Last night...

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

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

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

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

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

Stop the world -

I want to get off!

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

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

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

Please pray ....

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

Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

Just practising!

Thanks Anita!

Hey, it's good to be back home again

(With thanks to John Denver for the title).

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're off!

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

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

Yesterday....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some good news!

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

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

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

Things I haven't blogged about lately:

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

She's been to school!

Today was Jade's first afternoon at school.


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

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

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

School plans

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

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

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

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

Post-Greenbelt doldrums

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

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

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

Happy Birthday to me!

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

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

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

More aaarrrggghhh!

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

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

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

NOT a good day!

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

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

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

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

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

Very quick blog

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

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

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

Not an end-of-year report!

But really just an excuse to brag.

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

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

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