Oi Snotface!

Drop Dead Fred was one of the first films Ady and I watched together. I don’t recall how or where or why particularly but we called each other ‘snotface’ affectionately for years afterwards and infact occassionally still do. This morning while trying to find Spider for D & S to watch at their request Ady found this instead so stuck that on for them.

Which meant I got woken up by Davies leaping on the bed yelling ‘Snot Face WAKE UP!’ and bringing me a rather good picture of Fred that he’d drawn! They’ve been calling each other Snot Face all day 🙄

So as predicted last night me deciding to make myself available to them for the day sent them underground 😉 They spent a good hour playing in Tarly’s room, initially they were making some sort of camp / tent using her duvet and various blankets to shroud the room. I remember playing the same game in my bedroom as a child. I had a fairly large bedroom with two single beds in it and used to put a sheet across the gap between them to create a tunnel and then manage to tent out the rest of the room with blankets too, then Frazer and I would crawl around with torches and eat our lunch in there – great fun! 🙂 I resisted the temptation to join in and left them to it making phonecalls and sorting out small mammal groups to Davies to attend instead. They reappeared a while later both covered in highly scented, very pink make up! Davies looked erm, stunning 😯 and Scarlett just looked overdone – I should have captured them on camera really but instead I handed them a baby wipe each and told them to ‘get that muck off your face, you’re not leaving this house looking like that!’ or something! 😉

They played with the geomags and wanted to watch another film so I tried to find the Planet Earth dvd and put ET on by mistake so they watched that with much chattering going on. Then I did find the Planet Earth dvd and we watched most of it but not very intently as D was semi playing with geomags and S was asking so many questions that we ended up talking over it constantly so I gave up about half way through.

S was in a cuddly mood so I gathered her up and finally got out 100EL for her to look at. We did about four in a skipping to bits she liked sort of way and she very ably recognised a, m, s and e and was doing the say it slow, say it fast thing very well. 🙂 She was so thrilled with herself and would probably have sat there all afternoon doing it if I’d let her but I want it to go in slowly and surely rather than overload and have to start from scratch again next time because she’s forgotten it all. Loads more enthusiasm than D shows for reading even now though, which is so heartening. 🙂

As expected it got a response from D that I was doing it with S – he kept calling out the answers and joining in to show off, but if it keeps him competitive and therefore ahead of her then it can’t be a bad thing really can it. I think getting D to read has always been more about psychology than ‘teaching’ and S starting to learn is clearly the next phase in pushing him forward. She then dug out about ten books from her bedroom and we sat and read all those together (I read, not her 😉 ) with D standing over us and making some good attempts to read the odd word here and there as S attempted to pick out the odd letter.

We’d had lunch and I was in a craving something sweet type mood so I suggested doing some baking. I foolishly offered cookies or snickerdoodles and predictably they both insisted on different choices. So I said I’d cook one with one then one with the other, which given the size of our kitchen is a better way of baking with them anyway really but this led to rows about who would be first. Eventually I did the ‘whoever guesses which hand the penny is in gets to go first’ method of selection and Davies won. This sent Scarlett into floods of tears but she was eventually pacified by playing with her car boot toys. I found a pack of ready mix cookie stuff to just add water to lurking in the cupboard so we made them (and I thought they tasted like just add water cookies too but the kids liked them), then Tarly and I made some very poor snickerdoodles. The mixture showed more promise in texture than my previous two attempts but they melted so flat in the oven that they just merged into one thin sheet of them. Still tasted nice but I’m determined to perfect that somehow!

I then did find the Spider video so we stuck that on while they ate cookies and then only wanted strawberries for tea as they were so stuffed. Scarlett and I started to play with Education City but flushed with success from knowing a, m, e and s she was reluctant to get any guidance and so gave up. Davies wanted to play but I couldn’t get the free trial to load on the other laptop so I ended up letting him play Nick Jr and Scarlett went in to observe.

Ady had rung to say he would likely be late home as he’d been in a Managers Meeting and come out to piles of stuff on his desk so I started to lay and light a fire (which I used to be able to do adequately but have utterly lost the knack of through lack of practise) and got the kids in their pjs. In the end Ady came home in time to help with bedtime and rescued the fire too 😳 and is now cooking dinner. He has work related woe I think he needs some stroking over so I’ll be off to do that shortly.

It feels like quite a productive day really although there has been an element of shouting and a fair bit of feeling like it’s harder work than it needs to be. I think that is me and my state of mind rather than anything to do with the children though and as Ady and I have a night out on Saturday I imagine that will be taken care of by the weekend.

Tomorrow I will be entertaining the two generations above me aswell as the one below so expect me to be less than pulling my weight in the internet saving campaign. 🙂