Personally, I had a great day

Quite an easy one for me today, despite the freezing temperatures and ice-rink conditions outside that would have meant I would have had to spend ages wrestling Sebastian into the many layers required to sit in the pushchair and yet more ages waiting for his sisters to do the same, before teetering perilously, and no doubt very slowly, to play group... AH! But then there was A Friend.

Another one.

This is a different lovely friend to the lovely friend who took Elizabeth to play group last time I mentioned it. Anyway, she arrived and not only took Elizabeth away but kept her. All day.

Elizabeth went home for lunch with said friend, stayed the whole afternoon for a play and then came back when it was time to pick their big brother up from school.

Wonderful.

Francesca did a quick violin practice and then started maths.

Baby Anna is waiting patiently in the background. She's not being much help, evidently, because Francesca soon got stuck. On the date. Even though I'd said what the date was, quite a few times. I was making bread dough so it took me a few minutes to cotton on. Once I realised that Francesca was scuppered as to whether it was sixty or sixteen, we soon got her started.

"Ooh, it's money maths!" she exclaimed, all enthusiastic.

Then, she stopped again.

I read the first question to her (again) and explained how to do it, then went back to kneading and heard, "I can't do it! I think I'll do something else." And other protests of procrastination.

So, we got some actual money (raided the ever-useful coppers pot, thanks Seymour!) and 'played' shops to work out the answers.  Much better. I even saw her counting in 2s and 5s, where appropriate. When we did 'best and worst' later, "All morning!" was her best, so maths can't have been too bad ;)

Then Grandpa came to take Francesca for a bird-watching walk. The bird walk, we call it, but don't imagine any kind of penguin waddle, it's just a normal walk, with added bird information and possibly a sustaining chocolate or two.

Sebastian was persuaded to have a nap and I fixed my mail-merge tag in Mailchimp for my bread blog newsletter.

After lunch, Abuelita came to do art and had Francesca sketching hands and painting a copy of Alice (as in Wonderland).

Elizabeth returned, a friend came to play and the afternoon passed very easily (for me).

Francesca and her friend went off to play chess (who knows!) and Elizabeth and I built a marble run for Elizabeth and Sebastian to play with.

Play came to an abrupt halt when Sebastian accidentally knocked over the precarious construction and then clumsily tripped and stomped on it with his welly boot. Elizabeth was distraught. But you'll be pleased to know, I managed to work out how it all went together again.

After yesterday, when I had practically the whole day off (thanks, once again, to Seymour) I might find tomorrow is a bit of a contrast.