EMP in the US

Yesterday was very very cold. I think it was about -12° Celsius in the middle of the day. This made everyone reluctant to hang about outside for long, so we mostly stayed indoors. I did eventually wrap the boys up and make them walk around the Circle at around 5pm:

I have a plan to gather all the photos of the climbing tree and make a montage of “The Climbing Tree Through the Seasons”!

This is just a random photo of a brief snowstorm we had on Thursday:

Yesterday David took Ollie out for a sleep-drive (that IS as bad as it sounds). This gave Thomas and me a bit of time to do the sort of things Thomas likes to do. He wanted to play the Kids’ Chess game that he got for Christmas (from the Thrift Store!). He has made a lot of progress in attention span, so that he is beginning to understand how the pieces move, and also the concept of empty squares being “under potential attack”. Then we made a game of battleship (with just a 5×4 grid) to learn how to use grids (as recommended by “Chess for Kids and Parents”. This didn’t hold his attention for too long, though we did both get two out of three of each others’ ships (or blobs) before he didn’t want to play any more, and I think he can now use a grid.

This morning the boys surprised me by playing Connect 4. They took turns nicely, though the strategy was fundamentally flawed! They must have played for at least 5 minutes before the fighting broke out.

Also this morning, Thomas got his kiddie chess set out and set it all up properly, and looked like he was playing a game with himself. When I asked him he said, “NO, mum! I’m not playing with myself, I’m playing with my imaginary friend!” Well, of course, silly me! He went on, by way of introduction, “Mum, do you remember Penny from “Bolt”? Well, that’s who I’m playing with”.