Thursday, April 08, 2010

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.

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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.

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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.

13 comments:

  1. If your kids ASK you to hit them with a ball, make the most of it! What imagination, those Stomper kids. You have the best play times there!

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  2. Wow! That sounds like a great Harry Potter Day - you could package that up and sell it as a birthday party idea. I'm sure hundreds of parents would pay for you to come throw balls at their kids!

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  3. My boys would love that, being Harry Potter obsessives.
    Conor's read and re-read those books and now Ethan thinks he should read them too. I keep telling him he should wait a while as I don't think he'd get full benefit from them as yet.
    I wonder if I can coax them outside and throw balls at them?

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  4. I'd come to a Harry Potter party! My word I would!

    And look at you, Mother of the Year. Taking photos while your youngest lies PRONE on the ground after being hit with a ball YOU threw at him!

    How DO you sleep at night? :)

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  5. so, you have parties for no reason at all? I am so anti-social, we barely ever even have birthday parties. I need to look outwards a bit more.

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  6. Good on Climber for being brave enough to read the final book for himself. It is difficult to know that once it has been read there is no more. He'll be sad about that.

    Perhaps you can cheer him up by throwing balls at him. He looks to be enjoying that game!

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  7. Oh my youngest would love a Harry Potter party. And of course he has the correct name.

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  8. I REALLY like the bit about throwing balls at the kids.

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  9. Sounds like GREAT fun!!! Can I play next time? I'm a complete Harry Potter tragic.

    I read all the HPs to my kids, especially the younger one. The older one read to himself from book 3 upwards.

    HP7 came out as we were about to board a plane to LA (she says casually) but I INSISTED on standing in a queue as the embargo lifted 15 minutes before the flight boarded. I got the first copy sold at Sydney International airport, and they took photos and were in HP costumes and everything - and had I been home I would have joined them in dressing up. I read it flying across the Pacific and LOVED it. She bought it herself while we were away and read it, but then I re-read it to her when we returned after our long trip. I treasure the memory of doing that with her. I must say it would be much harder to read Twilight to her :P

    Climber is very brave to read it alone, it is a pretty intense book, I'm sure you're doing a bit of debriefing with him.

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  10. We are doing our absolute damndest to take the Harry Potter's slowwwwwwly. It's an absolute disaster. The Mr is doing the reading at bedtime (and is absolutely hooked) and the kids go to bed with their imaginations filled to the brim with magic and other excellence until we get to a scary bit where they're quaking in their shoes. Even the smallest kid has been casting expelliarmus spells all over the shop. Time to distract everyone with a game of quidditch methinks.

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  11. How fun! I sit and read the things your kids are doing and wonder where mine's imaginations have gone... I practically have to force them to go outside and coax them into making dens.
    Can I come live with you?

    ;-)

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  12. Cool in a million ways.

    What sorts of games did you play as a kid? I vaguely recall playing Star Trek, which mostly involved arguing over who got to be Kirk and who got to be Spock.

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  13. Hi there - thank you for your kind words and honesty on my blog regarding patience. Unfortunately I'm not even his mother - just his aunt/nanny so I really have no excuse for being so short tempered. I only put up with it 30 hours a week...But I am feeling stronger already. Something about admitting ones failures perhaps? Anyway - just wanted to say thanks and also I LOVE HARRY POTTER - honestly I truly love those books and reading this post makes me want to have my own children whom I can share Harry with...you're a lucky lady!

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Don't let the cat get your tongue.