Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

I’m starting to think that waiting till i can backdate myself is probably silly, so i’ll give up and do a very quick one!

After my busiest ever weekend on BM again, we finally got away to Devon for a few days. Managed to spend some time with Sarah and co, albeit briefly as we always seem to jet into Devon just as they jet out and then had 3 lovely days out on Dartmoor climbing tors (Kestor, Hay Tor, Mis Tor to name just 3 and some others we didn’t really know the names of, plus the inevitable Moreton Carnival trip, a visit to Widecombe and Chagford, exploring old favourite haunts and regaling the children with “when we were first together” and “before you were born” stories. Really cross though as forgot to take the number of our Dartmoor friends and i don’t know them well enough to just descend… ho hum.

I got a fab Gelert rucksack, just what i’ve been looking for, in one of Chagford’s famous hardware shops (i love them, they sell everything and in a so much more interesting way than Tesco) for £8, and the kids had a ball. We didn’t get the pushchair out once and Josie climbed the tors all on her own and refused help (”I not like it hand”) for almost every climb. We did a bit of high altitude breastfeeding too

I didn’t take many photos, but what i took i shall flickr…. i made them all laugh by insisting on taking a photo of a gate cos i want to make a Fimo model of it!

Saturday we spent with Max’s brother and family and had a great time; many games, much late night silliness, lots of talking and wine drinking and a nice walk in Danes Wood on Sunday morning (i think that is how it is spelt.) Home then to MORE parcels and a very pleasant Monday, which now utterly escapes me but just seemed to consist of us all doing our own thing very harmoniously. I think Max played a Narnia board game with them and i sorted out clothes.

Tuesday i packed parcels for a lot of the day and they played, vegged and relaxed once we were back from swimming. Max’s aunt looked after them, along with mini Violet her grand-daughter, while i went off for the first of a series of 8 counselling session that my doctor booked for me. Never had anything of the sort before, except a one off in college and it was all a bit weird, not least because it is slightly unnerving to get something so, hmmm, what is the word…intangible i suppose would do, on the NHS. Ah well, nice to have official confirmation of balminess i suppose and i suspect that even if it is a bit uncomfortable, it will probably be useful for a variety of things, perhaps including Josie’s birth which i think i just buried a bit too deeply and unresolved in form.

I’ve only recently been able to see from above about all that really; i had this sudden revelation a few weeks ago that i had a PPH, i don’t quite know what i had thought before but i suppose it could have happened just as easily with a normal delivery, though i have no idea if they are easier to control during a section or after a normal birth. Anyway, oddly, that sudden understanding that what happened was a normal, if serious, childbirth crisis, has helped me accept that quite a lot. Funny what has to come from inside sometimes.

Tuesday night i went out to the pub with a friend and agreed terms for her to become my cleaner/BM helper for 6 hours a week. I am so relieved She has all my paperwork at home this week and is sorting it for me and next week she will start here on Friday and we’ll take it from there. I don’t want to use her name on the blog, so i was going to call her Odd Job, shortened to OJ, then i decided that sounded like Orange Juicy, which is a bit like Juicy Lucy, so i’ve decided her blog name is Lucy… convoluted, me?

Wednesday we swum first thing, everyone doing really well and they’ve said Fran can do her next 10 week course in level 3 now; Amelie is coming on nicely and Maddy seems to have overcome her crisis. Then rushed home to do parcels, then rushed out to J&J’s (parents of Buttercup-alike K) and had lunch with them, before going off to K’s party at That Painting Place, a pick a pot, paint it and then pick it up glazed a few days later, type place. Loved it, thought it was very reasonable (plates and tiles and pots are cheap, models are a bit more expensive but still okay value) but will definitely use it as a place to take visitors from now on. Nic, they have W&G items… so you must come Then went back to J&J’s for tea and gossip, arranged a camping trip with them (Max just found out he has some spare holiday so i must sort out some long weekends) and got home very late. I got out on my bike again after nearly a week off it and the ride home was HARD again. Ow!

Today we’ve swum (round of applause to the lady who got 4 children to three weeks of early swimming lessons without being late, missing any or forgetting swimming kit!) and then came home to sort out the house and stuff, having reached crisis point and let down Tammy and Sam who we’d intended to visit I spent all night looking for car insurance last night EDIT so i could tax the car, finally gave up and did a last minute online one knowing full well it would then arrive late and cause me hassle - but then naturally found the insurance documents INSTANTLY this morning. ARGH. So does anyone know if i take the receipt it emailed me in the car tomorrow, i can drive it and show that if i get stopped, without being fined?

BM gone much quieter now, so with my newly tidy office, i stand a small chance of catching up. This afternoon we’ve finished off the Darwin story, demonstrated bio-diversity, evolution and survival of the fittest using Hama beads and tap-a-shape pieces, made pictures, done hama bead pictures and done HappyMais. Back to education Oh and ranted at the bank - AGAIN.

Things that scare me
Terrorists
Lightening
My family ever coming apart

People who make me laugh
Um…. (haven’t laughed much recently)… my children
Terry Prachett
Most recently, Wendy

Things I hate the most
People who don’t learn from their experiences
People who don’t use their brakes to slow down
Motorway driving in rain

Things I don’t understand
People
The thing with Lebanon
German

Things I’m doing right now
‘Tidying’ my ‘office’
Rolling my eyes
Kneeling (because my chair won’t fit in my office)

Things I want to do before I die
Have grandchildren
Give birth again (and preferably a long time before dying)
Go to Canada

Things I can do
Sell anything
Eat
See more than one side of an argument

Ways to describe my personality
Increasingly intolerant
Easily upset
Overly trusting

Things I can’t do
Be endlessly cheerful
Climb rockfaces
Get into size 10s - ever.

Things I think you should listen to
Yourself
Your children
The sound of tarantula feet

Things you should never listen to
People who hate you
Robert Gray
The Chuckle Brothers

Favourite foods
Fish wrapped in sundried tomatos and parma ham
Roast dinner
Cheese

Beverages I drink regularly
Tea
Coke
Purple Juice

Shows I watched as a kid
Grange Hill
Swap Shop
The Flumps

Mainly as BM has been mental again and i’ll be working till goodness knows when. Eeek. The redesign and the swap to the dot co dot uk ending seem to have worked rather well. Almost too well in fact In fact, this week i’m talking to a friend about coming to work with me, which will be interesting to say the least. Golly.

We’ve had a lovely day together, though nothing particularly interesting happened in fact. It just felt like we bumbled along nicely. I spent the vast majority of the day doing the seemingly endless putting away of old clothes and getting out of previously worn clothes. i don’t get ridiculously emotional about bigger girl clothes though, so i didn’t cry - and i avoided the box of left over baby bits. Kate gave a huge armful of stuff from S the other day, which splits out between the big three nicely, so it feels like everyone has got something fresh (if not new) to wear. I’ve been really ruthless and there is less about too, so i hope the washing will get easier.

We’ve had a bit of a bedroom swap too and Fran has moved in with Josie; she’s desperate for a bit of reading time and a desk to use, so i hope it works out. Has done tonight anyway but everyone was completely shattered. I’m not, for reasons i can’t possibly explain. I’ve been failing to fall asleep before 2am and been awake by 4.30 for the last 6 days i think but for some reason i don’t actually feel tired. That doesn’t make sense though really.

Started the day with the last round of swimming lesson; Fran held her own in Level 3, just, and the other two looked more confident too. Maddy wobbled over getting changed before the lesson was due to start so we did the whole organisational thing a bit differently. But that was fine, we can do adaptability

Day ended with a lovely roast dinner all together and i’ve got some lovely images of the day, best of all being Josie wandering in the flower bed following Smartie the rabbit through the flowers and trying to stroke him. He nearly let her but when he turned to look at her, she took fright and ran off. Josie also had an almighty tantrum this afternoon which amused us no end. To be honest, it amused her too, she clearly knew she was being completely ridiculous!

And finally, if you remember this photo of my bear

then go and have a look at this, done by a random flickr member. We really love it.

And erm.. now i’m off again. Actually, reading this back, i’m more tired than i feel, aren’t i?

Josie is coming on in leaps and bounds; gems this week have been “I love you mummydaddy” and “i not like it hand” when we tried to help her up a hill and particularly nicely (though perhaps not at the time when she was hollering at us across the room at 2am) “I want nudder medicine mummy” - she has also perfected “again” and “mine” but still uses “no” for negative and affirmative answers

laughed today when i heard Amelie on a pretend phonecall to Buttercup; she eventually hung up and came over to say “Buttercup and Ernest and Gwenny and Violet and A and C are going on a holiday and they AREN’T going with any Muddlepuddle people AT ALL!!!” What a fantastic imagination she has

Just about a year ago i set up a more private blog just to use for rants that didn’t seem wholy appropriate to a blog on an HE ring; i didn’t use it for ages and ages, then it came into its own when we were debating moving, so i could rant about house buying to a few friends who i knew better than others without plastering our personal financial life all over a very public place. Shortly after that, we went through what was undoubtedly the most horrific crisis of our life and it was definitely a good place for me to brain dump, though i mostly did that to myself because no one needs to read the ins and out of absolutely everything, no matter how much they might be a good friend.

But i’ve decided i don’t really like doing things that way; for one thing it rather makes a value judgement on who is a “good” friend and who is a casual friend and those things change quite a bit, for another you can’t really say what will remain private anyway and for another, it turns everything into a “who am i writing for” decision. Actually, i don’t blog for other people, i blog for me and so making those sorts of decisions has kind of devalued the experience a bit and made me feel like i’m trying to “speak” or communicate whereas actually, i’m just finding 20 minutes in a day to record my life in a way that is and/or will be valuable and enjoyable and sometimes painful to look back on. I’ve never been more aware than in the last few months that what you think and how you act changes with passing time remarkably quickly and it is good to be able to look back on what i thought and wrote and see where i was coming from. That is true of many things; choosing not to move away from here, choosing to carry on HE, choosing to pick our way through events beyond our control in the best way we could.

But actually 2 blogs hasn’t really carried on working for me; i’ve ended up feeling rather fractured by it, like i’ve got a public face and a private face and i don’t really like that. For one reason alone, i’ve ranted about things which happen to be important to me, like the births of my children, on this blog and received thoughtful and helpful replies from people i don’t even know. It may be a self absorbed habit to want to think about and write about the things that matter to me, but hey, we only have one body and one brain and one life to live and given i devote about 23 hours and 40 minutes a day to my children and my family life and the plastic beading habits of the multitudes, if i want to be self absorbed for 20 minutes a day, i will be. This is my blog space afterall, no one who doesn’t want to has to read it. Inevitably there will be things that it simply isn’t safe or appropriate to blog about publically, like which house you are buying, whether you are going to upsticks as a family or massive life choices, so there has to be an element of privacy, never more so than now, when my children can and do read it, but apart from that, i’d rather go back to spilling my guts all in one place really. People can take it or leave it. I don’t care much. (I love happy pills, i don’t care much about anything )

So while we’ve been away, i’ve been pondering how i’ll carry on. I could password my blog so that people who seem to feel the need to be spiteful about me can’t read it, but that might or might not work, given that a password is just a password and only requires to be given away, or i could make it user based, but then i’m back to making value judgements on who reads things and what good is that? I’ve found a friend recently in the most unlikely of circumstances, i ought to be everything she hates, but we get on and we perhaps never would have had we never read each others blogs. The next person like that could just be one blog post away. I’d rather have an ever growing circle of friends than one that gradually narrows down and a blog really has been an excellent way of achieving that for all of us.

I could delete the whole thing, but i’d lose the whole point of why i have kept this for 3 1/2 years, which is partly to try and encourage people to HE (which i know it has done) and partly to prove that HE and life, even a busy and slightly awkward life, can be done, partly to show that HEing 4 children of 4 different ages in possibly one of the dullest bits of the country can be done, partly to show that HE and wahm-ing can (just about) be done, partly as an LEA record but mostly so that me and my children can look back in 15 years time and say “aaah, do you remember…..?” And there is an important element of wanting to be able to look back and say “yes, that too passed” because how i wish i had been blogging when Fran was being operated on regularly or when Maddy was a locked up and frightened child. I would love to be able to look back and say “yes, that WAS bad, but now it is so much better.” Even now, only 4 months on from a truly miserable experience, i can look back at some things i wrote privately and see that while i am far from out of the legacy of grief, shock and guilt that occurred, while those events are still very much my present in many ways, i have begun to move on already and with moving on comes, i guess, some healing. There are days when the best positive i can see is that this particular shade of sh*t is not as awful, nor as rank, as the one 10 days ago. That is a bizarre and undignified place to have come to, but it does get me up in the morning and dressed, working, educating, nurturing and loving and whatever else i can say, i do know that my aim of shouldering as much complication as i could myself has largely achieved its goal of our children being oblivious and unscathed. They are happy, by and large, they know they are loved and the centre of our world, they know we would do utterly anything for them and that their life comes first. Whatever else occurs, i am good at being their mum and we are good at being a loving and committed couple and pair of parents and the best thing that my blog can do is remind me of that and that goal.

Which leads me back to where i am now… how do i do what feels best for me and mine at this moment? How do i do what feels right, right now? Shut down the other blog for one thing, that much i’ve done already, i didn’t like that at all. I’ve kept what was important, because i know i’ll need it, but i don’t like the concept of partly private ranting, so i’ll stop. I’m not going to password, or make user levels either because that leaves me no better off. I don’t really want to make the blog anonymous, because i like it having photos on it and even though my fall from Mrs MP and a known person in the online HE world has been total and graceless, it still probably wouldn’t work. I could leave the blogring, but then i’d be being a drama-queen too and rss feeds do rather make that pointless. Who notices when someone hibernates?

This emerging blog land has an odd set of rules that are growing with it; comments are fine and i love getting them but in a way i never wanted them. Sometimes you really want and need them and other times it feels like whoring but if you have them, you sort of have to leave them otherwise you end up looking like you are being more over dramatic by turning them off - and that doesn’t work anyway because people leave comments in other boxes! And that was made never more obvious than recently; i wrote something i had wrestled with for months, something i wanted to acknowledge and pay tribute to here, on this blog of our life as a family, because it seemed so utterly heartless to ignore it and not make some kind of memorial. I could have turned the comments off, because i really didn’t need sympathy, sympathy couldn’t have helped, i just wanted to speak those words outloud. And the comments were great, because they gave me the opportunity to speak privately to some people who were important, but they weren’t the point. The point was the memorial, the acknowledgement, the attempt to bring together my life in a way that meant i could start to move on. This is my space, i should be allowed to do as i wish on it, so long as i’m not setting out to deliberately harm people. I am as i am - and at 32 i can’t change that very much, no more than i can really change the way my life is, how i feel or what i’ve done.

So, having thought and thought and thought about it, i’m just going to carry on -”these are my children, this is my life” - but i’m going to make an appeal now and i’d really appreciate it if the handful of people that in 6 years of online life i’ve managed to offend, took note. In 6 years i’ve managed to offend an unknown person, 1 person for reasons i still don’t understand, 1 person by trying to do what seemed right, 1 person by my biological make up and 1 person because we were both too busy to communicate well. You know, okay, i hold my hands up. I fucked up 4 times and if you aren’t on the list but i’ve offended you too, let me know and i’ll add you. I’m on really strong pills, there is only so much harm it can do

So here are the rules of the blog (and feel free to sing them to the tune of a Bucks Fizz song.)

*If you hate me, just don’t read this. I don’t want to offend you, i don’t set out to offend people and i don’t like having my life stamped all over in spite or anger either.

*If If i turn the comments off, i genuinely don’t want you to comment, so please don’t, even if you want to say something nice Sometimes i’m going to blog for me and if i do, i do.

*Don’t assume that i’m trying to “talk” to someone without saying it personally, i’d far rather talk personally so if it is here it is because i am writing out stuff that is bothering me and that i want to write about. If it is in the “ponderings” category, then that is what i’m doing… pondering. And yes, some of this post has been sparked by “something” but no, i’m still not talking back, i’m putting down on paper the things that that event has made me think about. I’m not somehow mysteriously less allowed to write my thoguhts than anyone else is.

*Think the best of me, even if you once thought better of me. I don’t set out to damage or hurt anyone, but i am going to think, write and feel what i think, write and feel. If you’ve got a problem, do the decent thing and speak to me about it. And remember that i’ve probably written it while shaking 4 children off my leg, changing a nappy, packing a parcel, making someone juice, breastfeeding and crying - and be gentle first. It doesn’t do any harm to be gentle first.

And that, dear readers, is where it is at. I’ll be back with a few remarks about a few days away we’ve had, if i ever get to the point where i’ve had more than 3 hours sleep in a night.

Maddy and Fran were fab in their show; Maddy was absolutely fantastic, so at home performing and (IMHO) the best in it. Her teachers were chuffed to bit with her and i positively glowed to see her. Pictures for friends and family on flickr, as they have other peoples kids in them, but unfortunately i was off to one side and didn’t get any really good ones.

Weekend was filled with rain, huge amounts of lego play, Harry Potter, Nanny McPhee (yes, yes, i cried) and lots of parcels. My kids are suddenly watching big films - argh.

Today..um… they played loads and i packed parcels - i had 15 orders today, my busiest day EVER. Eeeek.

And no i don’t have any time to blog anymore. ARGH.

I just had my busiest weekend EVER - 27 orders from beginning to end, all decent sizes (WHY did i not sell jars of beads before?) and 6 big enough to require a courier. Wet summer suits me!

I’ve just finished, having packed intermittently all weekend - thank goodness the children are being self-sufficient today

1) ONE HOMESCHOOLING BOOK YOU HAVE ENJOYED
Yeeek… it has been ages…. always liked One to One though, very comforting in the early days

2) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULDN’T BE WITHOUT
Oh goodness… the internet! (And The Book People…)

3) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BOUGHT
Some of the official Montessori equipment, as my children very really caught on, but i stand by lots of other Montessori-esque type manipulatives.

4) ONE RESOURCE YOU ENJOYED LAST YEAR
English Heritage and National Trust membership

5) ONE RESOURCE YOU WILL BE USING NEXT YEAR
Fraction circles, Base 10 and maths rods, School Express, Education City, Ed helper and Hama beads (not very good at this ONE thing, am i!) Oh yes, going to sub to BrainPop!

6) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY
A farm in the middle of dartmoor (she says, realistically!)

7) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH EXISTED
A pay per hour arts, crafts and languages centre, just down the road.

8) ONE HOMESCHOOLING CATALOGUE YOU ENJOY READING
Sonlight; then feel virtuous for not submitting an order and pretending it will make me more organised!

9) ONE HOMESCHOOLING WEBSITE YOU USE REGULARLY
Well Muddlepuddle naturally (rofl) but other than that, mainly resource type things like BrainPop

10) TAG FIVE OTHER HOMESCHOOLERS
Joanna
Katy
Caroline
Jan
Tammy

I’ve been mum-the-taxi this week; F and M have had swimming lessons at 8.30, A at 9 and then F and M have had to be at their musical theatre rehearsals from 10-3 so there has been a fair bit of rushing in and out and when you add BM being extremely busy into that and everyones routine being disrupted (not least mine!) it has all been sort of hectic. I’ve managed everything except eating well and keeping the house tidy, just about, but i’m glad i don’t have to rush in and out all the time like this!

Swimming has been, on the whole, very good. Fran has done amazingly and finished the week by passing level 2 and swimming a length to get her 25m badge. So she is chuffed to bits and gonig to do a level 3 splash course in a weeks time to see if she is really strong enough or if she’d be better building her strength up in another 10 week level 2. I don’t mind either way really, but of course, she wants to go up. She looked completely astounded when she swum a lenth today, it was very cute.

Maddy’s swimming week has been a bit mixed; they threw her on tuesday by putting her in a really narrow lane, barely 2 feet across and she went to bits and just gave up. I ended up making them take her out of that, but then because they were basically very disorganised, she was quite out of her depth and kept panicking and grabbing the rope. This then spread to her afternoon lesson and she ended up crying on the side with me trying to calm her down Eventually though we got her together and she did much better from then on and finished having had a more positive couple of days.

On the other hand, Maddy’s musical week has been great; she got the part of Michael (rechristened Molly) in Peter Pan and has been revelling in line learning and performing. They’ve sung the songs all week too! Fran is happy enough to be a Lost Boy with a couple of lines and charmingly delighted with my hasty t-shirt costume. Performance in a little while; hope it goes okay.

They also both passed their Primary Ballet with 76 for Fran and 77 for Maddy, so both got “Commended” and a trophy, which pleased them.

Amelie has had fun in swimming but still needs to really get it properly, but i’ve been really pleased with how hard she has tried. School grade chlorine (as opposed to Centerparcs grade) has been rough on her skin though She and i have fitted in loads of stories, some maths, drawing, cuddles and film and some play dates. She has been very relaxed most of the week, not nearly so demanding when there are less people about to compete with. She is utterly shattered by a week of getting up early and swimming lessons though, so i dread to think how school in 3 weeks time would have suited her!

My cousin and her two boys came to play one day, Kate came another and we’ve shopped and chilled for a lot of the week really. I’d hoped to get more done but in the end i’ve had some time to talk to people, start to get some of my thoughts in order and sit back and think about my future a bit. Ironically i’ve been able to find somewhere good to be and talk among people who understand some of my current feelings, which wouldn’t have happened without something less nice making me realise that there must be a place for me to go. So that was all good and while i feel a bit bleary to be spending so much time thinking tough stuff out, i think it will be good in the long run. I’ll count that as my 25m badge for the week

Anyway, i doubt there will be anything meaningful to blog beyond the performance this weekend, but i’ll try to come and write up that as well. Back to bead-land now