The kids have had a second laid back week this week (last week!), making the most of the half termites ( ) It has suited me quite well and allowed me to crack on with some work which needs to be done by the end of Feb. We’re launching a new site every month or so for the next 4 months and the work to get the first one done is the biggy, as it requires everything to be upgraded and reformatted. Had a bit of an annoying false start with it this week but i’m hoping we understand each other better now *sigh* It is ridiculous but my sites are my babies and i get very worried when things aren’t going right with them!

My real babies have been mostly having a lovely time in and out of the houses in the square. Fran felt very grown up when she spent the afternoon with J, armed with her phone for keeping in touch and they’ve biked and played very happily. Maddy spent one day inside avoiding being found out for being a pickle and read a 150 page Horrid Henry book and another day inside being grounded after she got found out but she took it with a stoical good humour. I’ve just found a cartoon story of her superhero character (Super Squashy Tomato) which is very funny She’s been guitaring happily too and seems to be getting more confident at using the computer, which has tended to be too much either mine or Fran’s domain. Just now she is watching something on iplayer. I think reading has been her big thing this week though. She is very keen on the idea of completing her 100 book list (in links) but also needed some down time after Melrose, so quite a bit of the week was spent with her curled up on the sofa with a good book. She’s extremely into CGP books at the moment as well so she’s absorbing info that way; going to introduce her to our Usborne Mini Reference Library today!!!

Fran is working hard at cello as the music festival is coming up soon and also reading lots. Michael Morpurgo is a firm favourite now but apart from playing out she is also enjoying Sims a lot. She’s better for a week or 2 doing something completely different, but i think she’s a bit droopy in general. Schools come out next week and i’m fairly sure that is on her mind and the operation has to be too i think. I’m still just cross that it has to be done again

I had a chance to watch Amelie at gym; she does look good but i think she is a bit nervous about giving it some welly in case she gets into trouble for something, judging by her body language. They have to split the group soon and i’m not sure if she is showing enough enthusiasm to stay with the best of them. I don’t think it is talent that is the problem and it certainly isn’t flexibility but something isn’t quite right. We’ve had a chat though and i’ve tried to bolster her up a bit.

(Move on a week.)

I’m now having a complete blank about most of the rest. We did Latinetc, i can’t remember the weekend, i made everyone work hard on Monday, Tuesday Josie and i were reduced to 2 tantrums (1 each) during gymmies so that we both had a horrid time, a rep came round with a huge bag of goodies for my children and then were prepared ourselves for the arrival of Kirsty and co and Jax and co. Lots of playing and a very late night followed I think i also had a fairly hefty weep about Fran going to school and phoned the local junior school to see if she could do next term there to get her head around it a bit. Head phoned back on Wednesday and was really very positive; we’re going to look round on Tuesday, by which time we’ll know which Senior school she is going to. Head seemed happy enough about HE, positive about it being an experience rather than an educational experience, didn’t want her to join before SATS and was generally supportive. Much as i’m anti school, i’m appier about this than going straight to big school. Fran doesn’t know.

Wednesday we had lots of people her and SBs party to enjoy which was great. Josie and BB eventually pulled themselves together and played So all in all we’ve done a lot of socialising; lovely but left me a bit fragile. I wish i could get over this now; i’m bored of it.

Thursday i had a second appointment with a chiropractor; last week he put my shoulder back into place for me, having discovered that it has been displaced for 12 years (that’ll be what all the pain was about then!) fixed something quite dramatically at the bottom of my spine and did something to my neck. When i came back Max could actually see it looked different! It has been so much btter this week which is no mean feat; i’ve been in fairly constant low nagging pain from this for 12 years Then Gym/Brownies etc – birdboxes this week and bird feed lard and sed things. Nice week.

Friday i spent at work while Max spent time with the kids. Dancing in the evening and they all came home with a raft of exam notifications – going to be a busy couple of wekends. Today they’ve danced again, i’ve bought size 6 ballet shoes for Fran and been given a glowing report of how good she is. They all all in auditions tomorrow so they’ve been rehearsing all day.

Done!

Created by Train Horns

We’re lucky enough to live in a fairly closed road (i hope i don’t regret daring to breathe this out loud by one of them getting knocked over tomorrow) and so “go out and play in the road” is a fairly common command around here; this week, with it being half term, their bunch of playmates are all home so the 10 or so of them that do, have been scootering, biking, ball gaming, gossiping and arguing outside since we got back. Maddy has used her skateboard a reasonable amount but has struggled to cope with not being immediately able to do it; given she’s mainly done a good bit of post Melrose meltdown this week (tears at everything and a lot of losing her temper with herself and the rest of us), she’s probably done quite well to just keep trying. The rest have mainly just enjoyed more time with friends. Josie and L from next door have done their normal spitting cat impressions; well i say that, JOSIE has spat like a cat, L just wants to chase her and hasn’t quite grasped yet that Josie is mainly just no fun to play with

Poor Josie; in a general sense i have a lot of sympathy for her, but she does seem to have a genetically inherited tendency to assume the world is against her and be angry with it, which is a shame. There are no limits to the cliches really, but definitely “cutting off her nose to spite her face” would be one of them. She’s a delicately balanced soul who wants to bring everyone down with her at the moment. I’ve been very soft, too soft, and so am currently engaged in some tough love to un baby her a bit and get her standing on her own two feet. We had a fairly robust experience of it today, but i have to say that carrying it through did eventually yield her playing happily in the garden after all

Maddy is more doing her “oh my god i made it through and now i need to hide under a bed for a week” thing. She has wept about 5 times a day, nearly broke her guitar over her knee yesterday, shouted at all of us and been inconsolably hurt by people for no reason at all. No matter how long i have her, Maddy still surprises me with this and i never fail to be annoyed that she acts perfectly fine in front of other people and collapses at home. Stiff Upper Lip is Maddy’s cliche.

Fran is being a bit of a joy; she is practising cello LOADS, reading ferociously and enjoying her work. We’ve done Latin while watching Maddy at gym, science, history, talked over the current HE situation and the meaning of Easter (she is such a cynic, i am shocked!). She is loving myths and legends and very excited by books on Arthur and Beowulf and has finished the first chapter of GP Latin. She loved todays latinetc group and enjoyed group music with Helen and co. I watched her at gym on Monday and couldn’t believe how she had improved; backwards and forwards walkovers and much more strength. I could hear the coaches talking about her and the next day one came over to tell me that they were really pleased with her progress. As they said, she just WILL NOT give up, even when she falls on her head (sense knocked out of her?).

Maddy is happily reading Horrid Henry and Jeremy Strong and very into CGP workbooks and text books, which she reads ALL the time now. Must encourage her to move on to our reference shelves a bit too. Amelie is doing music without being asked, reading anything she sees and i’m going to watch her at gym tomorrow.

Enjoyed Latin today and also then going to the Beans after for leisurely giossip, music and tea. Thanks to all for hospitality

My own (irate) response to the DCSF “independent review” was number 1012 – will we be able to get it to 1500 before the 20th?

If you need one reminder why to respond, then read my blog post on it.

Or you could read any of Gill’s posts or any of Carlotta’s posts – and once you’ve done that you could also make sure you’ve signed the 10 Downing St petition and there another 9 or more useful things you can do on this page here, including writing to your MP.

Or you could do nothing and hope you are still allowed to be a parent without a signed consent form in 10 years time. A quick response to the DCSF (i did like the point that they put school firmly between child and family in their name) will take 10-20 minutes at most. Please do it.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

With relatively vast (by local standards) quantities of snow around, i hadn’t been out for a few days, though the children had played endlessly out. We were quite glad that the planned Brownie trip to Holiday on Ice was literally out the back of us, so we walked through the show (as we would have done anyway!) and avoided the huge queue of cars very neatly. It was rather muddy, so on the way back we trudged through the snow and sung carols about good kings and footsteps! The show itself was absolutely spectacular and well worth the money and walk; the kids all loved it and so did i. It was excellent to see skating being done as a performance rather than a competition for a change and all the effects were magical, brilliantly executed and huge amounts of fun to watch.

Walked back to a second birthday tea and some packing and tidying up so we could go off to Melrose. I was a bit (!) nervous about the drive but we’d all decided to just see how it looked in the morning and it was bright and dry; we set off by 11 for the quickest, easiest and pleasantest drive north ever. I was THIRD, arrived before the YH was open and didn’t get lost, several firsts for me!

I won’t do a blow by blow account but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have a lovely time. I barely saw any of my children at all, the first time Josie was really just off on her own, which left me more time to be marginally more helpful (felt like i pulled my weight this year!!!) and plenty of time to gossip. I actually got time to converse with Jax for practically the first time ever and even played a board game with her (which i actually quite enjoyed ) and also had plenty of time to chat with Papa Evans, adore little Pal and play Pandemic over tea, wine and biscuits (notable lack of cake this year!)

Fran had a lovely time with Angel and Gwenny and mostly negotiated the differences created between being a flipperty gibbit who adores a sensitive soul with only a few hiccups, Maddy played a lot with M and Ernest, moving into the circles of the other 8/9 year olds once the steam, dust and flying fur had settled, Amelie and Buttercup were surprisingly more open to other friends and so had a lovely time with E & R, A, C, HRH and others and Josie played either with them, or with mixtures of BB, Pal, Luna, X, S and… well, rather a lot of people. If it wouldn’t be so injurious to our souls and privacy, i’d have invited Mr Badman along to view these horribly unsocialised children who are at such risk from their parents It never fails to amaze me how it is that we turn up somewhere with children who see each other a few times a year and who spend less time in groups than most and yet they always fall in together, have fun, play kindly, make themselves a holiday, behave thoughtfully, don’t trash the youth hostel, absorb new kids and are an absolute pleasure to be around. They don’t need supervising, they don’t need helping very much at all, they don’t spend hours telling on each other or being affronted by things, i don’t have to worry about my possessions not being respected even when there are 80 children in my bedroom (exaggeration? only maybe!) – in short, if ever there is an example to prove that home educated children are well socialised and able to function as they should, Melrose is it I’m only sorry that on recent experience of some kids, maybe this means HE kids aren’t in fact normal. They are just what normal should be.

My favourite small points of the week were the Evans clan coming to bounce at me and tell me how much fun they were having and how much they’d liked a present we sent at Xmas (has to be a favourite as they were so gloriously lovely about it!), playing ‘dive over the chair’ with Pal (yep, i’m still broody), playing Pandemic several times, going to Rosslyn Chapel, the “Victorian Snow” effect of the first evening and my customary walk through town with Marcus to buy bug killers, shopping for 2 meals that filled 2 trolleys, the enormous fun that was had by the kids sledging and snowman building, a walk into town with Helen, Fran and Josie, seeing lots of kids Fimo and Hama-ing and watching Josie chatter away to X &S while perched no the edge of the table. I loved seeing her come out of herself this week.

My 2 absolute favourite bits of the week were music with Helen and Em, which Helen wrote a great cello part for and Fran adored playing. She tried so hard, because it was at least as hard as anything else she had ever played and she did not want to be defeated. She really kept at it and adored playing with 2 “good” musicians as well as alongside all the other learners like her. Helen did a great job of the music and all the kids who joined in loved doing it, even if they just played d or e a lot! I like recordering for it and wished i’d brought my flute.

Other favourite bit of the week was the kids doing a talent show on the last night, mainly instigated by Maddy i think. All the adults had slightly groaned and rolled our eyes at the thought of this so we pretty firmly got our comeuppance when we got presented with a slick, well ordered, supportive and organised show with a running order, rehearsed acts, nothing too long and rather a lot of humour. We were all very impressed. My big three did several acts; Maddy played guitar and sung Tomorrow, Amelie was in 3 (!) things, a fab cartwheel and rollypolly show with Buttercup and SB, singing Maybe and 2 other songs with Buttercup and A and ‘Lepeing Loontics’ (or so the poster said, it may have meant Leaping Lunatics!) with SB. All very funny. Fran did a gym display with R.

I think all the adults fully appreciated the show, especially the contributions by late entries and hecklers

We were very sorry to come home the next day but grateful for the super organised clean-down, Jax and Alison being ‘last out’ monitors, sorry to leave behind the yummy communal cooking, glad to have an over-the-border convoy to leave in as we were all a bit (unnecessarily) worried that the previous days snow might still be hanging about there and very glad to have a last lunch with Em and co on the way home. And it was an easy drive back (we beat Max home from work!) and i felt like i had had a proper holiday from work too. That is a holiday like Steve Clarke has holidays, with a phone stuck to my ear… – but still a break from worrying

Still plenty of snow here on our return but it is mostly on its way out now and has matched our lazy weekend feel perfectly. We’ve gamed (new version of Cluedo is excellent) and i’ve tidied a bit and mostly listed the first 100 or so of our new products ready for them to arrive. Holiday is over.

On February 6th 2000 i gave birth to my baby Maddy. She’s a little bit special to me, because she is the only one i can say that about and really feel i mean it – and she’s a little bit special for her Maddyness too.

Today she is a little bit special because she is now the proud owner of a blue Sporticus skateboard, blue skateboarding stuff that will constantly get lost will protect her elbows and knees, a cute blue monkey and a set of Mecchano that makes cars, trucks, helicopters and so on. As Max said last night, he didn’t think the cashier at Toys R Us would have imagined the recipient to be a girl… and i love her for that. She is thrilled with it all, and humoured me by loving the blue monkey i connived out of a trade show stand, and was very understanding that the 2 things (tiny things) she wanted didn’t arrive through the post on time.

We’ve spent the day watching swirling snow, playing out, watching films, doing Mecchano and latterly going out for dinner which was lovely, if nearly spoiled by a bunch of kids who have learned their social skills in the local primary school and therefore think terrifying 4-9 year olds with verbal and physical abuse while 10 foot up in the air is acceptable. I was staggered that their parents didn’t care, even when the staff were having to physically step in, staggered to be stopped from going into the play area when my 4yo was trapped at the top crying (because i was too tall!) and horrified by the way these kids were behaving. If those are the social skills my kids are failing to learn in school, i can only say thank god for that. At least, if not perfect (would being aggressive back be better? I was always told so), the middle 2 had the sense to leg it and find me and Fran (bless her) huddled round Josie at the top and waited for it to stop.

Ah well.

Darling Maddy; now you are 9. Beautiful, thoughtful, creative, kind, gentle, generous, individual, sensitive, fragile, ingenious, passionate, intense. All those things and many more. Most of all, you love the colour blue and you love to be you – and in this house, we love you for that