Kids played with Lego all morning (which justified spending that 15 quid in the shop on our way out to me anyway!), had lunch with the last two slices of bread in the house and were hustled out to get to TT2 with a few minutes to spare.
Davies sat and played with his LeapPad while I took Scarlett in. She did amazingly well actually – she is very physically able, much more so than Davies which coupled with having no fear makes TT a little tame for her really :-), but she enjoyed it, coped fairly well with the structure and turn taking. It was only when the lady who runs it commented on how much I had seemed to be enjoying it too that I realised it had been really nice to spend a whole hour totally focused on Scarlett actually. 🙂 She started to wobble a bit towards the very end when they are supposed to rejoin a big circle and sit down, sing Happy Birthday to anyone who’s having a birthday that week and finally get a well done sticker each. She really was not up for it and I decided to leave it while she was happy instead of wrecking it all for the last five minutes. Julie (lady who runs it) said that perhaps I should have stuck it out as the sticker would have really made it for her but frankly knowing Scarlett she couldn’t actually care less about some as obviously bribing as a sticker 😉 Anyway I signed her up for a term and she is pretty up for it having talked to her about it a couple of times on the way home. Davies did really well with his lavishing praise of a big brother on her too which helped!
Davies then ran around yelling being the ring leader of his group as they waited to go in and was then the first child through the doors yelling ‘hooray, it’s time to go in!!!’ when they opened them. Wow! What a difference this has made. Whether it was simply the right time for him to do something like that, whether I can credit TT2 with the change in him or maybe it’s just a combination of the two. Whatever it thrills me to see him so at home and comfortable in a situation that he ran crying from the first time we tried it.
We’re staying out tonight – one of Ady’s oldest friends (they shared digs together about 22 years ago (when I was 8 or 9 as I shall be reminding them again tonight 😉 ) is staying in Eastbourne for a week with his girlfriend – who we have not met before. It is some sort of company flat / perk of her job and looking at the website of the marina development where it is it looks quite posh so we are all going. We last saw Rob when he came down from Liverpool where he was living at the time and stayed with us for a few days so he could come to our wedding reception. Shortly afterwards he changed life direction completely, left his job which was well paid but he hated to take a poorly paid job he felt passionate about, moved to Northants and started living with Penny. We meanwhile have had two children so I’m guessing we will have plenty of catching up to do. Rob is very ‘deep’, has spent a lot of time travelling and is a real considered thinker. He was in awe of us for even having children in the first place (in a genuine, well I’ve considered it and decided it’s too big a deal for me to do type of way) and when Ady mentioned recently about HE he was fascinated and really interested in the idea, so I imagine that will be on the conversation list too 🙂 Better brush up on my Free Range Ed handbook and Ed Phil eh!