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and we are still here. my thoughts are with SB as i worry about her settling this in, as the first month is the hard one. fingers crossed an all that.

BB has got back into doing some gentle home ed and have got the ticksheet going. I think our gentle approach is paying off. she is such a different temperement and personality to SB and we have to be careful to balance moving forwards against overstretching. However, since we have been concentrating on gently moving with reading, I think she is finally a reader [tho she would deny this] . Have also spent some time reading interesting comic style fact books with her, with her reading some bits, which then later on saw her get one of these books out to read/look at the pictures herself. This is great as the start of being able to follow her own interests in reading [as apart from watching youtube videos of minecraft, lego and snake care ] a slow move forward with maths i think has confirmed she has finally ‘got’ hundreds, tens and units. also great as we didn’t want to move on without this being solid, and she has restarted conquer maths. we restarted piano, and took ginas advice to ‘consolidate’ before moving on, so we are getting bb’s fav carols shipshape and the agreement is we always start with what she can play and then we do a single bit of ‘moving on’ . BB really struggles at not being perfect or things easy, and seems to have no real concept of practice or learning to make things work. it makes education [and life] hard. we are planning to concetrate really hard on scaffolding and supporting her learning, partic with SB away, so that hopefully she gains confidence in learning new things!

but it isn’t all about structured learning. in fact this is just a very small part of life. we are hoping that being able to concentrate on her needs and wishes rather than sharing, we can also work on the difficult moments, and strategies for when life isn’t going her way – less shouting and conflict would be good. helping her find away to develop some control and strategies would be bliss. its a long job, and as parents it is so difficult to see where to help often. and for bb, there is the minecraft, lego, building stuff, playing with stuff, imaginative play and meeting and playing with friends.

This week we had a tentative start at a new weds meetup, with katy and babs coming with their kids. it seemed to work really well. they mostly played, but i did my first young engineers club activity, which was a nice simple one of making paper and straw rockets. bit of individual making, bit of group experimenting and theorising and lots of fun Barbara brought a really interetsing maths game, which i enjoyed . em and jax will hopefully join us too on other dates and we will add in some craft/art, some chess, geography, some animation and music etc just as the kids enjoy. i am looking forward to see how it shakes out

friday was the local HE group not back to school party at the conservation place. BB loved meeting up with her friends there and playing, even tho the weather could be better and this weekend bb has had a playdate with josie, which she loved . there was a thought she might stay over, but she didn’t really feel up to it yet, but maybe and it was a good feeling that she considered it. thanks merry .

so i think a good first week back to home ed

I have to say we are all missing SB , but BB is finding it hardest
I have been her playmate – def not as good as SB . I have tried to guess minecraft recipes on demand – lol! helped craft, cuddled, tickled and generally just tried to help her rebalance. Not quite so easy. We will get there – here’s hoping!
SO here, is a bit of crafting

SB appears to have loved it. When she spoke on the phone it was clear she had had a good time. One day she walked for 6 1/2 hours! she said she is still aching. SHe got to walk and climb a via ferrata. FrB dared her to step off [they are held by climbing rope things] so she did – but didn’t want to get her or FrB into trouble, she said she had slipped .

She is missing reading, fed up of repeating herself or asking others to repeat [so hopefully will have the drive to learn french quickly] , likes her family, and definately her sister.

SHe is homesick tho which isn’t a surprise, and a bit worried about going to school this week.

hmm, I have to confess that one of my daughters is starting school. this is part of a radical home education move. That of giving her choice, and the ability to follow those choices, although they are hard. She is going to school in France, as part of her en famille exchange. I have asked that her French family take the customary first day at school [ever!] photo, but just in case they don’t I took a picture of her and her French sister in front of the school when we were there

My other daughter is predominantly autonomous with her education, but with some prods which she either chooses to accept, or doesn’t. Hoping to keep her happy, follow her interests and provide a bit of stretch when allowed . Hoping also, since only accommodating her interests for 6 months, to have a few more trips out and about and focus more on what she loves. [well, apart from minecraft ]

Also, for those friends of ours who are now starting school for the first time, I hope you have a great time and enjoy it

In lent we followed the 40 days meme, and tried to remove one bag of stuff from the house every day. I have decided to try and continue this between now and christmas. my ‘zones’ i am going to work on are the playroom, the dining room, the conservatory and our bedroom [in that order]. Some of this is just re-organising, and some identifying of stuff that neither children will use now or ever, and some things that I just should get rid of rather than holding onto forever. [difficult for me, as with books I remember reading them, and crafting the various splodges with the girls] . I know many of my friends are similary afflicted with groaning houses, and others have managed the art of zen wrt tidying and storage. I am just hoping for somewhere where there is a place to put away everything at the end of the day

day 1 – playroom bookcases

started with an easy win, looking at the jigsaw cupboard and was ruthless [tho putting sb's bob the builder jigsaws into the 'yardsale' box is hard]. over a large amazon box of things to rehome to other people or for yard sale [planned objective, money to kids ]

Flushed with the success of that I reorganised the foreign language shelf – and found the 1000 words in french that i had planned to send with SB to france. BB is adamant that she isn’t going to learn a foreign language. It is v hard when she is adamant

Still having a bit of time, I reorganised BB’s home ed bookcase – top shelf is reading books [easy side] middle shelf is easy to read and high picture quotient fact books, and the bottom shelf has big fact books – dinosaurs, flap openers and first encyclopaedia. I am hoping to persuade her this year to read more fact things now she really is a reader. ANyway, some easy readers for rehoming/yard sale

Day 2 – playroom alcove right

quick win today with the playroom alcove on the right. Have sorted out the craft kits into ones still with stuff to do, and a shelf each for BB and SB. [sb's are on the left alcove] . have removed assorted tat from the shelf above the craft kits so can display pottery. Whilst tidying, we found a few glass optical discs. [convex] . we tried to burn holes a la toy story, but it didn’t work.

on a roll whilst BB barked minecraft recipes at me I sorted out years and years of varied magazines, keeping those she or I wanted to and discarding the others. so lots of RSPB magazines, british wildlife and kids national geographic in a box, and nicely organised are a year each of DIG, Yes, Know, click, animal planet, aquila and a bit more of BB’s dinomite . On that shelf also is the certificates folder – i have filed in it all those i have found; the ticksheets folder – saved in the past in case LA required evidence but now consigned to the recycling; folders with the odd scrap of paper in – also recycled. SO I have a box of magazines and paper for recycling . With the shelf of SB’s crafts, that makes 2 shelves of left alcove done.

Day 3 – playroom shelves – modelling and building

OK, so nothing actually going out here. just reorganised so can find stuff/see what we have and so that things suitable for young visitors are on a shelf together. However, we had a standoff over organising the lego. last time dh and i spent hours putting all the sets into cokourmtched sections of really useful boxes. unfortuntely this apparently has made the lego unplayable with. it is not there to design tuff from imagination, but to recreate time and again the boxes, and this is now much harder as it is all mixed up. [TBH said at level of extreme shriekage] Unfortunately, the outcome is we are going to build everything and not break it up till all built, and then store in labelled bags in boxes in their sets … This effectively takes the dining room completely out of action

dropping SB and leaving without her is not the hardest thing I have everdone, and not the hardest goodbye either, but it was pretty tough. It was probably BB’s hardest goodbye though, and it hit her what she had agreed to pretty badly. We had said to BB she could choose what we did on the way home. SHe wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower.

It poured with rain on the way north, and we camped at the camping international de jablines, which was an excellent little campsite and well positioned. Its close juxtaposition to eurodisney accounts for the price… Whilst I got dinner going as were a bit late, and bb had been promised dahl [not integrating well with french culture or food], DH put ouside of tent up and took BB to the lake for a swim, so she was v happy. Dahl was nice. there had been a panic as couldn’t find orange lentils or yellow split peas initially, but finally found orange lentils in foreign food section – phew! however choc eclairs appear to be filled with coffee creme tho unless specifically state vanille…

We woke up to the sound of pouring rain. well, I hadn’t slept, so climbing the eiffel tower not such a good idea, so we went to the science museum and cite des enfants. this worked really well. we even drove in! I think that BB was really as old as the 5-12 section should go tho, but the rest of the museum also well worth exploring. each night she settled with a dvd and a snuggle.

the following day we explored the park, had a picnic, BB did a fair bit of swimming and we v cheaply hired kayaks, which was lovely. the kayak chap was v nice and helpful. luckilly no rain and on the final day BB also went swimming in the lake whilst DH took the tent down. I think we made the most of our end of holiday period.

so a holiday of 3 segments, with lots of driving, and highly emotional. Now to settle to just being the 3 of us.

so the time for the great handover. I am rubbish at saying goodbye. utterly. i plan not to cry, put on a brave face, but i have never been any good at it. when i was little, nanny and grandad used to leave throwing sweets from the car . I have always sobbed my heart out. losing little nanny and vivien have not helped this at all. the girls know i am a blubber. watching films together always confirms this. anyway, en famille exhorts mothers not to cry, and tbh i knew it was likely that despite my best intentions i would sob my heart out. so told SB in advance that i would, that i loved her, and that parting from her was hard. but also, i was proud of her setting off on her adventure and 100% behind her doing it.

another long drive from loire to lyon later, with BB being shaky at best as the parting came up, we arrived at our french family. they are v lovely, normal, happy family. living in a beautiful mediaeval house in the mediaeval part of a lovely town. maman has migraine and takes same drugs as me – small world! they have a terrace for eating outside under the sahde of v old tree perfect. we spent the whole of the next day together, wandering around town and seeing the school sb will go to. we had lunch and playing at the nearby lake.

when we got back, bb was a bit stressed and unhappy for a bit at the thought of saying goodbye to SB, but she calmed down and after spending a while playing a drawing game and boxes with me, she then had a fab time playing biberbande with FrB and SB.

and the next day we left bright and early. it broke my heart to see bb cling to sb with such a big hug. the worst bit of saying goodbye really. however, sb needs to be able to do things for herself, and we will take care of bb and make sure she gets something positive from this too.

so, having started this blog with SB in our arms, here is SB in the arms of her new family, about to go on holiday have a great time SB, I am sure that you will x x we love you and send you joy in this exchange

We had some lovely friends that not only did we enjoy their company, but they also helped tidy the house of the party debris, and left promptly on the sunday, allowing us to do final packing and set off.

We were v v lucky! we had an easy run of it down to the chunnel, and drove straight through with no queueing straight onto the train which set of nearly immediately as only one more high vehicle loaded after us! and so we got to our B+B v quickly. Having now eaten at McD once, BB keen to do so again, so frites for tea! we had thought of nipping to the beach. A dvd and then all to sleep after a fairly decent shower each. we did cause the fuse to go out by spilling coffee on laptop cable tho…

then a relatively easy but very long drive to the loire where we met up with Zoe and family . I have to say, i really do like the aires in france. make things so much nicer to picnic, and the weather . Even BB was relatively easy on the long drive, aided by travel sick pills no doubt . Lovely to see le ciel rouge family altogether again, as they have been travelling for quite a while, and caught up with their news, goings on and plans.we spent the first day at a lovely nearly lake at argentan with them all, we geocached and then the girls all had a fab time on a 4 person pedalo – on the way back we could hear the screeches BB had been jumping off frequently and quite soaked. we adults had a nice long drink on the cafe veranda which overlooked the lake. When all back together a bit of a play in the water for the girls and then return back.

The following day we debated what to do, but ended up with BB choice, which was a visit to the utterly fab zoo in Doue. Well worth a visit, highly recommended, and tho it was far too hot for at least one of us we all were v glad we had gone, and spent most of the day there. I will add photos when I can, but partic highlights were the south american bird bit and also the giraffes for me. but the set up is fab, and clearly a lot of thought has gone into it.

Back for a last evening [of craziness] with zoe and co, and were sad to wave them goodbye the next day, and not a little bit nervous, as we were off to a town just outside of Lyon, to meet SB’s new family…