Seven then…

And despite the fact neither of them had gone to sleep any time before 10pm last night it was a morning which started way before 7am this morning.

Davies was crazily excited and by the time I’d hastily scrambled into some clothes and got downstairs he was already on opening his second present. We’d brought over the presents from everyone who came to his party from my parents house last night which made quite a largeish pile with our presents too and he also had the Tardis Playset which he’d asked for with the money he’d been given from friends too. He did incredibly well, getting an excellent mix of Doctor Who stuff, some craft bits, some books, some fun things, some games and plenty of very Davies-y stuff. He was very chuffed and rather than doing thank you letters to everyone he thought a thank you film clip would be more ‘him’ so we filmed that this morning and you can view it below. 🙂 I don’t think he got a single gift that wasn’t totally appropriate for him personally so thank you to everyone, clearly thought was put into all his gifts and it was really appreciated :). He also recorded a video message on my phone to send to Amelia to wish her a Happy Birthday along with him which we sent to Ros :).

Once all his gifts had been opened and unpackaged (wtf is all that packaging about then?) and batteries inserted Davies and Scarlett (who’d been given a Rose model for her little gift on his birthday) set to playing with the Tardis playset and all the new figures while I nipped off to the kitchen and baked three sponge cakes to make a triple layer birthday cake for his third and final cake this year :lol:. I’d talked him down from more ambitious sugarcraft endeavours into a sponge cake with fresh cream and strawberries with the promise that I could still do something ‘special’.

He took a couple of phonecalls from people ringing to wish him Happy Birthday and then my Mum arrived with his cards from my parents and brother and gift from Frazer of a tardis toy which (again once we’d wrestled out of it’s copious volumes of packaging, plastic and tags) was also played with. Our original plan had been to go to Paradise Park for the day to make the most of having Ady and my Mum off work for the day but Davies actually just wanted to stay home and play with his new toys. We settled on a compromise of going out for lunch and to take his single duplicated present (a sonic screwdriver – he’d had an early birthday present of one from Scarlett for his party to complete his outfit but had been given another) to Tescos to swap for something else instead. In the meantime a present was delivered to the doorstep of a Crazy Frog cd for which Davies was very grateful and I will make sure to give something equally ‘special’ to Lucy’s children for their birthday’s in March 😉 😆

I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about Davies and Scarlett’s ‘friends’ at Tesco before? One of the times when Ady was looking after them while I worked they had to take something back to Tescos. It wasn’t long after the chicks had hatched and for some reason they’d got into a conversation with the couple of women on the customer services desk about their chickens, along with various other things. The next time I took them in shopping they’d both dashed over to say hello to their friends and update them on the chickens, and all subsequent visits there have included popping over to customer services to say hello. It’s actually very nice that in such a big and otherwise rather impersonal store Davies and Scarlett have managed to make an impression with women who meet hundreds of people a week. So with the rest of us trailing a few paces behind Davies walked straight up to the desk to chat to them, explaining it ‘was his birthday today (‘oh Happy Birthday Davies, how old are you?’ ‘Seven? Really, you are *so* grown up for seven!’ to colleagues ‘can you believe he’s only seven!?’) and he’d been given a sonic screwdriver at his party but he’d already got one so what he’d really like to do was swap it for something else please’.

Round in the toy aisle there were two Doctor Who figures he didn’t already have and he was struggling to choose between them so my Mum offered to make up the money to swap the screwdriver for both. So back to the customer services we went, where Davies had a further chat with the women there before heading off and promising to ‘come back soon for a chat’. We left them all looking lovingly after him having said to me what a lovely boy he was, and indeed how lovely Scarlett is too 🙂 :). (see how I glow!)

And now here is the bit where we all laugh together. Next door to Tescos in McDonalds and given all the choices as to which venue to go for his birthday lunch guess where Davies chose? 😉 And upon walking in the door who should we see but Lucy, R and R, so of course we went and sat next to them and I was able to get my picture of my son, enjoying his Happy Meal sitting with friends, just as if he’d had a real proper birthday party there and everything 😆 😉

We were headed for home after lunch but as we passed a park where my Mum spent a lot of time as a child and indeed was near where my Granny lived when I was a child too so I recall from childhood we swung into the carpark and went in for a play. Mum and I chatted while Ady played Novelty Daddy and did lots of running round being crazy with the children – all the while pulling lots of The Alison poses to see the planes zooming around overheard practising for this weekends airshow

This was such a cool seesaw roundabout thing that we all had to have a go. Ady and I are about evenly matched for such things:

whereas my Mum was better equal to Davies 😆

We then had a long walk up to the top of the park stopping to try and climb trees, look at conkers or decide what sort of animal lived in the holes in tree trunks. We also had an icecream each. I shared some childhood memories of the park (one where there had been a fairground set up there and I’d gone on a bumper car with my Granny and bumped my nose so badly on the steering wheel my Mum had been convinced it was broken and had been furious with my Granny for not looking after me properly. I guess I was about Davies’ age but I recall it really clearly, which made my mum laugh as so did she but we’d never talked about it since. And another of my Dad bursting my helium balloon by accident on the end of his cigarette. Which was amazing to the children at the very idea that Grandad used to smoke, let alone that Mummy would have once cried over a popped balloon (X Factor maybe, but balloons never!)) and Scarlett got to pet lots of dogs. We popped back into the playground again for a last play on the way back to the carpark.

We called into Truleigh Hill on the way home to see what the view of the airport is like and to work out a good spot for firework night at NicCamps. We ended up parking up and watching some of the planes coming in to land or practise for the airshow and also got chatting to various model airplane enthusiasts with their remote control planes doing aerobatics. Eventually Davies’ patience started to wear thin and all he really wanted to do was go home, particularly as he now had two additional figures to add to his collection so we headed for home. When we pulled up our opposite neighbour (the one who spends all her pension on D&S’s lavendar selling ventures!) was in her garden and called D&S over to say she’s missed them out playing in the garden this afternoon. She’s often said to me how much she enjoys hearing their voices and laughter in the garden when they’re playing out and she said it again, before coming over closer and saying to me ‘they really are lovely children you know, you must be very proud. They are always so happy and friendly and enjoy their life so much’ 🙂 🙂 She works as a lunchtime supervisor in one of the local schools and is forever full of praise about our Home Ed but being around 80 years old is very much of the ‘moaning about the touth of today’ age so it’s lovely to hear such nice things again :).

I whipped cream, chopped strawberries and assembled the cake, which when my Dad and Granny arrived shortly afterwards was bedecked with the rather more traditional cake adornments of seven candles rather than lollipops, sparklers and chocolate buttons to create daleks and tardises and we all sang Happy Birthday while Davies blew them out. It was a tricky cake to cut, being as tall as it was but it was devoured by all 🙂

After cake eating we did some shaker maker making (thanks Ali 🙂 ) and made the Tardis, some Top Trumps – Doctor Who of course (thank you Mel :)) which Davies, and infact me either for that matter, had never played before. He amazingly quickly got the hang of it, reading out the numbers with ease and identifying the various listings for each character (it’s height, intelligence, darkness, monster rating and courage). I can see how such a slightly random gift could well be the key to him deciding to start to read, he’s utterly on the cusp and starting to want to tell me what things say rather than sighing and rolling his eyes if I ask. 🙂 We then had a very riotous game of Tomb of Doom (Em? I think? Thanks, it’s a FAB game!) with it being Davies, Mum and I to start with but Ady and Scarlett joining in too as we were clearly having so much fun. I’m not big on games but this is pretty fast paced, lots of fun, clearly very educational and totally interactive in a way that snakes and ladders, for example, could never be. We had several games of that including our own introduction of silly voices and sound effects for various things – I can see that becomming a real family favourite ;). Oh and I must also mention, although I’m not at all sure she reads such things as blogs any more 😉 the present from The Babs which was a charcoal and pencil set, some oil pastels and a sketch pad. So totally Davies, so completely what he is ready for in terms of moving his art on to the next stage and so nice to have proper, ‘nice’ stuff to use instead of the cheapo felt tips shoved in our craft drawers. We filled the first page with experimental goes at the various pencils and charcoals this morning with me sketching a really quick portrait of Davies to show how lots of lines make a softer, less cartoony effect than bold lines drawn in one go. He really liked the effect ‘it looks *so* real, Mummy!’ and he’s taking the whole lot tomorrow to our planned airshow viewing spot to sketch some planes and other scenery. If he actually does I imagine we’ll see a real leap forward in his output in such things moving onto different media like that. I showed him some watercolour pencils in Tesco and explained how they work and that if he gets into the idea of stuff other than felt tips and wants to start doing things like painting and colour blending then we can invest in some more supplies. Very excited at that actually :).

Everyone gradually drifted of and Scarlett settled in Davies’ room to watch some dvds at bedtime with the idea that she could stay there for a sleepover, but she was back downstairs when she wanted to go to sleep ready to go to her own bed again. Davies had been watching Doctor Who but asked for some Wallace and Gromit to ‘happy me back up again before I go to sleep’ and I eventually turned the dvd player off at 1030pm when he was still awake. 🙄 He didn’t quite see in both sides of his birthday but he was within an hour or so either side, which I thought was pretty good :lol:.

It’s been a nice day. I’ve had two people tell me how fab they think our children are, I’ve had Davies looking like a child on cloud nine for all his presents, cakes, still talking about his party and bubbling over so much about the idea that being seven has so far been a really positive experience 😆 For those of the readers who enjoy slushy sentimentalism feel free to look at my pages listed down the side for the 7th birthday post, for those who don’t please don’t bother, I write them for me and for my children to read themselves in years to come and whilst I am totally unashamed of the hallmark greeting card style they can have they are not really there for critical analysis or eyerolling 😉 :).