One word? When seven would do…

Kids played with Lego all morning (which justified spending that 15 quid in the shop on our way out to me anyway!), had lunch with the last two slices of bread in the house and were hustled out to get to TT2 with a few minutes to spare.

Davies sat and played with his LeapPad while I took Scarlett in. She did amazingly well actually – she is very physically able, much more so than Davies which coupled with having no fear makes TT a little tame for her really :-), but she enjoyed it, coped fairly well with the structure and turn taking. It was only when the lady who runs it commented on how much I had seemed to be enjoying it too that I realised it had been really nice to spend a whole hour totally focused on Scarlett actually. 🙂 She started to wobble a bit towards the very end when they are supposed to rejoin a big circle and sit down, sing Happy Birthday to anyone who’s having a birthday that week and finally get a well done sticker each. She really was not up for it and I decided to leave it while she was happy instead of wrecking it all for the last five minutes. Julie (lady who runs it) said that perhaps I should have stuck it out as the sticker would have really made it for her but frankly knowing Scarlett she couldn’t actually care less about some as obviously bribing as a sticker 😉 Anyway I signed her up for a term and she is pretty up for it having talked to her about it a couple of times on the way home. Davies did really well with his lavishing praise of a big brother on her too which helped!

Davies then ran around yelling being the ring leader of his group as they waited to go in and was then the first child through the doors yelling ‘hooray, it’s time to go in!!!’ when they opened them. Wow! What a difference this has made. Whether it was simply the right time for him to do something like that, whether I can credit TT2 with the change in him or maybe it’s just a combination of the two. Whatever it thrills me to see him so at home and comfortable in a situation that he ran crying from the first time we tried it.

We’re staying out tonight – one of Ady’s oldest friends (they shared digs together about 22 years ago (when I was 8 or 9 as I shall be reminding them again tonight 😉 ) is staying in Eastbourne for a week with his girlfriend – who we have not met before. It is some sort of company flat / perk of her job and looking at the website of the marina development where it is it looks quite posh so we are all going. We last saw Rob when he came down from Liverpool where he was living at the time and stayed with us for a few days so he could come to our wedding reception. Shortly afterwards he changed life direction completely, left his job which was well paid but he hated to take a poorly paid job he felt passionate about, moved to Northants and started living with Penny. We meanwhile have had two children so I’m guessing we will have plenty of catching up to do. Rob is very ‘deep’, has spent a lot of time travelling and is a real considered thinker. He was in awe of us for even having children in the first place (in a genuine, well I’ve considered it and decided it’s too big a deal for me to do type of way) and when Ady mentioned recently about HE he was fascinated and really interested in the idea, so I imagine that will be on the conversation list too 🙂 Better brush up on my Free Range Ed handbook and Ed Phil eh!

Once upon a time
I thought I’d write a rhyme
A rhyme about some children
And those children, they are mine

I want to do it this way
To prove it can be done
A rhyme with heartfelt sentiment
and an added bit of fun

I read a poem recently
about how children make you feel
about what they mean to you
emotions that are real

You go through many stages
as your children change and grow
looking back it happens really fast
though at the time it seemed so slow

A blue line on a testing stick
was how it became true for me
a few weeks later a hospital scan
a grainy image I could barely see

My stomach grew, my ankles swelled
I had heartburn, urine infection trouble
My back ached, I couldn’t sleep
my walk became a waddle

The birth was fine, I expected pain
then thrust into my arms
a wailing bundle, bright blue eyes
grasping fingers were his charms

I spent six weeks in a mindless haze
return to normality was my ambition
a further six weeks passed me by
‘normal’ changed it’s definition

Those early days remain a blur
sleep was not a feature
crying, feeding, changing, winding
this helpless, tiny creature

Just as I reached breaking point
I could not do this any more
he looked into my eyes and smiled at me
I knew what it was all for

As one year passed I turned around
and wondered where all my time had gone
His first word came ‘Hello’ he said
I knew I’d spent time on my son

At 18 months he began to walk
Another blue line came on a test
I wondered how I’d love another
when I already had the best

Nine months on and once again
I held a newborn at my breast
I loved her as much as I did my son
I’d passed that scary test

When she was 18 months old or so
and began to throw tantrums too
she looked me one day and said
‘Mummy, I love you’

They test me every single day
they push me further towards the brink
then one single simple little act
make me stop and smile and think

A daisy from the garden picked for me
a big wet kiss, a squeezy hug
crayon on the wallpaper, handprints on the TV
shampoo and powder on my rug

A picture of Mummy with mad orange hair
glitter on the carpet all the time
are we there yet? from the back of the car
A small hand clutching mine

Do children give you wings then?
Well I have to say probably not
but then why have kids just to get wings
when wings come with caffinated pop

Children bring a lot of things,
laughter, noise and mess
love and tears and worry
great joy and great distress

children have brought my life extremes
but of this I have no doubt
all things considered and weighed up
I’d rather not be without

Oh, it’s been a long day!

Started with being fully dressed with coats and shoes on, picnic and three changes of clothing for each child packed and car loaded with all available seats all before 9am. Jenny and crew arrived and off we set.

Don’t like driving the car fulled loaded, it does not have much poke at the best of times so with 7 people it was quite painful trying to build up enough speed to overtake anyone on the motorways. Was also conscious of wiping out two families in one go with a wrong move which never helps to ease and relax one’s driving 🙂 Scarlett had a short lived tantrum about the fact a relative stranger was sat in between her and Davies and promptly fell asleep, Davies had a look of pure joy when he realised said relative stranger was now all his and got her to read every single book in the car to him 🙂 (thanks Emma!)

Midway there Jenny took a call on my phone to say there was some hitch with the tickets and they were not letting people in until the whole group of 51 had arrived. I nearly turned the car round and came home and sent the kids to school – the second time in 24 hours I would have been responsible for people standing around as a result of something I had thought I had organised. I then fumed all the way there about how the total of my booking was nearly £400 and if they wanted to get awkward about me bringing them that sort of business then I would speak to the manager about it. We arrived and I rang Alison to find they had got in just fine, as did we so I had no need to vent to anyone in the end!

Ellen – from our local group rang Jenny to say she had just arrived with her brood so Jenny stayed to wait for her and me and the kids went on ahead to catch up The Portico and Layla. At any one point there seemed to be at least three children not wanting to go in the same direction as the rest of the group (two of these were mine most of the time) and by the time we caught up with June who I was looking forward to meeting for the first time having known her ‘virtually’ for about 4 years both of my two were in tears, straining in opposite directions and refusing to budge. So much for putting my aura of controlled, calm, able mother across eh!? We managed little more than a grimace of general understanding above the wailing, Scarlett who usually loves babies was not even interested in the gorgeous Calixa and on we went.

In the meantime Scarlett had fallen over (I think that was fall over # 2 in a days total of 7) and was crying about that – I asked her if she needed to go to hospital (yes I am that mother who uses sarcasm on her children which is way over and above their heads or understanding but serves to make me feel better!) and that became her chant for the next ten minutes ‘I wannn go ‘ospikal’. Davies refused to go on the driving school with Ernest and C so eventually when the joint wailing and fighting over a packet of Monster Munch became too much to inflict on any one any longer we went off to the boats. Deciding that we were probably better on our own for a bit as I would not get a chance to talk to grown ups and the ages mixes were such that either we would be stood waiting for other children, or they would be stood waiting for us we wandered round for a bit just the three of us. We went on a few rides, watched the excellent show, bought some lego keyrings, ate some popcorn and drank hot chocolate and then I managed to lose both children 🙂

You know I often fantasise about it (and had infact threatened them both earlier that morning with being broken down for parts and sold on ebay) but when you are standing, childless and trying to impart just the right level of ‘get here now if you can hear me you little buggers’ into your tone as you call for them without falling into complete ‘oh my God my babies have been kidnapped from under my very nose and even now have been smuggled out of Legoland wearing disguises and are halfway to a Pedophile hideout in a car boot’ hysteria. I had written my mobile phone number on Davies’ arm in ink earlier with instructions to find a Legoland employee, tell them his name and show them his arm if he got mislaid, but to lose both of them, and not even be sure they were still together (although assuming that worse case scenario they would be worth more as a matching pair!!!) I was a woman on the brink!! I fought through the bloody rope ladders and pull yourself up by a string climbing bits, bashing small children in the head with my loaded up picnic containing bag as I went and finally spotted Davies. I yelled at him to stay where he was and then spotted Tarly somewhere else. I gathered them both together and under the evil stares of all the parents who had seen me shouting for my lost children and now realised just how small and helpless they must have been slunk away to a safe spot to give them tearful cuddles. Neither had realised they were lost (a relief I suppose!) but taking no chances I whizzed them back to where Alison, Chris and Layla were and leaving Tarly in Layla’s capable hands took Davies on the water wheel thing.

I then sat with Chris for a bit while Davies, Ernest and Scarlett did some pre school bonding (which always involves running round, yelling and chasing any available wildlife – in this case pigeons!) which was nice 🙂 Then we left them to watch the show and went back to meet up with Jenny and crew for the homeward journey.

Have to mention to anyone who has not seen her lately how AMAZING Layla is looking – lost loads of weight. Felt very unhealthy next to such low carb detoxing folk such as her and The Portico 😉

The drive home was fine – Emma did amazing work keeping Scarlett awake all the way home (thanks again!), Ady had for once gotten home at a decent time and was waiting having tidied up and got some dinner on for the kids (which they didn’t touch but you can bet if it hadn’t been there they would have wanted it!).

It was a good day really – in retrospect I should have either brought along another adult, left a child behind or at least brought the pushchair as I did spend quite a lot of the day carrying Tarly. The losing the kids bit was a hairy five minutes but meeting up with bloggers, however briefly is always lovely.

May try and do another one either just before school summer holidays or just after Autumn term starts – would probably get Ady to come and stay in Windsor and do something else on the second day too – any suggestions local folk?

The other thing which occured to me yesterday was that having been envious of the amount of MPs in Sheffield we are starting to build up quite crew here in Sussex actually – there is me, Jenny, Ros, Ali from the blogring, and Lisa from MP too – which is reassuring and a nice little community to be a part of 🙂

I know, I know, but the other two were therapy, this one is a genuine blog of the day’s events 🙂

This morning didn’t really get going ’til about 10am – not sure why really. Dad appeared at 11 ish, he’d been rained off work so he came and had lunch with us, sat with the kids while I went round the shop for more bread and was generally a very good Grandad 🙂 When we left to go to ill fated HE group he left too and as we waved him off Scarlett said ‘ I love Grandad’, I replied ‘I love Grandad too’ swiftly followed by Davies saying ‘And I love Grandad three’ which made us all laugh a lot 🙂

HE group we will skirt over as I’ve already said my piece on that. Sadly I then sat hugely depressed about it and decided to check on line to see whether any decision had been made about our planning permission appeal to extend the house. It had and it was not good 🙁 It’s been refused again which means its a total no. Or even if it isn’t it is time to call it a day as far as we’re concerned 🙁

I sat with the kids feeling very glad I had watched Supernanny last night. I don’t always watch it unless it capture me in a positive way (infact Ady and I had a discussion about it last night as to whether it is a purely gratuitous show or if it has actual merit). Last night’s episode had me feeling real empathy for the mother. She loved her kids, but she felt spiralled out of control and ended up acting on their level instead of remaining the grown up. I have never dragged my child down the stairs by their ankles (and not sure she would have really done it!) but have been tempted 🙂 . Today I just sat with my precious babies and cuddled them close, told them how much I loved them and knew that little or nothing mattered all the time I could do that.

I had rung Ady at 4pm and he said he was just leaving the London store he was working in today and would not be too late.

At 6pm I cursed him.

At 7pm I put the dinner in and started getting the kids ready for bed.

At 8pm as I put a sleeping Scarlett into bed and shooed Davies into his and decided that I wouldn’t be seeing Ady again and the police would be arriving soon at the door saying ‘Mrs Goddard? It’s about your husband….’

At 8.10 he arrived home….

He hadn’t rung incase he disturbed the kids and I had not rung him cos I play this weird little game with myself that all the time I have not rung his mobile he is fine, but if I ring it and get no reply then I *know* something awful has happened. I hate his job – he travels an average of 150 miles per day on motorways, A roads and through town and city centres. He has been doing it for nearly a year, and frankly it is just as well I do not believe or practise any religion because the amount of ‘please God don’t let him have a crash’ each day and ‘thank God he is home safe’ each evening would wear out even the most omnipotent of worship figures.

Anyway once home he sorted all my day’s crap out for me and then we watched Grand Designs and walked about the house talking about knocking walls down, making ‘space’ and so on. I’m never sure whether we are naive in wanting to stay in this house we are so emotionally attached to (we bought it as a 2 bedroomed bungalow when we had only been together for 6 months – we spent our first valentines day as a couple sat in our own home, we built up and made it a four bedroomed house (although we don’t use it as such) and now we want to expand it again to fit our bigger family and HE plans. We have video footage of the first time we viewed the place as a very young, very excited (and in my case very skinny!) couple, it holds all of our memories of being a couple before children, bringing home our first child, moving away and then coming ‘home’ with our second child etc etc etc) and trying to keep it growing with us, or whether we should kiss it goodbye and
move on. We have a few more ideas to toss around to get the sort of living space and garden we need and it will still probably be cheaper to do that work to this house and stay here than it would to try and find such a house with all that already somewhere else. Although the pull of being with puddlers in Sheffield is strong I think these bricks and mortar have an even greater hold – for now 🙂

Just been to our new venue for HE group. I spent a while on the phone last week trying to find a suitable venue which was cost feasible, ok for transport links for those of us without cars, okay for those who do have cars to park and find easily, suited the time we wanted and available weekly ongoing. I spent a while talking to the woman at this venue – 3 seperate phonecalls infact. I was fairly specific about what we were ; A Home Educating Families Group – I explained we are a group of local families – about 10 or so, with a further 20 odd children who meet weekly for socialising, bit of arts and craft, other structured activities and so on. I likened it to a toddler group but with much older children. I thought I had been clear. I also thought I had booked it to start today.

So we arrived slightly before the specified time, as did another attendee and her two children. We went into the reception and battled our way through a crowd of about 20 elderly people – none of whom thought to hold the door open for two women, four small children and a big bag of stuff each and none of whom made any attempt to move out of the way for us to walk through them. I waited by the reception area and found another of our number with her three children who was new and had been asking if we were there yet. The reception woman – Margeret – said the room was not empty from the last people yet but if we waited in the tea room area with the (slight sneer) children then she would be through in a moment. Nearly 15 minutes later – during which time my two had gotten bored of sitting in a tea room and being told not to touch anything, Jenny and Ellen had arrived with a further 8 children between them we were shown through to the room. Which was horribly small even with our depleted number of just five families in it. Jenny started setting out tables, the children (15 of them!) started to do what any group of children in an empty room do and ran around. The woman looked totally horrified and asked ‘you were not hoping to stay today were you?’ ‘well yes’ said I starting to quake. ‘Oh no, you need to fill in forms and things and pay in advance for a month before you can stay.’ See now I thought I’d booked it, she thought I’d booked to come and view it. Hmmmm. I sent her away while we had a quick debate about what to do and we concluded it was too small anyway. In the meantime Scarlett had escaped through the door, chased after by Davies. I went to gather them back together and found them in the kitchen with a ‘strictly no children’ notice on the door. They were sitting down talking to two kindly old ladies in there who I apologised profusely to and was told it was fine, they were lovely!

I went back into the room to find Margeret giving one of the mums a right ear bashing about children running about and it couldn’t go on etc. She was surveying the scene of children in total horror, judging us and making all sorts of awful conclusions. She asked me again what the group was about and I explained again that it was Home Educated children ‘but why are these children not at school???’ sigh. I managed to use my poshest voice and longest words and spinniest speech and explained that we would normally be working on structured activities which of course needed to be set up, of course we appreciated that it was totally unacceptable for children to be running about outside of the room we were in, it would appear that the room was too small for our needs anyway, I was very sorry for the misunderstanding about it being booked for today and it was probably not suitable as even within a structured environment which we would be providing 20 children would come with a certain level of noise which may be disruptive which we would not want to be’. With great sighs of relief all round we left (via a fire exit!) and decamped to a nearby park.

I hate, hate, hated it. On my own I am quite capable of pulling the children into more than acceptable behaviour and pride myself on portraying a positive and socially acceptable anywhere face of Home Ed. People might not agree with what I am doing but they would not be able to say the kids are running wild, are disruptive or simply not able to conduct themselves in public. Today I felt like a key member with the worst behaved children of a group totally outside of society. Worse still I could see us through her eyes and I can kind of understand what she was sneering about. Now I don’t doubt that if you put any 15 kids in that room they would have done the same. I have been part of a group of school children running wild myself and witnessed countless more groups doing so but somehow they would not have been judged so harshly.

So the venue search starts yet again and I have had my first and I very much doubt my last experience of being disapproved of in public. Please let tomorrow not be a repeat performance or I will be forced to drag my kids back home again straight away!

Three years ago I was pregnant with my second child, my son was just over 18 months old and very clingy, I was offered a part time job and knew life was about to change again as a result of all of the above.

The solution seemed obvious – take the job, send Davies to nursery a couple of days a week to gain some independance from me, prepare him for being with other children so his sibling wouldn’t be a shock, ensure that while on maternity leave I would have a couple of days a week quality time with the new baby when she arrived and finally start that long preparation for school.

We spoke to every nursery in the phone book, asked friends for recommendations, went to visit at least three and chose what we saw as the ‘right’ one. It happened to be the most expensive too although that was not really part of our decision making process, it had friendly staff, was run by two sisters who genuinely seemed to love the children, the atmosphere was happy, the food all home cooked and the children seemed stimulated, well cared for and happy.

Davies hated it. For nine whole months I dropped him off every Thursday and Friday morning singing ‘this is the way we go to nursery, go to nursery, go to nursery, this is the way we go to nursery all on a Thursday / Friday morning’. As we pulled up outside his little face would crumple, as I took him out of his car seat his lip would tremble, as I rang the doorbell he would begin to whimper and as the lady answered the door and took him from my arms saying ‘come to Shelley’ he would start to wail and try to claw his way back to me. Over the months he began to talk and would cry out’ no mummy, no don’t leave me’. Over the months my stomach grew bigger and bigger to match the size of the lump in my throat. I would then drive to work choking back tears, with the radio turned up as loud as it went to try and drown out the echo of his voice ringing in my head. (I’m crying as I type this).

Everyone – the women at the nursery, my boss, my friends with children, my parents, Ady, EVERYONE, assured me I was doing the right thing, he would get over it, he needed to learn, it was all for show. I was making it worse by showing him I was upset. I tried really hard to believe all this and to not whisper how sorry I was for taking him there into his hair every time I collected him. I blamed myself – both for sending him there in the first place and for not managing to deal with it when I did it.

I would ring as soon as I arrived at work and he would still be crying. I would ring an hour later and he would be asleep, I would ring at lunchtime and he would be sitting quietly not eating. I would pay for him to be there for a 10 hour day and leave it as late as possible to take him in the mornings and return as early as possible to collect him – he was rarely there for more than 6 hours.

When I arrived he would sometimes be playing – but always alone and in a quiet resigned manner. The instant he saw me he would fly across the room into my arms and hold me as if he would never let go. Other parents would arrive to collect their children and be told ‘oh not yet Mummy, I’m still playing’, my son would have to be carried, limpet style to the car – wouldn’t even be put down to get his shoes and coat on. On Thursday evenings I would dread doing it all again the next day, on Friday evenings I would be filled with relief that it was over for another week, by about Tuesday I would be dreading Thursday again.

Davies changed. He had always been close to me, now he was positively attached at the hip. If we went to toddler groups he would not let me out of his sight, I took him to the toilet with me, if I stood up to get a cup of tea he knew and would be back at my side. His confidence was in tatters, his trust in me was shaky but his need for me was greater than ever. I was in despair.

Scarlett was born in the early hours of a Friday morning. Ady took Davies for his Friday session while I slept. On the following Thursday he dropped him off at nursery at 9.30am and popped into work while I sat home with a sleeping one week old baby. By 10am I had rung to be told Davies was asking for his mummy. I loaded Scarlett into the car, grabbed my son from the nursery and sent Ady back in with a letter later that day to say he wouldn’t be coming back.

That experience was the basis for my finding out about HE. It was not the decider and TBH I think reacting at the time I did (although I still hate the fact I put him and I through it for as long as I did) was his saviour. Over a long time the damage was repaired. He is now confident, able to make friends and is not so bothered about being able to see me all the time. The child I thought would still be attached to my side at 18 is suddenly quite the independant little boy who is even able to say ‘I don’t need you Mummy’ at times. It’s come good. It’s OK.

Becasue of that nursery or pre-school was never an option – if I suggested it even now he starts to pale and quake. And for that reason I have never even thought about it for Scarlett. Until now…

I am aware that the preschool / nursery type thing is run in the church hall literally round the corner from us. It’s on every morning for a couple of hours and children can start from 2.5 years if potty trained. I know this as during one of my mad ‘right everyone is going to school and I’m going back to work’ rants I looked into it (I do like to torture myself by having all relevant information handy!). If pushed my reasons for not sending her have always been:
1. It’s largely irrelevant as pre school is just that ‘pre-school’ and if you are not going to go to school then why would you need the pre bit
2. If you think about what you get out of it in terms of early years stuff, socialising with other kids, independance and so on none of this is necessary to send her out to do as she is getting it all at home, being at HE groups, playing with Davies, mixing with our other friends and generally being part of our family.
3. Whilst it would be quite nice for me to have a bit of a ‘rest’ from having two children all the time I would still have one and I think she adds more to the mix by being here than she would be being absent. I can’t really justify the whole thing on the grounds of convenient childcare anyway.
4. The dynamic of the family would be disrupted – after what I wrote yesterday about the childrens’ relationship they are back to ‘normal’ today. I want to keep them close for as long as I can. I don’t want her to feel she is being pushed out in favour of me spending time with Davies. I don’t want Davies to feel either smug that Scarlett is being sent out or feel jealous that she is getting to go somewhere he isn’t.
5. Scarlett’s own personality. She is being given the chance to basically shake her self into what she is by being at home with us. She obviously has to fit in with the family ‘rules’ and is learning what behaviour is and isn’t acceptable here but she is quite a strong character and I’m not at all sure she would fit in easily at a nursery. I would shudder to imagine her as a possible bully but in the same way I celebrate her personality and ‘don’t mess with me’ attitude. Here at home she gets her corners rubbed off lovingly by Davies and me, she has her tantrums, goes to her room, calms down and comes out to cuddle you and say sorry voluntarily. I tell her that I love her and it’s ok to be angry or sad but that behaviour is not acceptable and will not be tolerated here. How would she be dealt with in a room full of 2 and 3 year olds all having similar ‘moments’ of their own?
6. Our own routine – would be cocked up by having to have one child in a certain place at a certain time – even just round the corner. I’m not saying we are incapable of getting out the house in the morning but it would restrict what we do each week getting out and about and meeting people.

All of these seem quite selfish and possibly more about ‘the family’ than the individual child but as I can’t really ask my two year old if she wants to go somewhere she does not know exists as either a place or a concept I sort of have to make this decision for her really 🙂

I think I have probably answered my own quandry by blogging it – which is what I hoped would happen 🙂 I can totally understand why nursery is the right move for many families – if you have more children, with even more spaced out ages and different needs then I am sure it is invaluable to ensure all the children get what they need be it time alone with a parent, time alone without the siblings at nursery or particular resources there that are not feasible to have at home. Older children can focus on education without younger siblings getting ‘in the way’. If you have a bigger age gap than my two then perhaps their needs cannot be as easily met side by side, if you have one child then perhaps getting that group dynamic is easily achieved by nursery, if you work and need that time without children, if the children ‘want’ to go anyway. Maybe I’ll think again in a years time..

Hmm, someone needs to write a toddler taming for older siblings 🙂 Davies and Scarlett have always been very close – best friends I would say really. But suddenly over the last couple of months they have had a few hiccups along the way.

Firstly there is the begining of some fledgling friendships for Davies – which means he seems to need Tarly less and is more aware of the fact she is so much younger and less able to play at his level. Secondly they have both had a bit of a leap up a gear – Davies is suddenly seeming much more grown up and on the cusp of making a bit educational type breakthrough – Scarlett’s speech and stuff like colour reconition, counting, learning ‘facts’ instead of just ‘words’ is making big leaps too. Suddenly they are both wanting / needing lots more one to one time and I can’t meet both needs at the same time. A few weeks ago even we could cuddle up on a sofa with a pile of books they would both get something out of – suddenly Davies wants books with words he can make some sense of while Scarlett wants books she can ‘point and say’ at and talk about – they are not content to sit and listen, they both want to ‘get all the answers’ and are not happy about the other one participating anyway 🙁

The drawn out being ill phase has not helped as the attention focused on them has been a bit skewed the last couple of weeks with Davies getting lots when he had the pox and then Scarlett getting even more last week when she was poorly. The healthy child was getting bare minimum while the ill one was getting all sorts of special priviledges, sleeping patterns are all over the place and both me and Ady are knackered which doesn’t help. Makes me have all the more admiration for juggling and finding the right dynamic in a family of more than one child where one has an ongoing special need of some sort…

I am fairly sure it is a small phase which will even out pretty soon and reach the next stage I have been longing for of being able to do something and have them working although not together as such, at least side by side – but hard to deal with while in the middle of it just the same. Davies is also dealing with it less well and has been displaying some less than desirable mirroring of some of my impatient behaviour in Scarlett’s direction. She just seems to irritate him whatever she does – which she is reacting to by being even more clingy and attention seeking towards him – odd to witness that parent – child type interaction between two children, but that is what it is like…

I sort of feel they need to sort this one out by themselves so aside from stopping him from getting really nasty with her, and her from being unnecessarily irritating to him wherever possible I am trying to leave them to it and let them find their own new equilibrium.

All of the above aside – just wanted to blog it to mark the end of one era and beginning of the next really – we have had a really nice day today.

Davies really wanted to go out somewhere for the day but I was not really up for it having had a bad night going up and down the stairs to Tarly’s room, and I knew she would be asleep within moments of a long car journey which would cock up any hope of a better night tonight so I put him off that idea 🙂 Davies spent some time playing his Thomas game on my computer (which when I looked at the cover of and found was 2+ made me decide he definitely is not being challenged by it at all! Time to ‘break it accidentally so it doesn’t work anymore’ I think 😉 ). Scarlett alternately pottered, watched TV (:-) ), erm decorated the bathroom carpet with baby shampoo (which might prove the TV is evil and encourages rampaging behaviour actually so perhaps I shouldn’t blog it 😉 ) and looked at some books. While I wound myself up by reading lists (Joyce it’s the ongoing sugar is evil one on UKHE (? I think!) which developed from the McDonalds one, which developed from the Jamie Oliver one – does anyone know that Leo – is she for real? and the TV one on MP – which did not actually have anything written by anyone which was particularly OTT but is something I have a personal ‘thing’ about having encountered people before who are so evangelical about the evil box in the corner, whilst often citing radio as the pure and one true path – wft!? – so it wound me up anyway!).

After all that I felt the need to go and buy Heat magazine for my weekly fix of what’s big in celebdom, mindless trash reading and of course the glossy ad fix for what I should be spending Ady’s hard earned wages on in Boots this week 🙂 Also felt some fresh air and exercise wouldn’t go amiss for all of us so I made up a ‘spotter sheet’ for each child, with the intention of giving them each a pen, teaching them how to do ticks and having a bit of a ‘treasure hunt’.

Davies’ was made up of some letters to spot (S, M, R, T, D, L, C, A, F) with both upper and lower case on there and some words of things he had to sound out with my help and then find (red car, man, cat, tree, park). Scarlett’s was just four clip art pictures (bird, tree, car, lorry). Davies loved the idea and was really up for it, Scarlett decided she wanted her pushchair and was not at all into the idea of ticking – she coloured in all her boxes and then refused to bring the sheet with her 🙂

So our usual ten minute walk became a half hour adventure. We spotted letters on road name signs, house name plates, car number plates (a la Richard Herring 🙂 ), water / drain covers, some roadworks signage, some adverts and an empty cigarette packet! While bending down over a drain cover identifying an F an old man came out of his house to talk to us – which was nice and also ticked off ‘man’ :-), the lady in the shop noticed Scarlett’s pox marks so she had a nice chat with Davies about that, our opposite neighbour was in his garden painting a wall so we chatted to him, and his mother came out and joined in, then the other opposite neighbours came out too for a chat – all very pleasant. And they were all so complimentary about my children too 🙂

Back inside we had some lunch then signed up for the free education city trial (won’t bother linking as everyone else already has 🙂 ). For about half an hour we sat together and did it – Scarlett on my lap and Davies sat beside me doing the actual clicking. We started with the reception stuff (which is what he would be, although one of the very oldest in that year) and I was very impressed at him knowing every single one 🙂 some of it has sunk in after all! The only criticism I have of it – and most other such programmes actually – is that it makes getting the wrong answer so attractive. The little animated reaction for example on the meet an alien game is more fun when you get it wrong than when you get it right. Ok so he has to know which is right in order to know which is wrong and therefore select the wrong one but I still am not super keen on that aspect of it. We compromised by him being allowed to select the wrong one to see what happened as long as he could point out the correct one to me first 🙂 Not sure if I think it is worth the money or not really. It’s good, and I have spent more on less worthy causes but it’s probably no better than the cdroms we have already spent money on. Study Dog didn’t appeal to Davies at all and this did, so perhaps if he is up for playing it a couple more times during the free trial period and is still enjoying it I may think about it with the discount – I guess over the whole year Tarly might well be at the stage to look at the reception stuff too (if she was 3 months older she would be reception next year and she already loves playing on the computer so it might be worth it if both of them are going to use it (assuming one subscription can be used on two computers at the same time!)

Davies then asked what treasure there was as a result of finding everything on his spotter sheet so we nipped down to the wizard store and spent a fiver on two loads of plasticine stuff, a big box of coloured pencils, a pack of jumbo playing cards and some number tiles which have occupied them for the afternoon. I have done some pictures copied from Green eggs and ham which I want to colour in and laminate for a planned game associated with the story. Have also booked our new hall for tomorrow, had an email back from Miranda to say the work I turned in for last week was ‘very good’ 🙂 (you can see the result of some of my work here 🙂 ) , tomorrow is new group, Thursday is Legoland and Friday is Scarlett’s TT2 trial – ooh it’s a busy rest of the week 🙂

Think I might have to unsubscribe to some lists – they are making me feel all uneasy and rubbish.

Great friendships can be ruined from discussing politics, religion and abortion – I would avoid them at all costs with people unless I felt able to accept without trying to change their opinion and felt they would extend me the same priviledge.

The Home Ed equivilent seems to be processed food / sweets / junk food in general / McDonalds and TV / computer games.

My life is not pure, neither is the life of my children by many people’s standards. Call it laziness, call it ignorance, call it whatever you like but do not think it is for lack of love, or some sort of covert child abuse or neglect cos it is not.

There are many conspiracy theories around – the world is controlled by a board of 4 superpowers, Michael Jackson is an alien, Dr Who is true, McDonalds are poisoning our children while we hold their mouths open and force the food in, Labour might win the next election, Princess Diana was killed – quite frankly even if the TV is controlling my every move by subliminal thought processes piped in via Max and Ruby I don’t really care.

Maybe I am well and truly brainwashed but I feel much more my own person by choosing to let my children eat their chicken nuggets infront of Dora the Explorer that I would spending an hour cooking them something by Annabel Karmel, having my own tea with them at 5pm (and then starving for the rest of the day) while listening to a concerto and discussing current affairs, being a size 10 and getting all the dust off the skirting boards!

I like my life – and if that’s the product of 31 years marketing and big business advertising sinking in then so be it.

feel free to totally ignore this, am not trying to start a further discussion on the rights and wrongs, just needed to get it off my chest!

To that endlessly troubling HE quandry of feeling conventional in some circles and a total hippy weirdo in others 🙂 Make friends with other likeminded HE folk who share your ideas and just mix with them instead!

Okay so finding them might prove a bit trickier, but I actually now have at least 4 local ish friends who HE and whilst not having the exact same approach to it as me are certainly more likely to ‘get’ what I am on about and understand it. Kids all seem to get on too which is a result 🙂 Davies is already starting to feel that chasm between him and schooled friends of the same age so it’s nice for his mix of ‘friends’ to be largely biased towards other HE kids – serves to make him feel more ‘normal’ which is probably nice for a child!

So today we met up with Lisa – a fellow MPer living in Eastbourne and her two lovely daughters – K & D. We went to their house and thanks to lovely weather were able to spend most of the time in their garden. K is 6.5 and D is all but 3, so both older than my two. To begin with K played inside while Davies, Scarlett and D played together, then Scarlett wandered about for a bit on her own while Davies and D bonded (both of whom seemed oblivious to their age or gender difference but obviously having older and younger siblings the same way made them able to relate to each other just fine), then K came back outside and her and Davies totally bonded over an ‘Art Attack’ of the Pirate Ship from Peter Pan. They worked really nicely together as a team, made something really quite creatively good and then called us all outside to view it and explained what all the various bits were – it had a plank, rigging, a sail, a dungeon for baddies, swords, cannon balls and more 🙂 In the meantime D and Scarlett had bonded inside over colouring and playdough 🙂 Lisa and I tentatively shared views on various topics from HE to parenting to careers and found ourselves with huge amounts in common. All round a really lovely day with everyone really enjoying it – hurrah!

They are coming over to us in a couple of weeks time so already looking forward to that 🙂 We mused on how lovely it was for the kids to totally make friends without any assistance, and also how if the older two were at school their social conditioning would have totally prevented them from playing together – a boy of 4.5 and a girl of 6.5 would have largely ignored each other, let alone sorted out some common ground and really enjoyed each others company. Lovely to see one of what I consider to be the real positives of HE in action 🙂

We left fairly early as I was convinced Scarlett would sleep on the way home and I wanted to limit damage from that as much as possible. In the event due to some toe tickling, a box of tic-tacs and some loud singalongs to the Monster Inc soundtrack we managed her drowsy but not actually asleep and then they had a lovely hour in the garden playing with the inflatable ELC water thing (as pictured) and the sand while I sat in the shade with my laptop and the phone trying to do a bit of work and sort out our new WAG venue for this week.

Booted them back indoors after a swift hosedown, tea and now I am being hassled for ‘jamas and milk now Mummy’ so I’ll be off.

Let’s get ’em working!!!

Today washing up, tomorrow the hoovering….hey by next week I could have her on chimney training 🙂

Which is pretty much all I seem to have said today. The culprit of course is Tarly – most of the pox have scabbed over so she is in full on pick mode. 🙁

An awful night’s sleep last night. We started to watch Vanilla Sky, was only really half watching as I was blog surfing and got quite lost with the twists and turns and at 11 realised there was another 40 minutes to go so gave up and went to bed. Ady was up for hours with Tarly but she didn’t want him she wanted me, so inbetween a jumble of very disturbing dreams based around the film, parties and disfigured faces with people not being who you thought they were I could hear her crying and wailing for me. At 5am I gave up and went downstairs where after two minutes cuddling she was fast asleep and I finally got about an hours decent sleep before Davies woke up. My plan of getting my work done first thing this morning therefore failed miserably as my head would have been clearer after a bottle of wine (which is why I have done it tonight instead!) than it was in early morning sleep deprived daytime. Davies and I attempted to make a 3d star shape like our pendant light in the lounge with geomags, deduced it didn’t work as the triangles created by geomags rods and panels are equilateral and the ones for the star light only have two sides the same and one side much shorter.

Davies currently has a bit of an obsession with ‘love’. He has been asking both me and Ady seperately if we love him more than Tarly, Tarly more than him and so on. (I know the whole Chickenpox with him first and her second has totally skewed the time spent / level of patience applied to each child / rules about who gets away with what these last couple of weeks which has probably prompted this.) In the car the other day he asked me whether I loved him and Tarly or Daddy most. I explained that him and Tarly were very special because they had grown inside me and were part of both me and Daddy and we had always known each other since before they were even born. But Daddy and I (and yes, I do believe for the purposes of this conversation I used ‘Mummy’ in the 3rd person which always makes me giggle and think of Parent 2 🙂 ) had met and fallen in love and chosen to spend our lives together. Davies then talked about being married, wearing a wedding ring and so on, so I said we would look out our wedding video for him to see this weekend. He has seen it before, not long after Tarly was born when he watched it about 4 times in a row but he couldn’t remember it very well.

So we put that on, which is always nice to see again 🙂 then Davies asked for his birth video (not the actual birth – we got the video camera about a month before he was born so there is initial footage of me VERY pregnant (I was huge!) at my Dad’s birthday barbecue, then Ady interviewing me just before we left for hospital to have him, then him being checked over by the paed in hospital and the first few weeks of his life.) which we did put on (photo below) but first Ady found a video of us when we were very first together 12 years ago. So there is me aged 19 and Ady aged 29 having a great time in the throws of our new romance. There is us washing the car and me turning the hose on Ady, footage of our first flat (a lovely big airy place with sea views) and general nonsense. Scarlett could not get her head round it at all and just kept asking ‘where’s Scarlett and Davies’ (nice to know she had not noticed the aging process on either of us in 12 years!) while Davies was not sure whether to be embarrassed about his parents mucking about like teenagers (well I still was one actually!), laugh at our antics or just find it too boring to watch!

Then we had baths in shifts – me and Tarly and Ady with Davies. I hung some washing out and my parents rang to see if we wanted to go over for lunch!! Which we were planning to just turn up for anyway, but it was nice to be asked! 🙂

We actually had a nice enough afternoon over there. I sat around drinking tea and aside from the odd ‘don’t pick Scarlett’ largely ignored the kids and read the paper 🙂

Tonight I have done the work for this week (I know, last minute or what!) and will shortly be retiring for the evening. Tomorrow we are supposed to be going to a new friend’s house for the morning. I met her on the local HE list and we have not actually met yet – exchanged a few emails and I suggested a get together and she invited us over. I’m not sure Tarly is up to it if she has another bad night but I will make a decision in the morning. I am slighly worried that yesterday I noticed one of her eyes was quite bloodshot and today they both are. I can’t decide whether it is pox related, due to her rubbing them a lot, sheer tiredness or the fact she has cried and tantrummed a LOT this last few days or simply a combination of all of the above. There is no discharge and she has not complained of them being sore. I think I’ll look again in the morning and see how they are then.