just another morning here

Me, that is. I just bought some new shoes – have looked all over for something to rival these (my favourite ever shoes from two years ago), and didn’t find anything anywhere, so I bought a pair exactly the same (but in black) from my friend Mr Shoe Stop. Actually got a size smaller as the pink ones were always a bit sloppy – bit of a risk there but they are fantastic, I love them already. Very tempted to buy another pair for 2007/8 when these ones will have worn out, although to be fair, the pink ones didn’t wear out, they got dirty and even bigger, I dyed them so that they looked as good as new (only navy and a size bigger than they originally were!) and then sold them on ebay for a tenner, which is surely pretty good depreciation on a two year old pair of shoes!

Anyway. What that has to do with home ed I really don’t know, but it was my major excitement for the day. It’s our schooly day here – Joe’s been to Start Right, Anna to dance & drama lessons at school. It’s always incredible to me just how much time the ‘school run’ stuff takes, I hate it! Josiah had a great time today though – he stayed for lunch, which is a big treat anyway, but all this week they are doing Maypole dancing at Start Right, and he came back full of it. We’re going to go and watch on Thursday

We’ve run a few errands, made some more bracelets/keyrings, and the children have all played outside loads in various combinations. I managed to do some maths with Abbie, music with Anna, and reading with both Joe and Abbie. Errands included getting a new coolbag (old one got milk spilt in it on the way to Spring Harvest and as it was split already, it stank, had to be thrown out) – 74p from Tesco – bargain. Also bought some lengths of polar fleece – no chance of making pyjamas here but I did think that having a few more blankets for camping next week wouldn’t be a bad idea, as I was cold last year and borrowed a couple of Portico blankets, iirc! Don’t think there’s anything else I need but haven’t thought about getting organised and seem to be getting busier by the minute this week, so probably won’t until Thursday!

Steve and I went out for a coffee after our housegroup meeting last night, which was nice. While there we talked about the whole school/HE quandary of late, and our eldest daughter in particular. Steve seems to understand her much better than I do, and he says the battles she and I get into remind him very much of battles he used to have with his mum! I can see that he’s got a point here So we talked over the approach we’ve taken to her education, and discussed how we could make changes to that approach in order to suit her better. Steve is much more able to ‘trust the process’ than I am, and he is fairly pro delayed academics, too – which is fairly opposite to my natural inclinations, so I’m glad I have him to balance me up We decided that there is no reason why we can’t adopt a relatively autonomous attitude with one child while not necessarily with the others, after all, isn’t that why we educate them at home, so that we can tailor the provision to their individual needs?

Steve ended up having a chat with Anna this morning, and we’ve agreed a couple of strategies together … which seem to have worked well today, at least. Basically we decided that she would concentrate on motivating herself to really practise the things she likes and wants to be better at (ie music, art, dance, etc), and that I would work on making her maths tie into projects (which she said she enjoys) and be more practical. She also said she enjoys our science kits, as well as project work, so it’s not all bad, she only hates maths! I also asked her whether *she’d* like to choose a maths textbook to work from, which was an idea she was open to – and I suspect that if I gave her free rein in Waterstones she’d probably enjoy choosing and then using whatever she bought, so we might do that too – I figure an extra maths textbook can’t be too much of a waste of money. So anyway, I hope that gives us a way to take things forward that we’re all happy with.

Steve had the day off today (well, after an hour at work, anyway), so that first hour the girls spent doing maths (Abbie – who is so completely different from Anna it’s not true), while Anna practised dance and piano. When Steve turned up again we went into town together, to a music shop and then to the museum, where the girls pottered around and drew pictures while we chatted; then we picked Josiah up from Start Right, went out to the Cat & Fiddle for lunch, then on to Crealy to meet up with the home ed group. I did ask Anna at one point during the afternoon whether she would really rather be at school and she admitted that she wouldn’t, which underlines to me that the whole thing really was a button pushing thing on her behalf. Still, it doesn’t hurt to re-think the whole thing every so often, it feels like a positive process now (until the next time … ).

Now we’re home watching a film together which is a nice end to the day

Well, Nanci was brilliant. Steve and I had a fab time – dinner in Pizza Hut as it was all we ended up with time for, but it was okay. The concert was fab – missed my friend and fellow teenage Nanci fan but Steve did an admirable effort of grinning inanely at me when one of my fave songs was played. Steve drove, but neither of us drank in the end, well, not until we got home, anyway

Today has been busy – might find and add some photos later. Got a huge parcel of toys yesterday (and nothing’s changed, the contents were not quite what I was expecting, please remind me of this when it comes to the pre-Christmas sign up invitation, although at least the website has finally been updated to have the new catalogue stuff on it, only two months after our ‘training day’ ) so we had lots of them out this morning as we wanted to find out how games were played etc. before taking them to HE group in the afternoon.

Faves were a bashing maths game, the tangram game, Anatomix (that’s really fab), Tipover (similar to Rush Hour) … and I love this book.

In the middle of all that Josiah went off to Start Right, and I had to go to the Drs for a smear test, hateful things. Girls thought it was gross but still strangely wanted to be in the same room. Educational, nonetheless.

Due to all the nice game-playing Anna was rather miffed at having to be dragged out of the house, even more miffed that I made her walk (it’s all of 300 yards), and we ended up with the whole ‘I’d rather be at school’ conversation going on. Only for the school dinners, seeing Caitlin, and generally not having to do what her mother tells her. Still, it knocks me sideways every time she does it, because I feel guilty that we’ve made this decision for our family and that if *she* could choose she’d go to school. Abbie doesn’t care either way, and neither does Josiah, really – and sometimes, tbh, it’s just so tempting from my point of view, to have that TIME! Sometimes I even wish I could hand the responsibility for Anna’s education to someone else; she and I have a major character clash, I reckon – it doesn’t happen in the same way with the other two … then on the other hand I *really* don’t want to hand them over to a system that I don’t like, partly I don’t want to lose control over what they’re doing, partly I don’t think the academic side of school education is any better than what the kids will get at home (in fact philosophically I think they could do better at home, whether they will or not is a different matter), partly I don’t want to lose the flexibility that we have as a family at the moment, and even a tiny (honest) part of me isn’t sure what I’d do if they did go back to school. Then there’s the quandary of which school they’d go back to – the local one (obvious choice really as it’s absolutely fine) or go with the Christian school because of it’s ethos/atmosphere which really is something different (as Heather will testify), or then again maybe if they want to go and I’ll be able to work, we could almost afford posh private (because I’m a snob at heart ). All of those are compromises in one way or another, whereas at the moment I at least feel that I’m being true to my ideals for their education.

It is a slight ‘button pushing’ exercise on Anna’s behalf, she knows that I’ll react when she does the ‘I’d rather be at school’ routine – and this afternoon I’ve ended up basically reminding her why we’ve chosen this route for our family at this time, and that it does hurt my feelings when she says it just because she’s cross with me. Having said that, I honestly think that this summer may well be crunch time, one way or another. Ho hum. And if so, then bang goes any vague plan Steve & I might have had about going abroad in the Autumn …

That was an aside, in the day – after my doctor’s appointment we came home and made a buzzwire together. Anna’s wanted to do one of these for ages so when I saw that I could get a kit I was pleased, and she & Abbie enjoyed putting it together.

Steve picked Joe up and they came back for lunch, during which someone from the local radio station popped in to interview me; the annual babyloss memorial service is happening at the hospital here on Sunday so I’ve been involved in lots of ‘get the word out’ type media stuff this week.

After that we went off to HE group which was mainly pleasant – Abbie has been pushing her luck with behaviour recently and I had to send her into another room for five minutes because she was being a pain – and she’s under severe warnings, but apart from that it was nice. Joe is now sporting some lovely new trousers from Jules which he thinks are great because of the zip off bits to make them into long shorts.

Came home with Anna moaning that they’d laid the table at lunchtime so it wasn’t their turn to do it for tea; I said okay, well, I cooked the lunch so you’ll have to cook the tea then, if I’m laying the table. They ended up getting their own tea *and* laying the table for themselves, so that was good – Steve and I have friends coming round for dinner later. So that’s us; might find time to add photos later if they’re any good.

Actually, I’m lying – no swimsuits round here but it has been gorgeously warm and sunny. And the girls *almost* needed swimsuits, as they both narrowly avoided falling into the stream! We finished all our Home Economics lessons (cleaning!) by lunchtime, picked Joe up from Start Right, and ended up at Crealy again (we didn’t go yesterday, after all that, in case you were wondering, so still had bread for the ducks!).

I was only planning to stay for a couple of hours over lunchtime but then Steve decided to meet us out there so we abandoned Home Ed meet-up in the park in favour of a family afternoon together. Feel guilty about this sometimes, but what the heck, this is exactly *why* we decided to HE, so that we could take time as a family when it came along, rather than having to fit it in around a school or any other timetable. Sat by the lake chatting for ages, watched the model boats sailing, fed the ducks, had a nice long play in the park (interesting people-watching exercises going on!), and then a lovely walk down by the bridges.

Anyway, we’re still testing out the new camera (even Steve had a go today!) so here are today’s snaps.

the best photo of the day

and just to demonstrate the near miss in the stream
Steve eventually bribed Abigail with money to get her across

Might go quiet on the blogging front over the weekend due to all our busyness, then again, who am I kidding?! Oh, and I’m having real trouble commenting on blogger at the moment, no matter which computer/browser I use! So, Ros, although that poem is about the length and type that Steve would write, it’s not his – he’s Steven not Stephen, in any case

So looking foward to Cadbury’s tomorrow