just another morning here

But thought I would post anyway. We have had a lovely weekend, first of all swimming and mad packing on Saturday morning, then lunch with my parents and brother & sister on Saturday.

My step-mum has a habit of giving sweets to the children every time she sees them, and I told her to stop it at one point, because the kids were beginning to expect sweets, and (a) I’m so mean and nasty I don’t like them having sweets that much, but also (b) I didn’t want them associating sweets with the person! Anyway, she came up trumps again this time, but instead announced that she was presenting them with an educational opportunity, as they were french sweets, with fruit names written on them! Ho ho ho. She’s finally cottoned on to the fact that you can justify anything if you can pull an educational benefit out of it, in our house

We were chuffed because we’d finally got our second Venture portrait back, and to cut a long story short we ended up with an extra complimentary print because of the hassle we’d had, so we were able to give one to my parents too, which was nice. They brought us a yummy cake, and we swapped it for the milk and contents of the fruit bowl, which I meant to bring with us and then forgot!

We left them in our house (most strange!) and came up to see our friends Stuart & Liz. It’s the last time we’ll be able to stay with them – they’ve moved to a smaller house and are about to fill it with two adopted children, who should be arriving in about a month. It’s all very exciting for them, and for us on their behalf, as we’ve been friends for a long time and seen the whole process of trying for a baby, battling with decisions over fertility treatment, and then the adoption process – feels like they’ve come almost to the end of a very very long pregnancy. Yet, by their own definition, it also feels like they’re on a rollercoaster just coming up to the top, and when their children actually arrive it will mean huge changes and all that stuff! Anyway, the room they’ve prepared is just beautiful, our girls loved sleeping in it. And we helped a little bit to take photos – Stu & Liz have to prepare a book full of photos for their children to have before they meet, and in each photo they’ve included a toy which will eventually be given to each child – kind of like an Usborne ‘spot the duck’ sort of thing. They’re both going to be working part time, after an initial complete break from work, which is just excellent – they aren’t afraid to put their money where their mouth is and give as much time as possible to these children. All so very thoughtful, anyway – makes me feel quite unthoughtful about the way we fell into parenting, really! In any case, I hope that we can still all manage to stay in as good contact with Stuart & Liz as we have up until now, it will just take a little bit more creativity, I guess. Our house is big enough to have them to stay, so they’ll have to come down more often

We’ve watched films, played games, been to church and out to a country park, eaten, drunk, and been merry together, which has all been lovely. Education – erm, well, we went into a Discovery Centre and did some nature related activities at the country park we went to yesterday! They’ve all been reading a fair amount too, I don’t suppose I brought enough books for Anna for the week, as she’s nearly finished the one she’s on and I only have one more for her! We’ve had discussions about microwaves and how they work, then yesterday found a poster of the electromagnetic spectrum, so tried to tie it all in to that, but I doubt whether any of it really went in And Josiah’s been counting. And counting. Every time he has to wait for something (food to cool down, car journeys, etc) he is counting, trying to learn thirty, forty, fifty, etc – he’ll go up to the -nine in each ten and then get stuck and wait for someone to fill him in. It’s somewhat tedious, but I don’t know how else he’ll cotton on to it … maybe we need to make him a big number square or something.

The kids are watching Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey now while Steve and I pack up, we’re off to the supermarket in a bit to do some food shopping for the week, and then after lunch here we’ll be leaving for Centerparcs. The children are really excited – as much about seeing their friends as the whole swimming holiday thing. No strange weather conditions here – it was snowing on Saturday though! Better go and get on, anyway

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2005 at 10:06 and is filed under away from home, general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.