This afternoon Big and I have wrapped IT and civics together by sitting down to talk through and complete her response to the current review on home education. Her identifier was 1103, so the numbers are climbing steadily this week, good. Tim and I have had several conversations about it all, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to get my blood pressure rising, I just get more and more annoyed each time we start in on it. It isn’t the review so much as the Every Child Matters mission creep that gets to me – at one point did the government decide they would have the right to say how everyone does everything with any child, but without having any responsibility if anything goes wrong? Oh no, that lands on the parent’s neck does that.
Anyway, other than that, we had a bit of a family meeting shortly after both children screamed at me for asking them to get dressed. I think we need to change how we’re doing things a little, and I’m heading towards a TV ration as it’s pretty much whenever they’ve been sitting there with their brains dribbling out that I get this kind of fallout later. Probably not the same if they were watching something a little different to nasty cartoons, but that is their choice of watching atm.
Anyway, after the family meeting, in which it was agreed that there will be some new rules and a whole lot more politeness going around, they both took off to play their musical instruments. Which would have been lovely, had they not both been supposed to be getting ready for lunch at the time. Sigh.
Lunch arrived and saved all our sanity. Then a short putering time, then a very long getting ready to go out to the library time. Small is nearly up to December on his ravenous readers card, and only wanted to get one book out. Having just returned The Magic Tree House 2: Castle of Mystery obviously what he wanted next was The Magic Tree House 3: Secret of the Pyramid except we’ve ordered that from another branch and it hasn’t had time to arrive yet. So instead he got The Jenius (Read It Yourself) to keep him going for a couple of days. The man at the desk asked if he was a genius too, and I said maybe, given that this was supposed to be light relief to the Harry Potter he’s reading at home. He’s on the last but one chapter to the end ๐
Big took most of her books back last time, and only had a Spotters Guide to Nature (Usborne New Spotters’ Guides) to return, given that she hasn’t reviewed the Victorians (History Through Poetry) one for her website yet. She got out a Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets for light relief as she wades her way Order of the Phoenix. 280 pages to go earlier this afternoon, and she got Half Blood prince out just in case. I got a couple of the earlier ones out as I think it’s time I caught up…
Right, have tea in the oven, though Small is deeply suspicious of it as it isn’t chicken drumsticks but SFC (a cheap rip off that you cook yourself, which is still smelling really good to me. I don’t miss chicken but I do miss the KFC coating!). I’ve been looking at this cookbook, How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy Balanced Diet, with Very Little Money and Hardly Any Time, Even If You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans … – Unless You Count the Garlic Crusher… and wondering whether it would be a good investment. I’d get it from the library but all the copies are already out and I don’t know if it will arrive before we move.
And this evening I must get my OU stuff out, work out what I need to look at next and start looking at it. I need to be ahead on my TMAs rather than behind!