Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sky potatoes (les pommes de terre de ciel)

Yesterday morning I gave the kids a box each and said "Whoever collects the most apples from the lawn is the winner". Anne and I then had a couple of minutes of peace, and following that the kids returned with much of the windfall cleared from the garden. Now THAT'S parenting!

After lunch I peeled a fair few of them, chopped them up and added some rhubarb from the garden. This would seem like work if I wasn't reasonably confident I'd end up with some apple and rhubarb crumble before too long. And could pass my self-interest off as "doing an activity with the kids".

This morning after ThingOne's swimming lesson ThingTwo, ThingOne and I got down to business and made the crumble. We're off to lunch at some friends', so we're brining dessert. This means that the crumble will only last one sitting and there'll be none for me tomorrow, so maybe I'll make them do it all over again this afternoon...
 

 

 

 

16:9 rectangle eyes

Here's a 30 second video of the kids watching Bob The Builder on Saturday. I think ThingOne's exhausted from school (even though she's only done mornings so far - she starts full time on Monday), but ThingTwo looks shattered too.

Given they're normally bouncing around and chatting about what's happening on-screen when they're watching TV this was certainly an odd occurrence.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Cyber Chill

Today's activities included a dance class, a trip to the theatre to see Room on the Broom for Anne and ThingOne, an indoor picnic for me and ThingTwo (and Rabbit and Teddy), and some jobs in the garden. Therefore, a relax before kids' tea was in order.

In the CyberAge this involved two year old ThingTwo on the new iPod Touch (the one with sound, and therefore the kids' favourite), Anne on the old iPod Touch (she's rather addicted to Peggle), and four year old ThingOne on the laptop designing Charlie-and-Lola-style butterflies on the CBeebies web site.

The video below (and here) shows the three relaxed girls...

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

ThingOne's first day at school

 


My little girl gone growed up. ThingOne started at the local primary school today. She was pretty excited, and especially keen on the school uniform.

 


I went with Anne and ThingTwo to take ThingOne to school. We went in to the classroom and ThingOne's teacher got the kids to find their name on the register. The register was a computer display projected onto a touch sensitive screen. The kids had to find their name, touch it, and then drag it up to the top half of the screen. It was probably exactly what Buck Rogers would do to sign the register. In the 25th Century.

We left her in her cyber school for the morning, and when Anne collected her she seemed to have enjoyed herself. She doesn't tell us much, of course. Tonight she wanted to know when she could go for the whole day. Not for three whole weeks I'm afraid.

I'm hoping she enjoys herself at school. She certainly has enough questions. This morning she asked me where animals come from. I said that mummy and daddy animals make baby animals. She'd clearly been thinking about this as she replied "But that would go back forever. Where did the first lion come from?" Not sure how we move to the specific lion from the general animal, but I let it pass. As I got dressed for work I tried to explain evolution to her, which then moved on to a discussion of God and gods, and as quick as she'd got onto the subject she suddenly said "Why can't I do this button up?" and I was rescued.

I wish ThingOne's teacher the best of luck.