NotSheep

So this is 2007. *Looks around* Hm.

We spent most of yesterday at the home of friends and had a great time with them, as we always do. Having failed to bake cranberry muffins (one of our Christmas-time favourites) until now, we took the opportunity to make some to take with us.

We headed home at about 8 pm; some of the boys made noises about wanting to stay up until midnight, so we said that if they were still awake at midnight, they could come and celebrate the New Year with us. George almost made it, lasting until about 11.50 before he gave up and climbed into bed (I hadn’t the heart to tell him how close it was!) - but there was no hope for any of the rest of them. They were still all wiped today though, and bedtime came very early indeed

You might have talked in your sleep, laughed in your sleep or even walked in your sleep. But have you ever played peek-a-boo in your sleep?

Shortly after midnight, Toby started to stir. I lifted him and moved him to my other side, so he’d be away from the edge of the bed (he tends to get up and start to climb as soon as he wakes). He lay on my arm, then opened his eyes, looked up at me, reached out his finger, poked my nose and laughed. Then he closed his eyes again.

Then he ducked his head under my armpit, popped back up, and grinned. And did it again and laughed. And he kept on playing peek-a-boo, grinning and laughing, even varying the time intervals betwen peeks, for the next five minutes - and although his eyes were sometimes open, I don’t think he ever actually woke up. Then, grinning, he snuggled in beside me and that was that.

I am so in love

Sometimes when we’re about to sit down to dinner, one of the boys will choose a music CD to play while we eat. I like it when this happens; it has a positive effect on the atmosphere. This evening, Barney chose a CD of songs from the 1980s. One of the songs was from Duran Duran and contained the line, “You’re about as easy as a nuclear war.”

Cue question from Barney: “What’s a nuclear war?”

Oh, how different things are now to how they were when I was 12 years old… none of us had to ask what a nuclear war was. Children now certainly have much to concern them, but at least that’s not on their list.

Barney’s question started a lengthy conversation which ranged through nuclear weapons, the short and long-term consequences of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nuclear power, Chernobyl (Barney had heard about that - I’ve no idea where), the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Cold War, war in general, the attitudes of the superpowers to war and peace, terrorism and its effects, growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, people leaving their homes to escape violence, how many countries we’d visited, the split between East and West Germany, the Berlin Wall and its fall…

All from one line in a Duran Duran song.

People are talking about us on other blogs…

Parent1 has shocked people by sending one of her offspring to school and, when challenged by Merry she defended herself by saying that at least she wasn’t sending her to France for six months

(Lots of winking smilies there, just in case anyone takes offence!)

Well okay, that wasn’t quite how the conversation went, but Barney’s upcoming adventure got dragged in, and it was pointed out (quite validly) that it could be seen as a much bigger deal than going off to school. And indeed, while Barney is in France, he will be living with a school-using family, and thus going to school. In France.

And yes, it seems like a Very Big Deal Indeed. When I’m not carefully avoiding thinking about it, that is. Mostly I’m in denial. But sometimes… well, sometimes I’m in bits instead.

And yes, people have been commenting on it. Reactions have been varied: everything from “wow! what an opportunity!” to “but how could you!” I think most of the people who think we’re absolutely nuts were already convinced of that though. Nobody has said anything here on the blog (except for a couple of “eek” comments) - but I’m opening up the floor to anyone who wants to have their say now.

Barney is very calm about the whole thing, and quite certain that he wants to go. He has been a bit emotional over small things in the last week or two though, and I suspect part of the reason for that is nerves. As for the going-to-school bit, he’s looking forward to seeing what it’s like, and while I’m hoping he enjoys that aspect of it, I’m also hoping he doesn’t come back requesting to go to school here.

We have no concerns about the family he’ll be part of in France. Although we’ve only spent one weekend with Henry’s sister and parents, we felt comfortable with them very quickly, and we aren’t at all worried that they’ll be inadequate parents to him or anything like that. Henry’s sister is lovely and it will be a new experience for Barney to have a sister. And of course we’ve had Henry here, living with us, for the last four months, and he will be with Barney to, I hope, offer him support.

I think it’s inevitable that there will be times when Barney is homesick and unhappy. I hope that, as with Henry, those times will be short-lived, and that he will be enjoying himself too much to spend much time feeling like that. I think he will struggle a bit with some aspects of school: speaking French all the time (obviously - though I think he’ll learn quickly); having far less control over what and when he studies than he’s used to; spending long days away from home; having much less time to himself than he’s used to; and taking notes in class. That last one might seem an odd thing, but his handwriting is slow and unclear. Or maybe it’s just something for me to focus my anxieties on.

On the other hand, I recognise what an incredible opportunity this is for him. He will return fluent in French, but he will also have experienced life in another country, another culture. These are things I believe everyone should experience. It is true that travel broadens the mind, and it is only when you have lived in a different culture for a time that you realise what that really means. So I am pleased that Barney will have this chance.

I hope that it will also make him a stronger and more confident person. I expect he will have to do some fast growing-up, and while that has shades of “in at the deep end”, I think he’s ready for it. I’m proud that he has decided to do this; I really don’t know if I’d have had the… well, the whatever-it-takes, to do something like this at twelve years old. And if you’d asked me a few months ago, I wouldn’t have predicted that Barney would go - take note, Merry

Over the years we’ve been home-educating, it has occasionally crossed my mind that by keeping our children so close to us, we might be preventing them from reaching out. Those thoughts have never lasted long - it’s clear to anyone who meets them that they are sociable and interested in other people and the world at large - but just once in a while, I’ve wondered. I suppose that Barney’s willingness to head off to France without us puts those thoughts firmly to bed.

As for the rest of us, we’ll miss him desperately. Don’t expect any sense out of me for some time after he leaves, because I’ll be on the floor in the fetal position.

Well it’s been interesting to hear other people’s views on this whole exchange thing - and in particular, thanks to Henry’s parents in France for their comments (there are two of them because they’d never commented before, so their first comment went into moderation and they thought it got lost). I don’t think I’m nearly as brave as many of the commenters seem to think I am though!

In the meantime, Barney has had a meltdown today - I mentioned in yesterday’s post that he’s been a bit emotional recently, and today when I asked him to help with something we had a whole “But I’m stressed!” thing, ending with him hanging on me and crying. He’s very nervous - of course. He also very much wants to go. I talked to him and told him that I expected it would be similar for him to how it’s been for Henry - some homesickness, some tears, but mostly far too busy learning and enjoying all the new experiences to be bothered with any of that. I reminded him that this whole exchange business is for him and Henry - not for the parents or the siblings or the organisation, but for the two of them - and thus we would always be doing what was in their best interests. So if he goes to France and he’s miserable and wants to come back here, I told him we’ll go and get him. “But what if I just feel sad and say it and don’t really mean it?” he said! I said we’d work something out, like if he says that we’ll phone again the next night to check if he’s changed his mind before we book flights

I told him I was impressed by how brave he was; he said he wasn’t brave, he was scared. I pointed out that courage isn’t needed to do something that doesn’t scare you - he had obviously never thought of it in that way. In his mind, courage = no fear. He’s now thinking about how it means fear-but-doing-it-anyway. I told him I expected that almost every child who’s ever done an exchange like this has been scared. At this point Henry appeared at the door of the room and I called him in. I told him how Barney was feeling and he said “Yeah, that’ s normal.” We talked about how he’d felt before he came, and I reminded them both that at the end of an exchange, most children say it wasn’t long enough. “And they want to do another exchange.” said Henry. I asked him if he would like to do another exchange and he said he would, then added “With this family if possible”. I guess we can’t be all that bad then

I asked Barney what he was most scared of, and he said “Coming back after six months to find you all dead.” Eh? I asked how that might happen, and he said, “Well there could be a fire in the house or something.” I pointed out that it hadn’t happened so far, and wasn’t any more likely because he was away… Isn’t it funny how your mind latches onto extremely unlikely things to worry about?

He seemed much calmer after our chat; I’m sure he’ll have more wobbles in the next few weeks but I think together we can handle them.

Later conversation with Henry disclosed that before he came here, he already thought he would stay, he just wanted to make sure. And that he likes having five brothers, even when some of them are pests And that he thinks he’d like to set up an aquarium in his home in France - Anita, you have been warned

It’s been a quiet day around here - that’s “quiet” as in “very little noise”, not as in “not much happening”. I’ve been busy planning and organising various things. One of those things was the birth of a new blogring, much like the Early Years ring, but without a focus on any particular age-group. I figured since half of my own lot were past the EY age-group now, it might be good to link a few blogs with similarly-aged children. So if you have your own blogs (and if not, why not?! ;-)) - click here and join I’ve stuck the box-thingy at the top of my sidebar for now, just to give it a bit of startup publicity - you should see it over there :arrow:

As well as that, I’ve been writing a long list of things we’d like to do and places we’d like to see before some of our children run off to France. There’s so much we’d like to do, and the time is just zooming past. I did think of working out, but thinking was as far as I got. The boys entertained themselves for most of the day - much GameBoying (with link cables) and reading and a bit of computering going on. At one point I went upstairs to see what everyone was doing and found four boys in Barney and Henry’s room - I was told it was “a Pokemon party”. Not being even faintly interested in Pokemon, I didn’t ask for details

…for all UK home-ed blogs - click “join” in the green box over there :arrow:

I got tagged by Allie to tell you weird stuff!

Six weird things about me: THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

Hm, where to start

1. When I work out at the gym, I set the exercise machines to run for 9 minutes or 18 minutes or 27 minutes - any multiple of 9 will do. The reason? The little display has 18 columns, and it bothers me when they correspond to odd units of time like eighteen-tenths of a minute.

2. My appendix was in the wrong place. When it had to be removed, it took them a while to find it.

3. I find Lord of the Rings boring. Star Wars too - I fell asleep during it twice (once at a drive-in movie theatre).

4. I don’t watch television. Consequently I often have no idea about things that become part of “mainstream culture”. But I don’t consider that becoming acquainted with “mainstream culture” would be worth the many hours of my life that it would take, so I’m not bovvered. Do I look bovvered? (Did I get that right?)

5. I’m not “trying for a girl”, and never have.

6. I often eat breakfast in bed. About 11 p.m.

People I’m tagging (quick as I can, because it seems like nearly everyone’s been tagged already):
Sharon
Hazel
Jax
June (now that she’s finally awake ;-))
Unshelled
Sally

There hasn’t been a lot of blogging going on around here recently. That’s mostly because most of what has been going on has been stuff I don’t really feel like talking about.

Henry and Barney have both had a stomach bug and thrown up - Henry on Sunday night/Monday and Barney yesterday evening/today. I got a call from someone at Cadets last night to ask if we could come and collect him a bit earlier because he wasn’t well - at 8.57. Cadets finishes at 9 p.m. Scratchy was sitting in the car outside the hall.

We’ve booked the flights for Barney and Henry to go to France in March. Scratchy will go with them and come back on his own (assuming Barney doesn’t get cold feet at the last minute). I’m only coping with that by not thinking about it.

And as for Snuffles, Scratchy won

I’m sick - as in, I can’t swallow, I ache all over, I’m hot then cold then hot then cold again, and I was delirious (not in a good way) all night. So since I’m no use to anyone in any other way, I changed my blog-theme. Comments aren’t threading and the recent posts widget refuses to show anything less than ten posts (so I’ve removed it until I figure it out), and I’ve decided that widgets are a pain in the neck, but other than that, I think it all works. Let me know if you find anything that’s broken.

A round-up of what we’ve been doing apart from blog-theme-playing - although I’ll just quickly say that widgets are gone therefore recent posts are now working, comments still aren’t threading and I need to figure that out, the random taglines randomly work (heh) and I will make the blue a bit darker shortly.

On Thursday, as I already wrote, we’d a home-ed outing which included a “trip” in a flight simulator. Toby wasn’t very keen on the idea once the doors had closed, so I ended up feeding him to settle him. One more location to add to “the odd places I’ve breastfed” - though I think deep underground in the Marble Arch Caves is probably still first on that list

On Friday afternoons, we usually go swimming, but I wasn’t feeling up to it, so instead I dropped Barney and Henry at the pool. George could have gone too - they have to be over 8 years old to swim without an adult - but didn’t want to. Later Henry went to basketball, and later still Barney went to fencing.

On Saturday morning, Barney, George and Freddy had swimming classes; it was assessment week, but we don’t know yet if anybody is changing classes. Not that it’s going to matter much anyway, since a) Barney will be going to France, and b) the leisure centre is closing for about two years. Yes, two years. There was a big consultation recently about the modernisation of the place, but at no point did anyone mention the possibility of the option the council chose in the end: shutting it while the work is done (and why should that take two years anyway?) It’s a shock to the staff too; nobody told them this was a possibility and most of them are going to lose their jobs. The neighbouring council operates a requirement of one adult for each child under 5 and one adult for every two children under 8 in their pools, which means that if I have Toby with me, I can’t have Jack and Freddy too. So we are going to have to trek off in the other direction, to a leisure-centre which is about half an hour away - which doesn’t sound a lot until you consider that if we were to participate in the same activities there, it would mean an extra hour of driving six times a week, assuming the rest of us wait there during each activity. That’s not even counting the times I go to work out - which I can just about squeeze in now, but an hour of travel-time each time will make it impossible. I might make it once a week if I was lucky. Bah.

Rant over.

For the rest of the weekend, the boys mostly hung out, because I was in no fit state to do anything with them. We were planning to meet up with friends yesterday, but there was no way I could drag myself out of bed, never mind out of the house. Now I’m just achy and unable to swallow, but at least the fever has gone. So I supervised from the sofa while the boys did some work today, then dropped George and Freddy at the leisure-centre for their sports club and came home and put myself back to bed.

If the periodic wailing coming from Jack is any indication, he is coming down with the same thing from which I’m recovering. (I hope. I mean, I hope I’m recovering, not that I hope he’s coming down with it.)

Jack is not a good patient - he makes a lot of fuss when he’s not well. As a result, he gets sympathy for the first couple of hours, then we’ve all had enough.

Oh, and the too-light-for-old-and-otherwise-eyes-blue links in the sidebar are now a slightly-darker-blue. Better?

And I’ve just discovered I’ve no search-box. I’ll have to rectify that too.

Freddy had ju-jitsu yesterday evening; he has twice as much reason to work hard at it now, because he wants to get the Chief Scout’s Bronze Award in Beavers. Beavers can do this in their last six months, and one of the things they must do is achieve a personal challenge - gaining or improving upon existing skills in some way. He’s decided that his personal challenge will be to get his Yellow Belt by June.

The boys did some work this morning, but after lunch I left them to entertain themselves and took Toby to bed with me; he was very clingy and whiny all morning, and I figured the best thing I could do for him was keep him warm and asleep for as much of the afternoon as possible. Jack’s not as bad as I feared last night; his throat’s a bit rattly but I hope he’s escaped the worst of it. I meant to give everyone extra vitamin C today, but I’ve only just remembered so it’s a bit late . Will try to remember for tomorrow morning.

I struggled through Beavers this evening, taking Jack with me (as I usually do), but also George, because he was in uber-meltdown-mode this afternoon, and seemed to need close supervision. There was an interesting conversation in the back of the car on the way there; Freddy and George were trying to explain to Jack the difference between replying “No” and “No thanks”. Jack often says “No thanks” - like when I say, “Can you clear the table?” or someone says “Can I have my game back?” etc I’m not sure how much difference their explanation will make though…

The Group Scout Leader was at the Scout Hall for a parents’ meeting, so I got a chance to talk to her beforehand about a few things I’d been meaning to bring up, which at least made it feel that it had been worth the effort of going. I wasn’t much use as far as actually running Beavers was concerned; my voice comes and goes and I’m still achy, so I pretty much handed over the resources for the evening’s programme and let the other leader get on with it. In fact - you want to know how lousy I feel? I got a cheque for £180 on Friday - cashback on a mobile phone contract - and I still haven’t made it as far as the bank with it. Still, the whole unable-to-swallow thing appears to have benefits; I’ve lost five pounds in the last week (eleven pounds since the beginning of January, and 25 since I started this reducing-me lark).

Barney and Henry went off to SJA Cadets as usual; they must have been tired when they got home because there was hardly a peep out of them between getting home and going to bed.

Just remembered something else about our trip last week - there was a fantastic Titanic exhibition. You know how sometimes you think you know a lot about a subject, and then you talk to someone or read something or go to a lecture or display on it and realise you only know the tip of the iceberg?* Well, it was like that. And we also realised that the date the Titanic set sail was the same as Henry’s birthday. Not the same year, obviously. But anyway, it was fabulous.

*I know, it’s a terrible pun. I’m really, really sorry. I just couldn’t resist. Forgive me; I’m ill…

Another day of me coughing and spluttering and trying to get through as much work with the boys as possible in the morning so I could abandon them and go to sleep in the afternoon.

Toby fell forwards onto the floor this morning and his lower teeth went into his upper lip. Barney, looking desperately worried, carried him to me, wailing and bleeding. I needed to clean up the blood to see where the cut was, so I used a piece of tissue - pretty much shoved it in his mouth and pulled it out again. He was still wailing. There was still blood. So I took a clean tissue, intending to do the same thing again - but he stopped wailing, clamped his mouth firmly shut and looked at me defiantly. And he would not open his mouth again I figured if he’d stopped crying it wasn’t going to be a hospital job and breastfed him until he was happy. The lip got quite swollen but went down after a couple of hours and now there’s only a slight swelling - not even enough that you’d notice it if you weren’t looking.

I went for a walk this evening, on my own. My leisure centre fitness suite membership has expired and there’s no point in renewing it when they’re about to close, so it looks like I’ll be on the streets. It’s much more boring when you’ve no dog to take though

George has been to Cubs and is now home and in bed, having worked his way across the bombsite that is his bedroom floor. Barney and Henry are at Scouts; they started to sew on their Centenary badges at about 4.30 this afternoon; I’ve no idea if they finished them or not. Jack has just woken up and complained loudly at having to put on pyjamas. I spend half the day telling him to get dressed, and usually it seems he finally does it five minutes before it’s time to start telling him to get pyjamas on.

It hasn’t been the easiest of weeks around here.

Barney is still stressing about going to France. He’s been snappy with everyone, and doing that “oh yeah I have to do everything and nobody else cares and I never get anything I want and everybody else always gets their way” thing - which is kind of a teen thing too, so maybe that’s part of it too. Either way, it’s not fun to live with.

Henry seems to have fallen asleep for a couple of weeks. By this I mean, he admits to having slept through much of school for a while, and to not having followed what he’s been taught in maths for two or three years. I’ve worked hard with him and he’s now much stronger on many basic concepts than he was. But in the last two weeks, there have been numerous occasions when he has simply shut down and not even tried when we’ve been working. After having had a concept explained three or four times, and having shown me that he understands it and can use it each of those times, he would come back and act as though he’d never heard of it. At one point this week I shouted at him and told him that I wasn’t willing to put in this much time and effort for anyone who wasn’t willing to make any effort themselves, and he wasn’t to bother me until he was ready to show up with his brain engaged. He went and sulked in the bathroom for a while, then came back and re-did all of the questions he’d got wrong (which was 11 out of 12 of them), and got every single one right. Today was a lot better, so I’m hoping he’s switched his brain back on permanently. I’m not proud of how I handled it though.

He was complaining of a slightly sore throat this morning and didn’t want to swim this afternoon, so we left him at home - he was a bit surprised that we’d leave him here alone, but heck, what did he think I thought he was going to do He skipped basketball this evening too. Barney went to fencing and George went off to a Cub Quiz, which meant plenty of taxi-ing went on. All home safe and sound now though

George has been really, really hard work this week. He’s been freaking out at just about everything. Any minor change has him going before I even finish the first sentence. Usually I can figure out what’s bothering him; this time I have a couple of ideas about what might be behind this, but I’m not sure.

Freddy has been Freddy, though every time I look at him I want to yell at him to stop licking his lips and the skin around them, as he’s got a great big oval red rash where he’s been sucking and biting on it.

Jack and Toby have been fine. Well, Toby managed to get through yesterday with only twenty minutes of sleep all day, so that was fun (not). And Jack has been Jack; he’s lovely but he’s very very four (if you have a four-year-old boy, you’ll know what I mean!) Today at the swimming pool one of the guards was laughing at him and said to me, “He’s always smiling” - and I thought, yeah, he is a very cheery little guy. He’s just so… determined. About everything. Nothing sways him. He’ll either rule the world or blow it up.

As for me, I’m finally almost back to normal health, though I’m still coughing a bit. Being sick hasn’t helped me manage any of the above, and I’m sure my not-coping hasn’t improved any of the things I’m not coping with. I don’t think I’ve ever meant it more when I said TGIF.

If that’s what you’re after… you’re not going to find it here. Plenty of stuff, but none of it very exciting.

Apart from swimming yesterday morning, the boys have spent the weekend hanging out, playing GameBoy, watching a movie or two and doing very little that makes for interesting reading. George and Freddy did start putting together a Crayola colour-it-and-build-it castle kit thingy, but most of it is still strewn across the floor.

I spent the weekend having a good clear-out. My bedroom had so much stuff in it that it was starting to feel like a cave - and it’s a big bedroom (about 20 x 10 feet) so there was a lot of stuff to sort through. That done, I did the same to the smallest bedroom in the house, which used to be Barney’s, then was used briefly by Freddy, but hasn’t been used at all for about three months. Try as I might, I just cannot fill the bedrooms in this house. You’d think six children would do it, wouldn’t you? But one of them sleeps with me, and two of them share one bedroom, and two of them share another, and the last one sometimes joins the latter two and sometimes joins me, and so ever since we moved here, there’s always been one unused bedroom. Well, you know what happens to unused bedrooms, don’t you? They get filled with stuff.

So… two bedrooms (one large, one small) emptied and sorted and polished and scrubbed, and two bathrooms cleaned to gleaming, and here I am, thinking “I need to find a window-cleaner to do the outsides” and “I really have to do something about the flooring in that bathroom” and “well there’s a weekend I’ll never get back” But I do feel lighter for having done it (mentally, I mean, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have done anything at all for me physically) so it wasn’t a total waste.

I did not, however, find the tub of Vicks Vaporub that went missing last week *looks pointedly in the direction of a certain four-year-old* And that’s scary stuff.