First thing this morning we gathered up all the library owned items in the house. A recent tidy up in the lounge has freed up a corner beside the tv which we’ve now allocated to library stuff to keep it all together. I had several things to go back, we collected up all the watched dvds and all the children’s books and I got Davies and Scarlett to choose two each.
Davies chose George saves the world by lunchtime a fab book all about reduce, reuse, recycle, repair type environmental stuff and Guess who’s coming to dinner? which is one of those books where the pictures tell the story that the words are skimming over. Scarlett chose Cold Paws warm heart which is a cute little tale about friendship and loneliness and then Misery Moo which by pure coincidence was also a story about friendship – this time focussing on how if someone you love is sad then you feel sad too. We then spent ages trying to find the BWR wallets to take to the library with us, finally turning them both up, gathering up towels and sunsuits and then heading off to the library.
Funnily enough I’ve just read Allie’s post over at Green House By The Sea about loving work and what Allie misses when she’s not there and having not been at work myself for nearly two weeks it was lovely to go in today and be greeted by the colleague on duty and busy myself collecting the various stuff which had arrived for me since I was last in, checking my in-tray and so on. We parked in the library staff only parking bays, moving the traffic cones to get in the space rather than sit and wait in the general queue for the car park, which always delights the children. While I jumped out to move the cones they’d been chatting and reported back to me when I got back in the car that when they grow up they’d both quite like to work at the library, with Scarlett saying ‘well we already do sort of work in the library don’t we Mummy, we know how to do loads of stuff!’ 😆 They went off and told the person manning the BWD all about the books they’d read and got their next stickers and the incentive reward of a hologram bookmark. We didn’t get any more books out as we already have a huge stash here from our last visit.
We popped to the Co Op (they waited outside in the car while I ran in) to get some jaffacakes and we went round to Lucy’s. The children had a whale of a time, mostly outside, playing with the paddling pool, the garden table, the playhouse, water, mud and towels creating all sorts of imaginary games and adventures, mostly leaving Lucy and I to have a really good few hours chatting. We covered hugely diverse topics including feminism, parenting, catching up on the 15 years between us as 17 year olds and us when we met up again 2 years ago, relationships and all sorts of other things. I’ve noticed Davies in the last few weeks starting to do what I recall doing as an older child and indeed have seen the older children of friends’ do where they sit, quietly and without interupting, seemingly playing or busy but are actually taking in all of what’s being said. Today Davies suddenly had some questions about religion and God and Heaven and beliefs, asking that if you believed in God and Heaven and that when you died you would live forever in Heaven would everyone you love (quite specifically me) be there? I explained that was one of my big issues with religion, that actually, for most people the fact that I don’t believe in God would mean that no, I wouldn’t be getting to Heaven, even though I live as a (mostly) good person. I tried to explain how I don’t think we choose to believe in things, we just do and no matter how much you can try and be open to ideas if you don’t believe, you simply don’t believe – you can’t pretend to as that is pretending to yourself and you can’t suddenly decide, from this point forth that you are going to believe either. I talked about how the things I believe in are all things I have seen proof of – I explained how I believe in love and in happiness and in people, I also explained that for many religious people simply the fact that each morning a new day starts and that there are people around who love them and that life is beautiful is enough proof for them of the existance of God. It was all a bit heavy and I often worry about saying the wrong thing when having such deep questions thrown out me out of the blue but I just try and be totally honest about what I think and get across that it is ok to think pretty much whatever you want if that’s what you feel to be true so that even what seems like perfect logical sense to me isn’t influencing him and his thoughts too much.
Davies has suddenly got the look of a german shepherd puppy dog to him, with his head and feet looking too big for his body and his legs suddenly all lanky, which I assume means he is finally about to have a real proper growth spurt. He is really tired, getting quite emotional at little things and has several tics and twitches again at the moment, he’s asking lots of deep and challenging questions and appears to be processing all the new information very carefully – and of course that bloody tooth is still hanging – by one very thin thread – in there, although the tooth next door is also wobbly now, so I guess he’s going to catch up with gappiness pretty quick to all the other 6 year olds. I think he is on the cusp of a big leap forward just in time for his seventh birthday which does feel like a bit of a landmark ‘big kid’ age. Looking at the photos of him aged 2 and 3 I was uploading last night I am reminded of aspects of him as a toddler which have long since been lost forever but at the time were such big parts of who he was, and we’re going through something similar again now, with the basic Davies still in there but lots of stuff stopping to be who he is anymore and lots of new stuff coming along to take it’s place.
Scarlett is really revelling in making her own friends at the moment and being a seperate person to Davies. They remain very close though. I watched them sit for a good five minutes today, side by side, in Lucy’s garden while R&R were off doing something else. They were having a proper conversation, with loads of facial expressions and gestures. It wasn’t just the stating of factual information that children do at each other, it was a proper interaction, a real ‘chat’. Ady and I were talking about sibling relationships the other night and saying what a unique dynamic it is, which you don’t share with anyone else. It is closer than friends because you actually do love each other, and unlike with friends you don’t get to choose your siblings so you have to invest time and effort in making the relationship work rather than just choosing someone else to spend time with instead. Your siblings know you totally, understand where you’ve come from, share your experiences with your parents and are utterly demographically equal to you. But unlike with your parents there isn’t the emotional risk involved – I had physical fights with my brother, called him the worst names I’ve ever called anyone, told him I hated him and did utterly dreadful things to him – just like he did back to me. But it was a completely resiliant friendship – no grudges were born, we both knew we didn’t mean any of it and from the age of 2 and a half, so my earliest memory, I was always one half of ‘Nicola and Frazer’. Ady obviously has a far more complicated relationship with his brother – and indeed did with his late sister too, but there is still a very strong connection there – your siblings really shape who you are, they are around for all those formative experiences and without any rose tinted glasses they can really tell the truth about what you were like as a child – and most of the time, still be around to love you as an adult. It’s lovely to watch D&S sitting chatting like that and delighting in each others company for so much of the time.
I managed to change Davies’ swimming lessons to Tuesday evenings today, so come September we have commitments on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday ‘after school’ which is a bugger – and from December we will on Friday nights too with Scarlett starting Rainbows but at least we get our Sundays back and every other weekend will be free again. It will also be interesting to see whether Davies does his learning mentality stuff better at the end of a day or at the beginning too as he tends to thrive at Beavers and Badgers with the activities there at the end of the day so maybe swimming will be the same.
We came home from Lucy’s and the children had tea, Ady got home fairly early so I nipped out to Tescos to get a few bits and spent about half an hour wandering round the very huge sale on clothes. I picked up a pair of red trousers for next summer for Scarlett and a pair of red trousers for me for £4 too but other than that there was nothing which attracted me – lovely to be able to browse in peace though – was just as nice as if I’d bought more just to be able to rummage. I got home just as my phone rang with a voicemail from Ady to say we also needed cat food and coffee, so I dropped the Tescos bits in and went back out to Sainsburys (nearer) to get cat food and coffee 🙄 Home for bath and dinner and an episode of Torchwood. The chickens are very entertaining at night now – they have learnt to flap up to the lounge windowsill and peck at the window to get attention to let me know they want supper and putting away for the night. They are very amusing pets. 🙂
Tomorrow I’m working all day and Ady is at a corporate entertaining event at Goodwood. He had a really good annual appraisal today so is feeling buoyed up and appreciated at work, which is nice. He is all fired up with plans for next season and we’re away camping for a week from the end of next week, which we’re really looking forward to as a proper holiday with rest and relaxation. Oh and some sunshine would be nice too 🙂