Snippets from busy days and play dates

With friends sleeping over, lots of games to play; the six and seven year olds made mud and sand pies. They all made their own popcorn together, squealing with laughter as it popped. Extra children inevitably means less work for me, because they are so busy playing. I crocheted about another foot on my blanket, and made granny squares for a customer!



Morgan came in on her own at one point, and announced a quick fairy snap tournament, which she won.

Jenna gave a lecture on Greek mythology under the swing set in the garden, and invented a game of "guess the god" which everyone else joined in with. They spent at least half of a day running around in an extended role play in which I overheard "Aphrodite" pleading with "Demeter" not to confront Hades lest it start a war amongst the gods.

Someone pulled out one of the inspiration folders and Rowan coloured in a skeleton, while everyone else built a life size laminated model. They argued about which way up the arm bones should go.


Rowan and Morgan made fruit crumble to follow our tea later. Rowan wanted to try the raw crumble mixture, and decided it wasn't nice. Morgan casually told her where rhubarb grows and why we don't eat the leaves as she snipped the stems into the dish.

After friends went home the girls watched some home videos of children hooping (especially loving this one), and spent a while in the garden (and living room) trying to imitate them. I asked for help picking up toys and hoovering, and Rowan said "no" then tidied up the teddies on her own. Morgan picked up only the things I specifically asked her to. And Jenna said she didn't want to help, but then offered to clean the oven (which she did perfectly, and is one of my most hated jobs).

A friend of mine came over for tea and board games. Jenna talked her ears off, and showed her some of her favourite maths and science websites including Nova's Solar System tour and an animal cell to label. She also looked up a couple of experiments she wants to try out and made ice cubes to try the Cloud in a Jar.

Morgan did a page of maths, scanning sums to pick out quickly which added up to twenty. This child and her methodical mind and instinctive grasp of number - she's as quick as I am with basic puzzles like that one. She carries books of maths worksheets around with her much of the time, her prized possessions.

We played Carcasonne, and Jenna came second. Rowan and Talia were quite loud and tired and I started to lose patience with the cards being bumped. As soon as the game finished, Rowan went to bed bribed with Octonauts on daddy's phone, and the others picked their stories. My friend stayed for story time and soon discovered Talia's impatience with actual story reading (page turning is much more her thing). :)

After a sleep over AND a late night the girls all slept in until about 9am this morning. They had left over crumble for breakfast, and spent the whole of breakfast time discussing how milk is pasteurised and how it is turned into cheese and yoghurt. We talked about milk cows and animal welfare, and Morgan raised the question of ownership and whether living creatures can or should own each other.

The children passed through the kitchen as I was washing up, apparently playing Hogwarts again, and then a few minutes later came back in announcing that they were putting on a dog show and I needed to come and watch. They set up an obstacle course in the living room and got Talia to crawl around it and jump through hoops. Talia knows this game well, "barks" on command, and even pretends to wag her tail when they give her "dog treats" (cereal pieces, which she picks up with her mouth!).

We inspected our shell-less egg experiment, and Rowan poked a bit too hard so it popped before it pickled properly. Ah well, try try again!

Clouds in a jar were unfortunately just as unsuccessful:

Today is clearly not the day for science in my house! (Now we have to figure out why it didn't work...)

Jenna and Morgan did a country dance show next and performed a counting song in Gaelic. Sometimes these shows go on for a very long time, but after a requested change of music to the Brave sound track followed by Les Miserables (another recent passion of Jenna's), they took all the bits from their assault course back outside and left me with my bit of complicated lace knitting and a cup of tea (made by Jenna).

Barely more than 24 hours. I'm feeling a little mentally exhausted this afternoon, and feeling nostalgic about the peaceful low tide days. ;)