Finding the time

to blog is very difficult. It wouldn't be if only I blogged before I read everybody else's, but reading is easier than thinking, composing and typing. Anyway, here I am at last.

On Monday we didn't do much in the morning, and went swimming in the afternoon. I couldn't find Tamsin's armbands so she went in without, which as I was carrying Isabelle made me a bit nervous but in fact it was all fine, and I think I will carry on without them so that she just learns to swim on her own. Isabelle loved it again. Afterwards we went to the big Tesco (our local one is small and doesn't stock any 'extras', just food) and I bought a range of small presents and one bigger one (a splash-around Dora the Explorer and Boots). This was to bribe/tempt/encourage Tamsin to stay in her own bed all night instead of getting into ours. It's not a big issue for me but sometimes Bill gets irritated by it. Anyway, she was all for it, but that night in the wee small hours when reminded that she wouldn't get presents if she came into our bed, she said she would prefer not to get presents then. Hmmm, time to think again on that one! So presents are still tucked away unused.

Tuesday was a good day when a lot seemed to happen. Before breakfast Tamsin found the big DK 'Animal' book and was looking through it and we discussed the various pages she turned to - spiders, crabs, frogs and toads, fish etc. It's normally one of my free days but I had to go into work for a meeting in the morning, and the girls came with me. Tamsin brought her own 'work' in the form of sticker books/dot-to-dots and also played on the CBeebies website and with the big Noah's Ark which is in the office. Meanwhile the meeting was with Fair Shares staff from the other sites and we were discussing/agreeing what we wanted in our new contract - seems the right way to do it! We threw out a couple of clauses from the current one which we didn't like, and added a few bits which we felt appropriate.

Home for lunch, and then Tamsin played with her train track with the new trains we also bought at Tesco on Monday. Meanwhile I surfed! Later we made a cake, and Tamsin helped me weigh the ingredients. I told her we had to weigh 100g and told her to look out for when it said 1 - 0 - 0 which she did beautifully. While I made the normal cake, Tamsin made her own 'cake' with flour, salt, water, milk and copious mixing (yuck). Meahwhile Isabelle was doing her own sensory exploration sitting in her high chair with various bits of food for her to play with - some fruit puree, half-grapes, dry flour and a tomato to squidge. It went everywhere (sticky grin)! So the next stop was the paddling pool for a good wash down. While filling the paddling pool Tamsin noticed the measuring jug and spontaneously spotted '500' and then saw 400, 300, 200 and 100. I also pointed out that 'half' was written 1/2 which we had never discussed before.

When we were just too hot outside we went in and I put on 'Peter and the Wolf' CD while Tamsin played with her tea-set and she also did some writing in a Letterland workbook, and actually formed the letters properly according to the dots and arrows, instead of doing it 'her way' as she usually prefers. She also spelled her own name using Scrabble letters with no help at all - she's got the hang of that now. And then while watching 'Dora' she did some 'magic painting'. Meanwhile Isabelle was getting teeth numbers 4 and 5!!

Okay, so that's the day I took notes because we seemed to be doing so well and I wanted to blog it!

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, other stuff happened ;-) No notes for those days! I worked those mornings while Tamsin was at playschool and Isabelle was lent out to a variety of people. On Thursday evening both Bill and I fell asleep at about 8pm while settling children to bed, and he didn't get up again till the morning and I only got up at midnight because I had to shut the chickens away!

On Friday I completed my Sonlight order to get the majority of the balance of the Pre-K curriculum, part of which I bought from Katy. I think we'll start in September, but not in a pressured way - if we miss bits and miss days then it doesn't matter. I would like to start Reading Reflex and Handwriting without Tears as well but she said recently she doesn't want to learn to read :-o ! Still, that's fine! I'm just eager to get on with it! I will have to hold myself back. But I think when she realises that her friends who are starting Reception in September are learning to read, she might change her mind.

Today, Isabelle has started eating! She's really not had much so far - she's been interested but not in purees, only finger food, and then mostly just tasting and spitting out. At lunchtime, however, I gave her a few pieces of the pasta and tomato sauce we were eating, and she just kept on and on eating, and then was mad keen on the slices of kiwi fruit we had afterwards. She probably ate almost as much as Tamsin. Amazing! She didn't do quite so well with the cucumber and hummus I gave her at teatime but I didn't think bacon, egg, chips and beans were really suitable for an 8-month old!