April homeschooling update! (long!)

I have changed the weekly schedule a bit for homeschooling. Matthew was finding daily maths too frustrating, and there's no actual NEED to do maths every day for a 5-year-old (or even a 7-year-old), so I decided to try doing the basic "maths, handwriting and reading" routine on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, instead of every single morning. The idea is that on Tuesday we do history, handwriting, and reading, and then on Thursday we do science (astronomy) which incorporates handwriting. So far the reduced maths is much better for both boys, though last week was a short week because of the long Easter weekend and we just did 3 days straight of maths/writing/reading, and the boys were fine with that too. I think it helps that Matthew's maths has changed in this past week - he's getting fairly near the end of Right Start Level A, and there's no more number work for him until Level B! Number work really frustrates him, even the easiest stuff that I can't break down to be simpler! I am definitely seeing improvement over the weeks all the same. But now he will be learning to tell the time; measuring lengths, weights, and liquid volume; learning some basic fractions; working a little with geometric shapes and tesselations; and also geometric solids. He is REALLY looking forward to all of that! By the end of Level A, which I am hoping we'll finish before the baby is due in 6 or 7 weeks (SIX OR SEVEN WEEKS, PEOPLE!!!!! How on earth?!?!), he should be able to tell the time, and the "prize" for completing Level A is a watch from Nana :) He's excited about that too!

Arthur has just finished a fairly intensive section on mental strategies for adding two 2-digit numbers together. It has meant he actually has to use his brain and be challenged, which apparently is "RIDICULOUS!" and "SO UNFAIR!!" and just "TOO FRUSTRATING FOR WORDS!!!!!" This has made maths with Arthur just soooo much fun lately! ;) He has grumped about saying he can't do it (because he doesn't want to try, or make mistakes, which inevitably happens when something is a challenge and you're new at it) and generally taking absolutely ages to complete his maths work. I have found it so hard to keep my cool with him - it is not easy! But he has just sat there until he has completed it, and eventually he reaches a point where he decides to actually tackle it, struggles with the first few equations, and then gets the hang of it and has a real sense of achievement at the end. I always remind him of that pattern the next time we have the same issue, but he does the same thing anyway - albeit acknowledging that I was right just before completing his work! ;)

He is moving onto other stuff next week, and he's thrilled about that (me too!)! I have to look ahead a bit to see what's coming up for him, but I know he has some calculator work for a couple of lessons, and he LOVES using the calculator - it's used very very little in this curriculum so far, as equipping with mental strategies is the main focus. He revisits fractions and geometric shapes soon, and then he's adding thousands and FINALLY beginning subtraction! :) He has begun subtraction last week without me being allowed to teach him the terms "minus" or "subtraction" just yet. He calls it "take X away from" and finds it easy, so hopefully he'll have no issues with it once it's formally taught. He also starts the "times table" (or skip counting) with the multiplication cards next week, but he's not going to be doing multiplication itself until near the end of NEXT year's curriculum.

Talking of which!! We have some funds this month to enable me to buy curriculum, so I have had THE MOST fun shopping for curriculum items that I had been researching and bookmarking for the past year. I bought Right Start Mathematics Level C!!! Exciting!!! I got the Level B to C add-on package, because we have most of the manipulatives already. There's a note in Arthur's maths book (Level B) this week that says there are 20 lessons left and it's time to order the next Level, but since we're in the UK I thought it would be wise to order it ahead. It hasn't arrived yet. I am pretty sure we won't finish Level B before Elijah is born - if he is born at/after my due date and all is well beforehand, I plan to homeschool up to the week before my due date anyway. We will be taking a big break after he is born. He's due May 23rd and if he comes around that time, the earliest I would be looking to restart homeschooling would be the first week of July. I am definitely thinking of taking the whole of June off school, but I'm relaxed about when we start back - I don't have a set date at all. Benjamin's birthday is July 9th (a Tuesday), so maybe we won't even start back until we get a full week free, the following week? Or maybe Elijah will fit in with our days so smoothly and we'll be chomping at the bit to start in the last week of June? Who knows. But I'm not worried about it anyway - I will think about it a few weeks after I give birth and go from there. The boys seem a bit put out to be stopping school for allll those weeks! ;) I told them they can still do workbox activities to keep them busy, and Daddy will be home for the first two weeks after Elijah is born anyway, so they'll go out and such, quite a lot.

So when we DO start back, Matthew will hopefully begin a fresh new curriculum, starting Level B before Arthur has quite finished it. Arthur shouldn't have more than a couple of weeks or so left of Level B lessons, and then can go straight on to Level C from there.

I also ordered Morrell's Handwriting Book 2 - there are two books of photocopiable worksheets, and we have been using the first one this year. Their handwriting is improving, more noticably with Arthur. He needs a little more work on how he's forming his letters, though the finished product of his sentences is getting really neat and tidy now. He is eager to do joined-up writing, so I have bought the second book (which focuses on cursive writing) in anticipation. I think he'll move onto that sometime over the summer or autumn, but I am not sure about Matthew starting that with him yet.

Arthur is doing great with his reading! He is near the very end of the Rocket Phonics curriculum, which is roughly a 2-year course (though you go at the child's pace for however long, basically) from knowing no phonics sounds, to reading at secondary school level. He was better challenged by the last section he did in the book, having to use the "helpers" to decipher some of the words for the first time since the early months with the curriculum. Words that stumped him without the helpers were things like "colonel". At the end of that section he had another test, which I wondered if he would struggle with a bit, since he had been more challenged in that section. He had a list of 100 words (or so) to read straight off as I pointed to them. I thought he might be okay because he had to get 85% of them correct to be ready for the next section. He got one word wrong! I was so surprised! :) He has moved onto stories at a Year 7 reading level (6th Grade) in the next section and is learning about 'ph' sounding like 'f' and 'eu' sounding like 'yoo', that sort of thing. He reads on and off throughout the day, just picking up one of several books that he might have on the go, and reading on the sofa or floor (oblivious to the many small boys gallavanting around him!) for a while and then suddenly hopping up and joining in somebody's game or activity, or starting something else of his own. I sometimes suggest he takes a book upstairs to flop on someone's bed to read, but he rarely does. He prefers to just be amongst everyone and read! I think that would drive me crazy, if it were me, but he prefers it anyway.

I recently put his reading books in a more accessible place for him - they were next to our school bookshelf already, but in clear plastic boxes stacked up, and they looked messy and were not easy to pull books out of when he wanted them. I just wanted them out of the way of the littlest boys (the smallest of which eats paper for a hobby, lol!). I saw an idea on Pinterest for using wooden spice racks from Ikea for little bookshelves, and LOVED it immediately. I love how it's such a space-saving idea, and we need that kind of thing desperately in our tiny house! I kept a look out on eBay for ages, and finally won a lot of 4 Ikea spice racks for a few pounds plus postage! :) They've been here months, but I only got round to getting out the power drill and installing them last weekend. I wish I had a "before" picture, but here is the "after" picture all the same!



I love how they match the beech furniture we already have, and how clean and attractive the look is, with the books facing out. Arthur is so excited to have his books stored there, and takes a book down from there many times a day, replacing it carefully not too long after. I think it's a novelty effect, but he is loving using the shelves! There wasn't room for all four shelves there, but I used three of them, and they store just under 40 of his reading books, which is not bad! His main choices at the moment are Roald Dahl books (lots of giggling from behind a book!), and he has recently picked up Tom's Midnight Garden for the first time. He LOVES Matilda at the moment. He has read all the Roald Dahl books many times, like the Enid Blyton ones, but he never tires of reading them over and over again, sometimes the same book twice in one day! I'm thankful that he's not bored with a book he has already read, because otherwise I would be starting to panic at keeping up with supplying books for him to read! He reads the Little House books and occasionally has a go at the Paddington Bear books as well. I recently added a couple of things to his collection - a compilation of Mrs Pepperpot stories (which he read in a day) and also a box set of the first four Boxcar Children Mysteries. Those are American stories that I had never heard of, let alone read, until recently. But the reviews from friends and Amazon customers alike persuaded me. I am going to read them first though, but they look lovely!

Arthur reads a lot of reference books outside of the story books, mainly geography and history, but some science stuff as well, and nature. Whatever takes his fancy really. We have quite a few good reference books for older children that we've been given, which are just right for him when he is interested in something.

The black boxes on top of the school bookshelves in the photo are our workboxes. I can't remember if I've put a photo of them here before (or even taken one?!). We buy nappy wipes in boxes of 12 packs at a time (I have three full-time in nappies - soon to be four if I don't do something drastic like potty train someone! ;) ), and those boxes seemed perfect for repurposing. I just covered them in black sugar paper and made labels for the fronts with each boy's name. Samuel doesn't have a workbox - he's only 15 months old, but I made them before he turned one and now at 15 months he is VERY eager to be involved with workboxes, and if there was space on the top of the shelf I would add one for him now. It's the perfect size for 4 boxes, so I just put extra in Benjamin's box at the moment and give Samuel one of those when we start workbox activities, so he feels involved! It's usually something like a container of plastic safari animals or something like that. I cleared out the mess under the school table recently and have used several more nappy wipes boxes to contain baby toys and things under there. Ideally I would like a piece of slim-fitting furniture to go at the back under the table, to contain stuff, but I am biding my time on eBay! ;) I added some toddler jigsaws (the lift-out peg type), their yellow giant peg board, and a couple of other toddler activities that Samuel is really interested in, to keep at his level. He plays with those things a lot at the moment.

The TV is another eBay win - our house is starting to be made up of mostly eBay wins, haha! Our old TV broke, and we had no money to buy a new one. It wasn't a big deal since the boys haven't watched ANY TV other than DVDs since March 2010! Two years of no CBeebies - I can't tell you how overjoyed I am about that! ;) They were so hooked on it before. They have times where they watch too much TV (DVDs) but I am trying to limit it. In a good patch, they rarely watch any, but we haven't had a good patch for a while... Anyway, I found a flat screen TV the right size to sit in front of the school bookshelves (conveniently blocking little hands from getting into the games and puzzles inside the cupboard doors!) at eBay for £30! :) It was local enough for Neil to go and pick up, and it seems barely used to us. Yay!

Oh this isn't very "school update" ish, is it?!

So I bought one other curriculum item that I had been watching and wanting for a long while - All About Spelling! I am really excited about it! So far I haven't done any spelling at all with the boys, and I like this programme a lot. But it uses its own phonics alphabet, and it differs slightly from the Rocket Phonics alphabet, so I didn't want to confuse the boys by using the two side by side, before they were confident readers. I decided to get to the point of completing Rocket Phonics and then replace the time spent on that during school with All About Spelling. So Arthur will start spelling lessons soon, and Matthew will not for a while. He is now reading sentences and doing well! He's much more motivated and excited about reading now that he can actually read things that make sense to him, but his progress is much more slow and steady than Arthur's ever was. He isn't slow, he just isn't Arthur, and that is fine. The whole thing is a big learning curve for me. I know how to teach an "Arthur" so far, and that is all! Matthew isn't like Arthur, he's just different, and so I must learn all over again how to teach.

We are not really getting history done every week, nor science. I am not stressing about it really. The boys are eager, and if we have chance we do those subjects, just working through the lessons. Sometimes they behave horribly during the main part of school and the consequence of that is they don't get to do the fun stuff that would have followed if they had behaved better for me and not delayed things. I reeeeally hope they're learning from this! If they are, it's a slow process, but sometimes Arthur seems to make the connection.

I actually decided to split lesson 2 of the Apologia Astronomy course (The Sun) into four different lessons, and made a lesson plan for each one with some extra activities. I like a more relaxed approach and it allows us to explore the subject more thoroughly anyway. I like adding craft projects where possible, so it helps me fit that in as well. The boys are on the young end for the course, so breaking it up and adding crafts is good! :)

In history we have done two projects that the boys have really enjoyed! Using 'The Story of the World: Vol. 1 - Ancient Times', we're learning about the ancient nomadic people of Egypt who settled at the Nile where the land was fertile. I didn't go for the activity suggestions that were made for the first chapter, so we started on one I made up. It turned out great, and it has taken us weeks to complete it, adding bits and pieces here and there where we've found time. I decided it would be fun to make a diorama with "mud huts" - which we had just been learning about the nomads building by the Nile.

We started with a piece of thick cardboard (unbendably thick), and drew a wavy line near one end to mark the edge of the River Nile (I keep typing Neil, haha! I guess those letters are normally arranged that way when I type them!). The boys painted a sheet of aluminium foil with blue acrylic paint, and after it dried, we cut it to the wavy line shape on the board, and glued it on. While it was drying, the boys built their mud huts! I cut wide strips of corrugated cardboard and bent it into a "hut" shape, and cut a doorway on one side. Then I cut a square for each flat roof, and hot-glued them to the huts with my trusty glue gun! ;) The boys LOVED watching me use the glue gun! They tore up strips of kitchen roll and used watered-down white glue to paint layers of glue and kitchen roll onto their huts for some texture:





That was the end of that session, because everything needed to dry. The acrylic paint had dried really fast though, so we could cut the river to shape and glue it onto the board:



We had to wait a while before getting a good chance to do another "messy" session! The next stage was gluing sandpaper to the rest of the board (cut to the shape of the river edge) for texture. After that was dry, the boys painted most of it green with acrylic paint, leaving a little bit of "sand" for the edge of the river. They also painted the dried mud huts brown, and then we left that all to dry:



On the next session, the marvellous glue gun came out again, and I hot-glued the huts to the board. The boys glued on some shiny fabric fish that we had in the craft chest - a pile of "caught" fish by the river, and one still swimming (Matthew begged! He really feels for creatures being caught!). They tore up a couple of cheap green scouring pads to glue on as bushes and shrubs, but that was unexpectedly hard work for little fingers, so the bushes are rather square looking! That's all we got done that session, but I didn't get a photo.

Over the next week or two, every time we went to the park, the boys picked up a few little stones and twigs to add to the mud huts diorama. Finally we gathered them all and since they were small enough, we didn't need the glue gun, so the boys used white glue to stick them all over the land. They had so much fun making the diorama, and the only change I would make is to try and gather everything before starting, and then focus on getting it done in a shorter time-frame. They enjoyed it anyway, but doing it over a week or so would have been better than a month or so, I think! Arthur is going to write a label to go with it, saying what it is, and then we need to find somewhere suitable to display it for a while. Here's the finished product!




The next history project we worked on was an activity straight out of the curriculum activity book - I LOVED this idea! It was about farming the land by the Nile. They learned about flooding and irrigation, the way it happened seasonally. I bought a big foil baking dish for the project and some potting soil. The instructions called for grass seeds, but those take 3 weeks to grow and we don't have the space to have soil and manky water sitting around for 3 weeks without flies and smells bothering us! So I bought cress seeds instead. Those can be harvested within a week, and you can eat them! :) Real crops!

We followed the instructions and made a foil river bed in the soil, and weighed it down - instead of using pebbles and stones, I chose to give the boys some of the blue glass pebbles that I had bought at Poundland recently, because I thought it would give the water a nice blue look.



We made the river fan out into a delta in the north, and the boys put rocks on the south-east part of the Nile to represent the mountains from which the floods would come. They sprinkled all the cress seeds over the soil, and then they took turns filling the river with water.



The idea is to flood the Nile and irrigate the soil like in ancient times, and then wait to see how the crops grow from that episode of flooding. If we used grass seeds, we would re-flood every week, but a one-off flood was all that we needed with the fast-growing cress seeds! They were SO excited to flood the Nile that they were just squealing by the time the river was near to overflowing! After the land was flooded, they got to work adding a few plastic animals from our collection that were appropriate for Egypt - just some gazelle type creatures and a few hippos! Apart from flooding the Nile, I think their favourite part was making the hippos wallow in the mud! ;)




The seeds started to sprout within 36 hours, and ALL the boys were really excited to check them many times a day. There was always a noticable difference between breakfast and lunch, and then again from lunch to bedtime. I'm really pleased to have chosen the cress over grass, because it was much more satisfying to them with how fast it grew. It was great fun to do! And I was GLAD to harvest the cress and clean up/throw away the project after only one week. The river went down as expected over the week, right to the pebbles, and it became kind of yucky with a film over it. It didn't smell too great as we were cleaning it up either! I am so glad not to have kept that hanging around for another couple of weeks! Here's their Nile project exactly one week after starting it, just before we harvested the "crops" and cleaned up. You can see the water looking kind of yucky. And look how tall the cress grew!! The animals were hard to find! :)





Phew! That's long enough for one entry! I think I covered everything I wanted to, for now, so that's good! :) I will post photos when we do a project for history or science, because it's fun to keep track of what they are doing and we don't have a printer so I can't print out pictures to put in their history and science workbooks :( So it's good to have a place to record it all, until we eventually get a printer.

I will hopefully be back soon. I have sooooo many other things that I want to be writing about here, but as always, so little time to do so! I have lots of photos to post. I will try to update again soon. I know I am WEEKS behind at my pregnancy blog, so I need to update there next, when I get chance!

New Academic Year, 2012!

So. Very. Behind. With this blog! I have so many posts in draft, started but nothing much more, and even those are well out of date now! I think I am going to have to follow someone's wise advice (can't even remember who now!) and copy and paste the odd snippet from Facebook if I feel they're relevant to the blog. I really want to keep track of our lives - of the boys and how they are growing and changing, and of me on my journey as a mother (and my other roles!).

We are just beginning our third year of homeschooling, which is hard for me to believe! We follow the calendar for our academic year, beginning by the end of January and going through to December - this started when I was behind with the work I was doing with the boys when pregnant with Samuel, having taken 3 months off from school when I was morning sick, and then knowing he'd be born in December. I figured it was better to just catch up the months we'd missed in the autumn and call our year finished at the end of the calendar year instead. That would be great for a long break over my immediate postnatal period, and then I also realised how much better it would work for the way my little ones have their birthdays. Instead of half my kids starting school RIGHT after turning 4, they'd be at least 4.5 in January. And those who have winter birthdays would start school as they turn 5. I much prefer my little ones not to do anything academic until they are five, rather than four, as the schools do it in the UK. Anyway, so it worked. Samuel was born in December, and we started school loosely from February. We haven't been consistent really, this past year, but it has been Matthew's first year of school and he has not been as ready as I'd thought he'd be, so it was fine to go slow.

Arthur is now 7, and will be 8 by the end of the academic year. He's THRIVING in school. I can't gauge his reading level yet, but we're working through Rocket Phonics at his pace (which is as fast as I'll let him go with a daily lesson/reading session from the curriculum book) until it's finished. He's 3/4 of the way through, and currently reading 4th grade material (Year 5 for the UK - if he was attending school right now he would be in Year 2). He is reading it fluently with inflection on the speech and so on, the first time he sees it, and not using the phonics helpers ever, so I'm pretty sure he's beyond this grade level. We will keep on until something challenges him or until he finishes the book. I think it finishes at 7th grade level (Year 8, age 12/13), but I'll have to double check. Pretty sure he'll be challenged by then though! He reads a LOT in his spare time. He has been reading anything by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl that he can find - so far I've given him the Faraway Tree stories, the Wishing Chair stories, George's Marvellous Medicine, James and the Giant Peach, etc. He has been reading the Little House series and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I think there are other books I've seen him with his nose in, but I can't think off the top of my head what they are right now. He has no trouble with any of the aforementioned books and they are just a fun read to him. I love seeing him sit around so still and quiet and then suddenly giggle like crazy as he comes to a funny bit! Sometimes Matthew looks up and goes over, and then Arthur reads the part to him, falling over the words because he's laughing! I can't wait until Matthew is doing the same, and I know Matthew can't wait either.

Matthew is 5 and a half now, and will turn 6 in June. He has been doing the early phonics games most of the year, and in the last month or so of our school lessons (November mainly), finally seemed ready to start blending the sounds together to read simple words. He just did not get to that point until then, and I was happy to wait and continue the games. He loved the games anyway, but he was becoming impatient to be able to READ, especially seeing Arthur take off like he did last year. So this year (today!) we are starting the actual reading section of Rocket Phonics for the first time, and he read all the words on the page without much trouble! He was SO proud of himself, and *I* was so proud of him too! :)

The boys haven't got the best grasp of handwriting, and I obviously wasn't doing too great a job of that with them last year! ;) So I bought a British curriculum with rave reviews (same handwriting style that they'd be learning in school if they went) called Morrell's Handwriting - Right Start. It's photocopiable worksheets, and whilst it's a bit dull for them to do, it's really good at getting their handwriting correct. Matthew doesn't have great control with his handwriting yet, but Arthur's is improving quickly. They are not joining their letters yet. I have them doing worksheets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and on Tuesday they write something about themselves, or "news" about their week, or an interesting thought or memory - I help them if necessary by writing it out first as copywork - and then they illustrate it. Thursdays we do science (or will do from this week), which has a built-in handwriting page! :)

They are still working through last year's maths, which is fine with me. Matthew is working on Right Start Mathematics Level A, and is about halfway through. He is doing fine! Sometimes he enjoys the lessons, sometimes he doesn't, but he's progressing fine. Arthur is halfway through Right Start Level B, and mostly enjoying it, and finding it very easy so far. He doesn't have any trouble spots, except that he finds it tedious to repeat anything. He likes to "get it" immediately the first time he learns something, and gets irritable about going over it again for review, or another way of finding the same solution. I TOTALLY get him, as I was the same with learning as a child, but it's rather exasperating as the teacher! ;) He is both frustrating to teach and a delight to teach, as nothing is a struggle for him except for his attitude!!

We are beginning history and science this year, for both Arthur and Matthew. The curriculum we chose for science is Apologia Science - Exploring Creation with Astronomy. I have been so excited about this curriculum for a couple of YEARS, but knew I had to wait a bit longer to start them on it! Now finally I can! :) I have the textbook and both the notebooking journals (the normal one and the "junior" version), to cater for older and younger children as the need arises. We will do science once a week on a Thursday afternoon, and the read-aloud part will be something any of the boys can listen to. The activities will be just for Arthur and Matthew, and the bigger projects and experiments are going to be reserved for Saturdays here and there, for Neil to be involved (the boys LOVE it when Neil is involved in school!). The astronomy course should last us at least the whole school year, and after that I will probably go for the botany one :) So much fun to see them learn, and love learning! And I'm learning too!

I chose 'The Story of the World - History for the Classical Child' for our history curriculum, starting with Volume 1: Ancient Times. The boys are so so so excited about history and astronomy! History is going to be every Monday afternoon (today!), once a week, just like the science, and I guess we'll work through it until we finish the book (not sure how long that will last us), and then move on to Volume 2 (there are 3, I think). There is no hurry at all with this curriculum, and we can linger on certain topics as much as we like if the interest holds or we have a ton of projects and rabbit trails to follow on that particular subject. I LOVE the flexibility of homeschooling! :) History is very much like the science curriculum (Bible-based as well) - a big part of it is read-aloud, which any of the boys can take part in, and then activities, map work, and crafts/projects for Arthur and Matthew. Big ones will be weekend projects with Daddy's involvement, as well :)

This year I am getting more organised on records. I don't need to be - there are no checks, and no requirements in the UK at the moment. But I am starting to really want to record their progress, and save their work as the year goes along. I already made them maths workbooks (blank exercise books), into which I stick every worksheet they complete or every geometric shape pattern with card stock that they create, as per the lesson plan, etc. I am even going to photograph Arthur next to his Thousand Triangle that he made over the course of several lessons last year (it's waaaay too big to put in the book!) and stick the photo in there too. Matthew has one as well, and when they get filled up, I start another one, and keep going.

I just started a handwriting workbook for each of them as well, and I'll be sticking in all their handwriting worksheets and "news" pages with illustrations, over the course of the year. I am also going to start each boy with a workbook for science and history, to keep track of their work on those individual subjects as well. It feels better having a record of it, for them to look back on and enjoy, and for me to flick through on BAD DAYS and feel some encouragement, and also in case things change with the law and I need to provide evidence of their schooling. Plus, I am one of those people who has a slight passion for school supplies and new exercise books in particular! ;)

Before we started school this week, we did two weeks running up to it of "practise school". I wanted to test out the workbox system to see if it would suit us, and get the boys used to the routine of school (having had NO routine of any sort before then!). Honestly I needed the practise more than they did, to get myself in gear for all the preparation, and seeing how it might work to plan activities for their workboxes. I should write more about workboxes and what they are (for those who don't know about the system) and how we use it (loosely!), but I have run out of time. I do have quite a lot of photos of the boys doing their workbox activities from the past two weeks (especially week one) as I wanted to record it HERE! Yes, I do still think of my blog a lot, and LONG to update, but just never ever (ever) get the chance or the energy. Or else I forget at the only available moment, and then that moment is gone.

For us, because of lack of space, "workboxes" are four reclaimed nappy wipe boxes (the ones that have 12 packs of baby wipes in them - we go through a lot of those, lol! And the boxes are a good size and sturdy). I covered each one in black paper, made a vaguely decorative label for the front of each one, and put each boy's name on the front. So we have workboxes for Arthur (7), Matthew (5.5), Nathan (4 - he turned FOUR this month, can you believe it?! My tiny Nathey!!), and Benjamin (2.5). In each boy's box I put three activities - that's all I started with, planning to move it up to 6 by the time we started "real" school, but it hasn't been necessary to increase them, because I am not planning to put academic subjects in there now. These are fun activities, and mainly for the preschoolers to feel like they are taking part in school - and they ARE, because their activities challenge them too. The workboxes also serve to give the bigger boys a break from the more challenging academic stuff.

The first week, I just used whatever fun manipulatives or interesting activities we already had around the house, or locked in the school cupboard (and thus not used for a while - great for novelty effect!). Here are the boys doing some of their workbox activities on Day 1 (Jan 16th):

One of Arthur's activities that day was a Kumon workbook (pasting) that he had started at age 5, and then it got put away for some reason and never completed. It's age 4-6 but he was excited to finish it off, and had this activity in his workbox several times over the two weeks until he finished the book. He enjoyed it so much that I am getting him the jigsaw puzzles workbook that comes after it, just for him to have fun! :)



Matthew was in a similar position, with a couple of early Kumon workbooks unfinished - cutting and pasting ones that he started a couple of years ago. They are easy for him but he enjoyed doing them again. He hasn't quite finished them yet, so he's still getting those in his workbox.



Most days, I gave Arthur a big reference book that he hadn't seen before, to read and explore. A friend from church gave us a big pile of fantastic children's reference books from when hers were younger! They are history and geography mainly, much to Arthur's delight! He spent ages reading those.



Nathan had not had much interest in the preschool manipulatives the last time we used them regularly (a year ago maybe?), and was TOTALLY into them this time! He was by far the most thrilled with school over the two practise weeks, and kept saying how much fun he was having! He will be turning 5 as we start the next academic year, so will start proper school then. This year I am just watching him for readiness on any areas that he's interested in (phonics games maybe?), but otherwise not encouraging him to do anything academic. Pre-writing skills though... and cutting and sticking, and fine motor skills. Just play otherwise though (sometimes geared towards getting ready for next year!).

His activities on Day 1 of the practise weeks were, Melissa and Doug's See and Spell, lacing numbers, and drawing with crayons. He was still just scribbling with different colours whenever he did any drawing, but by the end of the first week he was drawing an excavator with caterpillar tracks (!!!) and a tornado with rain and puddles!! I could not believe the transformation! I guess he was just ready to move on?! You can see his Day 1 scribbles in the photo (and Matthew beyond him doing the Melissa and Doug geometric pattern blocks).







Benjamin's activities were, the giant button board - he LOVES this one! We got it for Nathan for his 2nd birthday and it was a big hit. Nathan still enjoys it for fun sometimes, and has had it in his workbox now and then, though it doesn't stretch him at all any more. Benji also had easy lacing beads, which he really could not lace yet and so that activity didn't last long, but he enjoyed acting out stories with the pieces, bless him! :) He also had paper and crayons, but decided instead to have a meltdown tantrum. Such is the life of a 2-year-old! ;)





And Samuel woke up just before we finished the workbox activities, and generally made a cute monkey of himself, eagerly trying to get at all the stuff! We had some activities taking place at the kitchen table (gated off from the living room), so anything with small parts or puzzle pieces went in there. He's such a cute little peep! I can't believe he's 13 months old already! :-O



I have a ton more photos from our activities that first week, which I still want to post! But this is long now, and I've run out of time. I also wanted to copy and paste a reply to someone at Facebook about how we do school, in terms of lining up the lessons, etc. It's not very long (by this blog's standards, lol!) but it's there in a nutshell, so I wanted to paste it here for safe-keeping!

"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! :)"

And there it is. FINALLY a blog post actually covering a decent amount of stuff about our lives at the moment!!! :) So pleased to have it written down, and I will try to come back and post the rest of the photos soon, before they are old news. TRY. I'm also behind on the pregnancy blog so I need to catch up there too! I'll be 24 weeks pregnant this week with my 6th baby boy! I can't believe how fast it is going. I'm so relieved to be getting nearer to a time when he would survive outside the womb if he had to, and I can't wait until May to meet him! His name is Elijah Douglas. I don't think I mentioned that here yet? But please don't share that news until he's born! :)

My boys....

.... are growing up so fast! I took a few photos of them this evening, having finally found my camera charger (though I have lost my special lens!!!), because the light was nice just before sunset and they were playing around near the window. Looking through them makes me really see how each boy is getting "older" as well as bigger, even though they're all still so little.

Baby Samuel (not at the window, but still from today! :) )...



At almost 6 weeks old he is getting so big and sociable lately! He is smiling (contrary to the above photo, hehe!) and cooing all the time. He is outgrowing his 0-3 month baby clothes and I have started to put him in 3-6 month baby clothes in the last few days (like the outfit he's wearing in this photo). I have no idea what he weighs right now but I guess I'll find out in the next week or two. He's BIG! That is all. He's GORGEOUS, and ohhhhh I love him!



Little Benjaminny is 18 months old. I love him completely completely completely. He's still breastfeeding a LOT (not at night though) and is very giggly and cuddly. He is lately spicing that up with a lot of stubborn screeching, hitting his brothers, and full blown tantrums. Fun times! ;) He is cutting his first set of molars right now - the top ones are through and the bottom ones halfway. For a month now he has spent ALL DAY LONG with one hand or other in his mouth, whether he's talking, playing, even eating sometimes, poor love! He's very cheerful though, and not too symptomatic other than that. He has only got 2 little bottom teeth other than the molars, and 4 at the top in the middle. Sweet baby! He plays with vehicles non-stop:



Here he is at the window, looking at birds (they were all flying west for the sunset - Arthur calls it "the evening line of birds" - and they enjoy seeing them every day):





Laughing at Mummy! :)



"Helpfully" trying to put the lens cap back on my camera as I take his photo! ;) Yes, that is a small part of a day's laundry folded on the school table.



Benjamin and Nathan play together a lot now. They all play together, and there's no particular cliquiness between any pair or threesome. They just play, sometimes individually, sometimes all four, and sometimes just three of them or in various pair-combinations. Nathan and Benjamin have lately been doing a lot of rough-and-tumble play and do NOT know when to stop, being so little and inexperienced! Urgh! Here they are looking at a CD case together for some reason!



Nathan is 3 (I still have to say it to believe it!), and he's just precious. VERY stubborn these days, and although he's small for his age, and such a very LITTLE one for a 3-year-old in many ways, he is very strong-willed and assertive with his brothers (and parents!) and has no problems standing his ground during play times. He is testing the waters a LOT lately with saying no and refusing to obey and things like that. He is also whining like crazy which drives me up the wall, but unfortunately for Nathan, I simply do not understand a single word spoken in a whiny voice and cannot do a thing about it unless he uses his "normal voice". So that helps! ;) He's picky picky picky with food and has the sweetest mannerisms and STILL such a tiny chipmunky voice (much to my delight!). He still keeps his monkey and blankie near him most of the day, and walks around the house with them sometimes too. He is lately very shy about having his photo taken - either he stubbornly WON'T, or else he gets bashful to the point of being upset and doesn't want me to even point the camera at him. I am not getting many photos of him these days therefore, so the ones today were actually taken by whipping the camera in his direction, focusing and clicking in a split second! I have a few from today where I took about 2 seconds to click, and by then he had already dipped his head shyly, started saying, "Nooooo, I don't wannnnnt you tooooo!!!" or moved away from the shot. So these few were QUICK FIRES, haha! They just happened to come out nice, which I am happy about! :)




His little feeties! :)



Matthew-Binks, ohhh my sweet little Matthew! He is growing up too fast! He is 4 years and 7 months old, and suddenly growing longer - I don't mean taller, although he IS growing taller at a faster rate now, but more that his arms and legs are having a growth spurt, so his porportions are becoming so much more BOY than little one. He's a serious monkey and life is never ever dull with Matthew around. He's energetic verging on the "that can't be normal!" degree, and I frequently have to give him quick fire exercises to do just to take the edge off, you know after that 3 hour walk he just came home from! ;) He will jog on the spot for 5 minutes and giggle the whole time for some reason, saying he will NEVER get tired, lol! He's difficult and delightful. I do not know what to DO with him, but I do not know what to do WITHOUT him. I love him! He starts school tomorrow and he can't wait! :)

Matthew NEVER lets me take a decent photo of him because by default he pulls some appauling face and won't make any sort of normal face. The only chance I have is when he's laughing so much about the face he just made! So I have lots of laughing photos of Matthew! ;) I sometimes bribe him and Arthur (ohhh they are a real pair, those two!) to give me ONE normal face if I take a bunch of photos of them turning their eyelids inside out and that kind of thing (yeurgh!)! Sometimes that works. Today I just about gave up - the nice light was almost gone, and he was still just making crazy faces. I got a couple of him looking at the birds, and then that was about it!




Silly sausage! :)



Arthur - look at my BIG boy!!! How did he get this grown-up and big?! He looks even more grown up after the haircut I gave him last week. He seems so tall lately too (even though he's still little really). He is 6 years and 2 months old, just about the best big-brother-to-many in the world, and beginning to be ever so helpful around the house. He thrives on housework, lol! I should have known he would - there were early signs! ;) He is excited to start back to school tomorrow, and is basically just enthusiastic about everything, except obeying (unfortunately). He continues to be VERY difficult, behaviour-wise, and we just find ourselves at our wits end, but everything about him is intense, including the GOOD stuff. He is so lovely! I'm excited about his next year of learning, to see how he grows and develops. He also does not let me take nice photos very often, and the best ones of him are usually the ones where he's laughing at Matthew (this constantly occurs at our house!):



After that, the sun set, and it was so pretty tonight! I wish we didn't have so many BUILDINGS in the way of seeing a beautiful sunset! This was the best view we could get, from the front window. When we move, I hope we'll find somewhere somewhat less built-up and with more green space outside. Anyway, pretty sunset! :)



Oh what a hard job it is right now, to raise alllll these little boys who are still so young! But I wouldn't change a THING, not one tiny thing. Well, except that if I could go back and do it again I would be more effective and consistent with discipline starting much earlier than we finally got around to it. We are reaping the consequences and it's so so so much harder to try to nip things in the bud now that they are older. Heed the warning! ;) I LOVE my job! It's the most rewarding thing in the world, and ohhh the bonuses and perks are like nothing else! I feel so blessed right now to have all these different stages of childhood under my roof. I have an inquisitive 6-year-old, learning and growing at a fast pace, excited about getting his first wobbly tooth (not happening yet!) and so on. But I don't have to just remember the earlier stages that I loved. I still have a fun, energetic 4-year-old who is excited about starting school, loves painting and gets into all sorts of mischief. But I don't just enjoy these two and remember wistfully the sweet earlier stages they went through. I still have a precious little 3-year-old who pronounces things soooo sweetly and comes out with funny phrases, who snuggles and loves his Monkey and Blankie, and still looks like a baby when he sleeps.

How blessed I am right there!! But I don't just enjoy my three treasures and think back to the baby days and miss them. I still have a darling 18-month-old who squeals with glee at games of peek-a-boo, and his favourite story books, still snuggles up to me to breastfeed, and is busy cutting teeth, starting to do that cute bobbly toddler run, and say all sorts of new words. Such a precious stage! Growing and changing so fast and not so much a baby any more. But I don't have to feel wistful about that because I still have a sweet newborn baby to cuddle and smell, and nurse and dote on, and enjoy all the smiles and coos, and look forward excitedly to when he learns to do all the things his big brothers are doing at their various stages.

I. Am. Sooooooooo blessed. Seriously, I can't get my head around it. I have to pinch myself sometimes, and wonder that God has chosen to bless me this way, with five children, five sweet little boys. I feel sort of guiltily greedy praying for more, but ohhhhh I do! With everything in me I am longing for more! I love this journey so much, I love being mummy to each of my boys so very much, and I can't wait to start the journey all over again with another sweet little boy (really, I can't imagine we'll start having girls all of a sudden, now - can you?!). I don't know what lies ahead beyond a 6-year-old, having no experience of parenting children older than that, but I'm excited about it! And wonder what fun it will be to be enjoying all these stages with my little ones and to throw a 7-8 year old into the mix as well! :)

Well, it is getting late and I need to make sure I have everything ready for tomorrow before going to bed. Samuel is 41 days old tomorrow and by law I have to register his birth within 42 days. I completely forgot!!! I did have the odd reminder from the Health Visitor and such, but promptly forgot as soon as she'd left, so whoops, I need to go to their drop in appointment when they first open in the morning! Then on Tuesday morning, Samuel and I have osteopath appointments at the same place where Benjamin was treated. Just an assessment for him, and HELP! for my pelvis and back for me. So very glad the time for our appointment has arrived! I will try to update again soon! :)

Huge boy-related update!

So. Very. Bad! Probably my longest break from updating my blog yet! And completely unintentional - just time ran away from me and I didn't get around to updating. I can't believe the last time I updated was mid-August! Now it's mid-October, and I have a LOT to catch up on here! I will have to TRY to make it as brief and bullet-point-y as possible, otherwise I'll do myself a disservice and stay up too late (yet again!).

Let's see, last time I updated, Benjamin was 13 months old. He has changed a lot since the summer, even though we're not really all that far into autumn (or so it feels!). At the end of August I finally gave him his first haircut! I was so nervous to do it because I just knew he would constantly be whipping his head this way and that, and trying to brush away the scissors or comb with his hands. So in the end, I nursed him to sleep on my bed for his nap a little later than usual so that he was REALLY tired, and as soon as he was asleep, I cut his hair while he lay on my bed! He was so fast asleep, he didn't even stir when I rolled him onto his sides to do the sides of his hair, or even right onto his front so I could see if the back was even, hehe! He had no idea he had a haircut and I kept all the cut parts of his hair between thumb and forefinger so that it didn't sprinkle all over the bed or him, as I cut it. I was pretty pleased with it, for a first haircut, and a lying-down one at that! Here's his "before" photo the day before (looking rather serious demolishing the clean laundry pile!):



And here he is an hour or so after waking from his "haircut" nap! Cute little manny!



His hair is ready for another cut now though. It's over his ears and down to over his eyebrows, so I need to get brave and do it again! All the boys are really needing haircuts at the moment, especially Arthur and Matthew, who had theirs done last before Nathan and Benji did. Must get around to that soon before I forget what their eyes look like, hehe!

Benjamin's personality and character have just been SHINING through over these last couple of months - more so each week that passes, it seems. I just love this stage of baby/toddlerhood! I am SO enjoying getting to know him - and he's a special little man for sure! Different yet again from any of the other boys. Benjamin is so self-assured and confident. He's very like Arthur in that respect, though he has also had the crying with strangers thing that most babies do (but which Arthur never did). He is still big for his age, and beginning to close the gap on tiny Nathey-noo, who remains as teeny as they come for HIS age! ;) He is verbal and physical, almost equally, assertive and lightning quick to pick up anything new and retain it for next time. He is absolutely on a level with his brothers, never mind the age difference, lol! No bossing this baby around - he holds his own and we are having to teach him no hitting, and enjoying some pretty assertive tantrums lately when he does not get his own way! He's such a strong little character, and I am so very excited to learn more about Benjamin as he grows older! I have a feeling he is going to be very challenging and VERY rewarding to parent and teach. He is also affectionate, cuddly and cute as a button! He snuggles frequently, still breastfeeds on demand during the day, and has recently nightweaned without too much trauma. NOT his choice, but necessary now, in preparation for the new baby! He has dropped to one nap a day, and on quite a lot of occasions has gone without one altogether. He gets too tired that way but still manages the day okay, and goes out like a light at bedtime whilst breastfeeding. His one nap takes place late morning at the moment, which is fine as it doesn't alter bedtime!

Benjamin is all about his FOOD! So different to my last toddler! He has been that way from the start though - my only baby to never choke on my fast let-down as a newborn. I remember being so surprised about how he somehow knew to go very still and let his mouth fill, and then swallow - how he knew to do that and never choked?! He also nursed without a break the night he was born. He didn't sleep or come off the breast once! Again that was a first for one of my babies! NOW I know him better and it makes perfect sense, lol! He can wake from a deep sleep and be eating lunch or breakfast (still swaying!) in his booster seat within 60 seconds! And eat WELL too. Nathan can't eat when he's sleepy, and sometimes it takes an hour or so for his tummy to wake up enough to eat. Benjamin is the exact opposite! If it's vaguely near a meal time, or he sees the kitchen gate open, even if we're still carrying him downstairs from his nap, he will immediately point and make urgent sounds towards the kitchen. He can eat a full meal right from sleep. He is beginning to get fussier about what he eats, as they all have after they turn one, but he eats plenty. He enjoys lunch and breakfast the most, and is picky in general about dinner options. I never know whether he'll eat it or throw it. *sigh* We are working on the throwing thing (he knows full well that he's not to do it, even at this age, believe me!). He loves cream cheese sandwiches and Nutella sandwiches, cheese of any sort, yoghurt and raisins, etc. He has supersonic hearing and can hear us quietly mention the word "Smarties" or "cake" even in hushed tones with loud play around him, I kid you not. He will drop whatever he's doing and appear at the kitchen gate looking hopeful, saying, "Gake?" or "Mar-bee?" (that's "Smartie", just so you know!). He adores the occasional treat of either one of those things. Right now Matthew is still potty training (starting to poo in the toilet, yaaaaaay!) and getting Smarties as rewards. Benjamin gets very upset about not receiving a Mar-bee every time Matthew gets one! ;) Full-on tantrum style!

His words are uncountable now. He didn't slow down with his talking at all while he learned to walk. He's walking EVERYWHERE and practising speed walking round and round in circles. He walks well in shoes outside, has begun to break into a funny little bobbly speed-walk in the house as he tries his very best to run about with the boys, and can pivot and dart very quickly in different directions during chasing games. HOW this boy loves to be chased! :) He's adventurous and a very typically rough-and-tumbly boy, and delights in being tickled, eaten (playfully of course!) or chased. He squeals and giggles the whole time. He entertains the other boys SO much now. They often just take a seat at the side of the living room and watch him for like 15 minutes at a time, just laughing and laughing at his antics and encouraging him to do more! They love watching him speed-walk in circles, crawl on hands and feet shovelling the ground with his forehead (I know, he's a funny one!), and pretend to spin around till he's dizzy by standing on the spot, swinging his torso about and shaking his head like crazy, hehehe! He's such an entertaining little boy - I love seeing it all emerge and the boys are having so much fun with him. He likes an audience, and the audience likes him right back!

He makes lots of animal noises now - my favourite is the sheep because instead of a flat "baa" sound like my other little ones used to make, he actually does such a cute little chipmunky "baa" with a tiny tremor to the sound, to make a real bleat!!! Sooooooo adorable, and I'm frustrated that I still haven't managed to catch it on camera! My camera batteries died (the small one that can take video) after his birthday and it has taken me till September to recharge them and use it again! Tsk! Anyway, he's fascinated with it and stops whatever he was doing to reach out and touch the camera or walk towards it, so it's hard to capture him doing cute things! I did manage to capture him walking at the beginning of October (a couple of weeks ago). I put a few little snippets of him walking together into one video. It was QUIET here while he was walking. One of the snippets was taken while Arthur and Matthew were upstairs playing (they are increasingly being allowed to now, so long as they don't get into mischief) so it was very quiet downstairs with just Nathey and Benjamin! The other times the boys were being unnaturally quiet - don't get any false impressions with this video! ;) They were reading and Nathan was playing with the baby boy doll that I dug out again recently. Benjamin LOVES that doll and gives it kisses constantly, calling it "beh-bee" (which he also says now when he pats my ever-expanding bump - so cute!). Here's the video clip to show you how well he was walking only a month after starting. I posted this one at Facebook already, so some of you have already seen it:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I so rarely see him crawl any more! :( He crawls when he's playing on the floor with the boys, but then so do they if it's easier to stay down there with the cars and Duplo and things rather than keep getting up and walking a foot or so and then getting back down on all fours again! ;)

Here are some more photos of Benjaminny from September:

With his brothers just before bedtime on the "temporary sofa"! We got rid of our sofa and armchair at last - part of my plan to maximise the space in the living room and improve the living conditions in there too, hehe! In the meantime we put a single futon mattress down and covered it with a blanket, so the boys could sit along it to "read" stories, as they like to at random many times a day. Benjamin has really started to join in with this kind of activity and turns the pages in a book excitedly, squealing out the few words he knows for the pictures he sees as he goes along, gasping with surprise at things, and pointing enthusiastically! It's so sweet! He wasn't doing that in this picture, but I love it because this is a snapshot of Benjamin's personality. He's so happy and mischievous and gleeful just about all the time, full of enthusiasm for life. I LOVE this little boy who is emerging from my baby boo! :)



Yes, he loves Nathan's monkey. LOVES him. Nathey is very gracious and lets him cuddle Monkey, kiss Monkey, hold Monkey, etc most of the times he wants to. If Nathan is crying about something, Benjamin will toddle over to him looking so concerned and serious, and bring Monkey with him, trying to press him into Nathan's lap or hands. Beyond precious, I tell you. I love seeing their hearts for each other even while they're still so little. Except when they're being mean to each other, of course! ;)

A random few photos of Benjamin playing - loving lining cars up and pushing them around like his brothers:



Something he does a LOT - seeing something out of the window and pointing (he uses his pointy finger much more now though. A month ago he would use his whole hand to point). He usually sees birds or cars, and points, saying, "CAR!" or "BUR!" and engaging me with this very look. He will repeat and hold his position as many times as necessary for me to actually pay attention! ;)



Playing with a sleepsuit on his head, for some reason! Another thing the boys love to see him doing! ;)



In September we went to Box Hill in Surrey for the day with Neil's brother and sister. They live fairly near to us and we all drove to one central point to meet up and enjoy each other's company and a nice walk. The weather turned out to be lovely, and the boys were very excited to spend time with their cousins (Ella who is now 5, and Emily who is 2). We had a lovely time, though I couldn't walk far without my pelvis hurting and my bump feeling too tight, so I sat down and took some pictures. I tried to walk with everyone because I didn't want to be a party pooper and sit out from all the fun activity! That evening I didn't feel well and had closely spaced regular Braxton Hicks contractions for hours. So I am not being very active now in my pregnancy (31 weeks now already!!!!) because if I do then I regret it - my uterus seems quite easily irritable this pregnancy and I've had other evenings after doing too much in the house since then, where I've had strong (even painful) Braxton Hicks contractions coming ever 2-3 minutes for many hours straight. So I am having to be careful and not be too active.

Here are some of the photos I took at Box Hill! :)




I loved these next couple of photos! The little ones were learning about bugs and insects under logs and bark. My BIL would roll back big logs and the kids would crowd round to peer at the little creatures scuttling underneath. They peeled back the rotting bark on a log, and I took a few photos. I found it so funny to watch them, because all my boys were, although fascinated, rather squeamish! They stood at arms length or poked with sticks, while the girls casually scooped creepy crawlies onto their hands and examined them on their palms in a very relaxed manner, hehe!





Little Benjamin sat in the pushchair for the walk part of the outing. When we stopped to look at things, he fidgetted, so I gave him my water bottle to keep him busy for a minute. (Oooh, Samuel has hiccups! They are blipping away quite sharply in my pelvis on my left side! I can't WAIT to meet this sweet little one!!) I took some photos of him sitting there with my water bottle:

There was only a tiny bit left....



But he soon figured out something he could do with it....



"Uh-oh Mummy...."



Sweet cheeky little treasure! :)




Little Nathan having a serious discussion with his uncle! They were like that chatting for such a long time, and looked so relaxed together that I couldn't resist a photo after a while.



My sweet little 2-year-old! :)



I'm trying to think how Nathan is doing - there must be some news to report since August! He seems so tiny and young still, MUCH more so than my previous 2 1/2 year olds have done. He carries his beloved Blankie and Monkey everywhere around the house, and is very attached to them, especially Blankie (a yellow cot-sized flannelette sheet). We have lots of Blankies so that's a relief, and they're easy to come by, but only one Monkey! We never take Monkey out of the house for this reason - he stays behind to sleep a lot, because he's the type of monkey who needs lots of sleep. ;) Nathan is fine with this, thankfully!

Nathey talks on a level with the older boys, uses long words and complicated sentences, and pronounces things well and clearly. But his voice is SO TEENY and chipmunky still!! I LOVE this about him! Any question we ask that requires a detailed answer (ones which start with "Why...?" for example) is met with a response starting with, "That's because...." and then a long explanation :) A month or so ago I noticed him talking with ease using various tenses in the same discussion, and I can't remember that from before so perhaps he had newly "got" that concept? He was talking about "he was" and "they were" and "we will". He has used all of those for a long time, but often he would get the context wrong or the tense wrong, and then suddenly started using them correctly this summer.

He has finally finished getting his two-year-old molars (no trauma whatsoever, weirdly!) and now has all of his baby teeth. He still drools and chews his fingers though, for some reason! He does not bite his fingernails, which his older brothers were doing by his age, so hopefully he won't at all! He is cute and cuddly and affectionate, and has the squishiest little round tummy I ever did squeeze! He can be very serious and if he sees other children messing about and having "silly" fun out and about, he will go very serious and quiet and not want to join in. He tells me they are being silly! At Box Hill, he was very taken with my BIL (Neil's sister's husband) and sat on his lap for ages looking at a stick collection they'd made, while the others ran about playing football and things. Neil's brother was resting on the grass with his hat over his eyes, and I heard my BIL whisper to Nathan that he could go up to Uncle Ian and tickle him if he wanted to! Nathan's face was such a picture, hehehe! He looked HORRIFIED at such an idea and insisted that it wouldn't be right to do such a thing! Funny sweet little boy! :) Of course right then, Arthur and Ella (the cheekiest pair of 5-year-olds I ever did see) ran up and BIL repeated the same suggestion to them. Their eyes lit up and within 5 seconds (no exaggeration), they were both sitting on poor Uncle Ian's tummy, working as a team to gleefully tickle him to death! Nathan watched them looking very unimpressed, hehe!

On the other hand, he is often the silliest boy in my house on any given day when we're home. He initiates silly games and puts on silly voices, does silly walks to make the boys laugh, tackles family members and plays lots of rough-and-tumble with his brothers, so I have no idea why he's sometimes so serious in other settings!

He is increasingly stubborn and tests the boundaries a lot lately, though it's just a stage he's reached more than anything else. We most definitely don't put up with that, but I can see that it's a stage more than emerging personality, if that makes sense. Nathan is very laid-back and quite shy. He still cries and freaks out if anyone unfamiliar approaches him to talk or ask him to do something he doesn't want to do. He is finally perfectly happy with absolutely anyone in our own home - door-to-door salesmen, family members, friends visiting that he has never met before, etc. But out and about it's different. We went to the dentist this week and he had a humongous melt-down when it came to his turn. We had been preparing him for ages, reading stories like "Topsy and Tim go to the dentist" (which he loves - he loves all the Topsy and Tim books!) and he knew a lot about what to expect. He watched me have a check-up, and then Matthew and Arthur being very good and calm having their check-ups (no cavities, yay!) and then when the focus went on him he couldn't handle it, poor lovey. He screamed like he was terrified, even sitting on my lap, and covered his mouth with both hands, crying that he just wanted to get out of here! So, no check-up for Nathan. Hopefully when we go back for another round of check-ups in 6 months he will be in a better place to allow that kind of thing! We took all the boys to the opticians for their first eye-tests today, and Nathan did the same thing there too, so we had to abandon ship for his appointment. Benjamin, on the other hand, walked right up to the optometrist, engaged him with babble, pointed excitedly at various things in the room and tried to say the words for them, and gasped with eager excitement when the guy handed him a little vision test card! He stared at it with bugging eyes for a moment, held in his little hands, and then looked up at him and said, "Guh! Doh! Gih-GUH!" If only he had the words to communicate, he would SO have taken an eye test today, lol! He's so confident and enthusiastic, and wants to try EVERYTHING and engage everybody. Soooo in contrast to little Nathey, it's funny. Not always ha-ha funny either - sometimes I feel a bit sad for Nathan because I don't want him to be overshadowed by bold brothers embracing life, both older and younger, while he struggles somewhat. I hope he doesn't find it difficult to see Benjamin really stepping out in this way these last few weeks.

I'm so grateful to my sweet online friend, Grace, for blogging about one of her boys' eye appointments, and encouraging others to get their little ones' eyes checked and not wait! I had not really given it much thought until then, and I made appointments for them right away after I read her post. I'm thankful that Arthur and Matthew have healthy eyes and good eyesight for now! They are both slightly long-sighted, as the optometrist told me that young children naturally are until their eyes stop growing around age 8. They are both NOT as long-sighted as he would expect to see at their ages though, so he feels that it's likely they will end up short-sighted before their teens. I fully expected that because both Neil and I are really short-sighted and needed glasses around age 10-12 for the first time.

The only slight bummer was that it seems as though Matthew may well be colour blind. My brother is colour blind (red/green) and my mum and her sister are carriers (it's carried on the X-chromosome) - my cousin is colour blind too. Soooo all this time I have never known whether I picked the X from my mum that has the colour blindness gene on it, or the other one! And then having all these BOYS (boys are the ones affected, girls are only carriers unless they have a colour-blind father AND a carrier mother, which is rare), I worried that if I had that gene they would ALL end up colour blind or something! But, Arthur knew 11 colours with ease by 19 months old so I felt pretty sure he was not. Matthew was much later to be sure about his colours, but he can still tell me what's green and what's red without trouble. But then again, so can my brother.... Nathan has picked up his colours easily and younger than Matthew did, so I'm HOPING he is not colour blind, but it doesn't follow that he wouldn't be just because he learned his colours well or early. I had let myself become too confident that I hadn't got my mum's X-chromosome with the colour blindness gene on it. So it was sort of sad today when Matthew quickly identified the numbers on those bubble pictures when they were blue and yellow, but could not seem to see them on the red and green pictures :( The optometrist switched to mazes instead of numbers, for Matthew to trace his finger on (red maze on a green background, for example), and he couldn't follow the line :( The optometrist said that he'd see them again in 2 years and by then he would be able to be absolutely sure about whether Matthew is colour blind or not, but he suspects he is.

Soooo I did get the gene to carry after all, and I have FIVE little boys, all of whom have a 50% chance of being colour blind. They either take my affected X-chromosome, or the other one. Thankfully Arthur is not colour blind! :) I so hope Nathan, Benjamin and Samuel somehow defy the odds and can see colour normally. My brother reminded me on the phone tonight that out of all the genetically inherited "defects", colour blindness is the BEST one to have! ;) He says you never know any different, and the only thing it affects is career choices (same as the optometrist told me) - Matthew can not be an electrician, and he would find graphic design tricky, but otherwise it should not affect anything. Bennie has always asked us which crayon or pencil is green and which is red, if he can't tell. He can tell red from green but it's the subtler shades that he can't tell apart. Anyway, it's NOT really bad news at all. I wish he could be an electrician if he wanted to! Silly thought, but no mama wants to think her child must be restricted in any way, however slight.

They were such good boys at the dentist and opticians! Matthew was so brave and went first when Arthur would not at the dentist. I saw that he didn't want to, but suddenly he straighted himself up, puffed out his chest and marched up to the chair and climbed onto it! He made the decision to be brave and DO it, and I was so proud of him!

What else with the boys? It's getting way too late and this post is already too long, but I have just got SO much to write about, and I don't want to miss stuff in case I have another long break without meaning to! I need all this precious stuff recorded somewhere so that I don't forget it! Oh - Nathan has stopped napping in the day. He really still needs a nap. REALLY. But he resists it a little - not a lot - and then when he has a nap he stays up too late in the evening not able to sleep, and the accumulated sleep over the 24-hour period is actually less in total than when he doesn't nap and conks out within minutes of going to bed at 6.30 or 7pm! He only naps for an hour or so when he does, but then he's up at least 2 hours past his bedtime as a result, and gets up at the same early time as always in the morning. So we are just avoiding putting him down for a nap these days. If he asks and it's a good time for him to nap, he will go and take one, but that doesn't happen often. More often, when he DOES nap, it's during the afternoon where he lays himself down on the futon in the living room with his Monkey and Blankie, and falls asleep. Or while I'm reading him stories - again in the afternoon when he's tired. He IS too tired in the afternoon without a nap, and can get kind of cranky, but he generally doesn't fall asleep and manages okay. He sleeps better at night without the nap.

The first week or so that he did not regularly take a nap, he was pretty cranky and had lots of meltdowns. That week we were undertaking some big projects in the house like storing or laying laminate floor (that I won second hand and CHEAP therefore!) on eBay, or switching the boys from the smaller bedroom to the bigger one (I'm in the smaller one with Benjamin now) in preparation for Samuel's arrival and so that Benjamin can move in with the bigger boys soon too. The 3 older boys and Neil spent TWO WEEKS sleeping down on the living room floor on their mattresses while the whole house was in horrible disarray:



I did not cope with this at ALL well, hormonally speaking, and it's the only time in my whole pregnancy that I have had some major hormonal sobbing and crying, and feeling unwell and contracting regularly in the evenings. MUCH better once we'd finally got the floor laid with help from a sweet school friend of mine and her very DIY-handy boyfriend! And the boys' room sorted, of course, so that they could move back upstairs at night! :) So it was very hard for Nathan to get his naps while all that went on, and it turned out that he could manage the day okay and sleep well at night, so we ended up keeping him on no naps. I sometimes think we should encourage him to take naps again, as he really does need to sleep most days.... But the effects are just that he gets less sleep overall, so... Anyway, those first couple of weeks were quite an adjustment for him. He would have hour-long meltdowns in the afternoon, poor boy, and then fall asleep mid-tantrum or mid-snack. I sooo felt for him! But instead of falling back into his nap routine with great relief once everything settled down, he seemed to adjust and do better at night for it. Here are a few photos of Nathan struggling to adjust in those first couple of weeks:

Asleep mid-snack :)



At the table after tantrumming for one whole very very very long hour about the content of his sandwiches. *sigh*



Precious little lovey! I was reading him stories (he brought me a huge pile, something that he does many times a day) and when I finished he was fast asleep in my arm with his head on my shoulder! Neil took photos :) I love this photo. My hair wasn't washed and the floor was literally covered from wall to wall with toys and clothes and whatnot. The kitchen was in an even worse state, and oh probably fifty other things that needed serious attention. But here - THIS - here is what counts. Not the house. Not my hair. Cherishing the moment with my little children while I still have them with me. How I love it, and how I'll miss it when it's over. I'm so glad of this photo to serve as a reminder and a sweet memory all in one:



I have so much more to write about! I haven't posted photos of the changes we've made in the house yet, and there's plenty of that happening! I'm excited about it, because finally, FINALLY, we are actually dealing with the clutter we've always lived with, and down-sizing things, and storing things more efficiently, etc. I am so relieved! I so want to write about it in more detail, and post photos (which I haven't taken yet!) - you can see the new laminate floor in the video of Benjamin walking though. I also really want to write about school, though we've had a frustrating break that was not intended due to the aforementioned huge upheaval in the house. Matthew has not even started school yet and the autumn term for children his age who go out to school is already half over!! (I must not compare, I must not compare, I must not compare.... but it's so hard not to) I had so much I wanted to be doing with them over the autumn before we have a 2-month break when Samuel is born. I have lots of thoughts and feelings about it that I wanted to just sort of, get out there. And LOTS more. Neil is still unemployed - no income here for 7 months and counting now. We are trusting God! Neil is stressing about it somewhat, understandably, but I feel peace about it. And I'm so grateful that he's home to help me so very much, as he does.

I must update my pregnancy blog - I'm getting behind there too!

I made a decision to give my heart to Jesus, to live my life for him, 15 years ago this very evening, and since I'm here on October 15th writing my blog, I just had to mention it! I'm so very grateful to God for the grace and mercy He pours out on me every single day. He is so patient with me! I am as stubborn, childlike and tantrummy as my own children and He is the most patient, loving Father to me. I go my own way and take my own path way too often. I have so much that I want to work on and change in my life, but even so I am happy. God has called me to a work that He already prepared my heart to long for and desire from childhood, so I am HAPPY and glad and thankful that He has brought it to fulfilment! I love being Mummy. I'm in awe of God's blessing, and of the sweet little ones He has seen fit to bless me with - even me?! I am in His hands and cannot be snatched away. And I love Him, love Him, love Him.