Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Post holiday blues and hormones all at once combining to make me feel like a heap of poo. I know its just that, but boy was today a candidate for the Heap of Poo Award.

However, as an aside, i will just add that the day was mainly saved by going to visit Tammy and Sam, which was, of course, lovely

I should list all the good things; Fran sitting down to do her normal unasked and working through them without being reminded to concentrate. That she worked for probably almost an hour in an applied and cheerful way. That she read to her sisters and stopped gamecubing when i asked her to.

That they went up and tidied them room when i asked.

That Maddy drew a series of pictures showing what each of us was doing at the time.

That Amelie asked to do “work” and sat colouring with us.

That they asked for healthy fillings to sandwiches, not chocolate spread.

That Fran put on a game for herself and scored 100% on all the logic puzzles.

That Josie is asleep on my bed after gorging on the same food as the others all day. Puree is behind me. I am an ex-puree feeder.

Didn’t stop me being grouchy and grumbly though, and tired to be honest, i felt almost pregnant tired after a bad night with Josie. She is taking the odd bit of formula from a bottle now, but she hates beakers and only tends to do it when she doesn’t notice that she is. I’ve weighed up the pros and cons and decided that on balance i’d rather give her some formula if she wakes at night and bf through the day than try to
do any sort of sleep training - i tried sleep training with Fran and it nearly broke us all. Formula seems a better option than pitiful nights of trying to ignore a weeping child. 4 children is too many to try and manage on a night broken up into 5 or 6 chunks. For me anyway, i’m not superwoman.

I’m now getting riled by an email thread again - i think i may have to leave this list as well. I dunno - i’ve really hated some medics for some of the stuff that has happened to me but i do find the “everyone in the entire medical profession wants to damage my birth experience” routine. I’ve had some crap care and some crap advice but i can’t take seriously people who just take offence at every single hospital protocol just because it is one. Grrr bah humbug.

Been reading round the blogring and faintly amused by the fact that everyone seems to be getting slightly more ‘formal’ for want of a better word when i am feeling somewhat ’sod it and see’ about the whole thing. I feel like i’m permanently at odds with what the current trend is!

Todays thought was that i could perhaps get Fran to choose one of our simple factual books each week, read it herself and then teach her to research the topic by using our personal library, then help her do a lapbook or something on it. We’ll see. Maddy just wants to do sums.

EDIT: Oh yes, we are following a trend actually, although we also aren’t. Max bought a board game of The Chronicles of Narnia at a boot fair while we were away but didn’t want to play it with them till they knew the story. So tonight, after a brief tussle with them as to why i was starting with the second book, we started The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Typically, fran then remembered we did in fact has a picture book of it, which i read her years ago but she took no interest in, but seems to be delighted to be getting the real thing anyway. I was delighted to be reading it too, some of my all time favourite books. If they like it, i may even do the curriculum thing, i looked at it and like it a lot a while back.

Just phoned ntl and said i was paying too much for my broadband and wanted to leave. Instant reduction from £25 to £10 a month. Bargain.

Also reduced our tv package to Basic, which saves £10 and only really loses us Dora; i’ll get her as dvd

Going to spend some time looking at all the places we can save and transfer the savings into an account, that way we can see some positive benefit for what we do without and hopefully it’ll prompt us to put more away towards a better future.

I started clearing out baby clothes today. Not something i’m going to find particularly easy i don’t think, today i didn’t even get as far as the really precious stuff and it made me cry. Even if i come to some kind of sad settlement within myself that number 5 will never happen, i think i am going to always regret it. The trick is going to be making sure regret doesn’t become resent. As such, finding ourselves a future we both feel excited and passionate about is probably essential.

We’ve had a quiet sort of a day, gradually getting back to normal. Fran had an urgent desire to buy some beanies in a sale, but was £1 short, so i made an agreement with her over a large pile of stuff to do, she did it, i paid the £1. Much delight. All the bits and bobs she worked at she did too as well, which pleased me, as we’ve not done any formal maths and very little written work for weeks and weeks. She seemed to be very much enjoying some place order work. After that she seemed to drift off toward Mario Party 5 - i’ll gloss over that i think, but plenty of reading in it anyway!

Maddy is back into full blown drawing mode and has produced hed loads of stories in picture form for me today - bodies have shape now and faces have expression; she is very good at drawing poses too, folded arms etc. Its great to see.

I managed to coax Ams into the bath without a full scale panic attack (bravo mummy) - foot is now much improved. Josie, who has suddnely turned her nose up at gunge in favour of things she can smear on herself, joined her.

Later in the day max sat with fran doing a KS2 English workbook from Sainsburys - those explore ones - they seem really good and she was very into doing nouns. Good to see she can keep up with that stuff already.

I’m on the 3rd Lemony Snicket book but the jury is out - they are a bit samey and the style annoys me somewhat. We’ll see. Josie has gone down to sleep reasonably early - she almost stood unaided today. I’ve Animal Crossing’d - must get to grips with the Island opportunities sometime soon.

Back to real life tomorrow. I shall miss Max.

Oh yes, i lost 4lbs while away - got me down into the next BMI number. Very pleased with that. 2 more stone and i’ll only be overweight!

I’ve started reading Lemony Snicket.

Saturday was a wind down day, pleasently spent, after Max and i had cleaned the house, in the company of the Clarkes. I’ve really enjoyed spending more time with Sarah, the kids seem to have reinforced some friendships. Max and Steve seem to have enough in common to get on too, always good. Eternally grateful to them for helping us out with the car (remember to ping me Sarah )

In the evening we drove out to Seaton and had fish and chips by the sea. Lovely. Always find it faintly amusing that most places we go Max can say “I used to go out with a girl from here.” Excellent chip shop too, worth a visit

On to Sunday; we managed to get awayat a decent time and met no traffic, mid bank holiday evidently a good time to travel. As we’d promised, we stopped at Stonehenge.

Managed to get half way through the carpark before Fran took it into her head to behave like a toddler and suddenly, without looking at all, darted out sideways to run round Max and apparently come back to wlak with me and Amelie. Only she REALLY didn’t look at all and had run out in front of a (mercifully slow) car, about 2 metres at most away. I screamed, he slammed on his breaks and she missed being dragged under the front wheel of a car by perhaps half a second. Not sure who was most horrified really, probably not Fran.

Slightly put a dampener on events.

Max and i sat up discussing future plans last night and both feel excited and enthusiastic about them.

I’m procrastinating about decluttering, can you tell?

We’ve had our “year off”, it was about this time last year that i decided that anything that got learned over the next year was a bonus. As such, its been a reasonably successful year but its not been a specially coherent year and i do like things to feel like they have some mildly applied order. There hasn’t been much orgo-planning gone on for quite a while.

I’m anticipating an imminent LEA call regarding Maddy, which doesn’t worry me unless they play the “dx’d therefore…” card, which still doesn’t worry me but might take more energy to fend off. I’m still not quite sure how things are going to pan out with her, she told Max very firmly yesterday that she is going to school when she is 8. Hm. That might cramp my style a bit but i don’t think either of us could justify saying no if we’d moved somewhere more appealing by then.

Fran and i didn’t get very far with our Harry Potter agreement, the holiday was just too exciting but it restarts today. I’m planning on re-instigating normals for her but they can be more interesting now that she can read so i may use some of the CGP books i have as jumping off points for her. She’s got plenty of ideas for things she wants to learn, its just finding the time to do them all! i don’t want to tie her down to the mundane but i’ve rapidly come to the conclusion that with 4 children, a certain amount of organisation is required. Spontaneity is all very well but i at least need to be in a receptive state to enjoy it.

The major things missing from our life at the moment are practical maths and science, both easily remedied with some thought and then art and music on some sort of meaningful level.

Maddy is still keen to do more on Egypt and likes her writing and drawing; plenty of keep her going there really and i plan to instigate a reading lesson with her every day, like Fran had. Maths and science are likely to be mainly for her benefit really.

Fran definitely has more of a history bent but i think with her reading being so much better now, i can leave her to inspire herself for a while. My plan with her is to encourage some writing and illustrating.

Amelie i’ll leave to nursery.

Josie is about to find herself getting weaned i think. All this thrashing about and pinching while feeding is doing my nut a bit. She sat and had tea with the others last night, she’s totally gone off gunge. Must think about weaning foods now she finally has the idea.

Now i’m off to create an ebay pile. We’re going to declutter.

Things (actual things, not people) i missed about Peterborough.

Wireless broadband all the time.

Um…. that’s it. Exit stategy here we come.

Its never good to be blogging at this time is it?

I’m hovering downstairs, being kept awake by my 3rd ankle injury of the week. Dunno what i’ve been doing to myself, but i fear i might have to put it down to being unused to hills. If you can call a slightly sloping tarmaced path a hill Yesterday i managed to step on the buggy wheel AGAIN and bring myself crashing down dramatically; unlike my previous attempt at this stunt, i’ve done myself a mischief and have a foot like a balloon. For sheer sick making pain, it was quite impressive. Even more impressive was that for the second time in a fortnight i’ve been stunned by the ability of the Great British Public to be able to walk past a mother and children sitting on the side of a road, mother sobbing in pain, children frighted and do absolutely nothing about it. What’s it going to be like to be old? How do we manage to be such an utterly rude and mindlessly uncaring country of people?

Round up of the last few days. Wednesday rained. Max needed a break from driving so we took trains along the coast to Paignton. Funny little town but a pleasant trip even so; kids enjoyed the ride and trains right by the sea are fun, if slightly scary! Found it took a surprising amount of courage to bf Josie in a cafe full of grumpy old men. Lol. Managed to end up chatting to the people opposite us on the train who lived in one of the next villages along from my parents!

Thursday started, after i’d parceled, with a trip to Killerton for Dragon Day with Sarah and co. It wasn’t quite as good as Pirate day but the kids seemed perfectly happy and we all had a nice time lunching, exploring and chatting. After that we took the girls out to Moretonhampstead carnival to throw 10p’s at people. I love that town, well i love all of it out there but i do feel at home in the town. I don’t know if its because i feel a connection to it through Max or whether it just appeals to me anyway but i can completely imagine living there. Its a strange thing to stand there and know many of the adults will have been at school with Max, strange to think that under different circumstances he could have grown up there and be married to someone without ever leaving.

The kids adored the carnival and the floats were lovely, i’ve got a few photos i think. By the time they had been transported home, covered in blue candifloss, they were happy as larry.

Which brings me on to yesterday, the day which has finally brought it home to me that i’m really, truly, utterly living the wrong life. First we took a trip out to Castle Drogo. I’ve never been before but Max and i just to walk the paths below it whenever we were down and would have again had i not managed to duff my ankle - its one thing i’m sorry not to have got round to, as Fingle Bridge is beautiful. I think i nearly cried as we walked up to the entrance and Fran looked at the up and coming events list and said wistfully “I wish we could live here, there is so much to see.” Fran has been utterly resistant to any idea of moving until now, she likes Pboro, so that was a bit of a clanging bell to me really. The castle was great, lots to see, could have spent ages more. Fran particularly liked the servant calling board as there was a Miss Frances on it (Yep, in your dreams, girl!)

After that we made a short visit to the only remaining Dartmoor bit of family Max has, his stepmother’s parents. Girls managed not to say they couldn’t remember who they were, (grateful for small mercies!) although Fran did recall the house and then it was on to the next main event of the day.

A while ago someone bought beads from me and through the course of an email exchange, it turned out she had been in Max’s school year, her husband in his brother’s and yes she did indeed remember him well. So we took a trip out to visit them. They are HEers too, also on MP. I was slightly nervous about how it would go as they professed to be shy, and Max is fairly shy too really; i tend to over-compensate in those circumstances and talk WAY too much and i really didn’t want to hijack the event. I’d kind of planned to keep myself to myself and play with the kids but by that point i couldn’t really walk so couldn’t hide away easily.

Well we needn’t have worried (and hopefully neither did they need to!) as it was a lovely visit, the kids all got on beautifully and their eldest managed to get Maddy almost riding a bike; we saw their pigs and ducks and hens and everything and had a completely lovely time. And what an idyllic life, somewhat different to a main road house with postage stamp garden and a 1/5 of an allotment I do love being able to find friends in any corner of the country thanks to MP

Edited to passworded area.

Finished up with tea with the TwoRedBoot’s; another excellent reason to move here How i’ve loved having friends i can walk to and friends that both of us feel really comfortable in the company of, never mind the kids Its been a lovely few weeks. Thank you Sarah and Roger and Ruth.

Catching up; life without broadband is occasionally complex but rather liberating

Yesterday had a different feel but was nonetheless pleasant. We pottered in the morning, took Fran and Abbie to the museum for a workshop in the pm (while Max took the others to do a museum box) and then went to Exmouth in the evening, to do beach stuff. Girls insisted on being in swimsuits at 8pm, as Flickr will testify! It was a lovely evening; Amelie had us in stitches because she stood in the middle of the sandcastle they built, organising the workforce, sorting out where she wanted walls and trenches and spotting weak spots. She’s definitely management material!

The visit to Exmouth had a remarkable effect too as earlier in the evening i had tripped coming down stairs, fallen the last two steps and ended up in the porch, in agony, with a rapidly ballooning and bruising foot. Max said his dad swore by the healing powers of Exmouth water so i stood in it and today the foot was virtually fixed

Maddy has been making us laugh too; in the pub on Sunday night she asked for a pudding. They don’t do puddings, we told her… “hmmmm…. they must do, because that spoon and fork is for puddings!” (Gotcha) Then yesterday i told her not to play with her food and she said “I’m not playing with my food, i’m playing with my fork.” (Okay, fair point.) She has had a couple of wobblies over sand in her clothes and something else sensory too but also loved the feeling of wind when she stood up on top of a rock the other day. She spread her arms and closed her arms and just melted into it.

Today started with what is essentially unbloggable because its not my history to share, but although the visit was a very intense and emotional experience, its was also a very precious and positive and i’m so glad we did it. I was very proud of my girls for how they handled a really quite grown up moment too. Not intentionally obtuse, i apologise to those reading, but i want to record the moment for myself and us.

After that we went to Grimspound a (not sure which actually but…) Iron or Stone or Bronze age settlement on the side of a hill. Max and i have been before and had a cup of tea in one of the stone houses; today we found that our prolific child creating years meant we had to move up from our previous Grimspound starter home to one of the larger family accommodation sizes Photos to follow! We had lunch in our little house before climbing the Tor above but were Letterbox unlucky.

Drove around a bit, visited Postbridge, another favourite, for afternoon tea then went off to Saddle Tor after a tip-off in a visitors centre. Saddle Tor did indeed turn out to be a Letterbox haven; all the girls managed to find several, most of which had been placed by children, and came home with about another 15 stamps in their pads. Its amazing how much fun you can have with a pen, an ink pad and a load of liberally sprinkled tupperware!

Fran is amazing us - she has suddenly turned into a voracious reader; still mainly simplish readers but she is just doing it constantly. I keep tripping over her walking along reading or brushing her teeth while reading. I bought her 3 new books yesterday and hse has cracked them already!

Yesterday was the kind of Saturday that could fill my life and i’d be perfectly and completely happy. We had a garden day, with 2 BBQ’s and a whole heap of people i love milling around. First of all BIL and SIl with their girls, then the Clarkes with their brood and a bit of Portico added in. Just delicious. Wish we’d got the photo of the 10 children shunning the sunshine and adults, all grouped around the gamecube.

In fact the only moment that went astray was Ammi managing to knock a glass off a table, which promptly shattered around her feet, splashing red wine up her legs. Absolutely terrified her but luckily Sarah was perfectly placed to whisk her out of danger and no harm was done. I took her off and changed her socks so she could see it wasn’t bloody and she recovered. Poor girl; i think she has a glass phobia firmly in place now

Girls are so happy to have Max back among us; made me laugh yesterday morning when Ammi came and climbed in with us, very grumpy, first thing and was utterly unimpressed to see Max there. Then she suddenly woke up and went mental. Girls have all been all over him all weekend

Today has been just heavenly. We made an early start and headed out to Dartmoor, which is the home of my heart really. We’ve got so much history there, Max grew up there, we spent out first few holidays together out there too. So from him i have his memories and i can remember feeling like i was properly getting to know him as he showed me his beautiful childhood landscape, we’ve got memories together, of holidays, walks, thunderstorms, climbing and camping and now we are beginning to overlay these with memories of bringing our children. Its an incredibly special place to us both.

Started out at Chagford, which delighted Fran as it has Civil War history. Chagford declared for the King, Mortonhampsted for parliament and there was a battle at Chagford. (There is a cottage in the square called Kings Arms Cottage) and Chagford had its own battle/skirmish. A soldier died in the pub (he may have been the only one who did actually) and is supposed to haunt it. Max’s Gran used to live in Chagford and he and i took her to some re-enactment once, girls loved hearing about that. Kids do love “pre-kids” stories about parents don’t they?!

After that we drove up to Kestor, home of the great Max-and-Merry-lost-in-fog-and-in-a-ten-hour-thunderstorm story. More tales for the girls and an excellent scramble about on the Tor looking for letterboxes. Found 2, kids completely hooked on this as an occupation and had a complete ball. Maddy took Dave with her so we have various photos of Dave finding letterboxes!

Picnicked among gorse bushes and then a drive across the moors, while the kids laughed at sheep on bridges. I’ve got some lovely photos; lovely as in good snaps as opposed to brilliant in the Chris Portico style of course Also saw a buzzard and two woodpeckers - they are so beautiful We finished off the day by finding a couple more boxes up at Hound Tor and then dinner in Chagford. Fran had the look on her face at being taken into a pub for dinner that i apparently get if Max makes me go in a bookies.

*Sigh* I love Scotland, I love Dartmoor, i love Yorkshire. I can’t help feeling Peterborough isn’t the place for me ….

Oh - and i was right, Max distinctly recalls being in that park as a dissolute teen drinking sherry out of a brown paper bag. I think i felt his presence!

Today’s main attraction (aside of course from the Portico) has been the trip to Killerton (how glad am i that i got NT member!) for their Pirate day.

What a fantastic afternoon - excellently done pirate trail which the kids (and i) adored and charged around like maniacs, hooting at all the silliness and talking in silly voices. Where Jack Sparrow was i have no idea, but only a bit disappointed! Girls loved their bandanas and i loved the fact that rather than the expected sweets, the treasure was a Black Parrot Tulip Bulb each, to plant, with a piece of paper telling them the history of the tulip and how valuable bulbs were. Brilliant, well done Killerton

There are photos on flickr from the day, its all a bit unedited there at the moment as my laptop isn’t brilliant for viewing them and i’ve only had brief snatches of broadband most of the week.

Girls conked out about 10, apart from Josie who is still going strong. That child is turning into the magical non-sleeping baby You’d think this weeks achievements of stair climbing and cruising would have worn her out