Tuesday we had an early start and all 6 of us too k the train to London. Much as i love London, and i do, i’ve been avoiding going with all of us for ages from the sheer horror of trying to keep track of everyone on deep underground stations like the Victoria and Picadilly lines. I actually do rather love those lines but i’m not great at being deep underground and the times i have been with kids, they pulled all my strings. Lots of escalators, people, a long way down and busy – and absolutely nowhere to run to should something unthinkable happen. I am a total  coward, i do admit it, but i did live in London when the IRA were bombing it and even on an ordinary day, things just happen. In one year i was on a platform twice when someone jumped, on a platform when it suddenly smelt of smoke (rubbish alight in tunnel), i’ve been run back on to a train by guards when a security alert went off, been in Kings Cross and separated from my boyfriend during a security alert and the station i went through everyday, Finchley Road, was blown up. They were kind of everyday, ordinary things when i lived there and didn’t bother me at all really, but they do tend to build up into things that you know do happen and would prefer not to have 4 children with you when they do! SO i’ve gradually let fear take over and not gone. Pathetic really. Anyway, we’d decided to go (and over the last 3 years i’ve shaken a lot of fears off) and i had a brainwave the night before – avoid all my biggest anxiety trippers by taking the circle line-  less busy, no changes, near the surface and often overground. It worked a treat – and because i wasn’t stressed, we all had a fab day. In fact, i didn’t even check on my fellow passengers or look for suspicious bags

We got to the NHM and did dinosaurs first; children either impressed, awed or terrified by moving T-rex, liked all the bones, were reasonably intelligent and interested in it all – though mostly impressed that in the final display cabinets, there were dinosaur cuddlies that we also sell Maddy was able to rest a bit easier once we’d seen dinosaurs but not fully able to relax till we had also seen volcanoes. Those were both fairly successful visits, so was all the rock stuff and the walls full of dino bones. We spent quite a while in the mammals section but Maddy in particular was quite affected and saddened by the sight of stuffed animals. Josie was very impressed by the blue whale.

After lunch we did the Darwin exhibition which was excellent and interesting for adults but a bit above the heads of anyone else except maybe Fran – slightly on the expensive side too. In fairness though, i think while it is true that my kids are completely blind to anything that doesn’t move and have buttons to press, i think even i’m getting a bit like it. I should have been impressed by seeing Darwin’s actual rock hammer and instead i was wanting something more interactive. Still, plenty of good stuff (i liked the stuffed pigeon varieties!) and some good films including a no holds barred rebuttal of creationism and intelligent design  and some well written and displayed things to look at. Not sure it was worth the £24 it cost our family though – although Josie did like the interactive natural selection of ladybirds bit.

When we came out Gwenny and the G’s were waiting for us which was a lovely surprise! So we went off to view the universe with them (never a good thing to be feeling academically bleary when faced with Gaffer and a poster using the words “infinite density” lightly!)  – lovely to spend time with them and catch up a bit. How fab to have an extended “family” that extends to being able to meet the parents of your friends somewhere! Gaffer took us all off to Kensington Gardens and entertained the children with races around the memorial, while the rest of us admired the understated restraint that Queen Victoria used to commemorate her husband To be fair, once i knew we had him to thank for the museums, i appreciated him more. Bless the man for needing a project to keep him busy

Eventually set off home and all went smoothly. We really had a lovely day out and we’ll do it again soon.

Wednesday we did more ordinary worky stuff i think and recovered a bit. Maddy did lots of CGP science on rocks.

Thursday i watched Amelie at gym and she glowed lots when she did a walkover (with help) and got lots of praise for it and then had to do some of the floor steps to the whole group. Her dancing pays off there – she can just watch once and know what she needs to do and then she has it. Quite a difference to some of the others really. Then off to Brownies where we made Easter cakes and i realised, after a day of smacking my head against a wall with SATs papers, that in fact not a single Brownie could use scales. My 2 weren’t in my group, but Max assures me that they can. So all is not lost then. The cake recipe was excellent actually and we used small food tins (tuna/half sized baked beans tins etc) to make them in. Excellent session.

Friday i had a day out with one of my suppliers trying my hand at a new job. It would be an interesting diversion and allow us to make more money in the same industry while giving me the chance to learn more about it. I really enjoyed it (and was good too, but i knew i would be, i can sell anything so long as i believe in it) so that was excellent. When i got back, along with other things, Max had helped Maddy to do some good stuff. She was desperate to raise some money for Comic Relief so he’d helped her make a collecting tin and then they’d all made cookies. They sold them to anyone they could find, fleeced my supplier friend on our return and made £24 in total – i thought that was excellent – as were the cookies. Then it was normal dancing stuff and i retired with a PMT headache. Ouch.

Saturday i mainly hid as for some reason i felt the need to start beating myself up over things i can’t change, mainly because of a chance conversation that just happened to touch a nerve. I tidied the house, tried not to eat chocolate or succumb to hormone related waves of weeping and did as much work as i could manage. This too shall pass, i tell myself. Not entirely sure it ever will. It’s the light – Spring comes and everything floods back. How stupid to be so susceptible to grief and pain that the sun at a certain angle can affect you. I mean… really. Get over it now. I think i could if only i could somehow find it in me to allow myself the grief – but i can’t. And so i just think it will never go, or even fade. There is no place for me – and never will be.

Sunday Today we’ve had dancing exams – Amelie is coughing, wheezing and asthma-y so i was worried about her but she did fine apparently in both musical theatre and in ballet – so we shall see how she does. She’ll be on to Grade 1 ballet after this and is very excited about that. With good reason too, considering she is only 6. Maddy was happy but Fran came out and cried because she tripped over her tongue and had to start her poem again. Felt for her, though you can’t be good at everything, because she is concious of her speech at the moment and i hate things knocking her confidence with it, especially at the moment. Ah well. And now were home and i’ve caught up and we’ve had roast and they are watching a film. And i… must work.

Which makes 10 days altogether too long by half.

So – where were we? Well, we had precisely no conversations about school at all, except one between me and Max where he told me off for being too negative about it. I’ll concede the point, but it is hard to get excited about school looming on the horizon when a) the school is a bit pants, b) the child in question shows no enthusiasm at all c) it’s going to change all our lives and d) the child in question apears ot have no comprehension of it interfering with what she already does, such as throwing a strop (silently) when she realised i was offering her sisters a musical day trip opportunity and not her. So in the end, having seriously considered emailing her, i told Fran that she was perfectly okay to talk to me about it at any time but from now on i wouldn’t mention school again except to tell her the day she was starting, ask her if she still wanted to go and buy her uniform with her. She shrugged. If i’m honest, i’ve hit a wall now – except for academically preparing her (except that i’m narrowed down to not mentioning why) i’ve not got a lot left to offer her unless she meets me somewhere in the middle. I’ve got no interest in it all really, and can’t pretend i have, it isn’t what i want for her and i’m not excited by it – but i will help her to make it a success – or i would, if i knew what she wanted from it.

Last Wednesday we went to Latinetc. I’ve got photos to take, which i’ve failed on but we did excellent French on weather words, which we’ve continued at home, alongside more conversational French using GP and a cd, Science on bones (bendy when in vinegar) and then a rather fabulous bit of organ biology where Helen made felt pieces of our insides to stick on t-shirts. Maddy was concerned by absence of reproductive organs She perhaps thinks Helen doesn’t know about those… Latin got done too and most people made Fimo dinosaurs. In the afternoon we went to the Beans and did watercolours – Josie and Fran rather loved that – Maddy got upset by being encouraged to try techniques other than “painting as painting should be” with them. I forget how rigid she is sometimes. Josie and i had 2 major face-offs during the day, but bizarrely since then she has been much less confrontational and we’re getting on far better again.

Thursday Max was at home with them so that i could go off and go through my notes on Josie’s birth with a consultant – the upshot mainly being that it is safe to have more children, should i choose to do so and that as i suspected, there was no real need for Josie to have been delivered by c-section at the time she was at all. It all feels a long time ago in some respects, but it is annoying to find out that i went through a very horrid experience for no reason at all. Bah. In the evening i went to watch Ams at gym for a while and noted she appears to now be in a class of 8, so i assume she’s been kept in that group and then went off to Brownies where we all went to the local climbing wall. Had a fab time there (i really do enjoy being an Owl) and they all had a lot of fun, mostly when they were manning the ropes for people heavier than themselves and got the odd Peter-Pan-like flying moment!

Friday i went to work but the girls did something fairly meaningful with Max – not sure what though; Saturday and Sunday Max looked after them (games, music, games, films, games) while i got on with the new site that is being built backstage. Not sure what possessed me; it is a mammoth job. The practised for the Talent Show (don’t think i blogged but they made the final!) and Fran did lots of music for the festival she is in the week.

Monday i got them all to work pretty hard in the morning; Fran is launched on a path of SATs papers now so i know she is up to speed with what she needs to be when she goes to school. I don’t really plan to let her sit the SATs but neither do i want her confidence to be undermined if she joins ofr the last fews weeks nad thinks she can’t do stuff she should be able to. She CAN in fact do these things but she hasn’t been coached to do tests, or do things in a schooly way. I resent the idea of children having the time wasted, for terms at a time, simply to pass exams. I appreciate they do, if they are lucky, gather skills they’ll be able to use in real life from them, but i fear that for too many, they learn how to answer questions on papers that they simply won’t be able to apply in actual life.

We sat through Maddy’s gym with one lot of papers and basically let her do what she could and then i helped her with things that baffled her. Of course, she could do the things needed but in a few places she struggled to identify what she was being asked for. What we’ve done, starting with maths, is use papers to find out her strengths or weaknesses, look at how the paper wants her to think and practise places she needs a bit of confidence. We’ve talked a bit (argh) about exam techniques and looking for clues in the question or making sensible guesses if necessary. We’ve talked about assuming they will in fact have set a question that is something she should be able to do and looking for the patterns. I can’t believe that a mental maths SAT test actually has all the figures for the question written next to the answer box – is that mental maths then, really?

Even with me giving her no marks if i gave her any help at all, she still got a solid level 4 on her first set of papers – i wonder if she’d be better or worse if she had been in school? Most of the ones she didn’t get a mark on, she can do easily now. The science paper was funnier – when asked why the farmer grew food, she answered “So he can sell it to make money” (that’s my girl!) as well as “to make food for people to eat”- i was astonished that in the marking scheme it said to give extra credit if the pupil has realised our food is grown for us as many just don’t realise that. *smacks head on table* However, it described the farmers difficulties with rabbits in the field and then said “The farmer is getting ready to pull up the carrots. What will happen to the rabbits when he does?” And Frances, who i suspect is more emotionally the scientifically inclined, wrote “They’ll get very excited.” Apparently she was thinking that he’d be feeding them to the rabbits… Dot. Dot. Dot.

Still, otherwise her science paper was okay – education city, reading and conversation has apparently done just fine.

Meanwhile Amelie is doing some CGP maths and finished off her EC science, Josie finished off her EC literacy so is on to reception level now, Maddy is reading for England i think and has devoured a set of Usborne books now, so has moved on to a set of mini encyclopedias. Amelie is reading plenty; she has no fear of words, which is lovely and i enjoy listening to her.

We also fitted in some more universe books somewhere in that and i managed to see a rep too, then went off to see Sue and LF for lunch – that was lovely and once we’d done that, it was off to Jazz and Gym. Watched Maddy and was very thrilled for her getting her badge 3 – first in the family to do it – if only by 2 hours. She was chuffed to bits with herself. Then i took her home and came back to watch Fran – she’s trying to perfect forward rolls on the beam, having apparently slightly lost the knack but is also working on cartwheeling up there, straddle ones (!?) and a little routine of dance steps. Made me wince just looking at her. She loves bar at the moment and is looking stronger there – she’s got the hang of squat on now and is jumping to the higher bar and doing casts (letting go in between swings) very nicely. She just looks so strong when i watch her and so focused – lovely to see. She did nearly brim over when she was the only one in the group to be allowed to move off dive rolls (high forward roll onto a crash mat) and on to somersaults – i watched (with one eye open!) but she did a couple of really nice ones. I just can’t imagine being able to do that!!!! You might as well ask me to fly

Fran mentioned to her teacher that she’d never done the badges in the recreational class apart from badge 5; apparently you are supposed to have done Badge 1 before you move into Novice but Fran bypassed them, so her coach tested her and she passed 4 in 5 minutes. She was pleased with that – but after7 badges in one week, i was starting to feel light in the pocket!

Fran sent a quote into CBBC Newsround and got a snippet of it put on the front page.

Yesterday i cleaned out our current room of doom, what used to be the stockroom which became the office, which we attempted to turn into a study but actually became a hell hole of junk. It was virtually at the “can’t get in” stage, so when something fell on Kirsty’s head in there, i thought i should do something. So i did. I unpiled all the junk from up against the cupboard that is built into a corner of it, tidied said cupboard, threw out 4 bags of rubbish, rationalised and resolved to USE some stuff and then ruthlessly sorted the rest of it out. The blanket box (filled with shortly to accidentally disappear cuddlies) was covered in books, so i’ve rehomed them and aside from sorting the dvds and tidying the book shelves up a bit, it now looks like a room again. Today Max has moved the pc in there so it can become a worknig room, either for the kids or for me. I’m tending to work from home again and we’ve got stock all over the living room – and that needs to change before it become habit. It does also mean we now have a lovely free desk in the living room which can a) hold whichever laptop is currently most useful and b) become an art station for the drawers of the family. I suspect Josie will enjoy playing at it too.

Quite why i imagine you’d be interested in such mundane rubbish, i have no idea. While i was doing it, i forced the children into domestic servitude and made them tidy their rooms. I’d like to say that was successful, it wasn’t, but they may have done enough to stop me totally losing my temper up there.

Saturday is always punctuated by ballet; Fran is doing very well and Miss D glowed about her. While she and Maddy were there, i took Ams to Auntie Kate’s to see Madison and Summer and get Kate to slow down some music for Maddy. Miss N kindly did her a recording of an instrumental of “Tomorrow” but it was a bit fast. Luckily Kate has the skills and technology to slow it down a fraction, which fixed an impending meltdown nicely. After that we went off to Tesco to find costumes. Fran flatly refused to have anything that was school uniform (are you seeing why i’m struggling here?) which was annoying as it might well have killed two birds cheaply with one stone but she and Ams ended up  with matching tops, skirts and tights. They looked lovely.

Today i took Josie out for a hasty bit of Mum and Daughter time at Office World (as you do!) and then i ferried the big three to their audition. Fran and Amelie contrived to make their teachers cry with “Maybe” (i’m assuming this is good!) and Maddy was very pleased with hers. They were up against big girls singing and dancing for 10 places, so i have no idea if they have a chance but from outside they sounded great (we might do video tomorrow) and hopefully even if they don’t make the finals, they’ll have done enough to be noticed as deserving to get a snippet of a part in something sometime i hope. Was very proud of them as they’ve rehearsed it all themselves and sounded lovely. F and A in particular had choreographed a very sweet little dance that suited them both.

That done we nipped to the unit for presents (ahem!) then dashed home to collect Max’s catering (ahem!) and dashed off to the Fishes Party where we had a very lovely time and thoroughly enjoyed the company. Thank you very much for having us

Home again to admire Max’s sorting and tidying (printer still doesn’t connect though, dammit!), sort a few more bits, make Fran cry over cello (i barely even spoke, she’s just lost her sense of humour over it completely!) and then very early beds for very tired children. Although, Fran has been goaded into restarting OotP by Big, so may still be reading that. Maddy is reading something Jeremy Strong, which she also really likes, so who knows. I’m not looking. Josie dreamt last night that she went shopping with Max and he forgot her (Fran had to tell me this as Josie confided in her but wouldn’t tell me) and Max has confirmed that Josie is indeed lovely with him and only horrid with me. So that’s nice.

Did forget to mention that all of them had a major splurge not only on reading (loving those lists, Maddy loving Usborne Beginners books atm) but also on EC. Fran finished Yr 5 maths, is bombing through Yr 5 Literacy (she was held up on both by lack of application and lack of thinking to tell me she was struggling with a couple of games) and is now well into Yr 6 on both and on Yr 7 Science. I do love it for simple, easy to measure successes and stars She has got really good at spelling suddenly too, all those “cions” and “tions” and so on have suddenly sunk in and i can see that her Latin has helped lots with word types too. At just the right moment i do at least know that, academically, she’ll be just fine at school.

Maddy and i had a marvellous moment of time telling, (imagine a mirror down the middle, so if it is 5 past on one side it is 5 to on the other, quickly followed by short hand only deals with hours and there are only 12, long hand deals with minutes and there are 60 of them, quickly followed by something else with digital time). She declared me to be a wonderful mummy who completely understands her (and i do, sometimes, when i remember that she needs visual ideas and sequences to follow) and signed off Yr 3 maths, Yr 2 French, Yr 3 Literacy and Yr 4 Science all in one day. Result. So that puts them firmly and with confident good understanding of all the main points into their own years.

Just to explain that, in case Mr Badman is watching, we don’t use EC as a teaching tool. They use it to explore, consolidate and amuse and as such it gets used a lot for a while, ignored for ages and they tend to use it either slightly ahead of “Yr” or a bit behind so i can be sure they’ve really grasped anything else we’ve done on paper, in books, in real life. It seems to work quite well like that.

And so – that’s that. I’ve blogged up to date.