Category Archives: Ponderings

My Beautiful Baby

Posted on September 27, 2005 by | 6 comments

As reminded, it will be hard to keep calling her this, as she graduates soon into toddlerhood.

I feel really blessed with my girls. they are both happy and loving, and make my home life a joy. [yep, even when SB being super clingy/awkward/loud and BB being snack attack queen all night!]. Sometimes I concentrate so muich on the what we did/ HE bit of this blog that perhaps I don’t emphasise the gratitude i feel for the time we have, and the deep contentedness I have. OK, I want to spend far more time actually with them, and the work/life balance is totally wrong for me, but they have 2 loving, caring parents spending time with them, and are less fussed which one it is on the whole. Good thing I’m not on ‘just a minute’ as lots of deviation and hesitation in this post! I also think that the blogs concentrate more on SB because of it being a home ed blog. IRL is not so organised, most things are done with both of them, and splitting my time. I am trying to do seperate things too – easier with SB when BB asleep than the other way round. Anyway, in summary, life flows on here with lots of fun and laughter as often as possible.

BB is very mobile now – in a funny crawl way. She has her left foot leading, and drags her right knee – very odd. also tends to spin her round in a circle, so she has to sit up and readjust her direction frequently. She is very proud of this movement, so seems unfair for the family to laugh at it, but today needed laughter too. She regularly stops for a bottom in the air position too! She can pull to standing, and loves walking holding onto hands. She is a lovely communicator. Smiley and loving. she waves and gesticulates, rars, babbles, points. She strokes my arm gently while feeding, and when investigating something new, often uses this gentle stroke first. She loves music and rhythm. She is mad for chris’s throwing abouts. She, unfortunately likes all the flashing lights associated with laptops! She is an explorer, peering in and at everything with great concentration. She is also the great baby destroyer at the moment, scrumpling paper/books, SB’s jigsaws, puffling the games and constructions. pulling at hair and lips is also a favourite. She loves the limelight, but is quite happy to explore on her own. She has more freedom than SB – partly because we give her more, but also she likes it, whereas SB has always been an interact with me/join at the hip type. She also clearly adores SB – just as well it is mutual. physically she is still a lovely chubby bundle, but some of her bracelets are now disappearing. she has 5 teeth now [and don't i know it sometimes!]

today was the funeral of aunty peggy. due to my not particularly good state, we managed to get the time wrong, and got to the crematorium 2 hours early, so went to pizza hut for a buffet lunch, and then tried again. SB still recovering from tiredness and cold, so the delay wasn’t good for her, and BB needed a sleep. however they wer both reasonably good, though at the end i did feed BB [seemed odd, but aunty peggy wouldn't have cared, she was always showing her breast prosthesis to all and sundry after all]. I like singing the lord is my shepherd anyway. Oddly, at the end uncle robert and his family left one way, and aunty peggy’s side went to the wake arranged by her brother reggie. Does this mean that he doesn’t feel part of our family any more?? or maybe just to upset to go ahead with a wake at this time. brother reggie is an odd concept. All my life I knew Little Nanny had a brother who didn’t gel with the family and was?disowned. She han’t seen him for years etc. however she has been writing apparently for 5 years, and they finally made contact at uncle harry’s funeral earlier on in this year. So I got to meet him. lots of family came. including cousin Liz from Germany [Anne's twin]. stayed late to talk. will flickr

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Posted in Blogging, Butterbean, General, Out and About, photos, Ponderings

Late starts and early finishes

Posted on September 21, 2005 by | Leave a comment

well, hopefully chris will finish the blog for yesterday and put up :?)

today – well I had had such a crap night with BB feeding permanently, and rather a few work calls that I was no good for man nor beast and had a lie in.

Rousted up, and came too with nice cooked breakfast from Chris and played ‘round the mulberry tree‘ board game with SB. I read the last 2 disney princessess magazines [oh joy] cover to cover. SB loves them though, and it is all learning to enjoy the written /oral word after all.

I gazed with a suitable amount of impressedness at the map and postcards she and chris did yesterday [is that a spoiler?] whilst feeding BB [so she went to sleep for 2 hours- nice!]. we found where people lived, and those that sent postcards from areas other than their home address caused some consternation. Chris had aimed the postcard to Dartmoor, but it is now re-aimed somewhat closer to home. [you know who you are!]

We went outside to measure up the fruit bed – which looks a much more promising site for an archaelogical dig. I am going to buy minarettes, as although I think they are aesthetically fairly awful, they are the best functional use for that space, and then will have some espaliered pears and apples around the veg beds. Ken Muir are doing an offer with the kitchen garden magazine, which is effectively 6 at 12 each. I trimmed some more holly, and played catch games with SB, and stories for the climbing frame.

Found guinness, and unfortunately confirmed tht he has a very nasty leg injury, so is at present in the vets awaiting xray and then hideously expensive treatment. [so maybe fruit trees will wait]. Its either broken or dislocated – possibly from being run over. Rest of him seems ok – thank goodness. We will find out tomorrow.

SB had desire to make cupcakes, but settled for chocolate muffins. I have found out that she prefers to measure things in imperial – well there are far less oz than g! So returned to the past to measure in oz theingredients. They were delicious – so obviously an imperial recipe! Did some match and sort – AKA miquon while they were cooking – she def prefers singapore, but i think that is because miquon is so different to start with. She does, however, really like using the cuisinaire rods. Hooray – not a frip after all!

Whilst she ate her lunch, I got some of our shallots and started preparing them for pickled shallots – they are steeping in the brine overnight. prob 1/3 our shallot harvest, and will make 2 kilner jars. I will use some for shallot confiture. then discuss with chris whether to use the others fresh or pickle. Since we are a family keen on pickles and chutneys, I think its better to pickle and chutney, and use onions for everyday eating. We are going to replant some of them, as too late to do a shallot order.

BB keen on more feeding, so we read a book on earth sea and sky [well half], about, well, what is says on the tin – we didn’t get to sky part. She likes things involving the globe, so we looked at various features on there as well – though ours is such a cheap tesco globe that not very featureful, more political. We also played dinosaur ludo toghether. SB getting much better at understanding the flow of games. May even introduce the catching concept now. A ring on the bell, and the last of the redbook order [that had gone to leeds by mistake - I am sure i changed the address - LOL]. So we then read 4 of the anholts artists series. A real hit. A nice way to start thinking about art. She was particularly struck by the art in the Picasso one – asking why he painted the girl so many ways. [why not?]

We also have been listening to classic fm, and trying to discuss the type of music etc a bit. Must do a bit more stuff with the piano though.

BB has crawled alot today – getting very good at it. [in a slow lollopy way]. i am still making sure that I divert attention purposely to her, and SB getting better at following along, or doing something else [albeit reluctantly].

I’ve been out for a works meal – which was very nice. Given a slight grilling over home-ed, put played it as an even balance, not an anti schools thing, and something that just seemed right for us at this time. i wish Chris had never been a teacher though. I am p****d off with the, well its ok for you as Chris is a teacher – irrelevant!!! I keep plugging on about it just being an extension of what i’m sure they do for their own children without noticing anyway. no special skills, just time, patience, books and enthusiasm [well, ok there are some special skills in that lot - patience being one I have to master!] Some nodding there, so left it at that point.

Sundry messages and notices: I was having a dig at myself in the last post as a reaction to the school solar plexus thing. Do keep on posting your lists of what you do – i think it was the 10 pages of miquon!!! I like to see it, and although I do compare, on the whole I am not too stressed by it, as SB a wee thing. I can’t believe my blog stresses anyone – after all, we don’t often DO much of anything [ie 1-2 pages miquon with a lot of round the housesing] and its often me just reading lots.

If I was to be critical, I think i don’t do enough hands on demonstrations. This is why I am exited by the idea of a fake dig. I did look for old terracotta pots for painting and then breaking – with the idea that they could be dug up and glued together. However, we seem to have not brought any down from leeds with us. nor broken crocks. Will rethink. On a similar vein, having blanched the shallots in their skins and got a lovely deep coloured water, how much onion/shallot skins do you think you need to put in to make a dye??

Oh, and Kirsty, I only have 2 K books!!! [LOL] I thought I had more than that, but i have some 1′s and the usborne science ones making me think I have a lot!!!! My real flirtation with sonlight will start at about core 2, when the history and readers start to tie together. we might even try it then for that part.

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Cooking, gardening, General, geography, literacy, music, numeracy, Ponderings, Stringbean's HE

gentle type of day – now with added photos

Posted on September 19, 2005 by | 19 comments

i had a sudden argh moment when I felt somewhere in my solar plexus that if we were living a different life, I would have done a school run today for SB. made me jittery enough to suggest to her she do some explode the code. Luckilly, for my resolve, she refused! We are, in part, home educating because we think that formal schooling starts way to early, and here was I nearly school at homing! In part, I think, cos the blogs are full of families with children of SB age, but also older sibs, and I read these and feel inadequate [but only occassionally] because of the wealth of ‘work’ they are getting through. Standing back, I think SB is getting all the encouragement she needs at the mo, though I think I would prob like to be getting used to some element of structure ‘normals’ as Merry calls them.

I also really like the sound of sonlight curriculum. The books I have from sonlight I really like [and yes Kris, I am a watcher/bidder!!]. I’m reasonably sure I would enjoy doing it. I’m not sure about using it at the moment, as too much structure – though may grab an opportunity to look at someones instructor guide. I may do it later though – partic the later world history ones. i am not religious though, and would immediately have to give away loads of the books, so am unlikely to ever buy in in totality. So here I am, a natural list-maker, orgoplanner and structurer, who nevertheless feels a child led semi-autonomous [mostly autonomous in fact] approach is best. No wonder I have turmoil and conflict! luckilly, SB rather good at autonomous ed!

Actually Merry, our veg plot needs a good digging over, I offer it up for buried finds!!! [on subject of others blogs]

Well, we got up nice and early – which unfortunately always makes the day better, no no excuse for lying in bed! I took the breakfast opportunity of writing letters to Uncle Robert and Little Nanny, and found them hard. Although I thought I had prepared well for this one, I have found today my thoughts are centred around my loss of Aunty Peggy. Consequently, I just wasn’t up for any socialising, so we made our excuses for the iceskating trip. SB drew some pictures and coloured them in to include with the letters.

SB still very fond of patterning – and today we used the coloured Jenga-alike blocks. We did start off playing the game, but TBH, she hasn’t got the co-ordination as yet. She then built patterns, shapes and moved onto ships and a roman fort! She had quite a story for the fort, and was very proud of it. the barbarians [BB] did manage to destroy it though. Chris has a tangram set somewhere, but who knows where, that I think SB would enjoy.

We did quite a bit of rummy style happy families [as with 2, you can't play the game otherwise]. She’s got the hang of my made up rules, but still tries to help me, so we will work on strategy!! Good at pattern matching, sorting and early strategy. [ie, 1 of these already in bottom of pile, so not a good one to collect - type thing]

We read some books – I love the DK street through time one. Usually we romp through, but were reading slowly and looking carefully, trying to imagine what might of happened, and how much of a shock roman culture must have been, what could you do about viking raiders etc. We only got to mediaeval and stopped there, as we had been concentrating for so long. Maps and globes are being interesting again, so actualy finding geography easy to cover.

After lunch we made biscuits and then iced them – so a rather yummy activity. SB getting more careful with measuring. Chris and I agreed we’ed be better off with different scales though, then perhaps she could be independent with measuring.

What else? A convoluted game with the phonics cards. she was a diver, diving into the ocean to bring them back from the deep [aka rug] for us to read. i got to be the learner for the blue ones, and her the red.
A mammoth legoing game – I built her a pyramid, but it wasn’t very practical for sleeping in, so converted to a tent.

yummy tea from chris!

Now its getting colder, we are in full jumpers mode, as this months bank balance is not healthy enough for heating unless it snows. Luckilly jumpers are all that is needed – I will put heating on for you Jax, don’t worry!! [your room hottest in house anyway]

Anyway, although we did no explode the code, or formal maths, we covered various concepts through play – equal sides for pyramid, SB’s roman fort [made with jenga blocks], squares, kites and diamonds. So waht was my panic all about then!!!! I don’t even think today was particularly full-on.

BB and SB played together intermittantly, and SB getting more tolerant [though ot really very] to BB’s new mobility and ability to puffle everything up. i am encouraging SB with playing peekaboo and hidden things under cups, and insisting on me having some one 2 one time playing with BB [if only short] where she has to do something else, or join in on BB level. Not entirely succesful, but trying to gently instill a sense that BB doesn’t only get attention when she is feeding – especially now she does that far less. that SB has her one 2 one time when BB asleep, and that is when the Mummy only with me activities are best – like cooking!!! BB is a happy and tolerant wee thing though, and does quite happily bumble about. I just want to make sure that i don’t rely on this, and give her too little attention. today she was giggling like mad with horsey horsey, chip chop cherry tree, raspberries and just liked being walked about. Peekaboo is a favourite too. putting BB into a cardie that my late cousin Anne knitted for SB gave me pause for thought too.

Flickr will follow! oh and mmmmm seed catalogues

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Posted in art and crafts, Blogging, Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, Ponderings, Stringbean's HE

Just call me Angelina

Posted on September 16, 2005 by | 5 comments

Nursery day today. Increasingly find us getting to Thursday and thinking that it is getting in the way of all the other things we could be doing. Though of course the plan is that I am at work on those days, hasn’t quite worked out like that yet though.

Afterwards took Stringbean to her first Ballet class lesson. It’s in the village which is nice, as often for us now things are elsewhere and need travelling to.

She has wanted to do ballet for it seems like ever (she said to me on the way there that she had wanted to do it in Mummies tummy). most of the other girls going there already had there leotards and their little skirts.and shoes, so she was a bit disappointed that she doesn’t have hers yet, but they had a leotard that she could borrow. Didn’t get to watch it sadly, but they did all look so cute :-)

Seemed to enjoy it, though seemed a little disappointed as ‘they didn’t do any ballet’, which I assume means they didn’t do any twirling around, dancing etc. – more simple movement stuff. did enjoy telling us how they all got to pretend to be a ballon going pop.

We are continuing with Stagecoach for bit, but will drop it, maybe after Christmas as more things come on stream – she has enjoyed it, and it’s an area that is diffcult/impossible to cover well at home, but it’s expensive and it really messes up the weekend as it takes out Saturday morning every week (it’s a 20 mile round trip). I think it is maybe something to come back to when she is older if she really shows an interest in this area. But once she is 5 in Feb she can start proper swimming lessons – she has managed to swim a width of the pool now and that was the deal :-) They do do stuff for under 5′s but it seems more playing, confidence stuff etc. and she is well beyond that, also Rainbows, and if I can find one a Gymnastics class (there is special Gymnastics place , but nearer would eb nice – and there is a fair waiting list for the proper classes it seems.. plus various HE stuff as well. It should keep us all busy.

On return from Ballet, I gave the kids their tea and heaed straight for the bath as Helen is normally back later today. Once out of the bath she was home and BB could feed (priorities…) and SB could play with her. Not entirely sure what was going on all the time, SB mostly scampering around with no clothes on as far as I could see. She did play a nice ‘Hide something under the cups’ game with BB.

A few future thoughts are forming. We have accquired quite a bit of stuff now – esp. books (moslty thanks to a bit of an Ebay frenzy on Helen’s part, plus a bit of Barefoot books, Redhouse, Sonlight) We could open a DK/Usborne library I think :-) – as well as general history/science/geography type things, we have Singapore/Miquon maths, Explode the Code, various phonics reading stuff, Getty & Dubay handwriting, Sonlight Timeline stuff. We want to put together a box of sciency stuff we looked at so that when something comes up we can have a go at it there and then. a lot is general household stuff, but somethings will need buying. We were looking at the science kits Sarah has mentioned before I seem to remember. And I’ve got a couple of years worth of Krampf emails stashed away.

So plenty of things. I need to spend sometime sat down looking at and thinking a bit about it, and I sense a plan for aiming at a modicum of mild structure coming over me. Nothing to intense – one of the reason for HE is that I think school starts being too academic too early, and I am a bit Charlotte Mason-y at times. But there are areas SB enjoys such as the maths ‘match and sort’ workbooks and related mathsy stuff in general, she is gradually getting a grasp of reading, she loves trying to write things down, she loves looking at books about various periods in history. I’d like to organise things so that we can easily do bits of stuff, do Getty & Dubay regularly, try to bring bit of structure to the way we approach the maths (the ‘pick a page, any page’ approach of SB is falling down more frequently as she progresses and the concepts get a little ‘harder’.

An area I think is suffering is that of ‘nature study’ – we do do various of bits of this as it comes up., looking at beasties etc. But I was concious when down in Somerset when out walking together that we don’t seem to have done much of that recently, since we moved. When in Leeds we had Country park we used to visit, and some local woods that we often used to walk round – with some excellent big rocks for SB to clamber on. Don’t seem to ahve done much of that, TBH, though we live in village now, I don’t think I fihdn the countryside very inspiring round here to get out exploring. Must make more effort. Though even our garden itself is a good resource.

And ther are things like churches and graveyards, that SB seems very interested in for some reason, and maps – which she seems to have really got the hang of conceptually which are jsut asking to be picked up on whille the iron is hot.

So a bit of a plan is needed me thinks. There are also domestic aspects to this, as too often the house gets to much of a tip, esp. the kitchen – I find it hard to concentrate on playing/doing HE stuff wetc. witht he kids when it is too much of disaster zone. Need to work on it staying tidier. more organised.

Haven’t Flickr-ered for a few days, something very amiss there……

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Posted in Books, Butterbean, Dance/drama, Out and About, Ponderings, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Puddle-bumping.

Posted on September 1, 2005 by | 6 comments

Had another visit from the Patch of Puddles which was lovely. Though sadly Fran was not feeling very well and spent most of the time sitting, lying quietly which was a shame. But the rest of them all had a good time. This is a great house for having visitors, plenty of space inside and out for the kids to run about and play, plenty of space in side and out for the adults to sit and chat, drink tea, eat etc. :-) Day was lovley and hot and sunny, autumn will soon be on it’s way, so need to make the best of these.

I was out getting supplies when they arrived, apparently there was an odd little time on first arrival as Stringbean and the puddlers settled in with each other -SB not wanting to join in and play with them, which happened before, resolved by bringing out some new bits of Brio type train track . Not sure wat that is about exactly but by the time I arrived they were off and playing., flitted in and out of the house, playing upstairs, on the climbing frame, riding scooter, bikes etc. Didn’t really notice exactly what they were doing but they all seemed to be happy most of the time. Evidence of playing with old Cindy dolls on the landing, snippets of the typical ‘Do you want to be the baby, I’ll be mummy’ type conversations, and lost of running around, clambering about, whilst adults chatted and gossiped.

Had nice lunch, cooked the kids some pasta – mostly becuase we know they will all eat it, and it’s quick,. Served it to them on a table down the end of the garden well out of earshot ;-) Then did a pitta bread, hoummus, olives, salad, corn-on-cob type thing for the adults, plus the kids to eat bits of as they saw fit Sat muncing on this under the gazebo on the lawn whilst children swirled around us back and forth.

It’s great watching them all playing together, SB and Maddy in particular seem to get on well (nearest in ages of course). BB and Josie did the sitting, squirming (BB) and crawling (Josie) baby thing happily all day. We do feel that SB maybe misses out on playing with other kids a bit. In Leeds she had a circle of he friends from Helen’s ante-natal group that often met up most weeks,and tots club (with many of the same) etc.. We’ve not really managed to make any suitable contacts yet in the village, we did attend a few group things in the village, but moslty it was younger kids attending (not that SB seemed to mind), presumably the older ones were at nursey, playgroup etc. and of course lots will be going to school very soon. She doesn’t seem obviosluly bothered by this, but maybe she is too young to think about it. But she does love children visiting her,and when we go to the playground, she always likes it when ther are other cildren around who she can play with. And as a dad (since I’ve done most of it of course), it does seem a bit harder to link into the mum’s network sort of thing that groows aup aroubnd the variosu baby/toddler activities.We’ll see how things go I guess.

Anyway, we all decided to try and make the effort to get togther a bit more often. Will hopefully make the Peterborough Puddlers meeting on Friday

I would include some piccies , but of course H has gobbled up our flickr upload allowance for this month. So it will have to wait until tomorrow. She has only got a slighty twitchy mouse finger….

helen edit: it was a lovely day – sorry if i seemed vague at times, but getting too old for 24 hour shifts. SB had bee really excited by puddlers coming, but also very clingy when I got home – she really hates my 24 hour shifts, and wants to do everything with me the next day, which is lovely but I’m usually knackered.

Before the puddlers arrived, we talked about what she had done yesterday, read some of my history of england for children ebay purchase books [lovely!] – for once we read modern history, so first and second world wars, and related them directly to family members, which she grasped. Also discussed a bit why wars might happen. there was a cartoon piccie towards end of margaret thatcher and all SB could think about was what a fat head she had got – i think a bit of a lack of appreciation of artistic licence!

we did some more patterning with the connect 4, but the real business was trying on the rollerskates I got from the friends shop for ?1. these are the bees knees as far as she is concerned, and she skated all over the playroom, the corridors and outside. Only one egg on her forehead, and otherwise getting the knack – did have to put my foot down about wearing them on the climbing frame – particularly when the puddlers were here ‘but maddy said I could go down the slide fast’…..hmm!!!!

Chris has covered the puddlers – which was lovely, thanks for visiting. Need to contact Karen O in Northants too. [if you're reading....] We are hoping to catch 2 red boots next week when in somerset/devon camping [venue TBA!], and hopefully firming up a few open house visitors, so that’s good.

When puddlers left, a long cuddle, as SB very sad to see them go – so after a shaky start… next time must sort out icebreaker activity. May go to Merry’s next so she doesn’t have to do the trek. if Chris not working and avail to drive that would be fine – i just worry about driving long distances if been up hald the night. From october though, hopefully, it will be less likely to happen due to rota changes. Poor Merry had some maniac driver behind her on way here though.

Anyway, long cuddle and then SB did me lots of flowers with her spirograph, carefully writing hers and my names beside them as we love each other. She is just adorable. Since I had crashing migraine [combination of approaching storm, no sleep and stress] I was slightly out of it, but hopefully managed to get across how lovely it was. The I did crash and chris has done whole bedtime thing – i didn’t even feed BB [though I did lots in the day]

Massive storm – so migraine eased off, but still very muggy. really lovely and long phone call from a uni mate of mine, who we are also meeting up with next week. She is SB and BB’s godmother.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, history, Ponderings, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Miquon rules

Posted on August 22, 2005 by | 3 comments

Or at least seems to in our house. Got home from work to find maths type books - singapore and miquon liberally scattered over the floor, a magazine from nanna f as well, where she had written out a crossword, and filled in lots of puzzles.

I think SB going through a very dynamic autonomous era at the present, and really diving into learning spontaneously. Oddly, it makes me feel even more disorganised that I haven’t got things at my fingertips for her. Writing and maths are the flavour to savour, though a lot of read aloud history and stories going on. The usborne farm series are proving to be a bit of a hit, with SB just quoting the first page. Certainly a lot of processing is happening.

Through ebay got lots of books coming through in a steady stream, so looked at the usborne through the ages homes and houses, and also barefoot animal stories from around the world [4 of] which we do a fair bit of talking around – geography, beliefs etc. Am trying to have a rest a bit on beliefs, as noticed when swimming that SB said of the life guard to herself ‘she has a cross, she must be a christian’ and felt that this was seeming a bit labelling, and don’t want her to think she has to attatch a label to herself. Sticking to gods and goddesses as plurality therefore, and mostly ancient. Science also a bit of a back burner – Chris has loads of Krampf experiments tucked away, and I really need to get a resource box organised so that we can experiment like mad [sb likes!]

After tea she was again desperate to do some miquon with the cuisinaire rods [which for a year I wondered why I bought them, and now I know!] and was not keen to go to bed until she’d finished a page… and another one!

I used to read the autonomous ‘trust to the process’ type posts, and panic and have deep suspicions, but I see it in action, and it is working. However, I am a queen of listmakers, and somewhere high on the anal retentiveness scale [a former boss recurrently threatened to list me for an anal stretch], so I think Chris and I need to come to agreement on recording the broad brushes of home ed, and perhaps develop my ideas for a broad brush story arc for things such as history, with points for incorporating geography along the way.

Basically trying to predict tangents to go down, and facillitating the resources rather than ‘today we are looking at france’ type arrangements! lso with the piano in another room, we are forgetting about it [like the tv] so I want some kind of game that we draw cards for activities [games, music, crafts, experiments as well as a few readers/workbooks] and then do them [cheating allowed so actually get one she wants to do!] at those lulls, so that it again sparks off using some of the hidden away resources.

Also Chris needs to BLOG! After all, this is his blog [and the flikr is his account too, that I seem to have overtaken. born to organise, thas me!]. cos when she is 5, i want to start some way of recording what we do as we do it with comments on the other things you notice – like increased attention span, and processing info thoughts etc. Like Jan, so that if ever we become known to PTB [and this area strong on that, so anticipate it will be near instantaneous] we can at least be confident in our body of evidence – even if we decline to show it.

Other ponderings, I think i’ve swapped my desires from an eglu to a swallow now where is that fairy godmother???

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Posted in General, history, literacy, numeracy, Ponderings, Stringbean's HE

Chris’s cat – honestly!!

Posted on July 5, 2005 by | Leave a comment

V late home from work today, as on call [but not resident thank goodness]
Chris prob wont blog, but they went to health centre for the health visitor check [she was mostly uninterested as BB fine, suits us!] and to storytime at the library.

i’m not sure quite when, but chris and the girls went to look at a stray black cat – it was at some distance, and he wasn’t sure if guinness. SO gave the man a catbox. Sure enough, man turns up with cat, chris unsure if cat got fluffier, so at present we now have a non-guinness hiding behind the sofa! [we will hoover with our animal dyson thoroughly, so as no extraneous hairs for the merry girls.] It is def not guinness as more of an english type moggie, than the delicate siamese cross of guinness.

I’m dissappointed its not guinness, and not sure what we should do with this cat. Is it a girl or boy? does it have a home? will it crap/wee everywhere?? Is it pregnant – horrors. What will whiskey think. where is my lovely guinness??

Anyway over to you….

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Posted in General, Ponderings

Protected: Just say no

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Ok, had enough, I’m off home….

Posted on June 14, 2005 by | 14 comments

Which was basically what I said partway through a big Tesco shopping expedition yesterday – stock run down in the run up to holidays and we needed stuff before an online order would ahve arrived. I was tired (Butterbean is waking up and feeding often during the night, and we are so bad at going to bed at anything remotley like a sensible time, I went in the afternoon, rather than the morning as planned, I had both girls with me (not unknown, but with Helen on maternity leave it wasn’t usually necesary) Had both girls in the trolley seats, BB loved it as she was ideally postioned to pull Stringbean’s hair (one of her favourite tricks) and SB could escape – so much fussing, eventually let SB out to walk, which is pain as she wanders about, wants to push trolley, can grab things, not just point at them etc. so put her back in trolley , by now BB fed up and starting to wail – time to abort the trip…… and time to do an online order me thinks.

On the subject of shopping, what is it with families all going out together to shop? I don’t mean an amble round the shops, I mean Mum, Dad and kids all off to do the supermarket shop. Why????? If both parents are available then it surely makes more sense for them to keep all/some of the kids at home or wherever than all battle round the shops. Truely unfathomable.

Rant over :-)

Anyway, it was the first day of getting back to what will eventauly feel like our normal routine. But a day later, bar the Tesco experince, I can’t really think what happened, other than it was ‘ one of those days’. Morning I guess involved a fair bit of washing – which with SB helping, usually involving increasingly convoluted ways of handing out the pegs or the washing etc. isn’t necessarily a quick process….., a bit of kitchen tidying, all that sort of fun stuff. mixed in with potterign and playing with the girls. SB spent ages collecting things together for picnic she wanted to have with the freebie picnic set/bag Helen got from La Redoute or Vertbaudet.

some how the time from 10 to 1 passed, I was then annoyed I’d not got out earlier, setting myself up for the Tesco debacle. When I returned H was home, I manged to set fire to the Toasted Teacakes, so only H and SB got one…….. It was a relief to get to dinner time.

A couple of BB notes – she seems to be much happier drinking from bottles being off them for two weeks, she put away about 5 oz in one go, whereas we we lucky to get more than 1 oz down before. She is really loving her baths now, she madly kicks and waves her arms about splashing madly – she has developed a really good Double Whammy kick with both legs at the same time – she loves it :-)

Today was better. Story time at the library this morning, untaxing but SB enjoys it – not sure if it is the stories or the following craft activity she enjoys though, and BB seems to enjoy the difference, looking at the other kids etc. On our return, it was coffee and snack time, followed by time in the garden, more collecting/hanging out washing games, chasing about the lawn, bike riding, climbing frame climbing etc. BB spent much of the time sitting on the lawn. SB got an Apple (found it in her knickers apparently….??) and bit it into chunks which she gave to BB on plate, she spent ages gumming them happily.

After lunch we all sat down on the sofa togther BB to drink, me and SB to read books. Nice cuddly time, though I did find myself dozing off a few times, much to SB’s disgust ‘ Come on Daddy’, Later, SB and I found a box of her old 1-2 year old toys in the old hayloft which she wanted to show to BB. She spent ages playing with them, showing them to BB etc. while I got dinner ready and remembered when SB had them at that age. How excited we were when she built a little tower of the blocks, how she used to love trundling her little wooden block trolley around the house and go shopping for carrots, some of her early books we had read so often. Memories……

On more reflective note, I’ve got a general background level of frustration with things at the moment, hence it part yesterday and also I find that I’ve been a bit short with SB on a couple of occasions when I wouldn’t normally be. The root is I think that the house is not sorted yet.

Too much still in boxes, partly becuase the places to store it aren’t there – such as not much in the way of book shelves, no drawers for mine and Helens’ clothes (though about a billion cubic feet of fitted wardrobes…), partly becuase it just hasn’t got sorted and put away yet, so to much stuff half unpacked now around the place, on top of this we have the normal household disorganisation, and the weed are growing faster in the garden han we can keep up. . And with Helen at work now, and basically me not, I do feel like most of this is my responsibility and I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job of it. And I’m still working on how me, SB and BB all manage to work together, though we are getting there

There is stuff we just aren’t doing enough of, such as crafty things, but also more ‘education’ type things, such as the reading, maths etc. is being missed out. Helen had quite a nice little routine for this in vague sort of way and I want to build that back up again as well as develop ideas for the future. We have many plans and ideas which are just being put on hold at the moment (including SB, who whenever we have a an old box, yoghurt pot etc. says we have to keep it to make something – she wants to make a robot apparently). Of course I could have done something about it rather than just blogging about it.

On a more positive note, Helen is now on her 4 day week, so that means she will be home tomorrow, which will be nice.

14 Comments

Posted in Butterbean, Ponderings, Stringbean

guess I should write something!

Posted on May 24, 2005 by | 3 comments

As we have done rather a number of photo posts!
I’ve enjoyed reading all the hesfes blogs, and look forward to going when SB about 6. Certainly looking forward to Kessie beforehand, even though it will be a bit manic for me!
On duty again – sigh as spent a lot of the day trying not to let the N and N discharge my nan home today and then give her a zimmer / handles for loo etc tomorrow – what a crap idea! Also, that we do not live locally, so where is she supposed to get bread/ milk etc, and fridge empty. Hmmm they said. And what about home visit? well she doesn’t need any – Hmmm said I!! After lots of humming, she is staying in until at least tomorrow, when I can do emergency dash after 24 hour shift. Though they won’t use the community action team, they will get the red cross hospital leavers programme in – as I begged -which is 2 weeks of a daily visit and a minor shop if needs be. Also, will assess house properly. At moment she always eats in dining room – now bedroom, so will have to carry tray of food to sitting room instead – but how with zimmer?? Espec as by end of next week hopefully wont need zimmer. We need to see how to rig things up. Anyway, lots of grumblings, and they are rethinking, and i will hear outcome later today.

SB had a glorious weekend – as quickly blogged, and enjoyed Monday too, as Nana F and grandad, as well as pam and robert visited. lots of attention! Lots of general playing really – and you’ve seen the pciture of the bath.

Must do list – pack for hols
– get insurance for hols
– sort out relocation expenses
– empty upright freezer and give to Nanny
– talk to her about combination microwaves
– weed garden/veg beds
– second sowing french beans and sweetcorn [courgettes ahven’t germinated, dammit
– craft with SB = making moved cards
– oh bugger, tell all and sundry our new address!!!

3 Comments

Posted in General, Ponderings