January 1st:
"Nice early night last night, and it still took me 3 hours to go to sleep! I was wide awake at what must have been midnight when the whole neighbourhood erupted with fireworks. They made my tiny bed-fellow stir, so I snuggled his sleepy self into my bumpy tummy, kissed his soft cheek, and whispered Happy New Year in his ear. The bumpy tummy gave a few teeny tiny kicks! Best "ringing in the New Year" moment ever." ♥
Can't believe the tiny bed-fellow was Samuel, and the teeny tiny kicks came from Elijah! So sweet to look back on!
January 3rd:
"Feel like a child at Christmas!!! Royal Mail van just pulled up with our new science curriculum AND the new history curriculum!!!! Soooooo excited!!!! New academic year starts in a few weeks! Here's hoping I can pull it off (again - must say this every year, lol!)!"
The science curriculum I chose was Apologia Science - Exploring Creation with Astronomy (the boys have enjoyed this, Matthew less so, but then he's less keen on academic ANYTHING than Arthur in any case). For history I chose Story Of The World: Ancient Times, and we're really enjoying it! :)
"LOVE how Benjamin talks! "Oh! Look at linnel pih-lits! Nawww!" (look at the little piglets) So sad how fast they outgrow this incredibly sweet stage!" ♥
"And finishing his lunch, patting his tummy, "My tummy ees FOOL!" Love him!"
Benjamin was two-and-a-half at the time. Such a sweet, sweet age! I love the early talking stages, and the sweet way they pronounce stuff with such seriousness!
"Speaking calmly and politely on the phone during an important call I was waiting for, the person on the other end could never have known that in one hand I held the phone, and in the other I was holding a little wrist in the air, keeping the poo-covered hand away from its owner for the duration of the phone call! ;) Motherhood - sometimes you just have to laugh! I love it! :)"
January 6th:
"Not being a good mother today :( Tolerance for kiddie-related stresses is ridiculously low for some reason, and I'm completely fed up with unblocking intentionally blocked toilets, cleaning up intentionally created wee puddles (near the plugs!!!), and lifting the baby down from some scarily high place with a sore side for the zillionth time in 10 minutes, and just the general phenomenon that is children who cannot hear their mother give instructions or correction or requests, no matter how many times they are repeated or how loudly they're made!!!! Done in for the day :("
Being real. Motherhood is not for wimps! ;) My side was sore and it felt like the start of a kidney stone, and I was SCARED, having had one the previous summer, but thankfully (oh so thankfully!) it was some sort of pregnancy-related muscle strain that came and went, and didn't result in a kidney stone passing! :)
January 7th:
"Took Matthew to Homebase today, looking for supplies to make terrariums with the boys soon. Where can I buy BIG glass (or clear plastic) jars with lids?! So excited about the school year ahead! Been doing loads of planning and reorganising today, and I think we are going to have a lot of fun with school this year! :)"
January 8th:
"Found a fish tank for making our terrarium with Arthur at a mega pet shop! Can't wait to take all the boys back there - soooooo many fish and little creatures to see! Arthur is now in love with Chinchillas, and wants to raise chickens now he's seen them - will have to wait until we move house."
"Completely tidied, decluttered and cleared the boys' bedroom in 4 hours!!!!! This is a 4 DAY job, people! Thank you Lord for my pregnancy hormones! :) Now trying to figure out a better system for storing the books in the school area whilst, um, "decluttering" the Christmas chocolates! ;)
The front-facing book display in the living room is just for the baby/pre-school books, and we ended up having to choose it because we couldn't have anything sticking out further than a few inches with the doorway right beyond it. Tricky to fit everything in such a small house! We wanted an easy display that would be appealing to the littlies without it being a big nuisance if they pulled them all off. I think a bookshelf would stick out a fair bit more and be less appealing to the little ones (reading-wise, that is! I'm sure it would appeal as a pull-and-dump activity centre!). Books for school, curriculum, reference, and books that are for those who can read independently are stored higher up, but there isn't enough storage space now, so I'm trying to work out what to add at the higher level (and how!)."
January 9th:
"Another unnaturally productive day - I would seriously like to bottle these hormones and take them as a daily supplement for the rest of my life! Or at least as long as I am bringing up children! Four bags of rubbish filled and put out; four loads of laundry washed, tumble dried, folded and PUT AWAY (gasp!!!); boys' clothing drawers organised; kitchen floor swept and cleaned; kitchen dresser declu...ttered, cleaned and re-organised; 3 dishwasher loads (!!!); quadruple quantity of banana cake made; fish pie made for dinner; kitchen chairs and bench cleaned; and a bath for my sweet fish-pie-covered baby! ;) My pelvis HURTS now, but it feels wonderful to get so much done, and grateful hubby bought me a Terry's Chocolate Orange as a "reward"! :)
I have to say, I really did HURT from about halfway through the day. The back of my pelvis is really sore, and I really felt pregnant (and waddly!) after that! I needed a hot bath in the evening to ease it :S I should take it easy, but I know it's just a flash of hormones and it won't last. My house is crying out for this kind of attention so I simply must make the most of it while I can!"
January 10th:
"Keep hearing things that make me smile in this house! Exasperated child: "Look, if you keep playing it like that, I will NEVER win, not even when I'm DEAD!!!" Calm answer: "Don't be ridic-li-ous." ;) Woke up feeling nesty again today, hooray! Bathroom? And I have my 20 week scan this afternoon!! :) Can't wait to see my tiny baby again (and double check that he's a he!)! :)"
"Here is my 6th baby boy! :) He's facing the camera, face top left, tummy to the bottom right. He is measuring perfect, and looks very healthy. Likes playing with his feet and having his legs up over his head! ;) My placenta has moved waaaay up, so thank you for praying! The sonographer was very surprised! Praise God! :) So happy and thankful for my sixth little treasure, and can't WAIT to meet him! ♥"
January 12th:
It's Birthday Time again in our house! :) Nathan is 4 tomorrow, and specifically asked for a chocolate digger cake, which HAD to have chocolate icing and caterpillar tracks! It's 1am and I've just finished. He doesn't want us to sing Happy Birthday to him at ALL (hates the limelight!), wants to bake brownies with me in the morning, have his birthday outing to the "green slide" (not sure where that is, but we'll look for it!), and eat brownies after that, lol! Off to bed now!
"Four years ago today my third baby boy was born at 5.46am! I was 35 weeks and 5 days pregnant, and my waters had broken the day before - we were NOT expecting him, and everything baby-related was in the loft! ;) He weighed 5lbs 13oz and was the tiniest and most gorgeous little bundle of personage that I had ever laid eyes on. Now he's the tiniest, sweetest little FOUR-year-old that I ever laid eyes on, and I can't believe how the time has flown! Love my Nathey! ♥"
January 13th:
"Cup o' tea whilst Samuel sleeps and the boys have a rare treat - Nathan's new Roary the Racing Car DVD whilst eating birthday cake for morning snack! :) They are soooo thrilled! Trying to muster up the marvellous nesty hormones from earlier in the week that have sadly (but predictably) fizzled out. So much to organise! Next week is our "practise school" week to see how well I (don't) manage to juggle everything for the New Academic Year (excited much?!) the following week."
"Have done miraculous things to the kitchen, and now SO. VERY. BADLY. fancy a beer with lunch!! Unfortunately am pregnant and responsible for 5 small children for the rest of the day, so hey ho! ;) Mmmm, beeeeer...."
January 14th:
"I would like to know which child taught my 2-year-old to say, "Smell my bottom!" in response to anything I ask him or tell him off for which he doesn't like!!"
January 15th:
"I have to keep sniffing my crockpot! There's a mega batch of beef burgundy stew in there which smells unbelievable. It *could* be hormones, but the smell sort of makes me want to sit next to it and cry for a while, lol! I hope it tastes as yummy as it smells! :)"
January 16th:
Silly boys! They have always found having a baby/toddler brother so entertaining, over the smallest things! :)
"So excited to discover a homeschooling family within 3 miles with 5 children the same ages as mine!!! :D First day of "practise school" went really well today! We are starting the Workbox System (well, testing it for a couple of weeks) and so far it's going down very well with the boys. Relieved the first day is behind us!"
January 17th:
"Tiny baby boy kept me awake for the first time with such big kicks and thumps for such a teeny tiny person! ♥ Fondly smiling at the sleeplessness until about 1am. Smiling less fondly when Samuel decided to wake for the day before 5am. Last night he was awake from 11.45pm until 2.15am!! He is about to start walking (hence the sleep disturbances) - took THREE steps yesterday! :) Feel tired out this morning despite Neil sending me back to bed for an hour from 6ish. Good thing I love these littles soooooo! ♥"
January 18th:
"Can get nothing done due to Samuel's explorative activities on a constant basis now!!! Typical 5 mins: He climbs up to the top of the school cupboard, attempting to pull the books off the high shelves. He pulls out an entire pack of wipes over the floor. He gets stuck behind the toy basket and needs rescuing. He rolls the edge of the rug over and licks the underside (soooo disgusting on the underside of our rug!!). Climbs up to the top of the school cupboard. I move the stack of school chairs that he's using to get there, and put them in the only other place (by the school table). Within 30 seconds he uses those to climb onto the school table and pulls the clock off the wall, finds a box of tissues and pulls those out too. Chairs to the other side of the kitchen gate. Should not have stopped to post this on Facebook, as he's teetering on the window sill (no idea how he managed to get up there!)!!!!
Now I've got him down, I've just remembered the books he's torn and the computer switched on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off until I unplugged it at the wall (and put a kiddie safe socket thingy in, don't worry!). How am I to get anything donnnnne?!?!! He goes at speed to do one of those things if I go to the toilet or something - he KNOWS!! Little monkey! I know he's normal - I guess my memory must not be very good as Benjamin was only at this stage a year or so ago! Pretty sure Samuel is more climby than Benjamin was though...We've swapped the sofa with the craft chest because he was using that to get onto the window sill, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll have to move the taller chest of drawers thingy under the window and put the craft chest under the stairs?! Aaaargh!"
January 19th:
"Love my little mix-and-match playmates! :) For a while they've gravitated towards playing in pairs (or all together) - Arthur and Matthew, and Nathan and Benjamin. Lately Arthur has his nose in a book more, so right now Matthew and Nathan are upstairs playing Lego and seem to have much more in common re. play and same interests and abilities since Nathan turned 4. Benjamin is either playing something imaginative by himself or (NEW!) starting to be able to really play with Samuel, much to Samuel's delight! They're all 18 months apart so I guess there's always someone to play with! Love it! :)"
"No idea what has possessed me to make roast chicken, roast potatoes and parsnips, and ginger cake with custard for dinner mid-week, when it's a bit extravagant and also NONE of my children will eat it! And Neil might have to work late! Whole roast chicken for one?? ;) Smells marrrrrvellous though, and there'll just be lots of leftovers for pies and other yummy things! :)"
January 20th:
Here is a photo of Benjamin doing one of the activities in his "school" workbox today. I am so pleased with this one because it's just playdough to stabilise some wooden rods from an activity cube that we had which broke, and I couldn't bear to throw the parts away. The beads came from the activity cube too. SO glad I kept them! He spends ages on this activity, and much less time on purchased pre-school activities, funnily enough! Tomorrow, one of his activities will be posting "safe-ended" pipe cleaners through a colander (thank you Pinterest!)! :)
The colander and pipe cleaners were a BIG hit, but I gave them to Nathan (just turned 4) instead of Benjamin (2.5). Benjamin had a tub with a lid, with holes punched in the lid, and posted pipe cleaners in those (with some help needed - kept him busy for a while though). Nathan needed no help or instructions, and spent over an hour making a mesh "bridge" to support his toy cars. He only had to stop because it was lunch time, otherwise I think it could have been 2 hours, lol! Definitely putting out this activity again. He's concentrating on pushing a pipe cleaner out through the other side in this picture :)
January 21st:
"Just relaxing and browsing the internet, and noticed I had been feeling tired out and a bit queasy for a while. Had a sudden moment of excited awe at the possibility that I might be pregnant, and wondered about testing in the morning, hahaha! Felt very very silly a few seconds later when my brain arrived on the scene and I remembered the baby in my tummy that I've been growing for 22 weeks so far! ;) I shall now go and catch up on some sleep!"
January 22nd:
I never post quotes but this one is awesome! :) "People who treasure things above children just can't understand how someone who puts children above things can enjoy it so much. They just don't get it. Your children are your treasures. Not material things."
January 23rd:
"Cleaned out the van today. Three loads of laundry, one large refuse sack of rubbish (including 4 used (wee!) nappies from Christmas Day, ewwww! Did NOT know those had been missed!), some still-sandy beach towels/clothes/toys, many more coats that we have children for some reason (!), and about a 3rd of an acre's worth of woodland (well, the branches that once belonged there) and stones. That was a job LONG overdue! ;)"
"Always especially love having little children when hearing things like, "But Mummy, Daddy gave us merstiffick instruptions!" ALWAYS something to make me smile in my days! :)"
Although very cute, this quote was from Matthew at age five-and-a-half, and it reminded me that his speech isn't "normal" for his age. This was the time when I started to look into the idea of speech therapy for him, or occupational therapy for something-I-knew-not-what. I knew he had sensory issues, but I didn't understand anything more than that at the time.
January 25th:
"Found 'James and the Giant Peach' in a box, and gave it to Arthur to read before lunch, 3 hours ago. He's just finished it! :-O Better get thinking about more books for that boy again! On Monday we start our new academic year (deep breaths!), and I can assess his reading level. The past two weeks have been good for practising "school" - they're used to the school routine I think, at least! And I'm now thinking it's going to work, as opposed to tearfully panicking and thinking there is NO. WAY. I can do this!!! :)"
January 27th:
"LOVE bright-coloured plastic funnels, measuring spoons and measuring cups in the kitchen section at Asda, and a bag of decorative pebbly things in the bathroom section - all for £1 a set!!! Woohoo, new workbox activities for little pre-schooly people coming up! :)"
January 29th:
"Nervous and excited about starting "proper" school tomorrow morning! The beginning of our third year of homeschooling (can't belieeeve that!)!"
January 30th:
"Can't believe I didn't get photos of the first day of school! :( Just didn't think to! Snack break right now, and so far so good. Maths, handwriting and computer activities done, just reading to go, and history this afternoon. And workbox activities for the 4 boys (not academic stuff). Shame about the 2.5 hours of sleep last night (sigh!), but yaaaaaay the first day of school is HAPPENING!!! :)"
"DONE!!!! First time we've ever had to do school morning and afternoon, but it was only a short history lesson in the afternoon. I guess we'll have to use more of the day as they get older (and more of them to teach!). So pleased with the day, and can't believe it's past 4pm already!! Thanks for the sweet comments - I feel pretty good about myself today but am not usually this marvellous, haha! Sadly I'm the least organised woman on the planet, and have no idea how I've winged it this far, other than the grace of God! "
"Right now we are doing Bible, maths, handwriting, reading, history and science as set lessons, and following their interests in other areas. We only started history today, and science will start on Thursday (once a week for both). Basically I have to work around the little ones so that we have minimal disturbance. The current "hope it works" plan is Bible with all 5 boys on the sofa (read aloud, memory verses, etc), Samuel down for his nap in the morning, then 2 and 4 year olds watch an educational DVD, something preschool curriculum approved or whatnot for maybe 30-60 mins while I teach maths to Matthew first (Arthur does handwriting then is free to do his beloved weather searching on the internet), and then Arthur (Matthew does handwriting and explores starfall.com). Back all together for a snack, then we start workboxes (all 4 boys have a box with 3 activities each in them - jigsaws, cutting/pasting/colouring activities, logic games and puzzles, fine motor skills stuff, montessori do-dahs, etc.). Matthew's first item is always phonics/reading with me. Arthur follows right on from Matthew with his reading, then they are free to do their workbox activities as they like, while I get Samuel up (usually by now) and spend time with the little two doing their workbox activities. History and science will be afternoon lessons (no particular scheduled time) and the read aloud parts are for any boys who want to listen. We're done by somewhere between noon and half past. It actually flows very smoothly, but the hardest part is the work put in to prepare everything. I do the general week-ahead prep at the weekend (photocopying, lesson planning, preparing crafts, etc) and then need to plan and fill each boys' workbox the night before every week night, and also prepare the older two boys' maths lessons for every week day the night before as well. I think it will get easier with repetition and time, but for now I am DONE IN, and going to bed! Thankfully the lessons are basically laid out for me from various curriculum options we've chosen, so it could be worse!
January 31st:
"Behind! Behiiiind!!! Aaaaargh! Samuel keeps waking for the day by 5am, and I keep not being able to sleep until 2am! NOT a good combo. Totally not ready for the day yet, and the whole thing is going to sliiiiide, aaaaargh!"
"Bit late for lunch now, but otherwise things went well in the end! School just finishing for the day (boys doing independent stuff right now) which I'm relieved about!"
"Sleety stuff falling. Arthur almost insane with excitement. The boy is truly weather-mad! ;)"
"Headache. Not too surprising. So far caffeine, water and paracetamol aren't doing anything. Need sleeeeep! Wish the boys would all take a nap!"
"So Benjamin fell down on Sunday into some prickles and thorns at the park, and got up with a cut to his forehead. Now that the swelling has gone down and it's scabbing over, I can see quite a large bump of a huge splinter under his skin in his forehead. It's really healed over so what do I do with it?! I am not sure how to get that out, or if I should. It's not looking infected yet (will it?), and he's only flinching if I touch it, otherwise not complaining at all. Advice? It's more like a small twig than a splinter! :S"
After various bits of advice from friends, and ideas, we decided to leave it, as something similar happened with Arthur's hand when he was younger. He wouldn't let us near it, so we kept an eye on it and it was fine - the skin hardened over it and fell off (with the splinter included) eventually. Benjamin's did the same in the end! :)
"Tub of Cadbury's drinking chocolate powder. Spoon. It has come to this! ;) Boys all ready for bed though, just waiting for Neil to get home so they can see Daddy before going to bed."
Long day, hehe!
Love my job, and my littles! :)
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