The Brick House

K played with her dolls’ house a little bit; she is getting more imaginative and narrates stories to herself about the dolls rather than just playing with the furniture as tactile shapes. She was also “reading” books to herself (and Nannie’s postcard, which arrived earlier today). After Play School, she played Elmo’s Keyboard-o-rama and listened to a book online – I will be taking her to a theatrical performance in September which is based on this book, and the organiser just sent me the link. I think she has now watched it about six times, she loves it! At least it kept her occupied while I made a bigger batch of chicken and quinoa soup for the girls’ dinner. After dinner, I drew up a little dot-to-dot for her because she was asking me for “dots” – she got the idea of counting from one point to the next, but doesn’t quite have the dexterity to join the relevant dots together. She did draw lots of lines, though, so seems to understand the principle. She also drew a love heart which actually looks like a love heart 🙂 As I was cooking dinner for me and E, she also demonstrated an understanding of subtraction – she had three frozen peas left in her bowl and was contemplating what would happen if she took one away – “Two left!” I then asked what she would have if she took one away from two and she said “One!” Clever munchkin…

B spent a little time training the dog, then took her out for a walk for an hour. When she got home her dinner was ready, so she ate it watching RollerCoaster. After her show had finished, she shut the chooks up, then ironed her Scouts’ scarf before heading off to Scouts from 7-8:30. While E was attempting to quell K sufficiently to get her to sleep, we went back through all the coin dealers we had looked at last week, and she decided that she did still want to get the same coin, so that is ready to be ordered now. Then she and I went for a half hour walk (just along the street), in the new burst of virtue sparked by my realisation that it would probably be a good idea to stop being a complete couch potato if I expect to be able to have a baby efficiently in three months time… It was very nice having that half hour just with her, although my God that girl can talk! I don’t think her mouth stopped moving the entire time we were out… *g*

This morning we got organised a little earlier than usual, and B read to me out of one of the McGuffey readers. She chose the second one (the last time we had them out we were using the first, but she’s well past that now). It was pretty basic and she wasn’t making many mistakes, but it will give her valuable practice in frequently-used words if she wants to keep working with that as her read-aloud for a while. It occurred to me last night that I could add spelling lists to her WizardsSpell which practice word families using vowel digraphs, which is her major weakness in reading. Might work on some of those on the weekend. She also pulled out a collection of workbooks, which have been languishing in the cupboard for months, and declared her desire to start doing a cursive writing handwriting book again, but of course I couldn’t find it *rolls eyes* She was interested in the kids’ word search book that I rediscovered in there, but we didn’t have time to do much with it this morning. Before we left, she rang Pa to wish him a happy birthday, but we wasn’t answering his mobile.

We were sufficiently well organised that we even managed for both of us to have showers and wash our hair before 10am, when we had an ABA meeting to go to. B had loads of fun there and didn’t want to come home; the oldest girl there is a couple of years younger than she is so they had fun being the ringleaders, and there were more than enough babies for her to cuddle. I enjoyed it too, most of the mums who were there were playgroup regulars so we had a nice catch up after we missed it this week. Mary, another one of my online friends, who has started homeschooling her 12yo this year, was also there, with her toddler but not her older boy. I’m really feeling like I have a community of like-minded women nearby if I just reach out a bit more…

When we got home, B watched an episode of Life of Mammals while having lunch, then sat down to do some maths. She did the 2X, 3X and 10X tables practice, without much difficulty, although she is very slow. She even got through the Module 4 revision sheet (100% correct), so we’ve actually finished Module 4 on schedule *g* After that, I reminded her about the internet radio show, Classics for Kids, which we found ages ago and haven’t done much with since, and she got very enthusiastic and listened to all four episodes on Scott Joplin. She agreed that it would be good to try and listen to this on a more regular basis, and so I’m going to try to remember about it on Fridays, since a) that’s the day new episodes are uploaded and b) we don’t have much else on that day after an otherwise hectic week. She’s now watching another episode of Life of Mammals.

K was watching Play School and playing with Duplo while B did her maths, but when we had the radio show on in here she came in to listen and sat up at the table with paper and textas to draw pictures. She also helped me do a bit of tidying up in the play room while B was watching earlier. K has absolutely no interest in animal documentaries, it would seem! She is currently playing with the dog and the torch, spinning round in circles while singing, “I can spin (or run) as fast as you, spinning on the spot”. She hasn’t stopped singing all day…

I’ve been tired the last two days so we haven’t done much academic work. This morning B watched the ABC schools TV programming: For the Juniors, Music Moves, Science Bank – Heat, Designers, Great Artists – Stubbs and Walks with an Architect. I did also manage to catch her this afternoon and sit her down to the third unit in Module 4, on recording measurements in metres and centimetres, so she’s still on track to complete the module this week (amazing – that would make two in two weeks! *g*). She finds the timed skill builders intimidating so I think I’ll find another way of getting her to practice her tables. Year 3, module six in Smartkiddies has untimed multiplication practice, so we might start there.

Other than that, we’ve been pretty casual. B has been building elaborate architecture from K’s birthday Duplo, and K has been grumpy because her sister is hogging all the fun pieces. B was building things with the interlocking daisy pieces and a similar rectangular set, which K is now also fascinated by. This morning they did some dress-ups, I read some books to K and played with her new Big Bird puzzle, they played outside for a while, and we went for a walk to the park after an early lunch. This afternoon we introduced K to popcorn, which she loved, and watched probably too much TV.

Yesterday we were more active, going out op shopping (at B’s request). She was interested in looking for clothes, so I got her to sort through and inventory her summer wardrobe so we knew what to look for (skirts and Valley girl-style T-shirts). Since it was B’s idea to go, we negotiated a compromise which meant that both of us got to look at what we were interested in, and K didn’t have to spend the whole time stuck in her pram being bored. It worked very well: I took K in the pram and kept her amused while B looked for clothes and tried them on, then B took K to play with toys or wander about while I browsed. B was disappointed not to find any interesting clothes in Vinnies, but I was happy with my pickings. I found some nice red and blue clothes for K, some dress-ups, and some useful baby stuff. The Salvos were more promising, with B picking up a couple of tops and two pairs of shoes, and I found even more baby clothes plus some more random oddments. B and K had lots of fun playing with the toys at Vinnies, and even though K was getting a bit tired and distracted in the Salvos she still wasn’t even close to being obnoxious. Unfortunately I now know that the umbrella stroller is definitely too low for me to push comfortably and I had a rotten lower backache and sore hips by the time we got back to the car, and we still had to go to the markets after that…

We had a moment in the car park at Vinnies where I got to demonstrate the rewards of telling the truth to B. We had found a $50 note floating in the drain behind our car, and B wanted to tell the Vinnies volunteer who was out there that she had lost it and get him to help her retrieve it. I pointed out that that was Lying. She seemed unconvinced by the argument from morality, but went over and told the volunteer that she had found the money. It then turned out that he knew who had lost it and was effusively grateful to B for having found it, so I was later able to point out to B that if she had lied about it he would have known or suspected she was lying, whereas now she could bask in the glow of having Done The Right Thing, rather than that of embarrassment caused by getting caught Doing The Wrong Thing. Educational *g*

By the time we got back from the markets we only had enough time for a quick snack before taking B to horseriding. K fell asleep in the car, and slept for the whole lesson. We drove off to Phillip to pick up E before having a lovely meal at Ethiopia Down under to celebrate E’s bonus. Later in the evening I tried to assemble a large order at Windmill Educational Toys but came up against the same problem of not being able to process it which I’d encountered earlier in the year, and which I had just given up on resolving (not because the company was unwilling to help, mainly because it seemed like too much effort and I couldn’t really justify the expenditure then). E assembled K’s new bed upstairs and K put herself to sleep in it. Here’s to that continuing!

ETA: I discovered an ABC show on training dogs, Wagging School, which is available online, and B spent the evening watching episodes and then practising on Zebedee. Then she watched Catalyst, and now she’s watching a documentary called Brat Camp which I imagine will horrify her *g*

Today was really productive. B let the chooks out and cleaned the rat cage before we left for the science workshop from 10-12. We managed to get there fifteen minutes early (because apparently I am incapable of actually getting somewhere on time). B had a wonderful time at the workshop, and so did the rest of the kids, from the reactions I saw when I came to pick B up, and from the gushing of the other mums *g* K and I played with the snap-together beads and did some drawing until she decided she was hungry (despite having had a huge breakfast). Then we went down to Lyneham shops and bought yoghurt, a green apple and some chocolate milk. We had to go back again a little later after we discovered we had no plastic spoons in the glovebox! I got myself a coffee and a choc chip muffin, and was amused by the fact that I offered K some muffin but she insisted she wanted her apple first, then when she did ask for a bit she gave it back immediately and wanted yoghurt instead *g* To kill some more time we went to the second hand book shop where I found B a book on knitting patterns designed for girls (the language is self-consciously young and funky but the patterns looked both achievable and trendy, it was only published last year). She has decided what she wants to make out of it and will take it with her to Temora next week.

When we got home I decreed it to be lunchtime, but that B needed to do some spelling and maths before we went out again to meet an on-line friend at 3:30. This worked quite well. K watched that morning’s episode of Play School, then B watched BTN which had recorded afterwards, and everybody had lunch. I played with K for a while, doing some lacing shapes and attempting to play Tummy Ache!, although K insisted on cheating so I gave up. B did a practice session on WizardsSpell, had a minor breakdown in the middle of it, but I tried out a suggestion I had read somewhere that chewing while working helps some kids concentrate better and gave her an apple to munch on. Whatever the reason, she conquered her negative response and completed the practice session without further problems. Then she played a game of Chicktionary, for the first time in ages. Finally she did the hundredths, percentages and decimals unit in Module 4, with absolutely no difficulty. I did a bit more initial explanation than I usually have to do as I felt the introductory page was pretty unhelpful. I think just writing out the hundredths so that the numerator was over the denominator in columns rather than centred made the relationship very obvious. It may or may not have been necessary, of course 🙂 I also used the Math-u-see blocks to show her the quick way of adding up the shaded tens (the questions showed a one hundred square and asked the student to count the shaded units, and B had come up with a very complicated method whereby she counted down the rows and tried to multiply them *g*).

We had a very nice couple of hours at Mel’s, although we did have to spend quite a lot of time stopping our respective toddlers from beating each other up and fighting over toys *rolls eyes* In contrast B got on fabulously with Mel’s two eldest girls (aged 8 and 10-next-week) after they got over their mutual shyness. K fell asleep in the car on the way home, which surprised me not at all. After dinner, B and I talked a bit about vocal technique and did some exercises to practice breathing with her diaphragm, figuring out the point at which her voice switches between resonating in her chest and in her head, and experimenting with humming through nearly-closed lips and contrasting the feel of it when it is fully-supported with her diaphragm, and just vibrating it against a piece of foil (and an explanation of sound waves). She eventually managed to remember to feed the rats, and we also had fun with Zeb who wanted desperately to convince the cat to play chasies, but eventually had to settle for racing around the living and dining rooms like a deranged rabbit *g*

B walked E to the bus stop, fed the chooks and collected 2 eggs, then watched an episode of Life of Mammals before breakfast. I also nudged her to check on the rats, given her Pets badge ambitions! K played with the dolls’ house again, which she’s been doing a bit lately.

After we dropped B off at pottery, K and I went to Dickson and did some op shopping. I found some good toys for K (some horse figurines and some snap-together beads which were a hit with both of them), plus a couple of books, including Cooking with Asterix which looks like a bit of a laugh. Also picked up a couple of GF things at Woollies, and discovered that since the last time I was in Dickson, a speciality GF bakery and cafe has opened up! I agreed to take B there next week as a farewell brunch before she leaves for Temora.

After pottery, they both played with the beads, K watched some Play School, B read the Asterix cookbook, and everybody had lunch before we headed off to Jamison to visit the Allergy Centre. K was getting very grumpy, so we prepared for her to fall asleep during the drive by packing the new Mad Libs book. B filled in one while I was driving, then thought of words for a couple while K slept. I think we did four or five and they were good value – I will definitely be going back and buying the rest of the set! When we got bored with Mad Libbing we woke K up, and found the new location for the Allergy Centre. Their range is fantastic! We bought some pizza bases, two sausage rolls, some more pasta, and some plain GF flour which became my answer to Madam’s constant demand for cakes and biscuits *rolls eyes* B had bloody well better be allergic to gluten at this rate *g* But this should keep her going for the three weeks of the trial, at least, and then we will have a better idea if she needs to switch permanently…

B eventually did sit down and do some maths. She whizzed through the fractions unit in Module 4, then did it again, then did it wrong to see what would happen *g* Then she did the quiz for Module 3 and was very discouraged when she got some answers wrong. I think we need to practise word problems (although she got them all right, she seemed a bit confused by the process of translating the problem into an operation) and go back over the actual 3D nets and the names of various shapes.

After that they played in the garden for a while, and let the chooks out for a rampage (with Zebedee locked inside, of course!). K and I did some beading and sorting, then played with the dolls (I’ve just figured out that the oldest one has been named Pattypan. Don’t ask me why!). They’ve both been playing in the dolls’ house, as well as with Duplo. B built an awesome dinosaur, so K built her own as well *g* Apparently it was a plant eating dinosaur, so she made a plant for it to eat as well. Then I kept them amused for what must have been ten minutes at least, just going round and round and round…and round……and round………and round in circles. Initially I had challenged them to see who would fall over first, but after a while with no one going plunk we varied it by getting one to copy the other, or singing the “Round and round and round we go” song so they sped up or slowed down. After E came home, they calmed down a little bit, and B gave the rats cage-free time and was very good explaining to K how to be gentle with them. Everybody helped make dinner (pizza), then E and K went to the shop and B watched Australian Story and Four Corners.

B has been pretty lovely throughout the weekend, too. On Saturday morning we faffed about before heading off to Fyshwick (via Queanbeyan, because I was too distracted to navigate) to interrogate minions at ActewAGL’s showroom about the various pros and cons of gas instant hot water vs gas-boosted solar. We had neglected to leave enough time for this and just squeaked through 15 minuted before closing time. I also found a solar equipment showroom near E’s work, so he’s going to interrogate them on the various merits of different solar systems this week. We fed the munchkins barely adequate food from a take-away (E and I adhered to Fuzzy Pink Niven’s rule of not wasting calories), then he dropped me off at Belconnen Mall for Mum’s Time Off and amused the munchkins for the afternoon. I went out in the evening too (my life is a positive whirl of dissipation). B started watching Life of Mammals again (which she is still watching this morning).

Sunday produced some actual house cleaning- the munchkins and I picked up the dining/playroom before I took B to her substitute horseriding lesson, and E vacuumed it while we were out. B has decided that she is sufficiently concerned about her possible allergy symptoms to go gluten-free for three weeks to see if it has an effect, so she and E went looking for some GF foods in the morning. After horseriding, B and I went back to the Mall to look for shoes, and eventually found a pair of velcro-fastening trainers which B pronounced adequate (unfortunately – and she tried on every pair of alternatives in the store – the only ones she could find which actually fit were pink striped). We also made a quick trip to the Reject Shop, originally to look for craft stuff but coming home with a random selection of scourers, CFLs and solar lights instead. B spent $15 of her credit card money on buying a squishy stuffed dog from Lincrafts, then was chagrined to discover a book about knitting dog jumpers at the bookshop five minutes later which she then couldn’t afford *g* I bought her a book of junior Mad Libs instead, after my description of the game intrigued her. K had fallen asleep in front of Play School when we got home, but she was sufficiently intrigued by the new squishy dog when she woke up that B got lots of practice in negotiating turns. We discovered that Roxy (the dog next door) had almost succeeded in breaking through the back fence, so E fixed up a temporary solution, and Joel (Mr Next Door) suggested going halves in getting the whole thing replaced professionally. Probably a good thing to get done ASAP before planting season! After dinner (which E cooked while I played Tummy Ache! with K), B went to sleep in front of Life of Mammals while K and I did some impromptu maths: she gave me the Maths Wars cards so I sorted out the addition cards using digits 1-5 and used spare Junior Monopoly house tokens to demonstrate the principles of addition to K. I was impressed that she recognises quite a few numerals correctly, as well as being able to count past 10. She seemed to get the hang of grouping and counting on, although who knows how much of what we were doing she understood. Then we built towers with blocks, and after our physics prac we did some music as she started experimenting with banging blocks together. E finally took her off to bed, and I eventually succeeded in waking B up so we could go out and shiver in the back garden watching the Perseid meteor shower. We saw maybe three meteors before cloud covered the viewing area, whereupon we decided that it was too bloody cold to stay out any longer, and went to bed.

Quick dot-point post because I want to go to bed…

• B fed the chooks without much argument. She also collected dirty washing up for me, and vacuumed up a spill (by Katy) and shards from a broken bowl (by her) without complaint.
• B watched BTN Specials: Kids Matters and a half-hour documentary on ageing (which sounded quite interesting).
• K appears to be getting bored with Play School at last – she asked me to play a couple of episodes as well as the usual TV offerings but I don’t think she sat through even half an episode before finding something else to do in another room *g* And I noticed that B did not turn on her computer all day, although she did play Brickshooter on Ocelot for a little while. Possibly the fact that I unglued myself from my own screen and tried more actively to engage with them throughout the day had something to do with this…
• K and I played shopkeeper and made some play money for the cash register before I realised that we had a whole jar full of Monopoly money we could use instead. K also pulled out her melody bells and we had lots of fun (and made lots of noise) seeing what they sounded like when I spun them faster or slower as she experimented with ways to hold the striker.
• K set herself up to do cutting and collage (with sticky tape not glue) while B sat down at my puter to start some maths. B had an attack of the “I-can’t-do-its” then got incredibly perfectionistic and self-blaming about being stupid and not being able to get anything right (didn’t help that she’d chosen knitting as her break activity and she’s still learning to cast on *sigh*). I actually managed to handle it well without getting exasperated as I usually do, and the munchkins ended up going outside for a longer break.
• Given that it was so windy, B made a “kite” by tying a wandering plastic bag onto a long string. K had lots of fun with this too!
• B eventually completed the Revision sheet for Module 3 (with no difficulty), after having spent some time doing subtraction at Year 3 Master Class. We talked about the program as a whole and she felt rather intimidated by the idea that it was 20 modules long, so we read through them and basically there’s almost nothing there which she can’t already do. She was particularly amused by the idea that people think kids still need to be taught how to spend money at the age of ten *g* She asked me what “division” meant so I gave her an explanation which emphasised that she already understood the principle. She was also pleased that a later module (15) includes something she’s already been doing with LISP. The only two which I anticipate may give her any significant pause are 11 and 13, and I would like her to do them with E as he is much better at explaining this stuff that I am (given that he actually understands how and why it all works, unlike me who can just about do it by rote if I concentrate really hard! Module 11 made my brain hurt – division was always my most hated operation).
• Baking biscuits – K and B had lots of fun rolling and cutting out shapes, then icing and decorating when cool. B did some measuring for me and we had a giggle about how one of the upcoming maths modules was supposed to teach her how to read kitchen scales!
• B and I looked at cool pictures of bubble houses on-line, because I thought she’d like them (she did). She also decided that instead of resubscribing to Helix magazine, she wanted to subscribe to New Moon magazine for girls. I’ve had this mag in mind for her for three or four years so I’m excited that she’s finally interested enough in Girl Stuff to want to get into it – it’s the only feminist mag for pre-teens that I know of.
• 5:00-6:00 watched Roller Coaster.
• Scouts 7:00-8:30. B has decided to do her Pets badge next, and will be looking after the rats for two months in pursuit of that.
• B didn’t do any formal reading today, but I did note that she is far less intimidated by things like recipe books and her Scouts badge book, and was happy to look through them and try to read for information. Even if eventually she decided to ask me to read instead, she didn’t get upset or discouraged by it.
• K has caught the counting bug – when she starts with “Boo”, “Boo-to-you”, “Boo-to-you-too” I now have to follow it up by alternating in counting from two up to as high as she can reach. Today she was showing a particular attachment to the numbers six and sixteen. I read about this idea years ago in a homeschooling book and have been sneakily trying to infect K with it for a while, and it seems to have worked *g*
• K watched lots of Youtube music videos with me and E.
• B came home and fell asleep in front of a Roller Coaster episode from earlier in the week. K had had a late nap from 5:30-6:30 but weirdly it seemed to make it easier for her to go to sleep – she was up til latish (10pm) but was happy and chirpy and seemed to go to sleep quite easily, in contrast to her exhausted hysterics of earlier in the week.

This afternoon B watched the second disc of Pride and Prejudice, which she’d started watching at the farm. We had a bit of a chat afterwards about the kind of social commentary Austen was making which is glossed over in modern adaptations in favour of the Twu Wuv storyline, so hopefully inculcating sufficient cynicism to inoculate her against the Bridget Jonesification of Austen’s canon! We grabbed the opportunity to play Monopoly Junior when K fell asleep in front of Play School, and she flogged me soundly (as usual). After K woke up again, B walked up to the shop with the dog to buy sugar and jelly crystals. While she was there she also rang to ask if I would lend her the money to buy a Teach Yourself Knitting magazine. I said yes, then when she got home we talked about the Fine Print TM of this kind of week-by-week collection. After a bit of searching we found the information that the normal retail price is $7.95 and the series runs for at least 90 issues. You can buy an awful lot of knitting books with $700+! *g* I suggested we could look at the library for kids’ knitting books, and we found two which looked interesting so put in a request for them. After she finished Rollercoaster, she started watching the DVD which came with her knitting magazine, and has been watching the relevant bits over and over to learn new techniques. She is still considering whether it will be worth collecting the set; I guess she has to learn for herself really (I started collecting one of these week-by-week gardening references in my early twenties, so I’m hardly going to criticise her for not grokking the scam-like qualities of the marketing at her age!).

K has been playing with her beads, noting shapes and colours and making patterns, then using them as building blocks to build houses with the rectangles and triangles. After that she played with the stacking blocks while I washed up, then she wanted an episode of Play School, during which she fell asleep. She woke up again at about 4:00, then watched the episode of Play School which had just recorded, while apparently also practicing for the World Grumpiness Championship *sigh* She grumped about being hungry, then about wanting the heater on, then about the length of time it took for the heater to warm up. In the end we headed into my study for a very long feed, then she cheered up more while sitting at the table and doing her button board with me. She’s spent a bit of time pottering in her play room with various toys this evening, also helping with the very important mushroom chopping for dinner!

ETA: In the course of the evening B developed a passion for numismatics and has decided that she wants to spend some of her bank money on antiquities. During the course of an hour or two of trawling through coin dealers she is toying with the idea of spending $45 on a dolphin coin from the Ukraine, c. 300-100BC, $60 or so on a slightly less ancient Roman coin, or saving a lot harder and buying a cuneiform tablet which is over 3000 years old *g* She isn’t really fussed about what it is, so long as it is old! (although given her existing love for Egypt it doesn’t surprise me that she would prefer something from that area if possible). I have invoked the one week cooling off period for spending bank money, and if she is still keen by the end of next week we will see what she decides to do…

She’s a funny little munchkin! I can’t remember exactly how the subject came up, but we started by trawling through the Mint’s on-line catalogue, until she decided that what most appealed to her about the idea of coin collecting was the idea of holding something really really old. We found the Numismatic Association of Australia, and discovered that there is an ACT branch, but she wasn’t terribly interested in the idea of hanging out there in order to learn about collecting. From there, we ended up at the Australasian Numismatic Dealers Association, following a link to look for information on coin fairs, but unfortunately there isn’t one in Canberra in the forseeable future. We checked out their marketplace instead, and gradually ended up finding some of the dealers who specialise in ancient coins. If we can find some information about numismatics which isn’t mind-numbingly boring so that we can learn a little bit about it before she starts splashing too much money around, that would probably also be a good idea…

We also arranged for her to visit Temora on Tuesday week, probably coming back on the train the following weekend (she is very taken with the idea of subjecting her grandmother to several hours on uncomfortable public transport *g*). She could have gone for a shorter visit this week but I got all autocratic and told her we weren’t going to cancel the various HENCAST activities we have RSVPed for next week, when the following week we have nothing which can’t be postponed (horse riding). Particularly convenient timing given that Grandmoogi has a specialist’s appointment on Monday morning so B won’t be missing pottery. It is the week of the Science Festival, but frankly we never end up going to as many things as I think we will so I’m not going to argue too hard that she should stay home for that week as well.

And she was extremely chuffed when Nannie told her that her horse riding lesson, postponed from last week since she was sick, is now at 11am on Sunday, in Inga’s Intermediate class (she is still in Beginners 2, so she is thrilled at the idea that her instructor thinks she is good enough that she can handle the next level up!).

The squidlets are being particularly gorgeous this morning. I’m not feeling very energetic but I am feeling so depressed by the horror of this house that I’m getting stuck into it anyway, and B in particular has been a huge help! She took out the bins, did half the washing up, put her laundry away, fed the chickens and checked for eggs, checked the rats and refilled their water bottle, and looked after K for me outside while I did some things inside. She and K are having morning tea at the moment, but she is proposing to head up to the shops to buy sugar (and jelly crystals) so we can do some baking this afternoon.

We also set up her user account on WizardsSpell, and she did a 15 minute practise session. We will be doing some maths later, then we can actually finish Module 3 this week. Considering I’ve been trying to get into a routine with SmartKiddies for a couple of months and yet we’ve so far yet to complete module 3, the idea that we might actually get this module done in a single week is quite boggling *g* Now I’ve roped Nannie into continuing the same maths work while B is out at the farm, we should be able to get stuff really happening! B did a fair amount of language work over the last couple of days, most of which Nannie sent home, including the poem? short prose? which she had written. She just asked me to type that up on the computer for me, because apparently it is going the card she made for Pa. I sent it to her via email and she is exploring the font options on her computer.

K has been fairly grumpy on and off, although less than she has been for most of the week (thank the ghods). I’ve read the little Kipper book Butterfly about a dozen times, she’s played in the garden with B and is now playing with the dog inside, as well as watching Play School. She is currently playing with her rice basket, which she was able to pull out of the cupboard because B left it open. This means she does not have the tablecloth on the floor to enable me to return the rice grains to the basket with a minimum of spillage *sigh* Ah well, the floor needs a vacuum anyway…

Since K got sick over the weekend we still haven’t settled back into a routine *sigh* I really hope we’re coming to the end of this cycle of lurgification…

B went out to the farm for the weekend for a sleepover with Caitlin, and K decided Saturday evening was the perfect time to come down with a fever. After a restless night, she spent Sunday zonked out on the beanbag watching Play School and sleeping. Sunday night she slept better, and seemed well enough in the morning that we went out to pick up B from pottery (Mum had offered to drop her home if necessary), but then she got worse and worse from that point. It got to the stage where she wasn’t willing to let me leave her for a minute, wasn’t going to sleep, refusing to take any Panadol, and grizzling to the point of inducing maternal desperation. I called my wonderful mother, who was still in town, and she offered to take B out to the farm again. K finally went to sleep after that was organised, so I got to cuddle B a little bit before Nannie arrived. She was feeling very grumpy that I hadn’t had a minute to spare for her, and I was a bit short with her lack of sympathy with her sister – especially after our doctor’s appointment later that day revealed K had an ear infection instead of just having the flu as we’d assumed…

B will now be out at the farm until Wednesday after horse riding, as usual. Mum said that this morning they’d done some of the maths at Smartkiddies which I had planned for the week, as well as some reading and language work. They’ll basically just do something similar tomorrow, and maybe some sewing or other stuff. When I called at lunchtime, B was cooking pasta sauce, and had also been walking the dogs (no wonder Nannie likes having her out there these days *g*). Last night E and I finally signed up to WizardsSpell, so I’m just waiting for B to come back so we can set up her log-in, then she can have fun with that.

K and I had a battle over whether or not she was going to take her antibiotics this morning, during which I lost my temper and yelled at her *blush* I apologised for that a bit later on and tried to explain why it is important for her to take her full course of medicine, which she seemed to accept. When the next dose came she was still a bit reluctant, but I explained again about the big strong bugs in her ear getting stronger and making her even sicker if she didn’t finish the medicine, and this time she actually let me give her her dose without a fuss! Success! It’s so lovely when they get to the age where they can be reasoned with *g* Apart from medical wrangling, she has been happily playing shopkeeper (this morning she was keeping a cafe instead), her button board, playing with the dog while I did the outside animals, and helping me cook cupcakes. Now she is desperate to ice and decorate them, so I had better leave it here and go and do that!