Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

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

“I not grumpy, i just Josie.”

…she’s going through the “okaaaaaaay…” phase

Oh, she also likes to come and tell me that various of her sisters are “noying” her And i guess it would surprise no one to know that she stopped going to the door naked roughly the week that the complaint got made (STILL about that!)

In general i liked the nursery very much and particularly liked the girl who showed us round. It has a pleasant feel to it, they seem quite switched on to the fact that the flipping Foundation Stage is far from the be all and end all of life and very responsive to the kids needs. I believed the atmosphere a good bit more than i believed the one of Fran’s old private nursery - and i liked the fact that many of the staff were my age, not fresh out of college.

I also grinned quite a bit when she noticedthat Josie, having largely turned her nose up at the toddler room, got stuck straight in to the pre-school room. Though they have to be careful because of the funding arrangements, there are opportunities for swap over, so hopefully Josie will get to spend time in there and would be there permanently by the time she was 3 . There were other reasons for her being less sure of the toddler room too, like that we saw it first and lots of the little ones came over to see her straightaway.

Amelie is itching to go. They can take her for nearly 18 months,should she choose to do it and she’ll get vouchers for that too. The Montessori Directress does mornings and Amelie made a beeline straight for that area and got fascinated by it. We’re arranging for them to do some settling in days between now and Melrose and then start straight after. Josie will do one medium sized day, Amelie will go as often as she and vouchers can be made to work. I expect that will end up being one extra morning or something but we’ll see.

So, unexpectedly we’re back into Early Years Provision again, after me swearing i was done with it. I suspect it will be a good thing though,for all concerned.

… that considering Josie walks around naked all day, i haven’t stood in a puddle for a long time. I think she must be using the toilet!!!!
(I’m such a bad mother… honestly!)

“It’s another Puddle girl!” is how she was announced on HEMUK; not sure she had a name at that point though

And now she is 2; no more children whose ages are counted in months here, everyone is on their way to being a big girl. And Josie, you’ve cornered the market in cuteness for me, cheeky monkey-rascal-minx girl!

Happy Birthday Smallest - enjoy your day. You might want to work on sharpening your elbows though, because i think your sisters and cousins have their eyes on your new kitchen.

All of which Josie has now mastered

“I’m hungry”
“I want biscuit”
“I want cake”
(Wonder who she takes after here???)

“I want this milk mummy” (with appropriate pointing )

“I’m naked” (???????)