Busy and Fizzy

The weekend:
F's Saturday morning drama sessions are now entirely taken up with rehearsal for the Xmas show they are doing. I'm probably one of the few parents who would rather she was doing weekly workshop drama, instead of focusing on a performance, but she is getting a lot of excitement out of being in the show - her age group go on a few times as a group of pairs of doves and magpies moving around Cinderella and I think they sing a short song too. F isn't that reliable at concentrating, so she is paired with an older child who kindly shepherds her along.
Don't get me wrong, I will enjoy seeing her in it, but at this age I think it's all too easy for them just to be put on stage for cuteness factor and I prefer her doing the proper workshop stuff - drama games, trust games, improvisations, etc. After Xmas they will return to that.
F's concentration does fluctuate hugely but I think it will come with time and practice. She is very able to concentrate on things that she enjoys or that interest her, but she really goes off into F-world totally and rapidly if she's not engaged! The main thing about the drama sessions is that she does like them, which is good enough for me at this point. The main session leader has the knack of holding F's attention and is very good at listening to the children and at presenting what she wants them to do, but the teacher they have had for working towards the performance is really, er, not! She means well but she will stand somewhere so that she is nearly invisible and then, without projecting her voice at all, she will announce 'now if you could all just...', whereas the other teacher would make herself the focal point of the group first, get their attention and then say very clearly and simply what she wanted them to do.
Anyway, I took her to drama, then popped round a few shops before returning to wait in the arts centre (slightly grand name for a community hall that used to be a church really). On our way home we got soaked by a sudden downpour and I did a good comedy fall in the park on the mud slide thus created, my legs going two different ways from under me and my rucksack not much wanting to go with either of them.
On Sunday I caught up on some recorded telly with a bit of snuggling and then we had a tidy and Grandma Ju came. It was a good visit, F got plenty of nice attention and the now traditional 'Advent Box' of little gifts with numbers on was delivered. Red, gold and silver wrappings this year, very gorgeous. Grandma Ju had written the numbers as words instead of numbers this year - cunning! J cooked a good hearty pasta meal and we all watched Snow White and then The Little Mermaid. Grandma Ju and F really bonded much better than before and F called out 'I love you' to her as she left, which made J quite teary for various reasons.
I worked Sunday night, into the small hours - great to have laptop back and to be working again, not to mention chatting with my lovely imaginary reasons.

Today:
Up late and breakfasted then out to go to MMs group. Stopped off at olde-fashioned chemist on corner near station to get some ingredients to make bath bombs at group.
F was in good spirits and we had a lovely day generally with lots of train and bus conversations and others and I can't for the life of me remember any of them right now! See, I've got out of the habit, will need to ease back into it over the next few days.
Group was good, made a nice blue bath bomb, successfully demonstrated it in a saucepan, where it fizzed beautifully, and then helped a few other people, which was fun, aided, abetted, encouraged and heckled by my glamorous nearly-young-enough-to-understand-mobile-phones assistant. F was away doing some serious running-around playing, as were many of the children. They're all getting to know each other a bit better now and it was good to see the various games continue and evolve while we were at the bus stop after group too. We will miss next week's session but will make it to the final session of this year, the week after, and then pay our membership in January.
In central Brighton we went to one of my very favourite shops - C&H Fabrics. When we lived in Brighton it was pretty difficult to go in there with F, in that toddler stage. Much easier now, she wandered around, came to find me and show me beautiful things and we 'oooh'ed and 'aaah'ed over the lovelinesses of yarns and fabrics and colours and textures and sheer gorgeousness. And I bought her a piece of fur fabric with pink and red and purple hearts all over a white background just because. We had a snack and a drink in the Coffee Shop there too, very civilized. I was there mainly to buy curtain hooks, which I completely forgot about from the moment we walked into the sumptuousness and still haven't got, and to look at rugmaking stuff. Bliss!
Then we got the bus back and visited Katya, Ria and Belle for a couple of hours. Ria was a bit out of sorts and F ended up playing more with Belle. K's life is sooo stressful at the moment: she's one term into a PGCE with massive workload, a huge extension is being built and things are all over the place and Ria isn't really eating and sleeping well enough to deal with the rigours of getting used to school, especially the routine. Ria is a strong character, creative and imaginative and funny - think the adjustment is pretty hard for her at the moment. K and I chatted about various mutual acquaintances in a very satisfying manner, having not had a proper chat for months. We might make it out for an evening drink over Xmas time, hopefully.
Then we walked back down the hill, arriving home just as J did. Soon the houses all the way up the hill will have their Xmas lights on, looking forward to that.

Plans for this week include: yoga tomorrow afternoon, making some biscuits F has seen in a book with pink icing, painting all our nails silver, making more bath bombs in a pre-Xmas experimental kind of way with different techniques/colours/fragrances and maybe making more ice-lanterns. Also seeing them thar MonsterTeenies on Friday - we see them at group most Mondays but haven't got together at home for a while.
I have a huge job to complete for Friday deadline, which will be a good start to December for February's finances. My main agency are really glad I have my laptop back and working! Very nice to be missed and to be greeted on my return to the ether with offers of chunky work.
Other things I want to do this week include some online shopping for craft supplies and Xmas stuff. Also want to book F into the local leisure centre Little Ninjas group - martial arts, like yoga, are excellent for helping to counteract hemiplegia, encouraging balance, strength and control - I have heard this from a number of older children and adults with hemiplegia.
On Saturday straight after drama we're off to Cheltenham for a few days, to see family on dad's side, where he will be greatly missed.