NotSheep

Nearly a week since my last post; I don’t think my poor blog has been so neglected since my internet connection was AWOL…

I’m rubbish at updates; I can never remember what we did. So, things I know about this week, in no particular order:

We had a playground-day with other home-educating families on Thursday. Scratchy had the day off (he had to take day before the end of the month) so it was far more relaxing than usual for me. There were a couple of families I’d never met before; it’s always good to meet a few new people. George and Freddy spent some time on the flying-fox ride, working out, along with some other children, what the optimum number of people on it at one time was - the goal being to make it go as fast and as far as possible. That’ll be physics covered for this week then

Yesterday we got out in the sun and planted some more veg. The only thing that we’ve planted so far that’s ready for harvesting is the rocket, which is doing very well. The baby carrots might be ready too; I don’t know because I can’t see them. The same applies to the broccoli. Should have thought about that when we were choosing what to plant

We phoned Barney last night; he sounds settled. It’s reassuring to hear him sounding so well. He’s looking forward to the summer holidays - he’s only got three more weeks of school left.

Toby’s been sick all week; running a fever and very, very clingy. He seems better now, but yesterday Jack started showing signs of it, and today George and I have been stricken. George is very stoic when he’s ill, which is a striking contrast to how he deals with far more minor troubles, many of which get the full-blown this-is-the-worst-life-ever treatment. He spent nearly all of today in bed, and so did I, though I did manage to get the dogs out for a walk for 40 minutes or so. I’ve been very tired all week, perhaps because I was coming down with this; I fell asleep in the car on the way home from Cub Camp last Sunday, which should probably have been a warning that I needed to take it easy for a few days - or maybe I got sick because I was tired, rather than the other way about. Either way, it’s been a difficult week. Maybe next week will be better and I’ll be able to write something cheerier.

*peeks cautiously out from under the blankets*

I am (I hope) emerging from the fug. Temperature right now is near-normal; this morning it was nearly 101 and yesterday I made 102. I’ve spent the last two days in bed - managing to miss both the last Beavers meeting of the year (yesterday) and the group barbecue, which is for all the Scouts, Cubs and Beavers, and which is happening as I write - I’m about able to sit up and type, but definitely not up to staying upright long enough to do anything drastic like getting dressed. Our neighbour J, whose son M goes to Beavers with Freddy, took Freddy, George, M and R from across the road (who goes to Cubs with George) and is picking them up too. I haven’t even been downstairs since Monday. I haven’t even seen my dogs

George’s bout with this lasted only a day (Saturday) and he’s been fine since - which is fortunate, because I’ve been relying heavily on him this week. He’s kept everyone fed and watered, kept an eye on Toby for me, and generally been fantastic. Freddy has helped, and Jack has been generally cooperative - well, moreso than usual. I think perhaps being the oldest brother has been good for George; it’s made him more confident, it seems. They’ve all been great though. I have really great kids

And speaking of that… if Barney stays exactly six months in France, we’ve only 100 more days to go. Not that I’m counting or anything. Oh no. Not counting. Truly. I told the computer to do it for me, so I don’t have to.

Today has been so much better than the last few days, it seems quite unreal. I still didn’t manage to get up until lunchtime, but I did manage to stay upright long enough to shower, vacuum the kitchen, feed the dogs, water the plants, sit outside and read to the kids… I even went out for a while late in the afternoon, leaving Scratchy in charge. One of the things I did to distract myself in the last few days was google for organic box schemes - you know, where they deliver a box of seasonal fruit and veg every week? - well, there aren’t any in this area, but clicking through several sites did lead me to the website of an organic farm and shop which is just a few miles away, so I took a trip up there this afternoon. I didn’t buy much - we didn’t need much - but the boys pronounced the strawberries fantastic. “Just picked this morning,” said the woman in the farm shop as she put my purchases in a bag. “And they’ll be polished off this evening,” I replied. I wasn’t wrong.

Got the dogs out for a walk too, after dinner. They’ve been pretty neglected this week.

Just as well I’m healthier; we’ve a trip to the zoo planned for tomorrow (booked with a group, so not easy to move), and also Scratchy’s coming down with what I had

I rolled out of bed at about 9.30 this morning, but I didn’t wake up until about noon. I still feel like I got a lot done today though (not a very familiar feeling for me).

I fed the dogs three times, though they were really only interested the last time. I also did some obedience training with each of them, and walked them separately; I’m assured by people who know about raising sibling-pups that this is a good idea, but I don’t usually get the chance. I also let both off-leash for parts of their walks, and had no problems there. They’re very good about staying in the garden or driveway even when the gate’s open too.

I cleaned out the aquarium, removing most of the plants because they were dead or covered in algae, and were not improving the look at all. I took out all the bogwood and stones and boiled and scrubbed them too, also because of the algae. The aquarium is now of a minimalist style, with just gravel and the replaced bogwood and rocks. There’s one plant left - the others had rooted well and I could probably have just cut them back very low and let them grow again, but I didn’t think of that until I’d pulled them out. I arranged some rocks and wood in one corner to create a bit of a cave, since the clown loaches like to have a hidey-hole - though they’ve been out playing since I finished.

I replanted some our veg and a few sunflowers. I moved all the pots out to the side of the house, because Cassie is now big enough to reach them even if they’re on tables. We pulled up two - count ‘em! - baby carrots, which were promptly eaten by Jack and George. Carrots appear to be a low-yield thing. I’m learning.

Dug out our infant car-seat from under the stairs when a neighbour came by to ask if we had one she could borrow; she was babysitting three children (who might be moving in across the street soon) and figured sending him out in the car with her husband was the best way to get him to sleep.

The boys spent most of the day playing with friends in various houses and gardens. George and Freddy also made lists for George’s birthday party; having glanced at the list for food, I think some revisions might be in order. I don’t have (or want) recipes for “snot sandwiches” or “booger jello”. Toby toddled about the garden for most of the day. He is such an outdoors boy, such a summer boy: he just loves getting outside, and adores the beach

Conversations today included, from Freddy: “Life is like a sausage.” Blank looks all around, until Freddy explained, “It’s short.” Deep, man.

George then said, “Life is like a pineapple” - but couldn’t think why.

Dinner was a bit fractious; everyone was tired after yesterday. As soon as they’d finished eating, I sent George and Freddy off to have a bath, and as soon as I was done downstairs, I went up and sent them to get dried and ready for bed, and put Jack and Toby in the bath. Jack has just woken up crying; when Scratchy went in and asked, “What’s the matter?”, Jack’s reply was “None of your business!”

Monday tomorrow.

I had an early start to the day, out walking the dogs at 6.45 a.m. I was doing quite well in getting things done, but then the internet fell over, so I wasn’t able to get to some of the things I’d planned, like on-line banking. The internet stayed fallen over, and after four hours or so, I phoned our ISP, who said there was no sync on the line, and raised it with BT. I resigned myself to the possibility of several days without broadband, but at about 5.30 I thought I’d reboot the router, just in case. Then I walked into the living-room and noticed that a phone was plugged in… without a filter. And the internet came back. Coincidence?

I have my suspicions as to who might be the culprit behind that one: probably the same child who stashed a single-serving strawberry cheesecake under his pillow last night. He even had a spoon

The boys continued on with the work they’d been doing yesterday, though we didn’t have the pleasure of working outside today. Freddy and George made macaroni and cheese for lunch, with very little input from me. At 3.30 I put them all in the car and drove them to meet Scratchy from work, and he took George, Freddy and Jack to see Spiderman 3. Cheap Tuesdays, see. They returned a short time ago, having enjoyed the movie, but all most definitely ready for bed.

Toby was unimpressed by being left in the car with me when the other three got into Scratchy’s car, and wailed loudly about it. I tried to console him, telling him we’d go home and play and have a snack, but he obviously didn’t want to be consoled, for he covered his ears with his hands He’s been doing that for a while when there are loud noises like the vacuum cleaner - he’s not in the least bit frightened by it, he just thinks it’s clever. He did it this morning when I was telling Jack off for something too. What a funny boy

I am so glad I don’t have to get my children out of the house every morning in time for school; we had to leave just before 9 this morning, and it didn’t matter what the boys were wearing, and we had no lunches to pack or anything like that, and it was still an experience I don’t want to repeat

The reason we had to be out early was that Toby had an appointment with the paediatrician for an assessment - kind of a replacement for the routine assessments that we never wanted… I had no concerns about him, but this paed has been reasonable and supportive, so I figured, what the heck. She did all the usual stuff - checking out his comprehension, asking about what he’s doing motor-skills-wise, etc. He passed with flying colours: he’s doing all of it and more. Some of it - like drinking from an ordinary cup - he’s been doing for so long that I was surprised to be asked. (He’s never used a sippy-cup - he just flat refused, so he’s been using a regular cup ever since he started drinking anything other than breastmilk.) The only way in which he’s not hitting and passing all the milestones is his speech, which is definitely delayed - but it’s just the actual verbalising bit, and it is progressing. His comprehension is excellent. The paed requested that he have a hearing test, just because it’s what’s routinely done when there’s a speech delay. I’ve no concerns about his hearing, but the hearing-test is a pain-free, risk-free procedure, so we might as well do it. The paed wants to assess him again in a year, and to have the health visitor (who, as far as I know, isn’t even officially on the case) check his weight every three months or so. He’s now maintaining his weight-curve - a very low one, but he’s still on it - and gaining in height, and there are absolutely no health concerns about him, so I think this is probably unwarranted, but I’ll go along with it until the next assessment anyway.

So that and a couple of errands took care of the morning. After lunch Freddy and George did some more maths and French - that’s what we’re concentrating on this week, apparently Jack did a couple of reading/writing worksheets; he is just begging for “work” these days. I set him up on Starfall for a while too. I know lots of people rave about Starfall, but, well, I’m just not enthused. The phonics stuff isn’t bad - or it wouldn’t be, if it wasn’t for the very very American accents. The word they say after the sounds isn’t made up of the sounds! cuh-ah-tuh… kehyat. puh-eh-nn… piyun. Bah.

Scratchy back, dogs out for a walk, dinner, the usual evening stuff… and that’s one more day counted down to Barney’s return. Nearly half-way. Argh…half-way - is that all?

Jack is doing worksheets on individual letters. He’s now got the “Ff” worksheet, and we’ve just looked at the pictures. I said, “F is for…” and Jack said “fish!” Ditto “fox” and “five”. The next picture shows a hand with the thumb folded in; Jack was looking at it, obviously trying to work out the relationship between this picture and the letter f, so I wiggled my fingers. His face lit up and he said, “Phalanges!”

I laughed and told him that they were phalanges, and that “f is for fingers”. His reply: “Fingers are phalanges!”

I wonder what Key Stage all that comes under

A few months ago, during a conversation with a friend, I realised I’d never written anything on this blog about why we started home-educating. I’ve been meaning to write a post on the topic ever since, and coming across this post on my rss feeds reminded me.

We never planned to home-educate, but when George was very small, I realised that he would have to start school when he was just two months past his fourth birthday - and I mean proper school, sit down at your desk and be quiet and have you done your homework school. His nursery year would start two months after his third birthday. And I knew in my heart that it was not right for him. I had no concerns about his academic ability, but he’d always been an intense child, a spirited child - and I was sure that if he was forced into a formal school environment at that age, one of two things would happen: either he would be squashed, lose his spirit, lose who he was - or he would fight it, not fit in, be labelled a troublemaker and who knows what else. I didn’t want either of those things to happen.

He can’t have been much more than a year old when I started to try to find a way to delay his school starting-date by one year - that’s all I wanted; I felt that year would make a big difference to him. I spoke to people in various government departments, some of them more helpful than others. I discovered that there was absolutely no flexibility in school starting dates here. And I realised that the only way to legally avoid sending him to school at four years and two months was to home-educate him.

Barney had been through two years of pre-school and while he was in his first year of school - two years before George would have been due to start - I spoke to the school’s head teacher. She felt strongly that children were starting school too young, particularly boys, and was all in favour of our plan to delay George’s entry into school. We realised that there was a possibility that George would not be able to go into the first year of school when he was five, that he might have to go directly into the second year; it was all going to depend on the wording of the admissions documents that year. The head teacher was willing to work with us and give him a place in first year if it was at all possible - but the school was heavily over-subscribed and we knew we were taking a chance. We also knew that even if he started in first year, he might have to skip a year at some point, in order to be moving to secondary school along with all the others born in the same academic year - something the Education Department would insist on. We didn’t like that idea, but decided that we couldn’t make decisions based on worry about it. We didn’t know how things would work out - but we knew that sending him to school soon after he turned four was a recipe for disaster. We decided we had to do what was right for him at that time, and worry about the future when the future arrived.

George would have been due to start school in September 2001. In the early part of 2001, Barney was in his second year of primary school. He was doing well and seemed to be happy - although looking back now, I can see the early signs of boredom and discontent. And we always seemed to struggle to get him ready and out the door in the mornings - most days I almost had to pry the books from his fingers to get him into his school uniform. One day, sometime around April, Barney said he wanted to be home-educated too. I was surprised; we’d never even mentioned the possibility of that. But we said we’d give it a try over the summer holidays and see how things went.

One Monday in early June, we were having the usual morning: “Barney, please go get dressed… Barney, we need to leave in ten minutes, get your school uniform on… Barney, put down the book and get ready!… Barney, we need to go in two minutes, go get dressed!” And Barney said, “I want to be home-educated!” I replied, “I know, and we said we’d try it out over the summer - now please get ready for school!” And he said, “I want to be home-educated now.”

I argued that it was silly to refuse to go to school right then - there were only three weeks left until the end of term. And then I realised: there were only three weeks left until the end of term. What was he going to miss? Even if home-education was awful and didn’t suit us, what would he have lost? What would they do in those three weeks that he couldn’t catch up on? Was it worth arguing with my child about this? Was it worth making him feel that his feelings weren’t important to us? Of course the answer was no.

And that was the day we started home-educating Barney. Because I didn’t know what he’d done in school since September, we went back to the start of the curriculum for school year. In the next eight weeks, we covered the entire year - and the next year. By mid-summer, it was clear that we were going to be home-educating for a while. George could hardly wait to get started too. Freddy was two years old; he would sit at the table with crayons and “work” too

At the time, I felt that it was terrible that the system was so inflexible that children had to start school even when their parents were firmly convinced they weren’t ready. I still think that - but I’m also glad of it, because otherwise we might never have moved in the direction of home-education. Six years on, I’m convinced we made the right decisions. I have absolutely no doubt that, had we sent George to school six years ago, it would have destroyed him. Perhaps that sounds melodramatic, but it’s not intended to be; it’s just the truth. I also believe that if Barney had stayed in school we would, within the next year or so, have witnessed him change too, would have seen more problems related to boredom.

I’m sometimes asked if we’ll always home-educate or if our children will go to school in the future. I say I don’t know, which is the truth. I never expected to be home-educating now. All I know is that we have all gained a huge amount from home-educating for the last six years, and that it continues to be best for us right now.

First thing this morning, I handed the kids a list of things they each needed to pack, then left Freddy to pack his own and help Jack with his while George and I walked the dogs. Once back, George got on with his packing while I showered etc. I also asked a neighbour if he’d come in and let the cat in and out - we had planned to leave her indoors at first, but somebody (ahem) left the kitchen door open while I was taking things from the hall to the car, and she shot off down the street. Somebody (ahem) also took over from Freddy and “helped” Jack pack his bag; as a result Jack didn’t have half the stuff he needed - but of course that wasn’t discovered until much, much later…

However… despite forecasts of wind and rain, the weather when we arrived at the caravan was beautiful. We barbecued for lunch (just in case the forecast turned accurate later) and went down to the beach afterwards. The beach was almost empty - just us and a man and two boys playing cricket. It’s a great beach: long and wide, very clean, sandy with no stony bits etc - and just a five-minute walk away from the caravan park. The site within the park is great too; it’s right in a little loop in a corner, so hardly any traffic at all, and there’s a playground and basketball court just metres away. And right now, during the week and term-time, the place is so wonderfully quiet - in our little alcove of 20 or so caravans, there are perhaps two others currently inhabited. Kinda nice

Just another relaxed day

Freddy continues to be a fan of washing dishes; I wonder how long that will last I asked the kids if they wanted scrambled eggs or French toast for lunch - they agreed on French toast, then someone asked “What’s French for French toast?” Jack knew half the answer: “The first bit is easy! It’s français!” I said “Oh, is it?” I said - to which he replied, “Oui!”

I ran out of nappies for Toby, so he spent most of the day wearing a towel, folded and nippa-d. Scratchy brought more with him tonight, but all those we’d brought with us on Monday had been used by yesterday (as we’d only planned to stay until Wednesday) and I’m too cheap to pay £2 for a token for the washing-machines - so I washed some out, but of course that meant they were much wetter than they’d be if they were spun-dry, so they took ages to dry.

Quite a few more people arrived on site this evening; I think I heard more voices in five minutes this evening than I’d heard in the previous two days. Although we enjoyed the solitude and quiet, it’s also nice to have more people around; the boys are certainly enjoying having other kids to play with, and Jack has made a friend whose surname is the same as one of our neighbours, so he’s convinced they’re cousins. He says he asked him about the address and he said his cousin lived there, but since he’s only three years old, his information might not be entirely reliable

Scratchy brought the boys’ bicycles up this evening too - we’d planned to bring them on Monday but forgot - and they’ve had a great time flying about the site on those

A while after the boys went to bed, George came out to tell us that Freddy had thrown up - which he had, and how! We had to take everything from the top bunk, including the mattress. He was a bit shaky for a while, but he seems to have recovered.

And that would have been a good thing this morning, because Toby fell down the stairs in our house

I don’t know how far he fell, because I didn’t see it happen. He’s been going up and down stairs on his own for a while now, but I still try to be sort of aware of his whereabouts… I obviously wasn’t on the ball this morning though. I heard the clunk-clunk-clunk as he toppled, and found him lying on the floor at the bottom - which is ceramic tiles. He cried for a bit, then nursed for a bit, but seems okay. I expect he’ll have a couple of impressive bumps on his head though.

George has also been injured today, having fallen off his bicycle at the bottom of the street. He and Freddy walked the pups, then came back and swopped the dogs for their bicycles. A few minutes later, Freddy came rushing back to tell me that George was lying on the ground and couldn’t walk. Well, given George’s dramatic tendencies, I didn’t panic too much over the “couldn’t walk” bit, and sure enough when I went down to rescue him, he was perfectly able to stand up and walk home. He’s bashed his knee - no cuts, but he’ll have a fine set of bruises.

Otherwise… laundry, laundry, laundry…

We telephoned Barney when we got home last night; he sounds cheerful and well. School finished there on Friday, so he now has the whole summer off, then he’ll have a week or two back in school before he returns to us. I asked if he was glad school had finished for the summer; he said he liked school better than being at home. But when I asked if that meant he’d want to go to school when he gets back here, he was quite firm in his opinion that home-education was better still

I was so tempted to re-pack our bags and go back for another few days away… but my friend J has been to collect the keys to the caravan now, so I suppose I’ll just have to cope with real life for a while

I don’t think anyone is going to make it to ju-jitsu tonight; we’re all still tired and I think an early night would benefit all of us.

One year ago today, we received an information pack from the exchange organisation. I wrote:

Speaking of French, we got an information pack from En Famille, who arrange exchanges between French families and families in other countries. It looks interesting, but I have some serious reservations about sending Barney to live with a family in France for six months, never mind George, who is, according to the organisation, at the best age for an exchange. I wish they’d do shorter exchanges, or slightly less stringent ones (the children aren’t allowed to take mobile phones nor any books in their own language, for example). I really doubt we’d send any of them on such an exchange, though we might look into having a French child here.

Wow.

I miss Barney.

A couple of years ago, I started a maths degree with the Open University. I had done several short courses, as well as a longer Social Sciences course prior to that, but decided to go for the maths. Since a residential school wasn’t an option, and since new government regulations (pah!) meant an end to the possible exemptions (for mothers of young children, for example) to the residential requirements, attempting a maths degree meant me taking 90 points a year (120 is full-time).

I enjoyed the studying - mostly - but it turned out that taking 90 points, having a baby, finding and buying a house and moving and… what else? oh, yeah, looking after all my other children… was just a bit too much to take on at one time. And so despite fairly good marks, I decided to pull out of all my courses. The OU tried to convince me to keep up one or two of the three courses I was carrying, but I just needed to wipe it from my to-do list, if you see what I mean.

Well, here we are. The baby is nearly two years old, we are fairly settled in our new home, and life is relatively calm. And I think I’d like to get back to studying.

For the reasons mentioned above, a maths degree isn’t a possibility. Although Toby will be two in August, I expect to be continuing to breastfeed him for some time yet, and so leaving him for a five-day residential course is not on the cards. I suppose I could take the courses requiring residentials later, if I had absolutely ruled out having another baby… but I think most people who read this know that hasn’t happened

So - finally getting to my point - what should I do? I could take the maths courses and go for what would be a maths degree in all but name. Or I could go back to Social Sciences and continue down that route - which would lead into law courses, which I think I would find very interesting and might even be good at, though it would not lead to a legal qualification, since I’m not in England or Wales. Or I could go for the humanities route; there are lots of appealing course there, including linguistics, modern and/or classical languages, etc…

It would be so much easier to be uni-faceted

Opinions welcome - no, more than welcome, actively sought!

We had a really difficult telephone call with Barney today

He looks happy in the photos, and he says things are fine 75% of the time, but there are still issues, some of which I suspect are due to how different he is from Henry. Barney is not a very demonstrative person, and tends to be more of an observer, and I think perhaps that makes Henry’s parents feel he isn’t trying to join in as much as he could. It sounds as though there are also some problems with the relationship between the two boys, and that’s making things hard too, especially now they have finished school for the summer. It sounds like the low times are very low, and he cried quite a lot on the phone. He doesn’t feel able to tell his French parents how he feels, so he’s holding it all in. The person who runs the exchange organisation says that if he had met Barney prior to the exchange, he would have matched him with someone different - I think this was the first time he arranged an exchange without meeting everyone involved, and he feels that was the wrong thing to do. It’s not that the exchange is a disaster, just that Barney might have been happier with a boy more like himself. We sent an application for George a few weeks ago - just for a one-way exchange, with a French child coming here - and I know we said that about Barney, but there was no possibility of George going anywhere for six months - but he has not been matched with anyone this year, I think partly because of the organiser’s feelings that it would have been better to meet Barney beforehand. Unfortunately the organisers didn’t come here this year, and between Cub Camps and various other commitments, we weren’t able to fit a trip to England on the weekend when they were there. George is disappointed, but perhaps next year or the year after something will work for him.

Now I really am counting down the days until Barney’s return - about 76 of them left, which is about 75 more than I’d like

Apart from the phone-call…today was busy. In the morning I went to collect a pup who was part of the same litter as our two - not for us, but for friends who have been looking for a dog. This one needed to be re-homed, and when I telephoned them about her, it took about three seconds for them to say “Yes!” They are the friends who have the caravan we stayed in last week, and they are up there for the weekend, so we said we’d collect and deliver So before lunch we went back with C and A to visit their mum - whose owner was awestruck at the size of C - and after lunch we loaded up the car - two adults, four children, three four-month-old puppies - and headed north. My friend J and her eight-year-old son M were there - M didn’t know about the pup until we arrived, and it took about five minutes of us all saying “She’s yours, you get to keep her!” before it finally sank in, and then there was a lot of grinning His eleven-year-old brother knew, because he’d been listening in the telephone conversation this morning, but K (husband/dad) hadn’t been told…he was working on a residential programme about half an hour away. We had a walk on the beach, during which both Freddy and Jack walked into the ocean fully-clothed (don’t ask, I don’t know), but we juggled what clothing remained available and borrowed a bit more from our friends. After dinner we all headed over to K’s residential, to introduce his new family member - he was delighted, as we’d known he would be, since a) they’d been looking for a pup and b) he’s rather keen on ours It was very amusing to watch him walking towards us; we could see him mentally counting dogs as he approached

They’re staying in the caravan until Tuesday evening and have offered us the use of it from then until Friday. I’m very tempted…