Through Children's Eyes

Photos copyright of Maggie May.

I always encourage my grandchildren to draw and paint, having an artistic flair myself. They have an artistic auntie back in Japan, so if they do end up being good at art in the future, then I cannot claim all the credit. Their dad also has an artistic eye, but then he might take after me!

I usually end up putting their offerings onto the fridge door. Seems a good place to display it. Sometimes I get too much artwork given to me and I have to surreptitiously recycle something and hope it won't be missed.

The top picture was painted by Amber who was six when she did it. Notice the way the merman is ogling the mermaid! Little girls of this age love mermaids and horses, but horses are more difficult to draw, so I am told.

Now this one was drawn and painted by Millie who is four. She called it *the owl and the ghost.* I am not sure what she was thinking about at the time or where she got her idea from. If I had asked her she probably wouldn't have a clue, as her little brain moves on fairly quickly and I have a job to catch up. I think she might well be the one who has the most talent as she used to spend so long painting, though sadly, the desire to paint does seem to be waning slightly these days.

Working in an After School Club, I do get presented with a fair bit of art work from various children and I don't usually keep it because of lack of space. However the picture below was produced by a friend of Amber's and presented to me, so I put it on the fridge door in a place of honour. The look of pleasure on the child's face when I told her it would go in a special place with the granddaughter's artwork, was a real pleasure to see. I always pretend that I will keep their work, but this time I actually did.

Its a happy little picture, isn't it?

The Inset Day

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

What can two small but energetic girls do when there is a non pupil day at school?

Well....... we can play with the dolls house and the barbies!

We can try our hand at painting! Not quite finished yet!

We can go to the park and look at the view. Isn't it lovely? 

 
We can get Granddad to help us feed the wild life.

We can try and stop the pigeons from getting the nuts that we brought for the squirrels.

We were lucky that it didn't rain in the park and we had a really good time.

We had to climb down some steep steps and Grannie said, 'Don't go so fast as Grannie and Granddad cannot keep up and we could break our legs if we slipped.'

One of us said, 'That would be awful because we wouldn't have a bus ticket to get home!'

They thought that was quite funny but we didn't get it! Grown ups laugh at the strangest things!

Just as we jumped off the bus, near home, the sky went black and the rain tumbled down. We had to run very fast, so as not to get too wet. Then we had to take off our trousers and jackets and dry them because we did not run fast enough!

Looking After The Girls

This is a picture of Millie with her favourite book! We have read it over and over again.

All those who have read Sam's blog will know that his wife, Kaiko, has a full time job now and he has been looking after the girls. However, for the last week or two he has also been offered work for two days a week on a temporary basis.

Friday is no problem as that is my day off, so I was able to take Amber to school in the morning and pick her up again in the afternoon. I decided to take Millie to the local library where they have a mother and baby session a bit like a play group. I went in with all the other Mums and sang the songs with hand actions and supervised a collage (ours was the best!) They all had a story and then had drinks and fruit. Followed by another story and then it was time to go! All that for 50p! very good value, I thought.

The other mums looked at me bemused! Of course they knew this child could not possibly be mine!

I rather enjoyed the time in the library and intend to go again next time I have Millie. She walked a long way home but I had taken the push chair just in case she refused to walk, as she sometimes does and my back would suffer if I had to carry her.

However on Thursday, I had to work. So Grandad had to look after Millie after I had taken Amber to school. I was just a bit worried about him but I needn't have, as when I got home for my lunch, Grandad & Millie were sitting at the table painting! Grandad was doing quite an intricate painting and in all the years we've been together, I had no idea that he was such a neat painter! 

When I went to my second job, I wondered if his patience would run out. However, he collected Amber from school and took the two of them quite a long way to the park and lifted them on and off swings and roundabouts. He even had to climb up some netting to rescue one of them when they got stuck!

They were all three of them falling asleep around tea time.

I think this child minding is giving us a new lease of life!