Tuesday: I received a "message" early this morning that Aidan was not feeling well and would be staying home today; also, that there was winter break this week and no pre-school. SO ... this was going to be a different sort of Tuesday.
The art work began as soon as we arrived at my place. I showed Brendan the half-finished "book" I had so-far fashioned: "A Paco Book." Brendan asked if he might help me continue my story. YES! YES!
I got out the ink pads, thumb-print book, rags (for wiping our inky fingers), pens ... and we opened up our imaginations and set to work!
Darling Erin used a few of the stamp pads and letter stamps to sample all of the letters she could. She was very busy!
We also played TRAINS, which is something we haven't done in a very very long time. I think one factor for our negligence is less SPACE in which to lay out our tracks ... since Emma now occupies the spare room, all of our toys have moved out to the main room which gives us a little less floor space out here. Also, when Aidan is here, he pretty much comandeers the entire building of tracks ... Brendan and Erin eventually give up on having any say in the matter. I've tried lots of different tactics to deter Aidan, but nothing has worked very well. Anyway, TODAY, Brendan and Erin were free to build ...
I love these pics of Erin. She is completely precious.
I think the layout took more than an hour ... both kids were going at it ... but these two shared much more effectively with each other--so all was well.
Once the track was built, a few trains were run on them and then ... that was that! I've always said the building of the track is what is FUN. I do have a few battery powered trains that will run on most of our tracks (if we don't build too many high bridges to go up) ... so we let those run around the layout for awhile.
We also read a ton of books today. I went to the library Monday to replenish our supply. I love our library. I've learned to pre-read all books I check out now ... I've checked out too many poorly written/illustrated books in the past.
I was able to find TWO books on sea otters--one was merely informational, the other one was a piece of fiction about a family of beavers trying to get along with a family of otters. I set up Oscar on my window seat and posed him like he was reading one of the otter books ... in the other corner of the window seat, I set up Sweetie-Pie (my shark puppet) reading one of the three shark books I got this week from the library. These kids love to pretend with the puppets ... and I do too!
One of my favorite parts of reading to these kids is the fact that they snuggle up nice and close as we read, AND they are SO interested in all of the stories and pictures. It is not difficult at all to read 6-8 books to them during our Tuesday times. By about 4:00, we turned on a movie to watch: "The Good Dinosaur" which was a cute animated story.
We returned to Dylan and Kelly's at nearly 6pm. Pizza was waiting for us ... and AIDAN ... and CALLAGHAN! Aidan said he was beginning to feel better--but he didn't look like he felt well. I didn't stay very long to play, just long enough to hold Callaghan a little while and visit a bit with Dylan and Kelly.
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