Push back the Smooze!

I guess I ought to blog then really.
OK It's been a while, bear with me...
Friday 14th was the day after F's birthday and she and I went to a local children's carnival which was really good - I completely love samba drumming, have always loved Carnival Collective's outside performances in Brighton. The children were wearing costumes almost entirely constructed from rubbish and looked really good, amazingly - I wouldn't have been able to make such good costumes from what they had used. They were decorated with colourful shapes cut from carrier bags, and carried strings of foil dishes that were arranged according to size to aesthetic effect and really shone. Lots of flags and banners and a wonderful atmosphere. Perfect weather for it too. F has taken a while to start to like the sound as much as her mum but she's starting to get over the loudness now to pick up the pull of the rhythm.
We stayed a while in the field where the carnival ended as there was some music provided by local 6th form rock gods and goddesses! Then we wandered to the playground end where F played a bit, joining in with a couple of groups of children who turned up.
Back at home F and I made some perfume from her kit - rose scent and mint scent. I'm dying to do the bath bombs but she's not so bothered at the moment. We'll get to it.

Weekend 15th and 16th
We were responsible for feeding 4 cats belonging to 2 neighbours, so F and I popped round with our sets of keys on Saturday morning - I couldn't find my next door neighbour's tins of cat food - had to look in all her cupboards and then F finally pointed to them, in a space between 2 units at her level. She was unimpressed by the smell of the cat food, having expected it to be more appealing as she only encounters meat socially I think. We chatted about what cats eat, how they need water, etc.
Her favourite neighbouring cat didn't show up, having found several willing alternative hostesses further down the road, which was a bit of a disappointment.
Back at home she took lots of pictures with her camera - slightly late birthday present that only arrived that day. It's designed for children, which means it's a bit ruggedized and doesn't mind being dropped, and has very simple large buttons. Think it's a Fisher Price item.
In the afternoon Glo and Shula came over with Jess and Jo - F and Jess are really becoming good friends I think - though that is partly down to Jess having excellent social skills and being older. Nevertheless they do seem to play well together and chat. So they disappeared up to F's room and also took pictures of each other out on the swing while Joe played with lego railway track indoors.
They spent the last half hour playing with some Magic Sand (F's present from them) all together, requiring quite a lot of supervision at times!
It was lovely to see them, especially as they won't be able to make it to the picnic.
On Sunday Grandma Julia came over, bringing the final item in the My Little Pony list, so F was pretty thrilled. Grandma Julia also brought a science tube kit on electricity, so we made a battery which lit up a little red LED for all of half a second. It was interesting though, will do it again some time.
Grandma Julia was quite excited about the plan to buy a house and we all looked at a few online, oohing and aahing at various pictures, gasping with appalled incredulity at room dimensions, old wallpaper, undeclared abbatoir proximity, etc. for a bit. She has offered to take us to look at some and cast an eye over them.

Monday
I had to stay up all of Sunday night to meet a deadline so I was a bit tired and crazed. I don't remember much except that our new neighbour had the tree surgeons in all day with the chainsaw going, and F and I had a nice walk to the local shop and back and also chatted a few times about the ponies!
Tuesday
My mum came over and F had more prezzies - some Happy Land items (vet with vehicle and some farm animals) and a double dance mat. I also got her the original My Little Pony film on DVD which is already on about 20th viewing in less than a week as I write.
In the morning beforehand F had had me cutting windows in a cardboard box to be a house for her imaginary friends, Jack and Mary, the mice from Cinderella. She and I had worked together on it a bit, giving them a door with a split-pin door knob and chatting about the rooms they would like.
Wednesday and Thursday
Were mainly working days for me, finishing 10 days or so of high-volume technical Russian jobs for 2 different agencies. Hard but I think my Russian has really improved under that pressure.
Friday
Met my deadline, just! With less than 2 hours sleep, off we went to MonsterTeenies, which was lovely, though we didn't get a huge chatting time there, for various reasons. However, Mrs MT gave us a lift back as J was going to check something anomalous on her laptop. F quickly began to enclose her into a small space on the sofa with various garish plastic pony-related items. I managed to keep her from being entirely engulfed by removing a few items now and then, but then my wine took over and I just watched and thought it was funny. As puters will, the de-virusing took a long long time, but it was nice to have semi-social adult company. In the end we threatened her with Moong Daal and she ran off into the night shuddering and clutching her hopefully-fixed laptop.
Yesterday
Took F up to the place that we are having the picnic at. Very nice. Not giving details here right now.
Today
Just relaxing and enjoying not having to work.

I plan not to work too much this coming week, to spend more time with F and to give her free choice of what she wants to do on a couple of the days. She has been great while I've been working lately. Although our house is very messy at the moment, part of that messiness means that loads of things are really easily accessible to her, so she gets hold of things as she wants them and plays with them/uses them. It seems to work well for us.

Generally at the moment, she is into ponies, drawing, stencils, camera, water.