One word? When seven would do…

When I was a just a little girl I asked my mother what will I be? Will I pretty, will I be rich? Here’s what she said to me:

Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be
The futures not our’s to see, que sera sera.

Or will it?

I’ve never subscribed to any life philosophy wholeheartedly – in the same way as I never read any one parenting book and thought ‘ah yes, there’s my bible!’ some stuff I read made me feel great, all smug and self satisfied that in this specific chapter at least me and the author were totally on the same wavelength. And as they were a published author and generally had letters after their name and a whole host of celebrity testimonials on the back of the book they must know what they were talking about, which meant I did too 🙂 This would generally last until the following chapter when I would fail to recognise myself quite so clearly within the pages and start to feel a slight unease. If I managed to reach a third or fourth chapter it was only in the interests of proving once and for all that the author was clearly a complete idiot who have never even met a child let alone parented one themselves, and if they had then they must have had an army of childcare to assist. The only book I ever started and never got cross with on that basis was ‘I’m okay – you’re a brat!’ which was excellent and still sits on my bookshelf but I stopped reading because the author identified with me to such a degree that I started to dislike her for being so sycophantic! Actually that was when I still only had one child who was under two so there is every chance I’d hate that one too if I started to re-read it.

Anyway, unusually I digress ;-).

So I quite like the idea of believing in fate, what will be will be and all that. But in the same way as I like autonomy I can’t help fiddling a little so leaving fate to get on with all on it’s own seems a tad risky. What if fate’s having an off day? Or prefers blondes? Or is busy with the calculator working out who’s number is up and forgets about me?

I quite like ‘Life is what you make it’ too. Except I can think of far too many examples of people who simply cannot be that messed up that they have made such utter rubbish existances for themselves. So I can’t subscribe to that one either really. There are friends of mine who just keep getting poo thrown at them day in day out and I can’t see why they deserve it and I certainly don’t think they subconsciously chose it so that theory doesn’t pan out for me.

I think I probably could best describe my view of it all as similar to the opening credits to Monsters Inc. If you’ve not seen it there are just loads of doors swinging by. All different colours, shapes, designs and sizes. Behind each one is a child’s room with scaring potential to make them scream to get the power generated by a scream. Clearly there are far, far too many to open all of them and take a peek, and you could just stay where you are watching the doors go by and enjoying the really rather funky soundtrack by Randy Newman and let someone else go exploring all the doors.

I can actually pinpoint most of the doors in my life so far that I opened. Some of them I slammed shut again, having either got scared or realised that I’d opened them in error, a couple I went quite far into the room and found an alternative exit and many, many more were exactly the right doors for me to choose and I loved where they led me.

Right now we are standing in a bit of a corridor. There is no way back to the original room we were in but there are a fair few doors to choose from to decide where we go next. We could go through the one which actually takes us back to a point back in the past, having decided that we took a wrong door somewhere and have another bash at it, climbing back up again to be where we *should* be now if we’d not gone wrong. But I always swore I’d never go back… This door is grey, safe, it’s as comforting as a cuddle and as familiar as watching Friends for the 17th time – you know all the jokes but you still laugh, you know how it all ends in 3 series time but you still gasp when one of the couples falls out and cross your fingers for it all to work out ok.

The next door is wildly exciting. It is sprayed with graffiti flowers and all different colours, it has windchimes hanging on it which tinkle tantalisingly in the breeze and would sing out with all their might if we opened the door and went through it. There are rainbows coming from underneath the door and other, unfamiliar scents and sounds. I know that if we go through that door we will experience things we’ve never even dreamt of before. But there’s a hitch with this door, it comes with a CAUTION sticker firmly applied. Come through here and you can’t come back, everything you know will be gone. It’s a gamble, a risk and a leap of faith. It’s the same sort of door that I went through when I fell pregnant with Davies – I knew that I’d never return to normal, I’d find a new normal – and then just when I thought I’d gotten used to that normal it would turn upside down and inside out again.

Inbetween these doors are a whole host of other doors – some of them will need some help to open them – you need to ask others for the key, or get someone stronger to hold it open while you drag all your suitcases through it. They are a combination of old and new, challenging and comforting, alien and familiar – they are like going to the same indian resturant you always go to but ordering something slightly different to normal.

Once before I’ve stood in this same corridor and we took the sparkling door, we opened it and stepped inside, but we did a bit of a Hansel and Gretel and we left a trail so we could find our way home again. We didn’t quite sever all ties. So when that path looked a bit rocky we headed back for home. Even as we did it we wondered if it was the right thing to do – should we have ventured further still or should we cut our losses. We went back. It was almost against our better judgement and we took a long time to accept and life with our decision. Suddenly we find ourselves with the opportunity to leap into the unknown yet again and this time we know that to do it properly we need to REALLY do it. And you know what, I have this funny feeling that we just might.

Doris, you might just have got it wrong after all, sometimes maybe life doesn’t happen to us, we grab it by the tits and shake it all about…

Is what Tarly wants to know, having listened to the song on the way over to Ali’s today she got out of the car, looked up at me with her big blue eyes and asked ‘Mummy, where did all the good ‘peoples’ go? Davies paraphrased yet further and said they were on the TV shows. Which reminded me of a song I loved a few years ago Where have all the cowboys gone? which I must see if I can find somewhere and play to her – now there’s an anthem for feminism if ever I heard one 😉

This morning we did some drawings, Davies has been after making a Backyardigans puppet theatre he’s seen shown on the nickjr site but my printer was protesting so I ended up drawing the characters for him to colour in and then I cut them out. We couldn’t find the pack of lolly sticks we both remain convinced we last saw stuck to the cork wall in the kitchen so we used pencils to stick them to. Gave up on any further developments due to lack of craft materials so he just played with them on their sticks. Which of course meant Tarly wanted to play with them too 🙁 Ended up drawing a set of Dora figures at her request for her to colour in with a view to making puppets for her too. She did fantastic colouring in – really neat and pretty much stuck to the right colours – almost as tidily and accurately done as Davies I would say, and I always think he’s pretty darn good at art. Glad they both have various art sets for Christmas, I think it’s something we might focus on and develop a little more – maybe a joint project of some description. We also watched Smarteenies as part of our retro revisit to Cbeebies yesterday and were inspired by that a bit. I think a trip to the Wizard store for some cut price glitter, glue and card is in order tomorrow to set them off on some festive craftiness 🙂

It’s been ages since we last saw Ali and Freya although we do keep in touch via IM 😉 so it was nice to have a proper catch up. Davies did very well despite Boyflu and played for a good while before retreating to my lap to watch Backyardigans. Tarly was also a bit hesitant at being sociable really and poor Freya who just wanted to play with her got told to ‘leave me alone’ a couple of times. I did explain that the novelty of having someone to play with is somewhat lost on Tarly for whom not having someone to play with is sometimes a more treasured novelty, but she came round in the end and they spent a very happy hour throwing stuff down the stairs together, cackling like harridans and then coming into the lounge to leap off of the sofa! Davies also impressed all of us by being rather excellent at a microscope matching thingy that Ali had printed off and laminated – pictures of everyday items and then pictures of them under a microscope to match up. He always responds really well to that sort of thing when it’s sprung on him (and even better when it’s not from me!) – lovely to see him so proud of himself 🙂 He then impressed me further all the way home by counting up the various numbers of children in various families, adding two together and then splitting them into boys and girls and so on – all using his fingers which is something I’ve never suggested so must be an innate skill!

They were both fading fast on the car journey home and as we got stuck in traffic as it got dark around us I was coming up with ever crazier ways to keep Tarly awake and thought it would be a very rapid tea, bath, bed routine.

They had tea and then both got a second wind so we did some puzzles for a bit – Davies brought out a matching words puzzle which Tarly also got the idea of and was pretty good at (snake connects to cake, ring connects to king and so on) and then we did a mix and match people set with heads, bodies and feet to sort out for various professions.

Bath, where I drowned Tarly’s very matted and rapidly becoming dreadlocked hair with conditioner and we all gave Davies lots of sympathy over a bruise sustained on his leg at Ali’s (by a cruelly planted doorway as part of Ali’s teach them about hazards campaign 😉 ). Ady arrived home and I’m currently cooking spaghetti while blogging (multi tasking lady!). So lots of educationally valuable stuff going on while I also got to do some colouring and drawing and sit chatting to Ali. Pretty good day all round then really 🙂

About to send the list out by email but wanted to offer to any last takers. So far we have:

Me, Alison, Kirsty, Joyce, Sally, Merry, Helen, Karen B and Sarah.

Basically its on the same principle as the MP one, send me your address and I’ll add you to the list, then you send Christmas cards to everyone else on the list.

I’ll probably send it out on Thursday 1st so you have a couple of days to decide whether you can face the glitter in your carpet that this activity will create! 😉

Kids not up for much at all today. They were still on Reading time last night and didn’t go to sleep til about 9.30pm but still managed to get up by about 6.30am. Davies steadily declined throughout the day and by mid afternoon it was clear he was not just tired, he also has Boyflu 🙁

So he spent most of the day on the PC. He played on the Nickjr site, which he can totally navigate his way round and read rather a lot of the text on, some Zoombinis (he played one and decided it was too hard, so put Mountain Rescue on and then called me to say it must be broken as it’d gone somewhere he’d never seen before. Turns out he’d completed it, within about 10 minutes. I think it was a saved game from before but I was still pretty impressed. He also played his Thomas game, Bugs Life games and ended up with Green Eggs and Ham. Finally he came and sat on the sofa snuggled up to me.

Tarly spent some time watching him play, some time doing some foam floor puzzles (rather well actually now I think back), some fuzzy felt, a very recognisable picture of a cat, lots of coming for cuddles and then had some retro time watching Cbeebies which we hardly ever watch here. She danced along to Boogie Beebies, loved Tikkabilla (which Davies came to watch too and we all enjoyed singing along with the songs), she ate soup for tea and then we all snuggled up and watched Charlie and Lola, adapted from the books and that was fab 🙂

I spent some time on the phone, I updated Buy Me Love and Near The Knuckle and gave out lots of cuddles. Love my babies lots today 🙂 I also washed at least 4 loads of washing and got most of it dry (some still tumbling, some still on the line, none as yet put away!) and we did nip to the post office to get an ebay parcel on it’s way.

Ady came home and I popped out to my parents then me and Mum went to Lidl. Sooo cold tonight 🙁 Called back in again when I dropped Mum home for a chat with her and Dad and then came home for a nice hot bath and a curry. Am now very tired and wondering whether I’ll be getting Girlflu any time soon – hopefully earlier this week rather than later! Tomorrow, ill health permitting we’re off to Ali’s. It’s been a long, long time and we have lots of catching up to do 🙂 Oh and finally Ady’s at last sorted himself out on flickr and is enjoying taking and uploading pictures each day. His username is adybloke if you want to have a peep .

This amused me greatly today. Infact I really did LOL

There should be friends, singing, laughter, plenty of alcohol, lovely food cooked, drunken and riotous behaviour (which to really qualify as drunken and riotous must be offensive to at least two other people), no objections from anyone to children remaining naked or pj clad for the entire duration of the weekend, a touch of voyeurism potential, a few of your deepest darkest body image worries reassured, a few tears, a fair bit of nakedness, a woman who loves to clean, perhaps some vomit, various lost property being redistributed.

Death of a national treasure to whom tributes should be paid and glasses raised, perhaps a little bloodshed, some domestic disharmony and maybe a touch of mutant creepy crawlies.

A little bit of kung fu fighting to add to the mix and frankly, the whole world smiles with you 🙂

Happy 8th Birthday Poppy Pip 🙂

Hope you have a great day!

From all here: Ady, Nic, Davies, Scarlett, Chris, Alison, Poppy, Tilda, Elijah and Lula xxx

Not interested in learning about weather from a book he demanded his pirate ship be brought downstairs to play with so he’s been using his imagination all creatively with that for about an hour, watching Lazy Town as he goes. We did learn a bit about weather and temperature anyway as we suddenly had lashing wind and hailstones here which he and Ady rushed out to watch, and then he helped lay the fire and light it to warm up the lounge. It’s freezing here today, infact I’m off to get socks and a jumper on – it’s so cold I’ve even had to cover up my cleavage! 😉

A fairly educational day here today although I really should be following a few things up with Davies as I promised instead of sitting here 😉

First thing the children played with playdough while watching Class TV. There was a really good programme on about an apple tree which told the story of the seasons changing and had all sorts of ancillary facts such as a puppy and a kitten playing together in the spring and then being grown animals by the following spring, a bee landing and the man talking about the role of bees in apple trees and also honey production. Very good 🙂 So we chatted a bit about the things raised by that as they happened and then I wandered off to do other stuff while they carried on playing and watching. There was some show about storms including some footage of the 1987 storm and a weathergirl stood infront of a weather map talking about weather forecasts. Then Davies started watching a thing about Shakespeare which he showed a fair bit of interest in too, particularly when I told him that Stratford, where we have been several times is where Shakespeare was born – need to dig out the Shakespeare children’s version books from Book People (Merry, if you remember can you bring the Ant & Cleo one to Okehamton? 🙂 ). I also had a bit of a browse on the BBC website and we played a couple of the maths games, Scarlett really surprised me with her mouse pad and button clicking skills and also recognising numbers when Davies called them out. I also googled for my answer to the largest number – I think I can explain it a bit better now next time that one comes up. 🙂

We headed off to Julie’s then and on the way Davies told me it was supposed to be windy and rainy today (it was) and he’d seen it on the TV saying it was going to happen before it did. How did they know that before it happened? Explained my sum total of knowledge about meterology and promised to catch up on that with him again too – which would obviously tie in well with the temperature stuff then wouldn’t it really 🙂

Nice couple of hours at Julie’s – the children have all reached that age where they disappear into their playroom together to play so me and Julie get to drink tea and chat, which is always a bonus. 🙂 Talked about money, lifestyles and alternative lives – interesting stuff.

Left there slightly earlier that I’d planned to as Tarly suddenly got all whingey and just wanted to come home so it seemed pointless to string it out for another half an hour. I managed to keep her awake all the way home by me and Davies singing songs to her but she has just curled up and fallen asleep on the sofa next to me – ah well, sleep routines likely to be shot to pieces at the weekend anyway 😉

Right, going to see if I can interest Davies in a book about the weather.

Just been reading the Dr Seuss Book of Sleep (or some other such story) as a bedtime story to Davies. It touched somewhere on the concept of minus two and he roused from his near-asleep state to ask what that meant. Erm!

Very easy when you know but one of those situations where I am left stuttering like a too advanced thesaurus when he asks the meaning of a new word and all I can offer as explanation is a series of other words he also is unfamiliar with. I need an example… I tried asking him what he would have if he had two and then took away three but he was having none of that. He told me that if he had two and then had two more he would have four. He told me that if he took two away from four he would have two and then if he took two away from two he would have nothing. And of course you can’t take anything away from nothing can you Mummy?!

Clearly not a bedtime friendly concept to start explaining anyway but would appreciate anyone’s tried and tested examples for minus numbers.

The book then (and at the back it says ‘This book is to be read in bed!’ clearly it is lying!!) goes on about numbers like millions, billions, trillions and zillions so I had to explain about them being ‘really big numbers’ to which he pounced back on his unsatisfactorily answered question from the train journey the other week about what the ‘last number’ is. I repeated that there isn’t one, to which he said ‘of course there is one Mummy, it’s just that no-one knows what it is yet!’

Just as well we’re off to Reading this weekend then, Lije can take over some of the HE for me 😉

Is what we have mainly be doing today 🙂

The children, Davies in particular love it, so we’ve watched it, played the game on the nickjr website and then made some playdough and made all the characters from it. Well I say we, aside from entering the competition via the website and making the playdough up I have not really had any part in it. I’ve been mainly writing a draft post for Scarlett’s birthday. It’s not for a couple of weeks yet but I was uploading pics to flickr and sorting through which ones I wanted to use and got all nostaglic and melty about her so I thought I’d write it while I was in the right frame of mind. And it duly made me cry!

Tumbles Tots and Gym Bobs day today as well. Scarlett was a complete minx in her session – again! either way I’m sort of glad she’ll be moving up a class in a couple of weeks – she’s either playing up because she’s ready for more of a challenge or playing up generally, in which case I’ll be glad to hand her over for an hour! Davies was also lurking instead of entertaining himself which he usually manages well. Sigh. Need to decide what Davies and I will do with that hour when Tarly goes in on her own, I think we’ll probably just select a couple of books to read together each week or something else quiet and cuddly 🙂

Scarlett and I sat and read books together while Davies did his Gym Bobs – and played with some Dora picture cards too. There are two little girls, only slightly older than her (who are in the class before Davies’ and then wait for older siblings who are in Davies’ class – I imagine their’s is the one Tarly will go into soon) who are clearly great friends and sometimes they come over to see what Tarly and I are doing and even try to join in (if we’re doing puzzles or something) and then other times when Tarly clearly is desperate to play with them they are really horrid and excluding to her. It’s really hard to watch and I’m pretty staggered that the whole ‘we’re not playing with you’ thing starts so early, I don’t recall it being an issue when I was a child until I was much older. For the most part Tarly is oblivious, but today they were being really mean to her when she clambered under some chairs where they were to try and join in and I could see from the expressions on their faces they were saying nasty things to her. She came back all hurt and said they’d told her they didn’t like her and she couldn’t play with them 🙁 I asked her how that made her feel and what she thought of them. She said they were smelly slugs and they were silly and it made me laugh so much I told her to go and tell them, and she did! I know, probably really crap parenting but it restored her faith in herself to know that just because someone didn’t like her it didn’t mean she was not worth liking and made her see that actually if that’s the sort of children they are then she probably wouldn’t want to play with them anyway! Slate me in the comment box if you like but I’ll just come and do the same back in yours 😉

I think that’s about it for today, Davies has produced some very good playdough figures which are now a bit squashed, Tarly’s done some creative stuff with a big lump of colours all marbled together with bits of car sticking out (we’ve got a vehicle playdough set with plastic bumpers, exhausts and wing mirrors etc) and I’ve taught them how to be childish 🙂

Happy 10th Birthday to Chelsea 🙂 Double figures, wow!

Happy 9th Birthday Miss Poppy Price 🙂

Hope you have a lovely day tomorrow, a fab birthday treat on Thursday and we’re looking forward to seeing you at the weekend 🙂

Lots of love from Ady, Nic, Davies and Scarlett xxx

I’ve been pondering education, autonomy, our approach, where it might all end up and so on recently. I’ve been involved in several conversations with people who have asked questions which I have had to really think about to answer and then ended up thinking about lots more afterwards. I’ve read odd remarks here and there on other blogs, listened to others in their educational ponderings and reasonings and realised that in some areas we are very similar to others, in other ways we are worlds apart and far from either of us being right or wrong we are both totally right somehow, which is something I would not have accepted a year or so ago.

I think the last two years of ‘Being Home Educators’ has been the biggest journey of my life so far. I have learnt so, so much. About me, about Ady, about our children and our family. I’ve learnt so much about people both as people and as individuals, I’ve listened to others agonise and I’ve agonised myself. I don’t think I have it sussed forever but I do feel like I’ve got it sussed for now, for us. It feels right, we are happy, the children are learning, I don’t feel surrended or guilty and with the odd tweak here or there still to work on I think this is working for all of us as individuals and as a family unit. The best thing for all of us at the moment is that we feel free. We are not bound by anything we do not want to be bound by, we have no resentment and no feeling of having to do something depsite not actually wanting to do it (probably best described as the homework feeling!).

I think we are probably closest to the autonomous approach educationally. The children spent the vast majority of their time playing. They play with each other or alone, they spend lots of time playing with friends making up games and stories and role playing. They play endlessly with all of the many toys and resources in our house making cities and world, recreating history, playing out stories, books and films in their own way, pretending to be people off the TV. They do, what in my very small experience of being around children seems to be what children do naturally when left alone to get on with it.

I was talking to someone at a soft play centre recently – I try not to get into discussions with strangers about HE. You end up answering the same questions with the same answers which sounds tired to your own ears, you graze the surface of it rather than say anything profound and at best just hope that they will leave the conversation a) not about to take down your car registration number and ring Childline / the LEA / Social Services and b) maybe even think a little about what you’ve said. I don’t feel I have any responsibility whatsoever to convert anyone to HE either as an idea or as something they should do themselves, although if as a result of a conversation I may one day have someone who didn’t know about it as an option and it was something that knowing about helps them or their children then that would be good. 🙂 But the woman raised two very interesting questions while chatting to me about it and although I answered them at the time with practised, polished confidence I did come away and wonder a bit more about them myself.

The first was about curriculums and how you would cover everything without one. The second was what would I do if they reached teenagerdom and got the ‘can’t be arsed to do anything’ type attitude that characterising teens and spent all day in bed doing nothing at all.

The currciculums one first then. When we started this whole Home Ed thing I was fairly convinced I would be following some sort of curriculum. I looked at Sonlight but decided it was too religion based for us and came to the conclusion that I would work out my own sort of curriculum using workbooks and the NC. I downloaded all the NC stuff, looked at early years goals and stuff and bought shelves full of workbooks, got Studydog and plastered the walls of the playroom with alphabet posters and pictures of 1 button, 2 frogs, 3 balls, 4 flowers and so on. Oh I had big plans for timetables, coloured in charts, graphs, stickers and certificates of achievement! Several false starts later with occassions behind me I’d probably rather forget of me standing over a weeping child holding his pen in the wrong sort of grip desperately trying to remember the order of a, b, c and d and write them down again and threatening school each and every time we tried to tackle one of the 100 lessons all of which we found really rather hard work instead of the advertised ‘easy’ I decided that school at home was never going to work for us. I think I secretly harboured hothousing tendancies. I believed I had bright children who would stream far ahead of where their schooled peers were, effortlessly impressing everyone who met them with their ability to recite the 7 times table whilst playing the violin and colouring in maps of the world in pastel shades never going over the lines into the seas! But I’ve had to realise that I am not your classic hothousing mama. Aside from our day to day lives not fitting very well with routine and sitting at desks for an hour a day, we don’t have the desks and we’d all really rather be somewhere else instead!

So we stopped. We moved away from everything even remotely educational in the usual sense of the word. I listened to the words I was to say to that woman in the soft play centre about a year before I even said them and I realised that my children didn’t learn to walk and talk as a result of me drawing up a timetable and us working on the M sounds before they said Mummy. We didn’t have a movement a week to put together at the end to create ‘the crawl’. They got where they are on these basic skills in their own time, in their own way, in their own style. Sure I helped and facilitated but it was just in a low level way of talking to them lots, naming stuff all the time and using all available resources to help them learn to talk. We read books together, we chatted to everyone we met, we got out and about so they learnt words in their own contexts (shopping centre, cashpoint, trolley! 😉 ) to make the link that much easier. They watched me and everyone other grown up around them walking, having watched the older babies around them crawling. Their natural curiosity spurred them on to learn how to ask questions and learn how to do stuff for themselves rather than squawk and wait for someone else to do it for them. And do you know what? Turns out they were both natural walkers, just like they were born to do it! And as for talking? Well I reckon I have two of the most articulate children I know, they both have a huge vocabulary, know all about changing pitch and volume to great effect and just which words will create the outcome they are after!

I’m not saying they would learn everything they need to know simply by existing, or actually maybe I am, I’m not sure. But that isn’t quite what I’m planning to do anyway, however it is the basis of it. If they need to know they will learn it and by fostering that love of learning, that inate curiosity and that passion for knowing stuff and quest for knowledge I imagine they will never ever stop learning. So my role is to not push them into it, or dictate what it is they need to know and learn, but to help them learn it once they know themselves. I can provide the tools and the resources, answer the questions they ask or help them find out the one’s I can’t, cheer them on and celebrate their successes, gently nudge or push them that bit futher when they are tired and help with the skills and foundations to smooth the road ahead. What I can’t do – and this is the radical bit I don’t believe anyone else can either – is prescribe what it is they need to learn and when they should be learning it. I see my role as the person in the gown and face mask who hands the surgeon the tools he asks for – a lesser role than the surgeon perhaps but one which the surgeon couldn’t be so brilliant without. In the same way as I might be the one who buys them their toys but I cannot dictate what games they play with them or how their imagination brings them to life I don’t think I can presume to tell them what they need to learn. There are of course bare minimums – a level of literacy and numeracy are mine – but I think that to impose any greater enforcement would quite possibly stunt rather than give wings.

I should say at this point that I am not against curriculums for others, I do not think that everyone else is stunting their children by sending them to school or doing school at home. I have no idea what is best for other families, but this is what I think is working for ours – I can see the results already in my children and I hope to continue seeing them grow and grow.

The second question was about motivation really – the example being the ‘don’t care’ teen who sees no purpose in trying and if they can get away with not bothering then they will. For my children who have been given responsibility for their own education I very much hope the motivation they currently possess will remain and grow. I hope that by taking their own future in their own hands they will realise that the winner of pushing themselves to be the best they can is themselves and similarly if they take the piss by spending all their time lying in bed sleeping their lives away then it is their life and no one elses. That is not of course to say I wouldn’t care but one of my biggest life philosophies is that we are each responsible for our own happiness – if I can pass that on with the idea following on that by deciding what they want out of life and then going out there to get it there is nothing to be gained by wasting a single day.

Whilst I have been typing this I have been sitting on the floor of Davies’ bedroom while he is supposed to be falling asleep. He laid there telling me (with no prompting, actually he was distracting me from this – lol) the starting letter and sounds for box, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Mummy, crocodile, aligator, apple, leap pad, cat, cupboard, drawer, snake, bed and so on – basically everything he could spot in his bedroom. He was right on each and every one 🙂 He also ‘drew’ each letter in the air as he said it, again with a 100% success rate. So he’s five and he can’t read or write yet but he probably has more of the mechanics in place than a child who can!

Home Education is experimental. There is no denying that we are pioneers of something different and something which there is no guarantee or proven evidence of success for. I am very aware that by making this decision for my children it will be something which stays with them for life. It will be one of the first pieces of personal information they impart about themselves in any new relationship or acquaintance. I will spend many more years justifying and explaining it and then pass the baton on to them to do the same. It is a gamble and the way I am choosing to do it is perhaps even more of one. But I believe it’s an ‘everything to play for’ type of gamble, one which could just net massive rewards. For now my reward is happy children who spend lots of time being children, who have a fantastic relationship with me and each other, who have no stresses or unrealistic expectations on them and who are allowed to be whoever they want to be (even when sometimes that is Buzz Lightyear or a Fairy Princess for the best part of a week), who are learning all the time in everything they do and who are loving pretty much every minute of their lives. Who never have to put their hands up to ask a question and who get the answer from riding a magic carpet holding the hand of someone who loves them, they are surrounded by friends and for once would probably prove the saying that these are the best days of their lives.

Every time I have an ebay frenzy I always get the postage wrong. I have previously wildly over priced postage and then felt awful at the post office when it is clear from the sticker that I have made a fortune from overcharging. The next time I ebay I am mindful of this and go all coy about charging at all and underestimate and end up out of pocket. Last time I gave a discount to someone for buying 3 items off me and she sent me a cheque cos she’d looked at what I’d paid to send it and realised it was about two quid less than she’d paid me and felt bad herself!

So this time I thought I’d got it about right charging 2 quid a go for sending pairs of jeans. But no! I sent five parcels this morning which would have netted me a tenner in p&p charges and it cost me £13 to send them 🙁

I know I should weigh stuff first and then look on the royal mail website to find out how much it will cost then factor in a bit extra for packaging materials but thats a right faff! I think I have it sussed this time though, I’ve looked at what others are charging for similar items to the ones I’m listing and gone with that.

Sigh!

Would probably best describe the day really. The man came to look at my laptop so that’s in hand but I failed rather miserably to make any of the phonecalls I had planned.

Davies and I were on TV – which was the first time I’ve seen myself on TV aside from home videos which are a slightly different kettle of fish – I didn’t need to hide behind the sofa at least! Davies was fairly twitchy and typical small child on telly really, but piped in when he needed to. We have it on dvd so will bring it along to various get togethers for any people who had a wish to see what we look like sitting on a daytime TV sofa 😉

I did some flickring of very old photos – really enjoyed ahhing over my babies when they really were babies but also felt a sense of true relief that the period of having babies is well behind me now and I quite possibly may never again in my whole life change another nappy 🙂

I went food shopping, calling in to see Dad on the way for a chat and weekend catch up, then popped into Boots which is opposite Sainsburys (one of those out of town retail superstore Boots places) and using the large amount of points I had saved up on my card I redeemed about £30 for some pressies for Tarly for birthday / Christmas which made me feel better for having done a bit of pretend shopping and also evened up the pile of stuff ontop of the wardrobe as about equal amounts for each child. Also I do love buying girlie stuff and that was what she had earmarked as potential pressie last time we wandered round Boots together. So she’s got some Barbie perfume and glitterbabes lip gloss and stuff which I know she will simply adore 🙂 That’s my girl!

Did my food shopping this week in Sainsburys and was very pleased to come in under budget as I really would rather shop there than Tescos. I’m quite enjoying the novelty of being frugal just now although I’m sure it will wear off eventually!

Cooking a roast lamb dinner as we’ve missed Sunday roasts for a couple of weeks and in our house they are something of an institution. We also allowed ourselves alcohol to make up for not really having any last night so tonight is a sort of honourary Sunday.

Not even sure what I’m supposed to be doing tomorrow – will check my diary in a minute and find out. I’ve also made about 30 quid on ebay selling off the clothes which I liberated from the bottom of the wardrobe in last week’s declutter – so that’s good 🙂 Keep eyeing up all sorts of things around the house and wondering what their ebay value could be…

that me and Davies will be on TV later today. The show we went to London to film a couple of weeks ago will be on The Baby Channel (Sky 285) from 2.45pm. Feeling quite wobbly about how I’ll come over (and how I’ll look – oh shallow Nic!) as I’ve never been on TV before, so do me a favour and focus on Davies rather than me if you watch it 😉

As Tarly would say!

Stayed up til nearly 2am this morning chatting online, which had so not been my plan but was nice anyway 🙂

Need to rouse myself to unpack from the weekend, sort out some washing as it’s a nice bright day and might even dry outside, get myself and the children dressed, do a shopping list for later, make a couple of phonecalls and do something with the children – not sure whether we’ll go for baking, snuggling with books, watching a film, drawing and crafts or general playing yet – depends on my level of enthusiasm I suppose!

Don’t think I have the energy to do a blow by blow account of the weekend really – we arrived home having taken at least an hour longer than expected due to some traffic jam (which we never found the source of) meaning we did the first 40 miles in 2 hours 🙁 Tarly had fallen asleep but then woke up and has literally just gone back to sleep (it’s gone midnight!) so a planned evening of wine, some sort of meat product and I’m A Celebrity.. was somewhat scuppered!

But we had a lovely weekend anyway 🙂

Chris and Helen have a beautiful house, meat free zone aside we enjoyed lovely food (mulled wine and chestnuts last night being a particular favourite part of the weekend), the children all bundled straight in and had a whale of a time. Tarly was slightly off colour for a bit yesterday and faded fast again late afternoon today before we left but Davies and Elinor thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company and played pretty much solidly without any real adult intervention required. I was actually very proud of both my two this weekend, particularly Davies as he was a perfect little houseguest. He did his pleases and thankyous, he thanked our hosts for having us, he was very gentlemanly with Elinor and dealt with compromises and negotiation on a very high scale. Elinor was charming as ever and a perfect little hostess too.

Lovely also to see Merry and 3/4 of her girls – it would appear that a Tarly / Ammi corner of the Tarly / Ammi / Lulah triangle started to form which bodes well for Okehampton 🙂 Nice to see Merry when she’s not at a camp too without the backdrop of canvas!

It was lovely to be part of Alys’ first birthday celebrations too – thanks for that Chris and Helen.

There are some photos on flickr – Ady got all arty in the frosty light, bright winter sunshine and the beauty of the house so finally decided to use his own flickr account and uploaded some there too (after I’d stuck most of them on my own flickr, but never mind!) He’ll be using his photoblog soon at this rate!

Had lots of long educational chats too – which was nice and made me feel like I was facilitating something I’d thought through and could justify although I think we all know I am far more muddling along and making it up as I go than that really. Nice to clarify some of my own thoughts though. Also told Helen some of my alternative life ponderings too, which was good to air, so thanks for that Helen.

And I think that’s probably as far as this post is going really – I need to go to bed!

Tomorrow is a quiet day at home, PC world are coming to investigate my laptop which hopefully will not mean I am without it but there is that risk. Other than that its a fairly quiet start to the week with yet more wild partying (well a bit of visiting anyway!) planned for next weekend! Just as well we have the week to recover eh!

Happy 1st Birthday Alys!

Lovely to be with you on your birthday 🙂