Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Today Max decided to teach Fran how to play Civ 2. Highly amusing, not least because she called all the towns by colours, “Pretty Pink”, “Pretty Purple” etc, Max is still playing this one now, very manly… The game also provoked the computer into saying “The Raymonds are Revolting” and inspired Fran to ask “I can’t read that, what does it say?” Ummmm…. “literacy…”

On the other hand its all quite educational and inspired interest in Marco Polo. Fortunately, i have a book on him ;~)

The rest of the day was good too. More geomags, 14 and 32 sided figures today, gorgeous shape dominos with Ammi and Maddy made me laugh. She built our (you have to look under wooden) new puppet theatre (without help, not bad considering it beat me and D for a while!) then set it up with a hollow geomag box around it so it was a television. Having done that she acted Shrek out for me and then drew a remote control on to a bit of wood so i could change channels!!!

There were various other pleasant things gonig on too. The HV came and weighed Josie who is now 11lb 3 - having been by far the biggest at birth, she is now nowhere near my biggest at 8 weeks, and Rowan who was 2lbs lighter at birth was the same by 8 weeks. So not sure what is going on there, do formula babies get heavier quicker? She seems happy enough anyway, certainly healthy although i have a sort of impression that she doesn’t feed as efficiently as Amelie, who is the only one i can really compare her too. However, virtually irrelevant really.

Max took the big 3 to the drop in again, Maddy’s boyfriend is there full time even in the holidays and was the only other kid there today. :~( Poor wotsit. Anyway, they had lots of fun with him. Josie and i had to go BACK into town on the bus, which was 45 minutes late then 3 appeared at once (again). Still marginally better than last weeks ride which was moreorless like going on The Knight Bus. terrifying was not the word. Although i did get the giggles when she pulled over and sat chatting on her mobile for 10 minutes while we all sat waiting for her to continue driving us. Got hacked off on todays bus by the bunch of thirteen year olds sitting clutching their newborns all moaning about how awful it had been to be in labour for 3 hours (do you know how f*cking lucky you are to have had the privilege?????) and how they couldn’t have a whole New Year’s Eve night out because their mum wouldn’t babysit. But i digress.

Anyway, people obliging wrote off my camera, M&S had no nice trousers for me, i can’t get the minute 1p coin sized piece for my ISIS breatpump i need in a shop which means i will have to pay £1.50 for it online and £3!!!!!!!!!!! postage. marvellous. Might just buy a new pump on ebay. *rolling eyes* Inadvertantly stocked up in Lakeland on Xmas bits. Even worse, bought new books in Waterstones, 3 Historical thingies i bought completely off the cuff woithout even looknig inside them and a couple more Big Read ones. I got to 56 this year. I’m really pleased with myself.

Tonight the girls and i finished the Edward Lear section of The Works 3, read the kangaroo Just So story and a bit more Enchanted Wood. Its taken ages to get through the most recent CM “week” because we have padded out with lots of other things, still really enjoying it though. ((That’s me being “flexible”!!!!!)

Do you remember last year the blogring had a flurry of new year activity. Wonder if it will happen again?

Man, i could get used to this “two parents at home ” malarky. I’ve hardly seen them. (Which is only pleasant for a change, but still!) I got a lie in, followed by time to do the quantity of parcels i’ve accumulated in the week since last posting date, played on ebay a bit, sold a load of beads, then Max took them out to Maddy’s nursery for a drop in day. Josie is doing Day 3 of the eating/wailing/sleeping cycle, so i’ve hardly seen her either!

I did play Connect4 with Fran for a while, that girl is really NOT a forward thinking strategist!!! :~D I think some more engineering and Cluedo went on and i’ve just got them Junior Monopoly with a TRU voucher so we can try that tomorrow.

Edit to add: Josie just took her first EBM from a bottle, something Amelie would never do. So that is good. I’ve no desire to give her formula but it would be nice to express and have bottles available. I think, for me, that will keep me feeding her longer. Oh yes, couple of milestones… i did finally bath her, when she hit 6 weeks (gulp!) and she is now is 3-6 month babygrows. She is HUGE! Still got grey eyes, very spotty this week and lots of blonde hair growing through, including blonde eyelashes and my single pigmentless eyelash in the middle of one side.

Max and i have been debating Maddy and Amelie a bit; i think his “jury” is still just slightly out on whether Maddy ought to go to school, not because he thinks it would be good for her so much as that she loves the environment and is going to miss it. But i’m convinced that it would destroy her, not to mention wreck life for the rest of us. I think Amelie might possibly go to playgroup when she reaches “nursery” age (so nearly a year yet) but i wouldn’t do what Maddy has had again. If she does go it will be for something more flexible.

Hmmm.. what shall we read for bedtime tonight? It ended up being more Edward Lear (The Jumblies again and The Owl and the Pussy Cat and The Inchcape Rock and the start of The Enchanted Wood.) Fran wants to learn to recite The Jumblies.

Because i (and i assume a vast quantity of other people) spotted the link between eating disorders and dancing rather a long time ago. However, its nice to see that schools will be adhering to MY history teaching methods in future. Gods… and they think home edders need monitoring.

Couple of photos.

My mum with Josie and a very asleep Amelie.

My dad with Josie and Rowan.

Today worked very well, especially for me as i virtually got the day off. First of all i took Maddy out and we bought her her own cupboard for “her things” as Fran has possession of the built in one in their room. When we moved here Fran had had her own room so really needed a place for all her possessions but this year Maddy has turned into a girl with “precious things” too and had been squirrelling them in her bunk. Now she has a nice solid pine thingy for them. She is very pleased.

The rest of the day they mostly spent with Max. First they made a start on the Family tree, thinking it all through and Fran wrote all the labels.

Who do you think you are?

The bare bones.

Then Max started building a scale model of a internal combustion engine that my dad got him. Incredibly thoughtful present, how Max is that?!?! So while i reposed in front of the pooter, the girls were learning about pistons and camshafts. And after that he played Junior Cluedo with them.

Who stole the chocolate cake?

Finished off with Shrek 2, with Amelie in character again…

and then ended the day with a load of Edward Lear poems (The Jumblies!) and the rest of that Naughty Little Sister. I’m not convinced she is all that naughty really… or perhaps my tolerance levels have been forced upwards!!!

But i do think that when massive disasters happen, you can’t help thinking about it. Last night i was watching the news and theBBC had emails going across the bottom, from people who had heard that everyone in certain hotels were safe and well. So much news is bad these days, so much is about cruelty and violence, its so moving to see that actually the vast majority of people can think about others and can impart their news to try and bring relief to other people waiting too. A sort of massive version of an email list type of response, we all do the sympathy and support thing in our tiny communities and i was struck by the fact that most people will do the same for people they don’t know and never will know. This BBC page shows a similar thing.

I don’t know why i clicked on the link to Phuket Hospital last night, it was a bit macabre to do so i suppose, but my computer wouldn’t load the page. There were too many names on the list from just one hospital for it to cope with.

Its horrifying the way things like this just “happen.” Max’s brother and his whole family are in Australia this week and you can’t help but think “there but for the grace of god” really. My brother has geologist graduate friends all over the world now, its inconceivable that he won’t know someone who is there. His girlfriend was in Africa only a few weeks ago.

Hoping everyone who needs to gets news soon.

Okay, i think Maddy has had enough of Christmas. One more day would have done her in i think, but she made it through. Much better than last year and a full scale pat on the back to all of us for it i think. Today she required a bit of quiet time with Max practising magic tricks and a long dvd moment to hold it together, but she did it.

But anyway, the day was nice. More Geomags (drooling on ebay at the moment and trying to decide whether to take the plunge with some Xmas money with the german sellers.) The Mum, Dad, G, D and Rowan arrived and the day turned into lovely presents, lovely game playing etc etc. Rowan is a cutey, she and Josie are somehow very alike and utterly different.

Mum and Dad had got them lovely gifts from Hawkins Bazaar which went down a treat, a box each with little dressable dolls in them, backpacks filled with stocking fillers, a fab paint and craft factory in a divided carry box, magnets, a princess kit in a box for Maddy, well timed as she had sat on her tiara that morning and cried. All very lovely and appreciated. G got them Junior Cluedo, Kerplunk and Connect 4. A jolly decent haul ;~) Oh and a gorgeous little table top puppet theatre. (I think that one was for me!)

Max managed to slip down stairs and grate his finger top today so is feeling a bit beaten up. I’m off to bed to enjoy my alarm clock cube that glows a different colour for every hour! Easily pleased…

Can i go to bed now? ;~)

Couldn’t give it internal structure though, it wouldn’t fit. Still trying to suss the one in the book that seems to be grown outwards from 14 stems on one ball.

Excellent, one of those “year 2″ topics covered effortlessly on Boxing Day :~) You’ll have to excuse me ethusing about this but it will make a perfect “liftable topic” for next years Educational Report. Enchanted Learning have quite a good page for this but i really must do it on mP too - they would look lovely done in Geomags!

Suddenly she gets it!

While i was feeding Josie today, Fran sat next to me at their little table and after a bit of persuasion, started to make some shapes. Suddenly it turned into “one of those moments.

Triangle based pyramid.

Square based pyramid.


Cube.

12 sides Dodecahedron (i think!)

Culmination of considerable effort!

She’s still at it and Maddy joined in too and learned how to make the spinning shape i had made yesterday. Maddy was particularly fascinated with how the spheres could spin while attached and which were moving and which were still. She questioned Max for ages on it.

Meanwhile Ammi played with a set on the floor, but she was inventing a Postman Pat game with them! ;~)

Its lovely when a plan comes together!

And thank you very, very much for the beautiful Christmas decorations we were sent. We all loved them and the girls have hung them all over the house. They will be treasured for years.

You know who you are :~) Which is, of course, more than i do!

Was lovely, from start to finish. And i just want to say it, for the day in the future when the girls read this, that i’m really proud of them. They spent the day being delighted with everything, delightfdul to each other, pacing themselves, not demanding more andm ore and more and, especially in Fran’s case, being extremely grown up about the inbalances of parcel numbers. I was very proud of Fran for this because she had less to open due to having asked for considerably more expensive things, like the Geomags. She carried herself like a real grown up through that.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from arriving in my6 room at 2am asking if it was time to get up! But we managed to hold off till about 8.30 in the end and opened pressies gradually through the day. Because we hadn’t gone mad on “stuff” they really played with and enjoyed everything. Anyone who loves Geomags, but doesn’t yet have “panels”, you need them!

Cinders… you SHALL go to the ball!

Magical, magical… best £5 ever spent!

I’ve got a gorgeous memory of Maddy in black catsuit, black and red cape and cowboy hat with her wand but sadly the photo is impossibly blurry. MUST get camera fixed.

Amelie method acting.

Cinderella, before you Do go to the ball, could you just do the sprouts?

Sisters playing, a re-establishment of relations i think.

This was a lovely game. Amelie got Dora lego and played with it all day almost to the exclusion of opening anything else. However she and Maddy spent ages on a game with Dora and Erica the Pauper Barbies, or “Barbie Prawprer” as Amelie calls her. Ams got her first Barbie (sigh) a pink Fairytopia one… its going to be pink here for years isn’t it?!?!?!

More sisters… aaaaaah.

Josie is snuffly and coldy, poor girl. In fact, it sounds like a doctors surgery around here!

So, the costumes, the Geomags, the lego, the magic set. All a big success. And currently they are making necklaces from Letterland stocking fillers and doing fuzzy felt - scaling down has been a big success. Not honestly, that we spent much less than other years, but we chose more carefully. They went to sleep listening to Alice last night so those have been a big hit.

I can’t decide if i’m amused or horrified by the pastel coloured Geomags - a shameless marketing ploy to produce a “girlified” version of something construction. However, i succumbed to the marketing ploy regardless. They are pretty….

Mammoth photo blog tonight. But before i say anything else, can Joyce please stand up and take responsibility for the hole in my bank balance, thanks to her mention of Lakeland and craft materials in the same sentence… drool… i’m going back in the sales to stock up for next Christmas.

Its been a lovely day - i got the first of the scrapbooks done and was fairly pleased - here is a couple of page examples. Twee, but good for a Great Gran.

and…

Like i say, not bad. Chris’s photo of Josie featured for the last page. I love that photo.

I had to leggit out for more things this morning. Tescos was deserted, so was Toys r Us. Bizarre. Didn’t manage to get Maddy a cowgirl outfit, my only failure really.

When we came home Great Gran and Auntie Sue were here, with lovely pressies for them, 3 Hans Christian Anderson videos (lovely), a lunch box full of stickers for Moo, a beautiful and very grown up top and ear-ring stickers for Fran and a bizarre snake torch for Ammi that she calls a dragon but adores.

Showing off ear-rings and looking big.

Was nice talking to Gran today- Max really wants to do a family tree with the girls to help piece together the history and placing of his family for them. They are all very curious about his mum, not having ever been able to meet her and i think it would mean a lot to do it. I feel strangely glad that Josie has grey eyes, they must be a mixture of her genes and mine and its somehow special to have a bond through that, with a person i can’t ever know. Anyway, we have family history plans for next week.

The afternoon has been taken up with glittering…

Brave Max…

Engrossed.

Seriously busy.

Sparkly - and rather good.

Here is our nativity scene, just in case it doesn’t last another year.

I’m sure its Jonathan S. playing Joseph.

My “alternative” Christmas tree for their room.

After the glitter we went to the Crib Service at the local church which was lovely. We went with Kate and S and they all behaved really well. It was lovely to do, its important to me they know its not purely a festival of “take take take” but that its about kindness, thoughtfulness and change for the better. I love that they embrace the story but i know i have to leave that bit to them. What matters to me is that they should know they had the choice and support to accept Christianity if they choose to do so. I can’t offer them more than that really.

Once we got home, aside from the Birth Story from our Usborne Bible, we went secular. Picky tea all together, the Tracking Santa site from Norad and then Twas the Night before Christmas as a bedtime story. They’ve gone off to bed pretty calmly too, having helped to wrap pressies for Daddy and each other and put their stocking out for Santa under the fireplace downstairs. With carrots, naturally. Last year the Reindeer got Sprouts!

A very Happy Christmas everyone!

Lol - how many times have i done final shops now? Back into town today for more bits and bobs, but i’m pretty much there now. Its only relatives anyway, somehow i forgot them all!

Today has been festive TV day- Tikkabilla Nativity, The Snow Queen, Aladdin - all good fun anyway. Amelie conked out before 6 - she is full of cold but the others are okay. Maddy’s lips are all chapped and her mouth looks twice the size. The other thing that caused great hilarity was the first present which got unwrapped today. Max had bought The Alley Cats from ebay, which we both had as kids and he played it with all three big girls very successfully.

I’m now making the scrapbooks with more success but annoyingly i gave the back of my hand a whack on the dresser corner and i swear i have broken it. Its all seized up and hurtsa like hell. Great - just when i need full hand mobility for the books.

Feeling a bit more upbeat anyway. Oh yes and how weird, Fran has a big tooth all poked through behind her baby ones - it seems fairly straight (although its a bottom one which ought not to be seriously cleft affected) but its dead odd to see it there when the others are still in. She is SO excited! Mixed feelings from me really, on one hand its exciting, on another its a bit scary, on another (3 hands!) it signals the start of the next batch of cleft issues which is going to be tough on her. Not really totally got my head around the fact that her top teeth won’t come through normally if i am honest. I’m so used to her and now she’ll be different but still “different” iyswim?

Tonight we read a load more stuff - Jabberwocky AGAIN - they love that and tonight they heard it with eyes closed and then described their image to me, plus a load of others from the Lewis Carroll section of The Works 3, then Mary and the Angel, then My Naughty Little Sister goes to School.