simple creations

A few weeks ago I found out that my oldest friend, who I have known since I was three, is having a baby. So I sent her a little parcel of baby-related goodies, and made a mini card. 

{when I sat down to make the card, the phrase ooh baby, baby came to mind from the song Push it by Salt 'n' Pepa, and I couldn't work out then, or now, if it's inappropriate & weird, but hey, I went with it anyway. Maybe if this was a singing card it would make it inappropriate....}

I don't know why I decided to make a smaller-than-normal sized card - maybe because babies are so small - but anyway, I needed an envelope for it. So I re-used an idea that I'd had for our wedding last year, where I made envelopes for the children out of an old children's book that I rescued from the bin at the school where I used to work.

So simple, but I like them. (Sorry if they cause offense to anyone who has a problem with me cutting up books, but I promise I don't make a habit out of this unless they're old & ripped & falling apart...)

butterflies fly away, knots come undone

There are certain situations which hold a surreal quality to them. Job interviews are one of those situations. Your body feels like it's not your own; you imagine what questions you might be asked, and your mind goes blank. Completely blank, like, 'oh wow, there really is nothing in my head right now. Nothing? How can there be nothing?!' and that's before you've even left the house. You get in the car and your legs have taken on a jelly like quality. Somehow the butterflies in your tummy seem to be controlling your legs. 

The butterflies took up residence in my tummy a couple of weeks ago, along with a string of knots, as though there were miniature sailors in training, taking up residence in my tummy while they learnt how to tie knots, using my stomach as their training ground. By the time Thursday arrived, there was a whole butterfly farm in my tummy, along with some fully fledged knot-tying sailors.
 
As I got in the car to drive to my interview, my legs were losing control and my brain could do nothing about it because of the one hundred and one knots that were tied in my tummy. I felt thankful that I didn't have a driving instructor in the car with me, because wobbly legs make for even wobblier clutch control. I checked the clock, once, twice, three times, compensating for the extra minutes added on by the clock running fast to try and make me on time, and wonder why I do this. It just makes me more stressed, thinking I'm late when I'm actually on time. 


I turn on the music, singing along to put my mind on something other than what the principles of the Foundation Stage are. Oh help, I can't remember the fourth key principle of the Foundation Stage Curriculum. Can I ring John and ask him to look, as he's still at home? No, because that might cause me to crash. Then how silly would I look if I failed to turn up to my interview because I've crashed trying to find out a vital piece of information that's temporarily escaped my mind.

Thankfully, I arrived at school in one piece and made it through the next 5 hours of interview time with plenty of butterfly action in my tummy. I'm sure there was a whole farm of butterflies flying around in there, weaving in and out of the knots that were feeling like a permanent feature by now. 

The mixture of butterflies & knots left little room for food in my tummy, so having eaten half my lunch, I bid adieu to the lovely school, possibly for the last time, and made my way to the gym. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do after an interview - go and work off the adrenaline fix & hope that the knots would start to untie themselves. 

After my gym session, I came home, and the next obvious thing to do was some deep cleaning. The kind where you are compelled to pull out pieces of furniture so you can clean the skirting boards and the dust in all of those hidden places. 

Still feeling pretty skittish, and running out of places to clean, I sat down to do some work. While I wanted work to be the last thing on my to-do list right now, sadly I had deadlines for the following day, so work I must. As soon as I had sat down, my phone rang. Deep breath. Should I let it ring for two, three or four times? What's appropriate in this situation? I don't even know how many times it has rung because my phone doesn't go 'ring ring'!! Just answer it. 

As I simultaneously held my breath and said hello, (impossible, right? not with this phone call), the butterflies went into a frenzy. Boy, would I be thankful to know the outcome so they could fly away forever. Quite incredulously, I listened as the marvellous headteacher told me that they would like me to be their Morning Nursery Teacher. I shrieked in response down the phone, then apologised for shouting in her ear. I couldn't quite get my head round this piece of news. Me? Were they sure? Apparently so. 

The phone call ended and the butterflies flew away, the knots came undone, and I giggled to myself with excitement and shock that I had just landed myself my first ever teaching job after my first ever teaching interview. Wow. 

Baby Rachel

Last October, my precious friend Hannah, became a mummy to Rachel. I have been so blessed to spend a lot of time with them over the last 5 months, seeing Rachel learn to smile, hold her head, and giggle. 

For the last two Mondays, we have had glorious sunshine in Bristol, so Hannah, Rachel and I have gone for a couple of walks to two of my favourite places in Bristol - The Downs and Blaise Castle (where John & I went on our first date, and where he proposed). The sunshine has provided the perfect opportunity to take photos, although last week, Rachel decided being in the outdoors provided the perfect opportunity for a nap, which was not so conducive to photo times.

One of Rachel's latest tricks has been to burst into tears when Hannah gives her to me for a cuddle. Right on cue, the tears came on Monday as arrived. Knowing that I'm the only person that she does this with makes me feel brilliant - maybe she's so overjoyed to see me she can't contain her emotion! Anyway, she quickly got over her tears, and once we'd had a great time reading a lovely story, we ventured out to Blaise, and Rach was all about the smiles. 

Ok, so although none of these photos does her smile justice, I've posted these because I like the subtle yet obvious changes in her expression - she goes from intrigue at the camera to slight bewilderment, to smiling as she remembers that the camera is fixed on her pretty little face. And all the while, she keeps her little fist firmly attached to her toy. Babies are brilliant, especially this one.

a little love triangle

Yesterday was the first day back at school for the children - I have had three days of quiet planning in school without children for the first chunk of the week.

On their first day back, the children were showing their wonderfully true colours in oh so many ways. Just to give a bit of perspective, the children in my class are 7 & 8 years old. 

We started the day with a circle time where everyone shared how they were feeling, the best present they gave, and the best present they received. Let's just say that apple have made a whole lot of money out of the families in my class this Christmas. I cannot count the number of children who received an ipad, imac, ipod shuffle / touch / nano, or just a plain old laptop or kindle for Christmas. Oh my. 

A little later on in the day, a girl turns to me and says, 'I'm just trying to explain what a landline is.' Oh wow. These children live in an age where mobiles have taken over. Once I'd added to the explanation, a glimmer of understanding came to the child who had no idea what a landline was and said, 'oooh, are they the ones that have a long cord?' 

My teenage years saw me putting in a lot of hours on our landline. I would carry it up the stairs as far as the cord would stretch to try and gain a little privacy. The result of which was a few phones being forever damaged, their spiral cords being twisted and contorted to the point of no return. Those memories are happy ones, and I am sad that the children of today will probably never experience the joy of twirling a phone cord while they chat away for hours to their best friends on the phone.

After morning break, a couple of children seemed out of sorts but did not want to talk about it to the rest of the group because it was a private issue. I thought nothing more of it as my focus was largely consumed by trying to keep a class on track, which is still a new challenge for me, being new to teaching and all that jazz. When I brought the children in from lunch time, the situation had clearly escalated and I was greeted by a flurry of children saying trying to explain the problem to me. What I gathered was this.

'Miss, I love Mia, and she loves me, but Sam's brother says he has to have a girlfriend and that Mia has to dump all other boys and that she can only be with Sam, but we've been in love since Year 2 and it's not fair that they are trying to make Mia do something she doesn't want to, and then Sam's brother brought a load of his friends and they are trying to beat us up...'

Wow. This needs some breaking down, I thought to myself. As I asked a few questions, I was very pleased to hear how mature the children involved had been at trying to resolve the conflict with the slightly more grown up and scary Year 4's, but realised that we were not going to get this little love triangle resolved there and then in the playground. So, myself and my colleague took each one of the three to the library separately to chat about it. In all honesty, I really struggled not to break into a smile at how I was giving relationship advice and hearing relationship problems to 7 and 8 year olds. My colleague commented that we were talking to 7 year olds going on 27. Honestly, I think some adults could take advise from these little ones. 

Having heard each member of the love triangle tell their side to the story, it was apparent, that they had all resolved the problem, and that Travis and Mia just wanted to be together and to be left alone, and Sam was quite happy being single, but readily acknowledges that he has a big brother who 'likes to interfere in other people's business'.

So we went on our merry way, out into the school playground to collect some leaves for a project. Travis said to me on our way out, 

'Thank you so much, Mrs King for really listening to us and helping to sort out our problem...I really appreciate you being so considerate.'

These were his words, I kid you not. Maybe I should become the school's resident Agony Aunt.... 

this is why.

A few weeks ago I started a course that will train me to be a teacher. I have talked before about how it has taken me a long time to reach the decision to go into teaching, and I still have a lot of questions now, as to whether it was the right move.

Yesterday we had a lecture entitled The Creative Curriculum. The man giving the lecture has been a headteacher for twenty years, and working in the education system for thirty years. For some reason, the venue for our lecture was a Church. Our lecturer was not a man of faith in God, but was, very clearly a man of faith in education & children. He quipped, 'I am proud to say that I am standing in a Church, not evangelising about God, but I will definitely be evangelising about education.'


While, from my perspective as a Christian, it would have been wonderful if he had the faith to do both, but even so, I have to say that he was brilliant.


Here was a man who had been shunned from the education system himself during Primary School, expelled for being obnoxious, now speaking very passionately about his love for the children and staff in his school. He defined for us a turning point for him which was all thanks to a teacher he had in sixth form. One day, this teacher changed the heart of a sixteen year old boy who had been deeply affected by his school experience, by responding to him in a way that no other teacher ever had. He made him feel that his soul mattered. That sixteen year old boy was the man who was now standing in front of 140 teachers-to-be, telling us that we need to give to teaching the things that we love.


During my time at university, when it was summer exam season, I would travel up to Stoke on Trent with my good friend Lizzie to stay with her parents while we revised. I remember reading a quote that hung from a mobile in her dining room which read,


Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do it because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I so desperately wanted to find what it was that makes me come alive so that I might be able to use what I have in some way to make a difference. As I sat and listened today about how as teachers we need to be seeing the impact of our teaching as aiming to grow young children into oak trees, memories of teaching children came back to me; of times when I taught them how to cook & I felt truly alive, my eyes alight with excitement that the children in front of me were learning and loving what I was teaching them; of times when the whole class sat wide-eyed & captivated as I told them stories that were so tangible it felt like we were a part of them; of times where I was able to show a child in some small way that they mattered, that they are brilliant & that their heart is precious. These are the moments that make me want to teach.


In that moment of listening to a seasoned teacher tell me that what children need is for me to give of myself, I remembered that this is what makes me come alive. The giving of myself & all that I love that I might in some small way help children to love learning & love exploring the world that is at their fingertips; to give children confidence to know that they can learn and grow & love the process.


I know that there will be many children that I fail. There will be time after time that I fall short, that I don't give my all and I leave children with bad memories. But my hope is that for the most part, the education of the children in my care will be enjoyable & character building.

my day.

Do you ever have days that just seem to go from the sublime to the ridiculous? 

I am absolutely sure you do. Would you mind me telling you about my day today? On reflection, 'ridiculous' might not be totally accurate, but hey, I'm going to tell you anyway!

So, it all starts off normally with a bit of early morning internet shopping for wedding related items. Today, it was envelopes. Tomorrow, who knows? 

Having purchased roughly 140 envelopes, booked a train ticket to a wedding two weeks before my own and blogged about banana muffins, I headed off to childminding.

My morning's duties started off with learning about the mating rituals of Amazonian creatures - did you know that dung beetles roll a large ball of poo to impress their mates, and wire tailed manakin males show their tail feathers to their prospective female mate before shaking those tail feathers right in the female's face?

Next, Grace & I headed over to feed the neighbours fish & cats while they're away. This is where the fun of the day started to roll on in. I once heard that if a cat thinks you're not a very good hunter, they'll keep on bringing you dead animals until you prove your hunting prowess. Now, I am not sure whether it is normal practise for Sooty & Saffy (the cats we're looking after) to go hunting for their owners, or whether they see Grace & I as fresh, hopeless hunters, but either way, they feel the need to show us how good they are at hunting. Today, we went into their little cat lounge to find a dead bird, feathers & blood strewn across the floor. Oh how wonderful. Grace was highly traumatised & went and sat on the front step, refusing to feed the cats for doing such a disgraceful thing.

Upon our return to Grace's house, I was told by her Father that clearing up dead birds comes under the 'any other jobs' category in my job description. I was so thankful to have that clarification because I was wondering...

The rest of the morning was spent trying to figure out how to work the Match Attax game online. Remember how I feel about Match Attax? Well, yes, believe it or not, there is indeed a way to play this online as well as with cards. This is the new level of the Match Attax craze. Will is now becoming highly specific in terms of the cards that he deems worthy of owning. So much so that when his friend came round to play this afternoon, Will decided to give away his  entire, well, very nearly, collection of Match Attax cards. I hadn't quite realised the extent of Will's intended generosity until his friend's Mum came to collect him & told her son that he really couldn't take all of Will's cards  because Will might just have a re-think and wish he hadn't been so quick to give them all away, and then it'd be too late. 

Well, you'd think at times like this a child's response would be, 
'gosh, you are absolutely right! There I was, getting all giddy with excitement at the new-found possibilities of Match Attax online, that I thought giving away a hundred bajillion cards was a brilliant idea! I now see the error of my ways. Thankyou from saving me from untold disappointment.'

But no, our decision that Will should keep his cards was most definitely not met with approval. We had one disappointed boy sat on the stairs, head in hands refusing to move, and Will looking at me with his 'how could you?' look in his eyes. He then asked me, 'why is it that adults always have to spoil our fun? We have fun then you come along and spoil it?! always!'

After this little episode, baking seemed like the perfect consollation to me. I was wrong. Our batch of cookies was a total disaster. Actually, it could have been worse. I could have burnt the cookies. That was perhaps the only good thing about them, other than the delicious chocolate chips buried inside each one. While the cookies were baking in the oven, I decided to do a little bit of pantry tidying. It was perhaps the shortest lived tidying episode ever. Having moved one tray, I was incredibly successful in bringing a home made jar of blackcurrant jam to the floor - with no hands!!! They don't call them black currants for nothing, I assure you. The whole jar shattered and there on the camel coloured, textured carpet was a mountain of jam.

If you've ever wondered how to get out horrid, horrid blackcurrant stains from your carpet, I can tell you the first four pages of suggestions provided by google, ranging from lemon juice to vinegar to milk and cornflour. Take your pick. I chose nearly all of them and found the most successful one to be one that's not listed which consised of searching in the cleaning products cupboard for any kind of stain remover. Vanish oxi-action was my weapon of choice & it didn't let me down. So, although there is still a horrendous stain there, it is no longer purple.

My day of childminding ended with cooking dinner for children, knowing that one of them would complain endlessly about how he doesn't like jacket potato and asking how many mouthfuls he needed to eat. As it turned out, neither of them ate a bite of all I had cooked because their Mum rang and asked if they wanted to go out for dinner with her. I thought this to be a far better option than sitting through a mealtime of complaints and so calmly put all that I had prepared into separate bowls & into the fridge for another day.

{image: wire tailed manakin :: google images}

according to the children

Marriage is a frequent, perhaps even daily, conversation at Nursery.

And it has nothing to do with me getting married & talking endlessly about it.

The girls like to talk on a daily basis about which boys in Nursery they will be marrying. The boys are more than happy to join in.

So, on Monday, Miss Martin said to the girls, 'I think it might be a good idea to tell the boys that you are planning to marry of your intentions - that might be a good place to start.' 

Miss Martin then asked the children how old you have to be to get married. One child loudly and clearly stated that 25 was the right age. I breathed a sigh of relief that I fit into this category. I don't know what I'd do without these children - I might have ended up getting married when I wasn't supposed to.

Then another child said:

'No, you can get married at eleventeen, fourteen or nineteen.'


Hmmm. Well in that case, I'm a little bit late. If only I'd know when I was eleventeen that this was the age to marry it, I might have had five babies by now.

little buffers

Lately my working days have begun & ended with exactly the same thing.

Tiredness? You might be thinking. Well, yes, you would be right. But no, not that. That's not what I'm talking about today. 

Children?

Yep, you're getting a little warmer...I'll give you a clue. If you know anything about anything, you'll know that this current collectors item has taken the Primary Schools by storm.

Give up?

Ok, I'll tell you. 

Match Attax. 

These are the football cards of the children of today. The little boys in my life seem to just love them. Their days would evolve around match attax, if only school would allow it to become a curriculum focus. But, alas, the school does not allow it, so instead, they fill the rest of their waking moments thinking about Match Attax.

Hmm...let me rephrase that. They don's just think about them, they talk about them. all. the. time. Does anyone relate? Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm a Match Attax magnet that cannot help but attract the Match Attax monologue that these boys need to vocalise on a daily basis.

It was only the other day that it dawned on me just how much I listen to a certain two boys (aged 5 & 6) about their Match Attax love affair. In my semi-wakeful coma at the breakfast table, I realised that this let's-tell-hannah-about-every-single-football-plyaer-in-the-world-cup was a daily event, and that it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon, regardless of whether England were still hanging on in there or not.

So I started to listen. I must confess that when I have woken up, realised I've overslept yet again, showered & readied myself for the day in a slightly frenzied manner, and run down to breakfast, my listening skills are not quite at their very best. But still, I have managed to retain a fair few pieces of information about football players & the format of these beloved cards.

little authors

Here is another of the brilliant stories that the children at Nursery have written this term....

On a sunny day, Isobel and Speedy were walking in the woods. Isobel found a flower and took the pollen, and Speedy was climbing up the trees and cutting them down because he really liked cutting them down. They fell really quietly.

Speedy and Isobel made a home with the trees and a model of an elephant. A fairy camed and magicked it into a real elephant.

The fairy, the ant and the butterly all rided on the elephant. Speedy had to rest on the elephant.

The elephant took them to South Africa and they went to the beach and had a chocolate ice cream.

Then Speedy speeded away to the chocolate shop and sat down cos he needed to rest. He really liked resting.

Elephant, fairy and Isobel ran away to the woods again. Speedy thought they went to Australia so he went to Australia and he looked around but he couldn't find them. So he went back to South Africa.

building stories

On Friday I had the privilege of going to London for a staff training day with the teachers from school.

As the coach drew closer to London, I started taking in the array of architecture around me, that is gradually becoming more familiar as I make more regular trips to visit my future in-laws.

I thought about how all of the buildings - old & new - have stories behind them. Stories of people with a vision to start something new in the business world; stories of families from all walks of life occupying the houses, stories without words of the history of London. I wondered at how I will never know of most of these stories because, most likely, I will never have the opportunity to ask questions of those who live & work in them.

My mind wandered back to Bristol and the children I see for five days of the week. I thought about the stories they have been creating, realising for the first time in their lives that they can be authors as well as readers. We've been teaching them how to use their wonderful imaginations to construct their very own stories where anything can happen.

I love that with all stories, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. With some stories - the unwritten kind - the stories I saw in those buildings - you might never know all of the parts to the story - but I love that you can always imagine.

And that is what children are utterly brilliant at doing.

So, settle back and enjoy one of the carefully & crazily crafted stories of my children.


The Scratchy, Max & Spots Adventure

On a cold, snowy day, Max the Grasshopper was going to sleep and a funny, scary spider came along. Then Max woke up and frightened him away. Scratchy the funny spider said, 'Ola!'

'You can't sleep with me', said Max. So Scratchy had a sleepover with Spots the ladybird on the ground cos that was their house. Max can't have a sleepover because he's got a sore toe. He's happy and he goes over to Scratchy's house.

Then the funny eyes camed and they were really scary. Funny eyes climbed on the wall and Scratchy just said, 'Rah' and frightened funny eyes away.

Scratchy, Max and Spots the ladybird went to Africa and looked behind them and there was a scary lion and they had to go somewhere new. They went t o the police and asked them to take the lion to jail. The lion was running and they went in their car and they catched up with him and put him in their car. And the jail was in the car.

Scratchy was trying to spin a web. Spots and Max climbed up to it and they flew home.
'Wow! I'm up in the sky! Wow! wow! wow!' said Max.
You're allowed on my back', said Msx to Scratchy, 'cos I've got a bigger back. Would you like to come on my back, Spots?' said Max.
'You're too big for me' said Spots.

They take thirty minutes and then Max said, 'Where are you Scratchy?'
He's lost because he was sick on the way home and he needs to get back home to his cave.

Scratchy was dead. He died by a dragon in the sky and Max and Spots were still in the sky. They landed in the jungle and then they ran home.

The end.

this is me.

Some days at nursery I find my attention is particulary taken by a certain child.

Today, this child was a wonderful girl who we have seen grow amazingly in her confidence since she started Nursery in September.

She decided to draw a picture of me. Secretly I hoped that she might decide to give me her artwork, and to my delight, she did just that.

Having described how she had drawn me with a little tummy and crazy sticky-outy hair, she handed me my portrait and said,

'I want you to have it.'

Later on in the morning, I asked her to draw a picture of a person for me as a task that we get all of the children to do each term.

This was her little monologue:

'Haha! It looks rather like a stretchy man! Hair sticking up!.......Your necklace...your t-shirt.
A bit for your bottom - your pants, that is.'

I love that her drawing started off as a man then became me, and that she was considerate enough to clarify that I was going to wear pants in her picture.

On another note of children's brilliance, one of our boys decided he wanted to write a story. He only had time to come up with the beginning, but oh what a perfect beginning it is:

'It was a sunny day. No clouds. No rain. Just sunny.'

The imagination of a four year old is a force to be reckoned with and definitely never underestimated.

I'm thoroughly looking forward to hearing the next installment of his story tomorrow.

out of the mouths of babes...

There is a blonde haired blue eyed beauty at Nursery who I knew from the moment I met her on her home visit that brilliance would spring forth from her lips.

She has not failed to delight, inspire and amaze me over the last six months.

I am not the only one whose attention has been captured by this self-proclaimed princess. A new boy has arrived at Nursery and the two have fallen in love.

A couple of weeks ago, on the last day of term, the blue eyed beauty's mother said to her,

'Are you going to miss Joe?'

To which she replied:

'I will, but I will carry him in my heart.'

Where do 4 year olds learn how to speak like this?!

On Wednesday, I saw Miss Princess walking around with a picture in her hand. I asked her about it, as it was unusual for it not to have made its way to the picture box. She informed me in a most nonchalent manner,

'It's a love token for Joe.'

A love token?! I asked her what a love token was and she said,

'It's a love token for Joe - he made me a picture so now I'm making him one. I want to write his name on it but I'm not sure how to.'

So there we go. There's a whole lotta love in the Nursery. Oh, I forgot to mention, there has been much talk of marriage between Miss Princess and Joe. I thought they might forget about it after the holidays but they have not. The kissing of other boys might need to stop in order for a healthy relationship to develop though...

like pieces of a puzzle

Consequences. A game of little consequence but fun all the same. Grace & I have taken to playing this the last couple of Wednesday's when we go for our weekly trip to Costa. We don't exactly play by the rules, and I think this makes for a better game.

How we play: One of us starts the story, then folds over what they have written. Then the next person writes something. We only share necessary information, then back and forth we go until the story is written.

Our story this week: Moochoo's Friend.

And this is how it went:

It was a cold, blustery Winter day when Moochoo the Mouse realised he needed a friend.

Moochoo then remembered about the mittens that Gran knitted him.

QHile sitting by his fire, which was a mouse-sized-matchstick-fire, Moochoo thought about what he should do. He decided he should leave his house at once and go on a search for the thing missing in his life.

He searched and searched and found nothing but a button and some fluff.

Having walked for almost a whole afternoon, whcih, for a mouse, was like awhole year, Moochoo sat on a berry and thought. He had not found what he was looking for and he decided maybe he should look somewhere else. Just then, he saw a tree branch waving at him. 'He looks friendly', thought Moochoo. Maybe he can help.

So Moochoo found it, at last. The End.

Like pieces of a puzzle that somehow fit together, a story created by two minds makes just a little bit of sense using a lot of imagination. I like this game.

This is how my day goes

There are times when I am sure that my job is partially, or maybe even wholly, responsible for my memory loss.

The thing is, when you are surrounded by 30 three year olds, they need a lot of help. While we are forever encouraging and fostering independence in themselves, there are still a lot of things they can't do. Let's have a little look at today...

I was about to help one child change her pull-up, and had just adorned myself with the appropriate latex gloves, when a child comes in from outside, telling me that Horrace had hurt himself. (All names are substitutes to protect the identity of the children, so enjoy my choice of names, and yes, it is ok to laugh.) Knowing full well that the class teacher was outside, so would probably be aware of Horrace's injury, I asked Penny-the-messenger if Miss M (teacher) knew. Penny nodded so I asked if Miss M needed my help. Another nod. By this stage, two more girls have come into the bathroom, needing to wash paint from their hands. An easy task, but not so easy when you are these two particular girls. They are joined at the hip. In the metaphorical sense. So that adds a fun dimension to things. Then Timmy joins the steadily growing Bathroom Tribe and insists that he needs to take a towel outside. Penny-the-messenger likes to help people, and so tries to give Timmy a towel to go outside while she is mid-sentence, telling me exactly why I need to go outside, thus resulting in her losing her train of thought. Another member joins the tribe, to tell me that Miss M would like some more baby clothes outside for the children to peg on the line.

So, I finish instructing Helena (another tribe member - see how it loves to grow?) as to how exactly she needs to deal with her wet underwear, having not quite made it to the toilet in time, while carrying a spare latex glove under one arm, collecting some baby clothes from the Home Corner, instructing a child as to how they need to put their apron on (rather than just doing it for them), finding a towel and dealing with Horrace's bumped head. Did I forget anything there? Probably.

The knock-on effect of this constant need to thing along multiple trains of thought is that I will later on think of something that needs to be done, walk to do whatever that may be and forget on my way there why I was going. Today it was opening the curtains after showing the children a video clip about Divali. I only remembered what I was supposed to be doing when I saw my colleague doing it. I also talk to myself. All the time. Is working with children bad for my health? Answers on a postcard please.

P.S There will be a post or two to come, following the weekend of birthday fun!

Cookie Time

One of the perks of my job is that I get to cook and bake a lot. Whenever the kids request to bake, I am there, ready and waiting with the ingredients to hand in no time at all.

This week, it was double chocolate muffins for homework. (How good is that? Getting to bake for homework?!) Last week, chocolate cookies for a friend's birthday. One piece of kitchen equipment which is quite brilliant and almost vital is the good old electric beaters / whisk - whatever you want to call them. Unfortunately, Grace does not like the sound of them. So this time, instead of running from the room when it was time to turn on the noise, she came up with an alternative method. Hold a beater in your hand and whizz it as fast as you can. (See bottom left photo.) It was surprisingly effective!

sticky fruity fingers

There are some brilliant things about my job. Like teaching children how to make fruit kebabs then seeing the delight and enjoyment on their faces as they get to consume the delicious fruit and say things like, 'Wow, this is delicious' and 'This is so fun, I've never done this before.' That's what it's all about, giving them new experiences and teaching them that they are so very capable of so many things.

this is the view

This is the view from the house the children made on the Downs one rare sunny afternoon last week. They named their own landmarks amidst the trees and the birds: 'the mushroom and sparkling flight' - the place where light dances through the trees and birds bathe in its glory until we come and they take flight. This is the place where memories are stirred as children sit in trees, remembering conversations of meer cats and lemon sherberts, legs swinging freely from their high perch on the boughs of the tree. This is where memories are made. Of sticky mouths from picnic teas. Of falling from trees. Of curtains made from ivy. Of wonderful things like these.

quote of the day

The first conversation I had with one of the children at school this morning went like this:

M: Hannah, my Mummy had to go quickly today cos she's gone to sell blood.

Hannah: (chuckling to self, knowing exactly what M meant - that Mummy was 'giving' blood)
Is she? Wow, that's interesting. Do you know why Mummy's giving blood?

M: Yes, it's for the old ladies whose blood drops out.

As always, the kids know exactly what they want to say and how to say it.

Sunday.

Sunday 10th May saw the dawn of the Bristol 10k race. Having carbo-loaded the night before on a vast amount of pasta that I could not finish, I awoke at 6.20am to have my trusty breakfast of weetabix, banana & sultanas. Then went back to bed for another hour and a half. Yep, that's right. I've found the best way to combat race day nerves is to sleep as much as possible until it's time to leave.

The night before, I had arranged to get a lift to the race with a friend from church who was also running. What an amazing woman - she has four small children who she home schools, and has time to run. It didn't really make sense for me to get a lift with her as I live very close to the start of the race, but it is far better to be with people than alone. It was a lovely memory, to walk down Park Street in convoy with 1000's of other runners on their way to the running village, holding the hands of two small boys whose little legs were running to keep up with my leisurely pace.

It's funny how memory works. As I cast my mind back to that morning, everything is in snapshots:

Little hands
Lots of runners
A lady kneeling by the roadside, replacing her fallen contact lens
Sense of pity. I can empathise
The sight of Bristol Cathedral & college green drawing near, signifying our proximity to the race venue
Excited phonecall from a friend whose husband's running too. Desperate to beat me. Thankful for cake
Photo time. With the kids. Wondering if I'll ever see the photos. Wondering at how I never get any of my own.
Toilet time. Long long queues. Stretch.
Oh gosh look at the time. Run to the start line.
I've lost the family. I'm on my own again.
Take up my position with the 'elite runners', much to my surprise that I am in this category.
Surprised at how 8000 people feels like a small number when you can see the front runners from where you're standing.
A man holding a banana. I say, 'Are you going to eat that as you run?!'
He tells me how he'd forgotten he was holding it til I mentioned it and starts to eat it. It's been a rushed morning for him. Only decided at the last minute he was fit enough to run.
The countdown starts.
Earphones go in. Playlist on pause, ready to go.
Look at the clock. 1min 27 secs. Must remember to look at it as I cross the start line so I can work out my race time. I forget.
We're away. In the zone straight away.
My plan: To push myself for the whole 10k because I know my body can take it..
Loving the speed. Loving the sun. Nervous about dehydration but know it'll be over quick enough for it not to be a problem.
Counting down the kilometres.
7k. My body says it's time to slow down. My music says it's not. I keep the pace up.
400m to go. Sprint I tell myself. I want to stop right now. But it's only a few hundred metres! You've come 9600m so far!
See my friend poised with a camera. I smile & wave, spurred on to the finish.
Sprint, feel like I'm flying & my feet aren't touching the floor.
Beep beep beep over the finish line. Head spinning. Elated.
48mins49secs.

Oh yes, and this is the picture one of the girls in my class coloured in for me 'for your running' after she'd heard the news that I ran the same race as her mum:




Her Mum's comment - 'Don't take it personally!!'
I thought it was quite amusing. I'm hoping it's not a portrait...

I think this is wonderful

This is a story written by the youngest child in the nursery class I work in. She's 3, she's beautiful, she's incredibly intuitive & I think she's a legend...

'Once upon a time there was a princess called Rose Petal. She lived far away in a little cottage next to her Nan's house.

One day she crept through the dark woods to the scary castle. It had lots of pictures of old kings and queens and there was a spider living in a big web with a fly caught in it!

Suddenly a big wolf with sharp teeth and sharp claws jumped out of bed. He chased Princess Rose Petal into the spooky forest.

Princess Poppy (who could fly!) swooped down out of the sky and rescued Princess Rose Petal with her sticky feet!

They went back to her cottage and had a rest and some milk. Then they played dressing up and put make up and jewels on. Then, they played hide and seek.

The end.