Thankfully the week did improve. I had work all day on Wednesday which gave me a break and time to re-group a bit, and then a massive tantrum from Jade on Wednesday evening gave further food for thought. From then on I was careful to remain extremely calm with her, even in response to difficult behaviour, and feel much better about myself as a result!

We've also done some nice learning stuff. I can't remember it all, but there's been a breakthrough on mental addition and subtraction while we were in the car; reading about her favourite subject - trains; a brief conversation and demo taught her about syllables; we visited a Victorian Farm Museum last week so lots of conversations about how things were done 100+ years ago; and in response to her playing one evening saying she was in 'Jadeland', she has drawn a map of Jadeland, designed a flag for it and I intend to pursue this every now and then by suggesting she designs the clothes they wear in Jadeland, we make up the laws for the country, discuss the weather, etc etc!

Shannon's sleeping is better than it was but still not great. We've moved her to share the bedroom with Jade, because proximity to me was making things worse. She now usually wakes about twice per night and if it's in the small hours, she will go back to sleep without feeding quite readily, but once we get to 4 or 5am she's harder to soothe. If not fed, she keeps re-awakening repeatedly so I usually give in at some point. We soldier on.

Foul

Yesterday was horrible, I am being foul, I am weepy and fed-up, I hate this house and the tattiness of it, I hate my messiness, I hate all the 'making-do' which means that nothing technical is straightforward and I hate that my children just demand, demand, demand taking no account of the fact that I am feeling fragile.

Mostly brought on by tiredness, I suspect. Shannon has had me awake so much in the past couple of nights that I need some IV caffeine, I think.

Also brought on by going to someone else's beautiful house. No, not beautiful - stunning! And they're home-edders, but somehow without all the associated mess that normally goes along with it. Maybe because of the au-pair

Well, I suppose I'd better get us all dressed to go out to an HE group weaving session. Better than staying home being grouchy all day.

It's my blog...

...and I'll boast if I want to.

Jade's reading is so good I couldn't resist trying to find out what her reading age is. I found a test here, and carried it out this evening. At the age of 5 years and 4 months, she has a reading age of 8 years and 9 months!!!

On Tuesday, it briefly passed through my mind to get her to practise a bit more handwriting, but we were too busy with other stuff. In the early evening, however, she spontaneously collected some of the symbols off her calendar and wrote out the words. Autonomy rules!

History Matters blog

My name is Joanna, I am 42 and I live in the North Cotswolds, Gloucestershire. I am married to Bill and we have 2 daughters, Jade age 5 and Shannon who is almost 2. I home-educate Jade and I also work part-time.

Our day started in the usual way, too early for me after being woken several times in the night by Shannon. My husband left for work around 8am and then the rest of us got up and had breakfast (cereal and milk, toast and jam, and coffee for me to try and wake me up). The children watched some TV while we had breakfast.

Around 8.40am our dog was brought back from a walk by our dog-walker. This is done under the Fair Shares Time Bank, for which I also work, so she earns time credits for the dog-walking and can spend them on getting someone else’s help or skill when she needs it. The principle is one of co-production where each participant is both a giver and a receiver, and everyone’s time is of equal value. However today is not a working day for me – my job-share partner is in the office instead.

After breakfast we got on with some learning activities, although I try not to separate ‘work’ and ‘play’ too much but instead to integrate learning into our everyday life as much as possible. Jade did some colouring while I read to her from a book on food and eating and the human body. She loves to learn about the body and says often that she wants to be a doctor – I wonder if she will? Although there are other ways to work in health or human biology. I have studied nutrition to degree level myself and don’t think that doctors have the monopoly on how to be healthy! Shannon pottered about with various stacking toys, shape sorters and scribbling madly with coloured pencils.

After the reading, we moved on to some websites with interactive activities connected to food and the body, including watching some short videos and playing some games. Jade then wanted to play on the CBeebies website so she did this and Shannon watched her while I got on with sorting out the laundry and some other domestic tasks.

By this time it was around noon so we had a quick snack and then I got Shannon to sleep for her nap. While she slept, I also had a doze as I was still particularly tired from the night before, and then Jade and I had some lunch.

After lunch we set off to go swimming with the local home education group, on the way picking up another mum and her son. To get to the swimming pool at Shipston-on-Stour we had to travel along the Fosse Way, the old Roman road. I sometimes try to picture what the surroundings would have looked like in Roman times. I recall very little from my own history education, and am very much enjoying beginning to fill in the gaps by studying things with Jade. I have managed to live perfectly well without much historical knowledge or awareness, but it is satisfying to learn more.

We had a long swim, with both girls making progress as they grow braver and try different things. It was enjoyable and relaxed, as ideally all learning should be.

We got home around 5pm, after which the girls played and watched some more TV while I made dinner, consisting of brown rice mixed with sweet potato, peas and sausage, seasoned (unconventionally!) by some Caesar salad dressing. Then an early night as we were all exhausted.

Mondays always seem to go fairly well. It really suits me to have free mornings with no commitments and then a clear afternoon while Shannon is asleep and Jade is at school.

But first a quick catch-up of the weekend. On Saturday I helped all day at the Stratford-on-Avon NCT sale, because that entitles you to a pre-sale leisurely shop with first pick of all the stuff. So among other things I got Jade a pair of jodhpurs (she wants to have riding lessons although I have not yet worked out how on earth to afford them), I got Shannon a couple of birthday presents, a lovely Boden coat for only £3 and then, best of all, a SuperPlexus (known to all those who went to J&J's weekend at the beginning of September) for 50p!! On Saturday evening a friend came round and did a home demonstration of the 'Enjo' cleaning system which uses fibres only, no chemicals. She's returning the favour by holding an Usborne party in a little while. Anyway I am impressed by the stuff and ordered a couple of things.

Sunday was the usual mix of church, sleep after lunch (still suffering from Shannon's shenanigans in the night!) and wall-to-wall play for Jade and the next-door-neighbour.

This morning, during breakfast we had CBeebies on as we usually do, and Jade saw Justin playing 'Mary had a little lamb' on the recorder. She at once picked up a cheap plastic recorder we got off the front of a magazine and played the tune herself! She was thrilled with her first proper tune and played it repeatedly all day long. I have to say the thrill wore off for me quite quickly! But I think it's time to break out the 'Recorder from the Beginning Book 1' which we have and see how well she gets on.

Once we were all up, dressed and fed, we did a bit of a spelling puzzle. She didn't want to spend long on it, but she found the right letters to spell the word 'girl' and eventually 'fish', although her first attempt was 'fich'. She knew without me saying anything that it was wrong, though, and put it right herself. We went on to play I-Spy for a while and then had a quick browse through my Usborne delivery which arrived. I also managed to catch Shannon on video doing a bit of unstructured singing and then a rendition of 'Twinkle Twinkle', which is going to be incredibly cute when played at her wedding .

We took the dog for a walk with Jade on her bike and Shannon on a trike with a handle for the first time. She had a bit of trouble keeping her feet on the pedals as they went round so after about 10 minutes she got off and walked. She thoroughly enjoyed holding the dog on the lead for the final half of the walk. I took a book called "Which Tree" to do some identification as we went round, but totally forgot to do so!

On our return, I can't remember what the girls did but at some point I got time to scrub the inside of my oven door with a brillo pad (shamed after the Saturday night cleaning demo!) and have done about 3 loads of washing today. Jade did a bit of the CBeebies website (mostly the Charlie and Lola butterfly thing). All too quickly it was time to get her ready for school, so after a quick lunch off she went and Shannon obligingly fell asleep in the car, leaving me a bit of quiet time this afternoon. I moved some of the dangerously wobbly piles of books and papers and re-arranged a bit of stuff so there are more HE books on the shelves that she can reach (and more full boxes in the middle of the floor that I don't know what to do with). While doing so I found some resources I had forgotten about so that was useful!

Shannon woke just as it was time to collect Jade. After we got back I was seized by a sudden burst of 'get up and go' and tidied up the patio which was disgusting and removed some of the weeds from between the cracks and generally made the place a bit more respectable. Meanwhile the kids pottered, cycled and climbed about happily. Then it was dinner and bath but bed was delayed because Bill wasn't home. He's got to put Shannon to bed at the moment while we get her used to doing without mummymilk, so I brought her back downstairs while I caught up with the repeat of Trinny & Susannah and eventually DH got home around 8.45pm and took them off to bed.

The nights are short; the days are long ...

Shannon is putting up a good fight. Three nights in and she's still extremely wakeful, and letting us know all about it. To be fair, she's not desperately unhappy. If she was, I couldn't see it through. But she does grumble and moan, sometimes wails a bit, or sometimes just stands up and chats or tries to crawl over DH to get to me. Tonight I think I'm going in the spare room again - it's much less fuss that way. DH and I are walking zombies.

It's a good job she's totally delightful in the daytime. She's at the very imitative stage and copies much of the stuff we say in her gorgeous baby-like way, and tries to do as much of the stuff that Jade does as she can. It's very cute.

There has been some HE going on this week, I just can't remember any of it.

Last night...

I did not feed Shannon. Instead, I took myself off to the spare room and DH Bill did wonderful soothing and calming work. Which meant that Shannon had only one session of crying-till-she-was-almost-sick but the rest of the night was relatively peaceful. Not that she didn't wake up - she did, and although I was in the spare room I woke up every time that she did, as of course did DH - but although she woke probably more frequently than normal, she would just call out for Daddy, complain a bit, clutch his hand, and fall back to sleep reasonably quickly.

I am soooooo hoping that things continue to improve. As, of course, is Bill. Poor soul, he is totally wrecked today, having had to go to work of course.

The rest of us had a peaceful morning at home, during which Jade did lots of painting, very creatively I thought, and did some Reader Rabbit CD-Rom, which is far too easy for her mostly but is still good for concentration and memory.

And I made headway into the washing mountain that is still towering from before our holiday.

This afternoon Jade went to school and enjoyed herself doing some PE, and hearing a story. That's all she told me anyway. There was probably more. Straight after school we visited some friends, then home for tea, much playing and a late (9pm) bedtime for the girls.

Stop the world -

I want to get off!

I've had a completely manic week since getting back from Cornwall. I can't even remember what I've been doing, but the days have been spent rushing from one thing to another with no time to do anything remotely resembling education. And all this on top of Shannon waking 5+ times per night and needing feeding to go back to sleep. I am absolutely shattered, and am grumpy, gloomy and forgetful as a result. Night-weaning Shannon and getting her to sleep better are the absolute priorities right now. The priority after that is to reduce her day-time feeding from about 20 to 3!

I keep coming up with ideas to de-clutter and get a little more organised so that life runs a little more smoothly, but have absolutely no time or energy to get it sorted out. The house looks like an explosion in a toy-and-paper factory. I forget things all the time and carry a constant anxiety that someone else is going to challenge me with something important I've completely forgotten about.

I'm sure life will look completely different when I'm getting some sleep. Please God let it be soon.

Please pray ....

.... for Canon, a little boy with the same heart defect that Benjamin had. Canon has had a heart transplant, but is not doing too well right now.