One word? When seven would do…

And for once it is nothing to do with my own children!!

Feel bad doing it really, but it needs to be got off my chest and here is as good a place as any! First of all other people’s treatment of other people’s belongings. Now my parents were always very hot on respect for other people’s property – whether it was an expensive favourite toy or an empty toilet roll tube (can’t think of any other suitable example for something worthless but belonging to someone else!), we always took our shoes off when we went to someone else’s house, would not dream of putting our feet on the sofa – that sort of thing. Now I am not especially house proud but I do bitterly resent having people round and them allowing their kids to ramapage through the children’s bedrooms, pulling out anything and everything, leaving a trail of mess in their wake and only being told really quite mildly to ‘please not do that’. Our house is not huge, but we do have a dedicated playroom stuffed with toys which I am happy to be played with. The kids rooms are THEIR space and generally have their special toys in that are either precious to them, unsuitable for the visiting children anyway or in some other way a bit special. After just 2 hours I was faced with toys strew about in the lounge, the playroom, Scarlett and Davies’ bedroom, a book with a torn cover, an airplane that had been thrown downstairs and broken and a bookcase half emptied – despite my repeated requests to ‘only take out the bottom shelf of children’s story and picture books’. Our poor cats who tend to stay in Davies’ room during the day out of the kids’ way have been pretty terrorised and despite really liking both the parent and the kids I am left feeling it was not worth the bother 🙁

I feel so bitchy writing this and I probably am being really – the person in question was my SIL and the twins – who we see loads of and get on really well with, but we generally go over to their house where they have a massive garden and the four kids tend to be contained in the garden or the conseratory, I don’t think Julie gets the twins to ‘help tidy up’ like I do with my two, TBH they don’t even have their ‘own’ toys, pretty much everything they have has come from car boot sales and is just ‘one of the toys’ instead of being a specific present to one of the children at some point for some reason – which is what most of our toys are. This is not a criticism BTW – more a trying to work through and justify it to myself. Julie is an excellent parent and the twins are lovely kids – I don’t really know what could have been done differently but it was not an enjoyable time for me anyway.

Secondly we have just been to the newish reformed HE group – Julie and the twins came too for a bit which was nice. TBH I just don’t think it’s for us really. There was a lot of crafty stuff there which meant my two just went straight for the paint and glue and got really, really messy – they are not yet of an age where that sort of activity needs anything less than constant supervision from me – so that is what I spent my time doing – I didn’t get to talk to any other parent, they didn’t get to speak to any other children and when I finally persuaded Davies to get cleaned up and go and ‘play’ he sat in the corner alone. I think I have just seen first hand what would have become of him if he had gone to school – which was my very reason for looking into HE in the first place – although is by no means my reason for doing it now. He really tried to play with the others, he joined in the running around and shrieking and he actually went over to at least two other children and asked to play with them or help them with what they were doing – and they didn’t want to know. He then called to me ‘Mummy I am sitting all on my own’ and when I went over he climbed onto my lap and asked me why no-one wanted to be his friend or play with him – and it was a question I’m afraid I have no answer to – but it brought tears to my eyes because I *know* totally 100% how he feels as I was the little girl in the playground that no-one wanted to play with and I never understood why (still don’t actually and I’m sitting here crying while I type this and I’m not even sure whether it’s for him or me, but it totally reinforces what we are doing). In the year or so since we decided to HE I have seen Davies grow from a timid little boy who never joined in with other children to a happy, confident, talk to anyone child who just wants to be friends with others and join in their games. I am aware of his faults (and many of them are my own, so I should be) and I can even see in him some of the things which other children might not like, but he is a lovely little boy and is more than capable of making friends with others when given the chance. There is no way I am putting him into any situations which make him feel bad about himself or question why people don’t want to play with him when IMHO there is actually nothing he needs to change about himself at all. Today, in the space of one hour he could have developed self doubts, started to question his own worth and found himself lacking – I will not allow that to happen. And for that wanker on Channel 5 this morning to say that every child has the right to be bullied really makes me fume…

Again I cannot really criticise anyone at the group – they laid on good activities for the children there (I think mine were just a bit young for it), they are nice people (although several are at the extreme end of alternative living and HE!) and the adults are very friendly – I think it was more a consequence of many of the children there being in long established friendships with each other, which often by kids’ definition excludes others and they were in the main a bit older than him too, so a quietly spoken small boy approaching them and asking to join in was fairly likely to be met with a ‘no’. There is a meeting next week of an evening for grown ups to talk about the future of the group, where its going and so on. I do read about several HE groups on blogs which really seem to work and offer something for everyone and I would dearly love to be part of something like that, so I think I should go along, with my own mental list of what our family requirements would be of a group and see if they fit with what is being proposed – I don’t want to just go along for the sake of a few crafts which I can do at home (with the kids dressed appropriately), I’m not desperate to meet other HEers IRL – I have you guys and the meets we manage, and Activeo, and Julie and a couple of other HE people we meet with one to one (and another who I talked to there today who told me about a smaller group of younger HE kids who meet up too) and I have never worried too much about their socialisation as we have lots of friends with kids HE and schooled to meet up with. I just know that it does all of us good to get out pretty much every weekday somewhere and HE groups I have heard of and envied seem like a fab way to fill one of those days.

Rant over. A happy post about the good stuff today will follow later…

And it was a good ‘un 🙂

Up early after a through the night night for Scarlett (which is always a result:-D) and out of the house by 10am. We drove to Drusillas and as Scarlett slept on the way Davies and I had a lovely time talking about all sorts of stuff. He started off by singing a song about the things he could see out of the window : fluffy white clouds, wet green grass, big tall houses, loads of fast cars, big golden trees, big wet green bushes and so on, which I just listened to marvelling at how in just four years we know enough about the world to describe stuff in detail like that. I watch Scarlett just starting out in vocalising herself and know that in two years she will be able to cobble together descriptions about size, colour, texture and so on about things almost without thinking – amazing! We then started talking about the road signs and I was telling Davies about driving, speed limits, reasons for speed limits, what all the different road signs mean, road safety and so on, then he was spottiing signs and telling me what he thought they meant, checking what speed I was doing and so on – all very natural, not at all contrived, served to ease my conscience about not doing much for the early part of the week and reassure me once again that learning happens while we live, not when someone gets a textbook or project out and tells us we are going to learn necessarily.

We arrived and Scarlett woke up, not long afterwards she wanted to get out of her pushchair and walk so I ended up pushing an empty pushchair while they held onto it either side and oohed and ahhed at the monkeys (should that be monkies? don’t think so!) in various sizes and varieties (and other monkey like mammals too!) and the lemurs and the meerkats. We also looked at the penguins, walked through the batcave (where we saw one of those wheels with slots cut out and a series of pictures inside which when you spin the wheel and watch through a slit creates a movie – he was very interested in that and later tonight I spotted an animation kit for a fiver with the same thing so snapped that up to follow up at some point!), we looked at owls, otters, wallabys (wallabies?) and enjoyed all the various activities (timed running between two lines to compare how quick you run in comparison to other animals, monkey bars to hang from to see how long you can do it, a long jump, stand on one leg like a flamingo, shout as loud as you can to compare your decibel level to other animals and so on) around the place too – we almost had the place to ourselves which was lovely. We talked lots about the animals too and I was amazed at how much Davies has picked up from other visits – and how many animal names Scarlett knew and could recognise from her cartoon animals in books to the real thing.

We had lunch in the restaurant (the only expense of the day as we have season tickets) and I had a voucher for a free tea and as members the kids got their lunch half price so that was good. The only tricky part of doing it alone really as the restuarant is one of those self service type canteens where you heap your tray with stuff, get your hot food from a serving area and then take it all to the till to pay – not easy when trying to supervise two children, carry a heavy tray and ensure your kids don’t run headlong into someone carrying a cup of hot coffee or similar! In the end Davies was a superhero and held Scarlett’s hand while guiding her along. They then both behaved like angels and ate their lunch really nicely (there was even a bit of cutlery usage going on!) before we had a quick recap of some of the animals and decided it had gotten too cold to carry on.

As it was early still (about 2pm) and we were all enjoying the novelty of being nice to each other we stopped at Paradise Park on the way home which I have blogged about before and we also have annual passes for – we didn’t do the gardens (although a very quick peep showed a whole area we seem to have missed on previous trips with a crazy golf course and remote controlled boats) but walked round the dinosaur bit, the planet earth and history bits with Davies once again impressing me with how much he knows, how much he remembers and the depth of the questions he asks. Scarlett who by default is also into dinosaurs really liked it too. We then went round the cactus garden twice and quickly through the shop where they were pretty good about not getting any sort of present.

On the way home we talked about the day and Davies decided (with some guidance and prodding from me) to build a Drusillas when we got home using our wooden blocks, our menagerie of various plastic animals (none in size ratio to each other, some cartoony, some realistic and a total mish-mash of farm animals, jungle animals and other exotic creatures!) and a small wooden train track to go all round it. He did get a bit arsey with me when I wanted to set him up with it then check my emails / blog comments etc but by the time Ady got home at 5ish we had constructed a pretty impressive Drusillas with Scarlett finding homes for the animals, Davies building a restuarant and me finalising the train – we had a farmyard area, a crocodile lake, a safari field, a reptile house and finally due to four playmobile reindeers, the time of year and the grotto which only has a santa at the weekends but we snuck in and looked at anyway at Paradise Park we had a grotto too with reindeer, a lone penguin and a house with a path leading to it for Santa to sit in. Ady did take a pic but I still need to work out blogging those so that will have to wait.

In all it was a fab day 🙂

It did get better actually 🙂

Shortly after that last post Davies came and asked to play on the computer on the mazes again and spent a happy 3/4 doing that very well while I swapped over some washing and spent time with Scarlett – she helped me sort the washing into the tumble drier or draped over the radiators – she told me who the garments belonged to, what they were (socks / top / pyjamas etc) some of the colours and even played at teasing me (putting wet socks next to her feet, then laughing and saying ‘no!’). I then cooked them some tea which Scarlett spectacularly failed to eat and Davies polished off (which was strange as he had eaten two whole slices of ‘that ‘licious cake’ while she had barely touched the first piece!), bathed them and was about to start the whole milk and bed thing alone (Ady was stuck somewhere on the Purley Way at 4pm so expected to be late home) when Ady arrived and got Scarlett to bed while I had a bath!
Davies is still up there waffling to himself but my dinner is on it’s way (sausage, onion mash and gravy – thanks Ady:-) ) and I’m nearly two glasses of wine down – I’ve had lovely comments to assure me I am not alone in my frustration and feelings (and some odd ones from the Texas Poker people too!) and tomorrow is another day 🙂

First the rant then… and before I even get started it is probably only fair to recognise that this is about me and not about them but the kids are driving me MAD! I started today with good intentions about getting our educational resources, doing worthwhile stuff with them and being patient and loving and kind (a Mary Poppins type if you will!). Wrong! They don’t actually want to sit and sing about spoonfuls of sugar, do workbooks and other educational stuff, they want to run around the house shrieking, empty all the toys out in every room, wipe sticky hands everywhere and woe betide me if I think for one minute I am going to sneak off to the computer to delete comments from Texas Holden and maybe even have a peep at my online course (which looks rather good BTW!).

In sheer desperation I sat them down with a slice of our rather good cake each infront of Toy Story (their request – the TV has been off all day so I don’t feel too bad about that!) and escaped! They have just come out of the lounge having eaten all their cake (so that’s no tea for them tonight then!) with Davies wearing Ady’s shoes and pushing a baby buggy and Scarlett wearing my shoes and walking along beside him carrying a handbag! Davies keeps saying ‘Nic, Nic’ to Scarlett and now he has just mimed getting in his car and going to work – hilarious:-)

Anyway, the worst part of it all is Ady keeps ringing me today (some days he just does that a lot, sort of to chat because I am sure he gets bored driving around all day long, and I think he’s stuck in traffic) and on his fourth and final call when I complained about how the kids don’t want to do any of the ‘activities’ I keep bringing out he expressed concern on how that was going to work for HE then? Sigh! I think he thinks he is being supportive and sharing my concerns, and when I gently (oh beware the softly spoken Nic!) explained that it is probably more because they are 4 and nearly 2 than any other reason he agreed that by the time they are actually both of school age that is very unlikely to be an issue but it didn’t help anyway 🙁

I rarely worry really about being able to provide the education the children need, or whether they will end up as ‘weirdos’ because they don’t go to school, infact I don’t seem to spend half as much time worrying about how the children will turn out or fare due to HE as I do pondering on getting out the other side with my own sanity intact! I truly believe this is an ‘early years’ issue for me though – I was not keen on the ‘baby years’ and although I know it is going to be a reflection of what I put into them and do with them now that will play a big part in the older children they will become I truly think as they get older, slightly less reliant on me for everything, and able to meet at least their own basic needs I will calm down a lot. It is the mundane side of being a SAHM to two small preschoolers that I struggle with TBH – the nappy changing, the routine of feeding and drinking, ensuring they are eating as balanced a diet as I can persuade them into, wiping bottoms, coercing them into bed at a certain time so I can snatch a few hours of grown up ness before falling asleep exhausted by doing not a lot all day really, ready to be woken in the night yet again by a small person wriggling next to me.

I am not wishing their lives away – although I know it probably reads a bit like that, and I do get lots of pleasure from seeing all the firsts and milestones as they reach them…. I guess to out it in perspective if I were to be a teacher, I would rather have the juniors than the infants! Whilst I am sure that every age has it’s ups and downs I feel my personality is better suited to doing stuff together like the museum trips to London (where we were very hampered by the pushchair and other assorted baby paraphenalia) than a trip to a toddler group – I am longing to do stuff with them instead of doing stuff for them or to them. I have been reading lots about children;s behaviour (and their parents) of late and I’m not sure whether that helps – as it does make me realise the children are just exhibiting totally normal behaviour or makes it worse – as these books tend to make you feel like it is you who is getting it all wrong. I know I have faults, as a person and as a parent – and I’m not sure whether to beat myself up over ‘working on them’ or accept I am who I am and that is who my kids are dealing with. I am pretty impatient and shouty generally so it stands to reason that I will be like that as a mother – I do try not to and I have this idea that I might start tickling them instead of shouting to break the standoff but we’ll see how long that one lasts 🙂

As usual I have blogged myself out of my black mood now so I will be off!

But we baked one anyway! Up early this morning and two loads of washing were sitting motionless in the non existant breeze on the line by 11am – they may still be out there in March 🙂

In an effort to do something with the kids we have made a very good victoria sandwich sponge cake with jam and buttercream icing in the middle. Well I say ‘we’, the kids contribution was mainly squabbling over who was going to stand next to me in the kitchen and then licking out the bowls afterwards! Davies also washed up – which went a bit wrong as I have just yelled at him for finishing the washing up and then splashing water everywhere in some sort of Peter Pan / Captain Hook game involving lots of shouty play and splashing 🙁 Also made some flapjacks which look okay too. I actually really enjoy baking (and eating it afterwards) – should do it more and learn to be a bit more laid back about the kids making a mess and imperfect results…

Have also had a wander round to the shop to buy syrup and jam for said baking – and here we are at 2pm all feeling a bit like we should get up and do something but not too sure what? I am simply not a walking to the park and pushing them on the swings kind of mother so that’s out of the question, as is going anywhere in the car as Scarlett will probably fall asleep which I don’t want. Think I might dig some magic painting out as that always keeps them quiet for a while – and I would rather clear up water than mess! We were supposed to be meeting up with Rachel and E today but she cancelled yesterday so we are feeling a bit at a loose end really, we have not planned anything for tomorrow yet either but I think we might take off for the day weather pernitting.

Right enough blogging – I’m off to rescue the day and find something engaging, educational and bonding for the three of us to do this afternoon.

Some good stuff from today:
Davies – he spent ages on the pc doing mazes and stuff and was really very good at it. He made a number 4 out of sticklebricks, he helped tidy up, he ate all his dinner, he told me he was proud of himself today, he totally got the idea of the wooden numbers with pegs on which arrived in the post from a fellow MP (die cut wooden numbers 0-9 in different colours with space for the correct amount of same colour pegs to go in them), he seems to be getting better all the time at recognising letters and realising that letters represent sounds which can be strung together to make words – we’re getting there 🙂 He has started to wipe his own bottom 🙂

Scarlett – she is on a being helpful kick at the moment – wants to put dishes in the sink, wrappers in the bin, the dirty clothes by the washing machine etc. Yesterday she did two wees on her potty, her speech is improving daily and she is starting to put pretty good sentences together and recognise more detailed things like shapes and colours.

WordPress – well I’ve got it, I’ve also got probably the most sensible email address I’ve ever had – it will now fit on forms and everything as a result of a new domain name for the blog to sit on, I am now planning to do more with the website too and start to really build up a decent HE site for myself to refer back to.

Miranda – my old boss has been in contact all buoyed up about the prospect of some work for me – she is putting together a website with bedtime stories based on the characters used in the ride we had in Manchester – she likes my style of writing and I have already put together several stories for her before, I would also probably be the one doing the website admin (which despite how rubbish I am and how reliant on Jax was something I did before in a paint by numbers sort of way!)

I got my welcome email for the Learning and Skills Council course I am about to start so as soon as I can forget about getting wordpress how I want it I can gte stuck into that (I’m doing a course on being a web entrepreneur!).

There was bad stuff today in the way of me shouting lots cos I wanted to get on and do stuff, the kids getting in the way of it and being total horrors when I was on the phone to Miranda – but hey, at least I don’t have to fight Blogger anymore to bring you that newsflash!

I’ve moved on….

these days I can mostly be found here!

You are all going to get pretty bored with me posting and tweaking and messing I’m sure but until Jax is free to be mithered by me again you’ll have to put up with it 🙂

Well I’m here – and having had a quick look round I think I’m gonna like it here – a few more things to sort out before I feel totally moved in (I want all my blogger posts here too, I want to make up some catergories and maybe even use the calendar and I would like it to be a bit more purple) but I would say most of the boxes have been unpacked!

Not having the best of days here really – I spent a lot of last night awake pondering all sorts of stuff – mainly a follow on from what I was talking to Joyce, Jax, Kirsty and others about last night – quite excited at the possibility we are onto something but as yet have no idea what it might be!

Kids are being as any two small children would be when their mother is spending most of her morning either on the computer, trying to tidy two boxes of craft stuff into a set of drawers without making too much glittery mess and then wondering whether it was actually better how it was before but not able to live with moving it all back again. We have had some nice moments – Davies playing on the computer on a DK Play and Learn cdrom doing mazes, mix and match and stuff and being really quite good at it, doing it pretty much all by himself and also telling me at the end he had really enjoyed it and was ‘proud of myself Mummy’. Scarlett has had a few sessions of quietly amusing herself with beads, blocks, Dora on Nick Jnr, although she is now very teary and tired and emptying one of the cupboards behin me by pulling all the contents down onto the floor (grr!)

Anyway, this is more of a test than anything else so will blog no more for now – I need to eat something and try and rescue the kids from shouty mummy!

we did it! 🙂

Blogger you poo-head, your days are numbered!

Can’t quite believe it but I posted it all again having rewritten it and then it all crashed (cross emoticon!) and no, I hadn’t done copy before I did it either.

So as I really can’t be bothered with the mundane ness of typing our weekend again here it is in bullet points!

• went to garden centres to collect our new green cone (google if interested!) and for kids to look at Christmas displays;
• had fish and chips for lunch in the car before kids became too horrid to be in confined space with so we came home;
• parents babysat while we went to a 50th birthday party;
• i got exceedingly drunk and loud and happy;
• slept
• have moped most of the day due to hangover, drunk lots of tea, eaten lots of toasted sandwiches, taught Davies what a hangover is;
• roast beef is cooking, bubble bath is run, jury still out on whether to drink wine again tonight, hopefully X Factor is on ITV2 at a decent time for us to watch it while we eat
• kids so tired from being up will 9.30/10pm with parents last night they are both asleep before 7pm!
• very excited at the possibility of some sort of venture with fellow MP bloggers using all our skills
• WANT WORDPRESS

Sometimes I lose myself in me, I lose track of time and I can’t see the wood for the trees….

Which was one of my favourite songs til New Labour got their hands on it! Anyway, the idea was I’m done with the introspection for this weekend about whether my children are too shouted at, not praised enough and being damaged forever by being kept away from school! Feeling positive and ready for the future!

It’s so frustrating to read round the blogring seeing how others are in the same struggling boat as us financially and how there are so many of us with really good skills which although by no means ‘wasted’ on our kids could possibly be used somehow in a way which we could all profit from – we just need some stroke of genius to think of the way to make use of our nationwide network of parents who all want a slightly different from the norm way of life and have a lot to offer – someone, somehow… If anyone is interested with no obligation at all but simply as a possibility perhaps you could contact me and we could list our communal skills and see if anything leaps out as an obvious possibility….

Anyway, as someone once said back to life, which is what is happening under your nose while you are spending time thinking about the important stuff…

A pretty good day yesterday although the kids were quite tired and whiny as a result – strange how when you blog retrospectively instead of at the time you end up considering the day as altogether better than it might have seemed during parts of it! We managed to get ourselves together and leave the house around 11ish, went on a bit of a round of Garden Centres (which as a teenager was something I clearly recall swearing I would NEVER do at weekends!) – one to collect our new

Neediness…

A morning rant for you! One of the personality facets I find most unattractive in people is neediness. I can’t be doing with someone who has to have constant praise, reassurance and is dependant on others all the time. I know we all (me included) like to get a ‘well done’ or a compliment when it is deserved, but I don’t expect Ady to come home every night and fall at my feet with gratitude for looking after his kids all day, I don’t expect the kids to thank me each night before bed for being with them and teaching them things so neither can I be doing with constant dishing out of praise either.
Davies loves praise, he often actively seeks it and if it is deserved he gets it anyway, but I am not going to spend my whole day saying ‘well done Darling, for putting your hand infront of your mouth when you coughed just then’, ‘wow, you drank that juice well’ or ‘you are such a clever boy for walking into the room like that’. I would be wearing for me, feel like I was patronising him and mean that when he actually did do something praiseworthy the recognition of it would be empty and meaningless. Julie (SIL) is very big on praise – and often seems to sound like I have just described with the twins – Davies takes this as an opportunity to seek some for himself ‘did I do well too Julie?’ which I dislike really – it makes it seem like he doesn’t get any from me and its like fishing for compliments really….

Anyway, where I am going with this (on a very cross Saturday morning with little sleep!) is that I am sure many parents actively enjoy their children’s dependancy on them but it is one of the aspects of parenting on which I am least keen. Whilst I love the fact that my thoughts and praise are important to the children I also want to raise them to be independant people who are not always basing their self opinion and happiness on what others think of them. They know I love them, they know I am proud of them, and I do tell them these things many times every day – but I am also working on Davies ‘learning’ or learning to recognise how to be proud of himself for achieveing stuff and getting intrinsic pleasure out of doing things instead of just working for praise, bribery or the whole ‘gold star’ type rewards – which is one of the things I really hope to achieve by HE – learning based on a wanting to do it rather than a casual word of praise tossed to them from a teacher or a ‘well done’ written with a tick in red pen on their work.
Scarlett is slightly less like this actually. Although she likes to hear ‘well done, clever girl’ she also gets a kick out of doing stuff for herself – I hear her cheering and saying ‘I did it’ (a la Dora!) even when she is alone in a room, she is way better at being smug and pleased with herself than Davies is. But actually that probably follows me and Ady’s examples as he is more needy than I am and has a lower self opinion that I do (as previously mentioned I possibly delusionally think I am great:-) ) so maybe its a genetic thing or maybe its a gender thing? Don’t know….

As an aside (can you tell how much my son is winding me up this morning?) is it rational to be thing irritated by your child’s constant coughing? Especially if at least 25% of the coughing is done stood in front of you with a hand over his mouth in a bid to win praise for not spreading germs?

Love ’em all really 😉 (for Esther’s benefit of course!)

I’m thinking about the fireworks that go off when you smile…

Ady was home today under the banner of ‘working from home’ although the only work done for his job was by me while I wrote a report for him. In fairness if he had done it himself, in an office environment it would have taken the best part of a day anyway!

So he mainly entertained the small peope today, although I did a bit of Leap Pad playing with Scarlett and a bit of skeleton bone naming with Davies (we got a ‘box of bones’ from the Science Museum shop – mainly cos it was the only thing that didn’t seem way overpriced in there – and once made up we have been working on the names of all the bones). It’s lovely having Ady home, he brings me toasted sandwiches and hot chocolate and tea at regular intervals 🙂 the downside is that he also sticks Davies infront of cartoon channels (which, yes, do keep him quiet for hours darling, but only cos they send him into a semi comotose state and are really not teaching him anything of any value and may even be undoing some of the stuff he does know, somehow!) and tends to give Scarlett a dummy. Never can quite work out whether he is right and I am making life too hard for myself or whether he is totally wrong and should be doing stuff with them rather than finding good distractions so he can get on with vaxing the carpet! Guess whichever is right neither is too bad on the occassional basis 🙂
Later I took Davies with me to Sainsburys, Boots and the Wizard Store ( a very very cheap factory type shop on the local industrial estate selling party goods, cheap but crappy plastic toys and loads of Christmas stuff) as I had heard they were selling kids Santa outfits for a quid! Sure enough they were and we also picked up a plastic letter and numbers to fit on pegboards kit for a £, a little Buzz Lightyear for Davies and a dressing up kit with tiara, bangles, necklace, bag and shoes for Scarlett.
Back home and we really couldn’t face the propsect of fighting for parking spaces, the possibility of Scarlett hating it and the late night for the kids of attending the only firework display in the area actually happening on Firework night – at a school about 5 miles away. We compromised and at 6pm dressed the kids up in coats and went for a walk round the block (20 minutes or so) to watch other people’s fireworks instead – which they both really enjoyed!
I am still feeling fairly pooh with my cold, and as we have a big 50th birthday party to attend tomorrow night I am hoping for a decentish nights sleep tonight and a speedy recovery for tomorrow! We’re having a real blow out vindaloo curry tonight in the hopes of ‘smoking our colds out!’ I have started on the wine and after the initial rush am feeling rubbish again – not sure whether to drink some more to perk me up or just give up and cover myself in Vicks!
Oh, we also put the bookcase up last night and it does look loads better – I was clearly totally delusional about thinking it would take every book in the house though! It has got kids story books on the bottom and kids educational books on the second shelf up though so the whole making books accessible to the children thing has worked at least! Still to be catergorised though…

My Tea’s gone cold, I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all…

Tea has gone cold waiting for Blogger to decide to proceed past the dashboard and actually let me create a new post… I NEED WordPress!!!!

But while I was waiting for it to load I got to pondering on tea going cold. I do have a bit of a tea habit actually – only since being a SAHM really, I could drink it all day long, and as we have some of the BIG Starbucks mugs (let’s not get into how we acquited them though eh?) if I were to actually drink every cup I make I would be awash with the stuff. I know I do consume a fair amount as my teeth need severe re-whitening as a result every six months, but I also seem to end up pouring quite a bit down the sink too where it’s gone cold. I’ve never quite got my head round the optimum time to drink it – I can’t do it too hot – my mouth (and skin in general) is very very sensitive to heat (I can’t even take toast out of the toaster – I have to use tongs) but I seem to get past it being too hot and end up with it being yuckily too cold. We also live in a water area (never sure whether it’s hard or soft) where a ‘scum’ forms on the top of the tea which is not too pleasant , if you leave it too long. Luckily Scarlett has decided she really loves tea and she now tends to drink the cold stuff, but I need to suss out the correct time after brewing and pouring to consume it.

End of tea related waffle!

Congratulations Merry!!!

Delighted to get the text from Alison to say Merry has had a baby girl, can’t wait to see the first pics of Baby Puddle – and wow, what a cool birthday – everyone will be celebrating it every year with fireworks 🙂

Waaaaaaaa-aaahhhhhhhhhhhh…you know you make me wanna shout!

Today we have returned somewhat to shouty Mummy – can’t quite put my finger on why but the vicious circle of the more I shout the worse they behave is back with a vengence – we are all either going down with, in the middle of, or recovering from a cold which probably makes us all less than desirable people to be around and we have been home all day which never helps. Not even going to try and rescue the day now, they are playing with felt tips (mainly on the paper 🙂 ) and I am going to do some blogging and hope for an early night for them both to drink wine and put up the new bookcase (cos there’s no way Ady is getting his hands on any more flatpack!)

But, back to yesterday as I missed it out… in the morning we walked to the bakery for cakes, they chose cakes, changed their minds about what cakes they wanted, got different cakes and then decided they didn’t want cakes at all they wanted chocolate in the post office – all of this conducted at quite high volume! So Ady has taken the cakes to work today and they got their chocolate! Back home for lunch and then round to Rachel’s house where I spent most of my time holding Amber while Rachel spent most of her time shouting at E who spent most of his time victimising Davies! At one point I got so fed up with him getting constantly pushed, poked, kicked and sneered at I had a quiet word with Davies and told him he did not have to take this sort of treatment and he should put his hand up and push E away. This is a big departure for me but Davies was almost getting accepting of being treated like this and he shouldn’t, it’s not acceptable and not right and if Rachel can’t find a way of preventing E from doing it (and it’s not through lack of trying on her part – the poor woman is at her wits end with him) then perhaps it needs to come from Davies himself. Still not sure if I am comfortable with it or not, but time will tell whether it was the right thing… Had an otherwise nice time though – I quiet liked sitting cuddling a baby who I could give back at the end of the afternoon, and Scarlett is very very cute with her.

Last night, although it was pretty much the last thing I felt like doing I had arranged to go to Ikea – either with my Mum while Dad and Ady stayed here, or with Ady while Mum and Dad stayed here with the kids. In the end Dad was a very brave man and offered to stay here on his own while Ady, Mum and I went – which was just as well as I don’t think I would have stayed awake at the wheel for 100 miles round trip… We had a nice enough time although it’s always strange to be without children and able to hold hands with Ady! We were very sensible and only spent £12 over and above what we had gone there for – a tall bookcase. I came home with some new kiddy cups, bowls and plates for when other children come round and a set of mixing bowls which I realised we lack when I tried to bake more than one thing at a time over the weekend.

We got home to find our Indian takeway had beaten us there by a couple of minutes and Scarlett was up and about. We ate the curry, Mum and Dad left and I went to bed with her still sitting up with Ady (who didn’t mind as I finally sorted our Sky package out yesterday and took off the movies and put on the Sports which I have been promising to do since Portsmouth made it into the Premiership 🙂 ). So a nice, but long day…

Woke this morning knowing that I had been tired and yucky yesterday because yes, I was going down with the kids cold. This morning we have done fairly random shouting, running around like lunatics and a bit more shouting. There have been threats of sending to rooms, sending to bed and throwing all the toys away. Julie and the twins have been over for a couple of hours, which was nice but involved more demonstrations of less than desirable behaviour and a bit more shouting! Oh well!

Other blogs have been quite deep over the last couple of days and I have again asked myself the question as to whether I am ‘cut out for’ HE. A question I have been asked by various people too…I guess the real answer is I probably am…I replied to an email from a friend and I will copy and paste it below rather than rewrite it:

To give a bit of background we were discussing ways for me to work from home while still HEing and he had asked whether I was doing the right thing – he wanted to know whether I worried about looking back in a few years time and realising I had made the wrong decision for the kids and the wrong one for me cos I had ‘given up my chance to work’ so that I could HE:

“well that made me laugh! you definitely need to find somewhere to sell your thoughtful and insightful special brand of straighttalking to!! Yeah, its all pretty much the same old same old that everyone first say about HE. if you are interested in it (which I would guess you probably aren’t really – I wouldn’t be if I wasn’t doing it!) then there are loads and loads of books you can read and so on. But basically the whole home education (gonna call it HE from now on as its easier!) thing is a biggie and with two children aged 4 and nearly 2 its very easy to think thatthere is no hope of ever managing to do anything again unless you pack them off to school – but think about it – in five years time when they are 9 and 7 they won’t need me all the time whether they are in school or not – when P&J (his children) were that age they didn’t demand all your attention for every moment they were not in school did they? they play with their mates, stay in their rooms, run around the garden, watch tv and so on, I was never with my parents all the time once I reached past toddlerdom and I don’t think any kid is. even if I chucked the whole HE idea away Davies wouldn’t be starting school for another year and Scarlett not for another 3 years so it is not impeding me from working at the moment or for the short term future either. (he asked whether it was possible to mix a bit of HE with a bit of going to school then see which suited the kids better) Yes, you can do what is called flexi-schooling which is where kids attend a local school on a part time basis – usually for stuff like languages or PE where the parent feels they need to learn this stuff and they can’t manage it at home. It take careful negotiation and a very supportive head master at the school to pull it off though – they obviously get funding for the kids so its a plus for them if they can deal with what could be a disruptive child to the system being in their school for some of the time. For us the decision to HE came initially as a reaction to Davies not being separated from me easily and me thinking he would be an easy target for bullies – the more I read about the idea and the more people I talked to who were doing it, had done it or were even HE themselves the more convinced I became that HE is the way forward regardless of whether Davies would be comfortable being left of not. You and (his wife) – and P (his son who was badly bullied before they moved to Ireland) know first hand just how crap the education system is in this country – bullying is rife -I don’t know of any single school playground which does not have serious issues, classes are getting larger and larger, all schools seem underfunded with constant money raising activities going on, there is already a shortage of teachers – that will only be getting worse in the 14 years before my two are of school leaving age, teachers are taught crowd control in training college rather than how to inspire, develop and nurture young minds to their full potential, the emphasis is on results on testing pupils and full on academic success rather than developing children as well rounded people. In short I think its crap. This led me further to think about and read about the way in which we learn anyway. Now I believe (and I know all parents think their kids are geniuses but I am pretty objective I think on this) that both my children are bright – not Einstein’s but bright. They are both ahead of their peers in many development areas – this is purely down to their genes (I am bright!) and what I have done with them up to now. I want my kids to have good academic qualifications and we will work towards exams – it would be my dream for them both to attend university – many HE kids do this and some of them younger than normal age too, but I know just from watching Davies and other same age kids that he is learning better by following stuff he is interested in rather than just being taught stuff in a room full of other kids in one hour sessions before moving onto the next subject. He learns stuff because he is interested in it, wants to learn and thinks learning is fun and knowledge is power – school would fuck that up. we are already members of three national and two local HE organisations, we meet up with people pretty much everyday for the kids to play with (which might explain why I don’t get much work done!) some of whom are HE some of whom are not. As the kids get older one of the organisations runs drama, maths, English, French lessons with proper teachers so they can do that if they want. I am also involved in the start up of another HE group in Broadwater which will run along similar lines – most of their education will come from simply researching stuff they take an interest in – which will be subtly prodded by me and will take in history, geography, English,religion, science and so on and then we will do workbooks for reading, writing, maths and such like. I don’t think school is evil or anything like that but having read so much on learning and child development I can see a far far better way of bringing up children and I would feel I had failed them if we didn’t do this now. For me as you know I never really wanted kids – mainly because I knew if I had them then they would become the most important thing in my life and indeed that is what has happened. I don’t think they define me exactly but being a mother is very clearly a big part of who I am, and whinging aside I really do love it. It is hard work, very challenging and constant but its also the most rewarding ‘job’ I’ve ever done. I love the fact that I am witnessing every first they achieve and this will continue long into their childhood instead of being shown to a teacher – so I am not being a big old martyr about this – I genuinely think HE is best for the children AND Iwant to do it too. In terms of running a business I think I am being a bit silly to try and start something while they are still so little – but because I know they won’t be disappearing to school in a few years I sort of think why wait really? I know I need to start small and maybe if it works get some sort of childcare (someone like Lynda who we had up north and supported the HE) to enable me to dedicate more time to it. Many of the HE parents I know do something from home so I know as they get older it is feasible – infact plenty of the kids help out in some way as part of their education too. I don’t think I will ever work for someone else again to be honest. Its been four years since I really worked in a controlled way – at Scouts and for Miranda I was sort of my own boss working mainly from home and I don’t even know what sort of job I would apply for – there’s no way I’d go back into retail and I can’t see me dealing with all the office politics crap of an office either – besides when you factor in childcare costs if I did work I’d have to be earning a huge salary to make it worthwhile anyway. The other thing which had occurred to me is that with my passion about HE and my first hand experience at doing it at some point in the future there is likely to be some sort of career opportunity in there somewhere too….maybe…. or am I being silly again (don’t answer that!) so there you go – way longer than you were expecting back I’m sure and feel free to delete it unread! I need to be paid for my mind instead of my physical being at a workplace and I reckon the only way of that happening is to be paying myself via my own business. N”

Having just re-read that myself even I am feeling more positive and about to go and do something constructive with the horrors!

Anyway, some positive stuff to blog:
Davies sat and wrote his own name all by himself yesterday 🙂 I had left him playing with a pen and some paper for a short while and when I came back he had written it, in order, totally recognisable —– complete shock! We wrote his name a bit when we did his thank you cards for his birthday but it was with much cajoling and supervision, this time he had just done it himself – very proud! Have tried to scan it but as he did it in a luminous yellow highlighter pen it doesn’t show up!

Today he also drew a picture of Scarlett, which he did while she sat still on the sofa for him, so he’s sort of got the idea of copying or still life and he pointed out that he has drawn her hair in her eyes too! Might see if I can scan that as he did it in pink (‘Tarly’s favourite colour’) later.

I bought some cuisenaire (sp) rods from Baker Ross too, they arrived earlier in the week but I had hidden the parcel as it has some Christmas bits in it so I brought them out yesterday. He played with them making towers and stuff and sorting the colours and got the idea of counting how many squares were on them and how some were longer or shorter than others. As Jax blogged earlier I have been feeling that while education in general can ‘just happen’ Maths is not going it. I really enjoyed maths – but that was at GCSE 14 years ago so I need to brush up on it before I start wheeling it out to him. Luckily Maths is the one area where there seem to be stacks of resources available so as soon as I can get him to grasp the concept of ‘numbers’ we can start building on it a bit more. I think we need to start doing some actual work on letters too – his writing is coming along okay and his recognition of letters and being able to tell me a word they are for is good but thats more about memory than ‘understanding’ how each letter represents a sound, which when put together create words. I think a few ten minute activities planned out in advance to try and introduce this concept which could be wheeled out when we have the spare ten minutes might be a good investment of my time at some point.

Anyway, we now have the bookcase and a stew is cooking so no-one needs to actually cook, Ady can put the kids to bed while I assemble it and then start collecting books from all around the house, putting all the educational ones into some sort of order and maybe even catergorising and listing them too (if that’s not too anal and I don’t get too bored halfway through!), which will all help me feel more organised about being a HEer!

Off now to start putting away some of the many, many toys which are scattered throughout the house, stir the stew and probably do a bit more shouting 🙂

Cos I’ve taken all I’m gonna take – without complaining….

Okay rant first cos it’s theraputic – first of all got our bank statement this morning with four unpaid DDs listed with charges of 20 quid for each!!!! And all four should not have been requested anyway – one is our old electric supplier who certainly was not authorised to take any payments and the other three are all from the same company who I pay monthly payments into childrens bonds for the kids with – cue snotty emails all round demanding they reimburse the bank charges.

Second was the journey home from London (where we met up with ‘The Elegant’ Alison and Portico children but more on that later). The journey up there had been fine – bargain price rail ticket of £12.50 (can’t believe the two taxi fares from Victoria to the museum then back again totalled more than the train all the way from Lancing!), taxi queue was tiny, coming out of the museum I was worrying about my ability to find and ‘hail’ a taxi but it was just as if it had been staged for a film, one approached with its To Hire light lit as we walked out of the museum, I did the wavy thing with one arm, he pulled over and we were away. Rang Ady to say we would be on the 16.17 train home arriving at 5.30ish and had a spare 15 minutes to wander round the Lush shop at Victoria and buy some magazines and chocolate in WHSmiths before getting on the train. Now there is always some confusion about where on the train you are supposed to sit due to splitting trains, short platforms not accessible to all of the train and so on coupled with the fact I am keen to get on at a disable access point so we can all be seated along with Scarlett’s pushchair. I am happy to concede that I got the first part wrong so we ended up mid train and were actually on the bit which was splitting off at Haywards Heath to go to Eastbourne – cue mad platfrom dash at Haywards Heath off that bit of the train and onto the next bit – asked the guard if we were on the right bit now for Lancing and he said yes. I then remembered that last time it had been either the front or the rear which reached the platform so I opened the door again and asked if we were the right end of the train – again he said yes. Then as we pull away from Shoreham (the stop before ours – ooh about four minutes distance) it comes over the tannoy about ensuring you are in the FRONT four carriages for Lancing. Cue me whipping Scarlett out of the pushchair, loading myself up with our three bags, folding the pushchair up and telling the children ‘run kids run!’ as I chased them down the train bashing people with the pushchair as I went.

We didn’t make it.

Ady saw us as I waved in a resigned fashion from the closed door to him standing on the station. I rang him and spoke very very very loudly on my mobile on the packed train about how ‘bloody crap’ trains were and he met us at Worthing (the next stop). Davies wasn’t talking to me cos I had said ‘bad words’, Scarlett was throwing a complete hissy fit about the whole in the pushchair, out the pushchair, in the pushchair, wear your poncho, okay take it off then, no actually wear it, it’s bloody (bad word Mummy!) cold out in the November evening standing waiting for Daddy to catch us up.

I was praying (to a God I don’t believe in naturally!) for them to pull me about having a ticket which ran out a stop before I got off and even hung around a bit after handing my ticket in but the bloke didn’t even look at it – which is probably just as well as Ady would likely have to have been diverted again to the police station to collect the kids while I was charged with verbally abusing a railway employee (and I think Davies would have fainted at words stronger than ‘bloody’ which undoubtedly would have been used). Another snotty email duly fired off to them too!

So calm is now restored – they have been fed and bedded, I have been bathed and wined and am about to be fed too, so on with the sunnier side to the day.

Well as joked about for one reason and another Alison and I did end up being the only people there. Which was a shame cos I was looking forward to meeting Layla again and maybe some other people, but really nice cos we got to have much more of a chat, and the kids sort of played together a bit – well they stood next to each other in the water play and had a good running up and down the stairs session where we ate lunch. As always Davies didn’t do much actual talking to Elijah but has decided he ‘really likes him’ and talked about him all the way back in the taxi – he appeared to have been oblivious to Poppy and Matilda – although having mentioned them Scarlett chanted Popp – peee all the way in the taxi and thought it was great that him and Lije were the same age and so were Lullah and Scarlett.

We played in the water play area for a good hour or so (Davies and Scarlett both got soaked despite the provided apron thingys so my change of clothes brought almost for fun actually were used – shame I didn’t have the foresight to bring a dry top for me though as I got drenched picking them both up in tears at various points), then lunch, then into the Launchpad bit which we had seen before when we went up in September and was far more thoroughly explored this time. Davies got ‘lost’ (very efficient in there they were, I had scarcely turned my back before he was being annouced over the tannoy), Scarlett had at least two bumped head incidents and has a mark on her cheek which must have happened during one of my more neglectful moments as I don’t know how it happened. I really enjoyed talking to Alison, and best of all was finding the circus style mirrors where I could see myself as I truly believe I look all the time! No one called me a big fat lady today 🙂

On the way up Davies told me he really wants a baby brother – can’t get out of him where he has got this notion from other than the fact he wants to be ‘like Daddy cos he’s got a brother (Chris)’ but explained as gently and simply as I could with my audience of tutting men reading their broadsheets at my noisy children that me and Daddy wouldn’t be having any more babies and tried to explain that baby brothers are quite annoying (I have one so I was able to speak with experience based knowledge) and that he would also have to share a room. He wasn’t totally convinced and I fear we may be revisiting the conversation at some point!

So a very good day in all – really up for arranging another meet – depending on who can come and where they are maybe in a different location – when I told Ady that Alison is from Reading he said he could take me anywhere that way and pick us up again after work as he does lots of stores in that area, so maybe we could do something up there – or Legoland??? Kids had a really good day with trains, taxis and playtime (despite the naughty words and crossness exhibited by me on the way home!). Tomorrow I get to hold baby Amber in the afternoon and maybe Davies will see the downside to small babies too as we are going to Rachel’s, apparantly we have wooden train track building scheduled in for the morning!

And nobody’s gonna go to school today. I’m gonna make them stay at home…

Actually I don’t really hate Mondays as such, although I did have an amusing / irritating incident in Sainsburys this morning. But to go back to the begining…

Up early on Mondays as Ady leaves at 7am for work – so I need to be up by 6.45am – as such we were about to get dressed and hit Sainsburys super early before heading off to our Activeo meetup when my Dad arrived. He was trying to buy fencing from a local shop but found to his horror they didn’t open til 9am so came round here for a ‘real coffee’ and an early morning assult from the grandchildren before heading back off again. He used to drop in all the time before we moved up north – I’d forgotten how nice it was and I’m glad he’s taken to doing it again. So only slightly later than planned we were doing our weekly shop when a small girl in another trolley (3ish I would say) suddenly said ‘Big fat lady’ to me. It was not said in an observational way either – she had a real sneer on her face – clearly something she’s already learnt as an insult (bet she goes to pre school!). The funniest thing was I don’t actually consider myself fat (delusional I know!) so she had to say it twice as the first time I surrupticiously looked round to see where the big fat lady was – rofl! She did get a right telling off from her blushing mother though as I wheeled my trolley off, nose in the air with my two lovely children!

Back home, dashed in to the house, out frozen and fridge stuff away and dumped the rest, grabbed some lunch and headed off to Bognor for the meet. Had a really nice time there – the mix of people was good – all under 7 children and with the exception of the brother and sister who personify everything I loath about the perceptions of HE kids – dirty, unlempt, inappropriately dressed, run wild with no respect for others property or feelings (actually one of them called me a big fat lady too once – maybe I should look into Atkins again!!) a nice bunch of children all of whom mixed really well and played with all the fab wooden toys at the house (they have my dream house – its huge, very tatty and homely with a piano, loads of kids art work, all wooden toys and a real happy family air about it). I chatted mainly with Julie, but also with another couple of regular parents who I have met before about lessons, teaching as opposed to learning, peer pressure now some of their friends have started school and so on – all very nice to be with like minded people.

Home and the kids are exhausted – even I am struggling to work out what time to feed them, but given the late night they had yesterday and the level of running around they have done this morning I think an early night is in order for them both…and me too come to think of it!

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of it’s face…

Well I’m buggered if I can get my head round all this spring forward fall back, clocks whizzing all over the place the wrong way malarkey! Can’t work out whether I missed sleep in the night, or have just been up for too many hours today but the kids were wiped out and by 9pm we were starving!

No surprises that we had a poor night with Scarlett, which ended with Davies waking us up at 5.30am (which would have been 6.30am yesterday) and being persuaded to snuggle up in our bed til the clock read 8am (7am – we hadn’t adjusted it yet) but Scarlett woke up at about 6.30am so I got up with them. Cue much lying around drinking tea for me and eating cereal for them til Ady got up. I then started baking while Ady and the kids began decorating the lounge. I made fairy cakes which I decorated some with orange butter icing to be pumpkins and some with black icing and strawberry laces to be spiders, also made star shaped biscuits and cold spaghetti for prizes hidden in worms games for later.

Chris and Julie arrived with the twins mid baking and stayed for lunch. I had planned to be better organised and do some Halloween craft type stuff with the kids but I was still chucking flour about in the kitchen so they all made their own amusement! We carried on decorating the lounge while they were here and after they left I carried on cooking up sausages and mini pizzas and making star shaped peanut butter sandwiches before persuading Scarlett into her outfit and changing into a Holy Clothing top and skirt, heavy eye makeup and a witches hat for myself.

All guests arrived – Matt and A, Kerry and Nick with EL and baby K and Rachel with E and baby A – a few less than were invited but all that were expected – and as it happened probably about the right amount to work as a group.

Kerry and Nick had moved all their stuff up to their new house in Norfolk and were exhausted – with the drive back up again ahead of them again – so they both drank coffee, Matt and Ady drank beer and Rachel enjoyed a post-pregnancy glass of wine. I had wine too and Scarlett – who had to have a dummy to be bribed into her witches outfit decided she wanted some wine. Don’t know if I have blogged about this before and I know its really bad mothering but Scarlett LOVES wine (well any alcohol actually!) so she supped a bit from my glass and in the end I gave her a cup with about 1/10 wine to 9/10 water – not sure whether anyone was horrified enough to report me to anywhere but it perked her up no end – may have a hangover to deal with in the morning of course 🙂 She did demonstrate some fairly funny drunken style behaviour like undressing herself and lolling all over the blokes present! All the more amusing as Matt was my first love and saw me during my teenage years doing pretty much the same thing!!

The kids all loved the whole party – we didn’t do too many games – a couple of goes at Musical Statues and Musical Bumps, some apple bobbing, some hunting for the prizes in the green spaghetti worms and then they all decamped to play with the dressing up box (weirder still considering all of them were in fancy dress already!) which is always THE favourite toy when friends come over to play. Kerry and Nick left first, followed by Matt and Rachel and E stayed a while longer to eat toast so Rachel could just pop E straight into bed when he got home. Davies had a whale of a time and said so when everyone had gone – both were asleep by 8pm (Which I guess was 9pm to them so not so surprising really!) and a definite thing to do again next year.

Tomorrow at short notice we are off to an Activeo meeting at a member’s house in Bognor where we have been before – Julie and the twins are going too, then Tuesday is the MP museum meet up in London, Wednesday back to Rachel’s, Thursday is the first day of the local HE group after a long break and Friday – well we’re back to the weekend again! Be Christmas before we know it!