Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Now here is a post with a large number of potential names… blood, sweat and tears…. nurofen, paracetamol and mouth wash…. stress, stress and more stress??

What a couple of weeks; we’ve had worse (ironically aroundabout exactly 2 years ago) but this was pretty tough too.

So… before it got especially tricky we did have the first gymnastics session, which went down very well with all of the big three and the next door neighbour too. All the girls did well and they all seemed to settle in fast. They were most upset not to have leotards, but we’ve trawled ebay this week and come up with some. Fran isn’t fit for gym tonight, which she is annoyed about, because she has a very lovely leotard that she is delighted by!

Got to say though, i’ve been driven to irritation twice in the last week by people who send stuff out stinking of cigarette smoke. It is just horrible, especially people who claim to be sending out from a professional outfit. I think ebay need a “smoke free” icon that people can add to their listings!

Monday was the start of Max having an intensely stressful week at work, probably the most stressed out i have ever seen him; he said it has been like being in The Apprentice. I phoned him during a meeting and although he answered, he didn’t speak and i could hear it. It sounded like a large number of people in need of ‘Kalms’. That kind of left me and the girls fending for ourselves for the week, which was far from ideal; Fran was fine but the other girls were really quite anxious, i was behind at work with no opportunities for going there, a relative of Max, Auntie Sue and MF’s had died, which left both me and MF temporarily childminder free and therefore me staff free. It all added up to STRESS… and then the funeral was planned for Friday, the same day as Fran’s op, which just added layers to the entire thing. Fortunately (tricky to find a word that actually applies adequately to it really, so fortunately will have to do) it was not actually a person Max was close to, so it didn’t affect him as much as his Gran dying, but it is never nice to know other people are sad.

Oh, and then Tuesday/Wednesday was the second anniversary of me ‘choosing’ to turn my life into a permanent living hell for the rest of my lifetime. I’m REALLY not good with anniversaries; they shouldn’t be any different, but to me they are. I can’t help it. As Max and i have now reached a state of being incapable of discussing it at all anymore, as i’ve simply run out of tears to cry and as i’ve reached a point of feeling that i must surely have bored every friend to tears with my own folly by now, i rather choked to death on the whole thing

Cheered (ahem) ourselves up with “I Am Legend” - not one for Helen i think… and i played with Fimo for a bit to distract myself.

Through the week, the girls did quite a bit of work. ETC is doing Amelie and Maddy good and Amelie is now managing to read the instructions in a Charlie and Lola drawing book while Maddy is continuing a slow and steady progress through simple reader types. Fran got through a lot of Meleto - i should have put her on Yr 6 i think - and she and i also did decimals in Singapore 4B. Maddy is whipping through book 3 and seems to be gaining confidence now. Good to see her having the courage to read it now and write what she thinks is right. Everyone used EC and we signed up to Brainpop again as Fran and i started on GCSE Biology and we wanted some computer back up.

The GCSE thing has come about purely because everything up to that level seems insultingly simple and Fran is already bored by it. She’s keen to do more science and has gone passed the basics in KS2/3 type books, so a GCSE Revise type textbook is giving us access to a little more depth. I’ve not got the passion to make it up out of my head, nor even just follow up as things come up, so the book is a help.

We started on cells, plant and animal ones and then types of cell and how they work. It’s been interesting and well within what we can both manage. I daresay for now we’ll skip over 40% of it totally and only dabble in 20% of the rest but it gives us something to work at. She’s also loving Horrible Geography currently, which is offering lots of topics up.

Maddy and i have been reading about Cleopatra and finally agreeing that an Egypt project might actually be acceptable! Currently she is scavenging the house and finding the last few pennies to by this elf to add to her collection of fantasy creatures. She’s managed to find the best part of £7 (our haggled price) just lying around the house!

Anyway…. i think i might do the hospital visit in a separate post. This one has got long enough. Besides, i think it might be time to play Wii Mario Kart and make some lunch. I’ve got to be on hand later while some upgrades are put into BM - i’m very excited about them as they are going to make it much easier to do special offers etc. Right now every little would help; toys and crafts seem to be very slow all over just now and i need to pay the VAT man!

This morning i got 95% of the way through a 4 day blog post and my computer froze; over the weekend it did a couple of odd “dark immovable screen” moments, this morning it went for full lockdown. It could, i suppose, be that it was frankly sick of hearing me whinge and diss my children, but i suspect it is something more expensive. Like it’s overheating. Which. will. undoubtedly. be. expensive.

I shall return to dissing my children, only slightly less now, since judging by the agonising gripes in my abdomen, i’ve been a bit hormonal. Possibly my body is pretending we’re 9 years ago and i’m in early labour, but i think it’s probably just a mother******* of a period. Still, better that than going loopy again. I’ve been 4 days worth of hell to live with Probably should have got a clue yesterday, when i cried like a baby at the Cutty Sark going up in flames, although, i think that actually might be an event sad enough to warrant tears. I hate seeing things getting senselessly destroyed when they can’t be retrieved. It’s wasteful, it’s a loss and it makes me sad

So, we got home latish on Thursday and Fran went off to my parents the next morning for a long weekend away with them, her choice of birthday present, over and above any offers of presents from them Mind you, she got presents but i don’t think she realised she would. She had a ball anyway, went to play golf, looked at and planted flowers, stayed up late having grown up dinners and read books about the Children of the Clearances with my mum and talked about the Civil War and the War of the Roses.

Friday back at the ranch, however, was not going so well. Josie was being utterly awful, and me not much better. I’ve never seen a child of 2 hit, bite, scream at, thump, pull the hair of and generally be obnoxious to other children quite as unpleasantly as she was being, nevermind to me. She was dog tired, i think and probably missing Max by now, but aaaaargh. By the time Max arrived home, i was ready to have my teeth pulled for light relief Unfortunately, Max was only nipping home to collect Amelie before haring off to Exeter to collect Wembley tickets, leaving me with a highly tearful and overwrought Maddy and a Josie who was apparently on a mission to get herslef buried under the patio. Though, i did consider burying myself under the patio, just for peace.

We eventually sat down and watched a film, which Josie kicked me in the head for most of and then we put her to bed and Maddy and i sat and did this rather lovely little kit.

Which you’ll no doubt not be surprised to know is available at… da da daaaaa!

Saturday passed in a blur of ghastly behaviour and trying to avoid falling out; mainly unsuccessfully. Max and Amelie arrived home eventually… nough said. Don’t think i retained any patience with anyone really.

Sunday we took Maddy and Max to the station; Josie spent much of the rest of the day screaming at me because she didn’t get to go on a train. Fortunately for her/me, she fell asleep on me while i was lying on my bed trying to go into a coma. Amelie and i then entertained ourselves doing another kit together… this one…

In the end we went off and got Fran and collected the dented but not daunted Exeter fans from the station and some sort of order was restored.

Monday we all stayed at a distance from each other for a while but made it through normals etc okay. Then we all played and stuff for a bit and ended the day by reading about Tariq who inveded Spain. That was short and sweet but we had some fun looking at pictures of Gibraltar, discussing its history and looking at photos of the Alhambra palace. Maddy drew a great Muslim palace of her own, which i’d show you, but i’ve lost the camera, so much of recent events is on hold till it returns.

My favourite event of the day was darling Jax fitting a reporting system to BM, so now i can click buttons all over the place to see what’s going on!
Today everyone normalled again. Fran is obsessed with a set of books called Stardust and has read 4 of them in 2 days, while dressed in a new Pirates of the Caribbean dress and flashing pink trainers, maddy is obssed with maths and working through a KS1 revision book effortlessly not bad for a girl who has done no formal maths at all until now Amelie is enjoying writing and can read the word “no”; she has also, bizarrely, started mirror writing her name after writing it just fine for over a year. She even wrote a letter to a friend backwards yesterday. Most odd.

Josie has largely recovered; today she played very happily in the garden all afternoon with Playmobil and water; made us all laugh, after we’d stopped gulping with fright, by saying with full dramatic effect “i nearly drowneded!” to us all. A stark reminder for all of us though at a toddler could indeed fall into a small tub of water and drown without a nearly 9 year old big sister to pull her back out And i’m a bad mother because i let her bottom get burned

Favourite Fran quote of the day was “When i was in granny’s car we were listening to a piece of music called the Hallelujah Karaoke!”

Ah well.

This time 9 years ago i was starting to think about heading off to the maternity ward for a nice waterbirth and a few idyllic days breastfeeding my first child. Ho hum. Amazing what time can heal; it’s all forgotten now really. Such a long time ago. We were just talking tonight about how we used to look at the big kids at the Cleft Clinics and wonder if that little gappy baby on our lap would be okay and happy, and looking good and talking right and… and happy. And she is. And beautiful to boot.

9 tomorrow. Half way to grown up. Too old for MuddlePuddle. Just amazing

It doesn’t seem like 5 minutes since she was wearing the coat that Joey wore today….

“Actually….”

Where did she get this from? It is nearly as bad as Fran’s “sort-of-like ”

I very much hope the 2 HEing families whose experiences/options drive this post/thought process won’t mind me airing my thoughts. I won’t link to them, but they and doubtless plenty others, will know who i mean; i'’m sure they’ll understand my meandering are not in the least critical of their choices/possible choices and purely a open-air chewing over of what might be a crunch year for us here.

For a long time, i’ve aligned myself most closely with 2 people who HE, who i love dearly and whose children are some of my childrens favourite people. As a loosely threaded set of people, it has bonuses all the way through, mutually i think, for children, husbands and women in varying combinations. They are people who, as HEers and parents, i largely look up to and try to model myself on and i feel i’ve learned a lot from them both.

One set of children returned to school last year, another child looks like beginning imminently. And so it strikes me that perhaps the 9-10 year is something of a crunch year for HE, one which is seeing children go to school who i really didn’t think would, or parents turning to school who i didn’t expect to.

It’s got me thinking. We enter that crunch year, if it is that what it is, this year as Fran turns 9 in 5 months and if she wants to try school, it seems like Year 5 and 6 are the optimum time to do it. We live near a variety of village schools, it could be done without breaking my heart totally and in terms of her surgery agenda, it might be a good time.

I don’t want her, or any of them, to go to school, but my needs are only 1 in 6. I don’t think Max does either, though local friendships worry him at times, and as far as i know Fran is dead set against it. Neither set of news about friends has wavered her openly, though we’ve had a few talks of trying it at 14 in the past. Maddy used to say she’d go at 8 but doesn’t now, though she wants more friends, Amelie plays schools lots but her opinion of nursery was so poor that i can’t imagine school would be an improvement. And Josie is tiny, though she could (and might) go to playgroup and there is a Montessori nursery in the business park opposite.

So now i am thinking about what might begin to change over the next year that might make her want to give school a try and whether there is anything i can do to minimise any deficiencies in life that might make her think the grass is greener elsewhere. I can see the friends thing, but honestly i don’t know what you do about that; endless casual contacts don’t make close friends and a few good friends are worth the weight of a classroom of people you barely know and don’t get to know. Well, i think so, but then i’m biased because i thought the social aspect of school to be fairly pants and i can’t imagine going into Year 5 in a village, with a definite speech difference still current, is the best way of being absorbed into a friendship circle with ease. Chalet Schools do not exist.

Educationally we could have provided more over the last year, responded better. I know Fran would like to do more science hands on but i’ve got that in hand with a sub to Young Scientist Club and in reality i doubt the days of freely experimenting scientifically at school still exist. She does plenty of sport generally and a variety of clubs, music is underway, IT exists in plenty, art and craft in plenty, stories and reading time in plenty. Fran still relishes her playing time above all else and i imagine that missing her sisters and playing less would be a crucial factor in any choices she made.

Fran has had nearly 3 years now of having a certain amount of routine to our HE, something i don’t remotely regret. It doesn’t entirely come naturally to her or me but i do think it has given us a basis to work from, things that are done, levels of concentration that can be achieved. Almost without fail it normally improves our day to start it with a bit of concentration on something and the last 3 months have missed it badly. If she went into school now, with the exception of writing which she’d still struggle with, she’d be well up to speed, in as much as anyone as flighty and dizzy as she can be ever is I doubt she’d find herself needing much extra attention to keep up academically.

So i’m wondering… i’ve still not got as far as providing the “education i think my children should have;” even if i think we do okay. I’d love to do the full on classical thing, i think Fran would love it too actually. Our HE seems to be perfectly “as good as” the NC in terms of what is achieved in far less time, but actually i’d like it to be so much more, more value added, more fascinating, more connected and consistent so that if the lure of school does become greater for whatever reason, she feels some sort of regret about leaving behind something more meaty than she encounters at school. I’d *hate* the NC to be more interesting than home.

Of course, only time will tell. I’m not going to say “i’ll never send my children to school” as anything i say “never” to seems to happen within 6-12 months without fail, but i do feel like perhaps i need to be prepared for it to rear its head as an option sometime in the next year. I think it’s a measure of how my confidence has fallen that i can’t help wondering if we are next on the list. I know i’m a bit burned out, with 4 kids, HE and work, i know i could just think “argh, go on then, i can have a break then” and i know i’d just hate myself for it. Fran is just getting interesting, i’d hate her to leave me at home all day!

I’d be curious to know from a wider audience who have children now happily in school; if you look back, can you see any places where any dis-satisfaction, curiosity about school took root? And by the way, it isn’t that i want to stifle curiosity, it’s just if my children decide to go, i’d like it to be for positive reasons as opposed to because they want to plug a gap in their life. If you follow me.

And if you happen to be the 2 people who made me think all this over, could you go and reread my first paragraphs and not get mad at me

Know how you feel Debs!

Yesterday, having parcelled all weekend, i didn’t have a lot to do, so i was very much looking forward to spending time with the kids. But they shunned me for more interesting pursuits involving games, learning French, modelling, hama-ing, reading, emailing people (!) and a variety of other things. Not one to be left twiddlnig my thumbs, i made use of the time by doing stuff i can’t normally get done and we all runbbed along nicely. Everyone did normals which all went well; Fran has a Bond No Nonsense maths book that we got in Smiths and she is sailing effortlessly through the 9-10 year old level. I REALLY need something to stretch her problem solving skills, but for now i’ve settled on some verbal/non-verbal reasoning books. Suggestions welcome. Maddy continued with ETC2 and is really enjoying it; tonight she told me that learning to read is “exciting” Yesterday i got them to do the reading test on Joannas blog; Fran got a reading age of 9.2 years and maddy of 5.11 years. Given Maddy is a better reader now, with far less help, than Fran was at just under 7, i think that bodes fairly well so i’m not worried. (Joanna, thought you were away, will reply!)

I made some biscuits with Fran; hampered this slightly by not reading the ingredients before i started and so was lacking the egg, brown sugar and syrup that they required. So i substituted soya milk, honey and white sugar and they came out like delicious macaroons! Yum!

Today i did need to parcel but again everyone got on really well without me; Amelie is very into beads, Maddy is loving modelling and Fran spent the early morning making dinner, almost completely single-handledly. It was slow-cooker stew and she peeled and chopped the carrots and potatoes, added the meat, peeled the shallots, seasoned it and got it on the go all on her own. The only help i gave her was topping and tailing the shallots and opening a can of tomatoes. It was also completely delicious - what a result

Max managed to leave with my phone today, as well as his, i’ve melted my cash cards (don’t ask) and as i was about to leave for my counselling appt, i realised my keys were locked in the car. :wall: All of which meant i had to take £25 worth of cab with money i didn’t actually have in my pocket (argh) I had to go though, i really needed it this week. Very, very draining session this time, the hardest it has been. But probably the first time i’ve really got my teeth into myself too and been able to talk properly. Need to stop all this internal criticism of myself and start accepting that sometimes things just are and when they are that way they are truly sh*tty.

When i got back Aunty S’s daughter was here with her 3 month old, who oddly enough didn’t pull any of the strings that Ella did, perhaps cos she isn’t actually related to me and doesn’t look at all like any of mine ever did. Also handed over a load of baby toys and rather enjoyed seeing an old pair of our trackies on Mini-Violet too. Found myself offering some clothes for Baby-Flower that i’ve kept very close to my heart up to now. Sign of a shift in feelings? Or am i just in declutter mode…

This afternoon me and the girls sat on the sofa and had long read of a book called Our Earth, a question and answer book on the affect we are having on the planet. REALLY interesting and produced loads of talk and questions; Fran then did a SchoolExpress unit on “Damaged Planet” while Maddy looked at some activities. We’ve got plans for a big topic. When Moo and i went out later, she and i talked about Ethical Trading and Ethical Industry for the whole time; really fascinating.

Last news; Fran’s gap tooth, the little mis-shapen ingrowing one, came out, amid rather a lot of tears. Turns out she’s rather attached to it (buh-boom!) and didn’t want to give it to the tooth fairy; told her the tooth fairy didn’t have to come anymore, to which she hastily told me that she wants her to come for all but this tooth, but this one is special - but there was clearly a tugging issue (buh-boom!) which turned out to be the £1 causing all the tears. So in the interest of world peace, i paid her to keep the blimming tooth!!!!!

Motherhood, eh?

Fran had her first appointment with the cleft team in 2 1/2 years today. It was a really big deal for her and she got very overwhelmed by it; first thing this morning she positively howled in my arms over the whole thing, so much so that she was properly shaking and shivering. I feel bad because i obviously hadn’t prepared her well enough but she has been quite happy about it until today and usually loves it, so it was a bit of a shock. The meetings themselves were a lot to cope with for her, 9 people plus us in the room at one point and she was utterly silenced by it, something you don’t see very often! It is an awfully long time since she has huddled up on my lap
She also had to have 2 x-rays (”any chance you might be pregnant, mum?” FFS!!!!!!!!!!) which were major events for her too, one was a full facial, stand in this machine that will zoom round your head thing and the other was being alone in a room with a plate in her mouth.

Anyway, the end results of it all are pretty good. X-rays showed all her adult teeth to be there and plenty of them are in good places and the ones in the cleft are in the “right wrong places” - iyswim. Her little misshapen tooth is wobbly and it has it’s adult tooth behind it, which might have been missing, so this is a good stuff. She is clearly growing but the x-rays suggest nothing is fully formed yet, so we’ve been sent away until July when they will look again and possibly make plans for a first fixed brace that will open up her cleft a bit, ready for bone grafting. Seems odd to be making more space, but i guess they know what they are doing!!!!

So the plan is that her first fixed brace might be put in, in about a year but that her bone graft is unlikely to happen before she is 10, or even 11. Plenty of time for growth and getting bigger and more read for it. Some extra work might be done at the back of her mouth, depending on how good her speech is, at about 12/13 and nothing will be done to finally straighten her nose until she is 17, by which time she can choose it herself. Speech therapists were really pleased with her and overall, nothing sprung up to surprise us. Saw a dinky clefty 6 week old too, while we were there. So funny to be one of the big children in the queue. I remember looking at them and thinking we’d never get there.

And her surgeon flipped open his palmtop to show Fran this:

which is still the picture shown to each parent who discovers they are expecting a cleft baby. Such a fantastic thing to know that it makes such a difference to people to see that. Nothing we saw at the time compared to it. Even more fab to know that members of the team are now actively suggesting HE as a possibility to parents of cleft children who are having difficulties We’ve done something meaningful.

So anyway, one foot stepped back on the NHS treadmill, but a lucky let off again for a while.

Laughed though; Fran was carrying her x-ray tag back to the surgery and asked why it said NHS. I reminded her we’d been discussing free, tax-payer funded, care the other day and the reasons why children always got free treatment and she said “oh yes, i’m a National Trust patient!”

Middle two went to Hannah’s (thanks Hannah!) and had a lvoely time, then we all went off for lunch/pudding at Tesco - tried on some kid boots and found REALLY NICE ones in Brantano’s, which we will go back to get. Hurrah.

Home again for a chill, then i went to the doctors and got thoroughly told off for making a 30 day prescription last 40 days and found out the (not Peak Practice at all) reason for his absence. Gossiped with old neighbour a bit, came home, ate, kids all went to bed by 7pm. Eh?

Did remember that me, Ams and Maddy did do stuff together yesterday; we used some pattern block books i’ve borrowed from Sarah and had lots of fun with them.

Thanks Sarah