Who’s Normal Anyway?

We’ve had a good day of few arguments and getting stuff done we wanted to today M did all his maths with no problems and didn’t get frustrated with himself. He also typed up an amazing page of things he’d found out about some sea creatures and added pictures. He wrote it very chattily, calmly asked for help with some spellings (though he did think the computer should’ve recognised that moonjellies was a word LOL) and sat and tapped away happily for quite a while. He was upset when L found his printout and drew all over it before I noticed , but thank goodness for saving and for printers! Meanwhile L pottered about.

We rearranged the TV and stereo area in the living room to put the DVD/video stand behind the TV unit right in the corner where L can’t reach it, because I found he’d cracked one of his DVDs. Though what to do with the drawerful of videos he can still get at? So I had a good vac out behind there and tidied up.

L joined M in doing some art with some oil pastels. M practised drawing a boat and then did a boat on the sea at night, with waves and reflections. L sat up to the table in his highchair and had some paper like M’s and was enthusiastic about using the oil pastels too, so that kept him engaged for ages My little righthander LOL - going to be the odd one out!

We made some chocolate biscuits together and then later I made tortillas for our chicken fajitas for tea. In and among we had a short walk out to the park too.

This evening A and M have been out to ju jitsu and I took L to church for the Ash Wednesday service. He was very well behaved in church but still rather a distraction I think, rustling his plastic bags of cereal and raisins and pushing his car around. Then he spent a while emptying out wet wipes, washing his head and then the carpet. He was taking it all in during communion and the bit with the ashes though. I thought I’d have him playing quietly on the floor of a pew where no one would see him but it turned out we were all sitting right up round the altar as there were only a few of us, so everyone got to watch his antics. I stopped for a quick coffee afterwards (L had a nap so I knew he wouldn’t be early to bed) but when he decided spitting on the tables (where do they get these ideas?) was fun I decided it was bedtime

This past week has been half term here, which affected us only in that there were more places open and things to go out and do than usual. We had a fairly quiet beginning of the week but then Wednesday M had ju jitsu. The previous week M brought home a flyer from rollerskating all about the half term playscheme in the local leisure centre. He was keen to go to that on Thursday and Friday morning, even though he didn’t know anyone else who was going as far as we could tell. I thought that was pretty brave!

Thursday morning’s session started with rollerskating and then after the break they played on a bouncy castle. M was pleased to see his friend J from rollerskating was there along with a couple of other people he knows. He had a great time and was chuffed to get a roller skating development book off the rollerskating coach - looks like he is going to be giving the regulars more points to work on for their development. He’s trying to find new talent for the 2012 Olympics LOL.

While M was at that L and I went to Waitrose for a few bits and then came home. What is it with the snooty attitude in Waitrose? We had to wait ages for customer services to help by finding blue roll to dry the trolley so L wouldn’t get soaked from it and none of the staff ever smile, they just look at you as if they are deigning to serve you. It’s always full of old well off people, rather than anyone else with kids and the prices are silly. But it was conveniently on the way home so we went there anyway LOL.

After collecting M at lunchtime we drove to Gressenhall to spend the afternoon as it was such a lovely day weatherwise. We had some lunch in the cafe and bumped into a family we know from music, then played in the adventure playground for quite a while. L figured out how to go down the slides by himself. It was fascinating to watch him. He needed a little bit of help up the steep ramp, then he managed the wooden steps by crawling up each and standing up again (very funny with him in his wellies and waterproof trousers, because he can’t bend his feet as normal). Then he sat down and bum shuffled to the edge of the slide slope, worked out he needed to raise his feet or he got stuck, and off he slid. He was having trouble with the bum shuffle part and tried another technique, which was crawling onto the slide and then manoevering his feet round to a sitting position. He soon gave up the trying to sit and came down on his tummy instead LOL. He enjoyed himself for ages with it. Meanwhile M was racing about as usual.

We had a look around the museum for a little while after the playground. It closes for the winter and was only open for this week because it was half term. It opens again in March. They’ve redone some parts of the museum so we had a look at the changes and explored the laundry yard for a while.

On Friday M had another session at the leisure centre with games and a water fight. On the way home from dropping M off, L fell asleep in the car and slept for ages, so I got a quiet morning! We picked M back up and had some lunch out. I can’t remember what we did in the afternoon, but I was going downhill fast with a throat infection and swollen glands.

Yesterday I got up late and had a day at home, while A took the boys out shopping. He rarely has both boys and he’s not very confident having L without me around. When M was little M used to scream the place down on the odd occasion only A was there so A never got any confidence with him. A copes much better with L and vice versa, but he still worries about L getting upset if they go out without me. They are getting more practice recently though, with me going out to the ladies group at Church on a Thursday and A taking both boys to rollerskating while I’m at Beavers. I’m booking to do a first aid course in March for the whole day, so that’ll keep A busy. He said this morning he’d be glad to get back to work tomorrow for some peace and to relax LOL. I suppose he doesn’t get much time to purely do his own thing like when he used to go out with Mountain Rescue. But I rarely get time to do my own thing with no responsibilities here either, it’s just things I like doing more easily fit around what M and L are up to.

So anyway A took the boys round the shops and exchanged L’s CD player that he got for Christmas - it had suddenly come up with a wierd code not in the instruction booklet and refused to play CDs anymore. They went to the supermarket and then to McDonalds and sounds like they had a good morning. A even remembered to take L to the toilet, which sounds silly but isn’t something he has programmed in to think about usually LOL.

In the afternoon A washed the car and when L noticed he was outside he insisted on getting his waterproof trousers on and joining him. He was so sweet trying to copy Daddy.

Today A took the boys to Church this morning and this afternoon we went out to a couple of garden centres for a look around and to get bird food and ideas. But mainly a quiet day.

And actually I quite enjoyed it. Beavers used to be run by one warranted leader (who got progressively less organised over the months she was doing it, then moved house and it went completely to pot) and an adult helper. I visited them last Thursday to get the records, money and keys and there were 8 Beavers there running wild. So I thought there might well be less than 8 this week, seeing as I’d changed the evening and the time.

A put lots of notices out in various places asking for new helpers and got several enquiries, so there was me and 2 assistant Beaver leaders to run it this evening. I also had a parent who offered to stay and help. I thought it was going to be overkill on the adult ratios but as it turned out we had 16 Beavers turn up, including one who used to come but hadn’t been in months and 2 new boys.

Thankfully the programme we’d planned out for the evening panned out fine, the timings worked OK, no one ran riot and I think most people had a nice evening. A couple of the boys asked what happened to the games (they came 15 mins late and missed the starting game) and were obviously used to having more of a free rein. But hopefully the quieter ones will have liked having a bit more of a plan.

We talked about the Scouting centenary and how Scouts started, made a Beaver tree picture with hand prints and played Lifeboats and a relay race jigsaw of Baden Powell. At the end A came along in his Group Scout Leader capacity and presented all the invested Beavers with join in centenary neckers.

Next week is half term so there is no Beaver meeting but us leaders are getting together to plan meetings up until Easter. Hopefully they will all go as well as tonight did - couldn’t have asked for better really

Now if only the old leader has actually posted me the cupboard keys so I can get at the badges and Beaver log books and what not for the next meeting…