winding down to summer

Well, MQ#2 didn't really materialise into a Quest at all, although I am not fussed about it.  Oliver started collecting these little beauties:

Trading cards which come in packs, free, and handed over from the reception desks upon request.  There are 56 in all, and show pics and info on various museum exhibits.  Clever huh?  Since this is our local museum, I have plenty of time to think about how we can use these cards and go back many more times over the coming 12 months. 

Oliver's ripple blanket is underway and, hooked on a no 5 hook, this is progress thus far:

I think it a tad garish, but he is choosing colours as we go, and he likes it.  So that's OK then.

I have expressed misgivings about stopping 'work' with Oliver over the summer, as I really don't see this benefitting him greatly.  The complete absence of structure in our days usually leaves us both irritable and with a sense of under-achievement, so, at his suggestion, (oh so joyfully tying in with my unspoken ideas), he wants to do one Museum Quest a week, one maths session per week, and read 'pretty much every day'.  The last one is a bit of a big deal for him, being deeply suspicious of the joys of reading.  He saw the Summer Reading Challenge on Blue Peter (God love 'em) and came to tell me he wanted to take part in it.  So off we trundled to the library (before the last syllable had left his lips), taking out his first book.  Here it is along with my latest passion-ette.

He is over halfway through, and to my delight, he is really making the effort to sit down and read it on a daily basis, chapter by chapter.  At the Docs last week he sat in the waiting room reading, and when I came out he tripped along after me carrying the open book and started reading again in the car saying he just wanted to finish a 'good bit'.  Can't tell you how happy this simple little moment made me. 

Laters.