One word? When seven would do…

A pretty good day today, following another awful night.

All days should start with LI, it puts one in such a good frame of mind 🙂

Anyway.

Funniest moment of the day had to be the four of us playing pass the parcel using a packet of tissues stuffed with ‘prizes’ from the pretend play food while Davies did the music by ‘singing’ tunelessly! Apparantly it was invisible man’s birthday party 🙂

Oh My God moment of the day was Davies calling me into the room shouting ‘Mummy, Mummy, Tarly has chickenpops (sic) she is itching her leg’ she does have a couple of spots on her leg but it could well be some sort of rash so we’ll reserve judgement there until the morning.

Ah bless moment of the day was sitting in the bath tonight listening to Davies in bed playing with his mircrophone leappad book repeating prices for fruit and vegetables – he has this funny precise little voice with a really posh accent which he saves for moments like that and he sounds like a right little aristocrat saying ‘one pound thirty five’ in his cut glass plum in mouth voice 🙂

Arghhhhh moment of the day was Davies interupting me and Dad talking every two minutes thirty three seconds. It is without a doubt his most IRRITATING habit – and he doesn’t even actually have anything to say, just doesn’t like not being the centre of attention.

But on the whole a pretty good day. I managed to change Scarlett’s bed so that just leaves Davies’ to do tomorrow, I have cleared all the Melrose washing and am down to one basket left to do from this week, I have put away the towering pile of clean washing and sent the emails needed to cancel next weekend’s trip up north as by my calculations next weekend is the end of our pox quarantine and I don’t want to be 250 miles and a 6 hour drive from home when one or both of them go down with it and feel dreadful. A real shame as I was really looking forward to it but hopefully we can rearrange it for a couple of weeks time.

Dad arrived mid morning during all this industrious housewifely business so he and I sat most of the day talking and playing with the kids. The playdough came out again and I had phonecalls with Jenny and Karen which was nice – feel like the blogring is suddenly much smaller again 🙂 now I *know* people IRL. Dad left and Ady arrived home just as Davies finished building a shop with all the pretend play food and the ELC cash register and play money. Scarlett has been playing with her dolls and baby bath lots so loads more creative play going on again.

I had forgotten how much I missed having Dad call round when we lived in Manchester. When he is not being opinionated or teasing the kids he is lovely to have around and I think both of us have his age in the back of our minds and want to grab as much time as we can. He sits for hours talking about his life, when he was a child and his parents and grandparents – interesting for me and probably quite nice for him to reminise too. I love the fact that the kids are so comfortable with him now – far more so than they are with Mum and it’s lovely to see him developing relationships with them each individually instead of as ‘the grandchildren’.

Davies has been playing with LP again in bed, working his way through Toy Story 2 and what will you be TS2 in particular has a really good phonics bit and he played with that for ages really reinforcing the EL stuff, which is all good.

Tomorrow we have not a lot planned – Ady wants to clear some of the general rubbish from the garden and take it to the tip, I have an opticians appointment in the afternoon and Mum and Dad are coming over for dinner. On Sunday we are seeing Chris and Julie (they decided to risk it!) but we are both so tired I am looking forward to a fairly quiet and low key weekend.

Lots of leap pad ed happening here today. I really resisted buying LP for ages cos I hated the advert where the parents are hiding round the corner watching the little girl reading and going ‘look she’s reading, shush, don’t disturb her’ WHAT?! But we now have two – the littlies one cos it has a Dora book and the standard one. I really think LP is poorly marketed in terms of its huge educational value as a resource, or perhaps they don’t want to focus on that as it would not be percieved as ‘fun’ or ‘a toy’ if they sold it that way. Whatever Davies has a fair old library of the books now and he spent some time on the Lion King one (a bit over his head really as he has not seen the film, but reminiscent enough of the Jungle Book production we saw at the weekend to strike a chord with him) and then he took it to bed and played with the microphone and book about the circus. I think now he is starting to get a basis of phonics and stringing sounds together from 100EL (which I didn’t bother with tonight in favour of leaving him to play with LP so I could have a bath!) it will be even more educational for him.

We did Sainsburys, came home and I was in the middle of trying to put the shopping away, talk to Julie (SIL) on the phone (missing each other lots after week away at Melrose last week and current enforced pox seperation! Almost arranged to sneak out and see each other without children 😉 ) and chase the kids away from coming in and ‘raaaaahhh’ ing at me while on the phone when my Dad arrived. He stayed for lunch and most of the afternoon which put pay to my plan for calendar activity all afternoon and as Davies was doing his usual attention seeking thing of talking over us constantly every time one of us spoke I set the kids up with some play dough including the new bits and pieces I got from ELC which went down well.

Dad left and I got them to help tidy up and then got out a roll of paper and the pens and set about doing a very basic timeline. It starts at 1938 with Grandad was born and takes in Granny was born, Daddy was born, Daddy started school, Granny and Grandad got married, Mummy was born, Mummy started school, Mummy and Daddy met, Mummy and Daddy bought this house, got married, Davies was born, moved to Manchester, Scarlett was born, moved back to this house, their last birthdays and ends with today. I will take a picture at some point but it is very rough still atm, I want to add some pictures of events and other visual aids as well as letting them do some interpretations.

Next I did a list of all the months with the seasons written above to show the different ways of splitting a year and under each month put something which happens in that month every year (like birthdays, Christmas etc), finally we did a calendar of this month and I showed Davies how the days of the week are repeated within the month and we wrote in what we have done so far each day this month and he drew some pictures on it. Next stage is to break down a month into weeks, then days and then break down a day into morning, afternoon and evening, then hours, then minutes. This will take place over weeks I imagine rather than in one big hit. I think I have finally realised that there is only value in this sort of activity if Davies is a) enjoying it and b) participating in it so we’ll see where tomorrow takes us (if anywhere) with it.

Scarlett has had another couple of truly dreadful nights – last night she watched Desperate Housewives (both episodes!) with me before I went to bed and Ady came down and sat with her. I don’t think any sort of full on sleep programme really suits us or our style of parenting but I do think that we need more than a two hour window between Davies falling asleep and Scarlett waking up again, and we need our bed to ourselves for at least a portion of the night too 🙁 Undecided on how to move forward but aware that we probably need to take some action. As ever it’s the same problem with more than one child that if it was just her it would be easier to either deal with and put up with a couple of really bad nights, or let it ride and sleep in with her in the mornings but as Davies has a fairly good sleeping pattern which I would rather be in sync with it is not really an option.

Anyway, no spots here as yet, no signs of any other Melrose related ills which means I think we are out of incubation for anything other than CP now. I’m torn now between almost hoping to spot spots on them to a) get it over with and b) justify the staying in all week and dreading them incase of complications and dealing with mutilating child Scarlett and her desperate urge to pick if she gets itchy spots all over herself. Sigh, only another two weeks or so :-(, unless of course one gets them in which case I will have to wait even longer before being sure the other won’t…

We are about to go to Sainsburys to buy a few bits I didn’t get in the Boden fest that was Waitrose and then we are coming home to make a calendar. I sort of think I might know how it is going to work but I’ll blog on what actually happened later 🙂

I am down to the last wash of clearing the Melrose clothes (understand the appeal of constant fancy dress a bit more now!) which is good as both the kids beds need changing but I refuse to do them until the rest of the washing is cleared (bad, neglectful mother! They do have at least three changes of bed clothes each, all of which are clean but I just can’t face adding two sets of dirty bedding to the pile of washing before I have finished it. Ady did change our bed but has craftily hidden the dirty stuff at the very bottom of the laundry bin in our bedroom!) so that might be a task for later.

I have a couple of phonecalls and emails to sort out and then I intend to spend the afternoon being a lazy bugger again 😉

is probably in order after the last two posts so here I am back to what I do best.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon 🙂

Today has been day three of our enforced company only of each other and the strain is starting to tell… kids have been shouted at a fair bit today, although they have still played well together the play is of a more destructive, noisy and generally irritating ilk than of the earlier part of the week. Besides which I was trying to post the earlier blog and they kept coming in and interupting me 😉

Popped out this morning to get a few bits including the last in the current bulk buying of geomags (the offer has ended at Woolies now, so that’s it for a bit). That was at least justified by lots of playing with them today! Other than that the kids have been largely left to their own devices with random shouting at by me.

Educationally they have done loads more role playing, been pretty good at tidying up after themselves, Davies did EL # 17 which ends with him needing to read the sentence ‘that rat is sad’ which he managed, so that was nice 🙂 The geomags can be legitimately considered a good HE investment, today he grasped how to make shapes with them and was constucting some good cubes using panels as well. There was maths in there, and a bit of physics too. What else? Well they both refused to eat the dinner I had cooked them (in a shock departure from tinned food along the lines of Mr Greedy hot dog sausages and tinned spaghetti hoops served with white bread and butter and ketchup I tried pasta with cheesy sauce) so I guess there is likely to be some biology there when they wake hungry as a result 😉

I wasn’t at our HE group today, and neither I am told were many other people – infact there were just four families 🙁 I think everyone had apologised in advance and had genuine reasons for not being there but we cannot afford to run each week without people coming – Jenny is putting an email out to say we either need people to commit to coming and send payment for the next month in advance or we simply cannot continue. Which would be a great shame as we both think we are onto something with this but neither of us can take the gamble of paying for half a hall hire if no one turns up. Lots of other places operate on this basis where you have to pay whether you can make it that week or not and although I would rather we didn’t have to do it that way I can’t see any real alternative. We’ll see what happens…

Rest of the week is shaping up to include more of the whole staying in doing very little, can’t believe it’s Thursday already tomorrow. Also this week I took a long look in the mirror and can see real signs of aging – not something I could consider doing but I could see why people have their lids lifted – four years of crap nights’ sleep and 31 years of life have started to take a toll – I can see why people start to think about looking after themselves better and spend a fortune on skin care in the vain hope that they can turn back the tide. Guess it doesn’t bother me that much really, but it is probably the first time I have really noticed any effects of aging – I know I weigh more than I did at 17 but I always kind of thought I was otherwise the same in appearance, and this week I am forced to realise I am not!

Blog below is long and of a planning nature just for me. I have been meaning to write an updated Ed Phil for ages and while this is not it by any means it is the closest I can give time and energy to at the moment! Not intended to spark any discussion (although don’t let that put you off commenting!) but as this blog does form part of a home education blog ring this is probably the right place for it 🙂

Following on from yesterday and further formulating my ‘plan’ for our approach I have been thinking about how we move forwards from here.

I am more than happy not to follow any sort of curriculum. In my ideal world (and I am very aware that it is *my* ideal world, which will not necessarily be the childrens’ ideal world and as such will need to remain flexible) I would like the children to spend their early years at home with me covering the following basics:
Learning to read and write. I am not able to relax into the whole ‘mine didn’t learn until they were 12 and now they are at the same level as their peers’ way that I have read other HEers talking about. Firstly because rightly or wrongly I consider those to be the utter basics of education and learning in the western world at least. I know that these will be the skills that outsiders will judge our success on, I know that if we are to get tangled up with LEAs and the like these will be the first things they ask about. Secondly I think that these are skills so fundamental to further learning, to articulating oneself in life and as necessary in becomming independant as to be the next logical stage on from walking and talking I would feel we had failed if they were not at least on a semi-par with schooled children of the same age in these skills (although quite how I will know this or measure it I am not sure 😉 ) and lastly I also feel that in learning these skills the whole of the rest of their education opens up to them and can really become far more child led and autonomous. If they can read then they can choose what to read, they can do it at their own speed and in their own time, they can be sent off with books to learn whatever it is they show interest in and in the same way that I got hours of pleasure as a child ( and infact still do) from opening the cover of a new book and settling into my own imagination wherever the book takes me I cannot wait to see that same joy on their faces. Writing I am perhaps less worried about – I guess it will follow on almost naturally from reading but I am keen for them to have the necessary skills to write well, by which I mean using grammar, punctuation, paragraphs (yes I know I may have to draft in help for that one 😉 ) and so on.

The 100 Easy lessons, coupled with workbooks (when he is ready for them and wants to do them) and the already groaning bookshelves should take care of this. The main thing to overcome has been Davies’ reluctance to start and my impatience with him once he does, but thanks to 100EL I think we are over the worst and to hear the excitement in his voice when he actually reads those first few words has been worth it all. Scarlett will as ever follow along wherever he leads so I see no issue with that one sorting itself out in the next couple of years if not before!

Maths is an area I am less confident about. I know from looking at the various bits of curriculums I’ve seen that this would not be the way forward and TBH I think I am lacking confidence in my own mathematical knowledge more than anything else. My plan is to read for myself some of the many books I have on the subject and start to build my own confidence in the subject back up until I feel able to introduce mathematics and concepts of it in a more matter of fact way.

Science – is another area I am less knowledgable on myself, but similarly an area which is very rich in resources. We have books to give us ideas for fun experiments to prove scientific theoriesand chemistry, we have loads of books about the human body (including the Usborne skeleton model book) to kick start biology along with stuff like our life cycle bugs and frogs and animals toys, and hopefully a lot of the physics will be covered alongside maths as we go along. Science although something I am mindful of is not something which scares me as there is just endless information to be read / viewed readily available as and when we need it.

History, Geography, Religion (as a concept not as an actual learning of as a way of life) are things which although I may not be rich in knowledge of I am confident and interested in enough to be happy to learn along with the children wherever our interests lead us. I think I would like to do a series of projects – along the lines of dinosaurs, kings and queens, the romans, artists, focus on Europe / China / America etc, type headings which we will work at together finding informaion out by reading books, using the internet, watching TV shows, looking at resorces like the globe, jigsaw puzzles, field trips to places like museums, roman villas, churches and synagogues, art galleries and so on. Bearing in mind the children’s ages (2 & 4) this is something which although I am itching to get started will work when they are both a bit older (and have those basics of reading and writing I was talking about already in place!)

I do have a couple of ideas in mind for stuff we could start now, which is very general and would take in plenty of the above in basic, early years ways. I will talk more about them in a bit.

Music – I would love the kids to enjoy and appreciate music. It will be my goal to teach them as many lyrics as I can 🙂 Seriously though I do want them to have some level of musical ability but again they are far too young to get into anything more than we are already doing. This includes – a big box of kiddy instruments which they regularly use to annoy me and make me once again thankful we live in a detached house otherwise we would be featured on a ‘Neighbours from hell’ type reality tv show. We listen to a variety of music in the house and in the car and Davies is encouraged to think behind the music about stuff like if it is happy or sad, how it makes him feel, what instruments might be playing it and so on. We also have the soundtrack cds to several of his favourite films (Toy Story and Monsters Inc) with a lot of instrumental music which we listen to in the car and he talks about what would be happening in the movie, what the characters are feeling etc. In time I would like them both to learn to read music and play one or more instruments of their choice, but as I had piano lessons and viewed them as a chore I want this to be something they really want to do and not a further cause of nagging and cajoling on my part so that may have to wait.

Physical stuff – currently not an issue at all given the amount of running round the house, leaping off sofas and dancing around pretending to be Bert from Mary Poppins stepping in time over the rooftops of London or Jack climbing up his beanstalk! Davies does his Tumble Tots which I intend for Scarlett to try again in a few weeks time, they are both starting a music and movemet type class for a trial run next week and in time I would be happy for them to have some sort of dance or sport lessons – again all in the future for now.

Crafty and arty stuff – my artistic side was very squashed as a child, and I still would rather they didn’t run loose with glue and glitter as I end up tidying it up! They do play with playdough fairly regularly as well as stuff like drawing (aquamat), magic maize and so on so I don’t feel they are neglecting this area too much 🙂

Drama / imagination / play – the one area I have absolutely no concerns about. The two of them play all day long creating imaginary worlds, situations, role playing of characters they know from TV / film / plays, dressing up, pretending and making believe. They are both able to play alone with their own company, mix well with each other and given time (like a few days into Melrose!) are able to make friends and play with other children.

Socialising – another area which I don’t give so much head space to these days. I have my moments of worrying that all their friends are manufactured blind dates by me, but then I guess school is too to a degree, as is work. You meet people through some sort of connection or coincidence whether it is a shared age and location, a shared profession or a shared friend or acquaintance so why not your parents, their friends’ children or other kids who live locally and are Home Educated? On a normal (non pox quarantined) week we see their cousins, our home ed group friends, two lots of schooled friends and the other children at Tumble Tots – enough for us not to be too worried about whether they are mixing enough or not I would say! 🙂

General life skills – stuff which I would consider very important is probably what we are working on most at the moment. I believe that (despite getting yelled at a fair bit!) being home with the kids and them being part of a family which is happy, affectionate and loves to spend time together over and above everything else will give them the best start in life to growing into secure, self confident, happy, healthy adults. I am keen to teach them good manners and other social skills, deference and respect where due and necessary, while retaining the ability to question and challenge. I watch them learn how to construct an argument, deal with negotiation and tolerance and understanding, empathising and grapsing the concept of their place within the family, society and the world on a daily basis. I want them to feel nurtured, supported, loved, able to achieve whatever they want in life and to reach for the stars and beyond. I don’t know if this is the right route to getting them there but I do know it is the very best I can offer and at this time for these children this is the right environment for them to learn and grow.

Business sense and self discipline / motivation etc – at the moment both the children are of the age where they soak up anything and everything with a greedy lust for more. I am of the opinion that not only does formalised schooling hamper that natural urge but it can also squash it for ever. I do however feel that as they get older they also need to learn the skills to fit into our society and that does, sadly involve sometimes doing stuff you would really rather not, trading in your time and knowledge for money/food/shelter and having the ability to apply yourself to a task. At this stage in our life I am not working, however it does not come easily to me not to and as such I do tend to find other ways to continue that discipline of growing and bettering myself such as my online learning course, doing household stuff and even blogging 😉 As the children get older it is my aim (and financially probably a necessity) for me to earn money in some way. I am still working out what that will be and I hope for it to eventually be something which I love, am passionate about and may even involve Ady too – all of which will be good example setting and role modelsf for the children who I aim to teach the cold hard side of real life to with stuff like managing finances, shopping, household bills, budgeting and so on in the future. Once the children are of an age where they have shown an aptitude or interest or possible career path towards a certain area I will encourage them to study for qualifications in that area as well as getting them to aim for some sort of paid employment in it by either seeking work experience, starting to train for a profession or even just talking to people who work in that line of industry.

So that’s it really. I think there are skills which get taught in school and probably won’t get covered here at home, but TBH I am more inclined to feel they won’t be missed anyway 😉

So back to my plan for now – I have several project type tasks in mind which will span over weeks or even months and hopefully spider web into more things. The first is some sort of project on time. This will initially involve talking about telling the time, then break down into the different parts of a day, week, month, year, decade etc. I want to create a timeline within their lifetimes going back to this morning, yesterday, last week, last year, before Scarlett was born, before Davies was born, before Mummy and Daddy were born etc. The basis of this will create both a family tree using photos and so on and stuff like looking at video footage of them as babies, us before we had them, our wedding day, my own baby photos, my parents wedding pictures, pictures of them as children, talking to my parents and grandmother etc. This should then spin off into what life was like for previous generations and can include stuff like the wars, British history including kings and queens, fashion and other pop culture like music, tv shows and adverts, field trips to grave yards, museums, looking at BDM records etc, taking them to old houses where me and Ady lived as children, our old schools etc etc etc

This then opens into an ‘our world’ type project which using the globe and the world map will give us a starting point for all sorts of geography and history projects. I have several books on different countries, their culture, dress, cuisine etc, there are stacks of TV shows to watch on this one and it opens out to lots of other craft, history, geography etc spin off too. Once we have covered our world with all its people, weather, disasters, history and so on we can also branch out into space and the earth’s place within the solar system.

So that takes care of the next 5 years or so anyway 😉

here on my blog. I know, I can’t quite get my head round it either!

Been thinking on the whole educational thing, mainly being in the company of other families doing it last week at Melrose, then of course there was Katy’s show at the weekend and a further in depth chat with my Mum the day after.

The thing that struck me most at Melrose, educationally speaking was that everyone seemed to have found their way. Some of us were whole-hog curriculum followers, others were autonomous, others pick and choose a little of both. Some of us stress over it all by nature, others although they don’t care less than the stressers seem to take it more in their stride. Sometimes it’s only when you are put on the spot a bit and forced to articulate your position and opinion that you really realise you have one and believe it it enough to convince others 🙂

I spent a fair bit of time looking at all the various curriculum things on offer last week and have reached a definite conclusion that that is not the path for us. There is something inherantly rebellious about me which responds badly to being told step by step how to do stuff. That takes nothing away from the people who do follow them, very successfully, or the curriculum itself, I just know that it would not suit me, nor do I think it would really suit Davies (not sure about Scarlett yet but if she continues her ‘just like her mother’ characteristics then I guess that will rule her out too!). I am inclined to not follow them, then deal with guilt about not following them, then try and force routine on the children, who also don’t like it much and we end up stressed and learning very little other than how to push each others’ buttons.

My Mum was questionning me about autonomous hands off approaches and whether that was simply people who could not be bothered to send their kids to school and whether the kids would ever learn anything. I surprised myself by not only sticking up for and supporting that route, but actually feeling like it really might be a way forward. My example was potty/toilet training which I never pushed Davies into but he did cos he wanted to and actually told us when he was ready. He was not particularly late in being dry at 2 and a half (infact he may well beat Scarlett!) but there was pressure from friends who started their children on their second birthdays and dealt with many more accidents, stressful situations and unhappy children than me. My other example to my Mum was of Davies’ schooled friend E who learnt (under a bit of sufference) to write his name during the summer ready to start school. Davies sat last week at Melrose and very happily wrote his name on his lapbook – it was neat and recognisable and he was very very proud of himself – a direct contrast I thought.

As I explained to my Mum I don’t know how long into the future I will continue to be this laid back about all things educational – it does help having a September born baby who would not be starting school at all until later this year. I overheard someone saying last week that they dislike the whole ‘cooking is maths and science’ style of HE and I can see their point – I don’t want the kids to have huge skill gaps in their teens cos I have spun educational categories into our everyday lives – I think there is a definite place for good old fashioned learning from books, completing projects or set work and so on – but long into the future at the moment. I overheard another person talking about how they value play, play, play above all else. I think that is where I stand at the moment.

Today I have been practising Melrose at home – by which I mean I have largely ignored the kids most of the day 🙂 I got them dressed – although they have since undressed themselves in favour of fancy dress, I have ensured they are provided with a steady stream of food and drink, I helped put one lot of toys away so they could have floor space for something else and they have both been popping in and out of the playroom where I have been all day to spend a few minutes with me, tell me about their game or just appear for a cuddle.

Their games have involved getting all the toy animals out and putting them into some sort of categorisation (not sure what – if I ask it seems to spoil it, but it was definitely happening!) Davies sat for ages counting all the legs on the different insects and spiders,, taking all the sofa cushions off and leaping about on them, being Peter Pan and Tinkerbell / Jane with all sorts of imaginative play going on there, they watched and appreciated Peter and the Wolf at their request and sat listening to and identifying the different instruments, they watched Dora and knew the spanish words for ‘open’ and ‘thankyou’ before they came on the show and have acted like, well children really, all day long.

I have been equally productive in tidying the playroom/office, getting some of the washing mountain moved further along its wash/dry/fold up/outaway procession and spent nearly an hour on the phone to Karen. It would be very easy to feel guilty about being lazy / neglectful / failing in my quest to be providing an education for them, but you know what? Today I think I have been a successful member of a home educating family – and later I will be getting my fix of ensuring some real learning is happening with 100EL so we’re all fine and happy here!

Davies : Let me think for a moment. Hmm, yes I don’t see why not, that would be lovely, thank you.

See the Fretwells had it all wrong, you don’t need to send your kids to a 3 grand a term private school to teach them manners at all!!!

And it’s name was Scarlett!

Just as we finished our meal her bedroom door rattled and out she came. She alternated between my lap and Ady’s ruining any hope of having dessert or other Valentine related activity.

I went to bed at 10 and we took it in turns to sit up with her for one hour shifts – she finally went to sleep during Ady’s 2-3am shift so we were in bed, alone by about 2.45am but sleep seemed the preferable option to anything else – besides which it was not Valentines Day any more by then anyway 🙁

Today we continue our pox quarantine and I have plans:

This is what I will get done today:
– Some more loads of washing and drying and maybe even some putting away of clothes that have done the above done two loads, one is drying on radiators, the other is in the tumble drier
– clear my desk of general and misc. stuff including a vick stick with no lid which no longer has a purpose, three bottles of eye drops in various levels of emptiness, a pile of stuff waiting to be shredded, various catalogues for Bright Minds, ELC etc which I need to throw out before they tempt me into spending money, a half eaten bag of mini eggs, a broken pair of childs scissors, two scottish souvenier teatowels and more. ooh it’s so tidy now! I have moved the tower to under the table which has created stacks of space and it feels all organised and worky 🙂
– c lear the surfaces of the playroom by clearing the units underneath to fit stuff in
– try and find the alleged 5 library books we still have in our house despite me being convinced I had returned them. library books – still no sign! playroom is currently in that state of untidyness that only a really good tidy can create – there is a black sack of rubbish, a pile to be recycled and some stuff which needs a home on the floor, but the surfaces are clear!
– drink lots of tea check 🙂
– get children dressed did do this although they have since undressed themselves again and are both in fancy dress
– provide food for children and self aciheved this one too!
– attempt to provide stimulating toys and activities for children (who actually seem to be doing just fine without me just now so I will not interupt!) no need on this one, they have played bouncing on the sofa games, dressing up, role play and generally entertained themselves with no need for TV other than a request for Peter and the Wolf which I allowed.

I am shutting down for the night. We are midway through a bottle of champagne, have eaten our mussels starter and the main course has just arrived.

The evening is looking promising ahead 😉

Dear Customer,

I can confirm that this package, does appear to have been lost in
the post, and therefore, I have requested a refund for the amount of
22.71 GBP.

This amount will appear on your next credit card statement.

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.

Finally got a response from the person who lives in our old house to say that she had never gotten the parcel either. Not sure whether to believe her or not (although she sounded honest!) so emailed Amazon to see if I could get anywhere with them and hurrah!

Anyone else noticed the bunk beds in my google ads?

As Layla quite correctly pointed out you can always tell my daughter apart from the other random messy blonde toddlers as she is the one with a facial scab of some description. We had the nose all over Christmas, the chin is still not entirely healed (and has purple scars when she is cold 🙁 ) and she now has a new small scratch beside her nose which she picked until her face was all bloodied while we were in town today.

It occured to me that if she was to get covered head to foot in itchy spots she will still have them when she is about 13 with how long it take stuff to heal up on her as she picks it 🙁

Oh, and just had a phonecall from the friends we were due to see tomorrow who also don’t want to see us now incase of pox 🙁 Guess we’ll be doing some learning this week when everyone else is on half term after all!

No, not further valentines gifts from my beloved (or even David from Economics who still hankers after me all these years later!) but my prescription from the docs 🙁

Inhaler very welcome if it means I can stop doing my impression of someone about to expire at any second and catch some breath back after a mammoth coughing fit, antibiotics less so if they are going to inhibit my alcohol consumption 😉

Oh and a quick apology to Karen who I believe has just got home and started trying to catch up on blogs – Karen, you may be here some time 🙂 I’ve been making up for that week away!

Was at home when we got back from our trip to the library (which turned into a trip into town actually when the local Woolies didn’t have any of the buy one get one half price geomags I was after) and Davies called me into the kitchen saying ‘Mummy, Mummy, come quick and see how much Daddy loves you!’ Sure enough he loves me enough 🙂 A single red rose, a card, a bottle of posh bubble bath (glass bottle mind:-) ) and the Michael Buble cd I wanted. Love him 🙂

Trip out was fairly successful too although we did have to hide the spoils in the car ’til Ady went back out again! After being at Karen’s house last weekend which is a veritable shrine to ELC I was desperate to go and buy some of the stuff she had – so playdough monster and bug features to stick in playdough creations, a parachute, a Dora totch for Tarly (which I have not given her yet and will save to deflect a tantrum at some future point!), an inflatable water play thing which Davies saw last time we were there and will be much used in the summer so I thought I’d get it now and two of the big boxes of Geomags (the size of the raffle prize!) from the main Woolies have now been snuck into the house 😉 Gotta love that retail therapy 🙂

About to go and play geomags with the kids so I can tick off a few boxes later when I blog.

To all you lovely people 🙂 xxx

Been pondering what V Day means to people at different stages of their life actually. As a child it was always a source of secret wishing and hoping that I would get a card from someone (I never did although I never actually sent one to anyone either!). As a 12-16 yo in an all girls school with no male friends it was simply a quiet day I’d rather wasn’t happening and when I was 17 and had my first boyfriend it was a good one cos I not only got flowers and a card and a meal from him I also got my one and only mystery valentines card. I later discovered that a friend at college had caught a lad from our Economics class sneaking a look through the registers to get my address and when he gave me a ‘joke’ pressie that day of some heart shaped chocolates sure enough the writing was the same. His message inside was ‘I hope you don’t mind too much’ which sort of tainted a bit really as actually I didn’t mind at all and was fairly torn about the fact I already had a boyfriend but was more excited about this card from him. I never saw him after I dropped out of Economics but he did appear on Friendsreunited and was not only doing rather well for himself (well according to his own entry on there anyway which is probably not that reliable actually. I mean who logs on to write stuff about themselves like ‘doing really crap actually, still live at home with parents although I am now 45, still doing that paper-round and lusting over Nic from Economics I once sent that card to – will she ever notice me???’) but also lived near us at the time in Manchester. I did not contact him but did spend the next few weeks giving everyone on the tram second glances incase it was him and also worrying that he was still after me and had only moved to Manchester after reading on my entry that I was living there too!

That was it then until I ‘got with’ Ady and although we always exchange cards, he usually buys me some sort of gift and we make an effort to have a nice meal in the evening as we do romantic stuff at other points during the year (wedding anniversary, first S anniversary etc) we don’t tend to get too worked up over V day. Infact I would actually be fairly horrfied and worried if I got an anonymous card now. Not only would I worry that people in their 30s should not be attractive to anyone other than the person they are wed to 😉 I would worry about what Ady would think, whether it was a joke, a stalker (particularly if it had a Manchester postmark and asked hope you still don’t mind too much) or someone who seriously thought that on the basis of sending me an anonymous card I would be inclined to do anything but worry about who they were.

Anyway, one day I really must either do some home education or at the very least pretend I do and blog about it. More washing mountain reduction work to be done followed by a trip to the library, doctors this afternoon and the friends who were coming decided our possible infection was sufficient to cancel so I might even have to put some effort into entertaining the small people!

Oh just remembered I do have some educational news! Got back to 100EL last night and Davies not only remembered all the sounds he had learnt with his weeks break in the middle he also read several words quite happily 🙂 Hurrah!

to be in bed before 10.30pm, which is clearly now and unachievable dream! So my current aim is to be in bed before I actually find out what number 1 in 100 greatest tearjerkers is. Not that I am actively watching it you understand, I just can’t be arsed to get up and turn it over 🙂

Today has been quite a good one, we had a really good night’s sleep which helped. Kids were both asleep by 7pm last night and did not rise ’til 7 this morning – result 🙂 I myself did not actually get up ’til 9ish but I didn’t make it to bed until at least 2 hours after Ady last night so it’s only fair!

Went off to Waitrose first thing to get food for the week. I like Waitrose, you feel quite posh and M&Sy walking round in the company of people who probably shop exlusively at Boden and do stuff on Sunday mornings like read the Sunday papers in bed (white egyptian cotton sheets natch) while eating warmed croissants and black coffee before getting up to dress in their Boden and come to Waitrose to shop for the week entwined with their very good looking partner (S, definitely!) . Of course I may well have Waitrose all wrong, and let’s face it this is Worthing we are talking about where there is something of a lack of airy loft spaces to live in tucked amoung the retirement flats with wardens built to service the large amount of OAPs who actually live here (and probably don’t wear Boden!) but anyway, you get the idea. It’s better than braving Tesco with all the other harried mothers trailing squabbling children round as they buy bulk quantities of pasta shaped like Clifford the big red dog, chicken nuggets and value tomato ketchup! My point being there was not one child in Waitrose this morning, it was an oasis of calm and order with quality fayre and virtually no BOGOF offers to be had 🙂 (so much so there were at least four things I will need to go to Tescos for now, I am not paying three quid per chicken breast to bung in a curry whether the chicken has led a better and healthier life than me, whilst wearing Boden for anyone!)

So I wafted around buying lots of fruit and vegetables and very little to give away the fact I have children which was a nice hour or so to have to myself. Home and my parents arrived while I was still unloading the shopping and Mum and I made some lunch for everyone. They had watched Katy on TV last night so her and I had a big chat about HE and so on which was nice. She so wants to ‘get’ it and is working really hard on getting over all her preconceieved ideas so she is actually not quite so dreadful to talk to about it all as she was a while back. Dad OTOH just wants to have a big old soap box rant about how crap schools are and what he would do if he was in charge and how it all really should work and blah blah blah but even when I listened to every bit of educational reform according to Nic’s Dad he had to offer was still not quite able to agree with me that despite the fact I totally agreed with him about what needed to change it was not going to happen within my two children’s school age time so surely it would be better to not send them and educate them at home thus negating all those issues within schools (not why I’m doing it, but if it convinces him it’s a good idea then that’s fine with me!). We ended with me saying ‘I can’t change schools but I can change the education my kids’ receive and that is what I am doing’. Good parting shot I felt 🙂

After a typical Goddard family getting out of the house (picture the scene in either of the Home Alone movies where there are various people running around, late, in varying states of readiness and you will have a close mental image of what it’s like!), driving back into Worthing, finding parking spaces and running along the seafront to the theatre to go and see Jungle Book. It was a panto stylee big old musical show production put on specially for half term weekend. Neither of my two have seen Disney’s version yet, which I think was a good thing as it is fairly loosely related to that and it could have confused them if they had seen it already.

Scarlett was okay – it was a long performance (about 2.5 hours with a short interval) and did a fair bit of wandering along infront of the rest of us although she did really enjoy the songs and dancing and entertained the people in the rows infront and behind us by dancing along and singing the songs after they had ended. Davies sat pretty much rapt for the whole thing. He spent time on my lap, Ady’s lap and his own chair and I’m not at all sure he followed the whole story but he loved the theatricalness (not sure that is a word!) of it all as well as the whole experience of going to the theatre, getting ice cream and shouting oh no it isn’t and boo ing at the baddies!

(Bright eyes has just been on and has me leaking onto the keyboard and now it is Gone with the wind which I have never actually watched despite my daughter’s name!)

Tomorrow we are supposed to be seeing Mel and L & L but I have emailed to warn of possible pox infection so we will see where Mel stands on the get it over with / can’t bear the thought of L off school and L off nursery while still paying for her place and me having to take time off work to look after them debate as to whether that happens or not. I have library books due back and I am planning a trip to the docs to get this cough checked out and see if I can get an inhaler for the scary can’t get my breath back moments when I really get coughing.

Right it is at number 11 and it’s Beaches wind beneath my wings tearjerker now so I really am off to bed! Night all xxx

A few pics of the week:

Our stop off at the border viewpoint with Karen and LC (Sadly Tarly was asleep in the car so is not featured!)

First drink of the week!

which led rather nicely to several more drinks, which led to my bed being the floor!

after the first night (and with some coaching from Ady and cheerleading from the kids) I did manage to hoist myself onto the top bunk though 🙂

The raw ingredients for the stew

The process involved 🙂

Ady’s token arty shot!
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My boy on the local suspension bridge (if we only had some resident expert who could have told us more about them and made it a more educational experience 🙂 )

Me and Tarly walking the grounds 🙂

A few from Dynamic Earth:

In the graveyard

On another bridge

In the Abbey grounds

Davies and Karen’s LC

The pictures behind the picture – loved the Class of 2005 shots that Andy did – although sadly one of mine was crying and the other was obscured trying to comfort her, but I also love the shots Ady got of all the grown ups trying to assemble all the kids ready for them 🙂

Kids in the room (shame they could not be persuaded to sleep in the tops bunks!)

Davies enjoying his Shrove Tuesday pancakes 🙂

The common room

Davies and his friends

On the way back out of Scotland again

And finally – at last I know why Travelodge get away with their small and lumpy beds and their barely big enough to classify as a sink baths – after a week in bunk beds and ill fitting curtained showers, not to mention unmentionable things in them, this small room with a double a single and a pull out and en suite facilities was a pleasure to be in!

as he stomped off in a huff when I told him to bugger off as he tried to read Joyce’s comment over my shoulder and coughed in my ear 🙂

when worrying about how my birthed two children pelvic floor would manage the tricky manouvere of getting down from the top bunk after a night’s sleep and a bladder full of wine not to bring the porta potty in from the car?

and I went no mail on all my lists! Of course the bulk of them were offering me vicodin or soft tab viagara (what will this do to my google ads?!!) but still, it was nice to feel missed! And also nice to get home a day after most of the other folk so I have caught up on blogs before doing my own.

Have been debating and mentally composing what to do for the last couple of days and I am going to do a very brief (for me) day by day account. Which as I have now been informed will probably be ignored by most people as being too long means I could well slip in a few sneaky things without anyone noticing 🙂

Saturday – left as early as we ever seem to leave which was only half an hour after we planned to 🙂 Did really good time and arrived at Jax’s easily by 2pm. Lovely to re-meet Jax, meet Tim for the first time and also unexpectedly meet Sarah, Dino and Mimi. 🙂 Stayed far longed than we planned to (I had anticipated an hour, it was far closer to 2!) as Davies played with the brio and Scarlett and Small skirted round each other.

Arrived at Karen’s for 6ish and enjoyed fantastic hospitality there for the rest of our stay 🙂 Steve (Karen’s DH) cooked a fab curry and a lovely breakfast the next morning, LC was more than happy to share all her belongings (including her bedroom!) with our two and our glasses were never empty! Thanks again Karen and I hope you are enjoying your extended stay in Scotland – will speak to you when you get back 🙂

Sunday – we travelled in convoy with Karen and LC infront, stopping at the border viewpoint to take a few pics – Scarlett was asleep so is missing from them sadly 🙁 Will blog them later when I boot the laptop up. Arrived at Melrose a mere 2 and a half hours early so after the (now legendary with everyone at Melrose!) getting lost on the one way system round Galasheils while trying to find somewhere to buy various bits and pieces. Back to the hostel to park up and we went off for an exploratory walk round Melrose, getting tea and cakes in the local garden centre before arriving back just after 4pm to a hive of activity.

In, unpacked, introduced to everyone and fretting about how exactly I was going to get up and down from the bunk beds we enjoyed a very nice evening which ended with me crashing drunkenly into the room in the early hours, waking up Ady to tell him I could not possibly get into my bed and him making me a makeshift bed on the floor which I fell unconscious into until the next morning! (Again, picture to be posted later 🙂

Monday and Tueday blur somewhat – I know we did the Abbey with Karen and LC one day and had lunch out just the four of us another of the days. Ady took Davies off out one afternoon for some male bonding leaving me to deal with Scarlett who pined for her Daddy and brother instead of enjoying some one to one time with me!

Wednesday – Dynamic Earth – thanks again to Kath and Bob for arranging it, we all really enjoyed it. Davies was car sick on the way there but taking my inspiration from Sarah I was ready for it and it was all caught and disposed of when we arrived 🙂 We then managed to show amazing good timing by spotting an Edinburgh tour bus pulling up outside and frantically gesticulating to the driver while running down the really quiet huge steps and leapt on that for a tour of the city. It was one of the buses with a headphone plug in to listen to the commentary which I can’t bear so Davies ended up being the only one listening to it and giving us his very potted and I’m sure not entirely correct feedback at full volume – which was funny 🙂 He then fell asleep for the last 10 minutes or so before we arrived back at Dynamic Earth and had lunch there – rather expensive and Scarlett was enjoying one of her two year olds moments 😉

By Wednesday afternoon Davies had finally made friends – Barabara’s B being the main one and watch me as I climb down from my non violent ivory tower to admit that it was my child who seemed to be the instigator of creating megablok pistols and running up and down corridors screaming about Monsters and shooting them! Feel free to laugh and say I told you so in comments box!

Thursday was our turn to cook. When I made this rash promise I was TBH banking on Ady doing most of it and me basking in his relected glory. Wrong! I had not banked on clingy toddler being attached to his side and refusing to be lured away by anyone or anything least of all her mother! So, armed with three newly purchased vegetable peelers, a pile as big as Davies of carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, swedes, onions, garlic and lots of meat myself and my team of supporters (Big thanks to Karens B & O, Helen J, ably replaced by Chris the swede king and my own special helper Davies!) we set about producing two rather good if I say so myself vats of stew. There was a brief moment of head smacking when Jax informed me of the dead cow ingredient in the dumpling mix making it a somewhat unattractive accompaniment to the vegetable stew option which was dealt with by a speedy despatch of my own helpful husband to get veggie suet and flour. Davies and I made all the dumplings and judging by the empty pots, folk going back for more and small children eating it (favourite quote for me was Off the Path’s C – ‘I like dumplings’ with a surprised look on her face!) it was okay! I confess to hiding in my room worrying about what was being said of me by Bob who cleaned the very baked on vat it was cooked in and sending Ady out to find out whether it was ever going to clean off 🙂

Friday – after doing what I hope was enough of a share of the clean up we hit the road by about 10.30am and made it to Nottingham for 3pm – proving that the stopover both ways was a necessity with two small children instead of a luxury. Davies was the most annoying passenger ever – we listened to Tumble Tots Action songs so many times that I fell asleep hours later with ‘Peter Rabbit has a very floppy ear, oh dear’ still ringing in my head and he munched his way through a whole packet of rice cakes saying ‘Mummy, Mummy, Look at me. Mummy, Look’ as he ate every single one by breaking it in half and inserting the two halves into his mouth to create a sabre tooth tiger look. Once in the room Scarlett had another 2yo moment about something relating to milk and pyjamas – so glad we are home now and can ignore her to get on with her tantrums instead of feeling we should manage them somehow to avoid waking everyone up with them. We then had a rushed and stressful dinner in the Little Chef the highlight of which was me laying into everyone about their behaviour only to be interupted by Davies telling me not to talk with my mouth full 🙂

Today – left by about 10ish and arrived home for 1.30pm. Ady is crashed out on the sofa, kids are making friends with their toys again and you know where I am!

In all it was a fantastic week. It was so lovely to meet and spend time with people, I felt at home with everyone straight away, Ady had a lovely time (and keeps talking about how he can see how a commune would work now and wonders if anyone is up for it!) It was lovely to see Davies when he finally got going running around with other children and to just be with people who really mean a lot to me. I found all the kids to be lovely (special mentions to Maddy who I adored, Hannah who is just the lovliest child I have ever met and Barbara’s R) and really enjoyed the posse of princesses running about, the level of acceptance towards the other children (good eg being the way Kennedy slotted in late but immediately upon arrival). Other highlights included Helen J’s offer of medical procedures with kitchen tongs for Ros, Leandra taking the travel cot jibes so well (and the smelly common room proclamation) and just feeling so bloody normal all week 🙂

There. And believe me that was brief. Imagine how much you would have read if I hadn’t been there all week and been blogging about being at home four times a day!