Yesterday and today have felt fairly productive. I've been feeling a bit fed-up of being very aimless in our HE, although that is partly to do with a definite lean towards the "better late than early" school of thought. Anyway, I decided to put together a vague topic or two and as the subject of butterflies came up over the weekend, I decided that could be one of them. So after Tamsin was at playschool yesterday morning during which I vacuumed, tidied, dog-walked and napped (following a terrible night's sleep due to Isabelle's emerging cold), off we went to the Butterfly Farm at Stratford-on-Avon. I wasn't sure how Tamsin would cope with the fluttering round her head, but she was really excited and amazed to start with. She excitedly spotted all the different coloured ones she could find and went up to look at them close-up feeding on fruit, and we tried to compare them with the identification sheet we'd bought, although we largely failed to be certain about any of them. We talked about the proboscis and how a butterfly feeds. After wandering round for only about 5 or 10 minutes, though she started to get twitchy about them fluttering round her head, and after a large butterfly landed on my chest and stayed for a minute or so she became largely undone. We made a quick exit into the caterpillar room and studied some pupae for a while (although didn't see any caterpillars) but she was quite anxious still and we left fairly shortly afterwards, only just escaping before she got hysterical. She calmed down quickly once we were in the shop and after buying a lollipop and a cut-out butterfly model book we left.

I still have a few vouchers from Christmas, so we walked over the river into town to see if I could spend anything, but it's just too distracting with 2 small children so I gave up and we came home.

In the evening when the girls were in bed I did some planning and I have a list of activities and ideas on the butterfly theme to pursue over the next couple of weeks.

After another appalling night's sleep - Tamsin came into our bed around 2am and spent the next hour or so coughing, (so Bill made a sharp exit to sleep in Tamsin's bed!) and then not long after she eventually fell asleep, Isabelle woke all stuffed up and hot and was very restless and unsettled from then on - we all slept late this morning but I did remember to check out Class TV for about 10 minutes this morning so we watched a little about the 'ar' sound and about adding up 3 numbers.

Then we went off to our church group and as usual had a good time there with the kids in creche while us mums had some adult time. Isabelle fell asleep on the way home so over lunch Tamsin and I read through a book we had out of the library about the United Kingdom. After seeing an idea on a website somewhere I'd had the thought of doing a 'Country of the week/month' idea and had ordered some library books to start with the UK. So both at lunchtime and again at bedtime we've looked through the 2 books we borrowed and talked about the United Kingdom and how it is made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; what an island is; what a capital city is and that London is ours; about the Government, voting, the 3 main political parties and the Queen; and Beefeaters/the Tower of London/the London Underground/farming/ship-building and about cities, towns and the countryside. Phew!

We've also been to look at a freecycled sofa but decided to decline due to the (not previously mentioned) holes in the back cushions and it belonging to a smoker (yuck!), and received in the post an Usborne order, an Amazon order and a parcel for Tamsin from Granny. I have cleaned the toilet more thoroughly than it's been done for a year or two, made a wholesome and tasty dinner and processed about 3 loads of washing.

Just before dinner I was thrilled to re-acquaint myself with Oprah now showing on ITV2 - I have so missed that programme!! And while I watched, Tamsin did a Hama butterfly, which reminds me I must go and iron it. I must also familiarise myself with the new Usborne catalogue and think about how to drum up some sales parties, and finish Ebaying the current batch of baby clothes.

Well, it hasn't been a bad sort of a day, considering the start it had. It's not good when you check the bank balance first thing, and find you're hundreds of pounds overdrawn ... :-( So that would be why my Switch card was rejected at the supermarket yesterday then .... I guess that's what comes of trying to do Christmas without putting anything on the credit cards. So after a swift bit of account juggling and balance transferring, off we went to church. After another stonking good sermon from Phil, I was ready for anything so after lunch I took the girls up to the park which was just re-opened with all brand-new fab play equipment! It was extremely muddy and very busy, with a goodly proportion of Moreton's kids there to try it out for the first time, but Tamsin and Isabelle had a good time anyway.








Yes, I know it looks deserted but I was being careful not to photograph other people's kids to publish to the internet.

Back home and after sandwiches all round I spent 2 hours listing 2 items on Ebay (rolls eyes) but the more I do the quicker I'm getting so I'm keeping at it this evening. Just baby clothes, though - nothing for you lot to get excited about. But we've got to pay off that overdraft somehow!

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 7/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

But I don't know which one I got wrong! Probably the electrical charge of a neuron. What is it Helen?

Flexi-life

Last night was the 3rd time this week I fell asleep around 7pm putting the girls to bed and just stayed there - I have been *so* exhausted by the end of the day. I seem to be running so fast just to stand still, and trying to keep up with things and so conscious that I am doing so little productive or educational with Tamsin what with work and everything else going on and I am eating too much junk (cakes, biscuits etc) that I'm probably not properly fuelled and I am just knackered! So not much blogging or anything else. Actually I remember now it's a pattern I've had for a long time - either running on overdrive or sitting around doing almost nothing. I prefer the active feeling but I hate losing my evenings to sleep.

Anyway, you'll be wanting to know about the flexi-schooling meeting with the Headteacher :-) ! It was great. They're all in favour. They (being the Class 1 teacher and the Head) understand the attraction of HE, have experience of part-time children although for health reasons in the past, say there shouldn't be any trouble with T feeling the odd-one-out, have no hidden agenda to get her in there full-time, and generally think it's a great idea! They have music/dance/drama on a Monday afternoon, and swimming or other sports on a Friday morning, so they'll be 2 definite sessions she can go to, and we'll see about one or two other sessions when the timetable is clearer for September. They showed us round the classroom again and talked about the kind of things they do and the approach they take, and like I said before it's so like HE there I hardly know why I don't just send her full-time. I forgot to ask how many they expect in Year 1 in September but it's likely to be about 5 or 6, they like child-centred education following the children's interests, they try to go out for a walk round the village everyday looking at different things, they have other regular outings etc. So apart from the fact that I *want* to be doing the learning stuff with Tamsin myself, and that I feel full-time school is just too much time for a child to be out of the house, especially at this age, I would thoroughly recommend it as a lovely school. This school however has just been recommended for *closure* in 2008, can you believe it! The proposal is being considered by the County Council on Feb 1st. So Tamsin may only get a couple of years there but never mind, we can revert to f/t HE if necessary then, as long as I can find some way of earning money that doesn't mean me going out to work. I think I shall try harder with Usborne.

The news in brief

We're going to talk to the Acting Head of the local school next Wednesday to talk about flexi-schooling. I'm worried about the various downsides of this course of action, like Tamsin being the odd-one-out when she's there, and feeling like she's left out of stuff, and of course the whole National ~Curriculum/LEA thing, but I still can't think of a better solution given our current circumstances, i.e. I have to go to work 3 mornings a week, and we can't afford for me to give it up.

I've been to the dentist today to have a renovation of a veneered front tooth, so now I have a nicer smile but it's cost £97, and on top of the £400 bill we've had for the car this week it's all a bit scary financially.

I've been forgetting to blog about how Isabelle's sleep has deteriorated again ... mostly because sometime over Christmas I started feeding her at night again (she never did get to the stage of sleeping through and she would sometimes wake and make a hell of a racket so I gave in and fed her just to shut her up quickly) and now she is waking at least every 2 hours to feed and she's making me very sore in the process. We'll have to do the cold-turkey thing again I think.

My house is still tidy :-) (relatively speaking - compared with before Monday!). Suddenly it's so easy to put the toys away at the end of the day, now I know where they all go. I knew that's what I needed!! I just couldn't seem to get it done myself. Hooray for good friends!

Clearing space

Today's been good. It feels like great progress has been made. My lovely women friends from church came round and *sorted me out*!!! I now have an organised toy cupboard, with boxes and baskets all sorted out, two large boxes of stuff have gone to the charity shop and two overly-large armchairs and an old large TV have been collected by Freecyclers. We now have some space, some clear surfaces, and a plan as to what to do with the rest. It took 4 of us 2.5 hours to get as far as we did, with plenty more still to do. I'm itching to get it *all done* but I guess that will be a while yet as it will be slower from now on, but at least I can see a way.

The other recent kind-of 'big news' is that I have finally written a letter to the lovely small village school 3 miles away asking whether we could flexi-school Tamsin. In September she won't be able to go to playschool any more, and I still have to work 3 mornings a week! I wish it didn't mean having to cover the National Curriculum, and being known to the LEA, but I think there are other advantages (music, sport, friends) to be gained from it apart from the childcare aspect! Anyway, the school is in a precarious position at the moment having been recommended for closure in 2008 - the County Council will meet in a couple of weeks' time to consider the recommendation. And the long-standing headteacher retired at the end of last term and there is an acting Head in place, who may not feel in a good position to do anything as radical as take on a flexi-time pupil, but OTOH maybe they really need their numbers up any way they can. We shall see.

Today we have:

- Been up to church for the women's group and had a great time. Making plans for next Monday when they're all coming round to 'sort me out'!! a.k.a. declutter and sort.
- Vacuumed the living room
- Washed the kitchen floor (and now it's all muddy again)
- Done 2 loads of washing
- Cleaned the bathroom sink
- Cleaned Tamsin's (shockingly dirty) windowsill and windowframe
- Cleaned doorframes upstairs
- Removed clouds of cobwebs from kitchen ceiling
- Done a bit more reading lessons of sounds 'a-e' 'o-e' and 'u-e', 'igh' and 'oa'. I'm not particularly expecting she will remember these from now on, or that they're totally 'done' in any sense, but she is keen now and very interested in words and reading so I'm just going with it as far as she wants each session.
- Been to the library and come back with stacks of books and read about 2/3 of them.
- Watched nervously as Isabelle has taken to the hammer and ball toy with great ferocity!
- Watched and choreographed Tamsin's ballet/dancing round the living room.

Very briefly...

...as I am very tired and about to go to bed:

I was on playschool parent's rota this morning and it was very busy, so was very tired afterwards. Isabelle had a fab time toddling about with the 'big' kids and was particularly excited by being set free in the big playroom - she's never had so much room to walk and she really enjoyed herself! She hasn't said any words at all since last Wednesday though.

Not much done this afternoon except Tamsin's played on her My Little Pony CD-Rom and we had a brief reading lesson covering 'ee' 'ea' 'ai' and 'ay'.

First word - English; second word - Spanish!

Isabelle spoke!! It was so sweet to hear real stuff coming out of her mouth! Of course she has said mamamam and dadad and so on but I'm not confident that's been more than babbling yet. So today, Tamsin was getting a little frustrated at Isabelle's yelling, and shouted "Shush!" at her, and Isabelle said "Shush!" back!!!! It was really funny. She said it a few more times when prompted too. And then later in the day when Isabelle had climbed the stairs, and I was helping her down step by step, Tamsin was saying "Abaho!" (Spanish for 'down') (may have spelled it wrong) and Isabelle repeated "Aho.... Aho...". How about that - a bilingual baby! Of course, she wouldn't demonstrate for Daddy when he got home, so we'll have to see what utterances if any we will get in the coming days.

Apart from that, it's been another good day today. My sink is still clean! I am taking Flylady very very slowly this time. I first signed up in Jan or Feb 2001, and remained signed up for 4 years and didn't really get any of it done. I improved slightly in a couple of things, but not significantly. So last year I gave up. I think maybe I just kept trying to do too much at once, or trying to get to grips with the whole programme before I really started it properly. So I've signed up again and after a year's break I am reading the e-mails with fresh eyes, and they are speaking straight at me!! And I am committing to nothing more in January than keeping my sink clean. I may do a few other bits, but am not trying to. Very slow babysteps for me this time.

So this morning, we did some writing practice of the letters in this week's Sound of the Week - 's' and 't' so that helped start to turn her 's' around - she's been doing it backwards for a while! And she really enjoyed doing that. She's also done lots of jigsaws and other letter/word puzzles. Later we went into town to pay cheques in and post parcels and letters. Got home and did some more games and puzzles, and then went up to Kate's house for a bounce on their new trampoline and lots of girly games. While I was nit-combing her hair (nothing live in there this time but must keep at it to make sure!!) she drew a lovely picture of Daddy complete with wispy hair on top and then a picture of her best friend from playschool who she is excited to see again tomorrow morning when she goes back.

I have so enjoyed having this time off work, particularly in the past week, and feel I've had a much better time with Tamsin because of it, but it's back to it tomorrow unfortunately.

Busy day

What a difference it makes to me not to be working in the morning. It means I do so much more with Tamsin and we have a much better day.

So, this morning we were up around 8.30am, more tears about the lack of mummymilk, but came downstairs for breakfast and, a la Flylady, did my morning routine (empty dishwasher, have breakfast etc) and cleaned my sink. Which led to cleaning the kitchen worktops, the cooker hob, the oven door, the back door, some of the tiles on the wall, and the back doorstep. Whew! During which Tamsin watched Piglet's Big Movie or whatever it was on BBC1. And Isabelle was happy to copy me cleaning the oven door, which was very sweet to watch!

Since when, we have done beads on Scoubidous, wrapping presents, Tamsin writing labels and putting them on the tree and opening them (!), first chapter of A Year at Maple Hill Farm and Berenstain Bears book of Science and Nature, hence covering months, seasons, snow and the New Year; quite a bit of tidying up, and various other doll-related games. We've also done a new Sound of the Week lesson - the first for a couple of months - covering the 'st' sound and she had great fun cutting out all the words and pictures and sticking them up. Later I hope to get her to practice writing the s and t letters as her letter formation method is not good atm! She's also done a lovely fuzzy felt picture and told me the story, and in turn I did one too.

Tamsin got a doctor's outfit and medical kit for Christmas, so she's spent a fair bit of time since then (and before, but less well-equipped!) pretending to make people better - we keep having to be 'ill' and she gives us pills and injections and takes our blood pressure. She also frequently tends to her dolls and animals. She was a little confused at first as to how she could be a doctor when she was a girl (where on earth did she get that from??!! Not me, certainly.) but we put her straight and now she is happy as Dr Goldie.

It all feels so much better than a normal weekday when I work several mornings and feel too tired and groggy in the afternoons to do much with her.

My sink is clean!

Although not shiny, 'cos it's one of those white ones. But anyway, it's a start. I wonder how long I can keep it that way?

Nice day today - church this morning, then my Dad and his wife Pat over for lunch afterwards. I managed some proper cooking (!) and it seemed to be much appreciated. Inbetween all this stuff Tamsin has done jigsaws, played animal dominoes, done some puzzles (spot the difference, etc) in a book, watched a DK Eyewitness video on the Human Body, and, at bedtime, read nearly half a book! It was a beginner's reader from the library, but I was most impressed. She needed some hints and tips but did incredibly well! It felt most odd sitting there watching her with a book on her lap sounding out and reading words. My baby! OTOH, it's been her first full day of no mummymilk - so not such a baby anymore. She's not too pleased about it and had a good long crying session about it this morning, but I just have to trust she will not be traumatised forever!