One word? When seven would do…

I fully rewarded myself for all the hard work feeling like Snow White living in a house full of little people yesterday with large quantities of white wine. Ali caught me on IM for a first flush of giddyness and general nonsense around 7pm and I enjoyed the cyber equivalent of a girlie night out with Alison way way past midnight! Scarlett joined us around twelve which put an end to any further alcohol consumption on my part which was probably just as well given how my head felt this morning anyway! 😳

We have this new plan to become avid car boot sale shoppers, getting the sort of bargains ebay customers can only dream about, kitting ourselves out fully for camping in June all for under a tenner and finding treasures like books, toys and dvds for the children for mere pence. So we headed out to the local one around 10am, but it was rather a disappointment with a handful of stall which seemed to only be selling bulk purchases of batteries and lighters, dodgy soft porn dvds or pansies (which given Ady’s job are something we are not short of anyway! The pansies that is, not the dvds). We were due to my parents for around 11am so we walked round the charity shops in the nearby village to where they live. Ady got a Watch With Mother B&W video which he is trying to pretend is for the children but we all know the truth and the kids had 20p each to fritter away 😉 Tarly got a fairy on a stand version of those toys where you press a button on the base and it collapses and stands up again. Davies got a Woody from Toy Story complete with removable hat. Tarly’s fairy broke before we got back to the car, but it did allow a quick lesson in how those toys actually work which was something I’d always wondered! 😉

Then we went to my parents, me and Mum headed up to Sainsburys to get some lunch, came back and ate it and the kids played on the piano and hounded Frazer (who is Fiona-less this weekend as she is away visiting family). They were both really tired and whingey though so I ended up doing jigsaws with them for ages and then reading them stories, which always make me wonder in what way it is a weekend really 🙄 So we left there around 4pm and Ady and Davies had an hour or so doing stuff in our garden before tea, bath and bed for the children.

Just before bed we had a discussion about wax, sealing wax and old fashioned seals on letters. My Dad has a stick of the wax and a stamp somewhere so I must ask him to dig it out so they can see it better but we recreated it a bit with a candle and a pound coin so they both enjoyed that. Then I taught Davies how to play scissors, paper, stone (a game which brings back many happy and not entirely child appropriate memories of playing it very late one night with nakedness at stake 😉 ) and promised I would indeed play it with him again tomorrow. Scarlett and I have been playing clapping games recently too and she’s getting quite good so I must google and see if I can find some more chants to go with them. Oh and I read them Princess and the pea, Gingerbread Man, Jack and the Beanstalk and a couple of other fairy stories while they had their bath that they joined in with so we’ve covered reading pretty well today. 🙂

Right, off for a hair of the dog 😉

So really, people genuinely do this for a living? Really?!

Actually it has been altogether far less gruesome that I was imagining it was going to be. I’ve managed to spend oodles of time online having very serious and intelligent input on message boards and IM, tracking down links to illustrate my points properly and debating challenging, worthwhile things including regional accents. 😉

So Jack and Maisie were here for a few hours and it worked pretty well. D & S were excellent hosts, I was very proud (and grateful!) and we managed not to inflict any of our high sugar, high salt, high in saturates, high in cholesterol type foodstuffs on the clean living half of the next Goddard generation, so that was good. 😉

Just enough time to tackle each room (Davies did the playroom, Scarlett did the lounge and I did Davies’ room, the washing up and ran the hoover round to collect up all the bits of rice cake – see I told you we were clean living!) before Mel arrived with Liam and Lily.

Room trashing was contained pretty much to the lounge and the playroom as Liam, Davies and Scarlett watched W&G. Lily was scared and chose not to watch, which made me all the more relieved that I hadn’t let the children put it on for Jack and Maisie. They’d wanted to but I remember Jack having nightmares after watching a Brum video we’d lend them once so I thought Were Rabbits might be a little too macabre for their genteel tastes! I did allow half an hour of Nick jr while they ate lunch and that entranced J&M to such a degree they were utterly oblivious to everything else around them being totally hypnotised by the screen. I think their TV watching may be as restricted as their food choices! Very commendable but possibly setting them up to be McDonalds eating, Eastenders watching teens of the future when they have their rebellious phase!

My kids had their bodies abused with fish fingers and potato waffles along with Liam and Lily for tea, there was some dressing up and some rowdy game or other while Mel and I chatted and then they headed off for home, shortly followed by the arrival of Ady.

Tarly is long since asleep, Davies is tired but fighting it, Ady is looking at me with new found respect and admiration and I am already on my second glass of wine. A bath, steak and chips and the weekend await…

No bloodshed, no tears, no bodily fluid related spillages.

Have just returned the house to normality and we await phase two!

I think I may have found my vocation. Lost in the wilderness all these years fannying about with retail management, recruitment, marketing and latterly of course blog entrepreneurialism I have seen the light. I have heard my calling…. tomorrow I start my course to become a registered childminder!

They’re here!

Already been out on a mercy mission this morning towing my Dad’s van (again!) 🙄

We put away all the various things the children deemed ‘too precious’ to have played with by other children and we built a great big brio track and got out the Dora house.

J & M arrived, Julie very nervously went off again, they played with the brio and the Dora house for all of about 30 seconds and are now all up in Davies’ bedroom! Early indications from sounds drifting down the stairs indicate they are having a great time but it is likely to end in tears quite soon!

I made a deal with Scarlett last night. If she wants to sleep in our bed she can but it means she has to give her dummies up. Of course this could have backfired big time but I was trading on how much she adores her dummies. And guess what? It worked! 🙂 She appeared in our bedroom at around 6.30am (Ady’s normal getting up time anyway) saying ‘I did it! I stayed in my room all night and now it’s morning time!’ So hurrah 🙂

By the time I came downstairs they’d already got stuck into the plasticine I bought yesterday and Davies had made a rather good array of W&G characters.

He was really pleased with them and decided he wanted to put on a film for us so Scarlett and I settled down to watch it but it quickly became clear that he hadn’t done much preparation and we were really just watching him play. 😉 So I explained that films are made by creating a story and a script first and planning it out. I talked through the plot line of Were Rabbit with him about introducing the characters, the place they live, what their interests are if it’s relevant and the beginning of a storyline. Then suggested that something scary to add suspense or funny to add humour is always good, then usually something dramatic like a car chase or other action before finally tying up all loose ends with an ending to the story. (We’ll cover soundtracks and sequels next time 😉 ). Got some paper and told him about the idea of a story board which he has actually seen on some of ‘making of’ dvd extras he’s watched so we divided a sheet of paper into 12 squares and I got him to start planning out his storyline.

Then once he was happy with his plot line I got him to have a few practise runs with his characters.

Meanwhile Scarlett and I made some figures too. Anyone guess who they could be by the distinguishing features? 😉

Then we settled down to watch Davies’ new improved planned out show and I brushed Tarly’s hair while we watched. Can’t say it really followed his story board but he confessed he’d been happy with it but then changed it as he went along! Ah well, the idea has gone in anyway. 🙂

Dad arrived then so I shot off to the local post office and the children put away the plasticine, Davies showed Dad his storyboard and they went back to playing with the geomags. Mum arrived a while afterwards bringing stuff for lunch so we all ate and the children had TV on for a while, while we chatted.

After lunch Mum and Scarlett played with the plasticine again and made some baskets of fruit

While Davies and I finally got out the owl puke he had for Christmas and read the book about owls and then gathered all the various bits we needed for disecting the owl pellet.

Davies really enjoyed that and we dug out loads of bones and bits which he really enjoyed using the book to identify and sort. Scarlett came and had a little dig about too and they both delighted in grossing out their grandparents with their graphic talk about eating rodents, owls puking up like cats and how all the stuff around the bones in the pellet was dead animals fur! Mum didn’t seem to grasp it was genuine and kept saying how good the shrews skull was, bless her :-). He did get bored towards the very end and although we sorted all the bones I can’t imagine we’ll do any skeleton reassembling – it looks too fiddly for him to do himself, particularly pre-reading and I don’t think I really want animal skeletons cluttering the place up anyway! Good little ‘experimenty type’ kit though.

Ady came home while all this was still going on so he was chopping wood and stuff while I sorted the kids tea, then everyone seemed to disappear and the kids were still bouncing on space hoppers so I got them pj’d up and read them the pile of library books we got earlier in the week to calm them down a bit. The firm favourite was a Quentin Blake Mrs. Armitage book – we’ve read one about her previously and it really captured them both then.

I’ve also made bird food in tins to string on the tree outside as we are now getting regular bird visitors which I want to encourage.

Just before bed Davies went round the house gathering up all the various W&G stuff he has collected and set it up as ‘a display’ which he then insisted on taking photos of:

Mum and Dad left, the children are asleep and I’m about to get dinner sorted, enjoy a bath and a glass of wine and try to stop being nervous about all those children tomorrow! To add to my stress levels I’ve invited Mel to bring Liam and Lily over for tea after school! We’ve not seen them since before Christmas and as much as i hate the tidying up after one of their visits it will justify not bothering after Jack and Maisie come and give Davies a fix of older than 3 year old playmate which I think he’ll enjoy! 🙂

Oh and I’ve added pics to the post below too.

D’you know I reckon I’ve got the hang of this Home Ed lark. Well at least until tomorrow 😉

We’ve had another good day here today although I did lose my temper with Scarlett and yell once I don’t think it was entirely unjustified and blimey did it make her move! 😈

First thing the children were playing with geomags and soft toys while I did some washing and generally faffed around. I got into my head that I wanted to read up on Key Stages and National Curriculum so that I could mentally weigh up any glaring gaps in the ‘stuff’ Davies can do – and probably then just brag to anyone who’d listen about actually how well he is doing, well my Dad anyway. So I was messing around online trying to find a simple laid out basic list of the goals etc. Not as straightforward as you’d think really 🙄

I did read through the Foundation / Reception stuff and was very happy to note that both the children are fine in respect of the 3-5 stuff anyway. I guess it was a semi-pointless exercise as it’s only remotely likely to be literacy and numeracy that are quantifiable anyway (everything else must surely get lumped into general knowledge and just living although I know they categorise it in far more detail – y’know that National Currciculum was obviously written by someone like me wasn’t it – why use two words if a whole paragraph will do! 😉 ) and I’m more than happy with his progress via autonomous educating with occassional forays into forced Bob book reading and supermarket counting!

So I was trying to concentrate on a bit that waffled about children being able to get themselves dressed independantly or with help or not at all or not even knowing what clothes were or something and Scarlett got yelled at for being clumsy and giddy and falling over the geomags so I told them they both had to get dressed by themselves! And they did 🙂 And then I continued my rant having read about getting suitable attire for outdoor pursuits on independantly or with help or not at all and heading out without a vest on in February with bare feet. And they managed that too. Davies was in the hall whispering to himself and I shouted at him thinking he might be muttering bad things or putting curses on me and he came in having made a start of tying his shoelaces (our latest in house row, with me veering between insisting he’d have to do it if he was in school and he’d better bloody learn, being all patient and doing one shoe while he does the other and just doing it for him as it’s quicker and we never leave the house until we are running 10 minutes late anyway so faffing with shoelaces just makes us later!). So it turned out the whispering was him reciting some poem he’d seen on Little Bill or Sali Mali or something about how to tie your shoelaces 😳 …

Off to soft play where we were followed in by Lucy who I’d texted yesterday to say we’d be going there so we sat and chatted for ages and then Julie and the twins arrived too. The kids had a ball, all played together really nicely and me, Lucy and Julie had interesting chats about parenting, Home Ed and other general life stuff. Lucy then headed off, me and Julie and children had lunch and chatted to another woman who just had the look of a Home Educator about her but we didn’t pluck up the courage to ask and then we went back in for a final hour’s play.

It was quite busy in there today, particularly after lunch and we were amused and slightly grossed out by witnessing two urine related accidents within the ball pool and tunnels! Nothing to do with our children although me and Julie did end up dealing with one little boy who’s mother had buggered off to the cafe. I’d thought he’d been there with a bloke and so was asking him where his daddy was which upset and confused him as apparently ‘My Daddy is at work. Why isn’t my Daddy at work then?’ Poor child! Both of my two found new friends there to include in their games as usual which is always heartwarming so it was a very nice day there.

We came home via the Wizard store as I had a need for retail therapy however frugal so for under a fiver we picked up some plasticine, a couple of crafty kits (one with straws and one with sparkly wool for glitter knitting!), some foam beads with a plastic needle and thread, a small globe and some bubble mixture. Scarlett blew bubbles til she got lightheaded while Davies and I looked at the globe for a while and then got out an atlas and compared various things on there. I showed him whereabouts in the UK we live, where we lived in Manchester and where we were at Melrose. We talked a bit about the continents, capital cities and about how the UK is an island very small in comparison to other places. All very basic stuff but still about twice what would be covered in an hour’s lesson at school :-).

We did the straw craft for a very short time and then Davies started playing with the geomags while Scarlett resumed bubble blowing so I ignored them for a while and went online. Davies then brought me a geomag fish he’d made and then turned it into a shark by adding a fin. He made a couple more fish and then I started helping with some more fish, a crab, a very unsuccessful seahorse ;-), a starfish and an aborted attempt at an octopus. Davies did a deep sea diver, a clown fish (doing alternate white and red rods with me having to ‘pretend the red ones are orange Mummy!’ and a few more small fish. It all looked really good 🙂

Then I showed him a variation on the Krampf experiment of a couple of weeks ago based on that executive toy with ball bearings on strings in a cradle. Krampt used coins but we used geomag balls and I lined 6 up and showed him that if you knock one into the row then one moves the other side, if you knock two then two move and so on. He really liked that and was very interested in how it worked and even explained it to Ady in great detail – and very accurately – when he got home so that was physics more than ticked 😉

Finally we did an experiment to test how many balls you could lift with one rod, how many with two rods, how many with three rods and so on to see if it increased with more rods. I got Davies to write down the numbers of rods and balls so he’d remember and he then explained it to Ady referring to his notes and recreating it for Ady too. So writing, maths and the general basics of how to conduct an experiment and record your findings all covered.

All sounds like loads really but I probably spent less than an hour doing it and all with no preparation at all. Coupled with that we pulled off socialising and physical activity too. 🙂

Tomorrow Mum is coming over at lunchtime (and bringing lunch from M&S hurrah!) and on Friday I am looking after Jack and Maisie for a few hours. This is actually a HUGE deal as I don’t think I’ve ever looked after anyone else’s children ever. Infact I know I havn’t. So I’m relying heavily on Davies to entertain all of them for me while I try hard not to think about the huge weight of responsibility weighing down in having all of the next generation of Goddards’s under my irresponsible, unethical, childish and intolerant control! 😉