Red in the Rain

We didn't go to Moppets today because of really heavy rain. Today was going to be red day at Moppets where we were going to all wear red, eat red, paint with red on a feetpainting mural, listen to the reading of the Playschool's Red Book, and play with red playdough! Declan was disappointed that we couldn't go, so we decided to have some red fun at home! After sending Chloe off to school with Gary, washing up, playing trains (the Little red Engine That Could!), having two attempts to get a roaring fire going, bringing up five loads of rained-on-as-I-ran wood, putting on loads of wet-the-bed-last-night- and the last few days' washing,bringing the most significant pieces upstairs to dry in front of the fire, and both of us changing from our PJ's into suitable-to-get-wet clothes, we ventured out to the street for Declan's all-time favourite rainy day activity - "floating boats". Declan soon gave up the idea of carrying the little purple umbrella, and preferred instead to run up and down the footpath in his long-sleeved green digger shirt and green undies, to select great leaf boats both big and small! I could just about feel the joy in the air as he raced to the drain to watch the leaves go over the edge of the rushing waterfall-like part into the racing water below! The noise of the water gushing was amazingly loud and there was even a leaf-blocked fountain happening at the entrance to the drain! We spent about 20 minutes down the road (Chloe wants to do it again this afternoon after school - I wonder if I can muster the courage for the cold again!!) before saying "goodbye" to the boats, hanging up another load of washing while Declan had an "in-between swing" under the house, then we headed up stairs to get dry and cosily "dressed" into some more PJ's for some warmer activities!
Declan played some more train adventures while I prepared some red food and drink for an 11:30 am mostly-early-lunch ( I was exhausted after being awake with one of the other children in the last 7 hours of the night's "sleeptime":)?!!) We had "red moons" (sundried tomato flavoured rice cakes, craisins, red apple in boats, strawberry jam sandwiches, "red tuna" (sundried tomato and onion flavoured tuna) and the special treat of red fruit juice cordial as our "red tea". I hoped that would then mean story and rest time but Declan had other ideas - not being tired out yet, we decided he could watch something while I caught up on a few extra things ( and tried to catch some zzzzzz's in front of the fire). However, it turned out that Declan was still hungry, so some extra un-red fruit was consummed (banana, kiwifruit, sultanas and extra craisins!) while we watched the end of Pippi Longstocking on video from the library (We've just finished the chapter book on loan from the Ferns!) Both the children really enjoy Pippi's capabilities,and insist that she really does have a mum and dad which is interesting - in the book it's implied she doesn't but in the cartoon movie, it shows her dad returning from sea. When reading the book, I also omitted the ghoulish parts of her birthday - there's no desire on my part to have this as part of our family imaginings although Gary is waiting desperately for the children to be old enough for his own made-up versions...?!

Anyway, we read Duck at the Door and Little Bear's Trousers (which are, coincidentley, red) and then Declan finally finished playing on his bed about 2pm and is still asleep 2 hours later - I'll wake him in a minute- and I enjoyed an hour's cosy sleep - ahhh:)

Stuart's bringing Chloe home any minute now and I need to think about dinner for tonight and wake Declan, but it's been really nice to put all this in writing rather than just composing it in my head:) What an adventurous stay-at-home-mum-day!!