I am so so so tired today - and therefore extremely grumpy and horrid to be with. For the second night running, Shannon was awake for a nightmarish length of time during the night. I have no idea why unless it's because I had one cup of coffee during the MORNING! I coped yesterday after one bad night's sleep because the girls were at playgroup/childminder all day as I had a conference to go to and speak at in Gloucester. A second bad night and being single-handed child carer are not going well together!
Still, I have managed to complete a mystery shopping assignment (phone call) and have been greatly cheered up by the arrival of "Autograph" by John Denver on CD. It's been an extremely rare album for years, although I did have a copy on tape. With no working tape player in the car I haven't listened to it for a couple of years, but just spotted that AT LAST it has been issued on CD and I am over the moon - def. about my favourite JD CD! (Although now I look closely I see it has a date of 2001 on it - ah well, better late than never!)
I think it's about time for a long DVD for the girls and a nap for me. ZZzzzzzz
Friday, February 01, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday tantrums
Tooth traumas continued this morning ... thankfully I had been forewarned by several other bloggers that sometimes, little girls get quite emotional about their teeth falling out and don't want to lose them. Unfortunately, it seems I had failed to warn Jade that the 'tooth fairy' (she knows it's me) takes the tooth away when the money is left!!! So she was completely traumatised when it was gone this morning. She wailed hysterically at me "Where is my tooth?" and when I told her it was in my jewellery box (phew!) she went and got it and then threw it and the £1 down the stairs at me and sobbed that she didn't want them! She went off and cried in her room for a couple of minutes, and then came down sobbing even more because now she'd lost the tooth. Oh dear, it's hard to be 6!! Thankfully she did find it on the stairs and eventually peace was restored, and she decided she did want both the tooth and the money. Thankfully I managed to remain calm throughout her storm of emotions.
Despite the rocky start, the rest of the day went OK. While upstairs getting dressed Shannon found my jewellery box open on the bed (left there by Jade), investigated several items in it, and discovered a little locket with a teeny tiny picture of Benjamin inside that somebody gave me when he died. Jade then drew her attention to the other picture of Benjamin that we have in our bedroom, and Shannon said she wanted to see "Benjamim's book". So downstairs we came and got out the as yet unfinished scrapbook I had done for Ben, and all spent some time looking through that. This prompted discussions about intensive care, what the word "intensive" means, family relationships, the heart, fetal life and how babies don't have air in their lungs while in utero, but have 'water' instead, so they can't cry, but they do wake and sleep; dying, heaven and eternal life! Didn't plan that into this morning's curriculum!!!!
After having read the myth about Gilgamesh from Story of the World yesterday, I gave her the choice of drawing a 'half-man, half-animal' or creating a fairy-tale/myth of her own which I would write down. Strangely, for a girl with such a gift for reading/words and all things literacy-related, she seems unconfident about writing a story herself and so chose to do the pic. I sat with her to do one as well, so she drew a half-horse/half-man (of course!) and called it "Skewbald-Man" and accompanied it by other unrealities, such as the moon inside the sun, a half-bush/half-tree, a bird with one wing and one arm, and the ground with half-grass, half-mud. I did a "spider-man". I did get the camera and pics together at one point with the intention of blogging the pics, but got distracted and it never happened.
I then received a phone call, so the girls wandered off and started playing something or other which required Jade to go outside and cut the grass with a pair of scissors and bring the grass inside to put onto trays. After she had brought it in and started playing she discovered she didn't have enough and I offered (phone call ended by then) to get her some more. So I found myself in the slightly surreal position of being outside in the garden cutting our grass with scissors, and hoping fervently that the neighbours couldn't see me and think I was a complete nutter! Needless to say before long there was grass all over the living room carpet, so cleaning instructions were issued and to her credit she did a reasonable job of clearing it all up. Meanwhile I was getting lunch. After lunch I read a bit of bible, and she urged me on and on and I ended up doing about the next 3 weeks' worth of Sonlight bible readings all in one go. Then I quickly threw together a cheese & sweetcorn flan, cooked it, and then we went off swimming. We met 2 other HE families at the pool so the girls were mostly happily occupied playing and splashing around and I got more chance than usual to actually get a bit of exercise. Then out of the pool, a quick visit to a friend's house, and home for tea.
Despite the rocky start, the rest of the day went OK. While upstairs getting dressed Shannon found my jewellery box open on the bed (left there by Jade), investigated several items in it, and discovered a little locket with a teeny tiny picture of Benjamin inside that somebody gave me when he died. Jade then drew her attention to the other picture of Benjamin that we have in our bedroom, and Shannon said she wanted to see "Benjamim's book". So downstairs we came and got out the as yet unfinished scrapbook I had done for Ben, and all spent some time looking through that. This prompted discussions about intensive care, what the word "intensive" means, family relationships, the heart, fetal life and how babies don't have air in their lungs while in utero, but have 'water' instead, so they can't cry, but they do wake and sleep; dying, heaven and eternal life! Didn't plan that into this morning's curriculum!!!!
After having read the myth about Gilgamesh from Story of the World yesterday, I gave her the choice of drawing a 'half-man, half-animal' or creating a fairy-tale/myth of her own which I would write down. Strangely, for a girl with such a gift for reading/words and all things literacy-related, she seems unconfident about writing a story herself and so chose to do the pic. I sat with her to do one as well, so she drew a half-horse/half-man (of course!) and called it "Skewbald-Man" and accompanied it by other unrealities, such as the moon inside the sun, a half-bush/half-tree, a bird with one wing and one arm, and the ground with half-grass, half-mud. I did a "spider-man". I did get the camera and pics together at one point with the intention of blogging the pics, but got distracted and it never happened.
I then received a phone call, so the girls wandered off and started playing something or other which required Jade to go outside and cut the grass with a pair of scissors and bring the grass inside to put onto trays. After she had brought it in and started playing she discovered she didn't have enough and I offered (phone call ended by then) to get her some more. So I found myself in the slightly surreal position of being outside in the garden cutting our grass with scissors, and hoping fervently that the neighbours couldn't see me and think I was a complete nutter! Needless to say before long there was grass all over the living room carpet, so cleaning instructions were issued and to her credit she did a reasonable job of clearing it all up. Meanwhile I was getting lunch. After lunch I read a bit of bible, and she urged me on and on and I ended up doing about the next 3 weeks' worth of Sonlight bible readings all in one go. Then I quickly threw together a cheese & sweetcorn flan, cooked it, and then we went off swimming. We met 2 other HE families at the pool so the girls were mostly happily occupied playing and splashing around and I got more chance than usual to actually get a bit of exercise. Then out of the pool, a quick visit to a friend's house, and home for tea.
Monday, January 28, 2008
The tooth is out!
At last!!! I'm sure her bottom two front teeth have been very wobbly for about 6 months, and it seems like forever I've been saying "it won't be long now till they come out". In fact, they've been there so long that her two new teeth have already come up and grown considerably. But at last, her very first baby tooth has fallen out. It caused a bit of trauma and tears at the time from the scariness of it, but after a long cuddle and some time sitting together reading stories, she seemed to be fine and happy. She gets very cross with me when I mention the tooth fairy, because she's already established that such a creature doesn't really exist (she insisted that I tell her the truth at the same time as she asked about Santa) so she knows that it's parental money that will be slipped under her pillow.
The other good news from today is that .... she will be able to go riding with Riding for the Disabled!!! The psychiatrist suggested it at the meeting we had last week, and we have spoken to the lady who runs the local group who says it is open to anybody who can benefit physically or emotionally from it, so she is happy to take her! She is very excited.
The other good news from today is that .... she will be able to go riding with Riding for the Disabled!!! The psychiatrist suggested it at the meeting we had last week, and we have spoken to the lady who runs the local group who says it is open to anybody who can benefit physically or emotionally from it, so she is happy to take her! She is very excited.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Silence is golden....?
I just had rather a pleasant morning, despite the down-side of sitting in the dentist's chair for about 45 minutes in the middle, being jabbed and drilled. But I got to drive there and back all on my own, which meant I had peace, quiet, time to think and time to listen to John Denver, to whom I have been listening for so long (30 years....!) that almost every song has a memory attached. It felt so .... healing .... to just be able to let myself go wherever the music took me.
Because DH now works at the university where I took my degree (10 years ago, wow!) and that's the only NHS dentist we could find, the trip took me to Oxford and to the place where I spent one of the happiest times of my life. I was musing on that as I walked past, today, and realised that much of the absolute pleasure I got from it was having hours and hours to sit and think - about nutrition as I sat in the library and researched topics, feeling like a detective as one research paper lead me to another and to another, but also about everything else about my life as I drove to and fro or studied at home.
I may have asked this before on this blog, but what do you do when what is best for your children is not what's best for you? If I knew that my children would be happy and fulfilled at school, then I'd probably grab the chance because I am so, so craving time on my own. How I wish I had time to follow up all the things that interest me, to sort myself out a bit, to do all the stuff that needs doing instead of always feeling like I'm drowning in a backlog, which leads me to not want to take on anything else (including any projects/activities the girls suggest) because I already feel I have too much on my plate. But I absolutely can't do that, not only because of all home education's benefits in general and having been utterly convinced that it is by far the better way, but also because of Jade's particular difficulties that mean she would be utterly miserable in school and of course I could never be happy about that. So somehow I have to find some time for myself, and none of the options are easy.
Talking of Jade, DH and I met with the psychiatrist and the speech therapist yesterday to discuss progress with the selective mutism. Actually, I have decided I would much prefer to use the name that one Canadian group gives it, which is Social Communication Anxiety Disorder, as it is so much more than just not being able to speak in certain situations. In stressful situations, body language becomes frozen too, as she attempts to disappear so that nobody can take any notice of her at all. And she seems to be anxious about moving forward with many life skills, such as brushing her own teeth, cutting her own food - it is noticeable that Shannon is already catching up fast in some of these areas and is far more keen to 'do it myself' than Jade ever was at her age. The upshot of the discussions is that we will continue the progress with the speech therapist for a few more sessions, but then she needs to slide out of the process so that we can introduce others. We have got to the stage where Jade will, somewhat reluctantly and still with a bit of difficulty, answer the speech therapist's simple questions, e.g. what is your favourite colour, or play games involving guessing the correct answers to riddles and speak out with the answer, so we now have to try and extend that into becoming proper conversation and then doing the same thing while out and about instead of just at home. Then we have to go through the same process with some other adult, who can then take over as keyworker, and gradually generalise the process out to more people and situations. It's going to take a long time though. We decided that the childminder we've been using for Shannon might well be the best person to get Jade talking to next, and the psychiatrist suggested we apply for Disability Living Allowance to enable us to do that and pay for it. Then, at least, I would have some reliable childcare for Jade, as she refuses to go to most people and my parents are now too old, and not geographically close enough, to help regularly. It really is tough when your child really can't bear to be looked after by anyone else. I do worry about her, a lot, particularly in the small hours of the morning when Shannon wakes me up and then I can't fall back to sleep for agonising over what I/we may have done to cause this in Jade. I know it doesn't help, but logic doesn't work very well at 3am.
Anyway, as I am at work I really must get on, but I really had to get that lot off my mind before I could concentrate on anything else.
Because DH now works at the university where I took my degree (10 years ago, wow!) and that's the only NHS dentist we could find, the trip took me to Oxford and to the place where I spent one of the happiest times of my life. I was musing on that as I walked past, today, and realised that much of the absolute pleasure I got from it was having hours and hours to sit and think - about nutrition as I sat in the library and researched topics, feeling like a detective as one research paper lead me to another and to another, but also about everything else about my life as I drove to and fro or studied at home.
I may have asked this before on this blog, but what do you do when what is best for your children is not what's best for you? If I knew that my children would be happy and fulfilled at school, then I'd probably grab the chance because I am so, so craving time on my own. How I wish I had time to follow up all the things that interest me, to sort myself out a bit, to do all the stuff that needs doing instead of always feeling like I'm drowning in a backlog, which leads me to not want to take on anything else (including any projects/activities the girls suggest) because I already feel I have too much on my plate. But I absolutely can't do that, not only because of all home education's benefits in general and having been utterly convinced that it is by far the better way, but also because of Jade's particular difficulties that mean she would be utterly miserable in school and of course I could never be happy about that. So somehow I have to find some time for myself, and none of the options are easy.
Talking of Jade, DH and I met with the psychiatrist and the speech therapist yesterday to discuss progress with the selective mutism. Actually, I have decided I would much prefer to use the name that one Canadian group gives it, which is Social Communication Anxiety Disorder, as it is so much more than just not being able to speak in certain situations. In stressful situations, body language becomes frozen too, as she attempts to disappear so that nobody can take any notice of her at all. And she seems to be anxious about moving forward with many life skills, such as brushing her own teeth, cutting her own food - it is noticeable that Shannon is already catching up fast in some of these areas and is far more keen to 'do it myself' than Jade ever was at her age. The upshot of the discussions is that we will continue the progress with the speech therapist for a few more sessions, but then she needs to slide out of the process so that we can introduce others. We have got to the stage where Jade will, somewhat reluctantly and still with a bit of difficulty, answer the speech therapist's simple questions, e.g. what is your favourite colour, or play games involving guessing the correct answers to riddles and speak out with the answer, so we now have to try and extend that into becoming proper conversation and then doing the same thing while out and about instead of just at home. Then we have to go through the same process with some other adult, who can then take over as keyworker, and gradually generalise the process out to more people and situations. It's going to take a long time though. We decided that the childminder we've been using for Shannon might well be the best person to get Jade talking to next, and the psychiatrist suggested we apply for Disability Living Allowance to enable us to do that and pay for it. Then, at least, I would have some reliable childcare for Jade, as she refuses to go to most people and my parents are now too old, and not geographically close enough, to help regularly. It really is tough when your child really can't bear to be looked after by anyone else. I do worry about her, a lot, particularly in the small hours of the morning when Shannon wakes me up and then I can't fall back to sleep for agonising over what I/we may have done to cause this in Jade. I know it doesn't help, but logic doesn't work very well at 3am.
Anyway, as I am at work I really must get on, but I really had to get that lot off my mind before I could concentrate on anything else.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
I'm soooooooo behind!
I don't know what's happened to my (even previously limited) free time lately - it just seems to completely disappear and I can barely find a moment to blog. Lots has been going on, such as Jade's RIDING LESSONS!!! Which she has been utterly thrilled about. Yes, I do have pics from the first one but don't make me try and guess when I will get time to upload them. And there's been some nice educational stuff too, though not as much as part of me thinks there 'should' have been! And Shannon, despite being generally adorable, is developing a particularly fierce temper when things don't go her way and Jade is a bit scared of her!
I've just been attempting to do my Tax Return online but realise my figures don't add up - the trouble is I didn't do any record-keeping on Usborne Books for about the past year apart from keeping piles of invoices, so currently the figures look as though I lost about £600 and although I don't think I did very well, I don't think I lost THAT much! So will have to try and search around for some more info.
Gotta go and find some food for dinner before disappearing off to show this month's film to the good folk of this little Cotswold town - Bridge to Terabithia. Will try and do better blogging in the next few days.
I've just been attempting to do my Tax Return online but realise my figures don't add up - the trouble is I didn't do any record-keeping on Usborne Books for about the past year apart from keeping piles of invoices, so currently the figures look as though I lost about £600 and although I don't think I did very well, I don't think I lost THAT much! So will have to try and search around for some more info.
Gotta go and find some food for dinner before disappearing off to show this month's film to the good folk of this little Cotswold town - Bridge to Terabithia. Will try and do better blogging in the next few days.
Monday, December 31, 2007
So how did I do?
I thought it would be amusing to review last year's aims (I didn't even give them the status of resolutions!) and see how I got on.
Children:
* Night-wean Shannon - Failed. Am currently trying AGAIN!!!
* Get Jade doing regular chores - Partly successful. She now knows she is responsible for making her own bed, feeding the dog, helping to sweep/mop the kitchen floor and tidy the living room before going to bed. Sometimes she even does them!
* Get Jade to usually sleep in her own bed all night Pretty much. Because I'm usually in Shannon's bed by the early hours of the morning, Jade often creeps in with us but it's usually not till 5 or 6am so that's pretty good going.
* Much less television - maximum half-an-hour in the morning while I have breakfast and 1 hour in the evening. Failed abysmally. It's on far more than that.
Home-Ed:
* Try actually sticking to the Sonlight K curriculum for at least 3 months to see if it works for us like that - We didn't get anywhere near it from January, but from September we've got on fairly well. I'm not sure it does work for us but we're going to stick with it till I find a better way.
* Otherwise concentrate with Jade on maths and writing. Zilch on the maths. She doesn't like it. She's spontaneously writing more, though, and I still want to encourage more.
* Do more practical stuff like making historical meals, dressing up etc. Not much done. Failure of energy and imagination.
Personal:
* Regular stretching exercise - I can feel myself stiffening up - Nope, not done.
* Regular prayer/quiet time Well, I've made attempts in the past few months - probably manage it about twice a week.
* More sex (once a year isn't enough, DH says.....) Erm.....
* Less web-browsing
* more book reading Nope - neither of these achieved.
Home:
* Keep up-to-date with finances Nope.
* Reduce debt (currently £10,000 or £15,000 if you count the student loan which I am hoping never to have to pay back) - see above. I haven't kept up with the finances so I don't currently know how much it all adds up to.
* 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. - Not done. Still planning!
Business:
* Get at least 2 more Usborne recruits by the end of April
* Do at least one event per week, preferably 2
* Organise paperwork
None of these done. In fact, I did one Usborne event in March, one in November, and that was it!!!!
Hmmm, not such a good showing then. I'd better sleep on it and decide what to carry forward to 2008!
Children:
* Night-wean Shannon - Failed. Am currently trying AGAIN!!!
* Get Jade doing regular chores - Partly successful. She now knows she is responsible for making her own bed, feeding the dog, helping to sweep/mop the kitchen floor and tidy the living room before going to bed. Sometimes she even does them!
* Get Jade to usually sleep in her own bed all night Pretty much. Because I'm usually in Shannon's bed by the early hours of the morning, Jade often creeps in with us but it's usually not till 5 or 6am so that's pretty good going.
* Much less television - maximum half-an-hour in the morning while I have breakfast and 1 hour in the evening. Failed abysmally. It's on far more than that.
Home-Ed:
* Try actually sticking to the Sonlight K curriculum for at least 3 months to see if it works for us like that - We didn't get anywhere near it from January, but from September we've got on fairly well. I'm not sure it does work for us but we're going to stick with it till I find a better way.
* Otherwise concentrate with Jade on maths and writing. Zilch on the maths. She doesn't like it. She's spontaneously writing more, though, and I still want to encourage more.
* Do more practical stuff like making historical meals, dressing up etc. Not much done. Failure of energy and imagination.
Personal:
* Regular stretching exercise - I can feel myself stiffening up - Nope, not done.
* Regular prayer/quiet time Well, I've made attempts in the past few months - probably manage it about twice a week.
* More sex (once a year isn't enough, DH says.....) Erm.....
* Less web-browsing
* more book reading Nope - neither of these achieved.
Home:
* Keep up-to-date with finances Nope.
* Reduce debt (currently £10,000 or £15,000 if you count the student loan which I am hoping never to have to pay back) - see above. I haven't kept up with the finances so I don't currently know how much it all adds up to.
* 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. - Not done. Still planning!
Business:
* Get at least 2 more Usborne recruits by the end of April
* Do at least one event per week, preferably 2
* Organise paperwork
None of these done. In fact, I did one Usborne event in March, one in November, and that was it!!!!
Hmmm, not such a good showing then. I'd better sleep on it and decide what to carry forward to 2008!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Parenting problems
Had to take the Christmas tree down this evening. Jade (who surely is old enough to know better) simply cannot keep her hands off the ornaments. She has broken 3 of my favourite ones so far, and was told very clearly and firmly NOT to take any more stuff off the tree. She has since taken two more down, both of them my most precious ones, so I told her that since she couldn't seem to control herself, the tree and its ornaments would have to be removed. So DH and I instantly packed everything away and took it down.
Actually she is severely testing our patience in many ways lately. I hate to say it, because naturally I love her anyway but it has to be admitted that she is rather selfish and badly-behaved quite often. I am torn between wanting to rant about it, and not wanting to set out all her worst behaviour in public. It probably doesn't help, from Jade's point of view, that Shannon is incredibly sweet-natured and adorable, so the contrast between the two is particularly stark. We are planning a couple of ways to try and address the problem, but unfortunately my natural reaction is to yell and shout and come down on her very hard, and it has little effect, except possibly to make the situation worse. And then I'm conscious that if my self-control isn't that good, then why should hers be?
I once read that parenting is the most intensive self-development course you can ever undergo. That person was right.
Actually she is severely testing our patience in many ways lately. I hate to say it, because naturally I love her anyway but it has to be admitted that she is rather selfish and badly-behaved quite often. I am torn between wanting to rant about it, and not wanting to set out all her worst behaviour in public. It probably doesn't help, from Jade's point of view, that Shannon is incredibly sweet-natured and adorable, so the contrast between the two is particularly stark. We are planning a couple of ways to try and address the problem, but unfortunately my natural reaction is to yell and shout and come down on her very hard, and it has little effect, except possibly to make the situation worse. And then I'm conscious that if my self-control isn't that good, then why should hers be?
I once read that parenting is the most intensive self-development course you can ever undergo. That person was right.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
And so this is Christmas...
Can you imagine the awful feeling in my stomach when I woke in the middle of the night and realised I had forgotten to do Jade's main present!!!!!!! As she's been completely pony-mad for the last 6 months, I decided to give her what my parents gave me one Christmas (only I was about 10 years old, not 6) and pay for some riding lessons. During last evening I was browsing online clip art, trying to find a nice outline of a horse I could arrange the text in and print out, couldn't find anything suitable and shut it down .... and promptly forgot all about it in the rush of finishing wrapping presents, finding all the other things that I'd hidden round the house over the past few weeks, and collapsing exhausted into bed. So that middle-of-the-night stomach-clenching realisation was a bit of a shock to the system, and put the final touch to an already disturbed night of Shannon's usual 2-hourly wakings and Jade waking at some phenomenally early hour and chattering away about how she hates it when her stocking is empty (it wasn't - I don't think she'd even checked it at that stage) and keeping me awake for ages before finally falling asleep again. I contemplated going downstairs to quickly write a card for Jade in the middle of the night, but because I as usual fell asleep while waiting for Shannon to go into a deep enough sleep to leave her, I didn't manage it. So when Jade showed up just after 8am and had to be reminded to go and check if Santa had been and filled her stocking and getting both girls installed in our big bed opening presents, I nipped downstairs, cut out a quick pic from her pony magazine, stuck it in a Christmas card and wrote a few words. Phew!!! One day maybe I'll learn not to procrastinate so much .... but not yet, I'll leave it till later.
Aside from that, a good time has been had by all! Stocking gifts were received with delight and then we all came downstairs. Shannon has a perfect breathy "Wow" that warms the heart, this time at the pile of presents under the tree. As expected, Jade rushed through her gifts one after another, very pleased with each one but then rushing on to see more and more.... whereas 20 minutes after opening her first gift (Charlie & Lola books) Shannon was still sitting looking through them. Jade was thankfully particularly pleased at the Pegasus horse (from Barbie & the Magic of Pegasus film) which was the only thing she'd repeatedly asked for (and bought at a rather high price second-hand off Ebay - it was the one gift I simply had to get) but she wasn't expecting the matching Barbie with her wand of light (bought gratifyingly cheaply brand-new off Ebay due to a poor title in the listing) and she's thrilled with that too. Shannon loves her Talking Upsy-Daisy, her pink and white hobby-unicorn to match Jade's purple one, and both of them have loved Shannon's kitchen from Grandpa, with cooking noises and flashing lights! I can see myself tearing the batteries out of it before too long, but we'll see! Jade hasn't made much comment about the riding lessons, but when the time comes and it's more real I know she's going to be over the moon. As for me, I was surprised and very pleased to find a fab new camera from DH, as I lost my old one a few months ago, kept expecting it to turn up somewhere round the house but it hasn't so must be very careful with this one!
We went out to church this morning, got back and I prepared lunch while everyone else played/tidied and lunch was finally ready around 2.45pm and was excellent! The girls have played like mad for the rest of the day, going from Barbie/Pegasus games to cooking/kitchen games to doll's house games and then back to Barbie/Pegasus again, with not too many altercations along the way. At 5pm we all settled on the sofa to watch Polar Express which I hadn't seen before and I thought was fab, so I'm glad I videoed that one for future use! Didn't bother doing any tea, just nibbles, and then the girls went to bed around 7.30pm.
There's still loads more for us all to explore over the next few days, like the WebKinz toys the girls got from their American cousins, the Pony Club PC game we got for Jade and some craft kits and games, so hoping for a continuation of the nice relaxing holiday feel.
Aside from that, a good time has been had by all! Stocking gifts were received with delight and then we all came downstairs. Shannon has a perfect breathy "Wow" that warms the heart, this time at the pile of presents under the tree. As expected, Jade rushed through her gifts one after another, very pleased with each one but then rushing on to see more and more.... whereas 20 minutes after opening her first gift (Charlie & Lola books) Shannon was still sitting looking through them. Jade was thankfully particularly pleased at the Pegasus horse (from Barbie & the Magic of Pegasus film) which was the only thing she'd repeatedly asked for (and bought at a rather high price second-hand off Ebay - it was the one gift I simply had to get) but she wasn't expecting the matching Barbie with her wand of light (bought gratifyingly cheaply brand-new off Ebay due to a poor title in the listing) and she's thrilled with that too. Shannon loves her Talking Upsy-Daisy, her pink and white hobby-unicorn to match Jade's purple one, and both of them have loved Shannon's kitchen from Grandpa, with cooking noises and flashing lights! I can see myself tearing the batteries out of it before too long, but we'll see! Jade hasn't made much comment about the riding lessons, but when the time comes and it's more real I know she's going to be over the moon. As for me, I was surprised and very pleased to find a fab new camera from DH, as I lost my old one a few months ago, kept expecting it to turn up somewhere round the house but it hasn't so must be very careful with this one!
We went out to church this morning, got back and I prepared lunch while everyone else played/tidied and lunch was finally ready around 2.45pm and was excellent! The girls have played like mad for the rest of the day, going from Barbie/Pegasus games to cooking/kitchen games to doll's house games and then back to Barbie/Pegasus again, with not too many altercations along the way. At 5pm we all settled on the sofa to watch Polar Express which I hadn't seen before and I thought was fab, so I'm glad I videoed that one for future use! Didn't bother doing any tea, just nibbles, and then the girls went to bed around 7.30pm.
There's still loads more for us all to explore over the next few days, like the WebKinz toys the girls got from their American cousins, the Pony Club PC game we got for Jade and some craft kits and games, so hoping for a continuation of the nice relaxing holiday feel.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Yes, we have Christmas lunch! (just)
I really must stop being so haphazard about things. Not having got round to planning anything much about Christmas food or gone food shopping till today (partly because I refused to go with the children, and partly 'cos I'm plain lazy), I confidently told Bill to go out this morning and I would go and sort out the food after we'd been out to visit our friends this afternoon. Surely shops stay open late just before Christmas and Tesco would be open till about 10pm? I was a bit taken aback when said friends told me, just as we were leaving at around 5pm, that they thought pretty much everywhere was shutting early... Well, of course they're shutting early, it's Christmas Eve - where on earth was my brain when I needed it earlier??! I dropped everybody off at home and went off to Tesco - got there at 5.15 to find they shut at 5pm. Oh well, I thought, we've got the turkey (no carrots, hardly any potatoes), we've got sprouts, (no Christmas pudding), but we do have one box of mince pies (no cream or brandy butter) ... well it would have been a bit of a disappointing Christmas lunch but we wouldn't starve ..... But thank goodness Budgens was open (till 7pm!) so I spent plenty of money and got us a feast!!!! No croissants or brioche for breakfast, disappointingly, but plenty of other yummy stuff.
The other thing I've been haphazard about is the Jesse Tree. We've frequently missed days and had to catch up 2 or 3 days in a row, and tomorrow we're going to have to do the last 4 days all at once!! (sigh) I never was much good at routine.
Still, presents are purchased and (mostly) wrapped - just stocking stuff to do now. Jade is excited but under instructions not to open her stocking if she wakes when it's still dark - well, it's worth a try even though I don't suppose she'll take any notice.
So, I'd better press on and tie up the last few loose ends. Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!
The other thing I've been haphazard about is the Jesse Tree. We've frequently missed days and had to catch up 2 or 3 days in a row, and tomorrow we're going to have to do the last 4 days all at once!! (sigh) I never was much good at routine.
Still, presents are purchased and (mostly) wrapped - just stocking stuff to do now. Jade is excited but under instructions not to open her stocking if she wakes when it's still dark - well, it's worth a try even though I don't suppose she'll take any notice.
So, I'd better press on and tie up the last few loose ends. Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Nice weekend
To church this morning, where Jade's little group of 5-8 year olds practised for next week's nativity performance - Jade's going to be an angel and I think Shannon's supposed to be a shepherd (aaaahhh!). And there was a lovely moment for me when I was chatting to a woman, and commented that I'd better be getting going because (and then I turned to Jade and said) "What are we going to do this afternoon?" (not expecting a verbal answer, just excited jumping up and down or something, and she shouted out loud "Christmas Tree"!!! In front of someone who was looking at her!!! Wow, I hardly dare imagine her starting to talk to people, but it is so thrilling to see these little steps of progress!
Then home for a quick lunch and tidy up to make space for the imminent arrival of the Tree! Took the girls off to the garden centre to choose an appropriate specimen, and then home for decorating fun. To the accompaniment of Christmas music, of course. I love that bit of christmas! While I was busy doing the bits only I could do, the girls (including L from next door) were acting out the nativity story. We got many of the other decs up in the past couple of days. Just need to do the wreath with the greenery that we collected in our walk in the woods on Friday.
Took a few moments here and there through the day to remember that 9 years ago today, Bill and I went for my 20 week scan in my first pregnancy very excited and looking forward to finding out the sex of the baby, only to find out a whole lot more and ending the day a whole lot sadder and wiser. Dec 16th will be engraved on my heart for the rest of my life as the day I really lost my innocence, I think.
Yesterday the whole family tripped off to Oxford to meet my Mum and cousin to exchange Christmas presents. We had lunch at the Ashmolean Museum cafe and had a quick look at some of the Egyptian artefacts they have there, and then went over to the Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum for the rest of the afternoon. So lots and lots of informal and fun learning went on, for everyone! If I was Nic I would describe each and every piece we looked at and discussed, but instead, it's 10.45pm and I just want to go to bed (could do with some matchsticks for the eyelids actually) so I can't be bothered!!
Jade did a lovely bit of spontaneous writing on Friday (we'll gloss over the fact that it was in my notebook where I (sometimes) keep track of our finances). She did a bit of contemporaneous reporting on what she and Shannon were up to: "Shannon's in the box. Now she's out. Now she's spilled her drink. Now she's on the sofa. reading my book! grrrrrrr shannon!! Now we are waching Tom and jerry. Now she's stoped... playing with my book. Like I said I Thingkck i did. eeeek! it's nearly cristmas!" followed by a lovely toothy, curly-haired self-portrait!!! One to keep for posterity, I think!
Then home for a quick lunch and tidy up to make space for the imminent arrival of the Tree! Took the girls off to the garden centre to choose an appropriate specimen, and then home for decorating fun. To the accompaniment of Christmas music, of course. I love that bit of christmas! While I was busy doing the bits only I could do, the girls (including L from next door) were acting out the nativity story. We got many of the other decs up in the past couple of days. Just need to do the wreath with the greenery that we collected in our walk in the woods on Friday.
Took a few moments here and there through the day to remember that 9 years ago today, Bill and I went for my 20 week scan in my first pregnancy very excited and looking forward to finding out the sex of the baby, only to find out a whole lot more and ending the day a whole lot sadder and wiser. Dec 16th will be engraved on my heart for the rest of my life as the day I really lost my innocence, I think.
Yesterday the whole family tripped off to Oxford to meet my Mum and cousin to exchange Christmas presents. We had lunch at the Ashmolean Museum cafe and had a quick look at some of the Egyptian artefacts they have there, and then went over to the Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum for the rest of the afternoon. So lots and lots of informal and fun learning went on, for everyone! If I was Nic I would describe each and every piece we looked at and discussed, but instead, it's 10.45pm and I just want to go to bed (could do with some matchsticks for the eyelids actually) so I can't be bothered!!
Jade did a lovely bit of spontaneous writing on Friday (we'll gloss over the fact that it was in my notebook where I (sometimes) keep track of our finances). She did a bit of contemporaneous reporting on what she and Shannon were up to: "Shannon's in the box. Now she's out. Now she's spilled her drink. Now she's on the sofa. reading my book! grrrrrrr shannon!! Now we are waching Tom and jerry. Now she's stoped... playing with my book. Like I said I Thingkck i did. eeeek! it's nearly cristmas!" followed by a lovely toothy, curly-haired self-portrait!!! One to keep for posterity, I think!
Friday, December 14, 2007
I will blog.....
...when I feel like I've got something to say.
I will just note that speech therapy for Jade is still going well, and that all pretence of educating Jade has gone out of the window for the past week or two, and normal service won't be resumed till some time in January. Shannon, however, is speeding along learning Letterland letters (at her insistence) and spending much time poring over books.
I will just note that speech therapy for Jade is still going well, and that all pretence of educating Jade has gone out of the window for the past week or two, and normal service won't be resumed till some time in January. Shannon, however, is speeding along learning Letterland letters (at her insistence) and spending much time poring over books.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Feels like whatever I blog this evening will be boring - just don't feel inspired. I'm sure you can find entertaining blogging somewhere else if you wish. We've been doing the usual stuff - Sonlight, Beyond the Code, a lovely walk in the woods on Monday, and the rest. We had a good visit to Playschool yesterday morning, which Jade thoroughly enjoyed as well as Shannon! I think she would love to go back and is disappointed that she's too old! Shannon played very happily with her friend who already goes there, and I'm sure she'll settle in just fine. She'll start going in January, and I think I'll be sending her on a Thursday morning instead of going to the childminder, who I will ask to go and collect her, and I'll pick her up about an hour later. I may even send her on a Tuesday morning as well, if not straight away then before too long. I'm sure she'll love it, and it will be useful to have a bit of toddler-free time to do stuff with Jade.
We had a good session with the Speech Therapist on Tuesday. In the space of a 45-minute session, Jade was at the end able to say single-word responses to my questions with the ST right there in the room! Quietly, but in a normal voice, not whispering! I thought that was fabulous. She's coming again next Tuesday so hoping for more progress then too, even if it's just speaking in a louder voice. We're planning the next steps, too, along the lines of getting her similarly comfortable with speaking to another adult at church, who could then go with her into her Sunday School group instead of me going with her each week. Need to find a willing volunteer!
While I was at work today, Jade and DH had been talking about doing some sort of treasure hunt, with clues to find things, and after dinner she wanted to start straightaway. It was pretty close to bedtime, but while Jade and I were reading a Christmas story (the real St. Nicholas story), he devised a couple of rhyming clues, and then she had a fabulous time working them out and finding the hidden toys. Then, even more wonderfully, she started writing her own clues and sending me to find stuff! She did several before I finally insisted it was bed-time.
Tomorrow morning is work again, Jade coming with me while Shannon goes to the childminder. I'll get Jade doing Education City, among other things, while I'm working as that all went quite well last week. We may go up to Stratford in the afternoon as there is a book waiting for me at the library about making dolls' house furniture.
We had a good session with the Speech Therapist on Tuesday. In the space of a 45-minute session, Jade was at the end able to say single-word responses to my questions with the ST right there in the room! Quietly, but in a normal voice, not whispering! I thought that was fabulous. She's coming again next Tuesday so hoping for more progress then too, even if it's just speaking in a louder voice. We're planning the next steps, too, along the lines of getting her similarly comfortable with speaking to another adult at church, who could then go with her into her Sunday School group instead of me going with her each week. Need to find a willing volunteer!
While I was at work today, Jade and DH had been talking about doing some sort of treasure hunt, with clues to find things, and after dinner she wanted to start straightaway. It was pretty close to bedtime, but while Jade and I were reading a Christmas story (the real St. Nicholas story), he devised a couple of rhyming clues, and then she had a fabulous time working them out and finding the hidden toys. Then, even more wonderfully, she started writing her own clues and sending me to find stuff! She did several before I finally insisted it was bed-time.
Tomorrow morning is work again, Jade coming with me while Shannon goes to the childminder. I'll get Jade doing Education City, among other things, while I'm working as that all went quite well last week. We may go up to Stratford in the afternoon as there is a book waiting for me at the library about making dolls' house furniture.
Sunday, December 02, 2007
There goes another week...
Well, I've been busy! Have had various of my own organisational projects going on, and have mostly left the girls to fend for themselves. So what have I been doing, I hear you ask?!!
Well, I had a brainwave last week that, despite being signed up to Flylady and getting the e-mails every day, I didn't have a permanent list up in my house of what needs doing so that I can look at it whenever I want and see what I'm supposed to be doing today. A bit like I do with my calendar. So I made one! I have no idea how to display it in this blog but there is a list down the left-hand side of daily jobs that need doing, with a little box to tick for each day, and then on the right-hand half of the page there are jobs to do for each day of the week, i.e. the weekly jobs, OK? And the motto (from FlyLady) is "Progress, not Perfection" so even though I'm not getting it all done, at least I am doing better than I did before, so that's progress!
The other thing I've finally done today is to re-hash the menu plan I made about a year ago. I'd made several changes for a summer menu, but we've been back to the winter menu for a while now. However Jade has one-by-one decided that she doesn't like several of my staple meals. I've been in a bit of a dilemma whether to just stick to making them in the hope that she eventually gets to like them, but it's rather demoralising to have her frequently not eating the healthy dinner I've cooked and ending up with just a sandwich yet again (same as lunchtime, usually!). It's also a bit difficult when she's declared she's a vegetarian (with the exception of roast chicken which she loves, and bacon, and sausages!!!) but Shannon is a confirmed carnivore who always picks out all the meat in whatever I've cooked so she can eat it first. Anyway I've found a few different dishes which we'll try out and if that fails I'll teach her how to make her own cheese sandwich and she can do it herself every day!!
We have done some Sonlight stuff this week, including another chapter of Story of the World, a science experiment, some Beyond the Code, (but no maths). We still haven't done any more of the germs lapbook we started before we all got ill. Maybe this week! Last night she read out all the question and answer cards from the Alpha Animals game, and she's done some Education City. And endless reading in bed at night - that goes without saying!
Shannon, in the meantime, is sneaking up on the rails, and when we pulled out the Junior Scrabble board on Friday, totally astonished me by instantly taking the letter tiles and starting to match them up with the letters printed on the board. I had no idea she could do that! Bill tells me she can recognise some letters, such as pointing to 'S' and saying "that's sssssss...". I haven't been paying enough attention, obviously!!! Her counting from 1-12 is very well established, although she's still somewhat wobbly on her colours! When I was tidying up the educational bookshelves this morning, I noticed that I have several books of early play-type learning stuff that I could be doing with her, so I guess I need to start planning that in instead of just palming her off with toys while I do stuff with Jade. However we're also going to be making a visit to playschool on Tuesday morning to introduce Shannon to it, and so that I can meet the new playleader who has taken over since Jade used to go there. I can't quite decide whether to send Shannon there instead of going to the childminder on a Thursday morning, or on a different morning as an addition to it! I love the idea of saving the money I'm spending on the childminder, but OTOH Shannon gets on really well there and is very happy, and I'm reluctant to break up a happy and useful relationship. It's really useful when I need some extra childcare for either or both girls every now and then to be able to ask the childminder. I'll have to keep musing on that one. She's not going to start till January, although as I type that I realise it's only a month away!! Somehow I still thought I had a couple of months to think about it!
Finally, we have started a Jesse Tree for the first time for Advent, which I have been really looking forward to, and started that this evening.
Well, I had a brainwave last week that, despite being signed up to Flylady and getting the e-mails every day, I didn't have a permanent list up in my house of what needs doing so that I can look at it whenever I want and see what I'm supposed to be doing today. A bit like I do with my calendar. So I made one! I have no idea how to display it in this blog but there is a list down the left-hand side of daily jobs that need doing, with a little box to tick for each day, and then on the right-hand half of the page there are jobs to do for each day of the week, i.e. the weekly jobs, OK? And the motto (from FlyLady) is "Progress, not Perfection" so even though I'm not getting it all done, at least I am doing better than I did before, so that's progress!
The other thing I've finally done today is to re-hash the menu plan I made about a year ago. I'd made several changes for a summer menu, but we've been back to the winter menu for a while now. However Jade has one-by-one decided that she doesn't like several of my staple meals. I've been in a bit of a dilemma whether to just stick to making them in the hope that she eventually gets to like them, but it's rather demoralising to have her frequently not eating the healthy dinner I've cooked and ending up with just a sandwich yet again (same as lunchtime, usually!). It's also a bit difficult when she's declared she's a vegetarian (with the exception of roast chicken which she loves, and bacon, and sausages!!!) but Shannon is a confirmed carnivore who always picks out all the meat in whatever I've cooked so she can eat it first. Anyway I've found a few different dishes which we'll try out and if that fails I'll teach her how to make her own cheese sandwich and she can do it herself every day!!
We have done some Sonlight stuff this week, including another chapter of Story of the World, a science experiment, some Beyond the Code, (but no maths). We still haven't done any more of the germs lapbook we started before we all got ill. Maybe this week! Last night she read out all the question and answer cards from the Alpha Animals game, and she's done some Education City. And endless reading in bed at night - that goes without saying!
Shannon, in the meantime, is sneaking up on the rails, and when we pulled out the Junior Scrabble board on Friday, totally astonished me by instantly taking the letter tiles and starting to match them up with the letters printed on the board. I had no idea she could do that! Bill tells me she can recognise some letters, such as pointing to 'S' and saying "that's sssssss...". I haven't been paying enough attention, obviously!!! Her counting from 1-12 is very well established, although she's still somewhat wobbly on her colours! When I was tidying up the educational bookshelves this morning, I noticed that I have several books of early play-type learning stuff that I could be doing with her, so I guess I need to start planning that in instead of just palming her off with toys while I do stuff with Jade. However we're also going to be making a visit to playschool on Tuesday morning to introduce Shannon to it, and so that I can meet the new playleader who has taken over since Jade used to go there. I can't quite decide whether to send Shannon there instead of going to the childminder on a Thursday morning, or on a different morning as an addition to it! I love the idea of saving the money I'm spending on the childminder, but OTOH Shannon gets on really well there and is very happy, and I'm reluctant to break up a happy and useful relationship. It's really useful when I need some extra childcare for either or both girls every now and then to be able to ask the childminder. I'll have to keep musing on that one. She's not going to start till January, although as I type that I realise it's only a month away!! Somehow I still thought I had a couple of months to think about it!
Finally, we have started a Jesse Tree for the first time for Advent, which I have been really looking forward to, and started that this evening.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Glad to see the back of that week!
I just lived through my worst nightmare, which thankfully turned out not to be as much of a nightmare as I'd feared, but still bad enough not to want to repeat it again ever, please!!!
All four of us, sick with D&V at the same time. In a house with only one toilet. And I am v-phobic. I'm sure you don't want me to go into all the grim details, which involved lots of towels, the porta-potti from the caravan and a very stoic and understanding husband who took over until he finally keeled over on Thursday, by which time I was beginning to recover and the girls were lots better.
However, let's look on the bright side:- I am not currently locked up somewhere for the sake of my own safety; and I threw up, yet the world didn't end. Wow!
Funnily enough, the girls had both started with runny noses on Monday morning, so I thought it an appropriate time to start doing a lapbook on germs. Apart from colds, I hadn't really planned on doing the practical, though!! We didn't get very far with it so must try and continue that this coming week.
What else? The girls have watched endless Tom & Jerry, "The Way Things Work", "The Prince of Egypt", "The Horse Whisperer" and a fair bit of CBeebies. Jade and I have read a couple of Magic Tree House books - about the Titanic and the Lakota tribe. Shannon has enjoyed lots of books, and does her best to memorise them and read them back to herself.
And now, just as I was typing up this blog, a neighbour rang on the doorbell and offered us a large doll's house!! No furniture or anything, but even so! It is one of the things I'd been contemplating getting for Christmas, but as Jade seems to want horsey-related stuff even more, it was probably going to not happen. The Lord doth provide!!!!
Finally, today Bill has gone to collect another funny little car, although this one has much more of my approval than the last one! (Okay, I just spent aaaaages looking for the link to when he bought the ahem, ahem, still can't bring myself to name it, little car and can't find it, but did have a good laugh reading this year's new year's resolutions!!!). Anyway this one is the poor-man's (French) version of a Smart Car which runs on diesel or vegetable oil! The plan is he'll commute to Oxford in it and save enough money on petrol to pay for the loan we've had to take out to buy it!!! Fingers crossed!
All four of us, sick with D&V at the same time. In a house with only one toilet. And I am v-phobic. I'm sure you don't want me to go into all the grim details, which involved lots of towels, the porta-potti from the caravan and a very stoic and understanding husband who took over until he finally keeled over on Thursday, by which time I was beginning to recover and the girls were lots better.
However, let's look on the bright side:- I am not currently locked up somewhere for the sake of my own safety; and I threw up, yet the world didn't end. Wow!
Funnily enough, the girls had both started with runny noses on Monday morning, so I thought it an appropriate time to start doing a lapbook on germs. Apart from colds, I hadn't really planned on doing the practical, though!! We didn't get very far with it so must try and continue that this coming week.
What else? The girls have watched endless Tom & Jerry, "The Way Things Work", "The Prince of Egypt", "The Horse Whisperer" and a fair bit of CBeebies. Jade and I have read a couple of Magic Tree House books - about the Titanic and the Lakota tribe. Shannon has enjoyed lots of books, and does her best to memorise them and read them back to herself.
And now, just as I was typing up this blog, a neighbour rang on the doorbell and offered us a large doll's house!! No furniture or anything, but even so! It is one of the things I'd been contemplating getting for Christmas, but as Jade seems to want horsey-related stuff even more, it was probably going to not happen. The Lord doth provide!!!!
Finally, today Bill has gone to collect another funny little car, although this one has much more of my approval than the last one! (Okay, I just spent aaaaages looking for the link to when he bought the ahem, ahem, still can't bring myself to name it, little car and can't find it, but did have a good laugh reading this year's new year's resolutions!!!). Anyway this one is the poor-man's (French) version of a Smart Car which runs on diesel or vegetable oil! The plan is he'll commute to Oxford in it and save enough money on petrol to pay for the loan we've had to take out to buy it!!! Fingers crossed!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Big blog postponed
I was all set to do a lovely catch-up blog last night of all we've been up to, but Shannon put a stop to that by developing a sickness bug just as she was about to go to bed. Suffice to say it's been an awfully long night and I have an awful lot of yucky washing to get done. She's doing OK, though still throwing up every now and then. I'm a nervous wreck in fear of catching it.
However, despite that, I have it officially that we are not a completely dysfunctional family in need of therapy!! The psychiatrist from Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services has phoned up this morning to say that the only treatment they think Jade needs for the selective mutism is the standard 'small-steps' exposure treatment which the speech and language therapist has started with Jade already (in fact she should have been here today but we cancelled her due to all the sickness). The psychiatrist will keep a kind of watching brief and have a couple of meetings with DH and I to chat over how we think things are going, but at least they haven't suggested family therapy or anything else!! We must be (fairly) normal!!!!
However, despite that, I have it officially that we are not a completely dysfunctional family in need of therapy!! The psychiatrist from Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services has phoned up this morning to say that the only treatment they think Jade needs for the selective mutism is the standard 'small-steps' exposure treatment which the speech and language therapist has started with Jade already (in fact she should have been here today but we cancelled her due to all the sickness). The psychiatrist will keep a kind of watching brief and have a couple of meetings with DH and I to chat over how we think things are going, but at least they haven't suggested family therapy or anything else!! We must be (fairly) normal!!!!
This made me really sad:
My Dad brings along the weekly 'Family' section of the Guardian. I've got rather behind and had a big pile of them to read, and just found this article which was in the 25th August paper. I thought it was desperately sad that it is accepted as necessary and normal to do this to such little children.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Real birthday pics
These are a few pics of Shannon on her birthday - the ones I posted below were earlier ones as I couldn't download the proper birthday pics straightaway.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
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 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.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
"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!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, October 29, 2007
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!!
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!!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Mom's Overture
One of these days I will blog properly, honest, but for now, here's another one of these:
Monday, October 01, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, September 17, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
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!
Monday, September 10, 2007
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!
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!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
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).
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).
Thursday, August 23, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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!
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!
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, August 06, 2007
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:
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.
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.
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