Stepping off the path

You are a PIZZA!
You ar the ultimate party food, and nothing shall
stop you from having the best time EVER!


Monkey? Pizza? Death? Oompa Loompa?
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Now this is a bizarre quiz...

You're an agitator! Your kids have grown up on the
front lines of rallies and pickets, and chances
are that you boycott at least one company for
its bad business practices. Your kids are
learning what matters to you and how they can
change what matters to them.


What kind of a freaky mother are you?
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I think of all the options that's probably the most accurate. One of the first words C could read was Nestle so she knew what I was not going to buy in the supermarket!

A Nice Family Sunday

We went to church this morning, and I had to stay in Sunday school with M because she was frightened of being pushed over by a little boy there. Quite a high risk, actually, the mood he was in today. Both girls did some really nice colouring and sat nicely doing what they were supposed to, so I was proud of them. I'm very glad they don't have to do that kind of thing all week, but it's kind of reassuring to know that they can do it.

For lunch we made a small impact on yesterday's leftovers, then in the afternoon we all had fun making snowflakes for Christmas cards and decorations. Jonathan hadn't made paper snowflakes before, or at least couldn't remember ever having done so, and he made some really lovely ones.

We were wondering about watching Fiddler on the Roof this afternoon, but I said I would like C to know a bit more about Jewish history first, so it would make a bit more sense to her. So she started asking questions, and I just kept talking until I'd covered the Patriarchs, the exile to Babylon and the subsequent dispersal of the Jews, various occupations of Palestine in ancient times, the diaspora in Europe and the history of Jewish expulsions and pogroms, the spread of the Jews to North America and to Palestine in the 20th century, the Holocaust, the foundation of the state of Israel and some background to the current Palestinian / Israeli conflict, and then she wandered off. I was amazed at how long she sat and listened.

In the late afternoon we all went out to a Christingle service at another local church. For those who don't know, this is a traditional children's Christmas or Advent service. Each child is given a Christingle, which consists of an orange, to represent the world, with a candle stuck in the top to represent Jesus the light of the world, a red ribbon round it to represent Christ's blood, and four cocktail sticks stuck in it, to represent the seasons, with sweets and raisins impaled on them for God's gifts throughout the year.

When we came back we made some Christmas cards and Jonathan continued having fun with snowflakes, then had leftover cake for tea. I'm blogging early this evening because Jonathan wants to upgrade my computer. I'll have to remember what I did in the evenings before I had my own computer.

I'm 45% freak apparently. Probably about right, but I don't know how much of a useful comparison it will me comparing myself with you lot ;)

All that pink's made my eyes go funny.

Ten Years On

This weekend we're celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Yesterday was the day itself and I was at work from 8 till 8, but I was interrupted in the middle of the day by Jonathan and the girls visiting me to bring me red roses :)

Today we had some friends round to help us mark the occasion. The plan was to have a bigger party but we were very disorganised, even more so than usual, and we only got round to phoning invites last week. So we had a very select group of friends and very much enjoyed ourselves. There were lots of children who all played reasonably well together, and the grownups mostly chatted, and even Jax's elusive Tim came (we were very honoured) Many thanks to my Mum, who made us some excellent party food.

In ten years we've lived in five houses, had quite a few different jobs between us, had almost three children, made some radical decisions and travelled some interesting and exciting paths together. I wonder what the next ten years will bring.

Wednesday is the only day of the week when both girls are at home with me all day, which given I'm still lacking the energy to go very far, can be quite a challenge. I had some things I needed to do today, and some ideas of things that would be fun, so I made a list at breakfast time and have actually got most of it done. It would have been a really nice day if C and M had not managed to squabble so much.

My kitchen scales got broken several weeks ago - I think excessive pressure was applied to the spring by someone small - and we finally got a new set yesterday, so we celebrated by making gingerbread today. We also made some marzipan fruit and animals. Some friends came round briefly after school, and ate some gingerbread with us.

When they had gone, C and M wanted to decorate some of the biscuits, so I sent them out of the kitchen while I cleared up a bit. When I was ready, I went to call them and discovered M asleep on the sofa. She's got a really nasty cold and cough that seems to be going on ages. Anyway, we let her sleep for a bit, C decorated some biscuits and, inspired by various people mentioning hama in the past few days, we made a few hama Christmas decorations.

Next Saturday morning our church is having its big annual fundraising do which is always in aid of Crisis, the homeless charity, so anything we make that's of decent quality will go there. We've kept back the best of the gingerbread for icing on Friday so the decorations will still be fresh on Saturday morning.

The squabbling has been a big problem for a while. It's partly because both of them haven't been very well in the past week or two, and they are also having a lot of each other's company because we're not going out and seeing people as much as usual, because I'm still being so tired and pathetic. We started this morning by thinking about the Bible verse: the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and how these should be the qualities people see in our lives. We've been feeling all loving because we've sent shoeboxes to children in other countries, and we're making things to sell for the homeless, but if we can't behave in a loving manner towards those in our families, none of it really means very much. Sometimes they are great and play together really well, but just recently C shouts at M all the time, and M hits C, sometimes for a reason, sometimes for no reason at all. M gets taken to her room quite often and she can come back when she wants to say sorry. She doesn't really mind going there, it's not a bad punishment, but she won't go by herself, which means I end up carrying her upstairs. C gets rational discussion most of the time, which she agrees with but finds it hard to act upon, and the rest of the time she gets yelled at by exasperated Mummy. I probably expect too much of them, I guess I just needed to have a rant.

Subversive afternoon

I've been at work today, as anyone who spotted me commenting on blogs in the middle of the day might have guessed. A child came to see me, very depressed, due to bullying at school. After asking a few questions and realising just how bad the kid was feeling, I asked about what the school were doing. Not enough. But insisting the child still attends each day, despite the lack of supervision and support. And no-one had told the mum what she knew deep down, that her child's health and welfare are her responsibility, not the school's. So I told her, and I almost saw the weight lift from her shoulders, and the child's. And I gave her a letter saying that the child was too unwell to attend school. She's happy for the school or the LEA to send work home and she'll help with it. Don't think she's ready for more than that just yet... It was worth going to work today.

Well, at least C's better...

...but it appears she had one of these highly contagious winter vomiting things, so Jonathan started feeling poorly with it yesterday morning, and I did by early evening, and today M was complaining of tummyache at teatime. Can't say I feel that much worse than usual actually, but I think it's given Jonathan some insight and empathy. He's looking forward to feeling back to normal in a day or two...

So the children have been largely ignored for the past couple of days. Much Clangers and Bagpuss was watched, and a David Attenborough documentary about snakes, C's been doing some drawing and M some cutting bits of paper into tiny bits which fall on the floor, and that's about it really.

Dispatches

Can someone email me or comment me about dispatches yesterday. There are few times I wish I'd had a TV to watch a programme on, but I would have liked to see that. (I'm going to ask my Mum to video Different Lives, don't worry!) Someone was mentioning it at work today and I felt underinformed, and the channel 4 website is less than informative too. Thanks

Poorly girlies

C was up in the night on Monday night being sick and still isn't right. She's a bit mopey and not eating. An amusing thing happened when I took M to Montessori this morning. Often C stays at home if Jonathan's working from home that day, but he was in Manchester today so she had to come with me. There's another HE family whose three-year-old goes too, and they were telling me their big daughter had had the "not at school today then?" from the Monte helper this morning, so we were prepared. But she actually asked C two questions simultaneously - How are you? and Not in school today then? So I was answering the first, and never quite got round to the second! Next time, I guess.

M's just snotty and coughing. She does snotty very well, that girl :(

C's doing well on being read to at the moment. We started one Boxcar children story yesterday and finished it this morning, then I had to go out this afternoon and my Mum came round and read most of the next one. She could read them herself really, in fact we were alternating chapters this morning because we were both feeling tired but we wanted to know what happened!

I was also looking at an RSPB magazine with C this morning. There was a feature about Scottish peatlands and how they are at risk from forestry, and C's response was " Hearing that makes me want to go there and do something about it! " I was very impressed by that, and I hope she keeps that passion as she get older.

Snow's stopped now. I hope there's still some left for the children to play in in the morning.

I'm planning to put in an order to ReadItAgainBooks@yahoogroups.com in the next few weeks, so if anyone local-ish wants to share an Mbag with me, have a look through the listings to see if there's anything you want. For those who don't know, it's a yahoogroup secondhand bookshop selling lots of homeschool-type books among others. She has lots of five in a row books and that kind of thing, really quite cheap, especially considering the exchange rate, and if you get more than a few, P&P is included. My last Mbag took ages to come, but I'm collecting books for Sonlight Core 1 which I hope to start sometime in the spring, so there's plenty of time.

It's SNOWING!!

I heard the weatherman this morning suggesting there might be a light flurry on the tops of the Pennines, but we're nowhere near the top and we've a good inch and plenty more falling. It's taken the gritter people by surprise and the roads are dreadful, even for the Freelander. Unfortunately, Jonathan's in Manchester with the Peugeot, but hopefully they'll have got the roads a bit more sorted by the time he's coming home.

It was dark by the time it was worth playing in this afternoon, and I was out till about six anyway. I hope there'll be plenty to play in tomorrow.

More blog later, probably...

I hate the way it's so easy to spend all day Saturday doing housework, but it is pleasing to then go out all day Sunday and come back to a tidy house. The state of the living room was starting to get me down, so Jonathan and I had a blitz on it yesterday and made significant improvements. I know it won't last long, but I always feel better starting the week with a tidy living room. Just one of my little illusions of super-mother-ness, it makes me feel in control or something.

This morning we had our remembrance service at church. I was apprehensive about it because last year's was pretty dire, but today's was good, and they were making a big effort to involve the children in the act of remembrance, to make them feel part of it, and not that it was only something for old people. So the curate asked for a few young volunteers to read out the list of names of war dead from the parish, and C went up to read some of them out, which I was proud of her for doing.

Straight after church we drove over to Malton for my cousin's younger daughter's second birthday party. My cousin Sarah, who I have always got on really well with, has two girls, almost exactly a year younger than each of ours, and they all get on really well (though the two older ones are capable of getting up to lots of mischief together!) Sarah has recently opened a day nursery and the party was there, so the kids had a great time playing with all the toys, playdough, sand, water, painting etc. all afternoon. And of course the grown-ups did too,

My uncle and aunt came over too. They were the ones who had their farm on the market, but no-one showed any interest in buying it, so they have moved into a cottage on the farm and my other cousin Neville, and his wife Helen, have moved into the main house. So the farm is still in the family, but it won't be as easy to go and visit, as Helen seems somewhat stand-offish.

Over the past few years, as my uncle has become more infirm, they have gradually sold off the farm animals they had, so that now there is just some poultry, Neville and Helen's horses, and two goats. Anyway, my aunt feels she has had enough of looking after the goats, so when we have made some arrangements here, the goats are going to come and live with us. I've wanted to have goats for a long time, but I don't know what you do with goats if you want to go on holiday, and I'm slightly daunted by the responsibility. They are not in milk at the moment, and I think we will just keep them as pets for a while and get used to them being here at all before we go for kids, and milking, and all that entails.

This morning wasn't quite as successful as yesterday, which was disappointing because it was the first time in about three weeks I've had C to myself for a whole Montessori session, what with half-term, M's birthday and C spending half of Monday morning doing woodwork with Jonathan outside. C was quite stroppy and distracted, which is usually more of a problem when M is here. Still, I gave her a Miquon page about fractions, and she enjoyed it so much she asked for another, and ended up doing about five!

I've read quite a lot of Pippi Longstocking today. I had heard her described as a home-educated child, but really she's more of an un-educated child, and it's not a particularly good advert for home-ed, as she can't read or write and this is ascribed to her not going to school. Not that that matters, really, as we're enjoying the book very much, but I wish there were some good children's books with home-educated children in.

This afternoon we got out the playdough for the first time in ages. I made some pink with geranium oil in and some purple with lavender oil in ages ago, and they've kept well in the fridge, and playdough always keeps them quiet and occupied for ages.

Then we went to see our neighbours who had lent us tables, chairs and crockery for M's party, to take them all back, and incidentally for the children to run around and have a good play and me and their mum to have a good chat over a cup of tea.

Today I have also made the kitchen less of a mess, but I just can't face the living room. Both girls are doing a lot of drawing etc at the moment, and C's drawing, in particular, is coming on in leaps and bounds, but it means that the living room is constantly strewn with paper, some drawn on, some cut up, some precious, some not, and it feels endless. Although it might end soon, we're nearly out of paper!

Done quite a lot today

But don't normally, just at the moment, so no-one feel inadequate!

And I normally only blog the out of the ordinary things we do, which are rather lacking recently, so I thought I'd write about what we do every day, and then add in the extra stuff as well.

My usual minimum for the day is Bible, handwriting, English and maths after breakfast. We don't do much of anything, and if we concentrate, it takes about half an hour. We just finished the Egermeier Story Bible which came with the Sonlight K package, and started on a book called See for Yourself, subtitled Exploring the Bible with 5-7s.

We finished Singapore Primary maths 1A a while ago but we have spent a while consolidating adding and subtracting. She's getting quite good at it now, and I'm getting bored of it, so we've just gone back to orange Miquon which we got part way through quite a long time ago. For English we're just finishing off the sheets that came with Sonlight K, and handwriting consists of copying a sentence or so from the sheet. In a week or so, we're going to start First Language lessons for the Well-trained Mind

Meanwhile M wanted to do a jigsaw. When asked what she wants to do on any given day, she always says puzzles, though when it comes down to it, they don't really hold her attention for long. She wanted to do one which had a map of the world that you then slot different animals into for the different continents, so she at least got to hear the names of different places, and she recognised most of the animals. C finished what she was doing and was asking questions about the map, so I set her some questions of her own (what's the biggest country, what colour is China, Australia, etc), which had to be answered by running upstairs to look at the big map on the landing, then running down again, then up... until I ran out of things I could think of to ask.

Then we spent quite a long time playing with M's birthday present Block and Roll marble run. When it arrived on Monday, M wouldn't let C play with it at all, but she was allowed to play today, and was getting the idea of making runs for herself, though it is quite complex, and the pieces are stiff to put together and take apart. M was just enjoying the runs I made.

After lunch I read the fourth Boxcar children book to C while she drew and coloured. It was an odd book in which the children go to stay with an aunt on a ranch and while they are there it is discovered that there is a lot of uranium on the ranch, but no-one is in the least concerned about safety, and the children go and look where they are digging the mine, and comment on how clicky the Geiger counter is. I would have thought there would have been more awareness of the dangers of radioactivity in 1958, when it was published, but my surprise at it went over C's head completely, and I was quite relieved I didn't need to get into a discussion about radiation and its hazards. For a while I thought M was going to go to sleep on my lap, but she didn't quite manage it, so I got out the duplo for her.

Both girls helped me hang up a load of washing. My back's giving me some trouble already, much earlier than in previous pregnancies, and if I have to bend and straighten too much it gets sore. C likes having specific helper things to do like hand me the wet clothes to hang on the overhead dryer, or pass me the dresses to hang up in the wardrobe, so that works OK for the moment.

They both played with Duplo and listened to Robin Hood on tape while I cooked tea - beef casserole, mashed potatoes and mangetouts. That's the thing that makes me feel I've achieved a lot today, not only have I put on AND hung up a load of washing, I've even cooked proper food. And while it was cooking C did some knitting too, and she did some piano in the afternoon, and at bedtime I read her the first two chapters of Pippi goes aboard at bedtime.

So we've done lots, and I've blogged lots, for once, and added lots of links!

Too tired to boil an egg

But somehow I can still type a blog entry ;) I think yesterday's party may have used my energy quota for the week.

We had to be at church early this morning to set up and play the music, and Jonathan's parents were supposed to arrive in time for the service with the children. Unfortunately they were about ten minutes late, and missed the bit where on the first Sunday of the month, we all sing Happy Birthday to anyone with a birthday that month, which M would have really enjoyed. Then that put me in a grumpy mood for the rest of the service. Never mind, I managed to play my bass and sing, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do.

Came home to cook dinner before sending the in-laws on their homeward journey, then settled down on the sofa with a DVD. A couple of weeks ago we were watching a space documentary with C on a Sunday afternoon, which is all very educational, but I suddenly thought she would really enjoy some of those great old musicals with lots of singing and dancing, and that watching those would be a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. So we trawled Amazon for a few that were quite cheap and today we watched Hans Christian Andersen, with Danny Kaye, from 1952. It wasn't quite as good as I remembered it, but there were lots of stories and songs and ballet, so C really enjoyed it.

Then we had fun opening M's birthday presents that we were too tired to deal with yesterday, and started writing some thank you letters. M's really enjoying writing at the moment, with me holding tight on to her hand, so I thought I'd make the most of that, and I know if I don't get on to thank yous straight away they never get done.

Then it was teatime and C wanted a boiled egg, (Jonathan having gone out to fiddle with the sound system at church) but I just couldn't muster the energy to stand in the kitchen long enough to cook it, so she ended up with chocolate spread sandwiches, followed by birthday cake for pudding! Which wouldn't have been so bad if she'd eaten the chicken, potatoes and peas the rest of us had for lunch, rather than being rude about the food I'd made and getting sent out of the kitchen.

I don't mind food being left, but I'm getting very tired of her being rude about the food on her plate, especially when I've made a effort to cook something she liked last time I made it. And of course she was pretty hungry by teatime, so her diet today was pretty much toast for breakfast and bread and cake for tea. Must try harder. Must get some energy from somewhere.

Party Time!

Unlike some people I could mention, I really enjoy having children's parties, and we have had a fun afternoon today. The only downside of having a party is not getting time to talk to all the guests, but various friends left with promises to get together again soon, and I hope we can use the party as a way to get to know some people better.

We had a lot of help from two grandmothers, with cooking, cleaning, setting up and clearing away, and that helped a lot, but despite that, I do feel pretty wiped. Still, all the children seem to have had a good time, games were played, food was eaten, candles were blown out, and photos may yet be posted.

Birthday Time

It was M's third birthday yesterday, but I wasn't feeling up to blogging in the evening. All she had to open in the morning were two cards which had come in the post and one parcel containing a large yellow bath towel, which she was wonderfully excited about. We have ordered her a block and roll marble run but it hasn't arrived from the US yet, so she'll just have to have an extended birthday.

While she was at Montessori in the morning I did some errands with C - cat food, chicken food, helium ballons, that kind of thing. M was extremely pleased with the balloon too. We bought two, pink and gold, and they played with them all afternoon.

Mum and Dad came round with their presents - a new fairy outfit. You can never have too many pink fluffy fairy clothes, and M looked resplendent in dress, tiara, wings, wand and feather boa. Photo may follow...

Mum had made her a cake in the shape of a cat's face which we had at teatime. M was a bit confused by the difference between birthdays, parties and birthday cakes. When she got up in the morning, she wanted to know where all her friends were who were supposed to be coming to her birthday, and while I was cooking the tea, she kept coming in and looking at the cake and saying "We're going to have my birthday after tea."

Today was Jonathan's Mum's birthday. His Mum and Dad arrived for a few days visit just after the girls had gone to bed last night, and they've all had a fun day today (while I've been out at work!) I met up with them at a firework display at a local pub on my way home. C and M didn't like the bangs much and M was cold, but they were much happier when they went inside the pub and watched the fireworks through the window. It was a good display for a pub, and they had a huge fire to go with it.

Looking Darkness in the Face

I listened to a very moving programme on Radio4 this evening. The Choice is sometimes good, sometimes annoying, but this week it featured someone I met when I spent three months working in a mission hospital in Rwanda in 1990. Lesley was working as a midwife there, and she met and married a Rwandan pastor called Charles Bilinda. She was out of the country when the genocide began and Charles was hunted down in the place he had sought refuge, and killed. The programme was about her journey in search of the truth, and revisiting the horrors of the places which had once been her home. It's available on Listen Again

It's been a while since I've thought about Rwanda. Spending three months at Gahini Hospital was one of the most significant things I have done in my life, and I still fail to get my head round what happened there in the mid-1990's. It was incredibly beautiful in 1990, and at the time the country seemed to be quite stable, despite simmering inter-tribal tensions, over-population and poverty. I did intend to go back to work there and was frighteningly close to going back in the spring of 1994, but then I was offered a job in Accident and Emergency in Barnsley, and I took it, meaning to gain some more useful experience in this country before going back to Africa later. Then events both personal and political overtook me and my life took a different direction. I wonder if I ever will go back.

We've had a lovely couple of days with Jax and Big and Small, not having Halloween, and apart from some late nights, the girls have been great together.

My m-i-l is a Milly-Molly-Mandy nut, and she has spent part of her career as a primary school teacher developing a curriculum based around the stories. She has put together a pack of activities and pictures for each chapter, and as I had said Big was fond of MMM as well as C, she had brought me two of the packs for each of the first two chapters. So Big and C spent ages this morning colouring in Nice White Cottages with Thatched Roofs, and Pink and White Striped Dresses and talking about the chapter in which MMM runs errands.

This evening we headed down to Sheffield ourselves in search of some new cats . We had a fantastic cat who died in the summer of 2003, whom we got from Sheffield Siamese Rescue back in 1996, and we knew we wanted to get another oriental or two, so we went back to the same place to check out these two, who were left on her doorstep in a box the other night, and ended up bringing them home. The paler one is female, and she's a tabby point Siamese, the darker one is male, and he's a chocolate point.