Well, the week so far seems to be much closer to what I want than most of last term. Yesterday, we mostly relaxed, since B was still a bit strung out after the trip. Despite the fact that she was unwinding after ten days of living by Nannie’s rules, we did not rip each other’s heads off at all, a fact for which I am deeply grateful. B watched a fair bit of her recorded shows, but I did expect that she watch it show by show individually instead of full one hour Rollercoaster doses, and do something else in between, so she didn’t watch all that much. She also played her didjeridu a fair bit, which drove K completely insane with the desire to imitate her. In the morning we went off to Florey shops to buy some white bread, and spent ages playing on the playground there. K has mastered climbing up the chain net, and can almost get to the top of the semi-circular tube frame without assistance – she just needs a little bit of help to change directions in the middle. But the rest of the time she was happily doing it all herself. B, of course, had fun playing, and also liked helping K as much as K was happy to be helped. I just hung out and enjoyed the sun, most of the time!
After both munchkins had been fed, they amused themselves playing hide and seek (I was K’s “coach”), then played dress-ups in my wardrobe, and B dragged K outside to perform “a play”. K wasn’t hugely excited by being ordered about and having her clothes changed every five minutes, and eventually not even B’s completely disingenuous bribing with promises of non-existent chocolate were enough to convince her to come back and play, so B gave up. The bunnies were visited in their cage, and thoroughly fed, watered and covered in grass by K, and the chickens were watered and played with. I fixed a pot under the downspout for them to drink out of, because even after I’d given them nice clean water in their dish they were still drinking from the drips! K insisted on shutting herself in the henhouse and made us go away so she could, presumably, play at being a chicken. We also discovered that the house over the back has started to toss their food scraps over the fence, the way Chiv and Quanxin next door do. We could get more chickens, at this rate, and share the eggs with everyone who feeds them *g*
We finally got everyone out of the chook run, hosed off, and into the car to meet Grandmoogi and Anne at Spotlight. K fell asleep in the car. When we got to Queanbeyan I discovered that I did not have the pram in the boot, and Spotlight’s trolleys have big unfriendly labels on them saying Do Not Allow Child To Sit In Basket, so weren’t much use. Instead, we just had to chase a refreshed and rambunctious toddler around the aisles for an hour. Not much actual shopping got done on my part, although the fortuitous closeness of the embroidery wools to the play set provided near the customer service desk meant that at least I got to pick out more wool for K’s tunic, and to consult with B on the colours she wanted for her proposed project. I also fell in love with a faux-antique silver needle case on a chain, which I had to buy myself. We did manage to get out without me committing myself to any fabric though! We picked up E from work on the way back, and went to Rubee’s for dinner (so-called) and celebratory ice cream before going home.
Today, B watched ABC schools’ TV, including Behind the News, then the Battlefield Detective episode about the Battle of Hastings. Lots of interesting stuff about whether the Bayeux tapestry is really a reliable source, and showing how historians work by comparing different sources to try and get a picture of what happened – made my inner history geek happy! We didn’t finish all of it because Grandmoogi came round for tea before leaving for Temora, but we recorded it so I think we will try and watch it tonight so E can watch too if interested. While that was on, B helped me clean the front room by doing the vacuuming (I gave her a choice between that and clearing and cleaning the coffee table, which is a surprisingly effective technique for getting her to help with the housework!). B demonstrated her didjeridu to Grandmoogi, who was suitably impressed.
After Grandmoogi left there was a bit of pootling, including lots of chasing each other round the house, then B picked up a book and asked me to read to her. I offered her the deal that she read the short pages and I read the long ones, but she lost her temper at being expected to read read read all the time and nobody ever reading to her (she explained that she has, in fact read one book today – Duck, which contains approximately 25 words *rolls eyes*). I explained our POV but she wasn’t convinced. Eventually we compromised that I would read longer chapter books to her, so we settled down with Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine. I read a couple of chapters out of that before the smaller native became restless and wanted to go outside to paint her “dee-doo-doo”, ie. the fabric tube purloined from Spotlight yesterday by her big sister. So I arm-twisted B to go out there and help K paint while I kept reading to them. Considering how much fun B had spreading paint everywhere I’m kind of wondering why it took so much effort to convince her to do it in the first place, but that’s my munchkin all over… After painting with her hands lost its savour, she spread out loads of newspaper on the deck and started using her feet! I brought out a bowl of soapy water for hand- and feet-washing, and after I asked B to tidy up the paper, she came up with the idea of dumping it all into the tub and making papier mache! Eventually I had to call them all in from their paper and flour paste slinging fun, wash them off, and get them presentable for Nannie’s visit this afternoon. Amazingly enough B did not object to having to wrangle her sister through the clean up. Now K is watching Play School and B has just headed off for riding with Nannie. All that remains is for me to remember to pick her up at 5pm!