Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

More Frank today, a gorgeous voice and song. If no one comments on it I will be sad. It reminds me of when Baby Small was born.

We have been to Lancing near Worthing today and seen some (more!) of our home ed friends, played at Brooklands Park which is near to their house then went back to their house for table football (no spinning) scones, barbies, chatting and playing.

Reading through the blog it is pretty apparent that we spend most of our time in a home ed bubble of sorts. Nearly every day we see home educated friends if not all day certainly part of the day and as such the anti-school accusation is occasionally mentioned.

Most of the reasons are logical though. We like to play in the day times a time when generally most children are at school and The Smalls friendships are very real, carefully chosen and discussed (Did I mention the initial sadness at his sister's romantic interest in one of his friends has been replaced with the idea that if your sibling marries a friend you will get to see them more?) and the idea that we would simply blank our friends for 6 weeks of the summer holidays because there are children in the local park is a little odd. We have tried to make local schooled friends. S often asks to swap phone numbers in the park but I have concluded we are dealing in a different currency.

Philosophically though we are living a very uninstitutionalised life, as I have blogged before I am glad I had my babies at home, yet pleased hospital is there as a safety net and so on from cradle to grave. Whether it be Old Folks Homes, dying, day nurseries or learning my central tenet is that I would rather be home and family with the option of an institution if it all goes wrong. I fully accept that this is totally upside down, inside out, back to front from the rest of the population but that is okay because I am doing what is right for my family not theirs and as I wrote in "Everything you ever wanted to know........" I am not in the business of changing minds.

Additionally my socialisation skills are lacking with the school gate crew, I have nothing to contribute to a debate about whether desks are better arranged in circles than individually because I am not sure about the need for desks full stop. I have no view on whether Jolly Phonics is better than Oxford Reading Tree because I am not sure about phonics as a method of learning to read and prefer the idea of whole word learning because that is how I read and how my children have learnt and are learning. The blog is called Outside the Box for a reason.

Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

This second link is even better!

Summerwind

Summerwind

A beautiful tune by Mr Frank Sinatra on the blog today. I have been responsible for 6 children under 9 for a part of the day today and Frank has formed part of our soundtrack. My mentioning The Simpsons on the blog the other day had me thinking about the episode that uses this song Ole Blue Eyes! All 3 of my children have blue eyes like The Daddy One but my eyes are a green and brown mix. We have been chatting about eye colour today and how it comes about. S also had them listening to her favourite song.

The Small's friends were dropped off shortly after Grandma left this morning and they have had a great day making magazines (check out the photos and see how they made identical front covers all their own idea,) painting the pictures for them and asking me how to spell the words they wanted to include. You can be sure if when they had arrived I had suggested that we all make identical magazines no one would have been that keen but because the initiative and ideas were all theirs they settled into the idea with gusto! As a consequence of all this extra activity we now have two tables in our kitchen. In home ed land I think that must be a status symbol. At one point I managed to sneak to the toilet and when I walked back down stairs this was the sight that greeted me.

O wanted me to draw rockets for him today with his and his siblings initial letters and ages on them so we have O2, a large mobile telephone company, E4, a television channel and S6, a superfast audi car! Baby Small has been wearing a red stripy top today and one of our guests painted this picture of him. I think the free hand stripes are great.

We took the friends back to Goring mid-late afternoon and had a little play at their house. We are back down to the coast tomorrow to see some more #welovehomeed friends

Bob (2)

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Bob (I've linked to this song before but it is worth a replay)

S had one of her #welovehomeed BFFs over to play last night. She hasn't seen her since we met up in London and the Masquerade Ball S organised back in June so a quite a while. They had a blast on the Barbie website virtual world area setting up a clothes shop, increasing sales and maximising their profits. They were so excited they stood up the whole time! I had a catch-up with The Mummy One in between watching Star Wars and playing duplo. Back in the day when I held regular La Leche League meetings in the evenings at our house this family were regulars so they know how we roll in the evenings and I suspect the pattern is very similar in their home.

Tuesday is Grandma day and after breakfast we were all gathered round the kitchen table. S working on her Mermaid story book she started yesterday, O doing some of his abc book and E doing some magnetic word reading with me when Grandma spotted a hot air balloon out the window so we all went outside for a closer look at the flames.

In fact since I blogged yesterday I feel I have hardly stopped, but all in a good way.

Today was my annual vision check, my first in over 2 years (!) and the world still looks a little yellow. We all went to Storrington collected some lunch snacks from Waitrose and Grandma waited in the park with the smalls whilst I read out letters from a board, after all the ABC action with O this morning it felt quite odd and I nearly asked this optician if he wanted the name of the letter or its sound?! When I checked in the receptionist said I had missed my appointment slot and it transpired there had been a mix up but luckily they slotted me in because rearranging is not a simple matter. Our Autumn strewing Tuesdays are mapped out! He has suggested I need to try a new type of contact lens, as I have been wearing lenses for 25 years the blood vessels on my eyes are growing larger, and he thinks a more silicon based lens would help. Coincidentally they are 25% more expensive than my current lens. He was one of the most confident opticians I have ever encountered and explained the physics of convexity and the reasons for my chronic myopic (-8.5 & -7.5) in a way I completely understood.

Baby Small did a slip and left some of the skin from his arms at the park :-( Coupled with his black eye he must be feeling pretty sore, it hasn't stopped him from being super cute all day though. Picking flowers for Grandma at the allotment and using please and thank-yous ands pardons totally unprompted.

And this afternoon a new family who contacted me ages ago about home educating in West Sussex (when they were living outside the area) came over for the first time following their move to our neighbouring village at the weekend. I am so excited about a family with young children living under 5 miles away from us and even better The Mummy One is Italian.

Regular readers will know how fond I am of my Armani treats and pasta and pizza and ice cream and mozzarella and parma ham and Parmesan and nectarines and Gucci handbags and how in my earning days I built a collection Gucci loafers, I have corrupted The Daddy One into my soft leather ways too but he prefers Tods. It wasn't hard to corrupt him, he has been a Ferrari fan in motor racing since the age of 7 I think. Regular readers know how Middle Small adores the Romans. We had coffee (Italian of course in Alessi cups !) and a tiramisu I made and my new friend offered to show me how to make lasagne, told me about her salsa dance classes we talked about phonics and whole word learning and it was just lovely to meet a virtual friend in real life and find out they were even nicer than I had expected them to be.

There are two beautiful children in the family and The Bambino One (13 months) told me he wanted more raspberries over and over using his baby signing for more until he had eaten more than ten!

Whilst they were over E was asking for some new words to "glue in his head" he is so close to getting it he can sense it. I recall when S was at this point with her reading. It is great to watch.

On our Italian Gallivant last year we had these great Usborne Books of Italian words - we even used them to explain nido d vespa (wasps nest) to the owner of the Villa we stayed in. I must find them before we meet up again on Friday.

The Harry Potter book of The Deathly Hallows came in the post this afternoon and S, 6, has had her nose in it a fair amount since. We gave much thought as to whether it was an appropriate read for a 6 year old but when I noticed that she was eyeing it up on the book shelf to take to the toilet with her at a friends house on Friday I realised that she needed her own copy rather than reading it in secret. She has, after all, read all the others.

Baby Small and I went to the allotment to water the tomatoes, they are ripening fast, I am gearing up for a major skin removal and roasting session before our holiday. Well, once I have cleared a space in the freezer. I love this time of year, watching the orange lights from the tractors flash up and down past my bedroom window. The end of the growing season and the preserving for winter.

There was a time when singing "My favorite things" lulled Middle Small off to sleep now he likes my Star Wars Harry Potter made up fusion stories where it all merges in The Dark Side.

S&E have been playing so nicely I have been listening to them giggling away and Baby Small has singing to Grandma.

I popped to the local shop with E tonight and bumped into a local Mum I originally knew from singing at the library when S was small and she said to me "So, do you do summer holidays then?" and I said "We are going on holiday on Monday" and on the way home it occurred to me that I had completely misunderstood what she meant.

Under the Sea

Homer Simpson does a great take off of "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid, when the going gets tough "Alright everyone, pack your bags we are going to start a new life under the sea"

......."they'll be no accusations just friendly crustaceans, under the sea." For a long time I was a major Simpsons fan but I haven't watched it in years, I can still remember it though. Testament to a great show.

S has had a mermaid day today, she started this morning making one of her books this time about mermaids, she asked me for spellings of some of the words as she wrote them down then she drew pictures around them.

The page in the photo says "Now, this Mer Princess longs for an adventure." I'm keen to read on, are you?

Then The Daddy One took them to Fittleworth Park and S did a slip and hurt her knees so she came home and we snuggled up together and watched Little Mermaid 3 and just a second ago she told me that is not how you spell Aerial it is Ariel!

The story line of the film is about Ariel's father banning music as a way of coping of the death of his wife and trying to control his children and greeting a failure of control with more control! I could see some of my mistakes up there on the screen.

Of course banning things never works (unless you control the supply chain) and so the animals, desperate to sing and dance, set up an underground cave in the style of a 1920s speak easy. S and I had a good chat about prohibition and how things become secret when you ban them. It was one of those conversations where although we were talking about a film I could think of 4 or 5 current situations around me in real life that follow the same pattern.

I haven't blogged about Middle Small's behaviour for quite a few weeks now and that is for the simple reason that I haven't needed to. I won't tell you he is a perfect angel 100% of the time that is because, unlike an angel, he is alive and he is a 4 year old boy.

But, he has been heaps better. I credit the homeopathic remedy he had a course of and a change of approach. All of my most desperate blog posts read with us as adversaries rather than partners and talk of separation based solutions not attached ones. We are together in this not apart. Conditional love terrifies him to his very core and causes him to lash out. Hunger and tiredness debilitate him a way I would not believe had I not seen it with my own eyes.

I am not an expert on children but if The Daddy One and I are not the experts on our own children I am unsure who else is queuing up to take the job. If you accept the analogy that we are on a road less travelled and I was trying to use mainstream motorway methods to solve my problems you will see why I felt like I was thrashing around in the wooded undergrowth that separates the two.

The suggestion that I re-read Steve Biddulph really helped, attention deficit means he needs more attention and if he doesn't get it now look out in the teenage years.

Something in me has changed, all of your great comments, replies, DMs, tweets helped me to see several things. We are entering the PMT danger zone I am stocking up on evening primrose and vitamin B to ride the storm. Nearly 7 years without a period means being back on the rollercoaster had crept up on me and plunged me back into being a teenager. It was the moon suggestions that got me thinking on.

Too Blind to See It

A great House track for a post about "Keeping House"

Too Blind to See It

When you home educate you are home a lot, even if you go out frequently like we do you are still home a lot more than regular people! (unless you are like two of the families in our local group currently making the most of their freedom and travelling the UK and Europe in motor homes but I guess even motor homes get messy too!)

In 2010 my new year's resolution was the William Morris quote "Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful of believe to be beautiful."

Now, you can scroll back through the photos on the blog and form your own conclusions about the state of our tardis Edwardian terrace of a home and read what I have written before but basically what we did in 2010, with the help of Grandie, was have an epic clear out. The garage door that hardly opened because the garage was so full has gone, the garage is empty, so empty in fact that we can park our bus in it.

The study that was junk store central is now S's bedroom. We free~cycled, e~bayed and landfilled our way to a much easier to tidy house. Cupboards that were log jammed with long term storage now have space to clear away everyday things. It is not perfect but it is a lot better than it was.

We don't use the loft other than for boxes from toys we will later ebay because they sell for more with the boxes.

Technology has really helped too. The sonos and media centre have removed the need for CDs and DVDs which were previously a source of mess.

And it has really helped. I know people who suffer from depression say a messy home can be very overwhelming and I do empathise with that feeling.

That doesn't mean that to get from front door to back you don't need to jump over: brio, duplo, wooden cherries and shoes but the theory goes that if you wanted to tidy away you could.

I read this quote - "We don't tidy up to have a tidy house. We tidy up so we can make a mess again." Take care of the little things and the big things take care of themselves

Feel Free

Today we have been to Fishers Farm. The Daddy One took the biggest Smalls swimming first so they have had an all round energetic day. We spent ages in Jolly Jumbos filling up the nets with balls and on the new zip wires, caroseul and pony rides.

S did a painting of her BFFs on the red carpet (I accidentally chopped off the red carpet in the photo but the BFFs are there.)

I expected to be tired today as I stayed up way later than usual last night but have actually been feeling affirmed and positive. S & E are watching one of the Harry Potter's with The Daddy One I was talking with a friend yesterday about how the star actors and actresses in those films really "learnt on the job" and had little formal training and yet they have been in 6 of the top 20 highest grossing movies of all time.

You're The Best Thing

You're The Best Thing

I forgot to put a photo of the hedge following it's haircut on the blog yesterday. It is hard to capture the whole lenght (70ft or so) and it sort of tapers off down towards the train line. Looking at the "Head Start for Happiness" post made me realise how much growing has been going on at the allotment too. In the winter you can see the top of the hill when you open the gate but for now it is glorious in its green.

Wild Wood

Wild Wood

There hasn't been any Paul Weller on the blog since "Headstart for Happiness" and when better than an August Bank Holiday weekend to have some Mod influence?

When Middle Small was staying at Grandma and Grandie's house he borrowed a book from their local library called The Star Wars Craft Book and he has been keen to tackle the 'Dagobah Carnivorous Plant Habitat' project so this morning, via the park, The Daddy One took him to buy the necessary Venus Fly Traps and so on.

S has had a creative burst of her own today desiging and making a Barbie television from a tissue box with a slit in the top to raise and lower the picures. She is way ahead of me, at six I am sure I still thought tiny people lived inside the big box in the corner of the room! Her first screening is 'Sleeping Beauty' and she is drawing out each scene. We had to measure them to make sure they would fit the oval. I especially like the one of the baby in the cradle with the King and Queen and the fairies flying around up above.

At one point today S said to me "If you had a choice would you build a mansion or a hospital?" I have no idea where this question came from and whilst I was thinking she said "It is difficult isn't it? One would be nice for you and one would be nice for other people."

and later on she said "How is wind made?" I love our autonomous investigations.

Middlle Small and I stayed up late together last night and watched "Young Victoria" and earlier on in the evening he helped make a cheesecake.

NB The Star Wars book does not recomend petals but E wanted to add his own touch.

I want you in my soul

I Want You in My Soul

The photography in this video is stunning, this is the kind of song that makes me imagine taking off on an aeroplane to take up a new job in a new country. My new music of 2011 so far: Jacques Greene, Jamie XX, today's title post and this. 4 quality tunes.

When Big Small (6) was the age Baby Small (2) is now Middle Small (4) was already a sitting up six month old and when Middle Small was the age Baby Small is now Baby Small was born. We having been talking maths of ages and how E is double O's age and has been on the planet twice as long and S is 3 times his age and how E+O=S (early algebra?) and how we need to remember that when sharing and adjust our expectations accordingly.

So, for me this adds up to never before having had a toddler at this stage and not had a newborn baby also. New territory. Solo breastfeeding a two year old is a new journey for me too

That is a sum of 7 years of non-stop nappy changes too (longer in dog years if you add on the times there were two in nappies.) Big Small never wore a disposable, Baby Small lasted about 2 weeks in cotton nappies. In fact it was 6 weeks before I left the house with all 3 children. Originally we wanted 5 children but that was before I knew that exclusive full term breastfeeding suppresses periods ( & I did GCSE Biology as well!) but for now I am very happy with 3. The Daddy One is keen for more though, never say never, if I did I'd probably land up with twins at 45. We have three friends with Babies due in December and S would rather have a Guinea Pig.

NB That "Baby" in between O's legs is S's Baby Robert. He's a berenguer and does look pretty real, he has fooled a few visitors.

All of our birth stories are here and are much more readable since Sandra Dodd kindly showed me how to put paragraph breaks into blogger

Summertime

Summertime

We have been to sunny Bognor Regis today, only it wasn't very sunny it was very rainy, so instead of the park we went to see some #welovehomeed friends for coffee and cake.

S was thrilled to see their pets. A dog and a guinea pig. I had a chat with The Mummy One in the family in between making brio track and lego space ships. When the rain finally stopped we headed to the zip wire park next to the beach for a run around.

In between showers The Daddy One has given our 70ft of privet hedge its annual hair cut.

Whilst I was clearing up this morning I found this picture that The Smalls friend who was over yesterday had drawn of our house and our staircase. The attention to detail of the banisters and metal stair rods is amazing, especially as he is only 5.

The new Sticker Dolly Dressing "Fancy Dress" arrived in the post today for S, I haven't seen her since she opened it. I forgot we had it on pre-order so it was a lovely surprise.

Am really starting to look forward to having our world back and visiting all the places we have avoided for the past month due to crowds and business. We have a fun list of Autumn gallivants lined up.

New Shoes!

Baby Smalls green shoes came in the post today. They fit a treat and he is thrilled with them! The easiest shoe shop ever. No queues, no stress!

On Monday afternoon he set his heart on green shoes, on Tuesday I found some on ebay and today they arrived. Beautiful green lego kickers. E has discovered that actual lego fits on the fasteners, So, S has purple converse and O has kickers both brands of shoe I owned when I was 17! The Smalls bestest friends have been over for the morning, their arrival was delayed due to a fatality on the A27 at Arundel, I normally look at the news in the mornings but for some reason today I didn't. They came bearing gifts, some hand crafted playmobil money for E, a necklace for S and some puzzles for O. We landed up having an impromptu feast of scones, cream and jam. I wish they lived next door.

When the Saints............

And so today it happened, E had a friend over for a play day; after a while S told him that he was her secret boyfriend and for the rest of the day they were pretty inseparable, sharing chocolate buttons on the swing seat at the bottom of the garden at one point. I had imagined this scenario before and I would even stretch to say I was prepared for it but at 14 and 16 you understand not at 4 and 6. Secret boyfriend is 7 by the way. And for all the complaining I do I feel I must add that for a 4 year old Middle Small handled it all very well I felt. In fact, overall he seems to be much happier at the moment.

S does have previous on the boyfriend front and last winter she wowed the audience at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford with details of her, then, 5 boyfriends. I should not be surprised. From the age of 5 The Daddy One, who she certainly resembles in looks and character more than me, had a constant stream of girlfriends .

But it will be here that this story ends I feel, for this is a home educating blog and not a home educating soap opera.......and along with body fluids (which are off limits on this blog!) I will leave romance writing to others more talented in that area.

Today was my first day as the solo adult back "in charge" of my trio for 9 days and, if you judge a whole day on the tears shed basis, it has not been a great success with more than our usual number of slips and trips and broken and "borrowed" objects to contend with. Baby Small has a nasty black eye following his fall on Monday and it is obviously shortening his fuse somewhat plus a horse chewing his shorts didn't help matters! I have been a little more exasperated than usual, I just can not phyiscally carry two of my children at once anymore. Grandma was with us until 10amish this morning though. Superstar. Whilst I did some word magnets with Middle Small Baby Small wanted to see the letter and number magnets. He knows a surprising number for a two year old and had fun showing off his knowledge to his Grandma.

And I must remind myself that the reason my Smalls cry a lot because I don't tell them not too! When you have hurt yourself letting it out feels good! When we stop crying I am not sure but here in our corner of Southern England it is a very rare occurrence to see an adult shed tears so I guess at some stage it will stop.

O was pretty humorous as we walked to the train station to meet our friends. Long term gas main road works at the double roundabout at the bottom of our road ensure stationary queueing traffic (which is why we decided walking would be quicker than driving.) At the open car windows he was saying "One, two, three, GO! No! No Go!" The motorists weren't laughing. I think he thought it was a Grand Prix formation. The large number of drivers who appear not to know the several possible shortcuts to avoid the queues tells you everything about why our little village could do with a bypass.

Always nice to spend some of the day with a fellow Home ed Mum, one day I will be able to eat a whole meal without interuption, I guess!

The Big Smalls are playing lego shops so beautifully right now and have just been to the allotment with The Daddy One, their relationship seems unscathed by the events of the day.

Ps Give the video a chance to get going - it is pretty rough and ready. The Daddy One is usually pretty handy with the camcorder but he recorded this on his phone as he had no idea his children would be chosen to go up on stage. S also gives home ed a great plug as well.

PPs I am not really in charge - To quote Bill Cosby

"I've seen the bosses job and I don't want it."

Hymn of the Big Wheel

Hymn of the Big Wheel

I like this Massive Attack tune, "the earth spins on its axis, one man struggles whilst another relaxes" The Daddy One, who is the real Massive Attack fan in our family, doesn't like this song at all.

Grandma has taken the Big Smalls swimming, Middle Small is back home as of lunch time today. I guess at some point tomorrow I will be the sole adult in charge of a 2, 4 & 6 year old for the first time in well over a week (but only for a little while as The Daddy One as a 4 day weekend coming up.)

It has been rainy today, we were going to hunt for green shoes but a few 'phone calls suggested our search was likely to be fruitless so we have been painting. We stayed up late last night drawing around bodies and decorating them and also booking a little mini break for the week the schools go back.

Here, for my records, are some of the artist endeavours. I especially like the gold knight and the fabric dress and the fact that Baby Small has coloured green shoes on his CSI outline.