One word? When seven would do…

For two reasons really – the first is that having enjoyed beautiful weather up north all weekend as soon as we hit south of London on the M25 we entered the grey drizzle zone – odd, thought the north was supposed to have the crap weather!

The second reason is that my lovely husband bought me home this as a surprise pressie on Friday. So I have spent all weekend reliving being about 8 years old, gazing up at my life size Shaky poster on my bedroom wall and singing Green Door into my hairbrush – bliss 🙂 Sadly the long on the blink cd player in the car died yesterday so we also had to buy on of these to facilitate continued listening to it! Kids now in love with Shaky too 🙂

So, a catch up on the last couple of days then; Friday was a good one. TT1 in the morning which was OK. Next week is the start of the split age groups and I am inclined to give it a fair go but unless there is something a bit more engaging for D & S I will probably not bother paying for the next block of sessions. Particularly as Scarlett is now quite happily doing TT2 as well which gives us an hour between the two classes which is not long enough to go home for and as we need to eat lunch during it will probably involve me either buying them lunch out every week or packing sandwiches to be eaten in the car so it’s a bit of a kerfuffle unless it is really worth it. Mum met us when TT1 finished and we went into town for lunch and she bought the kids a being poorly pressie each for them having CP while they were away – slightly redeemed herself there then 🙂 Davies got a Robot toy to go with the one he got when he didn’t see the film the other day and Tarly got two (BOGOF offer) My Little Ponies. She has got a couple of dinky ones from when McDs were doing Happy Meal toys of them and loves them so now she has two full size ones which she is carting around, brushing their hair and generally loving.

Mum stayed with Davies while Tarly and I did TT2 – which she again did really well at and seemed to really enjoy. She is very agile – loads more so than Davies and now she has got her head round the whole structured taking it in turns issues is doing well at it all. She was practically lapping some of the other littlies her climbing and clambering was so speedy. Once again really nice to be just her and I for a while with her getting loads of praise and attention lavished on her – so a positive all round for TT2 🙂 She was not to be bribed with the sticker (as I predicted) but I did persuade her to go up and get it for me instead so I proudly wore it for the rest of the day! Davies, as ever loved it and was commended again on being good, polite and ‘having the memory of an elephant’ for some fact he had recounted from about two months ago in terms of where the equipment was!

The journey up north was erm, interesting… I had looked up a route finder and jotted down key bits of info from it on the basis that having lived up there and been to Miranda’s house several times when we got close we would sort of find our own way in – WRONG! 🙂 About an hour and a half and 30 odd extra miles later we arrived! We still managed to have the kids asleep, an alcoholic beverage inside us and be in bed ourselves just after midnight though so it was not too bad!

Saturday – we had breakfast and dashed off to The Trafford Centre for an hour which was a real memory lane type trip. Davies remembered everything (which I suppose he would having been there at least once a week for most of his life up until a year ago), then we headed off to Lynda’s for lunch. We had a great time there with the kids running around the garden and playing with the lego remnants left behind by her two sons. Then their oldest son and his wife to be (wedding next weekend) arrived so we got to meet them for the first time too which was lovely having both heard lots about each other.

Then back to Miranda’s for a huge trekking walk (pics below) which was mad! Four adults, three children, two dogs, lots of unsuitable footwear, mud up to your knees and gates which were tied shut necessitating lifting dogs and children over fences 🙂 Great fun though! Kids were all totally worn out by that so after food and a hosing down in a bath all three of them were asleep by 8am leaving us to enjoy dinner, wine and lots of chats. We inevitably talked HE to death – with Miranda being one of the most horrified people I ever mentioned HE to in the beginning slowly becoming someone who is actually quite convinced by the whole thing now. She is the polar opposite in terms of being a product of one of the most expensive boarding schools in this country and sending her daughter – albeit not as a boarder – to an equally *good* private school to being quite sold on the idea of autonomy, learning through life and being allowed to ask questions and then go and find out the answers to them. Gradually over the last year all of her horrors at the very idea have given way to a curiosity and last night a full acceptance of the benefits. She even said (after quite a lot of wine I admit!) that she almost wishes she had the patience and parenting skills to consider it as an option for Francesca!!!

One of the very positive things about telling people about HE at the moment is that Davies can be a very good advertisement for it in action. A typical child of his age would be ‘in the system’ by now and when he wants to be Davies is very capable of demonstrating lots of intelligence, articulacy and general knowledge which impresses adults who are expecting something very different. He did the same this weekend and on the walk yesterday he took Miranda’s hand and walked with her for a lot of the way talking to her about the sheep and lambs, the grass and scenery and general chit chat. I find Davies very good company when he is on top form and she did too. I was very proud of him and prouder still last night when she was singing his praises and commenting on what a confident, very comfortable in talking to anyone, composed child he is and I was able to attribute that to HE, to giving him time to reach this stage instead of continuing to force a seperation he clearly was not ready for and in continuing to nurture his love of learning and quest for knowledge – something which even she can see her 7 year old beginning to lose through being at school and having to learn certain things at certain specified times. I have a HE glow to me today 🙂

Funnily enough both Stuart (Lynda’s husband) and Harmen (Miranda’s husband) were both very interested and intrigued by the idea of HE. I have (and this is a generalisation but a definite pattern) found that men tend to be far more accepting of it as a concept, with several stating that it would probably have suited them better as children themselves and able to see all the percieved benefits and less concerned about the usual worries of HE (socialisation, blah blah blah!) Not sure if this is because women can feel somewhat defensive about not doing it for their children (if they have them) or whether perhaps HE is an even better option for boys (are girls more sociable, do they get more out of the school mentality than boys? Hmm interesting that one) but certainly something I have noticed the last couple of weeks having spoken about HE both in practise in our family and in theory as something happening nationwide with three different couples of varying ages.

Today has been equally manic. Breakfast with Miranda and co, then dashed off to Lynda and Stuarts (via Halfords!) for lunch, left there a full hour and a half later than the very latest we had planned to be away by but somehow managed to keep the kids awake all the way home by feeding them lollies and fruit polos (which sugar high tactic backfired and had them both still awake at 9pm 🙂 ) and singing and dancing along to the Tumbletots Actions songs cd (D’you know if I hear about Peter Rabbit and the fly on his bloody nose again for at least a month I may well go mad!) in the car all the way home. Stuart had got out a tent and he and Davies put that up in their garden which Davies loved doing, I taught the kids how to make daisy chains and Scarlett ran around with a bucket trying to catch bumble bees and ladybirds!

We got home early enough to shove roast beef in the oven, have had a bath and watched Dr Who on video and am about to fall into bed after a quick whizz round the blog ring (who am I kidding, I’ll still be sat here at gone midnight 😉 ) Tomorrow I am planning to do the HE day in pics, but for now there are a few taken this weekend posted below.

I signed up for the word of the day email on www.dictionary.com yesterday and today’s word is enervate – which is pretty much how I feel, drained and feeble 🙂 So that was handy!

My back is better still today but not totally normal. Scarlett slept through again last night which somehow serves to make me feel more tired than if she hadn’t…not at all sure how that one works out other than I feel like I have spent a night not properly asleep just waiting for her to wake, whereas if she wakes then goes back to sleep I seem to relax into a better sleep – that all sounds total crap but I think I know what I mean!

Ady has been leaving home by 7am and kids have been waking up with him at 6ish which means when he leaves I have to get up – I don’t like any time before about 8.30am really so I come and sit grumpily on the sofa with my laptop and drip feed myself tea until I feel ready to start the day. Which seems to mean that although we have been up for three hours it is never before 10am that we get dressed!

Scarlett did a wee on her potty this morning, which I think was a first, so hurrah for that 🙂

Yesterday I had a fit about the kids still having morning and evening milk from baby bottles and made them choose new cups from Tescos – which has meant they have both drunk a small amount last night and this morning to the soundtrack of them complaining and me reasoning that they are not babies anymore. I’m torn between being totally unworried about it not mattering anyway and being more important that they are still both drinking a pint of milk a day or deciding that the time has come for them to stop drinking out of bottles and the milk not being drunk anymore if a natural side effect and not mattering. Hmmm, think I might go back to bottles again tonight…

We’ve been to soft play today which is always successful, I get to sit and chat to Julie while the kids wear themselves out running round with their cousins and ticking off PE, socialising and families boxes 🙂 Today Davies and Scarlett made friends with another brother and sister who were there (girl about D’s age, boy a couple of years older) and were running round together and going down the big slide all holding hands – very cute 🙂 After lunch in the cafe we went back in for a last play and we ended up having a ball fight with the kids which ended in a tickle fight and was good fun (although probably not great for my back!). I quite like soft play places when there are not many children there 🙂

The kids are currently doing magic painting which always keeps them quiet with minimum mess to be cleared up afterwards. Feels like we have not done anything remotely educational this week and next week is already full with socialising every day, definitely focusing on the mixing and mingling and networking skills instead of the three rs at the moment 🙂

Need to pack tonight ready for the weekend away up north. It’s always nice to see Miranda, and we will be seeing Lynda too which the kids are looking forward to, but I just know it will be a manic weekend with too much packed into it, bad nights with the kids in strange beds and the long car journey at either end. This might be my last blog ’til next week, so have a good weekend all.

Apathy about various things here currently. The election, blogging, you get the picture. It’s not that I don’t care, more that there is always something else going on at the time to take attention away from it all!

Anyway, back to the point. Yesterday Frazer stayed with us for a while after the rescue operation with the spare key which was nice. He is *so* good with the kids – they adore him and he has endless patience and time for them. So they clambered all over him demanding books, attention and so on for a couple of hours. Which put paid to any plans I had for the rest of the day but was nice just the same. Before their tea Davies and I spent about an hour on educationcity doing all the science stuff for reception and year 1. He amazed me in consistently getting 100% on everything – stuff we have never particularly focused on such as light sources, plants, bits of the human body, life cycles for frogs, which animals would be the parent of which young and so on. He really enjoyed it too – I am still torn about educationcity really – they have extended my trial and I know I can fudge their security with a variety of email addresses and postcodes so I am inclined not to bother subscribing as it is pricey and I sort of feel that once he has exhausted the games he won’t bother with it again. Might see next year when Tarly is of an age to get use from it too.

We used it again for an hour or so tonight and he has now finished all the science bits, is very able on the maths and english for reception (which is what he would be) but less so on the maths and english for year one. He seems to be content to sit for hours soaking up ‘facts’ and general knowledge type stuff but when he actually needs to think instead of regurgitate nuggets of information he gets all fidgety and is not so sure he can do it so seems to rather not risk trying. Need to find a way to make numbers and letters fact instead of formulas for him – maybe it’s time to ease off the phonics and blending and go more with the recognising actual words; similarly perhaps parrot fashion type numbers would work well for him – maybe I should add some Merry style timestables around the walls 🙂

So today we had WAG local group again. We have been the nomadic home ed group of the south coast, wandering from location to location always in search of our one true home, desperate to put our camels out to pasture so to speak 🙂 Although I remain cautious and do not want to count chickens, put eggs in a singular woven carrier or similar I think we may just have found a home! The place is an arts centre attached to the local youth group premises – local council run and connexions attached etc. It is a detached building with a largish hall with a stage at one end, a small kitchen area and a couple of toilets, it has a lawned area outside which is enclosed so safe for the littlies and suitable for ball games and so on. Today was a bit mad as we were not there prior to start time to get anything set up so there was an element of kids running wild, but as of next week I can arrive first, will have my own key and can get the place set up. Several of the adults were very enthused by the space and were coming up with some great ideas which makes me feel very positive – and takes the pressure off a little too 🙂 Now we’ve found the right venue I can start to market it a bit and build up some regular attendees.

And that’s it really. My back is better today that it was yesterday but still quite twingey – I was supposed to be going to Portsmouth for a home ed meet up tomorrow but have cancelled as it would be a two hour round trip in the car and I don’t think that is wise (although the five hour trip up north on Friday night and then same trip home again on Sunday is probably not such a cunning plan either!) so Julie and I are going to soft play instead with the understanding that she has to rescue any trapped children at the top of the slide as I won’t be capable 🙂

Ooh and the last thing – I’ve started reading that book Joyce blogged about – My Sister’s Keeper. I only opened it tonight but I’m already hooked. It’s very powerful and throws open the gates for all sorts of thinking. Still not sure where I am going to end up sympathising really – if I find a side to fall down on. Think it might be one of those haunting reads that stay with you a while.

cos the alternative option would involve some sort of criminal conviction for child abuse 🙂 And probably do even less for the public image of HE than an article in The Observer with children in their pjs playing X box instead of lapbooks on the life cycle of a frog 🙂

I have a bad back today. I am hoping it is a combined effects of the last week’s activities (carting a child round Legoland, sleeping in a bunk bed, throwing up in an energetic manner, walking miles along pebbly beaches, carting a different child round a nursery for a horticultural open day, and sleeping in an odd position in bed last night for a record 8 hours unbroken sleep 🙂 ) type ailment as opposed to anything more sinister or medical attention requiring. Anyway, we went to the library this morning to return some books, borrow some more, a quick peep in the bookshop resulting in a couple of Dr Seuss style work book type publications. Upon our return I was really stiff having struggled to drive, do my seatbelt and particularly reverse the car back into the drive. I managed to drop the car/house keys as I was getting Davies out of the car. I asked him to pick them up for me and he ran up to the front door with them.

As I was getting Scarlett and the books out of the car I heard him fiddling with the letterbox and the thought went through my mind before being dismissed as him not being *that* silly.

WRONG!!!

I would say several facts aided his current state of still being alive, they were:

I had my mobile phone with me,
my brother happened to be at home,
his home is a mere five minute drive away from our home,
there is a spare key to our house at his home,
he brought it straight round,
the sun was shining,
my back would have made physical violence slightly ineffective as I was incapable of chasing him, pinning him down or swinging my arm back before walloping him with it,

oh and of course I don’t agree with corporal punishment anyway 🙂

This morning was a very blustery day – just the sort for a hunny based adventure involving riding around in upturned umbrellas, hanging off helium balloons and other such Hundred Acre wood type jaunts. Good for drying washing too 🙂 I had planned a lot of not much for today, but felt the need to get out the house so loaded the kids into the car and went into town.

For once, Worthing town centre was quite pleasant to be in – the sun was shining, the sea was an attractive shade of bluey green as opposed to grey and there appeared to be rather fewer teen mothers pushing their tantrumming toddlers round New Look while puffing cigarettes smoke into their faces.

We did a quick circuit of The Works (got the two books Jax posted about, both of which I had previously looked at when Ady was with me, and a Learning Fundamentals folder book and a couple of dot to dot books for Davies and some finger crayons for Scarlett.), MVC for some Dr Seuss dvds – it has continued to be a popular theme here for a while so I thought I’d check the price of the Mike Myers Cat in the Hat film and found a double box dvd pack with several of the books cartoons on it – have just watched them both and they have proved very popular here, so that was a good investment.

Scarlett is being really really two today. She had a bad night so is very tired and cross, everything is annoying her, Davies is making it worse by deliberately winding her up. I think I might be glad when their bedtime arrives today!

What else? Had a nice day yesterday although Scarlett was quite testing then too. I went off to do the food shopping in the morning and then we went to Chris and Julie’s in the afternoon. Scarlett is taking a while to totally recover from the cp and is still being nagged a lot not to pick the scabs which in turn makes her grumpy, her sleeping has been appauling since she was poorly so she is perpetually tired by lunchtime which is then too late for her to sleep, then she goes to bed really early and is awake again for most of the middle of the night. Sigh!

Tomorrow we have nothing specific planned although I have at least two people I should ring to arrange meet ups with which I might try and achieve later. I got an email from educationcity to say they were going to cut off my trial as I had not subscribed unless I had not had a chance to trial it properly in which case I could extend it by a further 5 days – so I have 🙂 Might see if I can engage Davies on that for a while tomorrow and try and have some one to one with Scarlett on something like puzzles or books to try and calm it all back down again.

Right, off to tidy up a bit rather than yell at the kids for distracting me while I try to blog…

I was going to blog about how I made a complete show of myself by getting wildly drunk on an empty stomach last night only to eat a takeaway and redecorate the bathroom with it again very quickly afterwards. I was also going to mention how I then proceeded to repeat the performance in the bed, which I was sharing with Scarlett. But I think I will leave further more graphic descriptions of that and suffice to say my face was red, my head was pounding and my poor husband spent the best part of an hour with disinfectant and was at the local launderette first thing this morning with a load of bedding 🙁

That aside – and I have done all the appropriate apologising and thanking to relevant parties most of today, we had a lovely time! Scarlett was asleep by the time we arrived there last night, Davies stayed up long enough to thoroughly charm Rob and Penny and then went straight to sleep when I took him to bed. We had a lovely evening catching up, chatting about HE, talking about Rob’s job and generally having a nice mix of sensible interesting conversations combined with utter drunken silliness – the sort of atmosphere one could get drunk in very easily without realising quite how much you were putting away!

After the wobbly start to the morning I girded my loins (or whatever the relevant phrase would be), managed to keep my second cup of tea down (the first didn’t quite manage to!) and we set off for a walk along the beach, some playing in the one tiny patch of sand we found, some typical bloke behaviour of stone skimming competitions, enjoying being with the children and exercising those calf and thigh muscles by walking a long long way on very pebbly beach 🙂 We had a lovely lunch during which the children behaved impecably and then we went on a speed boat for a harbour tour involving peering at all the huge places round the marina with private moorings for their boats which cost three times what our house is worth, appealing lifestyle that, albeit a materialistic and possibly quite shallow one 😉

We then walked back through the development to their apartment, had some tea and lazed around chatting for a bit before getting Scarlett into her pyjamas so she could fall asleep on the way home and coming home. Penny – who has two sons slightly younger than me and a granddaughter about Scarlett’s age was really impressed and taken with Davies. She could not believe how articulate and confident he was. He was talking to Rob and Penny about all sorts of things and as usual really shone in adult company. I was very proud of both the kids today, but particularly Davies – he was a credit to us 🙂 (just as well considering how much I had let us all down!)

Anyway, Davies took *forever* to get to sleep, I even let him come downstairs and watch a bit of Dr Who which was an error as he went back up to bed and promptly declared himself scared that aliens would come and would not go to sleep unless I stayed in the room – oops! Scarlett woke at about 10pm after nearly 5 hours sleep and I am currently sat on her bedroom floor trying to persuade her back to sleep – about to swap with Ady and go to bed for a couple of hours while he sits on her bedroom floor before swapping back again if she’s still not asleep! Feel quite delicate still but I’m sure I’ll feel fine in the morning!

Tomorrow we have a lazy morning planned trying to tidy up the playroom has been mentioned as a possibility and then we are over to Chris and Julie’s in the afternoon. I think next week is fairly quiet at the beginning – which seems to be working well for us so I might plan some sort of edcuational activity along the lines of last week’s solar system art – quite like the idea of a lapbook, but as Davies’ only suggestion has been ‘The Incredibles’ which does not hugely inspire me and will therefore probably not inspire him if I can’t come up with good ideas on what to do I probably need to come up with a few choices and let him decide from some I have already got some ideas for.