Waiting for baby...

I know it's been ages since I updated here! NOT intentional, as always, but... you know how it is. I have so much to write about, and so many photos to post. Right now I just wanted to update to say that I am waiting for Samuel to arrive. He was due yesterday, and I have no signs of labour yet. I really hope he will come soon because I am so exhausted and uncomfortable now! I LOVE being pregnant and will miss it as soon as I'm not anymore, but I am eager to meet my new sweetie pie, and to have the labour and birth over and done with - the anticipation is making me quite anxious!

Neil has a new job about a 40 minute drive away, further into London. He started in November - the day before Arthur's 6th birthday (which I MUST write about!!!), and it is going really well. I have adjusted to being the sole parent at home looking after the boys for 12 hours a day (he's out from about 7.30am to 7pm), though the first week was really really hard! We are not currently doing formal school, and plan to start the new academic year with the calendar year - which we might continue permanently, I'm not sure yet - although I am not planning to get back into school during January. I'm giving myself 6 weeks before taking that on (have no idea how to manage it yet!) but if all is going smoothly before then, we'll probably start a bit earlier. Meanwhile they're learning a TON, it seems, just by following their own leads, and by the fact that we have a crazy amount of books full of information lying around! I wish I had time to tell you some things about Arthur - he is changing so much and learning like I can't believe, even though we haven't done school since late summer. We have done a relaxed autumn theme through the autumn, not every day, just here and there. We've learned about migration and hibernation, and seasonal changes and so on. They learned about the northern and southern hemispheres and why the seasons there are different. We did autumn crafts and baking, and read books about autumn, animals that we associate with autumn, and just lots of stories related to autumn. I have kept up a daily read-aloud session when Benjamin goes down for his nap late morning, usually for 1-2 hours straight. At first it REALLY taxed my voice and made me feel very tired! But I am used to it now. That's the time I read them classics and things that are generally a bit older than their age level. We've read various different things, most recently Heidi, and then the first two Paddington Bear books. I have more Paddington books coming for Christmas (they LOVE it!), and then other books lined up like finishing the Little House on the Prarie series, Wind in the Willows, The Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, etc. Arthur was SO taken with Heidi, and seemed to keep up fine despite the language being more complicated than he knew to understand a lot.

So that is what we've been doing. I want to assess Arthur's reading soon. We were doing Rocket Phonics in the summer but we haven't done any reading lessons since. He seems to have taught himself to read a LOT since then though, and I now have no idea how much he's actually able to read. I guess I'll find out once we get back to school in February! :)

I will update again soon with news of Samuel's arrival, but if you're looking for potentially TMI regular updates with progress and news as it happens (!!), my pregnancy blog is the place to find it in the meantime! :)