Expelliarmus!

Both the boys are heavily into Harry Potter at the moment. We are currently reading Book 3 to the Cherub, and based on our rule of you can't watch the movie til you've read the book, he is now allowed to watch the first two movies, resulting in any television time he was allowed becoming Potter Time. Climber had already had the first 6 books read to him, but after Dumbledore's death at the end of Book 6 he refused to read on. But earlier in the year one of his closest friends (Astrid-from-Mother's-Group's-firstborn) had a Harry Potter party for her 9th birthday, one which was very impressively run by her parents featuring a sorting hat, a treasure hunt, butterbeer and best of all, a duel with wands that Climber won. And what with that, and the Cherub's interest, and a few gentle nags from me, Climber announced last week that he was ready for me to read Book 7 to him. At which point I realised that I couldn't really read it at night-time because we are only part way through Book 3 for his brother and it would be too confusing. I did offer to set aside some other time to read it to him, but he girded his loins and started reading it himself. So far he has dealt with 3 deaths and the loss of an ear and seems to be coping. Not sure how he'll go during the final blood-bath but that's a while away yet. Meantime he decided he wanted to have his own Harry Potter party and seeing as his next birthday is still some 10 months away, we invited Astrid's gang over, decorated the house and made a day of it.





Crafty's mob also came over and ran around, and they certainly got involved with the wizard spell-throwing duel, but I think Climber's big plan to capture some escaped Dark Wizards never quite came to fruition, despite the effort Climber had put in the day before, making a copy of the Wizarding Newspaper. I think a raucous game of Hide and Seek might have distracted them.

Anyway, after Crafty's mob went home, the three Harry Potter fan-kids decided to play Quidditch.



Cherub and Astrid's girl were Chasers, ie the goal-scorers whose job it is to throw the Quaffle through the hole in the trampoline netting I mean goalposts, and Climber with a 'bat' (made from a play ten-pin), was a Beater. For those of you not up on Quidditch rules, the Beater's job is to prevent their team-mates from being hit by a super mean head-seeking missile ball called a Bludger. So in order to have realistic Bludger action, Astrid and I were called into service to hurl balls at our offspring. If we hit them they had to lie down on the ground and count to 10 before rejoining the game. Astrid and I both felt a bit mean actually but it was also very funny when we lined them up and hit them.