Month: October 2005

Benjamin and Isaac were so tired out by their day in London they BOTH slept through the night! Must do this more often!!

However, we drifted through Friday unproductively as Matt and I were tired and I was aching from all the exercise(!) and then last night Matt came down with this bug and is now hiding upstairs for the day watching Lord of the Rings. We had all been to Activity World in the afternoon, but this is obviously not enough exertion and all the children were awake at various points of the night. Joel spent an hour crawling around the bed somewhere around dawn after I had woken him by changing his nappy, before settling down again and sleeping in until 10.30 am.

MuddlePuddle was a smaller group than usual yesterday, 5 families I think, but it was nice to be able to all sit together and talk to everyone, and nice to meet someone else also using Ambleside Online and hear how much they are enjoying it.

Happy Birthday Tim!

At the last minute we decided that perhaps the boys would prefer the science museum. We had a really good day, but it was very hard work and we are all very flaked. Yesterday evening I cooked tea in advance and packed up picnic lunch and breakfast. Then this morning we had a half hour walk to the station (Joel in sling,Isaac in buggy and Benjie walking) then an hour on the train to Kings Cross and 45 mins tube and walking to the museum. Then we walked around the museum for 4 and a half hours and repeated our journey in reverse! Driving to the edge of London would in some ways be easier but Joel doesn’t like being strapped in for long.

Anyway. We started off in the basement which has been specially developed for children. With hindsight we spent too long down there – it was noisy with lots of parties of school children and although there were lots of buttons to press and flashing lights to keep them busy it somehow felt a bit artificial. It was much better when we headed upstairs and the boys started to be interested in the actual exhibits rather than the “fun presentation” . Favourite things included everything to do with space (space suits, lunar landers etc) penny farthing, vintage cars, aeroplanes, early computers (Matt) a V2 (Me, just featured in a biography I’m reading) agricultural history (Isaac- tractors!) hot air balloons, paddle steamers (I began a long explanation on a model paddle steamer to which Benjie replied “oh, it’s a boat” ) Stephenson’s Rocket and other engines……… and lots more I’ve forgotten. It was so nice walking round looking at things because we wanted to, rather than because we were on a school trip and had to.

On the way home we decided that for a museum of that size to be really useful we would have to visit it often enough for it to become familiar. So we thought that ideally we would like to try a visit every 3 months, alternating the science and natural history museums. So we would visit them both twice a year. I don’t know if this is practical – we shall try it and see. It needs both of us to take them all because of the underground. To bus that far across London would take too long I think. I don’t know – might be worth trying. With all the children travelling free it’s certainly very cheap for me to take them to London myself.

Pictures to follow in due course.

So hard finding time to write this. All our usual things still going on. Off to Natural History museum tomorrow. Matt has a day off to compensate for working last Saturday. Just wanted to put in a few Isaac favourites…

Every evening during our bible story time he requests “Jesus and the bubble bath” ( the healing at the pool at Bethesda) and his favourite song is ” The wise man built his house upon the rug”. Then yesterday when we were deciding who would have which Noddy yogurt he requested ” the Jesus one” . I explained it was actually Big Ears, which he thought about and then said ” It is Jesus, really.”

One Saturday at the Church building site. Everybody came to write Scriptures on the steel posts before they are covered over.	Pyramids and camels from MuddlePuddle’s Egypt session.
Benjamin’s first picture of a person. He says it is Joel grown up, because he is very tall.	Not sure, possibly train drivers.
Our Sunflowers finally flowered. Not particularly tall, but better than last year.
Benjy and Isey go camping in a tent that I (Matt) made for them. I used to make lots of tents when I was a boy.
3 Boys at Sacrewell Farm	Artwork on the patio
He’s so cute	Collecting walnuts with Daddy.
First time in a high chair.	Here Benjy and Isey are sitting on a bench at Burghley Park.
They loved this basket swing at Barnwell Country Park. I think B could have stayed on it all day.	Feeding ducks at Barnwell.

Some nights Benjie starts in the top bunk and then goes back to his room, some nights he goes straight to his own room, and 1 night he actually slept in the bunk. I think he is going to be experimenting with it for quite a while.

Joel is becoming mobile. He can pull himself around on his tummy, and he can get up on his hands and knees and rocks around hopefully. He is trialling a baby sleeping bag at nights and mostly sleeping in his cot but waking up maybe 3 times a night. He seems very hungry but not particularly enthused at the idea of solids. A few tsps per day with a lot of encouragement.

Isaac is using long sentences now, and at that really sweet stage of saying everything very slowly and thoughtfully. He usually adds “really” on to the end of things for some reason, eg
“Thomas is blue. Really”

Today was Colourstrings, Central Park, friends to play in the afternoon. Yesterday was library story time, friends to play, Happy Faces and Central Park. Monday we spent the day at Barnwell Country Park. We hadn’t been for 3 years but the boys loved it so we shall definitely be adding it to our list of favourites. Lots of play equipment -including a zip wire- and lots of lakes. The weather was beautiful too – we wouldn’t have been cold in shorts and tee shirts. I kept thinking of all those children sitting at their desks in a classroom missing it all….

No more rash promises….. Life has been taken over with a backlog of paperwork and a lot of weatherproofing and draughtproofing. And still lots of both to be done.

The weather has been so good this last week that we have been spending our days out at all our favourite places with a picnic before the weather prohibits this. We have been trying to adapt Joel to the bike buggy, but he just doesn’t seem to like it. He seems happy on the seat on the back of my bike, but he needs a helmet for that and I haven’t found one small enough yet.

At MuddlePuddle last week we were chatting to a family who have children the same ages as ours. We discovered their eldest was already in the top of a bunk bed. Benjamin, on learning this,- decided he was there
fore ready to move into a top bunk. I explained carefully that it would mean he would have to go to sleep by himself as neither Matt nor I would be able to be up with him but he was quite certain this was what he wanted. So yesterday afternoon Matt took Benjie’s bed out of his room and rebuilt it on top of Isaac’s bed. They were so excited! Anyway, Isaac went to bed and then Benjie climbed up with his book and settled down. 20 minutes later he came downstairs in tears saying that he had only wanted to try it out, he hadn’t wanted to actually sleep in it. So Matt had to quickly put together another bed in Benjie’s room and then Benjie went very quickly and happily to sleep ….