Essays and Dramas

As requested I have been busy working on this - my 'essay' - Why we do What we do and How we do it! I hope you all enjoy the read. It's a bit long, but that's the nature of essays!

WOW! - what amazing thunderstorms a few days ago and then 'Phew,' hasn't it been hot the last couple of days? Abbie nearly got burnt just from being out for about 10 minutes with cream on yesterday. Fortunatly I caught her in the nic of time!

Today was a quiet day. After church today both boys went to play at friends houses. Then after lunch all the girls had a nap - and so, of course, did I :)

Yesterday was eventful! We had a family 'fun-day' at our church (which is in the beautiful college grounds), followed by a B-B-Q. We had a fantastic time. When we were leaving I told Jacob to put his shoes on and catch us up by the bike shed. Well he missed the 'by the bike shed' bit and plain forgot he had taken his bike, so while we were getting the bikes out he thought we had carried on home without him and set off to find us. When we got to the gates and couldn't find him we realised what he had done. Fortunatly we walk a very safe route (no major roads that don't have zebra crossings), but we were a bit worried about the 'stranger' aspect because it is over a mile. We called a friend who lives a few doors down from us and asked her to keep a look out for him going past because we thought he would panic to arrive home and find us not there. Fortunatly Jacob spotted someone he recognised from church, who he knew to be friendly with Paul, a little way down the road and ran up to him. Phil then kindly walked him home. Although this was a blessing it was also a little worrying in itself. It highlighted to us that, despite concerted efforts to teach him, Jacob still cannot clearly differentiate between a 'friend' and a 'stranger.' He only vaguely knows Phil because he is not a close friend (he is the college gardener), but Jacob asked a couple of leading questions ("do you go to our church?" and "are you my daddy friend?") which anyone could have easily lied to, and then observed that "he smiled when he answered so I trusted him" - THAT was the scary part to me!! I have now said that if the 'friend' is not someone who visits our house, or who we visit, then don't trust them and don't talk to them AT ALL unless we say it's OK. But I think for now I will be keeping him on a short reign still. Ho-hum!

My Shopping trip the other day was great. I really enjoyed myself, but I spent too much money - as always! That said, I actually didn't buy anything I didn't need. I bought a lot of files which are just itching to be filled with all the 'topic' work I'd like to do this year. The idea is that when the boys have done any worksheets, or pictures they can slip them in and make a ' reference book' about whatever it is that we've been studying - kind of like my own version of notebooking, but avoiding too much writing (which is apt to cause tantrums around here)! I could have kicked myself though, because Woolies had them a bit cheaper than I paid AND buy 2 get 1 free - pants!! The other nice thing I got was a new handwriting pen for Jacob. We both hate these ballpoint pens that stop every now and then and mean you have to go overyour letters again. I found a pen set that has a fountain pen and a 'ball' pen that both take cartridge ink. I'm hoping he'll get the hang of the fountain pen, but the other is there as a fall back if he's not quite ready for that yet. They are called 'TUFFpen' - I got the set in Partners stationers if anyone's interested.

Nothing else exciting to report. It's quieter here in the holidays!