2007

So here's the New Year. It's not an occasion I make a big thing of - don't usually bother staying up to see midnight pass, but I do like the feeling of a clean fresh year ahead of me, a mostly blank calendar and a new-ish start.
The past few days at home have been very relaxed - much playing, resting, eating chocolate and hanging out together. It's been nice

Then on Saturday we drove North to visit Bill's Dad and sister. We stayed overnight in a Travelodge on Saturday night - although I can hardly say we 'slept' there thanks to Jade, who woke up in the small hours with a headache, which then progressed to ear ache, and then just seemed to be general insomnia and we were all (except Shannon) awake for hours. So we slept in till about 10am on Sunday morning. Had another short visit to Bill's Dad over lunchtime and the early afternoon and then what seemed like a very loooooong drive home in torrential rain and high winds with both Bill and I needing time to sleep on the journey but the kids not seeming to need the same

Needless to say we didn't try staying up to see the New Year in as even if we'd wanted to we were just too tired, and today we have taken down all the decorations and attempted to get things back to some form of normality.

I am, along with the rest of the population, abysmal at keeping New Year's resolutions, but some how setting goals for the year doesn't seem to be quite the same, so after spending a little time musing and thinking this afternoon, here are my goals for the coming year:

Children:

• Night-wean Shannon
• Get Jade doing regular chores
• Get Jade to usually sleep in her own bed all night
• Much less television - maximum half-an-hour in the morning while I have breakfast and 1 hour in the evening.

Home-Ed:

• Try actually sticking to the Sonlight K curriculum for at least 3 months to see if it works for us like that
• Otherwise concentrate with Jade on maths and writing
• Do more practical stuff like making historical meals, dressing up etc.

Personal:

• Regular stretching exercise - I can feel myself stiffening up
• Regular prayer/quiet time
• More sex (once a year isn't enough, DH says.....)
• Less web-browsing
• more book reading

Home:

• Keep up-to-date with finances
• Reduce debt (currently £10,000 or £15,000 if you count the student loan which I am hoping never to have to pay back)
• Redecorate at least some of the areas in this house that have never been done since we moved here 10 years ago, i.e. dining room; hall/stairs/landing; kitchen.

Business:

• Get at least 2 more Usborne recruits by the end of April
• Do at least one event per week, preferably 2
• Organise paperwork
  

Honoured!

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Entirely Miss Reverend Lady Joanna the Defenestrated of Hoptonshire by Leer Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Christmas

Despite the trauma of the dishwasher breaking down a couple of days before Christmas, we had the nicest C. Day I can remember for quite a long time. Everybody was happy, the girls were delightful and the present opening was fun. The only slight problem was that Jade was unwell - she'd had a heavy cold and cough and a high temperature for a couple of days and was still not too good. So she stayed in pyjamas all day and we didn't go out to church in the morning. Lunch was delayed as the turkey was not properly defrosted in time, so we didn't sit down to eat till nearly 4pm, but that's fairly traditional anyway, and it certainly was lovely when we got to eat it. Quite the tastiest roast dinner I've ever cooked, I think!

We weren't woken too early. Jade did wake at about 1.30am as she often does, came into our bed and said, "I think Santa's been - I felt my stocking and it's really full!", but I suggested she should go back to sleep and open it in the morning and she did! In the morning she was astonished because she said she "didn't sleep a wink all night" but still hadn't heard Santa arrive! And the night had gone really fast! So we weren't woken properly till about 7.30am - I suspect it won't be so respectable a time next year! Shannon was still asleep, so Jade opened her stocking in our bed and was really thrilled with everything, especially the Pooping Reindeer!

After Shannon woke and opened her small stocking gifts, we went downstairs and the children launched into the presents! We used to insist on a proper breakfast before opening only one or two gifts, and then out to church, and opening the rest after lunch, but all restraint was out of the window this year and it was all Bill and I could do to keep track of what was being received from whom in order to facilitate the thank-you letters! We didn't get to open our own gifts until the kids were mostly all done!

Particularly appreciated by Jade was the Dora pull-along overnight case:















which, fairly uniquely this Christmas, I paid full price for.

and for Shannon, the Duplo, which entertained her mid-morning for a good hour or more:















which came as gifts from Grandpa and Nanny (2 boxes) and a large box second-hand via Bill's work.

Also from Bill's work was Jade's other favourite:
















and, not photographed but enthusiastically played with by both girls was the Freecycled Fisher-Price Little People Royal Gift Set (this plus some extra buildings/pieces).

As for me, well I was very pleased with my replacement digital camera from DH, plus some MeatLoaf CDs, and he in turn was very happy with his dongle (I always want to blush at that word!) which turns a PC into a TV. And I even managed to keep smiling in the kitchen:















On Boxing Day we had a lovely muddy walk in the woods, all together, and today we've had a visit from my Dad and his wife Pat, so all in all a lovely time is being had, despite having to wash up by hand, grrrr!

Switch to Plan 'B'

I was supposed to be away with the girls at my Mum's now, but the foggy weather dissuaded me. I'm not a wimp about driving in all sorts of weather - it usually doesn't bother me too much - but with the girls on board I really didn't want to be either in an accident (obviously!) or stuck in miles of tailbacks because of someone else's pile-up. If the weather clears by Sunday we may do a quick pressie-swap at a suitable mid-point (usually Millett's Farm Garden Centre near Abingdon).

Anyway this has meant that I have been able to make some inroads at least into some of the mess and clutter round here and have cleared some space so we can move a bit. If only I had a nice chunk of spare dosh I'd hire one of those organisers/de-clutterers to come round and sort us out. It would save me from so much stress and irritability, and I'd get more done with the girls, I'm sure.

The girls have spent most of the day playing, aided by the girl-next-door who was here for most of the afternoon. They also made looooong paper-chains! That enabled me to get on with the said tidying up stuff, as well as loading Money 2007 Home & Business edition onto the laptop to see if it's better than what I'm currently running, in order to keep track of Usborne finances as well as household stuff. We have done some reading together, though, firstly of some Bible stories (Jade's choice) and then one of her Learning Land magazines which covered adding up in 10s which was new to her so I went into a bit more explanation about that. Don't know how much she 'got' it but it's a start.

Hmmm

I don't know about going against the flow but I have obviously lost the flow. Must try and get back to blogging. I just don't feel I've got much to say. I've kind of given up on any even semi-formal educational stuff and we're just doing Christmas crafts, cards and that kind of thing, in the small amount of time there seems to be between dashing from one thing to another.

Jade was in the school nativity play on Tuesday evening - she was an angel! She decided not to sing most of the songs, even though I know she can as she has sung them endlessly at home. She mostly just smiled, waved at me and Shannon repeatedly, and watched what everyone else was doing. She looked very sweet though, and TBH I was just impressed that she agreed to stand up there in front of everybody. Progress, I think!

I feel moderately on top of Christmas, for a change. Our cards have nearly all gone in the post today (except not the HE list ones - need envelopes!) as has the package for the USA - so it's probably a couple of days past the last posting date but that's the nearest I've ever got in the past few years so I'm pretty proud of myself! I have nearly all presents purchased - just one or two difficult people I'm still wrestling over.

The house is still a complete wreck which is a shame because I was wanting to host a Boxing Day party but thinking about it I don't see how we can possibly fit more than about 4 people in, and I was more thinking about 6-8 adults plus all their kids ... just don't think it's going to work, not even using the traditional 'stash and dash' method of pre-party cleaning and tidying.

Oh, and just for Sally, if you read this - I can't seem to post a link on your blog comments, so comment here and I'll e-mail you with that yahoo group I mentioned.

Still alive!

Yes, I am still here. Just, er ... overwhelmed with everything that's not getting done, really. I've been really busy with Usborne too although I haven't done the accounts yet to see if I've made any money! There doesn't seem to be much in my account, but I did buy some stuff in to sell at Christmas Fairs and some of that is still left over. I'm pretty much all done now till Christmas, though, as last ordering date is 11th December and I haven't got a booking for the coming weekend. I do have some for Jan/Feb though!

Hmm, what else is there to report? Jade was supposed to go to see a pantomime with her school this morning, but she woke up and didn't want to go. I took her to the school, and she still didn't want to go, so I drove her to the theatre to have a look round (she said she was scared of going somewhere new) and I could tell by her face that she loved the place but she still wouldn't stay without me. And as there wasn't a spare ticket for me, that was that! We all came home. Since then the girls have done playdough, sequins (all over the floor!), colouring, helping bring in the Tesco delivery, helping me stick address labels on Christmas card envelopes (cards not done yet!) and currently a bit of CBeebies. We have HE group social this afternoon.

What else of note? She's learned to play 'Jingle Bells' one-fingered on the 'baby piano' thing, which she's thrilled about. She's practising the odd bit of writing at her own pace, loves Numberjacks but keeps forgetting to watch it at the weekends, is still reading of course, but generally speaking we've been too busy to do anything much structured.

Busy, busy, busy....

So much to do; so little time. I've done quite a few Usborne events recently with more to come, a work-organised Litter Pick round town this morning, this evening we are showing our monthly Rural Cinema film, there's been HE group, work and part-time school, not to mention the usual domestic chaos. Sometimes I wish I did nothing except stay at home with the girls. No other commitments, no rushing about here and there. But if I did I'd be bored with the same old thing all the time and no variations. It feels good to be an active member of the local community, putting on events and getting involved.

The main problem is, I'm tired. Tired, tired, tired. I can't believe I've had 5.5 years without adequate sleep. And I was always a 10-hours-a-night girl!! I know I'm not the only one; I know many others have the same problems. But we just can't seem to get Shannon to sleep through at night - and I run out of stamina before she does so I give in and feed her and of course she's getting mixed messages and why on earth should she give up trying when she is sometimes successful?

But the chaos piling up round here is scary; once again it's weeks and weeks since I looked at my finances, my Usborne paperwork is building up everywhere and I just can't get a grip on where stuff should be put so it is messy everywhere. If only I had some time to myself during a morning when I have a moderate amount of energy I might be able to make inroads into it. I've been thinking longingly of school ... and when Shannon gets to the age when she can be at playschool for a whole morning the temptation will be even greater. And because I'm tired and short of patience with the girls, I want to hide here at the computer and just let them entertain themselves, so I'm not doing the educational and fun stuff with them that I want to either.

Oh well, moan over. Normal service (whatever that is!) will be resumed in a little while.

Catch-up

Quick summary of last Friday's science:

Dirty coins in vinegar - slowly becoming shiny
Dirty coins in vinegar & salt - quickly becoming shiny
Coins taken out of the solution - become tarnished again
Egg left in vinegar for a day or two - shell completely dissolved

can't remember what else we did in the morning. In the afternoon, stress levels were rising as we'd had 2 bad nights with Shannon and I was exhausted and very grumpy. so we walked into town and got a few more bits for our Operation Christmas Child shoebox, which is now almost complete.

When we got back, Shannon b/fed and fell asleep on my knee at 4.30pm, which was not ideal! And I was too tired to do that evening's dinner, which was home-made pizza, so we had heated-up leftovers instead. Well, it's bound to happen sometimes!

By request!

The 4-week Menu Plan!!!

Week 1 -
Monday: Potato, Bacon & Onion Hotpot with 2 veg
Tuesday: Chicken casserole (slow-cooker) on rice
Wednesday: Spaghetti Bolognese (pre-cooked sauce in freezer)
Thursday: Fish Pie with broccoli
Friday: Home-made pizza
Saturday: Jacket potatoes & beans with secret veg
Sunday: Roast Chicken


Week Two

Monday: Chicken cassoulet with pasta (using leftover chicken) & make stock
Tuesday: Baked Butternut Squash
Wednesday: Salmon Burgers plus salad
Thursday: Meatloaf plus couscous & veg & tomato sauce
Friday: Sausage paella thingy
Saturday: Salmon Teriyaki with rice (AK)
Sunday: Stuffed peppers


Week Three

Monday: Prawn stir-fry & fried rice (AK)
Tuesday: Roast Vegetable & Brown Rice Gratin
Wednesday: Pasta with roast vegetable sauce
Thursday: Home-made pizza
Friday: Spaghetti bolognese
Saturday: Fish in Orange Sauce (AK) with chips & 2 veg
Sunday: Roast Chicken


Week Four

Monday: Chicken Cassoulet & make stock/soup
Tuesday: Fish Pie & make flan for tomorrow
Wednesday: Cheese & Sweetcorn Flan with garlic bread
Thursday: Spanish & Bacon omelette
Friday: Chicken burgers with veg & apple (AK)
Saturday: Pasta & pesto & corn-on-the-cob
Sunday: Chicken drumsticks with potato gratin & veg

AK means Annabel Karmel :-)

I intend to change this over time to include more vegetable-based meals and to add to my repertoire of vegetable accompaniments rather than just plain boiled carrots, broccoli or sweetcorn which are our most usual ones. I may even add a few desserts - I usually feel I can't cope with making one of those as well!

Mission accomplished!

For several days I've been working on a menu plan, and not just any old plan but a 4-week one! I've tried to keep it frugal, balance it nutritionally, include fish at least once and preferably twice a week as recommended, increase our fruit & veg intake and introduce one or two exciting new dishes to our ordinary repertoire. I've considered which days I'm normally at home to do lengthy preparation, and which days often require something pretty instant. And at last, it is done! It also includes a weekly shopping list which does need some amendment, as I actually do a major shop online at the beginning of the month and get everything non-perishable, and then I need a weekly list of the short shelf life stuff after that. But anyway, it's fab knowing what's for dinner, and not having to think about it! We'll just have to see how well I do at sticking to it because it is not uncommon for me to get something out of the freezer the night before, put it in the fridge overnight to defrost, and then end up not using it the following day for some reason, usually lack of time or inclination to properly cook, then forgetting about and having to throw it away!

We had a good HE day yesterday. It started well, with me still lying in bed musing on what we might do that day, and wondering whether to get Jade to practise a bit of letter writing/formation. She was downstairs with DH while he had his breakfast, and after a little while I heard her asking for help as to which way to write a 'd'. DH wrote down examples of both 'b' and 'd', and shortly afterwards she came to me with a piece of paper on which she had written "Mummy and Dady, I (heart) you". So, no need for any further writing practise then!!
We started by going to the 'HE bookshelf' and I asked Jade to choose what she wanted to do, and she pulled out some maths workbooks. She wanted to start with the really easy one so I went along with it for a while and then persuaded her on to the more appropriate level stuff. After she practised writing down the numbers, we moved on to 'odd and even'. I demonstrated with a box full of magnetic letters, asking her to share them out between us, and pointing out when there was an odd one left over and when there wasn't. We got a piece of paper with two columns headed 'odd' and 'even' and she started to write down under which heading each number went. She was enjoying it and asked to do more even when I was ready to stop.

That's a fairly quick explanation for something that seemed to go on forever and certainly raised the intensity for me, because she didn't grasp the idea instantly and I kept having to ask her to think again, while remaining very calm! So I gladly called a break after a little while and then received a string of lengthy phone calls so their free-range playing went on for an hour or more. Then we had a quick lunch and got Jade ready for her afternoon at school, where she had great fun in the 'dance' class doing firework movements, which she enthusiastically demonstrated to me when she got home. While she was out I prepared the evening meal .

Later on, she was combining the odd/even thing with the brief explanation (well, that's all it needs!) of syllables I did last week, and she was sounding out words, counting the number of syllables, and then proclaiming whether the number was odd or even! After dinner I didn't want to do the various active things she was suggesting, so I proposed we played Snakes & Ladders, which we did very enjoyably (except when Shannon kept running off with the dice!). Jade played with very good humour, celebrating when she won 2 games, of course but also taking it in very good part when she lost 2 games. And then I had to insist that we stopped as it was bedtime!

Today has been just plain busy. We were out promptly this morning to help my Usborne recruit with her first toddler group event, which went extremely well. Jade and Shannon both happily played with the multiplicity of toys! Then back home (Shannon fell asleep in the car) for lunch, a quick rest and then out to swimming with the HE group. Both girls are gradually becoming more adventurous in a very autonomous, gently testing their own anxieties and finding them to be groundless, kind of a way! Jade took off her armbands and splashed and jumped about a fair bit without them, which she's never done before, and Shannon positively forced me to tow her about on her front and back, only holding her hands, which she wouldn't do at all 2 weeks ago. Back home for a bit of CBeebies and then dinner, after which the large Tesco delivery arrived, and then more Snakes & Ladders.

Better late than never

I didn't make it back to blog yesterday - subsided into bed exhausted at 9.20pm!

So, back to the birthday girl. She is of course an absolute beacon of joy in our lives - she is extremely funny, extraordinarily clever and quite amazingly beautiful in our eyes at least. I used to wonder whether watching a second child (and another girl) grow up and develop would be a bit boring, having already watched the first with those astonished newbie-parent eyes, but no, not a bit of it. Watching Shannon grow in some ways that are similar but some ways that are totally different from Jade is just as enchanting the second time around. And I particularly adore this 'learning to talk' stage, when language is just developing and their little individual interpretations of words mean that only a parent can understand a lot of what is said. I love Shannon's "Dair-DENN" (shouted!) which means 'again', and the way she calls her sister "Dabdid" or "Dadid", although I would not mind hearing an awful lot less of "u-miwk" which has recently turned into "mu-mee-miwk" or "hungry" which is not satisfied by food but only by boob . I swear that girl sometimes asks (and gets!) said substance about 10 times an hour, as refusal brings on wailing, sobbing, clinging to my legs and general heartbreak all round. No wonder she's somewhere round the 99th percentile for weight!

Anyway, as far as early predictions of her future are concerned, I would currently suggest she will either end up as a comedian or a musician as she seems to have a definite talent for both, so it will be interesting to look back in 20 or 30 years and wonder with astonishment how on earth she turned into an accountant!

Birthday celebrations were low-key. We had a lazy morning when she enjoyed learning about opening presents and enjoying the contents! In the afternoon we went to an HE session organised by the woman who I met a couple of weeks ago with the stunning house! It was at her local village hall and she had invited several other HE families for a clay/pottery session with clay, wheel and tuition provided by a local potter. I hadn't met any of these other families before as she is in the totally opposite direction to the other group that I have been attending, so it was lovely to meet a whole new group of HErs (all Christians although there weren't any distinguishing features from any other HE get-together to make it obvious!!!) and a whole new bunch of kids! She is hoping to arrange get-togethers every so often so that'll be great. She was kind enough to organise a birthday cake complete with candles for Shannon and a large group rendition of 'Happy Birthday' to go with it. Jade declined to make anything recognisable from her lump of clay, so after fiddling about a bit making the letters for her name which she then destroyed I made a birthday cake with 2 candles for Shannon and, on request, a person (head, body, legs but no arms!) for Jade. Jade then had a go on the potter's wheel and 'made' a vase (with some help!) but predictably refused to utter a single word or even nod or shake her head in response to any questions from the man so that felt slightly embarrassing although I should not take it that way, I know. Shannon spent the time mostly completely engrossed in playing with the toy kitchen but unfortunately (fortunately?) we do not have the space for any such kind of thing in this house so she'll just have to enjoy them elsewhere.

Afterwards, seeing as we were three-quarters of the way to my Dad's house, we continued on there where DH met us and we had a birthday tea complete with yet another scrummy birthday cake and candles. Shannon made a sort of 'Fff-Ffff' attempt at blowing out the candles but didn't get on too well so we all helped! But that was all lovely and quite fitting as Jade had had her second birthday at her other grandparents' house in the north-east so it was kind of nice to continue the tradition.

Sadly, being 2 hasn't diminished Shannon's desire for mummymilk in the night although we are down to about 2 wakings per night rather than 5 or 6. Not enough of an improvement yet to bring about a vast change in the amount of my daytime fog or sleepiness so that's still something to work on. Hence my early collapse last night!

TWO!

Shannon is 2 today!! Happy Birthday sweet girl - we love you!

More later.

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

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

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

Foul

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

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

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

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

It's my blog...

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

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

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

History Matters blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last night...

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

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

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

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

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

Stop the world -

I want to get off!

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

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

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

Please pray ....

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

Saturday

Not much going on today. I was supposed to be driving down to my Mum's to collect the dog from her, but after travelling nearly all day yesterday I couldn't face another 2 hours each way in the car, let alone not having any chance to start the washing mountain or put anything away. So at 10am, the time we were supposed to be setting off but we were all still in our pyjamas, I phoned my Mum and postponed till Tuesday.

So girl-next-door came round and played for much of the day. I attempted to make some order out of chaos, making very little headway until later in the afternoon when I have put aside some toys to be got rid of and put away a load of stuff that has been dumped messily into boxes for weeks. Also managed to make a healthy and frugal dinner (meatloaf recipe from Hillbilly Housewife) and get the kids into bed by 8pm !

In the middle of the day we went out to a nearly-new sale of kids' stuff, and managed to only spend £8 so that was better than I normally do! If we hadn't been on holiday for the past week I would have listed a load of stuff to sell, but didn't have time. Plan to do that for the local NCT sale in a couple of weeks instead.

This evening I have had a long conversation with another woman in my own town who is now HE-ing 4 of her 5 kids - the ones still at primary age. As we started talking (the EO helpline contacted me to ask if was happy to chat with her) I realised I had read about her story in the newspaper a few weeks ago. Her 8-year old girl was bullied at the local school and she was disgusted at the lack of action taken, so she has withdrawn her 4 girls and as she cannot get a place or transport to any other local schools she is HEing by default. Not that we talked about HE at all really - she talked at length about the lies the Head has told and the underhand tactics of the Governors and getting the police and lawyers involved and so on ..... . Still, even if it doesn't last long, that means that currently there are nine HE'd children in this tiny one-horse town!!!! (And that's not counting Shannon!!)

Now I come to mention it - I realise I didn't blog about meeting the other new family who have just moved here from Brighton. The family have 8-year old twin girls and a 5.5 year old girl, who were previously all at the Brighton Steiner School. Before that they lived in Eastbourne and were HE'd. She didn't know Nic but she did know Ros - somebody give her a nudge because she doesn't visit this blog!! They came to visit about 10 days ago and I think we're going to get on really well - all the girls are really lovely and they brought their new little puppy too!!! So I'm just thrilled about that. The girls and Jade didn't play together until right at the end, of course, but a few more visits together should put that right!

Just practising!

Thanks Anita!

Hey, it's good to be back home again

(With thanks to John Denver for the title).

Back from our week away. The Travelodge in Taunton was good, and was especially nice as it was on a retail park with a bowling alley, so after having seen it on the telly recently and saying she wanted to go bowling, Jade got her wish. We all had a really good evening there, and Jade and Shannon (not yet age 2!) had a great time bowling. I came last - am particularly useless at that sort of thing but it was fun anyway. The next morning we moved on to St Austell. I must be careful what I write about our accommodation as I would not want to get done for libel. But hey, we only paid £54 for all of us for the 5 days. Certainly very glad we didn't pay any more.

Still, they had their own little beach (down a long steep hill) which we went straight to when we arrived as our accommodation was not ready. That was a lovely afternoon. It was warm, sunny and Jade in particular had the most fantastic time jumping and splashing in the waves. There were rockpools and sand and that lovely seaside-y smell and we all loved it.

On Tuesday I took the girls swimming in the morning while DH languished in bed feeling a bit unwell. After lunch we went to Mevagissey, specifically for the World of Model Railways which was really good, and a stroll along the harbour wall eating real Cornish pasties followed by Cornish ice-cream - yum!

Wednesday is best left largely unmentioned, as it consisted mostly of a lot of bad-temper on my part, yelling at DH, going out with the girls at 4pm for a walk and getting caught in torrential rain, followed by the only treat I could think of which was a biggish shop at Asda, which we don't have round here.

On Thursday we went to the Eden Project, which was really the main point of the entire holiday. I'm glad we managed to offset the large entry fee by taking along both an adult's and a child's guide-book which I had got from charity shops in advance! And I'd packed an entire picnic, so we only had to spend money on large coffees for DH and I during the morning otherwise we would both have been sleep-walking due mostly to Shannon's nightly shenanigans!!! Having to get out of bed each time she woke, instead of just rolling over in a sleepy haze, brought it home to me just exactly how much of my sleep she disturbs. *Must* find a strategy to night-wean her without it involving loads of 'crying till she's sick' episodes. Anyway I digress. Jade particularly loved the 'jungle' bit as she loves trees, so she says! She enjoyed filling in some stuff in the children's guide-book so got loads of writing practice as well as all the science.

Today, Friday, was disappointing as I had hoped we would travel a couple of hours, stop in Devon for some sort of half-day touristy thing, and then carry on home, but it just poured with rain the whole way, and Shannon and I fell asleep in the car, so we just came straight home, though the total journey did take 6.5 hours instead of 4-ish due to horrendous traffic.

We're off!

On holiday for a week! This was one of those special offers in our local newspaper - collect a load of tokens and then get a holiday for £10 each - so £40 is getting us a Monday-Friday holiday at this place in St Austell. Chose it mostly so that we can go to the Eden Project. We're staying one night at a Travelodge on the way down. So ... catch up with you all in a week!

OK, this is 3+ months old, but having just discovered how to do on-line videos, I thought I would test it with this ecstatic moment when Jade first rode a bike without stabilisers, at Kessingland this year.

Yesterday....

...all my troubles seemed so far away ....!

No, not really, but we did have a pretty good day. Started after breakfast with just a little bit (5-10 mins) of handwriting practice - we're just going to take it slowly with 1 or 2 letters per day just to make sure she learns how to form them properly. Then cuddled on the sofa with a pile of library books and Shannon joined in too with her own books to look through. Then I put some music on, and lots of dancing went on. Have I ever mentioned how much Shannon loves dancing? And Jade put on a 'show'.

When we were (OK, I was) in need of a bit of peace and quiet, Jade disappeared to do something with dolls and I sat with Shannon doing bricks and blocks and shape sorters and casually started teaching her some colours - red and green - as well.

Then lunch, then packing piles of Usborne books into the car for a delivery, and finally off to swimming!!! The exclamation marks are the amazement that we actually made it there successfully - 4 times we've tried and failed to go:
Attempt 1 - had to do a bit of shopping first and were then too late for the pool;
Attempt 2 - pranged the car on the way;
Attempt 3 - got there, paid for a 2-hour car-park ticket and then found the pool was closed due to it being full of rusty water;
Attempt 4 - forgot my purse!

So it was with great relief we actually made it safely into the water, and then the delight was increased when Jade managed, for the first time albeit with arm-bands, to actually get her feet off the ground and swim on her own! And I did lots of floating and jumping in stuff with Shannon so she got even more water experience then she's ever had before. And then, to top it all, they both gradually crept nearer and nearer when I was in the (communal) shower area, and both ended up having showers, which if you knew how much fuss Jade makes about getting her hair wet you would know was something of a miracle. Great breakthroughs all round!

Got home to a depressing confirmation that the Subaru which we have just spent £1200 on is still losing water and over-heating, and we have no money left to either fix it any more or buy anything else. Still musing on what to do about that little situation!

And then I fell asleep at 8pm and didn't re-surface till this morning!

Good stuff

We've had a good day today! Got up determined that we are going to do some regular, although low-key, 'work' so after breakfast I sat Jade down for a little bit of adding up stuff. She got on pretty well, although at the end she did get all stroppy. I ranted a bit when she wouldn't tell me what was wrong, and probably didn't handle it very well at all, but in the end discovered she was frustrated with not writing some of the numbers very well - and it was only the '2' that she had trouble with, and wouldn't let me show her how to do it anyway!

Anyway to break the tension we took the dog out for a walk, encountering a few neighbours with the usual 'why isn't she at school' question - we haven't run this particular gauntlet with them yet because she did 4 mornings at playschool till July so didn't see the neighbours much in normal school hours.

Got back and made a mask using one of the designs from the "Rainy Day Activities" cards that arrived in my Usborne order this morning. We had a huge glitter-fest and Isabelle joined in too! Meanwhile I was madly cleaning trying to make the house even half-way decent for our afternoon guests.

Then it was time for a quick lunch, get Jade changed into school clothes and everything ready for her afternoon at school ...... and just when we were about to go out of the door I could not find my car-key anywhere. Hunted high and low, phoned Bill and used some very unladylike words, phoned the school to say I didn't know if we would make it ... and then thought hard and looked down the side of the sofa and armchair - and found the key in among the biscuit crumbs and other yuck. I have a new pair of trousers (well, new-to-me - they're actually a lovely pair of Boden jeans costing £4 from the charity shop) with sloping pockets that obviously I'm not going to be able to rely on! So got Jade to school in the nick of time, and then rushed home again to receive a visit from someone I've met a couple of times before who has an adopted Chinese daughter the same age as Shannon, and she is interested in HE. We had a good long chat about all sorts of stuff - I pointed her at MuddlePuddle among other things - so that was good.

(Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to blog yesterday about the phone call I received - there is a new HE family IN MY OWN TOWN!!! (which is very small) with 8-year old twins and a 5-year old daughter!! So they're coming here on Friday afternoon!)

After collecting Jade from school, we went to Tesco's, then home for tea and playing and bedtime went very smoothly so now the evening's my own!

Some good news!

I have my first Usborne recruit! And I have 2 events lined up for this week, and already some for October and November. I would dearly love to give up the day job, so am focussing more on Usborne to see how far I can go with it. And if anyone out there is interested in earning money towards Christmas, let me know!

I had a serious chat with Jade last week, telling her that now she was partly at school but mostly learning at home, we had to start doing some regular learning stuff together. I really want to try and get into some kind of rhythm. I'm definitely not going to be a 'school at home' type, but I need some kind of structure to stop me from descending into complete chaos, and to feel like we're getting somewhere. So I'm going to think up some kind of manageable 'pattern' to our days at home, which can change when necessary but at least is a basic plan to work to.

I was somewhat disappointed when she was adamant on Saturday that she did not want to re-start her dancing class this term, despite telling me the week before that she did. She loved it so much when she was there, but I think the social anxiety has just got the better of her and she just refused to go. Such a shame, because she was so thrilled with herself when she did it. She really wants riding lessons now, but as they're about six times the cost of the dancing, it's going to take some serious thinking about.

Things I haven't blogged about lately:

~ The extraordinary amount of money we've had to spend on the old estate car;
~ How said estate car has just broken down again, leaving Bill stranded;
~ The phenomenal amount of money he's had to pay this evening to join the AA and get brought home;
~ The ridiculously extended period of time the crash repair company has kept our Prius for, just to repair a long scratch down one side, therefore keeping it past its MOT renewal date so even when it comes back I won't be able to drive it;
~ How I nearly had my eye out by bashing myself on the corner of the courtesy car's door;
~ How the flood at Jade's school has meant she hasn't been there this week at all;
~ The 4th time in a row that we have set out to Stratford to go swimming, and yet not been able to swim (this time, I forgot my purse);
~ The ridiculous number of times Shannon wakes in the night and needs feeding back to sleep and how it's barely worth my while closing my eyes;
~ The simply lovely visit we had from Katy and Becca;
~ The unbelievable weight that Shannon is and how she's off the top of the charts;
~ How we still haven't started anything vaguely resembling 'proper' HE this 'term'.

She's been to school!

Today was Jade's first afternoon at school.


I was at work all day, so it was down to DH to organise it all. It felt strange. In one way, I was thinking, "This is Jade's first day at school - it is momentous - I should be there!" In another sense, as she is only going to do 3 afternoons per week, for the fun, less academic stuff, it doesn't feel that important. She is mainly HE'd - she is doing less school than she did playgroup - and I still mainly consider us an HEing family, obviously. But it was odd to come home and see her jumping about in her uniform and telling me how it had been ("it was fantastic") just like all those other newly-at-school kids are doing this week.

She did some painting, playing, dressing-up, playing outside on the field, all the kids inspected a grasshopper they found, then the teacher read them a poem sitting under a tree outside.

I don't know what she did this morning - I was at work and she was at home with DH!

School plans

At last, we have sorted out some flexi-school attendance for Jade. We visited this afternoon and talked everything through, and for the first 'term' (half-term as it used to be, but now they have a 6-term year) she will attend for the afternoons (12.45 - 3.15pm) of Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's a bit ironic really as I originally really needed to flexi-school to cover my working hours, and now DH does compressed hours so is home all day on Wednesdays and I guess my Dad will have to continue to cover a Thursday morning for a little while longer. I had suggested to him last week that at the age of 74 he might want to stop having to come over every week for childcare duties. However, we felt that with Jade's speech anxiety and the difficulties of her being there for some of the academic work but not all of it (and therefore how do we ensure she is not all-at-sea with what they're doing?), it would be better for her to start off going in for the more practical/sports/social type stuff like dance, drama, IT, which they do in the afternoons, and when she's settled in for the first six weeks, we will review it and see how it is going and maybe then she may start going for a morning session too.

So, we're off to buy the last couple of bits of uniform tomorrow, and then she'll go in on Wednesday afternoon. She's rather excited at the prospect and says she likes it there! But OTOH she says she definitely wouldn't want to have to go all day every day!

And this morning, as Jade, Shannon and I walked the dog in the still sunny and warm day, with a tree-identification book at hand, and picking blackberries as we went, I thought how sad it was that all those other kids would be stuck in school for such a long time from now on. Other sad things - a friend of mine said that her 2nd DD (same age as Jade) was going to get a shock going into Year 1 as there was no 'home corner' or play stuff in the classroom like there was in Reception. And yet so many reports confirm what we HErs know in our bones, that playing is so essential to learning, and that in this country we push formal academics too early. The other thing this friend said was that her two DDs (7 and 5) get on really well during the summer holidays, whereas during the school year the older one treats the younger one like somebody too low for her to associate with. Shame.

Apart from all that, today we've read some of "The BFC big book of planet earth (charity-shop find) and talked about the earth, the sun and the moon, and how each rotates and orbits, and why that makes day and night, months and years; about the equator and the two Poles, and about the unique atmosphere of the Earth. I got the globe out, and another ball, to demonstrate. I wonder where all that comes in the National Curriculum - about Year 4, I imagine!!! She's also done lots of drawing (she's really into that lately), some stamping pictures, lots of imaginative play at being a mummy, a big sister and a baby, and just a bit of CBeebies.

Post-Greenbelt doldrums

I always hate the post-Greenbelt feeling - a whole year till I can go again. I love being surrounded by artistic, creative stuff, even though (or perhaps because) I'm not gifted that way myself. I love there being 20-30 fascinating things I could go to at any one time, like talks or dance or comedy shows that I wouldn't normally visit; I love the music of all descriptions all over the place, and I love being challenged in the way I look at the world, and to become aware of issues I don't have the time or space to concentrate on the rest of the year.

So, we had a great time, except that Jade refused to go to any of the children's sessions, despite the fact that C from Stepping off the Path was there. And just a couple of days before we went, Shannon began displaying extreme shyness in the presence of strangers too, to the extent of hiding her face in a parental chest for up to an hour! It was also a shame that we barely got to see J&J, or the TwoRedBoots tribe, despite camping with them. We were all too busy! We have bought our tickets for next year, though. Looking forward to having the RaineDrops there and crossing my fingers for the Katy/Becca combo too!

Now we're back I need to concentrate on the strange task of finalising Jade's school attendance. We have the school dress, the navy trousers, skirt and cardigan and black shoes, and just need some white polo shirts to complete her uniform! Oh, and I need to discuss with the headteacher when she's actually going to go! I think it will probably be a Monday afternoon (for dance/music) and all day on a Thursday. It has to be a Thursday morning because that's one of my work times, but it's a shame really because the class has two teachers who job-share, and I prefer the one who teaches Monday - Wednesday.

Happy Birthday to me!

I've had a lovely day today. I got breakfast and prezzies in bed, then just lolled around most of the morning. This afternoon Bill and I went to Cheltenham, alone, without children!!! It was fab - my Mum has come to stay to look after the dog while we go to Greenbelt, so she looked after the girls while we went out. I think the last time Bill and I went out together without children was when I was having my labour induced with Jade, and we went for a stroll round Cheltenham while waiting for things to get started.

Anyway, I finally managed to spend the last of my Christmas presents - M&S vouchers - by treating myself to some new underwear! And we went in The Works and I got the 120 Great History Projects book plus 2 or 3 others for myself. And we had afternoon tea together in the M&S cafe - tea and scones and jam and cream - absolutely fabulous!!

And tomorrow we're off to Greenbelt. Life is good!

More aaarrrggghhh!

Broadband has gone down. Bill's cobbled together a dial-up connection but it is interminably slow and I am so conscious of the phone bill ticking away.... 24 hours without an internet connection was dire.

Also whenever I sit down Isabelle climbs up for mummymilk and takes aaaaaages so I am doing this with one finger of left hand!

Bill is off work for 2 weeks now and we are off to Greenbelt on Friday so if I don't manage to get back on before we go, I'll be back next week.

NOT a good day!

Don't really want to go into the whole boring detail, but suffice to say it involved more (thankfully slight) damage to the car, more substantial damage to my ego and confidence but, contrary to my fears, no damage to my relationship with DH as he proved wonderfully absorbent this evening.

Also we have tried and failed 3 times to go swimming this week. Today's two attempts ended in (1) the above car damage and (2) arriving, paying for a car park ticket and then being told the pool was closed due to it having filled up with rusty water.

I have been MIA during the evenings trying to catch up on the unbelievable backlog of our finances, only to find that I kind of wish I didn't know what I found out. What with a £250 excess on the car insurance policy and a £110 excess on the home insurance policy, plus both cars needing servicing and repairs to the tune of several hundreds of pounds I am somewhat stressed.

Somebody send me links to extremely frugal meals/recipes please!

So, no educational things to report here. Unless you count the swear words that the girls may well have learned today.

Very quick blog

.... so that certain people know I arrived home safely! Sorry - couldn't blog last night as I was so tired I fell asleep with the girls and never got up again.

So, the girls and I stepped off the path at the weekend, and very pleasant and enjoyable it was too. Got home yesterday around 2pm, only 10 minutes after Isabelle succumbed to travel sickness .... :-(

Shortly before leaving J&J's, I suddenly noticed the middle diamond out of my engagement ring was missing. Katy B had the excellent idea that I should unpack everything out of the car carefully in the dark, with a torch, so that I would see anything glinting. I totally forgot to do it. I foresee my first ever home insurance claim!

Not an end-of-year report!

But really just an excuse to brag.

Sometimes I read other people's blogs with children of Jade's age, and worry a little in case she is not doing as well in some areas. For instance, she's still not really into addition yet, though we've tried a little; she can't swim, even with arm-bands, and her drawing still seems rather simple (head with legs!), but what she *can* do is read, boy she can really read! Today she has worked out 'congratulations' and 'granddaughter' without any help whatsoever, and I notice she is starting to read quietly to herself without asking for help or support, but just for interest. This afternoon she was sitting reading the Usborne Flip Flap Body book.

And really, that is one big reason why we HE. So that she can take each 'subject' at her own speed. The 'one-size-fits-all' National Curriculum hangs over us looming so large, especially as we are going to be flexi-schooling from September and therefore do have to stick to the NC (though what that means I don't actually know!); but we know that each child develops in fits and starts at their own pace, and I just love to see that happening in reality. I know that she will be able to add up soon enough, and that all the other skills she needs in life will develop too, at the pace that is just right for *her*.

I suppose the worry comes in about whether I am doing HE 'right' - am I offering enough, exposing her to enough, involved enough, or am I doing too much of the Lazy Bugger method of HE? I'm very good at buying resources and not so good at using them. I think a bit of orgo-planning and pulling my socks up a little in September would be no bad thing, but really, when it comes down to it, to have fostered a love of reading means I've pretty well done all I have to do! Light the blue touch paper and stand back!

I've not been keeping up again, and it's too late to want to go into much detail. But the edited highlights follow!

This morning started with Geomags, and a jigsaw puzzle of the UK which I've just unearthed from a cupboard. We didn't go to church this morning as Shannon has had a rash for a couple of days and although she seems completely well we didn't want to risk spreading anything. But we did go out this afternoon to a Dogs Trust Open Day (thought there was little risk of spreading viruses or whatever in the open air) so we've had a lovely afternoon in the sun. We met my Dad and his wife Pat and various of her family there. Poppy took part in the doggy dash and didn't disgrace herself although she didn't win either! We looked round the kennels bit and looked at all the dogs needing re-homing - no, I didn't bring any home! We got home to find that Bill had put together Jade's new bed which I drove up near Chesterfield for a couple of months ago after winning it on Ebay. So there's been great excitement while the finishing touches have been put to that and although the rest of the room still needs sorting out, she is very happy in her big girl bed with the tower and slide!

In the last few days we've also had a sleepover of Tamsin's best friend, we've driven over and visited my Dad for a while and we've done various stuff round the house. The odd bit of education here and there but nothing focussed on. I was reading somewhere or other recently how Finland doesn't start formal schooling until the age of 7 and yet they have they highest pupil assessment scores at age 16 of the whole EU. No sweat for another couple of years, then.

Work day

Not much to report today - I was at work all day while DH was home with the girlies! and I would have got to work on time too (for a change) if Jade hadn't had a bout of severe separation anxiety when I was about to leave - she had to be peeled off me, poor girl :-( She seems fine now though!

However I have been spending a fair amount of time reading Montessori stuff. Is it just me, or does everyone else flit from one educational style to another like some kind of butterfly, trying to decide which one to settle on? Everytime I read another blog which says "we home-school in a combination of classical and Moore", or "we are Charlotte Mason style home educators,", I just think, 'what am I?'. I don't have enough time to read sufficient about any of these styles to decide which one to be! I'm just a messy lazy home-educator, that's all. I think I'll have to devise a new style, and call it "The slovenly procrastinator's guide to home-education". Perhaps I could write a book and make my fortune!

A game of two halves

We had an active morning, a moderately active late-afternoon, with a huge slump of nothingness in the middle, so it seemed an appropriate title.

First thing, Jade insisted on making the cakes with the Dora cake mix packet that she persuaded me to buy in the supermarket yesterday - I must have had a weak moment because I usually absolutely refuse to buy such overpriced crap, but now I have two Dora fans in the household (yes, Shannon does a lovely 'Dor-wa' now and a great dance to the 'We Did It' music!) I gave in. Still, it gave me the chance to do a bit of tuition on cooking temperatures, though not much else.

Mixing, baking, cooling and icing made us late for HE group, though. It started at 10.30 but we didn't manage to arrive till 11.30! So the huge castle made from cardboard boxes was already constructed and very impressive it was too - with towers and a drawbridge! So there was mostly just general playing, running around and chatting going on after that. I met another new attendee who has a 4.5 yr old son and an 18-month old daughter although she had left the little one with someone else to give her son a bit of sister-free time - apparently she drives him mad! Anyway they don't live too far away and are also going to be flexi-schooling mostly because they have only just moved to the area and want to find him some friends. But they might be up for reciprocal visits.

We drove home in the blissfully air-conditioned car, Shannon fell asleep and I parked Jade in front of Nick Jr with the intention of going for a nap myself when the phone rang and it was a long-lost friend. Fortunately Shannon's nap was very long so I still managed some rest after the chat. After getting up I still felt horribly lethargic and devoid of any energy or inclination to do anything. I did manage to sit with Jade and read a couple of her library books - Antarctica and Are you a snail? But mostly I just lolled and grumped.

I did manage to make myself an iced coffee, though, and that did the trick because later on I felt a little energy trickle back and managed to tidy up a little, vacuum the living room floor and set up a big Brio train track layout for Jade, which is a rare occurrence these days since Shannon became mobile. But having spent about 20 minutes building it, she then spent about 5 minutes playing with it so I was not too impressed.

Can't remember how things progressed from there - I know Shannon did a bit more shape-sorter and has noticeably progressed since yesterday's practice, Jade found some old stickers and stuck them on a big piece of paper and did some drawing round them and as usual she spent much of the time with a teddy stuffed up her top pretending to be pregnant. This is a regular occurrence these days as her best friend's mum is about to have a baby. Said best friend is actually coming to stay overnight on Thursday and Jade is in ecstasy about this - several times a day she works out how many days it is till Thursday and goes into hyperactive overdrive for a few minutes with excitement.

Jade read her own bedtime stories again - a very simple DK Touch & Feel book and a Miffy book and is currently not asleep in her room - but then again it is 28 degrees up there so that won't be helping.

ETA - how could I forget Shannon singing the Alphabet Song along with Jade? Well, OK, only a handful of letters are recognisably pronounced, but she's having a jolly good go! Very sweet! Counting 1-10 and the alphabet before the age of 2 - what an upstart she is!!

I heard that sickening crunch.....

.... of metal on metal, or whatever bumpers and car doors are made of these days. Yes, I pranged our lovely Prius. I can't imagine why on earth I did - I was just pulling out of a parking spot at the side of the road and scraped the whole left hand side on someone else's bumper - and I'm normally good at parking and driving and I just don't *do* that sort of thing! Bugger. We have comp. insurance but the excess is probably about £150 and we just don't need that on top of the cost of the other car this week, which BTW cost £530 the other day and still needs about £650 worth of work on it. Good job there isn't still a workhouse or we'd be headed there ....

Until then, I'd been having quite a good day! The first thing Jade chose after getting up was the Geomags, and I sat with her while she made 'pancakes' (!) - or rather various flat geometric shapes with panels in. We then moved on to building a castle with bricks and blocks, while Shannon practised with her shape sorter at which we applauded and said 'Hooray' every time she got one in so she joined in clapping and hooraying at herself! Then Jade moved on to a Learning Land CD-Rom while I tried to do a bit of summer planning - looking at events going on locally and making notes of which I'd quite like to go to, along with more general stuff like swimming and picnics. After that we decided to go for a walk, but why on earth does it have to take so long to get ready? It was about an hour before we were ready to go, what with getting them both dressed, nappy changing, finding shoes, persuading them not to play upstairs but get dressed instead, etc. Eventually we got out and went for a very hot walk out to the duck pond and back, and then a quick lunch was followed by getting Shannon to sleep while Jade watched a bit of TV. Then I sat with her to do a bit of reading, so we went through the 'Please and Thank You book' by Richard Scarry, a book I got from the charity shop called "One World" of which she read the first half, and then we were about to start 'King Arthur' when she got stroppy and hit me and threw the book on the floor so she had to go and sit on the stairs for 5 minutes. I was not in the mood for more after that, though, so had a bit of quiet computer time while she had a bit more TV till Shannon woke up. Then we all went out in the car to do some food shopping and then crunched the car. :-(

Around teatime Jade found a stray notelet card lying around on the table so decided to write to my Dad - "Grandpa, I love you" so that was a good bit of writing practise, although after all that effort she couldn't manage to write her own name so I did that!

Around bedtime she started to sort through her Letterland alphabet cards and to lay out all the capital letters. I was a bit surprised that she needed to keep asking me which ones were the capitals as opposed to lower case, as I thought she had that all very clear, but anyway she got fed up by about F or G and messed them all up.

Oh, and she mostly read her own bedtime stories, too, by choice!

Not so bad after all

We're all still here - no-one's killed anybody else off!

The electricity went off about 9.45am, but came on again just before 1pm, although they'd warned it would be off till 4pm. The worst news was about Bill's car which has cost over £500 to only partially fix .... yikes!

After breakfast, the morning started with some reading. Jade pulled out a Learning Land magazine and we went through that, although she did skip the page about numbers saying "I hate that bit!". We did some reading exercises, she did a tiny bit of lovely writing, and then did the 'healthy eating' exercise during which I talked about needing the right kind of fuel in a car otherwise it breaks down and the same is true in our bodies. She also did a drawing of a 'healthy lunchbox' and drew a sandwich, a banana, a drink and a chocolate bar which I thought was pretty OK!

We moved on to Spanish after that, when I got out our little collection of fun Spanish activities that I'd got from The Book People a while ago. There are three bilingual stories so she read the English and I read the Spanish - with guesses at much of the pronunciation! We practised some of the words together and discussed the Spanish -v- English words.

Then I remembered reading something lately about how short breaks of physical exercise improve learning, and I was certainly beginning to feel a bit sluggish esp. with the heat, so I took them upstairs to bounce on the bed! They started having fun, but fairly soon Jade went into a very moody/grumpy state, and started shouting at me to go away and leave her alone and shouting that no, I didn't love her after I said I did. She curled up on my bed, and shortly after that started crying, but still didn't want me anywhere near. So I pottered around nearby, putting clean washing away, while wondering and praying about what was wrong and totally at a loss as to this sudden mood swing which is not completely unusual as she has been rather volatile lately. And suddenly it hit me - she'd had porridge with honey in it for breakfast and had then continued eating more honey - more than I'd realised before I'd stopped her. So she was having a complete sugar meltdown! And it might well be that the rest of her behaviour lately is perhaps partly due to sugar issues too. Time for some serious sweet-limiting action, I think. The sugar intake has very slowly crept up from just one piece of chocolate per day, to that plus lollies/ice-creams in the hot weather, and biscuits, and sometimes the next-door-neighbours give her something as well without checking first ... (Grrr). And it certainly won't do me any harm to completely cut down on sugar either. Anyway I brought them downstairs for a healthy and hearty lunch and playing out in the garden, so peace and harmony were resumed.

Straight after lunch I wanted some peace and quiet sitting at my computer, so Jade did a Learning Land CD-Rom and Shannon pottered around with bits and pieces. During the afternoon they've played on the swing, climbing frame and slide, although I limited Shannon's time on the swing as she threw up again on Tuesday after a long swing so I am fairly sure she's getting motion sickness from it, although she protests like mad at being taken off. Jade and I played Snakes & Ladders this afternoon, and as I made tea they've watched about 45 mins of CBeebies. Jade read a library book to Bill when he came in and only needed help with 1 word - disguise - so we've started to fill in her "Reading Mission" card from the library that we got last Thursday.

It's Jade's last day of playschool tomorrow. She seems fine about it, but she has loved it so much I wouldn't be surprised if we have a bit of an emotional rollercoaster tomorrow!

It's going to be a tough one...

Today I will have no electricity, no car, no Grandpa visiting, and it's too hot to walk anywhere. Pray that we all survive!!!

Really must blog....

But somehow by this time of the evening all power of thought seems to have disappeared and I just can't think what to put.

Today was a playschool morning for Jade, and Shannon and I just pootled around not doing much - a bit of tidying up, a little book browsing, a bit of computering and finally, a long swing for Shannon while I chatted on the phone with a friend. She loves staying on the swing for ages these days - an hour if I can stand it. Usually I swing her high and then go off and do something, and then go back to her when she's slowed down, but combining it with a phone conversation seemed a better way to do it. She was enjoying it, as always, and towards the end (after about 45 minutes) seemed to be getting drowsy and it was approaching her normal nap time. She didn't want to get out, though, so I lay on the grass next to the swing and pushed her lazily with my foot ... and only just avoided it being thrown up on. I don't know if it was motion sickness or something else that disagreed with her. I'm very prone to motion sickness and actually felt slightly unwell just from pushing and watching her while she swung. She still didn't want to get out of the swing, amazingly, but I made her do so because it was time to go and get Jade.

Shannon fell asleep in the car on the way, so when we got home Jade and I got some food and I offered to read to her but she never did bring a book for me. We had a very lazy afternoon in the extreme heat, mostly staying indoors. I felt very lethargic and unmotivated to do anything but did manage to do a tiny bit of tidying. After school time the girl-next-door came round and fortunately she and Jade had a great time mopping my kitchen floor and vacuuming the living room floor!! Oh, this was after Jade had another spell of appalling behaviour after L appeared, stomping off into her bedroom, refusing to let L in, playing with toys but saying L couldn't play with them, and generally being exceedingly unpleasant. {Sigh} - wish I knew what it was all about. Later a bit of painting (on paper, and a mug-painting kit) got done and just miscellaneous playing.

So, that was such a boring day it probably wasn't even worth blogging, but maybe it's a start that'll get me going again.

***What Your Soul Really Looks Like***


You are very passionate and quite temperamental. While you can be moody, you always crave comfort.

You are not a very grounded person. You prefer dreams to reality. For you, it's all about possibilities.

You believe that people see you as a bit small and insignificant. People pay more attention to you than you think.

Your near future is calm, relaxing, and pretty much what you want. And it's something you've been anticipating for a while now.

For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.


Inside the Room of Your Soul
http://www.blogthings.com/insidetheroomofyoursoulquiz/

Musical interlude

A musical education has been going on here today, for a change. After getting home from our church group, when Shannon was asleep in the car, Jade wanted some music to listen to so I dug out something we used to play when she was a baby, Medwyn Goodall. Although this is supposedly New Age music, it doesn't sound like it - it's just basically lovely Celtic stuff like Enya. And we danced together - lovely! And after that was finished, she wanted some more, so, being thoroughly sick of 'kids music' I put on Carnival of the Animals/Peter and The Wolf and we listened to it quite closely, discussing the instruments being used to denote each animal and incident and we both really enjoyed it! It's the first time she's listened properly to anything classical, so it was good it grabbed her attention. Not that it's vital - I think I was thirty-something before I wanted to go near classical music with a bargepole - but it's nice to be able to introduce her to a wide range of experiences and have her evaluate them for what they are in themselves and not what popular culture says a child ought to like.

We then did a little bit of reading "Why is the Sea Salty?" and other questions about the oceans, but didn't get very far with that before she got bored. In fact, at one point today she declared "I hate reading books", which I don't really believe at all but just put it down to her contrary mood lately, or maybe just heat and hunger. or something.

Her behaviour lately, though, has been particularly horrible. I have noticed that other bloggers discuss the 'phase' or age that their child is going through when difficult behaviour occurs whereas I immediately blame myself for being irritable, bad-tempered, a bad role-model and teaching her inappropriate ways of dealing with anger and frustration and conclude that I have already ruined her for life. Whichever is the reason, she's been behaving really horribly quite a bit, especially with Lauren, the girl-next-door who comes round almost every day after school. Jade is extremely bossy and rude some of the time, and can quite often go into major strops where she screams at Lauren to go home and never come here again. It's difficult to know what to make of it really. I know kids have to learn to get along with each other and sort out their differences, but I don't know if Jade is behaving worse than one would normally expect. I only really have Lauren to compare her with, and she seems pretty even-tempered and certainly doesn't go into the strops and tantrums and bossiness that Jade does. House of Tiny Tearaways, here we come ......

Wiggle wiggle

Big excitement here today, as in a mad moment a few months back I had bought tickets for The Wiggles live concert in Oxford. So I picked Jade up early from playschool, dropped Shannon at the childminder's and off we went. We parked at the Park & Ride and caught the bus, which for Jade was probably as exciting as the concert itself! The bus was full of hordes of over-excited small children all heading the same way as us! The concert itself was pretty good if you like dancing dinosaurs and dippy kids' songs, but in the interests of scientific research I can confirm that Greg is the only Wiggle worth looking at although the others are good for amusement purposes. Jade's reaction was really funny because she was totally overwhelmed by being in the actual presence of the 'real' Wiggles. She said "I feel so funny I want to do something but I don't know what I want to do!" So she just stood and stared.

Gotta go - shannon is wailing!

5 things

I've been tagged by Kath, and Katy (passworded blog!):

5 things in my fridge:
Red seedless grapes
Half an avocado
Organic butter
An opened bottle of dessert wine
A box of yummy chocolates from the Chocolate Tasting Club

5 things in my wardrobe:
Most of my clothes (apart from the ones on the floor in front)
The jewellery I'm hiding from DD1
A big wooden cross
My wedding shoes which I've never worn since (16 years ...)
Moths (judging by the holes in my jumpers)

5 things in my bag:
Purse
Travel sickness pills
Mobile phone and car charger
A Shewee
A book - "Cancer-causing chemicals in cosmetics and daily use products"

5 things in my car:
A buggy
Several stones and pebbles in the glove box
2 child car-seats
Sun blinds
Lots of crumbs

5 people I'm tagging:
Ali
Erm, can't find anyone else not already tagged!

I wish I could write like this:

But I can't, so thank Goodness there's Jamie.

I'm lovin' it!

Tamsin is at playschool, and Isabelle has been asleep for 2 hours so far!

I adore my girls, but I just love time on my own at home too, and I get so exceedingly little of it that I'm just basking in the wonder of it!

I seem to do so little HE at the moment that there's not much to blog. We hardly seem to be at home. And when we are, the new girl-next-door comes round to play after school and just about all weekend (rolls eyes)! I don't feel as though I get much quality time with Jade at all.

Anyway, despite all that, a few things have happened today. She requested the Reader Rabbit CD-Rom this morning, which she is far beyond now in terms of phonics/reading but she thinks it's fun anyway. Then we went out to the women's group at church, and then came home and we did some reading - she read an early reader book we got from the Library and I read her something or other - can't remember now.

While I got lunch she played with Shannon, and then we all sat at the table. Memo: don't serve soup to a 19-month old - it gets messy! We then walked into town to post an important letter and to try and get Shannon to go to sleep in the buggy - no luck! Back home at about 4pm and girl-next-door immediately arrived. Much loud playing and throwing of water around in the back garden followed, clothes divested, and much mess made. After dinner, though, at which Shannon fell asleep at the table and was put swiftly to bed, Jade sat down with me and we read through April, May, June and July in the Year at Maple Hill Farm, and a section of the Berenstain Bears Book of Science and Nature dealing with matter and its 3 states - solid, liquid and gas. So that was timely, as DH had talked at dinner-time about her drink being liquid and she had denied it! Then, to wrap it all up, at bedtime I read her another of those Laurence Anholt books about famous artist - Camille and the Sunflowers

Somewhere down the road ...

We woke late this morning, so it was a mad rush to get everyone dressed and breakfasted ready to get Jade to playschool and me to work with Shannon (who is collected by my Dad after about an hour so I can work). So it was only when I was driving past the end of the tiny country lane leading to the church where Benjamin is buried that I remembered it's the 7th anniversary of his death today.

So what's it like, 7 years down the line after losing your first child? Well, for me at least, it's a mixture of maybe 15% missing him and 85% not missing him. I don't know if that's a surprise to you reading - I feel like maybe I 'go on' about it more on this blog than I do anywhere in real life, but then this is my thinking space and exploring my feelings space to some extent, so I guess it's bound to come out here. Actually, I started by writing that it's 10% missing him and 90% not, and then felt guilty and thought, no, surely it can't be that small a space that he has in my life now? When I think about him, my heart swells up with love so much that I feel surely he must still take up 90% of my life - he certainly deserves that - but in reality, no he does not.

I have no idea what it would be like to have a 7-year old boy, and to have 3 children instead of 2, and for Jade to be the middle one and not the oldest one. And would we even have had 3 children, or stuck at 2? Family dynamics would have been quite different, and I have no way of knowing how it would have been.

So here we are, with a family of 2 girls which seems quite normal and complete and OK. And there are 4 places round the dinner table and beds for each of us and most of the time it's not even thought about. But sometimes, and I find it hard to assess how often, I think of him and wonder what it would be like if he had lived, and what would he be like and what would he be doing? And every time (once or twice a month) I drive along the road on which we were driving, approaching Warwick on the way to Birmingham Children's Hospital to get him checked out because I was worried about him, and he collapsed and probably effectively died there in the car, and I remember every single detail and nuance of what happened, and go over it in my mind and wonder if it could have been any different. And every time I feel envious of people who have 3 or 4 children instead of 2, I remind myself that I have had 3, it's just that I have to wait a long time till I get to see one of them again. And when I chat with people about the challenges of having baby number 2, and then I feel a twinge of guilt that I am referring to Shannon as number 2 and not number 3 and am excluding Benjamin from our lives. And when I feel relief that I have girls and not boys, and then feel guilty because of course I did love my boy with all my heart. And when I hear the songs that have special significance in connection with him. And, of course, when I hear of other people losing babies or children and I remember exactly that black hole feeling of the worst thing possible in your entire life actually and really happening and how horrific it is and how the whole world stops and how you can literally think of nothing else for years.

And when I still wonder about exactly how God works in our lives, and why do some people get miraculous healings and others don't, and how exactly do I trust him about difficult and fearful things I have to face, and will He ever intervene, or do I just have to draw courage and strength from knowing He is there, and just keep on going, and then reassuring myself that of course He really was there, most definitely, in our time of need... So the title of this post is an Amy Grant song - "And you say, why why why does it go this way? And why why why, is all I can say. Somewhere down the road, there'll be answers to the questions; somewhere down the road, though you cannot see it now, somewhere down the road you will find mighty arms reaching for you, and they will hold the answers at the end of the road."

However, although on days like today it looms larger than normal, I almost never cry about him these days. We are happy and life is busy with the girls and the shopping and work and trying to get organised and HE and friends and plans for the future and the niggles of everyday life. There's just a little space for Benjamin, that when looked at becomes as if through a magnifying glass and looks enormous and all-encompassing, but then I turn my gaze away again onto the rest of life and it shrinks back down to that little corner. And I guess that's as it should be.

Life since Kessingland

Feet haven't touched the ground really. I got home around 3.30pm on Saturday, and Bill got home around an hour later with the caravan. At 5.30pm I had to go out as it was our monthly film showing for the Rural Cinema - Kate and I run it in aid of the charity we work for. We showed Nanny McPhee, so an uplifting evening in the celluloid presence of a dishy Colin Firth was great, but the house and family were still in total disarray when I left. This wasn't remedied much the next day as I had to travel down to Farnham to collect our dog from my brother, so after getting home at 8pm and then getting kids to bed there wasn't time or energy for much clearing up. Bill had done a mammoth task sorting out and clearing up the caravan while I was out but the house was in much chaos.

I had planned a productive Monday morning sorting everything out while Tamsin was at Playschool, but an emergency phone call from the Playleader who was short of staff meant I had to go in and cover, so that was that morning gone. In the afternoon I went to Witney to visit a friend, which was most enjoyable. Exhaustion by the evening meant all I was fit for after the kids went to bed was sitting at my computer ;-)

This morning we went off to our women's group at church, where I benefitted from some support after receiving a letter in the post this morning of another friend's child's death in a horrible accident in the garden. And this in a family of 3 sons, one of whom has HLHS like Benjamin had, but it's the youngest healthy son who has died. How horrendous is that? I have so many feelings I just don't know what to do with them all.....

But still, this afternoon I have at last got some tidying done and am feeling just a little better as a result.

So when I tell you there are three draft blog posts about London, Kessingland and Tamsin's 5th birthday last week, I'm sure you will understand that I can't quite get them done just yet, let alone Flickr!

Back later, I hope.