset so they came home. I talked to him about it and all I could really get from him is that one of the boys there is horrible to everyone and pushes them about (which he does, I blogged about him before when I went with them to the park) and he’d seen him there and decided he didn’t want to be pushed around by him so would rather not go. He confirmed that he does it to everyone and it’s certainly not specific to Davies but he’d just decided he didn’t want that tonight. I’m a bit torn really – I respect the fact he has decided there is behaviour being demonstrated that he doesn’t enjoy and he knows he doesn’t have to be there so has chosen not to be but I am slightly disappointed that he’d rather walk away than deal with it (not in Davies, just generally that there are so many boys getting pushed around by this one child and none of them have dealt with it – and even more disappointed that the adults are allowing it to carry on really.). We chatted a bit about it and I said I’d ring the leader and speak to her about it tomorrow. It’s tricky really, I know there is an issue with this one child and I am aware they have tried to tackle it but it all seems very ineffectual. I don’t think that particular Beaver group is well run at all and this is merely one in a series of examples of it’s failings but I do think Davies does get a lot out of that hour a week in a totally different environment to any other he’s exposed to, where he does have to be independant and someone not defined by the rest of his family like the rest of his time is. Also I think he gets lots out of it generally and often comes home having learnt something new or made something he’s proud of. We did use the opportunity to talk about telling me if he is unhappy about something, however tricky, and how I promise I will take action on what he tells me and help him sort it out. We agreed together that the best course of action is for me to contact the Beaver leader (impossible to talk to her there) but I’m not quite sure yet precisely how I’m going to tackle that conversation… He’s fine anyway, got changed and watched Doctor Who before having a long bath and heading up to bed quite happily. I do wonder if all other things being equal he wouldn’t have just gone in as normal without a backward glance to be honest, I think maybe sending Ady round with him coupled with all the hanging about was enough to let him fester on some small residue of the little boy who didn’t like being left for so long.

Meanwhile Scarlett and I had planned some pampering! She saw me in the bath with a facepack the other day and then discovered my facial sauna in the bathroom cupboard and has been mithering me for a go with it all ever since. I’d decided that a night when Davies isn’t around was probably best so we’d already got hairbands on and faces being steamed by the time they came back from Beavers. We slathered on hot mud face packs and then got in the bath and had scrubs, rubs, soaks and soaps followed by washing off the facepacks, intensive hair conditioning and a good long relax in the bath. Then out for powdering, moisturising and hair brushing and moussing. 😆 Davies was not remotely interested otherwise he would have been welcome to join in but Scarlett was in her element. She’s such a funny mix of a child who gets mud and grass stains all over the knees of her jeans leaping off high things in the garden but wants mud face packs and flowery scented powders too – definitely in touch with every single one of her sides that girl! 😆 She also enjoyed singing We Will Rock You in the bath (mud on your face, big disgrace :lol:) too.

And I think that is about all I can be bothered to type / remember about today. Constantly surprised as always by my offspring on so many levels really. Looking forward to another day with them and further surprises tomorrow :).