Brian's panoramic photo of the sunset, the skyline, and the mountains.
Today was a day of firsts for Tisetso and I. In the morning, I could tell doing school would not go well, so I offered to read him the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. He got very excited. His excitement was soon abated as he realized there weren’t photos on every page and that you couldn’t just skip around and read random sections. Surprisingly, we got through two chapters before he had had enough. I definitely choked up reading this passage to my son:
“Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous…He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: ‘To Harry Potter—the boy who lived!’”
After my moment and Tisetso getting annoyed, we headed to the mall. We had a huge list of things we needed and things we needed information about, so we went to the closest mall. While there, Tisetso got an Avengers water bottle and two washcloths (Star Wars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Very exciting and actually on the list (not specifically the branding, but the items themselves).
After the mall and a quick lunch back at the flat, we dove into our lesson. When I thought he was not wanting to do more, he said, “More school, please.” I obliged. He did a great job with his maths (as he calls it) and I was able to assess an area we can work on at a later date.
With maths out of the way, we got down to the real work—making chocolate chip cookies. For those of you that don’t know, my family is one for baking and cooking. I have a grandma I’ve called Grandma Cookie since I was little. I’ve learned baking from my grandmas and mom, and learned to love cooking as an adult. Baking with my son for the first was a big deal to me.
Our little baker.
Not unlike other bakers, you tend to memorize the recipes you use a lot. These cookies were no different. Thankfully, we were able to find all of the ingredients. I thought we were going to have an issue finding brown sugar, but we were able to find something very close to it, which ended up working.
Mixing!
Watching the cookies (he calls them biscuits) bake. In a tie.
Tisetso loved helping with each step. The only thing I did was scoop and level the brown sugar (which was far more unruly and stick here than I was used to). He loved that he was able to watch the cookies baking. He kept saying he was Auntie Florence (the awesome cook at the care home). It was great. In the end, they did taste different than what I’m used to, but still delicious!
After cookies, we lounged around. Tisetso playing with his stickers and Legos. I used the time to catch up with some blog posts. Brian was able to get some work done. Dinner was a delicious pepper steak pie with veggies. Unfortunately, Tisetso didn’t want to eat—he just wanted to play with his food. Determined that he should eat something, we sat around for a while before he obliged and ate.
Our bedtime routine.
Our evening wrapped up with finishing up Peter Pan, Tisetso asking to go to bed early (we thought that would be ok), us getting to watch a gorgeous sunset on our balcony, and me getting to talk to my friend, Lexi, and my grandparents (separate calls).
Last night really was such a beautiful sunset!