Outside the Box

Let You Go

2012-02-27T14:56:00.007Z

S has played this tune over and over in the car today. :)

So it goes. Monday. I could tell you that we have been to Horsham today and that, as a result S, 7, has some more ideas for her local time line project and O, 2, a better grasp of numbers thanks to a nature walk but that would be to miss the point that, pretty much from eye opening o clock, Middle Small has done his best to suck any joy from my day.

Picking stupid arguments, spoiling other people's games, teasing and just generally being awful company. :(

We made hot chocolate for the flask today and put the marshmallows in mini Tupperwares. E found some letter stickers Smart Sandals bought and set about labeling them with names so we would know whose was whose (he only likes white ones you see!) In town, we started off in the toy shop, no purchasing, just window shopping. E was thrilled to find new lego and new playmobil 2012 catalogues featuring plenty of products he hasn't seen before.

Then we headed to the museum. S adores the drawers of fans, jewelery and accessories and O likes the toy display and E, well, he just screamed about how scared of the jail he is. Perhaps he can see the future.

So we left there, before we were asked to, and headed for a millennium sculpture that I remembered and thought S might like to see as a different representation of a time line. (it is the surrounding photos) It has many of the events we picked out. Roman armies marching on Stane Street, arrival of the railways and so on then, via the letters mosaic that the smalls like to jump on, we headed to the park where something very bizarre happened. A sunshine variety club coach arrived and a group of children with varying special needs came into the park then one ran up to this ladies baby pram and bit through the rain cover! It really was most odd. The lady was obviously very shocked and the carers told her it could be paid for and replaced but it was enough for the crew to want to head on so we took our car picnic to Warnham Nature Reserve where we had hot chocolates in the bus before doing the whole walk. Many snowdrops but not to many other signs of spring. O was insistent that everyone have a photo next to their number.

Warnham works well as a nature walk for us at the moment as it is flat and not too muddy for our not really fit for purpose buggy. As it was O managed the whole walk. This is the beginning of my 8th week without wine and I have not fancied a large, cold glass of something crisp and dry and white as much as I do right now!

It has been interesting talking about what we will do with the time line. For me it is like deschooling part two in a way. You see I know that S knows what she needs to know. We don't need to print stuff out and stick it in a project book for me to know that she has done her homework, nor does it need to be repeated and memorised for an exam. It is enough just to enjoy it. If she wants to make a project book or sketch somewhere we go then that is fine but we don't need to see something tangible as proof she is learning it. Her enjoyment is reward enough.

Cherish the Day

2012-02-25T15:39:00.008Z

Cherish the Day

There is a slightly virtuous feeling that accompanies leaving the gym at 9:03am on a Sunday morning having completed your workout for the day. That was me this morning. It is a great time to go because (A) the gym is near empty and (B) when I returned home not long after S and E didn't even realise I'd been and gone!

There have been two strong incentives to gym this week:

Firstly in bed O, 2 , said to me "Look Mum you are a smiley face look!"

Pointing to my nipples he said "Eyes" my belly button was labeled "nose" then all the saggy overhanging flab that shouldn't be there he traced round with his finger and said "Smiley mouth see"

and then, a couple of days later, there was the nearly getting stuck at the top of the lighthouse slide at Fishers Farm Park.

Am defiantly changing shape though but it is accompanied by feeling a bit stiff and achy. Post lunges and squats crashing on to the bed or the sofa is okay but a hard chair or the loo. OOWW! I notice I do still have a bruise on my bum from when I fell down the stairs well before Christmas! I think it was hiding under the flab.

So much of the exercise and weight loss challenge is about the mental state of mind. Of course the hunger and the stretching are physical but, for me, once I have made up my mind then my mind leads my body. It has been a cause for much reflection though, you see, last time I gym-med and exercised in a regular and committed fashion was with my gym buddy Ree, back in the late nineties early noughties and, ten years this September, tragically Ree died leaving behind a young baby son.

She was a fabulous gym partner, she gave up one to one coaching with Madonna's pilates trainer to stretch with me, a successful fund manager responsible for millions of pounds of other people's cash she sang out loud to the tune in her headphones oblivious that others were listening. These last few gym sessions she has been much on my mind. I really miss her. Our gym sessions were the first time in my then almost quarter century on the planet that I had discovered being fit could be enjoyable. Despite years of compulsory PE lessons at school I never knew. One of the Dad's at the last adults evening social summed up the impact of team sports at school when he said hearing the words "We'd rather have ten on the team than have you." is not going to be 'character building' for anyone.

Yesterday we went to a new to us library in our neighboring village, Storrington, and came home with a vast selection of- new books including several by Terry Deary, a great one about Spies. You may know him as the author of the popular and successful Horrible Histories series. He recently wrote an article very critical of learning in a school setting. This is a bit of a long quote

More than this, though, Deary is profoundly opposed to schools. That is, to the institution of school itself – to the extent that he will never accept an invitation to give a talk in one.

“I get 200 requests a year and the answer is no,” he says. “I detest schools with a passion. I’d rather cut off my left arm and eat it with Marmite than go into a school. And I don’t even like Marmite.

“Schools are an utter waste of young life. Learning things that will never be any use to you. The only reason they are there is to keep kids off the street. They were a Victorian invention. The Industrial Revolution took kids from their families and made the parents work in factories long hours. Then they said, ‘we can’t have these little kids working here.’ So what do we do? Lock them all up in the same room all day and we’ll call it school. I spent hours learning trigonometry, physics, none of which prepared me for life. Relationships, talking to people, managing money, planning your career, how to help someone who has cut their leg open. I have had to learn these things by default.

“There won’t be any schools in 25 years. There will be mentoring. Older people passing their skills on to younger people. Teachers know nothing about life and the real needs of pupils.”

After the library we went to the park then came home for two Scooby Doo films and the next installment of Saturday family movie night was Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix with the fabulous Delores Umbridge. Only S stayed up for it in the end though!

The Daddy One used the day to start to prepare things for this growing season at the allotment

Today after the gym we headed down to a sunny Littlehampton beach for a couple of hours playing in the park and on the bikes and scooters but S fell over and scabbed her knee and E speeded off far far to far ahead on his wheels so we came home!

S and I have been building up this time line of the history of our village. Although there is evidence that Bronze age man settled here we have started with the arrival of the Romans in AD34 and mentioned the building of Stopham Bridge, 1423 or 1309, the local church, 1180, the arrival of the railways, 1859, and the building of our house in 1905. There is a bit of a gap between the Romans departing around the year 400 and mentions in the Domesday book after 1086 but we will keep searching. We have Bignor Roman Villa and Arundel Castle not far from us and in. the next village West. Petworth a hoard of Roman coins was discovered so there is much for us to continue investigating. S is really enjoying the chronology approach, I can see her filing the facts in the boxes in her brain as she calls them. She is so inspired by history, there is a bit of geography here too but those schooly boxes don't matter to us. Interest led learning. and I might add it is interesting being lead. I hope the chairs are comfy when we get there!

Optimistic (ii)

2012-02-24T09:22:00.005Z

Optimistic

Late post today, a busy one, few bullet points and photos.

An upside down Friday today in which E had lamb mince for the breakfast of champions and O had porridge for tea. There was I thinking I had tonight's supper all organised when a voice says "Mum, what is that smell? I need to have some now!"

Yesterday's castle strewing has inspired S, 7, today we talked about John Nash (the architect of Knepp Castle)and how he was also the designer of Regent Street and therefore Hamleys.

Made it to the gym for my 6 week induction program despite forgetting my trainers and having to come back for them. My old gym from life pre children had lockers that were yours full time meaning you could leave your things there. This new system is taking some getting used to. The novelty of Mummy being out regularly has probably worn off a little sooner than I hoped, the trio were a handful in my absence today, but given the hitech, expensive looking gym scales say I am down 1.1kg on last week we might hit the target sooner than April 24th.

S has, it appears, abandoned vegetarianism as she ate six of our local butchers gorgeous sausages last night and then asked for ham sandwiches today. "Oh Mum she said I hate that they are a dead animal but they are just so tasty."

The Scooby Doo passion continues with two episodes, colourings and the discovery of a Scooby Doo game on the Barbie website

S showed me today that she has been keeping a daily diary for a few weeks now.

After lunch we met our friends from Muddy Sandy Life at Fittleworth Park for an hour before they came back here for a play. E, 5, was a bit boisterous at the park charging around with sticks but, for the first time in months and months, The Boys were able to ride their bikes and scooters whilst the children in the adjacent school had a PE lesson.

O, 2, has been into chalking on the blackboard and black paper and can draw his letter. An "O" or circle.

Optimistic

Three. Is the magic number?

2012-02-23T14:39:00.004Z

The Magic Number

Fabulous, sunny February weather has seen us on a great three castles gallivant around the glorious West Sussex countryside today.

The Daddy One and I spent two hours last night resorting the lego into its category boxes.

Today, being Thursday, was cleaner day and the trio gave me serious grief about going out. The weather forecast was favorable and a rough sketch out of the day agreed they grumbled as we collected lunch supplies from our local supermarket.

Stop one Arundel.

6 or 7 families from the Home Educating in West Sussex had said they would be at Mill Road Swings to met up ready for a walk around Swanbourne Lake. Of course, once S and E saw how many of their friends were there they were keen to do the walk as well. My hunch was that they wouldn't manage it and felt I had already had enough moaning for a morning so we stuck to the agreed plan! Before all the friends arrived the trio were playing happily together but soon abandoned each other once new inspiration appeared. I am mindful of this and felt, given the balance of our week, some family time was right. It was great to see the cool Mums though, many of the children having grown visibily over the hibernating winter months since we last saw them.

So, we had a snack in the car and headed over to, stop two, Bramber Castle, where we have never been before, and had fun in the sun climbing, and running down, the motte, talking about the strategic view and examining the ruins. Then, back in the car we headed, via our favorite Seawhites for some gold and silver tissue paper to finish the Roman sword project, didn't stop three at Knepp Castle, which we would never have found without Sat Nav doubling us back across a dual carriageway! The ruin of Knepp is visible from the A24 and, even though we regularly use that road, we had never noticed it before until we were leaving the centre of the estate today. Knepp was the hunting area for Bramber and we saw many signs warning of free roaming animals.

The first castle, Arundel, is a major tourist attraction providing income to a whole town, the second has been in ruins since the 16th century and the third turned out to be, we strongly suspect, someone's family house!

My hunch was right, both boys were gently snoring on the way home at 1:30pm. All the photos except the one of the slide are Bramber Castle. Bramber is a gorgeous stopping point for a run around but was dissapointingly dog pooed.

Ninja

2012-02-22T15:27:00.006Z

Sometimes the route in is not the one expected, especially true of autonomous education. A classic example in our family would be Walt Disney's adaptation of Hercules which provided a springboard and catalyst for S who is now pretty expert on Ancient Greece and Greek Myths for a seven year old. And so with Ninjas. Lego Ninjago with its mini figures, spinners and books opened E's eyes, Flat Stanley and the Japanese Ninja adventure continued it and now he is taken with this Chris Bradford book he found in the library last week.

Well, I made it to my first spinning class in 8 years. All this gymming and swimming sure does make for much laundry. I can report that it wasn't too bad, no diving out of the room needed. Felt odd though, coming home late. S and O waited up for me and, consequently have been a bit sleepy today.

A home day today. Grandma this morning and Smart Sandals (aka Weed) this afternoon. We have (in no particular order of importance or chronology)

Ordered in more Samurai series from the library.
Play-dohed (including this rather fabulous flat earth map E requested and SS obliged.)
Fought with the Roman swords from the Usborne book that The Daddy One made.
Completed the Europe jigsaw more times than necessary!
Been on the Barbie website.
Scooby Doo colouring, E and I were up early enough to see an episode in which Fred and Daphne kissed and Fred proposed. It has rather burst the "will they won't they" bubble.
Requested some world book day vouchers and had a mooch around the games on the world book day website.
Talked about going to see some local castles tomorrow.

Babies Keep Smiling :)

2012-02-22T12:04:00.003Z

E age 1 and S age 3 in 2008 on the wooden tractor at the RSPB, Pulborough Brooks

Baby Keep Smiling

A year ago I wrote this post about a local family we know. Back in the day, five or so years ago, on a regular Monday, we often walked around our local RSPB nature reserve together. This was when I had a duo not a trio who were happy tucked in their double carriage sleeping and snacking and this affording me chatting time and, most of all, I observing. I observed someone confidently autonomously home educating being led by their children's behavior and questions.

A year ago this week they abandoned home comforts and set off for a year of WWOOFing and who knew where their adventures would lead. Personally, I thought it was unlikely they would return to their previous routine but who knows what lies outside our comfort zones?

Well, now we do! They are going to build, and live in, a croft on the island of Rum. You can follow their blog and find out how it unfolds here.

Children..................

2012-02-21T16:01:00.006Z

Children

For a while now S has been asking to make old scrolls, she read about staining paper with tea to replicate parchment in a story book and was keen to try in out. So, yesterday upon our return from Intech we borrowed a bag of Grandie's PG Tips and set to work. In the end we had to soak it twice. It was dry this morning but not very dark so we gave it a second coat which dried whilst we were at Fishers Farm.

S wanted to make a historical map so, after our visit to Cowdray yesterday we agreed upon castles and royal buildings in our area. We discovered there are ten or so under one hour's drive away and we talked about why, in many of S's history books, there is a gap between Roman times and the 12th century where not much seemed to happen!

The ten castles on her map are

We forgot Brighton's Royal Pavilions.

We used: books, leaflets and the web to find out more about them. S has been to: Arundel, Windsor and both the Roman entries. Amberley is a, rather grand, hotel and we plan to check out the rest over the next month or so.

It has been a Grandma day today and the plan was for S and E to swim then we would all meet at Fishers Farm for lunch and come home. Only it didn't quite go to plan. E had a epic temper tantrum shortly after Grandma arrived so he stayed home with me. Boy am I fed up with these fits of rage from Middle Small. So draining. Understandable yes, he has been poorly and is probably tired but argh! I read and I read about ideas for helping him with his angry feelings but the reality is that I am fed up! Of course he was fine once we made it outside and were running around but..............

He took this funny photo of me and O at Fishers. In Other News

I am going to my first spinning class in more than 8 years tonight. These 6 hours a week I have planned to gym (3 hours exercise the rest is traveling and changing etc) are feeling strange to me. Being away from pulled in every direction. S came into me about 2am following a nightmare about a tiger and complained there were rotten apples in the bed.

We found a mobile phone at Fishers Farm which is handed in. It could have turned into a Scooby Doo / Enid Blyton adventure otherwise. S and E are still really into chess. Continuing the castle theme?

Tides

Sweetest Day in May (ii)

2012-02-20T15:30:00.007Z

I adore these pods. Wonder if there are plans for them afterwards?

Sweetest Day in May

One of the main reasons that I am always happy to make the journey to Intech is the drive there. Today was no exception, gently nodding snowdrops lined the single track A272 with occasional tutti fruity crocuses along the way. Gorgeous winter sunshine. Heaps of tractors including a Fendt, several Valtras and a Claas Combine not the same old John Deeres and New Hollands we normally find.

S, 7, and E, 5, were really keen to pay a visit today and for O,2, it was his first trip out in six days since being poorly. Last year we made six trips to Intech and, by my way of seeing things, we had rather exhausted what was on offer but clearly not so for the Smalls. But then, they are happy to spend 15 minutes launching parachutes into the air tunnel. I envy their abandon.

There is a big new display at Intech of DNA and human biology. It is seriously funky with inflatable tents, touch screens and cool tropical colour stools. The subject matter is probably a little too teenage for my crew but perfect for its target audience. They have also had a move around between upstairs and downstairs and, in true supermarket point of sale tradition, it was interesting to see how the children gravitated towards exhibits they had previously overlooked.

That said they were thrilled to discover ear wax has a genetic cause and very interested in the evolutionary skeletons too.

S adores the Planetarium shows at Intech, they are fabulous, but E has never been inside. Today we persuaded him to give it a go with assurance that we would leave if he didn't like it. He lasted about 15 minutes before he started crying and we had to leave. S was furious. I understand her frustration I was keen to know how the story ended too. It is a juggle. Interestingly though our 2 year old loved it. You know your own children.

Intech was really busy today with two school trips and an inset day so I had to be extra vigilant with O as well. Spinning plates. Spinning plates.

On the journey over through Midhurst E spotted this castle and was keen to take a look. In a say yes more moment I said we would stop on the way home so we did! Great call, S's eagle eye spotted the only parking place in the car park and we went down, well wrapped up, for a walk. The castle does not open until March (along with so many other tourist attractions in our area where we are spoiled for more days out than there are days in the week) but S and E enjoyed pretending they were knights and Princesses and S said "Is it only open at (K) night?" Get it!

They are keen, now we are home, to make maps of all the castles in our area on old fashioned paper so I suspect the strong tea is cold.

In Other News

We went to Intech six times last year so there are many other posts on the blog about it.

3D

2012-02-18T08:20:00.006Z

Fun at the Museum of Childhood.

Toil and trouble. A great cauldron with wooden ingredients. Fillet of snake, cobweb, unicorn's tear etc

The Heart Family behind glass. They are Barbie's next-door-neighbors. The Shard growing ever taller. We had great views from East and West today.

One of the first ever prototype Barbies from the 1950's. All of her components are different colours.

First London day of 2012. At this time in 2011 we had notched up a few more but thanks to a combination of snow, sickness & jury service this is first one. It was too be a whole family day but with E, 5, better not have eaten enough to sustain a day's walking and O, 2, still poorly it landed up as a Mother and Daughter day. It is always a dilemma what to do when one is ill. S spent most of Friday in front of the TV and it was obvious another home day would have been a major disappointment. I guess my only child legacy helps me see the smalls as individuals rather than a constant collective. We noticed many well dressed people on the train before remembering that it was London Fashion Week. For the second time this week my ribs were aching. Not from laughter today but from Friday's gym visit.

First stop was the Museum of Childhood. That was after our usual hangman and noughts and crossed tournament on the train. S still beat me even though I was feeling very refreshed after 12 hrs sleep! I fell asleep at 6pm with O, woke around midnight for an hour then not again til 7amish!

After the Museum of Childhood we headed across town to the Science Museum for some 3D photography, Glad it was not the Natural History as the queue was round the block.

S posing for a 3D photograph at the science museum. I had one done too. All the data from the project is going to a Great Ormond Street research project.

Playing with the results. I saw this advertised on the Science Museum's twitter feed.

Special offer on the train today. Only £13:50 for us both, we took lots of snacks and drinks so only spent £3.00 in the Museum of Childhood cafe! Bargain.

We were out for just over seven hours and O was really pleased to see us when we returned.

No Problem

2012-02-16T10:26:00.009Z

Seeds ready for the allotment. You can see photos of our allotment on most of the blog posts from last June / July.

No Problem

So, as I hinted on the blog on Wednesday, E finished Peter and Jane 3b with The Daddy One since which time he has enthusiastically played word game with me. This time around he is so much more confident on the nouns, he finds "apples" and "rabbits" easy but still, occasionally, stumbles on "they" and "this" type words. This sort of information I include on the blog for my reference as much as anything.

I forgot, on my last post, to include the Roman Mysteries link. The first box says "Staring Simon Callow" but he dies 10 minutes into the first episode. Don't let that deter you though it is great.

Yesterday morning S and I made chocolate cakes for the friends "What is egg yolk made of?" S asks. The places we go on our conversations.

Since I have been on a calorie reduction diet I have been staggered by the huge number of diet plans that have come across my radar, weight watchers, Dukan etc.

It seems pretty simple to me. The choice is between eating less and exercising more. I saw this great formula to work out the calories you need per day based on your: age, occupation, gender and so on for me it was about 1,900. O wasn't breastfeeding much 7 weeks ago when I worked it out but he is now! Loads. For reasons that will soon become apparent.

So, I worked out that eating 600 calories less per day then equating calories to grams is a 1kg per week lost. Obviously 600 calories is all the little extras, the cake with your coffee, biscuit with your tea, wine with your supper. I have waved goodbye to potatoes, bread, rice and pasta and seem, mostly, to be eating eggs, chicken, fish and salad! If it weren't for those blasted scales I'd know.........

Had my gym induction today. The best activity for burning calories they offer is a spinning class at 600 calories in 45 minutes. I have tried, unsuccessfully, twice to book in. I guess everyone else must have the same idea as me.

We had the BFFs over for most of yesterday, well, only two of them. Their big sister is poorly. Amazing how one change shifts the dynamic. Mostly lego, Barbies, Scooby Doo and painting as I recall.

O was really unhappy, whingy and whining the whole day and could just not be comforted at all. Then, shortly after the friends left, he vomited! Urgh! There are so many bugs around our way at the moment I guess we have done well to avoid them for so long. Et was really hard to handle in the afternoon as well. He drove me insanely crazy when I was trying to sort out O. It is becomes clear now!

Then, around 11pm Et woke up, coughed and covered the bed! He is much better now and is eating but O is still being sick when he eats and hasn't really moved off the sofa all day. Charlie and Lola tastic with some Fingermouse and Flumps. I did remember to restock my poorly days cupboard after Christmas so E has had a Lego Star Wars sticker book.

Just as I was wondering yesterday how on earth we spend £6 per day on electricity when, for the last 12 hours, the washing machine and tumbler drier have been on non stop!

S has used the opportunity to finish the Roman Mysteries box set and complete reading Monster Mission by Eva Ibbotson.

So with gritty, grainy, tired eyes I made it to the first gym session. I did manage an hour of exercise. O slept whilst I was there so The Daddy One sorted out the seeds for the allotment this year. We, obviously, had to cancel Smart Sandals for this morning but fortunately The Daddy One has every 4th Friday off.

It is eight years since I last had a gym membership and the three months is a good call. After 10 minutes of watching crutch thrusting on MTV whilst sat on the exercise bike I was instantly reminded how boring it is! An trainer showed me a few sits ups and stretches though. There is nothing really that I do without the children in tow, we tend to go pretty much everywhere together, the strangest part of all was being without them. It is going to be strange to have a me only activity.

Photos mostly taken yesterday before the sickness bug paid us a visit.

The snow leaves and the sickness comes. We have a great week of gallivants planned next week everyone hoping this visitor is a short stay house guest.

Why Can't We Live Together?

2012-02-15T13:32:00.009Z

Why Can't We Live Together?

We have a groove of : libraries, swimming, friends; soft play these winter days. Parks have been rare for a while so it was refreshing to see the sun this morning. Consequently, instead of our regular Wednesday to Fishers Farm (which tends to be too busy for us in the school holidays,) we headed to Fittleworth Helter Skelter park. It is our best local winter park as it is made of spongy tarmac all over with no muddy action to slip things up.

Home via the supermercado where we stocked up our Valentine decorations box with some seriously reduced (70%) off bargains. We now have some heart silicon moulds for bath bombs :)

S can't be separated from the Roman Mysteries box set. I suspect she will be sofatastic til it is done. I have managed to watch a fair bit of it with her but three year olds are not the target audience so I have been jigsawing with O too. It is brilliantly made though.

The multiple benefits of keeping a blog for a year are really beginning to be felt by me now. Et is 2 pages away from finishing Peter and Jane 3b for the second time just as he was this time last year. You might remember I have blogged before about how it took me a while to realise he was not S (who finsihed the whole scheme in 3 or 4 months when she was just 4) and how E struggled with the leap to book 4 and its smaller font size, greater number of words per page and more new words. He is in a different league of both confidence and ability this time and still is only 5 which is young in terms of boy readers.

In Other News

I am wearing a pair of trousers today that haven't fitted me since I bought them in October :) Perhaps The Daddy One was right about the shrinking swimming costume.

If This Is How Love Feels

When it Hurts So Bad

2012-02-14T19:34:00.006Z

When It Hurts So Bad

Last night was the monthly adults social evening meeting. I have blogged about these meetings many times before, probably 12 in a year of posting :) but just as a quick summary all 3 boys fell asleep and S, 7, stayed up, dressed as waitress, serving drinks and painting a picture of us all. 6 parents (and another gorgeous newbie that's two in 2 days!) came and, when one of our guests dropped the whole sugar bowl in his lap, I laughed til my ribs ached. We covered a huge range of education related topics and with new faces came new perspectives. Refreshing.

Today Grandma came late as her lovely ragdoll cat is poorly. No one wanted to go to the new swimming pool, they are out of their depth in the water (it is a constant 1.20m and they are 1.10m or so) so, after messing around at home, I took S & E back to the pool they love in Billingshurst. It was, being half term, busier than usual, and they were unhappy about this. I felt like a 1950s parent with the "You don't know how lucky you are." thoughts in my head. Am hoping I will be able to modify our memberships at the gym. Looks like I'm on my own (Stalone) It has been a while since I saw them swim. Obviously we went to a pool on Sunday but they didn't actually swim there. I spent a while showing them how to kick off from the side rather than the bottom. There were large floats out to start with but then some of the pool was sectioned off for lessons which left us a little squished.

S and I have had some great chats today about: Communism, life insurance, how much she will pay the workers in her fashion design house, why the lemon in my fizzy water floats but sinks in Grandma's still water..........

Once O fell asleep after supper we watched the first three scrolls of The Roman Mysteries on DVD. S filled us in with her epic knowledge from having read all of the books and we had a few funnies when she told us Jonathan was in a comma and then we realised she meant coma! A deep sleep as opposed to a punctuation mark. Then E asked if Lupus' wax tablet was made of ear wax.

Mind Power

2012-02-13T15:15:00.006Z

Mind Power

Lodged somewhere in my brain is the idea that apparently six weeks is a pivotal time. This might be from my fund management days due to it being half way through a quarterly investment cycle (most fund managers have their performance assessed quarterly) or maybe I read it in a trashy mag about new relationships! My memory is not great, either are equally possible.

So today is the start of week 6 and I will confess my will power is at its lowest. Is it all those posters of drooling valentine meals with molten chocolate centres and fizzy pink wine? Perhaps it is because the children seem to be eating more than ever and serving hot lamb mince Shepherd's Pie up for the boys on a rainy Monday lunchtime would test anyone! Is it because yesterday I wore my swimming costume for the first time since September and it hardly fits me (My uber delicious husband suggested it had shrunk!) But no, it is none of these things really, it is the inevitable slowdown in weight loss. When you have a lot to lose the initial drop off is an ego boost but then the reality of the long, boring, hard slog ahead dawns.

Even without the added complication of the broken scales in the mix it certainly feels as though fewer grams disappeared last week. So the gym has come just at the right time.

We tried the new swimming pool yesterday afternoon. Just as we were leaving home E, 5, had a nosebleed and then another as we climbed out of the pool. S isn't keen. The pool lacks a shallow end and is 1.20m constant depth all over meaning she can't push off the bottom to start like she normally does. Mostly she sulked on the loungers at the edge. After 15 minutes or so exploring his surroundings O came in and loved it.

We will try again tomorrow. A gym induction for me has been booked for Friday. It is about 9 years since my corporate gym membership expired. I am under no illusions about the scale of the task ahead and the inevitable pain to come. Three months membership is looking like a wise choice!

Anyway, this is a home ed blog, I guess you could file yesterday's pool trip under PE or PT depending on your age and inclination. We have yet to utilise formal swimming lessons just as we never used formal walking lessons. S has picked it up at her own pace and E isn't far off either.

Today we have, in no particular order of importance or chronology: created playdoh birthday cakes, made Valentine cards, hairstyled the Barbies, played lego star wars, watch Scooby Doo, been to the library (where I was thrilled to find you can now borrow this) and sat together doing The Jungle of Peril (a puzzle book).

It is the adults home ed evening social here later tonight which is why I was so thrilled to find all of the sofa cushions had been utilised turning the front room into a soft play zone a few moments ago.

I was woken when O pushed a book under my nose and turned the bedside lamp on, what a great start to the day I thought, then after a while other thoughts "The heating seems quiet." "Wonder why there are no trains?" So I found my phone. It was 2:53am. He sat next to me, looking at the books as I drifted in and out of conciousness before finally snuggling down and turning the light out sometime later.

Greatest Love

2012-02-12T10:38:00.004Z

Well the valentine party was a great success. 10 girls, 2 boys, two toddlers, a newborn; 12 adults braved the coldest night of the winter for 3 hours of heart based fun with no tears and much laughter!

Our home ed friends bought some beautiful heart inspired treats to share (I resisted!) and Grandma and Grandie stayed the night for Saturday Family Movie Night (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

Very sad to read about the death of Whitney Houston in the night. Back in June we had a blog post named "The Greatest Love of All" Sapphire loves her "I believe that children are the future" line and often asks me to play it in the car. I think it reminds her of our drive to Tuscany in 2010. We have inspired a new blog by the way. It is here

Mmmbop

2012-02-10T09:04:00.012Z

Open the curtains and see who came in the night.

Mmmbop

So I know that quality over quantity is the answer and, as the ingredients are being weighed out for cheesy hearts on my beautiful Bugatti scales that arrived for Christmas, I am again forced to wonder why I purchased such a cheap and useless pair to weigh myself with.

Being as scientific as I can which means wearing the same clothes and putting the scales in the same place on the rug as they were when I very first stood on them my guess is that I am down 500g this week but the reality is they don't work properly and, depending on where abouts on the floor you place them and worse, how you position your feet on them I can obtain readings in an 8kg range. My supersuportive Mum, who has joyfully joined me on my slim down quest, says they record her weighing the most she has ever weighed and a significantly different number to the scales on her wii fit at home.

On the plus side the rubbish scales are made by Hanson so before I even look at the numbers a few bars of the persistently catchy MMMBop have to come from my mouth. They were home schooled you know. Hanson that is. As if the hair wasn't a clue!

"Without home schooling, he adds, he and his brothers would have missed out on the opportunity to, well, become Hanson.''

Furthermore upside though as I do feel as if I have lost weight and given that I have been eating about 1,200 calories per day and not broken the diet once it would be surprising and disappointing if I haven't but it can't be quantified. Perhaps some trying on of old clothes is in order :)

I Reviewed the scales on Amazon in an attempt to alert others.

I can report though that eating healthily is really expensive. Chicken, salmon and raspberries are way more expensive than donuts and pasta!

Et is loving the Pandora's box story that came in his home ed match box swap. We have read it over and over to him. He likes the dragonfly of hope that flies out at the end.

A mother that I met at the little conference back in June retweeted Caroline Lawrence's blog last night. Caroline is the author of the Roman Mysteries series that S has been through (there are 17 or 18 I believe) this year We had a great chat about Slave Girl of Jerusalem at breakfast this morning and how the mother sacrificed herself for her twins.

Friday again, the weeks seem to roll faster the more regular commitments you fill them with, and today I took Et out with me for the morning, in places this week he has driven me rather bonkers which, given he was away for one night and Grandma was here for another takes some doing. My initial hunch was to leave him home and have some free time but I recall Steve Biddulph writing about how attention deficit is the parent not paying attention to the child and not the other way round so, in the two hours that Smart Sandals was here, he came with me. We drove to the library and the butchers rather than my usual Friday walk and went via the gym which we have joined!

The pool is great and I can take the trio anytime after 10:30am myself unlimited and hope to squeeze in a couple of classes for me. We have only joined the family for 3 months which should see us through to the warmer weather and holiday time, making a change from soft play. Middle Small is such a different child one on one, we had a great drive through the snow and several times the lady at the gym remarked how shy and quiet he was!

Came home to find Sapphire had done some beautiful marbling with the marbling inks

We have a little party planned for tomorrow so I suspect this afternoon will be occupied with heart shaped preparations for that. Oh, and lego......

Love is Like a Butterfly............

2012-02-09T14:26:00.009Z

Barbie enjoys the orchids. Can you see the butterflies on the vine above E's head? Fabulous display of snowdrops.

Today we have been for our third annual visit to the "Butterflies in the Glasshouse" event at Wisley Gardens in Surrey, about an hour or so away from our house. S woke up feeling fabulous, after ten hours sleep, and declared we must go. Made sense as it is school half term next week and we only gallivant in school holidays in an emergency.

If you are only an occasional baby wearer then this is the occasion. Buggies and prams are not permitted in the glass house so Orin watching was a full time occupation. Lucky we had arranged to meet up with Grandma and Grandie. It is really hot and humid under the glass, providing a bizarre contrast to the swans skating on the ice outside. We all walked around together then, after coffee and jelly in the cafe, Grandma and Grandie took the two biggest back inside for a slower look and they were actually able to see some of the butterflies hatch out. The humidity makes for big puddles and they were just too irresistible for a jumping two year old so O and I held back and held the coats (hats, scarves.......) Felt good to be outside. A much needed gallivant. It being Thursday home to a beautiful clean house, well, until someone squirted yoghurt up the wall anyway and Et's Mythology Match Box Swap. A Pandora's Box!

Home on the sofa with treats from the gift shop from Grandma & Grandie. E chose a Roman Things to Make and Do Usborne book, he enjoying holding his actual five pound note and talking about the options it opened, O a Maisy weather book and S a paint your own butterflies set. The gift shop at Wisley in dangerous (but in a good way!)

Doo Wop (the remix)

2012-02-09T06:38:00.007Z

Doo Wop The Remix

Gilles Peterson played this Lauren Hill remix last night. I used the original as a title a couple of posts back.

After a sofa of an afternoon a flurry of late night learning slash playing should have come as no surprise.

Sapphire, 7, made a great lego set up with a "here come the girls" theme. We probably have 200 mini figures but under 20 of them are female. It features a scientist in the lab, a wedding arch, two skateboarders, surfers and a sunbather! Am pleased to report she had an excellent night's sleep. We set up the room burner, a big dose of rescue remedy, some aconite, cuddles in bed all night long and she didn't wake once! Cosy-sleeping oh how I love you. Etienne, 5, read to The Daddy One in bed and then The Daddy One read to him. He is loving these Lego Ninjago books. Some he had for Christmas and a couple arrived this week as we had them on pre-order. In general I find shopping for him much harder as there is normally less choice in clothes and books for males so these are a great find.

Orin, 2, sat in bed and did his favorite and his best orchard double sided jigsaws over and over then he read Charlie and Lola "Things" to me! A book we bought for S 5 or so years ago that he just adores. Especially lost things. He asked me to "picture it."

Love & Light

2012-02-08T13:36:00.005Z

Love and Light

Sometimes, when I sit down to blog the previous 24, I am staggered how much we have achieved, how far we have travelled and I wonder which photos of a great day out to exclude. Other times home days can be really productive and selecting the best art pieces to photograph and include is the challenge for the post.

Not so today. In fact I haven't left the house since yesterday's post except to swap over car seats and turn the car around which hardly counts.

This was a mistake. Yesterday afternoon E and I should have popped out for a while but he wasn't keen and it was freezing cold with a raw north wind so I didn't push it and the consequence was come time for bed no one was really tired. (apart from Grandma & I!) * When I say time for bed I don't really mean bed time, we don't clock watch in our family but as a rhythm we tended to head upstairs for stories, bath and a wind down after supper time. In summer we head to the allotment but then it is generally warm and light.

So it goes. And then, shortly after the boys headed to snoozeland north of 9pm, thanks to a croup like cough, S couldn't sleep and was up playing chess with Grandma from 1am-5am, so she slept in til around 11am.

Fortunately Grandma was able to take the boys to Fishers Farm for a couple of hours this morning, whilst S slept, to expend some energy. Thank everything for Superstar Grandma.

This is always the worse part of having a sub par under the weather child. They regress and would like your full attention whilst the others need you too. Fortunately I was one jump ahead this time and ordered several new DVDs & other activities at the weekend to keep on stand by just in case. I wasn't anticipating needing them so soon but hey!

It is still really cold here in our corner of West Sussex, even with the radiators too hot too touch our drafty old Edwardian house is a mission to keep warm. But, even on these days, I am just as grateful as on sunny empty days at the beach to be a happy home edder. Imagine, how on earth would I do the ''school-run?'' without a major compromise of everyone's happiness.

The Daddy One should be home shortly, The Smalls haven't seen him really since Sunday afternoon :) Hooray.

Scooby Doo Saves The Day

2012-02-07T15:33:00.006Z

O on the phone to his big brother this morning.

So, I had this idea that one child would be easier than three and, with an incredibly rare evening to myself, it would be possible to organise some days out and days in for the next few weeks.

Error.

A solo child lacking playmates chose me as his buddy until later than normal sleep o clock.

The feasibility of: Brooklands Museum, events at Goodwood, The Watts Gallery and the Ashmolean museum will have to wait.

A leg wax for me this morning, and a chance to catch up with my super local beautician who is totally cool about having a toddler keep us company, before Grandma bought the sleepoverers home around lunchtime. Am considering joining a gym, our nearest is a country club which creates a mental block at that Simpsons "Class Struggle in Springfield" episode where Marge constantly reinvents her Chanel suit that I have yet to overcome. Am going to have a look around tomorrow. The children could join too and, in the absence of formal swimming lessons or gymnastics clubs or classes coming out of the budget, it might be just the indoor exercise needed to carry us through these cold months til summer.

It should have come as no surprise to learn that tonight is a full full moon. the coincidence of poor behaviour from Middle Small and the lunar cycle are really too frequent to ignore. Even the eternally patient Grandma is feeling tested.

S has done some KS2 bytesize today, O enjoyed a fringe trim and E read his Peter and Jane but mostly it has been about Scooby Doo since they arrived home. A cartoon enjoyed by the whole trio, a DVD purchase was cheaper than a library rental so........S had a restless night last night, Mum said she was wheezy and coughing. This is the kind of afternoon in which pre-diet me would have been making cakes.

In Other News

Someone wolf-whistled me today. Yes, here in the 21st century. I know it was me because when I turned around to see (we live in a rural village forgive me my lack of urban disinterestedness) a lorry driver looked at me and said "Yes, you sweetheart." It has been so long since this has happened to me I can't remember if it is post ironic chic to be outraged or flattered or just perplexed. That's the last time I pop out without the children in tow. Nothing like that happens then.

Happy Birthday

2012-02-06T21:15:00.024Z

Happy Birthday

12.02.2011-12.02.2012

So, our outside the box gallivanter's blog is one year old today. Twelve months since the first ever post "Growing Brains" was published. Perhaps we should have a party! Oh, we already are! We have thirty or so friends over this afternoon for our now almost annual Valentines day ball organised, mainly,by Sapphire.

A 12 month cycle of finding 15 minutes per day to blog and record our adventures is complete. It has been so useful, the annual LEA report to our local county council was a dream as everything I needed to bring it together was already here on the blog not in those schooly boxes but as a holistic view of what we do. Loving life: love learning.

Childhood is not preparation for life. Childhood is life

In a year the blog has clocked up 63 followers. Thank-You.

and has had 49,909 page views in 52 weeks. It averages 200 page views per day so consistently which, as I understand it, is not bad for a minority interest blog so again Thank-You.

Through the blog we have reinforced connections with the places we visit regularly: Intech, Wothing Musuem, Brighton Toy Museum, Fishers Farm Park and Pallant House are amongst those have shared and retweeted the blog so I guess several people are now not wondering if we were on an inset day they know "School is not compulsory." The first ever person to share my blog was Jonathan Macdonald and his positivity has been a massive influence and inspiration to me. Thank-You.

We have also made a connection with Charlotte Rochez who is doing a Phd in the History of Home Education at Cambridge University and met her in real life at one of our adults evening socials.

Sandra Dodd, who came to stay after the Little Conference, showed me via some basic html coding how to put some paragraphs breaks in to my writing (which explains why the earlier posts are harder to read.) Thank-You.

The Daddy One has created the blog ring for our local group and 12 blogs now belong giving families considering home education a flavour of the options and approaches out there.

Yesterday, as I was helping S make some cheesy hearts for the party today, I remembered that we made them last year and they were the subject of my second ever posting. That was when I decided that I am not going to blog everyday for the next cycle.

Various reasons, I am not making time to read the blogs of the lovely people who comment on my blog in the way that I would like to so it is my intention to have several blog free days to allow me to do this, there is a great, active network of new home ed bloggers out there and reading their posts is like being invited into their living room.

Second, I feel our seasonal, monthly, weekly rhythm has been documented here.

Also operation get fitter and slimmer for forty will be taking up more of my time now we have all joined a gym. We have Jonathan to thank here too. His inspirational post about his own weight loss was a massive motivator to me along with these gems:-

Sapphire said to me a few nights back

"I have this one big fat pillow that I pretend is you that I cuddle when I am not in the same bed as you."

and a few months ago

"You know Mum in history people like you were once considered beautiful."

There is motivation for you.

The music has been great to, not exactly sure when I decided to name each post after a song title but it has been brilliant to find others who enjoy my taste in jazz and hip hop. Great to have Stevie Wonder on the anniversary post.

Reading through the old posts what strikes me most of all our change in attitudes to Barbies and just being together and not fighting it but feeling it, trying our best to live for the moment and enjoy. We might not be on the rushtastic treadmill of endless clubs, groups and lessons so fashionable in 2012 but they will still be there when the children are 20 at which point I can guarantee they won't want to play Barbies or Lego with us. Play.

"It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child or adult is able to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self."

D.W.Winnicott

The Look

2012-02-06T15:13:00.006Z

The Look

So it goes.

We took a view yesterday, a Snowy Sunday, afternoon that The Daddy One would be better off heading to my parents for the night as he had a seat on a very early flight out of Heathrow first thing Monday morning. Three days in is always one too many and, as the solo adult, it did take me an eternity to persuade anyone to head to sleep last night and four wrigglers in a double bed was a squeeze but The Daddy One, who works superhard so that the rest of us can live, made it to Scotland this morning.

The weather was not with us for Wisley and the butterflies today, although there is no snow left in our village only 2 or so miles north there is significantly more. The roads are very clear but the pavements and fields very slushy and slippy, so instead we, me and The Smalls that is, followed the Daddy One's path to Grandma and Grandie's so that at least the sleepover side of the deal could be full filled.

S was very excited. She loves to do Parchment craft with her Grandma and she packed the Barbie's up ready for the journey and organised a stack of books to read in the car.

E well, E. If you haven't already read these three posts they will tell you all you need to know.

Only Love Can Break Your Heart

The Creator Has a Masterplan

Thoughts on Middle Small

Our barometer of a middle boy son E has been more than a handful this weekend. When I heard the news that the BFFs, who we spent most of Thursday with, had been struck down with a vomiting bug my assumption was that it was heading our way and so explained the deterioration in behaviour. But no, so far we are clear.

My Mum took E into the woods to play in the snow and he leaped around on the Wii speed slicing for a while. Swimming tomorrow and soft play on Wednesday will hopefully address the physical energy that it is so difficult to find channels for in the winter. The odd contrast is that yesterday he did some of his best reading and writing ever.

Yesterday I played with him, exclusively, for ages in the morning. We set up a playmobil castle battle and fired cannons, played chess on the tablets......it is hard not to feel the others are not being treated evenly but, when I am well rested and well fed, I have made my peace with one of my children needing more attention at the moment. It is easier for everyone on those days if I can find the strenght to feel it not fight it.

"Put the relationship first and then figure out how to fit everything else around that."

"Conventional parenting focuses on the destination. Joyful living focuses on the journey."

Move On Up

2012-02-05T10:35:00.008Z

Move On Up

Can't get enough Curtis Mayfield today.

This time last year my trio all wore wings when, with my Mum and, newly retired Dad, we went to see the butterflies in the glass house at Wisley Gardens in Surrey. For two reasons this sticks in my mind firstly because it was so brilliant and secondly because it was in that week that my decision was made to keep a blog of our life out of school.

My feeling was that we were doing some real cool gallivants that needed recording having already been to: Intech, Pallant House Art Gallery, Drusillas Zoo and the Natural History Museum earlier that month. My memory is notoriously poor and a blog seemed the ideal method of bringing together text and photographs of our outside the box, loving learning all the time life.

At that time only one of three were of ""compulsory"" school age (of course we all know that school is not compulsory but still that phrase is used) although in the 21st century the reality is that it is even unusual that our youngest does not attend some sort of formal, structured, segregated care. But now, one calender cycle on at 7, 5 and 33 months we are more comfortable than ever with our too cool for school status.

Of course the blog has turned into much more than just a gallivants log with parenting dilemmas, my eclectic musical selections, learning resources and home education politics all woven in along the way.

We were scheduled to return to Wisley tomorrow as the butterflies are an annual event but it seems that snow will step in to stop play so, for now, we are content to enjoy the photos from last year.

Several days later Sapphire, who was then just 6, painted this. It remains one of my all time favorites of all her paintings and led me to remark:

"My daughter doesn't stop painting because the school bell rings, she stops when she is finished."

Keep On Keeping On

2012-02-04T14:45:00.007Z

The picture of the soap leave roses I took yesterday didn't come out very well so here is a better one.

Keep On Keeping On

A scenario C Saturday. We were scheduled to have friends over this morning, scenario a, who sadly could not make it. We talked about some of all of us heading to Brighton, scenario b, but it is seriously cold here with snow forecast overnight so there was little appetite so we watched Padawan Menace, all 5 of us on the sofa first thing, very decadent! And we painted, did cutting and sticking, conducted an epic search for Barbie's lost little dog Taffy that involved lifting up all the sofas and searching under under beds. After lunch we watched this cartoon version of The Odyssey, from Story Book Classics, we haven't seen in a while then played lego for ages. S created our family in mini fig form and once she had left the room O, 33 months, started acting out scenes with them. Hilarious and insightful all at once. It took some time to find the right clothes for The Mummy One in the mini fig family to wear because apparently the lego people have much cooler clothes than me. I think it might be time to go shopping. The lego boys are in the garden playing with their toy light sabres.

We still haven't found Taffy. Am rather bah humbugly hoping it doesn't snow too much as we have a pretty neat week scoped out next week and 48 hours of enforced indoorsness is about my maximum before a sense of humour failure happens. On the plus side I can report from my fifth no wine weekend that weekends last longer without wine.

O has been watching Alphablocks on the cbeebies website. E used to love that show when he was 2 as well. Not sure if these links work overseas but if they do it is a great pre-readers show.

Two songs on the blog today. Its 51 week anniversary. There was an interview with Jacques Green in the Guardian today and it got me to playing this. It really is beautiful.

Another Girl

Close to You

2012-02-03T13:23:00.005Z

Close to You

Sapphire painted this great picture of Orin and I this morning and Orin did some painting too.

So it would appear that Big Small, 7, is in love. She is sporting a heart shape pendant on elastic around her neck and informs me that she has gifted a matching one to her betrothed (her words not mine.) Last night, when we were reading together in bed, she told me that they have so much in common like Ben 10.

"I didn't know you liked Ben 10. " I replied.

"Of course I do Mum, I mean I have always wanted to know just how they make those action figures so big."

First I'd heard. Many questions about first boyfriends, love tokens and gifts have been fired at The Daddy One and I. He is far more qualified to answer than I having had a girlfriend near continuously from the age of 5 upwards. In fact when I was 30 and we had just started going out a mutual friend's mother who had known The Daddy One since he was a toddler told me that:

"He has always been a hit with the ladies."

Anyway, so it goes, back to Big Small. She sang "Close to You" to us whilst we ate our supper last night and painted this love picture first thing. She knows the words because it has been a lullaby song in our family for many years.

For someone lovestruck she is in a suitably strange mood. Packed a suitcase to leave home whilst I was organising lunch. If I am to go outside again today it will require a snow suit. It's freezing out there, fortunately there were some chips in the oven which soon tempted her back into the warmth.

Middle Small had a really wobbly start to the morning as well. He recovered well to read me two beautiful pages of Peter and Jane and we had a game of chess on the tablet too. Chess is a game that I have always wanted to be good at but truth is I have never progressed much past backgammon. I read many books about openings and strategy and several kind friends have, in the past, shared their knowledge and patience with me but it has never stuck. Until now! The chess app on the tablet is brilliant, you just touch the screen and it highlights all of the possible moves for you. E likes the knights best. He would play the whole game with them if he could. Baby Small had a bad start to the morning too, falling over and banging his eye.

But it is Friday today so with the help of Smart Sandals who now has a blog by the way and not a very seasonal nickname. I was able to go for a hair cut (and wash and blow dry! :)). The children stayed home making soap leaf roses, playing lego and chasing rainbows.

Am thrilled with my hair, looks very sleek and shiny.

and the moment of truth on the scales. Well, I was elated when they told me I had shed a total of 1kg and 400 grams in the last 7 days but then the children wanted to play with them. Blast these eternally inquisitive home educated children. And the scales wouldn't work so a demonstration was required. The first one recorded me as 2kgs heavier than last week and the second 2kgs lighter. I fear they may be broken! But no matter, I certainly feel as if I have lost weight! Bring on week 5!

Operation Shift 10kg

2012-02-02T15:38:00.003Z

So, last week I set myself a S.M.A.R.T goal, I didn't realise it was smart at the time but seems it fits the acronym. This is my fourth week of no: wine, chocolate, bread, cakes, biscuits but I felt it needed formalising.

So, by Baby Small's third birthday, at the end of April (about 10 weeks away,) the pledge made is to shift 10kg if redundant body fat. If my calculations are correct a kilo per week should do it and to this end my food intake has been around 1,200 - 1,300 calories per day for the last seven days. Leaving the difference between calories needed and calories eaten equal to crunching through the bit that needs to go.

That's last night's supper up there! Smoked mackerel, boiled egg, parma ham with beetroot, orange and dill salad.

Then I had this sudden thought what if, when I climb on the scales tomorrow, my weight is the same or more? Up until now that possibility hadn't entered my head I just assumed that living like this for 10 weeks would do it without entertaining the possibility it might not.

I'll let you know tomorrow.

Mellow Yellow

2012-02-02T15:07:00.006Z

O with a heart shape jam tart :)S on the phone to Grandie.

Mellow Yellow

So it goes. Pumping the tyre didn't fix it and a new one was needed, funny when Et was two or so we used to regularly go to car garages and tyre stores when no purchase was needed as he was so into wheels, always removing them from his toy cars and so on. I asked him today if he wanted to stay and watch and the look he gave me suggested not! Keep up Mum, you are so three years ago.

Woken in the wee smalls today by S who had a nightmare about Siamese (co joined) animals. This theme has been recurrent for a few days now. Many questions along the lines of "If two people were joined together and one died what would happen to the other person?" and so on.

Whist the car was being fixed we enjoyed a snack in Waitrose cafe. My resolve seriously tested first by almond croissants then by three left over hot chocolates that "Didn't taste like the ones you make for us at home." but, dear reader, I walked away!

Some beautiful, grippy, driving round sunny West Sussex today, the coast road from Littlehampton to Goring with the rays bouncing off the calm water and then later, Long Furlong home. Perfect from behind glass but outside the air has been so cold it has hurt my lungs to breath in. Baby Small singing along to Mellow Yellow. 3 hours with the best friends over lunch, much lego and Barbie play. Their Daddy is a lego supremo responsible for this cool motorised carousel and a giant Statue of Liberty currently residing in their hall way.

S dived straight into a book when we arrived home.

Love Reborn

2012-02-01T13:57:00.009Z

Love O, 2, in this elbow patch jumper. The new small animal handling area at Fishers.

Love Reborn

Well who knew that a post on fear of buttons would attract such comment! Not sure how to follow that. Ten hours shut eye last night after Pocahontas I and II (on a school night ;-)). Bliss. Thanks Grandma. A tyres pumped; rubbish dumped sort of morning before out regularish Wednesday visit to Fishers Farm Park for small animal handling and soft play. Met up with some home ed friends, and bumped into some La Leche League friends and had lunch before heading the library to collect the final Roman Mystery books and order in some more of these puzzle master books Et is pretty taken with. We tried outside but it was really too cold for us. In Other News Following the inevitable "Is it a true story?" post Disney conversation the internet tells us that Nancy Reegan is a descendant of Pocahontas.

Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon

2012-01-31T13:24:00.009Z

Orin just loves to jump.

Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon

My Mum is a big Neil Diamond fan and she is here with us today so we have him on the party mode setting on the sonos. Of his selection this is my best.

In eleven months of blogging there is a secret I have yet to share with you. It is a bit random but I am scared of buttons. Ever since ever. Not to bad if they are attached to clothes but if they come off and are on the ground. Forget it. And if they have bits of thread through the holes. Game Over. Recently I learnt it has a name.

Koumpounophobia

So the task for today had a high risk attached to it. Replacing the broken duplo and brio plastics crates with fresh ones meant emptying them all out completely. The kinds of places that fluff adores to lurk with the dreaded B U T T O N S always a danger. This was not the scenario A for today, that was a leg wax and eye brow shape but sadly my regular beautician is under the weather. (Get Well Soon. :) So Scenario B came in. A double shame as those few grams of hair loss had been factored into this weeks kilo target ;-)

So it goes. Whilst Grandma took S & E swimming O and I headed to Homebase for some new plastic storage solutions.

Is there anything that encourages play like a clear up! Long forgotten toys greeted like welcome old friends and a test drive ride for Baby Small, 2, in the new crates.

O is really enjoying this Bod book at the moment. There is a line in the story about "Bods Bodnoculars" I anticipate bodnoculars will soon be joining brown paint and orange cheese as another of our family words that are unintelligible to strangers.

In Other News

Another perfect page of Peter and Jane from Et this morning.

Painting, playdough, bath bomb making and cup cake making have all featured in our home on this very cold day.

What's New Scooby Doo?

2012-01-30T09:24:00.009Z

What's New Scooby Doo?

On the surprisingly rare home days that are just the junior trio and I a familiar pattern is often repeated whereby at about 11 o clock I find myself thinking "What now?" Because we have done pretty much everything I imagined we would do in the day and certainly more than I am sure we be covered at school or nursery or wherever and so it so today.

I say surprisingly rare because of course my perception is that the majority of the GP would expect us to be at home at a desk everyday. Regular readers know that is not so. Mondays and Thursdays are the only days it could be just us at home and our general preference on these days is to go out or have friends over.

So this morning there has been painting (inspired by Scooby Doo), an epic shopping delivery delivered, S,7, has written a Mystery Incorporated story with the Barbies and their dog replacing Fred, Shaggy, Daphne, Velma and Scooby. After three pages of writing she declared her brain was worn out. O and I did some of his ABC book (I have blogged about ABC books before) and without "repetition, hesitation or deviation" (is that phrase from Just a Minute copyrighted?) Et, 5, read me a page of Peter and Jane 3b.

Made it through another weekend with no slip-ups in the treat department so week 4 of operation shift 10kg commences. Am totally in the zone, fresh baked chocolate squares in the board meeting yesterday and a Daddy One munching through a bar of my fave Green and Blacks mint choc bar could not tempt me. Making a full fat milk hot chocolate with the works of marshmallows for the smalls and a mug of 40 calories of options for me has become the new ritual.

Scooby Doo is the flavour of the moment, the trio are currently setting up to act out an episode with the playmobil figures. Practising sound effects with the tambourine to use as lightning clashes and running feet. It seems I am required to be the audience.

Jump Around

2012-01-29T16:02:00.005Z

Jump Around

Our little two year old has been a super, super star today. For 5 and a half hours he has sat at my feet and played duplo and brio whilst I have been at a La Leche League Book Shop board meeting. He came with me whilst the biggest went swimming with The Daddy One and then finished off their match boxes for the mythology theme home ed match box swap.

Saturday Unschool

2012-01-28T10:59:00.012Z

Saturday Unschool

Daddy daughter event at Pallant House in Chichester this morning, I was on the case and managed to book S a space on this workshop (they are seriously popular and book up uber fast.)

Jazzy Pictures! Saturday 28 January 10:15-12:15

"Animate a picture inspired by the lively figures and jazzy colours of an Edward Burra painting. Paint and cut out shapes to make jointed figures and mount these on a bright background of colours and words. Jazz music will set the scene whilst you work. Ages 5-8 years; each child must be accompanied by a parent / carer £6 per child."

So, E, O and I headed to the library and park, am really trying to think of ways to sneak in more exercise so we walked, O did a poo whilst we were at the park. It is so muddy at the park and there are no changing facilities when the floor is out of action! Not as much exercise as I had intended but it has been really cold today.

Had another email from the guys in the Brighton lego store, we have had a little dialouge going since I shared the blog with them on Thursday.

"Just a quick note to say it was a pleasure meeting you and your (very articulate) kids, and I hope they enjoyed the freebies.

PS: I’m chuffed to have a sneaky appearance in the background of your LEGO photo on your lovely blog! "

We tested out the bathbombs last night and they were explosive!

With January coming to a close and the blog two weeks from its first anniversary it turned the clock through the 47,000 visits mark (and now has 62 followers. Thanks Everyone :)

Love Bomb

2012-01-27T08:04:00.006Z

Making bath bombs and some essential oil water for easier hair brushing with S (7) She just loved the old fashioned glass and rubber teat pipette.

Home made cookies :) (none for me :()

Bombs Away! Bulk purchase of acid and alkaline arrived from Summer Naturals. Thanks for the tip off from our friends at Muddy Sandy Life.

Love Bomb

A few bomb related songs today, my first choice was Galliano's Love Bomb but fruitless searches for a link, Bomb the Bass sounded seriously dated and hollow, and Bombastic? Well you know I am not sure about Shaggy! He should stick to Scooby Doo I reckon.

At one point this morning the lush combined smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies infused with the lemon, chamomile and peppermint oils heading into the bath bombs was heading out of the kitchen and up into nostrils. If smell is the closest link sense to memory then that gorgeousness can be my memory of today.

At home day after 4 days out, we bought the ingredients up together for the bath bombs and cookies to make when Smart Sandals came for regular Friday morning assistance.

S and I looked at all the oils we have and talked for ages about why the smallest bottle was the most expensive (chamomile) and the largest the cheapest (eucalyptus) and we went through one by one and googled their properties. S was especially intrigued by the lemon oil as that has played a bit part in the Roman Mysteries we are reading at the moment. Some of the earlier stories were set in the Villa Limona and there are many mentions of the lemon perfume. We read that one Japanese bank has been shown to keep its error rate very low by pumping lemon oil through a diffuser because lemon, amongst other things, aids concentration.

S also found time for some of the Horrible Science Beastly Bodies kit that she had for Christmas.

O and I went out for a shorter walk, only up the hill, not down as well, and cam home to find some scales arrived in the post. S was really excited to weigh herself as was Et. We have never owned our own bathroom scales before and, given that we chose not to use the services of the health visitor, the only time we have had any certainty surrounding our children's weights was briefly after they were born. Well, apart from at the Natural History Museum when we calculated our weight as a percentage of a polar bear last spring.

And I am no exception, having not know my own weight for maybe 8 years, apart from the obvious conclusion that, at 180cm, I am too short, I have decided that I would like to shift around 10kgs. Having a read around 1kg per week seems possible so by Baby Small's third birthday at the end of April seems achievable. Obviously I have no idea how much I weighed 3 weeks ago before the munching of left-overs, crunching of cookies and guzzling of wine stopped but that's okay. Today is fine.

JCB Song

2012-01-26T13:16:00.009Z

JCB Song

This is a great song "bouncing my bum like berserk" and the "I'm so glad I'm not in school Boss." line make it a home ed anthem for me. When we head off out for the day, colliding (not literally) with the school run (hard not to as our road is being dug up again and leaving the access road is pretty tricky) it is the importance of the connection and togetherness that reminds me what this is all about.

We have had such a fabulous sparkly, strewing morning in Brighton I am really not sure where to begin telling you about it. In fact things turned around pretty rapidly after I hit publish on yesterday's blog post. Sometimes just the act of writing it down is all it takes to sort out your thoughts and clear your head. Etienne's (5) morning reluctance to read which my brain translated into significance far beyond was turned around when he finished Peter and Jane 3a in bed with The Daddy One. All three smalls were crashed out pretty early so we watched a film, a great mid week treat, called Taken and it was fabulous. Sort of a gritty, more urban, James Bond with lots of Audi car chases. Luc Besson (my best film director) loves his Audis. Not the kind of Bond movie that will be shown on Boxing Day afternoon but enough stunts and tricks to take you mind off the everyday. I really miss that lovefilm app on facebook, it was great to see the films friends had enjoyed. It has been under development for like a year or something now.

Anyway back to today, determined to have a stress free sparkly Day The Daddy One and I did a little pre-trip research and decided I would be best of parking outside the Booth Museum then a double decker bus ride down the hill to The Brighton Toy Museum. We had considered a return to Hove Museum but we have seen the robots there twice now so I thought the toy museum might tie in with Sapphire's (7) History of Dolls (specifically Barbie's) project but as it turned out there were no dolls there but still, it was great. Anyway I digress.

The trio adored the bus ride down the hill, especially the steep bends of Terminus Road, but we arrived just before the museum was open so we decided to pay a visit to the Lego Store first. My Paternal Grandmother always used to say that "The sun always shines on the righteous" I have no idea what that really means but I think we were righteous today because the staff in the Lego shop were AMAZING. We were the only customers, these things remind me how much we do adore home ed, and Et struck up a conversation about the mysterious identity of the new green ninja and asked the shop assistant if they thought it was Nya or Lord Garmadon and that was it, short story long, ten minutes later we left the shop clutching free Lego sets, ninjago hologram masks and several magazines. It is our week for customer service. From the Lego store we went to the Brighton Toy Museum which is under the railway arches, it cost £10 for the four of us and was excellent, an extra 10p saw the vintage Disney puppets dance and the boys really enjoyed the epic train tracks. I would say a visit is a must if you have a railway fan in your gang (don't go this Saturday though it is closed for a private function) but the fact it is right under the train station makes it very convenient. S would have liked to stay and do some sketching but the boys were hungry so we headed back up the hill, part walking, part bus, a second ray of sunshine when the bus driver let the children ride for free!

We had lunch at the (very windy) park, by which time we had noticed that Booth Museum which was to be our final destination is closed on Thursdays, but no matter, we can go back. Then some sixth form students approached and asked if they could film and ask about our family Internet policy and attitudes to the children going on line. The children seemed keen (and intrigued by the giant furry microphone) so I said okay.

In the interview I explained that our children have free access to the Internet on a variety of devices around the home and out and about if they need to fact check, I mentioned that they were home educated and Sapphire chipped in with how she likes KS2 bytesize (this time it was okay working with children and animals) and how, ironically, they were probably less bothered about the web now than back when we had tried to restrict screen time and that the web was a fabulous resource for home educators.

They were media studies students, really polite and friendly, they said the interview was great and so I told them I used to be on TV and about my experiences with Tony Blair's media trainer.

In Other News

Sapphire read Roman Mystery 14 The Beggar of Volibilis on the 40 or so mile round trip.

We drove off route to have a better look at Bramber Castle on the way home and will go back there soon.
Et asked loads of questions about the logistics of graffiti painting whilst we were driving on the A27. I think we might be buying some aerosal paints.
If the title track wasn't jazzy enough for you am loving this too

We will simply gloss over the fact that within 5 minutes of arriving home to a perfectly clean house several rooms had been comprehensively trashed and instead focus on going outside in the sunshine to do some skipping.

Rolling in the Deep

2012-01-25T13:30:00.008Z

Rolling in the Deep

So, I got a bit stressy this morning, maybe it was the 9 hours sleep, maybe it was the "We are not doing enough REAL learning feeling," maybe I am just fed up with the mess........Anyway Grandma was here to save the day and it all turned around, at 9:30am on the dot, when the man from the Oven Cleaning company arrived we had already made a big contribution to the Mythology themed matchboxes for the home ed match box swap thanks to Grandma's creativity, started on some decorations for the upcoming Valentine's Ball Sapphire has arranged and E had done some reading.

S expressed an interest in doing some symmetry a while back and so I drew some out for her and this morning I found a few online activities but they were all way to hard causing the inevitable frustration and annoyance.

So, as we were heading out the door for our regular Wednesday Fishers Farm coffee and bounce a text arrived to say the bulk order of bath bomb making ingredients would be arriving between 10:32 and 11:32. 40 minutes notice always helpful!

The squabbling supplements are in the water again today, both at home and at Fishers Farm we have had more than our fair share of name calling, pushing and general sibling disharmony. Argh!

We stayed 3 hours at Fishers Farm, Grandma renewed her membership for next year and S and E held Mr Cool the guinea pig and a soon to be sold, very soft rabbit. As there were two other local home ed families we know at the farm park we headed outside to see them. We are generally pretty fair weather at Fishers Farm and, when E fell over in a puddle and then took his socks off to bounce on the jumping pillow. (Outside. In January) I was reminded why.

O cried all the way through lunch before finally starting to eat just as everyone else had finished. So it goes.

We called in to the library on the way home for guess what? Two more Roman Mysteries. There are 17 or 18 in the series altogether and we are nearly done!

Am feeling very dejected about operation weight loss, I could just about cope with a house that doesn't constantly smell of gently simmering bolognaise or fresh baked cookies if it seemed the pounds were falling off. Okay, it has only been two weeks but cooking and food preparation generally is (was!) a huge part of my day. The real mystery I guess is not how little weight I have lost given how little I am eating but how little weight I gained given what I was eating and drinking before! Anyway we have arrived home to such a sparkling shiny clean oven it would be a shame to make it dirty. Wouldn't it?

Something Goes Right

Gonna have a dance to these two brilliant tracks from last night's (this morning's) Gilles Peterson Show on Radio 1 instead.

Revendo Amigos

2012-01-24T16:11:00.006Z

Beautiful new handmade books and S's portrait of me in a gilt frame.

S compensated for our restraint in the cafe with her: apple juice, hot chocolate, ladybird chocolate and cookie combo.

Revendo Amigos

Today I met someone who has been my friend, in a virtual sense, for around six years I think. Someone who, although she might not know it, has been a bit of a mentor and inspiration to me. You see her own children, who are now all around the thirtyish mark, were educated outside of school back when it was a lot rarer than it is now. She has too been associated with La Leche League and now runs a bookshop in the Lake District with her husband and daughter. We met at Pallant House Art Gallery in Chichester and had a chat around Edward Burra and Enid Marx then we went to Carluccios for a coffee. I came as close to buckling my resolve as I have been in two weeks when a rhubarb tart kept winking at me in Carluccios but I held firm. Sapphire and I went to Chichester without the boys which offered me a rare insight into what I imagine much be the luxury that is possible when you are home educating only one child. She sat and drew mine and my friend's portraits (in the beautiful new handmade books) whilst we chatting. Well, we had to be still for the mouth drawing bit.

What a neat Tuesday, cushioned on 8 hours sleep, Grandma arrived first thing back to her regular Tuesday slot after two weeks of jury service and took S & E swimming first thing. First time they have been in months, they road tested the new swimwear and, much to S's relief, she hasn't forgotten how to swim.

Whilst the biggest were swimming O and I played and then cleaned S's bedroom floor. She is very keen on these glass pirate treasure crystals they sell in gift shops and somehow one had become broken and trodden into the carpet. Small pieces of glass to vacuum, maybe why I wasn't as enthusiastic in the bead shop as I might have been. Testing out the new Rosie Flo sticker books from the Pallant House shop. We will be back there on Saturday for a workshop.

Samba De Gago

2012-01-23T08:26:00.007Z

Samba De Gago

Joyce. How can you sing this way? So beautiful. We were dancing in the kitchen to this before breakfast.

At 5:30am this morning E and O wanted to pack away the Roman Arena and flip over to castles and battlefields. Can you spot the difference between yesterday's snapshot? A very satisfying 30 minutes removing stickers from the draws I did spend yesterday. WD40 just slides them off :)

The boiler has had its annual service today so I tidyed up a little, mostly to clear a path way for our plumber to make it through with his ladder, as the boiler is located in the loft. Just as we were about to head out I discovered an Everest of sofa cushions had been turned into a camp for Baby Small. #notimpressed

We have been to see some of our home ed friends in Worthing today. Initially all five children played pretty well together (they have a son O's age and a daughter S's age) but then it all became a bit hard to handle just before lunch. Mostly S who hasn't had the best of times. She was offended at the suggestion that her Barbie family are just lumps of plastic and the rest just kind of went from there really. Very hard work to try and bring everyone round and explain that it is not always okay to say everything you feel inside no matter how much you might feel it.

So, after lunch we went to the nearby Brooklands Park which is a great park, right near the beach, with a little train that runs around the edge and chased seagulls for a bit.

I pointed to a clock on the small station and told S we would need to leave when the big hand was on the 12 for 2 o' clock as we had a 3 o' clock shopping delivery and library books (more Roman Mysteries) to collect en route home. After a while when the clock hadn't moved much I realised it was actually painted on the front of the mini station. Doh!

S and I had a great chat on the way home, both the boys fell almost straight to sleep, about whether Barbie would celebrate Chinese New Year because she was designed in America but manufactured in China so was she Chinese, and what was it like in China? Our discussion covered the difference between rural and urban, communism, cheap wages, the one child per family policy. Oh the places you'll go.

Home at 2:59pm with The Charioteers of Delphi in our clutches, a new grater from microplane on the mat to replace the broken one I posted back last Monday and a note to say that the boiler needs topping up with inhibitor. I wonder if the inhibitor is safe for human consumption? Could be handy. Brilliant Customer Service from our plumber and microplane.

So it goes.

Freedom Sound

2012-01-22T13:20:00.006Z

Freedom Sound

Regular readers of the blog will be familiar with my passion for jazz old and new and know that 5 days out of 7 my posts are named with the title of a classic tune, for newer readers there is a youtube playlist to catch-up.

Well, last night was the annual awards ceremony for the best that is new in the genre of the music that moves me, not the Brits or the Oscars or the Grammies but the Worldwide Awards held in North London. Several tracks and artists that have featured prominently on the blog over the last eleven months were honoured including SBTRKT who are responsible for one of the most perfect songs of 2011 "Hold On" which has been used as a title no fewer than three times. Also "Want you in my soul," which has again been featured several times, was credited and a name check or two to Jamie XX too who produced this. Extra poignant as he worked with Gil Scott Heron on the last album of his life before he sadly passed away last summer. Michael Kiwanuka, who is responsible for the haunting "Tell me a Tale" also bagged a, well deserved, award.

Of course we weren't in Camden last night but dancing round the kitchen is okay for me, especially now it looks like a jazz club :)

In fact if I had given the awards myself they wouldn't have been that different.

Been on a park tour this morning. Horsham and Pond Tail road. As I was collecting hot chocolates in the cafe overhead my Sapphire, 7, and my Etienne, 5, talking about the Roman Mysteries and how, 2,000 years ago, children were often betrothed at the age 12 or so.

"You see the thing is Et we can't get married and have babies because they wouldn't have any arms or legs."

"How do you know that?" replies Et

"Just do." says Sapphire

"What about Grandma? Can I marry Grandma?"

"No, she is already married to Grandie."

"Who will I marry then?"

"Someone kind that you like is best."

"Okay" says Et "I choose Indigo."

"Mum, is my hot chocolate ready?"

Nothing whatsoever to do with home education

2012-01-21T10:51:00.002Z

On Monday it will be two weeks since any: cakes, biscuits, bread, crisps, wine or children's leftovers have past my lips.

Coffee is now being taken black. Orange, dill and beetroot salad has replaced creamy lemon and black pepper pasta sauces. Half finished hot chocolates or slightly dunked boiled eggs are no longer being guzzled up by me. The biggest revelation has been saying "No." to leftovers, their volume quantifiable in extra rubbish thrown away. It is not a waste. Waste is your body carrying around extra fat.

For obvious reasons operation decorate kitchen flattered my cause last week. Two weeks. Not that I am counting or anything.

We don't own any scales but I am expecting a change when I look in the mirror this week. It's either that or I'll be holding my breath :) 40 here I come.

Did you know the Romans Invented Bikinis?

2012-01-21T07:17:00.005Z

If you are into Romans, as regular readers will know my smalls are, catch these great mosaics on iplayer for the next few days.

Fast forward to past the 1/2 hour mark if you don't want to watch the whole program. It was all about the Romans before 7am this morning. A Gladiator battle in the arena and S on the floor reading a Roman Mystery. She is adoring this series of books suggested to us by a fellow home educator.

In 2011 we visited Bignor Roman Villa (several times thanks to our membership; I just love the first photo on this post of my trio in costume under the walnut tree) Fishbourne Roman Palace and the Roman Baths in Bath. Roll on warmer weather so we can gallivant again. In 2010 we drove our bus to Tuscany.

Castles in the Sand

2012-01-20T13:30:00.004Z

Castles in the Sand

Regular readers of the blog will know that we are big fans of lego in our house. Whether it is the bespoke lego table or a family day out at legoland we are there! One of the most popular sets we have owned is actually from Duplo, the lego range for younger children, and is the Knights Castle. We have several sets, 4777 being the largest of them. The Smalls enjoyment of Mike the Knight has given it a new lease of life. Frequent play means pieces are inevitably lost. In the past the guys at lego have been kind enough to replace two lost cannon balls for example.

And today, the postman bought this. A new portcullis for the entrance. The Knights in training have not been seen since. Thanks

Winter in America

2012-01-20T11:57:00.003Z

Winter in America

Chess has really captured the imaginations. Even E is bringing some of the strategy into his knights games.

From thinking The Daddy One would be in Texas he actually has a home day today. We have, in various combinations along with Smart Sandals, played magic cauldron, made Chinese lanterns, been to the library for Roman Mysteries, visited the allotment, made the duplo castle, work has commenced on S's history of doll's project and, via wikipedia, we have discovered that Skipper has a twin brother call Todd. It's gonna be a great project.

The fragile balance of time in and time out and seeing friends and being as a family was just saved this week. I am getting better at reading the signs. Thanks to Christina and Muddy Sandy Life for the sign posts towards staying connected.

Bonita Applebaum

2012-01-19T10:36:00.009Z

Bonita Applebaum

Cracking tune by Tribe Called Quest. I think it might have a parental advisory and that is not me as a parent advising you it is a classic tune. Apple was E's new word today and these apples are my snack bowl. Jazz apples.

A third home day today, thrilled we bagged a park day on Monday or it might have been a whole home week! S and Reg and I had a very deep chat about religion and belief this morning and evolution and Adam and Eve. Those apples again. Today is his last day. The kitchen is finished. We shall miss him. S told him she doesn't believe in god.

Our friends from Muddy Sandy Life came over this morning, not before E had done a page of Peter and Jane and these great lego comic strips. Two catalogues from the toy shop on Monday and a new lego club catalogue providing a fresh stock of raw snipping materials. He dictated the story to me and I wrote his words.

For much of today every time two plates have spun one has crashed. E almost had a melt down at lunch (averted by taking him outside) S slipped over on the fake grass of the Barbie camp site, all washed down with a strong shot of the squabbling juice that spiked our water today.

One incident will summarise it all. After boredom caused him to disrupt everyone else's fun I finally persuaded Et that we could do some lego ninjago colouring printouts. Bingo! He loved that suggestion (my 17th) then, the printer wouldn't work. You know those moments.

Been an odd week for The Daddy One who should have been in Texas and has several more, yet to be confirmed, trips up and coming.

Walking round the house today I was struck by how Et plays a similar game where ever he is. The toy soldiers in the garden, the lego mini figs in the lego room, the playmobil characters all lined up in battle. A face off!

Been great to have friends over today. It is almost certain I would have needed Grit's emotions tips (well the ones that are open to me on my current regime of abstinence and with a decorator in the kitchen anyway) had I been the solo adult.

This little bunch of characters were the object of every one's desire at one point first thing, three hearts lusting after them, they raised pulses and voices and then, just now, I fell over them in a deserted heap on a floor. Neglected and unwanted.

E's lego story comic strip

Some weeks back E was keen to know if there had ever been a nude lego mini fig and today we noticed the boxer is topless. (That is not the boxers head, that is the genie's head.)

Orange Cheese and Brown Paint

2012-01-18T12:52:00.009Z

Cutting and sticking pictures yesterday afternoon Lunch with friends at the table today Cosy new slippers to replace my broken ones. A lovely suprise from the postman today. Thanks Mum :) Making 3d marshmellow structures

For a family that consume large quantities of orange cheese (Red Leicester) and brown paint (nutella) this is shaping up to be the perfect kitchen colour scheme.

Been having some good chats with Mothers I know about Quality versus Quantity in the friendship area, part of the problem of living in an area with lots of home edders is finding time to be at home as a family. Since my blog about over scheduling I have actually been actively clearing out us time.

When people ask the social question, you know the one, if you have been home educating for more than about 5 seconds you will have been asked it. I have this standard flippant reply of "Oh the kids are fine but I miss adult social banter." I find deflecting the issue onto me makes them more careful about their choice of words but also it is true. the sibling dynamic in my family is a fragile thing and needs little in the way of unbalance to tip it over. The honest reality is we could go out everyday, all day for visits and have visitors here and so on. It is hard to say no. Especially when you read the blogs of other home ed families who have real trouble making connections due to geographical contraints it is tempting to give into the " make the best whilst it lasts." feeling.

And that the children my children gravitate towards may not be the ones whose mums I fancy a gossip and coffee with (they generally are :)) Fortunately we have the monthly adults home ed social here in West Sussex for me to fill my cup of adult time.

So, we have the BFFs from Against the Grain over today and when you see it go with the flow the flow is a wonderful thing. All sorts have been going on Barbie picnics, Playmobil battles, lego ninjago, origami folding, marshmellow structures, drawing.................

Our decorator Reg also breeds Golden Retrievers, one of his dogs is called Midas, from Midas touch he witnessed the twists and turns of curious and inquisitive home ed children in conversation. We wound up talking about how many puppies and how many buttons the mother has. (I had to explain that by buttons he meant nipples) and we asked if they are like piglets who always return to the same nipple. Oh the places you'll go.

Before our friends arrived E did a page of Peter and Jane and S read a whole Roman Mysteries book. Number 8. They are a great series the way they mix historical fiction and fact is perfect for S. We also did some of O's ABC book. It is great the way his older siblings help out. Managed to bag 10 hours sleep last night. Our regular Friday helper made a special guest Tuesday appearance so that I could whizz and collect the car and do a few quick errands and landed up making Barbie clothes with S.

Cars Cars

2012-01-17T10:15:00.009Z

S's lego girls she made today. A girl ninja, Indian Princess and a skater girl with a pink hair streak in this little gang.

O helps out in the kitchen on Reg's ladder. The colours in the kitchen are inspired by Veuve Clicquot champagne. The ceiling is the dive in chocolate brown of the lettering and looks like a lake of melted milk chocolate buttons and the walls are the signature orange.

Cars Cars

Today's music is bought to you by Orin, 2, who adores all things cars cars.

The Smalls had fun with The Daddy One last night learning how to play chess.

Bit of an early post today as I am going to be popping out in my usual blogging window to collect my car which passed it's MOT. Hooray. We can gallivant again.

The Daddy One crashed out early last night so I stayed under the covers, it was too cold for much else, and caught up on my blogs on I follow. I think many people must have made "blog more" a new year resolution because there were many posts! I read them on the tablet so the comment function doesn't always work (depending on the choices made from the huge selection of comment options I think)

Have several new ideas for things to try as a result and generally feel empowered and supported when I remember that all over the country, world maybe, there are people living in a similar way to us.

We dropped the car off this morning and walked home from the garage. Seemed like a bright idea when I booked it in and the weather was milder. Reg is still here and we have played much lego this morning. Fortunately the lego is upstairs where the temperature is much more to my taste.

Not eaten any biscuits or cakes or crisps or had any wine (apart from one Bloody Mary!) and not eaten any children's left overs at all! For a week now.

Sinnerman

2012-01-16T15:20:00.007Z

Sinnerman

They used this Nina Simone tune on Sherlock last night. The Daddy One remembers it from the Thomas Crown Affair. Beautiful beat. The perfect beat?

We have had a really neat connected day today. A brilliant Monday on what is, apparently, one of the most depressing days of the year. E did some Peter & Jane first thing, Reg arrived and set to work on the painting and we headed to the first of our 4 destinations. A small park in Pondtail Road with some home ed friends who we haven't seen since a new baby son arrived in their family just before Christmas. He is very cute. 8 weeks old. When I had to scrape ice from the inside of the car as well as the out I did wonder why we were even going out but soon the warmth of the sun melted the white frost. We lasted about an hour before E was showing all the signs of being fed up with being outnumbered by girls and O was pretty cold so we headed to our second port of call, Jungle indoor soft play at the pavilions in Horsham.Excuse the strange faces in the photo!

£9 gives the four of us an hour to leap around and play with the slides, football goal and shoot some baskets. Horsham is a popular destination for local home educators on a Monday as several gymnastics classes run at the pavilions during the day. We often talk about joining in but for the moment my trio seem happier to do soft play as a family.

The toy shop window. Ninjago & lego friends.

Third, we headed into town for the post office and a very good look around the toy shop (no purchases.) No one much fancied the library or museum so we headed back to the big park for a forth destination, a final hour meeting up with about ten local families (I have mentioned before there are about 150 home educating families that I know of in West Sussex. We are red 41 on Fiona's map). It was really, really muddy so I was careful not to cake the newly cleaned car. Et was thrilled to find some boys to leap around with and, as well as bumping into our local butcher with his baby daughter, I actually managed to chat to some other home ed parents about: reading, letters and swimming against the tide.

Home to find the veuve cliq kitchen project has a definite "Wow!" factor. S opened the back door and said "Wow!" It looks brilliant so far. A total transformation. She was very apprenhensive about the change last night. "This kitchen has been this colour since before I was born" she said. Indeed it had. Indeed it had.

Another Girl (iii)

2012-01-15T14:37:00.007Z

Another Girl

Having a ''ing'' Sunday today. A verb of a day. My parents are here. Washing, cleaning, polishing, hoovering and that's just the cars, both of which have MOTs this month (for my growing tribe of overseas followers an MOT is a test that a car over 3 years old must have, by law, in England basically to ensure that it is road worthy and mechanically sound. It can't be taxed or insured without it. Whether it is clean or not is not on the test but I am sure it helps:))

The Daddy One has been painting the fence, and before you worry that he is a very slow worker, it might help to know we have over 70ft of fence panels in our garden. It's looking good. Solid Black.

Operation clear out kitchen has continued, Reg, the decorator, arrives tomorrow. Ironing has been done too as has much playing, E on his scooter outside, S has been on KS2 bytesite doing some of the English (plurals, poetry, paragraph structure) and science (rocks, mineral, teeth and life cycles.) I was in the background ironing listening to the computer and my feeling is that she has finished KS2 byte size now. She didn't get a question wrong. I did. Similes and metaphors were never my strong point ;-)

Spotted the first snowdrops of 2012 in the garden today, alongside the Camellia which has been in flower since November, seasons are very confused this year and, more importantly, I been significantly less grumpy than my post yesterday. I have realised that certain cycles need to be broken. The best way to stop feeling sad about not having a biscuit with my tea is to stop having tea. And so I have!

Isn't it great when you find what you need to read just when you need to read it? Yesterday I read this blog post about over scheduling and doing too much which really resonated with me. The fact I had a supplementary piece of paper to the blackboard should have given me a clue.

I'm a little teapot

2012-01-14T16:17:00.005Z

S and I have been talking about my collection of 30's tea and coffee pots today. They have been in this cupboard her whole life but she has only recently started to take an interest in them.

Baby Small, 2, has done 8 epic pooey nappies today and Middle Small, 5, missed the loo. Shitty. Literally. Body Fluids on the blog. Doesn't happen often. Principles not rules. The grime theme has continued as we (well, mostly The Daddy One in between a hair trim and further fence painting) have cleaned up and out the kitchen ready for the arrival of Reg the decorator on Monday.

The coursework for GCSE squabbling has continued. I am blaming January and a lack of outdoor action as it has been really cold today but that is pretty unimaginative I know. No doubt I am a contributor the world seems a sad place without cake and wine on a Saturday.

S has finished up making the Chinese fans she started with Smart Sandals yesterday and i have turned the cylinder of the dyson into one of those sand ornaments you used to be able to bring home from certain Islands as holiday souveniers before all the coloured sand ran out.

Pharaohs

2012-01-14T13:31:00.005Z

Pharaohs

Things between me and Jacqueline Wilson are not improving. Okay, granted none of her texts have crossed the threshold in 2012 but these "Friendship Bracelets" are not making me feeling friendly vibes in her direction.

S had them from Christmas, they are an M&S product, and has been pestering me to help her with them for days so, this morning, I did. Okay.

Hurdle number one not everything you actually need is in the box but that's okay. We are resourceful types.

Second the seahorse charm is absent the pre-drilled hole required to connect it to the thread but that's okay S is in a good mood and in happy to make a second choice and then

Third just as I had worked out how to use it the threader too for adding the charms broke.

When I was the age S is now I can tell you with one hundred percent confidence that I would have thrown the whole lot across the room with a fit of rage following closely behind it. At 39 I was still tempted.

"Includes groovy craft materials and an activity book." Really?

Fail.

They are making jelly with The Daddy One now.

It's Friday and I'm ready to swing................

2012-01-14T08:52:00.003Z

S has had two epic fits of temper this week. Obvious contributors. Usual suspects. The first at PLAY in Worthing and the second yesterday when we had friends over. I handled it really badly yesterday. The recovery was longer than the actual incident. She was too far gone by the time I realised what was happening.

E came and asked for a dry top as his was wet. Whilst I was changing him he mentioned that water squirting Barbie (yes, there is no Barbie idea that has not been crafted in plastic!) was responsible for his dampness......short story long.....temper misplaced.

When the waters were calmed I spent ages last night reading to S and talking to her about how we all loose our temper from time to time but part of growing up is learning how to handle those feelings and what to do with them. And breathe.

Middle Small as a Jedi

2012-01-13T18:16:00.004Z

It is hard to hear what E is saying on here but he is keen to film both himself and his toys so we will keep working on it :)

Big Small, 7, reads to Baby Small, 2.

2012-01-13T17:23:00.004Z

The sound quality on here is not great - I think the mic was too far from S - but really they are an experiment atm - how long they take to upload, whether they can be watched on mobile devices etc.

This is How We Do It (ii)

2012-01-13T12:43:00.006Z

Bath bomb ingredients. Roman Mysteries on their way back to the library. S tucking into some Greek Myths in her new slippers

So it goes, yesterday I confirmed operation decorate kitchen a green light for Monday thinking The Daddy One would be over the pond for a week but now plans have changed and he is not going! The Herculean task of clearing the kitchen before Monday remains.

Bath bombs have been made this morning. S was really excited to make them so I left her in the more than capable hands of our Friday help Baby Small nicknames "Smart Sandals" whilst I went for a 3 mile walk with Baby Small in the buggy down to the library (more Roman Mysteries to collect) and up to the butchers. My opportunities for the type of exercise that raises the heart rate are very limited these days and Fridays are becoming a great opportunity for me to squeeze in a stroll without the dawdlers in tow .

For 4 days now I have been trying to cut out rubbish from my diet and can confirm that I am taking my coffee black and no cakes biscuits or wine have passed my lips since Monday night. It is a small step, the inspiration came from here. I am 40 in 5 months time. When I gave up smoking back in 2001 it was November and several people remarked that was crazy time to do such a thing but my reasoning was if I could make it through the Christmas party season then I'd made it. There is no chance of my replicating the daily gym visit but more activity can be squeezed in here and there.

Since leaving paid work and its associated corporate gym membership seven years ago I have had no clue of the number attached to my weight, three pregnancies and a year and a half of tandem nursing (think 1000 extra calories per day) have certainly flattered my cause but I feel the need restore some balance.

In Other News

Et was reading to The Daddy One at 8 o clock last night. It's clicking!

~Want You in My Soul~ (iii)

2012-01-13T09:04:00.007Z

~Want You in My Soul~

Alongside recording our home ed gallivants and reads you might have noticed that I have been, slowly, over the last 11 months of blogging, building a collection of anecdotes mostly about people who have followed what might be called non traditional career paths. From the retired anesthetist, Roger Edwards, who sculpted the much loved worm sandwich at Worthing Museum to the way in which we learnt at the Surgeon's Museum that for many years women surgeons were not permitted forcing them to work in an unofficial capacity with mostly on the job learning (imagine!)

This process of looking out for anecdotes has had two main functions. Firstly it has helped me to see that very few famous people have followed a traditional path to their role and secondly amongst people we know (not all of whom are famous) and see regularly that it is now normal for there have been several career changes, retraining. Sitting exams your 40s now seems fairly normal for example and that the exception is often the rule. Secondly it has also given me much confidence is our path of life learning is heading us to be exceptional. Exceptional is what stands you out it's dual meaning of both proving the rule and being the best is why, I guess, it appeals to an outsider the boxer like me.

A full list of of 2011 gallivants is here

Thinkin' bout you

2012-01-12T15:44:00.008Z

O doing some scissor practise at our friend's Muddy Sandy Life's house. I must confess to being a little green about that lovely storage system behind him :)

Thinking about you

So it goes. 24 or so of those 60 minute wheels have past since the last post. Without the daily discipline of 15 minutes or so blogging our home educating lives it would be hard to spot small changes or chart developments but the blog is, after 11 months, building up into a comprehensive, confidence boosting record. The fact that so many people enjoy reading it too is a big bonus. Thank-You for your support.

E, 5, read to The Daddy One when he came home last night. He easily recognises over 100 words instantly now.

20 minutes power kip on the way home was all it took to power Baby Small well past nine o clock last night. E and I cosied under the covers and read Stanley in Space from the Flat Stanley series.

S did some of the Rosie sticker book that she chose at Pallant House with The Daddy One. Late Night Learning.

At 4pm the house looked very tidy ready for cleaning today but by this morning you would never have guessed.

Everyone was keen for a Home day today, I wouldn't normally schedule three days out in a row but sometimes it just works out that way. We didn't make it to Brighton as planned but went for 2 hours at soft play at Fishers Farm, which featured some jumping and then this.... as I tweeted you can take the home educated children out of the home but you can't.......We were unable to go outside as I forgot O's coat. Doh!

We had some lunch at fishers then headed down to see our Muddy Sandy Life friends in Barnham for marble run, geo mag and wii fun. I have to confess I was a little apprehensive when the wii went on because at Grandma and Grandie's Et leaps around rather dangerously but he was pretty sedate today. Suprising.

As we were driving to Barnham the oil light came on the caravelle which has its MOT next week what is that law called again.

We arrived home to the postman and Reg arranging to come and start painting the kitchen on Monday. There is a 99% chance that The Daddy One will have to return to Texas with work next week and we face the prospect of another Grandma-less week. If it seems that some of my charges are doing the course work for GCSE squabbling at the moment I have no doubt that the change and uncertainty in the air will be contributing to it.

The Daddy One has picked up a silicone mould so it's bath bombs away tomorrow morning with "Smart Sandels" as O has christened our Friday helper.

I often look at photos and feel that we own too many stripy clothes!

Ah Yeah

2012-01-12T10:33:00.002Z

Ah Yeah

Recently I posted on a friendly home ed forum I belong to about my middle class cleaner dilemma. I had many helpful suggestions; last night, as we were preparing for the first visit from our cleaner in a month, I found this notice stuck to our seven year old Sapphire's bedroom door. We have agreed that she and I will tidy and clean her room together for the foreseeable future as she doesn't like her things being moved.

Am enjoying this tune at the moment by the way.

Hold On

2012-01-11T14:07:00.006Z

Hold On

Sapphire, 7, took over "home school" this morning. Whilst I was making breakfast she ensured Etienne, 5, had covered all bases. She read him the pages on several elements from the periodic table book which she told me was science and a few pages on Knight's Christmas from a Horrible Histories book, history she told me. Then they drew a Ninjago and wrote underneath it, S told me this was art and writing practise. This all happened before breakfast.

We have been to Pallant House today to meet up with some of our oldest home ed friends who we haven't seen for a while. We arrived in Chichester a little early than I had anticipated as the roads were empty, so we took E for a quick foot measure as he has been grumbling about his shoes hurting but the assistant reassured us they have plenty of growing room. I think they are just not a great style for his foot shape.

Pallant House is a fairly regular haunt of ours and we gallivant there pretty often. (Links to our other trips are here) S has fond memories of the Barnaby Barford video that was in a cupboard for a while and she adores the minature Gallery 34 as she says it would be a perfect match for the Barbies. Even our luxuriously appointed Barbies can't boast their own Henry Moore (yet!) She and E are also drawn towards Finch's Evening Star. The exhibition at the moment is Sussex's own Edward Burra, I was very surprised to see some postcards I had framed on the wall of my first flat there in front of me in life size as I had no idea they were Burra's work! His landscapes were beautiful, S was intrigued by the ballet set designs, I liked the opium den inspired Aladdin set. We stayed for around an hour which was just perfect with our wriggly buggy passenger among our number. Just as we were leaving S noticed a painting mentioning Hippolyta and Hercules (she is really back into her Greek Myths and Legends atm) I tried to read the description and S kept asking why Hippolyta was red with embarrassment so we are about to google and find out. I have my suspicions and am a little apprehensive!

Afterwards we headed to Priory Park for a leap around and zip wire fun coming across another home ed family along the way. They are selling their fruit and vegetables outside Priory Park from Wednesdays through Saturdays at the moment. If you are a home educator looking to move some where more densely populated you could do worse than West Sussex!

We would have liked to have gone to the museum today but it has still yet to open.

After lunch in M&S (the new cafe layout is a total disaster we probably won't attempt that again until everyone can carry their own tray!) I suggested looking out some Vincent Gray sculptures (Vincent is my Dad's cousin and some of his works are in Chi town centre) but everyone was way too tired. In fact the boys fell asleep in the car on the way home! We did buy some gorgeous Narcissus in the market by the car park. They filled the caravelle with their Delicious scent all the way home.

A lady in Marks and Spencers came over and told me that I had beautiful well behaved children, that was my turn to go red with embarrassment plus it was real hot in there!

It has been really mild today, clear blue sky.

In Other News

E and I read Flat Stanley and the Japanese Ninja in bed last night and S read a Chris Riddell "Ottoline and the Yellow Cat from the library.

E did heaps of Peter and Jane (the ladybird keywords reading scheme) pages after supper last night.

A Star is Born Hercules Many songs on the blog today. Tomorrow is our first cleaner day in a month. Music to work to!

PS

2012-01-10T17:06:00.003Z

In a post script to today's post I forget to tell you all about something very funny that happened last night. Our decorator, Reg, who has painted 5 or so in rooms in our house over the last four years or so and can claim credit for the beautiful monkeys in our main room called in to talk about the kitchen which we home he can come and transform sometime this month. We are going for a very seventies inspired look. Watch this space for updates.

Reg first decorated for us before Baby Small was born and has watched our family grow. The children love him and he came and cared for them in the snow last year so I could whizz out and restock supplies. Last night they were keen to show him EVERYTHING. Songs, masks, his wife breeds Golden retriever puppies and so S had to show him all of Barbie's dogs......... At one point the noise level was very high and I asked if Reg if he thought it would be okay working with the children around.

"Yes, fine." he replies "I'll just take my hearing aid out."

Everybody's Free

2012-01-10T08:23:00.009Z

The Victorian Nursery at Worthing Museum

The defining lyric from today's title song is "Brothers and Sisters together we'll make it through"

After three home days we now have three out and about days, as I tweeted today, like the Hokey Cokey but with less shaking!

Today we have been to Worthing Museum for the the first time since July - It has had a face lift in the reception area since our last trip and is looking all modern. A more detailed review of our previous visit is here.

Big Small, 7, spotted this on facebook before we left and wondered if we might find something on our trip

"Fancy helping the Horrible Histories TV show out with their research? Martha Howe-Douglas from the show tweeted “HH5 research begins today and our Historian @greg_jenner wants you to help him find some interesting and horrible facts for the new series…… Email him at horrible.histories@liontv.co.uk and if your fact is used, you may get chance to see the sketch being filmed! Get researching!”

We didn't, but we did have a look at some old licorice all sorts packaging, a 1920s Jean Patou flapper dress, some Roman coins and a Victorian Nursery. The art exhibition area, where we saw the much loved worm in the sandwich last time, was closed whilst a new installation is completed.

We really enjoyed reading about the Victorian Nursery as it mentioned that many wealthy children in this period would have been educated at home with a governess and that this was one of the few employment opportunities open to unmarried women at that time.

There is a small area where children can play at being a museum curator with objects like ammonites to quantify and study under the microscope. S really likes this. We only stayed an hour though or so as Baby Small, 2, was being very vocal in the buggy but it was still a thought provoking visit. The "Spinning Plates" aspect has returned. One of the many challenges is ensuring each of my charges has the mental, emotional and physical stimulation that is appropriate to their, very differing, needs. After the museum we met up with two other home educating families we know at the nearby soft play called PLAY for some social time. The sibling dynamics didn't gel instantly but with the arrival of new friends they improved and then began deteriorating again.

A major contributor to this was Big Small who is currently sporting red tiredness rings around her eyes. I have been encouraging her to bed earlier and earlier and have even been reading her several chapters of a book at bed time which is something I haven't done regularly for years (literally) but she is waking up sooo early at the moment, not sure why, It was before six today. After yesterday afternoon's outburst I wondered how she would be today but her characteristic defiant tongue poking that always accompanies tiredness has returned. It is hard to be to rough on her when she spent ages caring for the youngest member of our group. Not too much head scratching on this behaviour. A growth spurt and post Christmas come down are the major contributors I suspect. She did upset a good friend of hers though so I expect some remorse and tears to come later.

On the way home we called into our local library to order in some more of the Roman Mysteries series for S (She likes the way they weave real facts into the stories) and awaiting E, 5, on the mat at home where a clutch of Flat Stanley's I ordered for him. We also re-borrowed the excellent "Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key" from the library today.

I'm solo adult in charge tonight and am thinking a few of our number could do with an early one.

In Other News

E has been through the knee of three, yes three, pairs of trousers this week!

Series Six Lego Minifigures

2012-01-09T15:07:00.002Z

Professional Players

2012-01-09T12:43:00.004Z

In the rush to answer the door to the BFFs this morning S stood on the rear of my sheepskin mule slippers, Before the footwear ripped under the strain my body was pulled backwards and surged forwards. It must have looked odd as I flew towards the door.

Hilarious mince pie confusion at lunch. I can see that some piping hot mash with lamb mince underneath would be a shock if what you were anticipating was a sweet parcel of dried fruits topped with cream!

We all woke up before six this morning, a pretty early start, so by 9am S had done the times tables, odd one odd, pattern repeats, symmetry and other quizzes she requested just before bed last night. For a long time I used to fill a side of a3 with little activities for her to do in the mornings, she doesn't like computer printouts of the same, just the ones you draw Mum but she was getting frustrated and fed up with them so I stopped. It was a total surprise when she asked for one just before I watched Sherlock last night. We enjoyed working through it together today. I always note how her optimum learning responsive times are those when she would be travelling to and from school.

S made some chocolate chip muffins for the the friends, her first spin of the new scales took a bit of getting used to.

Since the BFFs arrival there has been: painting, legoing, barbie-ing, a disco! at 11:15 on a Monday morning, movie watching and most of all laughing. E has giggled and laughed more in the last hour than in the last week. He adores his BFF who is here today, he tells me he doesn't want other friends just more of this friend!

Tried to do some sorting this morning, two cars in need of MOTS, a boiler that needs servicing and so on.Wasn't hugely productive.

The series six lego mini figs arrived with the friends this morning.

For as well as I handled the camper van incident a few weeks back. Not so today. S had an epic tiredness, excitement come down, sugar crash this afternoon and I just didn't have it in me to handle it how I should have or wanted to or could have. These occurences are rarer nowadays but not great.

Ready or not................

2012-01-08T13:56:00.004Z

Ready or Not...........

Books with wheels and books that are really several jigsaw puzzles without a box will find no welcome on these shelves.

Following on from yesterday's post the great book reorganise continues. Baby Small still enjoys many of the board books so our collection has been expanding without end for 7 years now. My progress is slow as we are having frequent story breaks! The Daddy One is busy outside painting the fence. He made the great blue boxes in these photos much better for irregular shape books than shelves. Today I was struck by how few non fiction books we have in regular use. A few on Romans, Egyptians, a clutch on Space and several on the Human Body but clearly the internet is now, by far, our major resource for research and answering of questions.

Bookworm

2012-01-07T15:39:00.004Z

Bookworm

Bit of early spring strewing slash cleaning going on today started tackling sorting out the first of 5 or 6 chocker book shelves with one of the ones in S's (7) room. Maybe we should get Big Small a kindle....it would be tidier.... Anyway S has read all of these books, minus maybe 2 or 3, some into double digits. She would love to host a book club but I am not sure I could find a way. At the moment I am thinking skype.

Top to bottom left to right five by Roald Dahl, four by Lauren Child, six by Sally Gardner, a few Daisy Meadows, a cluster of Winnie the Witches, some Usborne Greek and Roman legends, a couple of Gwyneth Rees, Famous Five and Secret Seven box set, two J K Rowlings, a Jacqueline Wilson, The Phantom Tollbooth, Now We are Six, a couple of poetry books.

Second shelf a few Paddingtons, a much read Dick King Smith box set, the Amy Tree Charmseekers series, three Agent Amelias, a trio of E Nesbit's, the Just So Stories, a clutch of Anne Fine's, a duo of Eva Ibbotson, Anne of Green Gables, another Dick King Smith, Little House on the Prairie, a couple from the What Katy did series, an Orchard Shakespeare box set so shabby well loved and well thumbed, a Narnia box set (mine from 1981!) And a stray Harry Potter from the gang.

The only two she hasn't read so far from this selection are Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie but watch this space by next week that could have all changed!

Happy Campers

2012-01-07T10:35:00.004Z

Since the arrival of the Barbie Sisters camper van at Christmas there has been an issue about the location of their holidays. Problems of free range camping and nimbyism are not confined to the real world it seems so a solution was sort. A brainwave struck me and I ordered some of that greengrocer fake grass on ebay so that we could agree on campsites in areas that wouldn't be in walkways or block access. It came yesterday but I didn't show S until today. There is a lot of it! Several metres cost a tenner inc P&P! S, 7, has had a great time this morning making signs for the campsite with The Daddy One. They counted out the number of steps around the house together as they agreed with the Barbie's Little feet each human step was like a mile in Barbie world. The morning started with a request of some times tables for Stacie (Barbie's 10 year old sister) but it didn't go well and Stacie got very cross the grass was a mellow recovery.

Doo Wop

2012-01-06T18:08:00.006Z

Doo Wop

An amazing thing about the Badman review in 2009 was that from something so negative came something positive and that was that home educators of all kinds united and overcame their ideological and intellectual differences against a common enemy. No divide and rule in this community ;-)

When we first joined the home education charity, Education Otherwise, seven or so years ago now there was a division between the structured and autonomous approaches and so it has resumed now. In recent weeks the huge yahoo group for education otherwise has been split into two to accommodate various polar viewpoints, debates and approaches and so with the UK Home Education facebook group where attacks on educational styles have been reported in the last few weeks. Maybe it is a seasonal or cyclical thing.

The thing about the contrasting approaches to learning outside of school is how far away from the mainstream, in opposite directions, they really are. Imagine, if you will, school as the centre, the middle group, somewhere to the far left or far west if you want to remove the political parallel would be unschooling and then over on the east of school would be structured home schooling so, if you follow my visual picture, herding this bunch of cats is going to be trickier than you first thought if you follow how intellectually and ideologically far apart they can be.

Both philosophies have ideological underpinnings that make assumptions about human, and more specifically, child, behaviour at their core. Can children be trusted? At all? To direct their own learning, sort out bedtimes or choose the foods they want to eat?

Do you trust? Do you say it is dangerous out there you are not going out there or do you say there are dangers let's hold hands and find a way to best navigate them together. Most likely, if you have been home educating for a while, your thinking has evolved, life experiences will change you and, if you have more than one child, that might have caused you to modify your ideas as well. Perhaps you have just gained in confidence as you have seen learning happening all around you.

Are you constantly struggling for power or have you realised there is no power struggle when the person with the power stops struggling? Do you greet a failure of control with more controls? Maybe you are deschooling. Yourself or your children. A process that can take years.

All of this must be incredibly complex for newbies who might be dazed and confused from a traumatic school experience and are pondering which curriculum to purchase. Add into the average moderated forum parents who are being given a daily hard time by at best the general public and at worst members of their own family. Similarities exist of course. Yesterday's education section press articles about larger classes and longer days will have been shared on all forums to a different audience with a spectrum of responses.

Regular readers of the blog will know that recently I stepped down from running our local area group in West Sussex because the stress of trying to reconcile differences was wearing me down. Regular readers of the blog will also know that I don't have all the answers and, as my twitter strap line once said "Making it up as I go along." I am pretty honest about that and the higher highs and lower lows of a life outside the school system. If you are new to home education you will find your path you can read how we do things and draw your own conclusions. That is the beauty of having the freedom to educate otherwise.

Be Thankful - For what you've got.

2012-01-06T12:08:00.005Z

Be Thankful for what you've got

"Who invented high five?"

"Who invented dice?"

Rose late this morning and it was nine o clock before we made it downstairs. Jacket potatoes, Orange cheese, brown paint on toast with banana, boiled eggs, special K and salt and vinegar snack a jacks all washed down with innocent smoothie juices. The breakfast of champions!

Friday today so 2 hours of extra adult help. I took advantage to whizz out with Baby Small in the buggy. Oh how I miss my big, sprung emmaljunga prams. Pushing a buggy is joyless! But, in need of the exercise, I soldiered on to the: post office, library, park, greengrocers and up the hill to the supermarket and butchers. Maybe a 3 mile round trip. The first stagger up Potts Lane of the year and also an opportunity to see THE tree, the one that left us without power for 24 hours. Looking all innocent there with its clear blue sky background.

Came home to find a table covered in dragons, S has some new Roman Mysteries thanks to the library. We had a chat about V and IV.

After lunch we called by to see some home ed friends in our neighbouring village and took their dog for a walk in Monkmead Woods which is close to their home. They have made a den there. The woods are home to a rare yellow flag iris and the site of a Roman Road too but mostly we enjoyed chocolate panetonne :)

Two walks for me today. Fortunately sweet potato mash, sweet chilli sauages and spring cabbage followed by pear crumble are heading my way later when I have cooked them. 24 hours minus power rather knocked me off my post holiday meal planning groove but I'm getting back there. Look out blackboard here I come!

White Lines

2012-01-05T16:26:00.008Z

Barbies have fun at the water park Lego Ninjago and Alien Conquest meet some Star Wars invaders. O insisted on painting in white today E's painting, these are going to be the background to a battle scene with his "E" in the top right corner. O,2, on the table and the lego Belville House Just for girls - ha ha - as he tucks the Clone Troopers up in bed!

White Lines

Accidentally I fell asleep whilst reading a Ninjago story to Et last night so I guess he must have too. Snuggley Winter nights under the duvet. I am wondering if the title of this blog needs to be amended to "Only gallivanters when the weather is warm." We are in hibernation mode since the power returned.

We have had our friends from Muddy Sandy Life over today for lunch and fun but not before the adventure of the Barbie's in China had finished being written and illustrated by Big Small, 7, and Middle Small, 5, finished another playmobil battle story and some Peter and Jane reading. A re-stocking shopping delivery arrived and E and I played with the cannons from the playmobil pirate ship for quite some time before the friends came over. I know he can feel left out so I was keen to invest some time with him. Worked really well he has been great.

Learning through play has been varied today. Water parks and lego and we did some painting too. O insisted on painting only in white reminding me both of how S only painted in green for months at a time when she was his age and also of a fabulous Robert Ryman exhibition at the Tate I visited back in the early nineties, 92 or 93 from memory. I am so old that this was back in the day there was only one Tate Gallery. For those of you that may not know conceptual artist Robert Ryman paints only in white. Have a google. His pictures are varied than you might think! Reminded me of that "and I bet his mother worried" joke about children who go on to succeed in an area of single interest.

Electric Avenue

2012-01-04T16:04:00.003Z

I just knew that stock pile of illy tins would come in handy. It is hard to see the fallen tree in this photo but I couldn't go any closer due to the power cables in the road.

Electric Avenue

Warmth is radiating from the radiators, brightness from the lights, a hatrick of white goods in the kitchen are performing their cleaning magic whilst the oven gently bakes a potato or two. The television is selling us things, vacuuming has been dysoned, I am blogging, the library are able to leave messages alerting us to books awaiting collection. In short normal service is resumed. In fact the only casualty from 24 hours without power appears to be a rather large amount of ice cream. Way more ice cream that I realised we had in our freezer and an embarrassing quantity to detail on an insurance claim form. When a friend offered freezer space this morning I squeezed the meat, thinking value over volume I guess, and that remained solid and E's mini fig men are rock hard too.

We arrived home from Fishers Farm to see a light on upstairs. Hooray for electricity. We were a little over 24 hours without it judging by timers.

In myself I feel pleased that I remembered the unschooling 101 basic of principles over rules and preserving the relationship all the time. I didn't have any firm New Year's Resolutions in my mind and was able to mostly relax and enjoy the experience. That, in my opinion, is an important life lesson, for The Smalls. When I read back over previous blogs and see how, in under a year, we have had car crashes and falling down stairs to contend with it becomes clear to me the importance of not loosing the plot during times of crisis and again Hooray for many of our choices. Co-sleeping without central heating in action is surely the only way. I hope when S is older she will remember us reading "The Secret of Platform 13" under the covers by torch light until my arm ached from holding the torch rather than Mummy being grumpy because it was cold and dark. It is a great book by the way, some say J K Rowling 'borrowed' the idea for the Kings Cross Portal in Harry Potter from it.

Power Baby

2012-01-04T12:40:00.002Z

So it goes. 24 hours since the last post, 24 hours in which we have had no electricity. Shortly after I published yesterday's, aptly titled, post a tree blew down next to the railway bridge close to our home taking a power cable with it and bam. The lights went out. Last night was a novelty, crazy chefs by candle light, random food, 12 hours sleep, no bath and plus we had Grandma.

When I walked up, as close as I could, to see the damage it was a tangled mess of 9 or so power cables woven in between the branches with a trunk right over the road blocking traffic north and south dangerously close to the railway bridge.

Undeterred this morning the making of dragons continued despite the cold! O, 2, likes the dragon from Mike the Knight, E has his playmobil dragons and S is getting into The Inheritance Cycle series so it is a project that appeals to all. Colourful card and scissors a go go!

We have come to cosy fishers farm for warmth and wifi, although it is really hectic thanks to an inset day, but it could be sometime before our power is restored.

It has been interesting so far. The novelty of torches and so on. Many many questions about people lived before electricity. Everything is a learning experience.

Wind Parade

2012-01-03T10:20:00.009Z

Wind Parade

Any excuse for some Donald Byrd on the blog is fine by me.

Of all these advantages afforded to us by a life of home educating (no nits, name tags or school runs etc) the opportunity to be counter cyclical ranks highly for me. Visiting places when they are empty in term time and half the price is to me, preferable to paying full whack to enter somewhere busy. So today the plan was to head to Pallant House Art Gallery in Chichester to take advantage of their half price Tuesday entry followed by a bargain special offer January lunch in pizza express, I had even laid out our clothes. Another advantage offered by being the masters of our own destiny is spontaneity and the ability to say "You know what Chichester is windy even when it is not windy anywhere else and today the rain is diagonal and the breeze so fast it is setting off the speed camera outside. Let's stay home instead and go to Pallant House another day."

Experience has taught me that first days after holidays are not the time to tackle anything epic or try a change of approach however tempting that maybe so it was to my surprise when E happily sat down for a few pages of Peter and Jane reading after a two week or so break this morning.

O sneaks a play with the Barbies when no one is looking. He does the voices and everything. "Now, you sit there." He says.

We have talked about the Gods of Wind today and googled and discussed all the different ones, Roman, Greek and so on which lead to S saying "Hello" to us in Chinese, we were surprised and she showed us on the Barbie website where they have a global section and my Mum started talking about Chinese New Year and then they made a dragon for the Barbie sisters dolls to hold and now they are writing a story that S has made up in a book. All her idea. She references us for spellings and said that today's freak weather was her inspiration. She is going to make the book a "two in one" like some of the books we had for Christmas that can be turned around and upside down for a second story.

E is really into freezing stuff at the moment in his lego mini fig tray. We have been experimenting and talking about what does and doesn't freeze. He has also, independantly, printed off all the instructions to make a duplo castle 4777 and shown me how to order spare pieces. He looked this up on theinternet and printed off all by himself. We inherited the original duplo pieces in a random box of bricks and have added to them. To me this is Unschooling in action. There is much that could be filed under various academic subjects going on here but he doesn't think so!

The building project in action. The lego gifts E wrapped for O late last night All this in addition to a flurry of late night learning last night which saw a Barbie singing fashion shoot in which Barbie made up a song about kids not going to school and Et wrapped up lots of mini figs and pretended it was O's birthday!

Tides 2012

2012-01-02T14:37:00.007Z

Tides

Beautiful blue sky at Worthing beach this morning. The tide was far out. (Man!) Fimo dolphin S made today

We have been to Worthing this morning, first beach visit of 2012 for the last day of our 'holiday,' had a mooch around the shops, coffee and bought home some giant pebbles from the beach as E decided he wanted to paint them. He selected colours we only have a water based version of whilst our previous stone success stories have involved acrylic based paints on the rock surface. Took the view that we would go along with an unsuccessful first attempt as a learning experience rather than impose our "correct adult judgement." This underpins so much parenting and home education, the oven is hot, the road has fast traffic, being attentive for when these judgements can be made independently is at the core.

Which sort of takes me to last night when a very overtired Big Small drew on her, still really rather new, Barbie camper van. Graffiti if you like. She said she was sad that a camper, which is designed for all four of the sister's dolls, only had Barbie's name on it so she added the words 'family and pets' underneath in biro. This type of thing has never happened before even though S is 7, she has never drawn on walls or defaced toys. (clearly I am not saying she is perfect we have had other experiences but never this one!) E drew on some brio track once and my Mum gave him a scrubbing brush and some soap and he has never done anything similar. In my school daze I do recall that personalising your school bag and your pencil case with biro doodles or compass etching was essential so I do understand. S cried when I saw the camper because she said she saw the disappointment in my eyes (she's quick) even though no words passed my lips the initial spilt second biological reaction of "Well there's something we won't be able to ebay." was too speedy to hide.

We talked about how, next time, we could help her personalise her toys perhaps by scanning in one of her drawings and printing it out on sticker paper so that it is more long lasting. In myself today me feeling is that how I handled the situation shows how my parenting is improving. The memory photograph in S's mind will be "The time I modified my Christmas camper" rather than "The time Mum went totally ballistic when I drew on my camper van." because I didn't. I know when others look at Barbie, Skipper, Stacie and Chelsea they see four plastic dolls but to S they are her playing world and she wants them all included in the family. and she spelt the words correctly :-)

S is keen to make some signs for a sister's dolls campsite and needs my help, the lego ninjago spinners remain popular with the whole trio and we have interference on the walkie talkies.

Happy Unschooling New Year - "Don't Look Any Further."

2012-01-01T12:28:00.005Z

"Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch."

Sandra Dodd

Upon reflection today I realise that our New Year's Eve was much like an unschooling experiment. Nine people together. Us and our friends from Muddy Sandy Life. None of us really knew how it would go but all were keen to try. Swap out the word read in the above quote for the words drink and play and that's pretty much how we rolled. Until 3am when Big Small had beaten us at cards and we wrapped up the celebrations.The option was always open to stay over, the invite was there without obligation and it worked out brilliantly.

We wondered if our friends would come for a while, how would it be, their youngest is a little shy sometimes, and how would work out without any expectations. My honest feeling when typing the blog 24 ago was no way Jose would I still have my eyes open at midnight but we had fun. Relaxing, chatting, eating (the raspberry semifreddo went down well. Patience is a virtue where that dessert is concerned :)) ; playing Barbies and lego. All of the girls made it to the midnight hour, the boys fell asleep a little before, and they hugged in on the sofa for some spectacular fireworks over the Thames and the chimes of Big Ben. Big Small was really excited to have her friends over for a sleepover and we were happy to have their parent's. A family slumber party.

Baby Small was hilarious when he wanted one of our guests to play he called him "The other Daddy, Come on other Daddy One to the lego room." He said and, at one point, around tenish, Middle Small moved back my hair from my ear, pulled me down and whispered in my ear, totally spontaneously "Everyday Mum you do so much for me and us , so much to make it the best you can and you think of us and you are brilliant. I love you"

This blog saw a fair slice of my head scratching and soul searching where our five year old is concerned during 2011 who could have predicted an end like that. Lump in throat moment for sure.

A few other notable moments when given free reign to play music, unknowingly, several songs that had featured during our wedding ceremony turned up on the play list.

Don't Look Any Further

Funkin' For Jamaica

and this was the soundtrack for musical statues

Nem Ven Que Nao Tem

Feeling pretty sleepy today, so far we have roasted a 3kg (!) chicken (Cheers Alec) water is falling from the sky outside but the there are back to back movies pumping out of the screen. We've had an exceptional Christmas and New Year. Nothing excessive or flash just small scale, low key and groovy. Perfect.

2012 - Celebration

2011-12-31T14:13:00.011Z

First use of the brand new scales

Celebration

Previous New Year's Eves have been spent in towns as far apart as Bath, Balham, Beckenham and Brighton and others with different alphabetic origins. No Subterranea or Jazz Rooms tonight, in fact 8 years ago when we last attempted a party we genuinely feared we had landed on the set of The Ice Storm and bid a swift retreat.

It was a struggle for me to stay awake until the end of the Chronicles of Narnia with Big Small last night, every one else had long since departed to horizontal, she adores that film. With mermaids, unicorns and magic it ticks many of her boxes. Middle Small and I have been playing Lego Ninjago again today; even if I do say so myself, my spinning technique is showing definite signs of improvement.

Following our few days away Mum sent me home with 600ml of Marks & Spencer's finest West County Double Cream which has been slowly counting down to its expiration in the fridge. Today, with the help of some home grown Raspberries, it was turned into a delicious semi freddo using the Jamie Oliver Marathon recipe from before Christmas as a basis. When Middle Small saw he he asked if I had made some new play dough.

Back in the mid eighties when I studied Home Economics, the subject formally known as domestic science currently known as food tech, we were required to price our menus and recipes. This one is too tempting not to detail

Cream - (As previously mentioned) Gratis

Eggs - Box dropped by ocado delivery several broken equals FOC

Raspberries - From the garden, bushes earned their kept several seasons ago

55g golden caster sugar - 50p max

2 vanilla pods 99p from here

Daft idea for decorating the top with left over coulis - Model's Own

To me it is amazing to think that this blog did not exist twelve months ago, the 15 minutes per day devoted to recording our gallivants and too cool for school days are, I feel, well spent and I am always humbled to see how many of you tune in regularly everyday for the eclectic selection of trip advisor meets music meets food meets our growing confidence in learning outside of school.

Hope 2012 is all you dream of. See you next year.

Agua de Beber

2011-12-30T16:40:00.006Z

Agua de Beber

We have been for lunch to East Beach Cafe in Littlehampton today with some friends and their tiny, black 16 week old CockerPoo puppy called Molly. The food wasn't as great as it has been in the past but it was a small part of the overall.

More fish and crabs and shells washed up on the beach than I've seen in a while and two young ladies in bikinis went in the sea.