Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Resorting to bribery and corruption!

I’m officially sick of Moo pooing in a nappy and have rebelled - so we have some special sweeties and are bribing her to sit on the loo. She hasn’t managed it yet but i am hopeful. I feel really mean but this “It doesn’t work” thing has to stop. Its just not reasonable to be this anally retentive (literally!)

Anyway. Chilled today as everyone seemed to need it. Tidied up together this morning and then went to Macdonalds for lunch and a good play in the softplay area. Then did a bit of storage shopping in preparation for tackling their room tomorrow.

Everyone was in bed and asleep by 7.30!!!!

Had a bizarre meeting today while watching the kids play. Got chatting to a lady about this and that - asked what school her kids go to - and it was the one at the end of the road we live on. Turns out her dh runs our paper shop (max has mentioned he is a nice chap several times!) they live round the corner and i live right on top of a working city farm with a fab playgroup and loads and loads of kids activities! rofl - and i didn’t know this HOW???????

Wah!!!!!!!

I’ve been die-ing my hair for years, because i don’t really like its non-descript colour, but as i was pregnant i thoguht i would give it a miss - except that i have just pulled back the top layer and a good 40 per cent (happy chris!) of it is now GREY!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t care what the with woman, earth mother approach should be, i’m off to tescos for a big bottle of something!!!! NOW!

Snip snip!

Peter had his op - i thought he was just having his tubes snipped, i didn’t realise pieces were coming off!!!!! *gulp!* Still, he seems in good spirits considering. Fran is cross cos she wanted baby bunnies - i suggested when she actually looks after her own pets might be a better time to start breeding them!

Otherwise, went to Activity World, a soft play area for a climb about. This place always annoys me as they charge £3 per child and a £1 for the accompanying adult!?!?!?! Apparently because there are pinball machines and stuff to play on. Bloody cheek. Its not like they are free even if i used them! Consequently we don’t go often.

Everyone has been tired and weepy all day - Moo had an awful nursery session and apparently had lots of tears and stress and upset - very unusual. She was cuddled up to her keyworker when i arrived.

Ended up yelling about a messy room. Sigh.

Sleepy now

Feel really washed out now - not sure if its a reaction to fright, the several pints of blood they drained from my arm or the fact that our normal mp group venue was chained shut when we arrived so the whole group came back to my house! Which was reaslly good and the kids all had a lovely time - we did cress, sunflowers, beans, pulse pictures, sewing and all sorts and lots of fun was had. Everyone got on very well and Moo took a big fancy to a little boy called Sam (I’m going to have to watch her!) Was very chuffed to come down this morning and find Moo sat at the table reading out loud from one of the Bob books - made me feel very happy!

Its just struck me its Ammi’s birthday next weekend - better get organised!

Quite amused by an incident at the mat unit; i was smiling at a very new small and this midwife gave me a patronising look and said “you’ll have your own soon enough dear” - her face when i said this was my 4th!!!! lol!

Phew.

Just discovered how much i want this baby. Went for my booking visit at the mat unit, no heartbeat to be heard in several minutes of hunting - thank goodness for a hasty scan and all is fine :~) I’ve never had that happen before, although i am sure its perfectly common at 15 weeks but it was a bit of a shock and really brought it home to me that i do want another baby, even if i haven’t thought about it much yet.

I’ve got a better scan photo to put up later now.

Shock must have been all too much as i then proceeded to conk out during my blood tests! Luckily i was already lying down. Jeez I’m a wimp!

Was quite amused to discover that all the “must get c/s rates down” news stories of today meant that my inclination not to book an elective section met with warm approval - WELL!!! That makes a nice change!!!!!

Nothing to report!!!

Well except Ammi can now say “Daddy’s home!” and did an exceptionally cute rendition of Dora’s “We did it!!!” song today, wearing backpack and doing the dance, the high five, the jump and the “yeah!!!!” - unbearably cute!!!!

Moo played with numbers, as it were, with a numbers pegboard, making up long and impossible sums and reading them out to me. Everyone tried out some Tupperware stencils i found in a drawer!

Fran played all day, Moo was happy, Ammi was lovely.

The sunflowers shooted.. shot.. um… grew!

Oh yes - i had a random conversation in Tesco’s carpark yesterday with a lady with 6 kids who is “Christian Brethren” (headscarf things) - she was very nice and let me investigate her “Caravelle” - NOW that is a BIG car!

Okay… i think i am nearly ready

Finally, after a year of not wanting to invite anyone to my ex-hovel - i feel i can bear to invite people to visit.

So - if you would like to - do!

Shame the weather is going to change really.

The girls are just loving the garden - they played on the patio all morning and were so happy i forgot about nursery and Moo was the great unwashed outside! Oops! They have a little pop up tent and its been the hit of the week so far.

I continued on the theme of relaxing about reading with Fran and Moo and i sat down with the Bob books again. She read through the first three with almost no help. I did notice Fran hovering and she tried to interupt once or twice but i asked her to let us have some reading time. After she went out i had a brief phone call about becoming local eo contact (gulp!) and when i got off i found Fran sat with the books, making her way through as many as she could manage. We did play word blocks and that went okay - she does make me laugh with all her random guesses when she gets bored though! She did manage to sound out some -an endings from scratch though so that was good and wrote them nicely into a notebook.

We set our avocado up in the window so we shall see how that goes and also planted radishes and onions.

Fran played on the cd-rom of “Green Eggs and Ham” a new one i got cheap from Joyce and was really pleased with it - seemed to be reading a fair bit of it too and they all played a lot of games with a box of coins. Then after we picked up Moo we went to Tesco’s (emits large sigh) and got stressed looking ofr basic provisions and a shirt for Max while hungry. The net effect of which was a new pair of maternitry trousers for me, new dresses for the girls, some Strawberry Shortcake dolls and doughnuts! lol!

Max was out this evening so i have been chief cook, bottle washer and referree! Consequently feeling slightly more ARGHish than normal!

Photos of Experiments

Colouring Flowers to show water being drawn through the Stem.

Day 5

This seems to have worked really well this time (short stems and lots of colouring seem to be the answer). The girls seem to have really grasped the idea of why we did it too.

Growing beans in different conditions.

Day 6

Left - light no water
Middle - light and water (has root and shoot)
Right - water and no light ( has root)

Again, everyone seems to have grasped this.

Sunflowers

Work in progress! Moo on the left, Fran on the right.

Cress
Day 6

The “lots together” seems to be doing better. Answers on a postcard please….

The Avocado
…has had slightly too long in the airing cupboard - we shall be rescuing him shortly!

A room with no view!

My greatest accomplishment today has definitely been curtains. I pootled off to homebase for something else (a doorbell!) and decided to have a quick look in the curtain section. I was not hopefull as i needed a minimum of 2 pairs each, cheap and one had to be red or similar and one purple or similar. WELL!!!! Talk about meant to be! There in the reduced section were two pairs of purple of exactly the right length and 2 pairs of red of the right length! And they were the only lengths with 2 pairs left of anything! AND they were £10 and £25 a pair. BARGAIN!!!!! So now we have curtains and feel all moved in :~) I also spent a lot of the day tidying up the last remaining boxes full of “misc” bits and the playroom/office/sitting room is now mainly sorted out. All the shelves that used to have all the monte stuff on them are there and have their baskets back (i just need to find the actual stuff!) and i feel pretty well organised. This weeks task will be getting the girls room set up i think.

Girls played together in the garden all day really - no tv, no fuss (no clothes!) and had a lovely time. I cannot believe how much happier they are here.

Will do photos of the experiments tomorrow with them.

Vrmmmmmmm…..

Completely fab day today at Silverstone at a classic car meet - not exactly my preferred choice of day out but Max loves them. It was the first time for the girls and they had a ball - they were SHRIEKING with excitement!!!!!!

Moo was very into all the cars and held Grandads hand round all the paddocks and Ammi spent the day yelling “CAR!!!! CAR!!!!!!” (TEENY WEENY bit tedious after 6 hours but still!) As usual i managed to provoke a car bursting into flames right in front of me - once it was a very dramatic flame covered roll through the air and a man lost his arm!(he still races though!) - so this was fairly minor by my standards. Max says he only ever sees dramatics when i am there and can’t understand how they always happen right in front of us! lol….

It was boiling hot and we have all got a bit toasted but still. I’m really glad i went, it was great to see the girls be so fab - they can entertain themselves beautifully - they ran up and down a bank all day really, then we stopped at a wacky warehouse for tea and they played and they are still bouncing about upstairs now…

Forgot to say yesterday that Moo has a boyfriend - she and Buffy’s youngest were walking around holding hands yesterday and when i asked her about him she went all bashful! (Thanks to Buffys dh for sidling up to me and mentioning that Moo, with a very short dress on, had omitted to include knickers in her dressing routine!!!) Buffy, I’m wearing blue at the wedding okay?