Pizza (pie) day with Granddad

Last weekend was a visit to Hornsea to see my folks and dad foolishly made pizza and employed his granddaughters help.
Now the dough was really cheated on (a bread mixer...I'm just jealous really) but they were really nice pizzas and still tasted great the next day.


So first things, the base....dad assures me these are usually perfectly round, however Ellie had her own take on this.


The sauce was made from their tomatoes and put though this mangle contraption I've only ever seen in Italian kitchens...it's like a torture machine especially for tomatoes. After that it's really just adding  veg and mozzarella cheese to both of them..an Amelia on guard to warn of burning pizza is also useful.

A Distinct Absence of Pieday

You may have noticed a certain pielessness to today.
My apologies: Richard was supposed to be writing a post, complete with pictures* but last night was something of a nightmare and then he forgot.
 I'm sure he will get around to it in time, possibly not today though as on Friday nights we turn off all the electricity** and it's a little hard to get onto the internet without it.

*They work for him.

**We liked Earth Hour so much we decided to do it every week.

How I Plan

I'm sure there are home edders out there who plan their projects in line with a carefully ordered curriculum ensuring that each of the main disciplines is covered more or less equally.
I expect they create beautiful little timetables and feel a wonderful glow of satisfaction every time they cross off another step from their exquisitely structured day.
They probably check the recipe book every time they cook too.
 In case you failed to read that last line in a sufficiently sneering fashion I should elaborate: this not how I do things.
I don't really look down on people who do*, I'm sure they have wonderfully well planned and exciting days full of balanced and orderly learning, I simply can't do it and, to be honest, I'm not sure I'd want to.
 My planning process goes like this:

• Think of something, e.g Dinosaurs.
• List everything I can think of to do with that topic.
• Come up with as many associated activities as possible.
• Cut out all the bits a three year old probably can't do.
• Put them into some sort of rational order.
• Attack

So far it seems to work pretty well.

I'll confess it may look much more organised from Eleanor's point of view: she, after all, has no idea that her mother is essentially a flaky beatnik*** who is making it all up as she goes along, so she probably thinks I have selected each and and every activity for maximum educational benefit and placed it in the lesson plan with the care of Capability Jones bedding in a strangely recalcitrant buddleia.

It certainly looks a great deal more sensible when it's finished and the fruits of her labour are all laid out in the big blue project book.

So perhaps it doesn't matter that I bounce around the planning phase like a fluffy purple muppet, or that I choose topics based not on any educational guideline but on what sounds like fun at the time.

 Eleanor enjoys herself, I enjoy myself, Phoebe enjoys herself****, and everybody learns.

Which, honestly, is what I was planning all along.

*Which would, to take the recipe analogy a little further, be like Nigella Lawson** looking down on a three-michelin-starred chef.

** Only less glamorous, not so well paid, and without a camera spying on me every time I go to the fridge.

***Because no-one has taught her what beatnik means yet.

****Unless we manage to get the glue away from her in time.

Clearing the decks

We have a very empty wall.
 This wall was, until today, bedecked with paper butterflies, caterpillars, ladybirds that counted in twos and other arthropodic wonders.
Now, though, the project is over, we have exhausted the possibilities of our back garden (at least for now) and are ready to move on.
 So today Ellie and I took down all her worm and butterfly related work, even the stained glass pictures*, and stuck them all into her project book, creating a really rather impressive record of the past month or so**.
The book isn't quite finished yet: we still have to print out all the photographs we've taken and stick them in, but we've left spaces so that shouldn't be a problem.
More irritating is the realisation that I haven't kept a list of all the books we read over the course of the project: not a vital point admittedly, but I'd like to be able to keep a complete record, if only for reminiscence's sake.
 This is something I'll have to remember for our next project, for now the wall is clear and ready for our next project, leaving behind the tiny**** and starting something enormous: dinosaurs.


*I miss those already: I'd stuck them to the bathroom window to keep the light out of my eyes.
I suppose we should buy a blind really.

** Note to Home-edders: keeping a book like this is also handy if your LEA representative comes round*** as it gives an idea of what you've been doing.

***
Of course, you aren't actually obliged to see the LEA rep unless you want to.

**** Technically the smallest known dinosaur, Ashdown Maniraptoran, was only about thirty centimetres long which is about the same as the wingspan of the Queen Alexander Birdwing butterfly, but you know what I mean.

Pie day - daddy flan

Amelia has made me do a pie day, so taking the easiest path I've gone for no cooking, no prep, basically put it together, stick it in the fridge and off we go!

Dad always made flans at home during the summer, so I thought it could't be hard and it'd be great for Ellie.

So ingredients

• Vege-jel
• Flan case
• Strawberries
• Tinned Peaches
• Blueberries
• Single cream

Make up the vege-jel and leave to cool for a while.

A good tip is to use some of the syrup from the tinned fruit to make up the Jelly...saying that we messed up but hey ho :)

Cut up the strawberries.

Next just lay the fruit out start with the bigest then fil the gaps with the smaller fruit.

Finally you just add the jelly over the top and put in the fridge!

A plea for pie-tience

Today's Pieday post will be by Richard.
Please expect it when you see it.

Sorry for the delay.

Clap Your hands Say Wee!

Phoebe can't talk much yet, but she can certainly communicate.
She signs a little, she says a lot through waving at things, through crying or squealing, and, just recently, through clapping.
 She got the hang of clapping the week before last and was very proud of herself*.
She clapped, and she grinned, and she generally illuminated the whole room with her glee.
So when she did a weewee on the potty and was looking particularly proud of herself, the obvious thing seemed to be to clap.
I clapped.
Eleanor clapped.
And of course, Phoebe clapped.
 Since this occasion every time Phoebe does a weewee on the potty she claps.
She also claps if she hears someone flush the loo**.
She clapped tonight, with a somewhat awestruck expression, when she heard the shower running.
 And then, just as I was putting a nappy on her at bedtime, she realised she needed the potty.
She cried at me.
I didn't get it.
She wriggled her bottom in a holding-on-for-dear-life-and-a-dry-flexitot*** fashion.
I didn't get it.
She stared into my eyes in an attempt to drive the information directly into my brain.
I didn't get it.****
Finally, in desperation and with little hope of getting anything through my exceptionally dense skull, she clapped.

I got it.



*So she carried on clapping, she felt she deserved the applause.
** It's nice to be appreciated.
*** It's a type of nappy.
Made from bamboo.
**** But wouldn't it be cool if I had?