One word? When seven would do…

one of the cats has done something curious to her eye. It is the same cat that regular readers will recall me having a full on battle with when I tried to take her to the vets last year for flea treatment. It is actually getting better but since about Thursday the inner eyelid has been half closed and the pupil does not seem to be dilating in tune with the other eye. No discharge and she is fine in herself so we have decided to give it another couple of days and see what happens before trying to traumatise her with the cat basket and the vets just before we go away and leave her to the mercy of my parents!

Scarlett developed the conjunctivitus that I was convinced she must have escaped since Davies’ came and went last Thurday 🙁 She was far better than him at sitting still while I put some cream in her eye tonight though so fingers crossed for the same speedy clearing up that it brought on in Davies.

She has also just ‘enjoyed’ her first real vomit experience 🙁 Neither of the kids are particularly sickly – we all seem to have almost constant colds but upset stomachs are rare here – Davies has had no more than 3 ever and Scarlett has not been sick since she was a tiny baby bringing up milk after a feed.

She was asleep by 6.30 tonight (they both were – chaotic afternoon, more on that later) but appeared again in the lounge at 8.30. She sat happily with us while we ate our dinner, then got a bit teary and wanted only me. Ady went to bed and I sat with her feeling her get warmer and warmed and her tummy started to contract until she threw up 🙁 Got us both changed and reassured her its okay and she lay all dazed for a bit, then asked to go to bed where she has just been lying still and now she has reappeared in the lounge again. She seems fine in herself although I can still hear her tummy heaving so I think I will change her nappy and give her some calpol in an attempt to cool her down and get her off to sleep – don’t really fancy having our bed tonight!

The rest of the day has been nice, after my grandmother’s delightful visit we had about an hour before Mel arrived with L & L and after an initial skirting round each other for a bit Davies and L were soon playing like only small boys can with an empty cardboard box! Scarlett and L largely played alongside but ignoring each other. Scarlett remains convinced that she is also 4 and that any child younger than that is a baby needing to be mothered by her, so she spent most of the time the four of them were eating tea getting up to get stuff that L dropped and giving it back to her – very cute!

Did 100 easy lessons with D again – still going well and he retains his enthusiasm for it although keeps trying to rush on ahead and I can’t decide whether we would be undoing our good work by skipping over all the repetition and samey stuff or whether that is actually the secret to its success and by messing with the formula it would render the whole process useless!

Also feeling a bit more positive about group today – yesterday I was really hacked off that only twop people had replied to my email asking for volunteers to bring and do stuff, but today I have had emails from two people to say they are coming and will do stuff and another to say although they may not be there this week they really enjoyed it last week and will be back again. I think we are going to try and set up a parents olny meeting one evening and see what we can thrash out to ensure it gets going properly after Melrose.

she launched straight in with ‘And you’re not getting any slimmer are you?’

So that was nice 😉

So far so good 🙂

Managed to get out of the house before 10am which was quite an achievement – the library carpark was full with a queue so I asked Davies if he thought he could go in there on his own and give the videos back to the librarian while I waited in the car (literally outside) he was qute up for doing it and merrily toddled off. The car park queue then moved forward so I was not directly outside anymore so I got scared and ran it to check on him – he was fine – standing happily in the queue 🙂

I think I probably err on the side of too laid back sometimes – mainly to counterbalance Ady who is the other side of paranoid – despite the fact he could not have come out of the library without me seeing him, it is a very small library anyway which he knows well as we go there most weeks and he is very sensible Ady would have been imagining him being snatched and dragged out of the fire exit round the back. I know bad things happen, I know this is a dangerous world we live in and I’m not about to start sending him out to do the weekly shop alone but I am making a real effort to start getting him to do little things like that – he feels so good about himself afterwards and as he is not going to get that massive one hit of independance in starting school I feel like I should be doing something to work towards him being okay on his own in day to day life gradually.

Which also brings me onto ‘Stranger Danger’ – anyone done anything on this yet with their small people? Davies is not only happy to talk to but actively seeks out adults to talk to, when we went to the Science museum last time he got slighly ‘mislaid’ and was quite capable of finding a lady in uniform and telling her his name, age and my name. I have taught him how to dial 999 and he knows our address – I’m working on our phone number. I sort of feel that dealing with the fact that not every grown up is an OK person is probably the next step, but I know I need to tackle it well – any ideas?

Anyway, we then went to Tescos where we bought food for the week, the first hit of ‘stuff for Melrose’ (which is now nestling in two carrier bags in the newly cleared cupboard under the stairs 🙂 ) of new toothbrushes, shower gel, wipes and nappies and emergency supplies of long life milk. Also got Tarly a couple of tie dye tops that had just been put out so we blend in 😉

And then we had lunch! Davies sitting watching Ice Age again and Scarlett sat on the floor making patterns with the Tesco version of connect 4 I bought.

My grandmother will be here shortly to no doubt continue her cross examination of me about HE which she got interupted on last time and comment about my weight 🙂 Back later!

Just checked on Davies who was sitting suspiciously quietly in the lounge to find he is watching something on Cbeebies which must be along the lines of ‘Clifford – the early years’ or similar… noooooooo!

Does no one who works in children’s tv planning and commissioning read my blog? I don’t know why I bother!

Mummy I can read 🙂 🙂 🙂

Yep, lesson seven of 100 easy lessons and we tackled our first putting two letters together to get a whole real word…. Then the second one was se (which with 100EL is pronounced ‘see’) and then we tackled a three letter one (shamlessly leaping ahead to a bit of tomorrow lesson at his insistence as he had a lightbulb moment and suddenly ‘got it’ and wanted to do more and did ‘mat’. Cue one very happy little boy who is very pleased with himself and me who may have had a couple of false starts with getting the book in the first place, and felt like I was totally patronising both him and I sitting there saying ‘aaaaaatttttt say it fast at’ in a very slow voice. Wherever we go from here we have at least got the grounding block of him understanding the mechanics of reading – in just one week 🙂 I aim to complete as much of the book as we can get through all the time it is working for us. I would say that it is probably like everything – it will either work for you or not and the child needs to be ready to learn too, but so far it is a great tool for making it feel like an achievable task, prompting us to give it a small period of time each day and giving us a sense of making progress every day too.

Have woken up feeling crap today so assume that the fact Ady and the kids have not been themselves last week it must be a second bug in addition to the one we’d only just gotten over 🙁 Hopefully this means I am the last of the four of us to have it and as such we’ll all be recovered for next week.

Up at about 6 (which didn’t help much!) but although I had planned to do something crafty with the kids I was not up to much more than lying on the sofa drinking endless tea and vaguely supervising a game of Drusillas! All the various animals were out, different coloured paper made fields, mud, water, sand and so on for them to rest on, all the dinosaurs (it seemed to have combined with Paradise Park for the purpose of the game!) were seperated into meat eaters and vegetation eaters and lily pads were made to go on the water for the life cycle frog set we have. All very educational and child led 🙂

Ady and I then sat next to each other on the sofa for a while debating who was illest until I left to get dressed, managed to persuade the children into getting dressed and then we cleared out the cupboard under the stairs – which has resulted in the breadmaker being reinstalled in the kitchen (first loaf being whipped up now!), all of my lost shoes (and a fair few pairs I had forgotten I even had 😉 ) being back in the wardrobe and more space to shove stuff next time we can’t find a proper home for it 😉 Also dug out Scarlett’s sunsuit from last summer (bright pink and blue – probably posted a pic of her in it last year – size 18-24 months and a faux sheepskin gilet size 12-18 months which if anyone has a suitable sized child to give them to at Melrose I am happy to bring along!

Over to Mum and Dad’s for lunch which felt strained a bit – I got all cross when we got there as we always seemt to be the perfect hosts running around after them (even as recently as last night!) but also seem to end up being the ones making the drinks and so on round there too. Also Mum gave Scarlett an open bag of tortillas but as she didn’t take anything else of Mum that was all she gave her while Davies was being pampered with buttered french bread cut into shapes, grapes, cheese, ham and so on. (He is the very obvious favourite and it really bugs me), AND not saying please or thankyou AND when me or Ady prompted him to say it she kept lying and saying he already had!!!! So I took the tortillas off Tarly (why do I always punish my children when it is someone else I am pissed off with???) who then had a big tantrum about it and would only go to Ady who I insisted ignore her and sit and eat his lunch. She came round and ended up sitting on my lap eating everything in sight – so I knew I was right 🙂 Mum then played with Davies, Scarlett played by herself, Dad, Ady and Frazer watched football and I sat there feeling crap, coughing and thinking of all the other 100 better things I could be doing instead of sitting there looking out of the window. The day was saved by us tuning in halfway through a programme about penguins and sea lions and finding at the end it was filmed at South Georgia – and Davies remembered and was able to tell everyone where it was and why we had noticed it (very small island we spotted on his globe last week and I knew nothing about at the time!). Scarlett raised the tension level just before we left by knocking a small table over and smashing the glass in a photoframe (only a small one which can be replaced for about a quid at a glasscutters) and instead of asking if she was okay Mum was all cross about the bloody picture frame. And Scarlett went up to her to say sorry and was pretty much ignored. We were leaving anyway so we did it a bit hastier to ensure I didn’t say things I would later regret and home for Davies to watch Ice Age on dvd as a result of a discussion about creatures with tusks leading to woolly mammoths!

Have taken some pills, completed the Melrose who are you thing while under the influence of them ( 🙂 ) which means I can’t drink wine tonight and I am now counting down hours ’til I can safely go to bed…

Busyish day tomorrow – the videos we borrowed (and we never did watch Charlottes Web – just as well it was free!) are due back at the library, my Granny is coming over after lunch and Mel is bringing L&L over for tea as we cancelled it on Friday. Also have something of a job list of stuff to sort out this week – some Melrose related which means it can’t be put off!

to blog so I’m using it.

Got home after a really nice (and very cheap – we only paid the tip!) evening with friends. Lovely curry, lots to drink, a fairly rowdy night with a lot of banter going on with the restauarant staff and people dining at nearby tables which was all quite nice. The friends are a couple who I have known since I was about 8 or 9 and they were 20 ish with a 2yo son. They started off as sort of friends of my parents – Gary is a mechanic and has always fixed our families cars – and in the days of driving old bangers used to supply them too, he also worked for my dad for a time doing bits of decorating work when Dad had a lot on, and Mandy worked weekends in my Mum’s restaurant. Gary even used to take me and Frazer swimming on Saturdays when we were kids. But somehow as I’ve grown up and we ended up buying our house round the corner from theirs, and Ady is the same age as them, that 12 year age gap has closed and they have ended up as our friends. Their kids are 19 and 21 now and their 19yo daughter is pregnant. So they are about to become very young grandparents.

We had nice chats about all sorts of things including a very indepth discussion of HE – which for once was quite well conducted and left them very convinced which was nice 🙂 After several drinks including a very pretty multicoloured shot each which was complementary and included creme de menth, baileys and campari (!) it all got louder! We adjourned to the local pub for one last drink before coming home for coffee.

We arrived to find Mum in Scarlett’s room where she had been for the previous hour trying to placate a not too pleased to see her instead of us small person. She came into the lounge and charmed Gary and Mandy while they had their coffee and then they all left and Ady went to bed. I sat up with her watching Wife Swap on one of the re-run channels ’til she went to sleep at about 1.30am. I was not that tired so it was not that much of a chore and I knew I would be getting a lie in this morning so that was okay 🙂

This morning I arose at about 9am, caught up on the blogring (and forgot to mention at least three people who have been helping keep the ring alive while some people lived it up at CP over on Joyce’s blog 🙁 ) while Ady had a bath which was then hijacked by the kids, then me and Davies went into town shopping. I got myself a couple of warm and snuggly jumpers in the sales for Melrose (have now had at least four people say to me ‘Scotland? At this time of year? Hope you’ve got some warm clothes!’ and raise even more eyebrows when I say it’s a YH which even I am now imagining as drafty and with no electricity barely supplying shelter from the elements!), finallly got my 10% discount card from ELC – where I picked up a few 20% off crafty kits too, got Davies’ DangerMouse eye patch and Scarlett some dolly nappies and Davies some waterproof troouser half price in Woolies and a pair of Incredibles pjs which came with a detachable cloak so he can use for dressing up.

Lunch in McDs for him (and me – urgh!) and then a quick trip to Sainsburys and home. St Johns Ambulance were in town doing a bit of tin rattling and giving away balloons and stickers so I spoke to them about coming to do some first aid training at our HE group and got all the leaflets about their courses and the email address of their education liason officer to contact and then they showed us all inside one of their ambulances – which was very interesting – I’ve never been inside an ambulance before and as SJA folk always seem to take huge amounts of pride in their work we got a very in depth explanation of what it all was for too – which prompted a talk about death certificates and similar on the way back home 🙂 There was also some sort of Sea Cadet group in town playing marching band type music which we stood and listened to for a bit. Davies is very good company when he is on his own – very grown up and really appreciative of the one to one time.

Back home Ady was all depressed cos Portsmouth had lost against arch rivals Southampton in some cup or other and he is also suffering with a cold (and had gone to bed at midnight and been up at 5ish!) but he had managed to do some baking with Scarlett and play drawing with her so she had enjoyed some attention on her own too.

We sort of have plans to excavate the cupboard under the stairs which we both keep finding things to ‘just quickly do first’ and Mum and Dad are coming over for dinner later so I won’t be back ’til tomorrow.

After yesterday’s post which ended with a reference to kids’ tea and our going out for dinner in the same paragraph it is showing aids to digestion 😀

A cold day today. An okay night although both kids were in our bed by 6am, Ady was doing a really unattractive throat clearing mucus shifting thing (which if I was ever unsure about being married to him or not would be the deciding factor against – particularly given my ‘thing’ about coughs and such!). Then he stuck some cartoons on for the kids to watch on our TV – which I complained long and loud about a) it was 6am – we should not be encouraging them to get up early and come into our bed for a percieved treat of watching cartoons, b) they were the sort of cartoons I would rather they didn’t watch anyway – not dreadful but certainly with no educational or otherwise value and c) it meant I didn’t have a hope of getting back to sleep. So I took myself off to Davies’ bed, snuggled down and slept ’til 8am 🙂

A non-starter of a rest of the morning which I spent trying to drink tea, fighting Scarlett to get her dressed (starting to realise that she did perhaps have a dummy a bit more than I had realised – only for short bursts but I did tend to give it to her to get her to co-operate with stuff – today she has not had one at all since she got up and she has complained but lived with it – I am now just worried that she might start sucking her fingers / thumb instead which will be even worse as I won’t be able to choose when to let her do that), read emails and the post and phoned Jenny for a .

We managed to get to soft play by 11am and I had just removed coats and shoes and released children when Julie and the twins arrived. A happy hour and a halfs play later we had lunch in the cafe there which was reasonably priced if basic. Davies has really grown in confidence there – he didn’t need to check with me once although I kept an eye on him,, ha happily ran about with the other children, was excellent with Scarlett and even pointed out a lady who he had made friends with (which rather horribly reminds me I probably need to have some sort of stranger danger chat with him 🙁 ). Scarlett is less OK – she would rather I went round the whole place with her if she can’t keep up with Davies (which she can’t always). As the whole place is designed with folk a little ahem, smaller in proportion than me I avoid it if at all possible 🙂 But I did spend a bit of time clambering up ropes and scrambling down slides which was all quite enjoyable and nice to feel needed by the usually very independant Scarlett too 🙂

Lunch was okay – Davies studiously sat and ate all of his, Scarlett only wanted to eat off my plate – which I managed by transferring most of her food onto it while she wasn’t looking! Then we parted for Julie to go home and us to go to Tumble Tots. Scarlett and I had discussed TT this morning and confirmed that she wouldn’t be going cos ‘Me not like it. Me cry’ which took all the imagined pressure off her and she was only too happy to run in there. Davies had been all for it until we pulled up outside when he suddenly decided he did like it and he did want to go but not today 🙁 We went into the outer hall and Scarlett asked if she could run round with the other waiting children, to which I replied yes so she insisted on taking her tights and shoes off. Davies didn’t want to take his off so we ended up with a compromise of taking his shoes off first. I then struggled to manage both of them while persuading him to go in – we reached a compromise of me going in with him for the first bit, then me leaving and him staying for the first aparatus play – if he wanted to leave after that then he could, but I explained that he had been twice and liked it, we had paid a lot of money for him to join up and that I wanted him to at least give it a go. I did have to drag his socks off which made him cry and carry him into the room, with Scarlett following quite happily. He refused to join in with the song and dance (strange given it is all he does at home !) whilst Scarlett leapt up and joined in with all of it (rolls eyes). I then managed to slip out telling him I was changing her nappy and he ended up being fine. She on the other hand was hard to capture despite the array of leappad, pencils and crayons and books I had brought with us to entertain her 🙁 and just really wanted to go and join in with him – kids eh?

He did pop out twice, but went straight back in again quite happily. We talked about whether he was glad I ‘made’ him go and he says he is… He then managed to trap his fingers in the door when someone opened it and he was hanging around it – nothing serious and we can but hope that he finally learns the lesson about playing round doors. He is now fading fast again and being all moany so I’m leaving him to Ady and am about to go and trawl through my wardrobe to find something to wear tonight and see if I can rescue my hair without washing it 🙂

Not that it is likely to prevent me from saying it in the most flowery and lengthy way possible of course 🙂

Today has been a lot of nothing really, not sure where it has gone. After earlier blog we had lunch, which I ate trying to conduct a phonecall to someone to which was tricky. The kids have been invited to a birthday party while we are at Melrose, which is a shame as they don’t get invited to a lot really, it was an invite for them both which was nice and the little birthday boy is a particularly nice little chap too. His parents are friends we have known a while – well actually his Daddy was my first kiss many years ago 😉 Ady worked with him at B&Q as did I and we met his Mummy when we attended their wedding. We were pregnant at the same time with Davies and their son A (who will be 4 soon, so a few months younger than Davies) and have stayed in sporadic but consistant touch ever since. She is currently one year through a five year course in ostoepathy or something similar so has very little free time (infact we arranged to meet up and the first weekend we are all free is mid- March 🙂 ) . I was not really expecting to get a real person on the end of the phone so was phoning to leave a message on their answerphone and was taken by surprise to speak to her 🙂

Then round to Rachel’s where the kids played pretty well together actually. I think E is starting to settle into school and Rachel has been working really hard on giving him lots of time and one to one attention – all of which seems to be working.

We did tongight’s EZ lesson while Davies was in bed which meant we didn’t get the writing practice done – although he was well up for me going to get pens and paper and doing it I want to keep it light hearted and somehow having him learning to read and write while in his bed about to go to sleep just doesn’t feel right! The lesson went well again though and he is very happy about the idea that he is going to learn to read, so I am feeling pretty positive about the whole business.

I have posted what I hope is an inspirational and motivating post to our local group yahoo list asking for thoughts, contributions and ideas which no one has responded to yet! But I’m hoping that some replies will trickle in over the next couple of days.

Tomorrow is a very hectic day indeed so if I am AWOL then please do not fear – we are meeting Julie and the twins at soft play in the morning and for lunch, then to Tumble Tots for Davies, then home and the kids’ friends L & L are coming over for tea before my Mum arrives to babysit for me and Ady to go out for dinner with friends. As I say, I may not have time for blogging 🙂

not even the test one I sent myself 🙁

Dentist trip first thing this morning. The dentist there is the one I have been going to since I was about 12 (although strangely he never seems to have gotten any older) and we even stayed with him as our dentist while we lived up north and just timed our visits home around our six monthly checkups. But last time we went in July he told us that he had sold the practise and was going to work in Harley Street. So today we met the bloke who bought the practise off him and is our new dentist. Ady is quite dentist-phobic although I am not and have made sure the children are fine with it too. We always thought our previous dentist was at the very forfront of new dental techiques and technology but this new guy had some amazing stuff in his surgery. He took xrays which he talked through with us, then he uses this tiny camera to take pics of any work that needs doing inside your mouth and shows you on a massive pc screen so you know what he is charging you a hundred quid to do 🙂 Ady was fine and I need a small filling (and I’ve seen on screen where I need it to so I know he is telling the truth!) 🙂 And unlike old dentist he uses tooth coloured fillings which is nicer. Booked in for it next week. He also showed me the backs of my bottom front teeth which are yucky and yellow (too much tea 😉 ). Then the kids had a go each and Davies apparantly has a small cross bite which is fine in his milk teeth but will have to be corrected if it grows through in his grown up teeth, and Scarlett is pushing her front teeth forward with her dummy 🙁 She only really has it at bedtime although I have started to give it to her in the car if she gets whingey. Davies threw his away just before he was three and I had aimed to do the same with her, but the dentist said if she stops now it should correct itself, if not then it will get worse and effect her smile and possibly her speech and may even make the bone like it so her adult teeth grow through like it too 🙁 Erk! We have decided to restrict it for now to totally just bedtime and take it out as soon as she is asleep with a view to losing it altogether asap. I know it will be traumatic for all of us now but I am sure she will thank me for it in years to come – well at least it will be one less thing to go blaming us for when she hits puberty anyway 😉 I know she’d accept alcohol as a substitute but I’m not sure the justification could be considered good parenting 🙂 Anyway they both got stickers of The Incredibles which went down well and he commended me / them on very clean teeth (which is possibly a fluke I am not always that consciencious about getting them to clean them 🙂 ) and £128 later with a further bill of £75 for next week’s filling home we all came.

Kids are now playing some elaborate game which seems to involve getting lots of toys out oh and Davies has conjunctivitus – he developed it late yesterday afternoon and it very quickly got yucky and in both eyes 🙁 I used to get it all the time as a kid and clearly remember crawling from bed to the bathroom to get wet cotton wool to soak them ’til I could get my eyelids open again. I did warn him that he probably wouldn’t be able to open his eyes when he woke up this morning and left some boiled water and cotton wool by his bed for him and sure enuough I spent ages de-glooping them this morning. Ady had also brought home some cream which I managed to get in his eyes and although swollen and pink they are no longer ‘leaking’ discharge and he says they are not sore. A quick lesson in Japan and Japanese ensued though as this morning I told him he looked like a little Japanese boy and I didn’t think he’d paid any attention ’til we got to the dentist and there was a bonsai tree in the waiting room. I started to explain about them being Japanese and he reminded me about what I had said this morning. Time is right to start discussing culture, difference of appearances and so on methinks.

Oh and the last bit for now was that I started to read him Alice in Wonderland at bedtime last night. We’ve had it ages from a charity shop but he chose it off the bookcase for the first time. Its a very weird tale (as was discussed on MP recently) and I really didn’t think he was paying much attention until the only question he asked was ‘what’s a waist?’ (Duchess takes Alice’s arm and says ‘I suppose you wish I would put my arm around your waist don’t you?’) Then this morning on the way back from the dentist he piped up with ‘Mummy this seatbelt is hurting my waist!’ He does like to use his new learnt words at the first available opportunity 🙂 but I’m staggered the only part of such a fantastical tale of talking creatures, playing card royalty and crochet with flamingos and hedgehogs was ‘what’s a waist?’ 🙂

mainly cos its the commercial break of desperate housewives which I cannot watch and surf at the same time as! infact you will notice a distinct lack of punctuation and capital letters but I feel safe with Chris and Tim being away 🙂

Just really wanted to record that I did lesson 2 of 100 EZ lessons with D and again it worked really well. clearly you are being broken in gently and much of it was repetition of lesson one but he is really enjoying the ease of it, the fact he can do it straight away and the one to one with stacks of praise. if we can both keep it up and the system really does work then i think this is the way to crack reading.

not helped today by the little boy at group being a very very good reader – although he did say he had the book i was reading at home he was clearly *reading* it and not just from memory – very fluently and impressively. And yes I know, I know, I know I should not be comparing D to anyone else, especially someone older who has been in school for a couple of years I just so desperately want him to learn to read – for so many reasons; i want him to love books like I do, I want him to be able to do research and so on for himself and for totally selfish reasons I would love to feel that he is doing OK in one of those basic skills which I know as HEers we will be judged on his proficiency in fairly early on.

Dentist tomorrow first thing, then home all morning and to Rachel’s in the afternoon (providing she doesn’t phone and cancel which I have this very strong feeling she might).

And finally that experiment on COOT last night where they gave the child three bits of drinking straw and a pair of scissors and asked them to make a square? Well if I’m totally honest my first thought would not have been the ‘answer’ of cutting one of the bits of straw in half with the scissors to make four bits to make the square. I would have done what one of the kids did and used the scissors to make the fourth side of the square – not sure what that says about me, but I said to Ady at the time that Davies would not be able to do it either, and sure enough he didn’t… he asked several quite intelligent questions about it and then gave it up as he felt he had more important things to do with his life 🙂 I have no worries about my own or his intelligence but as I think the experiment was designed to determine readiness for school I guess i never was ready and clearly D isn’t either!

mainly cos its the commercial break of desperate housewives which I cannot watch and surf at the same time as! infact you will notice a distinct lack of punctuation and capital letters but I feel safe with Chris and Tim being away 🙂

Just really wanted to record that I did lesson 2 of 100 EZ lessons with D and again it worked really well. clearly you are being broken in gently and much of it was repetition of lesson one but he is really enjoying the ease of it, the fact he can do it straight away and the one to one with stacks of praise. if we can both keep it up and the system really does work then i think this is the way to crack reading.

not helped today by the little boy at group being a very very good reader – although he did say he had the book i was reading at home he was clearly *reading* it and not just from memory – very fluently and impressively. And yes I know, I know, I know I should not be comparing D to anyone else, especially someone older who has been in school for a couple of years I just so desperately want him to learn to read – for so many reasons; i want him to love books like I do, I want him to be able to do research and so on for himself and for totally selfish reasons I would love to feel that he is doing OK in one of those basic skills which I know as HEers we will be judged on his proficiency in fairly early on.

Dentist tomorrow first thing, then home all morning and to Rachel’s in the afternoon (providing she doesn’t phone and cancel which I have this very strong feeling she might).

And finally that experiment on COOT last night where they gave the child three bits of drinking straw and a pair of scissors and asked them to make a square? Well if I’m totally honest my first thought would not have been the ‘answer’ of cutting one of the bits of straw in half with the scissors to make four bits to make the square. I would have done what one of the kids did and used the scissors to make the fourth side of the square – not sure what that says about me, but I said to Ady at the time that Davies would not be able to do it either, and sure enough he didn’t… he asked several quite intelligent questions about it and then gave it up as he felt he had more important things to do with his life 🙂 I have no worries about my own or his intelligence but as I think the experiment was designed to determine readiness for school I guess i never was ready and clearly D isn’t either!

Well ok not expert exactly, but certainly able to offer advice, help and know where to point people to find anything I can’t help with 🙂

Did all the stuff I needed to do this morning including the docs where we were told he is fine and must just have had the cold a bit worse than the rest of us and be taking a bit longer to recover. Made three big lumps of playdough which always makes me think of Katy (who’s recipe I use) and Jan (who’s fab idea of scenting it I use) which the kids kept coming and sneaking little bits off before I put it in bags and made the stew too which is currently making the house smell all homely and housewifely!

Then off to group. The new venue is (IMHO) really good, through a large sitting room area down a corridor off of which is the large hall and the small hall (both of which are excellent sizes, wooden floored so easy to clean up afterwards) and well equiped with chairs and tables – oh and warm 🙂 We are also hiring the kitchen which is really well set up and means we will be able to do baking and so on too 🙂

Unfortunately out of the ten families we were expecting five did not make it for one reason or another (illness, children’s birthday etc) and of the two new families who came today one of them simply disappeared without saying anything to anyone 🙁 I am going to drop her a friendly email later to try and find out why as it seems a bit odd. The new family who did stay are lovely – a boy aged 6 – who Davies instantly bonded with, who has only been out of school for a week and a half and his little baby sister (around 12 months old I would guess). Both parents were there and I managed to have quite a long chat with them about various things – which explains the first paragraph – I felt like I was really able to help them answer some questions. This was the very first thing they had attended so they didn’t know what to expect and on our second ever group, in our first time in that venue and with half our number missing I am not sure we gave the real impression of what we are about anyway. They went away with the boy not wanting to go – a good sign 🙂 and have said that they do want to try out a couple of other groups – once of which clashes with ours but if we don’t see them for a few weeks it does not mean they will never come back. I have just sent them a very wordy email with loads of links and website to check out (including MP of course!) so we may see them on list and hopefully I will see them again IRL too – I also said that as the boys got on so well we would be up for meeting up outside of group too once they are a bit more settled. Nice folk though 🙂

Hard to say whether it was a good meet up or not really – we definitely need to get more activties going so I will be contacting everyone over the next week to try and sort out more of a theme for each week and arrange what will be going on too. The playdough worked well in the toddler room, the bookreading didn’t really happen as the lure of the playdough was too strong and you will need to check out Jenny’s blog to see what happened in the large hall as I only popped in there briefly to drink tea 🙂

Kids are now being really noisy and rowdy and horrid – Scarlett is being quite whingey today and Davies is winding her up too which doesn’t help. She is much better at entertaining herself than he is and he always seems to come along and try and join in which pisses her off as his joining in usually involves taking stuff off her and insisting she has to share. Infact I am about to take advantage of the fact she is occupied and do easy lesson number 2 with him. Back later to report on how it went…

After another of our comedy routine nights we awoke to a dusting of snow. After being fine all day yesterday as soon as Ady got home last night Davies went into this ‘oh I am so so ill and I may well expire before morn’ type routine which totally pissed me off and was totally bought into by Ady. How can a child who has run round being rowdy all day, eaten stacks of chocolate and pretended he was Dangermouse suddenly be lying on the sofa unable to eat his lovingly charred fish fingers 🙂 and barely able to climb the stairs to bed???? He woke a couple of times during the evening and just as I was dropping off to sleep around midnight he woke again. I brought him into bed with us and he went straight to sleep.
I woke again a few hours later to discover Scarlett was also in the bed with us (Ady had gotten her), then Davies woke me again at 5am calling for Ady, who appeared from Davies’ bedroom and said with a gasp ‘where’s Scarlett?’

Was about to send out a search party when he remembered that he had put her back in her bed!

Scarlett finally woke me at 8am by appearing in bed with me wielding her bottle of milk and wearing a very stinky nappy.

Davies is still complaining of a sore throat so I have got a doc’s appointment for him this morning which will probably result in being told he is contagious with something horrid and will mean not only will all of the rest of us get it (and bring it to Melrose naturally!) that we won’t be able to go to group this afternoon!

Speaking of which I need to gather together all the bits I have said I’ll take and make up a few batches of playdough too. I also need to peel and chop loads of veggies for beef stew tonight before we go out so really I should be attending to one of these tasks instead of sitting here doing this. Right off I go then. No really I am going now. I am honestly. Right, I’ve gone!

So says Ady after we watched Child of Our Time together 🙂

We had fairly contrastly school experiences. He came from a very crappy homelife and got a lot out of school – it was his one constant, he had plenty of friends, was popular and although not academically bright or high achieving he ‘did well’ at school. Ady is ‘one of the crowd’, happy to blend in and someone who will go out of his way to make himself a friend to people. Which has got him a fairly long way in life so is not to be criticised. That early acceptance within his school life gave him the reassurance he so needed and didn’t get at home to make him a confident and happy adult today.

Conversly I stuck out like a sore thumb at school, I am only in touch with one person from school days, I had the obviously visual difference of my hair colour, an attitude from my Dad of my own self importance and was probably even more academically promising than I ever actually achieved. I was not popular and whilst I was never actually bullied as such I was aware that I was not really liked much. It upset me for a while but it also made me stronger and I would credit it with making me the person I am today who rarely needs the assurance or acceptance of others, or at the very least has the confidence to go with what I want instead of worrying about what others would think.

Which leads me to the whole which is best debate? I was talking to my Dad the other day about the fact that neither of the kids has my hair colour and in a way I am glad as I know that as a child one of the last things you want is something to mark you out as different from everyone else (it has to be said as an adult and even an older child I really liked the fact I was not like everyone else!). Then it hung between us unsaid that what I am doing by HEing them is making them different and seperating them from everyone else. Will they thank me for this in later life? I am not doubting my decision and not questioning whether they will thank me for HE in every respect – just the one that in doing so I am giving them that badge of difference, that conversation starter, that air of curiosity and preventing them from ever registering on friendsreunited 🙂 Whilst I believe this is neither here nor there (can’t quite see it as a good thing) I know others would say it is a bad thing to be saddling them with before they even start out.

So further to this subject we watched COOT tonight and it was all about the 5 yos starting school and how they fitted in at making friends among other things. There was a quiz to join in with on questions such as what can you do to ensure your child does well? answer being ‘make them look good’. Ady got all the questions right, I got half wrong cos I answered with what I believed in. Our debate after the show was that although I might be right that the answers were saddening and *wrong* that is the way life is and that is the life the children will grow up into and have to find a space in somehow.

I am not HEing due to any overhang of my own school days – they were not a ten year stretch of misery – I do have happy memories of them and certainly in some of the extra curricular activities I got a lot out of them. I am however conscious of the children’s personalities, weaknesses and characters and I see in them some things which reflect me and I either want them to not consider them important (eg what trainers people wear, physical appearance, worrying about whether people like you affecting your learning and so on) or to not have them crushed out of them (flitting from one thing to another and learning all they want about stuff, being able to concentrate on learning as seperate to socialising and so on). There were at least two children on tonight’s show who I was shouting at the TV about ‘well don’t send them to school then!’ ‘Take them out of that situation, they are FIVE’ and so on who I would have said were ideal candidates for HE.

I admit to keeping in the back of my mind that one day, perhaps for senior school the children might want to go to school, it might be the very best thing for all of us (although I suspect having got that far it might not 🙂 ) but I do know for sure that having watched that show with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach at the very thought that in theory Davies would be going to school in a few months is enough to totally convince me once again that they are way too young for it at five and they need to be fully formed people ready for all school can throw at them if they are to go there and get the most possible from the experience.

went very well indeed actually 🙂 We went and sat on the stairs as the instant Tarly thinks we might be doing something which leaves her out or behind she becomes a minx. She did come out and ask ‘doing Mummy?’ to which I answered ‘teaching Davies to read so he can read you stories too’ ‘oh right’ she said in such as way as you could almost believe she understands despite her tender years and off she went back to carry on bathing her baby (many a wet patch on our lounge carpet today I can tell you 🙂 ). So Davies gave it 100%, found it actually quite easy to follow and when we did the writing practise he surprised me by getting the S done even before I had shown him (although he does have one in his name so perhaps I should have been more ready for that!) and although he found the M a bit hard he kept trying ’til he got it right. If I can manage to keep it up and if I can manage to get the timing right so it remains something he enjoys and does not take him from doing something else I think this could work for us 🙂 (Hope it’s working for that family in Manchester too 😉 )

Both were asleep again by 7pm which I would love to put down to my stimulating and entertaining parenting today but I suspect is more to do with them still recovering!

New group again tomorrow in new venue which I am looking forward to, and of course more profuse blogging 🙂

Ros and Jenny I have read your most recent posts but blogger won’t let me comment so Jen – I’ll see you tomorrow and Ros – hopefully see you there too?

Yep, at last the 100 Easy Lessons has arrived 🙂 🙂 🙂 Had as much of a flick through as small loud people would allow and it looks pretty basic but exactly the sort of thing to start a routine of small periods of concentration with. Hurrah! Will have a go at snatching ten minutes with Davies later to try out the first lesson.

They have been playing quite well today – they have had out the toy animals (we have a massive array of dinosaurs, jungle creatures, farmyard animals and some life cycles sets of butterflies and frogs) which always feels very educational 🙂 They watched Dangermouse and Davies has requested an eye patch so we took a trip to the local factory outlet place on the nearby industrial estate – it’s a big warehouse with a massive area for party goods like cups and plates, cheapo toys and stuff (same sort of puzzles and arty things you get in The Works) and so on. But before we left we observed and discussed the very odd weather conditions here today. It is very very cold and the sky was all sorts of funny colours, in the playroom there was bright sunshine through the windows but out of the lounge window it was pouring with rain and very dark, so we looked for the rainbow and found it. It kept fading and reappearing too which was interesting. Then came a massive downpour of rain which turned into hailstones. We tried to collect some but they were melting instantly. We also got a jug out to measure rainfall and then it promptly stopped raining! It has been bright sunshine ever since. I really have been meaning to do some sort of project with D on weather so I really must sort myself out and dig out some of the resources I have been squirreling away on the topic.

So to the Wizard store where we did not find an eye patch but for under a tenner we did get loads of other horrid plastic stuff which is always good for keeping them quiet for an afternoon and then disposing of when they aren’t looking 🙂 Scarlett got a set for her baby doll comprising baby bath, bottles, flannel, pretend soap and shampoo, a dummy, a potty and so on – which she has played with for over an hour very happily, Davies got a remote control robot which is is walking up and down the hall with and I picked up some more animals for the toy box – a set of sea creatures, a set of pets, some more bugs and insects and a couple more zoo animals. Also the biggest bargain was a massive box of beads – 49 different little compartments with all sorts of beads in shapes of butterflies, flowers, animals, shells and so on all in lovely bright colours which will be fab for all sorts of activities like threading, sewing, collages and so on – a bargain at it’s orginal price of a fiver let alone the £2.99 I paid for it 🙂

Home again and I had a phonecall from the Usborne Books lady who will be ‘looking after me’. She has been doing it for 14 years and says she makes more from this than she did from teaching full time before she had her 4 children! Her brother has two HE children so she was all full of that and very interested too. I have not even really looked at the pack that came through this morning and she is sending me some further information too. I have looked into these sorts of selling businesses before and always found a lot of holes in them, the plus of this one does appear that there is no pressure to sell any more than you manage to sell really, and I do think I am in a good position to have a captive audience for selling to so fingers crossed for this one eh? And if nothing else I get to buy more cheap books 😉 Don’t think it’s about to be something that can support our whole family but any additional income is nice 🙂
So that’s me so far today. Kids are a bit on the rowdy side and I am feeling a bit neglectful of them at the moment HE wise – I seem to have their socialising covered and the amassing of resources is going well 😉 but I perhaps need to spent a bit of time directing them.

Is possibly what the absent bloggers are up to. If I was there I would be probably just getting out of bed about now (Ady always gets up early at CP and throws open the patio doors to feel at one with the wildlife 🙂 ) to eat my bacon sarnies and drink my tea. We would then load up
protesting children into the buggy attached to the back of Ady’s hired bike and kid ourselves that we were fit and healthy by doing a chest heaving circuit of the place 🙂 Don’t know what the activities are like at the CP they have gone to but the one we visited had lots of nature talks and stuff so we might have booked in for one of them before spending time at the swimming pool.

Back here in Sussex we had a much better night with the small people who were both asleep by 6pm last night and both pretty much went through ’til 6am 🙂 We also had an early night and even I was asleep by 11pm. So far this morning I have done two loads of washing which is now draped around the house giving the place the aroma of damp bedsit, got one child and myself dressed (the other can sort himself out 🙂 ), drunk tea and am about to make another cup and had a quick peep at Joyce’s blog to check she cheered up. Off now to re-discover some of the blogs I don’t seem to get round to that often.

My plan for the day involves placing an online Baker Ross order, trying to involve the kids in Charlottes Web, trying to find out why my Amazon order was passed to an independant courier in Brighton (10 miles away) last Wednesday at 8am and is still not here – is the independant courier a non-flying pigeon who has the books strapped to his back? Is it ‘the wind’ in the hope it will eventually blow the parcel this way? Is it someone who collected the parcel but has buggered off to Centerparcs for the week like everyone else? Will Davies ever get to learn to read in 100 easy lessons or will the bloody book finally arrive some time ready for his first born to start using it??????? Where was I ? Ah yes….

Also arrived in the post this morning is the info pack from Usborne Books so I will have a read through that and fantasise about making my fortune as a Book Lady and finally as the kids appear to be better enough to make mess with getting toys out but still poorly enough to sigh and flop about and BLOODY WHINGE ABOUT EVERYTHING I might well have a bit of getting irate with them scheduled into my day too 🙂 Perhaps the depressing day thing is different here on the south coast – after all it is retirement city where the pace is slower 🙂 Had an email from a friend which has put my back up as it is full of ‘helpful lifestyle advice’ – which is fine, I had sent him one first 🙂 but has come across as a bit patronising and ‘there there little woman’ so i need to compose a suitably ‘don’t mess with me Boy’ reply to that too.

And finally Scarlett emptied almost a whole tub of (my expensive) handcream all over my desk yesterday and also smeared on the wall – the mess was not too bad and cleared up fine, but I am mourning the loss of a at least a fivers worth of cream somehow inside my keyboard which is making the keys all funny and stiff and sticky and also means a scent wafts out as I type!

Just in case there is any one among our number who like me had not discovered this yet we have spent a happy hour this lunchtime sitting watching loads of ‘science clips’ on CBBC. I did *know* the resource of schools tv was there but it was one of those things I never got around to looking at and also perhaps thought in the back of my mind that the kids would be too young for it yet anyway. WRONG! 🙂 It’s fab – idea for sitting and watching together, ideal for spinning off into other things and also secretly ideal for keeping them quiet with TV for a bit without the guilty feeling of using it as a babysitter!

Been to the library this morning to return some books and get another haul. Got several which I intend to bring to group this week for storytelling – although I will be reading them to my two a couple of times first to a) check content, suitability and so on and b) familiarise myself with them so it is slightly easier to read them upside down! Also got another 8 books from the books for sale for 10p table which was good. In the spirit of Jule’s blog awards nomination here’s the titles:
Montessori Read & Write
A year in the city – Kathy Henderson
Tinkerbill – not all fairies are girls – Jeanne Willis
My book of Faraway Stories
Spirit of Hope – Bob Graham
Mr Archimedes’ Bath – Pamela Allen
Clocks and more clocks – Pat Hutchins
From a distance – Julie Gold

The library was closed last week for a revamp and although they have only changed the layout a wee bit it looks really good. They also had made more of their cd, video and dvd area and had a borrow one, get one free offer on so Davies begged for Dangermouse (his current favourite!) and we also picked up Charlotte’s Web – I read the book as a child and was very disappointed when they showed us the film at school as it was full of songs which I thought really got in the way of the story – but I was about 10 then so perhaps the songs might make the story easier for the kids…we’ll see. A peep in the charity shops revealed nothing of interest so we bought jam doughnuts for a treat and came home.

We had a really bad night with the kids who were both up for part of it so they are both a bit wiped out today – I think we might have done a bit too much whizzing about this weekend so I’m glad we have today and tomorrow at home this week to reover – be nicer still to be relaxing at CP of course 😉 So I think I might put the CW vid on in a bit and go and cuddle up with them on the sofa for the afternoon.