Today the kids played with playdough a lot, until most of the playdough got lost and covered with dirt and fluff. K had a big themed birthday party for her teddy going on, and used the letter biscuit cutters to spell out “l-o-v-e”, which she presented on a silver platter with a teddy bear shape to make it all clear to whom she was referring. Somehow a bunch of the playdough ended up outside and had to be thrown away. But they also had a party in their bedroom, I think.

I needed to distract H while DH did something on the puter, so I sat down with him and we did a bunch of the sticker book I bought yesterday. He’s making much more of an effort to orient the stickers around to match the outlines, I note, and his colour-word matching is much better too. After a while he lost interest, and K finished it off. They really love these (to me) rather naff activity books: I think I will have to pick them up whenever I see them since they go through them much faster than through any other kind of workbook/activity book they’ve tried.

We had a big lunch, roast veg and cous cous, and as a result the kids were much more equitable during the afternoon than they had been yesterday *takes notes* I think I am gradually training them to put their dishes in the sink when they finish eating, even. They played together a lot, which was mostly peaceful and lovely but occasionally deteriorated into violence. K played with TuxPaint for a while, but I forget what else they did. Oh yes, Mr Bat took them off for a play on the playground at Franklin, because it was actually sunny today, and K slipped over in a puddle due to being a terwilliger and had to get changed – luckily I keep a bag of emergency, in-case-of-terwilligerism clothes for each of them permanently stashed in the car.

I read an extra-long installment of Farmer Boy to K after dinner, and have worked out that we only have four nights’ reading to go. In one of the chapters I read, the family made ice cream with ice and salt, and talked again about churning butter, both of which are also in the Kitchen Science book, so I mentioned we could do this ourselves and she was Very Impressed. Will have to pick up some cream at the supermarket tomorrow. After I finished reading, we tried putting them to bed but it was not immediately successful. Eventually Mr Bat managed to keep H in his room, and K settled down next to me on the couch and read books to herself. She seemed to be reading, rather than recapping, quite a bit of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. When she went to bed, I shared with her the message of a poster I’d seen in the library a few years ago. “What are the ten best ways to improve your reading? 1. Read 2. Read 3. Read…etc” She thought that was very funny, and said, “I think I’d better do lots more reading then!”

ETA: it occurred to me that I should mention Mr Bat’s new desktop widget which displays the world sunlight map. They’ve had a few discussions around that.