6th of January

As nearly all mornings start here, this one was mired in the recreation of Annie.  Ted is always the red haired lungs of steel (much to our long suffering neighbour's despair) and it is usually either myself or Harriet cast in the role of Miss Hannigan (Ted uses her as his token 'bad person' in any roleplaying he does, regardless of context [ie: pirates or fairies may come across Miss H in a large boat or fairy woodland without warning]). But you can be sure that no matter what, before 9am rolls round, the child has sat somewhere looking off into the distance, a plaintive expression on his face and a mournful tone in his song as he sings Maybe, and then an indignant, mischievous turn when he starts on Hard Knock Life.

After some delicious Jimbo bread fresh out of the oven, Harriet had some violin practice again and for the first time in about six months (actually probably longer than that) Ted asked to play his violin as well.  I don't think I've blogged this actually, but we stopped his lessons about halfway through this past term.  He wasn't interested in practicing and had nil internal motivation to play.  So we decided to give him a break from it in the hope that Harriet's ongoing lessons would motivate him to seek it out again in the future.  He didn't actually play anything, but he did do what he calls 'crazy bowing' and gave us a couple of shows, so let's see how it goes in the future.  No pressure, but gee it would be lovely to have some duets going on in the house (part of the reason I was hoping Harriet would choose cello is because the two of them playing together would sound so beautiful at home - selfish parent alert!).

 What did we have in store today?  Well the only thing on the calendar was a lunch date at our friends who live about ten houses down the road.  Both of the menfolk are interested in cricket and since it looked like the game would only last for the first part of the day, we thought we'd combine households in order to ensure the children were happy and entertained, giving the possibility of some sort of cricket watching a look-in.

Well we arrived and the children almost immediately separated into age groups and sped off in different directions, with many plans afoot for games to play and ideas to explore.  Ted and Arki immediately stepped into a sweet game of families, where Ted was able to indulge in his great love - babies and being "pregmint".  You can see here he just about loved his baby to within an inch of its life. 

The boys did come in every now and then to re-fuel, and there was a micro-second there where all four of them were on the lounge watching the cricket.  It really was all of about a thousandth of a second, since I was sitting there directly opposite and unable to capture it with camera in hand.

 

Harriet and Priya engaged in just about every different style of activity they could.  From craft to Sylvanian Families, from tip to families with the younger two.  They were on a mission to explore all they could squeeze into their play time together.

Things started getting officially awesome when the humungous paddling pool made an appearance.  The children became hysterical with the excitement of it.  I had gone up to our house to grab the electric air pump and I could honestly hear them (well just Harriet truth be told) from out on the street at the next block. I am not kidding.  There was a brief respite from her volume when it turned to wracking sobs after stepping on a bee, but once a placebo was located (and yes I told her what a placebo was and asked her outright if she would like one and she choked out "Yes, yes I would") she seemed to recover quickly.

 

I loved how quickly they all took to the idea of throwing water around, and just how little they actually needed in there to have a great time.  

 

Our little lunch stop off was, by now, a bloated all day event.  So much so that when we realised that daylight savings had tricked us all and time was now slowly trickling into evening, we tried to arrange the children into some sort of leaving guard.  Being met by howls of protest and more stubbornly expressed resistant, the adults decided on another cider and some pizza ordered in to settle the score on all counts.  

Everyone seemed more than happy with that and while we waited the younger two found the Sylvanian Families caravan and car and set about having a very sweet game, although Ted did seem to revel in a more supervisory role.  Gee I wonder where he gets that idea from?

And as with all great impromptu, long term gatherings, we were entertained by the most fantastic show, complete with uncontrolled volume and unfenced enthusiasm.  There were some other awesome shots but due to Ted's state of dress, I was forced to choose from a sparse few that were suitable for publication.  Note to self - PAD requires clothing!

As if Harriet's day couldn't get any more amazing, she was then offered the chance to have a sleepover.  Woot!  So we came home minus a child and very grateful to our friends for their highly generous hospitality.  Next time, our house!