Making it up as we go along

OK, so I should give up on pretending that I'm going to update this frequently...and there is no way that I'm going to remember what we've done for the last two weeks.

Highlights and lowlights then: dd had her first trip to the cinema, which she thoroughly enjoyed right up til she went to bed when the nightmares began :-( Three nights later she felt up to sleeping in her own bed. Guess we won't be trying that again in a hurry. However we also went to the theatre to a puppet story telling which was great, and we've read and reread those stories over the last couple of days which has been lovely.

Otherwise, let's see, there was the car accident, where thankfully dd was not with me in the car - gives me cold sweats to think about how she would have reacted. Then the next day she brought home a homework book, which is due to go back to nursery tomorrow, and will return untouched. Homework?? Without a discussion or a note or so much as a by your leave (not that any of those would have contributed to any homework being done...)

We've also played dominoes most evenings, and dd has started learning clock patience (although to be frank, she doesn't have quite enough patience to succeed with it yet), today we've had two, count them, two hama bead sessions, as well as her emergent writing of a story which she then read to us both.

I've finally bought my glue gun, now all I need is a few extra hours in the day to do all the crafts I want to do. Dp and I have discussed home edding more and more, and we will be building towards a pattern of him taking her our one day a week, and we are going to look seriously at drama classes for her from age four. Ds is still smily and happy most of the time and it does help so much to just sit and cuddle him some times.

And that's as much as I have time and energy for tonight.

I can't believe that another week has gone by! These blog things are a bit scary like that, but then again, we are just so busy at the moment.

Let's see - dd went to nursery tues/ wed last week. I can't remember thursday, but Friday we were at JFK, then went up to Sunderland to meet up with a uni friend on Saturday who now lives in the states and was back for the weekend to see his family. Spent the day with him and his family then Sunday we did a walk in the park with friends and today we've done card making, postcard writing, running round the garden screaming ( :-)) and so on.

Someone seems to have flicked a switch in dd at the moment - her writing is coming along in leaps and bounds, she's started sounding out words and reading signs and her conversations are somewhat scary. Tonight while she was bathing we covered why women aren't daddies, why it gets dark sometimes, discussed her upcoming first cinema trip and we were only up there 20 minutes! I don't know whether this has anything to do with the nursery move, or my change of state of mind, but I don't know how long I'm going to be able to keep up with her!

We've also taken delivery of One to One the home ed book and I'm looking into buying a FIAR volume simply because I think it will be a useful resource.

Having just mentioned to dp that I can't remember thursday and he is helpfully saying that I was abducted by aliens. Some ppl!

And before bed this evening some more french knitting! Bit disappointed that we haven't managed to see the knitting out of the bottom yet, but it takes an awfully long time for dd to do each stitch, not helped by the fact that the wool supplied in the kit is pretty terrible, keeps going to strands. Which started a bit of a rant yesterday evening, can't help feeling that a lot of children are put off doing stuff by having been given useless (but safe) tools to do things with, that then make it really difficult to actually do whatever it was they were trying. They then assume it is their fault that whatever it was didn't work, and you end up with one more person convinced they can't knit/ sew/ crochet/ french knit/ do carpentry...it's a theory anyway.

Well, our visitors have been and gone - a lovely day discussing curriculum, books and behaviour with the mother of a couple of home edded girls, while the girls mainly played together. We also made peg dolls in the victorian style (well, reasonably in the victorian style) .

Dd is now chilling with a small amount of tv, dp has retired to bed with a headache and I am meditating on books (a favourite topic to meditate on, I must admit).

We also did dd's scrapbook this morning about our visit yesterday, and I was horrified to discover it's over a year since we put anything in there! We used to do it really regularly, and I knew we hadn't done it for a bit, but last september?? Where does the time go? Couldn't disappear between the keys on this keyboard could it?

// posted by Jax Blunt @ 10/07/2003 03:05:00 AM

Just a quickie as expecting visitors - made it to the Industrial Hamlet living history day yesterday. Rather disappointed by the fact they'd closed the carparks (I had to parallel park!) and the fact that the site is pretty much inaccessible to buggys. If I'd known that in advance I'd have planned to sling ds and carry a lot less stuff, but there you go. We thoroughly enjoyed the blacksmith and sweet making, plus playing with the victorian toys and dd enjoyed the works gallery.

Today we did two more postcards - only a couple more to do (apologies to anyone who is waiting) and dd practised her 's' as the one letter she does have problems with. Then friends came over for lunch and we went to the farm park again. We wanted to collect leaves and stuff, but there wasn't much to collect - most of the leaves seemed to have some sort of blight on them which wasn't pleasant.

Plenty of time to play in the playground though, and we made it back to the car just before the rain started.

Yesterday's McDonald toy is a big hit - it has two touch connectors on the bottom, so if you join the circuit it lights up. It's designed to go in water (it's in the bath right now lol) and dd is having a wonderful time experimenting with it.

Another incredibly busy day. Both dd and ds had me up during the night, so I didn't surface properly til half nine. Dd came with a couple of books to sit with me while I was feeding ds, and after I'd read to her, she started letter spotting and then word spotting. Helped that one of the characters had a name the same as her dad! Does go to prove that the reading is coming along all of it's own accord.

After than we piled in the car and pottered off to visit Kirsty and clan, which was our second visit up there, but I think about the fourth or fifth time that dd and Kirsty's ds have now played together recently. They are definitely getting along much much better, although there is still the occasional loud moment lol! We'd taken a £1 badge kit from the works, and they all spent at least 25 minutes colouring badges, so that was quite successful. Dd also spent a while doing stencil animals, which surprised me as she's shown little interest in that at home. Then Kirsty got out her hama beads, which are the maxi size. Dd was really into them, and made the outlines of both car and elephant quite happily, while I sat and made little towers and patterns with ds sleeping on my knee. I'd say from the level of interest that they are well worth the investment - we've got midi beads at home, and we have done stuff with them, but it does take a lot more encouragement.

Then we shot off to M* to do some shopping and dd had a nice play in the soft play there, before we grabbed our junk food allowance and came home just in time for the wind down tv programme. All in all a successful day so far -dd is upstairs having her bath with dp supervising as I type, and ds is singing to me about food, so I'd better go.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I am beginning to believe that dd can read rather more than she lets on. We were in the toilets today and she was heading for the door, stopped and came back and said "I've got to wash my hands, the sign says so". Sure enough there was a sign on the back of the door, with a picture and the words "Now wash your hands" so I asked where it said it, thinking maybe she'd just looked at the picture, and she pointed to the words. I don't quite understand why she makes such a fuss about not reading - we are wondering whether she is afraid that we won't read to her if she can read for herself.

And over a week has flown by again!

Dd refused nursery last week, which threw all my plans out, but we did discover the reasoning. All her friends have moved up a room and she has no one to play with. I mentioned this to the staff and was told she could move up this week, so she decided that she would like to try that.

Otherwise we had a days shopping on Tues, went to a friends house on Wednesday, G* farm park on Thurs and C* house adventure playground and farmpark for another home edded friends birthday on Fri. Dd is fascinated by the plastic or wooden cows that they have at these places that you can milk, and she also spent a lot of time on the trampoline. We took some pictures of the milking demonstration, and if I ever get organised properly, we might start making project pages about these things.

At the weekend we had two other three year olds round on Saturday and an extra baby, one three year old stayed over, then we had him on Sunday too, so we went to one of these indoor play places. It wasn't the most successful weekend, as the young man doesn't particularly like me I feel - I am fighting to remind myself to be more positive with the smaller element, and while dd is used to me, he isn't!

Then this week, I can't remember Monday (which is probably not a good sign ) Tues and Wed dd did go to nursery, although she refused to stay over at her friends on Tues night which was a first and today we've been to the flea market.

Last night we made a dream catcher, which I will be writing up as a project (we took pictures) and tonight dd has done some reading with dp, and there was a spot the difference at the back of the book which led to some more online which she enjoyed.

Oh why can't I remember Monday??

// posted by Jax Blunt @ 10/03/2003 04:44:00 AM