One word? When seven would do…

When you can’t recognise enough of yourself to end up as yourself in the quiz. The eventual result however, is very accurate:
You are Nic, a woman who does not believe in sentences or paragraphs but does believe in words, as many of them as possible all joined together in as coherent a way as possible. For you Christmas starts in July, an indication of your fun-loving nature…
I think if in the describe yourself bit there had been the option of curvy and voluptuous I might have been okay!

which is not hugely surprising as I didn’t get up til 9.30am this morning and I have spent most of the day lying on the floor at my parents playing unenergetic games with the kids, but as I do have to be up in 7 hours, and you can guarantee that when I finally do become tired and fall asleep Scarlett will wake up about ten minutes later it is pretty annoying 🙁

Ady is totally zonked, as he has been up since about 5am, although me getting back up again and coming downstairs has probably woken him and I expect he is now lying there listening to the sound of me typing, worrying that I am emailing Dwight!

My choices are:
Put the TV on and try and find something mindnumbing and sleep inducing to watch

Get a book and go back to bed to read it so I am at least resting if not sleeping

Go round the blogring again and see if what I thought I saw on Chris’ blog was real and not an illusion that disappeared again when I went back

Do some sort of work / online course….

Think I will do the blogring and then grab a book to take back to bed…

Meant to blog earlier in relation to Davies and Santa his chat with the first one we saw yesterday. He answered about yes he had been a good boy and told Santa what he wanted and recited in an almost bored voice about brandy and mince pies and carrots for Rudolph being left on the hearth, then started looking round the grotto which had been ‘dressed’ to resemble a sitting room with various (probably brought in from the staff’s homes) props, which included stockings on the mantlepiece.
D: so is this your lounge then Santa?
SC: yes, it is
D: so why have you got stockings up then? Do you fill them yourself?
SC: Erm yes

Davies seemed to understand that further questioning was simply going to ruin the day of the poor fat bloke dressed in red and maybe shatter his own innocense, so picked up a little globe ornament

S: Do you use this to work out all the countries you need to visit on Christmas Eve
SC: Yes I plan my route on it (has by now sussed out this is not your average timid 4yo!)
D: (having tried to spin it, presumably to find a specific place on it for further questioning and found it does not actually spin) Why doesn’t it go round then?

Ady removed the globe from Davies’ hand and pointing back to the room behind us where other children were waiting, and pulled Tarly away from trying to talk to the elves and dismantle their workshop we explained that Santa was very busy and we should leave!

D’you know if ever there was a child who dressing Grandad up in a red suit and hoping he would be conned by it would be a total waste of time, Davies is that child 🙂

And I did really want a slightly more comical one, but as I can’t work out the self timer on the camera I had to get Ady to take it and he already has concerns that I don’t really belong to and blog on a HE blogring but am having a torrid affair with someone called Dwight in small town America via the internet asking him to take a picture of me wearing fairy wings and tinsel was always going to raise his suspicions further instead of making him feel reassured about the whole thing!
The other option was to get Davies to take a shot of me, but concerns about the message him replying to ‘what did you do today then son?’ with ‘took pictures of Mummy dressed up in fairy wings and tinsel for her to put on her computer’ was also worrying so here is the best you are going to get of me as the Tinsel Fairy!

Would have blogged yesterday but I seem to have had a relapse and feel crap again 🙁 Yesterday I was torn between taking tablets all day and keeping off them so I could drink wine and eat curry with friends who came over last night – I compromised by taking tablets ’til about 4pm, then drinking wine and eating curry – not sure that is a very good plan really!

Saturday then, as I blogged on Friday night she was up when we got home from the ‘party’ so Ady sat up with her and I went to bed. He was up ’til 2am with her so I got up with Davies yesterday morning while they slept in ’til about 9am. Davies and I were making chocolate croissants when my Dad arrived, so we made extra and all ate them together, which was nice. Dad used to pop in all the time before we moved up North and I really missed it while we were gone. He had called round a couple of times in the week but missed me each time (off on one of my tablet induced fits of activity!) so I am glad we were all in this time. We then set off to Drusillas where we have season tickets to see Santa. We were expecting it to be heaving as Drusillas is a pretty popular local venue, it was the Saturday before Christmas and although it was bitterly cold it was not windy or raining so I would have thought it would have been very busy. We pretty much had the place to ourselves 🙂 I will do a bit on the grotto later in a professional capacity but as expected Davies loved it and Tarly was a little cautious. This Santa was quite well set up actually, the ‘elf’ asked the kids names and briefed him so he greeted them by name which was good (last year we went to one who was clearly hard of hearing and called them David and Charlotte, which Davies has never forgotten. Now I know they don’t have run of the mill, called Jack and Chloe type names but really, we were living in Manchester, capital of odd choices, where the best selling alphabet letter for name plate signs in the gift shop where we worked was ‘Z’ so it was not as though the bloke expected everyone to have a ‘normal’ name!), they got a little pressie each (Davies got a giraffe mask and Tarly a cuddly penguin) related to the zoo and we walked briskly round the animals. We did succumb to a train ride as it happened to pull up just as we walked by the platform before a fairly crap and very over priced meal in their restaurant.

A few pics then:

I also had a bash at cutting Tarly a fringe which promptly had gotten lost back in the mess of the rest of her hair, this is the only evidence remaining of it (and that is weak too!)

We then went on to Paradise Park which is on the way home to see the Santa there too. We combined this with a bit of educational stuff by looking round the dinosaur and planet earth displays again – which feels like the kids’ second home as we go there so often! Again, I will do more on the grotto in a bit, but this one had a slightly longer queue. On the way out Ady bought some chocolate and we bumped into an HE friend of Davies’ and his Mummy, who we have not seen in a while despite exhanging lots of emails and who will be coming along to our new group – so it was nice to wish them a Merry Christmas in person 🙂

I guess we could be accused of spoiling the mystique of Father Christmas a little by taking them to two in the same day, or simply just spoiling our children! But we were interested in the whole Grotto thing from a business ideas possibility and the very best judges of them are small children, Davies is pretty switched on anyway as he saw all behind the scenes of Grottos in Manchester and has drawn his own conclusions about the whole Grotto thing. He seems to believe in the concept of Father Christmas and coming round on Christmas Eve with reindeer delivering presents all round the world, but he accepts that Mummy and Daddy buy the presents and that all the various Santas he sees out and about are simply helpers for the real bloke. Tarly – well she just sees a big fat bloke dressed in red who gives out presents so she doesn’t much care above and beyond that 🙂

So the Grotto thing then – probably pretty boring for you all so feel free to skip ahead but I want to blog while it’s all fresh in my mind for my own purposes. At the company we worked for in Manchester we ran very successful Santa’s Grottos two years running as a bolt on part of the business (which was a children’s ride, gift shop, kids parties and toddler groups etc). They ran daily from the first weekend in November to Christmas Eve. The first year we had two seperate Santas operating at once, the second year we had three – which meant a large staff of santas and elves and a lot of co-ordination to ensure children did not realise there were three santas there all at once! We offered various packages to see Santa including a go on the ride, a pressie, a photo (choice of photo gifts including keyrings, fridge magnets etc), enhanced gifts (more pricey) and so on. We organised off peak trips from schools, playgroups, scouts and brownies etc and disabled access times too. It was a massive operation and Ady and I pretty much managed it between us. Miranda wanted to operate a grotto business and the early part of this year was spent putting together various business plans and proposals to various places and conducting meetings to sell the concept to places. Sadly nothing ever came of it, but having visited two grottos this year, both of which would have been done on a sizable budget and have reputations as good grottos we could see plenty of improvement opportunitites in marketing, efficiency, presentation, add on sales, customer satisfaction levels and profitability – all of which make us want to do something about approaching people again for next year. At times like these Ady and I once again wonder what we are doing working for other people when we know we could work so well together as a team doing stuff like this – we’ll see….

Anyway, home again and Davies spent yet another night doing his best not to go to sleep (four late nights in a row makes a very whiny little boy 🙁 ), Bruce and Jean came over and we had our beers and curry (very hot, very nice!) before getting a reasonably early night.

Today we have spent most of the day at my parents and actually had quite a nice day. There is a bit of friction at the moment as we are doing Christmas at our house but we are not having a Christmas dinner – the kids don’t eat it anyway, it means one or both of us spends all morning cooking instead of enjoying being with the children, we don’t have anywhere to sit everyone to eat it anyway and it seems like an unnecessary amount of time and effort spent for something which only lasts 20 minutes, creates loads of washing up and makes everyone feel bloated and sleepy for the rest of the day. Instead we are doing loads of nice buffet type food for everyone to help themselves to throughout the day, which we think will be loads better but my Mum is all disappointed about. She has been asking every week ‘are you really not doing a Christmas dinner then?’ with this little pouty face on her and then today she said ‘ooh, what are we doing Christmas eve?’ Before kids we always went out for a meal with them on Christmas Eve, since kids we always get a takeaway delivered and spent the evening drinking and arranging the kids presents round the tree, leaving ‘evidence’ of Santa and Rudolph coming and feeling festive. ‘Because lots of people I know are having their Christmas dinner in the evening on Christmas Eve this year – isn’t that a great idea?’ she asked…..Cheeky mare! We established that no, we would be doing our usual takeaway and laying out of pressies (cos actually Christmas Eve is probably an even crappier time to be spending providing a full roast dinner for people when we have two overexcited children to wrestle into bed to sleep, pressies to dig out of every corner and crevice and cupboard and so on… I sincerely hope she has finally got the message now, Ady did offer to get her a Birds Eye turkey dinner microwave meal for one if she wants 🙂

So that was the weekend. Ady is cooking roast lamb and I am planning a bath and another early night – no wine 🙂

This week we are sort of busy – tomorrow we have Mel. L & L coming for lunch, Tuesday morning Rachel, E & A are coming over, Wednesday I really do want to try and get to Roslyn’s (if it’s still happening – will email you Ros), Thursday Chris and Julie and the twins are coming over and Ady has his scan in the afternoon and Friday we are planning to go out for breakfast with the kids as a treat and Ady wants to finish work by midday. I really want to get the playroom and the kids rooms tidied up. We took some toys over to my parents today which still get played with but take up loads of space and I know I can clear out a few more so that the Christmas pressies will fit into the house once they’ve been unwrapped! I have a mountain of washing to wade through, I need to make some mince pies and I have three assessments I want to complete on my online course before they shut down for two weeks over Christmas.

And finally…. a massive thanks to Jax for getting my archives across from my old blog. I am overjoyed that I will never have to visit blogger again 🙂

Scarlett crouches down and says ‘on, do, free, or, hive’ then shrieks ‘Davies!!’, finds him (easily cos he is shouting back to her!), then he hides his eyes and counts to five while she just gets back into the same hiding place he has come out of!
He then tries to tell her to find a different hiding place and she just wanders off – he calls to Ady ‘Daddy, Daddy, I’m trying to show Tarly how to play but she just won’t listen to me!’ Cue me and Ady saying as one ‘welcome to our world!’ 🙂

Well actually it was only a little better than pants, but the main thing was that Ady showed his face and we were there 🙂

It started badly, we pulled up at the place Ady was sure it was being held at and there were no signs of life (I should probably explain at this point that the company he works for grows and supplies bedding plants and the like to big multiples such as B&Q, so the party was being held in a cleared out greenhouse – one of the huge, big as a warehouse type ones all bedecked with tinsel and patio heaters and the like), so he decided he had got it all wrong and it must be being held where he actually works (a further 10 miles or so on from the 10 we have already driven from home), so off we set. We arrive there for further no signs of life and it is by now 9pm, we decide to return to the first venue by a slightly different route past a couple of other greenhouses and if we find nothing resembling a Christmas party then to return home! We pulled up, a mere hour and a half and 50 odd miles later back where we started to find the party at 9.30pm 🙂 Actually that was okay – we quite enjoyed being coocooned in Ady’s little car driving along chatting without small people in the back interupting and we also sang along to our favourite Christmas songs without being forced to listen to Rudolph the red nosed reindeer 27 times (for the record we listened to Fairytale of New York about 6 times, Shakin Stevens Merry Christmas Everyone 3 times, (and yes we did sing along very loudly to the ‘haa – aa – ving fun), I Believe by Robson and Jerome and The Power of Love (FGTH) twice – which we also discovered the actual words to as both of us had always thought they were something else (the line ‘burns the soul’ – I always thought it was ‘birds of soul’ and Ady thought it was ‘hurts me so’ !) so we were quite happy about it all really.

We got there, I got introduced to a couple of people as ‘and this is my wife Nicola’ and shook a couple of hands (some firm, some limp, some of the variety where they clearly feel they have something to prove and nearly take your arm off!). I chatted and laughed merrily, I ate cheap sausage rolls and twiglets which probably would contain traces of 37 diferent urines if sent for lab testing given the fact they were in a bowl which everyone had rumaged in, laughed with Ady about the ‘seamless’ merging of the DJ from ‘hey Baby’ (ooh, arh!) into ‘Step into Christmas’ and stood around a fair bit smiling inanley at people who were not even sure who Ady was let alone me – cos he works mainly ‘on the road’ and only actually goes into the office for a couple of hours on a Monday morning although he has been there 6 months in terms of being a work colleague he has been in the office for about a fortnight so is still the new boy. I chatted for a while with the MD who comes from the next town to where we lived in Manchester and tried very hard to talk to the wife of Ady’s ‘best work friend’ but as she had some high powered office job and lists shooting and horse riding amoung her hobbies I did struggle a little:-)
We were also viewed as odd as Miranda (our old boss & actually a very close friend despite my occassional whinge about her) is the daughter of the owner of the company and everyone knows that so they are cagey around us.

So we did our ‘have to get back for the babysitter’ routine and home we came. My mum apparantly had about 5 minutes between Davies going to sleep and Scarlett waking up (judging by the crying induced blotchiness of her face she’s been awake for some while) so she gladly handed over a now giggling cos Daddy was home child and left!

Anyway, this was to be a brief update on Christmas parties and now its rambled on. Jax has emailed me with possibly the best idea ever so expect a surprise addition to my blog someday soon and also expect a rant from me about Santas Grottos tomorrow too 🙂 Night all x

Christmas staff dos: (that’s do with an s on the end or should that be a s not an s, don’t know, not dos as in the whole windows type dos) and what to wear. I’ve never met any of Ady’s work colleagues before in the job he’s doing now so am relying on him and his appraisal of them to know how to ‘go’ tonight. I bought a really nice top ages ago which in the fitting room with the jeans I was wearing that day looked funky and young and ideal for leaping around with drunken teenagers singing ‘I wish it could be Christmas everyday’. Last night I tired it on with some grown up sensible trousers and it looks like something a middle aged woman would wear with bauble earrings 🙁
Ady insisted last night that it was not a ‘jeans’ type of do so I dashed around like a loony this morning trying to fit a last minute outfit shop in trailing two children in the half hour window before my Mum and Granny arriving at our house. And failed 🙁 Me and the kids got wet and windy and the only thing I bought was chocolate for them to reward them for being good in the shops. And cos he said I couldn’t wear jeas I wore the pair I had been keeping clean all week today and they now have jaffa cake smeared into one knee.
So then Ady comes home with a pair of trendy new jeans he bought today to wear 🙁

And as this would seem to be more of a Home ed blog than I ever realised (probably should have done all that in a 16/12 8pm tried on new top and trousers and realised they would never do; 16/12 8.30pm had children write a report including diagrams /and suggested alternatives on why it would never do; 17/12 9.30am ran around in rain teaching children about ensuring you are prepared for evenings out otherwise adverse weather conditions could hamper careful preparation of hair for evening out; 17/12 10.17am taught children several new words that they can use to express themselves in times of angst and stress, taught them also how to use them in past and present and future tense ‘bugger, I should never have arsing well listened to your father when he said not to wear jeans tonight, now I will look a right tit tonight’) I will mention the small people too.

Scarlett has been very ‘spirited’ today (anyone notice how the HV called her that and then it showed up in my Marge Simpson thingy?) and had many acts of random minxness – she chucked the Bob books in a full sink of water 🙁 and opened two pressies from under the tree. Ady dealt with both by shouting at her which he does so rarely that she now won’t go anywhere near him 🙂 The books are currently drying off in the kitchen and will at best be curly, at worst have pages stuck together 🙁 The pressies were rescued!

So this morning Mum and Granny came over and we all exchanged cards as Granny is off to America for three weeks for Christmas. The kids were their usual badly behaved selfs with an audience of two doting ladies who frown at me when I shriek at them and offer excused along the ‘he must be tired’ and ‘well I expect she is just excited about Christmas’ lines when they get all rowdy and unruly. Mum then stayed for lunch and tried to engage me in a slagging off her mother session, which I avoided and then we went round to Rachel’s.
E was clearly both tired and excited about Christmas 🙁 He shouted and smacked Davies and managed to shove Scarlett really hard into the edge of a chair – she now has a nasty purpling lump on the side of her head (glad the HV didn’t see us after that 🙂 ). She did amuse me by howling and sitting on my lap and having two jaffa cakes and a Dora storybook before deciding to exact revenge. She chased after him, pronounced ‘E naughty smack’ and walloped him…

So we’re off clad in jeans (if I can get the jaffa cake off with a baby wipe:-) ) to Ady’s party tonight which will either be fab or crap (they are never inbetween are they?) and then tomorrow we are taking the kids to see Santa at Drusillas. Which is probably sheer lunacy on the Saturday before Christmas but as we have escaped the whole Christmas shopping and food shopping nightmares it seems only right that we have at least one festive tinsel related example of pushing, shoving and queuing:-)

You are ‘Jingle Bells’! Full of enthusiasm and
good cheer, you are excited by the first
appearances of Christmas decorations in shops
and have been heard singing along to the piped
music. Your attitude to Christmas is one of
childlike delight – with a slightly mercenary
streak. You definitely believe in Santa (you
get more presents that way) and will put up
your Christmas tree as early as possible. You
really like carolling, and presents, and mince
pies, and pudding, and will insist on getting
everyone up at dawn to open presents
immediately. So long as the food and presents
are good, you will have a great Christmas.

What Christmas Carol are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Marge Simpson: You are Marge from The Simpsons.
You may not share Marge’s blue bouffant, but
you do share her animated style of mothering.
Sometimes the pressures of maintaining a happy
home may push you toward the edge, but at the
end of the day, you believe in your children
wholeheartedly, even when they’re being rather,
um, spirited.

Which TV Mom are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

And pmsl – Scarlett *is* Bart and Davies *is* Lisa. Not sure Ady would be entirely comfortable with the Homer tag and clearly we don’t have a Maggie, but we do have someone spookily similar to Ned living just opposite us 🙂 This is the best one of these I’ve done. Thanks Alison 🙂

I don’t know why I feel the need to try and come across like a cross between Dawn French and an earth mother, mixing a stand up routine on the perils of parenthood with a caring but chaotic approach when I meet total strangers but somehow I do. This morning Scarlett had her 2 year development check with the HV. Now she had one at 18 months (up north they do them at 18 months and 3 years, down here it is at 2 years and 3.5years so they have both ended up having two in the last few months!) and was fine then, and if ever there was a child who really doesn’t need worrying about developmentally it is her but we went along anyway.

I have been worried by all the recent speculation on groups and just generally about Big Brother and He children being monitored, worried about and generally hounded so my reaction to this is to be bold and upfront about what we are doing, knowing that I would rather be known and written off as nothing to worry about in what we are doing, than unknown and always waiting for a knock on the door. I am confident that I am articulate and smart enough to convince anyone who cares to ask that I am fulfilling the legal obligation of ensuring the children are getting their age and ability approriate education from me at home, which I think would then cross us off their lists and send them off to worry about the next family…. probably an attitude which angers other HE folk, and I can appreciate and understand others opposing views but that is mine.

So to relate why I typed that last bit, I knew the HE issue would come up, I wanted to be ready for it and create the aura of an in control, able and fit mother with well turned out and healthy children. So Scarlett and I arrived, with her in her second outfit of the day (first had blackcurrant juice spilt on it – don’t want her to appear neglected and in clothes she has been wearing all week!) with her hair combed (don’t actually recall the last time we did that – she hates it, I hate it and within ten minutes it is all tatty and wild again anyway). The HV asked me how I thought she was getting on and I said ‘Oh, she’s horrid. I want to swap her in for a calmer one please!’ Oops! I then tried to justify my claim ‘she’s read Toddler Taming and sees it as her personal challenge to eclipse any behaviour she has seen in it!’ Oops again. I then explained ‘my son never really did toddlerdom. He is much calmer and more sensible so we were hit between the eyes a bit with this one’ Poor woman is now torn between deciding we cannot cope with Tarly and that she is also ruining the life of her older sibling too – should she send me for parent skills lessons, have both children put into care? supply me with handcuffs and a gag on prescription? Where to turn next? Oh yes and then she cautiously asks about nursery, no doubt assuming I have a long list of ones that this minx of a small child (who is sitting angelically completing the first puzzle of shapes, asking what they are and repeating them, naming all the colours and then asking to do the other puzzle ‘but that’s for 3 year checks’) has been expelled from. So I take my deep breath and explain about HE.
I think I do an OK job but I do not have the energy or inclination to go any further than a basic but firm statement that I do realise what I am taking on (HV: that is a big responsibility Me: As is parenting!) and that I am fine and I do have lots of support and help and backup and resources and so on.

I must have done ok as she wrote on her little slip that she had no concerns, all of Tarly’s skills were good and fine and that she is a ‘spirited and articulate child’. Ooh, so I have a label for her 🙂 She did offer support should we feel we needed it, with our ‘challenging child’ and then confided that she too has one who is now 13, so she ‘knows what it’s like’.

Came away determined to send Ady for all future such appointments as he views all such HV type people as suspicious and meddling having dealt with many social workers and the like in the 60s and 70s when he was having his own ‘bad childhood’ and he won’t sing like a little canary about the children when fixed with the beady eye of a woman with a biro and a set of building blocks come to assess our offspring!

Back home to find Ady had been there for all of about an hour looking after Davies but had managed to hoover, clean the bathroom and generally tidy (why? everyone already knows he is a better housewife than me, there is no need to prove it!) and written ‘MERRY Christmas’ on the playroom window in snowspray which will really, really bug me in upper case and lower case mix like that til I can wash it off in January 🙂 He went off to work and Julie and the twins arrived. We had lunch, a bit of a chat, a bit of a get out every jigsaw puzzle in the house and then they all jumped on Scarlett’s bed!

I am now debating whether I can face walking to the post office to post my one remaining Christmas parcel which will involve bribing Scarlett to put on a coat and go in her pushchair as it is too far to walk at Tarly pace and she will run riot in the post office too if she is not contained. But they do need to run off some energy having been in the house all week, and it will prevent further toy scatttering. Yep, I’m off to persuade them into coats and shoes….

Forgot to mention that with my return to health has come my return to shouting! Last week the kids were ill and docile and did nothing shoutworthy. For the beginning part of this week I simply did not feel up to shouting, but today Tarly is being quite testing by emptying the fridge all the time and Davies keeps saying he is ‘too tired’ to tody stuff up when I ask him.
So I just shrieked at her for getting a bowl of beef stew out of the fridge and she ran howling into to the lounge where Davies put his arms round her and uttered the imortal line above. She settled on to the sofa next to him and he started telling her the names of all the engines and what colour they are. Y’know I reckon he’s much better qualified to teach her than I am:-)

Well today we have been doing plenty of Home Education, it’s just that it’s me who has been learning instead of the children! I have raced through about 4 assessments on my online learning course while the children have largely entertained themselves. They have played with the wooden train track, the fuzzy felt faces, Tarly has done some puzzles and played with some little sponge shapes which she loves to make pictures out of. They have grazed on food – mainly fruit and occassionally had their attention caught by something on TV. We put Shrek on (that’s ‘normal Shrek, not Shrek 2 Mummy’), they stopped play for Dora and have just watched Bob the Builder. Scarlett has also been playing with water – she gets about 10 cups out from the plastic plates, bowls and cups kiddie cupboard (the only one without a lock!) and pours water between them all – she is learning loads from it: volume, colours, liquid behaviour and properties, pouring control and so on and for the price of the eventual small puddle on the carpet it keeps her quiet for ages too 🙂

Davies and I did a small amount of reading today too – we got out the Bob books which have been sitting on the shelf for ages and did the first one. He was pretty good with the sounding out the letters (although he does struggle with the concept of phonics a bit really – we had previously taught him alphabet letter names instead of the sounds they make) and joining them into words. He did tend to guess a bit by looking at the pictures and a couple of times I think he recognised the appearance of the word from previous pages instead of actually sounding the letters out, but then I guess that is how we all read eventually isn’t it? I certainly don’t sit there sounding out letters anymore unless it is a word I am unfamiliar with – so I guess even that is a necessary skill to pick up on the way to reading. Anyway my point is that despite the idea of sitting down doing stuff daily failing miserably last time we tried it, in small, relaxed bites we seem to be getting somewhere with the whole reading and writing thing. For Christmas we have bought them a few ELC grocery shop bits like the till and some extra money – so I will start some maths type play with them and I also quite like the idea of Davies being given pocket money in the new year too – to introduce the idea of spending, saving, having a specific amount and the chance to ‘earn’ more too – maybe he’s a bit young but we’ll see how he gets on.

I am feeling a bit better today – I have not taken any tablets and we have not been out rushing about either. Tonight though Mum and Dad are baby sitting while Ady and I go to Asda to buy up all the food for Christmas. I might just have to take some tablets to get me through that 🙂 Hopefully I am over the worst of it and will be fully recovered by the weekend.

Hold the front page folks, it can’t be true, it surely is… I am about to put something on my under the banner of Home Education but very rarely talks about anything to do with education blog!!

While I have been totally ignoring anything even remotely educational, failing miserably to plan, direct or coerce educational value from anything it would appear the kids have been thriving on all that autonomous, learning from life stuff you read about but secretly don’t buy into!

Just wanted to do a little round up really – I’m not sure how long it is since I seriously decided I was going to HE but I know I was around this time last year as we did MP cards – although I think June and Alison were the only people I actually felt I *knew*. This year I really feel like we have become Home Educators, partially because in moving home and catching up with family and friends and being asked about schools etc we have now told everybody that we are doing it, I never have doubts these days about whether they should go to school or not and when I hear about and see other children’s schooling I really do feel nothing but relief that we won’t be doing that. Also since we have been home which is now 6 months I have for the first time ever had total responsibility for child care – prior to that I had always worked and had some element of childcare – a nursery when it was just Davies and Lynda when Scarlett was born. Although they drive me mad and insane and I have many many days where all I seem to do is shout it struck me this week that I really wouldn’t want it any other way – and that is quite a big deal for me.

It has also seemed that the last few weeks have been quite good for the children. We have done loads of stuff which has had real educational value but it has all been either spontaneous, Christmas related or otherwise ‘natural’. So what I wanted to do was a quick summary of both of them and where they are at.

Davies – his writing is really coming along actually. He still has a very peculiar grip on the pencil which I remain convinced really hinders him from forming his letters but we have been doing a fair bit of copying with various Christmas cards and Tarly’s birthday cards and he can do very clear (if rather large) letters with help and guidance. The biggest breakthrough is that he ‘gets’ that these letters are forming words – which has got to be the basis for reading and writing hasn’t it? He is also suddenly starting to pick up on the sounds at the beginnings of words – I am fighting all my natural instincts to drag all the workbooks out and go totally overboard on this but I really do think letting him do it in his own time is the right way forward.
He has also started to want to learn to read. Some of his favourite bedtime story books which he knows off by heart he asks to ‘read’ and as I go under each word with my finger he says them – okay he is not reading them but he is relating that word to the one written down, which again is a good start.
His questions have been constant this last few weeks and much more thought out and considered than the previous constant ‘why?’ type where he didn’t actually listen to what the answer was. We have covered all sorts of stuff including volcanos, more dinosaurs, reproduction and menstruation, weather, all sorts of Christmas and religion related stuff and much more. He has also started asking what certain words mean – none earth shattering, more ones he hears people use or on TV but I notice he is then starting to use them and play with them too – all excellent for increasing his vocabulary and a love and fascination with language. He has also realised that we use some words for different meanings (scene & seen, hear & here or even some spelt the same like mean (nasty) mean (as it know what I) ) and his skill at remembering song lyrics is amazing. He has been pretending to be Jack ever since we went to the panto which involves him using his Peter Pan outfit hat and boots and taking his trousers off to have bare legs, running round slaying giants and climbing imaginary beanstalks – says loads for his resourcefulness in creating an outfit and his imagination too. He has overcome his issues with needing me to be by his side everywhere particularly when faced with other unknown children like at the soft play area – I put this down to having been there for him all this time without leaving him alone until he got over his issues with it. He is also getting better at making friends and playing with other children – he was running around and talking to other kids at the softplay, which would also have been unheard of 6 months ago.

Scarlett
She is amazing with her level of speech and articulation, My parents always said you could hold a full scale conversation with me when I was two years old and I always thought they were lying – but it’s true, Scarlett can hold a full conversation. She talks in sentences, learns new words daily and uses them and has started asking ‘why?’ this week. I thought it was simply having heard Davies say it and get a reaction but she is clearly asking it as a question and listens to the answer she gets, which sometimes leads to another ‘why?’ She is clever enough to strike deals with (if you go in your pushchair you can have your dummy) and be bribed which is handy 🙂 and her jigsaw puzzle skills are very impressive. She has moved on from the 2+ ones and today completed a 3+ one with ease. She is also a total minx and spent today unwrapping presents which have been under the tree for a week and gone ignored – when I asked her why she simply replied ‘Dora’ which is a reference to the fact that for her birthday last week she opened all her presents and got Dora gifts so she clearly imagines that anything wrapped up in shiny paper will be a Dora related prize!

One of the great plusses for me of the children not going to school is that I have never really been able to compare them to other children, which IMHO is normally a good thing. But we do mix more with same aged children and I am always reassured that they are both every bit where they should be and more. Scarlett has her 2 year development check on Thursday which will be interesting…

They find you in your hour of need. You don’t know which way to turn, will you make it through the day / to the end of the month? Christmas is coming, there is so much to do and suddenly like an oasis in the dessert there they are offering help, solace and the solution to your problems. So you get sucked in, you swallow them up and go about your day putting your worries to the back of your mind. You kid yourself that you are okay, you’re fine.

But then, Bam! Just when you least expect it the bloody things run out on you. You are left high and dry, worse than before even. You are in a situation you would not be in if only you had not used them…. where to turn next?

So I took the fast acting, take at the first sign of a cold tablets, decided I actually was fine after all and set off to deliver some cards and presents (to people I knew would be out so I would not stand a chance of infecting them). Just as we were leaving a parcel arrived from NZ – now I thought we had an unspoken agreement not to send pressies with our friends in NZ as we ended up spending more on postage than gifts last year, but no, the little buggers have sent small parcels for all of us, so I also had a plan to buy a few light pressies to send back too.

Various cards shoved through various letterboxes and we were all but halfway to a garden centre which sells a cool gift idea (which I can’t talk about on here for reasons which may or may not become apparant after 25/12 😉 ) so I thought we’d carry on to there and get some. On the way Scarlett who I am begining to worry about with her dark side macabre tendancies scratched her nose again so it was dripping blood, which she then used to give her dolly a sore nose too – and seemed quite proud of (odd odd child!). We rushed in, deflecting a minor to do about Scarlett not wanting to go in her pushchair but me not being prepared to chase two children round a garden centre displaying loads of Christmas decs and lights, grabbed what I wanted, arrived at the checkout and discovered that when Tarly was playing with my bag earlier this morning she had removed my purse and it had not been put back again 🙁

Back into the car, back to the house where I grabbed the purse and apples to keep the children quiet, back to the garden centre (20 mile round trip 🙁 ), left the kids in the car while I dashed in as the nice lady had kept it all bagged up for me at the till. Then to Boots where I had a successful time getting a few other bits to send to NZ, some jeans for both kids from their basics range (£3 each – bargain!), some reduced to clear tights for Tarly which completes her wardrobe for the time being, then home to stick a beef stew on, make the kids lunch and I am just about to wrap up the pressies and get them in the post (hoping its not too late to get there in time).

Somwhere in the middle of all this the tablets wore off and I realised that actually I feel really crap 🙁 So after the post office I fully intend to sit around drinking tea for the rest of the day. Ady was up at 4am to leave at 5 to be in Bristol for 8am, so who knows what time he’ll make it home, and what sort of state of tiredness he’ll be in? Just as well we are otherwise done for Christmas – I really don’t think I could do with worrying about buying or wrapping up anything else. Have just popped some more pills so am expecting them to kick in at any moment and convince me that I am fit for anything and should go and audition for the panto!

1. Get children and self dressed
2. Keep children and self fed and watered
3. Keep taking cold and flu tablets.
4. Sit on sofa moaning softly

And today Matthew, I’ve been good 🙂

Despite my illness (for which I have demanded many cuddles from the children, who have had their doctors kit out and been adminstering injections and testing my reflexed with the little hammer!) I have got loads done today. Been food shopping, washed and dried two loads of washing, cooked dinner, chatted to my loony neighbour, done reading with the kids, allowed them to play with the playdough, done a bit on volcanos with Davies including this rather good little bicarb and vinegar explosion I saw on a show on Channel 5 yesterday 🙂 (thanks Clarkes!) which went down very well. I have also sent some stories to Miranda and had very positive feedback back from her, done a further three assessments for my online course, and coughed and moaned a lot!

Tomorrow I have some Christmas cards to deliver if I feel up to it and I quite fancy some more snuggling up on the sofa with the kids eating chocolate and watching movies. I am really enjoying being their mummy at the moment, they are both being lovely and cute and I’m so glad it’s me that gets all their cuddles 🙂

I had a sudden burst of energy at 9am after blogging and got the kids dressed. Scarlett has suddenly decided to grow so all her tights were not making it up to her waist and all her dresses were barely covering the nappy area when she stretched and don’t get me started on her pyjamas ! So I decided instead of attempting an internet shop I’d rush to Tescos to stock up on pjs, tights and tops for Tarly and get the food for the week too.

The kids were both positively angelic 🙂 They ate apples and french bread all the way round but were quiet and good – we did sing Dora songs most of the way round, which got us a few odd looks but I don’t care 🙂

Home again and Davies has continued to play with the playdough while Tarly finished off the nap she started in the car on the way home. I have gone through all her clothes bagging up outgrown stuff to give to Rachel for baby A and noting what other bits and pieces she could do with. She only has one pair of trousers now – and about 10 skirts / dresses so she will need more tights and perhaps a couple of pairs of cheapy jeans (Tesco value or Boots basics) to see her through the rest of the winter. I really need to get out of my habit of a) dressing them from the clean laundry basket instead of their wardrobes and b) dressing them in their nice clothes instead of keeping them back for some sort of special occassion – they seem to end up wearing their value jeans all the time and never wearing their cuter stuff – so expect lots of pictures of Tarly showing off her many many dresses 🙂 She also needs some sort of posh cardi to wear with her sleeveless Christmas dress – why do shops do that? Why are the pretty little dresses either short sleeved or sleeveless so her arms are freezing while Davies overheats in his little Christmas jumper 🙂

Mel emailed to cancel lunch, which is just as well as I think a quiet afternoon infront of the TV is in order here, which just leaves the stories for Miranda which I promise I will sort our after I have eaten something 🙂

Don’t know what I did but I just lost my post 🙁

It was a rambling moan about feeling like pooh and not wanting to be here with kids all day really, so I won’t bother to recreate it too much! Supposed to be having Mel and L&L over for lunch today although I have emailed her to say I am dying and she may not want to risk infecting them – she has not replied yet and I am not sure whether I hope she comes so I can moan and drink tea while the kids are entertained by running round with L & L or whether I would rather they stayed away so I only have to listen to two children shrieking instead of four and have less toys to tidy up…

The kids are currently playing with some of the scented coloured playdough I had stashed in the fridge – it seems to have kept really well and as they have the green eucalyptus one I feel I am gaining in decongestant value what I am losing in terms of clearing the carpet later from ground in playdough 🙂 They are both much better – which is good cos it’s been about 2 weeks now, and bad cos their renewed energy coincides quite badly with my needing to lie on the sofa and moan softly!

And now the fluorescent light in the kitchen has started flashing – ahh! So we either chose a disco effect which will do my headache no favours or semi darkness 🙁

So my quick list of stuff I need to get done today in order that I might feel some sense of achievement later on tonight:
1. finish stories for Miranda – I did actually start this task yesterday and have only got a little bit to do before I email her them. This will at least get her off my back for a couple of days – can’t work out why I have complained about having no work for months and now I have got some I am totally uninspired by it and feel all pressured about having too much to do.. finally done. I’ve sent across one full story and one proposed storyline with details about how long roughly each one took, so now she can decide whether she wants to pay me to write stories or to pay me to come up with the ideas for her to write them herself. Either way I am ok with, I just need her to agree to a set price per piece of work instead of trying to get me to quote her an hourly rate and keep to it.
2. try and order an internet food shop for tomorrow, which may be an impossible task – but I really can’t face the supermarket with the kids this morning, and don’t think I’ll still be standing to go tonight so we either eat takeaway tomorrow and get essentials from the corner shop or I get Ady to go on his way home. no need as I did Tescos!
3. Get something for lunch
4. Think of a suitable entertainment for the kids later which could involve less mess and noise than random running round the house emptying the playroom of toys and shouting a lot. they have actually had quite an educational day playing with our sensory playdough, we’ve read some books, Davies has dressed up and pretended to be Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk and he even came in to tell me that a programme beginning with B was on, then when I couldn’t guess he said a programme begining with ‘ Boo’ (it was Boogie Beebies), so that’s good 🙂
5. Depending on whether I am still standing after the above I should also do some of my online learning course too, but that may just slip off the list…

First of all thank you soooo much for all the comments, emails and the phonecall from people about Ady. It was all very much appreciated and we are both feeling very reassured that it will be fine, and if it isn’t then we have people to share it with – so thanks 🙂

Secondly thanks for your concern about where I am / was! I’ve been pretty busy (see below) and have come down with the kids fluey thing so am feeling pretty crappy and sorry for myself generally 🙁

Thirdly, nah, I don’t like the twisty phones, I did look at them but they seem pretty bulky and I specifically want a dinky phone which does not look like some sort of puzzle created by Rubik!

So. Yesterday then… Out pretty early with Davies begging at regular intervals for me to tell him what the ‘prize’ (surprise) was – I had told him there would be one if he was good 🙂 We delivered a few Christmas cards to various old ladies who Ady used to do gardening work for way back when we first had the house and were poor about 10 years ago – we have stayed in touch with them all and they were desperate to see the kids – especially Scarlett who we didn’t even have last time they all saw us before we moved up north. So that was pleasant and festive feeling…. a funny moment when one particu larly whiskery lady leaned in the car to kiss me and Davies said ‘Mummy, why has that lady got?…’ and I managed to shush him thinking the worst… after she’d gone back in her house he asked ‘Mummy why did you shush me when I wanted to know why that lady had a walking stick?’ evil Mummy thinking the worst eh?!

We then went to my parents where we got Dad to drive us back into town and bring our car back home with him to prevent the whole dilema about parking – too busy to park right in town, we were going to be in town too long for the panto to park in short stay and long stay are too far out of town for Tarly to walk and we didn’t want to take the pushchair cos of the panto. We had lunch, which the kids both ate and were well behaved for, wandered round town listening to all the various tin rattling brass bands playing carols and saw at least three santas before going to the theatre for the panto.

As we sat down and took our coats off I told Davies what it was – don’t think he really understood until it started but we got them a little glowstick laser light thingy each to wave and a big bag of maltesers each and the lights dimmed. The only person we had ever heard of (despite the glowing write ups in the programme about all the stars previous work) was Nick Cotton from Eastenders playing Fleshcreep the baddy. Davies did sit on my lap for both acts – although he got down and sat in his seat again during the interval but I think it was more to do with being higher up and seeing more than anything else. Scarlett was very good really – she did join in with the Booing and shouting but was either on my lap (yes with Davies – just as well I have a big lap eh?!), Ady’s lap, on the floor or somewhere on the two seats between me and Ady, but she did seem to enjoy it. Davies loved every minute – he shouted and screamed, boo-ed and hissed and was in his element. He followed the story far more than we had realised too and has been re-enacting it ever since! It was Jack and the Beanstalk and there was a supporting cast of Jill who he resuced from the giant and married.

Dad then picked us up and we went back to their house for a while where Davies and Tarly spent a happy hour running in and out of Tarly’s playhouse which is still set up in their lounge pretending to me Jack and Jill – which was very cute. Mum and Dad then came over later for fish and chips. I had only been saying to Dad that I didn’t know how I managed to escape getting this flu when half an hour later in the chip shop he said to me ‘are you alright, you look really pale’ and I realised I was actually feeling pretty crap… so that’ll teach me to gloat !

Today we delivered a couple more Christmas cards to people who were not in, then went to Chris and Julie’s. We had not intended to stay long but they cooked some mince pies and the kids were all playing so nicely and they had their real fire lit and Chris kept making me cups of tea so we ended up staying ’til 4pm when we rushed home, so Ady could wash his car before it got pitch dark.

I did have a list of stuff I wanted to get done tonight, but it has fallen apart so I will have to drag myself in order tomorrow to get it all done. The kids were both still awake at 8.30 – not dreadful but we had been trying to get them to sleep since before 7 🙁 I watched Different Life on video while struggling with Scarlett but it was fab – well done Anna 🙂 I also arang my parents this morning to ask them to watch it and they were both very impressed with Anna and the rest of the Clarkes. Don’t think it taught them much though as Mum was full of comments like ‘It’s just as well she went to school for a year as she can help to teach her little brother and sister’ and ‘what subject was Sarah a teacher in then?’ ARGH! She also had another say on what a big committment it was but at least they watched it, saw that there are other people out there doing it who in their own words were ‘a lovely family’ and it’s not just drop out weirdo hippies 🙂

So that’s it really. A nice weekend – the panto went very well and we will definitely do it again next year – gives me confidence for trying some other show type things too next year although not sure what exactly!

Ooh a funny thing Davies said today which gives me concerns about my policy of answering any and all questions though. This may be TMI for some of you so be warned! Both kids are always following me to the loo and so they are familiar with the sight of sanitary protection (see, quite delicate so far eh!) Davies more so as he was seen blood and wanted to know if I am hurt etc. I have explained that a lady makes an egg every month which could be added to a man’s seeds which would result in a baby, but if she does not want a baby then the egg comes out of her body with some blood. It does not hurt and happens every month if she is not having a baby. To stop the blood from making a mess she can either use a tampon which goes inside her or a sanitary towel which is a bit like a nappy and goes in her pants to catch the blood (I know you all know this but I need to explain how i have told it to him). So every month we have this, and as I currently have my period we had it again yesterday. So today we were in the car having some conversation about why the giant was so tall and scary in the panto. I explained that often taller people can seem scarier than shorted people and used the example of Granny and Grandad, which led to men generally being taller than women, which led to me saying that when he grows up to be a man he will probably (I bloody hope!) be taller than me.
‘Do you know where I am going to live when I grow up Mummy?’
‘No darling, you tell me’
‘I’m going to live in the same place still with you Mummy, but I will need to have a bigger bed if I am going to get taller’
‘Ok darling, but don’t you want to get married like Jack and Jill? And I thought you wanted to have babies?’
‘No I don’t want to get married. And I don’t want to have babies’
‘ok darling, well not everyone does get married, or have babies’
‘so will I need to wear a blood towel then Mummy?’
‘A WHAT!’
‘if I don’t want to have babies then will I need to wear a blood towel like you do when you don’t want babies each month?’

erm….. 🙂 🙂 🙂