We are soooo tried, I’ve hardly slept!  I’m so tired, we NEED to watch TV (accompanied by some over the top acting ) Mummy?

Of course I say “er NO” leading to foot stamping and complaining. How there isn’t anything else to do, really there isn’t. So her friend and I start a game of ‘well you could/would you like to’ of course he had TV in his ideas. Then some how the idea of watching TV in a tent/fort thing outside appeared. It was the best idea since sliced bread, the barrage of ‘you never let me’… ‘I can’t’… ‘that’s boring’.. etc stopped mid sentence. Obviously this idea was even better than watching it inside. Brains were engaged and it was all go!

The planning pictures were her idea… and this is the plan:

It has a toilet, giggles…

Stuff is fetched (non stop talking) and the project is all go.

I was tucked in a corner doing my own project, I couldn’t see them but could hear them and fetch stuff. “We don’t want any help from an adult ay” “we can do this” “be the first kids to build this” And the wise “I bet mum thinks we’ll never get it finished and watch the movie” er yes.

I heard lots of conversations about nature: the kill or not to kill question, and it turns out they have worm theories. If you cut a worm in half both halves become worms, worms need water, “I once studied worms and it said if they wriggle on you and they stick to you they like you”, “oh no I killed a worm, sorry wormy.” They made a home for the evicted worms. They found a grub they’d never seen before.

I heard technical talk: “we haven’t measured the nail yet” “it’s 45” I heard Helena advising her friend on the correct way to hold a hammer – advice from me that she never follows, passed down from my father for me to never follow. Lots of different tools. “You need to care as it won’t work” – non straight nails.

I heard turns and kind words. “I need help with this” “you are so much better at digging than me” followed by something about practicing and being heavier.

Here’s the first post in. They saved the dirt to pack around the post!

Here’s evidence of them working together.

Then it went to Custard and kid war 3 broke out. “I don’t get to choose anything I do,” “you’re not letting me choose a single thing”… when it started getting physical I intervened. One child went inside to read, and the other child (who now wanted to be the inside child) was coaxed down from a ladder they’d climbed (they were trying to get away as they thought they were in trouble) to come and have a chat with me. It was a nice chat, they so weren’t in trouble, and they told me how they were often in trouble. We talked about how we all want turns and the best way to get a turn is to give a turn, model what you want (I’m still learning this too especiallywhen it comes to hammering). Then we went in for lunch and you’d have had no idea there had been any division. “It’s just as well as now I’ve got a better idea”.

That’s them starting again as the building was damaged during kid war 3.

See working together again.

Ta dah actually watching TV in their tent – one 30 minute episode of Helena’s favorite TV series Outnumbered, which it turns out only she likes.