Winning Mummy

We have been on a sunny, nature walk today. We have seen deer up pretty close, 6 or more species of butterflies including red admirals, have flown around us, we had an interesting conversation about the Viking binoculars that the reserve loaned us and whether they were from Viking times which led on to a conversation about Romans and the order of historical events that wowed some passing American tourists, we have seen all kinds of mushrooms growing in the wild, found an 'S' shaped cloud and talked about cloud shapes, some great life learning, autonomous home ed things...............................

There is a path all way round the RSPB reserve that is made of rocks and gravel some of which are sharp, over the years we have done the walk, with babies in the womb, in the sling, in the double pushchair the paths have claimed enough of our families skin that I really would have thought the penny would have dropped by now but no, again today Middle Small did a big slip and removed some skin from his hands, at the same time as Baby Small was lying down and having a tantrum on the path, a kind old lady gave him some Middle Small some savlon from a very old tube which he graciously accepted... I am not sure yet which version of today I will file in my memory.

There was a time when I read Faber and Mazlish when I had high dreams and aspirations for my siblings and there future relationships, today, I feel more Bill Cosby about the whole thing and figure if they make it to 18 alive I will deserve a medal. I guess the larger you family the higher the highs and the lower the lows A friend from our local home ed group was waiting in the park at the end of the walk and it was lovely to see her supportive, non-judgemental and friendly smile and have a chat but when Middle Small started pestering her son I figured it was best to leave and Big Small was "bored." We also bumped into our allotment neighbours and their grandson. As we walked the reserve I was having a strange text conversation with our teenage helper who normally comes on a Friday but it turns out this week, for the second week in a row, he is not coming, I am pretty sure I didn't sleep through a conversation about his leaving us and was feeling perplexed and confused. In my mind I was trying to reorganise the things I had planned for this afternoon, including picking up some vitamin B which I find is the answer to ulcers and feelings of stress, so, as a result, we called into the supermarket on the way home as S has been after the latest Barbie magazine and the man at the till asked the "girls" (argh!!!!) why they weren't at school. When he started questioning me about how I make them learn and how much time I need to set aside for teaching I just sort of glazed over.