Who’s Normal Anyway?

(Edited to correct confusion of initials!)

Hmm, what did we do on Thursday? Oh yes, we went to baby signing and I’d won a prize in the raffle for Children in Need, so that was a lovely surprise - it’s a nursery rhyme songbook. Afterwards we went to do the supermarket shopping and got lunch in the cafe - eventually. We waited 45 mins for a jacket potato and chicken nuggets and chips. It wasn’t especially more busy than usual, I think they just couldn’t get their act together. Once we got home we did some reading from Britannia together and then did some experimenting with magnets and seeing how we could test which were strongest. M carried on playing with those while I was on the phone for ages to a friend, during which L managed a potty poo, then tried to carry the potty before I could stop him and tipped it over the carpet! Then once I’d cleaned up and got it upstairs to empty out he weed on the bathroom floor - ho hum! I can’t remember anything else from Thursday evening.

On Friday we were up early and out to a Lego Production Line Challenge workshop run by these folk. The kids got into pairs and sat back to back and one had to build a small Lego model and describe how to build it to their partner. It was pretty chaotic and loud with not a lot of listening or clear explanations going on so far as I could tell. M was paired with a little lad we haven’t met before (I don’t think?) and their building didn’t go so well, but M seemed to be looking out for him and getting on with him OK rather than getting frustrated, thank goodness. After a bit of that they got into 2 teams to make a production line with a more complex Lego prototype to copy and make as many of in 5 mins as possible. The first run through was bedlam and then they had a discussion about how production lines work and everyone having a job etc and tried again and it was a little bit better. L ran about a bit, played cars and took some photos (mainly of the floor) and then we had a picnic in the car for half an hour to pass the time, but he did very well.

When we got home A was back from Scotland so we chatted while L napped. When L woke up we opened a huge parcel that arrived from my BIL in Germany with Christmas presents and chocolates and an advent calendar. There were some lovely metal Christmas tree ornaments with chocs in that L was particularly attracted to - sniffs out chocolate already LOL!

We decided to go out late afternoon and finally go and view the family photos we had taken. With M we went for portraits about 4 or 5 times in his first year but this time around we’ve only just been to the photographers. They all came out well and we ended up getting small copies of all the photos and ordered a couple of larger ones too. On the way home we got some Chinese takeaway for tea.

Yesterday we were going to go shopping but sat down to make a list and decided we didn’t really *need* to go and were probably just going out for the sake of it, so we didn’t. We got loads of odd jobs done that have been waiting for ages instead. A and the boys started off by feeding the birds and then digging up and replanting the loganberry bush - it was in too deep for new shoots to grow well. They were out in the garden for ages and I went out for a bit and took some photos. While they were outside I got the sewing maching out to get some sewing done on some Christmas presents I’m making.

In the afternoon we spent ages looking through all of this year’s photos and picking out which ones we wanted to get printed out properly for albums/calendars etc. M did some painting of ceramic letters to spell out his middle name. We cast them ages ago and he was reminded of them when I finally got L’s name finished and put up on the bedroom door.

When L got up from his nap we went to pick up A’s suit from the dry cleaners and popped into the supermarket for some bits and pieces and spent a fortune, then came home for a later than normal tea and watched Strictly Come Dancing and Robin Hood. Robin Hood is getting more ridiculous each week, but I’m glad we’d covered the Crusades a bit to help M make more sense of the story.

Shall have to blog today later because Lost is about to start!