Happiness

I had a moment today that was close to happiness. Three children in the bath, just playing, at the end of the day, which hadn't been too bad, all in all. We did some more Day of the Dead stuff: papel picados (tissue paper cut-outs); a calaca, life-size skeleton, cut out, decorated and stuck together with paper fasteners; picture colouring; and wordsearch (with some Spanish words!). Well I enjoyed it, anyway. We remembered some dead pets, while we were doing this, well, only J could actually remember them. It just came up naturally in conversation, as some of the pictures had pets in them. Later we read a good story on this subject, called "Fred."

J Wrote a story on my laptop, and a did a picture. F also did a picture on the computer, maybe his first.

I also started a paper journal today. It is just a record of what we have been doing at home, like a scrapbook with notes. I'm trying to keep it quite visual, so it's more fun to do and more interesting and informative to look at. I've been meaning to do this for a some time, but now they are older, and it feels more like a journey of discovery, it seems more necessary. Usually the 'material' is all based around the seasons, nature and festivals, with a strong creative emphasis. I try not to intellectuallise it, by explaining why we are doing such and such at this time of year, we just do stuff, and the content just seems to be absorbed, somehow. (I don't think I'll try to explain that to the Education Effectiveness Consultant!) I cheated a bit and started in September, which only had one page, while November has had 2 pages already! I hope I can keep it up. I think, also, that the blogging/journaling is good for me, as, although it has been a bit time-consuming to start off with, it has helped me to focus on the important job in hand, that is, the children.

Now I've managed to put a picture there, with the posts. I like her, I want to keep her all the time, but I don't know how to do that. (I haven't mentioned anything about my knitting yet, have I?)