Skipped a day, skimmed a day

We didn't read the FIAR book on Tuesday. We overslept - I dreamed I had twins, and woke devastated that they were gone - it took me a while to remember that I didn't have any children between Emer and Astrid, let alone two - and then felt an urgent need to tidy their room, because I couldn't walk from the door to the wardrobe. Once I'd done that it was time for brunch and getting dressed and going out, really; I did some laundry and stuff, and then we went to the library for storytime. On the way home we bought a pumpkin and a truly astonishing amount of instafood - jars of cranberry and redcurrant sauce, powder mix for breadsauce, mix for bread stuffing, ready-rolled pastry. We popped in to see a friend (full disclosure: she phoned from my doorstep in the freezing fog while I was at the shop, because she was a little early and I was a little late, so she went home again) and invited them around for dinner.

So I made my first pumpkin pie the opposite of The American Way; I used real pumpkin for the filling, and packet pastry. My understanding is that people use canned pumpkin and save their effort for the pastry. It was good; I was going to use apples for pectin to make the pie gel, but a friend looked up an actual recipe (oh! what an idea!) and I used some eggs and oat-based cream-substitute instead. We also used agave syrup instead of muscovado sugar, because we had some.

And we had a three-course meal with neighbours, and very briefly discussed harvest, celebration, gratitude, and America. At least they can find it on a map now.

Today, we cleaned the house - it actually looks pretty good now - and read the book again. Then we made an airplane from boxes; it will never get off the ground, but they did study the various illustrations of Bleriot's machines before deciding they needed one which would hold TWO girls and have decorated wings, and aerodynamics came slightly into the discussion of wing-shapes (scallopped front edges wouldn't help, right?) and we had a heated discussion about propellers.

They really, really like the idea of an airplane which flaps its wings. Really, really, really.

Then we listened to a CD of children's classics my aunt saved for us from the RTE Guide. My favourite is Anderson's "The Typewriter," because it was so cool when they brought the typewriter onto the stage at the concert hall when we went on school trips when I was at primary school.

Oh, and Linnea read to me from a Monster And Frog book. She's very good but finds it very very tiring, though that might just be reading aloud; she can read much more privately. I think the stress of my knowing whether she gets it right or wrong is exhausting.

To top the day off, the four-year-old pinched the baby. But apart from that, today went well.

(We made chicken, potato and leek soup, to use up dinner leftovers; the children were not impressed. Pumpkin pie on the second day was still popular though).