One word? When seven would do…

Davies has been a bit ‘fragile’ of late. He goes through these funks every so often and always comes out of the other side but it’s bloody hard work while he’s processing it. In a crowd of people he knows well he plays the role of very loud, very confident, very self assured boy very well but deep down a lot of those early personality traits that led us to consider Home Education are still there and whether it’s a growth spurt, hormone rush, too many late nights in a row, phase of the moon, reaction to the tides or simply a reaction to lots of socialising that does it he puts himself in the role of victim, then gets all upset and delicate when he gets treated like one. He is a big wallower and in the same way as he enjoys being happy there are times when he can equally enjoy being miserable somehow. I’ve mentioned before that I struggle with this, I don’t respond well to neediness and clingyness, even when it is my own adored child demonstrating it and whilst I am great at offering kind words, cuddles and answers my patience and tolerance rapidly runs out when none of that makes a difference and the option of simply sitting on my lap looking mournful is taken up instead. 🙄

I’ve bandied about lots of theories the last couple of days, the most feasible is that his normal posse of children, that he mixes with weekly are all younger and he is normally very good at dealing with younger children, leading them in games, suggesting ideas to keep them all occupied and happy. But suddenly there’s been a bit of an upsurge in independant thinking from the ranks of 4 year olds who are rebelling at being told what games to play and are voting with their feet and playing something else instead, which he then struggles to infiltrate and ends up flouncing off because ‘no one wants to play with me’ which accusation is met with incredulous stares from said 4 year olds who all adore him and would love him to play with them, just not necessarily in the role of dictator :lol:. And he is the wrong end of way too many late nights aswell.

He cried while we were out today – genuine, crushed, hurt feelings tears, because ‘the girls’ had said ‘nana na na nah!’ to him and then decided he was a monster and run away screaming – which is a game of his invention. I talked to him about it and said that it was ok to show his feelings and be upset but he couldn’t expect me to tell other children how to play any more than I thought he should be telling them and that normally he would be utterly resilient in dealing with such pettiness. He explained that normally when he feels a bit sad about something he can deal with it just fine, but when he’s feeling ‘a bit delicate it all just bubbles over inside him and makes him cry’ which I thought was very articulate and could utterly sympathise with having had a similar time at Kessingland where just one more small thing would have had me sitting in the nearest puddle wailing!

So, to get back to today, we all rose late and had a mad dash about trying to get last nights washing up done and the kitchen put back together again, a picnic packed for the day out, everyone dressed and breakfasted and in the car within an hour of being up. Lucy and The Rs came over and we drove over to Julie’s who was also running late. We followed her to a Natural England site for a walk up into the downs. It was an Activeo event (specifically listed as Non Activeo Exclusive just so we could go 🙂 ) and there were two other families with us and another joined us a bit later. Davies was in full on clingy mode, wanting to hold my hand and interupt my conversations with adults to debate who loved the other one more out of him and I – honestly, if I had a man that needy I’d run screaming in the opposite direction!) but he did eventually wander from my side and ran off with the others. There were the most amazing yew trees there which were like individual play centres with all sorts of fantastical shaped branches, swirly patterns in the bark and big holes and gaps supporting wildlife. The children clambered over them, named one tree ‘Bug World’ having seen a family of woodlice in it and spotted holes for other bigger creatures. Davies found an egg shell which we deduced had not hatched as it didn’t have the pecked appearance of a hatched one but discussed what it’s fate might have been. We saw loads of beetles, bugs and butterflies (to quote a well loved book 🙂 ) many of which Davies and Scarlett identified. Julie is excellent at all things natural like plants, wildlife etc. and the children regularly bring her flowers or leaves or little creatures to identify. So we saw rain beetles, pill bugs, a walnut tree, hawksbeard, goatsbeard and various other things that I wouldn’t have had a clue about but the children either knew from previous walks with Julie or were able to learn about from her. It’s so exactly how I envisaged Home Ed working, that they have people around them who know ‘stuff’ and are able to ask them sensible questions and process the information they’re given. This week they learnt stuff from Helen at Fishbourne and have learnt more from Julie today. It’s great :).

We sat down for lunch and then the children wandered off to run yelling down the hill many times, search for more interesting things and generally enjoy being outside with loads of space, while the adults chatted. There was then a sudden downpour of rain which sent most of us scurrying back to the yew tree canopy for shelter and started us back towards the car park on a slow return walk. I had a brief chat with Cate, who was one of the first Home Educators I met when we moved back to Sussex and has a boy and a girl about 3 years older than D & S, so would have been about mines’ ages when we first met. She has gone through many incarnations of HE approach including private school, utter autonomy and fairly curriculummy stuff. We were having an interesting conversation about Hesfes and HE in general when Davies came and pulled me away as the rest of our party had started back to the car, so hopefully I can catch up with her again sometime soon.

On the way back to the car the sun came out again and aside from Davies regressing back to clingyness it was nice to walk bits of the way with Julie, Lucy or Fiona (a new HE woman with a 2 and a 3 year old who is just starting out at meeting other HE families) and chat. When we got to the carpark there was a lovely old car parked there which we all looked at for a while before loading everyone back into the car and heading for home. Scarlett asked ‘what are trees for?’ which led to a very long and interactive car-ed session covering uses for leaves, fruit, nuts, uses for trees while alive such as shelter, their effect on the environment and the uses for wood including furniture, houses, pencils, firewood for cooking, heating etc. play equipment, then wood being used to make paper so all the uses of paper for books, newspapers, drawing or writing on and finally bank notes. It was really good with all the children contributing, even Richard and it then led to a chat about where things grow – on trees, on plants, in the ground etc. It did degenerate into arguments about who’s turn it was to shout the next thing out but there was a good 10-15 minutes of pure learning in there first :).

We came home and let the chickens out, Davies and Scarlett stayed outside to play with them, Richard and Rebecca were asleep for a while and then came in and sat with Lucy while we sat chatting and then Ady came home. He put the chickens on the lounge windowsill where they all learnt to peck at the window for attention, so I imagine that will be their new party trick :). Lucy and The Rs went home, Davies and Scarlett had a speedy tea and then we went off to Badgers for the end of term presentation evening.

The Badgers were all playing host / hostess to the visiting families so we were plyed with tea, coffee, lemonade and biscuits while Davies changed from being the boy who’d annoyed me all day and became back to his usual self, proud of showing his drawings and other craft work off, messing about with his best friend at Badgers, taking Scarlett round to show her everything ready for when she starts in December, introducing his friends to us and going and getting more biscuits for us. I think he really likes to be the one in control of a situation actually. He doesn’t abuse the power when he has it, but he likes to know he’s got it. And erm, I guess I have to concede to relating to that rather heavily so maybe he has rather more of me in him than I first though :oops:. Badges and certificates were handed out to all the Badgers, with some of them leaving Badgers to join SJA cadets in September. I do think it’s an excellent group, far and away better than Beavers and Davies gets loads out of it, I think Scarlett will too, it’s a very supportive and caring environment. Julie, the Badger Leader had a baby 3 weeks ago so she was there as a guest star and as Scarlett was very keen to see her close up I accepted the offer of a cuddle and sat talking to Tarly about babies a bit. It was a difficult birth with ventouse, forceps and episiotomy which baby Alice still has a few scabs to prove some of and she is still under 8lbs so tinier at 3 weeks old than either of my children were at birth. I explained to Scarlett about ventouse and forceps, we looked at her little fingers and nails and Scarlett had her grab her finger, we looked at her unfocused eyes and talked about fontanelles on her head – baby ed! 🙂 She was however quite stinky in a dirty nappy and after all, a baby, so once we’d covered all that I passed her on to the next eager cuddler :lol:.

We left there and in celebration of the end of term took the children to McDonalds for an ice cream. Once home Ady cooked dinner while I finally put away the towering piles of laundry, some of which were residual clean clothes from Kessingland, so we all have full wardrobes, enough pair of pants and clothes to wear tomorrow without having to raid the clean clothes baskets, and I have three empty laundry baskets again to start the whole process again! 🙂

Work all day tomorrow so I really should be in bed making zzzs by now. Some pics on flickr of walk and Badgers, Ady has more on his camera of Badgers so I may come back and add them in later.