One word? When seven would do…

and a Dora fix while I tidied the house up a bit – a cunning plan to sit down for dinner before 10pm tonight was being hatched!

which is just as well given that this was the best end of the day pic I could manage without assistance!

so here are some with a person behind the camera instead of my arm stretched as far as possible holding it infront of me!

He insisted on taking one of me as I’d been doing it to him all day – only seems fair to include it!

Me and my boy 🙂

Daddy and his girl 🙂

a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/44809346@N00/11356016/” title=”7pm shhh”>
she sleeps

and he is not far behind her (snoring by 7.30!)

First of all the smiling – huge CONGRATULATIONS to everyone at Stepping off the Path 🙂 And hurrah for another blue recruit to Mudpud to even up with all the pink ones from last year!

The laughing – well Davies had me roaring within a few minutes of waking up this morning. Both kids had got up with Ady at 6am ish and when he left at 7 I was still in bed trying to face the day – Scarlett came up to ‘visit you Mummy’ climbed into bed and promptly fell asleep 🙂 She stayed there ’til I woke her at nearly 10am, but Davies followed her up a while later and woke me up by sitting on me and stroking my knee. We then had a very odd conversation about generations before us. We covered who was my brother and my Mummy and Daddy, who was Ady’s brother, who was Granny and Grandad’s mummy and Daddy and so on. Then we got onto Ady’s parents – which we have touched on before but never really gone into much detail over – we talked about the fact that Ady’s Mummy is still alive and lives fairly nearby but we don’t see her as she wasn’t a very good Mummy. That she had not been a very good mummy partially because she was mentally ill and that she went on to have another son after Daddy and Uncle Chris who she does seem to be a better Mummy to. He then asked about Ady’s Daddy and was told again that he had died about 6 years ago because his body stopped working properly;
D: did his heart stop pumping blood round his body then?
M; (quite impressed!) yes it did
D: so then he died?
M: yes that’s right
D: that’s quite sad isn’t it Mummy?
M: Yes it is sad when someone dies
D: Oh well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles!
M: pmsl 🙂

turns out he had heard the expression on Maggie and the Ferocious Beast in a slighly different context. I probably won’t encourage him to use it in such a way again, neither do I think this bodes well for future careers in the undertaking business or writing copy for ‘in deepest sympathy’ cards but I did find it amusing.

Rachel came round this morning with baby A and we had a good old chat – talked about HE as usual but it felt a bit more of a comfortable conversation this time. I said that I thought school was actually doing E some good and she agreed, whilst at the same time agreeing that for Davies school would be wrong in many ways – I’m glad that was said as I think we have both been edging round it a bit worrying that each other was judging the other’s choices, which I know we weren’t.

Kids have graized on food all day – mainly fruit which means they are not hungry but have probably not eaten enough really. Def had their five a day today though!

Out to group when Rachel left after a frantic preparing of stuff to take with me (pens and crayons and paper, glue, a sheet with tasks of measuring each other, tape measures) and getting there early to collect a key and set the stuff up. It was sadly a bit of a replica of the situation last week that Jenny blogged about last night with kids from two specific families running amok on the lawned area, fighting, chucking water about, throwing sticks and generally being really unruly 🙁 It’s quite hard because both the mums are lovely but seem to find it preferable to sit on their arses drinking tea while their kids tear the place apart, make it less than ideal for the younger kids (i.e. mine!) and largely ignore all the tasks we work hard to lay on for them.

Davies stayed in a corner kicking his heels as no one wanted to play with him – they were not deliberatly excluding him but he didn’t want to join in with rough play and no one else wanted to opt out of it to play something with him, Scarlett kept wandering off by herself and said ‘people’s not nice to me, people’s pinch me’ which I am not sure I believe but as both my kids were fairly miserable about being there and I spent my time either telling the other kids to stop behaving the way they were, collecting together the pens and crayons I had brought which we scattered everywhere including outside and huddling in the kitchen with Jenny muttering about the others!

There were plusses – another new lady came (although she left early anyway so missed the worst of the chaos), the venue really is ideal, I spoke to the users of the adjoining rooms to ensure we were not being disruptive to whatever they were doing and they were all really interested in and supportive of HE – they work with excluded children in other areas so were fine.

I had to say something or stew on it by the end so as we were leaving I made a general announcement to the effect that this was not acceptable behaviour in this group. The whole idea of the group was that Jenny and I had set it up as an alternative to the other local groups where there is lots of running around letting off steam – I have no issue with such things but would not choose to go there myself, nor do I think my 4 and 2 year old need to be there. I said that I am not coming along to groups to spend my time shouting at other people’s kids, my two were not happy, this was not an environment they are used to, nor one I wish for them to get used to and as such unless we all really made an effort to stick to the clearly laid out group ethos next time perhaps it would be better for it not to progress from here. Frankly unless it was a group I was running I would have left and nto returned. I accept that this is normal healthy behaviour in children, and indeed fully expect my own children to demonstrate it when they are older (they are more than capable of running around screaming when required) but there is a time and a place and I also expect them to know when to modify their behaviour accordingly – and would place that same expectation on any children who are attending a venue which has MY name down as the contact. I am doing this group for purely selfish reasons – I want me and the kids to have a group which fulfils our HE needs on a once a week basis, to skill swap with other parents on crafty / arty / creative things and to give them some time spent in a group situation and equip them to deal with all the dynamics it offers. I am not giving of my time, headspace and energy for something which I would not choose to be part of. I *think* it went in – as one of them suggested an excellent activity for next week and the other said she didn’t want her kids in such an environment either (!) . We have some really nice families who come along and I know share the vision of Jenny and I – we can’t let the odd one or two spoil it for the rest of us. There, I’ve put my foot down and it feels good!

Anyway rant over 🙂

Our caterpillars arrived last Friday as part of the butterfly kit Sarah linked to a while ago and are currently wriggling and growing at an amazing pace which is fascinating the kids – must get them into some related type activities. The last couple of weeks have been mad with hardly any time spent at home – next week is looking fairly empty which will probably be a blessing as it will give us some time to reconvene and do some educational stuff at home. Davies has woken with a cold, which I imagine Scarlett will get so that might tie in well too.

Right off to get them to bed, they could both do with an early night.

and found it very haunting. At times I couldn’t put it down, at others I got bored with some of what I considered to be fairly peripheral storylines but there were two very dramatic twists towards the end neither of which were remotely predictable.

Still pondering on many of the trains of thought it raised and not at all sure that I will blog about them as they are quite personal and to do with siblings, having more than one child, having poorly children and very strange personal decisions – some hypothetical, some real which I am not sure I want to share in this particular place and some which I think will not be appropriate in various ways. Might do a password protected post for it so I get it written down for my own benefit which people are then free to ask for if they are so inclined and feel unlikely to be upset or take offence at the subject matter.

Made me think a lot though….

Anyone spot what the word of the day is today then? 🙂

Got that bathroom all sparkly before 8am today, made some playdough by 10am (green eucalyptus, orange mandarin and purple lavendar), and got out the Polly Pocket stuff, some crayons and some paper by 10.30 ready for Lisa, K and D to arrive. Realised a little late that we really have very little in the house to appeal to a 7 yo girl so that was the best I could muster!

They arrived at 11ish and while the littler three were soon happily engrossed in playdough, K ended up on the computer playing Zoombinis – which was nice as she was quite happy for Davies to sit alongside her which has no doubt helped his understanding of it a bit having now watched someone get much further with it than he previously has managed to. Tarly and D also had a play later after lunch on the Dora game and then K and Davies ended up playing a Buzz Lightyear game which Davies stayed on for a while after they left – so that’s IT covered for a while then!

They also played with Scarlett’s dolls and Polly Pocket stuff, her and D walked round for ages playing with their ‘babies’, they did some playdough creatures, bashed on the musical instruments and played hide and seek. When they had gone Davies and Scarlett also did some more colouring and Davies continues to turn out some really rather impressive creations of butterflies, dogs, me and a cat 🙂 Not sure whether to carry on leaving the crayons lying around and let him do his own thing or get a bit more involved and start supplying more sophisticated art materials really…

Lisa posted on list yesterday that a series of coincidences have led to K wanting to go back to school and how she is pondering and wondering about it all. This threw up a bit of a future possible dilema for me actually. I have always maintained that this is the children’s lives I am effecting by choosing to HE and that if at any point they would rather go to school then they may. But as Lisa pointed out what if that wanting was perhaps button pushing exercise, playing school off against you and HE, a curiosity of the unknown to them which could all end in tears? What if as their parent you *know* HE is the better option and as someone who does not in the main practise non-coercise parenting and would make their child wear a coat in the rain etc you feel that this is another of those occassions when you know best and will exercise parental control in favour of HE? What if you don’t want / need the stress of having one child at home and the other at school? What if them going to school is not the best option for the family as a whole unit or even – selfishly – you as their parent? What then? Do you send them on the basis that it *is* their life and they should be allowed to make such huge decisions about it for themselves and how then do you react to inevitable wanting to come back out again at the first sign of it not all working out rosily? What if they don’t want to do their homework? What if they fall out with their friends, don’t like the teacher, what then?

We sort of went round in circles on the whole issue really and I’m not at all sure I was any real help but I think in her shoes I would have to let my child try and see. Very much on the basis that it was for keeps although knowing in my heart that I would know if and when it truly was not working and be able to return to HE again if needs be. I guess I am prepared for the door slamming, foot stamping ‘I want to go to school then’ type reaction at some point but am not really expecting any sort of considered ‘application’ from the children to attend school.

We also talked about the pros and cons of HEing from the start without ever entering the system. I think it can be easier to justify HE if there is a reason for not attending school having tried it. Whether it is bullying, special needs, behaviour problems or whatever if you have come out of school to HE then you have your ready made answer as to why you are doing it. If OTOH, like us, you have never started school and have decided long before even getting close to it that you will be HEing I think it is far easier to trust the process and it becomes a more organic, natural learning process. For me I see HE as the logical continuation of teaching them to walk and talk, to say please and thank you and all of the other behaviours they have accrued to this point – I am intending not to change the structure of our days too much in September just because Davies *would* be starting school – we will be semi structured in our approach but it is not due to any external pressures or keeping up with peers type reasons, simply my own personal ways of approaching this and what seems to be working best for the children as individuals. The beauty of our HE journey starting so early is that by the time Davies is ‘official’ I will have already built up our life ready for scrutiny if it comes and am prepared. I am a founder of what I hope will become a strong local HE group, I am sharing the EO local contact role with a couple of other local HEers, we have a good healthy mix of HE and non HE friends who we see weekly or fortnightly, we have started the odd extra curricular type activity and we are familiar with all the resources we might start to need. I have an excellent support network of very, very good friends both IRL and on the net and we are already a part of the HE community and doing camps and stuff – we are there before we even need to be 🙂 For those who come out of the system they need to try and do all this while at the same time running to keep up with what they think they should be doing educationally, working out how it will all work practically and logistically and dealing with any fall out from a failed school experience.

A lot of hot and heavy HE type discussions the last few days have, for once, served to make me feel really good about what we are doing and really confident in our ability to make it all work – at the same time opening my eyes to previously unpredicted hurdles I might have to face in the future. Good to be ready though eh?!

And that was today – a quick walk round the shop to get milk, the rescue remedy incident and fairly early nights for the small people. Off to drink wine now and work out some sort of measuring task sheet for tomorrrow’s HE group.

Ooh and lastly a dilema for you…. today Davies was firmly involved with his Buzz game on the computer, but I *needed* to go and buy milk from the shop round the corner. It is about a two minute walk so a five or six minute round trip. He really didn’t want to come and said he’d stay at home and carry on playing the computer while I went with Scarlett. I didn’t – and he was persuaded out quite easily but given how sensible he is, the fact that I am often outside for twice that length of time hanging out washing while both kids stay in the house I wonder when it would be OK to do it…legally not for years and years and I did go through all the possible scenarios in my head of what *could* go wrong (knock on the door while I’m gone – either a baddie or the local libdem candidate asking if they could rely on your vote!, something happening to me while I am walking round the shop and me not coming back, some freak disaster happening in the house – you get the idea…) but given his personal level of maturity I would think he would be fine to be home alone for a very short time in a situation like that….any thoughts?

As she enters the room with a previously full, now completely empty bottle of rescue remedy and a suspiciously alcoholic taint to her breath!!!!!!

Quick google on ‘rescue rememdy overdose’ provided similar sort of effect to the calming one I imagine she is feeling right now – it contains alcohol but no more so than she has previously nicked from my glass, so I’m guessing she will just be a mellower version of herself for the rest of the day then…

Have to blog something long enough to push it down past them and hope it doesn’t bugger up the next thing down!

Oh I know – for Ali, the stuff I was talking about yesterday when we were talking about how we hardly ever let our children watch TV 🙂

Balamory, Bits and Bobs , Blues Clues , Bob the Builder, Clifford the big red dog, Dora the Explorer, I Spy, Little Bear, Max and Ruby , The Shiny Show, Spider, Tikkabilla , The Tweenies and finally Zingalong.

With apologies to everyone who has already read them all 🙂

yep still on a Shakin Stevens kick here – the kids had the dvd on tonight and spent half an hour before bed running round like loons dancing to it (they were naked in between taking off clothes and putting on pjs so did not take pics at risk of worrying anyone peeping through the window and wondering about what naked children dancing type stuff we were up to in here! even if I did I couldn’t have posted them anyway!).

Today has been really nice – up at an ungodly hour (7am 🙁 ) and out by just after 10am (the three hours once again totally vanished in the black hole of time and space that is our house early in the morning – who knows what happens here between the Wiggles and the end of Little Bill (well Dora, obviously but what else? 🙂 ) on our way to Ali’s for a lovely day. The group of Sussex puddlers seems to be growing to start a rival to the Sheffield one 🙂 Davies and Scarlett really enjoyed playing with F and I think for a first meeting, considering their ages (after all people we had a 2 and a nearly 4 year old here combined with the 4 year old who had justifyably used up all his good behaviour this weekend already so is on track to really show me up anytime about now!) and both F and Ali are lovely 🙂 Already made a regular ‘date’ for every other week to get together, so that was really nice.

While there we were able to observe autonomous HE in action really well – the kids played hide and seek (counting and creativity), Scarlett spent time looking at books (literacy), they played all sorts of imaginative games involving soft toys and used the resources there in terms of toys to bring their games to life (I was in charge of the doctors kit as a makeshift vets kit to attend to hurty bottoms for various domestic pet cuddly creatures!!), they sat together and ate food (socialisation), they chased round the house (PE) and escaped from the Lunch Monster together (teamwork) and then Scarlett got out some crayons leading to a art session, Davies asked for something to do rubbings with so we provided coins and shoes with bumpy soles, then they did some still life (Davies did a really quite good picture of the bunny! Scarlett drew me and a whole host of Dora characters – they would not necessarily have been immediately recognisable as such but she did select colours with care and appeared to have some format as to what she was doing – and was certainly able to give a running commentary!). Finally we also managed to get all the way home during the danger hour after 4pm with Scarlett staying awake due to the Tumble Tots Action songs cd being played in the car (Music), so many a box ticked today! But as usual let’s face it the most important thing was that me and Ali clicked, I got to drink tea and chat and yet another blog will be all the nicer to read having been in the house and met the people featuring in it 🙂

Tomorrow Lisa is coming over here so another puddlers meet up, I am off to be in bed for once before midnight and tomorrow during that black hole time I need to clean the bathroom and generally spruce up areas which might be seen tomorrow 🙂

For two reasons really – the first is that having enjoyed beautiful weather up north all weekend as soon as we hit south of London on the M25 we entered the grey drizzle zone – odd, thought the north was supposed to have the crap weather!

The second reason is that my lovely husband bought me home this as a surprise pressie on Friday. So I have spent all weekend reliving being about 8 years old, gazing up at my life size Shaky poster on my bedroom wall and singing Green Door into my hairbrush – bliss 🙂 Sadly the long on the blink cd player in the car died yesterday so we also had to buy on of these to facilitate continued listening to it! Kids now in love with Shaky too 🙂

So, a catch up on the last couple of days then; Friday was a good one. TT1 in the morning which was OK. Next week is the start of the split age groups and I am inclined to give it a fair go but unless there is something a bit more engaging for D & S I will probably not bother paying for the next block of sessions. Particularly as Scarlett is now quite happily doing TT2 as well which gives us an hour between the two classes which is not long enough to go home for and as we need to eat lunch during it will probably involve me either buying them lunch out every week or packing sandwiches to be eaten in the car so it’s a bit of a kerfuffle unless it is really worth it. Mum met us when TT1 finished and we went into town for lunch and she bought the kids a being poorly pressie each for them having CP while they were away – slightly redeemed herself there then 🙂 Davies got a Robot toy to go with the one he got when he didn’t see the film the other day and Tarly got two (BOGOF offer) My Little Ponies. She has got a couple of dinky ones from when McDs were doing Happy Meal toys of them and loves them so now she has two full size ones which she is carting around, brushing their hair and generally loving.

Mum stayed with Davies while Tarly and I did TT2 – which she again did really well at and seemed to really enjoy. She is very agile – loads more so than Davies and now she has got her head round the whole structured taking it in turns issues is doing well at it all. She was practically lapping some of the other littlies her climbing and clambering was so speedy. Once again really nice to be just her and I for a while with her getting loads of praise and attention lavished on her – so a positive all round for TT2 🙂 She was not to be bribed with the sticker (as I predicted) but I did persuade her to go up and get it for me instead so I proudly wore it for the rest of the day! Davies, as ever loved it and was commended again on being good, polite and ‘having the memory of an elephant’ for some fact he had recounted from about two months ago in terms of where the equipment was!

The journey up north was erm, interesting… I had looked up a route finder and jotted down key bits of info from it on the basis that having lived up there and been to Miranda’s house several times when we got close we would sort of find our own way in – WRONG! 🙂 About an hour and a half and 30 odd extra miles later we arrived! We still managed to have the kids asleep, an alcoholic beverage inside us and be in bed ourselves just after midnight though so it was not too bad!

Saturday – we had breakfast and dashed off to The Trafford Centre for an hour which was a real memory lane type trip. Davies remembered everything (which I suppose he would having been there at least once a week for most of his life up until a year ago), then we headed off to Lynda’s for lunch. We had a great time there with the kids running around the garden and playing with the lego remnants left behind by her two sons. Then their oldest son and his wife to be (wedding next weekend) arrived so we got to meet them for the first time too which was lovely having both heard lots about each other.

Then back to Miranda’s for a huge trekking walk (pics below) which was mad! Four adults, three children, two dogs, lots of unsuitable footwear, mud up to your knees and gates which were tied shut necessitating lifting dogs and children over fences 🙂 Great fun though! Kids were all totally worn out by that so after food and a hosing down in a bath all three of them were asleep by 8am leaving us to enjoy dinner, wine and lots of chats. We inevitably talked HE to death – with Miranda being one of the most horrified people I ever mentioned HE to in the beginning slowly becoming someone who is actually quite convinced by the whole thing now. She is the polar opposite in terms of being a product of one of the most expensive boarding schools in this country and sending her daughter – albeit not as a boarder – to an equally *good* private school to being quite sold on the idea of autonomy, learning through life and being allowed to ask questions and then go and find out the answers to them. Gradually over the last year all of her horrors at the very idea have given way to a curiosity and last night a full acceptance of the benefits. She even said (after quite a lot of wine I admit!) that she almost wishes she had the patience and parenting skills to consider it as an option for Francesca!!!

One of the very positive things about telling people about HE at the moment is that Davies can be a very good advertisement for it in action. A typical child of his age would be ‘in the system’ by now and when he wants to be Davies is very capable of demonstrating lots of intelligence, articulacy and general knowledge which impresses adults who are expecting something very different. He did the same this weekend and on the walk yesterday he took Miranda’s hand and walked with her for a lot of the way talking to her about the sheep and lambs, the grass and scenery and general chit chat. I find Davies very good company when he is on top form and she did too. I was very proud of him and prouder still last night when she was singing his praises and commenting on what a confident, very comfortable in talking to anyone, composed child he is and I was able to attribute that to HE, to giving him time to reach this stage instead of continuing to force a seperation he clearly was not ready for and in continuing to nurture his love of learning and quest for knowledge – something which even she can see her 7 year old beginning to lose through being at school and having to learn certain things at certain specified times. I have a HE glow to me today 🙂

Funnily enough both Stuart (Lynda’s husband) and Harmen (Miranda’s husband) were both very interested and intrigued by the idea of HE. I have (and this is a generalisation but a definite pattern) found that men tend to be far more accepting of it as a concept, with several stating that it would probably have suited them better as children themselves and able to see all the percieved benefits and less concerned about the usual worries of HE (socialisation, blah blah blah!) Not sure if this is because women can feel somewhat defensive about not doing it for their children (if they have them) or whether perhaps HE is an even better option for boys (are girls more sociable, do they get more out of the school mentality than boys? Hmm interesting that one) but certainly something I have noticed the last couple of weeks having spoken about HE both in practise in our family and in theory as something happening nationwide with three different couples of varying ages.

Today has been equally manic. Breakfast with Miranda and co, then dashed off to Lynda and Stuarts (via Halfords!) for lunch, left there a full hour and a half later than the very latest we had planned to be away by but somehow managed to keep the kids awake all the way home by feeding them lollies and fruit polos (which sugar high tactic backfired and had them both still awake at 9pm 🙂 ) and singing and dancing along to the Tumbletots Actions songs cd (D’you know if I hear about Peter Rabbit and the fly on his bloody nose again for at least a month I may well go mad!) in the car all the way home. Stuart had got out a tent and he and Davies put that up in their garden which Davies loved doing, I taught the kids how to make daisy chains and Scarlett ran around with a bucket trying to catch bumble bees and ladybirds!

We got home early enough to shove roast beef in the oven, have had a bath and watched Dr Who on video and am about to fall into bed after a quick whizz round the blog ring (who am I kidding, I’ll still be sat here at gone midnight 😉 ) Tomorrow I am planning to do the HE day in pics, but for now there are a few taken this weekend posted below.