A bit of a nothingish day, today. K continued her interest in beads and beading from yesterday afternoon, after I sorted out the cheap’n’cheerful plastic beads into one sectioned storage box and gave them to her. The two of them played together for ages, and Mr Bat read them stories. We had muffin pizzas for lunch, then I took the kids to H’ville to the library and to Centrestink so that Mr Bat could do some work at home. I was feeling very odd and headachey and my ears were ringing a bit while we were there, but I sat and looked at books while the kids played and we managed to stay out for two hours. We read their new library books together: K has decided she is very keen to get on with learning to read, so we went through a phonics book I’d picked, and Mr Bat talked about doing flashcards with her. Then Mr Bat took them off to Geeveston to the post office.

After dinner I read more of Little House on the Prairie, and the second-last chapter in The Just-So Stories to K while Mr Bat read to H, but despite the fact that they were both exhausted, they refused to go to sleep for several hours. Eventually I stashed them in bed with me, where H fell asleep almost immediately, but K was feeling sufficiently fragile that I ended up doing a centering and grounding guided visualisation exercise with her, which helped her calm down enough to finally go to sleep…