Quick give that calf some deep fried mars bars…

before you get the sharp knives out!

Davies was awake in the night with bad dreams so came into our bed for the remainder of the night. I don’t really remember this happening, but it was the reason why I didn’t get up til long gone 9am this morning. Because he was asleep next to me (and he snores) so when I stirred once or twice and felt another body next to me in my sleepy state I assumed it was Ady and went back to sleep thinking it must still be really early. It wasn’t until Scarlett came upstairs, having also slept in late that I realised it was infact Davies and it was late!

We had a lazy morning, Davies played with the k’nex and made some impressive moving things, Scarlett played with some horses and we watched something interesting on TV which totally eludes me now. We had to pop to Argos to take back a battery charger I bought which we don’t need, to Sainsburys for various bits and pieces where we tried samples of chocolate horlicks and had a lengthy discussion about malt as we went round and had an interesting conversation with the man behind us in the queue who suggested we should get our own cow (we were buying 6x 6 pints of milk) – so Scarlett talked to him about just how much we would indeed like that while Davies worked out what 6 lots of 6 were (impressed 🙂 I was!) then got me to test him on how many tens are in? questions including telling me there were 4 and a half tens in 45 to demonstrate what sort of questions he wanted. It’s really interesting seeing the connections he’s making with numbers and how he is playing with them lately, particularly as it’s all mental maths so the patterns he’s recognising are not written on a page which almost makes it more amazing to me as I remember seeing things like the patterns in the 9 times table but that was all written down so was more about the shape of the written numbers than the mental image I had of what those numbers meant as quantities if that makes sense? Davies seems to be getting a really appreciation of the relationships between numbers and then applying them to everything around him – pints of milk in 6 pint containers, pennies in pounds, weeks in a month and do on – all different measurements but all with patterns which he is wiring together as relative and relevant to each other. It’s ace 🙂

We whizzed home for speedy lunch and pegging out some washing before dashing off again to Shoreham Beach group. Liza was outside when we arrived which was really nice actually as I had vague feelings of unease about it – this was the group we first tried when we moved back to Sussex and I struggled with as too rough and unsavoury for my precious little darlings (aged 1 and 3 as they were at the time!) and eventually left to start up a group with Jenny, under whilst not unfriendly possibly not entirely amicable circumstances. Clearly we wouldn’t have been allowed back in if there was any resentment or bad feeling but I was still a bit hesitant. But I was welcomed with a hug from Nikki, a barrage of information from Avis, tea aplenty from Liza and an ‘alright babe’ and two tops for Scarlett from Kate, so couldn’t have asked for more really 🙂 :).

Nikki laid on a watercolour painting session, the kids banged about on the piano, they both played outside with a ball for ages and we all three had a great couple of hours. It was really nice and both Davies and Scarlett were full of enthusiasm for going again in 2 weeks. Plus is is cheaper than MM and only a couple of miles up the road and fits better into our week. So plusses all round really.

We walked in the front door to the phone ringing, it was my Dad checking if we were home so he could come over. Scarlett and I made some banana and chocolate chip muffins with some very mushy bananas, the kids had tea and Dad and I chatted until Ady arrived home, then we headed out to the library where we met my Mum so Ady and my parents could see Davies’ display in situ. Much praise and pride was lavished on Davies, Scarlett chose yet another pile of books and issued them out herself and then we all came back here.

Mum read most of the pile of books to the kids (which is great, I can take them all back tomorrow!) and played k’nex with them for a bit before they went off to bed. Dad and I went out to get fish and chips which we had and then sat chatting about Home Ed. Mum rather amazed me by being excedingly vocal about how wonderful she thinks it is, how proud she is of me and the kids and how she can see how much it is working and is starting to really ‘get’ it. She talked about coming to the butcher with me and the kids last week and how amazed she was at the children chatting away to him, how much they knew about the meat, how they talked to the community police officer and generally interacted and were with everyone they met. As I always hoped it is Davies and Scarlett who have convinced her that this is the right path by simply being themselves and demonstrating how fab they are and how well this is working for us. I think Dad will always have reservations but I do believe we are slowly winning him over. Tonight he said he felt they should be with big groups of children more and that ‘well it’s hardly the path to university is it?’ but when I talked him through what we’ve done just this week (Beavers, swimming, Badgers, Rainbows, all with groups of other children, post office, supermarket, library, home ed group, being with Lucy and The Rs yesterday, with Julie, J & M tomorrow, playing in the garden, selling lavendar, displaying art work in the library, sitting planning what they want to do this year and working out how we’re going to do it, playing with geomags, puzzles, k’nex, lego, painting and drawing, watching documentaries, playing X box and DS, listening to Carnival of the Animals and Peter and the Wolf in the car, baking…. the list goes on and it’s actually been a pretty quiet week!) I think he started to realise that he actually gets a fairly narrow view of what their lives are really like and that’s its not all playing x box alone in the house all day every day – maybe he should read my blog! 😆

Anyway, it’s very late, I need to have a bath and I’m working in the morning but it’s been a good day and I wanted to record it tonight before tomorrow happens (it’s rhymetime day!) and I forget it all again.