Birthdays and Special Days

As usual, we’ve been doing all sorts of activities and I’ve been fielding all sorts of questions, from ‘why is the sky orange at sunset?’ to ‘why do meteors burn up in the atmosphere?’.  M is definitely showing more curiosity and eagerness to learn these days which is a clear sign she is leaving her school days behind her.  She even managed an explanation of how the sun shines on the earth (complete with a demonstration using a lamp and a globe) without getting angry at all!

On Wednesday, we went into Wimbledon to get M some sandals and go to the library.  M rode her bike, D scootered and I ran along behind them.  It’s the first time we’ve been into Wimbledon without any ‘I’m tired’ moaning, which was great as it means we can do it more often now.  D began getting fed up in the library but soon cheered up after I read her a few stories.  I found The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for M and we’ve been reading it every night since (we’ve finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix and I think this Narnia book is much easier to read!).

We celebrated D’s birthday on Thursday, with a small gathering and a few party games at home.  She was delighted by M’s birthday card, which was lovely to see!

On Friday their cousin came round to take them out before heading back to university this weekend.  They went to South Park Gardens and played football and climbed trees.  He tired them out so much that neither of them wanted to go out to our social group, Curious Minds, so we got busy at home instead.

M got going on her crystal mining, which she still has a fair amount of work to do on… it’s hard work but suits M down to the ground: lots of careful scraping, dusting, peering and then excitement when a new crystal is uncovered!

D drew a picture of a rocket and then decided she wanted to make a 3D one, so I began showing her how to measure the rocket she’d drawn and transpose that onto a cuboid net.  I failed miserably and was starting to get quite cross about it so I announced that I was going outside to get some fresh air before having another go at it.  When I came back in, D was merrily doing it herself!  I was amazed because careful measurements and details aren’t really her forte – just goes to show that I shouldn’t pigeonhole the sausages.

D got a pack of Frozen Top Trumps which has been played a few times – excellent for her reading, though she still struggles with competitive games as she can’t bear losing!

On Saturday the sausages were back at Judo: they both gained another stripe on their belts last term.  In the afternoon, their aunt and uncle threw another small party for D (her 3rd party!) and they cooked chapattis and had some cake.

Sunday was supposed to be D’s lovebombing day. I say ‘supposed’ because she got a bit upset at the thought of spending the day without M!  So in the end we had a ‘special’ day whereby D got first choice with everything and M said she would be her slave, ha ha.  Amazingly, they managed to stay friends all day!  We started on some papier mache party bags, which D had seen being made on Creative Galaxy.  Then we made chocolate biscuits.  Then D wanted to read her Maps book (tagline: travel the world without leaving your living room = D’s delight) and then they spent some time sticking glow-stars onto the bedroom wall.  The afternoon was spent watching The Lion King and playing lots of board games with J.

This morning has been crazy so far – by 9.30am we had done another papier mache layer, made more chocolate biscuits, got dressed and cleaned the kitchen.  The plan is to get out of the house and enjoy the weather while it lasts but the girls have just settled down to a lovely game with Sylvanian Families so we’ll see what happens next!