Tamsin's party

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


.

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

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


.

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

Isabelle enjoys a book:


.


.

Party preparations

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

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

Birth-day Part 2

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

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

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

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

Is anybody out there?

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

4 years ago....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

Here's what Tamsin did on Friday:




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

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

Singing in Spanish

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some days are diamonds (some days are stone)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, it's good to be back home again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm clean!!!!!

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

Sick, a surprise, and more sick

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

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

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

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

My three girls

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

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


.

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


.

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

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


.

Major disaster!

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

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

Chickens, and returning to work

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

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

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