stay-home sunday
Didn't leave the flat at all today because of the grey weather and the rain, but somehow was kept busy enough and the time flew by. J left for Hanoi early in the morning, early enough to see the kids wake and have a quick cuddle before running off to the airport. He'll be gone for a full week, back in time for The Bun's birthday party next Sunday.
So I did two loads of laundry, changed the bedsheets, baked a 'practice cake' for the party next weekend (this took way longer than it sounds like it should), and obsessed about Setlock IV read a bit in-between. The kids managed to play quite nicely together barring some minor scuffles. I really see no point in buying them new toys when all they seem to do is enact adventures with their stuffed toys and build things out of old cardboard boxes. Even The Bun agrees that he doesn't really play with toys. This reminds me that I have to do a big clean-out of the toys soon, preferably when the kids are in school, and to sell or donate the ones they have outgrown.
It's quite funny eavesdropping on the adventures that the kids think up. Today The Bun made a car for his Kitty and Bao's Duckie out of an old pasta box and two kitchen paper rolls. This car flew around the flat with the animals riding inside and they kept flying into danger, mostly the explosive sort thought up by The Bun. His sister's role in all this is to play the sidekick enthusiastically shouting 'oh no! close the nuclear reactor!' (yes, really.) or 'buckle your seat belts!' or 'whew that was close!' She clearly watches too much TV, but she's hilarious because she's really into the whole imaginative thing and you can tell she believes it down to her core. I guess it took us three years and a bit for them to grow into playmates, so I'd better enjoy it while it lasts, because once their interests change and/or Bao becomes less pliable, they may not play so well together.
Anyway - the birthday cake. I am terrible at frosting and would much rather rely on easy store-bought sugarpaste, but one of The Bun's friends has a severe nut allergy and despite much searching I can't find a pre-made sugarpaste that hasn't been made in a facility that may have also handled nuts. Best to be safe than sorry, then, so frosting it is. It's a Lego-themed party so I thought I'd decorate with whatever clean and newish Lego bricks I could rustle up but this is the way it turned out:
Well, certainly no career change for me anytime soon.
I'm overthinking it obviously, because The Bun still loved it and thought it tasted good (my god, the amount of icing sugar that goes into buttercream frosting, no wonder it tasted good to him) and I don't think ten seven-year-old boys are going to care about aesthetics as long as there. is. sugar. The party will last two hours and there will be someone around to run the Lego activities (all very cool, engineering and science-based stuff) but I think that at the end of those two hours I will still need to go home and lie down in a darkened room.
This coming week looks like it's going to pass quickly. On Tuesday The Bun will leave for his residential camp in France, where he will be sleeping away for two nights. I think he will do just fine; he's very excited and it will be an amazing experience for him. S and E return from Croatia on that day, so it will be nice having them around with me and Bao at home. In the meantime I have to continue making plans for summer travel and book, book, book everything in advance. We've never really traveled with the August hordes before but I know from plenty of anecdotal evidence that it's mad!
So I did two loads of laundry, changed the bedsheets, baked a 'practice cake' for the party next weekend (this took way longer than it sounds like it should), and obsessed about Setlock IV read a bit in-between. The kids managed to play quite nicely together barring some minor scuffles. I really see no point in buying them new toys when all they seem to do is enact adventures with their stuffed toys and build things out of old cardboard boxes. Even The Bun agrees that he doesn't really play with toys. This reminds me that I have to do a big clean-out of the toys soon, preferably when the kids are in school, and to sell or donate the ones they have outgrown.
It's quite funny eavesdropping on the adventures that the kids think up. Today The Bun made a car for his Kitty and Bao's Duckie out of an old pasta box and two kitchen paper rolls. This car flew around the flat with the animals riding inside and they kept flying into danger, mostly the explosive sort thought up by The Bun. His sister's role in all this is to play the sidekick enthusiastically shouting 'oh no! close the nuclear reactor!' (yes, really.) or 'buckle your seat belts!' or 'whew that was close!' She clearly watches too much TV, but she's hilarious because she's really into the whole imaginative thing and you can tell she believes it down to her core. I guess it took us three years and a bit for them to grow into playmates, so I'd better enjoy it while it lasts, because once their interests change and/or Bao becomes less pliable, they may not play so well together.
Anyway - the birthday cake. I am terrible at frosting and would much rather rely on easy store-bought sugarpaste, but one of The Bun's friends has a severe nut allergy and despite much searching I can't find a pre-made sugarpaste that hasn't been made in a facility that may have also handled nuts. Best to be safe than sorry, then, so frosting it is. It's a Lego-themed party so I thought I'd decorate with whatever clean and newish Lego bricks I could rustle up but this is the way it turned out:
Well, certainly no career change for me anytime soon.
I'm overthinking it obviously, because The Bun still loved it and thought it tasted good (my god, the amount of icing sugar that goes into buttercream frosting, no wonder it tasted good to him) and I don't think ten seven-year-old boys are going to care about aesthetics as long as there. is. sugar. The party will last two hours and there will be someone around to run the Lego activities (all very cool, engineering and science-based stuff) but I think that at the end of those two hours I will still need to go home and lie down in a darkened room.
This coming week looks like it's going to pass quickly. On Tuesday The Bun will leave for his residential camp in France, where he will be sleeping away for two nights. I think he will do just fine; he's very excited and it will be an amazing experience for him. S and E return from Croatia on that day, so it will be nice having them around with me and Bao at home. In the meantime I have to continue making plans for summer travel and book, book, book everything in advance. We've never really traveled with the August hordes before but I know from plenty of anecdotal evidence that it's mad!