One week down

of our new school attendance pattern, and I think it’s gone pretty well all round. Big is now going four days a week, and Small three, so they’re both back to flexi-schooling, which I think suits them both well. Big is slightly unimpressed that Small gets a whole day of Daddy to himself, but seems to have cheered up on realising that I am now her teacher full time, which is quite a compliment I think 🙂

Have struggled with my course tonight and eventually, through doing some hunting through the website of the provider, come to the conclusion that the questions I have don’t match the file I have. Which at least means that I haven’t completely taken leave of my senses, but also means that I’m not going to get it finished this weekend. Bother. Have mailed A to see if she has any more up to date version of the file at her house, as I don’t recall seeing another one at school.

Yesterday it rained. It rained rather a lot. Bizarrely the cellar here seemed to dry out slightly, perhaps the water inside felt lonely for the water outside. Today it’s been really rather nice and sunny right up until I went upstairs to study, when I suddenly realised that the sound I could hear was not the computer after all and ran back downstairs to discover the almost dry washing getting very wet indeed. Bother, again. Got more than slightly damp retrieving the bits I need most urgently – one positive side effect of moving to the elementary classroom is that I’m often making a pair of trousers last two days at work instead of only one 😉

Took Small out this morning to look at guitars. Was not impressed by the attitude of the woman at the music shop who basically did herself out of a sale by being very sniffy with me. Ah well, daresay Amazon will be polite when they send us Encore ENC12OFT Natural Wood Half Size Classic Guitar Outfit which looks like it fits the bill and is cheaper than the one locally. Which is slightly irritating, as I would like to support local shops, but I can’t even find the guitar she had online, and it just didn’t feel nice to me. Obviously I haven’t felt this one either, but I’m hopeful, and Small is really desperate for one. I do think, with him even more so than other children, that it’s important to follow his interests at the moment he expresses them, not least so that you don’t have to deal with the extreme temper he can exhibit at times.

Next week is my week of late finishes, and then on Saturday we’ve an open day as well. Expect very little blogging as I will be reserving my energy to make it through a long week. Ah well. Must go and read up on Elementary files now. After I find a nice bottle of wine 😉

ETA forgot to blog the geography moment! Small came up to the elementary classroom several times this week – he really wants to and is just about ready for it too. All the children were occupied colouring in some labels for their books that Big had got in a magazine – he took up a set and started colouring them too. He asked what Geography was, and I explained it was the study of the world around us, learning about the continents, and doing things like looking at the states in America (something he did extensively last term). Then I wandered off to do something else, and noticed a few minutes later that he was drawing in his new geography book. I went back and explained (again) that he mustn’t draw pictures in all of his books, we have plenty of drawing paper for that, and once I’d got him to stop crying 😳 discovered that it wasn’t just a picture, he’d drawn a diagram of half the world, complete with continents, and shown the core, put flames around it, and written Ouch at the top to show that it’s hot. The theory goes that he was in the room with a group studying the layers of the globe at one point, although no one remembers him actually taking part in any discussion – he doesn’t really do taking part. It would appear that he does do learning though. That’s my boy.