Our Week

All my good intentions of blogging regularly have turned to nought. Mostly, I was busy with other things, and our camera hasn't been working and I didn't want to post somehting without a photo!

We've finally discovered that the little beast (our camera) that kept screaming "Change the batteries" as soon as they were changed...actually meant another little battery we weren't aware of...sigh...just when i was about to return the useless item. So, all is well on that front, hooray!

We have been very busy...I started this post last night, and saved it as a draft- but today I can't edit it. I've been to the help, and seen that lots of people have the same problem, but noone has a solution...so I am having to re-type the whole thing which doesn't please me much, as you can imagine.

J-Man has been busy scouring his Pokedex to find which pokemon evolve in to the best ones, and trying to find them on his game. He's also been looking in to DS accessories online, and creating a slideshow of his wish-list.

His big news is that we are getting a DS for him this week. I nearly bought it today, but they were out of stock. That turned out to be fortuitous, because I have instead found a month-old white DS Lite on Trade Me for the same price, but including the very game he was most after- Pokemon Pearl...hooray!

I have wanted to play with him for such a long time, but I am not good at playing...or rather, the games he most wants me to play involve a lot of time, where I only really have snippets of time here and there.

He had hives on Friday, we suspect from some (chemically) coloured lollies from the dairy. he was a mess, poor fellow...but he cheered up in the afternoon, and we played Adventurequest together. It really bored me, I have to say...it is basically a "click Attack until the baddie dies, then move on to the next one to do the same thing" kind of game, and extremely dull.

I started playing a game on Facebook. I have been playing Scrabulous (Scrabble) on there this year, and I love it. But now I've found a new game (also on Facebook) quite different to anything I've played before, and I am loving it. This is only after 2 or 3 days, I suspect I will get bored quickly- but for now, I really like it.

J-Man laughed at me for a while, saying it was a stupid game. But then we had a lovely evening together when everyone else decided to sleep early...he started to play, and discovered he quite liked it as well. It's called Packrat btw, and the more friends who play it the better it will be...hint, hint :0)

Now he's gone to Kerikeri to stay with Grandma and Poppy for a week! I miss him so much, and can't wait until he gets on Packrat so we can chat. They had a power cut last night, so the dinner that was being cooked had to be finished on the BBQ! It came back on in time fro them to watch a Harry Potter movie together.

I'll be using the days without my "big boy" to take the little ones to as many "little ones" activities as possible.

Meanwhile, Princess has been busy drawing and watching lots of her favourite cartoons. She's discovered Tom and Jerry, and I hear her giggling uproariously quite regularly. I had her do a reading test online. It only took a minute or two, and I was surprised to find her "reading age" is higher than her chronological one. I did a similar test for J-Man at the same age, and his "reading age" was approximately double his chronological age- no wonder he always seemed so very different to children his own age.

It's not important, I know, but it was interesting to me. Princess wasn't aware she was being tested- I simply asked, "Can you read this word?", etc. She is not reading yet- she has been able to read (small, phonetic) words for years, but she is generally not confident about it- so I don't normally ask her.

She's been making Lego rooms (of houses) the last couple of days, and we have read a fairy book and Akimbo and the Snakes (which she enjoyed immensely).

her big news was that she had a day of filming on Friday. Grandma was in town (looking after her Mum post-operatively), so she took Princess for the day. As a child actor, she is only allowed to work for 6 hours. It took the whole time for her to do her part in a 10 or 15 second ad. It won;t be screened on television- it was for an assignment for film students.

The cool thing about it was that she didn't have to have an audition- she was chosen from her photo. It doesn't pay well *at all*, but Princess would have happily worked for free- she loved the whole experience, and was very excited before, during and afterward. It might have been a very boring day for Grandma, but I think she found (as I did) that the whole thing is fascinating.

Tombliboo (19 months) has been doing all the things he usually does...he's been finding new places to explore, and will call out ,"Look Mama", for me to come see where hes got himself this time. I don't know how we've avoided the A&E with this child.

He's been bringing me plastic animals and pointing our their butts, which is delightful. He loves to say "butt"" or "bum", and it is rather cute really. Occasionally he'll point out eyes or ears, or noses, but he by far prefers the other parts.

He has started doing puzzles now, just the little ones with pegs on top. He asks for the bigger puzzles ("pu-joule"), but only likes to tip all the pieces out. Interestingly, once after he put the pieces of the peg puzzle in, he tipped them all out, turned the wooden frame over, and placed all the pieces neatly on the back. I don't remember the other kids doing that, but it amused me- because it sure was a lot less frustrating to him than having the pieces need to fit.

He has started to count up to three...he says "one, two..." and then a word which he uses in place of words he can't (or doesn't want to) say. He has been to the potty without anyone mentioning it twice this week.

We had a young (out-of-town) unschooler over for a day (A4, nearly 5) and that was a tonne of fun. He and Princess got on very well indeed, and our little friend didn't want to go home. Hopefully we can repeat the day soon!

Grandma visited thrice, and I did a Creative Memories class while dh looked after the kids.