Kung Fu Fighting Monkeys and Lime Bunches

Weekend 8th and 9th - I had a worky sort of weekend mainly, unfortunately. I had had one of those little freelancer panics and said 'yes' to every job thrown at me. So there will be a bit of dosh in February, mostly to pay tax becoming due end of January, but right now I'm having to count the pennies and restrain myself a bit with prezzie-buying.
Enjoyed Strictly Come Dancing, watched The Dark Knight Rises with J on Sunday night and enjoyed that too. J and Freya got the tree up and lights on so that was luvverly.

Monday 10th we went to group and took jars again. Lots of jar decorating was done by adults as well as children.

Afterwards back in Lewes all 3 of us had dental check-ups, which went fine, allowing Freya to properly look forward to Christmas from then on without a dentist in the way.

Tuesday and Wednesday 11th and 12th were days at home, with me working in the morning and then in the afternoons we did:
knitting and learning to knit
a writing exercise that Freya planned - choose 3 objects in the room and write about them however you like but involving lots of descriptive words
watching Monsters Inc and other things
baking tasty but odd-shaped biscuits, a delicious banana loaf and some garlic flatbreads - Freya can now do almost all the stages of recipes herself
and lots of chatting and giggling and snuggling and basically all the stuff I really like about cosy days at home

Thursday 13th was Livewires Christmas/Yuletide/Festive/Seasonal session, we took jars again!

Usually I take an activity aimed firmly at the 8s and over end, but this time I had a lot of little crafters at my table and quite enjoyed it as a bit of a change. One little girl, who looked about 5 but had social/interpersonal skills of age 12, told me all about presents she was giving to her friends and who liked what so why they were getting the particular choices. And she was going to be an artist when she grew up. And a doctor. And a Christian. In fact she had her grown-up schedule planned - Artist on Mondays, Doctor on Tuesdays and Christian on Wednesdays. then repeat, with Sundays off.

Also on Thursday I did some more work and my prep for Friday Book Club and typed up a 3-chapter story Freya had written. Here are a couple of extracts:

“Now we shall proceed,” said Barney. “Snowmen are made out of sand I tell you, sand!”

And so they proceeded up many stairs, really like more than your grandma and grandpa’s ages put together (you may have quite young grandparents, but surely they must be over thirty). Before they even got to the top, they once again ran into nasty old Brendan Cole, who said “I tried to stop you as hard as I could, but now it’s all up to Mr Bald Man. Though of course I can put you through to a certain somebody. Follow me!” And so they did, for when they got to the top, Sertine Sumbodey was waiting for them, lime bunches and all."

"And so they went through to the bald man. The atmosphere was shaking from fear, business and kung fu fighting monkeys, a lot of which decided they were already too bored to see how our story finishes, so decided to skip the entire week and go to the rollerdisco in ballet frocks, therefore missing out on the GREAT BIG SURPRISE in this next bit here."

On Friday 14th it was Book Club, where we had 2 new girls attending so we now have 10. We discussed Mr Gum, The Boy in the Dress and Daisy and the Trouble with...(books). Then we moved on to our next theme of winter, snow, Christmas and had prolonged discussion of questions on that theme, e.g. Does your family have any special traditions at this time of year? Would you like to spend Christmas in Australia? etc. I sense some of the members love the discussions and others aren't sure if there's a point! Might try and attach the discussion more to books. With 10, if everyone is getting the opportunity to speak, any question takes ages! Our next month's book choice is all snow/winter themed: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Joan Aiken); The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (C S Lewis); The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder). After the discussion bit and a snack break, I gave them some comprehensiony stuff to do and we discussed that, then a game to find out what the 3 books would be (snippets of text, blurb, picture of cover, title, author - all folded in a bowl and they close their eyes and pick one out and gradually see what the 3 are).

Then yoga and home.

Saturday 15th Freya and I went into town and bought beads and makings for her to make bracelets for friends - unfortunately we chose the wrong sort of thread stuff, which turned out not to work well, will know another time, had to improvise with ordinary thread and decide that they could be room decorations or charms instead. 

Then we looked for puppet-making scraps and trimmings but didn't like what we found so will try Brighton.

Then a drink and snack, before heading over to the leisure centre, where Freya had a swim and a few goes on the inflatable obstacle course thing with her friend L, then came out and into the rollerdisco. Rollerdisco was very good as by the end Freya's confidence and ability had definitely improved a lot. She finished by going round twice on her own and not falling over, Hooray!

Sunday 16th I had to work and work and work. And it's been like that mostly since. J and Freya made a cool set of photos to turn into a Xmas card, with Freya doing sparkler writing in the dark and J using long exposure to capture each letter.

But we did get to Monday group on Monday 17th - however Monday group is only getting 7 families most weeks, which isn't enough, so we're thinking we will not book the hall through January and try a monthly meet from February onwards, see how that goes. There is so much more available now to home-ed families locally that Monday group isn't always going to be the thing they choose to do. Hall rent went up this year, so we went down to 2 hours from 3, but we are still coming in under what we need.

Back home, I helped Freya make some of her bracelet presents, then was back to my work.

Tuesday 18th L's grandad D kindly gave Freya a lift to and from creative writing group, as I was near the end of a work marathon by then. She also got her own breakfast and snacks and entertained herself, as I was just completely 'in it'. Was a relief when I finally finished that one.

Wednesday 19th today - after one of my lovely post-workathon sleeps we stayed in and I did some chores that needed doing (washing and hoovering in particular) and then we watched the original Miracle on 34th Street, which made me feel very Christmassy and I enjoyed chatting idly about it too.