Suddenly, without warning, she pulled out a….
You know, i have no idea what happened to the end of that blog post. Now i think about it, i have no recollection of actually writing it, which means i must have got distracted and just given up. 
Anyway, what we actually did was pull all the books off the shelves that we thought would have a bearing on the project, then draw up a chart and try to fill each subject area with as many thoughts and ideas as we could. We did really well and now have a nice full sheet with more than we’d get done in a year, i would imagine!!! After some deliberation, we ended up deciding to just start at the Arctic and see where that took us.So they all had a good leaf through the books and used them as starting points and between them they cooked up 10 interesting things about the Arctic; good reference book use anyway. Can’t remember why but we were all flagging by then so we sat down to watch Planet Earth: Pole to Pole.
Monday we headed off to The Portico for a thoroughly lovely few days; never fails to amaze me how well those children get on. Good thing really, as it would be irritating if they didn’t! This time there seemed to be a greater split between oldest 4 and youngest 4 than i’ve noticed before, with the bigger 4 girls spending more time together. Plenty of overlap too though, they do all seem to enjoy each other 
Josie is now completely assimilated and i barely saw her at all. She didn’t even sleep with me, because she wanted to be with the ‘big childrens.’ Sigh. I had a lovely trip into town with V and G, which was great and really funny. I love that the kids of other families we know feel like friends to me, but it seems even more so suddenly with those 2. V and i shared a room and i felt slightly like i was in a dorm! I think one of my favourite things about HE and the people i have come into contact with, is that it has taught me to value individuals for who they are, and none more so than children. I often find it is hard to shake off the trappings of my own childhood but i’m really glad that the adult/child barrier is one i feel i’ve pretty much knocked on the head. It pleases me in many ways, not least that i feel my children have a wide range of other brother/sister type people they know well and trust and can be such a positive peer group but also because of the pool of parents they can trust and feel loved by too. I really hope that if any of them ever face trouble that seems to be too awful to tell a parent, they’ll have someone they can confide in.
We did Maddy’s Birthday Part 1 at the Portico early in the morning, with 1 present (a box of Hawkins Bazaar surprises) and then another (blue goggles, sourced by Alison and the 5’s out on a secret mission to the pool) and a teeny weeny cake with a candle. Then we headed off to Claire and Charlie. I’m convinced i followed the map but somehow the signs to the road i had intended all disappeared and i ended up on a different, but equally enjoyable, road to Oxford. I was never lost, just ‘misplaced’ and i was fairly pleased with myself for getting where i needed. I was quite glad when the M40 signs appeared though as by then i had recognised the road and knew i HAD got very lost around it once before! However, made it there safely and played, gossiped and filled up air pillows. Maddy was overjoyed to get the Phoenix and Elf she had been coveting, so that was good.
Made it home in decent time and pretty much met Max and S on the doorstep, so we all poured in for a relaxed afternoon of crafting, computing, presents and playing. S gave Maddy a gorgeous watch, which she has barely taken off and Moo was also delighted with a Pokemon Pearl game, book and ds case. I’d bought her the Pokemon Diamond case as it was blue but was worried that not having a matching game and case might bother her, but she was quite happy. In the evening we had a lovely birthday tea and a cake with Hawkins candles that flame in coloured flame! So all in all, went well.
Had the hall ways painted while we were away, in a beautiful heritage cream and then the door wall and the wall under the skylight in olive. It looks stunning, but does now make everywhere else look rather mucky. Need to get it all more furnished with pics and things now.
Yesterday i worked in the morning, we all went to see Bee Movie in the afternoon (i liked it) and the kids had Rainbows/Brownies. School has now reared it’s head again after talking to a friend there. Fran seems to have decided against, Amelie is determined to never go (something to do with cutting out Buttercup visiting time!) but Maddy wants to try. This presents a real problem for me as i’ve seen another girl who is very similar tumble in mental wellbeing since she began school and i really feel, out of all of them, that she is the one i don’t want to go. I can see what the positives would be, but i think in the end we would be left clearing up the fall out. She finds it so hard to communicate problems and stress and i just don’t know what to do for the best. It’s a rock and a hard place really; i can see no benefits for her except a certain amount of social interaction, but i can see lots of massive worries. She cracks so quickly.
This leaves me with the old Amelie-nursery dilemma again. I don’t want to project my anxieties on to her but i can’t decide whether i should be the parent type who lets her choose, or the parent type who says “i feel this is best for you so no.”
As a compromise, i’m considering going to visit a school in a village up the road, possibly on my own to start with. I’m not prepared to do large schools for her, but i have heard this one is small and that ‘might’ be okay. It’s difficult; we always said she could go at 8, but now i just don’t know what is best.
Tags: friends, visiting, portico, maddy, school, birthdays, film, arctic
