19th April 2008

I have to share something funny -

My husband and I would often take a glass of squash to bed with us - you know just to sip during the night if we get thirsty. Every morning Sol would come into our room and always drink what is left of Roy's squash. Never mine for some reason, always Roy's.

This week Roy went off to Scotland on business for a few days. On the second day of him being away when Sol woke up she came into the bedroom to see me. Not worried at all about Roy being absent, didn't even concern herself enough to ask where he was .....

Instead she simply said "Where's daddy's juice?"

Nice to know you are missed Roy!

just ramblings of a mad woman & updates

Well its been a mad few days ...

We have been mad here this last couple weeks. Decorating the kids bedrooms has indeed taken its toll on my physical being - LOL - in other words I ache all over. The final thing is tomorrow morning when the man comes and installs the last of the robes. That is for a few weeks then we plan to start the next phase.

I need to first update you on the Kids eye appointment this week. Seb, Toni, and Sol attend the hospital for eye problems. Toni was signed off from the hospital's books, just as I thought as her issues are purely borderline and our own optician is able to deal with her. Seb - he is very long sighted, and with his glasses on is doing great so no news there. Sol - well they did the general tests on her and her left eye is still very week, with both eyes and glasses she can see well enough to get around and see sweets that she would like to eat. But with the right eye patched and even with glasses on she can see very little. Seb and Sol are going for detailed eye measurements in May to check their prescription glasses are still right for them.

Here is Sol, we try to patch her good eye to improve her bad eye .. it is having a small affect for her cosmetically or should I say a big affect as she used to be virtually cross eyed all the time. now her eyes are straighter even if they don't work right at least she looks good. Its not often I photograph her like this, quite frankly I find it upsetting BUT I do want her to be able to look back and see how things were when she was growing up.

17th April 2008

My horoscope for today ...... by the way I am a LEO




Your generosity and altruism will be put to the test during the next few days, dear Leo. You will probably help the under-privileged. After all, you have always felt concerned about humanitarian projects but never got involved. Today, this attitude will enable you to understand who you really are. You will be able to learn a lot about your motivations and about the keys to your success.

Good start to the day (not)

5.08 am this morning Toni decided to get up. She banged her way down the hallway to the bathroom, banging the bathroom door and noisily locking it. Then she banged the door on the way out, banged up the hall to my bedroom asking for a tissue. I explained to her to go quietly and she banged into the dining room and banged out of it with the "snowy white" tissues that she had to tell the world about. By 6.00 am Toni, Seb and Sol were playing at full force in Toni bedroom. Its amazing how loud these role play games can be when you ask them to hush.

It seems the quieter you want them to be is proportional to the more noise they can possibly make.

To top it off the water people are digging up the road to replace water pipes and they said our water will be off from 9.30am till 8pm - JOY.

15th April 2008

It's been a funny day here. I don't feel we have done anything hugely productive, well not much really.

The children did some work this morning, Mag answered some questions from his science books. He loves sciences, and 'has' to write it all down. He measured his feet and calculated some mass and areas. Toni did some reading, writing, and some number work from her work books which she loves. We read some more about volcanoes and checked up on the currently erupting Nevado del Huila volcano in Columbia, the children are interested in volcanoes in a big way just now.

Miss Toni is suffering with the cold just now, so this afternoon I gave her some sudafed and the children just had some down time for a change, I think they needed it after the busy couple weeks we have had. I found Toni and Seb asleep on Mag's bedroom floor wrapped up in 'pie beds', Mag was dozing on his bed. The boys toys are still piled up in the TV room as we are waiting to finish off the bedrooms, and I know this must be affecting them. I hate having things upside down, I know Toni and Seb are affected in the same way when things are not as they usually are.

And Mag - well this evening I have to say he did a brilliant job - he made his first flat pack up by following the instructions and with no help what so ever. He is as pleased as anything, and I think with it being a little cabinet for his new bedroom it might help to give him a bit of pride in his room and maybe keep it tidy.

here it is ...

Found this on yahoo - an ITN news report from March 08

I know this is old news but I find it beggers belief that 22.4 % of teachers have dealt with kids carrying weapons. So for every child discovered with a weapon in school how many are not discovered?

Growing numbers of pupils are found carrying drugs and weapons every week at school, a report has warned.
A core of schools saw a significant increase in pupils with guns, knives and illegal drugs over the past seven years, the study from Warwick University found.
Teachers warned the trend was not restricted to gangs in large cities as provincial towns and rural areas also saw more youngsters arming themselves with weapons for "protection".
The study of 1,500 teachers by Dr Sean Neill, from Warwick's Institute of Education, suggested some schools faced severe problems.
"More teachers encountered offensive weapons more frequently in 2008 compared with 2001," the report said.
Nearly one in four teachers - 22.4 per cent - had to deal with pupils carrying weapons at least once a year.
The research also found "significantly more" teachers encountered pupils dealing illegal drugs on a monthly and weekly basis than seven years ago.

14th April 2008

I was speaking with a teacher today - not your every day teacher but a man who taught my husband at school who now runs a private tutoring place. Anyways - you would think being a private teacher he would be a bit more open minded about home education ...

He was a real go to school advocate - got to get no1 son to mix with other kids his own age. LOL The son in question goes to Boys Brigade, Two different Chess clubs (is close to be playing at championship level for seniors), Games Club, Youth Club, Bible Class, Goes to camp in the holidays and believe it or not he DOES in fact have FRIENDS.

Seems we don't learn enough either, my children 'need' to be in school so they can learn a wide variety of subjects. hhhmmmm I was wondering when the last time my kids were just restricted to the handful of subjects on offer at schools these days - makes you wonder what people think about us.

TODAY

Was a funny day, I got Mah kicked off doing some work out of his English books today. He doesn't like English but I like him to do some sort of formal study on the subject ... though sometimes I wonder whether or not I should push it, as he loves learning about everything else. He learns by many means too so it is something we need to explore for English, I have tried different books but it still doesn't light his fire. Toni read to me for a while and then drew pictures of things from her books. Her art work is brilliant these days, she would ask to draw virtually every time she sits at the table. She also copied some words from her book to make a little story.
I didn't push any of the children as I am pretty tired after the 4.30 start this morning. Hubby was heading off for Scotland and of course when he is up showering, having breakfast and so on everyone else knows about it. I never known anyone to make so much noise when trying to be quiet, seems to me the harder you try to be quiet the noisier you get.

My friend came round at lunch time and we both got stuck in trying to make the rest of the house look a bit more normal, seems to me that when you are decorating one or two rooms the mess migrates outwards at an amazing speed. She left in time to go collect her son from school and I just got some other bits done around the house.

Tomorrow morning my tesco.com shopping arrives, just as well as we have no cornflakes left. Also the boys' new bedding and some other bits for the rooms, so it looks like I am building up flat pack tv units tomorrow.