One word? When seven would do…

If nobody has any objections to me using such a term about myself I would say I am back to normal 😉

A good day today, another night’s sleep from Tarly (it is getting better, slowly but surely) and equilibrium as we know it in the Goddard household is restored, normal service is resumed 🙂

Over to Julie’s today and the kids were all really pleased to see each other (well Maisie and my two were, Jack moved between the sofa and Julie’s lap), ran around the garden for a bit, did some yelling and playdough and generally were small children while Julie and I drank tea and talked.

Got home and bad mother that I am when they asked for jam doughnuts for tea I relented 🙂 which then meant there were desperate for a bath. As Ady got home a splashing got a little out of hand and instead of yelling I just tipped water over their heads instead – they responded by chucking glasses of water at me and Ady stepped in just as I was about to turn the shower attachment on 🙂 Great fun!

Just as I was stripping my sodden jeans and top off and Ady was drying the kids and getting them into pjs the phone rang and it was Ali to say she’d like to come along to a local group trip (waves at Ali and apologises for not being more chatty but I was dripping all over the phone and floor! 🙂 ) After some toing and froing the kids fell asleep on a parent each which was nice (D on me, S on Ady) so we got to watch Masterchef while cuddling sleeping beauties.

Tomorrow we are off to Paradise Park to meet up with Mel and L & L which the kids are looking forward to. I have been plotting Tarly’s pox window and by my reckoning it could appear any time between tomorrow and two weeks on Sunday – anyone want to place bets on me having to dip out of the Legoland trip? 😉

Thanks for the hugs and stuff yesterday, feeling much better today. I had a full night’s sleep and managed not to dream about anything…

You know, I do ponder about mental health quite a bit, my Mum has always been a bit wobbly and I have tended to think that certain people are ‘prone to it’ or that to be depressed or have a breakdown you are a certain type of person. I am beginning to think that actually that is not necessarily the case but there are certain vital ingredients for keeping sane and when some of them go awol then you are left open to the wobbles. Anyway, not about to get on the prozac just yet, or admit myself into the priory but I am starting to realise that sometimes just counting your blessings isn’t enough. It is not sufficient to be aware that you are lucky in comparison to others and that you have a lot to be thankful for – you need to feel that YOU have all YOU need and if you don’t then work out how to get it.

With that in mind I have made a few decisions about my own life – some half formed and some with no real idea of how I am going to get there but I am feeling much more able to take responsibility for my own happiness again – which in turn will make everyone I share my life with happier too. I have never been one for ups and downs but the last year or so looking back I seem to have lurched from ecstatic to lunatic fairly regularly – not a state I want to be in or one which it is fair for Ady, Davies and Scarlett to live with me in either. Thanks for coming along on the ride though 🙂 Joyce – do you still need to life coach someone over the phone? 🙂

Yesterday a couple of incidents made which I was too self submerged to pay attention to at the time have made me smile – the first was me losing it to the point that I knew I needed to put physical distance between me and the children so going to sit on the front door step in the rain. It only took about five minutes before the door opened behind me, two little people appeared, one on either side of me, one stroked me and asked ‘matter Mummy?’ the other just took my hand and wiped away one of my tears. The second was at bedtime when I told Scarlett that she had to put some cuddly toys back in her bedroom before I would give her a dummy and help her into her pyjamas. She threw a complete fit about it saying they were too heavy (they weren’t, she had brought them in the lounge herself) and that she wanted me to do it. I remained calm (the first time that day!) but just said that if she wanted her dummy then she needed to help tidy up her stuff as Davies had done. Davies got up, went over to her and very calmly and quietly spoke to her so she stopped crying, he asked her if she wanted him to help her and she said yes so he said they would do it together. He picked up the lighter ones and passed them to her, then gathered up the rest himself and they walked to her room together and tidied them up, then he came and took her dummy from me and gave it to her, then they cuddled. Whilst I don’t want him to have to become the grown up when I fail to manage it, it was lovely to witness 🙂

So onto today. As we got up I said to Davies that we were all going to work harder to make sure we had a better day today (which he has reminded me about twice already when I shouted about something 😉 ) and so far, we have 🙂

First thing they watched the Dora dvd that Tarly got for Easter and played with lego and duplo in peace and harmony while I caught up on some emails, then the post arrived bringing an amazon order of some Eric Maddern books; Earth Story

, which had Davies enthralled, The Fire Children which we have not looked at yet and The Curious Clownfish which they both sat transfixed by. They both recognised it as being the same as Nemo so we talked about that a bit. We all tidied the lego and duplo up together before we read the books with no big coersion or shouting from me which made a lovely change 🙂

Then we headed out – I got a fix in Boots on various bits and pieces but as I had enough advantage points on my card to redeem them without actually spending anything 😉 then into Sainsburys where I managed an entire weeks food shopping with them both and no stress 🙂

There is an aquarium shop next to Sainsburys which on the spur of the moment we went into after loading the shopping into the car and spent about 20 minutes oohing and ahhing at all the fish, snails, turtles and clownfish 🙂 (ooh unplanned tied in HE – result).

They are now sat watching The Incredibles while I am here blogging and about to do a bit of work, dinner is in the oven (beef in red wine sauce) and depending on whether they are interested I have two plain white T shirts, some fabric crayons and some pictures of clown fish to copy to follow up our drawing on clothes chats from the other week.

Was not going to blog today as have had such a crappy one but I am feeling a bit more balanced and less like I should be carted off to some safe environment for the health and safety of myself and others so I will do cos I could do with the virtual hugs.

Its been a really crappy week actually – Davies has had the pox, his first ‘real’ illness. Although he has probably had a mild dose in terms of being ill with it there is something very disturbing about seeing your child covered in chicken pox spots and being able to do very little about it – Merry and others who have had far scarier experiences with the pox, you have my complete sympathy. Ady has been working 12 hour days including both bank holidays which always makes me feel like a single mother 🙁 , my parents being away is always an odd feeling – although they are not hugely helpful when they are here something dramatic always happens while they are on one of their trips (the first time they did a big trip abroad I found out I was pregnant with Davies, the second trip was when Ady’s sister died and this time there was the pox happening in our house and the earthquake panic over there last night). So I am tired, feeling under pressure to do work for Miranda which I am feeling uninspired about and seriously doubting the whole HE thing atm. I know it is the best thing for the kids but I am not at all convinced that I am cut out for being a Home Educator… not sure where to go from here really, I know I am not feeling rational about any aspect of my life at the moment (aside from my marriage and frankly given the mad evil bitch woman I am being Ady is probably having his own doubts about that one) so I am better shelving any sort of decision making or dwelling on it for now until I am in the right frame of mind to do it justice.

I’ve lost my thread a bit here actually as there was just an almighty crash and I ran to the window to see our opposite neighbours car about 30 foot away from where it should be and a smashed up car in its place, two cars had stopped behind it and the drivers were both getting out and running to the crashed car. I yelled out the window to see if they wanted an ambulance and Ady called all the emergency services while I dashed out with a blanket.

The other two drivers and I stood talking to the guy trying to keep him conscious and get as much information about him as we could including failed phonecalls to his wife and son to let them know what had happened. I knocked on the door of the neighbour who’s car had been hit to tell him and then hung about giving statements and so on while the poor bloke was cut out of his car and eventually taken away unconscious by ambulance. I hope he’s going to be ok. Sort of puts my crap in perspective really doesn’t it…

Questions from Heather…

1) In ‘Desert Island Discs’ style, what 3 music tracks would you take to keep you company, what book (or two, as I would consider it acceptable to forfeit the Bible) and what luxury item?

In the interests of keeping myself entertained and having a track for all emotions as opposed to my three favoruite tracks I would choose ‘It had to be You’ which was the song we danced to at our wedding reception but also reminds me of both children as I sing it to them for sitting and thinking about people I love and who love me; for singing along to at the top of my voice I choose that karioke classic ‘I will survive’ which might also be good for positive affirmation work if the desert island is of the style in Castaway 🙂 finally I would have to choose one to inspire me to get up and dance – the need to keep fit (did I say keep fit? I of course meant get fit as to keep fit would infer I am at the moment which of course I am not 😉 ), lift the spirits and feel the warm sand beneath my feet – I choose something with an inbuilt dance routine, something I know the dance routine to and if there is a team of local island dwellers who need to be tamed, impressed and brought in line to bring me coconut milk and freshly caught fish can be taught to dance with me to – I choose YMCA 🙂
Book – ooh tough one. I love books although I rarely read them more than once. I should probably choose something I have not read already, something classic, but instead I choose Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide in hardback (which contains all four of the trilogy) currently nestling on my bookcase bought two Christmasses ago for me but as yet not looked at – I did read all the books in my teens and they blew me away a bit then, would be nice to think they would have the same effect again on my desert island 🙂 and luxury item would have to be internet access of some description 🙂

2) What was your initial inspiration/motivation for HE?
Most of the readers probably know my HE story if you don’t then it is briefly outlined here.
But in brief my initial inspiration was a clingy toddler who I thought was bright and would be failed by the school system. I posted a question about HE on a newsgroup I frequented at the time and was pointed in the direction of muddlepuddle by two members of that newsgroup – Alison and June. I have since met many other people both on the net and IRL who I also admire in their HE journeys but having ‘known’ both of them virtually for a couple of years without knowing they were HEing and therefore having no odd preconceptions of them as weirdos ( 🙂 ) I would have to credit both of them with inspiring me to learn more 🙂
3) In an alternative reality where you are childless, what would you like to be doing with your life?
stand up comedian 🙂 not saying I could do it either with the material or the standing up and performing it but I would like to have a go.

4) Where in the world would you most like to live?

Ooh tough one. I have two fantasies so I would split my time between them both 🙂 One is New York and all the hustle and bustle that involves. The other is a remote Scottish island living in a community type way (although not in bunks and with my own bathroom 😉 ) at one with the elements and a simpler way of life.

5) Describe your perfect night out.

My best ever night out was at our wedding reception. We had gotten married in Las Vegas one week previously and had a big party when we came home. There was no pressure left over from the wedding, just the excitement of being MRS Goddard, flashing my wedding ring about and looking forward to being married to my beloved for the rest of our lives. The party was the best one I have ever been to – I knew everyone there (unusal at most big parties) everyone wanted to buy me drinks, talk to me about the wedding and be my mate. So it would be a similar type of evening – surrounded by friends, lots of lovely food, lots to drink, great music to dance to all night, balloons and banners and home with Ady at the end of it. Oh yeah and a guaranteed decent nights sleep with a lie in the next morning to recover too please 🙂

If YOU want to be interviewed:

1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions (not the same as you see here).
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions. (If you don’t have a blog, let this inspire you to begin one!!)
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Had a pretty crap day actually 🙁

There have been high points; Davies has finally clicked with his counting, we had a nice game of snakes and ladders together, he played Zoombinis for a while and has mastered the Mountain Rescue one, done a fair bit of reading to them and so on.

Also been some very low points – me sending everyone to their rooms (self included) having yelled that this was not working for any of us, they were going to school / nursery / childcare whatever and I was going back out to work probably topping the list of them.

Was planning to blog more but I am now sitting slumped infront of the news. My parents rang earlier to say they are enjoying the trip but the poverty everywhere is quite disturbing. There has been a massive earthquake in the same area as the Boxing Day one (what is it with Earthquakes and Bank Holidays then?) which although seemingly unlikely to cause a tsunami will judging by the news create panic and mayhem throughout Thailand and surrounding areas. It’s about 1am there now, they were planning an early night as they are supposed to be getting up at 5am to go on a planned boat trip. Not sure whether their hotel will have been evacuated, they will have felt some of the quake and what level of information or confusion or panic they will be in – or indeed whether they are simply blissfully asleep and ignorant of the whole thing…. obviously will feel very on edge until I manage to speak to them again 🙁

edited to add – I managed to ring them (wonderful thing the internet for getting information like phone numbers) and woke them up (2am their time). They were, as predicted blissfully unaware of anything happening but as I was sat watching the news in the same city they are in with people running around in mayhem I was glad to have spoken to them. I left them with their TV on watching Sky news and promising to ring tomorrow and stay in contact generally. Have rung my very relieved brother too so can rest easy on that count at least…

Been thinking a bit about motivation of late. Talk of star charts and extrinsic rewards, personal hopes for intrinsic rewards, wonder on how exactly to motivate children towards learning what I think they should know but more to the point them doing it because they want to as opposed to me making them / suggesting it / having to coerce them into doing so even though I know it is for their own best interests and they will probably enjoy doing so and get something out of it intrinsic if they could only make a start at it.

So what does motivate my children then? Praise definitely, both actual, anticipated and withdrawal of / seeing another getting praise while they are not; the promise of something or bribery – if you do x you will get y – this is probably more effectual in stopping negative behaviour than in acting as a catalyst for good behaviour but it works; being able to manage something independantly is a big deal for both of them actually – Tarly’s latest thing is climbing into the car and then into her carseat by herself, Davies is daily doing stuff a bit trickier than the day before and succeeding ‘all by myself’. What I don’t really see in either of them is a passion for any one thing though – they are both fairly butterfly like if left to their own devices. This morning they have done colouring, Davies has played with his k’nex, looked through some red nose readers books by himself and then brought me a couple to read with him, sat and listened to George and the Dragon but got bored with Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, gone back to the k’nex, watched some random Nick Jr (but I turned the tv off last time they both left the room and no one has noticed yet 🙂 ), done some hamabeading – he made a car, counted past 40 for the first time ever (with very little prompting and finally grasping the pattern of 20 + 1 being 21, then 22 and so on and then repeating through 30s and 40s. Hurrah 🙂 ) and alternately played with and annoyed his sister.

Scarlett has done some colouring, pulled various books out of the bookcase and ‘read’ them to herself, almost used the potty 😉 , started a hama bead teddy, played with the k’nex when D wasn’t looking and alternately played with and annoyed her brother.

I have alongside this been pondering what motivates me. And am a bit horrified to learn that I am no longer sure 🙁 I don’t care much about praise or recognition, I tend to value my own self opinion over what other’s think of me – someone could be easily impressed by something which I have created with very little effort or care so that praise – although nice, would not really be warranted or valued much. Similarly there are things I would work really hard on but could be considered at best mediocre by someone else – I know what comes easily and hard to me and congratulate myself accordingly 🙂 I used to be quite motivated by money and status – I was very keen to know that I was earning more, had a better job title, was getting there faster and younger than everyone else whilst working in retail – I was pretty good at what I did and achieved most of those young Nic goals – sadly finding them pretty empty once done so – the thrill seemed to be more in the attaining than in the actual getting there. Since children however, and by getting my fingers very burned in my last big career type employment (which funnily enough coincided with the month before I fell pregnant) I have no great longing for that sort of success any more – mainly because I know what compromises in the rest of life it would entail. Status means pretty much nothing anymore to me – I see how people with great careers have very little else in their life and don’t want that for myself. Money would be lovely but I am no less happy for the lack of it – whilst it would be great to earn loads for doing something I enjoy and am passionate about I think a lottery win would be just as much fun to spend 🙂 So I would have to deduce that what really motivates me is succeeding at something which has been challenging. In the immortal words of that old geezer from the A team ‘I love it when a plan comes together’. So I need to work out what my plan is and set about achieving it so there is a challenge in there for me as well as the children.

I never want to lose sight of the fact that this is MY life and MY journey. Whilst the whole HE thing is what I consider to be best for my kids I do not want it to be a case of me surrendering myself to it / them. Whilst I don’t think that being a mother, particularly a HEing one is not worthy of a lifes work or that it should be undervalued or written off I also don’t feel that when the time comes to look back over my life I will have achieved all I could if I don’t at least strive to make my mark in someway other than as ‘Mummy’. At the moment I am feeling like I have about a hundred tasks all awaiting my attention with none of them getting enough of it to be done properly.

Had a long chat on the phone with my friend in NZ over the weekend – the first time we have really talked about HE although it had been mentioned a few times before. We talked a bit about approaches, how children learn and what I percieve to be the failings of the education ‘system’. Following on from that I have had a couple of examples of things recently which were completely new to me – clearly I was never taught them in school or was away that day or something. One was venn diagrams which I had read about on a couple of blogs so looked into further (and then asked a few other adults about whether they knew what they were and none of them did) and the other was fibonacci numbers. Now clearly having gotten this far through life ignorant of such things has not done me any great harm but it does make me realise how selective our education is and how subjective our level of knowledge can be. There are certain topics which have inspired me on which I know a fair bit, others which for whatever reason I have deemed uninteresting, have never come across or been introduced to I know little or nothing about. What if one of these gaping holes was the area I was destined to make a difference in? How can we know what will inspire us unless we scrape the surface of it by some sort of coincidence? Not sure what to do with this aside from not get freaked out by it to the point of grasshoppering from topic to another every ten minutes with the children, covering quantum physics and the pop career of Shakin Stevens in the same breath 🙂 Maybe butterfly is good!

Anyway, enough of this putting off what I really should be doing by blogging about why I might be putting it off instead of doing it 😉

But I don’t want it to go getting above itself or anything 🙂

A really bad night with the kids, Davies is now covered in pox spots – now well into the 100s 🙁 He has been amazingly sensible with them and managed not to scratch too much. Hopefully tomorrow will be the last of the crops and they can start to heal over. He has been up and down today, quite emotional (went and had a quiet moment at the end of the garden when he thought Ady was giving Maisie more attention than him 🙁 ) and tired. He fell asleep on my lap at about 6.30 tonight, first time I’ve carrried him upstairs to bed in a few years!

I took Tarly up to Sainsburys with me where she was very well behaved and a pleasure to be with, while Davies who now has spots on his face so cannot be seen in public (unless we fashion him some sort of shroud type thing along the lines Michael Jackson has taken his kids out in) stayed at home with Ady in the garden. We came home and had lunch in the garden then headed over to Chris and Julie’s for a couple of hours.

Home via McDs and both very tired and well run out children asleep by 6.30pm ready for us to watch Dr Who in peace 🙂 Never thought I’d be jealous of Billie (what with the being married to Chris Evans and being famous for singing that Honey to the Bee song) but I sooo want to be Rose and go off with Dr Who to save the world past and present! I thought it was very good actually – I only really know Christopher Eccleston from Second Coming so to have that bloke from Early Doors and Second Coming playing Clive was quite inspired casting. Anyway, liked it 🙂

Educational stuff, erm not a lot really. We charted Mum and Dad’s progress from Hong Kong to Bangkok today (Davies: why is it called Bangkok? are there lots of bangs and lots of cocks? erm funny you should say that son!) and looked up both places in our atlas and talked about what animals and so on would be there. We also looked at Dubai which is their final destination later next week.

And that was about it really. Right off to dish out the curry, pour some more wine and then start hiding eggs around the place ready for the morning… Happy Easter everyone 🙂