One word? When seven would do…

And it’s name is TEA 🙂

here follows my current tea drinking schedule:

AM – first cup. I like to start with a Twinings Breakfast Tea. It is quite strong and I drink it white with no sugar.

Later AM – I sometimes have one straight after the first, but if not then a mid morning tea of Rooibos and vanilla is in order. Again I drink this white with no sugar.

Lunchtime – I enjoy a Twinings Afternoon tea or a more flavourful one (perhaps a second Rooibos and Vanilla or even a Pineapple and rooibos if I am particularly adventurous) depending on what I am eating for lunch.

PM – This can depend on whether I am entertaining guests, whether I am at someone else’s house or just how mad the kids are driving me / how much time I have on my hands etc but is usually some variation on Earl Grey. I also enjoy Lady Grey too.

That can be the end of my tea consumption for the day as I switch to wine once the small people are in bed 🙂 If I am partaking of an evening tea then it is likely to be a ‘dessert type tea such as Twinings vanilla and coconut.

Not at all sure why I have posted this but I have been on a bit of a blog trawl this afternoon reading all the small incidental details of total strangers’ lives and found it really quite fascinating so I thought perhaps someone would stumble upon my tea habits and enjoy reading about them 🙂

And I think I had better leave the kids alone too!

The Amazon issue rumbles on – hopefully either the new tennant or my old next door neighbour (who of course their current next door neighbour) will ring me and I can get the parcel sent back to Amazon for a refund.

While all this was going on, and further phone chats with Rachel and 4 year old boys and how to deal with them, Julie to see if we wanted a piano (yes, but we already have one waiting at my parents until we have space for it!) and Ady to say he is leaving even earlier on Sunday to go away for the week the kids have been left to their own devices pretty much today. And got on very well on it too I have to say 🙂 Davies pretty much dressed himself (although those clothes have long been discarded in favour of the Peter Pan top and hat, worn with just his pants to be Jack (and the beanstalk!) ) , they have played in every room and with a vast array of toys, mainly clearing up after themselves too! They played for ages in Tarly’s room, with everything off the bed to create a camp with a trampoline, and they are currently playing a very noisy game with the Dora house in the lounge. Every so often I get a drift of one of their very funny play conversations such as :

S: Davies?
D: I’m not Davies
S: Jack?
D: Yes Jill?
S: ready?
D: yes Jill
S&D: Arghhhhhhhhhh!

I remember playing stuff like that with my brother when we were kids for hours – it’s lovely 🙂 They have also both played on the pc today for a bit. Scarlett had a first play with the Dora cdrom she got for Christmas. I am pretty impressed with it actually – looks like there’s loads on there to keep her going through various ability levels – it says 3+ and although she struggles to use the mouse she certainly enjoyed playing with it today. I’m sure it’s not but her hand just seems too small for the mouse and she really struggles to click it. I have got a smaller mouse for my laptop so maybe I’ll set it up on there for her next time (she says shuddering at the thought of Minx touching my beloved laptop!). She surprised me by knowing all the colours and shapes on there and surprised me even more by paying such close attention to it. There was one bit where Boots needed something to catch leaves falling off trees so they looked in Backpack – I was talking to Davies so paying no attention and Scarlett was yelling ‘bucket, bucket!’ at me and pointing to it on screen – bless 🙂
Davies then had a go on his Thomas one which I think is probably not really challenging him enough any more but he refuses to go up to the next DK Play and Learn even though he finds the current one ridiculously easy so I need to relax about pushing him ’til he’s ready.

They were back playing one of their mad games when a Book People order arrived – which has some fab stuff in it. A set of I wonder Why books, a poem for the day book, a make a life size skeleton book and a set of young Oxford history of Britain and Ireland amoung other things. They stopped playing to help open the parcel, then wanted the dinosaur book from the I wonder why series, Scarlett got bored halfway through and tried to get me to read something else, Davies wanted me to carry on reading and it all got shouty between them! Scarlett went and got her Dora house while Davies and I finished that one and also read the reptile one before I escaped and they have resumed playing nicely together. Clearly they don’t need me getting in the way of their games trying to educate them 🙂

I currently have one order from Amazon and two from the Book People that I am waiting for. The Amazon one should have been here by now so I’ve just gone online to track it and realised it is being sent to / already has been sent to my old address. In Manchester. 250 miles away. Which is a rented house that I no longer have any contact details for if indeed there are any new tennants. Infact I am hoping that there are no new tenants which will mean it is being sent back to Amazon.

I’ve emailed them as there would appear to be no method of contacting them by phone (grrr!) and am now totally convinced that there are people sitting in my old lounge reading my books paid for with my credit card which I will neither be able to get the money back for or even actually get myself 🙁 Bugger!

And of course what makes it all worse is that it is all my own fault 🙁

Well, in my humble opinion (and bearing in mind there are two other blogring members who were there so you might get conflicting reports) rather bloody well actually 🙂

Julie came over to mine for lunch and then we set off to the hall, we did arrived before Jenny, but as she parked round the front she still beat us in (Davies was having a wee on his porta-potty which of course reminded me of Joyce! Scarlett was sitting in her car seat shrieking ‘My turn! My turn!’ and pointing at the potty, while Julie had Jack and Maisie doing similar shrieking in the back of her car!).

Final head count was Jenny, Julie and me and a further SIX (count ’em six!) families which also included Ros (finally we meet!). Two of the others were families I have previously met but that was still three completely new HE contacts 🙂 I confess to losing count of exactly how many children were there but as a couple of them had four children I reckon we were well over 20 🙂

We have three rooms, two downstairs – one of which is a toddler creche with toys – and one upstairs. The upstairs one had been set up by Jenny with all sorts of stuff including board games, magnet experiments and so on, the creche room seemed to be the place to be even more so when Julie whipped out her pasta, lentils and glue for a spot of sticking (even she will confess to a frustrated teacher complex so she was in her element with a table full of about 10 children all sticking pasta onto paper she had written their names on in her teacher style handwriting 🙂 ). I floated about trying to chat to everyone, handing out realms of paperwork about questionaires on what people wanted to get out of group, what our guidelines and vision are, forms to complete if you want to join etc, making tea and coffee and feeling like I was at my own wedding 🙂 (you want to get round to everyone, you feel quite excited and don’t really know what to do with yourself 🙂 ). I did read a few stories which I think went down well – Davies came in at one point and was a bit disruptive – he kept talking to me, exclaiming on what a great book it was I was reading and asking to have his shoes off (which one of the girls – Ros’ I think- kindly did for him!) and it is very tricky reading upside down which I was trying to do so they could all see the pictures but other than that it was fun 🙂 (maybe I have one of those teacher complexes of my own eh?!). One of the women also goes to Tumble Tots and I will see her there on Friday and the remaining two ‘strangers’ and I both managed to have chats where they talked about what they would like to do for next week so it all seems very positive 🙂 A couple of very small things which we noted and will change for next week (like having a structured refreshment time and maybe a couple of storytelling sessions for different ages) but other than that I am feeling very upbeat and positive about the whole business 🙂

And that’s been it for today really – kids were on a total high afterwards and Davies has only just gone to sleep. It was amazing to watch him today so self confident and happy in a group. True, he did tend to mix with Jack and Maisie and Scarlett, but he did play with J a boy we have met a couple of times before, and there were at least two other boys his age there to be played with in the future. He stuck quite close to Julie in the creche too, but was totally unfazed by me disappearing which was also a relief (and a bit sad too in a funny way!) but in all he had a great time and was full of it 🙂

Tomorrow I have nothing planned, so maybe a bit more homey stuff. It is storytelling at the library if we are up and about in time to get there which we might do, Davies is really into his Thomas cdrom games at the moment and seems to be quite receptive to learning stuff so we’ll see how the day pans out. He got all his stars again on the chart today and is making a real effort in things like learning a letter, getting himself dressed, cleaning his teeth and helping to tidy the toys and so on, and happily it almost seems to be far more about him feeling proud of himself than about getting the little sticker so that’s all good too 🙂

further testing in that case! these are from April 2004.

further testing in that case! these are from April 2004.

Well that seems to work. Thanks Chris 🙂 I really must dig out and blog some of the children’s younger pics. In that spirit here is one of Scarlett about a year ago – I can’t decide whether I think she looks a whole year older now or not!

To get all my ‘oh and….’s out in one post, but you never know I could be back again later. (Especially as it’s Child of our Time tonight!)

But I wanted to add two things specifically.

Yesterday I phoned up and arranged this for the kids. We start on Friday for a trial lesson and if all goes well we will sign up for it. The woman I spoke to sounded really nice, not patronising, very understanding of different children having different needs and so on. She asked about Davies and school/nursery so I bit the bullet and said ‘well actually no, he’s Home Educated’ to which I got the amazing reply of ‘Oh is he. Well done! Do you know C*** then?’ I replied no and she continued ‘oh well she’s Home Educating her two boys. There’s quite a lot of you in Worthing isn’t there. Very brave, but well done!’ WOW 🙂 She is fine about Davies being there while Scarlett has her session and vice versa and they can go on Friday’s for a back to back session. Later on when Davies is happy with it his age group is unsupervised by parents who stay on the premises in a ‘waiting room’ with other parents and any other siblings while for Scarlett’s session parents participate but they are happy for older siblings to join in or sit at the side playing etc. Sounds a bit too good to be true TBH, but if it ticks off the boxes I need it to (gives him in particular a creative outlet, burns off some energy, allows them to seperate from each other a little (although not too much!), maybe makes them some friends, allows them to be introduced to group environments in a controlled and slow fashion and lastly is a good one to bring out to the LEA or anyone when questioned about stuff like that!) it’s fine by me 🙂

The other thing is that Davies has been really good today – he’s got every star on his chart and been really nice too, so the investment in being nice to each other has paid off 🙂 And a big thing too – while I was chatting to my friend in Lancing I sent him into the £ shop with a £ to buy a cereal holder (tupperware type thing). We watched him through the window go up to the counter and talk to the lady, say thank you and goodbye and come back all proud of himself. Very cute 🙂

Am in the process of trying out the photo thing as recommended to Joyce by Chris…may be test photos up later.

Following on from my Eyeore style post at the weekend I found this while trawling through some folders on the computer. (also if this works can I please have a large round of applause for achieving it! 🙂 )

Things have moved on a lot from them really and I’ve been meaning to rewrite it for some while and now would be a good time really, but it does re-affirm my belief for me in what we/ I am doing and also allow me to see just how far we have all come in a year.

Thanks for the support while I needed it, I’m sure I will be doing the same for you at some point and equally sure I will be needing it again myself as we continue on this path 🙂

Which is a bit of a bugger as I have been giving the kids assertiveness training all morning!

Supposed to be at Rachel’s now, drinking tea and chatting, perhaps cooing over baby A a bit while Davies and Scarlett test out their new skills at standing up for themselves if E tries to hurt or bully them. We spent time this morning practising ‘No. Do not hit me!’ and ‘Do not call me a stinky bum, I do not like it!’ Scarlett told me that ‘E hit Tarly – Tarly BITE E!’ so I think they were ready for him this time 🙂 But Rachel has just rung to say E has come home from school in a foul mood and she has mastitus so is simply not up to people coming round and being sociable 🙁

Which leaves me with about 4 free hours in which to avoid my job list, Davies is watching ‘Disney Countdown to Christmas’ on TV – which seems strange to me, but perfectly reasonable to him, so there you are, and eating cheese 🙂 Scarlett is in her room, playing a loud and very involved game with all her many Dora figures, the Dora house and a packet of baby wipes and singing ‘wheels on the bus’ at the top of her voice 🙂 And here am I!

Yesterday was a nice day really. We stayed in all day and enjoyed being at home with each other. Davies did his letters quite happily, played with Scarlett really nicely all day and if I could be bothered to recall all the different things we did I am sure I could tick off loads of boxes. I did make some scented playdough which they played with for ages, they did loads of dressing up and creative play, some magic maize, some observation of the worm world (which I have to say is actually very very boring – what are they supposed to do? 🙂 ), some brio, some playing with the PPisland and pirate ship in Davies’ room – all fairly low key and nice to be around. Davies did not get ticks for helping to put away his toys, but it was a considered decision – I asked him to help, he said he’d help later, I said he could help now or not get a star/tick/whatever and he said okay then! I could have left the stuff there for him to clear up later but I can’t deal with unplayed with stuff just lying around so it was sort of my decision to clear it up. He also missed one for ‘don’t be naughty’ although I don’t actually recall what the particular misdemeanor was – I know he got quite rowdy when Ady got home.

I went to Ikea with Julie in the evening so Ady let him stay up a bit later as he wanted to ‘do some bonding with him instead of shouting’. It seems tthat Scarlett is getting all the praise and attention at the moment and I have been craving a bit of time with Davies to be nice to each other too. I want to take him to see The Incredibles actually so if I can sort out a time when Ady can be with Scarlett then I think we’ll do that so we can re-connect a bit. I don’t tend to worry about my relationship with Davies normally – we are very close so I tend to focus on ensuring Scarlett is not left out or unfavoured which has maybe gone a bit the other way of late… While Ady is away next week I plan to let Davies stay up a bit later with me too.

Ikea was okay. I was pretty knackered anyway, it was a crappy night for driving (windy and raining) and it’s a good hour both ways so 2 hours driving was not great fun 🙁 It’s only the second time Julie has been there so she was up for browsing everything too which made the walk round longer than usual. I bought a few bits – the smaller pan to go with the rest Mum got us for Christmas, a rail to hang all the pans on in the kitchen, a snake torch each for the kids reduced to £1, a mini washing line and pegs for Scarlett for 90p and a roll of paper for their easel. Did have nice chats with Julie driving there and back though. Although we see each other twice most weeks we are either with the kids or the kids and Chris and Ady so it’s nice to have some ‘girly’ time to just chat 🙂 Home really late at 10.30pm for my dinner of beef stew (poor Ady had decided to wait and eat his with me and he was starving!), then bath, then bed.

Sadly Scarlett woke up while I was in the bath so she beat me into my bed. She was wide awake and sat there singing ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ and making random demands for ‘juice’, ‘Dora’, ‘Boots’ and ‘more dummies’ all of which I went off to fetch in the hope she might then go to sleep. Ady was in really bad humour, giving a countdown every half hour or so as to how little sleep he was going to get ‘five hours sleep and I’ve got a really busy day tomorrow.’ ‘Four and a half hours sleep and I’ve got a really busy day tomorrow’ etc. I had managed to ignore the budding Britney putting on a live and unplugged show next to me and drifted off to sleep at one point when Ady started doing some really elaborate redistribution of the duvet covers and a further update on how many hours sleep he would be getting 🙁 I think we all fell asleep at about 4ish in the end. I was woken at 7.42am by Davies sitting downstairs on the sofa yelling ‘I NEED MY MILK!!!!’ which woke Scarlett who went down to sit next to him and join in with the yelling!

This morning Davies has been really on top form helping and making a real effort to be good generally. He played with the lego and for the first time ever sat and put it all away, put the lid on the box and brought it back into the playroom, he got himself dressed without being asked and played really nicely with Scarlett at Jack and Jill (not the illfated hill walkers you understand. Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk and at the panto we saw there was a Jill who he married at the end. So Scarlett is Jill – sometimes she is his sister, sometimes his friend and sometimes his wife!) while I sat and watched Little Bill and fantasised about living in New York 🙂

Then we drove into Lancing, had a wander round Woolies, into the library for some books for storytelling at group tomorrow (which I am about to go and try out on the children in a minute so I am semi-familiar with the stories), some more 10p ex-library books, a good haul in the charity shop of some read and rhyme books (which must have been unwanted Christmas pressies as they are brand new) for 39p each and a couple of Roald Dahl also brand new. We also bumped into a friend who we thought we were seeing over Christmas but never turned up. Arranged to go out with her and her DH for a curry in a couple of weeks time which will be nice.

Right then, off to read books to small children!

In an incident involving Scarlett, a finger and an eyeliner pencil sharpener 🙁

Not too serious I don’t think, a well placed Winnie the Pooh plaster seems to have stopped the flow and she is curiously unmoved by the sight of her own blood anyway so aside from a ‘oh, sore!’ she was more interested in the pattern the blood dripping was making on the sink!

Davies has woken up, told me a, b and c and done a pretty good letter c for his chart 🙂 At 9am when he would have been at the school gate he was taking Tarly by the hand to ‘come and tell me all about your finger Tarly’ while I got dressed. I peeped in at them and he had her sat on his bed, with his arm round her while he quizzed her about how it happened, whether it hurt, how much blood there had been and then assured her that the plaster would stop it bleeding and make it all better 🙂 They are still both in his bedroom playing with the Peter Pan island.

Before that they had been playing with the Dora house together in the lounge and there has also been a magic maize fest in the house this morning too. We started off sticking them collage style onto some pictures, then Scarlett arrived and predictably wanted me to make a Dora. So I did that while Davies made Humpty Dumpty and and aeroplane. Then followed a brief period of scattering the whole bucket of MM round the house, including some carpet staining and throwing of it in the bath!

The weather is wet and grey and miserable so our plan for the day is staying in, being nice to each other and me having a play with my new phone and other odd bits and pieces I need to get done while they have free range to do whatever.

I’ve had an OK day 🙂

Got my new phone today and despite me being far too impatient to read the manual or anything like that (luckily Ady loves technology like that so he plans to read it and give me a summary of need to knnow stuff!) it seems pretty nice. Am feeling all virtuous that as well as having a newer and shinier phone I have also changed network which not only means the phone was *free* I have also signed to a different tarif which will actually save me a couple of quid each month 🙂

I can put my current SIM card into it and use it now, which I might do but as the changeover to the new network will be happening on the day we are going to London for the MP meetup at V&A so I’m expecting that to happen right at some crucial moment when I am having a London transport crisis of some description 🙂

So we chased around getting that this morning which entailed going to Portsmouth, I managed to redeem my Lush voucher and also got a freebie in the Lush shop promo 🙂 Then round to Chris and Julie’s, home via McD’s and round to my parents for a couple of hours.

Tomorrow I am going to Ikea with Julie in the evening and plan to do very little in the day really. I will try again with Davies to be a bit calmer and put it all back into perspective again. I think we need to focus on enjoying being at home together regardless of how much quantifiable education is done, or how much 4yo behaviour is exhibited 🙂

I have been low-level questionning the whole HE thing on and off for a couple of months. Not in any decision changing manner particularly; just in a ‘where would a different path lead us’ type way.

I know that we could spend our lives wondering what if, and that it is not a particularly effective or sensible thing to do, I also know it is human nature to do so, especially when you feel at a bit of a crossroads.

So, this seems to have come to a head today with me perhaps not threatening but certainly suggesting school to Davies. He is a child of many inequities (they probably all are really though!) and I do wonder in what ways I am holding him back by controlling every aspect of his life with HE. All of his friends have been handpicked by me really, they are either friends of my friends, or children who we have come into contact with via HE or other contrived methods. That’s not to say school friends are not equally contrived or manufactured (if I’m going down that route I guess all relationships are a case of right time, right place) but at least he would be put ‘out there’ in an environment where his friends were chosen by him, or he was chosen by them with little or no adult intervention.

Yesterday at the soft play place he was totally unwilling to get involved in any of the games the other children were playing – totally unlike either me or Ady who feel at ease launching into a room full of strangers, annoucing ourselves as ‘here’ and setting about talking to people. I do struggle a bit with this aspect of his personality – partly worry that I am simply perpertuating it by allowing him to avoid such situations, all the while wondering whether it is a necessary skill in a 4 year old anyway??? Scarlett can be similarly clingy when faced with a large group of children and I worry that their reliance on me or each other to provide moral support means they will simply be without confidence to manage in the situations in life where they will need to stand up, be counted and talk to strangers.

Next I am having something of a behaviour issue with him at the moment when he mixes with Jack and Maisie. When we are with other same age children he conducts himself very well – he plays with them in mature and age appropriate games, deals well with all the social skills you could possibly expect from a child of his age and I am quite used to accepting compliments about him, his behaviour and his maturity. Put him in the room with three two year olds (J&M and Scarlett) and he regresses to their level. Today he has just been plain silly round there, tearing around screaming, acting like he was one of them, generally copying whatever behaviour they are demonstrating and getting frowned at, nagged and told off in the process. 🙁

On top of that we have gone back to basics again with letters and writing and yesterday we ‘learnt’ letter a as part of our incentive chart (yep, should have Karen – they had them in our local branch last time I looked, displayed with all the JP stuff and flash cards etc) and today we did b. So that is writing it down, learning it’s name and the sound it makes. Did both perfectly until I asked him to recap them tonight and he quite simply could not do it. He took a couple of wild guesses at what they were, got really stupid with me and we both ended up in tears.

I blogged only the other day about how happy I am to be home with the kids, but I have to admit that this is a bit conditional. All the while I can see that it is benefitting them I love being here. The instant I start to feel that not only am I possibly holding them back in social ways I might also be kidding myself about my ability to teach them anything (and yes I know I am over-reacting to him not being able to recognise the letter a! But I am also basing this on my reaction to it which is to shout, cry and threaten school – all of which possibly points to me not quite being cut out for this malarky!) I also start to resent being here, giving up my chance of a career, giving up my child free time and the second income. My mum once accused me of HEing in a selfish way ‘what are you getting out of it?’ was her question, the implication being ‘quite a lot I imagine!’ and she is right to a degree. I want to feel I am doing the best for my children, I enjoy the idea that I am the very best person to help them on their learning journey and route to adulthood and independance, I want to feel that the sacrifices I am making will mean something to them one day and I can look back and feel proud of this choice – so although it is very much for them I am also looking to gain out of it too.

When this is all thrown into doubt and by no means certain, when I listen to several friends telling me I must be mad/brave/so sure about what I am doing and see them dropping their children off each morning and collecting them again after a day apart (during which they have worked / shopped / enjoyed one to one time with their younger children / eaten their lunch in peace) and they collect their child knowing that their education is being taken care of by someone else, when I get a response from almost everyone I voice doubts to of ‘well send ’em to school then’ it all contrived to make me question what I am doing too.

Yep, that’s right we’ve been to a kid’s birthday party today! And if we have to suffer that song in our heads for the next week then you lot can too!
My turn to rise early with small people today (although the smallest lounged around in her bed ’til nearly 9am on account of being up with Daddy past 2am!) So Davies and I enjoyed a bit of one to one. We got out a space hama kit and he made a pretty good start at following the pattern onto the board with a bit of guidance while I sorted the beads into colours into the new storage bead box. He managed about 5 or 6 rows before getting bored – tbh this is not really a Davies type activity really so that was quite a good effort. He also had a couple of underplayed but quite impressive lightening bolt moments when he started talking about adding and taking away totally unprompted – talking to himself about sums like ‘I need four, I have two so I need to add two more’ – okay baby steps but somehow when I was not paying attention the concept has snuck in there and is ready to be built as we go 🙂

Then Scarlett appeared closely followed by Ady so I disappeared to get dressed and although I did do a bit of work for Ady I’m not really sure where the morning went exactly. I did cut Davies’ hair, which meant both kids ended up having a bath which probably took up an hour or so, but anyway, we barely got out of the house by 1pm on the way to L & L’s birthday party.

It was held here a big soft play and football place. Pretty similar to every other soft play venue and birthday party I’ve ever been to (makes me realise how good a kids’ party offering we used to put on in Manchester actually – and why it was such a big part of that business), and not really either of our two’s scene but as Ady and I were both there they enjoyed a run around and got bolder towards the end when they walked off holding hands to try themselves out on the bigger stuff – they are a good team really – Davies seems to gain confidence by having a baby sister to protect and watch out for and Scarlett is the fearless one who leads him onto higher and steeper places just because she needs his help to get to them. Lovely to watch 🙂

Davies was a bit disappointed not to sit next to L when they had their food (L had saved a seat for Davies to sit with him when they had gone into the side room earlier for a drink and to blow out candles, but for the main food he was sitting with his two school friends), but he ended up sat next to L (2yo girl) instead which he seemed quite happy with. Ady sat in the corner with Scarlett and both children ate all their food and were very impressive with their pleases, thank yous and no thankyous to the people serving the food.

Home again via Tescos and the kids continued to run round like loons until we forced them to bed around 7.30pm. I bought a magnetic reward / incentive board thingy from ELC ages ago with the intention of using it with Davies for educational / learning achievements and goals and this morning we also found time to do that. It has space for 7 tasks each day to ‘win’ a sticker/magnet for with a running total at the end of each day and each week. Together (and mainly him actually) we have chosen:
Went to sleep last night (has to be rewarded the next day really that one doesn’t it!)
Ate my dinner
brushed my teeth
got myself dressed
helped tidy up my toys
Have not been naughty
and finally – the real reason for getting it out:
learn a letter – he had to know the name, the phonetic sound and be able to write it, today for the sake of ease we did ‘a’ and he already is writing it better than ever before. He has of course attained all seven magnets today and as I have been wanting to start some sort of pocket money type thing with him anyway we have decided to give him 20p for every day he gets every possible sticker. At the end of each week he can tot up how much he’s got and decided whether to spend, save or half and half with it. I have also told him that there will be occassions when he can ‘earn’ more money for stuff when he is helpful. I know this is not always the best way of motivating children but I think there are enough tangent educational spin offs from it that it is worth a shot. We’ll see 🙂

Tomorrow we are going into Chichester so I can sort out my new mobile phone – I think I have decided on this one
and I need to sort it all out without the small people ‘helping’. It also gives me ample opportunity to spend my Lush voucher too:-)

Remember me getting the forms to complete for which school Davies would be starting later this year complete with a scary prospectus thingy for all the local choices?

Remember how after some deliberation I just binned it all?

Well guess what came this morning?

A second form chasing up the non-returned first one and asking that it be completed by end of February to ensure every child was guranteed a place and that we got our first choice of school.

I have binned that too under the reasoning that it is asking us to reply to ensure we get a place – we don’t need one so there is no need to reply. But there does appear to be a default school place arranged for him anyway looking at the form, so will his name be automatically on their register come September?

I’m torn between knowing I have no obligation to share our plans and that by actually putting something in writing I may be drawing attention to us which I would rather not court although I am prepared to deal with it if it comes; and thinking perhaps I should send a letter back simply stating that we have made private arrangements and will not be requiring a school place. Which would hopefully simply make them cross him off their list – or would it?

Argh! I’m not good at just doing nothing and leaving stuff unresolved!

First of all many thanks for all the birthday messages in the comments from the last post.

Happy Anniversary Alison & Chris for yesterday, Happy Anniversary Sarah & Steve for today and Merry – don’t worry about Monday – with all the experience of being one day into 31 I can assure you it doesn’t seem too bad 🙂

Had a lovely, lovely day yesterday. Woken at 9am by Davies bouncing on the bed saying ‘Mummy. Mummy. Come downstairs. It’s your birthday and we’ve got you flowers!’. Which sure enough they had – and they had made the empty dry roasted peanuts tub from Christmas into a hand decorated vase for me using window marker pens too 🙂 Also a couple of tear jerking cards (Davies’ writing, Ady’s heartfelt words) and despite sending me off for childfree shopping last week to select my own pressies Ady had also bought me an underwear set. Which was a real big thing for him bless him. Right size, a lovely colour, blah, blah, blah (expect to see if peeping from under my clothes in an illadvised photo pose sometime soon 🙂 ) . I then enjoyed the bath that had been run for me, before taking phonecalls from my Mum & Granny at 9.50am (the time I was born) to wish me happy birthday and arrange to come over.

Leisurely got dressed and got the kids dressed before my Granny arrived. She had been in LA for Christmas but it had rained 12 days out of the 14 she was there and she had been worried about my Uncle (who was in Phuket) so had not enjoyed it really. (He is fine btw). She brought me a lovely candle from Amercia (possibly the best pressie she’s ever gotten me really, I like candles, it is in all the right colours to look lovely in our bedroom and it smells nice too), some cheerleaders pom-poms for Tarly, a funny whistle for Davies and Hersheys kisses candy canes for them both. So she was fairly popular 🙂 She had found out from my Mum the day before about the whole HE thing so was quizzing me on that when Mum & Dad arrived.

They bought me a selection of presents – most of which I chose; various books (Chick-lit mainly but also Eats, Shoots and Leaves), a couple of cds (two Rod Stewart ones including a best of, which explains the blog title today as we’ve been listening to it in the car), a purple pashmina/wrap/whatever you call it, more candles and so on. All very nice 🙂

Kids ran round like loons with all the adult attention and chocolate kisses before Granny left and me, Mum & Dad took the kids out for lunch while Ady stayed home and did some of the work he was supposed to be there doing. We went to Marks & Spencers as Ady & I were out again in the evening so we only wanted sandwiches – and if you want sarnies, you go to M&S. I was a bit cautious about the kids but they were total angels. They ate everything I bought for them, drank their cartons with straws nicely (I normally steer them right away from cartons and straws!), sat still, were polite and well mannered and just generally made me feel very proud – and even got comments from my Dad on too.

Of course they then both let themselves down by being all unruly and rowdy when we went into the actual shop so I could have a look for a new handbag. I had a yen for something a bit different. I don’t need to hawk round so much stuff anymore – Tarly can be accomodated with one nappy and a travel pack of wipes shoved in a bag, so I was able to go for something smaller, and I just fancied a departure from black. So I found a gorgeous red one, just the right size, with a free brolly too 🙂 Funny how now I am 31 I found the perfect bag in M&S and Ady bought my underwear set from there too – next I’ll be in there looking for ‘a nice cardi!’ 😉

Home again buying a cake on the way out to take home to share with Ady and we did the whole candles thing with the kids assisting in the blowing out, cracked open a bottle of champagne and Frazer (my bro) arrived too for the rest of the afternoon. Kids had a great time playing with the ELC till and pretend money I had got them for Christmas and used all the pretend food to create a toy shop which they then did some personal shopping for everyone in.

Will skim over the actual getting out of the house and hassle and hysterics that generated but Ady and I had a lovely evening and a lovely meal. A fab end to a really nice day 🙂

Today has been a bit hectic really – we were out and at Jenny’s by 10am where we tried and pretty much succeeded in final plotting and planning for the launch of our new HE group next week (Ros – will email you tomorrow 🙂 ) in between supervising five children (my two being particularly distracting!). Interesting to watch Scarlett and F being a bit of a match for each other 🙂 Getting excited about the new group now – Jax/Kirsty might be emailing you for some advice about a couple of things you’ve mentioned at your group.

Home again and just time to change a bad nappy before Julie arrived with the twins. A very welcome Lush gift voucher from them which I shall enjoy spending! Quite a nice couple of hours although I veered between feeling sorry for and very cross with Davies for his immature and attention seeking behaviour. Being with 3 two-year olds seems to have the negative effect on him of bringing him down to their level. Probably not the best company for him really – he thrives more on mixing with children slightly older than himself instead of younger, and when there is just him and Tarly here they seem to play his games rather than hers and are quite grown up together.

Not long after they all left Ady arrived home and so that was today. Tomorrow we are going to L & L’s joint birthday party (the children who come round to play once a fortnight or so – boy L is 5, girl L is 2) at a soft play venue. Glad it’s on a weekend so Ady can come too, as I am not super keen on those places especially when trying to mind two children who don’t really know anyone there or have not been there before either. Sunday we are going over to Chris & Julie’s and at some point I need to get into Chichester or Brighton to be spending that Lush voucher 🙂

I am officially a ‘woman in her thirties’. I am two whole minutes into my 31st birthday, which for some odd reason feels more monumental than being 30 🙂

I quite like birthdays actually. More so now I can legitimately celebrate two addional ones as well as my own – I consider the children’s birthdays to be special days to me too, being partly responsible for them having them and all.

Despite my blog habit, in the main I am not that big on soul searching – I am pretty happy with myself and very happy with my life. I think that I probably am as grown up as I’m ever going to get but I am enjoying it as opposed to feeling stifled by it, and this last year has been quite a big one for lots of reasons – none of which probably have anything to do with the whole ’30’ milestone, but I am currently in a place which would surprise many people who have known me through my life – myself included. The biggest surprise is that I am at home full time with the children I was never going to have and if I did have them then I certainly would not be giving up work to stay home with them. And hand on heart I would not want to be anywhere else really. I have seen that teacher recruitment ad they are running on tv atm (the one where they show lots of kids doing kid like stuff and ask whether your workmates do all this) and am feeling very inspired and priviledged to be treading this path along with two amazing small people and learning new stuff every day along with them. They are a huge challenge, but that is all I ever wanted from life really – a challenge! I have a husband who is all I could ask for and more, yep, life is pretty darn good really 🙂

Today we have had Rachel, E and A round and they left us feeling a but shellshocked really. The boys played really well for once with no fighting or bad behaviour – a really creative, team working game using their imagination to turn the storage cupboards in the playroom into caves and hide from dinosaurs. It went on for well over an hour, leaving me and Rachel to have a good old chat.

I’m not entirely sure what triggered it but suddenly E kicked off about something and Davies ended up getting (not seriously) hurt by him, Rachel got cross and took a toy off E which had started it all, he got very very very angry with her, threw a torrent of abuse at her, she tried time out, smacked him, yelled at him, he yelled back, then he grabbed the toy back off her, she grabbed it back and he grabbed the nearest heavy thing and threw it at her. They left very shortly afterwards with him being dragged to the car without shoes or coat as he had not put them on, still howling while Rachel apologised for everything and carried on yelling at him. Can not possibly judge either of them, but it was an ugly scene and quite disturbed me, Davies and Scarlett.

Now I shout a fair old bit, and I think the kids do have a lot of respect for my authority and know when they cannot push me any further, but to witness two people so angry with each other and out of control really shook us all up. My parents used to have quite violent (not in the physical sense) rows when I was young and it always really scared me, hence I have ended up in a relationship where doors do not get slammed, voices do not get raised and no one fears anyone else who lives in this house. Yes, we get angry and yes we all have our limits and ‘moments’ but I don’t think any of us have ever lost it like that with each other. Davies was trying to peacemake (just as I used to with my parents), I heard him going to see E and telling him that if he just came and said sorry to his mummy then it would all be okay, he then came to tell Rachel that he was not hurt anymore so it was all better and okay and E wasn’t in trouble anymore. Scarlett watched the whole thing wide eyed, was very concerned for baby A and kept trying to cuddle E to make him better. Oh it was quite awful 🙁

We talked about it after they left, how all the anger made us feel and whether we thought it could have resolved differently, we cuddled lots and all told each other we loved each other lots too. Which makes us sound very wet and like a cross between some sort of group therapy session and an episode of Friends, but hopefully ykwim. Anyway, I’m sure it’s long since forgotten back at their house but it will certainly stay with me – and probably the kids for a few days yet.

Tomorrow Ady by sheer luck is working from home, so I will get a lie in, my Mum is coming to take me and the kids (and probably Ady now too 🙂 ) out for lunch, then her and Dad are babysitting in the evening so me and Ady can go out for dinner. And we have booked the table for an hour later than we have told them so we can sneak to the pub first too 🙂

So I guess I may well not be blogging tomorrow, see you on Friday everyone, and don’t forget to tell me how I don’t look a day over 29 🙂

I’ve got one and I know several of you have two, a little Y2K (now that was an annoyingly overused phrase which has gladly gone wasn’t it – for a time I thought we were going to have Y2k1, Y2K2, Y2K3 but as no-one as yet has wished me a Happy Y2K5 (or should that be Y2Kv) I guess it’s over 🙂 ) baby.

Hence the watching of ‘Child of Our Time’ was always a must-see in this house. I can clearly remember playing ‘which cup is the toy under’ with Davies when he was one, feeling happy and reassured that he was normal when he was two, feeling a wee bit smug last year that he seemed to be ahead of most in some things when he was three and now here we are at four.

Last night’s show was somehow different. I don’t know whether it’s me, or the show that’s changed but it seemed somehow darker and less a simple catch up on where those four years old are now. I think there was definitely more of an element of ‘reality TV’ about it last night – some of it just seemed so staged for the cameras, which I never noticed before. I know that they did cover two quite sad stories last night – one of the single mother who always seems down on her luck when they catch up with her. I thought the little boy was doing remarkably well considering all he and his family had been through in his short life – and a real good example of why school is not always wrong. The Yorkshire folk who always annoyed me somewhat in previous years also seemed to be trying to deal with a 4yo still in a toddlers mindset (although as my 4 yo is the older sibling maybe I should reserve judgement until my youngest is 4 and see if she has grown out of the tantrums and biting like I hope she will!)

I found the whole big house, small house thing very odd. The questions seemed entirely leading, not really relevant or designed for a 4 yo’s understanding or logic and I got the feeling many of the answers they got were whimiscal instead of considered – which would seem a bit unscientific really – certainly if I quizzed Davies on dolls house sizes in relation to what a child would be bullied about I would not rely on his answers to be the same as the ones he given the day before! (I know I simplified it a bit there but I think they really struggled to find a way of showing class divides mattering to 4yos!). I found the skin colour thing quite disturbing as well, even more so that the black children also thought the white ones would be nicer and have more friends. I have always felt that Davies is largely colourblind – and have certainly taught him that the differences he has noticed in people’s appearances are just that – difference’s in appearances and no more. I myself have at least two very obvious physical traits (hair colour and size) and I have explained to him about how I was teased as a child for having ‘different’ colour hair, and he is aware that size is something people can feel quite sensitive about and is therefore not to be used in a derogatory fashion to describe someone.

I did the OU pages with him earlier and was pleased to have my theory proven. Firstly that his attention span was short enough to get nonsense answers by the end of it, so totally unscientific, secondly that his reasoning for choosing certain children was not remotely based on skin colour (he chose the chinese boy to be PM, as I explained that was an important job and that child was wearing a smart stripey shirt!!) He did choose the white child as the most kind and they one he would like to play with but only because he does bear a strong resemblance to one of his friends and he was smiling. He then asked to do the girls version to, where he also chose the chinese girl a lot as she was smiling (he said she was the most like Scarlett!) and also on several he chose all of the children or at least more than one.

It did strike me watching it last night that being a child who has not been in a playgroup /preschool environment is already marking him out as different in many ways even at this preschool age. He is far more aware of family, our home and daily life – he knows our address, whereabouts in the country we are on a map and also where we used to live too – so that question would have been easy. He is less aware of stereotypes, gender specific toys, choosing a same sex child as your best friend being the norm and generally less institutionalised I suppose.

I was chatting to Karen earlier (hope it went OK btw K 🙂 ) and saying that for those children who never go to school I believe are already getting a ‘different education’. E started school yesterday so all of pre-Christmas was spend choosing and buying and persuading him into his new school uniform, worrying about whether he can wipe his own bum or not, sorting out a routine for getting him to and from school, ‘bigging up’ school as he doesn’t actually want to go, preparing him for writing his own name, putting his hand up to ask a question instead of just asking it, eating and drinking at set times instead of when he is hungry or thirsty, teaching him how to chant ‘good.morn.ning,miss.teach.cher’ with 30 other voices and so on. In contrast we spend December talking about friends and family and what they mean to us, the whole Christmas story and various beliefes and cultures and ways of celebrating, planning what we want to do for this coming year and going up each and every one of those odd alleyways of thought and reason that your average 4yo wants to explore if you only had the time. Yesterday we did puzzles pretty much all day – every aspect of the curriculum was there somewhere but not in any structured or planned out way. Today we are playing at dressing up – again it’s all in there but not neatly packaged into one hour compartments and labelled as such. I guess where I’m going with this is that school wastes a hell of a lot of time as well as all the other things it robs from us and our children – shame there is no-one representing that on Child of our Time on that really isn’t it 🙂

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