Free Children

So how come I only ever seem to update this blog when we're all cold-ridden? Miss 1 has mostly gotten over hers, although she's still using up about a tree per day in tissues (doesn't help that she's also getting both sets of first molars coming in at the same time - the drool is phenomenal). Now I've been struck down. I'm mostly okay, except for the sinus headache and the feeling that small rodents have been piddling in my ears. DH got up early this morning (well, 8am is early for him) and took over daughter-wrangling, to let me go back to bed. I slept til nearly eleven, whereupon my head merely felt like it had been detached in the night and filled with warm glue, rather than concrete. Ms 8 has it too, although rather more mildly. So we're not too badly off.

The three of them have just finished farnarkling, and headed out to do some shopping. Ms 8 is about to be inducted into Cub Scouts, but before she can she needs a Cub Scout Shirt, so they've gone off to find one. They're also investigating the price of tents, with a view to replacing DH's dome tent (dating from the days when he used to attend Festival without a wife and daughters) before our next SCA camping event. There are various other errands contemplated, I believe, included the quest for lunch. So I shall be here for a while, gently waking up and contemplating what part of the horror of this house I shall turn my attention to when the coffee runs out...

We had a couple of thrifting windfalls this week, including rocking up to one op-shop which was having a booksale with all paperbacks at 10 for $1. Ms 8 was thrilled to discover an entire shelf of R. L. Stine's Goosebumps books, and bought forty of them *g* I was also pleased to discover the first 8 of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. I'm not a huge fan of McCaffrey, but I haven't read most of these books for fifteen years so I figured I would buy them, read them, and then probably go trade them at the fantasy/SF bookshop for something new. I've been trying to read The Pope's Elephant, the first of two non-fiction books DH bought me this week as a (very belated) birthday present, but haven't been able to get into it due to the onset of cold-symptoms, so something light and fluffy and requiring absolutely no intellectual effort seems like just the right fit.

Ms 8 (or perhaps Ms Nearly Nine would be more fitting these days) decided this week that she wanted to be a Goth, so we've also been looking out for suitably black clothes which actually fit her - not an easy task, actually. Most girls' stuff for her age/size is still too pretty-pretty or grungy for her tastes. However, during our thrifting axpeditions we found a crushed velvet skirt, another skirt patterned with Chinese dragons, and a black top which met her specifications, which is a start. She has now decided she doesn't actually want to be a Goth, which is a slight relief because I had no idea where to start with the whole make-up thang she was asking about. I don't wear any make-up myself and wouldn't have a clue about how to use it, so I'm glad she's decided that she just wants to wear all black clothes instead *g* She's growing up fast...

I've been feeling recently that we've been getting into a bit of a rut when we're at home, so on Thursday night I pulled out the small wooden table-top loom I found a few months ago (at an op-shop - where else!) and my book on weaving. We started out yesterday rethreading the loom, which was quite tricky. Ms Nearly Nine bought a drop spindle and a bag of unspun wool at Festival, and learning how to weave seemed like a logical extension of that interest. If we ever get the darned loom set up, I'm sure it will be! Then she decided she wanted to get the workbooks out, and drew up a Plan for how many pages of each she wanted to do each day. I'm slightly doubtful that her concentration span is up to that much bookwork every day, but we shall see. We did some reading, handwriting and spelling at various times yesterday - Miss 1's assistance is not hugely conducive to lots of seat work either! At least she likes being read to, and Ms Nearly Nine quite likes reading to her - thanks to a year at school and almost a year of school-at-home, she prefers to read without adults around (although she's mostly gotten over that around me since we started unschooling) and Miss 1 is a suitably uncritical and adoring audience.

Other than that...hmmm... Ms Nearly Nine took a break from circus for most of last term, but has been offered her place back this session, and taken up the offer. We're investigating starting back with swimming lessons after a couple of years' break from formal instruction, and I'm also researching karate and basketball. She's started planning her upcoming birthday party - a sleepover, pizza party and movie marathon with her two best friends (did I mention this whole growing up thang?). I finally found (thrifted, of course) a pretty little vintage mirrored dressing table and stool for Ms Nearly Nine, after looking in vain for one for two years. After complaining with the utmost lack of tact imaginable that I am not as good a cook as her grandmother (Ha!), Ms Nearly Nine has been deputed as official Chef every Monday night from now on, which she is highly excited about. She has been cooking breakfast every morning since to hone her stove-top skills *g* I've been baking muffins, tweaking a new recipe and making use of the mini muffin pans my BIL gave me for Christmas, and the heart-shaped silicon muffin tray my MIL gave me just-because. Miss 1 has been trailing muffin crumbs from one end of the house to the other, and Miss Nearly Nine says she must have one of the heart-shaped ones each time because that way' she's eating my love for her. Awww...