In the swing of things >>>

Wow! It’s September already! I must admit, it feels like we’ve been in South Africa for much longer than 6 months. A lot has happened in this very short period of time. I was thinking yesterday that by the time it is warm enough to put on a swimming costume and expose my lily-white skin to the sun again, it would be about 14-15 months since the last time we experienced summer in Cyprus. These 2 long winters we’ve had in the past 8 months have been cold and wet and snowy! Fortunately we have had some warm sunny days here and there in between the cold, which have kept us sane, with clean, dry clothes and outdoors!

All 3 of our boys are now playing football 3 or 4 times a week and loving the exercise and social interaction that creates. They have 2 fantastic coaches, British men who deal with the children in an amazing way. The whole focus is fun and inclusive, so very different to the competitive European football vibe!  The children mostly practice in one big group, a big mix of ages and sizes. Ryan is going to be playing goalie again this season. He only joined in May, which was near the end of the season and his team already had a good goalie. He played mid-field most of the time but he definitely loves playing goalie much more! And he’s a great little goalie! Ethan loves going to football. He isn’t over serious about it all, and the coaches are great at including him and encouraging him. He especially loves it when he gets to be referee as well! Jed just recently started playing too and the coaches so easily made him feel at home. He doesn’t appreciate the long distance warm-up runs, but he really enjoys the football skill practices and games. I’ve always loved it that Jed loves being active and isn’t scared to try most things! I’m not sure if he’ll get all serious about football and make it part of his week in the same way his brothers do, I do get the sense that he has other avenues to explore.

Aimee has made a couple of nice friends among our home schooling friends and in our homegroup. They are mostly girls older than her who love playing with her. She can often be seen walking around holding a hand and is included in every activity, even if she’s just ‘there’ and not actively participating, regardless of her age. Her vocab has increased hugely and she’s very expressive! She also ‘sings’ a lot when she talks, but we’re working on that! She has no problem making her thoughts and desires understood and I love listening to her. She loves the trampoline we’ve recently bought and spends a lot of time on there every day, dancing and jumping around. She also enjoys it when her brothers are on there with her – the giggles and shrieks of delight are wonderful to hear.

Dieter and I are forging ahead with our ‘academic’ activities with the children. The lull we’ve had in the business after the show has given us time to get back into the swing of things. We’ve been doing some exciting stuff: Aimee has started with numbers and today Ryan supervised while she cut out 4 houses from a newspaper and stuck them onto an A4 sheet with a big number 4 on it. We’ll add that to the number line that’s forming on her bedroom cupboard. She’s always listening to and participating when I do things with Ethan and is super-eager! Ethan has started counting in 10’s and also numbers up to 100 this week. Today he and Aimee played some snakes and ladders while I read to Ryan and Jed – and he had to fill in the numbers on the game that were missing. They had great fun! Ethan is also starting to read short words and we’re making great progress with our Jolly Phonics programme. Ryan and Jed are completing their exploration of the Eastern Hemisphere. They’ve just finished their unit on Mongolia and today we finished reading ‘House of 60 Fathers’ together. What a book! The story is about a little Chinese boy who is separated from his family and his journey to find them again during the Japanese invasion. I cried so much as I read the last 5 pages, it was such a moving story – and I’m sooo glad he found his family! We’re waiting for a convenient time, that suits our friends, to swop the books for whatever comes next. Ryan and Jed have been working on interpreting line-graphs and are starting angles later this week. I continue to marvel at how Singapore Math so simply introduces really difficult concepts!

Dieter and I are also working hard on getting our little business off the ground. Just this weekend we partnered with an e-store that sources and delivers fresh produce on the Garden Route. Within minutes of adding a few of our products to their site we had our first order! That was exciting! We’re hoping they’ll be able to add all our products soon and help us to sell our stock. We have also decided to put an advertisement in a family magazine that is given out in our region. Its free and paid for by advertising – and its brilliant! They’ve given us over 20% discount on our ad, so that was wonderful! The other thing we’ve done is book a stall at the upcoming Pink Tree Market. This market was started by 2 local ladies to help give local people an avenue to sell home-made creations of many kinds. Dieter is also very keen for us to sell some play-dough and some fresh custard desserts, so we bought the ingredients for the playdough today and will make a few colourful batches tomorrow. We’ve had a delivery or two to do every day we’ve delivered in the past 2 weeks and we know its going to get busier and busier.

That’s us in a nutshell for now … keep watching this space!

PS: Made a batch of our ‘Mediterranean Fish Pot’ yesterday, a tomato and onion based hake, dill and rice dish for toddlers. I am realllly missing my Kombares in Cyprus!!