It's getting harder and harder to persuade Jade to go to school in an afternoon. After last week's anxiety about the swimming, we've pretty much accepted that she won't go on Wednesdays any more, but she was really not too happy about going today either. I'm not entirely sure how to handle it. We counted up today how many more times she is due to go, and what with being on holiday next week, she only has to go 8 more times in total. It seems so little and it feels as though it would be nice to get her to the end of term, have a 'proper' end to it instead of suddenly abandoning ship, and just trying to teach her a littlesomething about following through on commitments, even when it's hard. But it's difficult to know exactly what level her unhappiness at being there is - we've had many many times where she's been reluctant to do something, managed to do it, and had a great time! Anyway, we shall continue to play that one each day as it comes, I guess. We have told the headteacher that she won't be going back in September, and they accept that. The whole thing hasn't really worked out in quite the way we hoped it would, which is a shame, but we wouldn't have known if we hadn't tried it.

Anyway, much 'stuff' has been going on at home. This morning, for instance, I asked Jade what she wanted to learn about, and she shouted "trains"! Long time readers and MuddlePuddlers may recall that when we attended our very first HE camp in June 2004, when she was just 3, all we heard all week was her distress at being parted from 'track', the wooden Brio stuff we'd left at home. After that she played with it daily for a year and a half. Lately, though, the Thomas interested has waned noticeably, so I was quite surprised that she still regards that as the number one thing she wanted to learn about today! I asked her what exactly did she want to learn about trains that she didn't know already, and she wasn't sure (we have read endless train books together LOL!) so I decided to make it an art project instead. She chose to do it on card, so she cut a huge piece of cardboard and chose a picture from a book to copy. She went on to do a pretty good attempt at a pencil drawing. She'd almost finished when I got out the Geomags to distract Shannon away from ruining the picture, and of course Jade then just wanted to play with those too! Still, fiddling with Geomags is always educational, isn't it? Even when the game consists of dropping the metal balls down the front of your fleecy all-in-one pyjamas (Shannon) and then rattling your foot to hear them clattering about! I did find a couple in her nappy later, yeuch!

In the middle of this, someone came to the door to collect the cinema equipment, and conversationally asked the children (!) why they were still in their pyjamas!! I firmly told him that we were doing some learning, and it was just as possible to learn in your pyjamas as anything else!

Then I got Jade set up on a 'Nutrition Mission' CD game which was free from the British Heart Foundation. It was a bit difficult for her, being aimed at the 7-11 age group, but I think something went in about the importance of a balanced diet! We'll have another go sometime, I'm sure.

Then it was time to get her ready for school. After dropping her off, Shannon and I did various shopping things and were out all the time till it was time to pick Jade up from school. Now they're chilling in front of the TV while I catch up on the computer.

I know there's been tons of other stuff going on that I've meant to blog, but it escapes me at the moment. More later (maybe!).