NotSheep

We’ve just had the first storm-into-my-room-and-slam-the-door episode from Barney.

I guess this is only the start

…it seems we’re back up and running.

Email started going down last Sunday (the hosting service says Monday, but there were emails from Sunday which didn’t arrive until Friday…), fell over completely on Monday, sites stayed up until Thursday and then disappeared. Not good. This site is now with a different host, but I’m still waiting for the host to get back to me to provide the info I need to change the name-servers for HEdNI. And I’m hoping they give me a refund on what I’d paid in advance.

I want to say a huge big thank you to Jax and her hubby, who got hosting set up for me very quickly after I emailed them, and who talked me through the bits I needed to get everything switched over. Very, very much appreciated! I’d say more and offer big smooches, but she’s already said she’s going to be embarassed, so I’ll go easy on her and let her off with a great big virtual hug

To my friend J and her husband K, who looked after all the boys yesterday so I could go house-hunting again (this is the same friend who did the same thing last week). The boys had a great time - poor Jack really didn’t want to leave - cried all the way home, repeating “I don’t want to go home! I want to stay!” It is much, much easier to view houses when you’re not repeatedly explaining to your children that no, even if we do buy this house, we don’t get the toys that are here now…Anyway, we still haven’t found the right house. Well, we have, but it’s not in the right location. And the house in the right location isn’t the right house, if all that makes sense to anyone except me. And I keep having minor panic-attacks at the thought of all the money we’re spending (or, more to the point, borrowing).

To my other friend J and her husband J, who looked after all the boys today so that Scratchy and I could attend our respective OU thingies. Scratchy is in a much better mood this evening than he has been all week, which I take to mean that he no longer believes he’s going to crash and burn on his course (thank goodness, maybe he’ll stop snapping at all of us now). I, on the other hand, still feel that I have bitten off way more than I can chew. I can do the stuff, I just can’t find the time, and when I can find the time, I can’t find the inclination. At my tutorial, I discovered that some of what I was doing on my course was right and some of what I was doing was wrong, so at least the tutorial was helpful. And the tutor didn’t call me names when I appeared to be completely stupid, so that was nice of him ;-). Really, really must get stuck in this week and get caught up on all my courses. If we are moving this spring/summer, there’s even more urgency for me to get everything finished than there was when the deadline was just “before the baby’s born”!

Just realised I’m now into my second month of blogging - so that does that mean I’m not a newbie any more?

…and we still haven’t found one that we really want. We’re leaning towards something close to Scratchy’s work - there’s a lot to be said for having a 10-minute commute - but there’s really only one house we’ve seen that is close enough and that would do us. We looked at a couple more today, including a couple of newly-built ones, but I just don’t know…and Scratchy just doesn’t know, so we’re as bad as each other

No, not me! Don’t be silly!

Barney did some geography, maths, French, Latin and science. George did some science, French, history, Latin and practiced playing recorder. Freddy did some reading and writing, some science and maths and created an entire new currency system (ie answered the questions with 9-pence pieces and 4-pence pieces). Jack bounced about winding up his brothers until he’d had enough and then suddenly fell asleep.

Apart from that, Barney made lunch from a packet-pasta thingy, as a trial run for HESFES (the idea being that if these things are reasonably edible, we’ll take some with us). I think it might have needed to thicken just a tad more, though…the kids ate it with spoons

I installed a user-enabled theme-switcher thingy for the blog, especially for Sarah who likes them both. Me, I just feel you can’t really have too much of a good thing

And we still haven’t decided about houses. Hm.

Cubs tonight - it’s funny, but no matter what kind of day it’s been, Barney always turns into the most helpful, cooperative child on earth as soon as he puts that Cub sweater on. Maybe I should make it our “school uniform”

So far, in our house-hunting efforts, we’ve looked at about three houses that are possibilities and about 33 that are non-starters. We’ve pretty much ruled out one of the three, because although it’s cheaper than the other two, it’s a new build, and by the time we put in flooring and a decent kitchen (i.e. more than two cupboards) etc, the cost would be pushed up. So…introducing bachelor house number 1, and house number 2.

#1:
Nice house, about 10-15 years old (I think), four bedrooms, all okay sizes. Nice downstairs, reasonably spacious, decent enough garden). Area seems fine, but is right next to a housing estate which might sometimes be a bit iffy (hard to tell, really). Current owner says that she was concerned about that but that they’ve never had any problems at all. About ten minutes from Scratchy’s office, so if I wanted the car, he could cycle or I could easily drop him at work.

#2:
gorgeous house, about six years old. Five bedrooms, including lovely big master bedroom with ensuite. Downstairs shower room, lovely kitchen, quite large garden, in very small development in greenbelt setting, a few minutes walk to a beach. About half an hour to Scratchy’s work - but not cycle-able, and if I wanted the car he’d have to go in late (which is okay, flextime) and I’d drop him off. If car died, we’d be stuck.

What house 1 has over house 2: location - very close to Scratchy’s work. There’s a lot to be said for being ten minutes away. Conservatory. Two large living-rooms. Access to public transport. Wouldn’t need a second vehicle.

What house 2 has over house 1: more house, more rooms, more garden, more toilets (don’t laugh, this is important!). Lovely location.

Opinions?

…what did we do today?

Well, I re-uploaded the HEdNI site, now that I’ve finally got my hands on the name-server settings. Everything now appears to be working as it should (except for the cron-job so I can post here by email, but that will have to wait).

Barney did some English, French, Latin and maths. George did some Latin and maths, and some history. Freddy spent a long time looking at his book and groaning - not his most productive day ever. And Jack - well, he did his usual thing of demanding a book and a pencil and then ignoring both in favour of pestering everyone else.

BBC producer person visited again; she likes what Barney has done so far and has left a bunch of questions/suggestions for him to produce more material.

Barney and George had circus school this evening, fortunately George had got over his earlier pique at having other people existing in the world and was able to go.

Have had an email about an archery group that meets in a town about 25 minutes from here, but can’t get hold of anyone at the phone number. I’ll try again tomorrow morning, but apparently the classes start tomorrow, so it might be a tight fit to get Scratchy home in time for the kids to go. Barney’s been wanting to do more archery since he got to try it at Cub Camp last June, but I’ve not been able to find a club willing to take anyone younger than 10, so I’d really like him to go to this one. I’m told they take kids as young as 5, so George and Freddy could go too.

One of the cats has developed a fascination with the shower in my bedroom. I don’t know why. In fact I don’t even know why I have a shower in my bedroom - it’s not a very good shower and there’s one in the bathroom. I’d much rather have a second toilet in there. But anyway, I’ve got a shower, even if the entrance to it is so narrow that it’s a tight squeeze to get in (and that’s why the entrance has a dresser in front of it). But anyway, one of the cats has decided it’s fascinating, so she keeps climbing over the dresser to investigate.

And that’s the summary of today’s events

Jack (3yo) is sitting on my bed, reading Minimus (the Latin book Barney and George use): “Rufe! Noli tangere!”

…we should make an offer on house #1. The one in town. The smaller one.

An extensive thread on an email list last night resulted in almost everyone saying we should go for house #2. But I still think we should go for house #1. Of course if we don’t get #1, we could go for #2. But I think we should go for #1.

I think this because I’ve been thinking about access to activities for the kids. We’d be more likely to do stuff if we were five minutes from the recreation centre or twenty minutes from the arts centre than if we were thirty-five minutes from the recreation centre or an hour from the arts centre. We’d be more likely to visit friends if we had the option to ring Scratchy at work and ask him to bring the car back at lunchtime. Etc.

I’ve been going back and forth on the two houses all day, but that’s what I think right now.

I bet when Scratchy gets home he’ll have decided we should make an offer on the other one. Either that or I’ll have changed my mind about what I think. Anyway, if he comes home and he thinks something different from what I think, I’m going to agree with him anyway. Not because I’m a good acquiescent little wifey or anything like that (bwaaahhhaaaahaaaaa…all those who know me can climb back on their chairs now), but because I’m getting to the anything-is-better-than-nothing point on this.

The last time I said “whatever, you decide” about buying a house, we bought a house I hated. I sat and cried the night we moved in. It was adequate for our needs; there was nothing horrendous about it - but I hated it from the moment I saw it. And we never settled there, and we’d several disasters in the few months we lived there. But this is different - I don’t feel that way about either of the two houses we’re considering (obviously!) so I think I’d be quite happy with either one. It’s not a case of “we like #1, but there’s this problem” or “we like #2, but there’s this problem”, it’s a case of “we like both, and both houses have their good points - which good points are more important?” So whichever we end up with (and of course we could end up with neither), there would be positives. So if Scratchy comes home and says “here’s what I think we should do”, whatever it is he thinks, I’m going to say “yes, I think you’re right”. Let’s hope the shock doesn’t kill him

What I said five minutes ago in my last post set me thinking.

We’ve been looking at these houses and concentrating on the positives of both. Normally, that’s a good thing. But since it hasn’t got us anywhere, maybe we should look at the negatives.

House #1: possibly dodgy area nearby. Probably not really an issue - it doesn’t look like it’s an issue. No ensuite bathroom.

House #2: longer commute for Scratchy. Much more isolation for the rest of us. Possible total isolation for all if the car breaks down.

I think that makes it clearer. We should definitely go for #1.

Now Scratchy will definitely come home and say he thinks we should go for #2. Sod’s law etc.

But go on and guess anyway - what did Scratchy say about which house we should go for?

Yep, #2.

And then it got even worse. Can you believe it? Worse! He said that since he chose the house I hated, he didn’t want to decide on this one, so it’s up to me. Yeah, thanks dude!

Leaning towards two really lowball offers to see if either one bites…

The archery club was good - they have no age-limits, so Barney, George and Freddy all went, and all had a great time, and all want to go back next week. The guy who runs it really seems to know what he’s doing, and the cost is pretty reasonable too. He said they have had kids as young as 3 years old involved, but there is no way I’m putting anything as long and pointy as an arrow in Jack’s hands - he’s dangerous enough as it is. The long bits of K’nex are his limit for a while yet!

Otherwise - Barney did some maths, English and Latin, George did Latin and maths and played his recorder, Freddy did more reading, writing and maths (though spent more time staring at it than actually doing anything), and we all read at some more stuff about Judaism (including the bits that made the boys go “wuh-huh? they do what????” - I’m sure you can figure out which bits I’m talking about here). It wasn’t one of my better days with Freddy - he has this thing about not answering, just sitting and staring around him, and it drives me nuts, and today it drove me even more nuts than usual. Oh, and Barney - the one who doesn’t write - presented me with a play he’d written - yes, actually written down on paper. He also did some more recording for the Beeb (without being reminded!) and I had a bath and forgot to turn off the water-heater, so there’ll be plenty of hot water for baths all round tonight.

Oh yeah, and now we can’t find Minimus. Maybe Jack ate it.

Must get the library books together - they’re all waaaay overdue

Apparently it’s “not a play, more a film, like Back to the Future”. Hey, might as well aim high

Oh, and it’s called “Harry Googlebat and the Evil Mutated Atom Rearranging Aliens”. Bound to be a blockbuster!

We’ve been talking about opening bank accounts for the kids, and we’ve agreed to pay their pocket money directly into their accounts every month. I had a look at the different bank websites to see what would be the best option. The choice came down to two - one which offers slightly more interest and a cash-card from age 11, and one which offers slightly less interest and a cash-card from age 10. Since Barney is now 10, I figured this would be the clincher - he’d jump on the latter. So I gave them the info - and Barney said he’d rather get more interest and wait to get the cash-card. I didn’t expect him to be so forward-thinking - I’m impressed!

We made low offers on both - same figure. And then the estate agents told us there were already offers on both (don’t ask me why they didn’t say so before). Anyway…

#1 already had an offer of the asking price. Our offer was 12.5k less, so we weren’t too surprised when they came back and told us to sod off.

#2 already had an offer of 10k less than the asking price, 5k more than our offer. They’ve said they’ll discuss it tonight and get back to us. I think the other offer is subject to the sale of the buyers’ house, and ours isn’t, so fingers crossed that the vendors find that bit attractive. Will be surprised if they accept the offer, but maybe they’ll come back asking us to match the other one…

What if they accept our offer?!!!!

We did get into town to open the bank accounts, but it turned out that you need an appointment to open one! An appointment? To give them your money? This is one very strange country….

Anyway, we thought, stuff that, and went down the street to choice #2, where they also said you needed an appointment, but they’d had someone not show up, so they were able to open accounts for us after all. So now all four kids have their own bank accounts. And Barney will be getting a cash-card. I’m not old enough to have a son who has a cash-card. And I’m certainly not old enough to have a son who not only has a cash-card, but is sensible enough to ask me to look after it for him!

Nobody ever phoned me back about that homeopathic referral, so I phoned them again today. First of all, nobody knew who I’d spoken to last time (despite me having a first name for her). Then I spoke to someone who had absolutely no clue. She’d never heard of homeopathy - “What kind of treatment does a hom-ee-path provide?” etc (and no, that’s not a mis-spelling), and said I’d need my GP to refer me to a NHS Consultant Homeopath…well, uh, you find me one of those and my GP will refer me! Eventually I asked if I might speak to someone who at least knew what homeopathy was, as they might be in a better position to help.

Her “line manager” (I hate that term, makes us all sound like bits in a factory) was much more helpful; although he wasn’t much more knowledgeable, he at least asked reasonably sensible questions. He’d never heard of a NHS referral for homeopathy (I don’t think there’s ever been one in NI), didn’t know that homeopathic hospitals existed, but once I explained that homeopathy is available on the NHS, and provided some websites to confirm it, he seemed at least willing to try to help. I pointed out that if we’d been able to get an appointment at the homeopathic hospital in Bristol for the time we’re going to be in England, it would have been a straightforward referral (unfortunately they’re booking too far ahead). He suggested that it was a bit like when other NHS-provided services weren’t available in NI, and people got referred elsewhere or privately, and I said that yes, that was exactly the situation (and pointed out that homeopathy was cheaper than most NHS treatments, and certainly cheaper than providing prescriptions on an ongoing basis).

Watch this space.

Today’s plan is study, study, study….yes, I know I’ve said that before, but now it’s desperate - two assignments due in the next two weeks, so I really have to buckle down. I woke up and remembered the plan, wasn’t terribly looking forward to it - but then the post came.

OU course on Understanding Children - one of their short courses. You get graded on each aspect of your work, with “well achieved”, “achieved”, “just achieved”, “nearly achieved” or “not achieved”. I got “well achieved” on every single target

Then I opened the other OU envelope, and stood there with my hand over my mouth for about three minutes before I could even speak. It took me another 15 minutes to remember to read the tutor’s comments. This is my first maths assignment in about 20 years - and I got 99%! Woooooohoooo! I am over the moon! And it’s definitely helped me get stuck into studying today!

Take my advice.

When bidding on ebay, no matter how soon the item is going to close - make sure you enter the decimal point when entering your bid!

I speak from experience!

Just bought something for which I intended my maximum bid to be £1.53 - and because it was down the last few seconds, I clicked the “Confirm bid” button quickly - a little too quickly, just a split second before realising that I had actually put in a maximum bid of £153!

Fortunately nobody else was bidding high, and the item closed at £1.60!

Whew!

House #2’s owners said our offer wasn’t high enough. They want another £10k. It’s probably worth it, but are we willing to pay that much?

In the meantime, let me introduce house #3…not quite as close to Scratchy’s work as #1, but a lot closer than #2. Not quite as big or as nice as #2, but slightly bigger and nicer than #1. Not really a good garden, but probably just sufficient. Nice area, no concerns there. So maybe a good compromise all round?

(And since there was so much interest in this issue previously, #3 has the same number of toilets as #2, and one more than #1.)

So there goes another offer. We’ll see what happens with this one, and then maybe re-think #2, depending on what #3 says.

Did you follow all that? I’m not sure I did.

This house-hunting is a complicated business.

We would have done some more Latin today, but we still can’t find Minimus. I think Jack is hiding it so he can read it under the covers at night. So instead Barney did some maths and French and George did some maths and Freddy did some reading and writing and maths. Then we had a visit from another home-ed family whose kids have come out of school very recently. The weather was nice so the kids all mostly ran about outside, except for the youngest, who is 1.5 years old and made a huge big fuss of the cats, who were very patient about it all

I tidied up the kids’ rooms last night - really tired of not being able to see the floors. Everything I picked up went into boxes in the attic. They knew this was coming, so while they were probably surprised when they woke this morning, they didn’t say a word. No doubt they’ll complain of being bored in a day or two, and I, of course, will say “I told you so”.

The Health Board phoned, and apparently they cannot approve an appointment with a homeopath for Jack. If my GP refers him to a consultant dermatologist, and we wait for the appointment, then take up the consultant’s time and convince him/her to refer Jack to a homeopath, the Board will pay for us to fly to England or Scotland and visit one of the NHS homeopathic hospitals. Daft. And they justify this by saying that if there would be continuity of care, because Jack would still be a patient of the dermatologist here (who would have no homeopathic training) and and

We heard back from the sellers of house #3, and they want another £3k. Not much - but it brings the house closer to the price of #2, and that makes the decision even more difficult! People are asking which one I like best - well that would be #2, but I’m not sure it’s the one I want most, even though I like the house more. The location of #3 has some definite advantages, so it basically comes down to - do we want a big garden in the country, or a small garden in town? And we just don’t know….

Okay, I’m leaning towards the house in town. I’m thinking that much as I like living in the country, and much as a big garden is lovely, being close enough to get to various activities is important, and being close enough to go off to things on your bike is going to get more important as the boys get older. This is the first time I’ve leaned towards the same house for more than a couple of hours at a time, so maybe this is an indication that it’s the right thing for us to do. Watch this space for the next change of mind.

I’ve booked a viewing at the house in the country for this evening, and am waiting to hear back from the estate agent about whether I can get to see the other house again this evening too. It might be easier to do a direct comparison of how I feel about them both if I see them both in one go.

Barney never made it to Cubs last night - he was up late the previous evening and was in a foul mood all day, and about 4.30 I said he needed to go to bed early instead of Cubs, to which he yelled “Fine!” - so I said yep, fine, and he went to bed after dinner. He’s not a whole heap better today though :-\ - but at least circus school tonight is over at 7, so he can still come home and get an early night.

Just waiting for Beeb woman to arrive to retrieve Barney’s latest recordings (though I don’t think he’s done much), then will try to get the boys to do something educational (rather than play sumo-wrestling and shout at each other, which seems to be what they’ve done so far today).

…and she still doesn’t *^%^&(*%##^ know!

Or rather, we think we might possibly have made a decision - but I don’t want to say what, because then I’ll probably change my mind again…..

We’ve agreed. All of us, even the kids!

Now we just need to go back to the estate agent and tell them (and hope nobody else has made a better offer in the meantime), get the mortgage sorted out, and wait for completion…

We’re buying the house in town. We decided that it’s closer to Scratchy’s work, it’s got more nearby for the kids, it’s within walking/cycling distance to things, and the street is quiet enough that we’d be okay with the kids playing out on it, which makes up somewhat for the small garden. The kids like the house (though they never actually saw the other one we were considering, but anyway…) and we think it’s a good decision.

Will put more info about the house and town in another post and password-protect it, in case I ever take the password off the blog (I don’t really want to broadcast the details of where I live to the internet at large). The password will be the same as the one that people currently have to access the blog.

Our offer has been accepted

Now we just have to arrange financing and survey and all that fun stuff, and we’re off. Four days after we get back from HESFES, to be exact!

So…I phoned the community midwives for the new area, to suss them out. First pleasant surprise was that I wasn’t asked to go through the GP first (you’re not supposed to need to, but a lot of people are). Second pleasant surprise was when I said I was planning a homebirth and got a response of “oh good”, followed by - wait for it! - “Have you ever considered a home waterbirth?” Wahuh? As I picked myself up off the floor, I told her that not only had I considered it, but was planning one (but hadn’t wanted to say so immediately in case I scared them :lol:), and had only just emailed someone about getting a pool!

Anyway…no comments about fifth babies, or it being late to book a homebirth, or anything like that, and only a minor hesitation when I said I always go overdue. This is all sounding very positive. Shall have to cross a few more fingers that this house purchase all goes through!

Not much sitting-down this weekend - except in the car!

Saturday morning I’d an OU tutorial. I try to make it to tutorials whenever I can, because I do find them helpful, but I have a lot this year which are scheduled at the same time as others - on a few Saturdays, I’m supposed to be at three tutorials at once. Anyway, made it to the one on Saturday, and it was indeed helpful, though it would probably have been more helpful if I’d not been behind on the work. Ho-hum.

After the tutorial it was home for a couple of hours of studying, then Barney had a guitar lesson, and after that we all headed for the home of some good friends who live about 1.5 hours away. Their kids and ours get on very well, and the parents can all just about tolerate each other so nobody minds the drive - though Scratchy didn’t seem impressed that I fell asleep in the car. Anyway, K (mother in family of said friends) is Very Good At Maths, and I spent an hour or two last night plus another couple of hours today working on my maths while she answered (often stupid) questions and pointed out (often obvious) things. One assignment complete - I just need to write it out legibly - and another underway. I worked out that if I do an assignment a week for the next three weeks - i.e. every week until we head for England - and an assignment a week for the month of July, I might just manage to get all my assignments in before the baby arrives, and still get a month or so off for moving house. The best-laid plans….I’m much better at planning than executing, so we’ll see.

Up late last night, and then couldn’t sleep, then dozed off only to wake with - huh? contractions? me? at 25-26 weeks? - yes, indeed! About two hours of trying to breathe through them, really not liking this at all, thinking this is going to screw up so many plans if I have a preemie baby, up and about and lying down again, trying (unsuccessfully) to get to sleep in the hope it would all go away….finally fell asleep about 3am, I think. Anyway, whatever it was, it had stopped by the time I woke up, so I felt much better today, if exhausted. I don’t do well on too little sleep Anyway, we’d a nice lunch with our friends, the kids all ran riot together, we dragged our lot home late afternoon, came home, threw some pasta at them, and pointed them all in the direction of their beds.

And that is where I’m heading now…in the direction of my bed. Night-night

Had a phone call from one of the midwives in the new area today. She muttered a bit about having to draft extra midwives in from outside their area because it will be holiday time (wonder if they do that for hospital births too?), then suggested that I should just ring them back when we actually knew for sure we’d be moving. Hm.

She also said it is their policy that women having more than a fourth baby not have a homebirth. When I asked for their justification for this, sure enough, she trotted out the usual rubbish about an increased risk of post-partum haemorrhage. When I pointed out that the studies which suggested that women who had had more babies were at higher risk for pph had been done in third world countries, on women who were malnourished and had poor housing conditions and often little or no access to medical care, and therefore didn’t say a thing about well-nourished healthy women, she said “oh well of course it’s your choice, I’m not trying to put you off”. “Good job,” I said, “you’d have to try a lot harder than that.”

We’ll see.

George is nearly 8 years old. This is the story of how he remembers his birth.

“Day 1…nah, not coming out yet…day 2…nah, not coming out yet…day 3…nah, not coming out yet…day 4…nah, not coming out yet…day 5…nah, not coming out yet…day 6…nah, not coming out yet…day 7…nah, not coming out yet…day 8…nah, not coming out yet…day 9…nah, not coming out yet…day 10…nah, not coming out yet…day 11…nah, not coming out yet…day 12…nah, not coming out yet…day 13…nah, not coming out yet…day 14…nah, not coming out yet…day 15…nah, not cming out yet…day 16…nah, not coming out yet…day 17…nah, not coming out yet…day 18…BAM!”

That’s actually pretty much how it happened

There’s a reasonably good piece on the BBC website at the minute called “Learning at Home” - a mostly-pictures piece about a family who home-ed. There’s an oddly-worded bit that says “Families in the “education otherwise” programme have to supply government inspectors with evidence that their children are being educated.” - not sure what they mean by that. There is no “education otherwise programme”, and home-educating families don’t have to supply any evidence to government inspectors, so I wonder if this family are actually registered with some local LEA scheme. I’d also disagree with the mother who’s quoted as saying that home-ed families should receive funding, because funding would inevitably come with strings, and it’s very unlikely that the funding level would be high enough to create an overall benefit for most of us. But overall, a good piece.

This article in the Observer is better though. Of course a representative from the Professional Association of Teachers says there isn’t enough monitoring, and someone from the National Association of Head Teachers says home-educated kids miss out on social development, but I think this article and quite a few others recently do a pretty thorough debunking of those myths.

“One long experience” is the title of a piece on the Guardian website today. This is about breastfeeding for years and years - in the case of the author, 13 years (no, not all one child). It’s a lovely piece, talking about her years of breastfeeding as something she’s enjoyed and is glad to have experienced. As a ten-years-and-counting breastfeeder myself, I enjoyed this article a lot

I’m threatening to send the kids to school. I don’t really want them to go - I don’t think it will be good for them, and I know it won’t be good for me (all those school runs? argh!) but I’m just so fed up with them moaning and groaning about everything at home, and it feels like I’m putting in a lot of effort for approximately no reward.

The problem with discussing this with anyone who doesn’t home-ed is that they don’t understand why I don’t just send the kids to school. Maybe it’s a defence-mechanism because their own children are in school, but they just don’t “get” the objections. After all, if school is good enough for theirs, why wouldn’t it be good enough for everyone else… *sigh*

I’m done with being pregnant. I want to have this baby now and never be pregnant again.

I do want to give birth again though. And I want more babies.

This one might be a bit tricky.

Well, I came very close to sending the kids to school yesterday (and I’m making no promises about what kind of threats I might make in the coming weeks). I even phoned the local primary school yesterday and left a message with someone for the principal to phone me back, but she hasn’t - fate? Anyway, this morning the boys have decided they’d rather be at home, and have actually stopped screaming and fighting and moaning and groaning long enough to do some work. Right now they’re doing some Latin. I always feel like such a school-at-home-type person when I talk about them doing Latin, but we started at their request, and it’s one of their favourite things to do - they always run off to grab the books when I suggest it. Maybe it was losing Minimus last week that has made everything seem so negative!

(BTW, in case you’re interested, Jack did hide it. All of the others had looked for it, and all of them had looked under my bed. And then Jack said it was under the bed, and they all chorused “no it isn’t!”. And Jack said “yes! tis!”, so I said “okay, well if it’s under the bed, you get it.” So Jack disappeared under my bed, and a minute later he emerged clutching Minimus. Hm.)

Anyway, at this point, they are staying at home. I’m just glad they all made the same choice - home-ed is fine, but I really wouldn’t want to fit it in around school hours - that seems like the worst of both worlds to me. That sounds really negative about home-ed, it’s not how I mean it - just that I think if we had to do school-runs for one or two children, those who were home-educated would lose out to a certain extent - the freedoms of home-ed would be constrained, and the ability to go on trips etc (not that I have much energy for those right now anyway).

The Freecycle people don’t want to approve a Northern Ireland group - apparently even a county-wide group is “too big”. I don’t think they really comprehend how NI works, and have told them so. Anyway, I’ve asked the current group members what they want to do, and have had a couple of responses, so I’ll give it another day or two and then go with the majority opinion.

Harvard University has a website where you can check out your Implicit Associations - that is, the things you believe without thinking about them. Stuff like “men are better at science”, preferences for people of a certain race or age, feelings about people who are overweight, etc. It’s kind of interesting, though I think it would be fairly easy to skew the results once you understand how the tests work (but I’m not going to tell you that in case you want to take some yourself first).

My results pretty much came out as I expected, except that I apparently have a moderate implicit belief that men are better at science (but that might have something to do with my lack of faith in “modern science”). And I definitely think George Dubya has something to do with my apparent preference for Black Americans over White Americans

Jack was in the kitchen trying to climb up to get an apple. Barney rushed in and shouted “My territory! You’re in my territory!” Er….okaaayyyy….I can’t say I know many ten-year-old boys who consider the kitchen their territory, but if that’s the way he wants it, I’m certainly not going to argue!

Then a minute later, when Jack had yelled “I want apple!” enough times, Barney got him one while swooping around going “Apple Man to the rescue!” Again, okaaayyyy….

Barney and George and Freddy all did quite a bit of work today, though Freddy is still having trouble “getting into it”. He whips through pages at tremendous speed sometimes, and then other times he takes all day to get a page done - and it doesn’t seem to matter whether the subject matter is harder or not, it’s just to do with whether he can get into getting-on-with-it mode. Goodness knows what he’d be like in a classroom.

Tonight was Beavers for George and Freddy. We did a treasure hunt in the grounds of the school near the Scout Hall, then went back into the hall to decorate digestive biscuits with icing sugar and sweets. They each decorated three biscuits, and ate two right away. It was my impression that George and Freddy were each bringing home one decorated biscuit for a brother, but somehow, when we got home, that didn’t seem to be the plan any more…hmm…oh well, it’s not like it’s something complicated, we can certainly do them here sometime. I have to think up a plan for next week’s Beavers meeting - the other leader will be away, so it’s all down to me!

Really really really must get on with some OU work over the next few days. I need to get as many assignments in as I can, as quickly as possible. If the house purchase goes through, there’ll be no chance of any studying being done for three weeks around HESFES and then for as long as getting moved in and sorted takes. And by the time all that’s over, it will be nearly time for the baby. Oh, and I must decide what to do about birthing pools. Should I become an agent and use a pool then keep it and rent it out? Or is there not enough demand for one here and should I just buy the inflatable one and use that? Decisions, decisions. The inflatable one would be good for the kids in the garden later, of course. Maybe I’ll do that and then think more about the agency thing later.

Freddy is counting in tens, figuring out how to take away ten at a time from things like 180.

Me: So there are ten tens in 100, what’s ten more than that then?
Freddy: Hmmm…a million?

I think he should go into banking. I’ll be his first customer.

The boys are sitting on Barney’s bed playing cards. Just heard Jack (3yo) telling them “Go fish!”

Will blog about the weekend when I’ve dug myself out from under this pile of paperwork *sigh*

Haven’t blogged since Friday morning, unless you count today’s very brief “Go Fish” post. Anyway, we’ve been out and about quite a bit - Scratchy has an exam this week, so I’ve been keeping the boys out of his way so he can revise (though even if he hadn’t been revising, I’d have been keeping well away from him…but “letting him study” sounds better than “I’d have to kill him if I was in the same room” - long story). We went shopping a little, spent a couple of hours at the library, visited friends, went to a really nice playground a few miles from here - it’s in the grounds of a big old aristocrat-type house, with lots of gorgeous walks etc, but of course the boys are more interested in the playground than anything else. We should go there more often. I left my bag in the car, which was a pity, because if I’d had my camera, I’d have had some nice pics to put up here. We also had a movie afternoon, when the kids and I hid in my bedroom and watched dvds all afternoon.

Today - Barney and George did some French, Freddy did quite a bit of science, Barney did some English, then I chased them all out of my way while I tried to sort through some paperwork. The system I have for filing stuff works - if I do it. So I need to find a way to make it more accessible, so that I do. The multiple-piles system doesn’t really cut it.

Barney’s off to Cubs tonight, and I plan on dosing the rest of them with drugs to make them fall asleep early (no, not really).

It’s been a busy couple of days. The boys all did some formal work yesterday - Latin and French for Barney and George, maths for George, English for Barney, and loads and loads of science for Freddy. They watched Robin Hood - Men in Tights, which I found blah, but it amused them. Last night Barney and George had circus school.

I watched Supersize Me on DVD last night. Ack! Who knew you could do yourself so much damage so quickly?! Yee-uch!

We cleared off early this morning so that Scratchy could do some last-minute revision. We went shopping, and despite my barely being able to walk (when will this baby get off my pubic bone?!!) we found some bargains. Picked up a large cooler bag for £6 (we have one already but I figured a second one would be useful for HESFES), and an air mattress reduced from £35 to £14, and also some of those umbrella-fold camping chairs - the ones with arms and cupholders? I expect to spend a fair amount of HESFES sitting in one of these, so a fiver each seemed justified (Argos, in case any of you are looking). The security guard was very concerned when I sat down outside the shopping centre for a bit - I think he was convinced I was about to give birth there and then, but all I wanted was a bit of fresh air after the virtually-oxygen-free environment inside! But I didn’t want to give the poor bloke apoplexy, so I went in and bought some water and then we headed off home for lunch

After lunch we dropped Scratchy at his exam and went off to visit friends for an hour or two - the home-ed family whose son is participating in the radio prog with Barney. They live close to where Barney, George and Freddy do archery on a Wednesday, so the kids ran about outside together for a while and then we went off to the rec centre for the archery. The BBC producer who’s making the radio programme had asked if she could come along and do a bit of interviewing Barney during the class and get some background noise recorded, and I’d confirmed this was okay with the guy who runs the club, so she came along too.

Then we went and picked up Scratchy after his exam. I am very glad to say that he seems in a much better mood now that his exam is over - which is just as well, since he’s got more or less sole responsibility for the kids for the next few days while I hit the books and he’s also got a list of stuff to get prepared for HESFES (though I haven’t told him that bit yet!)

And one last piece of news - our mortgage has been approved, so as long as the survey is fine (and there shouldn’t be any problems, it’s a fairly new house and seems well cared-for), we’re off!

Well, I made it through my first night of leading Beavers on my own. We made mud pies (crushed chocolate digestives topped with chocolate angels delight and bits of green “laces” for grass, and gummy worms - thanks to the MuddlePuddle list for the recipe), then we played “worm tag”, which is just like ordinary tag except that tummies must be touching the ground at all times :-). Of course, when I say “we” played, I mean the Beavers played and I got to stand around supervising (since if I tried to keep my tummy touching the floor at the minute, I’d be doing a Weeble impression). We sang “nobody likes me, everybody hates me, just because I eat worms” - a song which has immense appeal to a bunch of 6-8 year-old boys. Then we had a game of stick-in-the-mud, and sent them all home, sugared up and happy

Otherwise a pretty good day. Barney did some French and English, George and Freddy did some maths, they all watched Supersize Me in the afternoon (though only Barney was interested, really). Scratchy has now gone off to get some petrol to put in the camping stove, to test if it works - if not, we’ll have to arrange to get one somewhere else. And I’ve nearly finished working my way through the backlog of paperwork that’s been building up over the last few months. I’ve been talking to banks about getting money transferred back to the UK so we can actually pay for the house we’re buying (though I still can’t quite believe it’s going to happen). So all in all, a reasonably effective day. I just wish the pound/dollar exchange rate would go a bit in the other direction so that we could come out of all this with a number of pounds which was a bit closer to the amount we put in

I worked very hard all day today. Scratchy took the boys out, to the playground and a variety of other places (and nearly let the car roll into a bus-stop, I’m told - dunno if he’d have told me that if the kids hadn’t ;-)). I did almost a whole assignment for my Stats course, and about the first third of the next one. I had hoped to finish both of them, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. That means that the Graphs & Network stuff I’d planned for tomorrow will be shifted to Monday. Ho-hum.

None of it is making sense now, so I’m going to watch a DVD and fall asleep. I am so not a night-time person!

Oh, and a thank-you to D and A who have let us borrow their camping table and camping stove for HESFES, as well as giving us dinner and a lovely evening yesterday