Sleepover slackage

On Tuesday F went to an activity day at the Mohair Centre, which she seemed to have enjoyed. I didn't find out very much about what they did, but she and E had had a lovely time and stayed there for their tea too. 

When we went to the Mohair Centre the other week with a home-ed group, it was lovely that the woman there, who I had never met, recognized F immediately from previous activity days and was all pleased to see her. Reassuring to know that she's 'making a good impression' or something, for want of a less stuffy phrase. In fact I suspect that she makes a better impression without me these days, since most of her less impressive stuff occurs when we have rows! 

Anyway, this time they fed calves and did some artwork and not sure what else but returned nicely muddy and beaming happily.

Wednesday, F had mentioned the day before that she wanted to do some art as opposed to craft (!), and after breakfast, she brought down some paper, a selection of pens and gel pastels. She drew out her design clearly, having planned it in her head, which she hasn't often done. Then added colour, some using felt tips and some using gel pastels. The picture was of a bee and a hive in the foreground, with the hive hanging from a tree that is only partially shown as it goes off the page. There is a house in the background on some hills and some flowers. All very planned though, and showing interesting and fairly new use of perspective and composition, the idea that there is more of the scene beyond the page. She nearly had a crisis at one stage when she did the green of the background hills over the bee's head, but then we talked through options and she made the bee's head a darker colour than planned, to make it work OK. Really interesting to see her do all this.

In the afternoon we mainly watched a film, looked at some DS games and chatted, then in the evening she went off for a sleepover at friend E's house. This was the first night of a 2-night sleepover with 1 night at E's and 1 night at F's. Much-planned, as these things always are, F and E do a lot of planning, including making lists of things.

J wasn't feeling that great but... back in summer I had bought tickets for that night for a gig in Brighton: Swans were playing at Concorde 2, a band from our mutual youth! So we headed out, reminding ourselves that we could come back at any point if we felt too old and infirm. Will blog that in the monkey blog I guess (let me know if you would like to be added). Had a good night out!

Thursday I had some time to myself (again, after all day Tuesday too!), but that was filled by a lot of end-of-the-month work. Still rather appreciated all the peace though.

The girls came at mid-afternoon sort of time and settled into a DS-playing-film-watching-pizza-eating Slacker Mode for the next 24 hours really. F had left a few things at E's, so C kindly went back and forth twice bringing them over.

Had a bit of A Talk about levels of independence and going to the local shop, then I accompanied them but tried to not interfere at all and they tried to shop independently. None of us managed our roles with more than 50% competence but it was fun and they got all their midnight feastage items and carried them back, after a bit of scootering down the deliciously steep hill by the shop (*hides eyes, holds breath and listens for crash*).

Back home they returned to DSing, a bit of ponying, watched a film and were settled in F's room by 9ish, requiring very little adult input after that!

F was delighted that E managed to stay awake till midnight so that they actually had the midnight feast. They had had plans for F to sprinkle water on E's face every hour on the hour! Fortunately for E, the operation was only performed once, fairly early on. They set the DSs to New Years' Eve date for midnight fireworks under the bed where the ponies live.

They were asleep about 1ish I think. 

Friday they got off to a leisurely start, staying in F's room playing and chatting for ages, didn't come down until very late morning. They did a lot of ready bed surfing, accelerated by washing up liquid, and then had a lengthy brunch, mainly of croissants, think F had some Weetabix as she is eating tons of that at the moment.

After that they did more DSing, watched bits of The Simpsons and some CBBC and generally played and chatted and required nothing of me, apart from when F had a bit of a wail about not wanting to do something and she and I had to have a bit of a calming-down talk. 

Later, when C came to pick E up, F apologized to E for having been waily earlier and they plotted a few more things like further sleepovers and sharing a flat when they are 19.

After E had gone, I cooked a small curry and a huge dahl and J and I watched last week's Strictly Come Dancing whilst eating that, and I attended my online book club.

Had a few potential plans for this weekend but actually feel a bit rubbish, with aches and general wanting to be hibernating, so might just do nothing much and save some energy!

Some really interesting things happening with F at the moment, in a general move towards handling things more maturely, greater independence, etc. Things like putting younger children first, making sacrifices, etc. recognizing other people's feelings, that kind of thing.