Judith Proctor's Journal

 There are few things in the world more wonderful than a five year old.

Younger kids are cute and adorable, but by five, they've mastered all the basics of walking/running/talking and they're soaking up knowledge like a sponge.

Oswin loves to find out anything new.  She adores inventing games, playing with anything and everything to hand.

Sometimes five year olds are just pure joy.

Oswin's friend Sam was round the other day.  Just before Sam went home, they spontaneously decided to be frogs.  Both of them crouched down frog style, jumping up and down.  They were having a blast. Sam's mum and I were trying hard not to collapse laughing and were sharing that look that only parents and grandparents understand.  It's the one that means "I wish we could put this moment in a jar and take it out again when we need cheering up!"

It's that ability to enjoy the moment. Not worrying about the past or the future, just being happy right now.

Oswin playing with a frisbee is like that.  It's a naff frisbee, but she doesn't know any better. She's a retriever puppy, chasing that frisbee and bringing  it back to granny.  Puppies also get to throw frisbees.

Two minutes later, she's seven different puppies and their parents as well, and is explaining to me that I have to think of names for them all.  (Five year olds are bossy little creatures, but that's all part of learning to be independent.)

It's school holidays, so we'll be looking after her three full days a week, rather than three half days.  It will be exhausting, but entertaining.  We've made a long list of ideas for things to do.

so far today, she's helped Grandad with the shopping - we wrote out the shopping list so that she could tell the lady in "Spill the Beans" - our local wholefood shop - what she wanted.  The staff know her well, and usually slip her a few pieces of dried fruit.

Then we played Frisbee in the cul de sac. 

Then we played "Rainbow Snake" (Actually, it's Regenbogenschlange -  a German card game that I got secondhand for 50p at Baycon this year.  the English version is called "Hiss")   The rules are staggeringly simple and the tactics virtually non-existent, but for all that, it's fun to play.  It's like a really simple version of dominoes where you join different coloured bits of snake together.

If you're four or five years old, then it's a lot of fun. Oswin loves it, and so do I when I'm playing it with her.

Let's see how the rest of the ideas list works out...  (we'll do many things twice or more times, but we have three pages of ideas, so variety too)