Special catch-up episode with flashbacks and blogbumperies

So let's see...

Monday
was bank holiday - we went for a mediumish shortish walk which was far muddier than anticipated, but lovely, and when we got back we watched Return of the Jedi, which is my favourite of the Star Wars films. It was a lovely relaxed day, can't remember much else about it, but it was good. I remember some conversations about weather and forecasting and weather maps.

I told F that she had been invited to a Madagascar/jungle themed party on the coming Saturday and asked her what she would like to go as. She said 'a palm tree' so I thought fine, actually that's kind of original and I can see how I can do that easily.

Tuesday
In the morning F and I talked about sweetcorn and I showed her pictures on Google of the plant, the cob, the kernels and a tin of sweetcorn and we talked about the stages of that process, which she seemed quite interested in. She loves sweetcorn
incidentally.
My mum came over and played with/looked after F so that I could get more work done than usual. It was fairly gardenish weather. I managed to make the first major progress on the horrid job I had for that week.

She had also made a character called Princess Gravehair who had silver plaits, in the Sims 2 I think. Discussed F's palm-tree costume and she liked the sound of what I suggested.

Wednesday
...was dominated by a really bad walk to the high street shops and back, during which it became apparent that F's feet have grown again and she was having shoe discomfort. In the morning F made a Sims 2 family and started building them a house and then I confirmed with her that yes, she would definitely like to be a palm tree at the party. So off we went to get brown dye for some white material that I have had for a while awaiting such use. A bit of whining and wailing on the way, at first I just thought it was other things but no, it proved to be shoes in the end, after it was too late to do anything about it. I bought brown dye and some salad and bread and then ended up buying another My Little Pony with the sheer misery of it all! We managed to stay friends, just. Anyway we bought ice lollies on the way home so the last bit was OK. We also managed a conversation about the Earth, Sun and Moon and looked at pictures and talked about their relation to each other.

Thursday
In the morning, F played more Sims 2, making another house with a bathroom layout like ours and trying to keep all her Sims outside until she had kitted out their home so that they could appreciate the full surprise effect. I had a big surprise too, when F told me she didn't want to be a palm tree and wanted to be Gloria the Hippo, because 'she's a girl!'.

*breathes*

In the afternoon Katya came over with Ria and Belle and generally the kids had a lovely time, it was a beautiful day and they didn't need too much intervention apart from Belle doing some dangerous exploration of narrow high places that other children have so far not bothered with in the garden. Ria made the most of the swing and then wanted to play Wallace and Gromit on XBox. We asked her to wait a bit as lunch was still going on and we were trying to keep them all outside for some silly reason of grown-upness. So she ended up going and trying to get the game out herself and broke the disk. No big deal, just quite amazed at how she managed to do it, really. F was fine about it.

We all went off for a walk, but F and Ria were both extremely silly in terms of road-sense at the beginning and Katya and I got very VERY SHOUTY!
Which led to more wailingness, which then dissipated during the next bit of the walk (after accompanying toys were temporarily confiscated and used motivationally...) and we went along the back and saw the goats and then got ice lollies in the shop.

Friday
I had worked all night till half four in the morning, so was tired, but adrenaliney and euphoric too, and just plain relieved to have finished an annoying job. In the morning, F had the cunning idea of not putting a door into her Sims' new house until she had got it exactly how she wanted it, so that all her Sims would stay outside chatting in the garden oblivious to the bounty being prepared within. This worked fine and was quite a clever plan I thought.
We talked a bit about days of the week, she hasn't got them sorted in her head at all yet, so it's all very confusing for her.

The MonsterTeenies came over and they all played really well, making plenty of ashy mess out there, but dry this time, as water ended up being kept out of the equation. I was extremely unnerved when Mrs MTsuddenly noticed they had been too quiet for a little while and we found that the panel next to our gate at the back had completely collapsed, leaving a gap. Scary. Hate the thought of the garden not being secure. So now will need to sort that out. I don't want to ask the landlord in case he either takes ages or does a really bodged money-saving job, so will get someone onto it next
week I think.

Other than that it was another nice MonsterTeeny visit, plenty of chat, the children seemed to all play well together - it works well when they see each other really regularly, weekly or fortnightly at most. They do start to forget what to do with each other when the break is 3 weeks or longer I think. This week they had only seen each other a week ago and they were able to build on that, it seemed to me. At times they all still play separately too, but they do all seem very comfortable with each other, whatever they are doing and don't really tend to clash at all.
After they had gone, F and I went over to the local shop to buy Friday curry and then before bed J, F and I worked together on a head for Gloria the Hippo.

Today
I got up early (8am!!) with F and we got ready for a busy day out. Packed the rucksack with her Gloria costume and put the car booster seat in a carrier bag and off we went. Caught a bus the minute we got to the bus stop, a good omen for the day. In Brighton, we went to buy sandals and wellies (I figure they will cover all eventualities until I can get some decent trainers next week at least) and were very successful.

Then we went and watched the start of the children's parade which was, as usual, wonderful - beautiful models of all sorts of things being paraded - the theme this year was food from around the world I think. We stood and watched a bit, and then set off back towards the station to catch our train and to see on the way if we could spot Pearl from Green House by the Sea and her famous giant chopstick - very difficult for F to spot her as she didn't really know what a chopstick was and kept asking me about all sorts of things 'Is that a giant chopstick mummy?'. I'm amazed that we found them, luckily Pearl was standing right at the front of a group waiting to join the parade and I suddenly saw her. We launched ourselves across the path of the parade in one of the less dense parts and had a quick 'hello, you look great, good luck' with them. Seeing them all next week on Streets of Brighton day too, which we're looking forward too.

Then we caught our train and made our way to the birthday party - of Buzz from The Screamteam. F had a lovely time there, she really enjoyed it, so thank you very much Mrs Screamteam - it was great that there were plenty of options for everyone to enjoy something, from quieter craft activities to games and dancing, a lot of thought had gone into it - I think F's favourite things were musical chairs, the pinata, eating slices of ham (!) and the film of Madagascar projected on the wall. She has also very much enjoyed the contents of the party bag too!

Right, that's yer catch-up, I promise I will blog properly next week, even though there's much less happening in terms of what's booked in so far on my calendar. Now I am off for wine, Strictly Dance Fever, snuggling, delicious picky bits of marinated this and char-grilled that and Dr Who.