One word? When seven would do…

The most used present from Christmas for the children have been these art sets I picked up in The Works months ago. They sat in the playroom for ages and then I decided in about October that actually I might as well put them away for Christmas as they’d not been used yet. They contain about 30 felt tips each, a set of watercolours and a paintbrush, some crayons, some coloured pencils, some oil pastels and bits like a ruler, scissors and a pencil sharpener. I think Scarlett has done some painting pretty much every single day since they got them and is now just getting a little pot from the kitchen, filling it with water from the bathroom and setting herself up to paint without any assistance.

And far from what I would have anticipated giving the messiest child I know such weapons of destruction she keeps the paint on the paper, is very careful with it, actually produces recognisable representations of things and uses all the colours. If this keeps up I might well get her a set of watercolours and teach her about colour mixing too.

So this morning she was doing painting while Davies was on the old laptop on the Nickjr site which was all very nice and educational and childled 🙂

We headed off to soft play and as it was the first time my car’s been driven in nearly 3 weeks all of the cds were still in Ady’s car. It was lovely to drive mine again actually, and to drive generally. I like driving and when Ady is with us he *always* drives. I’m not keen on his car anyway, it’s a VW Golf and although it’s very whizzy and has lots of buttons and stuff I like a big car, so my Sharan gives me all the buzz of driving a tank *and* being high up too – lovely! I once cherished a dream to learn to drive a bus or a HGV and I still think I’d like to do that – like Long Distance Clara on Pigeon Street! 🙂 So, anyway, we had to listen to the radio instead of cds and as all I could find was Bucks Fizz we gave up and talked instead. Have now forgotten what we talked about of course but I know it was an interesting 3 way conversation, which we have more and more these days. Scarlett constantly amazes me with how she is able to be *such* a toddler still at times and then such a grown up little girl at others. The questions she asks (far above and beyond the basic ‘why?’) and her thought processes just stagger me. I remember thinking the same about Davies actually so there is every chance that I just have low expectations of your average 3 yo and mine are nothing special but I like to kid myself they are anyway! 😉 She also has a very good sense of humour and is excellent at teasing. Listening to her and Davies chatter away about the world and stuff when they don’t think we’re listening often has me and Ady in fits of laughter.

The last couple of times we’ve been to soft play I’ve really resented the money as they have not made any use of the facilities but for once they were raring to go and as soon as they took their shoes off they decided who was going to be which Backyardigan and ran off together! I cashed in my ‘free’ ticket for a cup of tea (free when you pay the obligatory entrance fee of a quid for an adult!!) and was then summoned to deal with a little shit of a child who was out to make every other kid cry or so it seemed. It takes a lot to make Scarlett cry but this kid managed it twice and then sat on Jack when Julie and the twins arrived so in the end I told D&S to just play somewhere out.

Anyway, they had a really good couple of hours clambering about, yelling and playing with Jack and Maisie and each other so that was really nice as they have been a little fraught with each other of late. Julie and I chatted and gossiped about Activeo, Tumble Tots and extra curricular activities for D & S.

We needed a few bits from Tescos so with promises of excellent behaviour I let them both walk with me instead of going in a trolley and we strolled around getting everything we needed. And they were excellent – and I don’t even have the money to bribe them with gifts anymore! 😉 But they were still high on the thrill of a 5 pence lollipop each when we left soft play I think!

We got home and put the shopping away and then we all went upstairs for the first leg in Operation Davies’ Room. Although we were at it for the best part of two hours it doesn’t feel like much happened but I did persuade Davies to let me bin the sad remains of the Peter Pan Island from last Christmas and shove some of the many, many, many soft toys in the loft so there *is* less clutter. Tomorrow (maybe!) I’ll finish off with dusting and stuff like that which should give it the air of the newly tidied room it seems to lack. TBH I don’t think it will feel anything special until it’s been repainted anyway really, so hopefully that will be sorted soon.

While tidying up the books I came across Just So Stories so I read the whale one aloud to them while they put all the figures back into place in the fort. I have to say they were unimpressed and I was too really. The language seemed so old fashioned and unnecessarily stumbling but not in a charming way like Dr Seuss and there was just little or nothing to capture their imagination. Even I got bored reading it! So that went back on the shelf again! It was probably not helped by me inwardly giggling remembering a tirade about Rudyard Kipling that Richard Herring had gone into as part of his stand up routine we went to see last year actually! We also found a couple of Cat in the Hat activity books and a Space book so we looked at some of those and did some spot the difference, some code breaking stuff and some pairing stuff. Left those out to take downstairs for a later date.

It was teatime by then so they found Cat in the Hat on dvd while I sorted their tea out and then they watched that before bed. It does sort of grow on you that film you know, it’s probably the first time I have actually watched it rather than been in the room while it’s on and some of it is quite funny in a taking the piss out of itself sort of way. Makes a change from C&TCF anyway!

So Ady went back to work today and much as I missed him it was sort of nice to return to normality a bit. In many ways I’d love to have him home more, or infact all the time, but because he’s not and it is a temporary state there are irritations which would be sorted out if we knew it was a forever state. The children are not that well behaved when he is around, they order him about, play on the fact he is not 100% up to all their tricks and aware of what they can and can’t do and of course they try and play us off against each other. What then ends up happening is I get cast as the ogre because my usual rules and standards of behaviour still stand but they try and push it that bit further with Ady, who ever conscious of being Fun Parent and Limited Period Only tends to let them get away with more than I do. Anyway…

Spent the first hour of the day cuddled up on the sofa with both children, we watched The Backyardigans which is a firm favourite with both children – both to sit and watch and then to recreate again later. They often draw pictures of the characters and wander round singing the songs from the show. I actually quite like it too – not sure why as it offends many of my all singing, all dancing animals wearing clothes and being the wrong colour type sensibilities but I do think it is well thought out and covers lots of educational spin off type stuff. Infact if I was of a mind to do so I could probably create a curriculum based on it! 😉 But I’m a bit busy creating my alternative to Flylady one just now, so I’ll have to put it on the back (yardigan) burner.

The children then put C&TCF on for some Oompa Lumpa dancing while I had a quick catch up online and dug out that inspirational piece about animals starting a school again to remind me why I want to HE the way I do. Might ponder more on that later, then again I might not! Ady and I did some trillianing (very Paul and Linda I know, barely 2 hours apart and we needed to catch up! 😉 ) and then we whizzed round the house getting dressed and tidied before Lucy, Rebecca and Richard arrived at 10am.

The children were as I had fretted they might be and far from gracious hosts really. Richard is 9 months old and classically ‘into everything’ so Davies trying to put on a magic show and Tarly trying to build something from sticklebricks was never going to be peaceful. Scarlett veered between wanting desperatly to play with Rebecca and insisting she was ‘not allowed’ to touch any of her toys :rolls: and they both kept talking across me and Lucy every time we tried to have a conversation. Rebecca is fairly shy so was clinging to Lucy’s legs which was challenging for her when she was trying to breastfeed Richard or remove him from eating sticklebricks! But we managed a bit of a chat somehow 😉 We had some lunch – gastronomes that we are Lucy had brought star shaped peanut butter sandwiches to which I added chocolate spread star shaped sandwiched and cheesy footballs, and then got everyone wellied and coated up and headed to the park. Davies was stroppy because I wouldn’t push him on the baby swings for very long (he’s really too big now and refused to do the swing thing with his legs so his feet were scuffing the ground all the time and also Rebecca kept running infront of the swings so I was cautious of getting him too high that I couldn’t grab him and stop the swing if she darted infront of it) so he was skulking about looking like a kid playing truant! Did some different life musing type chatting inbetween and then walked home and they left. Lucy is really keen to foster the friendship between Scarlett and Rebecca and is also keen to get time to do stuff with Rebecca that she used to do before she had Richard so we have a bit of a plan to go to their house next time and if Scarlett is up for being left there to play for a while then Davies and I can head off. They live in town and are near to the beach, the swimming pool, the shops and the main library so there is plenty of stuff me and Davies could have a great time doing if Tarly is receptive to going there to play for a morning. Rebecca is definitely not ready to leave Lucy’s side but I could probably tolerate babysitting Richard for a few hours too every so often and actually Davies would probably quite enjoy helping to ‘look after him’. We’ve made an arrangement to see each other the same day every fortnight (in an Ali style forward planning sorta way!) so we’ll see how that pans out. I think it might be good for Tarly to spend time with a gentler soul sometimes – she is so used to either being with Davies or the equally feisty small girls she is friends with that she can be a bit overpowering for same age girls who are quieter, so putting her in their environment rather than her own and taking away the ‘back up’ of Davies might be an interesting experiment providing she is comfortable with it and enjoys it.

Once home the children settled back infront of C&TCF again so instead of going online I made a cup of tea and retired to Tarly’s room to give it a really good tidy and sort out. I didn’t seem to actually get rid of much – although I have earmarked a whole shelf of books to be disposed of when she’s not looking as they are just too babyish to be read to her anymore and I don’t even think they will be suitable for early readers for either of them, besides which we have pretty much every early reader scheme the Book People have put out so I think we have that area covered anyway! Are we doing any sort of Melrose bring and buy – they might be good for that… Anyway it felt productive just the same and looked tidier to the point that Ady noticed and remarked as soon as he came in. 🙂

Tomorrow the plan is to do Davies’ although that looks to be a slightly more mammoth task. It needs redecorating although we already have the paint so I just need to remind Dad to do it while we’re at Melrose and he can do it uninterupted by little people. I’m sitting in it now debating having a move round of the furniture again to better fit in the colleseum and fort that seem to be dominating it at the moment and there is a dark corner where toys go to die aswell as 3 micro machines which I just know don’t have the right bits and pieces in each one and these are the sorts of things that bother me! 😉 Thursday I want to do the two bathrooms and then I will have done every room in the house over a month period as I did the kitchen cupboards and my wardrobe just before Christmas. The final task is the hall which only consists of a coat rack, shoe boxes and a book case, but oh what overcrowded areas they all are. There are coats long outgrown or out of season on the rack which need ebaying, clothes banking or storing til the Spring, shoes which need binning, cleaning or putting away for the summer and the books may take a week all by themselves to sort. 🙂

While doing Tarly’s room the children appeared and carted the Dora house off to play with, then both came back and sat on Tarly’s bed and asked me to tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood using a doll Tarly has had for years with LRRH on one side and the Granny / Wolf at the other end, so I did that to their delight :-). They had their tea watching Backyardigans again yhen to achieve my final goal of the day I started reading them a Book People version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe while they were in their bath. I don’t really like bathtime and now they are bigger I tend to leave them to it a bit and just bumble around doing other stuff while keeping an eye / ear on them (bathroom is downstairs so that is not as casual as it sounds!) but I could get to love it if they would sit so captivated every night! Scarlett was not quite so enthralled as Davies and wanted to see the pictures for every other sentence but Davies really took it all in and even repeated some of it back to me and wanted more although he then started watching Little Bear when he got out of the bath so it was forgotten. I don’t think he’d be ready for it as a cinema film but perhaps when it comes out on dvd we’ll look at it if he continues to enjoy it.

And that was the day really. Nice, a little frustrating, very productive and over all a good one 🙂 Also very cheap!

Tomorrow will be less cheap as we are off to the Soft Play place with Julie so admission and lunch will be costly, but as they would normally be at TT tomorrow that is a tenner we’re ‘saving’. I’m doing some pondering about the future of TT at the moment too but I’ll save that one for another day.

Happy Birthday Anna 🙂

Have an excellent day and look forward to seeing you at the weekend 🙂

This morning Davies reminded us of the one request he made way back on Christmas Eve when we said how Ady would be off work for over a week, which was to go to ‘the dinosaur place’. We’ve not been for months and infact I’d let the season ticket lapse without renewing it but had intended getting one again as it is less than double the price of normal entry which makes it well worth while given how often we went there last year. So we had an early lunch and headed off to Newhaven.

We rejoined for the year and Davies certainly paid a little more attention to some of the more educational bits of the displays than usual. We still dashed round quicker than I would have liked and I was surprised at how many of the dinosaur names Davies has forgotten given how obsessed he was a year or so ago but I’m sure they would come back given a bit of focusing on them again.

We walked round the cactus gardens and some of the outside area but by no means all of it as it was pretty cold. We played for a while in the playground, possibly more me and Ady than the children who were despairing of us having fun on the ‘get all the way round the wooden bits without touching the ground with your feet’ when they wanted us to be pushing them on the swings! 😉 Davies was disappointed that the sandpit was covered over but they were both fairly philosophical at my refusal to get any tokens for them to play on the amusements or buy them presents in the gift shop (which in fairness to a 3 and 5 year old who have always had such things is probably a fairly tricky thing to accept, I know I’m struggling with it. 🙁 ).

We left after a couple of hours and came home. Davies and I made up a wooden slot together dinosaur that’s been kicking around for ages and he painted it. This was harder work than it sounds as he is tired, whingey and far too used to having Ady at his constant beck and call for over a week so we very nearly came to blows over it. I tried to persuade him to use the skeleton as the base to make a papier mache model which we could then paint but he refused on the basis that yes, we would need to wait a day or two before painting it. Scarlett painted some pictures of dinosaurs – she really is very good with a paintbrush and has totally got the hang of watercolours in a block, which have totally escaped Davies and then painted some pictures I’d drawn of us all using all the right colours. She has been surprisingly mess-free with the art sets they got for Christmas and has done some sort of painting every day, Davies still prefers his drawing really, he is too keen to finish something quickly and move onto the next thing for the patience required for painting something and rinsing the brush out between colours.

While they were doing that Grease came on TV and although we do have the dvd it is one that they have not really watched before so in the interests of completing their plenary of musicals for the festive season we all watched that. The children were most impressed that I knew all the songs and then Davies danced along with the last two.

Davies adores You’ve Been Framed type tv shows so we watched that next, although I stopped laughing at kids picking their noses in the school nativity or idiots pulling the Christmas tree down balancing on the arm of the sofa to reach the top to put the star on after the third example of each he was in fits of laughter!

Right, they are now both asleep, it’s my turn to cook dinner and a bath is waiting for me. Tomorrow we are seeing Lucy, Ady’s going back to work and I have plans to continue with the general tidying. I also have a vague idea that I want to start reading aloud to the children again a bit more. It’s something we all enjoy and I have let lapse somehow over the months so I think we’ll make the effort to get that going again in a nod towards being educational in our home education. 🙂

My pc really does seem to be dying. I’ve run all of the various system tools which seem to have made it run faster but it still keeps switching itself off. I now dimly recall hearing an odd noise from it last week and have decided, in my capacity of total computer know-nothing- that the fan has gone. 🙂

So, there I sat, pondering how on earth to deal with this until I can get someone who truly does know what they’re doing to have a look at it and suddenly inspiration struck. If I get my old laptop out and connect to the internet with that, transfer the broadband thingy across to it and the wireless broadcaster doobry then hey presto, Bobs the bloke related to your father and alls well that ends well, I might just be able to carry on using IM, blogging and emailing with my shiny new laptop from the lounge.

And d’you know what? It only bloody worked! And I only bloody managed to sort it out all by myself. Hurrah for me 🙂

Welcome to 2006!

I’m intending to live life with vim. I’m also intending to use the word a day in my blog that I get emailed to me from dictionary.com every day 😉

We had a pleasant enough evening last night, my parents were over and behaved true to form, so at least some things can always be relied on! 😉

I think they left around 12.30am, they were pretty patient about the fact that both Ady and I were online around midnight wishing friends Happy New Year and they did bring their own beers so I guess I’m glad they were here ;-).

Both the children were up around 5am, they’ve been awful with Ady off this last week or so and are so demanding of his time and attention, I know it will take a while to shake back down again into ‘normal’ life and one of the things they’ve been bad about is getting up really early, which does make for early bedtimes is true but is certainly not something I’m wanting to encourage. So Ady got up with them at 5.30ish and then came back to bed at 7am, I still was not up for getting up yet and when they both kept coming up and down the stairs demanding stupid things of him I coimpletely lost my temper, marched them both downstairs, yelled at them about all the toys and other things they had to play with and told them to entertain themselves or I would send them both back to bed!!! Nice to start the year as you mean to go on! 🙁

They did take heed however and I managed to climb back into bed again for another hour or so and when I came back down they had taken all the cushions off the sofa, put Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on and were acting out all the dance routines. 🙂

I’ve spent altogether too much time today trying to sort my fairly antique pc out. It keeps cutting out and as all of the laptops and internet connections run through it this is very annoying and a bit worrying. I’ve tried pretty much everything I can think of with no luck so I’m calling in my brother to see if he can shed any light on the matter – if not then I start panicking! 🙁 So if I disappear offline for a while you know why…

We’ve also taken down all the decorations today so the house feels bigger and airier! I’ve tidied the playroom cupboards to fit all of the new presents in, sorted out the craft drawers to accomodate all the new pens and stuff and cleared the big pile of ‘stuff’ which had accumulated next to the sofa, infact the lounge looks about as tidy as it is ever going to look while we live here so I’ll consider that room done! 🙂 Just the kids rooms, our room, the kitchen, bathrooms and the other side of the playroom to do then 😉 Oh and the hall!

We put the second Charlie disc on for Davies who spent ages learning all the dance routines for Oompa Lumpa dances earlier and is now totally cativated by Annie which he’s never seen before but is already singing along to 😉 think I better make the effort to get him to those drama lessons I looked into last year, oh and stupidly we’ve not recorded it so I guess I better try and track down the dvd for the repeated viewings of it he’s already planning!

So that’s it from here really, recycling box is groaning with crushed down cardboard boxes, empty bottles and cans, Christmas cards, with the exception of a few chocolates all the food is eaten and next week is already filled up with ‘getting back to normal’ activities.

and now I know 🙂

Ady’s just done a mad dash to the shops to get a lottery ticket for tonight cos the shop round the corner’s machine had broken down. We stopped doing the lottery last month – we used to have direct debit and do five lines a week and I have not really given it a thought, but Ady likes to dream of lottery wins so the NYE one was too attractive a dream for him not to get a lucky dip!

Which set me wondering… do you play the lottery? Do you already have a plan about what you’d do if you won? Would you want publicity? How would you deal with begging letters, friends expectations, family? Give it to the church? Be interested to hear other’s views…

I’ve already done my round up and I don’t do NY resolutions so this is just a round up of today rather than anything monumental.

I popped out to Sainsburys this morning to get a few bits to see us through the next few days – and some more alcohol for tonight!

Called in to see my parents on the way home and invite them over for dinner tomorrow – it’s their wedding anniversary. They declined as they already have arrangements but somehow wangled an invite over tonight. We had known they might try and were semi prepared for it so i was able to lay down a few conditions 😉 (for my dad, no lectures, no patronising and no talking over the TV about what rubbish it was if we chose to watch something! For my Mum no coming over and being all miserable and depressed! They need to bring their own beers and remember that they had requested our company not the other way round!!) felt much better for that 🙂

Came home and have been drinking snowballs all afternoon so am already feeling drowsy!

So, the children have been up since 5am and will no doubt be asleep very early tonight, we have got M&S ready meals so no one has to cook dinner and if I manage to stay awake I will be drinking champagne all night to see out the old year and see in the new one that I have high hopes for.

Happy New Year one and all – look forward to spending 2006 in your virtual – and in many cases real life – company. 🙂 xx

These are a few of my favourite things…

A cuddle from Scarlett, a hot mug of tea
My shiny new laptop, a Will Young cd
Heat magazine full of celebrity chatter
Oh yes I know the things in life which really matter! 🙂

and we never got any snow to play in here 🙁 Yesterday at Drusillas there was barely enough to scrape together a snowball (although I did and chucked it at Ady just as he bent down to set up the camera for a self timer shot and in a never to be repeated fluke of a shot it went straight down the back of his neck! 🙂 Oh how we all laughed! ;-)) and today it has simply not stopped raining all day.

I’d had one of those night’s sleep where you are haunted by all sorts of wild dreams and wake up more exhausted than you went to sleep, I’d spent vast amounts of the night awake and finally fell asleep to a dream so vivid that I woke myself by shaking my shoulders with pretend sobs (I was crying in the dream) and then found I really had been crying and my face was wet with tears. All very odd! Took a while to shake off that really and we had planned to get out and about early to take the kid shoe shopping but decided against it looking at the weather.

Davies and I made up a kit of a replica eye and spent some time looking at stuff with it and reading the accompanying booklet with lots of eye related information. Then we did a couple of the suggested experiments and I also showed him how pupils shrink and grow in light and dark and we talked about how it is even more obvious in our cats’ eyes.

Then we headed over to Chris and Julie’s for a couple of hours. Managed a catch up and round up of Christmas with them and then we decided to brave the rain and nipped to Bognor to get new boots in Clarks sale for Davies and new wellies for both of them. There was nothing remotely suitable for Tarly although she does need new shoes – only 3 pairs in the shop in her size, one was a hideous pair of boots, one was a pink shoe with a vile brown patch and sequins stitched on, one was a very pretty pink and purple style with ribbons – totally impractical for January and they did have some black patent ones with little cut out holes which I rejected on principle as I so don’t want them to have black shoes when they don’t have to 🙂 Black shoes are for school! I’m still coming to terms with her growing out of her gorgeous Boden knee high boots really :-). We’ll sort her out next week sometime.

Just as we were leaving a woman stopped me in the street. I would never have recognised her but she worked for me part time when I was the manager of the Clinton Cards in Bognor. She was delighted to see me with a child holding each hand as I had sworn I would never NEVER have children back then ;-). It was really pouring with rain so it was a brief chat but nice to see her. I was stunned to work out it had been about 8 years ago I was doing that job, which possibly explains why she looked so different – 8 years is a long time bringing up teenagers!

Came home via McDonalds. I do very occassional online surveys for a company which pay in luncheon vouchers so I always use them for Happy Meals and they’d come through about a month ago but not been used, so the kids were very happy with new wellies and Happy Meals. Davies was less happy that his present was a Polly Pocket the same as Tarly’s but he got over it!

Bizarrely we now have Davies asleep but Tarly is still downstairs being noisy – I have a plan for a hot bubble bath, a pampering with my facial sauna and face pack, a large glass of wine and something spicey with chicken Ady is planning to cook. Can’t be bad 🙂

2005, the best of times, the worst of times…

This year has cemented for me that Home Education is the right choice for our family. It has proven itself to me over and over again in watching my own children, the other children I know who are Home Educated and also the children I know who attend school. Listening to education in the news and talking to parents has confirmed what I think I had already felt that education is not something that can be seperated from any other area of development or indeed life in general. I have been as educated as the children this year, I have probably learnt more this year alone than in all my years in school I’ve learnt is that there are no experts on Home Ed it has been nice to speak with confidence on the subject and know that I have actually helped or inspired.

The various camps and get togethers have been huge highlights of this year for me too. I can hardly believe that this time last year I had only met a handful of the bloggers briefly in London and was still looking forward to meeting everyone properly at Melrose. Melrose, Kessingland, Hesfes, Okehampton and indeed our own Halloween party attended by a lot of our HE friends were fantastic experiences for all of us. There were times when they were a process (to nick a phrase or concept from Joyce!) too but one which I am glad we underwent.

The beginning, and indeed the end of WAG – the local Home Ed group was a steep learning curve. Again one which I am glad I participated in and one which I am still evaluating what I learnt from. I would not even go so far as to say it is something which I would never do again as I still think it could have been something better than it was, but for now I can see other priorities for my time and energy. I am keen to get more involved with a couple of the other local-ish groups in 2006 and see whether there is scope for bringing one in particular slightly further in this direction geographically while remaining under the umbrella of their organisation – after all, why reinvent the wheel eh – unless it’s got educational value as an experiment! 😉

It’s been a milestone year in particular for Davies who would have started school this September. By now he would have been entrenched in the institutionalisation that that would have brought, dressing like 100s of other children for 5/7 of his week, asking all his questions of someone else and be used to being known as one of a number rather than the individual he so clearly still is. I can think of nothing about that to mourn the loss of really and as yet neither can he. Long may that remain! Educationally he is probably about where he would be in school anyway, he has the rudiments of reading and is starting to spell out words, he knows all his letters and numbers and is experimenting with adding and subtracting as he goes through daily life. He can write quite well – either copying or with me telling him which letter to write next, so literacy and numeracy are probably about on track anyway. Rest of his life wise he has grown up a bit this year, aside from occassional bouts of clinginess there is very little trace of the baby he once was or indeed the very needy toddler he was. He is now a ‘real boy’ and in the company of other small boys he exhibits all the classic behaviours he would be showing in a playground! He is sensitive and has a very strong sense of fairness and justice. He still adores his films and plays games inspired by them for hours, he loves drawing and is getting more and more proficient on the pc or the laptop although x box and PS are still a bit beyond his comprehension. ;-). This year he has gained skills in making friends and has clear friendships with a cluster of boys and girls who he would choose to spend time with over and above others, fortunately I like all their parents too! 🙂

Scarlett is pretty much on track at just three for where I imagined she’d be back when she was just two. She continues to be independant, charming, bright and challenging! I actually think Home Education is equally as right for her as it is for Davies but for rather different reasons. She is a very different child to him and would offer a challenge to any teacher or educator in that she is headstrong and not only is unprepared to fit into a mould she would likely throw it across the room and stamp on it if you tried. A school environment would have one of two effects on her – she would either be marked out as disruptive and indeed live up to that tag, or she would be crushed, brought into line and have her spirit broken until she conformed. One of the things I have always most celebrated about their children is their uniqueness, their ‘Daviesness’ and ‘Scarletticity’ and I never want that to change. She is also very into her drawing and creates recognisable representations of things with very accurate colouring in. She has learnt to copy letters to ‘write’ and does so very neatly and precisely. She can recognise various letters already and the sounds they make, she can also recognise a few letters and count reliably to 10 and with assistance into the teens. She is very articulate and has a large vocabulary which she uses to full effect! She also has a good imagination and is often to be found playing either with Davies in one of their pretend worlds or playing alone with her dolls. She enjoys resources like jigsaws, plastic animals and building toys such as blocks and sticklebricks. She likes things like beads to thread and her fine motor skills are sufficiently developed that she can do a fair job on painting her own nails! 😉 She has also in the last few months started to view other children as playmates and there are three or four particular little girls who she adores and speaks often of so I hope the importance of girlie friendships is being covered for her without the regular contact of school.

It would be very easy to fret about failing the children in some ways with the autonomous route we’ve chosen for Home Education. I sometimes do struggle in observing them and seeing that they are clearly both bright and could well be hothoused to academic success. Should I be pushing them to achieve more faster and using the ‘advantage’ of one-to-two ‘schooling’ that so many people percieve to be a plus for HE? I am still inclined to think that if they do have genius potential in any area then it will out itself and they will be asking to be pushed really, I look at the mathematical or musical prodigies we have amoung our number and realise that it is the children asking for yet harder maths puzzles to solve or pushing for more challenging pieces of music to practise. I hope I pay enough heed to the children to recognise when they are asking and provide accordingly, for now I can’t hear them asking for any more than I am offering.

So that’s my educational round up of the year – it’s been a good one!

I don’t really have any specific goals for next year. I think we have as many resources already as we can afford, store and are likely to need so no wish list there; I think we are already covering the socialising and mixing and mingling very well; I think they are probably both on track to be at reading and writing levels age appropriate just be carrying on as we are and I think by the popularity of Christmas gifts which involve imaginative play, arts and crafts or team games and competition we already have our recipe for life and learning mapped out for us. If we do get looked up by the LEA then I am happy that we have rudimentary plans in place for an Ed Phil, my blog posts to review and pull out evidence of basic education to hand and happy, healthy, intelligent children to demonstrate the success of our choices. Of course this could all change and by February you could be reading my blog post pondering which elements of the Sonlight catalogue to save up for. 😉

So, the rest of the year has been a bit of a blur really. Our lives seem to be, and infact are, very busy. We seem to have plans every weekend, at least four things scheduled in for every week and to have been away from home for many many nights during the year – the overnight bag now has it’s own toothbrushes and toiletries packed at all times! We have been to Scotland, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Suffolk, Berkshire (several times!), Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, West Middlands and probably more besides. And I love it! 🙂

This year has definitely been the year that I have found some of the best friends I have ever known. Most of them are through Home Education in some way although we do still have friends who are not in that circle. We have felt accepted, loved, wanted and important and shared some tears and much laughter with people who I hope I will know for the rest of my life. It has been a priviledge to be a support to friends in need and an honour to have friends there for us in our own times of trouble. I hope 2006 is a better year for us all and there are many more happy times ahead of us to share. There have also been learning curves and casualties in that virgin territory of making and developing friendships and I think I will always carry a bitter taste as a result. I have realised that with friendship comes a certain level of responsibility and that for some people playground mentalities still remain. They do not for me and perhaps the only lesson to be learnt there is to ensure that others realise the level of honesty they are subject to and are aware that there is no more or less to my personality than what they are seeing infront of them and they either like that or they don’t. And if they don’t there are ways of dealing with that as an adult!

Ady and I have had what I suppose could have been considered testing times this year although they have not felt testing and have actually brought us closer together than ever. I know I speak for us both (which I frequently find myself doing 😉 ) when I say that our sheer amazement and joy at having found each other and being able to share our lives with each other is something we both wonder at frequently. We end this year more determined than ever to ensure that our priorities of enjoying our lives, our children and every opportunity we can grab are met in the coming year and beyond. Sometimes having nothing to lose can be a very positive state to start from and hey, money can’t buy you love!

I think this year has been very experimental for me in some ways – I entered it with life still categorised for me as areas of my own life and personality and feeling that perhaps the balance was not quite right in some areas. I end the year feeling that Nic is more than the sum total of mother, wife, friend, job title, daughter, educator and that actually in the same way that I have decided the children do not receive an ‘upbringing’ or an ‘education’ they are simply ‘living’ perhaps I really am just ‘Nic’. For that I am feeling slightly less torn and tugged in different directions and able to see how actually several areas of life can be made better all at once. I have some plans, I have some ideas, I have some more dreams. If they happen you’ll know about it, if they don’t then they were not meant to and I won’t mourn for them anyway.

So there you go, tragedy or lottery win aside I can’t see how my state of mind will be much altered really. I’m happy. Next year will no doubt brinlg it’s own challenges and chances – hope I get dealt lots of interesting ones and I hope I am able to recognise them when they come a-calling and grab them with both hands!

My turn to get up early this morning and early indeed it was before 6am! Watched TV cuddled up with both children for a while and then they decided to go into the playroom, Davies to play Zoombinis and Tarly to watch him and do some painting – she produced a very g ood likeness of a cat! 🙂

We had a few things to get done today like a couple of parcels in the post of ebay sales, getting the car taxed as it runs out on Saturday and taking a pair of trousers back I’d bought for Ady which didn’t fit so after a very lengthy defrosting of the car before we could set off we did various bits and pieces on the way to Drusillas. Almost a free day out as we went in Ady’s car with company paid petrol, we have season tickets for Drusillas and Ady packed sandwiches which we ate walking round. 🙂

It was really quiet there, probably the quietest I’ve ever known it and although the sun was weakly shining it was bloody freezing! The children actually enjoyed looking at the animals for a chance without being jostled along by crowds and some of the monkeys were on top form performing for a small audience – one in particular wanted our sandwiches and kept banging on his glass to get our attention, gesturing to the top of the enclosure and then dashing up and reaching his arm out in the hope of being passed a bit. Very responsibly we didn’t give him any food and he then got all cross and was gesturing to us slightly differently which I imagine indicated his disapproval! 🙂 Amusing if a little uncomfortable…

Tarly suddenly decided she was too cold at that point and started to demand all sorts of attention, carrying and so on which as usual when Ady is around she was given! Sher perked up for a short while and then started again just before we reached the playground area, which ironically was what she had been making a fuss about wanting to do, but by then it was too late and she just wanted to go home.

She proceeded to reiterate this in a fairly noisy way for the next hour! Most of it was low level and I was insistant that having been talking about it for two days Davies would not have his time cut short by her making a scene so he had a play on most of the stuff and then Ros arrived. 🙂 Lovely to have a brief, catch what you could over Tarly’s wailing catch up with her and the children and also Loretta and Clint and children who were also there but it became apparant that we were coming to the end of our visit when Davies appeared in tears having been told to leave an area of the park by some idiot there with his daughter because I had told him he didn’t need to take his shoes off on the trampoline at this time of year FFS there was SNOW and FROST on the ground, he is only a little kid and he doesn’t bounce hard, the place was EMPTY anyway and who died and made him trampoline law enforcer?! For a change I was very restrained and managed not to let myself down by shouting or swearing – I was loud enough to attract the attention of all other parents there as I marched Davies back over to establish exactly what had happened and why on earth a grown man thought it OK to reduce a small child to tears and send him our of an area of the park. Given by his fairly shame faced responses and the fact I know that Davies is not a liar and is quite capable of taking a telling off from another adult on the chin if it is deserved (as I am sure anyone who had cause to try and stop the gang of boys running up and down the corridors at Okehampton roaring could confirm! Not once did he come in tears to me about that 🙂 ) I felt very Lioness protecting her cub about the whole episode!

Having spent the last four days playing with the real stuff playdoh they’d got for Christmas Ady has been wanting to buy some more of the trade name stuff and wanted to call into Argos on the way home as they have 24 tubs for a tenner which the children have Christmas money they could spend on. But when I put this to Davies he said that although he likes the readymade stuff he prefers the stuff we make cos he can choose the colours and the scent and also it is softer and squishier! So a tenner saved we came home and made ten different colours of geranium scented stuff, probably costing about 50p in total. 🙂

It actually sat on their tables infront of them pretty much untouched as it happens as they both got caught up in Stuart Little and then their tea and a bath, so that’s ready for playing with again next time. I don’t know, home made playdoh and the cardboard boxes from the presents seem to be more attractive than any mountain of plastic we’ve ‘invested’ money in for previous Christmasses! 🙂

Just had a chat with Davies about time difference around the world and how it is already tomorrow in Australia – we were talking about it being the start of a new year this weekend and he asked how that would work in Australia because it is summer there now and of course I’ve been telling him that it is winter at the beginning of the year, then spring, then summer, then autumn and the year ends with it being winter again! See, it does go in and get processed more than you think! 😉

Wondering about a virtual NYE chat for anyone home and online on NYE actually – just a brief one around 11.55pm, although I won’t promise too much myself incase I end up asleep or too drunk to type or something! 😉

I did have plans for all the things we were going to achieve for this week and thus far we seem to have achieved none, but we’ve done lots of lazing and just being together which is very probably far more important than working through the house room by room decluttering really! 🙂

Had a lovely evening last night. Scarlett went to sleep and was therefore blissfully unaware that we’d gone anywhere. Davies sadly was less thrilled at our departure and tried all his full repertoire of tricks to get us to stay from imagined tummy ache to full on begging and grabbing at my ankle :-(. He was fine by the time we actually left and thankfully it was my Dad who arrived to babysit and is far calmer in the face of a wobbly child than my mother who regresses to toddler mentality herself in such situations!

The pub we met Miranda and Harman in was less than half an hours drive away and a real traditional village-y style pub, infact just the sort of establishment I have often imagined myself stood behind the bar at serving regulars in cleavage revealing tops, but that’s a whole other blog post! So we sat and thawed infront of a real fire with a drink and waited for them to arrive. Food was lovely, I had venison, Ady had duck -all washed down with a very nice bottle of wine, excellent company and plenty of laughter. I do like being grown up for short periods of time ;-).

Predictably we talked ‘shop’ with Miranda as usual offering me exciting career opportunities I have no chance of taking all the time I am A Home Educator (and no, as exciting as the latest offer was I was not in the slightest bit tempted to consider it!), although this latest one is the most exciting in a while so I may well ponder further how practical elements of it would be to do around the children.

As the wine bottle rapidly emptied and some very elaborate desserts were brought out (mine was a profiterole with alcohol flavoured filling piled on a plate with icing sugar dustings, raspberry sauce drizzles, a massive cloud of spun sugar and a jug of hot chocolate sauce…) frivolity ruled and conversation turned to all sorts of weird and wonderful topics such as Miranda inviting me on a girls weekend away on a Mills & Boon novel writing course weekend with some of her posh friends and inevitably Home Education. What I adore about Miranda and Harman is that she is so very posh but slightly embarrassed by it which makes for huge piss taking opportunities and he is so very blunt and dry despite English being his second language (he is Dutch) that he and I can be on a completely different level of taking the piss out of her that she is still blissfully unaware! 🙂 Lovely, lovely people and so often misunderstood and pussy footed around that they find us refreshing company in that we utterly refuse to be sycophantic to them even when she was paying our wages. A very mutually satisfying relationship! Miranda also staggered me by presenting me with a beautifully wrapped birthday present way before I’ve given any thought to hers (her birthday is 4 days after mine and normally I am super organised and she is not – this year I got my birthday gift in about August!) and then despite the fact we had squirrelled away enough cash to pay for the whole meal over the last month Harman snuck away before we finished desserts and settled the bill – so a real treat too! 🙂

Today I had a yen to get out and about as the children who are very used to being out most days are starting to get boisterous and in need of physical exertion – it was not to be in the end though as Dad arrived mid morning to go logging with Ady as we have burned all our stocks (now nicely restocked again for a couple more weeks though) and ended up staying for lunch. When the post came it brought the first of the straggling Christmas cards from our friend Jean – ex of Bruce who visited last week and as I was hanging the card up with the rest my mobile rang and it was her! She arranged to come over this afternoon.

While Dad was here I took two phonecalls from various creditors, which is the first time either Dad or Ady has witnessed such calls. Ady and I had chatted a bit on the way to the pub last night about options and plans from here on in and so Dad was brought up to date with a few ‘if this happens then we’ll do this, if this happens then we’ll do that’ type discussions. I’ve always been of the opinion and belief that opportunities show themselves to you and it is up to you to take them – I think we are on the cusp of another such occassion just now although quite what it is is yet to be revealed.

Did some further lazing around, the children played with playdoh lots and Ady did some tidying. 🙂 We made some of the jigsaw puzzles the children had been bought for Christmas – the children did a Disney Princess one of Scarlett’s and then I sat and did a UK map one with all sorts of attractions and natural wonders type things highlighted. When I had nearly finished the children became interested and helped me finish it off and then we sat and looked at all the places and talked about all the ones we had visited and all the ones we’d like to visit. We plotted the locations of some of our friends dotted around the place and where certain things were in relation to other things. So plenty of geography covered there!

We also tried to make a start on Thank You cards but as the children both started asking who had brought certain favourite gifts and then answer was ‘Mummy and Daddy’ for most of them they ended up starting on cards for us first! But they did do some drawing, writing, painting and colouring. There was also a fair amount of playing with Davies’ collesseum and Tarly’s doll house and we had a game or three of Buckaroo and Kerplunk too.

Jean arrived, predictably late and laden down with pressies for the children (more games, Doctor Drill for Davies which is a sort of Operation style game with teeth to be removed with tweezers requiring a steady hand or you’ll set off a buzzer) and some sort of bashing with mallets game for Tarly which I’ve yet to look at but the children enjoyed fairly noisily! Lovely to see Jean actually, although Ady and Bruce have been friends for about 25 years Bruce and Jean got together about a year before me and Ady did so by the time I was introduced to Bruce they were already a couple. They are both 52 and have children my age and grandchildren older than D & S but Jean and I have always gotten on very well sharing a love of gettting drunk and being silly as we do! We were really sad when they split earlier this year and although Ady of course is supportive of Bruce I felt very sad at the prospect of not seeing Jean any more so I was thrilled when she made contact a couple of months ago and we’ve had a couple of phone chats.

Jean headed off just as the children were having tea, they both went to sleep fairly easily, we’ve enjoyed our first ‘proper home cooked’ dinner of the week and our first alcoholic drink we actually really wanted to drink rather than felt we should because it was Christmas (!) and watched Lost which I realised I am going to feel quite bereft without when it ends soon.

Tomorrow the plan is to head over to Drusillas – snow and ice making driving a foolish idea allowing. So wrapping up warm and heading out for some fresh air and perfectly acceptable running around yelling because it’s outside rather than off the walls of our rather small abode is on the agenda.

Right, this was supposed to be the brief ten minute blog after Lost, before going to bed and it’s become fairly epic, so I’ll bid you all good night while it still is night and not morning.

Everyone feels better here today – thankfully! Not the case over at my parents apparantly where Frazer is suffering, so glad we didn’t go over there today!

Infact with the exception of me braving Tescos for some essential bits and pieces (stuff like Christmas cake which we’d not bought any of, some alcohol and so on 😉 ) we’ve stayed in all day. The children have not got out of their pjs – infact I’m about to change them into clean ones so they can go to bed, they have played really nicely together today, explored pretty much all their new toys, played loads with playdough, done some crafty bits, been on the pc a fair bit, done loads and loads of role play stuff and are currently acting out Willy Wonka while watching it – brought back all sorts of happy Okehampton memories watching them do the Oompa Lumpa dances 😉

Me and Ady have sat infront of the fire, chatted, watched River Cottage loads (it was an all day River Cottage day on one of the sky channels) and pondered different life situations lots, I’ve played online marble solitaire and finished uploading all the photos I had stored on cds to flickr and into sets.

Tonight me and Ady are off out for a meal with Miranda and her husband who are down staying with her parents for Christmas. Really looking forward to seeing her and it will be nice to be doing something grown up for a couple of hours too. Sadly the children were really rather traumatised by my Mum’s dramatic performances last week when she babysat for us so we’ve not told Tarly and I need to get her to sleep before my parents arrive, Davies has been bribed with watching a dvd in bed – something I never normally allow! I’m not even sure which of my parents will come as Mum was saying one of them would have to stay home to ‘look after Frazer’ so hopefully it will be calm here and not hysterical children as we leave!

I’m sort of aware that I have not mentioned anything very educational on this Home Education blog for a while – and when you’ve got as many blogs as I have you do need to make efforts to mention something pertaining to the subject matter of each! Education has, as always been happening around us but the time of year dictates it is focused on what’s going on really and so some of the lessons have been more about being grateful, gracious, polite and behaviour modification rather than the three Rs. Into which you are welcome to read that the children have possibly not been at their best and I have been doing rather more sighing and eye rolling than usual – but I am more than prepared to make lots of allowances and fully expect them to shake down again once all the festive madness has abated!

I did think about doing some New Years stuff but the winds of change are blowing a gale around here and there is still alot more discussion, debate and outside influences to be taken into consideration than simply blogging what 10 things I’m going to change in 2006! I am planning a round up of this year, but I’ll wait until the weekend. Early January is always an odd time for me as once my birthday is gone that is all the years celebrations finished in a fortnight, I am left a literal year older with a whole new year spread out before me like a clean page to start writing on and this year more than any before it has all come at the same time. But for now, as ever, when I do the health, wealth and happiness tick boxes I am happy to report that both the two which really matter are ticked and that is all that really counts.

Not sure if it is Christmas come-down kicked in already, a less severe bout of what laid Ady low yesterday (he’s much better today if a little delicate) or just a case of too much sleep but I’m sat on the sofa in pjs, listening to my new Will Young cd, looking at everyone’s flickr snaps (come on those who have not yet done so!) and feeling quite sorry for myself.

I went to bed at an unprecedented 8pm last night, fell asleep instantly and stayed that way until Ady woke me at 7.30, he’d been up since about 5.30 with Tarly so he crawled back into bed until about 11, most sleep we’ve had in years! 🙂

Me and the children further investigated their presents including playdough, paints decorate your own money box kits. I then had a bath enjoying the peace and reading my Heat magazine with relish! 😉 Then we headed over to my parents.

I was not really in the mood for it, the children were fairly unruly and really just wanted to come home and play with their new toys, Ady sat and watched football with Dad and Frazer, Mum was huffily doing something to the turkey remains so I sat there bored and cold (my parents house is freezing) so we came home again around 3pm. The children have played more with playdough and we’ve sat chatting and speculating on what other people’s Christmasses would have been like and maybe wishing we’d been there!

We’re both planning some big hopes and dreams for what next year might bring – change being the key feature of all of them I think. 🙂

Happy Birthday to Tiegan.

Hope your day is filled with love and laughter in the tinsel 🙂

We’re home again. Ady started feeling unwell this morning and was being ill by the time we arrived at my parents. He did manage a very small Christmas dinner but was looking pretty crap and feeling worse so it seemed a bit crazy to stay there the night on a very ‘make do’ sleeping situation when we only live a mile away and the reason for staying there was so we could both have a few drinks, if he was not drinking anyway.

That aside, we’ve had a lovely day. The children were up at about 6am – well Tarly was up before 5 actually with her first of three tantrums of the day – she’s doing a lot of asserting herself lately that child! But we refused to start Christmas officially until Davies woke at 6 when I got up too.

Their faces were pictures at all the presents under the tree, they spent ages unwrapping and oohing and ahhing, then me and Ady spent ages unpacking, making and inserting batteries so they could play. Hits include for Tarly a Tarly size dolled, predictably christened ‘Scarlett’ and currently sporting the dress she wore herself for Christmas 2003, an ELC soft stuff jewelry kit and a wooden circus, for Davies a roman colleseum complete with Romas aplenty, a soft stuff construction vehicle kit and a matchbox haunted house thingy. We also got Tarly an Ikea dolls house way back earlier in the year when they were reduced to 7 quid and that has been popular with them both.

We headed over to my parents around midday where the children had a couple more presents each including a remote control car paid for by Frazer, chosen by me and actually purchased by Ady which has been by far Davies’ favourite gift of the day.

Mum did a lovely Christmas dinner, albeit with plenty of drama and sighing, we ate that, had a few rounds of Kerplunk – another popular gift, and have headed back for home. I *think* Tarly is asleep now, Davies is very close to it, I fully anticipate finding Ady crashed out on the sofa and I am already in my pjs. I think it will be a very early night all round!

Had a very Christmas Eve-y Christmas Eve so far today and it’s been lovely 🙂

We spent most of the day at Chris and Julies while the four children ran around in the state of excitement that only four small children on Christmas Eve can achieve. Julie and I drank mulled wine and there were mince pies made (and not even by me! She trumped me by using home made mincemeat – something I will try myself next year, but I won as she used readymade supermarket pastry!), we listened to Christmas music and sang along, we reminisced about our earliest and our best Christmas memories from childhood – which is strange to be doing with a pair of brothers who had never heard, nor featured in each others, so a little poignant there. We left there around 3pm, drove home and managed to see 3 sets of neighbours outside to wish Merry Christmas . I wrapped the last of the presents and then the children wrote in my parents card.

We all had baths (I shared mine with both children), the children opened their traditional Christmas Eve gifts of festive pjs, which predictably Tarly flatly refused to wear ;-), we left out mince pie, carrot and red wine (run out of brandy!) for Father Christmas and Rudolph, Tarly is asleep already, Davies is very close and Ady is off to collect my parents in a minute for our traditional Christmas Eve evening of indian takeaway and lots of drink at our house. We’ll be putting all the presents round the tree, sprinkling flour to make footprints from the fireplace and hopefully making it to bed with at least four or five hours before the children are awake again!

We’re off to my parents for the whole day and night tomorrow, so I’ll be back online again on Boxing Day.

And as I did make it back again before the event I will take the opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas one and all once more 🙂

Happy Birthday to Joseph from Classroom Free – hope you have had a lovely day 🙂