Playdough

I LOVE playdough :) I did a playdough session at our Wednesday home ed group this afternoon, playtime followed by a bit of make-your-own. LOTS of sensory fun!

This whole diet change thing has got me all topsy turvy. As much as I recognise the benefits it will have for all-round better health, it's hard work implementing it. And it's not even a case of not liking the changes, because they're great! It's more a case of having the wrong food in the house.

Like rhubarb and strawberry crumble. For breakfast.

Sandwiches for lunch.

Birthday cake in the afternoon, which was very nice even though I should probably have said no (but you can't say no to birthday cake can you?!).

And Bean requesting pancakes with chocolate spread for dinner. Pancakes! Aaargh. Delicious with fresh blackberries though ;-)

It's been a full-on carb-fest today with very little by the way of protein (except eggs in the pancake batter I suppose), and my body rather incredibly is already feeling pretty rubbish after all that carbohydrate.

Back to a ham and veggie omlette for breakfast tomorrow. I'd better finish that crumble for supper...

Spent the morning avoiding the boys, trying to get a recipe sheet made up with some basic playdough recipes and then making a batch of delicious sensory chocolate mint playdough mud using lemon juice instead of cream of tartar. Why has it taken so long for me to discover this substitution?! Vinegar or citric acid work just as well apparently.

Gathered most of the stuff I needed for today's playdough play at our Wednesday home ed group and managedto get there only a few minutes late. We had a table full of happy home edders playing with brown chocolate mint playdough, black glittery olbas galaxy playdough, black, red and white "pirate" playdough, glittery brown chocolate playdough, and an assortment of small world play critters including dinosaurs, sea creatures, farm animals and a cheetah! And an assortment of rollers and sculpting tools too.

On the other table, once the cooked playdough had been exhausted for the time being, was the "alchemy station" where because I'd left my cup measures at home we guestimated the quantities needed to make some no-cook playdough! Of course it took a lot more flour than we thought but it turns out tge juices from a pack of beetroot turn it a lovely pink, and strawberry flavouring added to it makes it smell quite interesting! The other batch was green with added olbas and was rather gorgeous too. Kudos to the two kids who kept on kneading and scraping and adding flour until their doughs became the right consistency - amazing persistence!

I do love playdough.

Got a bit of washing up to do now though ;-)

Pancakes in the garden for tea, and then scraped shins and knees to deal with. Poor boys had matching grazes on their knees until Bear tried to take his shin skin off as well.

Bedtime was interesting. Bean was showing off his new skill of walking backwards. He also got a chance to go outside to look at the stars with Steve... Bean was talking to me about the boys he was talking to and playing with this afternoon. One boy is on the autistic spectrum. Bean likes him and plays with him but this evening he started asking me about one particular exchange he had with him this afternoon. Pretty interesting, talking to Bean about autism, how people see the world differently, how in some ways they are very similar, and in other ways process things very differently. Bean thought lots about it and then said, "People come in all different shapes and all different sizes and we all see the world a little but different, don't we." We certainly do. :)

The house is in chaos. It's getting depressing again. Piles of stuff everywhere, and very little chance to do anything about any of it. Almost on top of the laundry and washing up which I suppose is something.

Really hoping that Steve and I both get real opportunities to tidy things up soon.