Life is a Highway - it’s the journey, not the destination

seemed to be a theme of today. I had full intentions of going to the HE group today and told the kids that they had an hour to get dressed and do a bit of reading before we were going out. I neglected to mention where we were going, maybe that was a little sneaky of me, as I knew if they knew it was the HE group they might have been more willing. As it was it wasn’t that they were grumpy or being unco-operative really they just decided that playing some convoluted Ice Age pretend game was much more important. I pootled about making sure I was ready in case of them deciding to get dressed but they didn’t. I actually quite like watching them do these games. It *always* involves lava being on the floor and them having to work their way round it. I figure they probably don’t have *that* much time left when playing like that will be important to them. So I let them be.

I was chatting to James and looking out my window when I saw a bird I’d not seen before so I told the kids and decided to look it up in A’s bird book. I think it was a Pied Wagtail, nice to have something different! On looking at the RSPB site we realised we could listen to some bird calls so the kids wanted to hear if the blue tit and robin sounded like some soft toys they got the other day at the RSPB reserve.

Lunch seemed to start late and take a loooonng time to finish. A is not the fastest eater really at the best of times and today they decided to read a whole load of Beano comics while eating so it was longer than usual! The box of comics is from the 90’s and I chuckled when M came to me reading some joke about someone’s favourite band and it was Blur. He laughed, but it was a laugh that I knew meant he hadn’t understood really. I managed to recall a song he’d know and so he said ‘oh so they’re old then?’ Er not really. Cheeky so and so

We did venture out at some point. We took their bikes down to the local country park. It was very cold though and they were a bit whingy. we got past the little park only as I’d said I’d go no further if they kept whinging like I was torturing them and making them go out. We headed down a part of the Trans Pennine Trail that has a big oak tree they like climbing on. It’s in a little glade type bit and just looks fab as a place that kids could be kids iykwim. I always feel a little daft hanging round when they’re playing there, I need to take a book and plonk myself on the nearest bench and let them play. Mind you they wouldn’t even let me walk 6 ft away today.

All the birdwatching knowledge kept coming back today too as we saw loads of sparrows, robins and magpies. I couldn’t stop them going on about them tbh!! Spent lots of time listening and seeing if we could recognise the songs but I’m rubbish at distinguishing them!

normal late afternoon of games but this time when James got in I headed out to Jax’s to help her do a bit of packing. Always nice to be able to have conversations with adults without being interrupted all the time by various kids. Although I suppose I don’t have that problem too much nowadays, but I always remember going to visit people and never getting into conversations as no sooner would it get interesting than someone needed you for something. Lol.

Been camped on the puter all evening, but got to be up early tomorrow so better be thinking about bed soon.

Saturday started fairly early as we wanted to get along to Old Moor RSPB reserve in time for the start of the Big Garden Birdwatch event. We arrived just in time for them opening the doors to it and so got stuck straight in. We decided to not do the actual birdwatch at the reserve as we figured a whole hour doing that straight might be too much but we headed out to the hide with one of the staff members to look at the birds anyway. There’s a lot of hides out on the water sides but this one looked out onto an area they had lots of bird feeders on. We saw absolutely loads which was fab as we don’t get much in our garden back home. Goldfinches (or strawberry faces as A calls them!), chaffinches (M’s fave), robins, tree sparrows, a willow tit and lots of great tits. M really enjoyed watching them all, as did A but all of a sudden she wanted to go off and do something else.

There was some crafts going on inside so we did some painting. Mostly using some bird stencil shapes. Both M and A wanted to make the the right colours and they all looked really good. When we’d done way more than our fair share of painting we had a v. quick walk round the reserve. We didn’t go too far really. The kids were annoyed that the hides were full of people with no room for them to look. Downsides of weekends I guess. So we went back to the original hide to do some bird bingo. We had to get 4 birds in a row to claim a prize. It was much harder this time and we were wishing we’d done it earlier. Eventually we got the lot and M chose himself a set of wildlife top trumps cards and A chose a bird book. Nice prizes

We headed for an afternoon at work. My dad was ok with the kids being there so I spent the afternoon in a supervisory role helping the kids do some ‘work’. Stacking shelves and quality control, the latter being their favourite!! They did about 30 mins and then sat with magazines and then later on spent their wages back in the shop

Sunday should have been better than what it was. I woke up expecting it to be raining but actually it stayed dry all day. We wanted to do a geocache but James was feeling a little tired and so we stayed in most of the day. We did do our birdwatch though. I split it up into 15 min intervals for the kids and they took it in turns to watch. We didn’t see too much some house sparrows, blackbirds, a magpie and a pigeon. I think it was a little windy tbh. I wanted some peace later in the afternoon and did my own little one where I added some great tits and a robin to the count.

We introduced James to Memoir 44. He really liked it, but M was getting in such a strop when he thought he would lose. I think a bit of perfectionism is getting in his way! They ended up winning anyway *rolls eyes*

Today we had no plans. We played some yahtzee, M was much better at losing this time! I won the first game between A and I and A won the 2nd game with all of us. The kids spent some time playing some weird game jumping round the living room and having to avoid obstacles. Perhaps too much Raven watching? M finished his first magic tree house book, think he read 4 or 5 chapters today rather than the normal 1 *rolls eyes* A sat and looked through the whole of Mouse Guard. She was so quiet and enthralled in it I decided it would count as reading. She’s doing so well atm I really don’t want it to be a chore for her.

They played on some games later, both of them have nearly completed the games that they bought after Xmas. A is playing Littlest Pet Shop on the Wii and M is playing Need For Speed: Undercover. At least their money was well spent! We then went shopping, bleurgh, came home and watched some rubbish about the World Rally Championship.

Oh and hopefully will find out more about the Young Archeaologist club soon as have finally managed to get through to the lady who runs it. Apparantly they have spaces

Er no. It’s a board game. But more about that later

Had my nice sleep in this morning Aaaah… feels so much better! We then had intentions of getting the house in order for friends coming over later, but I was getting distracted by the internet. Oops.

So when Sarah and the tribe arrived, the house was still in a bit of a sorry state but they said they didn’t mind Kids went upstairs and dissappeared with the noises of DS’s.

Sarah and I had nice chat time. She laughed at me for being scared and having nightmares over her book, but I tried to justify it by it being when I was ill and maybe I was just sleepless anyway… Hmmm! Had a good talk over my wibbles I’d been having. I do feel much better about it. I’m just a person who likes to be reassured every so often so thanks for all the nice comments and Sarah for listening today.

We had lunch and then I (foolishly?) said they could play the wii so that meant they were all downstairs and slightly more noisy. They all had fun and played well so I can’t complain really. Don’t think I remember any fighting. Although Mimi did manage to get herself all caught up on A’s bed and had to be rescued by Sarah! She was dangling by an arm I think!

James arrived home shortly after they left. The kids spent more time playing wii/playstations and I sent J to the post office to pick up a parcel that wasn’t delivered yesterday. I did well with using up some leftovers in the fridge for our tea and it had lots of veg the kids ate so felt good about that.

The parcel had some board games in. I’ve been really intrigued by all the cool games people have been playing recently and wondered if I could get something the kids might like. We’re not really very into games though so it was a bit of a decision to spend some money on them. I’d liked the look of Memoir ‘44 as something M would like and possibly would appeal to James as well. It had good reviews but as no-one I knew had played it I was a little wary. I looked at it last year and decided to leave it a while but bit the bullet just after Xmas and ordered it.

M was a little annoyed when I said I’d ordered it with the quote above. He does like war games on the PS2. I really wasn’t sure how he’d take to this game though. When he saw it he loved the look of it and wanted to play immediately. It took me a while to sort out all the pieces and get it ready for the first game but we had our first game this evening. A didn’t want to be left out so I said she could be on my team. Having to work out how to play was getting me a little stressed (I wanted to play with James first so I could get used to how it worked), but the kids were patient with me Once we got going with it they really liked it. It has strategy but also luck of the dice involved. M was a little moany about not winning and A let him win the first time *rolls eyes*. A then won the 2 time we played and he had another strop. Hmmm. But a resounding thumbs up from here so far. We only played the easy game and took out the strategy cards as it said could be done to play with ‘Young Generals’ so also lots of scope to make the game more involved.

One thing that I quite liked about it was that the battle scenarios are actually based on the real battles of d day so I imagine if we’re ever looking into the subject in more depth in the future it will give us a bit of insight into what happened iykwim.

We also got Ticket to Ride and Yahtzee but haven’t had chance to play those yet. Plenty of time though

shall be more upbeat

Had a nice couple of days really, although I’ve been fairly busy which I tend to not like that much. I think it’s the lack of control that I don’t like in going from one activity/appt/thing to the next. Oh and that I never seem to get anything else done. House is like a pig sty right now and the pigs would probably be offended at that

Yesterday we headed out to see Stella and the little Pies. Was lovely to see them and the kids all got on really well. I thought M was going to be funny as he’s the oldest one there. I took him a book to read in case he was bored and for the first half hour or so he read that so I was wishing I’d never mentioned he might be bored as I thought it probably had encouraged him not trying to play. He eventually got stuck in though in his role as big scary shouty boy pretending to be a monster! A and Kpie played really nicely, it always throws me to see A look bigger than someone else though which she does with Kpie (most other kids outgrow A!!). Really enjoyed having a nice chat with Stella too Must do better at getting together again as we left it way too long, I think last time was when she was living in Sheffield. Oops.

Got home and did not very much for the rest of the day - see when I go out it saps the day away from me!

Today we were up very early for A’s eye appointment at the hospital. It was 9.15am which meant having to get the tram in at rush hour. Actually it wasn’t as bad as I expected. One time there were no spare seats at all, bearing in mind we’re 2 stops from the start of the line!! Appointment went as well as could be expected. She needed eye drops so it was never going to be fun, but her eyes have improved ever so slightly which is good. Have a new prescription (again) so will have to go down to the opticians soon and try and remember to book me in too as I am overdue for some new glasses.

We were home just before 12pm and then went straight back out to visit Babs and 2 out of 3 kids. Had a lovely time there as we always do. Babs tried to get me into playing Tantrix, which was good fun but my head wasn’t really up to playing. I was too tired by then!

A wouldn’t shut up about Badgers all day. She went to the first meeting tonight and has been so excited about it. Was kind of worried it wouldn’t live up to her expectations! Anyway, she loved it. It’s only a small group of kids there but she fitted in nicely. I can’t say it was perfect from my point of view, it did seem a little haphazard, but I’m sure she’ll get lots out of it. I’ll also gloss over the wordsearch they were given on leaving, one of the words to find was ‘keep carm’ Arrrrrrggghhhhh!!! lol! Was a good intro to these kind of groups anyway and I eventually got a call back about brownies for her too. Not really sure what was going on why she coudn’t join straight away, but maybe after half term it will be sorted and she can join there.

Tomorrow, I intend to sleep. Well until some friends come over

Apparantly yesterday has been dubbed Blue Monday and I was certainly in a gloomy mood when I woke. No real reason, just wasn’t at my best.

We spent some time looking at a load of (more) RSPB stuff that came through the post, loads of posters, colouring stuff and a teachers pack I’ve yet to look at thoroughly. We filled out the forms for the Climate and Wildlife Action Awards and filled up the bird feeder that also came (our free gift for joining the RSPB) and put it outside. We don’t tend to get many birds in the gardens even though there are loads about. I wonder if there is too much competition around with all the gardens We’ll persevere though and we do get some blue tits on the bird feeders we had already. Not many though A and I also tried a little activity of making an ice mobile which unfortunately didn’t work too well when we tried to finish it up today.

Kids read some more Magic Tree House books and looked at the Dinosaur Non Fiction companion book which arrived. A decided she didn’t want to read the 1st book in the series and wanted to go to the Dolphins at Daybreakbook (unsurprisingly ). She is doing so well with her reading. I’m so impressed by how she’s getting on at the moment, she read the first 2 pages of that book so well. It probably doesn’t sound much as she *is* 7 I suppose but I’m really pleased that she’s getting there. She’s not been the same as M who could always sound out words and work them out, she just couldn’t do it and with M I was sure it was just a matter of time and waiting for him to want to do it. With A I’ve just been quietly wibbling and hoping she’d get there. Feeling much better about it right now.

We read some number devil. All about prime numbers (or Prima Donna numbers as it calls them). Talked a bit about remainders in division and I think it’s going in. No major confusion yet anyway.

Today I was supposed to be going to the home ed group but I woke in a ugh mood and decided against it. M wasn’t too bothered and A was complaining of a sore tummy (same recurring ache - doesn’t stop her eating crap though!) so felt better once the decision was made to stay home. We watched some CBBC - serious ocean and something about dingoes. A is really enjoying animal programs at the moment, must get my Life of Mammals dvd’s back for her. We’ve been watching Zoo Days on channel 5 when we remember too. Much better than *another* simpsons repeat!

We listened to the Jeremy Vine show on the radio and the kids were really excited to hear 2 people they knew on the radio. Led to some conversations about how some people want to have more checks in home ed etc. Oh and whether we had famous friends. Lol!!

We did more e-mailing to friends. I set up M an e-mail account too. A played lots on her Littlest Pet Shop game and M dissappeared to play some racing games. I finally switched everything off to watch the Inauguration of Barack Obama. Felt more involved than that sounds though!

Got a call about getting A into Badgers so we’ll be going along to see how that is on Thursday. Hopefully she’ll like it

Friday started way too early with us off to a local soft play area / home ed meet up. Really like it there, not like some other soft plays that resemble old warehouses! The kids have made some nice new friends there which has been good. A has made a very good friend and they swapped phone numbers this time (and e-mail addresses) which has meant we’ve had a glimpse of the future with A attached to the phone all the time!

After we got home from there we did a little of A’s zoo vet book and I tried to explain fractions and decimals. Not sure A got it so much but M certainly felt comfortable with it all. I can’t remember exactly what he said now, but the other week he came out with something that showed he’d obviously been thinking about quarters (we hadn’t done anything formal iykwim). i do like when he has these moments of maths comfort as he seems to not enjoy the actual arithmetic that is involved sometimes and has managed a kind of complex being formed over it all.

RSPB Wildlife explorers group is a non starter for now as only from age 8 and no point doing just for M as he’s not that interested. If A was going we might be able to persuade him though! Couldn’t get through to Brownies again

I was at work on Saturday but before I went our RSPB membership stuff arrived and the kids had a *very* quick look at it all. After all this was Saturday and the day they can play on games to their hearts content! By the time I got home they were all a bit frazzled and grumpy so I said they could do with some no screen time and we looked at the stuff more. A got a bit annoyed with the fact hers was the younger childs version (it changes over at age but enjoyed looking through it all and sticking the stickers on the folder. She got excited at the competitions in the mag and so we have something to be doing there.

Today we had a half thought of going to the cinema to one of the kids am showings but then we slept late so a good job I didn’t mention it to the kids. We knew we were spending the afternoon with James’s dad and sister and had planned to do a walk and hopefully try out James’s new toy - a gps He’s wanted us to make more of our weekends for a while and we’ve wanted to get into geocaching like a few of our friends do but haven never taken the plunge and bought a gps. So when I was thinking of a good Christmas present for James this came to mind and was a great surprise for him. He’s awful at figuring out what people have got him (I’ll never forgive him for questioning A when I got him an Ipod!!) so was nice to have a real surprise.

So after a bit of whinging on his part as he wasn’t sure what was happening with everyone else we eventually got going. It wasn’t far from us, walkable from home, and we found it after a little search around. M and James had a little falling out over something which spoiled it somewhat but we managed to sort it out *rolls eyes*. Time was getting on then so we all went back to James’s dads for tea. We all really enjoyed doing it and hoping to make it a more regular thing. Kids enjoyed being with their cousins and playing on the playstation later on while we watched Air America and shooting stars.

Nice weekend.

I did not want to get up this morning! It would have been nice to have had that nice feeling like yesterday, but I was worried I’d fall back asleep and miss my appointment for getting my blood taken at the doctors.

I upset the kids by waking them up too, think we’ve got into a bit of a habit of sleeping late over the Christmas break! But we got it together to wait for a bit in the waiting room before being stabbed by the nurse. Kids looked a bit shell shocked watching it - rofl!! We headed straight from there to the bank, not very exciting really but at least we got ourselves out of the house for a bit.

The rest of the day wasn’t very exciting or successful. M fell out with me as I’d said I wanted him to have a day off from the playstation. He’d been going a bit mad on the evenings lately and he was warned enough about it! So he grumped for quite a long time about that. Actually I think he forgot about falling out with me when he put on his Harry Potter audio book. He’s *really* enjoyed the book and I’ve requested the 3rd one for him now. Was quite fun to chat to him about some of the bits that weren’t in the film

While M was doing that A did some Explode the Code book 1. She has about another 3 or 4 pages to go on that book and then will be on the next one. I finished the last chapter of Ruby the Red fairy for her as she isn’t realistically going to do it any time soon and I figured it would be good to at least finish it. I’ve said to her that if she wants to read a book then the Magic Tree House ones might be a bit better for her and she gave it a go. She did the first page but was really getting a bit restless so I didn’t push it. Problem is, James gave M a reward when he read his first chapter book (he got a PS2 game) so A has been wanting to do it too. We tried with the fairy book, but she’s just not ready for it I don’t think even though it’s a fairly basic book.

She did another e-mail to a friend and read her reply from her. I think this is helping her loads actually, she’s not struggling hardly at all. She’s very intriguing to watch learning to read! James had sent her an e-mail this morning before work so even more practise! I might send her one in a bit too

After lunch they were both getting a bit mad and annoying so we put on a dvd. We got The Water Horse from LoveFilm so watched that. kids hardly moved at all through it all, I think they really enjoyed it M put on the 1st Harry Potter after that. So although a game free afternoon, not a screen free afternoon. Hmmm. Oh well.

I’ve been spending the day looking at groups the kids might be interested in. I *still* forgot to phone up again about Brownies. Grrr. Will try again tomorrow. Have got someone to phone about a wildlife explorers group that is once a month up near where my mum lives, not that local but ok for once a month. Also have enquired about the sheffield young archeaologist club for M. I’m not sure he’d go, it depends on how it’s set up and if I can come along I suppose, so we’ll see what they say. He really likes stuff like that though so would be good for him to go there. I can try! I need to look into some sort of Karate or self defence thing for A now.

Feeling much better today, hardly coughing at all and my chest is much better. I slept late again and woke at 10am to a very quiet house. Kids weren’t even up yet! I quite like when that happens, feels really indulgent to be laid in bed listening to the silence.

We watched some cbbc (more bamzookis) and made a start on getting the house looking a bit better. I’d let the housework drop a bit lately and it was getting to me so Alex and I blitzed the living room.

A got out her sewing kit (I can’t find the Play Merrily link ) that she got for Christmas and she was directing M as to what he was to do. They decided to both help each other out to make one of the soft toys. Really like that kit We had lunch and I read stories. I had ordered Can You Count to a Googol? ages ago, but as it came from America it took a while. It arrived this morning though and we read through it. Very interesting. Apparantly if you counted all the atoms in all the galaxies that we know it still wouldn’t come to a googol. (or something like that ) I do like these books - I have the What’s Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? one which we like too. I read one of the nature stories from the Enid Blyton book of the year and then some poems from that. A: Oh no - I HATE poems! Me: Ok we won’t read any. Or maybe just one. A: No 2! No 3!!! Me: *rolls eyes*

M trailed away from the sewing after lunch and went on to the Bamzooki site. He’s a bit frustrated at trying to get the zooks to move so I’ve promised to help him by looking at some instructions. Found out why it’s not working I think so we might work on that tomorrow. A finished more sewing, she stuck with it really well.

A wanted to look at the Zoo Vet book I linked to yesterday as it arrived as well this morning. We did the first activity in that but the next one looks much more ahead of us (fractions). Might be ok, we’ll see. M did some reading and then dissappeared up to have some game time. He’s still very obsessed by his new racing game so I try and make sure he does a bit of maths and a small bit of reading and then he can go on it till tea time.

Oh I forgot to blog this. I asked M about what he wanted to do about reading and whether he wanted me to keep offering books for him. He said he does want to keep doing that so he’s chosen the first Magic Tree House book - Dinosaurs Before Dark (Why have the changed the names of some of the books?? Anyone? Ahhh is it a new set for the UK market? Looks like they’ll be similar anyway - shall have to check the library see if they have them) He seems to be whizzing through the chapters in no time which is good, but if I could get him to try and read more than one chapter at a time that would be great!

A and I decided to send an e-mail to a friend of hers and she also sent some e-mails to me and James. She really enjoys stuff like that, but she went a bit mad through it all (rolls eyes at madness of A) so I dissappeared to the kitchen to wash up

We need to go to the bank and to the docs tomorrow so looking forward to getting out and about!

today was a bit better

Slept late again but I can cope with that. I did a couple of read alouds, a story from the 50 famous stories book and also something about snow from an old Enid Blyton Winter book. Was quite interesting if only about the assumption that if you lived in the North you’d definitely get snow There was a bit about frost on the insides of windows too which doesn’t happen too much these days too.

The kids played around a bit, was quite amused with their game of ‘cops’ as they’d been eating donuts and the donuts had played a central part in it all. I do think we watch a bit much Simpsons sometimes

A and I cut out, laminated and played a bit with a skip counter I'’d had printed out and sat on the shelf for ages. It’s nice and a different way of practising the skip counting. Oh I remember what else happened then. A got very upset at the thought of certain friends not being at Melrose so we thought about what would make it better (and moving nearby unfortunately is not an option but the only thing she wanted!) and settled on writing a letter to the said friend which we later posted. I’d roll my eyes but it’s really nice she’s got these little friendships as I know there would have been times that I’d wonder if they’d end up friend-less with home edding. That’s certainly not proved itself so far anyway.

M and I had a look at the first page of a book I’d had on the shelf for ages (hmm things being on the shelf is a bit of a theme here!) It’s called Win A Grand Prix (Using Maths) and I bought it as a way of trying to interest M in *anything* lol. I think when I got it I thought it was a little too much for him, but on looking at it again I figured it was probably doable with me guiding him. So we brought it out and did the first page which was looking at distances from circuits to your home city of Monaco and then we had to work out by how much further one place was than another. I let him use a calculator for doing it as I wasn’t too interested in the calculating going on but more the working out from the text what we needed to do. He really enjoyed doing it, getting the info and working out the answers. And M never enjoys maths so This Is Good.

A had a go at it all afterwards and she needed a bit more help but again enjoyed it. Realised she doesn’t tend to know how to work out which number is larger with bigger numbers (5772 and 6148 for example) so maybe we can work on that. I have ordered the Zoo Vet book in the series as I think it will appeal to A’s obsession with animals at the moment. I think it was a book people set at one point and it’s a shame I didn’t get the lot as they are nice, different kind of books.

*edit* Aha! Found the red set which I think is for older kids - here