The lost half...

Just to finish off yesterday’s post with the bit Blogger lost! It’s much more reliable to post from word, but I never know how many of you can see my nice script or whether  IE/Firefox customizes to a standard font. Anyway - that’s not interesting…but then the rest might not be either!!

I went out yesterday afternoon, supposedly to get some fresh air after being indoors for a few days. Paul has had study days and has therefore been out 9 am- 10pm for a couple of days, meaning kids, kids, kids for me! BUT I ended up still taking two shopping with me or leaving P. with two howling girls. So P & E came with me. P ended up spending her remaining birthday money on a new Flava doll and pretty necklace from Superdrug, so I guess it was worth her coming. E, on the other hand was a bit of a pain because by routine she would normally have been asleep at that time of day.

I got a couple of great books in The Works.. One was a drawing book with instructions for drawing cars, amongst other things, for Joel and a lovely primary level atlas for Boo. I’m planning on doing some basic mapping work with her early next year. I also got some Schofield ad Simms nursery activity books for P,. as the books I currently have for her she simply finds too hard. It’s perhaps not so much the concepts, but the writing aspect she struggles with.. She can’t seem to get the pencil to move across the page from L-R yet, but gets stuck going round in circles - Bless her! I would be happy for her to not bother at all and just play lots just now, but she is SO keen to learn and wants to included in school. I am still concentrating on getting Boo reading and writing with more ease and, although I don’t begrudge P some time, it’s not really what I want to be focusing just yet. It’s her turn after Christmas after all and then Boo will have to fend for herself a whole lot more. Thankfully, Boo is beginning to be able to read instruction in textbooks and work a little bit without me now :), which does afford just a little space for working with P.

Aside from all this industrious learning going on here atm, there is a whole lot more ‘general’ stuff too. Whilst walking in town P and A like to spot different shapes - ovals, rectangles, triangles for P and pyramids, cyclinders, cones and cubes, etc… for A. It’s quite a fun game and keeps them well amused, whilst also improving their observation skills and maths :) And then there’s the conversations that happen every day - always amusing, sometimes educational!

Life is good ATM and I am feeling blessed to be at home watching my kids develop right alongside each other. Joel is going through a majorly bossy phase, which is a trial for us all, but he’ll get past it and I know there is really nice kid underneath - somewhere, who I’m looking forward to seeing soon!! I listened in on a potential argument between the boys the other morning and I was impressed to hear Jacob negotiating with Joel in a way that diffused the situation and brought about a happy compromise (it was about who was going to be A’s boyfriend in their intricate Mums and Dads game - they were fighting over her - lucky girl!!). It’s good to see that they can do it , especially Jake - even if they don’t very often :) In some ways I long to have him at home again. In others I know it will still be a challenge when we try again for Yr7.

Caleb is very demanding for attention a lot of the time and we can both see a repeating of Jacob in his character. Let’s hope I really learnt the first time and can prevent some of the issues we had/have with Jake recurring with C. But C is very cute and this time I feel able to adore him in spite of him being hard work, whereas with Jake it got me down and I felt I was always fighting with him - nothing changes - and although I knew I loved him I really had to convince myself at times :(

Well that’ll do for now, or I’ll never have any visitors - you’ll all be so bored!

Blog later about today…