This Is Our Normal

The last couple of days have felt pretty mundane and unexciting (no bad thing). But, of course, that's because they are 'normal' - as far as that is a thing in this family - for US. Other people have their own normal, and in a few years/months/weeks our normal, too, will have shifted and evolved. So maybe even the boring days are worth recording! Don't say you weren't warned. 

Monday's story really starts on Sunday night, when Daniel chose The Twits as his bedtime story. Now, just to be clear, I LOVE Roald Dahl. I particularly enjoy reading them aloud, and I am very very pleased that Daniel enjoys them so much (the coloured editions were the deciding factor for him). We have read most of them several times over, just missing The Witches and Boy for now. 

On Sunday evening, it took ten chapters to get the boy to sleep. I can live with that. But when a further 19 chapters were required at 3.30am due to a sudden attack of insomnia, my enthusiasm was significantly reduced! It would have been more than 19 chapters but we ran out of book and I went on strike. There followed a couple of hours of musical beds which left me a bleary-eyed zombie over the breakfast table in the morning. 

Adam's music class had its first session of the term at some (for us) ungodly hour in the morning. For once, every traffic light was kind to us and there was a parking space just round the corner, so we made it in record time. We fell at the final hurdle when the council parking app refused to work several times, wasting time before I finally shoved my overpayment into the machine (at least they now take the new £1 coins, which they didn't last term) and ran for it. We only missed one song, so I count that as virtually on time for us. 

Then off to kill some time in town before meeting some friends for lunch. We had to dodge some torrential rain showers (no coats because they still need washing post-forest school) but found a cheap umbrella for the kids to share, which went considerably better than you might expect. The high point was trying out an RNIB pod with simulations of four different kinds of visual impairment. Daniel was fascinated and the resulting conversation took us all the way down to the other end of town to the cafe. So that was our bit of home ed for the day!

Not much else to report for the day. I managed a nap with Adam in the afternoon, cobbled together a reasonably nutritious dinner and then we curled up in pyjamas for a movie before bedtime. I was mostly still smiling by the end. 

Tuesday we pottered. Daniel did Reading Eggs and some writing, and we all made tomato soup for lunch and smoked mackerel & potato pie for dinner. Many apples were eaten, lots of noise was made, lego was built and destroyed. And in the evening, when DH was late back from work, I got both of them to sleep with only 18 chapters of James and the Giant Peach. 

I have ordered some Dick King-Smith for a change.