Word of the Day

Not that I've ever had a 'word-of-the-day' before, but anyway, today's is 'pejorative'. I heard it on Radio 4 this morning, as I have done before, and somehow managed to remember to look it up. It means "depreciatory, disparaging". So I shall attempt to use that sometime in the next day or so!

It's been a fairly laid-back day today. We got up not too early, the girls watched a little CBeebies while I had breakfast, and then I was attempting to browse through recipe books to make a new spring/summer monthly menu plan. As always when I sit down with a book, Shannon came over and tried to take over, turning the pages and looking through the book. It's great that she loves books, but I wish she didn't mostly love the one I'm trying to look at! Then Jade joined in too, and in the end, the two of them arguing over turning a page made it tear, and I threw a bit of a wobbly, snatched all the books away from them and stomped upstairs alone to go and get dressed in peace. Amazingly neither of them followed me!

Once I'd recovered a little equilibrium, I came back down, just in time for my friendly Fair Shares gardener to come along for a little more jungle-taming. I mostly left him to it this time, while I got a nappy wash on the go, and other sundry chores. The girls were playing nicely with some toys by then and did a little drawing and painting.

I eventually persuaded Jade to sit with me while I read her a little more Story of the World, still on Ancient Egypt. We also had a look through a couple of other books on the same subject that we have out of the library. She then sat down at the table with a book open at the page on hieroglyphics. I got her to write her name in hieroglyphics and then to translate the word that was shown in the book. She did both beautifully! I'll try and post a pic later.

Then it was time to make her lunch and get her ready for her afternoon at school. She was quite happy about going this time, and let me leave without any fuss or clinging at all. I went in to work to do a few bits and pieces, taking Shannon with me, and then we came back home. We played some lovely games together, having a lot of fun!

Went to fetch Jade from school, took all the plastic bottles to the recycling bank on the way home, and since getting home L from next door has come round as usual and they've all had a lovely time splashing in the paddling pool and similar rowdy games! As I type they are putting make-up on each other!

Later this week we hope to do more Egyptian stuff, like dressing Jade up as an Egyptian princess and maybe a craft or two.

Birthday boy

Happy Birthday Benjamin - 8 years ago today. Still missing you.

I am an Echinacea What Flower Are You?

Good morning everyone! I have been away from the computer for 36+ hours and am trying to get a quick fix in before launching into another busy day with the girls and work.

On Tuesday morning we had an early start, needing to get up, dressed, make a packed lunch and walk to the train station in time for the 9.03 train to Oxford. Made it in good time, met the other local HE family there (with 8y.o. twins and a 6y.o. - all girls .... my girls love being with them) and waited for our 3rd HE friend to join us with her Family Railcard which she said we could all get cheaper tickets with ... and waited... and waited.... and at 9.00 we decided we'd better give up and get our tickets without her. Then of course there was a delay with the man in front of us, and the train pulled into the station while I was in the middle of buying my tickets, so we all had to *run* up over the footbridge to the other platform .... the rest of them went up over the steps and were well ahead of me while I sprinted pushing Shannon in the buggy up the ramp ... felt rather sick at such exertion but had to keep going ... and managed to leap on while the conductor held the train up for me .. . I don't think I really recovered from that all day! I really must do a little exercise every now and then ....

The train was jam-packed so we all had to scatter and sit in separate seats, ruining my fantasy of us all sitting round a table and the kids entertaining each other while T and I chatted ... Instead I had Shannon on my knee needing something to do so I pulled out a sticker book which she is really into at the moment, but unfortunately having to look at that instead of out of the window made me feel a bit travel-sick which I am horribly prone to since having children, strangely.

So not the best start to the day, but once we got to Oxford, and walked from the train station to the Natural History Museum (more exercise!) we were very pleased to meet with the rest of the HE group and sit down for 45 minutes to listen to a talk and hands-on session about insects. It was really good although Jade was very grumpy and just sat in the buggy with my cardigan over her head - she wanted to just go and look round the museum instead but I needed a sit-down! We were introduced to a giant hissing cockroach (again - memories of Kessingland!) and a giant millipede which had some other name which I can't remember. When the session finished we went for a look round, and saw loads of stuffed specimens including a shetland pony, cheetah, fox, badger, beaver, dinosaur skeletons, fossils, fossilised dinosaur eggs and much, much more. We particularly noticed the Nile Crocodile as we have just started our Egypt section of Story of the World.

We went outside on the grass for lunch, and Jade was delighted to realise that the lumps of stone we had to step over were casts of real dinosaur footprints! After lunch we went back inside, through the Nat Hist Museum into the Pitt Rivers Museum, which I had no idea about and didn't know what was there, but it was absolutely fabulous. We didn't have much time to look round and the girls just wanted to rush around looking from one thing to another whereas I would have liked to have time to linger, but they have the most amazing clothing and artefacts from other cultures and times - we headed straight for the real genuine Egyptian Mummy which we spent a fair amount of time looking at, along with the canopic jars and other Egyptian stuff, but we also saw Inuit clothing, dug-out wooden canoes, charms and amulets to ward off the evil eye and various shamanic bits and bobs, a lovely Chinese children's outfit which would have been just perfect for Jade if only it wasn't in a glass case, and there was just so much other stuff there which I didn't get a chance to look at (kids were getting fed up) that I'll have to go back another time.

Headed back into town after that, and spent a happy 45 minutes in Borders browsing, mostly through the parenting books and children's books. Bought some sticker books for the girls plus a Rainbow Fairies stencil book thingy which I am putting away for Jade's birthday. Met up with T and her girls there so that was lovely, and then we all walked back to the train station and home again by about 3.30pm.

I was really tired, so was very glad that Bill was home (off sick with his bad cough) and I just lay on the sofa and dozed a bit for about an hour, I think. Got up to find that my back was rather hurting, which it has continued to do ever since, urgh! I was very glad for a quiet evening and an early night after that.

I had been looking forward to Wednesday as a lovely jolly day out with K, my job-share partner, going down to Glastonbury for the day for a South-West Regional Time Banks meeting, but she's gone and left, hasn't she, so I went on my own , but still had a great time anyway. It was fab being on my own in the car for 2 hours each way, and having my *own* music on all the time *really loud*! How wonderful to be driving without having to listen to "The Wheels on the Bus" and the like! It was a really good day, especially as J, who used to be the project manager when we first started the Time Bank in the North Cotswolds, is now doing the same in Glastonbury so it was lovely to see him again and the day was really useful in terms of sharing experiences and networking. Stayed on after the end to chat with J and see his g/f again (she worked with me for 6 months while K was on maternity leave about 3.5 years ago) and ended up having a lovely meal out in Glastonbury, and leaving at about 7.45pm.

I congratulated Bill on coping all day while I was out for such a long time, and then realised it was only what I do every day while he's at work!

Today the job advert comes out for K's replacement, so I will be at work from 12-3 and getting ready for the trickle or flood of applications, and my Mum is visiting for a couple of days so she'll be here shortly. And now I've blogged as much in one morning as I usually do in a week, I don't know how long it will be till the next one!

Oh, but must remember to blog about Jade's swimming later!

Quick catch-up

I suppose I ought to start with Thursday and Bill's unscheduled overnight stay in hospital! He felt unwell at work in the afternoon, had a suspicion and checked his pulse to find it seemed extremely odd. He came home, went to our little local hospital who did an ECG and faxed it to the GP, who said "put him on an ambulance and send him to Gloucester Hospital!". In the end, I was the ambulance - we dropped off the girls with a friend and then I drove him to Gloucester. As usual when going into a hospital we were left sitting for a while not knowing what was going on, and more ECGs were done, and blood taken and other stuff, and in the end they decided he had atrial fibrillation and a heart rate of 140 and needed drugs to sort him out. I ended up leaving at 9pm, and he stayed in overnight. Apparently everything went back to approximately normal at 2am! I went and picked him up at round lunchtime on Friday. All rather strange, and worrying, but they said it could have been caused by an infection ... he's got a nasty cough which has in fact kept him off work today.

So we had a very quiet weekend. I was supposed to be helping out at the Stratford NCT sale (and thereby getting privileged pre-sale purchasing opportunities!) but Bill wasn't up to having the kids on his own all day so I skipped that. I did however do my Rural Cinema duties and we showed Casino Royale, which was much better than I expected and I really enjoyed it.

As reported below, we've today finally got back into doing a bit of work after the Easter break. Tomorrow we're going on a home-ed group trip to the Oxford Natural History Museum. Jade is most thrilled about the fact that we're going on a train - she's just about beside herself with excitement and has been counting down the days for over a week!

Must go now - ER is about to start .... (drool, Dr. Kovac.....)

Today's activity

Started with gardening first thing, as somebody was coming to help me weed the jungle, er... flowerbeds. Helped him for 45 mins and then left him to do some more on his own.

Came in and did some quick maths with Jade - quick-fire adding and subtracting questions with numbers to 10.

Then moved on to Story of the World - ancient Egyptians. Revised some of the chapter we did previously (over 2 weeks ago!) and then read 'Croco-Nile', a lovely picture book/poem about some Ancient Egyptian children.

Then food and she requested to watch the DK Eyewitness Human Body video while she ate.

Now she's getting changed for her afternoon at school.

Later this afternoon I go to see the Dr to discuss Selective Mutism with him - I've never brought it to his attention before and want to know what the options are for help outside of school.

Mid-green

Your Life is 64% Green

You live a very green life, and you're aware of how your actions help the earth. Of course, it's hard to be totally green. But when you make a tradeoff, you know why you're making it.

How Green Is Your Life?

I have much else to blog, but little time or energy. Will try later, honestly!

Here comes the sun.....

I'm LOVIN' the sunshine! It's been a lovely Easter weekend from the spiritual and weather points of view! We didn't get as much done as I'd hoped (I'd had vague hopes of getting some decorating done) but just mostly hung around at home. I did get some potatoes planted but need to put a lot more in.

Anyway, thank you Alison for prompting me to blog! I just seem to be completely stuck over the school issue. If I felt I was doing HE well, and could see a way to getting a couple of half-days per week on my own at home, then I think I would just take her out of school. The trouble is, I don't feel I am doing the first and can't see a way to the second on top of the hours I already spend out at work. One thing I forgot to blog is that my job-share partner (of 5 years!) is moving on to a new job, so my energy and input there are having to go up massively as I basically take it all on myself for a few weeks (not extra time, just doing it all alone) and then still take the lion's share as a new person gradually becomes trained and integrated into how things happen at work. And the idea of someone else taking responsibility for the education side of things for a while is attractive! But I still feel it will be very hard on her to go 5 mornings, or full-time. It does seem tough that I as a confirmed introvert, who needs to recharge my energy by being alone, should have a daughter who is particularly needy of my presence and attention. If I had even a penny for every time Jade said "Look, Mummy" in a day, I'd be a very rich person in no time at all. She is constantly asking me to "look" at her, while she pulls a funny face, or jumps up and down, or draws a picture, or plays with her toys - she wants me to watch what she is doing nearly all the time and it drives me mental! I honestly barely ever get the chance to complete a single thought in my head. And while staying with my friend last weekend, I asked if her daughter was the same, and she said no. So it's not just an 'age' thing. Sometimes I can't stop looking at her because I love her so much and she is very precious to me, of course, but I really can't bear being called out of the kitchen every 10 seconds while I'm trying to prepare a meal, or some such. But then I think of what might happen, with all her anxieties and stress over social situations, if I were to just send her to school full-time and I simply don't think I can do it.

So, what I need is:

• Shannon to sleep through the night and stop waking me 5-6 times, leaving me exhausted in the daytime
• Enough money (for a childminder) or some other solution to enable me to have two half-days per week on my own in the house to feel like I'm keeping on top of all my own stuff and to just have some me-time.

Apart from all that stuff, we've just been operating on 'holiday' status - the girl next door is round here most of the time so much raucous playing goes on with lots of time spent out in the garden. Shannon tends to get a bit left out sometimes, but I guess that's inevitable. We did a bit of Story of the World yesterday so we are now just launching on 'Ancient Egypt' stuff so I think there will be a lot of that in the next couple of weeks or so.

Tomorrow is my Dad's last regular day for coming over every week to look after the girls. He is approaching 75 and has been coming here weekly for over 8 years to help me in one way or another, starting when I was pregnant with Benjamin. He has been absolutely fabulous in every way possible and deserves some rest! From next week I shall change my work hours so that I work while Jade is at school from 12-3, instead of during the morning. Tomorrow, I will be taking my Dad out to lunch as a small thank-you for all he has done and all the love and support he gives me.

Quick blog

I've had a lovely few days away - firstly staying overnight with the Beans on Sunday night (thanks to them for their willingness to take me in at short notice!) and then on to visit my lovely friend A near Cambridge. Both stays were delightful, and have refreshed me noticeably although I am still undecided in the middle of the educational 'wobble'. One thing I have realised is that my mental 'scatteredness' is not helped and may be exacerbated by the 1001 e-mails I am subscribed to about all sorts of subjects under the sun. Each time I receive one, I want to get more involved in whatever it is talking about (paid surveys, children's food campaign, HE campaigns, online sales, decluttering methods etc etc) and am just whizzing from one thing to another and there is no way I have time for it all. I think 'simplicity' needs to be my new mantra. Yes, all these things are interesting and valuable, but I just can't do it all. I have unsubscribed from a lot, and will be continuing to simplify more as I see better what I really want and what is just 'good but not essential'.