Ramblings

Firstly, a big thank-you (in an awed 'how-does-she-do-it' tone of voice) must go to Nic for being such a fabulous camp organiser, chef, hostess and everything else. My first NicCamps experience had its highs and lows for me but I'm glad I went, and certainly the girls had a great time. For me, Wednesday was the best day, when everybody went to the beach, where the kids had a fabulous time and I enjoyed sitting in November sunshine, eating chips and chatting. It was lovely.

I don't shine in groups, though, as I do much better in one-to-one or very small group situations, once I've got to know people well and can trust them, and I do feel very self-conscious about being quiet and feeling not fully integrated into the group. I'm not good at being funny or joining in lively banter, and I so envy those that are. I'm not a quick thinker; I am a deep thinker, and that takes time! So I feel a bit out of place in the evening chats, not to mention that I am always tired and longing to go to bed by about 10pm!!

On Tuesday I promised to take Jade swimming, as Tuesday is our normal swimming afternoon and she was longing to go. So we missed the walk which sounds as though it was great fun, although it would probably have been difficult as both of my girls would have wanted carrying after about 15 minutes. Instead we drove off to find a swimming pool. Nic directed me to two - the first one I found quite easily but it was shut for staff training followed by lessons; the second one I couldn't find, despite clear directions. (It turned out to have been only about 20 yards further on than the place where I turned round and went back.) So we ended up on Shoreham beach, but without coats, so we didn't stay long. Despite that, Jade had a fabulous time jumping the little waves for about 5 or 10 minutes, and then 5 minutes in the nearby park, and then I was too cold and insisted we went back to the hostel.

I was tired on Thursday, having tried to put on a better show and stay up till midnight the night before. It does not suit me, when Shannon is still waking several times per night. If I had 7 hours straight I would probably be OK, but as it was I was tired and grumpy on Thursday morning The kids' cabaret was fantastic, though - I loved, loved, loved it! After that I thought it would just be hanging around the hostel until the party at 4pm. So it was a big surprise to me when the place pretty much emptied at 2pm and people disappeared off in all directions apart from those staying to prepare the party. So I disappeared to my room, with accompanying girls, of course, who got busy on a computer CD-Rom while I dozed or read my magazine. At 3pm Jade reminded me that I'd promised we could go out and get some strawberries for her, so we went down to the supermarket, wandered around a bit, got some strawberries, and some new pyjamas for me (I only had one complete pair of pyjamas and I bought them when pregnant with Benjamin!!) and then back for the party. Which was fabulous. And extremely well organised!! And great fun for everyone, I think, even Jade who does not like joining in party games. I was impressed that she had a go at the 'acting out the phrase on a Love Heart' game, with my help.

Took the slow way home on Friday, firstly going to visit some old friends, a retired couple who used to live in Stratford-on-Avon, who I absolutely adore and it was fabulous to see them for the first time in about 4 years. Then on to my Mum's in Alton to pick up the dog. We left there about 4pm and called in to see Bill at work in Oxford on the way home. We eventually got home at 7pm, though Shannon had slept in the car at lunchtime so neither of them went to bed till about 10pm.

Today has been rather gloomy at home with various pressures and strains rising to the surface and not being dealt with very well. The word 'congruence' keeps coming to mind, which apart from its maths usage is the psychological term for being integrated inwardly and outwardly, i.e. what you feel inside is the way you behave outwardly. I'm not good at it. Actually I'm rambling, but I'm bloody miserable so I can't think straight. I'd better stop.

"I'm not birthday girl, I'm Shannon!"

Yes, my baby is 3!!! I can hardly believe it's 3 years since that unexpectedly early home-birth. From that tiny baby, she's grown into a funny, feisty and formidable character, who goes from lecturing me ("don't you do that!") to affectionate cuddles and kisses in the space of just a moment or two. She so knows her own mind, is fierce with her anger and her love, and is in no doubt at all about who she is ... her favourite statement is "I'm not (gorgeous/a monkey/cuteypie, whatever's just been said to her), I'm Shannon!!" She's a dancer, a comedienne, a story-teller and a book-lover. She loves to turn the pages of the Sonlight Instructor Guide or any other folder of paper, and she loves to bounce anywhere and everywhere. She adores her big sister, and so wants to be like her, but doesn't want anyone to be like she is - "stop copying me!!" being her second-favourite phrase! She has brought such a lot of joy and laughter into our lives and we're all completely in love with her, even Jade, though she'll only admit it when Shannon's asleep. We're so glad we got to have her in our family! Happy Birthday for yesterday, Shannon - I hope you never grow out of those kisses and cuddles!

Working Wednesday

Not much to report from yesterday as I was working all day. Girls stayed at home with Bill. I think the most enthusiastic learning took place in the early evening, when I was at my computer and Bill was in the living room, looking at a book about the Titanic, with Jade. They spent ages looking at it together, with Jade asking many questions and Bill answering. It was lovely to hear her so interested in it.

Today I had offered to give somebody a lift to our Gloucester office, so had to be up and out by 9am to collect her and drive her over. Took the girls too, and borrowed the work cash-and-carry card for the first time. There were definitely some bargains to be had if you have sufficient storage space for bulk buying, which I don't. I did get some stuff, but have not yet compared prices to see how much cheaper it is than Tesco's. I'll have to muse on how much it's worth trying to clear storage space to be able to buy stuff in bulk.

After that we were starving, so we went to the nearby Sainsbury's for lunch, followed by a quick shop. Most needed item was new socks for Jade, but I was also delighted when I saw a dress reduced from £22 to £2, so I grabbed that! I wasn't sure how 'me' it was, but for a couple of quid it was worth a try, and actually it's pretty nice! We'll skim over the fact that Jade commented this evening that I look like I'm going to have another baby .... thanks for nothing, kid! So I may have been enjoying chocolate and crisps a bit too much lately......

Anyway, then we drove back home to spend an afternoon with my Dad who came over to deliver Shannon's birthday present (it's on Saturday) and to collect some printouts from the web I'd done for him. So that was a nice couple of hours.

And then we sat and watched "March of the Penguins" which I'd rented to follow up a little on our viewing of "Happy Feet" which we saw a couple of weeks ago during National Schools Film Week. Jade sat all the way through it and watched with interest, I was pleased to see. I thought it was amazing.

Then the usual dinner, a little TV, a bit of playing, and a lot of procrastination about bedtime. But now all is quiet.

Another good'un

It felt like another positive day today, despite not getting much underway till after 11am. Before that it was breakfast, showering (me), bathing (girls) (Jade loves baths and always wants one after I shower and stays in for ages!), second breakfast, Jade and I both spending ages reading the Bright Minds catalogue which arrived in the post and marking up various interesting-looking things, getting the dry washing in, the wet washing on the line, another load in the machine, and brushing a cushion's worth of fluff from the dog!

After that I persuaded her to have another go at some copywork she (deliberately) messed up yesterday, then she did a couple of pages from the Letts Maths (5-6) workbook, and then we had lunch!

I read some more chapters of "My Father's Dragon", and then we had a quick look at "Everyday Things" or whatever that Usborne book is called, which was a couple of pages about trees, then she answered a few questions about what we'd read.

Meanwhile Shannon spent a LOT of time turning the pages of the Sonlight Instructor Guide. For some reason, she finds this absolutely fascinating and can spend ages doing it!

I thought there was something else at that stage, some more reading or something, but I can't remember what. Whatever. Afterwards, we started carving our pumpkins!! I went online and found a free pattern that I liked (cat sitting on the moon, + stars), and Jade stayed with the traditional grinning toothy face. Both girls helped scoop out the gunk from inside - er, actually no they didn't because Shannon didn't like the feel of it and was wailing that it was 'gloddy' when she got some gloop on her arm and foot - a lovely word, I thought! She did help clean the top of the hob, though! Then I carved, and cleared up, and roasted pumpkin seeds, while they went off and played. The pumpkin seeds were ready, and none of us liked them - they were too woody.

By now it was around 4pm so I got the girls dressed (usual barely-clothed state most of the day) and we gathered up most of our library books and went to get a new batch, ready for being away next week. Then the girls watched more Tom & Jerry on DVD while I made dinner. Shannon took ages to fall asleep and I got cross with her, and Jade is still awake (10.45pm).

P.S. 2 soggy accidents today from Shannon plus 3 successful potty visits.

Oh, and FWIW, as a PS to yesterday Jade spent quite a while (with my help and encouragement) on Education City and I got her doing some of the literacy activities she hadn't done before and she did really well. She hasn't done any of the maths. No surprises there then!

Pants!

Yesterday, Shannon wore pants all day for the first time! relatively successfully! I think there was one 'accident' in the mid-afternoon but the rest of the time she did very well. And we even went out for the morning, to church. She is very good at using the potty/toilet when naked, but previously whenever clothed she would just assume she had a nappy on and use it! I decided to persist with the pants, though, and just keep checking/reminding her to use the potty.

Today hasn't been quite so good as she said she needed a poo but refused to go on the potty, or have a nappy on, so just made a horrid mess! I put everything she was wearing in the bin! Ah well, on the whole we're making progress of a sort.

I hadn't meant for last week to slip by with no 'work' going on, but with L-from-next-door round here most of the time it was difficult to get on with anything much. We decided to get back to it this morning, and I had just settled down with everyone on the sofa to get on with the story of Moses when the doorbell rang and there was L again! One of those dratted Inset days! Anyway, I just made her sit and listen too, and she and Jade both seemed to really enjoy the story, read from two different books, from Moses' birth all the way through to the Ten Commandments, all territory which we haven't covered before so that was good.

By then it was lunchtime! OK, so before the Moses stuff we had done some tidying, dancing, and general procrastination!

After lunch I had to do something about the dire lack of food in the house, so took all 3 girls to the local small supermarket where they were incredibly LOUD but at one point we all had a fit of the giggles so I thought that was an improvement on the demeanour of most people when shopping!

The rest of the afternoon the girls have played with another girl from across the road, mostly on the trampoline. In fact L and J just appeared downstairs naked except for towels wrapped round them and announced they were going to do a 'naked dance'! Sadly L's brother then called for her to go home for tea, so that delight will have to wait for another day!!

Okaaaaaay.....

Don't know why I've been MIA, really. Been quite busy but also just got out of the habit of blogging, I guess.

I really don't think I've got this HE thing quite right for our family, TBH, but not really got time to work out anything much different to what we are doing. We have Sonlight K, which officially we started in January and we are currently on Week 6!!! Obviously we get very sidetracked. I've been trying to stick to it more recently, just to see what it's like to have a definite programme to follow and to see if it works for us, and I'm not sure that it does. We are doing a fair bit of non-SL stuff, e.g. Story of the World, and Miquon maths (which isn't listed in the schedule even though a maths programme is part of the SL plan) plus all sorts of other bits and pieces I have picked up here and there, and yet I feel a great pressure to do as much of the stuff listed for each day as possible, regardless of whether it's working or not. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this yet, except keep a kind of 'watching brief' on it. I do feel I'd like to get significantly further into SL K before dropping it. Maybe we will find a way of using it without me feeling so compelled to either follow it or feel as though we are 'behind'. I do feel it is helping us (Jade and me in particular) to get into the habit of sitting down and doing a bit of formal work each morning, and then I feel more relaxed about just letting the rest of the day unfold.

Anyway, after all of that preamble, yesterday we started some Miquon simple addition and subtraction. Now, we've done this a few times before, but there's been quite a gap since we last did much maths. It's amazing to me, though, that a girl age 6y who has a reading age of somewhere between 9 and 10 (last time I checked) has such trouble with very simple numbers. For example, at one point today I asked her 1 + 1, and it took her a good 5 seconds to work out the answer! After coming up against this problem yesterday, though, I got out the Cheerios to use as manipulatives. Maths is much more fun when you get to eat the answer when you get it correct! We were just doing very simple addition and subtraction up to 10. I think doing this for several days in a row just for 5-10 minutes at a time should help, and she enjoyed it so much yesterday that she actually asked to do it again today! She really does seem to find the simplest mental arithmetic surprisingly hard, though.

We then went on to do three pages of 'Beyond the Code', which she has no trouble with at all. We did a couple more pages of that today too.

At lunch time yesterday we continued with her current passionate love of all things horsey by showing her the 'Join Up' video with Monty Roberts, aka 'The Horse Whisperer' - the original! It's absolutely stunning, and I would have thought that even the non-horsey couldn't fail to be impressed and amazed at the man's learning of equine body language, and what he does with it. It always moves me to tears when a wild horse moves towards him to 'join up' with him - it really is almost spiritual and deeply powerful.

I also attempted to make her a 'woollie' horse (link supplied by Sally) which came out looking more like a giraffe, and she wasn't motivated to have a go on her own!!

In the afternoon we went out to do a bit of food shopping and visit the Post Office, and she nagged me into buying her a 'Pony World' magazine because it had a free 'angel pony' on the front, which she has played with ever since. After we got home, it was time for next-door-neighbour L to come round and play, so that was that!

Today we've done the Cheerios/miquon maths, a bit more Beyond the Code, I've read a library book 'Tarquin the Wonder Horse' and looked at a Trains book, both before we go to the library this afternoon and change them. I've also got her whizzing quite quickly through one of the free Letts workbooks picked up free through that St Ivel Advance Milk promotion - oh I see that all the free books have gone now but you can still get 50% off Letts workbooks. I got an age 5-6 one seeing as she finds it such a struggle, and also to check if we'd left any gaps in her early maths! She did 9 pages of that this morning, and most of it was pretty easy but there's nothing wrong with making her feel that maths is easy!!

Meanwhile, Shannon was sitting with us at the table, looking through her BBC Toybox magazine, doing a bit of colouring, a bit of playdough, and a bit of being a nuisance!

They're currently watching Tom & Jerry and we're off swimming this afternoon, and then to drop in to the library on the way home.

The Mom's Overture

One of these days I will blog properly, honest, but for now, here's another one of these:

My own feelings precisely!

Innocence lost?

Jade started asking about Father Christmas last night. I asked her if she really wanted me to always tell her the truth, and she said yes. So I told her that Father Christmas was just a story that everybody enjoyed pretending about, but that he didn't really come and fill her stocking with presents. She seemed fairly relaxed about that. It feels like a bigger deal to me than to her, I think! In fact I had started off when she was about 3 or 4 telling her that it was a fun story, in order to avoid conflict between believing in Father Christmas (benevolent kind man who goes round giving nice gifts to people) with God/Jesus (loving benevolent being/man who goes round doing good to people). One true, the other not. (OK, save your arguments about that for another time - I'm too tired right now!) But somewhere down the line she seemed to start believing it and I hadn't the heart to keep saying it was just a story, but last night I felt I had to. The only thing she seemed bothered about was who did put the presents in her stocking then? I told her it was love that put them there. I think that retains enough magic combined with the truth!!

Anyway, I have been horribly tired the past day or so and can't be bothered to try and do a full run-down of the educational stuff. Today was mostly a trip to Stratford for a couple of things - ended up buying about 10 books from a charity shop so that was a good haul. Some Rainbow Fairy ones, a couple of pony stories (she's absolutely crazy about anything horse/pony related at the moment), Art School and Nature School, and Fraction Jugglers, all at 99p each. In fact, I have so many lovely resources which I'm using more of than I'm using Sonlight, that I'm considering not persisting with Sonlight all the way through, which I had anticipated, but maybe just getting a few of their titles that I really like and just making up the rest as we go along. I don't know - I'll have to think about it some more, but it seems we could do what Sonlight do an awful lot more cheaply, although without all the help and pre-prepared answers of course. Not that I'm using those much at the moment anyway.

Must go and do something now - we're off this weekend to visit DH's Dad up north so should pack or something. Would rather just go to bed.

Tuesday's appointment with the speech therapist went well. She is very nice, well trained and experienced in SM so we are confident she knows what she's doing. Not so sure about the psychiatrist we will see next Tuesday who is training so possibly will be less help. We'll see.

We've been giving the Education City trial a go, which has been OK in parts but Jade is very reluctant to have a go at anything she doesn't think she can get completely right and is always asking me whether she's got it right before she will click the button! She doesn't want to have a go at subjects she's not so sure on! Will encourage her to have a go more tomorrow when she comes in to work with me. After all, we know she doesn't have to practice her phonics, spelling or vocabulary - it's the other stuff I want her to have a go at!

Been doing a bit more Story of the World (Sumerians/Akkadians/The Jewish people) and she learned and recited a Mother Goose poem earlier this week. I videoed her reciting it and showed it to the speech therapist, to prove she could talk! Shannon joined in too, and they did a duet of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" - it was very sweet.

It's all starting to come together ... I think!

The living room remains tidy! It's lovely, it is really helping my mood. I did have to dump a pile of boxes full of junk in the other room (should be the dining room, but is full of books and computers so don't actually know what to call it!). I am sorting through the boxes slowly and hope to find a proper space for everything or throw it away. Flylady says 15 minutes a day decluttering will get the job done so that's my minimum aim. I plunged into the tidying/cleaning all of a sudden on Thursday because we had an unexpected visit from a neighbour on Wednesday evening and I was so embarrassed about the state of the house, and again feeling very frustrated that I couldn't seem to get a few hours to myself (without children) while I was feeling energetic and inspired in order to get on with it, when I suddenly realised they were both going to be at the childminders on Thursday morning and I didn't have too much to do at work so I could take about 3 hours off and come home and get it done!

We are getting back into the swing of regular activities and work at home. However I have already twice offered the alternative of school if she really doesn't want to do what we do at home!! We're getting on quite well with Story of the World and the related activity book, and some other misc bits and pieces (odd bits of maths, writing 'All About Me' in a fill-in-the-spaces type book, some Usborne Spanish, a trial of Education City) but it all feels very haphazard and bitty to me. The trouble is I have so many books and resources and I want to use them all!

Shannon has been most irritating today - it seemed like she was constantly shouting, grizzling, whining for mummy milk, or making lots of noise just while I was trying to read to Jade, and I was really having to raise my voice to be heard. Jade kept interjecting comments about the dolls she was fiddling about with while I was reading, and it felt like really hard work. I do feel I'm not doing HE in the most interesting/stimulating way possible. Jade likes books and reading, but I think she needs more interaction/activity than we have at the moment. It's all looking a little bit too much like school for my liking - not very imaginative.

Shannon's toilet/potty learning is coming along nicely! After thinking it was never going to happen (she's a whole year later than Jade), she now seems to have pretty much got the hang of wees on the potty or toilet, whichever is nearest, as long as she's not wearing anything on her bottom half. If she has a nappy on, she stops bothering to think about potties. So I don't even want to risk putting pants on her till it's a bit more consolidated - she still only gives a few seconds' notice! We even managed to catch a poo on the potty yesterday and she seemed happy enough about that! We haven't risked going out without a nappy yet, though.

Tomorrow we (DH and I, but without the girls) have an appointment to see the Speech and Language Therapist for an initial appointment to explain all about Jade's reluctance to speak, and I hope we will begin to formulate a plan. We have also had an appointment through with the Child Mental Health Services for next week, so things should start to take shape.

Look at my living room!

It's tidy! It's clean! It's lovely!!!





Oh, er, but look at my garden:




Guess what I'm going to be doing this afternoon!

Back to work!

Phew, once the girl-next-door started back at school on Thursday, we were able to get back to a bit of edyookayting! It's a relief not to have her in the house from morning till night every day!

So, with that usual back-to-it burst of enthusiasm that will probably last about 5 days max, we launched into some Story of the World last Friday out on the lawn in the sunshine. It was lovely! I read, we looked at the globe, filled in a photocopied map, she answered some questions, etc. Didn't get much else formal done that day - it still amazes me how little we manage to get done in the midst of requests for food, soothing bumps, getting the washing done, preparing more food, rushing Shannon to the toilet, walking the dog, trying to tidy up a bit and the girls' games and adventures. Never mind, Jade is still only 6 so if she prefers to spend most of her time in a world of fairies, unicorns and magical happenings then that's fair enough really!

On Saturday the Fire Service Training College nearby had a rare open day - I think it might only be the second one in the 11 years we've lived here and we were away on holiday last time. So we were keen to go along and have a nose around the place seeing as security is normally so high you can't see a thing. We had a lovely day including a ride on a fire engine racing along with siren blaring, a guided minibus tour round the 'fire ground' where they have all the training scenarios and buildings set up, fire dogs demonstrating sniffing out fire-starting stuff at the scene of an arson attack, and road accident rescues involving cutting open cars to get people out. It was fascinating, and I was particularly surprised but heartened by Jade saying how interesting it was seeing the car rescue equipment and air bags and so on. It was not what we imagined we'd be doing when 17 years ago we were getting married on 8th September, but it was good anyway!

On Sunday after church in the morning, we took the girls over to my Dad's and Bill and I had an extremely rare afternoon out together in celebration of our anniversary. It was most refreshing to actually spend time together without two adorable but demanding small people inserting themselves inbetween us at every opportunity! We must do it more often.

Today I've tried to get back into the swing of Sonlight - which we began in January and I reckon we are now on Week 4!!!! There have been lots of diversions along the way, obviously! We've done 6 pages of maths, she's written out a Bible verse which is one that we've been trying to drum into her anyway seeing as it's something she clearly needs to learn - "Treat other people the way you want them to treat you." - they've listened to an Usborne Spanish Beginner's tape and both girls have been practising bits of that, and at bedtime she's read out loud to me one chapter of her current reading book "Nina Fairy Ballerina" which she has then continued reading to herself when I left her in bed. I am again amazed that though it seemed like a full and busy morning we actually have done only a small proportion of what 'ought' to have been today's work - we haven't been anywhere near the history or the science or the other language arts stuff. We had an HE friend visiting this afternoon with her 6-year old and Jade treated her nicely after I talked her through the behaviour I expected of her beforehand so that was a bonus and a relief!

Another catch-up

I'll try and begin where I left off - just about to go to Greenbelt.

Friday 24th was my birthday, so I woke up to Bill bringing me breakfast in bed, with a lovely heap of cards and stuff. As expected Jade was desperate to help me open and unwrap, but I managed mostly to fend her off! DH's card said my prezzie was behind the sofa, so after getting up we went downstairs and I found a ................ bass guitar!!!! Lovely surprise! I've been talking about wanting to learn for a year or two, but hadn't mentioned it for ages and it had kind of faded into the background a bit, so that was a lovely surprise and so far I have done Lesson 1 of the accompanying book!

Then we had to get sorted out fairly quickly and break the news to Jade that we were off to see a doctor about her. Bill explained it to her very well and light-heartedly, and she was absolutely fine about it!! We saw a consultant psychiatrist together with a trainee, both women, with a view to exploring what we saw as the problem, what we wanted to do about it, what help we were looking for, what steps we felt we would like them to take - all very 'us-centred' which I thought was excellent. Jade of course didn't say a word through the whole thing but was relaxed enough to nod her head in response to a question from me which sometimes is too much for her so I was quite impressed by that. They agreed that they can help us, and will work together with the Speech Therapist that I had contacted separately a couple of weeks ago. We are now just waiting for them to let us know when we can go along. We have heard from the speech therapist now who can see us mid-September so that's good.

Then we went home to do the final bits of packing up before setting off for Greenbelt. It's only a 45 minute drive from here, and we arrived I think around 2pm and then had to wait for about 2 hours in a mammoth queue before we could get onto the campsite. We managed to find the Raine Drops and Off the Path folk along with their other friends, and later were joined nearby by the Deep Enders, so we had a nice weekend with other people around, although GB being as action-packed as it usually is we don't get to see as much of each other as we might like.

Pre-kids, I used to find GB frustrating, although wonderful. It was frustrating because there is so much stuff going on, much of it (talks etc) powerful and potentially life-changing, and much of it has time-clashes and anyway I only have a finite amount of energy and can't get to everything. With kids, that frustration is massively multiplied. I went to a lovely calming and centring Taize service along with Jan and Barbara on Friday night, and after that didn't manage to get to anything of any substance at all on Saturday, for various reasons mostly linked to the children's needs and desires. The plan was for Shannon to go into a children's play session in the afternoon while DH took Jade off to the bouncy castles (she of course won't go near the organised kids sessions), and so I could have a chunk of the afternoon doing things I wanted. It required a 45-minute wait in a queue in the blazing sunshine in order to get a token to qualify to get into the kids' session, and then 15 minutes before the actual time, Shannon fell asleep on my lap.

I am seriously considering somehow going without the kids next year. GB for me is the highlight of my entire year, it refreshes the parts that other festivals cannot reach and even that church cannot reach, it opens up new ways of thinking and being and worshipping and looking at the world, and it touches me in ways I can't even describe. I hate frittering much of it away because my kids want to go on bouncy castles or something!

Sunday and Monday were better. And one workshop session I went to (called "Smiley spirituality can change the world") about positive psychology was very illuminating about Jade in one particular respect. Without going into too much detail, it seems that the over-sensitive part of her brain that leads her to social anxiety and selective mutism is also the same part of the brain that deals with feelings like "it's mine!" or "I want it now!" and other such primitive urges, so she's over-sensitive there as well. That would explain a LOT of bad behaviour that we have been wondering about as to whether it is just 'normal' or whether she is in fact more demanding in those areas than other 6-year olds. It turns out she probably is! What we do about it is another question entirely, and one we haven't explored deeply yet, except since getting home we have had a family meeting and together agreed the way we want other people to treat us, and therefore the way we have to treat them in return.

Anyway, since getting back from GB I find I am more deeply challenged than before about the gap between rich and poor, how I am one of the rich of this world (despite not feeling like it in our society), the stupidity and emptiness of consumerism and how that is not where happiness lies, about what am I doing to care for others, climate change and environmental challenges generally, and other stuff. Much thought and prayer is ensuing. Who knows when it will result in a clearer vision as to what is my own personal mission in life? - God's not usually in much of a hurry about these things! He prefers to take it nice and slow. "I want it now!!!" (Hmm, sounds familiar!)

Anyway one of my first decisions, after something that prompted me at GB, was to decide that one day per week should be computer-free, so for me that works best on Sundays. It felt at times like a deprivation, but also a nice oasis of peace on Sunday evening which carried on into Monday morning.

Time to put the kids to bed. More later (maybe).

Off we go!

To Greenbelt! I love it - this will be my 20th year in attendance and it just sorts me out in all sorts of ways. And there will be the Off the Path'ers, the Raine Drops and the Deep Enders so it's going to be fab!

And it's my birthday tomorrow! I've bought a lovely big sticky chocolate cake to take with us, plus a bottle of Baileys and a couple of bottles of wine to share tomorrow evening - fab!!

But before we go tomorrow morning, we have an appointment at the local outpatients dept here in town for us and Jade to see someone from Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services about her selective mutism. She doesn't know yet as I'm pretty sure she won't want to go and I want to limit the amount of protest we all have to undergo. Not sure if that's the right decision but it's where we've ended up, anyway.

So much to write, so little time

I've been meaning to blog for a few days now but time just escapes me. Here are a few highlights:

Shannon has been spending quite a bit of time putting the organs back into the anatomical man, and doing fairly well!

Her language is coming on every day, with more and more full sentences and new phrases. I love it! This morning I told her she was going to see Mandy (the childminder) later on and she said, "I'm a bit sad." "Why, because you're going to see Mandy?" I said, surprised because she absolutely loves going to the childminder. "Yes," she said. "And I'm a bit excited!" I thought that was a lovely summary of her mixture of feelings!

I did a poster together with Jade earlier this week, of all the things we could think of that are good/lovely about her or that she is good at. She really enjoyed doing it, contributed a lot, enjoyed decorating it prettily and has it hung up in her bedroom. Something at least has helped - last night she got out of bed and came downstairs again while I was on the phone, and while hanging around waiting for me she wrote a note "Jade is nise." I've been trying to remember to thank and praise her every time I catch her doing something positive/helpful/kind.

I've also had a breakthrough with getting help for her selective mutism. An acquaintance I bumped into last weekend who is a speech therapist in Sheffield told me that in her area, parents can refer their own children for speech therapy, and she suggested I enquire whether we can here. I did, and we can! So I did! She is now on the waiting list for the local speech and language therapist who hopes to see us by the end of September, and what's more, she has obviously treated SM before as she talked knowledgeably about it! Result!!! So many people get referred to people who haven't got a clue, so I'm really encouraged. The referral to Mental Health services remains in place as the SLT said she can often work together with the MH team with good results.

Persuaded DH to come swimming with us all last weekend, because Jade is at the stage where she needs a bit of one-to-one support and she'll soon be swimming without armbands. We had a fantastic session and she is so close to being able to swim. She just needs the confidence to know she can do it, TBH. And Shannon made her own breakthrough in letting go of a parent for the first time, and hanging on to the edge of the pool and walking round on tiptoe on her own, the first time she's touched the bottom!

Had a real disappointment this week also. Money is extremely tight in this household, and holidays are pretty scarce (our entire holiday budget is £30 per month) and are pretty much always just a week away in our ancient and tatty caravan, that's if we manage to afford anything on top of MuddlePuddle camps! Going abroad is a sweet but extremely rare luxury. A few weeks ago I managed to grab some Ryanair tickets to Venice in early October for all 4 of us. Even 1p flight offers are too much for us after you've added in taxes etc, but in this offer the airline were even paying all the taxes! All we had to pay was £10 each for baggage handling. I didn't tell DH about it because I didn't even know if we would be able to find anywhere cheap enough to stay, so thought I'd sit tight until I'd searched and seen if I could come up with anything. I was innocently telling my Dad this tale on Monday, and like the true treasure he is, he went home, checked with his wife and then phoned me to say they'd give us £200 towards accommodation! I was really thrilled. I could actually truly begin to imagine us having a lovely week's holiday in Venice! DH came home that evening and happened to be telling me about how his boss had to have some surgery, and told me the dates and I nearly had a heart attack because it overlapped with the dates I had booked away. Just to backtrack a little, DH works in a university (in computer services) and as far as I was concerned, he had been told that he couldn't have holiday in September because that's when the students arrive and they all have to be allocated computer access and got set up on the network and so on. Anyway I thought I'd better tell DH about the holiday booking, which I did, and he said he would check because he wasn't allowed holiday from mid-September to mid-October!!!! Turns out there is no way he can take holiday for when our flights are booked. Expletive, expletive, expletive! I am so disappointed!

To try and have a bit of spontaneous fun, I have decided to take Jade to London tomorrow. My Dad will have Shannon for the day. First Great Western are doing half-price train tickets this week on our bit of line due to it being closed for about 4 weeks after the floods. We'll be arriving mid-morning, hopping straight onto a tour bus, hope to go to the National Portrait Gallery and then Covent Garden market in the afternoon where there is free entertainment connected with Kids Week. I have been dithering about it all week, again because of the cost, but I got two work expenses cheques yesterday so suddenly feel like I can afford it!

I'm sure there was loads more educational stuff, but it's disappeared from memory. Must try harder!

Sunny, but with dark clouds appearing

We've had a lovely day, but it's been overshadowed for me by Jade's comment this morning while I was brushing her hair. We were both facing the mirror and I was eulogising about how beautiful her hair was, and showing her. She said "I don't like my hair. And I don't like myself." Now as a one-off comment maybe it shouldn't be taken to heart, but put together with lots of her other behaviour and comments, I think she means it. It nearly broke my heart. Have been desperately wracking my brains all day long to try and think how to convince her that she is fab! And of course riddled with mother-guilt that it's all my fault!

However there was not much time to hang around and wrestle with the matter there and then as I had arranged to meet a friend up at the park. She has a little boy the same age as Shannon, and a newborn boy too. And we ended up being there all morning in the sunshine, which was lovely. I got a long and lovely baby-cuddle, and then both my girls insisted on having several turns holding the baby too and both adored the experience! Shannon would quite like for us to have one, I think ("my turn to have it", she kept insisting!), and so would Jade but only if it stayed small and didn't grow up to be a nuisance! Anyway there's no chance of that having to be put to the test!

So we walked home eating ice-creams, had lunch in front of the telly, and then they played while I attempted to tidy/organise some of the toys a little better. After that I enticed them outside with a big bowl of water and some paintbrushes to 'paint' the patio while I attacked the kitchen. Then they both came into the kitchen to 'help' while I started making pastry for quiche. Jade did help with weighing, mixing and rolling, and then I gave her a spare bit of pastry to play with while I did the rest of the dinner. Meanwhile Shannon played in the sink and splashed loads of water everywhere. After a while they swapped over, so a very pleasant hour or so was spent in the kitchen, for a change!

While the quiche was cooking we got out the "Alpha Animals" game which I bought on Sunday from the charity shop for £1.99, which in its simplest form necessitated thinking of animals beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Then we ate dinner while watching the second half of the DVD we started yesterday - "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" about the missionary to China, Gladys Aylward, about whom we'd read in our Sonlight stuff a few months ago. I didn't think Jade was paying that much attention, but at the end she said, "That was brilliant"! I was surprised but pleased!

A quick tidy-up, a quick bath, and a very long session of bedtime story ("My Magical Pony" and she was desperate to find out what happened so I just kept reading") and I'm just about to go up and check that Jade's asleep. Shannon conked out pretty quicky after the bath.

More pics

Having downloaded the pics from my camera to get the one in the post below, I thought I'd throw in a few others too!

First..... THE FLOOD!



OK, so it's not all that clear, but you might be able to see that the trampoline is standing in a lake!


Next, another of Jade's pics which I thought was very expressive, when she was feeling sad:



Talking of Jade being expressive, I bet you've never seen her like this:



Yes, she is noisy, funny, animated and bossy when playing with L from next door! I do wish she could show her character to everybody else instead of feeling she wants to hide.

On the other hand, I don't suppose this little character will surprise anybody:

I hadn't realised it was so long since I blogged properly.

The slump has mostly gone - don't know why it came; don't know why it went away, LOL! Of course that doesn't stop me being overtired and grumpy rather too frequently, but at least it's not an overall malaise. In fact I treated myself to a very rare afternoon off yesterday on mental health grounds. I was feeling overwhelmed by the constant interruptions and demands of 2 (or 3 when L the neighbour is visiting, which is most of the time) small girls, and in particular, Jade's clinginess when we go out. We went to a local fete on Saturday afternoon, and to church on Sunday morning, and in public places like that where she feels shy and anxious she is all over me all the time. Her hands are up my top, pulling on my skirt, stretching my sleeves, hanging on to me, wanting to be picked up and carried, leaning on me, and it drives me bonkers!! And all that on top of a couple of really bad nights of sleep due to Shannon's shenanigans! I just had to get away where I could finish a thought that I began, and was not being touched and clung to all the time. So I left the girls at home with DH and went to Stratford. I spent a bit of time shopping, where I could browse uninterrupted (bliss) and a bit of time sitting on the grass by the river, where there were hordes of people so I enjoyed a bit of people-watching, a bit of peace and quiet and a bit of reading my book that I'd taken. Utter bliss! Treated myself to some jewellery from Monsoon at 70% off so that was an utter bargain, and a jewellery box which was supposed to be my Mum's birthday present to me a year ago but I never found one I liked till now! Found a couple of bargains in a charity shop too - a Per Una t-shirt, an animal board game and a new bag for carting all my stuff round.

We seem to have given up on overt education for the summer. Not by design, but by omission. A couple of times Jade has asked to do some 'learning' stuff, but time just slides away and it doesn't happen. She's having a fab time mostly playing outside with L the neighbour, spending loads of time on the trampoline and enjoying the good weather, at last, so that's no bad thing. She's done a lovely picture this morning - a labelled collage. She's stuck various things down and then labelled them without asking spellings and they're pretty good! There's "cotten wooll", "string", "paper", "flap", "cicele" (circle) and then "drew by Tamsin"!!! She asked me if I thought it was excellent, but before answering I asked her if she thought it was excellent, and she said yes, and I said that's what really matters. I did say I thought it was excellent as well, though.

(edited to add the pic)


I've been doing a fair bit of reading to her, mainly lightweight stories like Secret Unicorn, Magic Kitten, Magic Pony, Rainbow Fairies which she can of course read on her own but she likes me to read to her and I quite like it too so we're both relatively happy with that! After everybody else recommending the Magic Tree House books I have just won 14 off Ebay from the USA, costing $14 or about £7 which is fab, but apparently the cheapest postage now is $28!!! I suppose £21 for 14 books is still not too bad but I didn't want to pay that much so fortunately my brother who lives in Kansas is due to come over in September so I'm getting them delivered to him for $3 and he can bring them over!!

And now we're off swimming, so that's all for now.

At last!

I've completed that DfES consultation on Home Education. Been putting that off for ages - glad I've got it done! I was number 470.

Potty success!

Shannon actually did a proper wee on the potty!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!

Fatigue, floods and being fed-up

I am still in the slump that started last weekend. Maybe even a bit depressed, though I don't know why. Can't be bothered with anything, feel tired and unmotivated and generally blah. So I'm doing nothing constructive with the girls but just letting them free-range with toys and the trampoline and too much but not completely unrestricted TV. Whether it's a cause or an effect, I don't know, but there is a huge amount of sibling jealousy going on especially from Jade's end. They're squabbling and fighting more often than not, and Jade frequently says things like, "I wish I could cut Shannon in half". Charming. I am so sick of dealing with their arguments.

So 30 hours or so of torrential rain starting in the small hours of Friday did nothing to improve my mood. We were obviously stuck in the house all day, though did venture for a 10 minute walk to the post box and back. We ended up with a small lake in the back garden, though nothing in the house. DH got home late, soaked up to his hips, and it was only then I discovered that the main street in our little town was flooded in 4-5 feet of water, and he'd had to abandon his car on the other side of town and wade home. I went out with the dog at about 11.30 pm and viewed the scene - very strange to see streets turned into rivers. Call me hard-hearted if you like, but I really cannot feel that it's such a huge tragedy to have your house flooded several inches. Sure, it's a pain, a nuisance and hard horrible work to clear it all up, but no, it's not a tragedy. Having buried one of my children I really can't understand calling the physical loss of material possessions a tragedy. So there. Having said that, DH has just discovered that the flashing round our chimney has leaked and soaked loads of stuff (maps, slides, electronic bits and bobs) in the cupboard in our bedroom and he's spending ages sorting it all out so he may not agree with me!

Isabelle did her first ever few drops of wee in the potty on Friday, after I caught her starting to go on the floor. I persuaded her to sit on the potty for aaaaaages, and she managed a few drops. There were great celebrations and then I was just IMing with DH telling him all about it when she let loose torrents all over the sofa, cushions and floor!!! Jade was totally dry day and night just after she was 2, so I'm feeling a bit frustrated that it's taking so much longer for Shannon.

Anyway you probably wish you'd not bothered to come by my blog today, so I'll stop before I depress you all any more.

Ahem (embarrassed but pleased)

Thanks Jax for the link.

I saw a fairy in the woods yesterday

Am feeling grumpy and lethargic and have been for over 24 hours now, so this will not be a scintillating blog post but thought I'd better catch up anyway.

I cannot blog about what we did on Tuesday, for complicated reasons which I can't go into now, but it was a lovely day, and one which I wish we could have much more often. I will mention, though, that Jade threw a complete strop at the thought of going off with my Dad for an hour while I visited a friend and her new baby. Her separation anxiety is getting worse. I am very sympathetic and encouraging when she's anxious about going somewhere new, but when she's afraid to go with my Dad with whom she's spent far too many hours to calculate over the whole 6 years of her life, well I'm afraid I just got cross with her. It did the trick in the end, although not until it had cut my time down with my friend to about 45 minutes, which is just not enough when she is just getting used to having a new baby after a stillbirth last year.

On Wednesday I went to work, and Jade also moaned and complained that she wanted to come with me instead of staying at home with DH. Apparently she missed me quite a lot that day. Dunno what's going on. Hurry up, NHS, and get that referral going! While I was out, Dh started putting up the new trampoline that arrived on Tuesday, and when I got home we finished it together. Much joy and excitement all round! Oh yes, and we had to go and collect the old estate car from the garage which set us back £370+

I can't remember what we did on Thursday morning, except eventually get everything ready for Shannon to go to the childminder and Jade to come with me to work. I took various 'educational' stuff but she left all the 'serious' stuff in favour of doing a jigsaw puzzle and drawing pictures. That was OK. Worked till 3.15, collected Shannon, visited a friend for half-an-hour, gave a lift to someone to take her cat to the vet, got home, kids played on trampoline etc.

On Friday, Jade begged to go for a walk in the woods dressed as a fairy! Even though it was a bit rainy, I happily obliged and, though I wouldn't have chosen that activity that morning myself, we had a really lovely time and I took several pics of my fairy and my ladybird (Shannon in waterproof ladybird coat) in the woods! We hid in dens, ate a little snack perched on tree stumps, and pretended to be explorers. Pics later, if I can be bothered. Did a couple of errands on the way home, then settled the girls down with some food and a Tom and Jerry DVD while I went upstairs for a nap. That seems to have been a mistake. Ever since then I've felt completely tired and lethargic and very grumpy. I must've put all my biorhythms out of sync or something!

Today I've lolled around in bed all morning and then taken the girls plus L from next door out to the Wildlife Trust nature reserve to collect wildflower seeds - an organised event. I'd never been there before, though, and didn't realise that it would involve a 20 minute hike across muddy and cow-patty fields before we got to the wildflower meadow, by which time Shannon was tired, clingy and waily and it was almost impossible to actually do anything useful. We stayed about 20 minutes and then I left the rest of the group and made a slow trip back, carrying Shannon all the way. Not our most successful field trip! One useful thing was to see a badger sett which the warden says we're allowed to go and watch any time to see if we can spot them one evening. Would love to see wild badgers out playing.

In brief...

Today we have:
* Done cuneiform writing on clay (well, I did cuneiform, Jade did normal writing and decorations, and Shannon just mashed it up!) Pics are available but, erm, prob. not till Weds or Thurs as I don't think I'll have time before then!
* Revised chapter 3 of Story of the World about the earliest writing, covering the relative merits of stone, clay and papyrus.
* Made paper, or to put it more accurately, recycled paper using a paper-making kit. 2 sheets came out very nicely.
* Jade has coloured in Egypt and Sumer on a photocopied map.
* Been out for a walk with the dog.
* Got the living room tidier by the end of the day than it was at the beginning.
* Put Milton-y water through the caravan water system.
* Got one load of washing done.
* The girls have played 'schools' with their dolls and soft toys.

That'll do.

Do ya think I'm sexy?

No, please don't answer that!!! But just a reference to Rod Stewart whom I saw in concert last night!! Great fun. A friend had a spare ticket due to her DH having had emergency knee surgery, so I went along to the Cardiff Millennium Stadium and we had a blast! Wouldn't have particularly called myself a fan, but it was a really good evening and it's got to be impressive when someone can sing 31 songs, nearly all of which were Top 10 or Top 20 hits!!

Tons else been going on here - some nice Story of the World reading and we're going to do some paper making and cuneiform writing on real clay in the next day or two when we get the chance. Also some nice number work (I borrowed tons of lovely resources last week from the Learning Resources section at Oxford Brookes Uni Library (teacher training section) thanks to Bill's staff ticket! And reading books about poo with Isabelle in a so far vain attempt to persuade her to use the potty (several wees on the floor, none in the potty) ....... but no time to blog. 10pm and girls are still up due to an afternoon nap - must put them to bed, and probably myself too!

Out of the swamp!

We wore our wellies ALL week! Yes, Muddle Puddle summer camp was extremely wet. Our awning was flooded for the first half of the week until we moved to a drier spot, therefore the four of us were extremely cramped in our little caravan much of the time. But it says a great deal for the quality of the company that we still had a lovely time, and are glad we didn't miss it.

22nd June

In one way it's a day just like any other. But even after 8 years I can't help giving it a significance - the anniversary of Benjamin's death. I haven't really paid much attention to it today - I didn't even light a candle as I have done in the past. Partly because Jade is always terrified that we're going to have a fire. But as the evening wears on, the memories always grow stronger of that day and night. Rather than dwell, though, on those memories, I just want to set out what he gave me, and what I learned through him being here:

1. He taught me that I am strong. I always had an image of myself as being emotionally weak and unstable, because of the phobia and associated depression I'd had since childhood. But living through the news of his heart defect while I was pregnant, the poor odds in his favour, his short life and his death, taught me that I am indeed a lot stronger than I ever thought I was. I did it - I lived through something I never thought I could cope with - and came out stronger the other side. Nothing else is quite as fearful to me now. I know if I could survive that, I can survive anything.

2. He taught me that children are very, very, very precious. To be honest, I was very ambivalent about motherhood. After I conceived, I was terrified. Wasn't sure I really wanted to do this. The utter, utter joy of having him with us just blew all that away. I am sure I am a better mother because of him.

3. I learned that God really is with me. Isaiah 61 says “He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted ..... to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” We experienced this, for real. Of course, we grieved for Benjamin. But our overwhelming feeling in the months that followed was just pure joy that he had come to be ours, even for a short time. We felt we had been given a precious gift, far more wonderful than we deserved, and we were full of joy, as well as times of pain.

4. I learned to look more to heaven, and less to earth. I seem to have forgotten this lesson as time has gone on, but every now and then I become aware again just how much more important eternity is than this temporary home. I didn't write the poem below, and I don't know who did, but it speaks so strongly to me:

The day will come when I will stand
At the entrance to that perfect land
And there to greet me will be my son
Who will gently show me the wonders to come
In that place where sunshine never ends,
Where the shining waters flow
Through hills and valleys green
Bathed in a golden glow,
And in those heavenly hills I’ll find
The love and beauty which will always be mine,
And once again a mother I’ll be
To that son I loved so tenderly.

******************************

Some people come into our lives
And go very quickly,
Some people come into our lives
And move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to understand
With their passing whisper of their wisdom.
And make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon,
They stay in our lives for a time,
Leaving footprints in our hearts,
And we are never, ever the same

I didn't write that one either, but Benjamin taught my soul to dance, taught me to love, and taught me about joy. I wouldn't have missed it for the world!

I love Freecycle!

Two nights ago, our tumble dryer (received from Freecycle about 2 years ago) went BANG. Yesterday, I saw a tumble dryer offered on Freecycle, was the first to respond, and Bill picked it up on his way home from work this evening! Amazing! Especially since our monthly budget, previously a pretty tight squeeze anyway, has just become impossibly so since I think the Child Tax Credits have just reduced by £100 per month, due to reclaiming an overpayment last year. So we would have had to do without buying a new tumble dryer if it had come to that. Great stuff! Last weekend I also picked up a child's trailer bike, so that as and when my bike becomes roadworthy again, I can tow Jade along behind me and know that she is (relatively) safe.

Anyway, this morning began in the usual relaxed fashion, or in fact even more so as a miracle occurred last night! I decided on the spur of the moment to put Shannon to sleep in her own bed, instead of ours, having left her to Bill's tender ministrations during the night for the past 3 weeks or so to stop her feeding at night. She fell asleep at about 8.30pm, woke once at about 4am and came to find me, so I returned her straight to her own bed and got in with her. She thought she could have 'hungry', but I said it wasn't morning yet, and she wailed in protest. I braced myself for it to go on for quite a while, but in fact it was just one quick grumble, grumpily took herself off to lie on my feet, and fell straight back to sleep. Then we didn't hear her again till 7am. I THINK WE MAY HAVE DONE IT!!!!!!!!! The girl who has woken 4-6+ times per night for the last 2.5 years only woke up once!!!!!! I'll probably bring champagne to camp to celebrate!!!!

'Scuse me, getting carried away there, but the prospect of regular full nights sleep after 6 years without (Jade was just the same till she was about 3) is getting me a little giddy!

So, this morning began happily, and after a little tidying and vacuuming, I started Jade on "Beyond the Code", which I got a couple of months ago but hadn't used yet. She did about 8 pages quite happily. I did seize the opportunity to try and clarify the use of capital letters and lower case letters, as she tends to mix them up rather. I wrote out the whole alphabet each way and she copied underneath. I don't know if that will be the final look we need to have at that, but at least it moved her a bit further on. Then we did some more "Dr Dooriddles Associative Reasoning Activities" which I linked to a couple of months back and can't be bothered to go looking for the link right now, so sorry! While we were doing both these things, Shannon was playing with the Cuisenaire rods.

After those, we sat down on the floor to look through our pile of library books. Shannon had a lovely time looking through the ones I'd got out for her, and Jade chose to look through the Rainforest book she'd brought home. However she was hungry, and had earlier requested to make milkshakes (seen on CBeebies, I think), and fortunately we had some strawberries so at this point we stopped and went and made a fresh strawberry milkshake for her and a strawberry and banana smoothie for me. Gorgeous! Then we went back to the Rainforest book for a time.

A bit later we had lunch outside in the garden, which was lovely, and then, despite my good night's sleep, I set the girls up with a Tom & Jerry DVD while I went for a nap. My excuse is that I'd stayed up late doing the ironing! A very rare event indeed.

Got up, took them swimming, went to visit my Usborne recruit to lend some bookracks and receive some leaflets. We saw their sheep being sheared on their farm. Ended up staying there for the girls' tea (with her 2 boys) and meanwhile Jade in particular was thrilled to spend some time playing with their Hornby railway set in the loft!

Shannon fell asleep on the way home (at 6.20pm) so was transported straight to bed. Jade stayed up with me while I had my own dinner and then watched Trinny & Susannah and then went to bed. Had to have words with her about her attitude - when she gets angry about something she tries to hurt whoever she is angry with, and then will not accept any reprimand or comeback for it - she puts her fingers in her ears, or blows raspberries, or shouts. In the middle of that little talk, Shannon woke up but was fairly easily settled back to sleep, and then I spoke quietly and calmly to Jade about treating other people with respect and how her behaviour is not acceptable. Let's hope some of that sinks in!

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOW MANY .....???!!!

I got home from work today, and in the course of catching up with each other's days, Jade told me she had read not one, not two, not three but FOUR Rainbow Magic fairy books today, all on her own!!! And she is currently reading the fifth, up in bed!

Astonishing!

This is partly as a result being at home all day. She got so upset at the thought of going to school this afternoon for a swimming lesson (she hates them making her put her head underwater - not that they do 'make' her but they do suggest it and she feels the pressure to do so) that in the end, Bill phoned the school and she didn't go.

Now she is 6!

The party is over, the stressful bit is done, and now all I have to do is reflect on a lovely weekend when my eldest daughter turned 6! She had been beside herself with excitement for ages, counting down the days and just longing for the big day to come. So we anticipated an early start on Friday morning! It wasn't too bad, though - she woke at 6.30am and her first words to me were "I'm six now!!" in a sort of wondering tone. I asked her if she felt different being 6, and she said yes .

Anyway, to cut a long story short (I'm not Nic, after all ) she had a lovely time opening prezzies on our bed. She had from us a pair of rollerblades plus protective gear, and a double dance-mat (to save arguments with her little sister) and a 'Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus' DVD (which I had found for £2.50 at the charity shop!) and a set of Pet-Keeper Fairies books, the latter of which was her favourite present, I think, as she yelled with excitement, pulled out the first book, lay down, and was quiet for the next half-an-hour reading! The funny thing was, I had wrapped a couple of presents for Shannon because she's very much in 'imitating' mode at the moment and wants to do whatever she sees anybody else doing. However she was still asleep and slept through the whole thing!!

After breakfast and sessions of playing with roller blades and dance mat, we eventually all got ready and went to Stratford-on-Avon, which has a lovely park with a huge sandpit to play in. It was a really lovely couple of hours, during which DH and I were mostly able to sit and just watch the two of them running around having a great time. I commented to Bill how I had been waiting for so long to get to that stage of motherhood - when I could take a book to the park and just let them get on with it - and I think we're just about there!!






Then we came home late afternoon, Bill set up the projector and screen, and we had a big-screen viewing of the Barbie DVD, which had her transfixed. Meanwhile I cooked the dinner that the birthday girl had requested - roast chicken, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, sweetcorn and gravy, followed by a custard slice!!!

Saturday was stressful! The party was to be a 'Nina & the Neurons' theme - loosely translated as 'science'. I'd done less planning than I'd intended, due to busy-ness and tiredness, but DH had put several things together too, so I think it all came right in the end! So we had rockets taking off (and ending up in the neighbours' garden!), food colouring in milk being swirled around when a drop of washing-up liquid is added, identifying smells, trying to get an egg into a narrow-necked bottle (that one failed!), and other stuff, but finally and most spectacularly, the wonderful much-renowned 'Mentos and Diet Coke' eruptions!

The party guests gather at a safe distance:




Finally, after much playing, experimenting and having fun, they descended on the food:



and at the very end, she blew the six candles out on her Unicorn cake!



The party guests sang Happy Birthday once for Jade and then for Bill, whose birthday it really was that day! He generously postponed his presents and pampering for today, Sunday, instead!

Somebody SHOOT me if I ever talk about organising a children's birthday party at home again ......!!!! (1 hour till they arrive - 3 or 4 till they leave ........)

We have decided!

Remember all my angst about whether Jade should "work towards" going into school full-time (as requested by the school she attends 3 afternoons per week) or finish going altogether?

We have finally decided that she will not go back next September . She is happy!

I still don't know what I'm going to do with her on Thursdays when I go to work, but we'll just have to figure something out!

Busy

Preparations are underway for weekend birthday festivities - on Friday Jade will be 6 and on Saturday DH will be, um, rather older! Jade wants a 'Nina and the Neurons' party, a Unicorn cake, and Numberjacks decorations!!! What DH wants is not publishable on a public blog!

Apart from that, I have my new colleague starting at work this week so much talking and teaching has been going on. She seems great, though, so it will all settle down quite quickly.

The Wychwood Festival was good last weekend - enjoyed it though less people passing by to chat to than we'd hoped.

As for education, well, once again I just have to trust in that autonomous process because not much formal has been going on at all!

Busy weekend

We're at the Wychwood Festival this weekend. I am partly working - we have a Time Banks stand (free - in return for distributing loads of publicity about the Festival: Time Banking in action!) so I was there yesterday (with the girls), helping to set up our stand. Today we're going as a family mostly for a fun day out, while some other folks staff the stand. Tomorrow I'm on duty all day!

It's going to be tiring, especially on top of being got up at 5-6am each morning by Shannon who no longer breastfeeds in bed! So I have to get up and go downstairs on the sofa with her in the early morning. However, that doesn't mean she's sleeping through until that time, oh no! DH is doing sterling, wonderful, patient work with her during the night while I'm in the other room (don't trust myself to be able to stick it out and say no to her yet). She's not wailing (much), just awake and restless. And yes, it still wakes me up even when I'm not in the same room. And it's been at this stage in the past that we've given up and regressed. WHEN will she just learn to stay asleep at night???!!!

Have just been falling off my chair laughing.....

at this thread on the Mumsnet forums:

So - what's your favourite and least favourite children's TV programme?

I LOVE Higgledy House, and Justin in anything because he's just so cheerful and smiley, but I don't fancy him tho'....! Sportacus, however -


Numberjacks and Nina and the Neurons I approve of because they are nicely educational! Not mad about the voices/actors on Numberjacks, though - think they could have got that better. And Charlie and Lola are just adorable!

Can't stand The Shiny Show, Tweenies, In the Night Garden, Smarteenies, Me Too, ................

Trying again ...

with the night-weaning thing! I've long regarded 2.5 as the target age for stopping Shannon feeding at night, as that's when we eventually managed to be successful with Jade, but have been feeling unable to face it for quite a while. There are several aspects of my life, though, that are simply not going to get any better until I am getting a decent night's sleep, so it must be done. One night down - who knows how many more to go?

Educational stuff over the past few days has included:-

- DH demonstrating levers and proving to Jade that she can lift him up with one hand as long as she's got a long enough lever to do it with!
- on request, sitting and reading the section on 'Matter' in the Berenstain Bears book of Science and Nature, covering solid, liquid and gas.
- a couple of Miquon maths sessions, with Jade again struggling with simple adding of number bonds up to 5
- making a pop-up card of an Egyptian Mummy, with hieroglyphs.
- various impromptu writing of stuff, usually with pretty good spelling.
- her first proper telling-the-time lesson, which I must follow up a bit more.
- painting/drawing
- singing/dancing
- lots of reading, as usual.

Must go - won't be getting much sleep tonight, I don't suppose!

Unusual...

for me to blog on a Wednesday, as it's my full work day, but I didn't manage it yesterday so need to catch up!

Yesterday, we went on an HE group trip to Compton Verney - art is so not my thing, in fact I am positively a Philistine about it, but we had quite a good time anyway. They do some lovely children's activity packs which are packed up into a quilted mat to sit on while you do the puzzles and activities, so the girls had a lovely time running round all the pictures and artefacts in the Folk Art gallery and even I appreciated some of it. We had a picnic lunch in the beautiful grounds by the lake, and then most of the rest of the group went off for a long walk. I didn't fancy tackling that with Shannon, who is very 2 and therefore insists on being carried a lot but weighs as much as my 5-year old! Instead we went for a walk round the 'wrong' side of the lake where the fishing sites are, and had a lovely time picking up sticks and pine cones and throwing them into the lake and watching them go 'splosh'. Shannon thought this was a particularly funny activity and it was lovely to watch her really enjoying it! Then we went back into the gallery to see some of the stuff we'd missed, and I was very glad we did as I discovered a children's room full of lovely books, puzzles and colouring stuff. Shannon sat at a little table doing some colouring while I read books with Jade who acted out the story with the puppets provided! The afternoon was only slightly marred at the end by one of those horrendous nappy stories that I guess all parents have at one time or another, due to the after-effects of the tummy bug Shannon had on Monday. Thankfully I had foreseen such a possibility and brought with me an entire change of clothes, so after washing down the buggy (!) and stripping her naked and cleaning her with half a packet of wipes, hygiene was restored!

Shannon fell asleep in the car on the way home, which boded ill for the evening! After getting home Jade wanted to have a go at the Reader Rabbit Maths CD-Rom that DH had brought home from work even though it is for Year 2 maths. She did quite well on some bits and had her first introduction to fractions beyond the simple talking about halves and fractions that we have done before. She seemed to get the hang of it quite well, including thirds and fifths and eighths, so I'm pleased about that. Not so pleased about her inability to answer "5 + 1" or any other "? + 1" questions .... she got very grumpy about having to do any more adding or subtracting and asked me to do those sections - must tread carefully so she doesn't get a complex about 'not being able to do maths'. We've put very little emphasis on it on the whole but I have been trying to do some simple adding and subtracting with her lately - at times she seems to 'get it' and at other times all previous knowledge completely leaves her brain! I'm not particularly worried about it as she's obviously bright enough and will get there in the end but it's just really interesting to see how different brains have their varying aptitudes - she's taken off with reading and doesn't look as though she's going to have any difficulty with spelling either (just like me) but maths is going to be an altogether slower skill to gain.

In the end, both girls stayed up till 10pm and still Shannon took ages to get to sleep as she didn't seem tired ... for the second night in a row I fell asleep with her, having lain there for so long, and spent all night sleeping in her bed in my clothes

Today, as mentioned, I've been at work all day. Jade has been to school and done swimming this afternoon but is still asking, "when I'm 6 can I stop going to school?". I asked her what she doesn't like about it, and she said, "P.E.". That seems to be the only problem! If I could see a way to get some childcare for my work hours on a Thursday I probably would just take her out, because the other 2 afternoons either me or DH are at home anyway and it's something of a pain to have to stop what we're doing to get her ready to go out. I still hanker after the dream of 2 or 3 half-days per week to myself to get stuff done, but realistically she's not going to be happy going to school more than she does, so the only other option in a year's time at the latest is to take her out.

I and my boss have interviewed 3 candidates for the other half of my job-share post, all of whom could do the job admirably so how we're going to choose I don't know. Maybe one of tomorrow's 3 will stand out as being even better.

And now, "The Apprentice"!

Er....

Can only think of boring titles like 'catching up' so can't be bothered to sit here for ages racking my brain ....

Shannon has a bit of a tummy bug - spectacular vomiting all over her bed last night, seemed pretty much OK today except didn't want to eat any solid food, and then threw up again in the doorway of Budgens just as we were about to go in .....(don't have an 'embarrassed' emoticon so this will have to do) - I'm just glad it wasn't 10 seconds later and inside, really! I'm gasping for a decent cup of tea, though, as I've run out of soya milk and that's what I was going to get .... plus some chocolate biscuits which are my staple diet.

So I am in my dreaded emetophobic state of wondering if I'm going to get it .....

Not much formal work has gone on here in the past week - I just can't seem to get organised to do much. This morning I did insist that we did at least one 'learning' thing so I got out the Usborne Children's Encyclopedia and asked Jade what she wanted to read about - she chose rainbows so we did a bit about weather, light, prisms, colours. Jade and Shannon both did some painting. Spent a fair bit of the morning trying to sort out clothes - last night I got the age 3-4 stuff out of the loft as I'm fed up of all Shannon's tops being too small for her .... but Jade got excessively emotional about almost every piece of clothing that came out that she recognised and wanted to wear them all again ... Still it's nice to have some stuff that fits Shannon a bit better now but I haven't quite come to terms with her needing stuff that's bigger than her age... Jade was always textbook age/clothes size matching.

Had a mega-clearout of junk toys and stuff at the weekend - got rid of 2 boxes of stuff to the charity shop and made a bit of space for Jade's approaching birthday.

I really can't think of anything else we've been up to. Must go and bath the girls.

Tired and Emotional ....

No, not the euphemism for pissed as a rat, but just genuinely tired and emotional ... We (the girls and I - DH stayed home to look after the dog) have been away at our annual church weekend away, had an absolutely fab but exhausting time and today has seen the fallout..... In fact I'm too tired to blog about it much, but suffice to say a complete tantrum from Jade at lunchtime resulted in her not going to school this afternoon because I thought she was just too tired to be able to cope (so why is she still awake at 10pm despite having been put to bed at 8?). We also had a failed attempt to teach her about tens and units this morning using the base ten blocks ... neither of us was in the best frame of mind for it so I abandoned that as a bad job and hope that another day it might click for her. I pretty much left them to it for the rest of the day. Jade didn't get changed out of her pyjamas until about 4pm when L from next door came round. Shannon has been mostly naked or just nappied today. Typically in her one half-hour nappy-free period she weed on our bed for the THIRD time in the past 5 days!!! GRRRRRRR!! There's been more TV and video watching than usual today plus lots of playing but also lots of pushing, shoving, hitting, arguing and crying ... (sigh...)