woohoo, i have just rung the tax office about who I send it too. She said I had been sihned off tax returns as I earn under 100,000 unless my circs changed. I said they had, but i still [unfortuntately] earn less than 100,000 so don’t need to do it.
I explained I usually did them to update my subscruption costs to have that put in tax code. She says fine, jsut write us a letter with new costs and it will be done – magic genies stuff!!
dancing with joy, just a letter!!!
Posted in General
that my bloody month 12 and p60 are the only things missing??? bollox.
have rung for month 12 to cobble, but can’t get new p60. bloody hell.
so no tax return today then.
Started late as BB and Sb went to sleep at 5.30 and BB woke at 6.30, so I then slept til 12.30!!
Posted in General
…this time on the doors of her newly painted bedroom wardrobe.
The riot act has been read, story time tonight docked and stickers for bedroom delayed!
What makes it worse, was that she pretended her cousin had done it!
It says SB predictably.
Posted in General
I still have migraine, but chris doesn’t like to be left out, so got a caustic soda burn on forearm and hand from finally unblocking the drain – full of animal fat crud -yukkety yuk. Obviously a present from previous owners! Anyway i dressed it, and it should be OK. told him if he gets compartment syndrome I get to slice open forearm – wicked gleam!!
We obviously had a rather shite night, as BB didn’t settle, and SB then joined us in bed, so a Mummy sandwich as 2 little beans had a competition on who get the closest!
So a slow start to the day. Infact, I may have to come back to the beginning – rofl! [Edited to add – SB shrugged and sid mostly Sindy’s and doing mazes] Anyway, slightly later SB cut out piccies of fruit and veg from the catalogues that she would like to grow, and stuck them on some paper for her file!! [i like self directed] She did 4 pages of exeter maths – first 2 she did some of the writing, but the second 2 she just gave the answers. this is once we got past the problem of 2 less being the same as takeaway 2. Once translated into sweetie maths she was away!
She then had a haircut – much needed! And Chris bought a tool for the drains to attatch to pressure washer. We read the Ulysses story from our usbourne greek heroes and perseus from ladybird famous legends. The ladybird one has a handy map of greece, so wee had a peek where places were – including Tiryns! I have been to lots of these places interrailing as a student, and really recommend the pelopponnese for the equally ruin addicted – and cret for that matter! mycenae was stunning. Anyway, I digress! following on from this, we jumped ahead in the story of the world to read the crete bit, as I had been talking about bull dancers. We have read the theseus story before, but SB loves them, so not unhappy to hear it again. Susan Wise Bauer doesn’t abandon Ariadne. I think part of the greek mythness of these stories is the casual dropping of women and children, and also the casual attitude towards cruelty and homily free status. BB feeding and the napping for this marathon!
After this she had a bit of a bike ride, but soon abandoned as I wouldn’t come outside with her, and instead worried over Chris, who had just had caustic soda incident. SO a smidgen of fresh air! We did a bit of recap on the piano - she had pretty much forgotten, but did find D. she enjoyed the ‘lesson’ – all of 5 mins and then pootled around again doing her own thing. I’m going at this in the ‘you want to make music, is this useful?’ Approach for now.
Sb and BB played together a bit with the shape sorters and the hammer shape toys, SB abandoning this in favour of the leap pad for a bit, until BB’s interest got too great to be distracted by Mummy reading books and playing! SB read to me a whole red nose reader – trying hard to sound the words and doing very well. She seems very keen on Maddy’s word flower thing, so maybe try that out.
She was also very good assistant at dressing Chris’s burns [made him go to the chemist!] so we had a discussion on being careful with chemicals even though they don’t look very dangerous – she could clearly see why! Also on dressings and bandages – minimal obviously! So red cross ticked too.
Whilst cooking tea she wanted to write the names of everyone who was here over Xmas, so with some spellings prompted she has done just that. Chris is supervising tea as BB a bit fretful, and if she sees me she will just want to bf. We will play a game or 2 of whatever takes her fancy before bath as well.
Re Merry’s chore thing, and we have also been gradually introducing chores – SB has to tidy her things away before lunch and tea, and if requested without a fuss, including BB’s things. She also lays the table for us. Not too onerous, but having a blank canvass after the meal frees the mind! We are also going to try and keep the main living bits tidier as a rule, so that we can actually not feel there are loads of jobs weighing us down every evening.
Mind you, I feel weighed down today, as this evening I am collecting together everything needed for a tax return, and will do it tomorrow, sigh!
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BB awoke at about 11 – is absolutely NOT going to sleep. So we are downstairs and she is being awake. we will try again for some sleep later [it is 01.41]…….
Posted in Butterbean, General
we need new saucepans.
i bought a meyer circulon casserole last year form lakeland in the sale – in the sale again – and it is truly fab.
i am tempted to get these as a set
however, we have john lewis vouchers. their anolonhave run out, but they do have similar john lewis own which are more pans – and prob more what we want rather than more casserole types.
i love the circulon design though!! not sure whether need such high tech suacpans, should prob get john lewis as we have vouchers, but crave the larger circulon casserole [we have smaller one] and stock pot.
what pans have you got that you love [and btw, chris came with le crueset – to heavy and i find the enamel impractical!
Or perhaps we should just get the cheapest pans?? but we do cook alot, and all our pans ar knackered – hmmm
Posted in General
…mostly as i have a migraine, and it becomes quite clear that my children are far more charming when I am being charming!
Anyway, still had a reasonable day, but I had to work quite hard at it. Chris had made a wacky wiggler with SB – this was and ace pressie! And also jointly they read some apple tree farm books.
Me and SB did morefiddling with the wacky wiggler to make something for BB, as she is very interested in cogs/wheels etc.
SB then got out the sonlight word bingo game instead of a match and sort book [AKA explode the code], so we did the blends and the words. she was actually better at the words. I think she really isn’t a phonics girl – reading out the word with wild guesswork seems more her thing! She got a bit stroppy as I got 3 bingo’s before her, but what can you do?
At lunch I did a kakuro game, i usually do sudoko with SB, as she likes doing it with me – i spot what to do, and then say things like the number 1 in that big box, and she will work out which of the 9 it goes in. She is gettin rather good. I thought I could do the kakuro in peace and quiet, but not really. They’re not that diffiuclt, but require more addition and number pattern skills than SB has, so I wrote out the strings and pointed out why 3 in 2 boxes has to be 1,2 ; 17 in 2 boxes has to be 9,8; 6 in three boxes has to be 1,2,3 and 24 in 3 boxes has to be 9,8,7. She got these patterns but i had to do a bit of explaining over the other fixed strings [3,1: 4,2,1 etc] so got in some number bond practice and why maths is still interesting to adults, as well as then the logic in putting them in the boxes and her writing in the numbers. She stuck it for the easy bonds and the first 4 or 5 where deduction used – so not bad on concentration really.
After lunch whilst BB slept we did giant shape snap, read some usborne stories from around the world. BB didn’t sleep long, so we got the lego out for the rest of the afternoon. they mostly played together. BB and I read some of her board books, and i trimmed her fringe slightly. [first trim!]. So a bit low key really!
We did, however, manage to do some piano – which Sb and I had agreed on, and she asked for. We did patterns of keys and their names, and then mouse-walked up and down thumb to 4th finger trying to keep our hands flat [didn't have a rubber] from middle C. we searched for all the A and D’s as well. Finished with this is c middle c from gbdf and ace. After this she played on a mini keyboard making and recording tunes. BB did quite a good dance and jig, clapping her hands, so SB felt very proud.
I have just put in the tea – unispired at chips quiche and sprouts! [I have a migraine!], and suggested to chris i needed P and Q. He is reading some of the usborne greek myths – prometheus and pandora so far. Drives me wild, as he is tired, so is being an exaggerated tony blair – seems like hours gap every few words! BB is playing with the click clack caterpillar – excellent present from aunty shaula.
Merry, did you want us to jot down the weird tangents we spin down with these stories for your puddleside curriculum? or are you not planning to have some FIAR type suggestions? i know the idea is to follow where child leads [and that is what we do] but wondered whether a one liner would be good?
btw, I think i may have to take over as Chris mixing heracles with hercules to get heracules and driving me up the wall! does he do this on purpose? Sb correcting his pronounciation of tiryns [go girl!] and cross referencing to our other book where there are pictures. She *really* loves these books [maybe cos i do too?]. She is now correcting the book, as the hydra grew 2 more heads, and it only says 1 [rofl rofl]
Feeling better as tablets kicking in. Sb requesting i take over. Will see you later with my ponderings on socialisation and group joining in!
or so it seemed, with both girls at the lower end of their volume control.
I had refound the jump ahead toddler [with hopsalot] which SB used to adore, so she must have spent at least 2 hours over the course of the day engrossed in it. It is nice and simple for her now, and she was doing it without any input and feeling very confident about the ease she did these things.
We also raced trhough 6 pages of singapore maths – again nothing we haven’t done in different forms many times, as adding to number less than 10 – can be done in head or on fingers. Good consolidation of skills, and again she felt really confident there. It involved some writing, and she gamely tried to figure out how to spell all the numbers – rofl! I did help her as she is newly interested in writing, so want her to feel equally positive about that too. She did ten on her own.
We had a brief look at DK eyewitness world atlas – she was interested in the Africa section. Its for adults though, and having not looked at it before, I couldn’t really find what i wanted to, but still a passing interest. We went on to view pretty much all the mini films!
She briefly helped Chris look at the blocked drains – yuck! An then we did the dig out the dinosaur she had got as Xmas pressie – good fun. this one was one you then joined the bones together of. of course they aren’t joining, so are glued and hoping for the best! It came with pictures of 6 dinosaurs, so as we dug it out we looked for the things that would help us identify ours. SB a bit upset ours wasn’t the tyrannosaurus!
What else? well, colouring, making up songs, singing, playing with the toys BB got for Xmas! playing with Sindy’s – the usual stuff really. lots of books – but she chose jason and the argonauts as here greek myths. Only a few minor whinges. We continued the evening games theme, with Chris and SB playing the pipe game [round the bend from elc] whilst I cooked a moroccan influenced root veg stew with couscous.
BB today has had a lot of attention due to SB self sufficiency! We have stacked and demolished cups. doen the cylinder and sphere in the shapesorters, and then tried to ram everything else through those holes! We have played with the click clack caterpillar and the noisy footsteps, chase, bouncing songs and action songs. A fair bit of chase, and sticking stuff in the mouth just as mummy lunges to remove it [sigh!] She has been most intrigued by SB on the computer – and very keen to get a look in. Was enthralled by suasage rolls [veggie] and enjoyed peeling off the puff pastry to get at the sausage. not so impressed by the amazingly bubbly bath though.
Didn’t quite manage to finish this blog in bath time, so have special dispensation [from me!] to finish with a glass of wine whilst the girls have some fruit. Jax’s fault, as she *made* me do an extra blog [rofl!] Might add to it after pondering.
Oh, and I finally managed to order the veg seed – hooray! Sb and I looked at the catalogues together.
oh and barefoot has a sale, and while the bear sleeps is 3.99 I have been so pleased with this book – it tells various winter tales and traditions from various cultures
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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, DIY/ house renovation, gardening, General, geography, numeracy, photos, science, Stringbean's HE, writing
I’ve also been giving some thought to orgoplanning. Although we are nearer the autonomous end, there are plenty of times when SB asks me to read a book, or doesn’t know what to do, so I have been making an elements list! [ie what I would like to encourage/use of our resources!]. Also, with Me and Chris doing things, its nice to know really what is going on, and what is there.
After discussing with her, she is keen for me to teach the piano, and just play the violin a hit, so I must try and do that. Also She had missed all her cdroms so we set up a few today.
I never got the yoga thing going last year, and still think that a good idea, so we will look out for Katy’s video and try and do that when I get home, or at some point then.
Also keen to make more use of Muzzy – we have german and Spanish.
Any, we will encourage her match and sort – doesn’t really need much encouragement there anyway! on a near daily basis as normals, and read a small section of story of the world. Also try perhaps Muzzy and piano and see how it goes. Certainly the match and sort bit and story of the world works nicely, as both only short time periods, and go well with a bit of quiet time!
Other than that, i have organised all the stuff well, and she bobs about the sections under her own steam well enough for me not to need to plan things. If she looks at a loss, I can think of what might enthuse her. We still need to organise a science experiment resources box, as she often asks to do these, and we are caught a bit on the hoof!
We may well incorprate some of Merry’s reading schedule, though not the bible bits at the moment I think, as I think we are a bit christian story overload at the mo.
Posted in General, Stringbean's HE
I did have a lie in though – very nice!
I could hear SB playing with the Sindy/barbie dolls having a great imaginative time
When I came downstairs, SB was doing the new webland – she devours the whole thing when it arrives, so Sharks, songs, construction and I missed the other one.
She and BB bounced around a bit playing, then SB read a fair bit of an usbourne farmyard tale, with Chris filling in the more difficult words.
When BB fell asleep, we played with her wooden marble run. when we first had it, i did all the building and design, the i just built to her design. now she designs and builds whilst i troubleshoot. excellent – lets call it science. She is very anthropomorphic, with Mummy and baby marbles!!
We did 2 pages of explode the code – i sounds – and she is speeding up and more confident. we were aiming for 4, but lunch was ready.
A bit of cbeebies and jump ahead to follow – mostly stories. BB awoke and neighbours [remember homedad? now back at work] came round. they are both trained teachers, and his wife asked lots of questions re home ed. she then says she shares an office with the E something or other [EWO??] in charge of home ed. guess we are not likely to remain unknown. lots of playing with their daughter – 2ish, and SB wrote them a new years card.
After they left, SB and I looked at the usbourne book of britain - starting with the intrductory bit on how the country was shaped, and then a look at where we are. In it it was mentionig glaciers, and I could see SB hadn’t got them, so got out the Earth DK book – loads of info and then lovely pics of glaciers. i have promised to take her to one, but, disappointingly for her, not tomorrow.
I then read several back issues of disney princesses and played shape snap before dinner. We devoted afterwards to games -farmyard dominoes and don’t wake Dad. It was nice playing games together so will try and do that more regularly.
Feeding BB as I type and Chris putting SB to bed.
All in all a very nice start to the New Year.
Posted in General, geography, history, literacy, numeracy, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing