Leading questions

Hello! Just wondering if you had plans for this afternoon?

It's the kind of text from your son or daughter that can go one of two ways.  

• Do you want to come and do something with me?
• Can you babysit?

So there we were on Saturday thinking that we would decorate the tree in the morning and then maybe pop into town for the Christmas Fayre in the afternoon.  It was a pretty miserable drizzly day so the walk into town was becoming less appealing by the hour.  

When the text from Jon came through I had my suspicions but was pleasantly surprised when he went onto say that Sophie was taking Olive to her sister's baby shower and he was wondering if he could bring Max over to us and spend the afternoon here until he had to go and pick her up.

The text from Rachel said 'evening' instead of 'afternoon' and was for the other option.  Leo has started a drama class and they had a little show going on in the early evening so could we look after Rosie and Daisy while they were gone.  They'd only be an hour ... 

Hmm ... at the last minute, Rosie decided she wanted to go as well and we ended up just looking after Daisy - for three hours!  The show was a success, there was a small party for the children afterwards and time slipped away.  Luckily Daisy curled up on my lap (much to Coco's disgust) and slept most of the time they were gone.

Daisy making herself comfortable

Coco was definitely not impressed.

So a 'not doing much' Saturday ended up being a busy time after all.  It was so lovely to see the children all getting excited for Christmas.  Last year things were being cancelled left, right and centre so it is so good that they are getting to do some of the fun things in the lead up to the big day.  

We did manage to get the tree done in time

So today after school Leo and Rosie are going on the special Santa Express train from Audley End to meet Father Christmas in his Winter Wonderland and then to go with Holly the Christmas Fairy to visit the enchanted forest where they will write their letters to Santa and post them in the North Pole Post Office.  Guess where Daisy is going?  Sorry Coco!