The Wellyboots Tribe Step Forth - again!!

Today has been just lovely!  

We started the day by going to have a look at a 4-bed house - in case I hadn't mentioned we are thinking of moving, but staying in Nantwich. Mum gave me + three a lift to 'The Barony' (the big park on the other side of town) and Paul cycled over with Joel & Ellie, who absolutly loves going on the bike. P. & I then left four of the children at park with my Mum while we went to look at the house. To cut a long story short - it's gorgeous and we love it!! There are two or three major draw backs: 1). it's the other side of town and would mean a definate change of playgroups for the girls (need to make enquiries on that one), 2). the rent is the same as this house and we were hoping to find somewhere for less & 3). it's nowhere near Stapely, which is the coummunity that P. feels a calling to work within! Paul's ideal was to find a suitably sized and priced house on the Stapely estate, but to be honest where this house was is much nicer!! The Stapely estate is still being built in places, there are no fields and no play parks within walking distance and it is quite some distance from town too. We would be heavily relient on the newly built local Co-op (not cheap). It's really the kind of estate where everyone has a car, if not two!! There are definatly more plusses to this house than minuses and we are strongly inclined towards it - we just need to be sure it is right. So we are going to make some enquires regarding how we transfer housing benefit, places at the more local playgroup for the girls, etc... But I think we need to be quick on our decision because I'm sure it will be snapped up - it is lovely and clean and, like I said, really lovely. Good location (quiet, tidy cul-de-sac), good size rooms (all of them), enclosed grass garden, internal garage with a 'utility' space for w/machine & tumble dryer, FAB kitchen/breakfast room, etc, etc....

Anyway, after we had fallen in love with the house, we went back to the park for a short while. Then after lunch (back home now) the girls went for a nap (they really needed it today) and P. & I went out for a quiet coffee together. It was lovely to grap an hour or so to ourselves. That is definatly one advantage of having Mum about in the hol's - a little more freedom to grab some space. We chatted about the house - of course - and other things too. It felt like the calm before the storm..! It'll probably the last chance we get to be out alone for a few months now, so it was valuable.

I stayed up way too late last night printing out and organizing the 'plants' study that I am planning for this next half-term, just in case P. has to step in and do it all. I wanted it to be really self explanatory and easy to do without too much input from me. I also wanted to be able to do nothing-schooly for the rest of this week and really give myself a break. I Just need to get some good seeds for them all to study now . I was thinking of peas, runner beans, ?pumpkin (my Mum says these are nice to eat too?), and of course cress (for it's fast results) - any other suggestions anyone? I thought maybe tomatoes too, what do you think?  I need to be able to grow everything in a window box and/or grow bag as we have nowhere else to  anything.  I've also planned to do this project with the girls and this morning Abbie's timely request was to plant some seeds ! So I was able to happily inform her that we will be doing so when the boys start back to school next week and that she will have lots to do with her own plants project too . I have been able to get materials for ages across the board; pre-schoolers, up to about Year 4/5 level, so that's great. Each child will have their own log/note book to keep and I hope to end up with a 'pre-school' lapbook (by the girls) and a 'primary' lapbook (by the boys) out of the materials too. I certainly have plenty of stuff to use and I hope they are all going to enjoy getting their hands dirty with mud & sticky with glue and 'discover' lots with this project.

Been having a few more twinges today (lots of walking helps!) and been musing that if it's born before tomorrow I will have two May-bank-holiday babies (Jacob''s is the first BH and this baby would be the second!), but what's the liklihood of that now - being that it's 10.30pm (almost) already?!

Yup - Jake did his third task (the maths table/record of times) with only a little fuss and a few shouts of frustration over his ruler! He really has a problem with rulers. For a child with such good fine & gross motor control this seems an odd thing to struggle with, but... Anyway - he achieved his goal and it didn't take him long in the end. At least he saw that he actually could do it, desite being convinced that he couldn't!

Other than that today has consisted of P. taking the boys swimming this morning (his choice to do that) & doing some shopping this afternoon. And me ploughing through the never ending piles of washing (doing more and putting away about a weeks worth!!) - interspersed with little 'sit-downs' and an hours nap (while P. was shopping, the girls were napping and the boys were upstairs at E's.)

This evening was 'Family Housegroup' at a friends, which is fun. Three or four families get together with their kids to do a fun-style bible study and crafts. The kids enjoy it - especially Boo because it's at her best-friend's house  .

Going to bed now. I do keep having the odd 'twinge' or two, but nothing really much seems to be happening yet on the baby front, so maybe all you 'late' voters will be right - but I hope not - all the nappies and clothes are sitting here begging to be used!!

Well I was dreading it, but all went well. Jacob set to his 'quick write' at about 8.45am (his choice) and initially produced a factual account of his holiday in Prestatyn. I told him it was fine, but not really what the intention of the exercise was. He was supposed to imagine what the best holiday he could possibly have would be like and I sent him away to 'have another go'. "Oh," he said, "so not in the past, but in the future!" - (me) "Yes - something that hasn't happened, but that you would enjoy if it did." He got the idea then and went away - with only a little protest about the redo and a quick, sharp reminder of what was at stake. His second attempt was a really good piece of writing with some things we had chatted about when he was originally asked to do it, and more besides. I then showed him how the two pieces of writing flowed together quite well and that all-in-all, in about 10-15 minutes, he had written best part of a whole page of  'story'. He was actually really pleased to see what he had achieved and how little time it had taken him. I just hope he remembers that feeling for next time!

Then this afternoon I had a nap ( a long one) and P. set the first maths task (the drawing one). I never heard a peep from JA, so presumably he had no trouble with that either!

He baffles me  !! Let's hope tomorrow's work proves just as easy as todays...!

I never did watch any TV last night (too busy on here!) but I did watch 'Class TV' together with the boys today. Looks like that could be a real asset in the near future!I

I've been having twinges in my back all day - quite sore, and I feel 'odd' tonight, so.., but I'm not building my hopes too much! It would just be lovely to have the baby this weekend - warm weather - no school to think about this week - my Nan and Aunty visiting, who I don't see very often, but who are not actually staying in our home (they are B&Bing it a few miles down the road), no tennis or Ballet this week either - lots of  good reasons, but we'll see..!

Do you ever feel like you are on a roller coaster ride? I do! I just don't seem to be able to work out what my oldest son tick at the moment. One minute he is in fits of rage the next he is good as gold and it's so hard to find the triggers.

Maths today involved some really fun stuff. Jake had to estimate how long certain activities would take him, like eating an apple (bonus), running 100m (about 5-ish times around the yard), etc..., then actually do those things and record how long they actually took and the difference between his guess and reality. He really enjoyed doing it but when P. came to mark his work neither he nor I could make head nor tail of what J.A. had written (all squished on to the edge of the page). So we asked him to go and copy the table from the book and make a clear recording - Q. major melt down!! "I can't", (read "I don't want to"), "my ruler won't let me draw straight lines - it keeps slipping", "it won't fit", (when advised to turn the page horizontal - "It'll look silly!"), "I need to..." - anything to avoid doing what he had been asked to do. Screaming, yelling, thumping the desk and the floor, slamming doors and stairgates (at which point P. nearly lost it with him). Most of this we calmly ignored, docking priviledges one after the other in succession. When JA almost broke the stairgate Paul did tell him he couldn't go to club, but after we talked this over (P. & I) we decided to reinstate club, mainly because our thnking at the moment is that JA needs to know what punishment comes next (we have a chart with graduated punishments on) and that 'short-sharp-shock' punishments don't really work for him because, by their very nature, they are not consistent. Not only that, but they also seem to serve no purpose other than to escalate the bad behaviour even more. When we told Jake he could go to club he almost instantly calmed down - I think he realised how close to the wind he was sailing! Having calmed down we told him to put away his books (as it was lunchtime) and it would be added tohis 'own-time' work. He was not best chuffed, but did accept it.

I must confess I am not looking forward to re-presenting him with all this work that he has thrown wobblies over, so it will be broken up into 'sessions'. If he doesn't apply himself on each occassion the result will be missing out on something more fun. So his first piece of work will be set tomorrow morning and if he doesn't complete it before 10am he will miss out on going out with his Dad, brother and friend. The second & third pieces will be set tomorrow and Saturday afternoon and will mean him missing out on his free do-as-you-like time and playing the yard with E. (from upstairs) - which he hates. I am hoping that if we are consistent with all this he will eventually learn that 'rage doesn't work'!

Once all that was over the rest of the day went OK. We did another 'listening' exercise, but Joel kept repeating everything I said, so that meant Jake heard everything twice, which kind of defeated the object of the thing! SO next time I've said we'll do it in silence - not to be harsh, but so that the intention of it is met!!

We finished off Animal classification in Science - at last - Insects today, about which Jacob already knew it all as he swallows chunks of the animal encylopaedia on a regular basis!! Joel meanwhile made some lego models and some pattern pictures with our foam shapes (following picture instructions practice). Basically I was killing time with him, but he didn't know that and he enjoyed it too .

My plan for after half-term is to keep it light! I will hopefully have a new baby and I'll need to. Morning will be bare-bones Maths and English (just to round things up for the year) and a "Class TV" spot ( today's was about Egypt - very timely - thanks to CBBC digital!!). I discovered this treasure today when we got our new freeview digi-box (£35 from Aldi - bargain!!). Then we'll do project work in the afternoons. I am planning to do a 'Plants' project and involve all the children a little - even Ellie maybe . Hopefully we are not too late in the year to plant a few things as part of the hands-on bit of Science and I'd like to lap-book the work too (but with more input & ideas from the boys this time). Then other than that we'll finish off Egypt (nearly there now) and possibly looking at Ireland. I'm not planning on starting anything else new though. Our next stop for Geography will be Scotland or Wales and for History will be the Greeks, all of which involves too much research and hard work on my part to even contemplate it for this year now.

Off to eat tea now (take out Pizza) & watch 'Prince of Egypt'. Later I plan to check out our 80 new TV channels!!

Today started Ok, except for Jake deliberatly flicking his fountain pen and getting blue ink all over the table and some of Joel Bible study (  ) and then it all went a bit nutty when Jacob thought that his CGP book should say something that it didn't and refused to do what it asked! He was working on 'reflections' and thought the picture would look wrong if he drew it the way he should! He got totally 'fixed' on NOT doing it their way and refused point-blank to try. In the end we told him to put it away - something else for him to do 'in his own time' - just not worth persisting with the fixation/tantrum. Fortunately it wasn't me that got the brunt of that one as I was being defeated by the printer at the time, so Paul dealt with him - admirably and with a whole lot more patience than I would have had!

I tried a new exercise today for English - 'listening skills' - following directions. The boys both have a picture (today's was of an ant colony) and then I read out a list of instructions for them to follow. E.g ; "colour the ant at the top of the picture, that is on it's own, yellow", circle the antantae of the ants that are facing each other, etc..." There are about 7 instructions per picture and they are given time to complete each one before the next is given. They seemed to enjoy that . Joel was pretty good at it and Jacob, as I expected, got a couple wrong - drew 1 baby ant instead of 2, wrote 4 names instead of 3. It seems to be these 'fine details' of life that he often misses (attention) and which I think lead to many of his frustrations. My aim with this exercise is to have fun and to raise his level of attention/listening. For Joel it's more just fun, but it never can be a bad thing to learn to attend to detail! I am also going to give this as a reading/attending/following instructions exercise sometimes too, because it's not only listening to someone else that Jake apparently has problems with, but he often seems to struggle to really 'hear' even what he is reading himself and therefore misses the meaning and the point. He frequently gets fixated on a single word in a sentence that he doesn't fully understand and then thinks that he cannot make sense of any of the rest of the sentence - no 'contextual' understanding, just a total fixation on not understanding this one word and often he refuses to even read past it in an attempt to understand it.

Anyway - moving on - so then we did a couple of little mini-books about Egyptian homes, BUT Jacob ended up wrecking one of them just as we were sticking it together and so had to start that all over again. I was a little annoyed, but I SO want this project finished now (and so do they - although they are a little more into it than they were), that I made him do it there and then (call me harsh, but some of it was Joel's work too, so it didn't seem fair to let him get away with his 'lack of thought' yet again - and that was in the end what caused the error). Eventually he finished it and both books are lovely. I'm not quite sure HOW all this is going to fit into one lapbook, but I'm sure that where there's a will there's a way!!

Another big frustration today included the printing out of the 'pictures' book for the new activity. Our new printer has a powerful 'ejection' of the paper and frequently throws it all over the floor. It also has the fantastic facility of being able to print little books (A5 size) in numbered page order, BUT once it's thrown the pages all over the floor it's a nightmare to try and work out how to arrange them in order to re-load them for the other side to be printed. Usually it's not that much of a problem (I'm getting used to it!), but occassionally it shoots through blank pages too, or jams the cartridge and then skips printing that page to carry on with the next one - just to confuse me even more and, to top it all, todays book didn't even have page numbers to help me, but did need to correspond to the 'instructions' book!! It only took me about 6 attempts to get it printed out right  !

The really nice thing about today though, has been that we had some good friends we made this year around for tea. Anna and Joachin are Swedish friends who have been studying with Paul this year. Their little girls LOVE to play with all our toys (and children!). They left a good many of their own toys in Sweden and I think they feel our house is a little like Santa's grotto! And we growny-ups love to chat of course!! You should have seen the playroom when they left at 9.30pm! P. and I had to tidy it as it is also a bedroom and you couldn't see much of the floor and the kids were far too tired to get them to do it.  Sadly though this was a "goodbye" meal because tomorrow our friends leave us to travel back to Sweden.  

Then this evening I have spent about 2 hours on the phone to another friend as she is building her life-coaching website  - checking links for her etc...

And now it's far too late and I must hit the sack or I shall be fit for nothing tomorrow.

Today has been a pretty OK day again - the odd glich here and there and there have been a few priviledges stopped, but on the whole it's been a peaceful working environment - no tantrums or excessive stresses  !

We started the day in the usual way and Joel did some fabulous handwriting - then said he was going to do everything in his 'best writing' today and hence forth seemed to attempt to do so, which was nice. He seems to suddenly be getting 'proud' of his writing - in the right sense.

Maths was a doddle. Joel finished Singapore 1B a while back and is now using EMC Daily Maths Practice and Daily Word Problems (Grade 1) They are supposed to do a problem a day, but Joel does a week a day - meaning he should complete the books in about 36 days (as opposed to 36 weeks). On the whole Gr.1 is well below his level (being that Sing' 1A is designed for Gr.2) - hence doing a week a day, but it is useful review and there are a few 'concepts' in there that are new & challenge him - like naming patterns (ABAB, AABAAB, etc...) and some logic problems. He seems to really like the books and especially the fact that he gets to mark his own in the DMP book.

Jake has just about finished the first half of the CGP Yr3 book (will do on Thursday in fact - perfect timing!) meaning that we have 3B to do after half term. A whole year covered in a term - that's good going and not really a challenge to him either - just maths-fun, when he concentrates & allows it to be!

English was easy today too - phew! Jacob still hasn't done yesterday's quick write, but I've let them go play for now. There's still time before tea - if I can face it!! Today I decided to attempt to write a poem with Jacob. I got him to think of a word - any word - and he came up with "bike".  He then had to make a list of as many words as he could that rhymed with bike. Collectively we could only think of seven, which was quite limiting, but still... Then I asked him to write a poem, each line ending in one of those words. I told him not to worry about the meter (rythmn), but he could try to think about it if he wanted to. I told him he could have one verse with six lines, two verses of 3 lines, or three verses of 2 lines. He understood and - with a little help from a friend () he came up with this;

I was riding my bike,

Holding a pike,

With a very long spike!

 

My brother Mike,

Was riding his trike,

He took a hike!

I didn't think that was too bad for a first attempt . I'm still waiting for the accompanying picture though.

I had an ante-natal at lunchtime, which was fine and got me a walk and a breath of fresh-air. All is well. Baby's head is still 'free' but that's not unusual for me - will be til' I go into labour if my past history is anything to go by.

Then after lunch we did Egyptian architecture and Pyramids (how they were built), which basically involved making a couple of little mini-books and whole lot of sticking and glueing. Jake also did a little Egyptian hieroglyphic maths - which he seemed to quite enjoy too.

We were all done by 3.30pm - save for their reading which they have now done too.

I LOVE it when a plan works as it should - why can't every day be like this?

BTW - THIS is a fantastic resource site - especially for any 'lapbookers' out there, but also I am simply in love with their stuff

Mood: impatient!
Listening to: the computer whirring!!

It's 11.45am - the boys have done their Bible Study, handwriting and maths and are playing footie in the yard with Dad - now that's how it SHOULD be! At 12.oo I shall call them in for 'English' which we will hopefully get done quickly (about 30 mins) before lunch, by which time the girls will be back too. Then they can have an hour off for lunch-time and we can get cracking again about 1.30. Time then to get a bit more of the Egypt project done and maybe even some Science too. I plan to finish at 4pm (there'll be another break mid-afternoon) and swimming is at 5.30 - let's see if we can get there happily this week.

(OK - now they're scrapping again!! - why can't they just play together nicely without fisting each other over silly little things - like Joel fouling Jake at footie?! - ho, humm!)

It was a mad and hectic weekend -

Saturday, The boys had tennis in the morning (two 6 mile round-trips on the bike for Paul), Abbie had Ballet (another 4 mile round-trip), the boys had a party at 12.30, but we forgot to get a pressie (quick nip into town for Paul), then back to get boys and take them to party - also the other side of town (mile round trip) and while they were there another nip into town to get pressie for another party in the evening + some paper for invitations to a surprise family celebration later in the year (being a little criptic 'just-in-case'!!), home for lunch then back to pick up boys, two hours of FA-cup watching in the afternoon (aaah - a welcome sit down for P.), then feed the kids before dropping Jake at swimming party (other side of town again) at 6.45pm. Back home - back to pick him up at 8.30 and then out to help me carry back home a big curry order for our girlie night (only a few yards down the road but still...)Poor Paul - I did feel rather sorry for him, but he's a FAB hubby and really doesn't complain. Of course - we would choose this mad weekend to ask my Mum to take the weekend off! Still it's nice not to have to share the bathroom with yet another person occasionally!!

I'll add more later... Got to go school :)

Later....

Well, we did go school, but the boys had slowed up a little after their break (sometimes I wonder if the break is such a good idea!). They did their Vocab' work OK (they boht seem to like learning new words  ), but then Jacob's 'extension activity' was to write a quick-write about his 'favourite holiday'. We chatted it through - having not long been on holiday of course - talked about what he really liked about our recent holiday and any other holiday he has ever been on. He gave me a lengthy list of things he enjoys, but when asked to write down what would make his 'ideal' holiday and some reasons why, or make up a story about his favourite holiday (and why it was his favourite) he simply freaked - shouting & yelling, crying,etc... "I can't do it, I can't choose what to write, I'll just write a list, I don't know how to start..." (I had given him a starter sentance). He ended up sitting, not writing for about 20 minutes and now has to do it in his 'own time'. There was no earthly reason why he could not have written something down, he just got fixed into the "I can't(s)" and could not snap himself out of them. I have decided not to let his tantrums (if you can call them that, but they aren't really) intrude into after-lunch work, so now if he closes down like that he has to make up the work in his free/out-of-school time. That way it's more fair on Joel and doesn't leave it hanging over Jake for hours on end in the same day. He can come back to it fresh when he choses - but it has to be done by Saturday afternoon as I refuse to allow school on Sundays and Monday is a new week of work. Seemed to work this weekend, so we'll see...

So, after lunch we did a bit more Egypt work - 'Temples and Tombs' - which was quite good fun. We made a mini-mummy (gauze bandage stuck to a mummy-shaped piece of card) in a coffin. The boys enjoyed making it, but they spent so long colouring the coffin beautifully there was no time for science - still, I wasn't too bothered. What they made was worth the time .

The boys did well at swimmig tonight - Jake is Level 8 now and pretty 'streamline' - his teacher stands for no nonsense (which is good) and works them hard! Joel is a bit of a kangaroo in the water, but his swimming seems to be making progress all the same.

STILL no baby!!

Not gonna blog tonight really - been an OK day. Abbie was sick in the night (seems to be when she's had burgers - any suggestions anyone?), but was OK today. I felt wobbly this morning, but slept for 3 hours this afternoon (kids did too ) and now I'm fine. No baby yet! . Kids reasonable today and Jacob even finished off this weeks maths before 10am this morning (catch-up) without any fuss - progress (?) - I hope so!

Going to watch a 'Friends' vid now with Paul and make a couple of cards to say a few thankyou-s to people who have supported us these last three years.

Mood: A lot happier!!

Paul was going to go to Chester today to get all the baby-bits (I simply couldn't face an hour on the bus - each way -), but then my friend offered me a lift in her car, so that was a much better option than another grueling day of schooling. Not exactly a feet-up with coffee and cake day, but hey, nice all the same and did include a MaccyD's!

I needed to get all those 'special' and 'essential' bits that a baby and a birth require - like a teddy bear! I had intended to get one of THESE (Ellie has the cow), but I ended up with one from HERE. We buy a special 'birth' teddy for each child and it was my turn to choose - it was a tough choice in this shop! But I decided on this one. 

It's really gorgeous - baby safe and the same kind of 'feel' as the TY pluffies . I could have added a voice message (my own or pre-recorded), or a lullaby, but I decided 'silence is golden' and having just listened to the choices on the website I think I made the right choice!!

Then a trip to Boots for all the essential 'mother and baby' bits. When I was tidying I found a £10 voucher I was given when I was expecting Ellie, so that came in handy!

Paul, meanwhile, had the best day of school imaginable - of course!! Jacob had all his morning work completed by 11.30am and Joel just after the playgroup run. Hardly any errors. His 'quick write' on "Donkey" was fantastic - the most imaginitive & descriptive piece of work he has ever done! And after lunch when Paul sent them back to the table they went - no fuss - and knuckled down to wrok together to create a very nice little mini-book ("A Menagerie of gods") for our Egypt project! So tell me - is it just me?!! Fortunatly, P. has seen the rest of the week 'in action' too, so he was aware that today was exceptional (and exceptional days do happen for me occasionally too!). Jacob has managed to get through the whole day without losing any of his priviledges at all. Joel has managed to loose his PS1 time, but that's all.

I must admit though (and Paul agrees) that when Jacob got up this morning I could tell he was in a good frame of mind and when the first thing he greeted me with,when I got home, was "I've got no crosses on my chart today" - huge grin on his face -  bless him - I could see how pleased he was with himself and I was equally so of course - I just secretly wished he'd do it more often for me!! P. says he has actually said to Jake that it would be nice if he could be like today for me more often too and that if he can do it for Daddy, he can do it for Mummy too - too right!! P. also said that there were a couple of wobbly moments during maths where Jake almost lost it (when he 'got stuck' with the word "each" - a conceptual word he really struggles with for some reason), but he recovered himself well, when on other occassions that might have been the start of a down-hill spiral of excessive-behaviour.

Anyway, now the boys are at club and P. is cooking tea. He has also been shopping today (taking Ellie with him), bought me chocolate and flowers (he said Ellie made him buy the flowers!!), cleaned off the ground-sheet (bed-protector) for under the sheet when I'm in labour, tumble-dried the nappies, etc, etc, and I've done nought of any significance around the house at all today. I'm feeling a little guilty and a little spoilt!

Oh I also bought myself some 'Bohemian' soap and a 'Therapy' massage bar from HERE in Chester - YUM!! So not only has Paul spoilt me today, but I spoilt myself to - so I should be feeling better!!

I still feel 'ready-to-pop' so watch this space..!

My sister-in-law (Esther for those who know the Hampton clan) had a baby boy on Monday evening - Josiah Daniel (so that's 'Josiah' out for us then - one of our top-picks!!). She was planning her third home-birth but had BP problems right at the end. Eventually she was induced, but it all went fine and she's home and happy.  It means though, that Paul's Mum & Dad will be back up this end of the country this weekend to visit Esther and co. (having been here a fortnight ago for Paul's commissioning and their holiday), so if I could have a baby by then too it would be handy for them and save them yet another trip (all the way from Portsmouth) in the not-too-distant future.

In response to "do the boys have to spend so much time 'doing school' " ?

We have a huge tarmac back yard which the boys do spend at least 2hrs a day (if not more) playing on - usually footy and often together with the little boy who now lives upstairs. Even this they often cannot manage with out it becoming a war-zone, Evenso, banning playing outside & break-times are just about the last punishments I meet out. I need them as much as they do! It is truely NOT my intention for the boys to spend all their time 'doing school' - there are planned long and short breaks interspersed throughout our day - well there are meant to be! Joel, tbh, is not so much the problem - he can apply himself and get done so long as he doesn't have the distraction of his bro'. In fact today he CHOSE to work at the punishment desk so that he could get some peace and concentrate - he was done in no time. He was onto his short 'hand-break' before his brother had even started - Jacob was too busy throwing a wobbly (again) over something else!! (This tantrum btw, went on for almost an hour, despite us trying to reason with him and explain to him what he was in trouble for (sigh)!)

By the time Jacob had calmed down enough to even attempt any work his 'time-slot' was up, so we made him put his books away and take a break, but this means that he will have to do the work he should have done in that time in 'his own time' (i.e. Friday - when we don't do school at all, and/or Saturday afternoon).

It seems that in the three years we have been doing school Jacob has never yet learned that the sooner the work is done the more time he gets to play. Joel has that sussed - absolutely - even if he does play up & huff'n'puff at times!

The answer could be to just 'let it go' for a while maybe, but in my experience of holiday breaks I end up with an even more bored and difficult son. Jacob actually needs the stimulation & routine that school provides to keep him on a more even keel  - his behaviour is even worse without it! But he is simply not capable of recognising his own need for that structure in his life. In fact he is not too good at recognising any of his needs - even basic ones -  like warmth & fluids (I still often have to prompt him to wear jumpers in the winter & have a drink a few times in the day - he's 8 btw!!). He is even less able, it seems, to recognise his own part in misbehaviour, or how he might be to blame in any way for the punishment he is receiving. It is always "x's fault!" or "your (i.e. mine) fault!" Choosing to change his attitude/behaviour seems forever out of reach to him.

TBH - he really is hard work!!

The boys working together is sadly an apparent recipe for disaster. They egg each other on to misdemeanor (one being too young to resist his brother very well and one being too lacking in self-control to resist his own desire to fool around), and yet it seems such a shame for them not to work together on 'fun' projects. Otherwise it seems like Joel really does end up doing all the fun stuff  - because he has time left to do so  - and Jacob with his nose stuck in the 'bare-bones' of the absolutely essential stuff. And then I get complaints of "it's not fair" - which I agree with, but I struggle to make it fair when Jake will not put his weight behind anything.

As you can see - I am really in a 'sticky patch' right now, but we'll get through it I'm sure.

Agreed, I am tired & fat atm which doesn't help - and still effectively working full-time. Paul is around a bit more atm (being an x-student, now job-seeker) which is really great and on the whole I'm letting him deal with most of the difficult behaviours in the boys. I also feel it gives him a clearer picture of what I deal with on a daily basis and why I am so convinced Jake might have ADHD/behavioural problems.

If you feel you can - anyone - remember me in your prayers atm and pray too that this baby will be born asap - I'm sure that would help my emotions no-end at least! I think I might have 'sprung a leak' today when I was yelling at one point (at the girls this time for drawing everywhere with felt-pen!), nothing much, but maybe it might be enough to set me off ...

Maybe it's just a phase and I'll pass through it, but presently I am feeling seriously fed up with teaching my boys - and I think they are equally fed up with me!! I feel like I'm flogging a dead horse and not much is going in.  I can see that they are making progress (well some) in Maths and English, but any other subject - the 'fun stuff' is nothing but a grind to all of us. I rack my brains and spend many hours searching out new and inventive ways of presenting material and trying to make it all a bit more 'hands-on', but as soon as more than the most miniscule amount of brainwork is required I get tantrums and fooling around to the point where we all loose it with one another! Today I asked the boys to do a small amount of reading (four little one-paragraph job descriptions of egyptian jobs) while I went to photocopy a worksheet, but they could not even do that together without hitting each other and pulling hair - they fought over which way to read the page, left- right, left- right, or top-bottom, top-bottom!  Then the simple little worksheet was set for them to work on together. It should have taken them no time at all - with a little imagination and thought - but it took them over an hour + fooling time and they ended up missing swimming lessons again (another £14 down the plug) because even when we told them to stop (worksheet still unfinished) they couldn't get their shoes and jumpers on quick enough to get there in time.

I know this is moan, moan, moan, but that's what a blog is for is it not?...!

I really am not for the 'unschooling' approach as I couldn't cope with the disjointedness and actually don't think my boys would be capable of choosing what to do next. Their interests lie in football, skateboards and fooling around - and I'd struggle to find a way to make those very educational! There are constant 'carrots' being dangled as incentives (like "we can play a game together if you get your work done well today" - Jacob especially loves games), but none seem to be inviting enough, or the removal of them deterent enough to motivate him, or his brother, to get on and work.  I do not wish to have to hover over shoulders for the entire day, constantly  nagging them to 'get on'  - that is no fun for anyone.

Jacob did end up at the punishment desk three times today and he did get his work done better there, (seems he simply cannot work in the presence of any form of distraction at all - visual or audible - minimise them and it helps some), but the Egypt project I really want them to work on together, so I couldn't use it for that. Both boys ended up being given 'lines' (before tea) once they'd eventually finished  - "We will work sensibly together" - it was the most immediate & detestable punishment I could think of!

Do I just give up on joint projects, which would seem to be such a shame when to my mind there is so much benefit in them covering stuff together? Plus it would be incredibly difficult to teach them both everything separetly - not enought time in the year and we all need a life outside of school too!! As it is we really haven't covered all I wanted to this year - and I see no means of doing so now either (not enough time left) - and mainly because everything takes so much longer than I plan for it to. We're pretty much up to date with Maths and English, but all other subjects are lagging behind somewhat. We have no way covered a year of Science or Geography, History, Art, or any of those other 'extension' subjects that I had hoped to do more of this year. We have done some, don't get me wrong, just not enough I fear. I'm sure the boys are learning, but perhaps not as broadly as they might as school - and I am sure that bredth of knowledge is almost more important than depth of knowledge at this age. I would like to sweep everything at a 'covering' level and re-approach things later in more depth, however I feel we're not even doing that well at the moment. I am seriosly on the verge of considering school for them both, but I can see lots of reasons why I don't want to go there really. I hate the thought of what Jacob especially might soak up there - he is not the most discerning of little boys! And am pretty convinced it would not help either boy's over-all attitude and behaviour much at all - it would simply be me 'passing the buck' of my responsibilities on to someone else - NOT a good motive I guess  But I am at the point where I am really not enjoying schooling at all. I can get myself as motivated as I like, and fire myself with all kinds of new approaches, but to pass on that motivation to my boys is a completely different matter.

It's not just school either, it's everything that seems like a slog at the moment - daily chores, co-operation with anyone else in the family... Everything is an up-hill struggle with both boys, but always with oldest more than youngest.

Anyway - they are in bed now - "sorry"s said on both sides (mine and theirs) - intentions & desires for tomorrow made clear - tears shed, etc... We'll see what tomorrow holds!

Moan over - and still no baby here. I do worry what effect all my high stress levels might have on the poor little one!  

Just in case anyone else was wondering if Boo was right - No, we didn't have a baby yesterday! But actually - as I commented - it would be really good if he/she waited until at least after the weekend as Jacob has his 2wk-postponed party tomorrow and I'd hate to have to cancel it.  

After that little one can arrive whenever - and the sooner the better! My right hip is really sore and my pelvis aches too (sorry guys!) so walking is quite uncomfortable, let alone croaching etc... If we haven't hunted out the 'newborn' clothes before baby arrives I came across a couple of vest and unisex babygro's I could grap in an hurry should I really need to .

The girls room is sorted now and looks SO much better. It's lighter because the bed no longer obsures half the window and just feels lots roomier and play-friendly. The hallway looks OK too despite my reservations and it will be good when the computer station and 'punishment desk' are set up properly too. Why is it when you have a sort out you always feel you have more space for a while?

Our room - well I'm still working on it (just taking a little blog-break). We do now have a nice little 'reading/feeding corner' which is pleasant , but I really feel we need a bigger wardrobe. Despite moving half of Paul's clothes out into a spare cupboard in the boys room it is still too squished to keep any of the remaining clothes from creasing!  But  that was not the purpose of the turn-around!! I'm hoping to get the babies bed space cleared tonight and maybe even assemble the crib. That would make me feel a whole lot more ready  than I presently do! .

So - best get back to the sort-out! And I would like to say - although this may seem like some serious nesting going down here, it really is not out of choice, is not 'irrational' in any way and is completely necessary - so I guess that means it doesn't count! Nesting, to my mind, are those crazy, illogical things you do that you really don't have to -  just a few days before giving birth - like my friend who cut her front lawn with a pair of kitchen scissors (!!) and another who scrubbed every bathroom tile with a toothbrush!!

Mood: Tired and achey!!
Listening to: The sound of silent children sleeping :)

I laid in bed last night and pondered for far too long about HOW we are ever going to make room for an extra baby in this house.  As things stood there would be no room for a crib in any room of the house, so being that I am 37wks this Friday I was beginning to feel a little stressed by this. After a lengthy discussion with Paul about my dilema, and the fact that I really do not want to buy any MORE storage (besides the fact there is simply no more room for any) that we might not really need, or have even less room for should we decide to move house in the near future - which high up on the list of 'we want to do's' -we decided to make some major re-arrangements. These plans mainly consisted of moving a large side-board out of our room into the girls & moving a mass of shelving out of the girls room in to the hallway into the space occupied by a smaller sideboard, which was to re-locate to the back bathroom for now until it is replaced by a more upright cupboard (possibly). In the event - we ended up moving the small sideboard and the shelving as planned, then moving the TRIPLE bunkbeds to the other side of the room and the Cot-bed to where the bunks were - shuffling lots of other cupboards and toys, but not really winning with that because the large sideboard never quite made it out of our room today - that's tomorrow's plan! Having made a space for the sideboard though and split the mass of shelving (it's IVAR so it's flexible - thankfully) at the end of the day I realised that I actually could have just taken a section off the shelving and changed it to the other side of the room intead of relocating it entirely  - I think Paul felt like doing this :-   Anyway - I promised him that now they are in the hall they can stay there (although it does look a bit 'imposing' as you walk in the door) but actually it does have it's plusses. It means that the kids computer is in the hallway and therefore more accessible even when small babies are sleeping in the girls room AND I can watch what the user is learning/doing with more ease. Also I am going to keep a 'spare' desk as a punishment desk! That sounds horrid I know, but at times it is required to seperate these boys in order that either of them do any work at all, so whoever I deem fit will be sent to that desk which will be a really 'boring' space - facing a blank wall (minimal distractions therefore) and right where I can see their every move from almost any point in the house!! The boys looked sufficiently gloomy at the prospect when I told them tonight (it has been a nightmare day schoolwise with them - the simply cannot seem to work, together or apart, with any degree of independence at all without larking around to a ridiculous degree!), but whether the idea will actually be much of a deterent to poor behaviour, we'll have to wait and see!

So - back to Pickfords@Wellyboots! (that is NOT a link btw) - once we move the sideboard through tomorrow I then have the majorly nighmarish job of re-organizing all the contents of the cupboards and shelves so that everything is where it needs to be for it's specified purpose!!

Abbie asked what all this moving things was for today and I told her that we need to make room for the baby's bed in Mummy & Daddy's room because he/she would be here soon. Later on she asked "When is the baby coming Mummy?" - I told her I had no idea, but it wouldn't too long now. A few minutes later, after sitting on her newly positioned bed contemplating my answer, sucking her thumb and cuddling her 'snowy',  she piped up; "My God says the baby will come tomorrow!" She sounded so convinced and I think that often children are so much more in touch with their maker than we know how to be, so we'll have to see, but I must say that would be just God's sense of humour! We've had everything set up and waiiting for the last 5 babies at about 36wks - it was another 7 before Ellie was born! This time I am SO not ready - no space, no clothes sorted (they are in the back of the garage somewhere, behind a mountain of other boxes awaiting our 'need to redo' yard sale!), the house an absoulute pigsty (for want of a better phrase) and wouldn't it be typical that this would be my first baby to arrive early!! That said I could not say I would be sorry at all - it would just have to sleep in our bed for a bit - which it no doubt will anyway -and I would have to just give directions at Paul as to where 'stuff' needs to be re-homed. Thank goodness he has finished his course!!  The vote stands at boy-late at the moment - I hope you are all wrong about the late bit, but I defintaly suspect you'll be right on the gender  - this is the first time Paul and I have agreed on that  - but as usual only have a girls name for certain!

Hitting the sack now - I shall try to write something more schooly in the next couple of days.

Sorted it Alison!! Thanks for the tip - I just had to move where I was putting the code as it kept taking out parts of it for some reason!  Anyway - it's back to it's usual yellow state now, but not before I managed to undo all my links etc... Why can things never be simple eh?!

The Weekend went very well although it was quite sad to see so many good friends leaving college for distant shores. The nature of a small denomination like Elim though is that are always opportunities for a get-together

I'm out tonight and I haven't really time to blog much now, so I'll do a catch-up blog properly tomorrow.

I'm guessing not many of you are commenting because of the 'registration' thing. Is it a real hassle? Would you rather I was somewhere else? I'm reluctant to move my blog AGAIN, but if I did I think I would just head back to Blogger - although I actually quite like it here

It's been a hectic few days and promises to not get much better until after the weekend -  and I still haven't got sorted from our week away!

Monday was Jacob's birthday - as blogged - and poor little love his presents all went a bit pear-shaped! Not only was his Pirate ship a disaster, but when we got his street-scooter it too was faulty and by Wednesday we had exchanged it! Bless him - he was so good about it all and the new, bigger, better Pirate ship has arrived now and he is thrilled with it - phew!

Tuesday saw lots of coming and goings. Paul had his final exam, I had an ante-natal and seriously sprained my ankle (majorly swollen, but better now). Then in the evening we went out for a meal with Paul's tutor group - which was lovely, but tiring and a late night.

Wednesday was a calmer day, but still seemed very full and yesterday we were out again at the 'end of year bash' (college again) - another long & late night. I slept most of this afternoon, but still feel wiped! Tommorrow is 'Commissioning day' and promises another hectic schedule; the kids have tennis and ballet in the morning, the commissioning service is at 1pm followed by lots of sad goodbyes to good friends in the afternoon as everyone goes their seperate ways (+ BBQ) and going out for a meal with Paul's parents in the evening - their shout - to celebrate P. completeing his degree!

School has been going a bit better this week (but hasn't helped me feel less tired of course!) and our  project seems to be coming together at last - thanks to some resources from Evan Moor - I've got the 'Ancient Civilisation' pack & the 'Egypt' pack - which although it says is for Gr4-6 is easy reading and down-gradable! Seems to be going down very well - phew again! (If you are wondering how I got them so quickly AIM is a wonderful thing!!)

I'm feeling a bit as if we're sailing close to the summer hol's now though and I need to start wrapping-up things, but still have stacks to do. We still need to finish off our look at Ireland - so much for covering it in a half-term, and having Scotland and Wales covered by the summer hol's too. Ho-Hum! We have 12 weeks of Jolly grammar left to cover to finish off the Yr1 syllabus, so I might have to double portions of that some days (hmmm!), but Joel is almost ready to move on to Year2 stuff for certain, so I want it finished. We have finished 1B of Singapore maths with him, but I still don't feel he has a good handle on his addition and subtraction and word problems seem to throw him into total confusion. He only scored 23/30 in his review tests at the end (about 76%) - as it is generally considered that it's best to get 85%+ before moving on we need to do some more work on that for sure. Sadly Joel is reluctant to use manipulatives because he thinks their "babyish"  but I think he needs to 'see' how it works a few more times! I'll re-test him at the end of the year (another few weeks away yet) and hopefully he will have 'got it ' better by then. J

Jacob is flying through CGP Yr3 stuff (when he's in the mood to fly that is!) and I think he will all-but cover a whole year's work this term. Really it's easy for him and we're just doing it to tread water. We could move on to Singapore 3A, but not only does the level of maths rise, but the quantity expected per sitting rises too, so I'm reluctant to push that door just yet - being that his attention span is simply not that of an average 8yo. Also I want him to have a more balanced outlook. Maths he can do because it is so 'concrete' and he applies numbers to everything, but I want him to be a little less 'fixed' on numbers, so that's why I'm not pushing him full-steam ahead!

And that's about us for tonight - I'm too tired to think very straight any more!

I thought I'd post up a few piccies from our week away too. It was a great week. The boys disappeared for most of the time with friends they made or old friendships they were able to catch up with (children who have passed through college with their parents while we've been here). There were activities morning and evening for the 3+ yo's, so that lost us 4 out of 5 and Ellie was happy just to tag along with us The meetings - well some were great and others not so, but that's always the way at these types of things really. We even managed to spend a few hours on the beach one afternoon.

It was also very nice for us to catch up with old friends too  - but we were exhausted when we got home of course - especially as the chalet was aweful and the put-u-up was virtually broken - slopping backwards at an almost 45 degree angle towards our heads - not good at 34wks pregnant - with a plastic mattress (uuggh!!) , etc, etc...!!

But it was a good holiday - roll on the move to Minehead next year !!

Ellie built this track all by herself!!

The builder at work!!

How DO babies squat like this?!!

Paper-Dolls-R-Us!!

You can see more piccies over HERE if you like.

It's Jacob's birthday today  - he's 8 - WOW - where did those years go!! He's busy playing in his room with the Playmobile Pirate Gallion that we got him, but sadly...we bought it in advance on e-bay at Christmas (sold as complete and in good condition), but when we came to assemble it last night we found that lots of essential bits were missing and many more broken.    I did ask P. to check it out when it first arrived - I didn't realise he hadn't been as thorough in his checking as I would have been!! Jake fortunatly doesn't seem too bothered, but we have explained he will get the 'real' thing and I've ordered him one - NEW this time!! Meanwhile he's happy to play with the 'ship-wreck' and we will sell it on as 'spares' to try and recoop some of the money (sigh)

My Mum bought him a guitar (not toy) so now I have to teach him!! And P's Mum bought him a watch - he was SO chuffed with that one!! Only thing left to get is the all desired 'flashing street scooter' - hoping he gets a bit of cash to pay for that one!

I'll post pic's later :)