Making it up

for a few days at least.

Wonderful time had by all while visiting The Portico. Big very much enjoyed her time there, and there was an added bonus of seeing Barbara’s E today at the Muddlepuddle group meet. In classic home ed group fashion, there was much sitting around drinking tea and chatting (for adults) and running around screaming (for children). I did wonder why we adults don’t run around screaming - if it is so much fun that all the children want to do it, how come we don’t? Did we get it drummed out of us in our school upbringing? Anyway, they also did blo pen pictures - Big did a lovely rabbit, which I know I brought home, but I’m not sure I’ve brought in from the car yet.

I feel recharged - both by the fact that Small has slept through all three nights we’ve been away, and by the fact that I’ve had such good company for the time I’ve been away. Alison is very easy to talk to - as evidenced by the fact we were up til nearly 1 this morning just chatting - and it’s been great to be able to do that. We also did swimming and lots of walking, which has probably done me the world of good too!

Anyway, nice to be home too - and gold star to Tim for doing the washing up despite his physios advice not to - thank you love!

And now hot chocolate and bed. Lots of washing to do tomorrow, so rather a shame that the forecast is for heavy rain!

As the adults were absolutely shattered today, we had a quiet day in. Of course, this meant that the children haven’t stopped all day There has been copious art, in the form of the magic blo pen set I brought with me, (half price in Big W if anyone is interested), baking, singing, dancing, documentaries about crocodiles, out door play, indoor play, lots of playing with maths shapes, drawing, eating, and we even cleaned most of the children tonight (Small fell asleep in the high chair, so escaped his bath).

His achievement of the day was to become independent as far as bananas are concerned - extremely independent in fact, in that he went and helped himself to one, sat down, opened it and peeled it. Big can’t always peel her own even now! Had to laugh.

Big is having a fantastic time here - she seems to get on great with all of Alison’s children (or as much as you can expect any children to get on anyway) so she was a bit unhappy to hear we’re going home tomorrow. Given that we’ve plans to be off and around the country for the next couple of weeks though, I think she’ll get over it…

with The Portico.

We came down yesterday, arriving at 5 and heading straight out for a swim. Big proved that the swimming lessons are worth every penny as she discovered that she could manage without her float jacket. Fab. She also managed to jump in without anyone holding her!

Very late night for Big last night, and horrendously early morning, but she still coped very well with the long day today. Layla came around and we met up with loads of other MudPuddlers at the Diana Memorial playground in London. There was Nic, Barbara, Sarah, Jan as well as a few ppl who aren’t on the blogring (honest!). The children played excessively - Small spent the whole day just wandering off into the distance. Big found a conker, but then lost it (oops) and I did manage to speak briefly to some ppl in between wondering where Small was wandering (sorry Nic ).

Home for takeout, and hopefully most of the children are in bed. We’re indulging in a bit of laptop blogging, and there are pictures…

I have been meaning to post this for a while and now with the peace reigning here it seems like a good time to do it.

In one of the villages near to us is a shop which proudly proclaims that it sells ‘Confectionary’.

This mis-spelling is a member of a family which I find particularly annoying. Many people seem to be unclear that it is stationery that is purchased from a shop, while your car when parked is stationary.

If you happen to be one of those who struggles to tell which is which, then I hope this will help you:

A milliner sells millinery
A grocer sells groceries
A haberdasher sells haberdashery
a stationer sells stationery

See? There is a pattern to it.

Where I think it has all come unglued is that people are not pronouncing words properly, stationery and stationary are not supposed to sound the same. The diction of the English (unfair to include the Welsh and particularly not the Scots) is now so poor that they are indistinguishable, grocer is pronounced grossa and so on.

It is not new, of course, do you recall the expert in Pygmalion who declares that Eliza is a fake because her English is too good and that she must be a European princess? I do think it is a shame that the language continues to be eroded in this way, because it degrades its usefulness as a communication tool.

Lost Her Dog

When my mother was a child she was most impressed by the concern shown over stray pets in regular announcements on the ‘Home Service’ (Radio 4, kiddies) which would go something like:

“Would Jane Smith, lost her dog in Sevenoaks, please contact Hammersmith Royal Infirmary, where her mother is seriously ill….”

If even the Mr Cholmondely-Warner BBC enunciation sometimes led to misunderstandings, with the rise of Eshtury Inglish I feel we are doomed to cunfoozyun.

‘What’s an outfox, mummy?’
‘I have no idea - what are you talking about?’
‘Swiper outfoxed Dora - so what’s an outfox?’
Light dawns…

It’s been a Dora fiesta today, and Big still went up to bed in tears because she couldn’t watch yet another episode. Sigh. I did washing, more washing, some shopping, some more shopping and other bits of housework in a very reluctant fashion, given that I had a very bad night with Small. In fact, I accidentally fell asleep when the two of them headed off downstairs this morning, and was woken extremely abruptly when Big came running in in a panic to tell me that Small had taken his own nappy off in the living room.

Turned out that wasn’t too disastrous, as it was only wet, and she was in the process of getting their breakfast as well, so that was good. (Can I put this post in practical skills as well then? ) I did manage to drag them both outside briefly while I was hanging out washing, and at one point when Big was throwing herself round the room I told her to go out and run round the garden 5 times. She wasn’t very happy with me (stomped out shouting) but then I could hear her counting, and she came back in panting and smiling.

‘Mummy?’
‘Yes?’
‘That was fun. Can I do it again?’

She can be an odd child at times…

is in heaven in this house

Small is spending the day toddling into the dining room, fetching a book to read, reading it, then taking it back to exchange for another. So cute.

We had swimming this morning, then we did library, post office, co op, boots and TKMaxx. Then Small fell asleep in the car, so I had a luxurious bath without any children(!) while Big watched tv. I’m getting a bit tired of the constant tv, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.

sound of the day is n

Forgot to mention that Small started the day by falling over, catching his chin on the footstool and putting his tooth through his lip. Ouch.

Sitting here just now with all the doors shut, the curtains closed, the tv off, and both children in bed. Quietest it’s been all day and makes me realise how much I crave silence.

Anyway, a much better day all round, apart from my stunning lack of brain at Lembas. I somehow managed to come away with the wrong size nappies, so I don’t have any disposables for my trip away yet. Drat. Big had a lovely afternoon playing with E, and Small is developing a hero worship thing for B, so they both enjoyed themselves. Nice to see Barbara again, and nice to have a bit of a break from home too.

Got my two loads of washing through, got to go deal with the kitchen, because we are up and out to swimming early in the morning. But instead, I think I’m just going to go to bed…g’night all.

Today I have made gloop which is supposedly an improvement on washing powder, but apparently I might be destroying the rainforest instead. Sigh. Sometimes I think that it would all be much easier to just jack it in and stop thinking about the environment at all.

Anyway, sound of the day is p, not that Big is showing any interest in doing anything with it. They are playing in the garden again - must make the most of any sun we see at the moment. Second load of washing is on its way through with the gloop, and after that we are going to see Barbara and co, so that I can go to Lembas to get environmentally friendly disposable nappies for my several trips away.

Car is at the garage, children have had snacks, time for lunch methinks. Determined not to have another day like the last couple , so trying to keep us all occupied and ticking along as friends.

so not going to blog particularly, except to say that I ought to know better. My little girl doesn’t manage quiet unplanned days at home very well - she starts the day with “Where are we going, who are we seeing?” and if the answer is no one, it goes downhill from there. The problem being that I need peace and quiet every now and then. How did I end up with a child with such very different needs to me? There is never quiet where she is - she is singing, or dancing, or talking to herself - she never stops talking! And just every now and then, I’d like quiet…

They played in the garden, and fought. My little boy likes being outside - I caused a tantrum from him this morning when I tried to get him to stop dragging my coat and bag around the room. Then I realised he was trying to make me get ready to go out. We should have taken Big to ballet this evening, but she threw the most almighty tantrum when we were getting ready, so that was a no go (which made me feel really bad for her - she loves ballet. But you don’t slam doors on ppl, no matter how cross you are. And that was after the screaming, stamping, and shouting at me). But when I went to take Small out of the car, he threw a tantrum of his own, so I loaded him back in and drove down to the garage at the end of the road, to get the car booked in for tomorrow. (It’s doing something weird with gears.) Then I drove around the next two villages and sure enough he was asleep within a mile, too tired for words. Did I forget to mention that I started night weaning him last night?

I’m crawling through the days from lack of sleep. A couple of nights ago he went through of his own accord. The night before last he made it til daylight. So last night I thought I’d see if I could push it a bit. Well, thought might be an overgenerous description. It didn’t go well. He thrashed around for ages, and eventually went back to sleep lying across my pillow, meaning I woke up with a really stiff neck as well when Big came in at nine.

Which is another reason why the day went badly - always does when we get up late.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day. And another sound.

Sound of today was i.

as I’m on my way to bed.

Pulled the day around to a certain extent - went out to meet the home ed group to view a possible new room for us to use. (It’s fab - really hope we all go for it!) Played in the park for a while, then popped off to Tesco. Worked quite hard with Big while we were there - praising the good behaviour and attempting to play down the unacceptable, lots of distraction going on as well.

I feel like I’m retraining a dog (but then again, I think I’m retraining me just as much as I’m retraining her, so I’m not sure what that says about my own self-image).

Didn’t get Small to bed until 10.30 tonight, so hopefully he’ll sleep for a while. Actually got a bit of work done this evening, and barely forummed (with apologies to Chris for yet another new verb )at all so feeling quite good about myself just now.

night all.

Well, we didn’t make it to home ed group. For whatever reason, Big is wound up like a tight spring this morning, and although I am aware that it is my own behaviour that requires modifying in order to improve hers, I was struggling to find anything good to praise her for, in between the slamming doors, plastic bags on heads, throwing on and off furniture and general wildness. Plus, I’ve got a headache, and I couldn’t cope with the idea of talking to ppl who were going to be helpful and make suggestions that I’ve tried already…

(That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate all your suggestions, just sometimes it’s rather difficult to feel like you are on show and being approved of in person….iyswim).

So instead I’ve tried to pull it back and we’ve done some sound work. We’ve done scrapbook pages for a, from yesterday and t today. We need to find pictures of some family members, as she has indentified names with the sounds in as well. Realised that she had been doing that for about 40 minutes, which is probably quite long enough - maybe I need to be a bit more careful to stop her before she gets bored, as the getting bored results in bad behaviour rather than just walking away from whatever it is she is up to.

While she was cutting and sticking I played duplo with Small. Forgot to blog my surprise last night at him putting the screw lid back on the tube of metanium - nothing wrong with his manipulation skills then.

Right, need to regain control of this day - first step is some painkillers for this headache I think.

Oh, and to prove how on edge I am, just bit the head off some poor guy on the phone. He asked for Mrs M and given that we aren’t married, got “There is no Mrs M here, only Ms B, there’s a Mr M though.” Turned out it was the chap from the swimming pool ringing up about Big’s lessons - and she is named M, so a reasonable deduction for him to make I think. Oops.

Sometimes my daughter makes me laugh out loud. The above statement was exclaimed as we came over a hill top on the way home, to be faced with a pretty good sunset, and of course, it was her favourite colour

I had my choice of titles today, could have gone with
Woohoo, he slept through! self explanatory I feel, although I should probably mention that he didn’t go down til 9.30, then the alarm woke him at 7.30, but I still thought it was impressive.
Then there’s the
sound of the day is a as despite me planning to leave it til tomorrow, Big had other ideas - she had seen the bit of paper with all the sounds on, and recognised a as coming next, so there she was in the back of the car sounding out words to spot a. Impressive.

Or we could have had
Eureka! proves socialisation is overrated - we went to Eureka for a day out with the West Yorkshire home ed mailing list. Overall I enjoyed the outing, although even getting school rates it was pricy (3.75 for over 3’s plus £2 to park). It was quite hard work on several levels though - Small kept legging it into the distance, as Big (understandably) wanted to do things that he wasn’t interested in, the background noise level is quite high, and the whole place was run through with packs of teenagers. Beware, rant ahead

If I’ve ever seen a better demonstration against schools as socialisation vehicles, I can’t remember when it was. First of all, you’ve got to wonder what these teenagers were there for - Eureka is aimed at KS2 as I understand it, with lots of areas tailored to under 5’s even. These children were about 15 or 16 I would have guessed, and they certainly weren’t taking part in the activities. Taking apart the activities, yes, they were doing that. They ran in packs, but no mixing of girls and boys - not surprising though, as I doubt any of the girls could have kept up in their kitten heels with the boys in their trainers. I didn’t at any point see any teachers with any of the groups, and so I remonstrated with a gang of four who were attempting to destroy one exhibit myself. It did occur to me that that could have been a bit foolish - they were substantially larger than me, and I had two small children with me. However they did have the grace to stop what they were doing when I eyeballed them (Hey, maybe I’m finally developing my mother’s nuclear powered stare? She used to terrify my friends in sixth form!) and after I’d caused them to calm down a bit, I went and told on them to the staff as well.

More cheeringly, I could, and perhaps should, have used
Hello Grandad as we seized the opportunity of being 4 miles from my dad’s house to pop in on him. It was surprisingly lovely, even if Big did behave disgracefully throughout. A bit of family history here - my parents split up when I was about 3 ish, and my mother remarried remarkably quickly. My father is now on his third wife, and appears to think that this one’s a keeper He has multiple health issues, having had his first heart attack when he was in his thirties (I think) and has frequently struggled with depression. I haven’t seen him for over a year, and hadn’t spoken to him since Christmas, and was avoiding doing so partly because I couldn’t stand the idea that I’d get a hello stranger greeting but he didn’t do that. He seemed genuinely pleased to see me, looked a lot happier and healthier than I’ve seen him in years, they’ve done huge amounts to the house, and I really enjoyed the visit. So that was good.

And to finish, has anyone ever been tempted to say
no, it isn’t legal, I’m planning on making my children into criminals! I think it was possibly the first time that my stepmother had come across our home education wackiness. Big let me down - usually she replies that she is being home educated when anyone asks her about school, but she was too busy staring at the tv to reply at all, so I had to do it all on my own. We went through all of the usual questions, and C finished up by admitting that she couldn’t have done with it, school 9- 4 was good as far as she was concerned. Wonder how many ppl feel the same way about it, but don’t feel they can say that, and that is why they are so anti? As if, in some way, we are showing them up…food for thought anyway.

Yes, we did follow Joyce’s suggestion to make a Jolly phonics sound scrapbook. Big was thrilled with it all, and from being nowhere with indentifying sounds in words found several for herself. The fact that she got to shred lots of our recycling bag improved the situation no end, and Small enjoyed contributing to the mess too. When she sat down to do the sticking he sat in his chair and poured water from cup to cup, which must be good for some kind of development as well.

I’m feeling quite good about today. We did end it with Big being sent to her room without her bath, which was a shame, but I feel like I made huge amounts of progress even if she didn’t. I played duplo with them this morning (until she stropped and threw bricks about, and then lost it entirely and had to be carried out kicking and screaming, ok, so that wasn’t so good), then did research on Jolly Phonics, restructured my blog categories, planned a reading activity *and* carried it out! and took them both out for a walk to the postbox as well. It isn’t very far to the postbox (probably about 5 - 10 minutes there and back), but it takes nearly half an hour with Small walking. So we played I Spy on the way there, and Big played some odd game which involved me trying to guess what transport she was using on the way back. ? - no I hadn’t come across it before either.

I also got a phone call from one of the mums at the home ed meet wanting to organise a playdate for Big and her son D, which was lovely, although unfortunately we can’t make it this time. Still, we had a nice chat, and we’ll sort something out soon I hope.

Home cooked pasta bake for tea again tonight, so I can feel good about that too…days like today, even with the dodgy tantrums make me think maybe I can make it after all. It’s tough atm, with circumstances beyond my control, and Small is just getting to the stage where anything Big is touching he wants, plus he is getting a bit aggressive (has started hair pulling and head butting, which is nice, not) but today I concentrated on the children rather than worrying about the work I haven’t done, even though I meant to do a load this morning, and it made me remember that, after all, that is why I am here with them. And Big so much enjoyed our activity this afternoon with the scrapbook - she wanted to do another sound, but I would rather that we really cemented each one instead of rushing through. Hopefully she will be as enthusiastic about it all on Wednesday (she doesn’t know it, but we are out for the day tomorrow) and we might start to make some headway.

Next in my series of occasional rants:

Another gem from the Beeb tells how “More than a quarter of state school pupils in England are receiving private tuition lessons, say researchers.”

I liked this bit:

“..And the widespread use of private tuition did not seem to be linked to any feeling that schools were not doing their job.”

What the hell do these people think the job of a school is then? Frankly, I must admit I am not quite sure either, I mean, I know that it is a parents job to ensure that their child receives an education appropriate etc… my presumption would be that they are sending their children to school in order that the school can discharge that legal duty for them. No?

…but it seems school is not a way to achieve that?

Oh yeah, just occurred to me. The stats mean that 27%+ of children are being educated otherwise. Not full time otherwise, but otherwise nevertheless.

Right, I’ve just been through and made a whole bunch of categories - now when I blog I can store posts against one or more categories, and it should make pulling out the info of what we’ve done a bit easier.

Also means that I might remember to broaden what we are doing a bit more often…

s Weave hand in an s shape, like a snake, and say ssssss

I’m beginning to suspect that Big just isn’t ready for this. Seems so odd - she is a bright child in a lot of ways, although immature at times. (Lots of times, lol.) She says that she wants to read, but today we had a performance on the grand scale, a repetition of last nights. And all I was asking her to do was read the 5 words on her word tree. She knew them for two days running before we put them on, but last night she couldn’t read them for Grandma, and today she couldn’t read them for me. She remembered some of the words she had stuck on, but couldn’t identify which leaf was which word, and she doesn’t seem to have the connection between the letters and the sounds firmly at all - she can read out the letters t i n y (in lower case on the leaf) and then calmly tell me it says ‘grumpy’.

Hm. I’m a bit lost here. I’m sure she knows all her letters, she is very good at rhymes, we didn’t get on with 100 Easy Lessons, she goes on about learning to read….I’d really like to help her here, but I’m not sure how to. I’d rather just leave it alone and go on with reading and letter stuff and wait til it all falls into place, but she doesn’t seem to want to do that. It has crossed my mind that this is all an attention seeking ploy, in which case it will fade with time, but I really wish she’d pick something else to stress about!

Other than that, I was good today, got down on the floor and played with the children. Well, mainly with Small, to occupy him so that Big could get some uninterrupted computer time. Before that I did a pile of research into the foundation stage of education - like to be forearmed so that if/ when we come to the attention of the LEA I can tell them where to shove it with chapter and verse. That was quite cheering, as I feel Big is well on her way to exceeding all the attainment targets for the foundation stage, and she’s got a school year yet (if I’m reading it all correctly) before the end of it. Not sure that I think that the whole description is necessarily something I would design for a foundation educational stage (OK, so I know it isn’t - what is all this carry on about ‘appropriate’ behaviour? They mean sit down and shut up don’t they?)

Then we had a massive fall out at tea time over the cheese being on the potato and then the bread being brown instead of white, and I don’t want to make food a battle ground, but this chopping and changing of what is acceptable is another thing that is doing my head in! Can’t help feeling that all of this is just her reaction to the stress levels in the house atm, but it still doesn’t help knowing that.

Westfield Day Nursery, Easingwold, York, UK

I found this while searching for info on the foundation stage early learning goals. Haven’t had a good look through yet, but on first impression, looks like it could come in rather useful. And do click on the sheep!

EducationGuardian.co.uk | Schools special reports | Half marks in maths gets you an A-grade

But standards aren’t slipping. Oh no.

Edit to add - does anyone know if it’s possible to get past papers? Barbara? I’d really like to see what a gcse paper is like these days.

ic Birmingham - Ancient workplace is hot stuff

Fancy a trip to Birmingham anyone?

but I need to rant.

Why, oh why, do ppl feel the need to visit to see the children at past 6 o’clock in the evening? Arriving just as they are finishing tea, when they are due to go into the bath (many of you know that we have quite a rigid evening routine, to do with Big being a touch on the hyper side when tired), quickly followed by stories and bed. I’m trying to get Small into some sort of routine now, if only so that I get a little down time on an evening without children swinging from my arms and screaming at me.

Anyway, by the time they’ve had quality time with their visitors, they are both absolutely shattered and hyper, meaning that I’ve got to manhandle and yell to get them into the bath (really helping my headache) and it then takes over an hour to get Small to go to sleep, leaving me starving with the hot and cold shaky thing going on (do other ppl get that when they’ve dozed on an evening? I hate it!)

On the plus side, Big suddenly appears to be grasping the values of different coins, and has started considering multiplication. I’ve no idea how this came up in conversation, but it has over two days now, and she is getting the idea that 2 x 10 is 20. Impressive for a child who doesn’t count on yet but always goes back to the start when adding two numbers together. I’ve also noticed that conversations are involving much more independent questioning - a little while ago she never asked anything, now she never stops. Today we had “how do you make glass”, which was great, although a little difficult to handle while I’m driving the car.

Wasn’t planning to go out this morning, but just as I was logging off last night got an email from Sarah to say that they had tickets for a drumming and storytelling workshop that they couldn’t use, and we were welcome to them if we wanted. Hm, Chesterfield by 10.30 on a saturday morning…doable?

Doable having done a load of washing and most of the washing up! Fantastic. And I dressed and fed the children - even managed to have a shower myself, so impressed. (It’s these little achievements that make us feel worthwhile )

The workshop was wonderful - both the children thoroughly enjoyed it. We didn’t stay for the full hour - think that would have been a bit much for Small. He liked the musical interludes rather than the stories, while Big seemed to enjoy both. I’ve had a bit of a google for the chap who did the session and not turned anything up - I think his name is Tupe, but I could be spelling it wrong.

Went and bought ourselves some fruit from the market for a snack - would have liked to look round but it was wet and windy and I didn’t have the buggy with me (had decided that it would be too much in the library where the storytelling was going on) or a sling (as still got a painful breast and didn’t want to risk compounding it). So we ate our snack and then beetled off to shop. Decisions, decisions, Tesco or the coop? I’d like to use the coop more, but we’re out of malted wheats (non Nestle shreddies alternative) and the coop doesn’t carry them. So Tescos it was - and they were out of stock. Typical.

Remembered some more bits of yesterday that I’d wanted to blog, mainly my decluttering/ recycling efforts (gave some clothes to Kirsty and Barbara’s offspring!) Still sure there was something else…

Apparently I’ve already done a post with this title, so I thought I’d better adjust it slightly.

Bad night, late morning meant I was only just finishing dressing when the doorbell rang and I found Kirsty outside. Seems like ages since we’d seen her. Big was a bit disappointed - I’d told her that there were loads of ppl coming, and apparently three doesn’t count as loads!

Cup of tea on, and Kirsty sat down with the “I can draw” book, and ended up reading vast parts of it out. Big was right there with “what does it do” on every page - they covered insects, aeroplanes, animals…I was in stitches as I realised you could tick off reading, biology, the world around us, socialisation….

Then Barbara arrived with her gang and we had a picnic lunch. Much playing went on - when they got too loud I chucked them out in the garden. Very few dramas for the number of children in the house - we adults even managed to unpack an extra box of books and Kirsty indulged herself in buying a few!

Kirsty left about 4 (I think) and we settled the two elder girls down with some craft sticking. Been promising Big that for a couple of days, so think she was very happy to get the chance to give it a go. Small and B played with train track and R gurgled pretty happily on the floor. I was impressed with how gentle Small was while paying her huge amounts of attention throughout the day, he really seems to like babies and just wants to stroke her. Although we did have to dissuade him from investigating her eyes

Barbara managed to squidge on to the sofa surrounded by children at one point to read to them, so there’s a bit of literacy as well.

And I’m sure there was loads else, but I want to go to bed now.

I am considering simply publishing the BBC Education RSS newsfeed and captioning it: “Reasons Why We Home Educate”

Here are some of my current favourite articles:-

1. Gangs who fail exams on purpose Gang culture in the north east of England means teenagers deliberately fail exams to "stay cool", researchers say.
2. Rise in teenage truancy figures More secondary school pupils in England have been absent from school, despite an official clampdown.
3. School puts Big Macs on the menu A secondary school buys Big Macs from McDonald's for school dinners because of canteen staff shortages.
4. Research reveals more 'ladettes' More schoolgirls are drinking, smoking and being rowdy, according to research carried out at Lancaster University.

And I probably was in bed about midnight, but I’m up again now, as I hadn’t had a drink and wasn’t actually ready for bed, just trying to settle Small down (again).

Been an odd sort of day. British Gas were due to come round to do the annual boiler check, and I was sure they would come early. But instead we all slept in til about 8.30 again (which was good as I’d had another disturbed night with Small) and they didn’t come until I performed the ritual summoning dance (otherwise known as going and getting in the shower). Everything is fine (this is good) and off they went again for another year.

Had a friend round this aft to learn about websites - her younger son is two days younger than Small, and it was lovely to see the boys playing together. Big was a bit left out of it, and wasn’t impressed by this at all, despite me going and getting the rest of the duplo from the garage. She played up most of the afternoon, and then was an absolute horror about getting ready for ballet, and I came so close to just not going, but we’re probably going to miss a couple of lessons over the next few weeks, so I don’t really want to miss any that we can get to. I know that she really loves it, I think she just enjoys the fuss of getting me stressed about getting her there on time.

Back from the lesson, tea, bath and bed for Big, and time for Small to start his evening performance. He didn’t nap at all today, so was shattered, and I optimistically took him up just after 8 o’clock. I finally came back downstairs about 9.15, having been kicked, bitten, headbutted, had my hairpulled and generally not enjoyed the procedure at all. I’m not sure what you are supposed to do when you are co-sleeping like this - he is tired, ever so tired, but he doesn’t want to go to bed. I don’t like the idea of just letting him keel over down here - not least because he doesn’t!

Got a bit of work done this evening, but not as much as I hoped, as I seem to have spent most of the night tootling up and down the stairs. oh well. Did manage to organise reinforcements for tomorrow, so hopefully it’ll be a better day.

That I’m going to blog quickly and go to bed. I’ve just failed to dismantle the boiler cupboard cos I can’t work out which screws to take out, and stared at some code that might as well be in greek for all the sense it made to me, so it’s time to call it a day.

Let’s see, what did we get up to? It was home ed sports day mark 2, and we were only an hour and a half late (for a three hour meeting) so that was impressive. Having said that, I did manage to blitz the kitchen and get some washing out first, and Small let us all sleep til 8.30 so it wasn’t so surprising. You should have heard Big complaining when he went and jumped on her to wake her up, poetic justice I call it, for the number of times she’s woken him up at 7.30!

Big didn’t actually want to take part in sports day, so we took her teletubby tent with us as well as the various bits of kit for other ppl to use. Someone else had brought a teletubby tunnel, so the two were mated and that was good. She also played excessively with D, a lad about a year older than her, who apparently doesn’t talk much about anyone from the group but does mention her, so that could be a budding friendship, which would be nice. I get along with the mother in question, lovely lady, so that could work out well really.

Small had a good time, someone had brought toddler ride on toys, so he was well happy. He is so independent it’s untrue - he will just wander off and get stuck in, very rarely even bothering to check if I’m still about. I’m fairly sure that if I wasn’t it would be extremely bad, but he is happy otherwise.

Came home and mooched for most of the afternoon, with Small being deeply horrid to Big (he pulled out a handful of her hair!) and me trying to referee and failing dismally. Eventually wandered round to miss the post, but rather nice to walk with them both - you see the world differently at a toddler’s pace.

Was one comment that amused me at group, we were discussing tantrums, and I mentioned that Small was coming into them nicely. “He’s a bit young for it” was the rejoinder (he’s um, 15 months or thereabouts) and I suppose he might be, but then again, Big did this too, so it isn’t surprising me all that much. She was fine (mostly) when she was two, but found the time before it extremely frustrating. I think there is a stage that they start to go through where they know what they want, but can’t express it, and Small is just beginning to know his own mind enough to get upset if I want something different to him. He can be distracted out of it atm, but from experience, that won’t last particularly long. Here’s hoping he figures out communication promptly as his sister did, and that this phase doesn’t last too long!

I have thought of writing this all down in detail, to help me clarify my own thinking but this is in response to Jan.

When Jax first suggested HE I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know it was legal, possible or practicable.

As soon as I started thinking about it, a number of things came into focus about my own experience at school.

My first memory of school is being in a reading class, I would have been 5. I was asked what I was doing. I replied I was reading the book. I was told to stop and turn back to the page everyone else was on.

This is the first instance I can recall where I was actively prevented from learning by a teacher. I could already read, so the education on offer was not appropriate to my age, ability and aptitude. Reflecting on it now, the first priority for a teacher dealing with a large number of children must, inevitably, be to control them and stop them from doing anything they have not been explicitly directed to do.

In other words, the teacher has to actively stop children from following their natural inclination to learn things which are of importance and interest to them in order that they can be taught things which are of importance and interest to the teacher or some DFES official.

Being processed through this system, I ended up bored, disinterested and alienated, I put in the minimum effort I could to avoid active criticism, mostly achieving marks just above average, regardless of the subject and level of difficulty.

Overall, school was a waste of 13 years of my life.

All the things I was taught at school which are of use, I could have learnt much more quickly, efficiently and better on my own.

All the things which I use in my work are self taught. This is not unusual in Web development but my father, who is quite anti home ed, left school at (I think) 13. He went on to study at home at night, qualified as a chartered surveyor, rose to be one of the senior partners in one of the largest surveying partnerships, and at the time of his retirement was a director of the largest estate agency company in the country.

..and he is anti home ed? What the hell did schools do for him?

Similarly, my ex-wife’s father who left school quite young was one of the most ‘educated’ people I have ever met. He started work as a clerk with the GLC and later worked as a consul in the diplomatic service. He spoke English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Greek, Russian and Italian (and maybe some others too). he was very widely read, his leisure reading in retirement consisted of a rotation of books in English, Spanish, French and German.

He was self taught.

So what use is school. They teach you nothing much except not to learn.

At the time I didn’t dislike school, I was merely bored by it and just accepted it as a necessity, something I had to endure.

But I simply cannot think of any good reason to send my children to school.

Tim got a letter this morning.

That in itself is not so surprising, but this one was unexpected to say the least. It was from his ex-wife, and said that his daughter would like to see him now, so please would he call. I’ve never met them - they were in brief contact nearly 5 years ago now, but at that point E didn’t want to get to know Tim, and so the contact stopped. I don’t know whether she knows that she has a sister, and I’m certain she doesn’t know she has a brother.

I cried.

Made yet another effort for a better day with Big, and had variable success. She did quite a bit of computer work this morning, and played with duplo as well, and only went up to her room once I think. Then this afternoon we went on our mission of mercy to Sheffield and M’hell (please read Tim’s post below and comment if you’ve anything to suggest!) and she varied from being wonderfully well behaved to leaping around like an idiot. She was about to lose it in Clarks, as there was another pair of children behaving extremely badly, and one of the sales assistants headed it off by producing a magazine for her to read. Lovely lady!

Anyway, she needed new shoes, (a whole size up, thought she’d just done a growth spurt!) but Small didn’t. We also bought a new battery charger and high capacity batteries for the Tens machine, and had tea in the food court before coming home for a late bath and bed.

And now I’ve managed to do a bit more work, but I’m going to clear off soon as Small fed twice last night instead of once, and I’m out on my feet. Supposed to be sports day mark 2 at group tomorrow, but I’m thinking it’s only going to work if we do swimming races…

As some of you may know I am currently suffering (and that is the right word to describe what I am doing ) from a slipped disc.

This means that I am spending rather a lot of time supine and sitting for extended periods is a real problem for me.

So what I have been looking for over the last couple of days is a table, platform, skyhook or other device which will enable me to use a laptop lying flat. Now Jax went to Meadowhell today and bought a lap tray from Argos. We were both a bit dubious about it and while I think it is going to prove handy to have, it is only useful if you sit with it on your lap.

What I want is to be able to use my laptop while I am lying absolutely flat.

It did strike me that some kind of clamp or stand attached to the perfectly usable table we have might be the answer.

What I need is either one or two syands with clamps which will hold the table between 12″ and 24″ off the ground and ideally can be adjusted so that the table top is angled at about 45^o.

I was wondering if anyone might know of something, maybe used for photography, hifi, diy, musical instruments which would fit the bill?

All suggestions on the back of a postcard to……..

I’ve spent the evening working instead of reading forums!

But I didn’t make it to bed, for midnight, so I’m going now…will have to blog properly tomorrow.

with the occasional feed in between are not doing me any good.

The late nights are my own fault. Small is now tending to go to bed by 9 ish (although sometimes it takes til 9.30 or 10 to get him to sleep) then I’m spending an hour or so faffing about, an hour or two working and another hour or two avoiding going to bed.

I’m not quite sure why I’m avoiding going to bed - something to do with wanting to pretend the next day is going to come quite so soon. But it is, so I’ve got to get more organised, get to bed by midnight, and stop exhausting myself.

The best laid plans…

Big is watching animal documentaries - Life in the Freezer atm. She’s been a bit upset about the baby penguins dying, but overall the programme is going down well.

Small has discovered that train track fits together, and has been trying to build it. With little success it has to be said, but at least he’s trying.

And this activity has allowed me to spend some time reading shopping cart documentation, so I’m learning too. (Although I suspect I’d learn faster if some idiot hadn’t contrived to store this pdf with the pages in reversed order….amazing how difficult that is making it).

We’ve also been out in the garden and finally planted up our blackcurrant bushes (I’m sure it’s the wrong time of year for it, but it’s also the wrong time of year to leave them in their pots any longer!) And dp read them some nursery rhymes earlier - I’m impressed that Small appears to have grown out of his habit of destroying books, and now brings them to ppl to read for him. Wonder how many small children just have all books removed as soon as they destroy one or two and so don’t get to learn that they can be rather more fun if you read them?

…but did it have to start raining before Who rules the Roost Now was finished? Rounds off the day perfectly really.

After our earlier disaster with the shelf, I tried to take Small up for a nap. That didn’t work, he threw the most massive tantrum - I actually thought there was something wrong with him as he kept falling asleep then within seconds waking up screaming with arched back and drumming his heels on the bed. I eventually took him downstairs and he came around immediately - distracted by me bellowing at his sister when I discovered that she’d taken advantage of my absence to sprinkle sparkly stuff all over the floor

Well, it was a good excuse to tidy up and get the hoover out again.

We fell out again over tea - I’d made up a pizza from a bought base, tomato puree and cheese, and apparently that wasn’t good. Then when I sent her up for her bath, she drenched the bathroom floor…well I guess three days of no shouting would have been too much to ask for.

Was rather glad that Small passed out fairly early as well, so I’ve spent a couple of hours just vegging, and now I’m gonna crack on with some work.

dooce: 8.5 Horsepower

While this is highly amusing, and wonderfully written, and I love Dooce’s blog to bits, can’t help feeling that the underlying message is a large part of the problem of the world…that we think we are here to compete with each other instead of share.

Just my little thought for the day.

I was just sitting at the table with my laptop reading email. We have shelves on the wall for cds, or I should say we did. One of them just fell off. It just missed me and my laptop and landed balanced on the basket of educational stuff that I’ve been keeping there to hand out if Big ever says she is bored. (She doesn’t say that very often, and usually it’s a code phrase for “I want the tv on”). Nothing appears to be damaged, although I’m now very nervous about the other shelf…

And while I was picking up bits, Small contrived to fall off the climbing frame. He’s fine, whimpered for a bit while I cuddled him, then wriggled to be down and off again.

Our earlier catastrophe was Big discovering exactly why you shouldn’t rush through doors. There might be Small obstacles behind them, resulting in Small with hurt feet and Big with a hurt head where the door bounced back and the handle caught her in the forehead.

I’m not sure how much more of this I can take today!

On the plus side we’ve been to the library, so Big now has her certificate, medal, pen and bookmark from the Rollercoaster reading scheme. Our librarian was lovely with it, sat her down and wrote out the certificate, said congratulations. We’ve been to the co-op for the bits I forgot at Morrisons last night, and I’ve paid my £1 and joined the co-op as well. I’ve got a load of washing out on the line, hoping the showers hold off long enough for it to dry. Since we got back Big has been pouring over the Usborne Farmyard Tales First Word book and trying to decipher words, with increasing levels of success, so I think we may be on to something there.

Have discovered today that we were exposed to chickenpox on Weds, just two days before said child has burst out into pox, so presumably at his most infectious. Have just discovered tonight that the incubation period is 11 - 20 days (for some reason I thought a week) so that would take us nicely into all our next set of planned outings. I know it’s just one of those things, and totally no blame attachs to the poor pre-spotty we met (none whatsoever Sarah!) but the timing stinks!

Big has had the pox before, and she had it well and good, so I doubt she’s at risk. But Small hasn’t, and while he’s still breastfeeding, I don’t know whether it’s at a level that will give him any additional immunity. Grr….so that’s a countdown for you all that I’m supposed to be meeting at London, that I might not be able to make it. I mean, what do I do? Do I now have to wait 21 days before deciding that Small isn’t going to spot up this time? Aargh….

Anyway, today has been pretty much OK. I’ve got through another day without shouting, although there has been the occasional voice raise and several quiet “if you don’t do x, then y will happen” moments. We started the day by going into Chesterfield for Small’s 8 month hearing test - if you don’t like to read rants, look away now…

I’m partially deaf. It wasn’t diagnosed til I went to school, I passed the distraction tests and so on. But I have very little hearing in my left ear. I got a hearing aid when I was 21 - it appears that my parents thought that it would somehow inhibit me to have one earlier, so didn’t tell me it was an option. (grr…aargh…as the buffy mutant would say). My children are thought to be at higher risk of hearing loss, so Big had the neonatal hearing test before it was common for all infants to have it, and then had her hearing monitored at the hospital rather than by the health visitors (who forgot this fact and called her in for a distraction test anyway…but that’s a different rant…) Small had to go into hospital twice to have his neonatal test done, as they couldn’t get both ears to work at the same time. And when we had that done, we got a letter saying that he’d get an appt at 8 months for a follow up check.

I was doing some filing last week, and came across the letter - and realised that he was somewhat older than 8 months, and we’d heard nothing. So I rang them to enquire, and was told that the audiologist who does our local clinic is off sick, so they hadn’t bothered to send out appts or even enquire as to whether we could get elsewhere! Mega-grr…now I think that Small can hear, but I’m well aware that hearing problems can be missed, as I’m a stonking example of that fact myself. So I wanted to get him checked out properly, and didn’t want the daft distraction test. So we got our appt and went today.

I’ll gloss over the waiting area with its broken and or dirty toys and floor littered with food scraps (although it was deeply horrid, and horridly unsuitable for the large number of small children waiting for tests). I won’t go into realms about the waiting for the audiologist with the completely incomprehensible accent. Suffice it to say that it was a distraction test, except that they couldn’t keep him distracted, so he’s got a call back for three months time. At that point they are planning on using a test designed for two year olds and up - they tried him on it today as he seemed to be nearly capable of it, but he didn’t want to play. Still looks like a variation on the distraction test though, and I know that there are better tests they could be using.

Anyway….rant over.

We spent the afternoon at Barbara’s which was extremely pleasant, popped into Morrisons to deal with cheques and so some essential shopping on the way home and by then it was tea, bath and bed time.

Tomorrow I’m going to continue my softly softly approach I hope, and also fit in a library visit and maybe excavate some more of the house.

Night all.

I prefer Tim’s.

You are Scooter.
You are a loyal, hardworking person, better known
as a doormat.

SPECIAL TALENTS:
Going for stuff.
LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE:
“Go For Broke!”

QUOTE:
“15 seconds to showtime.”

LAST BOOK READ:
“300 New Ways to Get Your Uncle to Get You a
Better Job ”

NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:
Coffee, clipboard, and Very Special Guest Stars.

What Muppet are you?
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You are Dr. Bunson Honeydew. You love to analyse things and further the cause of science, even if you do tend to blow things up more often than not.

HOBBIES:

Scientific inquiry, Looking through microscopes, recombining DNA to create decorative art.

QUOTE:

“Now, Beakie, we’ll just flip this switch and 60,000 refreshing volts of electricity will surge through your body. Ready?”

FAVORITE MUSICAL ARTIST:

John Cougar Melonhead

LAST BOOK READ:

“Quantum Physics: 101 Easy Microwave
Recipes”

NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:

An atom smasher and plenty of extra atoms.

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We started the day with an exercise from the Mona Brookes book - which reminds me, I must read more of it while Big is in bed, as she caught me on the hop this morning and I found myself desperately reading through trying to work out what she could do! She finally deciphered another of her word leaves as well, so got to stick that on the tree - we’re at 5 words now, so it isn’t going terribly fast, but at least she is sticking to it (if you’ll pardon the pun).

As I’ve commented elsewhere, I made a gargantuan effort and managed to only shout once in the entire day, and that was at a moment when a poster fell down on my head while I was desperately trying to find something that I needed to post (well, needed to post a couple of days ago actually) and then Small tried to leg it with the poster. So it was him I yelled at rather than Big, and he was so shocked by the experience that he burst into tears, which made me feel so much better (Ok, I ‘fess all, I went and hid in the downstairs bathroom and cried as well )

So I should be feeling better because I didn’t shout? Well, maybe it’ll grow on me. I’m hoping it’s going to improve my relationship with Big anyway, which would definitely make me feel better. I’ve also forced myself to eat better today, and to drink more water, so I can technically feel good about that, *and* I managed to get four things done of my list of things to do from two days ago.

And I’m not going to blog the downside, this is a positive post. See, I can do them too.

you live in the wrong place? Or maybe the wrong time…or something.

Got a call back from the local organic box scheme supplier - they deliver to Sheffield and Chesterfield, but we are in between, and they don’t deliver to us. I was really hoping that I could start getting a box scheme and that I could use that to cut down on my supermarket shopping, buy more responsibly, eat more responsibly, drive less! But not to be it would seem.

And I’ve spent part of the morning browsing through rightmove looking at houses nearer to friends - I hate that I have to get in the car to see anyone! This week I will have driven every day, and more miles than if I was tootling to work and back, which feels hugely irresponsible. I really ought to investigate the bus, but we live in a small village so we’re talking hourly services, on roundabout routes, and I suspect it would add several hours to any outing, not to mention carrying a small, a buggy and a picnic while wrangling a 4 year old would probably wipe me out completely.

Other news - I’m back on the antibiotics with another blockage in my breast. And the doctor just wanted to know when I was planning on weaning… I don’t want to wean! Breastfeeding feels like the only thing I am succeeding at at the moment, don’t take that away too!