Late nights, late mornings

have been the order of the day around here this week. Sam has decided that despite going to bed at a resonable hour he is going to keep himself awake until we come up to bed so that he can have extra snuggles. The only redeeming thing about this plan is that in order to pass the time he has been reading to himself-something that hasn't happened in ages. At first he was reading outloud to himself but now he is reading in his head-yipee! Maybe we have turned a corner and he will start reading for pleasure again. As a consequence of these late nights my early bird is turning into a stay in bed! I had to wake him up at 9am yesterday morning, an precedented event in this house. While I don't like him getting up so late it is nice to have a little time to myself in the mornings. Although I am always the first up and I not really a morning person and take a while to come to my senses.

The big discovery of the week has been bbc iplayer. As you know we don't have a tv and lately sam has started to wonder about things like blue peter and top gear. With a little bit of searching discovered bbc iplayer which allows us to watch bbc programmes on line and as long as we don't watch them as they are being broadcast we don't need a tv license-yippee! This week he has discovered Blue Peter, MI High, Top Gear (a big hit with him and M), Dog Borstall and Timewatch. We watched a really interesting programme on early jousting tournamets which resulted in him making grand plans to create a lance and learn to ride so that he can joust-you can imagine my response. This discovery is not going to turn us into telly addicts but is nice to know it is there to add a little variety to our day.

Sam is extraordinarily excited at the moment as he is going to spend the whole day tomorrow with his friend D. D and his parents are picking him up about 9:30 and then droping him off late afternoon. He is beside himself thinking of all the fun things that they are going to get up to. M and I are looking forward to a little parent time and are going get in a little retail therapy-more browsing than buying but it will be nice to look without a bored young man in tow.

We have had great fun this week with the periodic table-M is going to start teaching sam science on a tuesday morning and next week they are starting with the periodic table. Someone in the 50s set it to music (the tune of a mondern major general by gilbert & sullivan) so we have been learning that. We are up to line four and sam thinks it is the funniest thing out!