Making it up

Except that today I’ve mislaid a child.

Well, not really. I know where she is. With Barbara and co. I dropped her off at a coffee morning before lunch (which turned into a good discussion of home ed, I swear I need to make up a little card or leaflet with the most comment websites and stuff on it!) and I was supposed to be picking her up after tea, but Barbara just rang to say that they are having such a good time, and being so good, it seems a shame to split them up. So hopefully she’ll be dropping Big off in the morning, and hopefully she’ll have had some sleep this time! lol.

So what have I been up to? Well, I’ve filled in some forms. Put some stuff into envelopes. Tried to do some more work on my own website. Done loads of washing - lovely day for it. Completely failed to get Small to take a nap, so maybe he’ll go down at a reasonable hour tonight. He isn’t looking particularly tired yet though.

So absolutely nothing going on resembling home education here I’m afraid.

today, and legged it to York.

My best friend from school lives there - we’ve been friends for 20 years this year. Wow. So it was a good day.

And now it’s late again, I fell asleep trying to get Small down, I’ve got a stinking headache, so I’m having a drink and going back to bed.

so it was a bad idea to stay up til 2am, even if I did think I was working. Small then bounced around the bed for another hour or so, and Big got up at some unearthly time that was around 7 I think. Small then decided that was a good idea too, so that was us all up.

I feel grotty. The children are full of energy. Big has played on Adiboo again, and Small has had a go on teletubbies. I forgot to mention that he played on the computer for about 20 mins the other night, and screamed blue murder when I took him away.

I’ve managed to wash up, done most of the drying up, got one load of washing through but need to hang it out, emptied the bins and recycling, dealt with the freezer food, and spent quality time with the children. Have nagged dp into providing financial info, so will fill in tc form and write covering letter - have missed the post for today, but we’ll walk round and put it in anyway (unless I can get stupid website to let me update online!)

So why do I feel like such a pathetic waste of space?

Going to go and hang the washing out in the sun and take Small for a wander round the garden. Then it’s lunch time I think, and maybe afterwards he’ll have a nap…I can live in hope can’t I?

And it’s only three o’clock.

Let’s see, we’ve read a couple of library books, and filled in the last parts of Big’s reading rollercoaster card. I thought that she was supposed to get something for finishing, but she just got two more sets of stickers - has anyone else completed theirs yet?

I’ve got a load of washing through, although now I need to go and hang it out ;-), shopped at the coop as well as visiting the library, entered the four books I bought to sell on on my booklist (little by little folks, little by little), washed up once, although you can’t tell (and this is why I *hate* housework!), fed the children three times already, filled in a form to join the cooperative society, debated religion with dp (again!), managed subscribers to our local email list, and prompted dp to fill in his bit of the tax credit form.

Last night I turned the computer off, and spent a very productive evening sorting through a huge pile of paper and stuff, which is now either in the bin, the recycling, an expanding file, a very small pile of things-which-require-action in front of me on the table, or back in the place it came from (but occupying one stacking crate neatly, rather than overflowing two.

And that was after we’d had E here for the morning, spent the afternoon at softplay with my mother and Big’s cousins, and done just the usual children things all day.

Phew, I’m getting somewhere, aren’t I? If I can just keep it up for a little while longer I might get on top of this house and my life for once!

• Small learning to use the slide at the soft play area
• ..and deciding he can dry himself now, thank you very much
• Big asking why people believe different things - you have to ask dp for the answer though
• Me finding the tax credit renewal forms - finally!
• Discussing with my mother whether she is a feminist - she is, she thinks, but still preferred to be a chairman than a chair
• Selling 13 books without having to list them
• Hoovering the floor (you have to see my floor to understand why this is blogworthy)
• ..and a rollover from yesterday, Small finally understanding what the point of the funny shaped blocks is and what the holes in his cart are for

Written by Jax, data input by Tim

and others.

Books - atm I have approx 40 sci-fi books. 50 or so assorted grown up fiction (including a variety of romance). Probably about 400 childrens books, from brand new to extremely battered.

The 200 I picked up the other day are partly ex reading scheme from a school, and most of those are extremely battered. Some annuals (oldest one is 1959!). Quite a lot of assorted other children fiction ranging from brand new board books, to battered novels.

There you go - that didn’t help at all, did it?

roflol…my problem is finding the time to list them, and when I start listing them, to stop reading them!

Liberta, I’ll have a look at the comments script. Given that it doesn’t validate the email address anyway…although I am considering seeing whether it is possible to restrict commenting to logged in users, so you’d all be required to log in. What do you reckon to that? Feedback in a so far unregulated comment box please

Yesterday I carelessly aquired another 200 books. Today it was an extra child

Was woken far too early by Small, who appears to have switched his sleeping pattern. About 8 o’clock last night he was looking shattered and Tim asked him if he wanted to go to bed. He headed for the door and started banging on it, so we took that as a yes. He was asleep by 9 (probably rather earlier, but that’s what time I stirred myself to go and find some food) but then had a very restless night and early morning. I had got the alarm set to go off at 8.30, but that turned out to be extremely wishful thinking.

Anyway, dragged myself up, as we were due to go out for the day, needed a picnic, and had *no* food in the house. Well, no bread anyway, and only enough milk for the children to have breakfast. Big woke up in the stroppy mood she’d gone to bed in, which was nice, so I informed her that I wasn’t taking her to the supermarket. Cue instant meltdown, but I thought it was better to do it that way than to end up with some kind of showdown while out for the day, and sure enough, she was much calmer when I reappeared. Plus it took half the time to shop that it would have done!

Off into Sheffield to find J’s house for a meetup with a lot of friends: Barbara and her three, Kirsty and her two, H with two, A popped in and dropped off a couple more, K came by with one, and of course my two, and J’s younger offspring. I *think* that’s everyone! There was playdough, brio trains, collectable miniature dog things, dressing up, duplo, time outside with the swings, *three* computers - and not one major fallout, which I thought was incredibly impressive with that large group of children, ranging in age from 10 weeks to 11 years, and some of them completely new to the group.

We were there for ages! Then Barbara started making moves, just as the dressing up clothes came out for E and Big. I could see this could cause problems, so I suggested that she leave E with me, and we’d sort out getting her home later. Later has turned into tomorrow, so E and Big are thrilled at their impromptu sleepover. I’ve just read the riot act as I really do need them to go to sleep or I don’t stand any chance of getting Small to sleep.

And then I paused, and took him up to bed, and fell asleep myself - I *hate* that. Now I feel really wobbly and yeuch, but I’ve got nothing done that I needed to tonight. Anyway, where was I? Yes, we’ve got an extra child. Some of the conversations I’ve heard have been priceless. In the car on the way home, they were getting a bit agitated.

“Mummy, E is being rude”
“How’s that?”
“She says you have to be good for mummy and God, and I say that you only have to be good for mummy. I don’t believe in God”
I didn’t know she’d even thought about it! So a compromise “different families believe different things and that’s ok, so E is right for her family, and you are right for yours.”

Then at bath time, from E
“I can spell your husband’s name.”
“He isn’t my husband.”
“You aren’t married?”
“no”.
“Are you getting married?”
“no.”
“Never ever?”
“no”
so Big joins in “It’s alright getting married and having husbands and things though”.
And from me “and it can be alright not getting married as well.”

Hohum, I appear to be expanding E’s boundaries a little tonight, Barbara - hope that’s OK!

Right, I’m going back to bed.

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Up at 7.30 this (well, ok, technically yesterday) morning, as Small had another photoshoot to get to. Got to wonder who decides that 9.30 in the morning is a good time to have a cloth nappy photoshoot with five babies, but there you go. He wasn’t his usual smiling cheery self for the camera, I think there were rather too many ppl and too much noise for him to shine. Hopefully there will be a couple of decent pics of him though. It’s for Derbyshire County Council this time, so if he gets picked, he could be seen rather further afield than last time.

After that, we went for a wander around the lake that used to be Chesterfield. Had been rung by the EO phone tree this morning to say that the park meeting was off due to the weather - shame as it was supposed to be dry according to the forecast - all I can say is what do they know??? We got very damp wandering around charity shops looking for books and a next size up leotard for Big for ballet. (The dancewear shop is shut on Wednesdays in August. That’s handy then.)

Gave up eventually (how come non of our charity shops do the kind of sales reported elsewhere on the blogring? Not fair). Headed for home, via a short stop to pick up the most recent of my ebay purchases - approx 200 hundred ex school reading scheme and library books. Well, that’s what she said, lots of it appears on closer exam to be charity shop or jumble sale. Fairly sure that I should make the £20 back though, possibly just on the few annuals that are in there.

Met up with Sarah and R back here, and the two bigger children got to play with trains, although they were under constant threat from babyzilla

Just as Sarah was packing up to go, Grandma popped in, which Big was thrilled by. She was even more thrilled when Small went off for his nap, so she didn’t have to share.

And I’ll have to finish this in the morning, ‘cos he’s stirring now…

And only took 25 minutes of kicking me in the head to get him to go to sleep tonight!

So I’ve got a load of work to do - what am I doing? Reading forums and blogging! Aargh…

Anyway, it’s been another horribly wet day. Small’s latest achievement is to discover a really horrid piercing screamthat he uses when anyone annoys him, or just because he likes the noise. Lovely.

Big has managed much much better to hold herself in check with the computer - something to do with the fact she had to wait for me to fix it I think. She didn’t want to waste a minute of her computer time - think she’d have eaten her tea there if I let her. She spent ages on a money game, but needed quite a lot of help with it. Can’t help feeling she’s skipping a few steps - she still counts on her fingers to add up numbers up to 10 (and doesn’t always get that right), but she was there counting out coins to get to 43 (highest amount I saw). Still, I think that she is rather more likely to learn from the computer than from anything that I could do otherwise, so hey, given that we had no tantrums today, long may it go on!

Did have a bit of a disaster at the beginning and end of the day. Small managed to get into the dining room cupboard and liberate a wine glass which didn’t survive very long. Hoovering before my first cup of tea - didn’t ought to be allowed! And then at bath time, Big had legged it to find her pjs, came bouncing back into the bathroom and opened the door straight into Small’s head. Cue much screaming from both of them as I sent her to her room and tried without success to hold a cold flannel on his forehead.

Anyway, he went to bed over an hour ago now, and I still haven’t done any work. Better get on. Got to be up and out early in the morning, so need to do packed lunch tonight.

Quite pleased that we managed a walk round to the post office in between the showers. We played I-spy on the way back, my favourite was Big’s something beginning with O - um, orange? Yes! There aren’t any oranges out here…but there’s an orange car, she replied happily!

She did a lot more playing on the computer, the problem with how long she spends on there is when she gets stuck on something. She expects me to drop everything and race to her rescue (not always feasible if my hands happen to be full of Small at the time ) and if I don’t, she flips straight into full scale meltdown. We had three screaming wobblies before I decreed that that was enough computer time for the day. Today’s game of choice was Adiboo, which seemed complicated to say the least - I couldn’t get it to exit either Won’t be any computing time tomorrow, as the desktop got knocked off by a power blip during a thunderstorm and when I turned it back on it seems rather less than healthy. So much for the ups box I think I’m going to have to do a rebuild, which means that Big is going to lose all the progress she’s made on the games so far, which I don’t think is going to impress her.

After lunch Sarah and R came round for a while - brought chocolate muffin mix, so Sarah led the baking while I popped Small down for a nap. The two bigger children played pretty well together all afternoon, giving Sarah and I chance to chat about businesses and finances. Then the storm woke Small up and by that time it was pretty much tea time, so I whipped up a pasta and sauce combo with able assistance from Sarah again, and after tea, they didn’t so much make a run for it, as a swim. A lot of rain!

Weird evening - fell asleep with Small earlier and feel all out of sync now. Really not looking forward to having to rebuild the desktop tomorrow. Had another agency call - I’m really hating this. This time the role is Newcastle. I suppose sooner or later something will come through, but I don’t want to have to relocate for three months, which is increasingly what it looks like is going to have to happen.

Anyway, it seems to be the middle of the night again, so I think I’ll clear off. Night all.

Now I have been telling Jax I thought this was a good idea for ages, now someone else has gone and done it. Online High

But what about socialisation……….

But could I get Big to go outside? nope, she just wanted to play on the computer (her mother’s daughter it would appear ) Today it was the turn of Jump Ahead Year 1 - terribly schooly, even set in a school, but she seemed to really enjoy it. She was thrilled when she scored enough points to get a milk bottle cap? Nope, I’ve no idea either. I think quite a lot of the maths stuff was rather beyond what she’s used to - she can add perfectly well when she uses her fingers, but this had two numbers like 23 and 45 laid out above each other, and we went through it five times (it presents five sums in the game) and she still didn’t get it. At which point she was getting so worked up that I went on strike and refused to assist any further. Still, I suspect that she’ll get the hang of it in time, although I definitely need to figure out a way to restrict how long she’ll spend on a given game.

Small was a bit more of a pain today, although the last problem was totally my one fault. I should have known better than to let him leg it without a nappy - obviously he headed for the one carpeted room in the house, and just as obviously, he needed more than a wee….yeuch. Horrid offspring.

I’ve done a tiny bit of reading for myself (David Brin’s Earth, for anyone interested), and I’m doing wonderful work avoidance. But right after I do this, I’m going to start the laptop and do half an hours paying work (I do get a little of it now and then) and then I’m going to bed. Honest.

And jolly nice they are too.

Managed to get up at a semi reasonable hour, got everyone ready, two (count them, two!) loads of washing hung out on the line, and still left before 12. Not as much before 12 as I’d wanted, but still…motorway was very slow on the way up north, but we were there just before 1, and as we were driving up the very bumpy lane, there was a whole gang of ppl in front of us - our first meeting with Caroline and Paul was on the driveway!

Big was a little taken aback to discover that she was going to have to share C with other ppl, but Caroline’s eldest was an absolute star at drawing her out and within minutes she’d departed at a run. And that was pretty much the story of the day - the children sorted each other out mainly, although I did have a slightly difficult conversation with C about Big. C wanted to know if Big was bossy, as Big had told her she was naughty. I said that Big did sometimes behave in a bossy manner, and asked if she (C) ever did anything naughty? I hope that we settled on just because we behave in a particular manner sometimes, doesn’t make us that way all the time…but I think I might have a chat with Big about it in the morning anyway.

Small had a whale of a time as usual, he really is a take anywhere kid atm. And the wooden train track was fab - the daddies definitely enjoyed it. There was plenty of time for the parents to chat in and amongst - nice to catch up with Kirsty as well as meet Caroline. Although it didn’t feel like meeting a stranger - was really comfortable, to be honest.

So all in all, a good day for everyone. Big didn’t want to come home, but hey, who really wants to leave their friends in the middle of a good game? She was ever so tired when we did get back - skipped her bath and straight to bed with a story. With a bit of luck she’ll sleep in too!

George Monbiot » Correspondence with David Bellamy

I do like this blog. And I even got *two* personal emails from the chap, despite his auto-responder saying he doesn’t do that, when I let him know one of his links was down.

Not least because we all slept in!

Big was up at 9.15, dp let me and Small stay in bed til 10…can’t remember the last time that happened. So I think I’ve been tiring them out somewhat Anyway, by the time we were up, breakfasted and dressed it was nearly lunch time. I missed a call from the EO phonetree saying that the outing today was off because of the weather, but we weren’t going out in it anyway. We had cuddles on the couch watching a slightly traumatic programme called Project Noah on Animal Planet. I know the elephant made it in the end, but it looked rather close, and both myself and Big were in tears. Hopeless, I know.

She spent some time discovering that she could build all sorts of different shapes with the train track, which is a bit of a breakthrough I’ve got to say. Small was impressed as well. After a rather late lunch she figured out finger knitting, so I set her up with a crochet hook and took Small up for a nap. Took him ages to get to sleep - not helped by Big bursting into the room twice and waking him up again

She didn’t really get the hang of crochet, but was quite happy to manage a few stitches, and I was impressed with that. Then I set her up with our Webland trial which she played on quite happily for a couple of hours while I tried to get some work done and Small slept.

Late tea, late bath, and late bed, but a relatively peaceful day anyway. Phone rang a few times, which is moderately unusual for us. Calls included an agency about a possible contract role in Bedfordshire (that’ll be an easy commute then) and the local plod to say they can’t trace the other car from last weeks shunt. And he has now committed an offence as he failed to stop, and failed to report an accident. Utterly bizarre if you ask me, but dp suspects he was uninsured. Ah well, at least there was no damage to my car.

Went over to see a home edding friend today, which was good. Big’s behaviour was not. She did the cling to my leg thing, which I tolerate rather than accept, as as far as I can tell, she does it to irritate me generally speaking rather than for any other reason. Then she refused point blank to eat the (home made) jam sandwich that was served for her lunch as “it’s not jam”. It most definitely was. I think I can cope with “I don’t like it” but it’s difficult when she won’t even try it. A little while ago she ate anything - now she’s at the stage where I’m considering taking our own picnic everywhere we go.

Small, by contrast, sat and very cheerfully plastered himself with two slices of bread and dairylea. He threw a couple of strops, mainly when he was told he couldn’t play with the phone. And he wasn’t too happy with having his nappy changed.

Big then decided that the other children were OK after all and disappeared upstairs with them. Small stayed downstairs - too many edible big ppl toys upstairs. He only does that for effect - yesterday he was actually hama-ing with maxi beads, and only stopping to eat them when he thought Iwasn’t paying enough attention to him.

Anyway, before I realised it, it was time to leave to avoid the rush hour traffic, at which point Big decided to throw a major tantrum, which resulted in me having to carry her shoeless to the car. All good fun.

Dp was hugely unimpressed with the report of our day, and we’ve spent some time this evening discussing ways forward. Tomorrow I don’t have any outings planned - there is a group from our local home ed group going to some local gorge for a geographical talk, but it’s going to involve paddling and so on, and given that Big still won’t walk on her sore foot, I don’t think it would work too well. So I think we’ll do tidying and a post office trip and generally have a quiet day.

that I’m not in the park. The heavens have just opened and dumped rather a large quantity of water everywhere.

for a site I host, and which features a particularly gorgeous young man on the front page.

Parents and Kids

There are a lot of competitions running there, so get yourselves along and enter!

We should be in the park just now, but Big had a full scale meltdown over trying to put on her shoes, and it took nearly quarter of an hour to calm her down. So I’ve decided that we’ll give group a miss - shame as the weather is just pleasant now, not too hot, not particularly threatening rain wise. But I think we would only have a disastrous day if I took her a child who is already this tired, and that isn’t fair on any of us.

So we’ll have a quiet morning (Animal Planet on the tv, wooden train track on the floor for Small) eat our picnic here, and then maybe do the shopping this afternoon. Well, we’ve got to do the shopping this afternoon as we’ve no food in!

Got to wonder how a child who has become so overwrought with just friends around and visiting could possibly handle school day in, day out at this stage. She just isn’t ready. That isn’t to say that no four year olds can cope, I daresay there are those who can and will, but Big isn’t one of them.