Geese are all lardy in our house…

As in Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat (although actually that could be less in relation to the goose putting on extra pounds itself and more that the Christmas shopping list has been shared out between all the creatures and they are all off out making purchases –
Christmas is coming,
the goose is getting fat,
the oxens getting sprouts
and the stuffings down to the cat,
Christmas is coming,
everyone is coming here to stay,
best get on the internet
and buy all the pressies from ebay,
Christmas is coming,
do we really need nuts and dates,
no one ever eats them,
or that turkish delight everyone hates,
Christmas is coming
the lamb can get the crackers
the pig can bring the cranberry
the turkey? well he’s knackered
Christmas is coming
wrapping paper from the dog
partridge will bring peas and carrots
the donkey’s got pudding and yule log

etc.)

Ady worked from home this morning which was excellent as it meant I got to take Tarly to TT without dragging Davies along. And it was my last ever one with her too. Next week we’re away and then the following week is the last one and they’re doing some sort of Christmas party – we are not around that day anyway but my parents are babysitting so migt be persuaded to take the children along to that. Then when they return next year she goes into the next class up and goes in on her own. I only realised all this on the way home so didn’t manage to infuse this end of an era with the correct gravity while it was happening, but never mind.

I then dropped Tarly home and set off to The Wizard store to get some bits such as wrapping paper and a few cheapo pressies for the kids to bulk out what they’ve got. Then came home so Ady could go off to work. He’d taken the opportunity of being home to light a fire which I then had to try and keep burning all day (I failed!) and having dug all the Christmas cds out (and believe me we have *loads*) weeks ago he decided today was the day to start playing them. I’ve heard Mel & Kim sing Rockin’ around the Christmas tree enough times to last me this festive season already and it’s not actually December yet. On the plus side we do have the Pop Idol Christmas cd from series 2 which is actually very nice so that’s got a bit of airplay. In the Wizard Store I heard Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses which always tells me that a) It’s nearly Christmas b) there is still a huge gap in the market for decent Christmas songs and c) I will be struggling to get the lyrics out of my head for weeks to come – infact until about Febrary!

Boyflu continues here for Davies, Ady’s Manflu seems to be slowing abating , I can’t decide whether Tarly’s had it, is having it or is about to have it and I have the most unbelievably stiff neck and shoulders which I think might be the beginning of something horrid 🙁 I woke Ady at about 5.30am to get him to rub tiger balm on it cos I couldn’t move at all so we lay there holding hands and being all excited about Christmas like the parents on the Disneyland advert!

There was debate this afternoon as to whether we should venture into the town centre for glitter and card making supplies or to just go to Lancing. In the end we went into town and I got a few more bits for the children’s Christmas pressies in ELC at the same time, which financially and in the style of our new low key lifestyle is my Christmas shopping pretty much done :-). Came home and they were issued with a set of felt tip pens each (50 p from the Wizard store) to keep nicely as their very own. Showed them how to put the lid of a pen on it’s end to keep it safe and told them that keeping lids on and pens back in the packet is their responsibility. Clearly more for Davies’ benefit as Tarly was a) oblivious and b) doesn’t care anyway! Buy hey 🙂 So we went into Worthing and we have totally done with the pushchair if we can do town centre in full Christmas shopping mode. They were actually really well behaved and Davies even did the averting his eyes while I bought presents he clearly knew would be for him, bless 🙂 We had a funny conversation about Father Christmas on the way into town actually where he clarified what has always been our official line about us buying the presents for the children and then Father Christmas delivering them. He came as close as he ever has to asking a question which I am not intending to lie to answer by asking if anyone had ever seen him. I answered ‘no’ (true!) and he then asked how I gave him the presents then. I replied that I left them somewhere and he collected them, he asked where and I told him it was secret and I couldn’t tell him. He was cool with that and knowing Davies I reckon that’s as far as this years questionning will go. I fully expect him to tell me next year he knows its all tosh actually! 🙂 In ELC the woman serving me read my discount card and asked me what a Home Educator was, I explained I HE my own two children (one of which was standing next to me, the other was playing with some small boys on a Thomas brio table and announced to the world at large that they were all her new friends!) to which she sighed and said ‘I’d love to do that with my daughter – she’s so unhappy at school. How does it work?’ Bearing in mind I had instant audience of the other cashier, the customer she was serving and the three people behind me in the queue I did a hasty ‘there are 1000s of us doing it, you don’t need any training, it’s perfectly legal’ and ended up with checking she had internet access and told her to google for ‘Home Education’ and ‘Education Otherwise’. I came away feeling I could have done so much more but it was a real wrong time, wrong place type of situation. But at least she is a whole footstep nearer knowing there are choices.

Came home and they did some colouring in of Christmas cards before we headed off again for Davies’ Gymbobs. He’d already said he didn’t want to go and he so clearly didn’t. He really struggled to participate and as I peeped at him through the door I thought I probably should have skived off and not bothered actually as he probably got less than nothing out of it. We had a minor chat about it afterwards actually – he has struggled with the new class and doesn’t really have a friend in it – he really likes Andrew but he is not always there and he seems to be a real outsider in the group generally otherwise. He says that the little children (of which he is one actually as they only go into that group at 5) mess about and don’t listen to the grown ups (bit of a sin in his eyes!) so he keeps away from them and the older children sometimes bump into him. Which reminds me once again of why my little boy would not necessarily be ok in a playground even if he assumes the leader role in a group he is comfortable with. What I so celebrate about Davies is that he is Davies and he is quite happy to just be Davies, which let’s face it, many an adult struggles to be (I certainly was not Nic when I was 5, it took me at last another 10 years or so!), if people like him then great, if they don’t then he moves on and finds someone who does. My plan is to give it another term or so, which takes us to March I guess and see how Tarly has gotten on with her new group and whether Davies has any enthusiasm for it. If I start to feel that the year or so we’ve done has served it’s purpose then I will be quite content to call it a day really. Davies has various other possibilities to consider such as Badgers and Drama and Tarly is suddenly desperate to be a ballerina, which I have firm reservations about but similarly don’t want to quash so we’ll see. I don’t really think she has the personality for it regardless of talent and I’m somehow reluctant to groom my wild little fairy accordingly but if she hankers after a tutu and a bun then who am I to stand in her way (aslong as she understands the tutu cannot have mud and chocolate splashed on it and the bun needs to stay in and not be falling down into a tangle of dreadlocked blondeness!).

Davies continues to have an interest in the weather, or more specifically the process and skill of predicting the weather. It’s one of those tricky interests that I could overkill leap on and wither up or I could leave alone to do as he will with it, or I could attempt to tread carefully and foster it in a gentle manner. I think I might just read around it a bit around it and be the resident expert he can learn from in bitesize chunks chucked in as and when he sees fit to listen. A weather forecast at the end of the news can stop him at 20 paces though, and of course science and geography are being nicely ticked off as we go 🙂

And I think that’s about it. Tomorrow is soft play with Julie and the twins which is always a good day all round 🙂