Category : Life
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Nursery - first thoughts
April went for her first session of Montessori nursery today - a shorter-than-usual 1 hour session. Here are my initial thoughts on the whole thing.
- She seemed to have fun although this is almost certainly because they spent virtually the whole time outside playing in the garden and on the climbing frame (apparently, according to the directress, she went down the slide over and over and over .....
- She settled quickly and didn't cry or anything when I left which made me feel a WHOLE lot better. I have not, to this day, forgotten Rosie screaming MUUUUUMMMMMY!!!!!! at the top of her lungs when she first got left at nursery - it absolutely ripped me apart.
- I felt weird walking round Sainsbury's afterwards without her and even weirder when we got home to drop the shopping off. I VERY nearly burst into tears at the sight of her blankie lying on the floor (what an idiot I am!)
- I was VERY irritated by the "having to drop off and pick up at a certain time" malarkey. As a family we are not great at time keeping. I was also VERY, VERY bothered by her request to have a school tshirt because "uvver kids 'ave got 'em". "ok" I thought "here we go - got to have the same as other kids to fit in". Already. After 1 HOUR!
- Even after just one hour I noticed 2 things after we picked her up. One was that she was gasping for a drink - I asked her if she had a drink there (they supply water and we're not allowed to take her own juice) to which she mumbled something incoherent (so I guess not!) Secondly that the minute she got home (despite being outside at nursery) she wanted to be straight out in the garden. It was almost like "aaaah! my own garden!"
So, she seems ok (although when I said about going on Friday she was markedly less enthusiastic then when I said she was going today). I still know that nursery is "ok" because it's only a couple of short sessions a week and still gives her plenty of time to play at home - I seriously cannot see her coping well in big school when she would have to be there all day every day. I intensely dislike the whole "borg-like" thing ... you will be assimilated (it's exactly that sort of thing that would make her lose her bright spark and I will not allow that)...... I hated her immediate "desire" to wear the same tshirt as the other kids (one of my biggest things is that my kids grow up capable of independent thought and don't follow the herd). I AM looking forward to having a free afternoon but that's it.
So, I'm using this time to go ahead and plan her home ed BUT keeping a close eye on the situation. I'm not making firm decisions either way yet but this is a good time to get properly organised for the start of her compulsory education next year.
I should home ed her, I know that. I see other people doing it with many more kids than me and they do it brilliantly. Some of the parents are older than me (with younger kids too!) and still do it brilliantly. Some of the parents have kids with special needs and still do it brilliantly. Some of the parents also run their own businesses and still do it brilliantly. I'm just a bit wet and a tad selfish (and lazy!) for even considering school really ... I should get over it and plan the start of her home ed with enthusiasm ... look forward to it instead of blighting these days worrying about whether she'll go to school or not.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Here's a rarity!
Not so much the temperatures (although they are lovely!) - more the fact that for the first time in I don't know how many weeks (months!) there is NO rain forecast!! Our local weather for the next few days looks very warm and toasty :)
Well, today I went to the opticians - not a huge change in my eyesight so I'm putting the headaches down to stress or whatever. I feel fine in myself so, given the opticians report, I don't think there's much wrong. I did order a new pair of glasses though, just for the sake of it, *smiles* slightly more modern ones than I've got now and (amazingly!) quite cool and sexy ;)
Also, today, we went (finally!) and paid the registration fees for April's nursery place. I still have massive misgivings about this whole thing and I know, mostly, that she's going purely for selfish reasons on my part (ie I need some time alone!). I'm pretty sure that she will be ok there but it's still an "educational institution" and, to be honest, I'm not overly fond of them. Anyway, I'm going to break the whole thing down into chunks. First, we'll get to half term and, if she's still ok, then we'll leave her there until the summer holiday. At that point we'll make the "big" decision as to whether to send her back in the autumn or not. Obviously, if she gets there and is monumentally unhappy then she'll be out straight away!
I'm trying to look at this from a positive viewpoint:
- I'll get time alone - once a week (did I mention that?!)
- Assuming that we may well home ed her, it will give me time to plan stuff for the start of her compulsory education (she's due to start reception September 2009 - gulp!)
- It will give me some much needed time alone with just Rosie so that we can work on some stuff she needs help with.
- If we don't home ed her, it will give her (and me!) time to adjust to the new routine.
Right, I'm off now. It's been a busy day and we're winding down for the kids bedtimes and then Tim and I can relax with dinner.
Monday, May 05, 2008
This just about sums things up
I doodled this yesterday. It started off as Toad (the little mushroom guy from the Mario games), then turned into a cross toad and then turned into a cross toad stood next to a busted computer. It clearly shows my state of mind at the time.
Y'see, a couple of days ago our computer decided to just stop working - no loud bangs, no weirdy behaviour, no warning, nothing. It just wouldn't start - or rather, it did but, for some reason, there was nothing getting through to the monitor. Tried a different monitor - still nothing. Tried the main monitor with an old puter and it worked. Hmmmmm. My brother (who knows a lot more about these things than us) had a look and thinks it might be overheating and causing something to "short out" ... or something. Anyway, when we've got the money (which we don't have at the moment), we're taking it to Nami (who does our computer mending) and getting him to sort it out but in the meantime we're stuck with our ancient old pute. I'm seriously hoping that nothing was lost off the other other one and that it will be a simple repair job.
D'ya know what I think the problem is? I think it's overworked and this is a sign. It's a sign that says I simply MUST have one of the gorgeous pink laptops that they sell in PC World and thus put less strain on our main pute. It makes sense! Ahem.
So, this thing we've got now is S....L.....O.....W. It can't handle too much in one go (I know the feeling) BUT it's something (and I'm bloody glad we hung on to it when we got our new one!)
Thingamablog and all my archives were on the other computer so over the last couple of days, Tim has laboriously set everything up and copy/pasted my posts into the archives so that I can carry on blogging using this pute. He has the same problem with his blog but has a lot more posts so is just not going to bother - so no blogging from him for a while!!
So, what else has been happening. Not a lot really. The kids both have colds - Rosie mainly, April just has a bit of a sniffle. I've got the opticians tomorrow - new glasses required most likely - fab, I can really excel myself and see if I can look even more geeky than I do already. Tim rather likes them - it's the saucy secretary look I guess but I don't cause they annoy me by slipping down (I've only got a tiny little nose which just isn't the right shape for supporting glasses). Oh well, better than seeing everything through a fog I guess!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Need a massage
Very achey today (and no, that's not the slightly embarrassing painful problem I mentioned earlier!) - I think I must have slept awkwardly last night because I'm all stiff between the shoulder blades.
Well, after Tim got home from work and we'd had lunch and then took April for, what will be her last, Tumbletots session. 2 reasons - firstly, we've (finally!) decided to go ahead and put her in the Montessori school and secondly Tumbletots is, in fact, pants. It looks impressive when you first walk in there with all this fancy climbing equipment but it basically involves the kids queuing up to do the same circuit over and over again for 3 quarters of an hour. Meanwhile I (as I mentioned in a previous post) had to sit in a side room with all the other mums and listen to their endless drone about their kids (I think I must be a baaaaad mum coz I hate that stuff) This week the topic of conversation was milk teeth *yawn*.
Anyway, so that was that. Our decision to put April in the school a couple of sessions a week means that Tumbletots will be knocked on the head. She's only 3 and unlike a lot of parents I don't believe every second of every day has to be filled with activities and whatnot - she'd be cream crackered.
So, the school. There are OH! so many reasons for this - the main one being that she is just SO into everything all the time - she totally needs to be in an environment where she can do stuff that I cannot possibly do with her at home (AND try and home ed Rosie!) She had a fab time when we went to look round and she has no problem with being "left" so I reckon she'll love it. The other reason is me. I need a break - the age gap between them (nearly 8 years) makes trying to do stuff with both of them really hard. Rosie has (at most) 6 years of compulsory ed left (less than that if, in 3 years or so she decides to go to the Upper School) - the thought of starting all over again with April leaves me feeling a little giddy to be honest. I'm not saying we've ruled out home ed for her - just want to see how the school goes first.
Her sessions at the nursery will give me a whole afternoon ALONE. Unbelievable Wednesday afternoons will see Rosie and Tim at the Littledown Centre, April at nursery and me all on my own! Ooooo! what will I do? curl up on the sofa and read?, sit in the garden and soak up some sun? Whatever I do, it will be peace and quiet. Heaven! The only real time I get to myself at the mo is when Tim gets up early for work (he leaves around 4.45 in the morning) and the kids don't wake up for another couple hours or so, so I quite often get up and have tea, do some yoga or whatever - it's really nice "me" time but Wednesday afternoons are going to be the highlight of my week *smiles*.
All this stuff leaves me in a bit of a quandry about what to do with the Dorset home ed group stuff I was doing. To be honest, it's going to be a little redundant as Rosie's not fussed either way and is happy with her current activity level, April won't really need it so .... well, we'll see. Right now, at least for the next year or so, we're going to be a half home educating family and d'you know what? I'm actually really looking forward to a change of "scenery" and I think April will be much happier too *big grin* Happy bunnies all round!
Right, now I'm off to chill out - lovely evening here, very sunny and warm :)
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Quiet
Tim's at work this morning so I've taken the opportunity to get on and hoover/dust/clean up bathroom a bit. Y'know, not all that long ago I used to really hate doing this stuff but just lately I've actually started to get some pleasure out of it. Pushing the hoover about or washing up or whatever allows me to daydream which is really rather nice *smiles*. Of course, the finished results always look lovely too!
Anyway, today is quiet - the kids are both currently happily engaged with things, I've finished my cleaning and am (obviously!) blogging and about to have tea.
This afternoon, Tim is taking Rosie to her trampoline class at the Littledown Centre. Sometimes April and I also go if the weather is nice so that we can play in the park but today its rubbish so Tim will have to go on his own and read the paper in the cafe while he waits for Rosie. This gives me and April a lovely quiet afternoon at home *smiles*.
Tomorrow, I have to take April to Tumbletots. Now, she adores this but I don't like it so much for the simple reason that I have to wait in another room with all the other mums. What I can't stand is the inane chatter - last week we had stuff like "oooo! you'd never guess how many poos Matthew did yesterday?!"
No, I wouldn't and furthermore I don't flippin' care!
I don't understand why a bunch of parents (ooook, mums!) have to get together and discuss their kids bowel movements! I mean, it's not like I get together with friends and start discussing mine or Tim's toilet habits is it?!
"oooo" you'd never guess ............"
Ok, let's not go there.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Busy
So, things are a tad busy at the moment! We've had one of those months which has been full of "things" including a birthday (Tim's mum), kids activities (Rosie's trampolining and April's Tumbletots), appointments (haircuts and Rosie going to the orthodontist) and vaguely annoying stuff like having to wait in for a day for a repair man because our patio door "fell off" it's runners. In between all that, Tim has been doing a fair bit of overtime at work - I get the impression they are a little short staffed driver-wise at the moment ( a couple have left). Then today, Tim got an email from Richard, his boss, asking if he could do overtime this week because one of the (few remaining!) drivers had broken his foot!! I don't know how that man manages to keep going under the circumstances - I'm amazed he doesn't get dreadfully stressed!
Tim doesn't actually mind the overtime, or the job for that matter, too much - I mean, he quiet likes driving about in the van (especially when the weather is nice). I do think he wishes they'd get on and find some extra drivers though - it's going to get very mad by the time the holiday season starts otherwise!
So, anyway, it looks set for next month to follow in the same vein.
Overtime ....
Birthday... my little brother James (although as he's turning 36 he's not so little any more!)
Apointments .... I've got to go to the opticians on the 6th (getting headaches so I think my glasses might need updating) and something Tim has to do which I'm not going into here .. ahem.... but "he's a very naughty boy"
Activities ... Tumbletots, trampolining, home ed group activities
Oh! and we've got to book our cats in for their jabs so they can go in the cattery in August AND contact the landlord about the bathroom decorating (remember that?) which seems to have been utterly forgotten about and we've not heard a word! .....
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Catching Up
I've decided to "fill in" the week I was not blogging. I took the break because I so badly needed it on many levels, I also wanted to put the wheels of a better life in motion.
Very obviously, I haven't changed radically in the space of one week but I've made huge strides in fact, I think we all have as a family. Things have got very pleasant indeed just through a few simple changes and I'm feeling better - although getting to even this point hasn't been easy.
Firstly, we made a new house rule - that the television and the computer are only allowed on at set times a day and then only for a set amount of time. I thought the kids would be up in arms about this one but, in fact, I've been pleasantly surprised they have taken to it so well that they now complain about the noise if one of them goes on! The computer, for example, goes on early in the morning for half an hour so that I can check/answer emails, blog if I want to or "browse" and then it goes off. After lunch, it goes on for another half an hour, this time mainly so that Rosie can have a play on Club Penguin or Active Worlds, do some online learning (maths mainly) or just look stuff up. Then, generally, the computer doesn't go on again to the evening. Today has been a little different because I've been catching up on the blog (I've got a thousand blog posts buzzing around my brain!) but, on the whole, this is how things are now.
The result of this shutting off of technology is that we've been "getting real" (as I call it). We've been drawing and painting (you can see some of my efforts on my relaxation page) with some lovely new art materials we got, cooking lots, playing with Moon Sand (weird stuff), putting on mini-plays, playing in the garden, doing loads of notebooking (our much more relaxed, unstructured home ed method), studying nature, doing yoga (even April!) and reading. We have also been enjoying a kind of peace in our home that we've never experienced before - it's amazingly wonderful.
On a personal level, all this peace has given me time to think - sometimes painful thinking - and I've experienced the whole range of emotions in a short period of time. I've had several days in a row where I was utterly at peace and going over "things" in my mind and putting them to rest and then, suddenly, the floodgates opened and all this terrible pain came out and I'd find myself sobbing and yelling. Of course, the recipient of all this was Tim ... thank god for him being solid and unflappable! He's put up with me clinging to him and crying one minute and shoving him away and telling him to get lost (although not so politely) the next and he just remains calm ........ I guess he realises, in a way, that I have to go through this in order to lay the ghosts to rest.
Now, in a relatively short period of time, I genuinelly feel that I'm getting somewhere. A couple of things have happened over the last few days that would, not all that long ago, have thrown me into misery and disarray. Now, although I wobbled, I didn't fall over (remember the Weebles? *smiles*) Oooooh! I've got a long way to go ... a long, long way but changes have been made.
Before, every time something bad happened I would completely overreact, take everything personally and get very down because every time something bad happened, horrible memories from the past would come back to haunt me (hence my reaction). I felt I was stuck with it and this was how life was going to be forever ... I was being fatalistic in other words but this is the wrong way to handle former abuse. Then someone told me that the best way to deal with it was, basically, to not think about it and not let it rule your life. I think this is the wrong way to handle it too because it's almost like going into denial. Sure, everything is fine now but one day it will all come back and bite you on the butt - probably at the worse time.
So, like I've had to recently, you do have to face the demons of your past and you can't go on excusing crappy behaviour away for the rest of your life because of them and also you can't just "ignore them".
I chose to simplify and quiet my life so that I could almost hear what was going on in my brain. I chose to relax with yoga and painting and drawing. In doing this I kind of opened myself up to some kind of healing but it hasn't been easy or always pleasant and I've got miles to go but at least I'm doing it. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
One day, hopefully in the not too distant future, I will be able to leave the past where it really belongs ... in the past.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Perseverance
I think we can learn a lot from our children sometimes - like how to not give up with something. How to keep going, however difficult something is, until we reach the end.
This puzzle took April the best part of the day - it's 80 pieces (big for a 3 year old) and she did it all by herself. She did some, went away, came back, did a bit more until, with a beaming smile, she finished it.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Beginning again
Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is.
In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedo
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day
'one who knows the better way to live alone.
~Bhaddekaratta Sutta~
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