One word? When seven would do…

Ah, I’m so not Linda McCartney tonight 😉

And this one is bothering me more cos I know it is going to sound really selfish no matter how much spin I put on it 🙁

Edited to add – and as it has now been resolved I have deleted it 😉

Thanks to Alison and Jax for the late night comments support!

No, not a third person warning about me from me, but Ady’s parenting style! I must have heard him say this threat at least 10 times over the last 24 hours and finally snapped tonight. It’s been a bad day behaviour wise and when he got home as we were waving off Liam and Lily he walked in on the tail end of it.

I had had a long chat with Davies yesterday about certain toys which are now set up full time in his new larger bedroom. Basically he always plays with them in the same way which involves trashing them and then leaving them strewn across the floor. Now I know I *could* leave it like that but it’s My House and I don’t expect him to treat either his room or his toys in such a manner. So yesterday as I put it all back together again I warned him that unless it was kept in that manner, or at the very least tidied up by him after being played with then I would confiscate it. Tonight it got confiscated 🙁

He has had a catalogue of misdemeaners today which I listed to Ady and then set off to tidy up while he bathed them. As I walked past the bathroom I overheard him say to them ‘Don’t splash or Mummy will get cross again’. This pisses me off on SO many levels. Firstly good cop bad cop does not work as a parenting style. We need to be consistent, united and have the same acceptable levels of behaviour and expectations of them, sceondly I dislike being demonised in this way. I am not the cross old witch of a mother (well I am actually, but I don’t expect him to acknowledge that to the kids – I don’t want a situation where he is basically siding with them against me) and if I am cross it is for a bloody good reason, not just because I am ‘in a mood’ (again not totally true but he should not be letting the children know that 😉 ) and finally what about giving himself some authority with them? It’s an odd version of ‘wait til your father gets home’ in reverse which I don’t think makes for peaceful relations all round really. How about ‘don’t do that or I will be cross with you.’ or how about simply ‘don’t do that’?

So anyway, he went off to do some gardening while I had a heart to heart with Davies. It must be really hard being 4 1/2 as he seems to be struggling with it 🙁 What makes it worse is that the kids are not out of control. Every time I tell them off they seem genuinely sorry, they both apologise, come over for cuddles, are upset that they are in trouble and put right what they have done wrong. I just can’t seem to get across to them that if they thought about what they were doing before they did it they would realise that it is a bad idea, I am going to get angry, they are going to be in trouble and get upset and it is simply better to not do it in the first place. sigh. He’s promised to try really hard to behave in a way which helps me to praise him instead of tell him off and I’ve promised to work harder at being less cross and more praising. We both acknowledge that we have a part to play so hopefully tomorrow we will manage it. Tarly tends to feed off whatever the general mood of the day is, so if we are being happy, smiley people then she is more likely to behave accordingly. We’ll see.

So rant aside, today has been nice enough. If we get past the ARGHHHH moments it’s been fine really.

This morning we were up and dressed fairly early expecting the friend from my teens and her two children. They were running late – which as ever was probably just as well as we were only just organised when they arrived 🙂 I’d made some playdough on the basis that all children love playdough so my two were already installed with that when they arrived and Tarly answered the door, faced with total strangers who I had thought she had missed all of the previous conversation with, took the two year old girl by the hand and said to her ‘Hello, we’ve got playdough. Come in the lounge’ – what a hostess 🙂 It was tricky trying to catch up on 13 or so years and with four small children in the room too, but we had a bash, touched on a few subjects which I know we will come back to when we meet again and she has not changed at all. I’d forgotten stuff about her character which all came flooding back when I saw her again and was very odd to see in a grown woman having remembered it in a teenager.

They didn’t stay that long – her husband came to pick them up after about an hour and a half but she did apologise for rushing off and seemed keen to meet again so assuming she was not at a loss to understand what on earth she had in common with me outside of the enviromnent of a nightclub around midnight after several diamond whites (:-) ) I think we’ll be getting together again. She did spend a lot of time cradling her wailing 8 week old (did get to have a wee cuddle, babies are quite cute actually aren’t they! Hope Chris and Julie do have more – she’s said I can be a birth partner and it’d be fab to have babies to cuddle who I am sort of related to 🙂 ) and asked me at least three times to assure he it does all get easier 😉 She had an elective c section with sterilisation at the same time so she won’t be having any more herself!

They left and we walked round the shop to buy bread and post letters – brought the letter back with us 😉 Had lunch and then Mel arrived with Liam and Lily.

Pretty chaotic afternoon with 4 kids running around, Davies and Liam spent a fair bit of time upstairs, Lily and Scarlett did some playing with craft bits (beads, sparkles, alphabet beads and wooden sticks), some drawing, some cuddling teddies and babies and huge amounts of using the potty 🙂 Clearly some sort of olympic competitor sport potential there given their performances and ability to squeeze out a wee for a wee each 😉 Fed them all and they had cakes brought over by them for afters and they packed up and left just as Ady arrived home. Mel and I managed a few chats inbetween about HESFES, HE in general, crafts and other activities such as swimming.

Group tomorrow afternoon and I am planning to try and do something engaging with the children in the morning to see if I really can make all the difference to the way the day shapes up by making myself more available to them. In a way I sort of hope it doesn’t as I’m not really up for becoming a surrended mother 😉

on all the deep thinking, the blogging, the being frugal and the getting the house straight really 🙁

Had a nice enough day today although Davies seemed hell bent on being shouted at almost constantly and just could not seem to behave.

Ady went off to work at 7am but was back by 10am to find one child in their room in disgrace and the other being threatened with all the pens and crayons going in the bin unless they helped tidy them up (they had after all scattered them all around three rooms), which was making the banished to their room child wail about the pens going in the bin 🙁

Anyway.

Managed to get everyone out of the house shortly after 11 including Tarly in pants and no nappy for an experiment in whether she was ready or not. Turns out she was, well today anyway. Although she did wet them pretty much as soon as we got back in the house as she didn’t make it to the potty and get them down in time. Bless. I’ve been quite remiss with potty training her really, she was probably ready ages ago but it just seemed like such a faff I had waited til she was totally ready on the basis we would not have many accidents and I would not have to do that whole carting round a potty, three changes of clothing and a ‘caution. wet surface’ sign at all times in case of slip ups in Tescos 🙂

Went to the local bank holiday market at the beach. I used to go there *every* bank holiday when I was younger and always used to buy piles of tat. This time I felt saddened at what a chav capital the town we live in seems to have become watching everyone wander round yelling at their kids called Wayne and Kylie, chain smoking, wearing cheap white garments and toting their unmuzzled dangerous dog behind them! Kids got a cheap plastic toy each and I bought some scoubidou stuff which I have been coveting having a ‘play’ with since HESFES 🙂

Came home via the chip shop for chips to make chip butties with for lunch, got wet in a heavy shower of bank holiday weather and the Ady sat and fell asleep infront of some crappy old film while I did drawing and colouring with the kids. I then did the weeks Sainsburys shop to get it out of the way for the week while he put Monsters Inc on for the kids, got out the playdough and tasked them with creating some of the monsters they saw in the film 🙂

When I got back I tackled the bookcases and did a bit more to Davies’ room. We now have all the childrens books either in Tarly’s or Davies’ room. All of the educational books are on the main bookcase with Maths, English and Science on one shelf, History, Geography, Spanish, Religion and misc on another. Just need to do the four shelves of other books and it will be done. Realised while doing it just how many reference style books and early reader sets we have acquired (mainly from the Book People) and have a few seeds of ideas for projecty things to start sometime soon floating around my head which I might try and get down somewhere sometime (neeeeeed those extra pages :-).

Ady bathed the kids and we packed them off to bed, Davies didn’t fall asleep til gone 9 and Tarly was probably still awake at 8ish so fingers crossed for a good night (although we are probably due a bad one, she has fallen into a new habit of sleeping through but rising for the day really early – pre 9am – which is still preferable to being up for hours during the night I guess).

And that’s all. It felt boring to type so I would imagine is boring to read 🙂

There used to be an occassional spot on the Big Breakfast when Johnny Vaughn was presenting it (used to be S, now not so sure) called Young Fogey. It would feature little kids who had old fashioned hobbies like keeping ferrets, racing pigeons or playing ‘when I’m cleaning windows’ on the banjo.

Davies could go on that if it was still on TV. His hobby? Talking with the vocabulary of an old bloke smoking a pipe and reminicing about the good old days!

At the pub on Friday he suddenly came over to me and annouced ‘mummy it’s bad news’ with a really solemn look on his face.

‘What’s that darling?’ asked I

‘There are people cigaretting!’ he said, totally outraged and pointing to all the lagered up folk in the beer garden with their silk cut!

This morning he came downstairs dressed in Ady’s pants, one of Ady’s pompey tops and a woolly hat.

‘Look at me Mummy. Daddy saw me and he laughed like a drain!’

And today when Dad asked what we did yesterday and we were saying we’d been to Chris and Julie’s he suddenly announced:

‘ we were *supposed* to be going there on Thursday but Daddy (rolled eyes in Ady’s direction) took Mummy’s keys with him so we had to stay in the house ALL day long. Mummy was very very cross and she was grumpy all day’

Alison you’re right, I’ve no need to worry about him. Apart from the risk of him getting beaten up for being such a goody goody at HESFES 2012 as he hands out leaflets on the dangers of drugs, issues condoms and tries to organise some sort of dress code to the whole place 🙂

Had a good day today – which is nice as it means Thursday was a blip as opposed to a start of something! Done and dusted with my introspection for a while too, so back to stuff and nonsense in my usual fashion again.

Was up t’il nearly 2am last night and couldn’t get to sleep even when I went to bed but Scarlett didn’t know that and was still up at 6.30 am showing no mercy! Had a nice hour or so just her and I playing with her Dora house, cuddling and painting nails. Love that girly stuff 🙂 Davies got up around 8am and as we bought the Pop Jr cd on Friday and have been playing the cd in the car and the bonus dvd in the house ever since he asked for that on again. Have lost count of the times I have heard / watched Barbie Girl (Tarly’s firm favourite) and Witch Doctor (Davies’ top tune) over the last three days. Oh and not forgetting Fast Food Rockers which we all now know the dance routine to 🙂 So some early morning trash novelty records were order of the day.

Ady got up and as he sorted the playroom out last week and came across about 10 science experiment box sets of one description or another I thought I’d break open one of those to do with the kids. I chose crystal growing box sets – one in blue for Davies and one in pink for Tarly. So we did some measuring of warm water, dissolving of crystal solutions with lolly sticks and pouting over base rocks into little containers. They were most disappointed that it would be a whole week before they got to inspect the results so we made some borax solution with green food colouring too for some speedier results.

Then we all got dressed and went into Worthing to Clarkes. Tarly is shoe shopping nightmare toddler, she hates the women measuring and fitting her shoes, she always only wants pink shoes anyway, sets her mind on one particular shoe and then flatly refuses any other even if they don’t have her size or the style is not suitable for her feet. She has one foot a whole half size bigger than the other which tends to produce a comical clown foot type effect unless the style is accomodating of that too. She has been complaining about both her current pairs of shoes (normal and doodles) so I assumed we were going to need two new pairs and I was right. But hurrah for Clarkes for once having a decent range of shoes in stock. We came away with a pair of half price little pink patent shoes with lights in the heels and a pair of identical doodles to the ones she’d grown out of. Davies was very disappointed to find he still has growing room in his boots so we bought him a cuddly dinosaur in ELC by way of compensation 🙂

Had a bit of a wander round town including taking the kids into Bhs and encouraging them to be rowdy (ex employer – parted on bad terms!) and looking in the dvd shop for ages.

Went to my parents conveniently just before lunchtime so had lunch with them by which point Tarly who has really sore nappy area issues atm was getting very cross and tired and tantrummy – not helped by Dad winding her up even more so we decided to leave. Davies was devastated so ended up staying there for a couple of hours while we took Tarly home and I went back for him later. First time we’ve ever done anything spur of the moment like that but it was actually very nice for everyone. Tarly came home, perked up and played very happily with the playdough without any interuptions, Ady watched TV and I browsed the blogring, while Davies got some full on grandparent attention all to himself.

Picked him up and we ended up rearranging his bedroom. Something we’d sort of planned to do but without any great plan as to when. So a sofa which does not get sat on and takes up lots of room has been banished to the garage, we’ve turned his bed around, moved the rest of the furniture and set up some of his toys which usually are packed away unless being played with to allow them to be out all the time in there. It looks really good, like a cross between a bedroom and a playroom and given they have been spending time up there of late anyway and we plan to do something similar to Tarly’s room soon I’m really glad we did it. We need to move a couple more things in there and the threatened grand bookcase sort out still has not happened so that is sort of on the agenda for tomorrow.

Over the last couple of years I have climbed down from my high horse on many an issue. Mostly to do with parenting. I have learnt a lot, realised that some of my idealistic views were actually very unrealistic and had plenty of my smugness knocked out of me 😉 Issues such as bedtimes, discipline, violence and remaining calm to deal with small people have all had my orginal viewpoint tweaked shall we say 😉

This has been helped by having two small people of my own who came with no instructions, minds of their own and like all offspring a tendancy to rebel against their parents! I have always prided myself on an ability to admit I am wrong, show tolerance and respect for others views even if I still retain the belief that I am right. Within the privacy of my own home – and head – and with friends I might well judge others but in the main I have developed far more of a live and let live and maybe even learn something by watching as you do it attitude. This has also been helped by mixing with a far wider variety of people through Home Educating that I had previously been ‘exposed’ to for the previous 29 years of my life.

HESFES brought up and challenged a few of my closely held parenting ideas. I have also been reading bits and pieces about non coercive parenting and TCS too and on a personal level would place myself in that odd position of growing into being a parent while still being aware of being a child to my own parents too. I still have enough of my own teen rebellion left in me to kick against what my own parents try and tell me to do, all the while conscious that in many small ways I am turning into them with all my own little quirks and ways to my own children. I ponder what it means to me to be a parent, what my responsibilities are – to my children and to society. I wonder what aspects of my parenting and my personality my kids will sit and moan about when they are grown, what they will take and do the same with their own children, what they will discard as totally rubbish and vow never to do themselves. I think I think too much about thinking! 🙂

So, at this moment in time what I *think* my ‘job’ is in terms of parenting is as follows:
*to provide unconditional love. To do that for as long as I live. To let them know that in myriad different ways and to give them that knowledge above all else to keep them sane, warm at night, help them to know that by being lovable they should love themselves and to know that no matter what they do, no matter how they stumble and fall I will always be there, somewhere, loving them inspite of and even because of it. To meet as many of their emotional needs as I can.
* to provide as best I can for all their material and physical needs.
* to enjoy them as people. To celebrate their individual personalities, characters and love them who for they are.
* to equip them with as many of the skills I can to survive in the world , to help them become responsible adults.
* to help them identify and realise their dreams.
etc 🙂

So how best to do that? At this young age I have no doubt in my current style of giving them boundaries, rules, lines which should not be crossed, routine and a clear understanding that I am the boss. But where does that end? Where do I begin to relinquish some of that grip? Where do I start to trust in what I am touting as the right path and allow them to use the skills I believe I am giving them to start making their own decisions? When do I let go?

I know from my own experience that the areas my parents were most liberal in with me were the ones in which I experimented up to my own comfort zone, knowing clearly that the responsibilty was mine and the decisions were mine to make, as were the consquences to deal with. They were also the areas in which I felt my parents had got it most right.

And deal with consequences I did. I won’t go into them here as some of them were fairly controversial and that is not what this is about. Suffice to say much as I would love to spare my children some of the most dramatic of those experiences I also hold them up as the ones which make me the person I am today and whilst they were not pleasant to go through at the time I do not actually regret any of them. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that. I know that you cannot learn from someone elses mistakes, only from your own. But how impossible is it going to prove watching my kids replicate my own behaviour at some point in the future knowing how damaging it could be?

Much as I have been curious, and still am, and that curiosity often propells me to do things just to see ‘what if?’ I also have an inherant (and not sure where it came from but I can’t shake it off) fear of being ‘in trouble’. I hate feeling I have done something wrong and that fear of the knock on the door coming to say you have been found out. For me, being arrested for something would be one of the worst things I could imagine happening to me. (there are early childhood reasons for this which again I won’t go into here). That fear has always kept most of my pursuits to the harmless, pretty much within the law side of things, but stuff I would shudder at my ‘babies’ getting up to just the same.

I think the best I can aim for is to provide them with open lines of communication in the hopes they felt they could talk to me if they needed to, providing as much information on all the various things which they may be faced with so they are at least informed and educated and know what their choices are, giving them the confidence to decide if they want to do something and to know that if they are it is because they genuinely want to do it rather than feel obliged, pressured or ‘everyone else is doing it’!

My worry, and my issue with the whole attitude of some of the HESchat folk is that they feel that 12 or 13 is a perfectly acceptable age to allow children (and to my mind that age is still a child) to start making such decisions for themselves. Making decisions means taking responsibility for the consequences of those decisions too. I am totally horrified that a child who was not even yet 13 replied to my post about teens and drugs to say she saw my point but still thought that HESFES was a nice safe environment for kids to experiment. WTF!!! I am 31 and still struggling with taking responsibility!

My hypocrisy of the title is in regard to the fact that many of the decisions I already make wrt the kids are open to question. I don’t feed them nutritious balanced meals at all times, I drink (my drug of choice) and allow them to try it (which I can’t really argue is better than the pot smokers letting their kids do it can I? Or only on the basis that my drug of choice is legal and theirs isn’t) in small doses – I’m working on the basis that by removing the mystique they are maybe less likely to want to ‘experiment’ but I’m probably wrong

I don’t have any big opinion on the teens at HESFES, to me they were behaving like any other teens (myself included at that age) and just being, well, teens. I was oblivious, possibly through being off site or possibly through being fairly uninterested, of any big drugs and sex fest going on. But it has become apparant from the lists I read after the event that it was going on and much as I don’t want to judge it or the people doing it I still don’t think it should go on. I still don’t think young teens should be doing illegal things in a field in Dorset with the full consent of their parents. I don’t want my young teens when they are young teens to be thrust into that environment in such a manner, I don’t want to be putting them somewhere where they are forced into making decisions one way or another at such a young age.

That’s all.

First of all Big Brother.

Every year I try and justify my guilty viewing pleasure by telling myself and anyone who will listen that it is an important sociological experiment. I watch to enjoy seeing how people change and grow over a small period of time when all of their ‘known’ constants, home comforts and usual comfort zones are removed. I like to watch how relationships evolve, how egos and psyches are dented or massaged and how the unlikeliest alliances are formed with people who would never normally cross paths in the ‘real world’. But truth be told aside from all that its just car crash telly isn’t it 😉 Never in a million years would I go on it and I think the people who do – certainly after 6 years of it being on are either stupid, celebrity seeking or out to prove some sort of point to someone (themselves?). Seems like an extreme and unnecessarily elaborate way to come out as gay to your friends and family, or get over a divorce or let your parents know you smoke 😉 Last year it was clear the programe makers had gone all out to pick the most provocative, extreme characters they could find. Not sure whether it backfired on them or not as it was almost tedious in it’s predicability with people like Kitten and Nadia. I didn’t find it such compulsive viewing as I had when the people on it seemed more ‘real’ and genuine. This year so far there seem to be a slightly better mix. There are the totally ‘out there’ handful and a few who seem like they will still be interesting after 9 weeks. So first impressions, looks promising!

Today has been lovely – exactly what I had planned for Thursday before Ady ran off with my keys 🙂 We had a barbecue at Chris and Julie’s, the four kids ran round the garden like loons all day, much tea was drunk and much chatting done. All good 🙂 Much of the chat with Julie and me was about parenting skills, Home Ed groups, a HESFES post mortem, some discussion on the whole teens / drugs / underage sex stuff, talk about Gina Ford style parenting, talk about free range style parenting and so on. Came home to find I had been unsubscribed from HESchat – not sure whether it was over zealous unsubbing after the general exodus from the list or whether I had offended by my post on teens and drugs and been kicked out 🙂 Re-subscribed anyway and am getting posts again so if it was an exclusion decision it failed 😉 Am still pondering on that whole issue and sort of planning a blog on the subject which may or may not appear later tonight.

No big plans for tomorrow although I want to get Tarly’s feet measured and some new shoes for her and we probably need to see my parents at some point. Ady only actually has to visit two local B&Q stores on Monday and just take some ‘after the bank holiady promotion’ photos to compare to his ‘before’ ones from yesterday so we should have the afternoon to do Bank Holiday type stuff like sit in traffic as a family after all 🙂

Ady was frisked before he left for work today to ensure he was not running off with any of my belongings or wearing my shoes or something. I did suggest he took one of the children but he was not up for that idea 🙂

TT1 first, Davies got told off – again – by me for just running around. Ady and I have been chatting about it tonight as the fees for the next 10 sessions are due next time and I am in two minds about it. On the one hand both the kids really enjoy it and look forward to it, but I am personally offended by the fact it is actually just a bit pants. We asked them both what they like about it tonight. Scarlett’s answer was ‘bubbles’ (they have a bubble machine there which they put on at the end and the kids pop all the bubbles) and when I asked what else she said ‘ermmmmm, biscuits’ (they give them a biscuit each as they leave) Hmm so that’s worth a fiver then. We have a bubble machine, and biscuits at home 🙁 Asked Davies and his replies were ‘bubbles’ and ‘running around’.

It’s hard because they are interacting with other kids which is sort of what it’s about but think it is more that I think the set up is really poor and resent spending money on it – sort of like McDonalds really. You know its crap food, you know it’s overpriced but it makes the kids happy so you buy it sometimes (well we do anyway!). It’s another of those situations where I know I could do so much better myself but I can’t provide the elements of it which seem to the be the ones the kids most enjoy. The other thing which – quite irrationally – irritates me is that there are two women doing the group and one of them always has her own kids (a little girl, 1 ish) with her which totally distracts her from anyone else and of course now they have split the groups the child is way too young to be there with the others anyway. Argh, don’t know what to do!!!

Had a nice experience on the way out though as I left with another of the Mums who asked how old Davies was. I said 5 in September and she made a few comments about him ending with ‘so he starts school soon then?’ I bit the bullet and started with ‘erm, no actually, I will be Home Educating the children’ and she exclaimed ‘Oh how fantastic! I would love to do that for D, but we can’t afford to give up a wage for me to stay home. My husband and I are both teachers and can’t bear the thought of them going to the schools we teach in!’ She was really excited, possibly the most positive reaction I’ve had so far 🙂

We’d taken a packed lunch to eat in the car inbetween the two TTs so we drove to TT2 and sat in the car eating and then went in.

Scarlett was very tired and not really in the mood for it today but she managed with only one removing her from the situation type moment. Still couldn’t care less about the supposed ‘reward’ of a sticker at the end and always buggers off from the room the instant they are told to come off the equipment and sit in a circle to get one 🙂 In between classes there is a 15 minutes or so break and Davies and Scarlett *always* run around during this time. There is another little boy, David who comes with his (shy, possibly SEN) twin and runs round with them. A couple of weeks ago this really rough (and I know how this sounds but trust me they are really rough) family came and they have similar aged boy and girl to mine who both targeted my two for some roughing up. They were there again and had another little boy with them who was equally obnoxious, just chasing the others and then poking them and being generally horrid. In the end I pulled D and S away from them and told them not to run around anymore as they were in danger of getting really walloped by these kids. I even felt strong enough about it to go and sit and watch Davies’ session as I felt one of the lads in particular was targeting Davies personally and I wanted to make sure it didn’t continue inside. It did look as though it might but the TT2 women split them into different groups so it was not an issue. Not sure how to deal with that ongoing really as frankly they are simply not the sort of kids I want mine mixing with – I know I’m a snob but that’s just me!

Anyway, also there was a little boy about Davies’ age who is normally there with his grandmother. I have chatted to her a few times about various things (she asked me once if I was a professional cartoonist when I was drawing some pictures for Tarly, so I really like her 🙂 ) . Today his mother was there with fairly new twin boys – which explains why Granny has been bringing him. Him and Davies were in the same group and she brought one of the twins in and sat watching too. She chatted to me a bit and I had Scarlett drooped all over me with ‘Scarlett’ written on the back of her TT2 Tshirt. She asked which child was mine and I pointed out ‘Davies – just there’ and she gave me a really odd look and said ‘you’re not Nic are you?’

Turns out I have been emailing her about joining our local HE group as she is HEing the little boy and is planning to come along next week to group. I had mentioned the kids’ names in one of my emails and she thought it unlikely that there would be many brother and sister pairings in the Worthing area called Davies and Scarlett! We managed a bit of a chat and arranged to ring each other to carry on sometime before next week when she will come along to group happier for knowing someone there in advance 🙂 And of course nice that the boys will see each other at group and TT2 as they are roughly the same age. 🙂

Left there and Ady was home shortly after us but had to go back out to the local B&Q for something so took Davies with him (much to the delight of all the ladies who work there!) and then when they came home we all walked over the road to the local pub with it’s huge beer garden. Ady and I sat and had a couple of drinks while the kids played on the slide, sandpit, bouncy castle etc. Davies made a couple of friends and came over to tell me and ask if I was proud of him! He then followed one little girl back to her parents and when the mother asked if he was waiting for her to come and play again he replied ‘yes, she’s my new friend’ which brought a rowdy chorus of ‘ahhhh’ from all the drunken sunburned people in the beer garden 🙂 Yep that’s my child with stunted social skills and opportunities as a result of HE 😉

Home for a bath to wash off several days of grime from the small people and bed for them. We are having fish and chips and getting all geared up to be interested in 12 (or so) total strangers and the tiny details of their day to day lives for the next couple of months. Yes folks BB is back 🙂

Hideous, hideous day really 🙁

I was an ogre from the pits of darkness and the kids responded accordingly and were equally horrid. I was mean and bullying and frankly sat there dreaming of creative ways to be cruel to my kids in a Dave Peltzers Mom sort of fashion (told you it was dark!) while they did assorted misdemeanours including getting nail varnish on the carpet, drawing on the sofa, emptying pretty much all the toys over all the floors in the house, shouting and squabbling with each other, whining about each other to me, being sent to their rooms, crying and begging forgiveness and apologising like poor little ‘please don’t beat us or turn us out onto the street mummy’ style actors worthy of becomming the nations favourite hard done by urchin in the style of Coronation Street’s Chesney and then repeating the same crime within moments.

Kids eh? Like blokes really, the meaner you treat ’em the more needy and dependant and affection craving they get…..

which leads me rather nicely onto my beloved, who after dashing off to Cricklewood with my keys and getting a somewhat less than ‘oh don’t worry darling, it’s really not serious’ type response when he rang to tell me then proceeded to ring me pretty much every hour through the day putting on puppy dog eyes (well implying them with his voice anyway) and trying to use his guilt to make me forgive him! Grr! He even started suggesting ”fun’ pursuits for me to take my mind off being trapped in the house with the evil twins!!!

It was just one of those days where I would have relished a really good on list debate about something I feel passionate about. Oh how I wish an anti-abortion campaigner had rung my doorbell today, or someone to ask why Davies has not accepted a school place yet, or someone with a clipboard trying to sell me something I really don’t need. Ah well, probably for the best. Although in my fantasy my rage would render me articulate beyond belief, ready to take on the worthiest opponent at verbal battle and wipe the floor with them I would have been more likely to fold at the first good point they made, tell them to fuck off and die and run sobbing to my room, slamming the door as I flung myself across my bed moaning about it all being ‘not fair!’

Ady got home and witnessed my final run in of the day with Scarlett before I gave up and went to the library. I pretended some books were due back today but really they had another week left, but I had a lovely half an hour looking round the kids section briefly then going upstairs to the reference bit and sitting down with a book about freelance writing 🙂 Borrowed a heap of books, wandered round the Co-op to get some bits for dinner and came home to find my parents here and both kids still up. Grr again!

I think they were angling for a dinner invite but none was forthcomming so they left and I am about to have my first wine (to go with my 387th whine!). Didn’t dare start before now otherwise I would have been in a stupor by now either trying to buy an online divorce and sell the kids on ebay or gone the other way and gotten all soppy and full of love for everyone, neither of which I would feel happy with in the morning!

Tomorrow is TT1 and TT2 and then a short weekend (yep, ours will be the standard two day one instead of the three day one which many of you will be enjoying) but never mind.

Have had three emails today from people either interested in joining WAG group, wanting more info about HE or looking into the idea of it. Fought the urge to reply with ‘send them to school. send them now. keep them home at your peril and at serious risk to your sanity’ and have replied with what I hope to be friendly and helpful advice demonstrating how calm and rational your average HE mother is and what a positive and happy making lifestyle choice it is!

Have also been exchanging emails with a friend who I had when we were 16. She worked weekends in my parents restuarant and we used to go out clubbing and following other underage teenage pursuits together of an evening. We lost contact until about 2 years ago when one of us traced the other through friendsreunited. I had just had Tarly and she was expecting her first girl. She has just had a baby boy and emailed me for a catch up only to find we are both back in Sompting again!

She is living, quite literally round the corner with her parents, her husband and their two children from us. Spookily she has also been contemplating the idea of HE but wondered whether it was feasible with 2 children! She’s coming round next week for a 14 year catch up session and for the small people to all meet up. So looking forward to that too.

Been up since 6am, Ady had been up since about 4.30am and was going to work so I had to get up to be with Scarlett aka the incredible non-sleeping toddler 🙁

However, I consoled myself that the sun was shining, I already had a load of washing ready for the line by 7am and we were off to Julie’s for the day. A plan of sitting in their lovely garden drinking tea, looking at HESFES pictures and chatting and catching up with Julie (not seen her since pre HESFES) while the kids ran around playing and we all enjoyed the sunshine was on the agenda. I’d also promised Davies a trip to the main Worthing library on the way home. He’s only been to the tiny Lancing one previously and I recall Worthing library being a fab place when I was a child and he was really looking forward to it.

Kids have been horrid already this morning, very squabbly with each other, both wanting to play with the same thing at the same time and just generally irritating.

So you can imagine my erm slight irritation when I had a phonecall from Ady. Yesterday he rang to say he still had the camera in his car despite knowing I needed it to take to the Mary Rose trip. Today he started with ‘what are you planning to do today?’ and then responding with ‘no you’re not, I’ve got your keys’ to my answer. That would be the car and house keys which means we are completely trapped in the house 🙁 Can’t get a train or bus cos Julie is miles away from the nearest station, have no pushchair as it’s in the car, can’t leave the house as I won’t be able to get back in again, can’t even really go out in the garden unless I wedge the door open which means the cats could get out 🙁

I did little or nothing to ease his guilt and just did that ‘woman’ thing of going all quiet and saying ‘yes’ ‘no’ or ‘hmmm’ to all he said while he jumped through all sorts of hoops to get me happy again. He’s in London so can’t even come back with the keys so that’s that. And whilst I probably should use the opportunity to do something educational and fun with the children in the house currently I hate everyone so am much more inclinded to just shout at them a lot and keep sending them to their rooms 🙁

And what a good mix it was too!

It was total bedlam in my house first thing yesterday morning. Dad arrived too early at 8.30 ish, we had no bread – needed for breakfast toast, sandwiches to take with us for lunch and sandwiches to leave behind for Dad and Tarly’s lunch, the kids seemed incapable of getting their pjs off or their clothes on, Davies kept asking to play with things like playdough or brio and simply could not grasp that we were aiming to leave within the hour, he then unravelled a whole toilet roll (why???? that is *so* not his normal behaviour!), Jenny rang to ask for some phone numbers to cancel WAG for the day due to small numbers and Dad, oblivious to it all sat there waiting for a coffee and trying to chat!

Finally got out of the house just before 10am but were still in Portsmouth within the hour by about quarter to 11 where we parked in a dodgy carpark (but being Portsmouth I’m not sure there is any other kind!) and set off to the dockyard. Saw a bright red mini with Clarke children frantically waving out of the windows and got into the dockyard to see skinny Layla waving.

The journey had been nice, Davies sat in the front with me and we chatted, listened to Shakin Stevens and Toy Story soundtrack and he told me some (very unfunny) jokes (example – knock, knock, who’s there? red car, red car who? red car infront of that blue one. hahahahahahahahaha!!). I did try a bit of history preparation for the day but fell down badly as I had not looked at anything to enhance my own knowledge and ended up waffling about lots of years under the sea, watching Blue Peter as a small girl and school trips of my youth! God I’ve become a rambling old loon already 🙂 I blame my blog habit!

Anyway, we got to meet Simon (and lovely man he is too – very ‘Ady’! 🙂 ) and Ros arrived shortly afterwards. Davies clung to my coat for a little while before running off to play with Josiah and Buzz. We lurked for a bit to see if any other puddlers were coming but decided they weren’t and we wouldn’t know what they looked like anyway so went in.

I had wondered whether Davies would get much out of it educationally really as we have not done any real History stuff yet, let alone the whole Tudor fest that everyone else seems to have done, but I figured it would be a nice day out for him and me, I’d get to chat with my mates, we might as well go to something organised all but on our doorstep, he’d get to play with a couple of the small boys in his little MP circle and hey all little boys like war ships with guns and cannons and stuff right?

We did The Invincible, The Victory, The Mary Rose, The Mary Rose Museum and Action Stations – all of which are blogged about and linked to else where on Sarah and Ros’ blogs – have also shamelessly nicked pics off both of them as Ady had the camera in his car and only realised when he arrived at Reading yesterday morning! I remember going to The Victory at least three times on various school trips as a kid, and we went to see the Mary Rose soon after she was raised and was still upside down, but possibly because we were a small group – and cos Ros asked – we got lots of attention from the guides and the kids got to have a go in one of the hammocks, sat at the tables and pretended to eat with the metal or wooden crockery and generally had quite a hands on experience.

Davies really enjoyed being with Joe and Buzz (at one point he came over and said to me ‘today I am playing with TWO friends Mummy’ in a my cup doth overflow type manner, so that was nice!), he walked holding hands with Joe at one point and I overheard their conversation about going to school (Joe goes sometimes and stays for lunch, Davies never goes, not even to eat lunch!) and rechristened Josiah ‘Joey’ – not sure why he needs to have nicknames for his friends but as the first time he bonded with Buzz he called him ‘Dylan’ all day I think its a complimentary thing 🙂

I’d felt bad leaving Scarlett behind for the day as I hardly ever split them up and I felt guilty at enjoying being without her (not a reflection on her, but it was so relaxing only having one child to watch out for, especially when that child is sensible, comes when he’s called and does not have tantrums like my other one – and yes I know thats an age thing rather than their actual personalities) but we had a really nice day and she had enjoyed being with Grandad and monopolising him and getting him to do what she wanted all day (reading books to her mostly I believe!), so I thought that was all good stuff too. I rang a couple of times to check on her and Ady actually beat me home so she was ready for bed by the time we got back at 6.30pm ish.

In all a really nice day, the little group we were with was a really nice mix, lovely to spend time with various MP folk on a smaller scale group basis again (which was one thing I really enjoyed at HESFES) , the weather was good and I am pretty sure it had some good educational value too 🙂

Maty Rose and before! 062, originally uploaded by Little Minx.

or the sun is in my eyes depending on which child you are looking at!

photo by Ros

Maty Rose and before! 066, originally uploaded by Little Minx.

photo by Ros

DSC00472.JPG, originally uploaded by usedcarspecialist.

photo credit to Sarah

DSC00481.JPG, originally uploaded by usedcarspecialist.

photo by Sarah

DSC00482.JPG, originally uploaded by usedcarspecialist.

of course a mere 10 years from now they’ll be sitting drinking beer or worse together at HESfes!

photo by Sarah

DSC00483.JPG, originally uploaded by usedcarspecialist.

photo by Sarah

it’s another in a totally random series of Nic goes all dreamy and rambly 🙂
I warn you in advance – this is going nowhere, it’s a totally random collection of thoughts which I just felt the need to get down in writing and here seemed as good a place as any!

Lots going on in my head at the moment – for once it seems to be because pretty much everything else is going OK or seems sorted that I am focusing on me. I am really happy and content with the way HE is panning out for us, confident that it is the right path, I ‘feel’ like quite an established Home Educator (although I know it’s only been 2 years since we made the decision and the children are still very young – I am getting on average one email a week from people who have either moved into the area and are looking for local info or local people who are thinking about HE as a possibility and if I can’t help them myself I am able to point them in the right direction – all very satisfying!), I feel like I am finally grasping the nettle with regard to finances and we are in the middle of planning various redecoration and home improvement type stuff which for now at least, makes us feel settled here. So inevitably for someone who thinks about ‘stuff’ as much as I do I move onto giving head space to something else.

As a result of various conversations at HESFES and a gradual move towards the children needing me less on a constant, physical level all the time I have begun to think more about what I would like to be doing with my life, what my hopes and dreams for me are and what it would take for me to feel fulfilled over and above the children and my role with them. I’m not going to blog about those half formed ideas just yet. I don’t think I’m ready for comment on them and I think they need to remain private-ish for a little while longer but it has put me in a very ‘deep’ frame of mind.

Various other things have happened of late to bring me back to my childhood in lots of small ways and I am also riding a bit of a wave of nostalgia right now.

I chatted with a few people at HESFES about school and playground behavious type stuff, which always reminds me how much I have changed from the serious, quiet, fairly friendless little school girl I was to the woman I am today. I worried about what everyone else thought of me, fretted about not having a best friend or someone to sit next to in every lesson, I was always always the outsider looking in and wanting to be part of that elusive inner circle, invited to all their parties and sleepovers, to their houses for tea, down to the town with them on a Saturday to go round Chelsea Girl and so on. I was pushed towards academic pursuits and although looking back I probably showed equal if not more skill in creative areas no one ever inspired me or encouraged me or nurtured those skills. Except one teacher – Mr Volke who was a very creative man. He was very funny and wrote for the Beano and Viz in his time. He used to set us excellent and really exciting lessons like writing about 12 different story titles on the blackboard and getting us to choose one and write the story to go with it. He used to finish every day by reading aloud to us and issued us all with a plain exercise book to do whatever we wanted in while he read – draw, write ourselves, scribble, whatever. He never collected them in or marked them or even looked at them, just encouraged our creativity and tried to inspire it by reading to us too. I would have been 10 or 11 then – that’s 20 years ago but there’s many a day I would love to be back in Mr Volke’s classroom tasked with writing a short story or scribbling in my book while he read to me.

I recall that Mr Volke thought I was talented in comedy style writing – I could probably even dig about in my parents loft and find some of the writing (and illustrating) I did and his positive and encouraging comments on my work. What a shame I was never pushed further in that direction, or my parents didn’t see that it was a genuine passion and germination of a skill which could have been developed further. I imagine Mr Volke would be retired by now, I wonder if he’d remember little Nicola Davies? One of the reasons I want to HE Davies and Scarlett is so I can try and glimpse those specks of promise within them and help them to grow. Another is so that they might just one day talk about and remember me as someone inspirational in that way.

Today I have been putting together a bookcase for Scarlett’s bedroom. I had a bookcase full and brimming over in my bedroom probably from a similar age, Frazer never did. Books were not a big thing in our house and you could fit all the books in my parents house onto one of the many shelves in my house now. I’m so pleased that both our children share my passion and love of books, I hope they continue to be thrilled at the prospect of a brand new book to start reading, I hope they get that same frisson at being whisked off into another persons world, meeting new characters and experienving new things through the written word. So sitting there today infront of Tarly’s new bookcase I was transported back 25 years or so in time to sitting infront of my own as a little girl, I checked my emails and Jax had posted on MP about string art pictures one of which used to hang above the bookcase in my bedroom, made by my Mum when she was pregnant with me!
Later tonight Ady came home and as he was bathing the kids he put a cd on which just so happened to be The Carpenters. Now, if there is one band who can put me straight back into the 70s with the opening bars to one of their records it’s them. My Mum used to have their songs blasting at full volume when I was tiny, she’d sing along as she did the housework, I’d play with my toys and baby Frazer would be sat in his bouncy chair or playpen. Tonight as we were putting the kids to bed Nick jr finished and turned into Noggin – which brought on The Wombles and Paddington Bear – my whizz back in time was complete and there to compliment by whizz into the future from earlier today!

All of which ties back into my other pondering which is about memories of people and how we see people and relationships so differently to others, even when they are the other part of that relationship. Reading Merry’s diary entries from Fran’s birth and early days and weeks, reading the terribly sad but somehow positive blog posts from Sarah’s friends about the tragic loss of their daughter and remembering my perception of my Mum back as small child, to how I viewed her as a teenager to how I view her now, and perhaps even looking ahead to how I might one day remember her in many years to come and keeping in mind how she would actually like me to remember her makes me wonder what memories Davies and Scarlett will carry of me both now and in the future. I’m not even sure what I want them to think of me, I wouldn’t contrive to make myself something I am not but I’m aware that their perception of me won’t necessarily be how I view myself. I am also aware that by removing the possibility of other key adults in their early years by them not having teachers etc will also change their view of me one way or another.

I’m always slightly suspicious of parents and or children who claim to be ‘best friends’. That is totally not what I see my role as for my children. I don’t to be a dictator and I hope that one day, when they are grown we will see each other as equals. I hope we love, respect and admire each other. I hope and aim to be the facilitator of aiding them to be the very best they can be, reach for the stars and beyond, articulate, strive for and achieve their dreams and be proud of and love themselves. For all their faults and their human failings I think my parents did achieve that for me. Maybe for that I should thank them more.

and I didn’t have to cross anyone’s palm with silver or anything 😉

Today I have made up the new bookcase for Tarly’s room, tidied her room up completely, going through all her clothes and sorting them into categories of ‘wear now, while the weather is crap and before she grows out of them!’, ‘ready to wear this summer (and my god what a huge pile that is!)’, ‘ready for later this year’ and ‘stuff my Mum has bought for heer up to the age of about 7!’. Have yet to actually fill the bookcase but it does all look much more ordered and there are now places to put stuff away in there as opposed to piling things up. Playroom is all but done so the next stage is Davies’ bedroom which we have promised him we will redecorate to his choosing too – and lose a sofa in there which is never sat upon by anyone other than toys from Toy Story and takes up lots of playing space.

I have also been round the blogs, made lunch, spoken to Jenny on the phone, made a phonecall sorting out a booking error with our group venue and booked verbally for the next month, followed that up in writing, replied to all but one email in my in box and done lots more thinking about ‘stuff’. Also wasted about half an hour trying to find something for the link I never did in yesterdays post about Tarly’s sling / hip carrier thing. Glad I still have the instructions otherwise I would start to believe it is wrongly labelled as I cannot find it anywhere on the internet so it turned into a personal challenge as opposed to simply finding a link to slot in! If anyone else wants to have a go it’s a Lindam comfi carry 🙂 Clearly will be ‘able to flog it for a fortune on ebay when I’m done with it due to it’s rare and hallowed status!

Sp while I’ve been doing all this the kids have been pretty much entertaining themselves, which is what I meant about a peep into the future. Davies got himself dressed, Tarly used the potty and got herself undressed, they played with the dressing up stuff then took themselves up to Davies’ bedroom and played up there for ages. They have watched their Tumble Tots dvd and sung and danced along with it, they have had all the musical instruments out and performed some sort of show with them. They played some game with the discarded cardboard box from the bookcase and also spent ages jumping off the sofa! They are now playing with the Bob the builder toys and Davies just staggered me by watching the alphabet thingy they sometimes do in ad breaks on Nick jr (D is for Dora, T is for Thomas, L is for Little Bill etc) and knowing all of them! 🙂 Anyway, where I’m going with all this is that I can see that over time my role is gradually going to change from childcarer to one of their many educational resources – and it’s very exciting and reassuring to think that it won’t be too many more years before they can largely get on with it themselves, leaving me to largely get on with whatever it is I decide I want to be getting on with, which is what I have been contemplating.

Ali and I were talking abotu structure to our lives yesterday and it struck me that having worked very hard to get here we are now at a place where our week has a fairly good routine with time built in for ticking all the boxes educationally and meeting all our needs. What we possibly still need to do a bit of work on is getting our days into such a routine. I know I spend too much time online avoiding other stuff I would rather not do. I think it’s time to shed some stuff I seem to feel some obligation to do but am getting nothing out of or really dislike doing to make some time for stuff which I do want to do or enjoy doing. Now if there was just a way to make money from blogging…..