Category Archives: General

Inconsequential mutterings

SB attention improved after yummy Ken Hom, and we did Hama E’s together, and did then ‘order’ the cuisinaire rods [so good thing I left them out]

As I cuddled SB and BB together, I though SB felt particularly stringy, and BB particularly buttery, so we measured their waists – each 56cm . Now can’t decide which to be worried about, SB eats well but too skinny, or BB eats well and too chubby?? I might have to get SB weighed to see if diving off centiles [paranoid mother alert]

V peeved, as although we have a full structural survey on house, with a company that are good with listed buildings, the mortgage company insisting we have to pay another ?550 for one of theirs to do a quickie valuation survey. Complete con, as is exorbitant solicitor fees – ?650 to sell, ?1300 to buy and the ?400 as part of the mortgage application legal fees. Humph

I think I am so grumpy due to chocolate withdrawal – it has now been 4 days.

giggled at SB
a) on looking at brightminds catalogue at all the things she likes – ‘ don’t worry mummy, we can buy it on ebay’
b) to chris clearing loft of ‘useful things’ – ‘don’t throw that wood away, it might be useful.’
they do learn young!

Microscopic attention spans

Since the jolly phonics and webland this morning, we have been butterfly like. flitting from one thing to another – hama, cuisinaire rods, jump ahead maths, cooking, seed sowing, making necklaces, wiring with daddy etc.
i offered painting, playing etc, but flitting was order of the day. I hate flitting!! Especially when tidying some of it up causes massive whinge attack!
We probably should have gone to the park for a good runaround. i just fancied a quieter day in for a change. running around now scheduled for tomorrow.
Anyway, have a yummy smelling Vietnamese stew in the wok [a ''Ken Hom'] and rice nearly ready. Where is the red wine??

set…… quiddler

my first under a minute!!!

unquieter isn’t a word, is it????? Quiddler really annoys me, so why do I do it?

SB finally getting dressed, no pyjama day though, as have been weblanding – in partic making up rhythms and music, but some of the games as well. Also the romans bit, as that was on of the ‘I wonder why’ books I read in an abridged version last night.

Still NAK-ing though

ice skating/falling and other bits

Not the best weather for outdoor skating, but West Yorks home ed trip to the ice cube in Leeds.
SB enjoyed it, and luckilly chris was there too. I tentatively went on, and fell over! After breaking foot, wrist and 2 ribs in a kids soft play area in the summer, I have really lost confidence, so quickly came off the ice. BB needed a feed anyway. Great fun was had by the confident! The West Yorks is a nice group, and v friendly to rare attendees like me. We are going to its Viking meet in March.

Returning home we did a few pages of singapore maths K 2A [easy] and some sticker maths. Also grrrered at the irritating hopsalot on the starter maths – well I did, as SB likes it. Read and discussed ‘I wonder why my tummy rumbles’ and SB played with Happy Street.

I’m quite impressed by the amount of home-ed there [obviously sofa based this afternoon], as BB had an off day. In fact this feed [ I am NAK-ing] is the first decent one today, as we have been latching on, stopping and screaming incessantly, so WTL index nosediving earlier. It is just so messy! Actually can feel sanity restoring the longer she feeds – may be human by end!

AAhhhh BB asleep. SB still messing with dinner rather than eating it though. Return to RL

[edit by chris] We bumped into another Puddlers as well at the skating *waves* to Kath M

Investigating Shadows

Stringbean went to her gym session today. Enjoyed it as ever. I hope we can find something decent for her once we move. There is some sort of gymnastics centre in Huntingdon, so ought to be able to.

Anyway, after the class, we were on the way back to the car in Adsa’s car park. sun was shining, and she started talking about her shadow (it’s a topic that comes up pretty often lately). She started off wondering how big it was – she seems quite interested in measuremnts etc. often asking how big she is, crouching down etc. – not that she understands it when you tell her 106 cm or whatever. We went on to comparing her shadow with mine, then she started crouching down, and looking at what happened to the shadow – ending up with her lying flat on the ground. We marked out the height at different points with bits of twig, of course then daddy had to do the same so we could compare. The woman putting her son into her car by us loooked very bemused by this :-) We talked about what happend to the length of the shadows, and I mentioned the related idea of the sun changing position in the sky through the year.

when this sort of thing comes up I try to present her with information that is probably just abit beyond her understanding – sort of planting little seed that we will come back to as she makes sense of more things. We had another discussion the other day about the mooon the sun and the earth. It was early evening the sun was still up, and the moon was in the sky. she still thinks this is a bit wrong as the moon comes out at night :-) So we had a little chat about the Earth going round the sun, about days, about the moon going round the earth.

What i like is the way that a few weeks or months later bits of info will come back out again, as she has finally made a bit of sense of them.

afternoon was Tots club with Helen and Butterbean, I whizzed about posting DVD’s of the Fanatsy Education program from the other day, buying some more DVD discs due to demand :-) and reorganizing SB’s party.

It’s her 4th birthday on 25 Feb (day after mine), with all that was goign on we were abit disorganised and late and so had had to arrnage her party for a bit later in March. We’d arrnaged it at a local soft play type place. But with our slowness, then waiting for their invites to get to us, then Melrose, we came back to find that one of her best friends at nursey had organsised her party at the sametime – arrgh!

It’s really joint birthday/leaving party We wanted as many of her friends from nursey to come as she has been quite upset few times about leavingthem all behind so we had to reorganise. I’d have liked to have had the party at home really, but with her nursey friends, other friends from Helen’s ‘new mum’s’ group her ante-natal group, many of who have been getting together all this time, plus other friends it wasn’t an option number wise. In a normal situation we’d just said we have to only invite fewer friends.

Of course the normal venue couldn’t accomadate a different date in our timescale, and in the end we have had to resort to
Wacky Warehouse. Now as a place I don’t mind these, ok on quiet weekday afternoon anyway (a Saturday afternoon is some version of hell…). but the food at the parties is dire and there is not that sense of shared experince becuase there are other kids there and there is not much shared party experince except the eating. However, SB does enjoy them, and will probably be very happy with it, so that is really the point I guess . She did say of the original venue the other week that she thought she was getting a bit big for it – probably becuase it doesn’t have such a big high slide. :-)

We feel a bit bad at times taking her away from all her little friends, not that it can be helped. But in reality she would lose touch with lots of them anyway come September when lots will start school I imagine. And she will get new friends in her new home – probably easier than her parents. and she’ll see alot more of her grandparents, which will be nice.

OH ******* moment – the desktop has refused to boot up properly all evening – it just presents a variety of BSOD’s. We almost bought a new one before Xmas (it threw a major wobbly around BB birth), but then it started behaving better so we put it off. And now of course we are up to our eyes in house buying. It’s apain because we use the desktop as the server, though most stuff is backed up.

Melrose Educational Musings – longer than my 3 para limit!

This follows on really with Nics post on Monster and Teeny [very unfair titles for 2 gorgeous children!! - or is it the parents???????]

we have also done a fair bit of thinking at melrose, its led to me starting to write a list of resources, subject headings, and now am going to think of different topics, what we have on them and what excursions etc, so a sort of charlotte mason approach, as I will try and kick it off with stories – not quite FIAR, but that kind of idea. [TBH I just didn't like how the FIAR manual read, rather than the idea].

We will also do other things – such as singapore maths, phonics reading and i think we will getty and dubay. keep going with german, based around Muzzy, formalise the music a little bit now, and do some art apprectation as well as hands on – seeing Merry’s resources there was v helpful!

What will we get over time having been to Melrose? I liked the berenstain bears science [as SB keen on Dr Seuss] , and if I’d known Katy was selling it, I would have bought it myself. Got DK books, but will also visit sonlight when I have an address for them for that people book. Have also got the usbourne time traveller from ebay. Sonlight can provide the getty and dubay as well, and perhaps the history of the world series, which I also think is great.

To start with, so that we can see what we do, and how it works, I think we will have a loose timetable – especially when I get more time off and chris and I share more. Since I can grab photocopier at work when on call, I think we will photocopy pages to put in folders, and try and have a monthly curriculum that we dip in and out of, but have sorted resources in advance. As yet, this is all wild and woolly, and hopefully will metamorphosize into something beautiful that suits SB’s learning needs, yet also doesn’t encourage our chaotic approach to life.

BB and SB with new playgym

BB and SB with new playgym


Helen Johnson

woohoo it worked!!!! though probably was a bit mean on the resolution. No idea how to put it in an already written blog though??

For Sarah :-)

For Sarah :-)

Sorry, we don’t really have good one, but she has a purple bobble in her hair a la Abbie at Melrose sometimes :-) It’s funny becuase she didn’t really seem to play with her much, but obviously noticed this.

i have been a good girl today

SB was very pleased that she got a medal today for being a good girl at nursery. We have a piccie of her with it [CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS]. notice that she is still being Abi [purposely]

Bad news is that she has been invited to a party on the same day that we arranged hers. so either none of her nursery friends will come, And she will be miserable, or we will have to move it. serves us right for being slow with invites.

Had a pressie for BB in the post – a rather lovely babygym. SB thought it v wsteful as we have one already [phew, we are instilling some notion of frugality] and have a nice photo of that too .[CHRIIIIIIIIIIS]

since otjer people’s melrose piccies up, and we haven’t received any objections, I think we should put up ours. [CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS – after all he is on the ‘puter upstairs with the pics!!!

stupid stupid stupid me

As have said in Merry’s comments, I have done it again. I am keen for SB to have more language skills than myself, so have been Muzzy german-ing. to supplement that, I bought a year ago some DVD’s from the greman amazon, including sesame street. I thought sesame street would be excellent, with all its letters and counting. The DVD doesn’t have any of this though, just the bert bits which irritate me. ANyway,lets SB hear german spoken I guess.

SO this time, I decided now she has a leappad to get a few in early german – sounds sensible?? On ebay, this chap sells them, and I bought a richard scarry one – ok, and a tad ABC one, which said it taught english. Excellent I thought, ideal for learning german. WRONG. It appears to be only in english – sigh, so I could have got it far cheaper over hear, and in fact think it might be part of a set I am getting for SB birthday. So will need to ebay it – how much I will get as cover in german I don’t know. Also don’t know whether to open to confirm all in english, and then sell it for even less on ebay.

SULK AND SWEAR