Today is the last day of Toby's half-term. St Margaret's took an extra day for teacher training and I'm so glad they did. I really needed today to recuperate before getting back into our routine. We've been so busy the last few days.
Jason took Thursday and Friday off work. On Thursday we went to the Body Works exhibition. It was extraordinary. Highly educational and only slightly revolting. All of the pieces are real people who donated their bodies to the 'artist'. The exhibition focused on aging and progressed from conception to old age. There were preserved fetuses (fetii?) from 4 weeks after conception all the way through to birth. There was even a pregnant woman with a wedge cut out of her stomach to show how the baby fit inside her. I couldn't help but wonder how all of the babies had died and especially how the pregnant woman died. They don't put any of that information out there because they want for the focus to be on the educational element rather than the personal tragedies. Still, you can't help but wonder.
The children were fine with it all though some of it was a little creepy. They had one guy who had all of his skin removed but was holding it over his arm like a suit jacket. That verged into Silence of the Lambs freakshow territory but mostly it was just very informative.
Friday was, of course, Halloween. The children were invited to three different parties and managed to go to two of them. One was held in our local park Manor House Gardens. It's a gated park and is locked up at dusk every evening so it was a real treat just to be there after dark. They had all of the traditional things like apple bobbing and a scary story told by a wizard in a tent in the middle of the parkland. We met some of the children's friends and families there and had a brilliant time.
Saturday was Rosie's party and it went very well. It seemed much more calm than Toby's parties but everyone said that's just the difference between boys and girls. Rosie did have some boy friends there but it was mostly little girls in various types of costumes involving pink. Rosie was dressed as Stephanie from Lazytown of course. Toby went as young Indiana Jones, which is basically Indiana Jones without a hat. We also had a pirate, quite a few fairies, a cowgirl, a gypsy, a ballerina, a vampire and two Power Rangers.
Jenny & Kieran came down for the party with their children and spent the night. I pulled out Toby's trundle bed, pushed Rosie's up next to it and put a king size sheet across it so the four children had a 9ft wide bed to sleep in together. Jason and Kieran went off to the pub to watch football and Jenny and I fielded children back to bed when they came down to tell on each other. "Rosie and Kate are jumping up and down!" "Jack and Toby are play fighting and I can't sleep!" Once they finally all passed out and the guys came back we ordered a curry and the guys watched Match of the Day while Jenny and I looked at magazines, trashed the celebs and made plans for a spa day. A typical Saturday night when the four of us get together.
On Sunday morning Jason had to leave for California. Jen, Kieran and I took the kids over to the park for a while then ran back just as it started to rain. I made my famous ham in Coca Cola and we had a nice lunch before they left that afternoon. Since then the kids and I have been hanging out, playing with Rosie's birthday presents and talking about Guy Fawke's Night which is 5 November. Then it's Thanksgiving... and then Christmas!
[NOTE: Don't I look frighteningly like Mom in that photo?!]
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