Making it up

[Today’s puzzle completed 1 minute, 20 seconds]

Waiting for Alison to say she broke the minute barrier now

ps 82 for Quiddler first try - not nearly as good at that.

Edited to add, got it up to 90, which I think was good enough atm to get on the leader board, but for some reason it had forgotten my name - although it could have been somebody else called “your name” lol

as a hectic day planned.

Small, Tim and I shopped yesterday afternoon. Quite pleasant to be out in the smaller family group, although a little odd. Really looking forward to being able to have a conversation with Small - he is very chatty, in his own way, but not yet making any word noises.

Quiet evening, when I got a fair bit of work done, but not nearly as much as I wanted to.

And now I’m expecting Big back in minutes, with her friend A, and we’ve to get ourselves organised and get over to Jan’s. Tsunami aid in progress there in the form of baking, and I think I’ll take some of the stuff to make our bath bombs as well for their bring and buy sale on Monday. Hopefully this will give us a way to discuss it all with Big as well - we appear to have done too well with explaining that not everything you see on tv is real, and she hasn’t registered that some things are. Hm.

And then the door bell rang, and they were here. I’ve got loads to organise (doing a belated Christmas run as well) so I’d better get myself off and get started.

Happy New Year everyone.

The phone has just rung - Big is having such a good time at her friend’s house that she’s staying there again tonight! Should have seen the look on Small’s face as he listened to this conversation, very much less than impressed

I’m spoilt, I think - when Big is around she amuses Small and keeps an eye on him, and I’d forgotten how attention intensive an 18 month old child is without other amusement.

So despite my best intentions, I’ve just turned the tv on, as I’ve got to get some work done. However, I have played trains with him, been down on the floor drawing, danced to music and generally spent time with him. Does that count?

or not of both of them anyway.

Slept in this morning, can’t think why Then P rang, and offered to have Big overnight tonight, after she’d been shopping. I offered to have A while she went shopping so she said she would drop him off about 2.

I set out with a very grumpy Small to do shopping and cat feeding, and while I was out got a text saying that A had changed his mind and gone shopping with his mum. Bother. I’d specifically left Big at home so that she would be there to play with him. Instead she did me a lovely picture - her drawing seems to be really coming on atm.

We also did a tiny bit of decorative stuff with our Magic Maize, and Big did a bit more on her mosaic box.

P arrived about 5 and carted Big off into the night, much to Small’s displeasure. He’s been very out of sorts today - threw a mega mega tantrum this morning when I cruelly and maliciously changed his nappy (it was horrid! It really needed changing…) must have taken about 20 minutes for him to stop sobbing afterwards. I hate that.

Have noticed that his burbling is beginning to sound like sentences - think that he might skip the single word bit and launch straight into sentences, which would be about par for the course.

Had a chat with Tim tonight about my complete inability to grasp geography - he’s of the opinion that it’s a learning disability. I can’t think in maps - can’t remember where countries are, despite the rather beautiful map we have in the hallway I’ve no idea how to go about memorising where things are. How does everyone else do this?

Playing Set with Big last night, she remarks “it’s like dominoes, you have to see the patterns in it.”

And watching ScrapHeap challenge (they were building a hovercraft, fascinating stuff) “what’s aluminium?”
“It’s a kind of metal. You know the kind of can you get fizzy drinks in?”
“No.”
Ah. Given that we don’t drink any fizzy drinks, I suppose she wouldn’t.

I found a version to print out, but the flimsy bits of paper aren’t too good to play with.

There is a supplier in this country, but I think it’s actually going to work out cheaper to buy it from the states, from the maker . It certainly will do if there’s more than one person wants it - so if anyone wants to get together and get a copy…

as I’ve been working!

Finally getting my arse in gear to do some serious stuff - which feels good actually. I figure I have a choice - I can either throw it all in and go and get a job and rarely see the kids or I can go for broke and make this business make ends meet. Which will still be a serious challenge, and I might end up having to take part time work, or register as a childminder or something, but I think it’s worth a try.

still got to fit in sleep somewhere though, so I’m going to have to get an awful lot more organised.

Good day today - went to visit an old school friend of mine. Well OK, my only old school friend Lovely afternoon with her and her family, including her sister and offspring - so nice to spend time with ppl who tell me I’m not mad! Horrid driving though - roads were packed everywhere.

Then tonight, Big and I played Set together. I like playing games with her, and one of my resolutions is to do more stuff that I enjoy with both of my children, instead of thinking of them as a chore, which I was doing earlier in the year, when, let’s face it, I was somewhat depressed. So that was rather pleasant.

And now I’ve completely lost the thread of whatever it was I was going to say, so I’m off to bed.

with a family row.

Not our little family here - it appears my decision not to trek up the road to meet up today didn’t go down well. Oh well - I felt the decision was justified when Big went into meltdown this afternoon *despite* (or maybe because??) me not turning on the computer at all this morning, and spending pretty much all my time playing with them. Apart from the bit of housework I did in and amongst.

We did more sewing with the toy machine (which is incredibly fiddly to get to actually sew, and then even worse to get the tension right, but sews fairly well once you get past all of that). We’ve had Small’s train track out and set up his two new bridges, both rather swish lifting affairs from Grandma. We need more track though - we’ve now got more bridges than we can fit in a circuit, and we’ve only two straights, so we can’t really do anything particularly adventurous.

We got the meccano out, but that was the cause of the meltdown, as Big wanted me to build the ferris wheel and trying to do that with lack of assistance from her and Small throwing meccano around the room pushed me past my calm quiet limit. So the meccano went away again - not quite sure how I’m going to manage this sort of thing now as Small is very non cooperative, and I do want to spend time with both of them. Hm.

Anyway, after we’d all had chance to calm down, Big did some more decorating on her mosaic box. Then I cleared off and spent some quality time with a novel in the bath, wonderful. Came back down to discover that Small had contrived to open the meccano bucket and spread it all over the floor - not so good. I *think* I’ve found all the pieces though.

Bit more of a mathematical breakthrough this morning. Putting Big’s new crayons away, I pointed out that I thought there was one missing - there were 23 and things are usually sold in dozens, which would mean 24 in the pack. Somehow this took us on to counting in tens, amazed to discover that she can happily do this up to 100 (although requires some assistance to actually say 100 ) Very impressed by this - not quite sure where it’s come from though. We also went and chatted to Tim about why dozens are used - ask jeeves was of the opinion that it was to do with there being roughly 12 lunar cycles in a solar cycle, while Tim thought it might be because a dozen can be shared out more ways than 10 can, which led to some demonstrations with coins. So fairly convinced that we’ve covered maths for the day, and we’ve wrapped up some practical skills there too.

Oh, and there’s a new blog at the end of the ring - do drop in and say hello to Claire!

has been OK. Geomags this morning, some decorative stuff with a mosaic jewellry box, and a quick trip out to get batteries for the toy sewing machine and investigate that this afternoon. Creative, maths in there, some practical skills.

And I’ve learnt to make bread sauce.

Not that there are all that many of you out there to read it!

So, for the diehard bloggers…

education, maths and society in general.

I have a theory (well, actually, I’ve got lots ) that we are currently suffering in society from the results of compulsory state education. We have disaffected youth, and a culture rapidly growing up that everything is someone else’s fault/ responsibility. We have a high level of illiteracy (went searching google to try to work out if I could find out how high, and how very telling that was. Did you know that in order to hold the percentage passing the tests at age 11 at 75%, they’ve had to drop the pass mark 3 times in the last three years? The pass mark is now 41 out of 100) and we recently failed to return results to the OECD PISA research.

So what is my pet theory to explain all of this? Well, from another document, the Social Trends report from the National Statistics office, I picked up this little gem. “The proportion of three and four
year olds enrolled in schools in the United Kingdom rose from 26 per cent in 1972/73 to 65 per cent in 2002/03.” As a society, we’re desperate to get our children into childcare. This despite the fact that research shows that parental involvement is key. This bit for example: Tizard, B., and Hughes, M., Young children learning: talking and thinking at home and at school. London: Fontana, 1984. So our children are in childcare and then school, and all they are learning is that they are not important, have no power and no say in their lives. Is it any wonder they are disenchanted? We go on about them growing up so fast - how is being unable to earn a living, vote, drink or anything else (apart from have babies of course!) being grown up in comparison to the world our grandparents or parents lived in, where they were out earning their keep by the age of 14 or 15?

I drove down the road today and passed a group of teenagers chatting and smoking in a bus stop. They looked younger than 16 to me. Another group were walking down the pavement and a girl threw down her packet of crisps into the gutter as I drove past. Bit further along the road and the glass from another busstop littered the pavement - now I don’t know that was teenagers, could just have easily been drunken adult revellers, but this isn’t a world I’m particularly happy to inhabit.

It strikes me that worrying about literacy and numeracy is not what the government should be doing. Chasing home educators shouldn’t be high on the priority list - given that parental involvement increases educational achievement, they should be handing us a rosette and keeping well out of the way. Instead, how about some time spend on tolerance, respect for the environment, financial awareness? Oh no, I’m sorry, that might get in the way of producing good little consumers…

ps, sorry, I appear to have forgotten to mention maths - got carried away on literacy while googling. Will try to do maths tomorrow

Mathematical Games Just saving this for later

And a very pleasant day it was too.

Will blog further tomorrow on deep conversations about education and maths and society in general (must remember to switch off computer more often and converse with other half!).

Also started considering some changes in habit (won’t call them resolutions as that would kill them off instantly ) to improve mine and the family’s environment and general life, which will also mean switching the computer off a bit more often.

Can you tell I’ve had a lovely day?

Hope everyone else did too.

and I’m still finishing off presents and wrapping them. Small just woke up all alone and very unhappy about it, so had to go sort him out for a bit.

Hope to get to bed fairly soon - Merry Christmas, or whatever you celebrate at this time, to one and all.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Trying to get myself into a better mood.

Tidy kitchen (this could take some time).

Lunch. Discuss which presents are for who with Big.

Tidy living room. -well, enough to get the tree in.

Decorate living room.

Tea

Children to bed.

Open wine. Drink. Wrap presents.

Edited at 16.44 - about to go and start making tea. Beginning to get worried about Tim, who went out around 13.30 (I think) after we exchanged words, and hasn’t been heard from since

Edited again - Tim got back slightly after 5. Children now bathed, Big upstairs with Tim, Small down here transfixed by Nick Jr. Nearly wine time…

People Will Sign Anything

Geek Squad - which seems to me to be a really good idea.

This is the kind of reaction we used to get from Big - until she learned the formula
Santa = Presents
Scared of Santa photo gallery

I’m doing it differently.

Why am I breaking my heart over a festival that belongs to a religion I don’t subscribe to any more?

Big is highly strung, I think I’ve mentioned this before. I think she gets it from me (no, really?) so at times of stress, we don’t really work well together. Apparently today, despite the fact that we’ve done making presents together for a reasonable amount of time, and I’ve spent all of the rest of the day in the room with them, nobody loves her and she’s not as important as Small. That would have something to do with me yelling at her then. Poor Small has actualy spent quite a lot of time pottering about on his own, but he seems OK with it. I do wonder though if he’s not getting the kind of attention that Big got at this age, and whether he ought to be.

Anyway, I’m not going to go into details about our day, as it’s just too depressing. I’ve had a call from part of the family wanting to reorganise part of the festivities, and I’ve got one of those rock and a hard place choices. Do I pile myself and the children in the car and drive for an hour to spend time with ppl, who let’s face it, I’m related to, but have nothing in common with, or do I start the next year with half my family not talking to me because I didn’t show up with the children for them to drool over and tell me I’m raising them all wrong?

Decisions, decisions.

First one is that tomorrow is going to be much better, and I’m going to achieve that by having a plan!

The Nitty Professor

we were hoping for two!

Still, very glad to hear that you made it home safely, and that all is well. Don’t blame you for that decision at all, and even Big seemed to understand.

Took me ages to get started this morning - needed to tidy up and stuff and instead found another job advert (turned out to be for the same job ) and messed around with my cv for a while before submitting it. The guy didn’t call me back, so I guess I didn’t do very well with the messing. The original recruiter called to say the company was looking at my cv today, and that she would definitely call me back one way or the other this afternoon. Guess what? She didn’t

I *hate* job hunting!

Did manage to get some reasonably efficient tidying done - Big was in an odd mood though. Caught her doing a maths worksheet this morning! Was one I’d printed a little while ago, and she found it during the tidying, sat down and got stuck in. So should I print more and lose them as well?

This afternoon Sarah came round with Dino, and did helpful things like washing up and making tea, while our children ran around madly and ignored us a lot. They seemed very happy with it though. I managed to make more pressies, and then Dino and Big painted a couple of mugs, which seemed to go down quite well. Shortly after Sarah left, P arrived to pick up Big for a sleepover - I’m sure they’ll have a lovely time.

So this evening, with only one child in the house, have I done lots of wrapping and stuff? Have I stuff and nonsense! I’ve done a couple of hours support work, while Tim took Small to bed. This was after Small had a very mad half hour and quite literally ran around like a loon. At one point he crashed his head backwards into my face and I’ve now got two swollen, bruised lips, so that was nice. And now I’m considering dealing with the washing, or going to bed…

I still don’t understand how this guy got to be the Minister of Education, and you would never believe he had given birth to four children., would you.

Well, I’m impressed, definitely an improvement on Plunk It.

The newspaper cutting is American and they probably meant to say that he was hanged.