A melty-downy sort of day.

Yesterday was one of those days where the chi just did not flow. We have had several disturbed nights and early mornings, I felt really drained and washed out and spent the day wandering around in a dwam (Granny's phrase), just getting through it. Thankfully, James was quite tired too and asked to watch the "diggers" - Bob the Builder. He settled down with his 3 DVDs and proceeded to lose himself in the world of Scoop, Muck and Lofty - changing the discs himself, of course:)
I don't mind that at all. I have moved back from the "all moving images are evil"standpoint that I used to have. Sunnymama posted a great link to a talk on children and TV, and Danya Martin has some interesting things to say on it. Having watched James watch TV or DVDs, I frankly don't believe some of the things written about the dangers of giving children access to it. James actively engages with what he is watching - he laughs, points to the screen, turns around and tells me what is happening. Later on he incorporates some ideas into his own play. If he enjoys something so much, how can I deny him that pleasure and tell him it is bad? Does that make him bad for liking it?
At lunchtime, we had fruit and yogurt. Very delicious, but I was jolted out of my stupefied state at the sight of James intently painting the sofa with his portion of extra-thick Greek style. My initial reaction was to shout to him to stop - what did he think he was doing - naughty boy- blah blah blah! I somehow managed not to - whether it was lethargy or realisation that he had spent most of the morning amusing himself, or whatever. I took a deep breath, then a picture, and then said something like:

"Oh dear, we don't paint on furniture, do you want some paper?"
"No"
"Well, I'm going to have to clean this up - do you want to help me?"
"No"

And of he went to play with his cars, while I scraped and washed the yogurt off
Another example of his artistic side, - or a non-present mother? Well, I'm not going to analyse it that much. That was just one such incident of several similar ones yesterday. I just happened to have the camera on the table at the time. The sofa cleaned up alright and no harm was done to it, or our relationship.
(I haven't tried to get the wax crayon of the glass in the hall door yet, but it will clean up too.)
Just another day in the life...


Later on, when the persistent, fine soaky kind of rain had stopped, we went to the end of the street to see the real Bob the Builders, relocating the gas main for the new railway line.

And later on again, two of my most favourite bloggers, Sunnymama and Debs gave me blog awards! How nice was that? Thanks to you both - I will pass them on in my next post.
Better sleep for all last night and a nice day out in prospect.