Making it up

because Big didn’t get to today. Completely not her fault this time though, not really anyone’s. Took some effort to get organised and get there, but we made it, just in time for me to witness a young boy vomit copiously into the pool by the shallow end steps. Yeuch. So I spoke to the instructor, and she spoke to the chappy who is in charge, and his opinion was that the chlorine in the water would kill any nasties, and that within an hour you wouldn’t be able to see anything left as it would all dissolve and go out of the filters.

Hm, maybe, but that means that during this hour, my daughter gets to swim in vomit. I think not. So we left, and because we left, two other parents brought their children out immediately, and two more were in the changing room by the time we’d changed. Shame, but I just couldn’t entertain it - was really surprised that they didn’t evacuate the pool until it was clean.

So we had an unexpected hour free early on a Saturday morning - we went shopping and got Big some much needed new socks. Where *do* socks go?

Forgot to blog yesterday that I’d had a call from a lady we met at group on Wednesday - Big and her daughter had really hit it off, in fact C had dissolved in tears when we left. So I gave her our phone number and asked her to call. We arranged to go swimming 10.30 this morning.

Those who know me know that getting two small children to a swimming pool for 10.30 in the morning is an impressive achievement in itself, but to do it while on my period! Warning, those of a squeamish nature should look away now…. it did just leave me with that little quandary over sanpro. I use the Keeper generally speaking, and have done since shortly after Big was born. But I’m not as sure of it as I was of tampons - have had the occasional leak, and they tend to be on the grand scale when they occur, so dare I risk it at a swimming pool? The answer, I’m afraid to say, was no.

Anyway, we were almost at the pool when my phone rang. Of course I didn’t have the headset to hand, so I just had to listen to it ring, and then again when the answering service called me. To find out that V was running about half an hour late, and I could have taken the time to make sandwiches after all. Bother.

So we drove around the block and parked up and ate our bananas and eventually made it into the pool. Small has previously been rather unsure of the whole swimming lark, but today he really came into his own, he had a great time! Will have to consider what to get him in the way of floatation devices - I don’t like armbands, but I can’t find our first size float vest. Hasn’t been a problem previously as he couldn’t have been pried off me long enough to put them on Big got over the huff she’d had after last weeks fiasco/ lesson, which was the major reason that I’d thought going today was a good idea. In fact in the end, I had to drag them both out of the pool when I remembered that I’d only put 2 hours on the car!

C and Big were having such a good time together that we agreed to meet in the park afterwards, and we spent another two hours there. I was surprised to find out that she’s actually older than Big, both us mothers had thought it was the other way round. Funny. Also slightly disappointed to discover that they aren’t local at all, but live in Covent Garden, and were up visiting V’s parents. Shame. But we might get together again next week before they go back, and I’m hoping to coax her on to Muddlepuddle as well, so we may well see each other again. Also turned out she was at Hesfes and she got to know A from Derby with his girls - for a little while she’d confused Big with one of them.

By the time we got home it was tea time, and the routine all started up. Long day, but very pleasant.

Oh, and while Small was screaming with happiness at me in the swimming pool, I discovered why we’ve been having such bad nights. He’s got at least another three teeth come through at the back of his mouth. Poor little soul, I bet they’ve really been hurting him, but there weren’t any external signs under than the nighttime grumpiness.

And to finish, our doorbell has been beaten up twice already tonight, we’ve ignored it both times. Looks like the decision to decamp for the weekend was the right one. So unless Tim blogs, or I manage to fit one in tomorrow lunchtime, this’ll be your lot til Monday I’m afraid. Merry, I’ll be taking my phone with me though!

Wrinkle Free Horse Pants

Always smile when you are having your picture taken

I’m never going to remember it all!

First of all, the new mattress is lovely. Tim slept a full night on it - and I did alright even if Small did manage to crawl up on to it at one point and crash into me

Pondering this morning on education and the point thereof, my categories are there so that should the LEA ever come to call, I can quickly compile a list of the sort of things we have done to support the rounded educational experience they will expect to find. In a similar know your enemy vein, I keep an eye on the national curriculum for this age and so on. But I wonder about what is actually useful and worthwhile, and that concerns me far more - I want to make sure that Big has a variety of opportunities so that she has plenty to choose from to develop her interests and to support her as she does so.

So today we have done two more pages of Jolly Phonics (ck and e for those keeping track. We’ve talked about numbers, and I finally got round to showing Big a number square up to 100 and we played with that for a while. She asked to have our eggbox button spindle box down, so that came out after lunch and she played with that for a while. Makes me wonder how we would go on if more of our stuff was actually accessible to her.

She made a stripy duplo cake (which started out with 2 red candles arranged symmetrically and got more added as we went, but always in a pattern) and she played with that for a while. While I was bathing she did lego and carpet rubbing with Small off her own bat. When I went out into the garden to hang out washing they both came out and ran around and played for a while, then she got a piece of grass and discovered that if you bang it on the gazebo frame it makes a pleasant musical noise. Cue lots of experiments as to what makes good noises if you hit it and what doesn’t, with Small joining in throughout. Then they came back inside and had a band, consisting of an ELC keyboard, a recorder, a mouth organ and a kangaroo.

They are now playing with Junior Meccano, following the instructions to build a seesaw with no assistance at all.

I’ve also read several books to Small - he has this cute way of bringing you a book, then leaning against your leg while you read it to him. Aww…somehow I’ve also fitted in time for breakfast, lunch, making laundry gloop and using it, and having a bath, and all of this while feeling very sorry for myself while starting my period. Tmi?

Big would have been in school for 7 weeks, had I ever felt inclined to organise a school place for her. Instead she’s been home with me, and in those seven weeks (ignoring the several months she’s been home with me since she left nursery in february) we’ve:

visited a farm park, been on trips to London, Eureka, Jorvik, the National Railway Museum, been to the cinema for Film education week, and done a variety of other visits to friends. Edited to add - forgot the drumming and story workshop! She goes to ballet and swimming lessons. We read, go to the library, she plays on the computer. We try to go to at least one home education group a week, and spend a day or two a week with friends.

She watches too much television, and I spend too much time on the computer.

She wants to learn to bake a cake, and make a clock so that she can learn to tell the time. Jolly Phonics has fallen slightly by the wayside, and we’ve not really touched any of our maths stuff for ages, my fault as the table has disappeared under a mound of stuff and there’s nowhere for her to work on anything.

I’ve arranged another art session for next week, and we’re spending the weekend with home edding friends. Am I doing enough? Or is possible that I’m still actually doing too much?

sorry all. It’s all this work I’ve got to do, I’m afraid.

Anyway, to recap, yesterday we went to the nursery reunion. Bit of a damp squib I’m afraid, all of three children present, we were half an hour late and the other parents had to leave 45 minutes after we got there. Had to do the whole home education conversation again, yes it’s legal, no you don’t have to teach them as such, no you don’t have to follow the national curriculum, or get permission, or be a teacher yourself… and then we had the “but they’ve come on so much since they started school” what with home work and all.

No comments to be made there, I can’t really think of anything to say

We popped to Hobbycraft and Big W looking for those funny clip things that you push through the paper then fold back so that the paper can turn round them - Big wants to make a clock to help her learn to tell the time, and I wanted them to hold the hands on. Anyone know what they are called - I can’t look them up without a name.

Home and couldn’t keep Small awake in the car, so he stayed awake til 11.30 then fell asleep on my knee after screaming at me for a while, so that was helpful.

This morning was group, and I took my paper aeroplane making stuff, to discover that the leader I’d arranged to do it with wasn’t there, and didn’t appear to have mentioned it to the other leader, who’d brought an activity herself. So that was good. Not that many of the children seemed particularly interested anyway. Nice to catch up with a couple of ppl though - yoohoo Claire!

After that popped up to Barbara’s for an hour, and Big had a complete meltdown when it was time to go. Right down to the sobbing “I hate you horrid mummy” as I took her to the car. So that was nice.

Now they are vegging to Dora, and I’ve got jacket potatoes baking in the oven. The new mattress arrived this morning (as I was running round like a headless chicken trying to get ready to go out) so once I’ve got the children sat down with food I’m going to go sort out the bed. Woohoo!

and it felt like a gathering of the blogring with a few extras thrown in

As mentioned elsewhere, the party was for Alex and B, and in attendance there was us, Jan and co, and Sarah and her tribe as well as a couple of other home eddors and some non blogging, non home edding guests. It was a good mix, and a good party, despite the concerns of the two hosts. I spent a lot of time communing with R, Barbara’s youngest, who doesn’t seem to mind me at all. Was quite impressed that Small is not only not jealous when I cart a baby around, but actually comes and strokes the baby very gently. Odd, as he is less than gentle at other times. I noticed though that he is very careful with children smaller than him, completely ignores children around his size, and is only marginally more interested in children bigger. Basically he’s a very independent little soul.

Before we went, Big prepared birthday cards, and helped me wrap presents. She copies what she puts in the cards, but I’m very impressed with how neat her writing is getting considering that the occasional copying stint is the sum total of her practise. (Oh and the JP books, but we don’t do them all that often). I also like how her drawing is coming along - ppl have fingers and hair now Hm, just realised I don’t have a category for writing…that’s an oversight!

Anyway, today we’re out again, to a reunion of her old nursery friends. I’m not really looking foward to it, I’m going to very out of the loop with these ppl, who now all have children in school, and pretty much all work full time. Plus it’s being held at a Brewsters - yeuch. But Big and I have discussed it, boy have we discussed it, and she desperately wants to go, even though she is terrified that Brewster might be there. I think it’s almost guaranteed given that it’s half-term. What is the deal with the man dressed as bear anyway? Why is this supposed to be fun?

Now if this was the sort of school on offer to our chidren then I might think a little differently about home ed. Skerries School Saved

It is just a little too far away.

Small and I had a lie-in, much needed after another bad night. I’m sure it’s his teeth, but he will not take anything for it, and indeed acts as if I’m trying to poison him throughout.

Despite this we had a pretty good day all round. Big and Small played together quite well, and we all managed to get out in the garden for a bit. I got washing dried outside - and brought it in when it started raining as the children were out with it and started yelling

I cooked real food for tea, and Big ate it, even though it included unfamiliar vegetables (cauliflower for those wondering), and we watched several documentary type things together, although I did sneak off for a bath while Christian Slater was narrating something very surreal about dinosaurs. (Why do Americans feel the need to make everything so dramatic? Although I did rofl when the dinosaur was catapulted into the air by the unexpected geyser….) Discovered that something is sinking in from all this documentary stuff when Big said suddenly “so is it night on the other side of the world now then?” Not quite sure where that came from, but rather impressed nevertheless. Not quite sure which category it goes in though - suggestions?

We also had a bit of a discussion about telling the time, and five times tables, which seemed to work pretty well together. Atm, Big tells time in the morning as “it was after half past 7″ (which is the earliest she is allowed to come drag someone out of bed for anything short of bloodshed. I really don’t do mornings well).

What else? Oh yes, she sent email of her own accord to thank someone for something, which I was rather touched by. We had a bit of a discussion about blogs and I read her edited highlights from some. Small brought me lots of books to read to him - he likes books. And tomorrow Big wants to learn how to bake cakes and make clocks. Shame that we’re out all afternoon really!

And this evening I’ve done really well with my work, so despite how late it is, I’m rather chuffed with myself too

Edited to add - forgot to say that I noticed Small making towers out of his music blocks again today, and then putting them neatly back into the music player. That must be a good skill to tick off for him somewhere!

although I did read books to Small when he thumped me with them, Big played some involved game with duplo ppl, and they both watched two hours of programs on Animals (Animals Did it First, and In the wild with - although I couldn’t tell you who it was with. Was about pandas anyway).

I’ve got more work done, but Small is restless again - he had a bad night last night. I think he may be teething, but I’m not quite sure why he needs to lie on me to improve the situation. Even tried to give him calpol when I couldn’t stop him screaming - he threw himself on the floor and kicked it all over me in disgust. So that was nice.

Big had a lovely time with Grandma yesterday. They got her hair cut, bought her a whole new outfit, got presents for the rest of us, had lunch out and tea together. Apparently there was only one sticky moment over choosing lunch, and Grandma managed to get past it. Of course, once she got back here, it all evaporated and we had a stand off almost immediately over the fact that Small wanted some attention from Grandma and Big didn’t want to share.

Small and I had had a quiet day - interesting to see how different he is when Big isn’t around. Pretty much self entertaining - quite happy to bring me books every now and then, and play with train track if I build it. But as soon as they were back together, this afternoon, it was back to hitting each other with duplo, fighting, chucking each other off the couch and so on. Sigh.

I really didn’t want to get out of my warm bed this morning, and neither did Big or Small. But I hauled them both out for Big’s swimming lesson. Wish I hadn’t bothered.

First of all, we ran out of milk - just enough for the children to have breakfast, but none for me. Then somehow Big contrived to put her swimming costume into her bag in such a way that when she picked her bag up, it fell out, and of course I didn’t notice, so we got to the pool without it. Tim came to the rescue and brought it over, but by then we were running 10 minutes late. And there was a substitute teacher, a bloke, who seemed rather more optimistic about what our children can achieve than the usual instructor does, so Big got into the pool, clung to the side and wailed for half an hour.

I cajoled, I threatened, I pleaded, other parents tried too, the instructor tried, and nothing would shift her. By the time the lesson was over she was hysterical, couldn’t have stopped crying if she had wanted to. At that point her instructor appeared, and was ever so upset to hear that Big was upset. She got her out of the pool, and promised that she would be there next week (as she’d overslept this week, we can only but wonder if she will make it next week ) and helped her jump in, but the damage was most definitely already done.

So that was fun. We had performances at the coop (stopped for milk) and another at home, so I’m in full scale damage limitation mode now, and really, I *need* to be working, not dealing with this!

Grr…

The objective sought in placing links in Blog comments is normally to raise the “PageRank®” of a site’s home page (part of the way Google ranks web pages) so that they get more visitors.

Google will blacklist sites it finds trying to monkey with its results in this way.

“If you believe that another site is abusing Google’s quality guidelines, please report that site at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.”

It is worth reporting people, it will help to speed the end of this irritating practice, so you will be helping everyone.

Have just answered the door (they knocked on it several times and rang the doorbell three times) to three young boys in masks. I told them to go away, and watched them off the drive.

I am hyperventilating slightly, and very, very glad that Big is at Grandma’s just now. This isn’t on. I fully understand that some communities do this as a sort of community activity, but we don’t, no one comes to our door at any other time in the year (tell a lie, we get the occasional incompetent carol singer) and I don’t see why I should spend the next 10 days or so keeping my children away from the front door as soon as it starts to get to dusk.

Bugger.

I was working!

Ever so hard, honest. Most of yesterday and all of last night. Big is at Grandma’s, I dropped her off after ballet. Nearly didn’t happen, as my youngest sister decided to test out her car’s impact system yesterday (she’s OK), but mother didn’t want to let Big down, so she’s there.

I’m assuming they are shopping by now, and she’s not coming back til after tea, Small seems a bit confused but hasn’t gone looking for her.

Right, cracking on with that work now.

As I’m giving up for the night.

Thanks to Y and D for their hospitality - we went back to theirs after group today. Also nice to catch up with C and her daughter.

Big had a lovely time playing with someone else’s dolls, and Small had a lovely time playing with someone else’s cars

When we got home we finally got past *that* page in the JP workbook, but it took ages, and lots of encouragement from Tim and me. Plus I bribed her with painting once she’s finished it! So now she has read her first page of words, hopefully that will make a big difference. Turns out that watching the video at Kirsty’s yesterday made a big difference to - she picked up the later books this morning and started flicking through them, recognising some of the digraphs and letters we’d seen. So perhaps they are a good idea as well.

And then she got to to painting, and by then it was tea, bath and bed.

Small got 20 minutes kip in the car on the way back and has been deeply horrid all evening, only just giving up and falling asleep on the floor. So now I’m going to take him upstairs and go to bed myself. Night all.

Aerosols can be bad for the health.

As he isn’t quite as small as he was it would appear. Thought it was a while since I’ve focussed on him, and he has been so adorable today it seems like it should be his turn.

He has another tooth coming through. Is getting more and more communicative every day (although still without any sound of speech to mention) - he can let me know when he is hungry or thirsty, usually by going into the kitchen and starting to help himself! He can build duplo blocks into a tower and loves to do this, and he’s still very into music. Right now he’s playing with the Neurosmith blocks, which is a bit annoying as I’d really rather he was in bed!

Sleep is our biggest problem with him. If he’s had any sleep at all during the day, it’s really difficult to get him into bed. He only feeds once in a day now, in the evening, and he sorted it all out by himself - night weaned when we were visiting the Portico, and hasn’t gone back to feeding since we came back. The morning feed went last week when we went to York.

Most of the time he is a lovely, cheerful, friendly soul, and he is very happy to smile at ppl and most ppl seem to smile at him. He’s fun to be around.

Today we went up to the outlet centre and met up with Kirsty. The children played in the playground for a bit - the softplay is cordoned off for repairs, although there is no sign of anyone actually doing anything Then we took Small into the Clarks shop to get him new shoes, as I’d noticed that while his first pair seemed OK lengthwise, they were leaving a mark across the top of his foot. Sure enough, he’s a half size up and the next size out width wise. He loved having his feet measured, trying on new shoes, was even OK with them being replaced for a wider fitting. He wasn’t overly impressed with having them taken off to pay for, but he carried them to the till and then we went and sat down and put them on again

We went and sat and had our sandwiches, looking at the darkened soft play and then wandered round a couple more shops. I picked up a few prezzies with the money saved by buying shoes at outlet rather than high street prices. Then Kirsty took Big and her two and went home and I followed after a scenic tour to and from Lidl.

Apparently, they did aeronautics while waiting for me - hopefully Kirsty will blog that though ;-). Then we stopped for tea, and eventually home. Unfortunately there was a hold up on the A1 for an accident, so Small managed about 30 minutes sleep, which is why he’s bouncing around like a mad thing now. But there you go.

The spirit of the times, or should that be Zeitgeist?

1904 hip
1905 whizzo
1906 teddy bear
1907 egghead
1908 realpolitik
1909 tiddly-om-pom-pom
1910 sacred cow
1911 gene
1912 blues
1913 celeb
1914 cheerio
1915 civvy street
1916 U-boat
1917 tailspin
1918 ceasefire
1919 ad-lib
1920 demob
1921 pop
1922 wizard
1923 hem-line
1924 lumpenproletariat
1925 avant garde
1926 kitsch
1927 sudden death
1928 Big Apple
1929 sex (meaning sexual intercourse)
1930 drive-in
1931 Mickey Mouse
1932 bagel
1933 dumb down
1934 pesticide
1935 racism
1936 spliff
1937 dunk
1938 cheeseburger
1939 Blitzkrieg
1940 Molotov cocktail
1941 snafu
1942 buzz
1943 pissed off
1944 DNA
1945 mobile phone
1946 megabucks
1947 Wonderbra
1948 cool
1949 Big Brother
1950 brainwashing
1951 fast food
1952 Generation X
1953 hippy
1954 non-U
1955 boogie
1956 sexy
1957 psychedelic
1958 beatnik
1959 cruise missile
1960 cyborg
1961 awesome
1962 bossa nova
1963 peacenik
1964 byte
1965 miniskirt
1966 acid
1967 love-in
1968 It-girl
1969 microchip
1970 hypermarket
1971 green
1972 Watergate
1973 F-word
1974 punk
1975 detox
1976 Trekkie
1977 naff all
1978 trainers
1979 karaoke
1980 power dressing
1981 toy-boy
1982 hip-hop
1983 beatbox
1984 double-click
1985 OK yah
1986 mobile
1987 virtual reality
1988 gangsta
1989 latte
1990 applet
1991 hot-desking
1992 URL
1993 have it large
1994 Botox
1995 kitten heels
1996 ghetto fabulous
1997 dot-commer
1998 text message
1999 google
2000 bling bling
2001 9/11
2002 axis of evil
2003 sex up
2004 chav

A word a year from larpers and shroomers: the language report

Small and Tim have gone to sleep on the floor, sharing a pile of cushions, so cute! Back in a mo, when I’ve taken the one I can still carry up to bed…

Right. I’ve got my nappies rinsing through, I’ve had a beer (goodness knows why, I really fancied one, but now I feel slightly queasy ) I’ve loads to do tonight and I want to get to bed before Small goes into the wake up screaming routine, so I’d better crack on.

We’ve had a pretty nice day at home today. Y and her son D from the Chesterfield group came round for a playdate - D is about a year older than Big, but they’ve really hit it off. All the kids did the slightly excited shy thing which was very cute, but they got over it very quickly and the two older ones cleared off upstairs to play leaving us to chat and amuse Small. Really nice to have the chance for a proper chat and to get to know someone a bit better - group meetings don’t always work too well for that kind of thing.

Don’t think there was as much as a cross word between the two children for the several hours that our visitors were here, we had lunch together and they didn’t go til 2. Lovely. Of course, once they’d walked out of the door, Big turned into a raving maniac, but that was only to be expected. She did a little more work in one of her JP books, but she is really avoiding the page with words on.

So we read several books - must fit more of that into the day - and then watched Adam Hart Davis and his local heroes (Dunlop, Romsey and someone else today) and then Horses Empire on National Geographic. Well, the children and Tim did - I retired to bed for a quick power nap. The last two nights Small has had what I can only describe as night terrors - and once he’s woken up from them, he doesn’t want to let me go, quite literally. I find it rather difficult to sleep with a small child lying on my throat, so I’m having very disturbed nights.

Unfortunately, while I was having my power nap, Small decided to have one of his own on the living room floor, which is why I’ve only just managed to get him off to bed. Hohum.

I should have done some shopping. We’ve got friends coming round tomorrow, I should have done some tidying. I have lots of work to do, I should have done some of that. (Well, OK, I did do some).

I also broke the blogring, but come on - did anyone notice? And it’s back now and fixed…

I played with duplo with Small, who is getting really good at building. Big played with her barbie stuff in her room a fair bit. They ran around in the garden for a while, and I finally managed to get the washing in while it was pretty much dry.

I’ve done some washing up, but created more by eating (careless!). We did some baking (brownies out of a packet before anyone gets over excited. Tim and I discussed the environment we live in - I have lots of ideas about what I would like to change, but no real idea of how to go about changing anything.

And now, as I managed to keep Small awake all day so he’s gone to bed at a reasonable time, I’m going to get on with some more of this work.