Stressful day

Had an argument with Bill as he left for work this morning (since resolved, I think); my Mum came for a couple of hours to drop off the dog (who she'd had for a few days while we were away) and took *huge* offence because Tamsin frowned at her (shock, horror!) and even worse, later on, said "Don't be silly!" to her. I thought my mother was about to spontaneously combust or something ..... She is just so quick to take offence and get angry but can't stand it if anyone dares to get cross with her... anyway, I'm not going to waste any more bandwidth on her.

Then I had to do a desperately urgent search for some papers needed for Playschool - thankfully found them! Then off to a Playschool committee meeting of which I am Chair, so I got landed with the job of phoning a parent to chase up some outstanding money. Was worried she might let rip at me, and as she wasn't answering her phone this afternoon it was hanging over me for ages. Fortunately when I did speak to her she was just apologetic.

So, today's had more than its fair share of minor stresses. But it's also had some positive touches. Managed to keep the TV off for most of the day, and had some good one-on-one time with Tamsin, doing jigsaw puzzles, train track, counting money, drawing (some lovely pics of the family, including dog!) and so on. Was very aware that I had been intending to start more serious HE stuff today, but I still haven't got half the Sonlight stuff and haven't prepared the other things, so decided to wait another week.

Now have just got to go and catch up on the 5 months of finances I haven't done .....

In my defence:

... we were away at Greenbelt for the Bank Holiday weekend (Friday till Tuesday), emptied the caravan on Wednesday, went north to Teesside on Thursday to visit Bill's Dad and got home late on Friday, had a full day out with friends to Moreton-in-Marsh Show on Saturday and been out at church all morning - so not much time to get things straight!

I feel it's time I blogged about Isabelle, now she is 10 months old. She's still not mobile - her attempts to crawl pretty much stopped when she learned to sit - but she does love standing up (supported). She pretty much forces us to help her stand whenever she can. She's not quite safe enough to leave hanging onto something, but she's nearly there. Last Saturday at Greenbelt she spontaneously started walking while being held up, so that was fun! She absolutely loves pressing buttons, being in the bath, and blowing little bubbles. She loves a little game we have where she will vocalise something and I will copy, then she changes the pitch or the sound a little and waits for me to follow suit, over and over again! She is quite keen on food, although doesn't take much at each sitting. I usually give her a portion of whatever we are eating, as long as it is suitable, otherwise just the veg, and she pretty much feeds herself as it is all finger food.

Temperamentally she is very laid back, easy going and happy. Her beaming smile is bestowed upon many people, although lately she has taken more to seriously studying faces before eventually relaxing into the big grin. She takes life at an easy pace, not rushing to reach her milestones (!) ... who knows, maybe she is as tired as I am seeing as she wakes several times a night - I am determined tonight to try and count exactly how many. I remarked to a friend this morning that I thought she was waking me about 6 times per night - "well, that's better than the 14 times Tamsin used to wake you," she said, "I used to wonder if there was any point in you actually going to bed!" I'd forgotten about that. I am thankful for small mercies! But still want to get Isabelle used to a bottle so that I can water it down at night to night-wean her.

Oh, and my plan was to start HE properly tomorrow, seeing as Tamsin would have been starting Reception. But having had such a manic week I don't feel ready in any way. I plan to use Sonlight Pre-K (and some of it hasn't arrived yet), Miquon maths, Handwriting without Tears, and Reading Reflex as the main backbone of our stuff with bits and pieces added day to day as interests arise. But I haven't got my head round it all yet, so maybe it'll have to be next week.

In solidarity with Jax

Perhaps there could be a blog award for 'messiest living room' or something ... Here's my entry:






And that's 'after' I have done some tidying up - I did the table and was working on the pile by the chair when I started to feel quite ill and had to stop. (Recuperating at the computer!). The rest of the house is just as bad.

Back from Greenbelt

It was great. I love it. There's just nowhere else in the world I feel more at home. The blend of people with a spiritual worldview, not dogmatic but willing to ask and explore all kinds of questions about their faith or lack of it; music of all types (Christian hip hop/rap/funk anybody?) mostly very loud; art of every description all round the site; great food stalls, clothes stalls and all sorts of other shopping opportunities; and great speakers discussing issues of poverty, justice, ecology, radical action and humour .... there's just nothing like it anywhere else!

It was lovely to see Jan and Jonathan and the girls and to meet baby J! Jan and I had one evening together when we wandered down to the village with her baby to calm him down and get him to sleep (yes, it worked) and I left my kids in the caravan with Bill, so that was nice and relaxing.

Tamsin had a good time, with lots of time on the bouncy castles, lots of ice-creams and even a session where she was happy to be left in one of the very carefully supervised kids' areas playing with train track (what else?!) while I went off elsewhere. Isabelle doesn't mind where she is, of course! Bill chilled, and we all had a good time together. Except that we confirmed that our caravan is not big enough for 4! On the way home, we stopped off at a caravan dealers and drooled over the cheapest 4- or 5- berth caravans they had, which at £5-6000 and 7-10 years old were still light years ahead of ours and amazingly well-equipped. Not that we can afford 5 grand, but it's given us something else to dream about, anyway!

The whole experience still hasn't taught Isabelle to sleep any better, though, although Jan did give me night-weaning tips which will take a bit of work to implement but I hope to aim towards. Anyway, I hear her murmuring again so I'd better go!

My favourite weekend of the year...

...is just approaching. (Hmm, at this point, 10.30pm, Isabelle woke for the 3rd time since 7.30pm bedtime and I gave up and went to bed.)

Resuming the following morning:
We're off to Greenbelt today! I love it! It is the place in the world where I feel most at home. The spirituality, the music, the people, the non-mainstream feel, the food, the kids' activities, the outdoors-ness - it's fantastic!

So, I should have been madly packing yesterday afternoon and evening, but got precious little done. We always intend to leave mid-morning to get there by lunchtime (it's only in Cheltenham so not far) but are always late, and almost certainly will be this time too. We're going to be 'Stepping off the Path' with J 'n' J too!

There is a small chance that I may be able to blog while there, if I can remember my Blogger password, but otherwise, I'll be back on Tuesday!

Feeling nicely fuzzy.....

after a *very* large glass of Baileys. Definitely not one of my better birthdays. Been in a foul mood all day. Sobbed in the shower after blogging this morning. Half-way through the morning I decided to sod work and indulge in my second-favourite form of therapy: retail. (Favourite therapy being sleep!) Took kids to Stratford and spent over £40 in Boots .... various bits and pieces but sorted out a few problems i.e. replaced my lost tweezers so can now get eyebrows into shape, and bought some waxing strips to use with the home-made sugaring solution I made months ago.

Then came home and a quick change of clothes to go to my friend Kate's eldest daughter's 6th birthday party. I got a small fairy cake with a candle in it while they sang Happy Birthday to me, as well as Daisy. Tamsin was not in party mood - she refused to take part in any games or indeed to play with any other children although she knows many of them very well - she just kept asking me to play with her. Probably she's feeling my 'go away' vibes and it's making her feel insecure.... One of the major things that's been making me feel so weepy is that I am so fed up with her wanting 'mummymilk' every couple of hours throughout the day and I want to wean her, but am worried about inflicting a major emotional wound. Maybe it's the only one of her persistent demands that I feel I can change. Maybe I should find something else to change so that I find her demands easier to cope with. I don't know. I just know I feel very conflicted about it all.

Anyway, I'm just waiting for Bill to get home with a huge Chinese takeaway ... thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Or maybe not .... I am feeling distinctly ropey. Feel sick as a hangover of getting travel-sick on a train on Monday, feel weepy, cried myself to sleep last night, and am fed-up of highly demanding children. Bill is working, as am I later. Hohum. Must get a grip!

Hooray, and yikes!

Hooray, because after 2-3 years of wishing something like this would happen, at last I have found a gaggle of local girls who like coming round to play with Tamsin and the dog. There are three 11-year olds who live on our road who this week have been dropping in every day to walk the dog and then play with the girls, which has been nice. The 'yikes' bit is that a couple of times Tamsin has gone out with them for a walk, without me. They've stayed on the estate, and only been gone a max of half-an-hour, but it's still kind of scary. They're really nice, sensible girls, though. Comments please - would you let your 4-year old go out with 11-year olds unsupervised?

Isabelle wakes ..... must go!

Who would have thought ...!

... that chickens like chasing butterflies! It's the funniest thing to see. I hope none of you ever, ever buy anything from a battery-farmed chicken - it has got to be one of the cruellest things ever. To cage up such funny, characterful birds is criminal. Make a free-range only pledge now!

Not much going on...

I've been really tired today, after a particularly disturbed night with Isabelle. I really must get her used to being settled without a boob in her mouth. The strange thing is, she will fall asleep first thing at bedtime without it, but during the night she won't accept anything else. And, I'm starting to think about some work stuff I might do in the evenings, so I need to be able to go out for the evening knowing she isn't screaming for me.

So, there's not been much happening today except plenty of TV watching, some playing in the sandpit, a walk into town for a UK wall-map (for the postcard exchange) when I also bought myself 4 books (oops!) and, of course, the Brio train track.

The work thing is giving me something to think about. I have signed up with Usborne, and some of the paperwork came today, although not the books. It was just too good a deal to miss - for August only, £200 worth of kit for £38. I'm trying to decide how much of a thing to make of it, although the competitive side of my nature is coming out now I see the 'quick start' targets they encourage you to reach. The other possibility is a franchise for a seemingly really good, healthy and sensible weight loss company. And as nutrition is my 'thing', I'm tempted. But not sure I can take on that much of a commitment just now. Still mulling it over, anyway.

Festival of History

It was a very interesting day, with almost too much going on, as I hate feeling I'm missing stuff! I think it was useful for Tamsin, although I'm sure it's all quite confused in her mind. However she's been introduced to knights and jousting, archery, the concept of living without electricity, television or computers; houses made of wattle and wood like those that burned in the Great Fire of London (which story we've read several more times recently!) and much else. We also did meet Margaret and her triplet girls so it's nice to put another face to a name.

I don't think I've ever mentioned that I am a complete history ignoramus. I got chucked out of History 'O' Level after the mock exams when it was clear I was going to completely fail, and I've just never got the hang of kings and queens, what on earth were Tudors and Stuarts, and phrases such as 'Norman Conquest' and 'the Restoration' have just been empty words to me. Seeing as I'm going to have to educate Tamsin, though, I have been feeling that I really must fill in the huge gaps in my knowledge, and last week with Bill's help I found some simple children's history books in the Library and have been reading. It's really interesting to feel it all beginning to come together, and to get a general overview of the history of my own country which I've never had. I don't think I'll ever become a big history buff, but at least I should get the basics into place!

A little bit more

... reading. All enthusiastic about what happened the other day, I have been encouraging Tamsin to decode more three letter words (cvc) and she's doing pretty well. I've also done some 'whole word' stuff with her by printing out names to stick on things (wall, door, computer, television etc) and also by having big printed words of verbs (dance, walk, stand), showing them to her and telling her what they are, and then doing a flashcard type of thing of showing them to her silently and she has to do each thing that it says. She's done really well! I'm so excited - but note to self: must not go OTT and put her off!

We've been for a really wet walk this afternoon in Batsford Arboretum. They're doing a summer 'game' with money (total £250) in £5, £10 and £20 to find hidden in the trees - but we didn't find any :-(

Tamsin's playschool is having a fund-raising disco this evening, and as Chair of the committee I have to go.... don't feel like it but I must show my face.

She took me by surprise!

Yesterday morning, when we were all still lounging around on the bed, I showed Tamsin the "Reading Reflex" book (that I picked up for 99p in a charity shop) that I am planning on using to teach her to read, starting September. "I want to read it now," she said, grabbing it off me. "Okay," I said and opened the book to a page with some simple 3-letter words...(Jo has been baby-alarmed so Bill is continuing)....like CAT, MAT, SAT etc. She saw the T and shouted "T for Tamsin!" and then the other letters M, A and said "M...A...T...MAT!!" and her face lit up. We pointed to the C-for-Clever-Cat and she said "C..A..T...CAT!" and so on to SAT. We both applauded and said "You can read!" and we turned to the page which said "Cat sat on mat" and she read it herself with very little prompting. We have a genius for a daughter (or so I thought until she totally flunked on 'byzantine chrysanthemum')*

Jo is currently keeping low due to her nose dribbling copiously and her chin displaying a zit the size of Mount Etna, and the house is filled with the pungent aroma of Tea Tree oil and plaintive wails every time she passes a mirror. But I still love her**.

*I made that bit up
**I didn't make that bit up

The day started with Tamsin dressed as a fairy, and of course the Brio track had to be built as well. While I was doing a couple of things on the computer (a Tesco order - been meaning to do that for months; and an order of various creams and things from my favourite non-toxic supplier) she started drawing. She's been doing more drawings in the past week or two, and they're definitely starting to look like 'something' instead of a scribble. Today's effort is here:



Bottom right is 'Mummy' with a big smile ("because I love you", she said), in the middle is 'Isabelle', top left is 'Daddy' and bottom left is a penguin. Top right, by the picture of the 'very big smile' the words say "please can you do what you are told"!!LOL! I did the odd letter for her which she didn't feel confident of doing, and of course told her letter by letter what to write, but the majority of it is her writing. I think that's the most she's ever written at one time.

She also impressed me this afternoon, when I left her in the car for a minute while I popped to the Fair Shares office. When I got back, she pointed to the sign in the door of the next shop and said "that says 'Open'". I was amazed! Thinking about it, I suppose she knows signs in shop doors either say open or closed, but even so I thought that was pretty good going.

I get the feeling that Tamsin has been quietly growing in understanding about reading although nothing hugely concrete has come out of that yet (apart from the above comment!). She has been asking what words say when she sees them printed, for example on cereal packets or book titles, and looking closely at them. She's getting a feel for printed text, and also in the last few weeks has confidently figured out how to spell her name - she used to ask me which letter came next but now she can do it all on her own.

Now I'm finding it hard to concentrate on anything else because I'm watching "Transformed" about 3 horrible husbands while I blog ... it looks interesting!

Hmmm

I am worth $1,675,076 on HumanForSale.com

It's a good job I know I'm worth far more than that! My friends and family think I'm priceless!

Struggling through

I have re-discovered that it's possible to almost hate your baby when it's 3am, they've woken you about 5 times since your bedtime, won't go back to sleep again without feeding, and your boobs are *very* sore because the new teeth haven't quite been adapted for when latching on.

I am very tired and grumpy, lethargic and fed-up. Isabelle's sleeping has got worse and worse over the past few weeks. Bill and I were going to have a major 'talk' last night but we were both just too tired by 8pm - and that's what got us into this mess in the first place (sigh).

Just a quickie

Had a fab weekend with my friend Andrea *waves at Andrea in case she's decided to start reading blog again*. It was just what I needed. Feel refreshed and with a bit more clarity.

I also feel a bit inspired by her (relative) organisation and tidiness. Even with a non-stop 3-year-old and a part-time job, she keeps her house nice and tidy. I wanna do that! Must find 'a place for everything' - half the reason I don't tidy up is I don't know what to do with stuff. Must also spend less time on computer. So, the plan of action for the next few weeks is:

Declutter
Re-organise and redistribute stuff
Overhaul marriage
Re-energise spiritual life

Hmmm, not much then!

It was also lovely to visit the Beans today and view the lovely house and garden IRL. SB and Tamsin had fun together, even if they couldn't agree on the rules for 'tag', and BB and Isabelle did their baby-bonding thing. Had a clear run home in only 2 hours so near enough to do it again sometime!

Holiday

Well, not exactly, but I am in need of a little R&R so I'm going (with kids!) to stay with my friend in Cambridgeshire for a long weekend. I haven't seen her for such a long time so it's going to be great. Sad to be missing the Portico do but hope you all have a great time!

For Sarah

It's not lovely, it's just a 1949 ex-council semi:

But in the desirable North Cotswolds, it's the best we can do! Besides, it's got a big front garden:

and back garden:

and the back garden also contains chicken house (top right of back garden), Bill's big shed/workshop, garage, and caravan/trailer storage space. But as you can see, we really need a garden designer and a windfall to afford to implement it, followed by a gardener each week!

Hacking through the jungle

The jungle that is our front path, that is. It has been impenetrable for weeks, as neither Bill nor I are the gardening types, or even the 'keeping the neighbourhood tidy' types. So here is the 'before' pic:















And here is the 'after' pic:

The pics I mentioned

Not sure how this will work - first time using Blogger Images - but here goes:

Our first history lesson

Well, I made some notes of the stuff that has been going on the past couple of days, but I have lost them in the piles of tat around here. But we've been doing some good stuff!

Earlier this week, I bought two children's cassette tapes (for 29p each!) from a charity shop. The first one was songs and stories, including "London's Burning" which Tamsin had never heard before. "Why was London burning?" she asked, so I told her that a long long time ago there was a very big fire in London. She asked more and more questions about it, so when at home I Googled it and found some interesting information which we looked at together, including an animated map of how the fire spread. I then looked in one of my earlier charity shop purchases, this book, and found a story about the fire. It has very advanced language for a 4-year old, but she seemed to enjoy it and has requested it and listened to it again this morning. Since then, she has asked several times "Why was London burning?" so we have gone over the reasons time and time again - houses made of wood and thatch, built very close together, windy weather, started in a bakery, no fire brigade, etc, etc!

We have also read a couple of other stories from the history book - about the first Eddystone lighthouse and Stephenson's 'Rocket'. I don't expect that she'll retain a great deal of it, but it's a start on history anyway.

This morning, following a second reading of the 'Fire' story, I showed her a practical experiment with fire. I lit a candle, and explained how it needs air to burn, and then put a little glass ramekin over it and we watched the flame go out when it had burned up all the air (OK, so I know it's oxygen, but thought that 'air' was a simpler explanation at this stage!). We did that a couple of times, and then I explained that's how you put fires out - by excluding the air with water or foam or whatever.

She's also been asking questions about why plants die (plenty of evidence of that round our place!) So we've talked about the things they need - air, soil, water and light. Each time she sees a dead plant or flower now she asks why that one died. Actually, those questions started being triggered when we went to Benjamin's grave to check on the little trough of alpines that we planted up there, and they have died :-( I haven't been watering them, thinking that they were well established enough by now to be able to cope with a little dry spell, but apparently not! So we'll be off to the garden centre to replenish those shortly.

She's also been working on several of her Learning Land CDs and she's now pretty proficient at 'left' and 'right' (tells me which way to turn while we're driving), and I've heard her working on simple fractions, adding and subtracting and this morning has been introduced for the first time to odd and even numbers. Actually - just checked on Ebay and some of these are available but I have learned that there are more issues than I have (I have up to number 28) so that could have just cost me more money to try and complete the set. Tamsin does enjoy them and they are good.

Lulu the speckledy chicken has given us a surprise! She disappeared earlier in the week, and I thought I had lost her but later in the day she unaccountably reappeared. She did that a few more times during the week, and once I saw her coming out from behind some old fence panels that are propped up in their run, but I didn't have time to investigate. Then on Thursday morning I let them out in the morning and she was missing, and having been out all night I thought for sure she would be a goner. However, I thought it was time I investigated behind the fence panels, although I had tried peering behind them a few times when she was missing. On moving them one by one, I eventually found her - sitting on 17 eggs!!!!! I knew we had only 2 hens laying but had thought it was the black hen, Flora, who wasn't laying. Now it turns out they have all been laying, but one in secret! Lulu was most outraged at being chucked off her eggs but she fails to realise there is no fella around to give her any babies!!!

Apart from that, playschool has now finished for the summer so I will have childcare struggles for work, especially in the coming week when Kate is away. Never mind - we're flexible enough that we can just shut the office if it's impossible to go in.

I took some lovely photos of the girls earlier this week - will try and get them uploaded asap, but must go and get showered and dressed now!

At least I'm consistent!

Your English Skills:

Grammar: 80%

Punctuation: 80%

Spelling: 80%

Vocabulary: 80%

Does Your English Cut the Mustard?

Remarkably accurate!

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Cleaning (Edited at 4.30pm)

Sunday was carpet-cleaning day. It's something I've been meaning to do since early Spring, and eventually had the motivation on a sunny day when we could put all the contents of the living room out onto the lawn. I took the kids over to Evesham in the morning to collect the machine while Bill started clearing both downstairs rooms. When I got back there was still a ton of clearing to do and then vacuuming and then carpet-cleaning. All on an extremely hot day. Phew, I'm glad that's over! I was half-expecting the carpets to change back to their original colour when relieved of all the dirt, but they can't have been as bad as I thought as although there was plenty of dirty water emptying out of the machine, the carpets look the same colour!

Bill and I looked longingly at the mostly empty and clean-looking living room, wishing it could stay that way, but I guess all the toys and junk has to come back in, at least until we get a makeover from Life Laundry.

Bill and I also discussed the children's future sleeping arrangements. Tamsin's room is the smallest bedroom, with the 2nd bedroom being our guest room (and junk-dumping room!) where my Mum often sleeps when she comes to stay. However in a year or so, we think we will have both girls sharing in that bigger room, and change the small room to the guest room. Tamsin has been wanting bunk-beds, as her friends have them, but we though getting each of them (at appropriate ages) a cabin bed each with play/storage space underneath might be better. So I started showing Tamsin the beds in the Argos catalogue, and she fell for one which can have a castle-type canopy and a slide coming off it. Trying again on the sleeping-in-her-own-bed task, I promised her she could have one of those beds if she stayed in her own bed all night till it was light in the morning for a month.

In the small, dark hours of the morning she crept into our bed again, and on going into her room this morning she was surprised when her old bed was still there. Hmmm, methinks she didn't quite get the message!

Today's tasks are:
Return carpet-cleaning machine to shop - done
Walk dog - not done
Go swimming - not done. Tamsin didn't mention it/forgot so I kept quiet
Drink lots of water (am feeling rather lethargic, due to dehydration I think) Done & feeling better
Tidy living room contents back to their proper places, decluttering and editing as much as possible. Not done

So what have I done? Brought in/folded one load of washing. Put wet washing on line (and no0w it's raining). Put another load on to wash. Cleaned out chicken house. Done track. Spent too much time on computer. Tamsin had her first ever Happy Meal at McDonalds - does that count as cultural education? i.e. education about our culture, not high culture of course!

Finding the time

to blog is very difficult. It wouldn't be if only I blogged before I read everybody else's, but reading is easier than thinking, composing and typing. Anyway, here I am at last.

On Monday we didn't do much in the morning, and went swimming in the afternoon. I couldn't find Tamsin's armbands so she went in without, which as I was carrying Isabelle made me a bit nervous but in fact it was all fine, and I think I will carry on without them so that she just learns to swim on her own. Isabelle loved it again. Afterwards we went to the big Tesco (our local one is small and doesn't stock any 'extras', just food) and I bought a range of small presents and one bigger one (a splash-around Dora the Explorer and Boots). This was to bribe/tempt/encourage Tamsin to stay in her own bed all night instead of getting into ours. It's not a big issue for me but sometimes Bill gets irritated by it. Anyway, she was all for it, but that night in the wee small hours when reminded that she wouldn't get presents if she came into our bed, she said she would prefer not to get presents then. Hmmm, time to think again on that one! So presents are still tucked away unused.

Tuesday was a good day when a lot seemed to happen. Before breakfast Tamsin found the big DK 'Animal' book and was looking through it and we discussed the various pages she turned to - spiders, crabs, frogs and toads, fish etc. It's normally one of my free days but I had to go into work for a meeting in the morning, and the girls came with me. Tamsin brought her own 'work' in the form of sticker books/dot-to-dots and also played on the CBeebies website and with the big Noah's Ark which is in the office. Meanwhile the meeting was with Fair Shares staff from the other sites and we were discussing/agreeing what we wanted in our new contract - seems the right way to do it! We threw out a couple of clauses from the current one which we didn't like, and added a few bits which we felt appropriate.

Home for lunch, and then Tamsin played with her train track with the new trains we also bought at Tesco on Monday. Meanwhile I surfed! Later we made a cake, and Tamsin helped me weigh the ingredients. I told her we had to weigh 100g and told her to look out for when it said 1 - 0 - 0 which she did beautifully. While I made the normal cake, Tamsin made her own 'cake' with flour, salt, water, milk and copious mixing (yuck). Meahwhile Isabelle was doing her own sensory exploration sitting in her high chair with various bits of food for her to play with - some fruit puree, half-grapes, dry flour and a tomato to squidge. It went everywhere (sticky grin)! So the next stop was the paddling pool for a good wash down. While filling the paddling pool Tamsin noticed the measuring jug and spontaneously spotted '500' and then saw 400, 300, 200 and 100. I also pointed out that 'half' was written 1/2 which we had never discussed before.

When we were just too hot outside we went in and I put on 'Peter and the Wolf' CD while Tamsin played with her tea-set and she also did some writing in a Letterland workbook, and actually formed the letters properly according to the dots and arrows, instead of doing it 'her way' as she usually prefers. She also spelled her own name using Scrabble letters with no help at all - she's got the hang of that now. And then while watching 'Dora' she did some 'magic painting'. Meanwhile Isabelle was getting teeth numbers 4 and 5!!

Okay, so that's the day I took notes because we seemed to be doing so well and I wanted to blog it!

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, other stuff happened ;-) No notes for those days! I worked those mornings while Tamsin was at playschool and Isabelle was lent out to a variety of people. On Thursday evening both Bill and I fell asleep at about 8pm while settling children to bed, and he didn't get up again till the morning and I only got up at midnight because I had to shut the chickens away!

On Friday I completed my Sonlight order to get the majority of the balance of the Pre-K curriculum, part of which I bought from Katy. I think we'll start in September, but not in a pressured way - if we miss bits and miss days then it doesn't matter. I would like to start Reading Reflex and Handwriting without Tears as well but she said recently she doesn't want to learn to read :-o ! Still, that's fine! I'm just eager to get on with it! I will have to hold myself back. But I think when she realises that her friends who are starting Reception in September are learning to read, she might change her mind.

Today, Isabelle has started eating! She's really not had much so far - she's been interested but not in purees, only finger food, and then mostly just tasting and spitting out. At lunchtime, however, I gave her a few pieces of the pasta and tomato sauce we were eating, and she just kept on and on eating, and then was mad keen on the slices of kiwi fruit we had afterwards. She probably ate almost as much as Tamsin. Amazing! She didn't do quite so well with the cucumber and hummus I gave her at teatime but I didn't think bacon, egg, chips and beans were really suitable for an 8-month old!

Yes, she is

Very well, that is. The spots are just fading, but she's been bright as a button all the way through, and was only hot for about 24 hours. Isabelle is fine too.

It's a shame I didn't get to blog last night, as we had such a good day I made notes on it. And now Isabelle has just woken up so gotta go.

Now Tamsin's got whatever-it-is, as well. She was hot all Thursday night and Friday, and today has come out in a spotty rash. It doesn't seem to be making her feel ill, though, and once again refuses to subside quietly onto the sofa and give me an easy day. It's only Bill who's been sent to bed by this particular bug. Hmm, could insert rude comment here about men and illness, but Bill reads this blog!

Today has been the usual mix of Brio, Nick Jr, painting, going to the library where Tamsin very proudly took her own books up to the desk and got them issued to her on her own card, lots of swinging (which Isabelle loves too), and a lovely interlude just lying on the grass in the garden, looking up at the sun coming through the trees and making a halo effect round Tamsin's fair hair, and thinking she looked just like an angel. I gave the dog a good brush as she is moulting, and believe me, a Sheltie moulting could stuff several pillows or even an entire duvet. When Isabelle had her afternoon nap, I did too (Bill being on the road to recovery), which was good!

Snotty, spotty and grotty

Isabelle, that is. She's got some sort of horrible lurgy. She had a high temp. on Tuesday night so we had very disturbed sleep; then she came out in a rash on Wednesday. And my ear was rather painful on Wednesday and I was developing a sore throat so I asked Bill to come home and take care of the kids while I went to bed; then late last night he started to feel fluey, came to bed shivering, and has come home from work early today and gone straight to bed. (Sigh) ... and I thought it was my turn to be ill and have a few days in bed.

Ah well, educationally speaking it's been a bit lean but we have discussed cows chewing the cud, Tamsin's had 'free play' with a bag of flour (i.e. it went all over the living room); also paint and glitter liberally spread around this afternoon; she's currently doing another Learning Land CD-Rom and been to playschool yesterday and today. In fact, last week at Kessingland she kept asking me how many days it was till she could go to playschool again, and was delighted when the figure kept going down... I'm certainly glad she enjoys it but have a lurking concern about how she'll feel this time next year when she will shortly not be going any more.

And the winner of the 'imaginative roleplay' prize goes to.....

Tamsin!!

She was sitting on the arm of a chair, poised over a big beanbag.

"Mum, pretend I was a poop."

She slid down the chair arm, dropped onto the beanbag, landed in a heap and lay there for a few seconds.

Dontcha just love 4-year olds?

Seemed like a good idea at the time

I know what I forgot to blog about, and if I don't, I expect Merry will tell everyone anyway! I suppose it's too funny a story (in retrospect) to keep to myself.

Well, I don't ever remember having earache before, but in the middle of the Kessingland week, my ear started to feel very odd and sore. Not really bad, but of course I wondered if it might get worse and I may end up in agony at some point. I couldn't decide whether to go straight to the doctor or not, but decided a 'wait and see' policy would have to do. So there I was, in the middle of a Suffolk field, in a caravan, with all my normal resources (local chemist, doctor, acupuncturist friend, homeopath) a long way away. And then I had a brilliant idea! I had a perfect, anti-bacterial liquid immediately to hand, or perhaps I should say, immediately at boob. It is recommended to apply breastmilk when a baby has a little eye infection (sticky eye), and it really does clear it up. So, breastmilk in the ear seemed like a perfect solution (pun intended!). So I expressed a little into a cup and put a few drops in my ear. I did that one evening, and the following morning, but by the next day things were worse. The ear was quite sore, I couldn't lie on that side, and it had got totally blocked up and I couldn't hear anything with that ear. So I phoned the local doctor's surgery and got an appointment to see the nurse.

I told her all about my symptoms, and then she peered into my ear with her clever ear-inspection thingy (otoscope?). "Oh, you've got a horrible fungal infection in there," she said. "It's all white and damp." Then I remembered. And told her about my attempts at self-medication. She did a perfectly professional job at keeping a straight face, although was clearly nonplussed by this apparently normal-looking stupid weirdo! "I've never heard of it (breastmilk) being anti-bacterial and working against sticky eye," she said. "I'll have to ask my microbiologist friend about that! But even so, the ear is enclosed and warm and probably not a good environment for putting anything into ......" I had to admit she had a point! And felt rather stupid .....

Several conventional antibiotic eardrops later and things are much improved. So remember, potential earth-mothers out there, breastmilk does not cure everything!

The week we had

Must blog about Kessingland, although with two twitchy girls currently being my only company, I am liable to be frequently interrupted.

Overall, I had a great week. Although originally I was somewhat hacked off with Bill for deciding not to stay, in the end it avoided that feeling of divided loyalties of wanting to spend time with online friends who I wanted to get to know better, and DH with whom I don't spend enough time either. So I was glad to be able to spend satisfactory (although would have liked more) amounts of time sitting, chatting and generally hanging out, after sending Tamsin off to play with sundry other children and putting Isabelle down on a mat with her fellow triplettes (made-up word for small female triplets?!) and a few toys.

The good stuff:
The weather for the first half of the week
Tamsin going off and playing with others (last year she wouldn't leave my side at all) and especially bonding with Naomi (of Stef and Dawniy); Barbara's E and B, and Freya whose family wasn't on the list of attendees so I'm still not sure who her Mum is but she liked us so much she came and spent a night in our caravan!
A lovely conversation with Ammi on Friday
Going to Sea-Life in Great Yarmouth
Joining the blogring bandwagon by getting a Lidl like-a-bike equivalent
Getting to know people a bit better, esp. Katherine and Helen/Chris
The MuddlePuddle triplets of Isabelle, BB and Josie
Basket-weaving
Just getting away from it all

The bad stuff:
Not getting any decent time on the beach because by the time we tried (Thurs/Fri) it was too cold and windy and rainy. In all Tamsin's 4 years we've never spent more than 10 minutes on a beach.
Not spending much time with Jax, Alison or Merry - we just never seemed to be in the same place at the same time
Feeling humbled that Kris towed her own caravan, whereas I got Bill to drive us there & back. OTOH, if I learn to do it myself, I'll be expected to just do it alone from then on .....

I'm sure there was more but can't remember right now. Will edit later if I remember more vital stuff!

Very strange - just noticed the 'IQ test' post has disappeared. Is the universe trying to tell me something...?

Home again

Got back about 6pm; got lots of lovely things to read in the post (one of my favourite things about being away is all the post-opening when I get back) - Home Education Magazine, Mothering magazine, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" book which I have bought 2nd hand, and, most interestingly of all, Benjamin's birth notes which I have just got from medical records in Birmingham. Am now thinking that I want to get his medical notes from his surgery etc, just for completeness.

Oh, and the other thing we came home to was Bill's appointment for a vasectomy - on our 15th wedding anniversary in September!!! Much thinking to do about that.

Nearly there...

Last blog before going off to Kessingland. I've been trying to pack since about 2pm and it's now after 11pm and there's still stuff to do - I'm leaving the rest till the morning now.

Tamsin fell asleep at 5pm, and I left her there hoping she was so exhausted (long story) that she'd stay there all night, but no, she woke up at 8pm and is still up with us! We're all off to bed shortly, though.

Looking forward to the week!

See lots of you soon!

Must get on with stuff....

No packing been done here yet ... must get on with it tomorrow afternoon, which is the only chance I'll get. DH isn't coming ..... or at least, he is going to drive the caravan to Kessingland and stay till Sunday and then come home again for a week getting stuff done at home. Chance would be a fine thing, is all I can say ....

I feel like I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night, what with one thing and another. Had to work this morning, with a fussy and irritable Isabelle stopping me get a thing done, and the same will happen tomorrow morning.

Hmm, this is just disjointed ramblings really. Too tired to blog straight .... must go to bed.

Oh, I know what I was going to say. Benjamin's anniversary passed unremarkably yesterday. I would normally have a candle burning all day, but was out too much to do that. And I even forgot to take the cute little stone trough and plants up to the grave last night - took them this morning instead. I still think of him pretty much every day, even after 6 years, so really an anniversary day isn't that much different to any other.

Sunday night fever

And Monday night fever. Tamsin's not well - she's got what Bill had all last week, with what I guess must be laryngitis (not much of a voice and very croaky) and a bad cough. And a bit of a high temperature, especially at night. Poor thing was quite delirious last night for a while. Of course, as soon as she gets up in the morning, she's fairly bright and lively, and won't do me the favour of languishing on the sofa all day, like other people's ill children do, to let me recover from the disturbed night. Anyway, she's learning about normal body temperature and the immune system fighting off infections as we go!

So, Monday was quite good. We started off the morning with 'track', of course - a pretty much daily occurrence for at least the past year. We also had another game of Pairs, and some skittles, and then Linda, my hairdresser, came to the house to give us a trim. It was her first time back since having her baby Louisa, who was born 3 weeks before Isabelle. We were supposed to be due about 2 months apart, but then I was 2 weeks early, and she was over 2 weeks late and ended up with an emergency caesarean. Anyway, Louisa and Isabelle sat and looked at each other and played with the toys and grabbed them from each other and cooed and were generally extremely cute! Tamsin, however, refused to let the scissors anywhere near her hair and generally threw a complete strop, but I guess I'll let her off on the grounds of being rather under par. But please excuse any resemblance to a scarecrow next week at Kessingland!

Then Isabelle needed a nap and the dog needed a walk, so I got Isabelle into the buggy and we all walked into town where I picked up a few things to eat, and met several people to stand and chat with :-)

Home again, and we sat in the shade of our lilac tree and had some lunch, and then Tamsin complained of being tired and cold (!), so she curled up on the bean-bag and watched some TV. At about 3pm I asked her if she would like to go and see Henry the Harris Hawk, with whom she appeared on the front page of our local newspaper a few weeks ago after he had visited playschool. She said yes, so we set off up to the Falconry centre. We arrived in time for a demonstration, so we saw a falcon being flown, and then we asked if we could see Henry, so the man got Henry out to fly. He did several low-flying manoeuvres very close to our heads, which freaked Tamsin out a bit and she started to say she wanted to go home, and she didn't want to hold him :-( Never mind - I'd forgotten my camera anyway! We looked around a little, but Tamsin was really a bit scared of the birds, even though they were in cages, so we left, not really having had £7.50's worth! We wandered up to the nearby Batsford Garden Centre, where I used to work before I had Tamsin, and said hi to some ex-colleagues. Isabelle coughed a lot and consequently did a major puke while I was sitting in the office talking to my ex-boss! We had a brief wander round the garden centre where I got a small stone trough and some low-growing plants to make a permanent pot for Benjamin's grave, to take up there on Wednesday. We've had some spring bulbs in the plot, and also occasionally go up and put fresh flowers, but most of the time it's just been bare grass by the headstone, and that doesn't feel right. I'll feel better knowing there's a permanent flowery indication that he is not forgotten.

After getting home and a quick salad tea, I bathed Isabelle but Tamsin refused. I at last got round to changing the sheets that had been on the bed all last week while Bill was ill. Tamsin and Isabelle fell asleep quickly, and I lay there for a while, relaxing and dozing. 45 minutes later, Tamsin woke up confused and feverish, and vomited on the clean bed :-( I was just about to get the Calpol and dose her up when she just conked out again and slept fitfully for the rest of the night in our bed.

Some like it hot.....

but I don't. Phew, days like this mean I just lie around feeling lethargic and sweaty. Attractive, huh?

The day started in a wobbly kind of way too, with Isabelle being awake from 6am and despite yawning and appearing to be quite tired still, wouldn't go back to sleep. So we got up and came downstairs, and I did a quick round of the blogring. Or at least, I got as far as Merry's blog, which reduced me to a sobbing heap and I had to go and get my beautiful, cuddly, perfect baby and just hug her, crying madly. She is just so perfect right now, so adorable and beautiful, and I wish I could keep her like this forever and ever. Of course, it's exciting and lovely to see the development too, and I love so many of the stages to come, but something about my current mood is just making me feel grief and loss at her moving on from what she is now. (Oh, DUH! I only just thought of this - could it be because the anniversary of Benjamin's death is coming up on Wednesday...? Strange how the grief can get you even when you haven't been thinking about it. You might not think so from reading this blog, especially as I have recently had another baby which brings things up again, but I really feel the loss of Benjamin is a fairly small corner of my life now, but I guess this is what it means when people say you never totally 'get over it' - it pops up at odd times even when you aren't anticipating it.)

After recovering, the day went fairly nicely. Tamsin has developed a very husky voice and a cough so I didn't think we ought to go to church this morning, even though she is well apart from that. So yesterday and today we have had much splashing in the 'paddling' pool, which is actually what I bought as a birth pool but never had time to get into for the birth. I put Isabelle on the lawn with a bowl of water and utensils to splash in it, but she either didn't 'get it' or wasn't interested, unlike when she is in the bath when she splashes madly with great delight. However she was happy to sit there for quite long periods of time.


What's this green stuff?


Love the pool!

Later Tamsin played on one of her Learning Land CD-Roms, which included identifying various insects among other things. We've played some games of 'pairs' with a set of cards she got for her birthday, and she's got a pretty good memory for the position of the cards. We went for a walk in the woods, and talked about the different leaf sizes of many of the plants, and I showed her how to identify a fern. Oh, and yesterday we did the 'OW' lesson in 'Sound of the Week' and she did a fabulous job of looking at the pictures I had printed off, and finding the appropriate word to go with it. She was probably mostly just choosing by the first letter, but slowly, we are making progress. I am thinking of making a semi-serious 'start' on reading, if she seems happy to, in September when she would 'normally' have been starting Reception class. No push and no rush, but as long as she is comfortable with it I think she is beginning to show some readiness for reading. She has all the letters extremely confidently under her belt, and, having learned them in the 'phonic' way (a, buh, cuh, etc) she is now thrilled that she has learned the 'ABC song' and sings it several times a day. Also, having agreed to purchase a good portion of the Sonlight Pre-K curriculum from Katy B, we will probably start that in September too.

While Isabelle had a nap this morning, I watched the 'Sign with your Baby' video that I had and used with Tamsin. Isabelle is about the right age to start signing to her, although it is likely to be 2-3 months at least before she starts signing back. We did some of this with Tamsin, although we found it difficult to remember to do the signs consistently so it was never a major thing. She did learn signs for milk, Poppy (the dog), aeroplane and flower and maybe a few others. I would love to be more consistent with Isabelle, though, because again watching that video I was welling up with tears because it is such an amazing thing to see such little children so clearly communicating.

I'm sure there's been other stuff today, but can't remember what. As far as other members of the family go, I think one of the hens might be going broody. She's sat in the nesting box just about all afternoon. It could be the heat, but she definitely needs keeping an eye on. It means she would sit there for about 3 weeks barely eating enough to keep going, and not laying, and blocking up the nesting box so the others would find it difficult to lay. To stop it you're supposed to put them in a wire cage for a few days, but (a) I haven't got one and (b) it seems a bit harsh. I'm going to do a bit of online research to see if there's anything else I can do.

New baby must-haves

I could have done with some of these a few months ago, *especially* number 4 and number 6. Number 3 would still come in useful!

Tamsin's party

Phew, it's taking a few days to recover! All went extremely well, except that I forgot to take any photos. I managed to take one of the cake after everyone had gone!


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It was a Dora the Explorer party. Bill had done an amazing job constructing an adventure at the bottom of the garden, and drawing a map, and a friend had helped me make a Backpack for each child. They were told that Swiper the fox had stolen some of the gifts they were supposed to take home, so they had to go and look for them. They had to go through the Grumpy Old Troll's Secret Garden, who wouldn't let them through until they made him happy by planting some nasturtium seeds in a trough. Then they had to go over Rainbow Mountain (our climbing frame), collecting a Dora bookmark to put into their backpack on the way, then down the slide, look for Swiper because he lived somewhere near the bottom of the peartree, shout "Swiper no swiping" so that they could reclaim their prizes (a Kinder Surprise egg), then find a lost baby animal and take it through the bendy tunnel to reunite it with its mother at the other end. We also had Dora the Explorer dot-to-dots when the children arrived, and I had prepared Pin the Backpack on Dora, and another running round game, neither of which we had time to do. We did some dancing, some Musical Statues, and some general running around and playing, followed by lots of food and the Dora cake.

Tamsin enjoyed her Dora the Explorer house she got as her main present :


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Unfortunately, Bill having been ill in bed all day on Thursday (his birthday), he made heroic efforts to be up and busy and helpful on Friday and Saturday, and then relapsed and has been in bed ever since. He really has been feeling rough. Nevertheless I can't help feeling somewhat envious of a few days in bed sleeping (yawn)!

Isabelle enjoys a book:


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Party preparations

Oh my goodness, I can so see why people pay lots of money to have their children's birthday parties elsewhere than at home. I wasn't thinking clearly when I invited 15 - luckily a couple can't come, but it's still a mammoth task! I have a mountain of tasks to get on with, but just had to have a quick blog while Bill took the kids out to the library.

Bill was in bed ill all day on his birthday - didn't even feel like opening any presents until 7pm. I have a very sore throat and he is still majorly coughing. But I had more success than I anticipated doing Tamsin's Dora cake last night - it only took me until 12.30am - I thought I might be up till 2! Photos later, or tomorrow!

Birth-day Part 2

So, 4 years ago, I woke at 1am with definite pains. I left Bill asleep in the chair next to my bed, while I went to find a midwife, who suggested I get in the bath. I had told them I wanted to use the birth pool but it was too early for that yet (so we thought). While I was in the bath, Bill woke up and panicked when he couldn't find me! Despite expecting to find the bath comforting, I wasn't getting any benefit from being in there, so had just decided to get out again when Bill found me. We fixed my TENS machine in place, and then as things hotted up, the midwives suggested I went upstairs to the delivery room. I remember walking up those stairs and having to stop in the middle while a contraction came. At my request, they started filling the birth pool, but it quickly became apparent that there wasn't going to be time to get into it. She was born at 2.55am.

This morning, she wasn't in such a hurry to see the world, and I was waiting and waiting for her to wake up, and in the end had to wake her up at 8am. She was going to playschool for the morning, so we had limited time. I had got all her presents out the night before, but I went downstairs and hid all but one as there just wouldn't be time for them. She was a bit bleary for a while, and didn't show much pleasure at her new Dora the Explorer outfit which I thought she might want to wear to playschool. We all got ready and then I took her to playschool along with her big Thomas the Tank Engine cake to share with her friends at snack time. I had to work from 11-1pm, so Bill (who had the day off) collected her from playschool. She'd had a lovely morning, and shortly after I got back we got the presents out and had a fun time as she opened them all. She got some clothes, a bit of cash, a sticker-making machine, a few small toys and the much-sought-and-eventually-found Dora the Explorer Talking House which she was absolutely thrilled with and played with for ages.

Unfortunately Bill was fighting a losing battle against some sort of cough/general viral infection (which I am showing signs of too) and went off to bed for a couple of hours, so the rest of us walked the dog and then played/read/babbled as appropriate!

Dinner, bath and bed were followed by preparations (mine) for Bill's birthday tomorrow and Tamsin's party on Saturday, for which I actually need about another week to prepare, I think!

Is anybody out there?

Where have all my commenters gone (except Merry)? I'm feeling a bit lonely here! Is anybody listening?

4 years ago....

we'd all just voted in the General Election, and then I'd gone to hospital to have Tamsin's birth induced. I was highly anxious and stressed, knowing far more than I ever wanted to about stillbirths and neonatal deaths after losing Benjamin. Tamsin had a very irregular heartbeat, which the consultant assured me was nothing to worry about, but hearing it on the monitor, I could so easily imagine it just stopping, and I knew I'd feel happier with her out than in. So the Prostin gel was applied in the morning, then we went for a wander round Cheltenham to wait for things to get going. I started to feel a very slight something in Marks & Spencer, and hoped my waters would break there so I would get free clothes for life, or something like that, but sadly it was not to be. We returned to the hospital for a second Prostin gel in the late afternoon, and although I kept on my feet in the hope it would get things going quicker, in the end we gave up at about 10pm and I went to bed. I woke up at 1am..... ah, but that's tomorrow's story.

Anyway, back to the present. We had a full day today, catching the train at 9.20am to go to London and the Science Museum. My Mum got on the train at Reading and came along with us, which made things a great deal easier. We saw lots of obvious home-edders milling around, and chatted to Carol from Andover who is on the MuddlePuddle list. Tamsin really enjoyed "The Garden" in the basement, but wasn't impressed with the other galleries we had a quick look in - "I'm getting quite bored, Mummy," she said. So, of course, we then went to the shop to indulge in some retail therapy, where I bought her some 'Magic Plastic' balloon-making stuff; some no-spill bubble mixture, and a little glow-in-the dark 'box of bones' which we put together on the train on the way home, during which I took the opportunity of teaching her about the skull, jaw, shoulder blades, names of leg and arm bones and the pelvis and ribs. Oh, and I treated myself to a necklace in Accessorize on Paddington Station!

Isabelle was just a dream baby today - she is amazing! The journey to London was perfectly timed for her nap, so she slept all the way there. She was quiet and relaxed all the time we were out and about, had another nap in the buggy during the afternoon, and was happy and cute on the train on the way home.

Tamsin was disappointed we didn't get time to go to the Natural History Museum and look at the dinosaurs which I had told her about, so I think she'll be demanding another visit to London before long. In the meantime, I still have some preparations to be done for her birthday tomorrow, so I'd better dash.

Not much of interest today except a trip to the dentist for me to sort out some discoloured old fillings on my front teeth so now I don't have to be embarrassed when I smile (vbg). I've been smiling at myself admiringly in the mirror since I got home. Bill took an hour off work to supervise the girls while I was drilled and filled. I'm having an old veneer re-done too, so soon I shall really have a totally new smile and then I'll have to start planning the botox and the tummy tuck to really qualify for the "Ten Years Younger" programme. OK, I'm kidding! I prefer to save the money and cultivate the attitude that my burgeoning wrinkles and grey hair give me 'character'!

Tamsin and Isabelle were really good with the very boring morning driving to Oxford, waiting in a car park and then driving back to Moreton. Stopped off on the way to sort out some wrapping paper, birthday cards etc and then home to sort stuff out. As well as Tamsin's birthday on Wednesday, we have Bill's on Thursday! And Tamsin's party on Saturday. So there's a lot to get ready!

I'm a bit worried about one of the chickens - the one which lays blue eggs hasn't laid for 3 days now .... the trouble is, I don't know which one of the 3 it is. I've put a call in to a friend who knows more about this stuff because I don't know if it's a big problem or not.

Sunday

Didn't go to church this morning, as it was the annual Outdoor Service. I have extremely clear memories of being at that service in 1999 with Benjamin, so happy and full of pride in him, and I don't think I can bear to go now. Or maybe I could bear it, but I want that memory to remain his, and not be overlaid with others.

Instead I tried to take it easy, having been woken for the second day in a row at 5.30am by Isabelle, who wasn't inclined to go back to sleep after that. Tamsin took the hint I had left out the night before, and started filling in a handwriting workbook, as she has shown much more interest in writing recently. She enjoyed it, but didn't take well to being corrected as to how to write some of the letters. "I'm doing it my way", she said. "I'm only trying to show you how to do it more easily", I said, and she responded, "but I like doing things the hard way." Hmmm, what can you do? Leave her to do it whichever way she likes, in the hope that the correct way of writing will gradually sink in if she watches others do it, or keep on trying to show her the right way? I certainly feel it bodes ill for anything that I might try and 'teach' her in future!

Bill did some fantastic stuff in the garden, preparing for Tamsin's Dora the Explorer birthday party next Saturday. There's going to be some sort of treasure hunt/exploring thing, so he's constructed a whole adventure playground sort of affair, out of old fence panels, LOL! In the meantime, after a lot of effort, I have managed to track down and obtain a Dora Talking House, whew! Tamsin doesn't even know such a thing exists, yet, but once I saw it I really knew that's what I wanted to get her, but whenever I located a supplier, they stopped being able to supply it by the time I wanted to order. Eventually found an Ebay shop that could send me one.

I also put another coat of paint on one of Tamsin's little toyboxes that we got months ago and have been meaning to paint (still one more coat to do on this one, and then need to do the second one); tidied up the living room a little; had a good long nap with Isabelle to try and catch up on some sleep; had a picnic on the lawn for lunch; set Tamsin to 'painting' with water on the patio, and then she 'washed' the windows (i.e. made them dirtier); cleaned out the chickens; and tried to get my head round the busy week ahead.

The first ....... of many?

Here's what Tamsin did on Friday:




I was a pony-mad girl; loved riding from age 3 or 4 till I was in my 20s, dreamed of owning a pony, but by a bit of bad planning managed to be born into an impoverished clergy family, and had to make do with helping out at the local stables and riding other people's horses and ponies occasionally. So I thought it would be nice to see whether Tamsin might like it too, even though she's born into a moderately impoverished family too!

By going through the Fair Shares scheme (which is where I work) I arranged a trial ride for Tamsin with Sarah, who also happens to be her playschool leader. Being prone to being a bit of a nervous child at times, I wasn't sure how Tamsin would get on, but she absolutely loved it. I foresee more riding in her future!

Singing in Spanish

How about that! Tamsin learned a whole song in Spanish from watching Dora the Explorer, and sang it to me at the dinner table this evening. I was impressed! We've also been educating her in small-scale commerce today, by taking some of our clutter to a car-boot sale. We made a grand total of about £15 profit, but that's better than spending twice that much on a Bank Holiday day out. So the weekend has consisted mostly of tidying up a bit and sorting out stuff to sell.

Actually, did you notice how casually I dropped in that 'dinner table' line? We haven't eaten at the dinner table for months, but I managed to clear all the junk off it on Saturday morning so I've felt we're more like a respectable family now! And Isabelle is joining us in her highchair, now that she can sit. She, of course, wears more of her food than she actually eats, and definitely can't be doing with any of that puree stuff. She wants real food, dammit, that she can hold and stuff in her mouth! And then spit out. Hmmm. She's also working hard on attaining the position for eventual crawling. She's figured out the arms and is now working on the legs - she's tried legs straight and up on her toes, bending legs but hips still on the floor, wriggling from side to side, and on the bed this morning she had her bum right in the air but I haven't seen her do that on the floor yet. I wonder how long it will take till she actually crawls? Tamsin didn't manage it till about a week before she walked, so this feels new.

I've been restricting TV a bit more this weekend, and Tamsin has played with Brio, Mega-bloks, finger puppets, building bricks, stickle bricks, a piece of string and other miscellaneous bits and pieces. I've read her some books, and it's interesting to see that she is paying more attention to looking carefully at words when she knows what they say, e.g. the title of a book. It's like she's starting to teach herself the 'whole word' approach to reading. Definitely something changing there.

Tomorrow morning is the group at church, and then I think I'll go down to Cirencester for the afternoon.

Did the entire blogring go to the library yesterday? It certainly seems like it from the ones I've read, and we did too. As well as books, I got an 8-CD set of Spanish lessons by Michel Thomas ... as Tamsin is very motivated to learn spanish at the moment (due to Dora!) and I thought we might have a go together, if it's any good.

The big news is Isabelle's - she has a second tooth, and is SITTING! She seems totally at ease with her new perspective and suddenly seems to me to be a lot more grown up.

Pretty much no obvious home-ed going on at the moment. Just being out of the house for much of the day and Nick Jr when we're home. Though, Tamsin did get out her Letterland letter cards this morning before breakfast and started searching through for the letters to spell her name, found them all on her own and only needed some subtle stretching out of the way I said 'Tamsin' to remember which order they all went in.

Some days are diamonds (some days are stone)

John Denver is a great resource for blog titles, I am finding ....!

Ah, where does the time go? I have had a completely manic few days, and the bulk of Tamsin's education seems to have been being shouted at to hurry up and get ready, sitting in the car listening to Mr Men songs and stories, and being shouted at because she's taken her shoes off in the car again and I have to put them back on her before we get out. Gorgeous mini Reebok trainers bought for a couple of pounds at an NCT second-hand sale are all very well, but they have laces, which she can't do yet!

I had a moral dilemma on Monday. Monday is our totally free day with no regular appointments or activities, so it's when I sometimes arrange to go out for the day to see a friend. I had an arrangement to see someone this week, and in fact had already had to postpone it from a few weeks ago. When I went back to work I found that, while I was on maternity leave, a meeting had been arranged with the Charity's trustees and fundraiser for this Monday. As usual I dithered and dallied, and only made a decision on Sunday that friendship took priority over going to work on a non-working day for me (my job-share partner, Kate, works that day). So in the end we had a lovely few hours out at a soft play place in Evesham, and again making a change from past behaviour, Tamsin was mostly able to go off and play with my friend's daughter, leaving us to have nice adult chat! I even amazed myself by getting a meal ready in the slow-cooker before I left, so that was great to come home to.

Tuesday saw us going off to a new group (mostly mums and kids) at church, where the little ones can go in the creche and we actually get some really good heart-to-heart sharing, praying and laughing together. This group used to run a few years ago, when I first attended this church, and it was this fantastic group of women who made me feel so welcome and supported me in tremendous ways with all we went through with Benjamin and then Tamsin. I was really sad when the group stopped a couple of years ago due to dwindling numbers, but we now have another baby-boom and lots of new members, plus a new woman in the church who is skilled in leading parenting and relationship-building courses etc so I took the initiative in asking her to start up this group again. They first met last week while I was at Hesfes.

Anyway, we had a great time, and I think it is going to be good for me spiritually and relationally, but I had chatted with a friend on the phone the night before who told me there was a new woman there who was home-educating her four children. I was thrilled! So at the end, I grabbed her for a chat, and told her I was home-educating mine, and wasn't it great, but she brought me down with a bump when she told me it was a strictly temporary situation for her, they had just come back to this country from Bahrain and knew they would be unsettled for a few months before they found a suitable house and job etc, so she was only doing this in the meantime. She thought it was terrible for them socially, she showed me the bundle of workbooks that her oldest son had brought with him (CGP) (and I think that's the only way she knows how to do home-ed) and she will be getting them into school at the earliest opportunity! By this time, the kids had seen us and were clamouring for attention, so we didn't get the chance for more conversation (i.e. I didn't get the chance to put her straight!!) but I felt a bit rebuffed and have suffered twinges of embarrassment since then. I don't cope very well with people thinking I'm an idiot to have chosen such a path deliberately - *must toughen up!* - and on top of that I had also just ranted about how useless the disposable nappies had been last week while camping and how Isabelle always got poo all up her back, and received a shower of comments from everybody else about how 'brave' I was (meaning a hippy weirdo of dubious hygiene and sanitation practices) but how they all wouldn't dream of it and loved their disposables. Well, try explaining to your great great great great grandchildren why they could still visit a landfill site and see the nappies used on their ancestors then. And try telling your little boy why his sperm count is low because you overheated his testicles in disposable nappies, and marinated them in various toxic chemicals. Humph.

Anyway, to quickly finish before I go off to work for a couple of hours, I am also busy trying to plan Tamsin's 'Dora the Explorer' party (what else? - although till a couple of months ago I still thought we would be having a Thomas the Tank Engine party!). To my surprise (*) I found on Ebay a 'Dora's talking house' which is virtually unobtainable in this country any more, despite me having found a couple of suppliers who stopped being able to get them by the time I wanted one. The auction ended at midnight last night, so I intended to be hovering over my keyboard to make a last-minute bid. However, sleep won over, and I missed, but on checking this morning I am very glad I did as the price went up to £87 and the RRP is only £49.99 (and, of course, only $49.99 in the USA, but none of them will ship over here).

* I was surprised because a couple of months ago I kept looking on Ebay and consistently I could find the furniture and figures for the house but never the actual house itself.

Anyway, must go. The house looks like a hurricane has hit it and I'm overwhelmed ...

Hey, it's good to be back home again

We all had a lovely church weekend away at the Pioneer Centre, Cleobury Mortimer. Although with small children we didn't get to spend much time in the main sessions, but we had a good time anyway. Amazingly (huh? - this is GOD we are talking about!) the one hour of the one session that I did manage to get to was aimed perfectly at me, reaching me exactly where I am and really helping me move on a few steps. Isabelle's godparents Lana and David were total stars, with Lana getting her to sleep a couple of times and both of them having Isabelle on their lap for a while at several meals so we could actually eat using both hands.

So that's why we didn't get to Hesfes till Monday. For those friends of mine who read this blog and don't know what Hesfes is, it's the Home Educators Seaside Festival - a week-long camp for, erm, home-educators, obviously. It was our first visit, and with a certain notoriety about it, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. And especially as I was going to be spending 5 days in a small caravan with Tamsin and Isabelle but without Bill, I was a bit nervous at how it might go!

We took our usual leisurely time to get organised and on the move on Monday, so didn't arrive in Charmouth until about 6 or 7pm. Sarah had been extremely helpful by saving my electric hook-up pitch by parking her car there - small as the space was, it was better than nothing, which is what I suspect might have happened had she not been so helpful. So we were met by Alison and Sarah, and waved briefly to Jax, Merry, Barbara and maybe others before getting stuck in to getting the caravan set up. Bill left for the 3-hour drive home at about 9pm, and I got the kids to bed and ventured out of the van only to say Hi to my friend Jo who lives in my small town and was there with her 10-year old son. She had a programme which I was able to look through and get some idea of what was going on on-site through the week. I made a mental note to head for the Yoga for Under-5's on Wednesday morning, but nothing much on Tuesday appealed to me. After that I quickly headed for bed, sharing a rather small double bed with 2 children plus hordes of rowdy kids going up and down the road meant a rather disturbed night.
First impressions: a somewhat scruffy campsite absolutely teeming with hordes of strange-looking, unruly kids doing very dangerous things down a steep hill with skateboards, bikes etc.

On Tuesday morning after getting up and ready we wandered out for a look round the site to see what was what. We headed down the hill to the play park and found Alison, Merry and Jax there with their various kids, and I was pleased to note that on the whole Tamsin felt confident enough to go off and play on the equipment on her own instead of wanting me to follow her round and hold her hand all the time. So I was able to sit and have a bit of chatting time with the adults, which was nice. Later on we went up the hill from our caravan to find out where the marquees were that held the workshops and events, and had a general wander round. In the afternoon I needed a couple of things from the site shop, so wandered down only to find it shut, so we carried on out of the site to check out the beach. Had a lovely 45 minutes or so down there but were unprepared with no suncream or anything so we all got a little bit too much of the sun on our faces and didn't notice due to the stiff breeze. Went back up to the campsite and joined the gang of Puddlers sitting chatting. It was nice to meet Joyce and Barbara again, having only passed a few words with both of them at Kessingland last year, and later on I also met Nic, Heather and Alexia. As the afternoon/evening wore on, Tamsin had a lovely time running about and playing with Jax's Small and Barbara's B. In fact, one of the best parts of the week for me was seeing the difference in Tamsin from last year to this. Many might remember that at Kessingland she would barely venture more than a foot or two from me or Bill, and hardly played with any other children at all due to shyness and lack of confidence to go anywhere without us. This year she has run around, played with and talked to children she doesn't know, and generally been a much more confident child.

On Wednesday morning at 9am I remembered about the kids' yoga, so managed to get up to the main marquee in time to participate. It was really yoga for the adults with the hope that the kids would want to join in, which they mostly did, although Tamsin's idea of joining in was mostly running round and round the large marquee pretending to be an aeroplane, which was OK! While there I discovered that the week's programme of events was posted up in the marquee, so that was handy, as otherwise I wouldn't have remembered what else was going on all week. On returning to the campsite area I discovered that several Puddlers were planning on packing up and leaving due to adverse weather reports for the rest of the week, but as I had no car there was no way I could join this general exodus even if I had wanted to. However enough people I knew were sticking around to make it OK. I did phone Bill and arrange for him to pick me up on Friday instead of Saturday, though.

In the afternoon we spent a little more time at the play park before heading down to the beach ready for the labyrinth-building, which according to rumour was supposed to happen from 2-4pm. We arrived at about 2.15 pm to an extremely windy and cold beach, and no sight of any structured activity at all. We hung around for a little while, Tamsin enjoying digging and filling her buckets with sand, but in the end I was too cold and decided to head back to the caravan. Walking back I met everyone walking to the beach, and discovered apparently the labyrinth-building was supposed to start at 3pm, but by then I was too cold and tired to join in, so we carried on back to the campsite.

On both Tuesday and Wednesday Tamsin and I had the following conversation:
T - "I want to go home"
Me - "Why do you want to go home?"
T - "I want to watch Dora"
(very similar to Kessingland last year when every single day of the camp she wanted to go home so she could do 'track', i.e. play with her Brio train set.)

Anyway it was something of a blessing when in conversation with Nic she said she had a Dora the Explorer DVD back at her static caravan, and invited us to go over and view any time. Tamsin was over the moon when I told her, and from then on nagged me senseless until I phoned Nic and arranged to go over. I discovered that Barbara was packing up and planning to spend the night at Nic's, so when I was ready to go I offered to take someone or something with me, and ended up taking B. It was lovely to spend more time with Nic, and later on Barbara, despite her stress levels being a bit high due to some of her kids! I went back to my caravan when Isabelle started getting rather whingey due to being tired. Tamsin was thrilled with her Dora 'fix', though, and it stopped her wanting to go home for the rest of the week!

Thursday was the day when the rain arrived on and off for most of the day. Tamsin and I had a really nice 'girly' start to the morning, snug in our cosy caravan with its lovely fan heater, painting each other's toe-nails and plaiting hair. When we eventually emerged we went up the hill to the main marquee to see what was going on, and came across a belly-dancing session in progress. Tamsin couldn't resist the array of shiny, jingly and sparkly garments and insisted on dressing up a little and joining in, although again she didn't want to attempt any of the 'proper' movements but just ran up and down twirling around instead. After a while I was tired of that so we wandered off for a coffee and cake, and chatted a little with a man who I later discovered was Mike Fortune-Wood. He and Roland Meighan were about to begin setting up for their book-launch (name-dropping, moi?), which although I would have been quite interested to stay for, I knew Tamsin wouldn't have the necessary patience. On attempting to leave she fell flat on her face in lots of sticky mud, which she was quite upset about, so we went back to the caravan for cleaning up and lunch. I was so tired and attempted to have a bit of a nap while Isabelle slept and Tamsin played one of her computer games, but she kept disturbing me and I didn't get much rest. For the rest of the afternoon I felt completely lethargic, so although we went down to the play park again I didn't have the energy for it so just came back to the campsite for a sit and a chat with Sarah, Jax and Joyce, followed by an early bedtime. Actually around dinner-time I started to feel quite sick, and didn't know whether to put it down to the eggs I'd had for lunch brought from home and laid by my own chickens, or to low blood-sugar having not eaten anything else since then. I mentally started planning who I could call to look after my children while I lay in my sick-bed, but thankfully it didn't come to that and I felt better later on, although the nausea came and went for the rest of the evening and the night, and in fact on Friday too.

Friday was going home day, and knowing that Bill was on the way to rescue me from the mud and the children meant I just had to do the packing and clearing up and then wait for him to arrive around 2pm. Tamsin played wall-to-wall computer games but we were all getting a bit tetchy and bored, and the frustration levels rose when Bill phoned firstly to say he was late leaving due to a problem at home, and then later being stuck in traffic rather a lot on the journey down, so he eventually arrived around 4pm. It was lovely to see him and to be taken away from all the mud and noise!

Overall impressions of a Hesfes virgin: not as positive as I would have hoped, sadly. The major memory I am left with is of the really selfish and disrespectful behaviour of the older kids, who were definitely not a good advert for home-education. They didn't care what property they might damage by their behaviour, whether that was Bill's car or Joyce's tent, or how many small children they upset in the playground by hogging the equipment, or how many people they were in danger of hurting by frankly dangerous bike and skate-board riding down the hill. Also, along the lines of Nic's 'retail opportunity' musings, I really did expect to find a range of home-education resources that I could browse through. After all, these aren't things we can find in the shops generally and it would be nice to see some of the curricula, books, computer programs and other resources to have a look at. My good memories are of sitting chatting with on-line friends and hopefully turning them more into real-life friends, and Tamsin playing happily with children she hadn't met before or couldn't remember. Most of the activities or workshops were not suitable for Tamsin, and there was less on offer than I expected although a quick look through some other blogs indicates there were things there that I didn't know about. That in itself is indicative of a certain lack of planning or information-giving. All in all I can't see myself wanting to go next year, or maybe for a few years until Tamsin is likely to get more out of the activities on offer and Isabelle is less likely to be in 'running away toddler'-mode.

Well, that blogging has taken me about 2.5 hours and I still have over 800 e-mails and everybody else's blogs to read, so I'm going to be busy for a while!

I'm clean!!!!!

Ahhh, bliss is a long hot shower after a cold and very muddy field in Dorset. I'm not a major clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but it feels so good to be home in a clean bed and with hot running water! I still have to navigate the washing mountain, though, and the caravan is still filthy, so major blogging will have to wait a while longer.

Sick, a surprise, and more sick

I've got a sad, poorly baby :-( We made an emergency dash to the doctors this morning, after a really bad night full of crying and Calpol and a morning when she ended up just screaming for ages, but it's just a cold with blocked-up and painful ears. I'm probably not alone in this, but when my babies are ill I'm always afraid they're going to die... so it's rather stressful! Still, at least I didn't get as far as calling an ambulance for what turned out to be a cold, as I did with Tamsin! It all nearly messed up the day's plans to meet my Mum near Abingdon to hand over the dog to look after while we're away at the church weekend and then Hesfes. But we made it in the end.

On the way back, we called in on Bill at work (Oxford Brookes University), leading to moments of delight and then pure farce. The delight was when I looked round the library on the campus, which is the teacher-training department. WOW! Thousands of videos of educational programmes, CD-Roms, cassettes, and fiction and non-fiction children's books - all of which Bill can borrow on his staff ticket. Perfect for the home-educator! I felt like a kid in a sweet-shop! Couldn't stay long, due to a crying Isabelle (again) and a hyperactively running about Tamsin, but did borrow a phonics video and a Learning French CD-ROM, and I will definitely plan to go back and spend more time there soon!

Then I was bursting for the loo, and Isabelle was crying, so I took her and Tamsin off so I could feed Isabelle on the toilet. She had a really nice long feed, so there I was on the toilet, clothing round my ankles, when suddenly she throws up all her milk, right inside my knickers and trousers. Great. Just then the automatic light times out and goes off. So now I'm in the dark, with vomit all down my legs, underwear and trousers, and can't see properly to wipe up, and Isabelle is screaming and snotty again. But it's a quiet day at the college, there are hardly any students about, and nobody has been into the loo while I've been there. So I risk it, and open the cubicle door and shuffle out, knickers and trousers still round my ankles. Now I need to put Isabelle down somewhere so I can wipe up the sick. There isn't enough room to lie her down near the washbasins, so I decide to sit her bottom down in one of the cute little sinks, which hasn't been used for a while so it is nice and dry. As I lower her bottom gently into the sink, the water comes on and drenches her in cold water. They didn't tell me the taps were automatically activated by an infra-red sensor (even in the dark).

We staggered soggily and hysterically back to Bill's office, I threw the baby at him and collapsed.

My three girls

I've been having fun getting used to three feathered friends - I've never done this before but have fancied having chickens in the garden for a long time. I decided to finally get them for my 40th birthday, which was last year but what with having to sort out a run for them, and then being pregnant/tired/having a new baby, we thought it best to wait till the Spring.

These 3 are Cotswold Legbars and lay lovely pale blue eggs - you may be able to buy them at your supermarket in a blue box under the Clarence Court label. We haven't thought of names for them yet - ideas in the comments box, please!


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When Isabelle grabbed a piece of pizza crust and started happily chomping, we thought it was probably time to start weaning!


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So here she is, having her first taste of mango and banana puree. She's sitting on Daddy's knee, and Tamsin is doing the feeding!

This was a week or two ago, and since then she really hasn't been too keen on trying much. Quite often, she refuses to eat anything at all. It's not a problem - I know mummymilk is quite adequate for the job for a long time yet.


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Major disaster!

We've run out of tea-bags, and shops are shut ........ (gasp, wheeze....)

I hope to blog properly later, with pics of the chickens.

Chickens, and returning to work

We have new family members - three Cotswold Legbar chickens, as yet nameless. We got them on Monday morning, but it has been planned for a while - almost a year, in fact. I decided they would be my 40th birthday present last year, but in the event, the amount of time it took to plan how and where to keep them and then my advanced state of pregnancy and tiredness meant we delayed it till the Spring. Bill has spent a fair bit of time constructing a fence to section off a large corner of the garden, and they will have a pretty nice space to live in. I'm anxious about losing them to foxes, but will just have to hope there aren't any daytime roaming ones, which is when they'll be vulnerable.

Tomorrow morning I return to work after maternity leave. I wish I didn't have to - I haven't got time! And it will completely remove any little bit of me-time I've had when I've been at home while Tamsin was at playschool (Isabelle doesn't count as interrupting my me-time much, yet!). But financially we simply can't manage without my income. It's pretty straightforward child-care wise. Tamsin will be at playschool, and I can take Isabelle into the office with me as much as necessary. My Dad will still come over on a Thursday to collect Isabelle from me at about 11am, to have her for a couple of hours, and Kate, with whom I job-share, will do something similar on Fridays. I had Kate's youngest this morning from 9-12.30pm in return. It will work fine, and it's as good a job as I'm likely to get to combine with having a family, with its flexibility, but a private income would be preferable, LOL! I don't know how or if it will work in just over a year's time, when Tamsin will no longer go to playschool, but I'll have to move towards working something out as time goes on. Maybe I'll have to spend money on a childminder.

So the next few weeks will be about getting into a new routine and seeing how it all holds together.