Barbecues rule!
Last nights barbecue was nice, I was a bit quiet and thoughtful although not really sure why and my mum said a couple of things which really got my back up – the main one was right at the end of the evening when she asked how the Activeo event had gone earlier in the week and I said it had been great. She then asked if I was still definately going to HE then? I lost it a bit and asked her why when she had been a party to all the many, many discussions about why we wanted to HE, all our reasons, what we hope to achieve etc she would think for one minute that I would change my mind. I am not even someone given to changing my mind anyway – a point even she had to concede but she still wanted to talk about whether moving down here had changed anything – clearly not, our reasons for HE were never just about not wanting the kids to go to school in Manchester – infact the local schools up there are considered very good as they still have the 11+. I was so cross I said her worst fear which is that we don’t intend staying here in Sussex forever and may well move away again anyway (which is true but a bit cruel to use it as a threat). She then slapped my dad, who was actually dozing on the sofa anyway and playing no part in the conversation and said ‘see!’ like it was him who had been doubting it I had just proved her point!!!! GRRRRR! Monster had been after barbecued sausages again ever since the beach on Thursday night so we had told him we would have barbecue for lunch today and we (stupidly) invited my parents over to join us.
This morning Bruce arrived at 11ish to start helping clear all the garden rubbish, chop down all the hedges and clear the huge climbing trailing plant thing which has lived on the garage roof for years which needs to be removed before the garage can be pulled down. Ady and Bruce were working really hard while Teeny had a nap and Monster and I did some more work on the scrapbook – I wrote down some i words that are already in his vocabulary and then asked him to tell me what they meant and wrote down what he said – sort of like a Monster dictionary:
idea – when I’ve thought of something
Ill bad or poorly
invisible – you can’t see something
injetion – hurts a little bit but makes sure you don’t get poorly
insect – (remember these are his actual words) a little ladybird and a beetle and an ant (when I prompted him for any more he giggled and came up with) and another ant!
instruments – bobinogs play instruments, a piano
Then Ady came in the room and he got all giddy and lost interest so we put the shrek 2 cdrom free with the paper on my laptop and all watched the trailers, then Monster had a go at clicking on the characters to find out more about them, then we found a colouring in bit – truly excellent – a pic of Shrek and Donkey which you click on colours then click to paint – he spent over an hour playing on it all by himself, while I spent some time on the other computer doing some work until he came in to ask ‘why are you doing your work on the big cooter and I’m doing my work on your laptop?’ (he loves the word laptop and always really enunsiates it) before asking me to come and see his work. He had done a really good job of the colouring and was very proud of it bless him! Then Teeny woke up so I showed him how to shut the laptop down and we played for a bit doing animal noises, then we all put our shoes on to walk round the shop and buy some sausages for lunch. We opened the door to discover my parents had arrived and all the towering hedges in the garden and the big pile of rubbish gone. My parents joined us on the walk round the shop, then I tried to cook the barbecue while Ady and Bruce carried on dismantling the garden (!) and my parents failed miserably to look after the children. Teeny nearly touched the hot barbecue about five times till in the end I snapped ‘can someone please look after her’. Eventually they took both kids off for a walk, then we all ate, I took Teeny back in the house cos she kept trying to stray onto the road again, Monster sort of ran free playing in the sandpit, Ady and Bruce finished sorting the garden while my parents sat sunning themselves, occassionally coming in to get drinks, mum read my magazine cover to cover and then they buggered off when we started to cook the kids tea. I think they sort of got the message I was unimpressed with their efforts to be real grandparents but I was adamant when we moved back down here I would not place expectations on them which deep down I know they will never achieve as I only end up getting upset myself. Dad does do his best really, he had the kids once this week and had never been anything other than accomodating when I’ve asked for help, they both just wind me up lots with their refusal to try and get to the kids levels and get to know them or how to deal with them. Teeny is just a normal toddler who does not take very kindly to mummy disappearing, the way to deal with that is surely to distract her, to talk to her, to make her laugh and so on, not to try and shush her like a newborn baby or pace around with her in their arms and then give up and put her back down with comments like ‘oh you’re so mardy’. Anyway enough of that, Monster insisted on a bath tonight which we had to do all secretly as Teeny’s knee has finally scabbed over as she’s been in trousers all day and I know if it gets wet in the bath she will play with it, so she went to bed and Monster was in the bath while we were about (the bathrooms downstairs so he was quite safe)when we went to get him out he had got all the bath foam letters out and was spelling words (not really spelling as such but he was doing a good impression of it!) all over the bath. He’s really into learning his letters at the moment and really impressed my parents by talking about i and all the words that begin with it. He did ask today if we could do another letter and I said no as I had planned to do more on i with some work on Ireland and India but I think that was an error and tomorrow I will ask if he wants to do scrapbook work and see where he leads me instead of dictating what we do. My grandmother (mum’s mum) is coming over in the morning, which guarantees Mum will be on the phone to find out what was said etc once she’s gone and in the afternoon I think we might get out for a walk. Ady is hoping to get home at a decent hour for barbcue tea for the kids but we’ll see – home by 5pm is very ambitious for him!

I is for idea, ice, if, ill, idol, idle, imagine, imp, invisible, infant, injection, insane (and insania!), ink, insect, instruments, intelligent, interrupt, inviye, iron, itch, ireland and india
Yep, I found the dictionary and although I admit to not being sure how exactly we are going to incorporate (another one!) these into the scrapbook its a good old start!
Yesterday was quite a boring one really, in the morning we stayed in, then after lunch (which Ady arrived home in time for) we dropped an Ikea catalogue round to a friend who I had hoped would be in to kill and hour or so with tea and chats with but was out, then over to my parents so Dad could entertain the littlies while I nipped up to Sainsburys. Ady then came over too after work and then home for what we had hoped would be an early night for them both. Teeny fell asleep quite quickly – although she woke again at 9 and did not go back to sleep till midnight – very curious and she has been all tired and crotchety today as a result. Monster seemed on the verge of sleep when I left him to come downstairs and start a bit of work but when I went back up ten minutes later to check him he was missing!! A quick scout round discovered him fast asleep all curled up in our bed!

Today we have not done much either really, Tescos this morning to buy stuff for a barbecue planned tonight, then McDonalds (or as Monster calls it Magnettadonalds – not sure why) for lunch (love their new salads!), dropped a birthday card round to our friends little boy (who curiously is no longer little anymore – he is 11 today!!) then home. We had hoped the littlies would entertain themselves in the sandpit as we had to move about 500 roof tiles which were stacked up against the garage from when we had the extension built, but the garage is about to be pulled down for the next extension so we put them all round the corner. Teeny managed to fall on her knee for the fourth time (looks really yukky now – I would post a picture but I wouldn’t want to offend anyone of a delicate disposition!) and Monster smashed up a snail after repeatedly being told not to so I dragged both kids back in the house. I was putting some washing on when I felt a breeze and found Monster had gone out through the front door, closely followed by the cats (who don’t go out) and his little sister who was stuck on the middle step (very very steep front steps – not negotiable for a toddler on feet, can only be got down by falling!). He had run round the house to Ady so was dragged back in and put in his room after I had screamed at him about the possible consequences of his actions (sister, cats, killed on road, baddies snatching them all etc etc etc). All is now calm, he has apologised to everyone (except the snail who is somewhat past bestowing forgiveness now anyway!) and they are now watching Dora while eating their tea (very educational with all that spanish y’know) while Ady mows the lawns and I blog furiously whilst pretending I am doing some paid work!! Parents will be arriving soon for the barbecue and tomorrow farmer friends are coming over to start helping dismantle the garage.
The good news today is that the broadband saga has finally come to an end and I am back online at a respectable speed again – at last! Oh and we won the lottery last week and the cheque arrived this morning – only a tenner so we have gone for no publicity and I don’t think the money will change us!

An EXCELLENT day today – really reinforced the fact we are doing the right thing…
We blew the library out in favour of starting the letter of the week scrapbook and letting Teeny have a nap so they would be on better form for the HE group this afternoon. I did some work of my own inbetween so a good morning all round. Have posted some pics of the scrapbook – we started with a cut out circle and a rectangle which Monster arranged and glued into the letter i, we then did some more cut out shapes and glueing to make other i words (there’s not actually that many – all our alphabet posters and puzzles and books illustrate it with an igloo or an ice cream – need to dig a dictionary out and look some more up) and some printed out dinos stuck in. Then I wrote a sentence about Monster and he tried to do some reading and letter recognition and he circled all the i’s in the sentence with a red pen. He then got bored so him and Teeny emptied the entire contents of the box of stuff (all the craft stuff) around the floor and stuck feathers and glitters onto paper while I made some phonecalls. Then Teeny had a sleep while Monster and I tidied up and made the rolls for this afternoons barbecue, hung the washing out and made lunch, Teeny woke up and we all ate lunch, then while I was putting Teeny’s shoes on Monster disappeared with the plates – his new helping trick – he collects all the plates, throws leftovers in the bin and puts the in the sink. I had left water in the sink from washing up earlier and when I called him to put his shoes on he called back he would be there in a minute cos he was tidying up – I walked into the kitchen to find what you see in the other pic – he had collected his toilet stool from the bathroom and was standing doing all the washing up from lunchtime – bless!
We then went off to HE group – after falling out with each other over his behaviour last week we had a bit of a talk about whether he’d be good at group and he had said he might not be. We talked about how I feel when he is naughty and how it makes him feel when I am cross with him and suddenly in the car he announced that he had just been teasing me and he was going to be good at group – and he so was! We joined in an empty table with a lady doing make board games, Monster got stuck into painting a snakes and ladders board, having created two counters for him and Teeny – his was a picture of the baby in Rachels tummy – basically grey scribbled a la the scan photo she showed us yesterday that I had not realised he had even paid attention to and Teeny’s was something ‘ a bit carey (scary)- the hurt on Teeny’s knee’ a red scribble! Teeny meanwhile was decorating the table, herself and a bit of paper with felt tips – she is still sporting faint green scribbles on her knee, red on her neck and face, blue on her elbow and yellow on her ankle despite sand, sea and a bath! But she did amaze me by selecting the correct one out of about 12 different colours when I asked her to pick a pink one! I got chatting to Mel – the lady running the board games bit and she is lovely! She has two girls both slightly older than our two and lives not too far – will see her again next time and might even suggest a get together too. Then the real treat arrived, four women and a man in kilts come to do scottish dancing. The man played the bagpipes and then told us all about how they worked then they did about six dances including the highland fling and a sword dance – all the kids – who were all young – under six I would say, sat enthralled for the whole half an hour until the last dance when they all got desperate to join in, so then they played the music again and we all got up and did (probably very insulting arm flinging versions) some scottish dancing – adults too! Which both my two adored!
Then we wandered across the road onto the beach, took a quick paddle in the sea, were joined by two other families from the group and spent a lovely three hours barbecuing, chatting, making sandcastles etc. All the kids were lovely – there were eight of them, Teeny was youngest at 18 months and the oldest is about 8 but like other HE kids I know as they are unused to being segregated by age at school they are largely oblivious to other kids ages and play as a group, there was none of the petty teasings or showy off type behaviour you get in a playground – I really think HE kids keep their natural sense of equality for longer without all the inherant catergorising that happens from day one in school. Its funny too, that one of the women was talking about the evil of money and how we strive for more but never have enough as over the last few weeks I have gone from envying the lifestyles of wealthy people and their material possessions to envying some of the far more frugally living but time rich lifestyles of HE folk we have been meeting – I can see so many benefits in living a simpler life with fewer needs and more time to sit back and just enjoy being with the people around you – such a shame I have come to this conclusion after years of living beyond our means and with large credit card bills to be paid ensuring we need to earn at our current level and beyond for quite some time to come!!
Tomorrow is as yet unplanned. Monster asked to go swimming as I was putting him to bed but its half term so it’ll be packed and its hard managing them both on my own anyway..so we’ll see.


not super clear but its an icthyosaurus and an iguanadon with info about them – well we knew dinosaurs would be playing a big part in the scrapbook! not sure how we’ll deal with x, y and z! Posted by Hello

So there’s me, Nic the alternative lifestyle recruiter…
D’yo know, I’m so not a hippy, for heavens sake I’m actually a very materialistic and shallow kinda girl but somehow whenever we spend time with my friend Rachel I turn into some sort of advocate for all things alternative in life, the universe and child rearing! In so many ways I’m super conformative in my parenting – I am a stickler for routine, they are in bed by 7 every night, when I read about TCS I was horrified at the very notion of it, I am regularly to be heard counting as far as 2 in the whole 1,2,3 school of discipline and so on, but every time I go round to Rachel’s house I find myself trying to convince her that even ‘people like us’ do things like Home Educate, have home births or use homeopathic remedies! Todays ‘lecture’ was on home birth. She had not realised Teeny was a homebirth babe and when I asked her who would be looking after E when she went into labour and explained that childcare issues for Monster were the main reason we looked into homebirth she was all staggered and asked loads of questions about it all – I also told her how much I would love to be someone’s birthing partner or even just lurking at a birth. Having done it twice myself and of course been at my own as the star turn it would be really nice to see if from an ‘unconnected and uninvolved’ point of view just to see what it looks like, how women really change while they are birthing, witness the miracle of the start of a new life etc etc. I don’t think a thick embossed invite to attend the birth of her daughter (she is getting used to the idea of a pink one although really she wanted another blue one) at her own home will be dropping through the door anytime soon, it did all make me feel very confident about what I do do on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis and her open admiration at some of the stuff I do and stand for was really nice to bask in! E was a bit of a tike again today, Monster who has had altogether too many late nights and early mornings lately decided he was terrified of this tiger mask E kept putting on and growling in his face with and we had tears three times before he came back out of himself again. I was very proud of him doing exactly what we told him when E did something he did not like which was to tell him loudly to stop cos he didn’t like it. Maybe he is a bit wussy and I doubt he would do well in a playground situation but I am dead proud of his sensitive and kind nature and as he has no need to ever be in a playground situation I don’t see that as any sort of issue anyway! Teeny was her usual looks like a little princess but masks a girl of steel self and managed to fall over on the already fallen over twice knee and create lots of blood again. Rachel was most impressed that I had antiseptic wipes in my bag and said she only had them in her first aid box but certainly did not carry them round with her – I said that was cos she was not Teeny’s mummy! Although in actual fact I carry sufficient stuff round with me at all times to cope with most emergencies – spare buttons, mini sewing kit, small first aid supplies, life jacket, spare underwear, emergency flare signals, variety of batteries, umbrellas, car jack, instructions in german for erecting a greenhouse, well you get the idea!! Back home for tea, a bit splashy bath, Teeny asleep within momemts of her milk, Ady arrived home to put Monster to bed while I tackled an uncomfortable phonecall with my boss about whether or not she actually wants me to work for her or not and if so can I please have some work to do so that at the end of next month I am not expecting a cheque which doesn’t arrive throwing us into financial chaos – think I need to come up with some money making schemes and pretty quickly!
Tomorrow we are off to storytime at the library, then HE group and weather and childrens behaviour permitting we may lurk for the beach barbecue afterwards which even Ady may arrive in time to attend!

We’re almost ‘real’ HEers y’know!
Yesterday’s Activeo event went really well for us. There was only Chris and Julie (Ady’s brother) and one other lady and her two children there which was probably nice for our first one as we all felt really comfortable. Teeny played well with the twins and the other two children were six and four, so ideal running around like loony partners for Monster! I really ‘bonded’ with Chris and Julie too and Ady arrived after woroingk and we stayed for fish and chips with them and left at 7.30! We are going to another play session next week, a drama session and a couple of other events (Sea life centre and so on) over the rest of this month. Its all starting to come together HE wise in terms of finding some friends for the kids and some likeminded people for us to mingle with, all our friends seem interested and supportive and even my parents seem resigned to the whole idea now! Considering Monster wouldn’t even be starting school for another year and a bit I refuse to start feeling any pressure to ‘teach him’ anything too structured and I think we will just continue with this leaping on anything he shows an interest in and finding as much info as we can, doing subtle educational activities and getting out and about lots type approach. It seems to suit us! I don’t think Monster will have any big issues about learning to read, he already wants to be able to do it cos he loves books so I think it will almost be an organic process rather than me spending hours sounding out letters etc for him, the writing may take a bit longer – he is very short attention spanned when you give him a pencil for some reason – he starts off well – although he does not hold the pencil very well but soon loses interest and starts drawing monsters instead of the letter ‘g’! I love the idea on someones blog of having a letter of the week – I think we are going to get some scrapbooks from the local cheapie shop, write a letter on the front and fill it with Monster’s attempts at writing that letter, some stuff cut out of magazines starting with that letter, some drawings / collages etc, info on a dinosaur starting with that letter, eating something or some other activity linked somehow and maybe a bit of work on a country starting with that letter – that all sounds a bit intense and i think maybe each letter will last much longer than a week in order to really get it to sink in and be a fun sideline instead of the prime focus of the week….will let you know how we get on!
Will probably blog later today about today but the plan is to go and get dressed, take a book back to the library which is due back today, I’ve got a nurses appointment to register with the new surgery (Ady went last week so I already know what to expect – the focus will be my weight no doubt!)then back for lunch and then on to Rachel’s for me to chat and drink tea and the kids to run amock with her son E (pennies out the window boy from last week!) for a few hours – ah happy days!

A great bank holiday weekend all round really…
Yesterday was really nice, we finally dug out our old tower from the old computer and took it round for my brother, which resulted in an arrangement to meet my parents for a walk later in the day weather permitting, then we drove over to our friends farm. The kids loved it! It used to be a dairy farm with hundreds of cows, now they make their money from a horse school, a few cows for beef and using their acres of fields for all sorts of enterprising ideas such as caravan storage! They have ten free (and I mean free) range chickens and a very very proud cockerel and two ducks, ferrets and usual assortment of farm cats and dogs. Teeny could not believe her eyes! Chickens who came up and stole her peanut butter sandwich out of her hands, real life cows who even mooed for her and all the teenages up there grooming their ponies cooing over how cute she is! Monster went on an egg hunt with Bruce and collected 8 eggs which he got to bring home with us. An hour after we were supposed to be meeting my parents they rang to say weather was poor over their way and would we like to go over for (a very late) lunch instead, which we did. Another friend came over in the evening and Teeny only woke once last night then slept through (as did Monster) till nearly 7.30 this morning!

Today Ady went off to work in the morning – although one of the supposed big benefits of this job is no weekends and no bank holidays and he really didn’t want to go it was worth it as he feels he bonded with the rest of the team and does not feel such a ‘new boy’ anymore! After much consultation and discussion Monster assured me he was up for the walk to my parents house – about a mile and a half, about 30 minutes so off we set. Teeny spent the time cooing in her pushchair pointing at all the trees, cars and bicycles, Monster was a true superstar! He walked all the way with no complaints, was super sensible about walking on pavements, crossing roads and being all careful on the small areas of road with no path. We talked about loads of stuff on the way, electricity pylons, why you can’t see the wind but you can feel it, and more! We arrived and were greetly warmly, mum played really well with both kids while I spoke to Dad, then Ady arrived just in time for lunch, we then spent the afternoon taking a flat tyre off my parents car, taking it to kwikfit who said it had just gone down, putting said reinflated tyre back on again, lounging around their pond, then we came home and Monster got totally soaked playing with the hose, Bruce and Jean (farmers from yesterday) arrived on their motorbike midway home for a cup of tea and Dad came over to help us move our big chiller (its one of those coca cola big tall chillers that you see in newsagents full of canned drinks – here its full of beer, wine, and bottled water) back into the house from the garage as we have decided we can’t live without it afterall! Kids all now asleep, tomorrow we are going over to the Activeo meeting… oh and while you can comment due to me foolishly changing my template into the pretty one you have no doubt been admiring I have comments strangely located above rather than below the post, and the MP blog ring box is gone – will be back soon I promise!

ooh its been a good one!

Yesterday evening was all it promised to be – even though I knew how Friends would end (tried to be strong but had to read the ending after it aired in the US in one of my many weekly celeb gossip mags) it still made me cry. BB5 was interesting – my initial thought is that they’ve gone too all out to just shove the most controversial twelve people they could find in the hope of huge rows and sensationalist TV – I think looking back at previous winners the public tend to vote for the people they can relate to, or would like to think they are like – friendly, outgoing, good looking and basically well, normal! I reckon with that in mind the likely winner will be Shell – nice blonde southern lass, a bit posh, quite intelligent, no visible piercings or other wild body adornments. But then that’s just my very early impression, is likely to change at a moments whim and unless you are a BB fan this is mindless waffling to you anyway so I’ll shut up about it now!

So today dawned with the birds doing the dawn chorus at about 4am – Teeny has woken me around or just before it every morning this week – she has gone back to sleep but I’ve not managed to and have listened to it every day. Its so lovely to hear the birds singing – they really go for it! I don’t know why I didn’t hear it in Manchester – Ady says the sirens and car alarms drowned it out, or there just weren’t any birds but it really makes me all glowy about being ‘home’ in Sussex. The post then arrived containing our Activeo newsletter, in which we feature as new guest members introduced by Chris and Julie (Ady’s bro) – grr we were going to HE first! Its packed with events pretty much every day, loads of great stuff for all ages, and although its mostly over Chichester way (about 20 miles) thats fine! We’re going to Chris and Julie’s event on Tuesday which will be our first one and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into it. Also arrived in my email inbox was the Sussex HE newsletter, again packed with local stuff going on so it looks like my diary is gonna be filling up pretty quickly which is nice.

Today we went to Arundel in the morning, very nice wander up the hill and back down again, lunch in a sandwich shop sitting outside (kids even ate something – okay so it was just a toasted teacake each but hey its a start!) then a quick play in a park – Monster very nervous, wouldn’t be daring and wanted to get off if another child started playing on something he was on, Teeny very daring, brazened out all the older kids with her determined little attitude and climbed up all the slides and down all the steps! We then walked along to where you used to be able to feed the trout (40p for a cupfull of very smelly fish food which they would have to feed them if they didn’t charge you to, but huge fun chucking loads in at once and creating a fish whirlpool!) but it was closed – waste of my breath either telling Monster to hurry up, slow down, get out of the long grass and walk on the path etc etc etc. Then onto the birthday party. It rained and was sunny all morning so we held our breath about the weather – in the event it was fine, a small shower at one point so we ducked under the gazebo thingy they had put up. Monster was great after a small warming up period – he got in there and played with everyone – he’s so funny when another child snatches something off him and he asks really loudly (generally infront of their parents) ‘why did that little girl snatch the toy off me mummy, thats not really nice’, I also overheard him really politely asking one little boy what his name was and announcing his own – he’s sure to grow up to be some some of etiquette expert! Teeny was not at her best, she was tired, has gotten used to Daddy being a weekend novelty again and wants all of his attention all of the time when he’s around and either wanted to be cuddled by him or have the various balls strewn around the garden to play with. We got home and she went straight to sleep, I nipped up to Sainsburys to do the weeks food shopping and came home in time to get Monster to sleep in time for the BB live challenge!

Not sure yet what tomorrow will bring, think weather will dictate what we plan…

Grr just wiped a wet finger across my mouse glider thingy on the laptop!

Well no pics cos I forgot to take the camera and actually no slagging off my mother either as we had a really nice day – hurrah! One of those ones which is nothing mentionable but nice in its uneventfulness. She arrived pretty much on time, offered money for the picnic lunch I bought in Asda (while she kindly sat in the car entertaining the littlies – and did I have a quick browse round the clothes section and pick up a rather nice black linen trousers and top for a mere tenner each while she did this? yes i do believe i did!), kids behaved for the whole journey, conversation was kept neutral, she bunged 20 quid towards entrance, which yep, Roslyn is mightly dear – we joined for the year, upgraded Monster to the gold membership so paid a total of £132 – eek, but they turned a blind eye to the fact that mum clearly was not Mr A Goddard and we all strolled in – we would have paid about £40 just for today so thats not sooo bad (well Ady didn’t go grey when I told him so it must be okay!). Monster did his usual act of racing round everything without giving the animals more than a cursory glance – Ady apparantly used to be the same on school trips – always rushing through each bit to see what was next, never actually seeing anything and going home feeling cheated! Mum amazingly pushed Teeny round pretty much all day and was really good with her, pointing out things and chatting away to her. I don’t know whether I am too challenging and always trying to see educational value in everything and push them too far but Mum always annoys me by being the polar opposite and having no expectations of them, doing everything for them and failing to ‘test’ them (wrong word but hopefully ykwim!)but then Ady’s a bit like that too – frequently I’ll ask Teeny which block is yellow and Ady will point to it instead of her!! We ate the picnic – Teeny ate everything she was offered, Monster ate the pastry off a pork pie and some grapes, he had a little play on the equipment although did not brave anything with people already on it, then we meandered about a bit before calling it a day at about 2pm. We got home in record time, made some chocolate milk ice lollies in the new ice lolly maker moulds I bought in Asda, ate the rest of the picnic, Dad came over too and Ady arrived home nice and early.
I’m about to have a quick bath then shove in the ready meal bought in honour of BB and Friends night!! Tomorrow we are going to a 2nd birthday party, praying for sunshine as its in the garden of a small house and they are planning a barbecue with 30 guests! Don’t think my kids have ever been so socialised!!

(assumes Brummie accent) Day one in the Goddard house and….

Sorry but I am just soooo excited about Big Brother starting tomorrow I can’t contain myself!!! and the last ever Friends ever too- ooh channel four with this evening of televisual treats you are really spoiling us….

Anyway, today was good and bad, lovely and icky! We started off well, a quick glance at the online bank balance triggered an emergency dash into town to transfer funds (i.e credit card cash advance!)which led to a spot of quick retailing! We then went back to library for the storytime session… which was actually quite fab! The woman doing it was really good with the kids – obviously all regulars, she coaxed the shy ones out of themselves and got them all joining in – about fifteen littlies and ten grown ups were there and although Teeny was more interested in emptying the shelves of books Monster enjoyed the stories, they both liked the songs (so odd to finally be singing Marrster instead of Massster when we joined in with Baa baa black sheep after all those northern toddler groups! although Monster did see fit to ask ‘why isn’t it baa baa white sheep!)then they did some colouring – Monster on the colouring sheet, Teeny on the carpet and a passing child’s shoes! and off we went with our new starter cards prouding displaying their first weeks attendance sticker promising to return next week. We then dashed home for a quick lunch before going along to (fanfare please) the Shoreham HE Get together club – our very first real live home education type thingy…
I was super nervous, do we get there early and befriend the first person who comes in, do we arrive late and sneak in at the back, how will I know who everyone is, should I have worn my Holy Clothing outfits to ‘fit in’ (!!!), would everyone be really ‘alternative’, should we even arrive in a car etc etc etc – oh the manic wonderings of a paranoid mind! Anyway we parked a little way away and walked down, sligtly early – I acosted a friendly looking woman and asked if it was the GTC – it was, she asked who I was, I told her I was Nicola – which confused her, I use the name Nic in all my emails and she was expecting a bloke!! Everyone was very friendly and seemed so nice, although I only really had a chance to speak to Jenny (at last!) as it was an author reading her own childrens stories session – stupidly I had not really realised that each week something was arranged – I kind of expected it to be a more mature version of a toddler group where kids roamed free in the middle while mums sat around drinking tea and chatting (I know, I know!)so my two who were pretty much the youngest there had absolutely no intention of having sat down at the library listening to a lady reading a story of doing it all over again! Teeny meandered the room, but quietly and without disturbing anyone until Monster started to resent the fact she was allowed to wander about and he wasn’t at which point he quite loudly said ‘I don’t want to listen to the lady reading the story’ so I decided to remove them both and stood outside talking to Jenny for a bit about HESFES, MP camp and my general refusal to stay anywhere without an en suite bathroom making me not such an ideal candidate for a camping excursion! We tried to go back in and managed for a bit but the author lady started to read another story and my two got all loud again so we left. I was actually really cross with Monster – his behaviour was not anything awful, I need to remind myself that he is only three and is not really used to mixing with others anyway but I do expect him, having been told three times, to do what I say without answering me back – yes probably totally unreasonable of me but its my expectation just the same! We will definately go back next week, and I will relax my expectations and ensure we do something a bit more complimentary in the morning!
Tomorrow we are going to Drusillas – a localish mini zoo. I made the fatal error of ringing my mum to invite her (Fridays are her day off) and can tell she doesn’t actually want to come but feels she should – I just know she will be late – I want to leave around nine, will be all critical about the weather and continue her amateur pyscho analysis of Monster tomorrow – once again I try to be nice and know straight away I’m going to fail!! Tune in tomorrow for possible pics of Drusillas, raving about how good it is and some theraputic whinging about my mum!!

Kipper cards all round!
The hangover has abated – although I did resort to alka seltzer when the headache was still lingering at 1pm! We had our dinosaur biscuits for breakfast, then drove into the local town and waited ages for a parking space. We went to the local library – they looked me up and amazingly I was still on the system so just had to pay £1 for a new card, then the kids both joined and got a ‘my first library card’ featuring Kipper the dog (that’s dog, not frog!) and a free book (which there was quite a bit of fanfare about but there were only two to choose from and both were too babyish even for Teeny – still I guess a free book is a free book and perhaps they can both learn to read from them!). This whole process (yes his first name is Davies not his second name – that’s with an e, yes its Scarlett with two Ts at the end) took a while by which time neither of them were in the mood to actually choose any books. Couldn’t find the dinosaur books (!) so i grabbed about ten and we left – have not actually looked at them yet but I’m sure one or the other of them will like them! The librarian also told us about Storytime which is every Thursday morning for half an hour – will pop along tomorrow and see what its all about. Then R and her son E came round this afternoon – we were running horribly late, I gave the kids their lunch (dinosaur turkey ham stuff which Monster begged me for in Sainsburys and surprise surprise did not actually want to eat!) and frantically pegged my washing out before shoving pork pie down me just in time to clear up a bit (R is quite a bit tidier than me!) before they arrived. E is a bit of a terror – although charming with it and the kids got up to all sorts of mischief this afternoon – I caught E standing on Monsters bathroom stool which he had taken upstairs throwing pennies out of Monster’s bedroom window, the kitchen floor was strewn with the contents of the tea towel drawer, for some reason all three children removed their left socks and Monster broke my new laundry basket leaning in to retrieve his sock after having chucked it in there (although he did come straight to me to confess and apologise which was nice!), E is a bit rougher than my two and they both got shoved by him at some point, which Teeny glared at him for and Monster came and whined at me about – I think having a new baby sister in a couple of months will come as a shock to him – and probably do him some good! But it was lovely to see them all playing together and they all got on well – E did not want to leave and Monster has talked about him all afternoon since. Then tea – which went well – I persuaded Monster to try some different food by still giving him his normal alphabites and chicken nuggets but cooking some sausage balls and some crispy pancakes – not healthy I know but he tried both and my plan is to start with other junky food, get him used to trying something new and then start to introduce the healthier stuff – Teeny just cleared everything on her plate as usual! R was still talking about how she fears E starting school – he should actuallly start this September as he is 4 in July although she is holding him back till after Christmas but she is worried about his concentration span, the kids he will be mixing with, ‘losing him’, and all the other stuff I simply don’t have to think about!
Tomorrow we are going to the story session at the library and then the Shoreham Beach HE club, which I am nervous about (although I already ‘know’ three lots of people who will be there via email, just don’t know what they look like! Will have to wait for them to shout at their kids and recognise the names or something!)but looking forward to. Got the 2004 EO contact list today and stupidly I had not changed our address in time so we are still listed in Cheshire not Sussex – grr! Nice to see Chris and Julie (Ady’s bro & wife) in there though! Julie is hosting an Activeo session next week at her house which I am going along to aswell so we are finally on the road to making some HE friends / contacts.
So hangover and pennies from heaven, well the upstairs window aside a good day had by all!

Three years olds are rubbish babysitters!
That was yesterday’s lesson – more for me than the children but everyone says you learn along with them! Bad mother alert for those of a delicate nature – we were in the garden yesterday afternoon playing with the slide and the sandpit (well actually thats what the littlies were doing, I was reading Heat magazine!) when I decided to run in the house and grab a bottle of water. Our house is detached and you can go all the way round it, but we have blocked off just beside the front door as its a steep step and not child friendly – so I said to Monster ‘Look after Teeny for a minute, I’m just running in the house, don’t let her go off this bit of grass’, he agreed and although I would not normally entrust his own safety to him let alone Teeny’s too I know that he will usually just block her way and stop her from going anywhere. So I ran round the house, in the kitchen, grabbed the water and back out again. As I came out of the house I saw a car had stopped in the middle of the road outside. And the reason it had stopped was 18 months old Teeny stood in the road infront of it!!!!! Monster (who is not allowed on the road without an adult and clearly did not want to get into trouble) was standing on the pavement trying to coax her back in. She was standing pointing at the stopped car saying ‘car, car’. I thanked the driver, grabbed the kids and went back in the house to try not to think about what might have happened! The car drove on, no doubt stopping to check our house number so they can report me to social services or childline or someone – I am just hoping that Monster did not have enough time to tell them about not being fed the day before cos I was on the computer all day!
Other than that we had a really nice day yesterday. The kids came with me to Sainsburys (normally against my religion taking the children into a supermarket but needs must!), both stayed contentedly in the trolley (although Teeny did have a dummy some of the time to control her!) eating the french bread I was buying for my lunch. Then in the evening we had friends round for dinner which was lovely. I am infact really quite hungover as I drank way too much wine and although I know we ate sausage and mash I can’t actuall recall what it tasted like!
Today we are making dinosaur biscuits in a minute, then we are going to join the library and later a friend and her son are coming round. Monster has already told me that him and E (her son) will be playing with his trainset (which means a big mess to clear up in Monsters bedroom afterwards!) and Teeny and I will be persuading R that it is good news she is having a baby girl (scan last week revealed it is not the second boy she was hoping for) – anyone got any tips on getting small girls to allow you to put their hair in bunches and plaits??? Teeny has a whole box full of little slides, bands and feathery things which she loves to play with but will not tolerate actually being used to make her hair pretty!

mummy didn’t feed me today cos she spent all day on her cooter so i’m really hungry and i need some apple
Yep, my little darling really did say that to Ady at bedtime tonight! Not true, although I did spent about an hour on the computer while Teeny was napping trying to get some work done – but he had breakfast, lunch and tea and plenty of attention – but he did get his apple!
A really, really bad night with Teeny last night – she has turned into the toddler tantrum queen seemingly overnight and strops about all manner of odd, previously no problem type things – the latest is being put in her car seat – she shakes her head, no, then goes rigid so you have to struggle to bend her in then just SHOUTS (no tears) until she wears herself out, then is fine again! Yesterday she did not like, going in the car seat (twice), leaving the beach, having her nappy changed or having her shoes put on – normally she is a total angel about shoes and nappies and even goes to get the nappy and the changing mat then lies down on it and fetches her shoes and everyone elses at the merest mention of going out! I knew she would have tantrums as she is very independant and has been since she was born more or less! Monster was very mild in his tantrums, he was articulate quite early and could always be jollied out of them and I always knew what was likely to trigger them and avoid it if possible. She is much more unpredictable but as everyone keeps telling me – like mother, like daughter! Anyway last night she went to sleep fine but woke at about 11 just as I was about to go to bed, and from 11 till about 3 I was up and down the stairs every fifteen minutes or so until I brought her into bed with us – at one point she just shouted for about ten minutes – again no tears, just rage! She has also taken to walloping Monster if he is not doing what she wants – which I won’t stand for and even if we were of the ‘well hit her back then’ school of parenting he wouldn’t anyway – he’s too mild mannered – she does do a very cute ‘sorry’ when told off of stroking and cuddling whoever she is apologising to! So today we have all been a bit tired and ‘not at our best’!
In the morning I tried to do some work, had another run in with Freeserve / Wanadoo / crap broadband suppliers, mediated in the whole instruments toy box war, then we had lunch and drove into town to collect some photos we’d dropped in yesterday and have a wander round. Teeny did not want her ice cream, Monster dropped his and people were giving me obvious evils for having a wee baby in a pushchair with an ice cream (it was a mini milk for crying out loud, thats practically got nutritional value!) but then she had just demolished a winnie the pooh jelly lolly so she was looking quite sticky and sugared up! We then dropped into see Grandad and Uncle, which was nice as the kids went straight off to mither my brother and left me free to chat to Dad, then Mum came home and Ady came over too after work, so nice to just do that impromptu type of thing after only seeing them once a month when they were staying at our house! All to sleep now and fingers crossed for a better night!

Ooh love these real weekends!
It’s taking quite some getting used to having Saturdays and Sundays really – ever since we met me and Ady have worked weekends – obviously I havn’t since having Monster but he still did, so to have him finishing work at 4pm on Friday and not returning till Monday morning is most strange – but nice!
Yesterday we went to Earnley Butterfly and Gardens, which was C & J’s (Adys brother and his wife) birthday treat to Ady. It was really nice actually, all four kids really got on and entertained each other and althouhg it was a bit erm rustic shall we say, the animals were good and the butterfly bit was nice too. We have arranged to see them next weekend and go to Pooh Corner if the weather is nice – its great that Ady and his brother are seeing so much of each other (they were seperated as kids and only really got back in touch a couple of years ago) and its so nice for the twins and my two to be growing up with their cousins. We also went round Chichester in the morning and despite me getting very stressed in McDonalds with the kids messing about instead of eating we had a nice day including getting the dinosaur book for Monster’s leappad in ELC at half price – hurrah!

Today Ady is out in the garden with Monster using his birthday pressie of a hedgetrimmer (I know, but thats what he wanted!) while Teeny is sleeping and I am, well actually I’m doing this but I am allegedly working! Later we are going into town for a wander along the seafront – ah bliss! Next week is shaping up nicely – I have had email replies from two local HEers, on Tuesday I am going to a fellow MP Bloggers, on Wednesday we have my friend R and her son E round in the afternoon – R is 20 weeks pregnant, was convinced she was carrying – and desperatly wanted another boy but found out at her scan this week she is having a girl so will be dressing Teeny all cute and flowery and making her do cute girly stuff to convince R its not so bad having a daughter! (I am not being flippant here – I really wanted another son too, and was quite upset when found out Teeny was a girl at the scan but overcame it by shopping for girls stuff, browsing girls toys and having a justifiable reason for shopping at Claires Accessories aged 30! – now of course I could not imagine not having a daughter and am really glad Monster did not have to deal with not being the only son!). On Thursday we are going to the local get together club for HEers, which only leaves tomorrow and Friday to be filling! On Tuesday night we have friends coming for dinner, we are going to a 2nd birthday party on Saturday – oh its so nice to be living near to friends again after 2.5 years of not really needing a calendar as we were not doing anything worth writing down anyway!

peace is restored – well sort of!
The evil bug has abated! Monster threw his juice back up this morning but then he had guzzled half a cup on an empty stomach! The Goddard day began at 4.45am today when we all awoke, Teeny first, then me, then Monster, and finally although not through choice – Ady. We all came downstairs and sort of faffed about till about nine when Ady went off to work. I rang my mum who kindly came over to watch the littlies while I nipped to Tescos – well that was the plan, what actually happened was Teeny fell asleep, Monster insisted on coming to Tescos with me. He was actually quite helpful and narrowly avoided being squished by others trolleys but did double the shopping bill by asking for cocopops, kinder eggs (for me and Teeny Mummy), a Travis toy (which we have been promising since Christmas!), a doll for Teeny, the cheapo Tesco version of Guess Who? (which I have been eyeing up for ages – huge educational value in that game – and sure enough he played about five games with my mum and really enjoyed it and got the hang of the question asking, elimination, eye colour, glasses wearing, beards, bald – loads of observation etc, biscuits and so on!
When we got home Teeny had awoken but (a first!) Granny had got her back to sleep again and they got on well for the rest of the day. Later my dad came over too, Ady was home early and mum and dad took a sofa to their house to store till we have the extension and room for it and so the playroom / office is looking a bit better and more spacious now.

evil bug strikes the Goddard home
Yesterday was an erm, interesting one – for some obscure reason we thought it would be a good idea to go to work with Ady again. We tried to be sensible, we took the people carrier instead of his company car to prevent Monster from travel sickness and allow the kids to eat all their usual in car snacks which they were not allowed in Daddy’s new car. We were going to Newbury, Reading and Slough. By Newbury I was feeling distinctly unwell, by Reading we had to stop for ten minutes for me to sit down on a compost pile in B&Q to catch my breath, inbetween Reading and Slough I was that person you feel sorry for by the roadside, and again at Boxhill – won’t go into my usual deep detail but it was not pleasant! We got home soooo late at about 7.30pm, I went to lay down for half an hour while Ady bathed the kids, then I got up to help him put them to bed, Teeny was asleep by nine, Monster not long after, but he was awake again at ten with us stripping down his bed, his PJs, his cuddly toys and so on – I then spent my night sitting holding a bowl for Monster while telling him it was okay and not to be scared, or running up and down the stairs to Teeny (she is currently sleeping downstairs, us and Monster are upstairs!) – my feet actually ache from going up and down stairs so many times, I lost count but it must have been about 20! Brought her into bed with us at about 3am by which time Monster had finally stopped being ill and fallen asleep. When me and Teeny woke at 6.30am Ady had already been gone an hour as he was doing three stores in Wales today. (hence him getting the nights sleep while I was up despite me being the ill one!). Cancelled the friend who was due to come round and spent the day with two poorly, clingy, cuddly children getting several phonecalls from Ady as he too went down with the bug – he arrived at Swansea and felt ill, by Bridgend he had been ill, by Cardiff he wanted to die and he finally arrived home through the thunderstorms and flooded roads at 8pm – just 14.5 hours after he left!
On the plus side we did quite a bit of educational stuff today – me and Teeny read her magazine with Dora stories and she can point to all the characters, trees, cars etc, we did some colouring, we read the dinosaur book, built a marble run taller than Monster, tidied the playroom, had a big discussion about why we are sick, what it means, why its scary and so on…so a very practical biology lesson there then!
Jenny – will email / ring you in the morning but yes I think we should put it off till next week! Hopefully tonight everyone will sleep, tomorrow we will all feel better and Saturday we are off to the local Butterfly Farm as Ady’s birthday treat from his brother, with Ady’s bro, his wife and the twins. Have also had some emails back from the EO people I contacted and am going to go along to a HE group locally next week, wish me luck!

the curse of summer

Teeny is poorly! She has had a really evil cough at nighttimes and when she runs around too much during the day for well, weeks really. I have suspected asthma for some time but every time we have enough of a bad night waking up coughing for me to think about taking her to the doctor she will suddenly be fine again for a few days… this weekend she has not been herself at all – quite miserable, a bit whingy and last night she would not go to sleep, despite being really tired she just tantrummed at me until she wore herself out, she then woke again a few hours later and was up for about two hours, coughing and crying, she finally went to sleep at about 12.30am and was awake again by 5.30am – BAAAAD night! So this morning I have taken her to the docs. She has a whole combination of stuff wrong at the moment – a big back tooth coming through, she is suffering badly with hayfever, the cough and she is also tired from not sleeping well. Doc listened to the asthma fears, listened to her chest and prescribed antibiotics if I wanted them – I took them and will see how she is later on before deciding whether to start her on them or not. I’m loathe to start her on an inhaler really – Monster had one prescribed when he was about her age and although I think I used it once or twice I don’t want to have one unless its really neccessary – will have to look into some alternative treatments for breathing / coughing problems. Monster is also suffering with hayfever and has what I would diagnose as a ‘sympathetic cough’ although doc kindly listened to his chest too! Teeny is now asleep – quite peacefully too and Monster is mithering me to do something with dinosaurs!
So to continue the rest of our weekend… On Sunday we went over to Ady’s brother’s house. C (his brother) married to J and they have twins called M (girl) and J (Boy) who are three months older than Teeny. Very spookily they are going to HE too, which is lovely as it means we have someone else we know doing it and the kids will all grow up doing it together. I say spookily as Ady and C did not grow up together, their parents split up and them and their sister were put in a succession of children’s homes, foster carers etc. They lost contact for a fair few years but when their sister died three years ago it brought them back together and we have grown if not close, then certainly friendly with them. It helps that I get on quite well with J, and we all clearly have similar ideas about bringing up children! We had a nice afternoon in their garden, the twins are a bit overawed with my two running around, but it makes a change from it being Monster cowering into my skirts so it was nice for us anyway! Honestly he has gone from being a shy, introverted, didn’t know how to interact with other kids to the life and soul of the party! In our first week at home we saw three other boys his age who he wouldn’t have remembered from before we left (he was only 15 months old when we moved) and all three of them are now his best friends – and it was lovely to hear that all three of them have gone on about playing with Monster again to their parents too – at the party on Saturday he had two girlfriends, was running about and clambering on the slides and climbing frames like he had always done that sort of thing – which was great as I spent most of the party talking about HE and was able to point out the small boy leading everyone else and say ‘well clearly we won’t have ANY issues with socialisation!’.

Yesterday we went on a hunt for sandpit sand, none in B&Q, none in Wicks and having really annoyed all the builders doing serious shopping in both stores trailing round with a pushchair and a small child getting in everyones way we recruited Grandad to come with us to Toys R Us where we got the sand, some new buckets and spades and a paddling pool. A happy hour was spent in the garden with Monster shouting at Teeny for knocking down his sandcastles, me shouting at Teeny for throwing sand and Teeny shouting at her dress which was too long and kept tripping her up! We came indoors for tea and thats when she started to go downhill – see earlier.

Today we have internet food shopping coming from Sainsburys which is a good excuse not to go out, Teeny will hopefully get a good sleep, I’m off to make a dinosaur scrap book with Monster, and I have emailed one of the local contacts to arrange to meet up, emailed to join the local(ish) HE organised group, will email another later and will also go through the EO contact list to see whether there are other local folk…the sun is shining but we are all indoors nursing our itchy eyes and snotty noses!

Still not a dinosaur day, but what a weekend!
I did type up quite a long and (I thought!) witty update post on Saturday morning including the sparkly powder incident but blogger erm lost it somewhere so I will recall what I can, add to it and the sparkly powder will have to wait for another day!

Thursday – the big birthday for Ady went pretty well – he got a fair few pressies, Mum, Dad and brother came over for a takeaway in the evening and although he said the next day it had not felt that ‘special for a 40th birthday’ (at which I had a secret tee hee knowing what was still to come) he enjoyed the day!

Friday was a learning curve for all of us – as I was doing the routefinder for Ady’s store visits first thing in the morning I suddenly had the brainwave of us all going with him, kids and I could wander round the shops while he did his store visits, meet back up for lunch and all get a go in the brand new spangly company car – so we unpacked all the car seats from my car, loaded the pushchair into the boot, Ady went through the food parcel I’d packed for the kids and vetoed half of it (No bananas in my company car, no chocolate, no crisps – he nearly fainted at the prospect of fruit winders!). We merrily set off, Monster started to get a bit tossy and turny in his seat, his colour went from his usual off white (he’s quite a pale child) to a greyish hue and he suddenly looked all panicky and asked to sit on my lap! Knowing what was coming next I declined just as he threw up pink gloop everywhere all (milk and ribena combined I assume as thats all he’d consumed so far!). Ady did his upmost to remain calm and passifying to his beloved son, whilst frantically cleaning the inside of his brand new company car! I did my best to be nurturing and earth mother like without actually getting any on me in the cuddling process. We cleaned everything up and continued on our way with me frantically trying to distract him using a wide array of singalongs, I spy, knock knock jokes and talking about dinosaurs! Teeny slept most of the way! While Ady did his store visit we wandered around the store (B&Q) stalking dinosaurs – likely followed by the store detective wandering why a grown woman was creeping round B&Q with a small boy and a baby in a pushchair shrieking ‘look a stegosaurus footprint, do you think he went this way?!’ instead of actually looking at or buying anything in the shop. The return journey was uneventful, thanks to a travel sickness pill and both kids falling asleep again – bad news for bedtime still having both kids snoozing in the car at 4pm so we did what any responsible caring parents would do and took them over the pub beer garden to wear off some energy – and of course in order for them to be allowed to play they needed to be accompanied by adults patronising said pub so we had a drink too!

Saturday dawned a beautiful day, which was a huge relief. Ady’s brother had arranged to come over with his wife and twins (same age as Teeny – also going to be HE’d)to see Ady for his birthday and we had talked oh so casually about maybe popping over the pub (where 40 of our friends and family would be gathered with a buffet, birthday cake, banners, balloons and a collectibe shout of ‘surprise’ waiting for us). Ady spent the morning wandering about in grubby jeans and no top, cutting the hedges in the garden, wandering why I kept nagging him to put something nice on to go to the pub, fussing about getting the kids changed to go over there and getting all stroppy when he suggested going to the park instead of the pub – Nic ‘No, we’re going to the pub!!!!!!’. It all went off spendidly, everyone came, a good time was had by all, the kids had a fab day, we’ve got arrangements with friends for the next million weekends and it was a great welcome home / birthday party.

More from then till now later…