NotSheep

That’s an A* up there. I’m feeling quite proud of my 13-year-old

This is a three-year-old:

A rather cute one, in my opinion.

Toby’s birthday was on Thursday, but we celebrated today instead - although I did buy them all drive-through corporate burger-type food for lunch on Thursday, as a) I was out doing errands and b) the cupboards were bare - so he got two lots of Happy Birthdays sung to him. Today’s singing was just the standard version, but on Thursday his brothers regaled him with that as well as the zoo version and the dalek version. No, I don’t know that one either.

Barney has been alternating between Kevin-style teenager, when he gets all upset and tearful any time he’s told off, and marvellous big kid, when he makes me breakfast in bed, or when he looks after Louie so I could eat it. While I was eating, Toby came running into the room, stopped in his tracks, demanded, “Where’s Louie?!” and, when I told him Louie was with Barney, ran off to find them. Oh I know where I stand

After having had hardly anyone come to visit in the last month, we had not one but two lots of visitors yesterday. The first was a woman from another home-ed group - neighbouring, but not local - we’ve been emailing one another for a while, and she came with her teenage daughter. We’d never actually met before, so it was good to put faces and voices to the emails. We found we’d a lot in common, and I enjoyed meeting her. Later, my friend J and her three children arrived - her older daughter has just turned 14 and Louie lay peacefully in her arms for about ten minutes, so she can come back anytime

On Friday night Toby threw up - into the bathroom sink, which I thought was very considerate for a just-turned-three-year-old. Freddy told us that Jack had also thrown up, but Jack denied it, although he didn’t seem to be feeling great. They both went to bed and slept well, however, and woke up full of energy and apparently fully-recovered.

Sometimes the scenes in this house are quite…um…well, I don’t really know what to call this:


















He’s a lizard, by the way, in case that wasn’t obvious. But it’s Jack, who will tell you the obvious anyway, because how on earth would you know anything at all if he didn’t tell you?

Toby made it clear that Jack was not welcome in his photograph!




















George was grumpy, and was trying to make this a terrible photo - but I don’t think he’s capable of it.

The bigger kids all got involved with cooking today, with Barney and Jack making stinky pizza for lunch, and then George and Freddy preparing dinner together: honey-mustard chicken fingers and hash-brown potatoes, all made from scratch. It was all delicious. Here is the child who normally insists he hates chicken, but who kept eating until it was all gone












And here is the child who said he didn’t like it because it was spicy (presumably he meant the mustard, as there were no spices involved), but decided, when he remembered how much fun he’d had making it, that he was going to eat it anyway, so he could make it again
















And here is the only one who didn’t give it at least nine out of ten
























This is the birthday cake, being presented after dinner:

A split second after that photo was taken, Toby blew the candles out - long before the cake was placed on the table and well before the rendition of Happy Birthday To You was over. And as soon as the cake was on the table, he dived in to remove the candles and attack the cake itself. Hm, anyone would think he had older brothers with healthy appetites…

I’ve written before about how a lack of structure affects us here, and the past week has been a very good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) example. Apart from Barney’s French revision, there hasn’t been much structured study going on for the past few weeks, and since his last exam, he and I have been relaxing too. And I know that this laid-back, no-routines way of living has been largely responsible for the absolutely horrible behaviour and relationships around here recently, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope. Mid-week, it all came to a head, and I proclaimed that I couldn’t take any more. A few days later, and I think the boys are starting to see that constant bickering and bad attitudes on their part have an effect on me - and that the effect on me has an effect on them. And so I’ve had commitments from each of them, together and separately, about how things are going to be from now on. We’ll see.

With no mum willing to make an effort to organise more, George’s 11th birthday yesterday was a quiet affair: family, card, cake, candles (and now that I think about it, I’m not even sure we all signed a card - maybe someone signed it on my behalf).

Hard as it is to believe that George is 11, the real shocker is Barney, who has developed not only the beginnings of teenage spottiness (which was expected, because he’s not exactly meticulous about personal hygiene), but also a shadow of a moustache on his upper lip. You have to look hard to spot it, but it’s there. And this child teenager, who for years has been saying that he doesn’t want to grow up because it’s more fun being a child, is thrilled about it. Me, I’m just trying to come to terms with having a child who is taller than his grandmother and old enough to have facial hair.

Nesting continues apace, and I now have three very clean bathrooms, a very tidy living-room and a reasonably clean kitchen. The conservatory and dining-room still need to be attacked (the dining-room is at that stage where the main reason not to begin is being unable to decide where). But the big change this weekend is that it is now actually possible to move around my bedroom. It’s a large room, but there was so much clutter that it was actually becoming difficult to navigate. However…piles have been tidied, surfaces cleared and cleaned, and there might even be room to put away some baby-clothes - once I’ve laundered them, that is. The diapers have been washed and some of them hung to dry, and I gave away a load of them on freecycle (had about 30 replies to the offer!) Having declined a visit from the midwifery manager (why does she routinely visit homebirthers? does she think we’re doing something dangerous? are we some kind of threat?), I’ve had a letter from her instead, telling me why I’m high-risk (over 40, fat, five previous babies - all the usual unsubstantiated-by-research scare stories) and all the awful things that might happen because of it. She can’t possibly not know that I’m well-informed - the local midwives are bound to have told her - so it would seem this is either shroud-waving (even though the local midwives are also bound to have told her that won’t work) or an ass-covering exercise. Either way, it doesn’t seem particularly respectful of my right to make my own decisions, and it doesn’t very much surprise me that the homebirth rate in this area has fallen in the last three years.

Line of the day, from me to Toby: “No, bandaids don’t work on Hot Dogs.” Explanation: Toby’s favourite animal is the giraffe, and he has several toy giraffes, all of which are called Hot Dog (at his insistence - I have no idea why), including a soft stuffed one which doesn’t have much of a neck (for a giraffe, I mean), but is nonetheless nearly as big as him. And this morning, it mysteriously developed a hole under one arm…er, I mean, front leg. Toby demanded a bandaid for it, so I had to explain that this was a more serious injury, requiring stitches. Lucky he doesn’t know about medical superglue and steri-strips, really.

Wednesday morning: Barney did another French practice paper while I got organised to leave, and it quickly became clear that he had not been asleep early enough on Tuesday night. It was decided (by me, unilaterally) that he would be having an early night.

Late Wednesday morning: We attempted to leave town. First I discovered that the booster-seats were all in the other car (at Scratchy’s office), which meant adding another stop to our plans. Then when Barney was last out of the house, I asked him to lock the door - only to find, five minutes after we left, that he had left the front door wide open with the keys hanging in it. That meant heading home again, of course, and on the way we must have managed to get behind every kind of slows-you-down vehicle there is. A tractor, a street-sweeper, a learner driver, a double-decker bus (I have never seen a double-decker bus around here before!) - you name it, I was stuck behind it. We got home and I checked through the house and locked the door myself.

Bank, library…finally we managed to get out of town. I had one more stop to make before we really got moving, but when we did, we made good time. Barney and I talked as we drove, and he said he felt that he’d gained more from the process of preparing for the French GCSE than from the actual exams - which is how I feel too. He’s learned a lot about working out what examiners are looking for and making sure you give it to them, about making sure you answer what’s asked and planning out what you’re going to write, about preparation and revision, etc. He’s never done exams before - he left school before the first set of SATS would even have been done - so this has been a valuable experience for him.

There was great excitement from the boys as they realised that the peculiar-looking item on the back of the large pick-up truck we were overtaking was actually a climbing wall lying on its side. When we arrived at our friends’ home, Barney did one more practice paper before his friends arrived home from school and they all started bouncing about the house together.

In the evening our friends all had plans: a Scout/Cub sports evening, to which they’d invited Barney (but he needed an early night), George (but he didn’t think he was in the mood to cope without a meltdown) and Freddy (but he didn’t want to go if George wasn’t going). So we stayed at their house, I had a bath in their very deep bathtub (which, despite being very deep, still isn’t quite enough to cover my bump), and we all went to bed early. Seriously early. I think they arrived home shortly after 9, but we were all asleep before it.

Thursday morning: Friend A had offered to drive Barney to the school to sit his exam, to save me having to do so, and although I’d initially declined the offer, I changed my mind on Wednesday evening when I was feeling horrible and exhausted and contraction-y. So they left shortly after 8, and I stayed where I was and tried not to think too much about the exams. A couple of hours later, I got all the other boys packed up and into the car and went off to collect Barney. I took thank-you notes from Barney for the exams officer and the French teacher, who’ve both been so helpful about arranging this exam, along with a bottle of wine for each of them. The exams officer was surprised and pleased, and told me he’d had a look into the room when the exams were starting and Barney had seemed to be getting on with it all just fine. When asked if the school would be willing to facilitate other GCSEs in future for Barney, said they would - basically anything they do through the school that doesn’t involve coursework is probably okay, and maths (which is the most likely next subject Barney would sit) is definitely fine, because the exams officer also happens to be the maths teacher… While we were talking in reception, Barney came out with a smile on his face; he feels that yesterday’s papers went well. His friend J, who attends the school, came out with him, and begged for him to be allowed to stay over for a few more days, then, when I said no, begged to be allowed to come home with us

The French teacher was out of the school on an errand, but we left his wine and thank-you note in the office, and a while later I sent him a text-message thanking him for his help, and received a lovely text-message back saying “For goodness sake guys that is so very kind. It was a pleasure to have been able to help. Wishing you all bonnes vacances!”

We drove home without incident, and arrived back to the smell of fresh paint - the woodwork in the kitchen no longer lets the freshly-painted walls down

My friend K, with whom we stayed on Wednesday night, has had catheter ablation surgery (where they stick a needle up through your veins into your heart) twice this year - once in January, when they managed to perforate her pericardium, and again in February, when the surgery went more smoothly. As a result, she has a blood pressure monitor, which she kindly tossed my direction, to see if we could get a lower result than the midwives. The first few attempts, on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, produced high readings, and the highest one of all came on Thursday morning just as Barney would have been starting his exam papers (160/119 - scary at the best of times, but for someone whose usual BP is nearer 90/70, even moreso!) A few minutes after arriving home yesterday afternoon, I checked it again, and got a reading of 129/85. That’s a substantial drop by any standards! I checked (somewhat obsessively, I have to admit) throughout the afternoon and evening, and all the readings were between 120-something and 130-something systolic and between 70-something and 80-something diastolic. This is good news, as it indicates that the raised readings were more likely due to stress than any nasty physiological pregnancy-related process. Midwife has been on the phone this morning, asking when it would suit for her manager to visit me (answer: never, because there’s no justification for doing routine visits to women planning homebirths when you don’t do them for women planning hospital births!), and arranging to come out tomorrow morning - I’ll have a few more readings done before then

Right, time to get George and Freddy to start gathering items for Cub Camp, which starts this evening. We’ve made a good start to the packing - they’ve got a bag each. I wonder how much we’ll find of the things that are meant to go inside them…

We bought a car.

Well, we’ve almost bought it. I’ve initiated the money transfer for it, and we should be picking it up on Saturday - in the evening, because we’re having a birthday party for Freddy in the afternoon. His birthday’s today, but he has friends who *shock* go to school, so the party’s on Saturday.

But first, the usual what-we’ve-been-doing catch-up.

As mentioned, Barney had the first bit of his French GCSE on Wednesday of last week. We drove home on Wednesday evening, Barney having decided that it was worth missing Scouts to get to spend some time with his friends. On Thursday there wasn’t a lot of activity around here - I was much, much too tired. Barney went to the youth-club in the evening, but it closed early because there were too few people there. Scratchy had taken the car to go deliver our no-longer-needed bunk-beds to another freecycling home-ed family, so he couldn’t collect Barney. I arranged for a taxi to bring him home and be paid by cheque on arrival.

On Friday morning we cleared floors so that the charity-shop people could come in and collect a sofa-bed - the pick-up was arranged a week earlier. The sofa-bed needs recovered, or at least a throw over it, and I’d told them all its faults on the phone and been assured it would be fine. So I was mighty annoyed when they looked at it and said they wouldn’t take it. Had they told me that on the phone, I wouldn’t have been bothered. Grrr.

Saturday morning was spent clearing out Jack’s room, which is also now Toby’s room - his toys and clothes are in there, and he’s mostly been sleeping in there too. We got it to a reasonable state before I collapsed in a heap. I decided to have a bath, but as I started to run the water, I realised there was no plug - it was attached to the bath with a chain the last time I’d looked! I called all the boys and told them nobody was going anywhere or doing anything until it was returned; Jack promptly ‘fessed up and said it was under his pillow. It’s perhaps a sign of age, or perhaps a sign of the number of children I have, that I didn’t even ask why, but just gratefully accepted its return.

On Sunday morning Scratchy looked at my middle and asked if I was about to fall over. I considered hitting him, but decided that a) he had a point, and b) if I tried to swipe him, I might, er, fall over…

We spent most of Sunday outside, including some time with a power-washer cleaning all the bits and pieces for the garden. Just how do they get so dirty over the winter? It doesn’t even seem to matter if they were left out or put away. Sunday evening was very hot and sticky, and I lay in bed wishing we’d a ceiling-fan. I’m a big fan (sorry) of them; they make a tremendous difference and are much cheaper and greener than air-conditioning. I looked at some on-line and talked Scratchy into it; his only real objection was that he’d have to install it, so he hadn’t much of a chance of winning.

On Monday, Freddy was supposed to go to ju-jitsu and Barney was supposed to go to Air Cadets, but there were so much grumpiness around dinner-time that I sent everyone to bed instead. Scratchy spent hours trying to install the ceiling-fan he’d picked up at lunchtime, but couldn’t get it working. On Tuesday morning he phoned the manufacturer’s help-line and explained the problem, only to be told he seemed to have “got a dud”, and should get it exchanged where he’d bought it. Also on Monday, I phoned about a car that was advertised…and then on Tuesday, drove out to my friend K’s house, where I’d arranged to stay over so that I would not be driving 280ish miles in one day. K’s children were at school when we arrived, and didn’t know we were coming - and when she picked them up, she didn’t mention we were there. They figured it out when they saw our car in the driveway, then ran through the house to find us in the garden. C, her oldest, punched the air and yelled “Yes!”, and J, the next-oldest, ran around in circles shouting something that sounded like “Wagga wagga wagga!” Barney leaned towards me and said into my ear, “Do you think they saw us?”

The car turned out to be worth the drive; we’ve decided to go for it. The guy selling it brought it to K’s house for me to see - which was a round-trip of between 80 and 90 miles for him - I know I’d driven further, but still, it was nice of him. The car is as the ad says, except the mileage is slightly lower than advertised (first time for everything!) and it has lots of extras that weren’t mentioned. It’s in very good condition. After I’d driven it, K took it out for a test on the country roads (very country - the kind where you breathe in going around the corners because you’re not actually sure they’re wide enough), and it took about 15 minutes for her to get out of the driving seat when she came back. I said that Scratchy was no help in making a decision, because he just said “It’s up to you”, but that I knew K would give me her opinion. K, still in the driving seat, said, “Buy it!”

I told the seller I’d sleep on it - I was already fairly sure, but I’d rather feel completely satisfied when spending thousands of pounds! Next morning, I phoned the insurance brokers. Since we’re going to be a two-car family again, one of the vehicles has to be insured in Scratchy’s name - and we’d a claim in his name last year (the exploding Peugeot). At that time, we asked if it was worth claiming or if the impact on our premiums would be too much, and were told “oh no, it won’t make much difference”. Yesterday, the story was different: “Oh, that makes it very difficult…” - and a quote twice the amount it would have otherwise been. I’m glad of those on-line comparison websites, because after going through one of those, we got a quote of about £10 more than we’d have been paying if it was insured in my name.

Phoned the seller, agreed to buy the car. I met him later on and got all the details I needed for payment and getting insurance sorted out, then drove home. In the evening I lay on my bed and sent text-messages to people to invite their kids to Freddy’s birthday party. I used to be so much more organised: we had proper invitations, delivered by hand/post/email, at least two or three weeks in advance. Now you get a text-message three days beforehand

The advantage of doing all this when you’re already completely exhausted is that you end up so knackered that you actually sleep for the first time in months. Four hours in a row, that’s what I got last night. It might not sound much to some of you, but it was obviously a shock to my system, because I actually had a bit of energy today. I used it to run errands. I tried to take the boys to Burger King for lunch (Freddy likes Burger King, and it’s his birthday, after all) - but when we got to the counter to order, we were told they had no burgers. I asked what was the point in being open. “We’ve got chicken,” they said. Huh. I thought they were Burger King. It really must take some feat of incompetent management to actually run out of burgers when your job involves running a burger joint. We ended up at Pizza Hut instead; Freddy made do

We came home after the errands and sat in the garden in the sun. Whilst sitting out there, I was very pleased to see Molly, a cat who used to live with us (you can’t ever really say “my cat”). She moved out in late 2006 or early 2007, and we’ve caught occasional glimpses of her since. Today she came walking across the top of the fence beside me and even let me stand up and pet her briefly before moving on. She looks healthy and well, so clearly she’s getting whatever she needs from somewhere, which is good to know

Scratchy came home and installed the replacement ceiling-fan, and it all works, which I think supports the manufacturer’s conclusion about the first one. I asked Barney if he’d like to mow the back lawn and he groaned; Freddy promptly volunteered, but once he’d started, it was quickly apparent that it was going to take him the rest of the summer, so I ended up taking over. If, after that, this baby doesn’t arrive tonight, I think I might have to resign myself to waiting to mid-July *sigh*

After Wickedly-busy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were…slow. I can’t handle a day like that without taking a day or two to recover, so there was little more than the necessities done on those days - and even the necessities were largely done by people other than me. Cassie, on the other hand, made a remarkably quick recovery - after being fairly sleepy on Wednesday evening, she was up and raring to go on Thursday. Her crate is in the hall, and when its side door is open at 90 degrees, it blocks the hall - but on Thursday morning when she was on one side of that and I was on the other and she wanted to get to me, she didn’t let it stop her - she leapt right over it. One day maybe she’ll realise it’s on hinges and she can just nudge it with her nose or her paw

She did keep getting painkillers until Friday evening, and was supposed to get antibiotics until this morning, but I forgot to give her yesterday morning’s dose, and by the time I remembered it seemed a bit pointless. Her wound looks great, and she’s leaving her stitches alone, so I decided it was almost certainly fine not to finish the course.

I spent most of the day in the dining-room, tidying it (it was 7/10 on the tip-scale) while the boys dealt with the living-room (which was 9/10 on the tip-scale). Once it was tidy and all the bits of paper were in various piles (”deal with sometime”, “deal with this week”, “deal with soon” and “sort this out now” LOL), the boys sat around the table and did masses of studying. Scratchy took Jack out to get groceries - Jack in his “leather” (actually vinyl - and that kind of very vinyl-y vinyl) jacket, came up to me before they left and asked, “Isn’t this so cool?” - and it was, but it was the pose he struck and his facial expression that made it so, rather than the jacket They brought back dinner - Chinese food, in honour of Chinese New Year (which is a three-week festival in China, I’ll have you know, so were not at all late in celebrating it two days after New Year’s Day). Well - not genuine Chinese-Chinese food, but what we call Canadian-Chinese, although I suppose having lived here for over a decade, we should really be calling it British-Chinese or Euro-Chinese or something. The stuff you get from the take-away, anyway. We can get our mitts on Chinese-Chinese food, but it requires a trip to the Chinese supermarket, which is not somewhere any of us wants to be on a Saturday afternoon, and requires us to cook it ourselves, which neither of us was really up for yesterday. We were pleasantly surprised at how little it all actually cost from the take-away; we think they might have given Scratchy a discount. We know he got a discount when he took the boys to the Chinese New Year celebrations last weekend - they charged him for three people instead of six!

Anyway, our New Years dinner was very tasty, and I actually managed to stay upright long enough to sit at the table with the rest of the family until it was over, which isn’t something that’s been happening too often recently.

Toby was rather bouncy in the evening, having fallen asleep mid-afternoon and slept for two hours. I was ready for sleep long before him, but fought it, knowing that if I went to sleep at 9, I’d pay for it in wakefulness in the early hours. Unfortunately staying awake until later didn’t work, as I was awake from 1.30 until after 5 anyway. The combination of small people kicking me (from both inside and out) didn’t help, and nor did the snoring, but really it was mostly plain old insomnia.

I still managed to be awake at 9.45 this morning and got on with more sifting through the paperwork, getting to-do lists done, etc. I used to use an A5-sized filofax-type organiser thingy, and it kept me much more organised, so I’m going to work towards having everything in there again. I already feel much more organised - I know there’s nothing that needs done in the next week that I haven’t got on a list, and I have a plan for dealing with it all. There are still some more papers to deal with in the next few days, but now that it’s all organised in one place, I know I’ll get to it. I found a letter about an appointment on Wednesday that I’d forgotten about and that I was supposed to confirm, so I’ll do that tomorrow morning - I hope just in time. I also found a £10 voucher that we got from Argos that we got before Christmas - I was vaguely aware that we had it, but only discovered today that it expired on February 14th, so spent some time trying to figure out what we needed from Argos, and finally settled on a watch for Jack for his birthday next month and a pack of six rechargeable batteries. I also found a £25 voucher for Tesco, sent to me as a thank-you from the woman whose two Japanese Scouts we took on along with my own two last summer; I keep forgetting I’ve got it, but maybe now it’s in the front pocket of my organiser, I’ll remember to use it! And I discovered a book token, given to George for his eighth birthday, I believe (remember he’ll be 11 in June!) - I don’t even know if it’s still valid or not, though there’s no expiry date printed on it. And a cheque for £40 which is I’m pretty sure won’t be honoured now, since it’s nearly three years old - and I don’t have any memory at all of receiving it. You see why I want to get all this stuff sorted out?!

Again, I managed to stay upright throughout dinner, and even for a short period afterwards - which is more than poor Toby did. He fell forwards from the mattress of the bedside-cot and did a face-plant onto the side of it, giving himself a nosebleed

Lots of the links in this post lead to posts which are now private because they contain photos (and I only keep those posts public for two or three weeks after publishing them). So log in, or else…well, or else you won’t be able to see them.

When I started this review, I thought it had been a quieter year than 2006. Now that I’ve spent half a day writing it, I understand why I’m so tired. I think I should go and lie down for a year or two.

The beginning of 2007 found us - well me, anyway - trying to come to terms with the imminent loss of Barney and Henry. The latter sulked for several days after I booked the flights, and the former had a meltdown during which he expressed his doubts and fears and began to understand that courage is not about a lack of fear, but about doing something despite your fears. We made a list of things we wanted to do before the big boys left, and started with a trip to Ecos and another to the Folk and Transport Museum, where we explored both inside and outside, despite the wild windy weather. We saw the marvellous Titanic exhibition and had a ride in a flight simulator. We discovered that our activities were going to be seriously affected by our local leisure centre closing for two years. I got tough on Henry over his maths, which suddenly improved dramatically, and we rounded off the month with a trip to the bowling alley.

February began with a home-ed trip to a Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust property and I noted how much boys like sticks (big ones in particular) and felt relieved that Jack did not repeat his escapade of our previous visit. The “wild” theme continued with a visit to a wildlife rescue centre and we checked one more activity off our to-do-before-they-go list when we spent an afternoon tie-dying t-shirts, with fab results. Toby ended up on antibiotics - the first time any of my kids has had them for over nine years - due to infected nailbeds on a finger and thumb; I also got an infection but managed to clear it with lots of soaking. Freddy and Jack and I went on a trip to the local marina with Beavers. We all went to visit the Palace Stables and St Patrick’s Trian. Arrangements for Barney to attend Henry’s school in France were made. We visited a wildlife reserve with a friend of ours who ran the place until recently - he was a wonderful guide Toby got his first haircut, and the rest of the boys attended Chinese New Year celebrations. We spent a day with some other home-ed families at an aquarium and rescue centre, followed by hours in what was probably the worst traffic jam ever seen around these parts - but we just managed to join the rest of the Beavers for a visit to the police station, where I was handcuffed (but only briefly ). We returned to the Folk Museum, since the weather on our last visit had driven us indoors fairly quickly. And Toby turned into BatBaby.

March found me trying to pretend that Barney and Henry’s departure wasn’t less than two weeks away. We visited the science centre again and we went bowling again and visited the Castle again. George and Freddy had an argument about who was going to be first in the dentist’s chair, and we went to not one, but two museums in one day - the first telling the story of the linen industry, the second a small local museum which had a special display of Japanese artifacts. Henry had an, um, interesting visit to a local school, to speak with the class of one of the Scouts and he complimented both my French and my ability to teach maths I took Barney and Henry to the Ulster-American Folk Park, where they discovered (re-discovered, in Barney’s case) the story of the Irish settlers in America and got fed pancakes fresh from the griddle. Scratchy took all the boys to the science centre to meet The Titan.

And then they were gone…

Scratchy went with them, they had a great few days, and Barney decided to stay (not that there’d ever been much doubt). I spent a few days with friends before going to collect Scratchy at the airport (and missing him), then coming home to celebrate Jack’s fifth birthday with cake and yet another trip to the science centre. We cleaned up the garden, explored Mind Maps, and I was rescued by one of the Beavers’ dads when I got a flat tyre. And Barney, still in France, had a brief illness, which made everything more difficult for everybody.

Wow…all that and we’re only up to the beginning of April!

Barney recovered, we all got some time outdoors and Freddy and George earned their ju-jitsu orange and yellow belts respectively. I returned a bit of electronics kit, then had to go and get it back when I discovered I’d actually returned something else entirely. Scratchy took George, Freddy and Jack to the science centre while I took Toby to his first speech therapy assessment. Easter was celebrated with much chocolate and a visit to the seaside. The boys helped prepare for two new arrivals who also brought many visitors, and Barney continued to enjoy his time in Europe. Later in the month, my laptop started misbehaving and we’d a couple of difficult phone-calls with Barney. We continued our gardening efforts - little did we know that summer would never actually arrive. George and I attended the Cubs’ District Sports Night and Barney cycled around the French countryside.

In May, I took delivery of a replacement laptop, we got lots of new badges, Jack was happy and we discovered a Dalek in the garden. Barney started to sound more cheery and went to the beach, and the rest of us had a party for Freddy’s 8th birthday and took the dogs to the forest. George went to Centenary Cub Camp and I took the Beavers to the same location for a Centenary Beaver Day.

In June we started with a playground day with other home-ed families and George acted all grown-up while I was ill. We had another home-ed outing - this time to the zoo - and the pups continued to grow like weeds. We took advantage of a sunny weekend with a trip to the coast, a picnic lunch on the beach and a visit to our friends at their caravan. Barney, meanwhile, was enjoying the South of France. Jack showed off his knowledge of anatomy. We took off for a few days at the caravan, during which we watched the deck being completed and I took the older boys to the Giant’s Causeway and the Rope Bridge. We decided to stay over the weekend too, and we spent most of our last day in the surf and the sand. Once home, Toby fell downstairs, George had a birthday party, we talked to Barney and returned to the caravan with an extra pup - the sister of our pups, who was being adopted by our friends.

We started the second half of the year by running away again - back to the caravan, on a moment’s notice. On our return, we called Barney, only to discover that his French papa had been in a bicycle accident. The next few days were worrying for all of us, as he had surgery twice and was in an artificial coma for over a week. When he finally came around, things started looking much better, but it was decided that in view of how long his recovery was expected to take and the fact that his wife would be spending a lot of time at the hospital, it was best for Barney to come home a bit early and perhaps return for a few weeks next summer. In the meantime, we prepared for a visit from four teenaged Japanese boys - Scouts, en route to the International Jamboree. Their arrival came with a bit of a surprise: they spoke no English. This complicated things slightly, but we managed by drawing, pointing, showing photographs… we took them to the castle, ten-pin bowling, and, along with the rest of their group and ours, to the Rope Bridge and the Giant’s Causeway. During that outing I had a fascinating conversation about education with a teacher. The lack of words-in-common didn’t prevent the teens and my own children from getting on like a house on fire, though, and we even started a little cottage industry in origami. We are very glad we volunteered for this; if you ever get such an opportunity, take it! Just two days after leaving our Japanese teens to one airport, I was on the way to a different airport to collect my own almost-teenaged son.

And on to August - the latter bit of the summer that never was. We started by gathering early in the morning with other Scouts from our District to mark exactly one hundred years since the beginning of the camp that started the whole Scouting movement. I got a brand new camera, we had more of those great conversations that make you wonder why you ever buy workbooks, Toby turned two and Barney and George attended the world’s smallest drama group. We all went to a friend’s birthday party, then came home and got ready for bed - only to have our bedtime plans dramatically interrupted when the car - the one that had been sitting in the drive, in the rain, not running, for over 24 hours - burst into flames. We had another day-trip to the caravan, Cassie got sick and then better again, and Jack wondered if we owned a magic carpet. We decided the local indoor playground really wasn’t worth the bother (or the money) and spent a couple of days with friends we don’t see often enough. We walked dogs, met some Germans and spotted some seals, we cut children’s hair, Barney played tennis and Jack didn’t do Kindergym. Toby did rather well for birthday presents and was cute, as usual.

September brought puttering and putering, attempts to purchase a new refrigerator, yet another week in the caravan, during which the dogs ran away and back, the door cut Tobys’ thumb, Jack learned to ride without stabilisers and we rode bicycles on the beach. Barney joined me and the other Scouting adults of our group in cleaning out the hall in preparation for a new roof and we attended the wonderful Last Night of the Proms. We got back into our usual routines of studying and activities and we knocked our Beavers numbers up over 20. We made playdough, wrote letters to Santa(!), squeezed in a few more days in the caravan before the summer-that-never-started came to an end. I got scabby knees and the boys all switched bicycles. We got lovely letters from one of our Japanese Scouts and his mother, one of our car tyres died (exploded?) and Barney went to Scout Camp - as did Scratchy, having finally filled in his form to become a Leader.

October brought our first real preview of teenage mood-swings, funny noises which took the one remaining car out of service for a week and cost us a small fortune - and then more, a month of no Scouts (because of the roof replacement), moans about socks, another science centre visit, a day at the zoo with hundreds of Beavers, dogs helping redecorate and National Schools Film Week, during which we saw Tales from Earthsea (largely because I hadn’t realised it was manga) and Arthur and the Invisibles. We had another science centre visit, another visit to the castle, lots of sickies around the house (including me), and dressing up for Hallowe’en.

In November I continued to feel very rough, Toby improved his flirting skills and was dismissed by the paediatric cardiologist, Jack was invested into Beavers and Freddy swam up from Beavers to Cubs. Barney turned into a teenager - we celebrated with a day at the science centre and the bowling alley.

December - visits to the dentist and the mechanic, Freddy’s Investiture into Cubs, the local pantomime, the purchase and installation of a Christmas tree, an announcement to the world, cookie-baking, gift-wrapping, and balloons and face-painting at Ikea. We had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, which worked very well on all counts, especially the one that let me laze about on Christmas Day. And, of course, there was Christmas Day itself, after which we hibernated until 2008.

I got out of the house early (for me) on Saturday morning, to go to the local garden centre to buy a Christmas tree. And thus began a weekend of faffing about with a tree.

Freddy came with me, and we inspected the trees quickly, because it was pouring with rain. I noticed a woman checking trees with a tape-measure and thought “That’s a bit much, how difficult is it to eyeball something that’ll fit below your ceiling?” And anyway, they’re all tagged with the height-range, right? Well, I’m sure you can guess the rest of that bit of the story.

The garden centre was offering free delivery locally - one of the reasons we bought the tree there (the lock on my car-boot is stuck locked so bringing it home would have involved mucking about with the roof-rack and I couldn’t be bothered). They said it would be delivered “today, probably in about an hour”, so I went home and everyone rushed about to get the living-room tidied and move things to make room for it. And about six hours later, the tree was delivered.

And it was a few inches too tall.

So Scratchy brought out his mini-hacksaw (aw, cute) and cut off the top bit - which worked okay, because the rest of the tree is really bushy. Then we tried to fit it into the stand. And it wouldn’t fit, because of the funny shape of the bottom of the trunk.

Do not buy a Christmas tree which bears any resemblance to a hockey-stick.

So Scratchy attacked the bottom with his mini-hacksaw, which was a particularly unproductive method, but despite having boxes and boxes of tools in the garage, it seems we don’t own an ordinary saw. Or we didn’t, until Saturday, when Scratchy went to buy one because one of us was probably going to attack the other with the cute mini-hacksaw.

The tree eventually got put up and decorated by Sunday evening - although some of the ornaments still aren’t on it, because we ran out of hangers, and I’m not using bent paper-clips this time. But despite being not-quite-vertical, it does look good.

Now if only we could figure out a way to get the outdoor lights plugged in…

Up and out very early this morning - I can’t remember the last time I was dressed by 7.30, never mind hair done and make-up on Today is one hundred years from the first day of the first Scout Camp ever, and at 8 a.m. - the exact time that camp was begun - Scouts across the UK gathered in hundreds of locations to renew the Scout Promise - including over 40,000 Scouts at the Jamboree. Throughout the 24-hour period, millions of Scouts in countries around the world gathered at 8 a.m. in their local timezones to do the same thing. There is something about connecting to the larger movement - it’s easy to forget about it when you’re planning for a few Beavers at local weekly meetings, but it’s a part of what makes Scouting what it is.

Fortunately our local gathering was only a few minutes from where we live, or we’d never have made it on time I wasn’t expecting a great turn-out - it’s the middle of summer (allegedly) and lots of people are away, it was early in the morning, and it was cold and raining - but I’d estimate there were about 150 people. Unfortunately I was in a very bad spot for taking photos, but I’m hoping someone else got some and I’ll be able to get copies - and I think there might have been some coverage from the local media too.

We spent the rest of the day lazing about; we did bits of a jigsaw-puzzle, watched some Doctor Who, encouraged Barney to put away the clothes he’d brought home (all beautifully-folded, by A, I’m told - now I see where Henry gets it ;-))

With less than two weeks to go before Barney and Henry leave for France, it’s proving a little difficult to organise things without actually thinking about them. Barney and I went shopping again this evening to find shoes for him - with Freddy in tow, because he needed new trainers too. I think we’ve got everything on the list now; I just have to actually find the list before I can be sure

Oh, and just before I continue, I’d like a small moan please. Barney really dislikes getting new clothes, new shoes, etc. In fact he only tolerates getting clean clothes, never mind new ones. So while he’s accepted that some shopping is indeed an essential part of the preparations for going to France, he’s keen to have it over and done with. So it doesn’t really matter what I suggest - he just says it’s fine. He disappears into the fitting-rooms and comes out ten minutes later to say that everything is excellent (translation: “so can we go now?”). It makes shopping for him very difficult.

Henry, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. He knows exactly what he wants, and won’t settle for anything else. So after visiting twenty different shoe-shops and having considered every possible design (it seems to me), he does a sort of verbal version of the Gallic shrug and says “Ah, I’ll wait.” It makes shopping for him very difficult.

But anyway. I did have a nice birthday, thank you to those who sent greetings My friend S came over with her children, and her four-year-old, on hearing it was my birthday, asked what my cake looked like. Well, you know, if you’re four, birthday=party=cake, right? We did have a small cake stashed, so when Scratchy got home everyone sang to me and the cake was cut and eaten.

Tuesday evening brought Beavers; we made thank-you cards for the police who arranged our visit to the station last week, and for the people at the marina we visited three weeks ago. I delivered the cards yesterday morning, then we all went to the library to return the many many books that we’d accumulated. I wish they’d just issue us with one card for the whole family; it would save me a lot of logging in and out on the library site to see what books we’ve got!

In the afternoon another local home-ed mum and her son came over to visit, and in the evening George went to Cubs, taking Henry with him, to talk to the Cubs about France, at the request of Akela. He also took his friend R, who lives across the road, but whose family is moving once they sell their house - they’re only moving a few minutes away, but George and Freddy aren’t very happy about them going. R had a great time at Cubs and plans on returning, so at least they’ll get to see one another once a week even if we (the parents) don’t manage to organise get-togethers.

Today was spent at our second home, aka the science centre. Blog-post and photos will follow later, once I’ve got myself a bit more organised

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

So I had a choice. I could get up and do stuff, or I could stay in bed and do a brief review of 2006. Well, of course I chose the latter. Except, in the end, it turned out not to be so brief. We did a lot of stuff!

In January, we recovered from Christmas ‘05 and did lots of at-home activities. I sewed (this was big news!) and we all made Flubber. We must do that again before Henry goes back to France. We also attended Chinese New Year celebrations.

In February, Freddy started his own blog. The boys visited a crisp-factory with a group of home-educators, and we had a family visit to the science centre. We ran out of heating oil and had a family sleepover so we only had to keep one room warm. We bought a food-processor and haven’t stopped using it since

March brought Jack’s fourth birthday, celebrated by a party with lots of friends. I got so sick that Scratchy took time off work. On the way back from visiting friends, Scratchy tried to turn the light on in the service-station toilets, and instead set off the silent alarm, summoning the police The boys all got very involved in speaking pig Latin, and for Mothering Sunday, I got a humongous freezer. My breadmaker died, and I turned off my laptop for long enough to install extra memory

In April, we managed to run out of heating-oil again Toby got his first tooth, and George went out on his bike and collided with a car (fortunately no major injuries). Jack started to attend a kids gymnastics class - his first programmed activity. We visited the science centre again, and Jack fell and split his head open, which resulted in a trip to Casualty. There was another trip to the hospital when I got a bit worried about Toby’s weight (or lack of). The security guard at a local shopping-centre tried to donate two little girls to my family; we didn’t take them but we did stay with them until their mother was found (which was more than anybody else did - it was all very weird).

In May we took Toby back to the hospital for an appointment involving lots of tests, lots of blood being taken George had his first night camping with Cubs (a district event). We all went on a tour of our local castle with a bunch of home-educators, and we also had a party to celebrate Freddy’s seventh birthday

George had another camping experience in June - this time with the Cub Pack. We visitied the science centre again, and went on another home-ed trip to ECOS, an environmental centre, where the boys participated in pond-dipping and various other activities. We also visited the local castle again, when Barney “worked” his first event with St John Ambulance. There was a fencing tournament on, so we all went to watch. I learned exactly how important backing up your computer data is. Barney went to Scout Camp. Toby had more hospital appointments, and so did I, having fallen downstairs. We discovered that the local paediatrician is a bozo. We planted sunflowers which grew like, um, weeds, and we heard about En Famille, an organisation who arrange exchanges between children from various European countries. We rounded off the month with George’s ninth birthday and another party

July brought sad news - Scratchy’s grandfather died. Scratchy went to New York City for the funeral. Barney camped for a weekend with friends, and the boys built a barbecue - all by themselves. We tie-dyed shirts and various other items (this is something that’s on Henry’s list of things he wants to do before returning to France LOL) The refrigerator threatened to die and the washing-machine did (and was replaced by a humongous one - hm, I see a pattern in humongous appliances emerging…) We went whale-spotting. Someone ran into my car. We doggy-sat for Chip, a collie-cross (now, sadly, gone to doggie heaven); we took her with us on a trip to the beach. We went to visit the Nomadic, a ship which ferried passengers to the Titanic and has since had a chequered past.

In August we celebrated Toby’s first birthday We also did more doggy-sitting, this time for a miniature schnauzer. We went to the museum and made African masks. Barney started cycling to the leisure-centre on his own, and went to St John Ambulance Camp. We visited a corn maze and attempted to fly kites. I started to exercise in an attempt to not look pregnant, and we visited the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge. We got information from En Famille and decided to apply to do an exchange.

September brought a sudden new arrival: within the space of about three weeks after we sent in our forms for En Famille, we had emails and a telephone call from a family in France, they visited, and we acquired Henry! While the whole family was here, we visited the local castle again. We also had two trips to the science centre - one before Henry’s arrival, one after. Our sunflowers continued to grow, hitting about eight feet tall.

October was a busy month. The boys built a crystal radio and made some Roman mosaic items. Scratchy took Barney and Henry to the museum, and they also started to attend a local youth-club. Henry was invested into Scouts (and very proud he was too). We visited ECOS again, and went to several movie showings as part of National Schools Film Week. My car went in to have the damage from the accident repaired and I had to drive an Espace for two weeks - didn’t like it. We bought a second car, a Voyager - do like that We had another trip to Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge, and visited the Giant’s Causeway. Not sure what was scariest: the rope-bridge, the headlice, or Hallowe’en. Or it could have been the chicken-pox, which got Barney mid-month and migrated to everyone else by the end of it.

In November, Barney started to attend a fencing club, George learned to sew and Freddy got his yellow belt in ju-jitsu. The boys went to see the Belfast Giants in action, and Scratchy got so sick he actually took time off work. Toby had an appointment with a cardiologist and was found to be fine, and an appointment with another paediatrician, who broke news to us that left us reeling - but only for a short while, until we realised that it’s minor stuff and we can cope. Barney celebrated his twelfth birthday near the end of the month with the sleepover to end all sleepovers.

In December, Jack started swimming lessons and went along with Freddy and me to a special Christmas event for Beavers. George took part in a show with the other Cub Scouts, for his Entertainer badge. We all baked lots of cookies, and had two (or was it three?) trips to the science centre. Then there was Christmas, and much good stuff going on. After Christmas we went to stay with old friends and Henry made a new (bovine) friend

And while all that was going on, we still had the routine stuff: Scouts/Cubs/Beavers, St John Ambulance Cadets and Badgers, ju-jitsu, archery, swimming, soccer, trampoline and gymnastics clubs, basketball, looking after the cats and the aquarium… not to mention all the more formal studying and ordinary, everyday family life. I’m exhausted just reading about it

Here’s to a terrific 2007

Are we the only family with a tradition involving finding items that were intended for Christmas, at some point between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day?

We spent another day chillin’ today. We’re off to visit friends tomorrow, so I’ll see you when I get back

It’s just after 11 p.m. The boys watched a movie (Polar Express) after dinner, then bounced about in great excitement for half an hour or so before we packed them off to bed. They’re all fast asleep now except for Toby, who is usually asleep at this time but has chosen tonight to stay awake - charming, but awake

All is ready for tomorrow

And, given the events of last year, I’m going to sleep as soon as Toby does!

Christmas prep got off to a slow start - everyone slept in

While the kids had a late breakfast, I peeled potatoes, until Henry admitted he really wanted a go, so I willingly handed them over to him and got on with the carrots
Potatoes, carrots and onions into a pot for soup. That’s now simmering away. The remaining potatoes are in water; they’ll be parboiled and roasted tomorrow.
Turkey has been checked to make sure it’s thawed; there are a few ice-crystals remaining, so it’s in the oven (the oven is off, it’s just in there because Mollycat decided to come in this morning). I’ve checked the ham to see how long it needs to cook for.
Sweet potatoes are scrubbed, wedged and sitting in a bag with marinade (orange, honey and rosemary).
Discovered we needed more shallots, more carrots, more… oh never mind, it’s going to be another trip to Tesco. I don’t do crowds, particularly in shops and most particularly at this time of year, so I’ve bribed Scratchy to go.
Sprouts are in a bag, ready to be boiled and roasted tomorrow. Frozen ends of bread are thawing; they’ll be turned into stuffing this afternoon. I’ll also prep the shallots and the carrots for tomorrow, and this evening I’ll get French toast ready so we can eat it tomorrow morning.

Have I forgotten anything?

We’ve got a Christmas CD playing and we’ve started tracking Santa on the NORAD site.
If I don’t have six kids who believe in Santa by the time they go to bed tonight, it won’t be for want of trying

Would you like your children to be sound asleep by 7 pm? Here’s how to do it:

When your child is 11 years and 51 weeks, old, arrange a birthday sleepover. It’s late notice, so assume some of those invited won’t be able to make it. They’ll almost all make it.

Have the party and sleepover. The exact numbers probably don’t matter, but my experience is that 18 extra children (plus the six we started with) at the party, and 16 (plus the six we started with) who stayed the night, works well.

Extra adults are useful, especially if they have experience of Cub Camp and can do the Akela-at-midnight glare

Next day, let them all hang out and play.

It seems that the above was a very effective (if not, perhaps, efficient) way to get children into bed and asleep by 7 p.m. At least, it worked for mine tonight

There’ll be photos along once I’ve had some sleep myself

Four years ago I was in labour. I’d been in labour since about 6 pm the previous day - and I’d a good few hours left. The result of that labour - Jack - will be 4 tomorrow

This morning George and Barney did some French and ICT while Freddy did some English. Scratchy brought the car at lunchtime so I could do errands this afternoon. I’d planned to buy some things for Saturday, when we’re having a small celebration for Jack’s birthday, but I didn’t manage to get much. We ended up meeting Scratchy for dinner at a shopping centre near where he works.

George has been up and down this week. On Tuesday he had a meltdown before breakfast, but made it through the rest of the day without a hitch. Yesterday, again a meltdown before breakfast and again the rest of the day was fine. At one point, he’d gathered up a large pile of books and was about to carry them out of the room when I turned with Toby in my arms and bumped into him - scattering the books across the floor. This would usually be a classic meltdown trigger for him, and said “Sorry!” and prepared myself - and he calmly said “it’s all right, it wasn’t your fault, it was just an accident”, then gathered them up again!

And then today was one meltdown after another - from waking this morning, until (finally) falling asleep at 9pm. It’s exhausting

There’s been a “Five Goals” thing cruising the blog-ring. I couldn’t come up with five goals in each category (personal, work, home-ed, etc), so I’ve taken the easy route, and put it all together. Here are my five (albeit slightly late):

* Eat better, get more exercise and (thus) lose weight.
* Take more photos. I know my Flickr account was bursting at the seams for December, but I feel I’m not recording enough bits of my kids’ childhoods. And I’d like more photos of me, for them. (That’s part of my reason for #1 above.)
* Get more positive with my parenting. I felt that I was getting close to being the kind of parent I want to be, but I seem to have drifted somehow. I don’t like it. I’m going to get back on course.
* Find some work that I get paid for - preferably self-employed (but what? :-/)
* Have a general re-think for each of the children, in various ways.

2005 has been a very good year for us - much better than 2004, and h