Katy’s rambles about life

Stories…

Finished Family Under the Bridge - some of it washed right over her but she got enough of it to enjoy the story. I’m going to put it in the Christmas box to pull out again next year.

Holly the Christmas Fairy - another one for the Christmas box! She loved this one, it’s got just enough “suspense” and “excitement” to keep her wide eyed but not enough to get her frightened. I’ve read it to her in 3 days and she’s demanding the next fairy book is started tomorow. I think that give her a year or so of reading and these would be within her ability as there aren’t many long words, lots of pictures and generally fairly easy to predict. That is assuming she ever reads…… (yes I know she’s not 5 yet!!!)

Lion Storyteller Christmas - 3 a day from this one at the moment. The book is in 3 sections so it’s 1 story from each bit. It’s a nice variety of stories, the pictures are good and they are written to be read to small children so it’s a winner really.

Jesse Tree - still managing to keep up with this although she’s lost all interest in colouring the pics in so I’ve been graciously given permission to do that bit! Next year I will finish the embroidered symbols that I started early this year (in preparation for this Christmas you understand….) and we will hang those I think!

Life (but not as we know it…)

On Saturday night I took her to the local “village hall” to hear a big brass band concert. She loved the music but it was too loud for her little ears in the hall so we stayed in the foyer. Chatted happily to all and sundry, did the hands on hips and “I don’t go to school” routine to some poor unfortunate that asked if she was looking forward to breaking up from school for Christmas…..

Sunday evening was the church carol service which she totally abandoned me in and sat with the vicar’s wife instead. Sigh, such a poorly socialised, tied-to-my-apron-strings sorta gal isn’t she.

Major event of yesterday was the Christmas tree! It’s up, Tim draped 2 sets of lights on it then we let Becca loose with the tinsel. Then we tried to find enough branchy bits in the tinsel to hang stuff on.

Then Tim decided that we didn’t have enough lights and legged it to the garden centre for more…. there’s 25% off everything Christmassy there at the mo so he got 2 lots, shame 1 lot look like the blue strobes on the front of an ambi when you switch them on but hey! they look pretty good on static! he also bought Turkish Delight which I sat happily eating in a black skirt and dark blue top… the result?

(yes, I know it’s a vile pic, for some reason Tim can’t get my camera even vaguely in focus, don’t think it likes him…. either that or it doesn’t like making me look vaguely human…)

And finally… one of the piggies has ventured up to the higher levels of the cage

but the other one is still struggling to remember that those big wooden ramps are a bit handy for getting up and down to the first level (where the food is) and insists on trying to climb up by the side of said ramp and fall off the edge of the platform once she’s dined….. not the sharpest pencil in the box that one!

She has been really “textbook good little girl” all day (well, except for insisting on wearing PJs all day, even when we went out) and even sat quietly playing with teh pattern blocks whilst listening to my Spanish course then she casually joined in with the speaking practice bit…. worked out when I said “me llamo Katy” that I was saying my name is and replied with “me llamo Becca” she then did the rest of it wonderfully. Can she do my assessments for me???? In fact, can I enroll her in something just for spoken Spanish next year?????

We were at crafts this afternoon and she happily sat with her buddy making cards the whole time. I managed to stamp and colour 5 “family cards” but one is scrap as I picked up the wrong stamp pad and it didn’t dry properly so it smudged really badly and spoilt teh card (sulk, moan…) Never mind, better to find out now than be rushing them in 3 weeks and have to use it regardless.

Big news of the day is that Whirly has finally worked out how to get up the ramp to the “dining room” in the cage although she still insists on going back down to the bottom lemming style (sigh…..)

She launched straight into the next Stile book this morning - “early reader book 1″ - advised me that it was “too hard mummy” and promptly waltzed through all the initial sound pages flawlessly.

Then she demanded “the book with the clown on it” (that would be Singapore EB 2a then) and did 10 pages from that. yes, 10. So I can now quite happily say she “gets” bigger/smaller/taller/shorter and as an aside can tell the story of the 3 bears….

Stories went quite well, she really loves In Grandma’s Attic so that’s on to find sequels or similars for. She’s also really enjoying the “history” book which is currently giving us a whirlwind tour of clothing through the ages.

This afternoon was crafts and she abandoned me in favour of one of the ladies within minutes and happily made cards with her all afternoon. This woman deserves a medal, she’s just so patient with her!!!

The hour seems to have changed fairly successfully here thankfully and she’s gone to bed pretty much at her normal time. Mind you, I never managed to part her from her PJs today so it was a fairly quick process getting her to bed!

Went to see Becca plus her girls today. A very pleasant day was had by all from what I could see although all the girls seemed to take it in turns to wobble a bit here and there! Lots of dressing up, running round, craft stuff etc done and I now have a very tired little girl tucked up in bed. Becca took a photo of Becca…..

her

Long lie in…. 10am!!!!! Knew she was tired but really didn’t think *that* tired!
second half of 100 Dresses
Prince Caspian
Living Long ago (henceforth LLA) clothing - Roman
Dr Seuss Alphabet book
3 pages EB 2a (greater than, less than)
DEL 1 page (sequences)
Lots of stamping cards at Ladies Crafts
Lots of chatting too!
Traced over words in 5 cards

Me

Bit more crochet
bit of housework
attempted to make “dream topping” recipe from hillbilly housewife but i don’t have a proper electric whisk so it’s not very good (tastes ace though!)
set several hotmail accounts that are bombarding me to delete from POP server.
Wondering about getting a new e-mail account to dodge the spam!
Plan to sit with OU books for a bit tonight (honest Kirsty!)

I’m having trouble with Yah-poo today so I can’t mail you direct but in rep;y to your comment….

I’m fluttering the eyelids for all they are worth! Purlease can I come and play miss?

Being serious just for a second though, the extreem belt tigtening of late has had some good results on the bank account and I should ahve enough money for a tank or two of fuel in a week or so which means I can actually visit people again

We did a lot of nothing really! She spent a good while jumping off carious bits of furniture onto floor cushions, turned her ankle and recovered only after milk, snickerdoodles (scrummy biccies) and Cebeeebies were administered to her “sick bed” aka the sofa. Then she jumped off more furniture, I think I may have mentioned her not very steep learning curve before…..

She also did some collage with a bag of bits from a friend, made a “head dress” from some cardboard covered with turkey foil (much stronger than normal tinfoil!) and liberally decorated wtih feathers, sequins and anything else she could find.

Some Christmas cards were written and decorated very modestly, sorry but this year it seems we are going for minimalist - 1 stamp, no colour so far! She is determined to do the lot herself though hence started already.

Some Singapore EB was done, she likes that. Some reading was attempted, she’s getting there, just like good old British Rail used to be….

The Horse and His Boy was finished and the next book (Prince Caspian) had to be placed in the “daytime story box” ready for tomorow. This one seemed to fizzle out a little in the last chapter which turned into a sort of “everyone lived happily ever after and Shasta, sorry Cor was a really good sort.”

Highlight of my day was managing to roll our one of the flour tortillas round rather tahn my normal array of odd shapes… sadly I have no idea what I did to make it round! Sigh

Hate to sound snobbish but since she’s been playing with the kids next door she’s forgotten how to say T in a lot of words, started coming out with really awful slang and generally “lowering herself to their level”….

Comes down to that “socialisation” thing and who you want them to learn there social behaviour from, adults or other kids. Hmph!

It got so bad today taht I sent her away with that awful dictate taht I swore I’d never use….

“Go away and come back when you can talk properly to me”

Ooops!