Life skills

Scarlett came and joined me in bed first thing for quite a while this morning. We laid there and I did that tickling game where you put one hand really high up and bring it down to tickle a child’s tummy (with occassional surprise tickling from the hand they’re not watching) – used to play that with them both lying in bed when they were tiny for ages – the sound of a really tiny child giggling uncontrollably is heart melting and her face mid-giggle looked just the same as it did nearly five years ago when she was teeny tiny.

Last night Tarly complained that her waist hurt and she was not quite herself this morning and after sitting on the sofa whimpering at me for a while (which prompted Davies to go and get her a bowl) she went off to the bathroom claiming to need a wee and next thing we heard the sound of her being sick :(. We dashed in there to find her standing over the bowl having managed with perfect aim and calm to get the entire contents of her stomach straight into the loo. She’d even held her own hair back. Clearly given her love of alcohol and the strong chance of inheriting her mothers decorum and habit of drunken vomiting this is a skill she will do well to have mastered so early – it’s one that still eludes me!

We were supposed to be meeting up with a small group of very select and elite ‘Every Other Friday Friends’ (there that’s made the included ones in that number feel all special and glowy and totally alienated the rest of you hasn’t it? ;)) at a soft play place but the thought of half an hour car journeys both way and the vomit-related horror stories (which would have made for funny retelling but probably a lifetime ban from the soft play place and enough bleach to fill a paddling pool) in high up padded areas with slides and ball pits was enough to convince me we should have a quiet day at home instead. Davies was disappointed as he’d been really looking forward to it but very mature and accepting bless him :). She actually hasn’t been sick again although she’s had several bouts of diarrhoea (I wouldn’t normally be so graphic, well okay I might, but I’m so happy to have the chance to use the mnenomic for diarrhoea – Dive In A Rush, Run Hard Or Else Accident – that I need to show off my knowledge of how to spell diarrhoea :lol:).

We watched some CBBC and then decided to use the extra time to do some work on Davies series of paintings for the library display. He did several more sketches and then some painting in of backgroundy things like skies on some of them. We chatted lots about drawing softly – a skill which seems to rather elude him, but one I recall struggling with and still press pens very hard indeed into a page when writing. We also looked at colour washing, mixing and so on and how to sketch in minor detail. In order to demonstrate I got Davies to choose an illustration out of one of our books that was out (A year in the city – he chose the picture which is on the front cover in this version of the Chinese dragon) – so I sketched it and started to paint in details over the course of the day. Actually I rather surprised myself with how well it’s come out. I’ve used the book as an inspiration rather than totally copying from it but the use of good quality paper and nice watercolours is making it very different from working on crap copier paper with hard blocks of watercolours. Anyway he’s made quite a bit of progress with it, learnt some more techniques and we talked lots about architecture through the ages again which is something of a passion of his. We decided when we got stumped on costume for the Renaissance period to watch Horrible Histories to inspire him so they sat through about 6 episodes of that on the new dvd I got them. So pleased with that, would recommend it to everyone :).

Davies and I had lunch. I lovingly served up a plateful of lightly buttered toast cut into bite sized tempting morsels to Scarlett who ignored it and begged salt and vinegar crisps off my plate instead :roll:. A plus point of the enforced housebound-ness was that I completely emptied the dirty laundry basket. Despite reports of snow elsewhere we’ve had bright blue skies here all day (although bitterly cold) so I managed to get everything washed and most of it dry with bringing it in to air on the radiators throughout the day. These things do make me happy and I like to think that looking into the future should my 80 year old self one day read this and roll her eyes at her younger incarnation filling her daily accounts of her life with laundry news from the front line she will at least appreciate that I was a content and willing slave to my laundry, if a slave nonetheless :lol:.

There was some playing with the big car mat and the toy cars but that didn’t last long once Scarlett retired due to ill health. There was also a game with the geomags and we kept going back to the paintings throughout the day. Scarlett did some painting too – I drew the outline of a butterfly for her which she filled in taking care to make it symmetrical then painted but mostly she just experimented with colour mixing and different levels of paint and water mixes.

I then offered to read to her and she chose some Doctor Seuss so we had some Wocket in my Pocket (and as always I was fondly reminded of Chris Bean when I got to the Bofa on the Sofa line ;)), Sneetches, Zax, Green Pants with nobody inside them with Davies joining in from the floor. He then dug out the dvd of Green Eggs and Ham which also has Sneetches, Zax and Grinch Night on it (including a character called Josiah which always reminds us of young master Clarke). Infact the whole exercise was very remindy as aside from the Seuss-fest I recall and Jan and Jonathans a couple of years ago we also had one the morning after Davies’ last birthday party with various Off The Path and Raine Drops children sitting round listening. I could read Dr Seuss aloud to children til my voice ran out, and then I’d do a comedy turn of Bonnie Tyler reads Cat in the Hat just to keep it going 😆 – wonder if that would work at Story time at the library? 😆

I spent some time on a questionnaire for work for the County Area Librarian who is drawing up the business plan for the year so I emailed that across in the middle of all the chaos – hopefully there are not random Seuss rhymes or references to bodily functions in it :lol:. Can you tell I’m going slightly crazy here today through enforced at home-ness when I wasn’t mentally prepared for it?!

Ady came home and Davies spent some time playing Green Eggs and Ham on his laptop (Ady’s, not Davies’) and then we put Ant Bully on which I’ve had on loan from work for ages but we’d failed to get round to watching. We all four dipped in and out of it but Davies watched it fairly closely. The bits I watched seemed quite good in that fairly predictable format for such films sort of way. Davies had tea and Scarlett and I planned a bath together to freshen her up a bit with the lure of Lush products sealing the deal. If she does have a bug then she’s spent so much time draped over me today that I have it for certain anyway. But she fell asleep curled up next to me while it was running. I tried to rouse her for the bath but she just crawled onto my lap into my arms and went back to sleep so I sat for a while holding her before popping her into bed. She slept for about two hours then woke again and sat and annoyed Ady and I from about 830 to 1030pm by preventing us from watching any tv other than Bagpuss and Mr Benn and demanding sips of my wine 🙄 Nice to see her brighter I guess. She went back to bed at 1030 and was asleep in moments. Hopefully she’ll wake fully better tomorrow.

Davies had a bath and then watched a couple of Simpsons episodes with me before going up to bed. I keep meaning to do a ‘when he was 7 post’ as he is being so utterly lovely at the moment. Not that he isn’t usually utterly lovely because I certainly think he is but he is really maturing, growing up and being very thoughtful, caring and just all-round wonderful at the moment. 🙂 He’s been a star today, totally undemanding of me given I’ve had to focus on Scarlett a lot, very caring towards Scarlett and clearly concerned about her and tolerant and patient of all my perfectionist nonsense over his paintings. 🙂 I love that boy rather a lot.

Tomorrow, assuming I do not develop The Bug overnight I’m working in the morning and then Ady’s off to London at lunchtime when I get home to go and be Famous In The City.