Link to a breath of fresh air :)

I rarely link posts at my blog (though I probably would do if I was writing here more often! I READ tons of wonderful blog posts regularly, but it's my own blog that gets neglected!). After my post yesterday, the timing was SO perfect for me to read Sherry's post at Large Family Mothering. It just really uplifted me to read it at this particular time, so I wanted to link it here, for my own reference as well as anyone else's.

But, not too bad today! Less yelling than usual, and I'm remembering the verse about "a soft answer". Thanks for the comments on yesterday's post - I so appreciate them! xxx

Bible in 90 Days - Day 76! And general (bite-sized!) update.

It's THE 22ND OF MARCH!!!! The challenge to read attentively every word of the entire Bible in 90 days ends on March 31st!!! Soooo close!

BUT.

I'm FIVE days behind. Urgh. I haven't written a Bible in 90 Days update for weeks, and that is approximately how long I've been struggling with being behind on my reading. I got lazy though, it's my own fault. I was sloppy at sticking to my own rules about not switching on the laptop before finishing the day's reading. For weeks I have been at least 3 days behind - never as little as two. Right now I am five days behind, which is the furthest behind I've been, and I'm kind of struggling to keep up with being 5 days behind too. I seem to have so much else going on, either in my head, or just "to do" in the evenings (which is my only time to read the Bible anyway) that it's getting harder to fit in LARGE readings. When I'm tired I read slower too, and I've been really tired lately. I do still read as I'm settling Benjamin for his naps, but he has gone down to two naps a day now (sometimes three), so there are not nearly as many opportunities as there were at the start of this challenge in January! I think he was still wavering between 4 and 5 naps (on a bad day!) back then!

The good news is that the 90-day challenge includes 2 "grace days" (it's actually an 88-day plan)! So if I use those up then I am only 3 days behind. I am currently reading Day 76 I think, and I'm finishing today's reading with John 15. I love being in the New Testament at last! But I'm surprised at how wistful and sad I felt at leaving the Old Testament behind. One thing I've taken from this challenge is that I have really fallen in love with the Old Testament and with Israel's history, and the "Ancient of Days" aspect of God. I've nearly finished the 4 gospels and am hoping that I will get ahead with the shorter books to come. I love the letters in the New Testament! The only thing about the New Testament is that it's SO PACKED with life-changing information! I want to slow down and absorb and apply it to my daily life, but I can't because I'm on a deadline! ;) I will definitely come back and study the New Testament in more depth later this year.

I still haven't thought what to do about continuing to stay in the Word after the challenge is over. I still can't believe I will REALLY and truly have read the whole entire Bible in such a short space of time, very soon! I am desperate to finish "on time", and I know it really doesn't matter if I finish a few days late, or even a few weeks late - the point is that I will still have read the whole of the Bible in a remarkably short time, and completed it - but I doooo so want to succeed at the actual challenge! To finish it within the 90-day period would be such a sense of accomplishment, and after 3 months straight, I WANT that! ;) I love that it has been almost 3 months where I have read a significant block of God's Word every single day! How refreshing for my soul! I do not want to go back to reading none of it on any given day.

I have such an unbelievable amount of stuff to write about here, but the time pressures and such have prevented that for quite a while now. I'm really missing updating here with the usual photos, news and thoughts! I hope I'll have time to do more of that once the Bible challenge is finished in a couple of weeks.

In case I forget, a few things I want to write about, off the top of my head (to help me remember when I come back to blog about them!):

* New reading curriculum for Arthur (Rocket Phonics - thanks Kimberly for posting a review that led to me buying it for my children!). We started it last week and will include Matthew in it as far as he's able.

* Currently reading (along with Bible - hmmm, maybe that is contributing to the behind-ness of things?!) "Managers Of Their Homes" by Teri Maxwell. At the risk of sounding repetitive, thanks once again to Kimberly for posting her family's schedule recently and citing this book as the framework for the schedule. I have had my eye on it for a couple of years, and just shied away from such scariness as Serious Scheduling until now! ;) Now it's bought, and I am in the middle of the painstaking process of putting together a detailed schedule for us to try. I think it will help me a LOT, and the kids too. I'm the type who works better from lists and so on. I'm also pretty desperate for some order, so I'm motivated! ;)

* Nathan is talking sooooo much! And almost completely normally, as in, constructing his sentences like the bigger boys, and with a huge vocabulary. His voice is so so so incredibly tiny and chipmunky, and we adults (Neil and I, that is!) almost fold up into a puddle of aww-ness every time he speaks to us. *sigh* Neil wants to call him Chip, in honour of his teeny tiny little helium voice! Bless! He's such a tiny cute little boy.

* Nathan's stats - only 32.5 inches tall at his 2nd birthday (double that and according to something-or-other, he'll only be 5ft 5in when he's fully grown!!), but he grew an inch in the 6 weeks that followed, and my mum said I should double that instead, given than he was born a month early. So, 5ft 7in, like Matthew's measurement was! :) This month (2yrs, 2mos) he weighs 24.5lbs! He's at the 9th percentile for height and weight. So teeny! He's my tiny little precious, as I probably tell him at least 50,000 times a day! :)

* Benjamin had his 8-month check. Flying colours, etc :) He is 70cm long (don't know the inches) just under 50th percentile, and weighs 19lbs 13oz - catching up with Nathey!

* Benjamin's general news - crawling all over the place, pulling up to kneel on everything and everyone, and then screeching with frustration when he can't figure out how to get "down" from kneeling. He is pulling to stand on the sofa, but it is the biggest exertion I ever saw a baby make, and his chunky little legs go all quivery with it! He wants to do this all the time and gets rather frustrated about not being able to yet.

* Breastfeeding update - Benjamin nursing probably 6+ times during the day (on demand) and waking 3-6 times (yes, you read that right) over night/evening and nursing then too. Tired mama. BLISSFUL mama. Which cancels out Tired Mama easily :) Matthew still having a bedtime breastfeed (yes, he'll be 4 in June) as Arthur was still doing at his age. Considering a 3-hourly routine for breastfeeding Benjamin during the day as part of the new schedule... Hoping for a new nursling by this time next year though, God willing! :)

* School - long break after Christmas. School in bits and pieces since then, involving mucho guilt-tripping for me, and (in hindsight) surprisingly large amounts of academic learning for the two older boys! Not sure how! But there we go! :) Spent last week reviewing a lot of maths, and are back on track with the Right Start Math curriculum this week. Arthur absorbing it much faster than he did before Christmas.

* Matthew STILL not potty trained, and starting to get concerned... He is hugely anxious about doing a poo all the time, and needs much reassurance the whole time he's trying to do one. He's never constipated, so it's a mystery. It's been like this for a long time. Way back into last year I think. Still doesn't appear to be ready control-wise with the wees either. Considering asking my GP about it.

* Neil is out of work again! Mutually agreed separation from his job the first week of March, and he has 3 months of paid "garden leave" (just leaving the job but still being on contract and getting paid), and then a month of full UNTAXED pay in May! :) No anxieties at all about the future and finances. God is sovereign, mighty and good. We have no cause to be anxious about anything.

* Need to move house! Currently exploring possibilities, but job situation throws spanner in the works a bit. Neil is working on becoming self-employed, but we're not talking much about that with anyone outside the family until it looks like it will pan out. Will be sure to talk more about that here at a later point! :) We are letting God order our steps, and He is doing so! :)

* TV officially DITCHED!!! Woohoo!! I am on Cloud 9, seriously. It has now been one month since we switched the thing off (the boys have not seen any TV at all since then) after Nathan pulled the phone cable till it snapped out of the extension thingy, and we had to plug the phone in next to the TV instead. Not enough plugs for everything, so we chose to unplug the TV, and wow oh wow, what a wonderful difference it made, even just that first day! By Day 3 I was begging Neil to let us continue to have no TV, although originally we planned to buy another extension cable so we could plug the TV back in again. Obviously we CAN plug the TV in, but we are not doing so. Now we have moved it out of the living room and into the kitchen, where Neil does his "work" (the vague stuff I am not talking about yet) for several hours a day - he uses the TV as a computer monitor. The living room feels just so much nicer and cleaner without the TV, and the boys are flourishing without it. I am even more anti-TV than I ever thought I was before, now that I've seen the startling effects! Never going back. Nevvver. They'll watch educational DVDs from time to time though, I should think, when we figure that kind of thing out. We have so much more time for play, school, just character training, imaginitive things, etc. They complained a fair bit on the first day or so, but I was surprised that they have not missed it at ALL since then. TV is subtley BAD BAD BAD for children. Mine used to watch such a lot of it, and I had no idea, and now we've done this I really see it for what it is with my own eyes. NOT good for children! Glad to be rid of it for mine! :)

* Also letting God order our family size, and waiting and hoping for news of a new little blessing, perhaps soon? I had a chemical pregnancy last cycle with a couple of faint positive pregnancy tests, so I see that it's definitely a possibility! So exciting! Neil 100% on board with completely trusting God to open or close my womb as He sees fit! Yay! :D

Probably tons more, but that's the mainstay of it in a nutshell. Will hopefully be back soon to pad those subjects out a bit more, and post long-overdue photos! Thanks to those who have let me know they're missing my updates! It makes me feel special! And motivates me to hurry up and do so! ;) *hugs*

Bible in 90 Days - Day 11 Progress Report!

Well, I am working through reading the Bible in 90 days, starting January 1st like I said in my last post! There is a lot of reading but I'm really enjoying it! Genesis was done in 4 days, Exodus in 3! And now I'm on Day 11 and still going - so excited! :)

I read every evening after the boys are in bed. It's the best (read: only!) time of day for me, as they get up around 6am and I'm usually incapable of anything until at least 7am in any case, let alone trying to get up before they do to get my reading done then! My motivator is not letting myself online till after I have finished reading, and so far it's working.

Except for yesterday! :S Nathan's birthday is tomorrow (I can't believe he'll be two!!!) and I had to put reading the Bible second last night as I had birthday-prep things to do, which could only be done after the boys were in bed. I hoped I would get enough time to read before I went to bed, but I knew it might not happen, and it didn't. So I'm a day behind as of today. Tonight I have yet more birthday prep things to do (bake and decorate the cake, yikes!) but at least the presents are wrapped now. I am not confident of getting any Bible reading done tonight, but I am determined to catch up as soon as birthdayness is behind us. I will also attempt to read little snatches today as I'm rocking the Amby to settle Benjamin off to sleep and things like that, but again, I'm not setting my hopes too high! I don't think I will get any read today, but I will try. I am actually really enjoying reading the Bible at this pace, and the stories are really coming alive for me as I read them, more than they have when I did the Bible in a year (I only read as far as Acts though, so didn't finish - and it took me 18 months to do that!).

So that is my update! :) Amy is asking everyone to link a blog post every Monday with a status update, so that's what I'll (try to!) do.

Hopefully I will get chance very soon to update about Nathan's birthday (my BIG tiny man!!) but I am not really finding the extra time to blog while I'm devoting much of my evening to reading the Bible lately. I will Facebook it though! That's quicker! ;)

Read Through The Bible in 90 Days - I'm in! :)

Yikes! But I soooo want to read the whole Bible, cover to cover. I have followed a book called "Cover to Cover: Through the Bible in a Year" a couple of times and the first time (when I was housebound with M.E. for two years) I got as far as Acts and then didn't get any further. It took a year and a half to get that far, and I was in a fairly good routine with it. So now I have four children aged 5 and under, and am horrendously behind with the housework, and newly homeschooling, and probably nutso to try to take on a 90-day challenge like this one! But...

God is higher. The Word of God is higher - a higher priority. If my first priority is firm in its proper place, then everything else in my life will fall into line. I know that I NEED to somehow carve out that extra bit of time (though I have no idea how yet, just that I will need to sacrifice something - probably internet time) to get that wonderful Word into my heart and mind and soul. I will be so excited if I actually complete the 90 days having read the whole Bible! I am not too sure I will manage it in 90 days, but I will be very very happy to actually read the whole thing, even if it takes me a bit longer!

I normally wouldn't think I stand a chance, except that it seems there's a huge bloggy effort to join in with this challenge. Many of my favourite bloggers are taking part, and I think with the support and encouragement online on a daily/weekly basis, I might actually be able to maintain the momentum and DO IT! :) I'm excited and nervous, and can't wait to get started!

I signed up with Kimberly at Raising Olives, but it's being hosted by Amy at Mom's Toolbox, where you need to sign up as well, here. Amy will be posting every Monday to encourage readers and so that we can comment as to where we are in the reading. I'm using my NIV Bible and not the 90 Days Bible. Amy has a printable list of readings for anyone who is not using the 90 Days Bible, which I plan to follow. It's a lot of reading! I know I will have to sacrifice some online time. So far I am thinking I will start reading the Bible after I come downstairs from putting the boys to bed, and not allow myself to go on the computer until the reading is done for that day. This will either mean I am online less, or else I stay up later. I know it should NOT be the latter! But I think I will struggle to stay disciplined over that one. I will pray about it. But I'm excited for the challenge! Join me if you can!

My Husband Rocks! :D

I KNOW!!!! Another post!! :D

It has been a long time since I've been reading blogs (well, mostly blog - Daja's) where every Friday I tune into that blogger's "My Husband Rocks!" Friday. I used to skip reading those posts. I don't even know why! And then I started skimming them. Then eventually READING them (hehe!), and now I smile every time I see a "My Husband Rocks" post pop up on my Blogger reading list :) I don't really know why I wasn't instantly eager to hop on board. I guess I have needed a lot of work from God this past year or so. The last few times that Daja has done "My Husband Rocks!" Friday posts, I have felt so enthusiastic about starting to write similar things about Neil, and then finally today I thought, "That's it! I'm joining in!!" :) And so here I am with my very first "My Husband Rocks!" Friday post! And I'm so excited!

"My Husband Rocks!" Friday was started by Katy Lin. The button below (and I'm adding one to my sidebar, woohoo!) is a link to the post where she writes about why she started it. I really want to start focusing on the great aspects of my lovely husband on a regular basis (for the whole wide web to see!) because I want to train my mind to think of him positively and gratefully as much as possible, and I think this will be a really helpful tool. The more I focus on the positives, the less I will be dwelling on the negatives. And part of my role in my marriage is to respect and uplift my husband, not just within our relationship but for others to see as well. This is a big step for me in doing this, and I'm so happy about that! :)



One of my favourite things about Neil is that he is a WONDERFUL father. He gets discouraged and thinks that he's not such a great father at times, as I'm sure all fathers do, but he really and truly is a lovely father to our little boys.

He coos and gurgles with our babies for ages at a time, just holding conversations with them. I love watching this! It melts my heart a little :)

He tickles and wrestles with our toddlers until they are shiny-eyed, squealing with joy, and breathless.

He takes time for them, and plays on the floor with them, building car parks and Duplo and train tracks. He takes the three older boys out for long walks on the weekends.

He's so affectionate with a cuddly or clingy little one, or somebody who is sleepy or who has just woken up from a long nap. Our little boys get lots of kisses and cuddles from Daddy, and that is such a precious thing!

He will spend hours (sometimes literally!) at a time walking or rocking a fussing baby, or a poorly toddler. He will let sick children sleep on his front on the sofa. He won't flinch or try to get out of the way if a child on his front starts vomiting. He sometimes sleeps scrunched up on the edge of a mattress because a little boy who has had a nightmare wanted to sleep next to Daddy, and he always lets them. He's so loving and kind to the boys.

Nobody is a perfect parent, and everybody has their moments where they did not act loving or kind. I am not trying to paint Neil as perfect! ;) But he is a wonderful father to our little boys, and I am full of thankfulness to God for blessing me with such a man! My husband rocks! He is a fantastic father! :)

First week of school complete, and "school room" photos! :)

Finally I have photos to show you of our new home-school area in our living room! Yayness! You'll remember the "before" shot, when we had the 3-seater sofa and the bookshelf with all the videos and TV on them?



We only have this one room to live in during the day. We have a kitchen, which is just big enough to fit a table and chairs in it, at the back of the house leading off this living room, and that is our downstairs. It's tight with four little boys! ;) But surprisingly manageable, seriously! We knew we had to shuffle things about if we were going to home school before we moved somewhere bigger. So, we got rid of the 3-seater sofa, and the bookshelf, boxed a lot of videos up, and bought a few new items for our school area! This was SO much fun for me to organise! The 3-seater sofa covered a patch of floor that had a rectangle of carpet cut away, exposing rough concrete, so I still plan to get a colourful rug to go under the table where that is, but I'll get to that at a later point. I also want to get strong shelving to hold the DVD/CD/video players and the printer too. The computer and TV sit on top of my new classroom cabinet with the sliding doors and barrel lock (you can't tell I'm completely in love with it, can you??). The other stuff that sits with them makes all the "stuff" fill up the surface and it looks messy and cluttered. So I want to improve the way that stuff is stored. But otherwise, here is our "school room" area!



There is all is in front of you (it's not big because we don't have much space!), but here is a more detailed "guided tour"! :) I'm so proud of the little school zone that I've created for educating my children at! :)

Blackboard - yes, we have a blackboard!!! :D I'm so excited about this purchase! I wanted a good display board of some sort, but the choices seemed to be a bulletin board (pins = no-no), a white board (I don't like the look of them so much, they seem kind of "officey" to me), or a blackboard. I loved the look of the blackboards when I started researching things for the school area! I bought liquid chalk markers in a pack of different colours, because those are so bold and bright, and I liked that. They still wipe off with a wet cloth, and most of what I have written on the blackboard is not going to be wiped off. The blackboard displays what we do at school, at a glance, the character trait we are studying each week (this is the only bit I will wipe off and re-write, on a weekly basis), and a Bible verse at the bottom that is our current memory verse (our first one!) and also our source to point out and talk through with the boys every single time we discipline them for disobeying or being rude to us at the moment. Arthur and Matthew almost have this memorized, just from us repeating it over and over. I have been dropping more and more words as I say it to them, and they fill in the gaps. We will keep this verse there permanently as it's part of our discipline method as well as a memory verse.



Next to the blackboard we have Arthur's magnetic calendar which we got him for Christmas last year. He loves it, and it's great to finally be able to display it properly somewhere. The first thing we do before starting school in the morning is to set the calendar. I found a supremely cute peg to hang it on, and I love that it happens to have a bus with "school bus" on the side! ;) I originally liked it for the bright colours and cute design, before I realised the bus was a school bus. Sorry about the glare/angle on this photo - it makes my eyes feel funny to look at it, but I haven't got a better one for now:



Above the blackboard and calendar, I wanted to put a clock that just had numbers and hands, and which was clear (to help them learn to tell the time) but colourful. It took me ages to find one I liked, and I'm really happy with the one I put up on our school wall! :)



Above the clock I knew I wanted to display the button numbers we made for a craft activity a few weeks after Benjamin was born. Matthew and Arthur and I worked on these over several days when the two little ones were sleeping, and it was a fun, relaxed activity for us. I bought a bumper pack of buttons for crafts from a school supplier (very cheap!) and we used our squidgy sparkles numbers as templates (after the boys played with them for a while) and drew round them on card, cut them out, and the boys glued buttons of their choosing all over them. We put them up on the other wall after we made them, and I like them so much on the wall that I knew I wanted them as part of our school display area. Nathan loves them and points to them all the time saying, "Nuh-buh, nuh-buh!" and even Benjamin spends ages staring at them from my arms or his bouncy chair and cooing at them fondly! ;) Here's a clearer photo of them, and another close up:





Then we have the new bookshelf that I bought for the boys' books. This isn't strictly a school item, since all the school books are kept in the locked school cabinet (which I can't wait to show you with photos, but I haven't taken any yet!). But the only wall space left was next to the school table, and it fits in nicely anyway. The little boys have books to read from there for school, but they all access it all day long as well, obviously. I love that it sits almost flat to the wall, and looks nice, and displays their books front-facing for them to see easily. They love tidying their books away now too, which is an added bonus! ;) Yes, that is crayon on either side of the bookshelf. *sigh* The black crayon between the table and the bookshelf is Nathan's "school work" from this past week. Needless to say, I put him in a different seat after that!



Here's my smallest pupil! ;) He's working on connecting neural pathways and growing big and strong, as you can see. Pretty complicated and important for his first week at school! ;)





Okay, photos of actual school taking place!! Wheee, I'm so excited to be homeschooling my little ones!!!!! :) Here is a photo of Arthur and Matthew right after we sat down at the table on Monday morning for our first ever real school session! They were soooo excited! See Arthur's hands - I read on Jill's homeschooling blog about how she has her children show that they are ready to learn by folding their hands in front of them at the table, and suggested it to Arthur, who JUMPED at the idea! He loves it, and he's doing it in the photo here. This week he has sometimes sat there impatiently with his hands folded, saying, "Come on Mummy!" when I am still getting the little boys started with their activities as we start school!



Arthur at school: See the concrete under the table? Yeah, I can't wait to cover that up with something pretty! When we do school, I sit in the middle chair so that I have Matthew and Nathan separated from Arthur if they are doing drawing or colouring at the table (like it's set up in the photo - they had finished this activity when I took this photo), so that they don't distract Arthur too much, and so that I can access them as well if they need me, without disturbing Arthur by talking across him.



Arthur writing his letters at the end of his reading lesson:



Arthur doing maths: Matthew has taken to spending some of Arthur's reading and maths lessons standing quietly at Arthur's side, just looking over his shoulder with interest and taking in what he's doing. It doesn't seem to bother Arthur in the least. He loved the pre-school activities at first, and still does, but he's increasingly interested in doing "books" like Arthur, and even cried when he had sat down in Arthur's chair after Arthur finished his reading lesson, saying "My turn!" and I said I wasn't going to teach him to read just yet! I think I will re-assess at Christmas. He'll be three-and-a-half then, and that's the earliest the book recommends starting. The earliest I was considering it was after Christmas, but I had no plans to unless he was showing obvious signs of wanting to or being ready. I may start with him in the new year if he is still this eager. In the mean time I think I will work with him on the alphabet a bit, and holding his pencil correctly in readiness for letter formation.

Oops, got side-tracked! ;) So here is Arthur doing maths lessons. He is sorting coloured tiles at the end of one maths lesson, and actually the other photo is after we finished a different maths lesson. He constructed triangles and quadrilaterals with the tally sticks in that lesson, but he was working on a railway by this stage! ;) These are lessons from the Right Start Mathematics curriculum.





Matthew and Nathan do sometimes sit in their Active World Trays with activities in there, but I have found as the week went on (and during the practise week a bit too) that I don't need to be quite so strict about them sitting in their trays in order for us to do school without distraction. I have actually found it's better for all of us if I have a few different "centres" with different activities. I have a tray or two on the floor with different pre-school manipulative toys and activities in, like lacing numbers or counting bears, etc. I put books and car magazines (they love to leaf through looking at the cars!) on the arm of the sofa, so they can sit up there and read quietly if they want to. And usually we have huge sheets of sugar paper and crayons on the table for them to draw if they want to. This works pretty well at the moment. Matthew will obey me pretty well about staying in his tray when we do it that way, but Nathan screeches and hates having to stay in the tray, and it takes forever to keep on correcting him. If he's finished activities and causing distraction then I usually insist on him staying on his tray while we finish school, but that's the point where he usually decides he wants to go upstairs for a nap! ;) So I take him up, and it's much better for us (and him, he's usually tired by then!) if he's napping.

Here's Nathey in his tray (a split second before the escape-effort and screeching began for the millionth time that morning!) - he loves The Gingerbread Man! It's his favourite book at the moment. He has Monkey and Baggy (blankie), and a pillow in his tray too, in case he wants to snuggle or rest.



I have discovered he MUCH prefers sitting at the table like a big boy to do school! :) He pulls out his chair when I say it's time, and climbs in eagerly, saying, "Cool, cool!" ("school", that is!), and sits there beaming for a moment, before starting on, "Daw, daw!" (draw) patting the table with enthusiasm until I get the drawing supplies out! Sweetie pie :)



School for Matthew is mostly at the table now, until he gets bored and chooses either the tray activity or the magazines on the sofa. He sometimes comes back to the table activity after that, but school doesn't take long so that's all the time there usually is! Sometimes he just draws, or sometimes I get out a colouring book for him. Other times I photocopy a worksheet (we bought a basic portable photocopier which sits upstairs. It's really small and as basic as they come, but it does the job of reproducing a black and white page from a workbook, and I am so thankful to have it for school!) from a pre-school workbook, and he does that. They have little exercises like drawing a line from the bird to the worm, or drawing the missing tails on the mice, or joining the dots to write letters and numbers, etc. He colours in the pictures when he's finished. The photo of the little boys drawing was taken at the weekend, so not technically "school". But they do this for school too, so I'm posting it!





School is going great! Arthur's favourite lesson is maths. He started using the abacus on Friday and was so excited! Everything is really basic so far, nice and simple to start off with, and he is kind of impatient to learn "bigger" things, but enjoying the lessons all the same. The same with reading really. He is whizzing through the lessons with no problems. The only problems I have are related to him trying to go too fast, or getting impatient with the speed of the lesson. He reads the words the fast way before I can get him to sound them out slowly the first time. He is eager every day to see if he's learning a new sound today. Those come every other day so he's disappointed half the time! ;)

Bible study is going nicely. I love I get to teach them about God in a sort of sit-down environment every day. They learn about God in our usual daily stuff anyway, especially from discipline, and we are doing a memory verse that I recite to them many times throughout the day here and there. But I love reading them a thought-provoking lesson about God, and then discussing it with them, praying, reading the Bible to them, and singing praise to God with them. They don't sing with me because they don't know the words, but they listen and do actions if the songs have actions. The Bible lessons are short and sweet, and I love starting the school session with them each day. This week coming I am going to introduce the character building lessons. We did only "core school" (as I call it! It's what we'll fall back to any time we're pressed or ill or whatnot) for the first week (reading, writing, maths, Bible), and I plan to introduce the additional subjects gradually. Character building starts this week with "Attentiveness" as the first trait to study! :)

We do music appreciation every day right as our school session finishes. I play a CD of a different composer each day as we tidy and the boys start to play with cars and things. As it plays I talk to them about the composer (which I started after Arthur started bombarding me with questions about them - I read the information on the CD cover at the moment), and then throughout the CD playing, I occasionally stop to ask them what this part of the music makes them feel like, or what they think the composer was thinking of or seeing when he wrote that part. They are very descriptive with their answers, especially Arthur. He always has a description that I hadn't thought of, and is able to connect his emotions to music very easily. He's quite expressive about feelings when listening to music of any sort, but especially classical music. At the moment, music appreciation consists of classical and jazz, because I want to expose them to those types of music more than any others right now, but I will include other varieties of music at a later date. Arthur likes to learn about when the composer lived, how old he was when he died, where he lived in the world, and so on. On Wednesday our composer of the day was my daddy :) He has written a lot of classical and jazz pieces and recorded them at his little studio, so we have 9 or 10 CDs written and played by Grandy! The boys love that, and have enjoyed listening to his music this week. Arthur seems keen to have a long chat with Grandy about composing music - not "how to", but more an interest in how he does it, what he's thinking when he does it, and so on. He has asked me when he can start learning to play the piano since listening to Grandy play the piano on the CDs, which is a first. Until now, he has been asking repeatedly to play the electric guitar! ;) I am looking into Suzuki piano lessons for the older two, but we don't have anywhere for a piano to go. My dad has always said he wants to buy us a piano when it comes time for our children to learn, if they want to, because music is his life and his passion, and he wants to pass it on to his grandchildren in that way, which is LOVELY! :) His condition is that we need to have a place to put a piano where a child can play it in a private place without being disturbed, as he feels that is essential. I am still going to inquire about the Suzuki piano lessons just to get the info I need.

I have told Arthur about our Unit Studies - that they'll cover geography, history and science (and probably art, maths and reading too!), and that they will be things that he asks to learn about. He was ever so excited, and immediately requested a Stegosaurus unit study. He is suddenly very into dinosaurs lately, and the Stegosaurus is his favourite by far. So this weekend I have started researching and gathering stuff for the Stegosaurus unit study (he also wants a Stegosaurus birthday cake when he turns 5 next month - NEXT MONTH people!!!!), and I'm having fun doing it! Unit Studies will always include Matthew and possibly Nathan in parts too. They'll be fun and informal, and we'll do bits here and there outside of the usual school session, more on some days than others depending on availability and energy! We'll do stuff from baking Stegosaurus-shaped cookies and colouring pages from the internet, to Stegosaurus crafts (lots online if you google!) and learning facts about Stegosaurus. Now, I do not teach evolution folks. I am not an evolutionist, I am a Creationist, and I will be teaching Creation to my children. We will undoubtedly visit the Natural History Museum and so on, and the boys will learn what the world thinks about history and dinosaurs and the beginning of the universe and the Earth, but only in such a way as they know what they're up against. Already there have been plenty of opportunities to talk to them about this, even with things like a programme on CBeebies called Boogie Beebies, with the dinosaur dance episode (Arthur's favourite). No, they did not live 250 million years ago, nor die out 66 million years ago. The guy says that as they watch, and I add, "Um, no, they didn't" and explain what the Bible says to the boys. So, they know that much, but they'll learn more about it as we study these things in more depth.

If anybody is curious about what the Bible teaches about Creation, and how incredibly accurately it's backed up with evidence around the world (completely blowing the evolution theory apart, incidentally!), please check out Answers in Genesis. I went there and searched on all the things I have been most skeptical about, and was blown away by what I found. I bought the set of Answers books for kids, and the set for adults too. I am SO excited by what I am reading, and best of all it has really rejuvenated my relationship with God. I am in constant awe of God all over again, with the evidence of His reality and His Creation right in front of my face. Awesome! :) They have a science curriculum for age 7+ that I am really interested in, when the time comes. Oh man, I wish we had a Creation Museum near us! Those look fantastic!

Anyway, that is the update about school for now! It's so late, and I must go to bed. I am glad to have found time to write about our first week and post photos! I'll be back to write more soon. I have more photos of non-schooly things too! :)

How things are going...

Well it's ever so late, but I feel so behind with making notes on "things" here lately, and I don't want everything to disappear out of my memory without a record to back it up, further down the line! So I will be quick:

* On Monday I put Matthew in Big Boy Pants in the day time to start officially potty training him! On Thursday I put him back in nappies without a backward glance! ;) He is NOT ready, suffice to say! I guess I am surprised because Arthur was exactly the same age (yes, I know they are different children, but still) and he did it pretty much without ANY involvement from me and was done and dusted within 5 days. Also he is already 3. But, he is not ready. He peed and pooed on the carpet and sofa continually throughout the four days. Well, I say pooed - he did do his first ever poo in the potty but not enthusiastically, and then there was a "p.s" afterwards while I was emptying out the main job upstairs, which he tried to clean off the carpet by scooping it into the underside of a Duplo brick (it is in the bin!) and then wiping with tissues which he trailed into the porch, and THEN wiping his hands on Nathan's tummy!! I didn't even notice the brown finger marks on Nathey's vest until about 30 minutes after the big clean-up. I automatically went to change his top, presuming the marks to be chocolate, and it took me a few moments to realise that I had not given him any chocolate (nor do I normally!)! Yeeuuurrgh. Matthew's simple response to the obvious question was that he did it to get his hands clean. Of course! ;)

Matthew doesn't seem to wee and then NOT wee for a while, and then empty his bladder fully again. He will do a little bit and say he's done, and then not THREE minutes later he will wee in his clothes just standing on the carpet, apparently oblivious. He can always "perform" with a little wee, and he never sits on the potty and relaxes and just wees. He always makes a big deal straining to produce a little bit of wee to show me he's done it. I tried reminding him every 20 minutes, sitting him on the potty every 20 minutes, putting him in just big boy pants, just pyjama-style trousers with no underwear (wet legs, therefore - better awareness?), and just nothing on his lower half at all. He did not improve at all over the 4 days (I know it was only 4 days, but still), in fact he seemed to be getting worse if anything. I was also getting a little concerned that he was holding his poo. He's a daily boy and out of those 4 days he only went on Day 2. On Day 3 I felt pretty sure he needed to go at one point, but he denied it and refused to try, so he didn't do one that day. After the TENTH wee accident on Day 4 (by late morning!), I finally just put a nappy on him. I explained that I wasn't cross and he hadn't done anything wrong. He was still a big boy just as much, but I wanted HIM to tell me when HE was ready, and then we'd get right back to it. He did a poo not 3 minutes later. He hasn't batted an eyelid since going back in nappies, or seemed unsettled or unhappy about it, or asked questions. He just carries right on, and I for one am hugely relieved to let the potty training go for a bit longer. It was getting a bit stressful to deal with it alongside two little ones under two, and getting school ready for Arthur! It will be MUCH easier when he's actually ready, I think. I don't know when that will be, but I guess I'll aim to try him again at 3 and a half, in a few more months. Unless he initiates it before then. I have only just caught up with the crazy laundry that was the result of the potty training attempt! I have a lot more time again now that he's back in nappies - I was forever reminding, emptying 1.5ml of urine out of potties, cleaning wee, etc, before!

* Nathan is saying everything! Everything. All of a sudden, just like his brothers did. He started later than average like his brothers, but from experience I knew he would just take off when he got started. I can't think of anything (casting my eye around the room) that he doesn't point at and name accurately. His pronounciation is coming along just in the last week. For example, he has started adding the end consonant to many words this week. For the first couple of weeks (he has only really been saying words for a couple of weeks!) he would point to a bike and say "bah" or a duck and say "dah". Now he is saying "bah..ccKK!" hehe! Or "du...ccccKKKK!" to really emphasise the K sound on the end, hehehe! It's so sweet - he almost leaves a pause between the first and second syllable for added emphasis. I have been emphasising the end syllables clearly to him this last week and he has been watching my mouth intently as I've done so. It's sweet to see him really pick that up and say it back to me clearly. He is forever trailing Arthur around the room saying, "Atha, Atha, Athaaa?" repeatedly - poor Arthur! ;) Arthur is dealing with it very well, and loves the attention. Nathan has always adored Arthur but now he is really able to demonstrate that verbally! ;)

* Nathan started running this week! He has been doing an almost-there bumpity race-walk for what seems to me like months (I'm sure it's at least 3 months), but never tipped into real running in the process. Now he's suddenly running, overnight. His sweet little legs blur past each other because he runs fast but in the tiniest little steps, hehe! So sweet! He runs with an enormous smile on his face all the time, because he's so thrilled. When he breaks the smile it's only to call out, "Ruh, ruh, ruuuuhhh!" as he runs along, to tell us joyfully that he is running! :) He says Mummy in such an incredibly cute helium-chipmunky sort of way that it sounds like a squished up "Mami" when he says it, and I ADORE hearing it. Adore it. Can't get enough of it. He's such a treasure (which I tell him often!).

* I'm planning, planning, planning all the time at the moment for school. The table and chairs arrived this week, and they're set up (I'm sitting at it rather uncomfortably on one of the LOW chairs as I type this! Neil is reclining on the sofa and we only have one now - but I love the new table and chairs so I'll take a little discomfort to enjoy sitting at them anyway!). The boys LOVE them! I have photos, but they're still on the camera at the moment. Smaller items to complete the school area are nearly sorted out. Two are on their way, having been ordered. Two or three are left to choose and purchase still, but I'm wading my way through options (there are too many rugs out there to choose easily, and I'm picky!) and will order those this weekend hopefully, to arrive during the week.

The Right Start Mathematics curriculum unfortunately got stopped at customs (tsk!) so it's delayed. I have paid the (hefty!) fee and it should be delivered on Monday now, which I'm soooooooo excited about! I am going to order Math Mammoth this weekend too, the download form, so that it's with us immediately.

Okay so that paragraph made me want to do it RIGHT NOW, so I have done it! I just bought the download version of Math Mammoth Grade 1 (the complete curriculum - 1A and 1B) - yay! Now I am having trouble opening the zip file, tsk! But there's a place I can go to get help with that, apparently, so that's okay. I'll work on that tomorrow. [ETA: Woohoo, it worked! :) ]

It being weekend, I have taken advantage of Benjamin's naps today to try to plan out the school week a bit better, while Neil's home to look after the little ones. Benjamin has taken 3 short naps and one longer nap today, and each time he goes to sleep, I shut myself in the bedroom with him and sit on the bed with my pad of paper and pen, and the laptop. And various books that I'll be using to teach Arthur. I have planned out which subjects he'll be learning, and what we'll be doing on each day of the week, and which order we'll do things in. I think we'll be doing school between 9am and 11am, but that allows a lot of extra time for distractions, discipline and interruptions, related to the other boys! I hope we won't have much distraction, but I need to be flexible. School should last about an hour, and in that time we'll do Bible study followed by reading and letter formation, followed by maths. The Bible study we are doing is going to be from the book "Leading Little Ones to God" (after MUCHO research), which will take about 10 minutes. It's a bit of teaching (lovely, lovely teaching, by the look of it so far!), a Bible verse relating to the teaching, then singing a hymn (none of which I know or have access to, so I'll replace them with ones that we know from our church with a similar theme), and a prayer at the end.

Arthur has done 37 lessons (I think!) out of the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons", so we'll continue with that for his reading and letter formation. Each lessons takes somewhere around 15 minutes (10 in the beginning, and sometimes 20 minutes in Arthur's last few lessons). I'm also going to do a bit of simple copywork with him as part of Nature Study, which we'll do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Will write more about the specifics another time.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we will do Right Start maths (I have no idea how long a session is till I get the curriculum on Monday and start reading it, but I'm guessing not a long time), and then on Tuesday and Thursday we'll do Math Mammoth, which I'll try to arrange (if necessary) so that it ties in with what we are doing in Right Start maths.

On Mondays we'll do a chapter of "A Child's Book of Character Building" (again with the mucho research). I will then write up the character trait (virtue) we're learning for the week and display it in the school area, and I am thinking a chart with gold stars for every time I notice the boys exhibit that trait during the week. Or something like that! Still fine tuning my thoughts on that one! Matthew will be involved in Bible Time and Character Building, but not reading or maths for now. If he's eager I will give him some worksheets to help him with letter and number formation or blocks to count and sort at the table with us. Otherwise he will have his Active World Tray (they arrived, yayness!) and an "only for school" educational toy or two to explore on the floor behind us, while Arthur and I do school. I am REALLY hoping Nathan continues to want both a morning and afternoon nap for a while longer! He is already in the minority of children his age who still take 2 naps a day, but I need him to just carry on a little bit longer so that I can establish the school routine (and expectations) with Arthur and Matthew! Once he is not napping at school time, he will be difficult to train, although I must do it all the same. So I hope he gives us a little time to get things established!

Anyway, what else? I am going to be doing a proper drawing instruction lesson (realistic drawing skills) from the book, "Drawing with Children". Thanks so much Aisling for signing my comments a couple of weeks ago with the link to Jill's homeschooling blog! I read as much as I could in one go, and was really inspired by her review of the Drawing with Children book (or method, rather). So I researched the book a bit further and bought it after what I read! I have to actually work through the book myself and teach MYSELF to draw first, before I start teaching my children, which I didn't expect! But it's okay, I'm eager to try it! I want to hurry and do that so that I can get ready to teach it. Arthur is nearly 5 so he's ready for drawing instruction (according to the book). I don't think Matthew will be, because only a few 3-year-olds are, but he can do the visual exercises and I'll start with him next year.

And I think that's it. We'll do "unit studies" throughout the year on basically anything Arthur is interested in learning, for example dinosaurs, steam trains, the water cycle, etc. Stuff he's already expressed an interest in. If we do dinosaurs, for example, we can take a whole month, or just a week or two, and do activities relating to it where we find time (or energy, in my case!). We can read books on dinosaurs, research online, draw and colour dinosaurs, do arts and crafts (collage and so on) to do with dinosaurs, bake dinosaur cookies, etc. That's just off the top of my head, so I'm sure there are lots more things we could do for each unit study that Arthur requests! I am not planning any unit studies. So far I am thinking to wing it with that, unless it becomes obvious that I need to schedule them in every fortnight or month, to keep up with Arthur's interests. We'll see how we go.

We will be starting homeschooling officially on Monday 28th September - a week on Monday!! I want a full week to digest all the stuff I've bought to teach with, and finish planning, before starting. Arthur knows that's when we'll start and he's really excited! He is bugging me to start NOW all the time. I am beginning to think it might be a good idea to do "practise school" through this next week, to get them used to it, and to train Matthew up a bit with the Activity Tray (ie. "no noise with your mouth" and not coming off the tray during school time). I think I will do simple stuff like pre-school worksheets, arts and crafts, and simple maths manipulatives. We have already done some of this since the table and chairs arrived - Arthur is working his way through the work cards that go with the the coloured wooden cubes and enjoying that, and Matthew is colour sorting with the same cubes. Nathan even loves getting involved once he's up from his nap. I wish I had put the photos onto the computer already, tsk! Oh well - soon.

I also plan to do more read-aloud story times with books outside their age range, and poetry too. We have already started looking into Suzuki piano lessons (and possibly violin, but we are thinking piano to start with) for both Arthur and Matthew. I read up about the Suzuki method and I'm reeeeeally impressed. My dad is very impressed with it also (he's a musician/composer) and is keen for the boys to do something like that. Also swimming lessons, but I haven't got my head around those things just yet! Still plenty to think about and plan and do! It's just finding the time to organise my thoughts and research things! It's all soooo exciting though! I'm surprised HOW exciting it is. I'm really eager to start homeschooling Arthur now! We re-joined Education Otherwise and I'm hoping to find local contacts and groups through there. I have joined the regional Yahoo group so that's the first step.

I have such a lot more to say (as always!) but no time as it's ridiculously late now and I should have been in bed a long time ago! We're going to church tomorrow again - the third week running after our TEN MONTH absence!). Arthur is loving his Sunday school class and Matthew seems perfectly settled in there too, having graduated from creche since we were there last. We currently don't intend to put Nathan and Benjamin in creche. I think we'll look WEIRD for doing that, but I don't care. They won't miss out on a thing. Creche is something I'm increasingly beginning to disagree with. It's a place for parents to put their children so they don't disturb the adults during the sermon. There, the little ones are supervised by not-enough-adults, who chat to each other (as well as watch the little ones of course) and sometimes miss a fall or incident that could (and should) have been prevented. The little ones play with toys (we have those at home) and interact with other little ones, except not very much because they're not at the social interaction stage yet. In any case, my creche-age boys are now part of a fair bunch of little boys at home and have perlenty of opportunity for social interaction and play with other little ones in their own home! So they don't miss out there either. The one thing they do miss out on by us keeping them out of creche is the germs. Last year we were ill every other Sunday due to having picked up a new virus the previous Sunday at creche. This is a recurring rant for me, but it bugs me so very much! People take sick children to creche and it bugs me!

We are currently going to church for the fellowship, the worship, and for the boys to do their Sunday school class that they love so much. We'd love to hear the sermon, but we are not in the least bit bothered (less so each child we have, which is nice actually!) to spend the sermon walking the halls to settle a baby to sleep, or running out in the grounds with our toddler. The baby and toddler have a rare and special time one-on-one with either Mummy or Daddy (we each take a little one) and get to run about (or nap!), which I think is way more special than biding their time in creche catching the latest viruses to spread around our increasingly large family for the next few weeks! The sermons are broadcast online if we want to catch up with them at a later point. I'm sure people are going to start asking us why we are not putting the little ones in creche, and I'm not sure of exactly how to phrase my answer to that without offending (praying on that one!), but we have no intention of putting our children in creche at church at all any more. I am sure Arthur and Matthew will bring home colds and such from just being at Sunday school (Arthur did once or twice last year) but it's not that I refuse to allow anyone to get us sick, just that I don't want to let my toy-mouthing under-2s into a room full of unwell (for the most part, honestly! It's horrid!) toy-mouthing under-2s just for our own convenience, and not remotely for their own benefit! So, that is why. With that mindset we are able to really enjoy spending the time with our two littlest boys during the sermon, which is nice! :)

So, BED!!! Or else I will not be able to enjoy that time tomorrow, because I'll be too exhausted to walk the baby boo or run with Nathey! ;)

P.S. Benjamin is lifting his head right up on his tummy now, and holding it steady to look ahead at his brothers playing if they're close enough to him (which they always are, since they adore him!). He is trying so hard to roll from his back to his tummy, and can almost get over except for his arm in the way as he tries to go from on his side to his tummy. He makes such a lot of cute little effort sounds and the other boys stand around him cheering him on like crazy! Eventually the noise is so distracting that he stops trying and looks around all perplexed, hehe! They LOVE their little Benji :) He is almost laughing, seems to be my most ticklish boy yet (amazingly!), and is starting to outgrow all his 3-6 month sleepsuits and vests!!! He's TEN WEEKS OLD!! Yikes! He fits a few of his 6-9 month sleepsuits really well, even in the arm length. The toes hang off his feet about a couple of cms, that's all! Big boy. He is so delightfully GORGEOUS!! I could eat him. Or just kiss him all day long. His cheeks are wonderous. He is beginning to lose his newborn hair (waaah!). Where he sleeps it looks like a cat has slept there, because lots of little fine hairs remain on the sheet :( When I wash his hair at the sink, little fine hairs line the sink after the water runs out. I guess it's nearly time for my own Great Hair Shed 2009. *sigh* I am not a fan of the postpartum hair issues! ;) These usually start around 3-4 months postpartum for me.

Okay, MUST go! Back soon though, hopefully more photos to catch up next time!

Maths curriculum! And other improvements :)

I'm back! So soon! ;) Thanks so much for the comments on my last post! It was lovely to read them. I will have to look into those junior Magnetix things - thanks for the tip, girls!

Not much to say tonight. It's getting late so I should be getting to bed. But I am determined to get back into updating much more frequently here!

Benjamin was asleep by 8.20pm tonight! That is a big improvement. Neil is walking back and forth with the baby in his arms for AN HOUR before he is suitably asleep for putting down (and not waking) at the moment. He is literally not going to sleep by any other method, except sometimes on the breast. He is also not sleeping well at all during the day right now. He goes to sleep many times but can't seem to stay asleep. This is the trouble we've had since he was about 3 weeks old, and it's difficult to deal with, with 3 other little ones to attend to! I had all these plans, to have him napping well from early on, and to use the Amby Hammock which is reputed to have a near-miraculous effect on babies. In our very limited experience it does not! Well, I gave up on it after about 2 weeks (if that!) because I was spending way too much time (HOURS in total, out of the day) away from the other boys, trying to rock/bounce Nathan to sleep or resettle him after he woke. He can fall asleep WELL, but very very rarely is he able to STAY asleep.

Lately I've opted for the easiest way to manage and still be there for the other boys - he is downstairs with us all the time, and naps in the bouncy chair. When he's tired and cranky, he goes in the chair and I bounce it with my feet and thus have hands free for tending to little ones (my legs can seriously do some impressive angles with my feet staying attached to the bouncy chair to rock it while I'm sitting on the floor changing a nappy, haha!). At first this was a bit like that thing where you pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, but I'm getting used to it now! ;) It reminds me of the early weeks with Matthew. He was my baby who cried the most early on, out of all of them. He cried 3 hours every evening, and good chunks of the day too. I couldn't seem to do anything to stop him crying, so in the end I eased off on the stressful strenuous efforts, and just bounced him in the bouncy chair with my feet with him SCREAMING his head off for what seemed like ages at a time, while I built Duplo with Arthur to give him some quality time! It was hard, but I'm less stressed about it this time. Benjamin is actually way more easy-going than Matthew was at this age, so it's not nearly so bad, but I still don't like that he sits in the chair and cries. I bounce him, and he DOES go to sleep and stop crying, but he can't stay asleep. Somebody's noise wakes him (they're all three VERY noisy and it's like pulling a donkey through mud to get them to quiet down!), or else I stop bouncing the chair and he wakes (pretty much instantly, although sometimes I get 30 seconds!). Once or twice a day he does stay asleep if I bounce him for a LONG time (at least 40 mins) after he has gone to sleep, and then he will sleep for maybe 30 minutes at the most and wake again.

I REALLY want him to have a peaceful quiet place to go to for his naps, like upstairs with the door shut, like the others have done. But I can't get him to sleep and stay asleep for ANYTHING and any efforts I make towards this take huge amounts of my time and attention away from the children, which won't do. So, he's downstairs and not sleeping well for now. I am waiting till he's 4 months old and then I will get a bit more serious about sorting out his sleep. With Nathan I started a "pick up, put down" (times infinity) thing when he got to about 6 months old, and that worked, but it DID take me away from the boys downstairs for a long time eacy day. It was worth it though. I want to start that earlier with Benjamin, but I think he's too little yet? I'm annoyed that I can't find my Secrets of the Baby Whisperer book that I used with Matthew and Nathan! Tsk! I have tried The No-Cry Sleep Solution book before without ANY success whatsoever, so I'm not motivated to go that route really. I'm not willing to leave my baby to cry until he falls asleep, but I will definitely take crying in the mix as I stay with him to teach him to fall asleep on his own and resettle himself. I used to be SO anti-any-sort-of-crying when it was my first baby, seriously. Some of you will know that already! ;) But oh how it changes when there are a bunch more little ones and sanity to preserve! I need things to work for the family as a whole.

Benjamin DOES sleep pretty well at night. He wakes lots for milk, like they have all done, but what I mean is, once the effort has been made to get him to sleep in the evening, he stays asleep all evening (well, from the 9.30 bedtime he has chosen to set up!) and then wakes maybe somewhere between 12 and 1am, and then again a couple more times before waking for the day somewhere after 7am. It's lots of wakings and I'm tired, but it's not so bad. I stay as asleep as I can. We co-sleep and I just breastfeed him lying tummy-to-tummy in the dark, without much disruption to either his sleep or mine. He goes back to sleep easily every single time at night - often I don't know about it because once he's on the breast I doze back off and wake up to his next waking without having realised he'd finished the last feed! I don't change his nappy at night. If I'm awake enough to sit him up and burp him at night, he stays unconscious sitting up on my lap with his sweet little chin in my hand as I rub his back. I LOVE this! I sit bleary and exhausted in a pitch black room in the wee small hours, wondering what time it is and whether I will feel any better than this before the day begins, and how on EARTH I will make it through the day with the boys, and yet overflow with joy and thankfulness for the moment that I'm living through. I mean, how much more precious does life get?! The intimate moments during the stillness and quietness of the night with my tiny sweet little baby love - they are just priceless and will slip between my fingers WAY too quickly. I cherish the night wakings with my babies. After Arthur, that is! ;) He "conditioned" me to appreciate the night wakings, haha! Anyway, so wonderful. I would do it all again (and again, and again, and again, and again, and - you get the picture!) in a heartbeat.

So, he stays asleep even if I sit him up and burp him. On occasion I have put him down awake and he has taken himself to sleep, but although that's nice and encouraging and all, I know it doesn't mean a lot right now! I am going with the flow, and that's okay, although the flow is a bit tricky at the moment and I'm tired. I wish I could help him (and us!) during the day with his sleep, but we'll hang in there with what we're doing for now. It needs to be sorted out for homeschooling - I'm not sure how to do that with a baby who is doing this!

Talking of which! I finally chose a maths curriculum! Yay! Thanks so much to Michelle and Sara for your comments after my post asking about a maths curriculum. I have heard a lot about Right Start, Singapore Math, and Math-U-See. Also Saxon and Abeka. I have been lurking on forums for a year-ish, and also researching each curriculum like crazy recently - planning homeschool has taken up pretty much all of my evenings for the last two or three weeks, and I still have so much more to fine tune and figure out and plan! I'm LOVING it, seriously. I'm so excited. I love the planning stage! Of course, I don't know a thing about anything beyond the planning stage, as I've never done it before, but anyway - I heartily endorse The Planning Stage! It's great fun! ;)

I went back and forth a million times but eventually settled on Right Start Mathematics. I am buying Level A. I'm annoyed that it's credit card only to purchase, as we've done away with the evils (!) of credit cards after our shamefully huge debt on them. We put the whole lot into a loan with easier payments, and closed down the credit cards. I thought I would not be able to buy that curriculum (it's not cheap either, annoyingly!) but then Neil told me that one credit card did not get closed, because for some reason we have CREDIT on the card, as in, money owed to us. He paid too much into it by mistake and we have almost exactly the amount that it will cost to purchase the Right Start curriculum and get it shipped from the US! Yay! So tomorrow (tomorrow!!!) I am going to purchase that online and get it on it's way to us. I decided to also go for the other curriculum that I was considering, as a supplemental curriculum - it's Math Mammoth. I have read some really good stuff about it. I think it will complement Right Start, and I really like the sample lessons I've seen. Also, if they turn out to be too much to use together, then I will still keep both in case others of my children turn out to do better with one of them than the other. I like that Math Mammoth is REALLY inexpensive. Even more so when you order the curriculum as a download, which I will be doing. It's instantly with you that way as well! :) I am getting the complete Grade 1 curriculum in the light blue books range, for Arthur. So yay, maths curriculum checked off my list! :)

I bought the storage unit that will hold EVERYTHING to do with school, including activities for the littler ones to do during school time, and all arts and crafts materials, and children's DVDs, etc. It's lockable. Ahhh. I feel my neck muscles relaxing at the very thought of that shiny barrel lock on the sliding door. *sigh*

I have a million other smaller details planned, but I am not 100% finished with them and also I want to just wait till it's all put together before showing/telling you guys. I hope it all goes well! I need to spend at least a week or two TRAINING my children to obey me, and also to sit and play quietly for small blocks of time, so that school runs more smoothly. I have started this already, and I tell you, we live in a teeny tiny house with one room that we live in downstairs all day (see last post for photos!) but I am just now realising the GIFT that this is right now. I have to train my children in obedience, and also in respect for me. They are pretty slack on both those things. Being in one room together all the time, I am now discovering, is the absolute perfect setting for such training. I can be on top of them all the time. I don't have to "man" various zones at once and have little people causing havoc in parts of the house I can't be in (although let's not dwell on the fact that Arthur squirted the entire can of Neil's shaving foam/gel into the bathroom sink when he went up to use the toilet the other day, nor the time when he stuck my panty liners all over the outside of the bath a couple of days before that whilst on a similar mission). It makes the task soooo much easier, and I'm actually very grateful to God for blessing us with the home we're in right now for this purpose. This task is HIGH on God's priority list for our children. Higher than school, for sure.

Anyway, I am juuust beginning to see fruit! Woohoo! Something I have not seen much of over the years of trying to get my act together to discipline the kids effectively. Every single time they disobey me, over the teensiest little thing, I am on them about it, and I discipline them. I don't ask them to do something more than once. They are quite defiant, and so there's a lot of ground to cover, but I see a few little bits of fruit. The two older boys are now starting to do something I ask them to do when I ask them to do it, for the most part. They are starting to improve on STOPPING doing something that I ask them not to do as well, though this is a harder thing for them to learn! Matthew has this thing where he pokes and presses on Nathan's feet (he has done this for ages, usually many many many times each day, I can't even count them probably). Nathan has become immune to his pokings and doesn't seem to notice, but I don't like it. It seems somewhat unkind and aggressive in nature, and I have explained it eleventy billion times to Matthew that it doesn't show kindness to his brother when he pokes his feet like that. I always required him to say sorry and told him to stop doing it. Now I have told him he will be disciplined for it every single time he does it. And I have stuck to it for maybe the last 10 days straight, something like that. And he's only doing it a handful of times over a whole day now. He still gets disciplined for each of those times, and I'm hoping he'll stop altogether! I love to see the encouraging results of consistency - it fires me up and motivates me to crack down on the (many!) other areas that need work in those boys!

Today I started working with Matthew and Arthur on training them to play utterly quietly for a short time. I got the idea from Kimberly's blog, "Raising Olives". I have been reading Kimberly's blog since shortly after she started it, and I LOVE it. She has 9 children aged 12 and under, and her family is so precious! She homeschools and her blog is full of great ideas and wise advice, and I am just drinking it all up right now. Anyway, I need the little ones to be able to play quietly (like her littles do) during school, so I'm starting to (try to!) train them now. Arthur too, because it would be helpful for them all to do that if I ask it of them. So today I used the rule that Kimberly stated - "No noise with your mouth" and let them get stuck into playing with their Lincoln Logs. I had to correct them a good few times throughout, but they did GREAT. I kept it short (10 minutes) and we'll work up a bit each time. The only times they made noise with their mouths was to whisper, but they didn't even do much of that. Nathan was napping and Benjamin had gone to sleep in the bouncy chair that I was rocking, and it was suddenly SO PEACEFUL in the house for those 10 minutes. I had hoped to list the things I needed to do today and sort it out in my head while they played, but actually I needed to be right there every moment, checking them and correcting them if they made any noise with their mouths.

Next thing is, keeping them in one spot to play while they are quiet. I am waiting on delivery of a set of Active World Trays right now. They are almost a metre across and we'll use them for endless craft, science and construction/imaginative activities. I bought a book with 50 different ideas for using them, and there are some wonderful activities in there which combine science and art, or even more subjects than just those two. I also plan to use them for our version of "blanket time". We'll have activities in the trays (which are easily big enough for a child to sit in and play) and Nathan and Matthew will each play in an Active World Tray on the living room floor while Arthur has his maths and reading lessons at the table (which we haven't got yet! Next thing to get, after the floor is sorted!). My hope is to train them to sit quietly and play in those zones without leaving the confines of their trays. Then they'll be happily occupied (I have a TON of educational fun activities for each of them which will be for school time ONLY), and quiet, and also NOT interfere with each other's activities (an issue right now with the boys which makes them very frustrated and noisy with each other!), while Arthur has school time. Also I like that they'll be right there with us to have school stuff "washing over" them. I intend to include Matthew in some of Arthur's school things, but not reading or maths yet. It's only a year now before he will be the age of starting school if he was not homeschooled (amazingly!), so he'll be doing everything that Arthur is doing in no time, I'm sure!

Anyway so the quiet time thing went well today. I am hoping to have a couple of sessions each day with the boys. The other bit of fruit that I really like is that the boys now say, "Yes Mummy" with little prompting if I ask them to do something, or ask them if they have understood clearly that they are not to do X, Y or Z (when I am correcting them on something). I started requiring them to answer me, "Yes Mummy", a month or so ago, rather than just "yeah", or some non-verbal sound, or a nod of the head. I also require "Sorry Mummy" instead of just "sorry" when we have talked about why they were disciplined and get to the part where they apologise for something.

I have a lot more I could write tonight, but I've just realised how late it's getting and I hear stirrings from Benjamin. Back soon though! Photos next time, too. I have endless photos, having not posted for such a long time!

Benjamin Isaac! (and random photos)

I'm a bit late announcing here, but never mind! I have been updating at my pregnancy blog though! Benjamin Isaac was born at home at 7.30pm on Thursday 9th June 2009. He weighed 8lbs 11oz! He has a head-full of dark brown hair, and murky dark grey eyes (which I think may turn brown, as Arthur's did). He has Nathan's chin and Arthur's eyes, my fingers and toes, and looks ever so much like photos of Neil as a newborn (except for the chin!).



I don't know his length, because they have apparently stopped measuring the length at birth here now :( The Health Visitor is coming tomorrow though, and she will measure his length then. It won't be accurate as a birth length (he'll have grown a bit!) but oh well. We're not sure of the length of my labour because I refused to be checked at any point, but my first contractions started around 1pm and were pretty short and painless at first. So it was probably my quickest labour yet! :) Second stage was 11 minutes (longer than the last two times!).

Benjamin is so precious! I am so in love. It's so surreal to have four children, and four SONS at that! I feel so blessed by God, and so in awe of His loving kindness and generosity. I have a lot of work coming up, raising four boys. With ALL my heart I am longing for God to bless us again, to open my womb and enable me to conceive again, in His perfect timing. Right after Benjamin was born (I mean, RIGHT after, you know, before I got my stitches and all that!) I had my first moment of ambivalence EVER. For the first time I stopped for a second and wondered if our family might just possibly be complete with four little boys. I don't know why. I felt like I could be content with that, and I have never felt that before - I have always felt like I would struggle to come to terms with not having any more children. I also felt no sense of loss or sadness about maybe never having a daughter. So I did wonder if that meant we would not have any more children. I was quite taken by surprise at the way I felt, actually! I questioned myself over whether I would actually LIKE to have any more babies, and I thought I would :) With the birth only minutes behind me, I didn't feel overly excited about doing it all over again though! ;) But it didn't take long for those feelings to change. I feel like I'm back in much more familiar and comfortable territory, enjoying my newborn baby and rejoicing over the birth, and eagerly looking forward to another pregnancy and birth and new baby! It felt a bit strange to NOT be in that place for a short while there, and I'm glad I don't feel that way any more! I have already spent much time praying and thanking God for a new little blessing, and asking that He bless us with more when He knows in His wisdom that it's the right time. I am also spending a lot of time in prayer over how to parent the children He HAS blessed us with already. I want to be a good steward of the blessings God gives to us, and I feel like I'm NOT, so I need to focus more on praying and working on that. Another first is that I asked God to please help us to get a handle on the actual parenting and the home (me in particular), BEFORE blessing us again with another baby. I really want to do right by the children, and mostly by God, but I see absolutely no reason not to have a billion more babies if God sees fit to bless us that way - I know that He will equip us for the task to which He has called us! :)

Thanks to Laura, I recently discovered Voddie Baucham's teaching on the family and have started listening to his sermons online. I LOVE what he teaches!!! Yesterday evening Neil and I listened to his sermon on child training and we are re-motivated and optimistic once again! Today the discipline is way more consistent and calm, and the boys are currently TIDYING THE LIVING ROOM!!! I know!!! They have been disciplined a LOT to get to this point though, but it's actually bearing fruit which is very encouraging. They are not doing it with a bad attitude (incredible!!!) and are busy talking about how they are doing great teamwork :) Such a change...

I googled and found a great list of pretty much ALL of Voddie Baucham's sermons and videos online. It's here in case anyone is interested. I am looking forward to working my way through the whole list while I'm resting with my new little man!

I am now really really behind on photos here! I have sooooo many taken in the last two months, that I haven't posted at ALL - I'm talking hundreds!!! I can't post hundreds, obviously, but I'll try to catch up a bit. I want to have some of these photos down "on record" in my blog, for looking back on. I have finally finished editing photos of Matthew's birthday (now a month ago, already!!) but there are 114 of them!!!!!!!! I took over 300 on the day, but narrowed it down to 114 worth posting, haha! No, I'm NOT going to post 114 photos here, lol! I will have to sift through them and see which FEW will sum the day up best! I'm sure there will be more than 20 though! Will post those soon. For now, here are some taken on random occasions:

First time for all THREE little boys drawing together at the table! Nathan was so excited! He actually loves scribbling with crayons, and being properly involved in ANY activity with his big brothers. He does also like to try eating the crayons too, though!...













They also LOVE using the jumbo chalks on the patio (and all over the garden, fences, flowerpots, stepping stones, shed and house walls (!), etc!). Here are quite a few photos that I took of the boys enjoying chalks in the garden one warm afternoon:

Little boys drawing pictures :)



Discussing the details of a drawing:



What do you think, Mummy?!



"Don't eat the chalk, Nathey!" (see the wet on the tip of the chalk he's holding, and the slightly ewwy expression on his face, hehe!)



A little series of photos to illustrate the way Nathan sometimes wins his brothers over. He came along and wanted the green chalk that Matthew had. See him whining for it in the second photo? Working on that. *sigh* Anyway, see Matthew's body language - "No way am I giving up my green chalk!" and then the next photo, as usual Matthew gives in and generously gives whatever it is to Nathan that he was whining for! Nathan was more than pleased, and cheerfully scribbled with the chalk. It was funny, but we ARE working on this because we don't want Nathan thinking he can whine for what he wants and his brothers will always be so soft on him and give in! Anyway, here are the photos :)







Matthew's drawings tend to have a lot of tiny detail. He is very creative with any arty stuff he does, and Arthur is so different - he's logical in his creations, and Matthew is just, well, creative. He absolutely loves any sort of art and craft activity:



Little Nathey, coming to tell me something (not that he's talking yet, but he tells me ALL SORTS in his own little language, bless him!):



Classic! Hehe! ;)



I have a ton more, but I think that's probably plenty for one post! I will try to update again soon with a bunch more. I have some sweet summery photos taken in the garden on hot days, before Benjamin was born. And Matthew's birthday photos, of course. I'll update again soon! I have a week before Neil goes back to work, so hopefully I'll get chance in that time! I'm RESTING, not looking after the boys or the house in any way, while Neil is home, and it's wonderful - I can't think why I didn't do this the other three times! Daja just wrote about this very thing in her blog yesterday, with a lot of interesting stats and information!

I will be back soon!