A funny old day today.
Scarlett had her Rainbows Art Day. Previously she’s not been interested in any of the outside of normal time Rainbows events, particularly if I can’t go along with her but when the Art Day was mentioned a few weeks ago she was really keen. We established that it was all day (well 10am -3pm) and that I definitely couldn’t stay with her and she remained keen and has been really excited about it. Ady dropped her off, with a packed lunch and she happily ran off without a backwards glance. When Davies and I arrived to collect her she was looking tall, confident and very happy, full of all the things she’d made (they did painting, collage, line drawing and air drying clay sessions) and the new friends she’d made. It was the most schooly environment she’s ever been in and she had a great day.
If Tarly had been our first child we’d probably never have considered Home Education at all and I do think she’d have been fine at school actually. I think she’d have had to fit a mould a lot more than she does now and I think a lot of her energy and focus would have gone into being Scarlett At School rather than her varied passions and interests. This was quite a big step into independance for her really though and I’m so glad she made it, it was all she’d been hoping it would be and she was able to take it in her own time at her own pace when she was happy to do so.
Davies had an hour at home alone with Ady and then they came to the library. Davies read Ady a book and then Ady went off to work and Davies stayed at the library. It’s always been a back up plan that the kids could just be at the library while I was working for a brief time although I’ve thought it would be less workable if they were both there. Davies started off fine playing on the kids computer and reading a couple of books. He came to tea with me but then I stuck him on one of the pcs hooked up to the internet and as all he wanted to do was play games and we don’t have flash on them specifically to prevent people from coming in to play games he got upset. 🙁
It was mad busy in the library and I was on the enquiry desk with a steady flow of people wanting my attention for various things. He tried to hide his teariness but my boss spotted him and was concerned. Which was so not what I needed, as I was trying to play down his presence and assure her he was fine and independant and not likely to pose any problem in distracting me from my work. Poo 🙁 He did perk up and sat with his DS for the last hour.
When we finished at 1pm we had a brief wander round the charity shops, picked up a cake each (and one for Tarly) from the bakers and came home. We put some beef in red wine and stock in the slow cooker for dinner. Then I let Davies decide what we should do and he chose DSing so we played picpic together and then he showed me the Kung Fu Panda games and then it was time to collect Tarly.
We came home via the petrol station, the charity shop and the supermarket. Back at home they connected on the DSs and played with the geomags. I sat with a wheatbag on my tummy (bad stomach cramps 🙁 at least explains my increased grumpiness the last couple of days), drank lots of tea and knitted.
They had dinner followed by a bath. Ady came home and was treated to a showing of all of Tarly’s artwork. Davies asked her for her autograph so a long conversation about signatures ensued with practical demonstrations and reasons why you might have one. Then we had a couple of chapters of Humphrey before it was bedtime for them and bathtime for us. Boiler seems to be behaving today but the novelty of hot water coming out of hot taps won’t run out for a while yet.