Early start again for us today as Davies and Scarlett had appointments at the dentist. After we had our six month check up last November / December we had a phonecall offering us Children’s Educational Visits. We’d not been able to make any of the sessions they’ve been running – and they kept trying, I think they have called me with no less than four dates over the last few months but today we were free. I admit to being suspicious about the whole thing but decided to go along and see what it was all about.
It turns out that our local nhs dental practice, which we already knew was a pretty good one, are trying to offer as many services as they can and as such have sent a couple of members of staff on special kids dental hygiene education training courses. I’m guessing they have nvq or similar level in this. It’s NHS funded and is a 20 minute or so session all about education for children on diet, cleaning, how your mouth and teeth work aswell as dealing with any specific problems with the individual children. I did ask if we’d been plucked out for any particular reason but she said all children on their books had been offered the sessions.
So we sat down, the dental nurse was fantastic at addressing Davies and Scarlett rather than me and drawing them out (Scarlett was initially cautious although Davies was chatty straight away). She talked about brushing teeth, baby teeth and adult teeth and asked them some questions. I thought it was pitched really well for them and was quite surprised at how much they already knew. She then talked about it being half term and them not being at school and maybe snacking more than usual to which both kids gave me sidelong glances. I decided it wasn’t remotely important to correct her and let her carry on but after listening to the end of that bit of her speech Davies said ‘oh actually we don’t go to school’ to which she was amazed and asked loads of questions about Home Ed. She is 7 months pregnant (with her first child) and was incredibly enthusiastic, interested and complimentary about the whole idea. That set the tone for the rest of the session :).
The kids did disclosing tablets and looked in the mirror at the bits left behind, cleaned their teeth with their toothbrushes while she observed and offered advice and thet chatted some more. She said she thought Home Ed sounded amazing, she thought Davies and Scarlett were fab and really clever and knowledgable about all sorts of things, including teeth and proclaimed them ‘my best patients ever!’ and followed up with ‘and I’m not just saying that, I *really* mean it’ 🙂 Davies held her to it and asked her to write it on the sticker she gave them both so they now have a tooth shaped sticker with ‘best patient ever!’ written on it by her :). She gave us prescriptions for mouthwash for both of them – a weekly, milder tasting one for Davies who doesn’t like mint and a stronger, daily use one for Scarlett who loves mint and possibly needs a little more help for her teeth. And told us to ring for a repeat prescription when those run out :).
Next stop the pharmacist for the mouthwash. Scarlett’s was there but they need to order Davies’ so we’ll have to pop back later in the week to collect that. While we were in there we looked around and Davies found a ‘Superduck’ bath toy / flannel / exfoliating thing for £1.99 which he really liked. I said I wasn’t going to buy it but when we got home he dug out his money box, dusted off the fluff and emptied it to count out £1.99. He did an impressive count up of 1p, 2p, 5p and the odd 10p pieces and quickly got to £1.99 so I said he could nip back to the chemist and get Superduck if he wanted.
Scarlett was watching Lion Man on dvd (from the library) so he nipped round on his own. He was slightly longer than I’d expected but that turned out to be because the nice pharmacy lady stood with him and counted out all his pennies with him :). So he was happy.
Davies then got the geomags out and was experimenting with how many pennies he could turn magnetic with geomags and pick up in a line when he realised some 2p and 1p were magnetic and others were not. We put them into piles of date order (some were older than me with a date of 1971 on them :)) and worked out that it was coins pre 1992 that were not magnetic and speculated on why that might be. I then googled and we found the answer, which confirmed our suspicion but was nice to have the science bit explained :). (to do with coins being made from copper coated steel after that date rather than the bronze used previously. We also found some of the 1998 batch of bronze ones).
Then I went off to make pancakes for lunch and Davies and Scarlett tidied up and put The Simpsons Movie on. An hour later we were all pancaked up and ready to take on the afternoon.
First stop was the pound shop – we were looking for pva glue to do stuff with the borax supplied by our dealer at the weekend. But the pound shop had none. On the way to ELC we passed my Mum’s shop and she was standing talking to someone looking out of the window so we popped in to say hello and I actually left Davies and Scarlett there while I nipped along to ELC on my own to get glue, and because D&S weren’t with me, glue alone! 🙂 A quick chat with Mum and then off to the Pop Up Playspace where Tasha was being in charge and another Home Ed friend was running a Circus Skills workshop.
Hugs all round for all and then as an older woman gave me a big hug and said ‘hello Scarlett’s mum, I can’t remember your name’ as I realised it was Caz’s mum and I asked whether they were back she said ‘they are and they are right behind you!’ 🙂 🙂 Cue touching reunion for me with Caz and Bid and for Davies and Scarlett with Archie and Elliot 🙂
I sat around and chatted to Tasha, Caz, Bid and a couple of other people I knew, the kids ran round playing together in a big posse and having a whale of a time 🙂 Was very good afternoon :). Caz and Bid talked to me about childcare swaps (yes, yes and yes!) and we all had a chat about a creative skillswap type session for the kids (think latin etc without the latin or the etc :lol:) which I am very enthused about and need to try and get some coherant ideas about in an email to the people who might be interested :). Fab to see Tasha, it’s been far too long :).
We left there at 4pm, paid for parking and drove to the swimming pool for swimming lessons. Davies was wobbling about his burn and sure enough the plaster came off almost as soon as he got in the water but after an initial stinging it settled down. Scarlett had her lesson and then Davies had his while I did lengths – 42 in all which is 1400 metres in just under the hour. I was aiming for 45 lengths as 1500m and could feel I was cruising a bit but did speed up at the end and came out with wobbly legs (still a bit wobbly now actually).
We pulled up at almost the exact same time as Ady so he and I caught up on each others’ day with a cup of tea and coffee, then I left him to bath the kids and get dinner sorted (pancakes again for the kids tea :)) while I went off to Reading Group.
I missed last month but this month we had 3 new starters aswell as a healthy number of regulars talking about Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader. Actually we spent far more time chatting about the consultation for the reduced library opening hours, literacy and reading levels nationally, marketing of books and the whole readers and writers dilemma about whom is more important. An interesting couple of hours :). Confirmed plans to meet up with Rose (not swinger) tomorrow afternoon and generally enjoyed being part of a group of diverse people who are nonetheless a group, some of us having been attending for 4 years now :).
Home again just before 9pm for a bath followed by dinner (trout, very nice :)) and Survivors. Scarlett needed me to sit with her to go to sleep again but she has gone through the night in her own bed for 2 nights and indeed at McM’s too so am hoping the nights are easing. She also seems happier generally which if nothing else makes me happy things are not getting worse.
Very pleased to have Caz and Bid home; we’ve known they were coming for a couple of weeks thanks to facebook, emails and a phonecall but didn’t quite believe it until we actually saw them here today :).