I’m sorry it’s been so long again! Tonight I am going to attempt to update both my diaries in one evening!! I am not sure it’s going to work before my eyes get boggly and fall out of my head. I just can’t seem to keep from being long-winded when I write my diaries! Anyway, I will get on with this entry and try to do both.
Today is December 14th – Matthew is 18 months old today!!! I can’t belieeeeve he’s halfway through another year, and only 6 months from his second birthday. Also, 18 months seems so.... I don’t know. It just seems like a big milestone somehow, like he has left his babyhood behind, this side of 18 months. Waaah! :( I would seriously not be dealing too well with this if I didn’t have another baby on the way! I have no idea what on earth I will do once we are officially DONE having children. I can’t imagine ever feeling like I’m finished!
Matthew is ever such a sweetie pie these days. He is a reeeal handful, but SUCH a sweetie! He is quite different to Arthur at the same age, more on-the-go and playful and mischievous. Arthur was all of those, but somehow Matthew is managing to be more so! His little voice is being heard around the house more and more as he learns to say things, and I just LOVE the sound of it! It’s a different sounding voice to Arthur’s, like I suspected from the start. His cry as a new baby was always more sort of soft and husky than Arthur’s ever was. Arthur’s voice is clear and rings out continually (!!), and Matthew’s is softer (though just as loud when he chooses!). They are both little enough for their voices to be all cute and chipmunky!! I love that about toddlers’ voices! :)
Matthew has a serious thing for Thomas the Tank Engine, and Bob the Builder. The Thomas thing is almost more of a thing than Arthur’s ever was (and he’s a BIG Thomas fan!). We have several Thomas DVDs which Matthew requests all the time. We save them for “meltdown zones” in the day – usually when it’s getting kind of near to Family Meal time late in the afternoon or something like that. Thomas fixes almost any crisis, so he’s useful to put on the TV for unexplained miseries, teething, tantrums, the need for a change of pace in the boys’ games if they get rough, etc. I think Matthew’s favourite engine is Henry (who he calls Ni-ni). He is especially pleased to see Henry and says his name over and over and over. He also loves Bertie the bus, and plays with the toy version we’ve got a LOT.
We don’t really watch Bob the Builder, though it’s probably on TV somewhere most days. Matthew got a Scoop ride-on toy for his first birthday and it has buttons on that make sounds and voices from the TV programme, and one of the buttons plays the Bob the Builder music. He seems to LOVE Bob the Builder, just from this toy! He often requests the music during lunch time (Scoop lives under the kitchen table when not in use, and Arthur’s toes sometimes find the buttons while he eats his lunch! Matthew LOVES this) by saying, “Boh Buh! Boh Buh!” (trans. Bob the Builder, of course!). The boys also have Bob the Builder ham (there really is such a thing!) for lunch pretty much every day with their sandwiches and stuff. Matthew often comes into the house from the morning walk/outing (which leads them right up to lunch when they get in) saying excitedly, “Boh Buh! Boh Buh!” eager for his Bob the Builder ham for lunch, bless him! If he sees anything with Bob the Builder on it, that’s his cry, over and over until we acknowledge that, yes, it IS Bob the Builder, Matthew! You’re right! This includes toys at other childrens’ houses, clothing, etc. He gets so excited, it’s so cute. I won him a Bob the Builder tracksuit at eBay the other day, suuuuuper cheap because it was used already. I know he won’t care about a bit of wash fading, and he’ll love it.
Money stuff is going okay, well, as okay as not having any goes! Neil has had a couple more job interviews and got turned down for those, as well as a few jobs he applied for but didn’t do an interview. He has applied for a few more that we don’t know about yet, and he is with a great supportive agency. They have offered him two or three jobs to go for that we’ve decided to turn down, because they are toooo far away. The agency know we are not necessarily planning to stay in the London area, so they’re showing him jobs all over. Most of them are London-based though. The last one he turned down was in Bath. That’s just too far away, it feels too isolated from family and stuff. We can’t travel to see anyone we know with all the little ones (they do NOT do well with travel times approaching an hour or more, and I know it will be even less when Nathan is here because our newborns HATE travelling for more than 2 minutes straight, for about the first 4 months!). Bath is 2.5 to 3 hours drive from where we live, and about the same on the train somehow, so we decided it was a no-no.
Anyway, so no job for Neil yet. It is so indescribably wonderful having him at home. He really does the majority of the “stuff” with the boys at the moment. I am beginning to feel kind of guilty about the balance of things, because he’s not exactly breezing through it! It’s a REALLY hard job! I am resting a lot more and sleeping in on the mornings. I can’t seem to do much before I get so knackered that I just run out of air and my heart races and all that stuff that the midwife was worried about before. So I don’t push myself to that point, which means I feel like I am doing basically NOTHING! I make the dinner and “co-parent” the boys with Neil for parts of the day, and spend time with them, but rarely have to manage them on my own for any length of time at the moment. I do bits of housework, but even housework makes me have to lie down before I get far with it, but I’m doing it in bits and pieces. My FlyLady stuff has slipped somewhat. I’m not keeping up with my routines, and it’s all too easy to get lazy when I have the opportunity to rest more. I sometimes feel like I’m basically just LAZY and taking advantage (in a bad way) of my sweet husband. I don’t like that feeling. I don’t know if I’m just feeling guilty when there’s no need and shouldn’t let myself, or whether I SHOULD feel guilty and do more, and give my husband a break!
Neil naps or rests during Matthew’s nap after lunch every day. He sometimes sleeps in with Matthew and shuts the door on them so it’s nice and quiet in there. Matthew can sleep a couple of hours for his nap so it’s a good rest for Neil if he does that. During that time I do “school” with Arthur and something fun that he wants to do (nearly ALWAYS cutting car pictures out of his magazines! The boy is obsessed!), which is important to me because otherwise he doesn’t get enough one-on-one time with me. Especially while I’m not as involved as I was, with Neil doing more with them. In school at the moment, we are working through some Kumon First Steps Workbooks which I bought quite a few months ago after reading lots of recommendations on homeschooling websites, for toddlers. Arthur loves to cut with his new scissors but gets frustrated trying to cut some of his car pictures out. He is getting better at it gradually, but one of the Kumon books is for learning to cut, from simple snips to curves, spirals, zig zags and cutting-out. So we started it! Arthur started zig-zags today. He is doing great! He loves the workbooks and asks to do them. We do 2 or 3 of the exercises each time we do school. I am noticing he is cutting out cars waaaay better than a couple of weeks ago when we started. He would cut through a car by mistake and then throw a huge tantrum in frustration – it was so hard to watch because he would try soooo hard to cut it carefully and then not know what to DO with himself if he made a mistake. Now I’ve noticed he only ever cuts into a picture of a car if he decides to for some weird reason! He can trim the paper round them very close without cutting bits off the cars, and if he does make a mistake, he is no longer frustrated about it like he was, which is good. Today I noticed that he can cut pretty fast and stay fairly accurate, opening and closing the scissors many times to cut a long line or a curve around a large picture of a car. That’s soooo much better than how he was cutting even last week, so the workbook is helping him loads.
This week we also started the “Let’s Sticker and Paste!” book from the Kumon range, and he LOVES that! Arthur really loves stickers and has been sticking them everywhere for over a year now! He gets to make pictures with stickers in this book, and later on he’ll learn to paste things into an exact spot, or exactly the right way round, to complete a picture. It’s fun! I have the “Let’s Fold!” workbook as well, but not the colouring one.
He is learning to recognise a few words in school at the moment, just because they are in the Kumon workbooks and I show him the word for each picture before we cut or stick it. He knows the word ‘car’ by sight – what a surprise that it’s the first word he can read, hehe! The boy is absolutely crazy about cars. Not so much trains, although he loves those too, but CARS, oh my. I think he must spend most of his playtime throughout the day playing with cars, or pretending to BE a car, or pretending to drive a car, or looking at books about cars, or cutting out car pictures, or sticking together a car picture collage, or looking through his car magazines, or watching cars from the bedroom window, etc! He just. Loves. Cars.
Such a lovely thing happened after my last entry! Nicola, who has read my diary for yeeeears, emailed me to say she wanted to send me her son’s early reader books! He has outgrown them and she sent them to me without asking a penny for them or for postage – what a lovely friend! They are all the classics like Little Red Hen and The Gingerbread Man, and she also threw in some books about diggers and cars! When I opened the box there were TWENTY FOUR books!!! And two net bags of Father Christmas chocolates :) I know I said it already, Nicola, but thank you SO much! It’s so sweet of you, and Arthur loves the books and they are going to get a LOT of use in this household! I’m so pleased with them because in the summer, I was in a book shop with the boys and saw the first six of the early readers that Nicola sent, and hmmed over them for ages, wanting to buy them. I figured I would buy them later, when Arthur was a bit older. So I’m thrilled to have them!! Also, thank you God for providing through a generous friend!
I was going to write an entry solely about our plans to homeschool, but I am just not getting round to it! Maybe I will update here about that, instead of making a whole ‘nother diary entry just for the homeschooling stuff? It will make this entry very long-winded, but then I am thinking my readers are used to that anyway, right?! ;)
We are definitely going to homeschool our kiddies. We haven’t thought as far ahead as if they start asking to go to school instead of homeschooling, but the intention is to start as we mean to go on, and the HOPE is that they will never go to school. If one of our children is miserably begging to go to school then I am sure we will not say no! But I’m sincerely hoping to give school a miss entirely!
We have lots of reasons, and we are not too clear on some of them (sounds odd but it’s just a LOT to think through, and my brain is mistier and scattier with each passing week of pregnancy, so I sort of go, “Umm.... I can’t quite remember why we decided to make that huge life-changing decision...” a lot when asked directly! Most annoying!). I feel a bit hesitant to say our reasons here in my diary, because it is likely to bring out a defensive response in some people who don’t want to homeschool, or particularly people who actually disagree with homeschooling. I guess because it seems like a challenge to what they feel is right for their kids (by me saying that wouldn’t be right for our kids). Which is not what it is! I am not anti-school! I do not care what anyone else chooses to do with their kids! Horribly self-focused of me, but really I am just thinking about my own children and what I would want for them. The plus side for that is that I get to rejoice in a friend’s decision to send her children to school, even if I’ve researched it all and chosen against that for my own! I really don’t mind what anyone else does, and I kind of find it really uncomfortable when someone else minds what I do in turn. But I think some would respond from that viewpoint, and I HATE debate and defensiveness at my diary (as most of you well know by now!)! I get anxious that if I lay out my opinion, it will be challenged or bashed. Which I definitely want to avoid!
Also I think some people will disagree with my reasons, and even get all angry about what I’m “doing” to my kids by keeping them away from school, etc! Like, reason #1 is that we want to keep our kids close to us while they are growing up. We do not want to send them off to school to get on as best they can with 30 other children their age and 1 adult to nurture and educate the lot of them who, let’s face it, could be the BEST teacher in the world but still will not care for my child or desire to bring out the very best in my child the way I do. I am biologically built to be the best possible teacher my children could have, because nobody could want the best for them more than their own parents, and that’s the key thing to start with, for any teacher – genuine love for that child and motivation for their development. Of course, any parent can do that outside of school hours, adding to what their child gets in school, but I just want to do it ALL, I’m that greedy ! ;)
I would also personally prefer that my kids learn about the nitty gritty stuff of life from a loving adult (so, us!) and not from the playground. You know, sex education, etc. I don’t want the kids experiencing bullying or learning from other kids how to treat each other, or adults. I feel that is the parents’ responsibility, and I want to make sure they don’t learn stuff like that on the grapevine or through unhappy experience, before hearing it from us. I want our children to learn early on how to behave around other people, and to respect us. From my own playground experience, the LAST thing that children teach each other is how to respect their parents. Quite the opposite, in fact! If a child is inclined to respect his or her parents, they pretty quickly learn that it’s not cool to admit it. If they do, they get picked on. If they don’t, they certainly internalize that it’s not the done thing. I think our kids would somehow turn out fine if they went through school, but that’s not the point, for us.
We have also decided that we would like to teach our children to live for God and that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. For now, we don’t actually want them to learn about other faiths, as they would in school. Later, maybe.
A lot of people are going to think we’re suffocating our kids by keeping them at home and restricting their exploration of life, etc. Also they are going to be kind of annoyed about our decision to teach them about God as the truth and nothing else. I just think there’s no way around it, that will just have to annoy some people. I reeeeally do not care for debates or harsh opinions!! I write what I think here as part of a record of my journey as a mother, or my children’s development, and that’s the only place I’m coming from when I write my opinion. I always said in the past, after I became a Christian, “Yes, yes, I’m a Christian, but I will definitely let my children decide for themselves what they want to believe in.” I don’t think that way now that I’m actually a mother and would basically give my life for my kids, I care about their lives THAT much. Yes, they are individuals and have a right to their own choices. While they are growing up, we will teach them what WE believe to be the truth – and we DO believe Jesus Christ to be the truth, not just one of many options that people can pick and choose to believe in. We believe he is ABSOLUTE truth, and thus, anything else is absolutely false, even though we’ll have happy friendships with others who disagree! We are not outwardly judgemental in our personal beliefs, just firm about them in our own hearts and minds. But, if you believe God to be as real as your own husband, I mean, REALLY real, like not a choice, just a fact of the matter – you’re going to want to teach it as truth to the ones you love and care about, as they grow up and ask questions about life.
I mean, the sky is BLUE. I’m going to teach my children that it’s blue, aren’t I? Maybe there’s someone out there who is convinced the whole world is nuts and seeing the sky as “blue” when it’s just stupid because surely they can see that it’s really a neat kind of greeny-turquoise colour, and BLUE is just generalising and not teaching children that there are different ways of seeing things, etc. Okay, I’m being silly with this example! But God is truth as sky is blue, to me. I will teach my children that as a matter of fact, because it IS a matter of fact to me. Hand-in-hand with “God is truth” comes, “and you need to follow him with all your heart”, and also, “those who don’t will not inherit the kingdom of God”, etc. The more “controversial” stuff when it comes to teaching young minds, in this day and age. It’s hard and fast, but to me, it IS hard and fast! It’s the truth! I want my children to know it, without any shadow of a doubt. I don’t want to confuse them with, “so that’s what Mummy and Daddy believe.... But here are fifty different examples of what a million other people believe!...” and essentially give them the idea that there’s a big old list of choices. I want them to have a good grounding in what I believe to be the truth, and when they HAVE that grounding and are mature enough, AND show an interest in learning about it, (if they are not, I will not teach them about it), then they can learn about other faiths. I guess when they are all grown up and they’ve learned about all they want to in the area of world religions, they CAN choose to follow any one they want. But I am hoping and praying that they will choose to follow Jesus because they learned that he is the truth, even though they will understand at that age that it IS a choice, and people can choose to believe whatever they want. Anyway. Those are just my thoughts on that.
I am not going to push my children to “practise religion” though it will probably look like that’s what I’m going to be doing, to some who are reading this. I’m going to “practise religion” (though I don’t DO religion, hate the word, and detest the legalism that makes it “religion” in some aspects of Christianity where it exists), as in, I’m going to live my life for God nice and openly so my children see my example, and when they ask questions I’m going to answer them truthfully and teach them what I believe. I’m going to try to keep what I teach them very much Biblically based – the Bible is pretty much a life instruction manual, so I will try to go from that! And basically teach by example. We will have family devotions where they participate, though I won’t make them DO stuff they don’t want to do. Right now, for example, I pray every night with Arthur while he is breastfeeding at bedtime. I always ask him, “Do you want me to pray?” or “Shall I pray?” and he always nods. On the rare occasion that he doesn’t, I don’t say, “Well, I’m going to anyway!” and proceed to pray out loud! I just ask why he doesn’t want to (usually no reason that he can tell me) and then just leave it at that. I do pray silently for him though, mwa-ha-ha! ;) I sometimes ask him, “Do you want to pray?” or “Would you like to say thank you to God for ____” and he pretty much always says no. So I don’t push it any further, I just pray aloud with him to thank God for thing I had mentioned and that’s it.
Whether or not the children want us to, we will say grace at mealtimes, and attend church. When they are old enough to stay home on their own, if they really don’t want to go to church, then we won’t make them. That would be a LONG way off yet, though. Our family life will revolve around living for God, and that’s okay. Whatever their future choices, they will learn this as their “family” experience, growing up.
Anyway. That is it really.
I am not sure HOW to teach my children! But I know I can do it. I am not sure how to do it while barely hanging in there with babies and toddlers underfoot and crying in arms! But I reassure myself with the reminder that other mothers have done it (and still do!), so there must be a way, even if it’s just REALLY hard work for some years. There are a ton of resources out there, so I know I will learn how to teach my kids everything they need to learn in life. I can’t teach them to play tennis or the saxophone. If they are interested in learning those things, I want them to attend classes (preferably with other kids) outside normal school hours to learn them. I really want to encourage them to take up hobbies and interests outside of what we can learn at home. I can’t WAIT till we are able to afford a bigger house, because as soon as we do, we will have a piano. My brother is “housing” our family piano that I learned to play on (well, in my teens, not the one I learned on earlier than that), because my dad didn’t want to sell it but couldn’t take it with him to France when they moved there. We didn’t want them to sell it either! We wanted it in the family! It’s such a lovely piano, with such a nice tone. Daddy has a piano in France so he doesn’t need this one there in any case. We couldn’t fit it in our house when they moved, so Bennie took it in with the intention of “housing” it until one of us had proper use for it. I am really hoping we can move to a bigger house, and that he will be happy for us to have the piano at our house for the boys to use. I don’t know if he still will, because he’s had the piano at his place for years now, and he is a daddy now too, so perhaps he’ll want to hang onto it for Thea? He doesn’t play the piano – he plays the bass guitar. Anyway. If it does stay with Bennie, we’ll somehow get one. Neil and I both play (Neil much better than me!), and a piano is the perfect instrument to have lying around a home with children in it, to motivate them to learn. Both sides of our family are musical, so I really hope they will want to learn an instrument and get great joy out of making music.
I want them to take up any sport they are interested in too, and pursue any sort of arty or dance interests if they have them. I think when they’re little I might take them to some basic dance-y or art-y classes to see if they get inspired, and go from there. Or not, if they don’t!
Mummy paid for us to join Education Otherwise for a year, as a family. I researched and knew that it would be THE place to join, in the UK, for homeschooling support. So I asked Mummy if she would mind paying for us to join, and she was happy to :) Once we knew we had made the decision to homeschool, I knew we needed to get some information and local support, if it was available. I wanted the boys to mix with other kids who are home-educated, so that they are not the odd ones out, and they see that other kids DO learn at home without attending school. And for some social contact. Though, on the subject, it’s not actually necessary, especially since we go to church and they have social contact there already.
My biggest hesitation about homeschooling right from the start was the socialization aspect. I have since learned that it’s EVERY parent’s biggest concern when they first consider homeschooling! So that was reassuring, that I was just thinking normal stuff, and being concerned in a normal way. It is also therefore the single biggest concern for everybody else who thinks you should NOT be homeschooling your kids! We will probably get a lot of flack for how we’re not allowing our children to socialize like children “need” to. I have been researching homeschooling issues for over a year on the internet, and have now read a lot of articles on socialization, and even some research papers about it from the States (where it’s hugely more common to homeschool than here in the UK, and it’s been going on far longer in large numbers, so research is more advanced there). Basically it’s a big huge myth. School is not necessary for a child’s socialization. Research seems to indicate that it’s quite the opposite, actually! I was surprised about that! Children who are home-schooled are actually better socialized than children who attend school, in the end. They are more able to socialize with other people of all ages than children who attend school during childhood, and are confident and comfortable with babies and toddlers, children of any age, adults, and the elderly. This is much less common with school children, who can feel awkward with children who are not the same kind of age as they are, and with adults. I also agree with the stuff about how unnatural it is for a child to spend the majority of their waking hours for their entire childhood, placed in a large group of children of exactly the same age as them with very little adult guidance over socialization! It’s not a natural setting for anyone to spend all their time with ONLY people of the same age, and research suggests that they do not learn balanced social skills for adult life by doing so. I should look up the stuff I read and post links, now I’ve talked about it here, rather than anybody just take my word for it!
Having said that, *I* went to school and turned out just fine! :) I socialized well as a teenager (less so as a child) with children and adults, and the elderly. I made friends at school that I am SO glad to have made. I sometimes feel anxious that my children will miss out on the friends they could have made at school. But they will have opportunities to make friends just the same. Hopefully even friends who have the same interests, given that their opportunities will be mostly through interest groups and classes, and at church and home-schooling groups. Neil and I were both bullied pretty badly at school for many years, and definitely DO NOT want that experience for our children. One of my Christian friends who disagrees with our plan to home-school our kids (sigh) said that she was bullied horribly at school but that she doesn’t think the solution should be to not go to school. She thinks that God will teach us through such trials. God DOES teach us through trials, but I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that kids should go to school and put up with many miserable years of bullying just because you have to “face up” to that kind of stuff (ie. It’s life, deal with it) and hope that God will deliver them of it, or at least help them in their time of trial! I don’t personally believe that God’s heart for a child is absolutely that they must stay in that situation and endure! I actually feel very strongly that God is calling us to keep our children OUT of school. I don’t think it’s that there is a ton wrong with school, but that it happens to be his plan for our children at this time. So we’ll do it!
AFTER we made the decision, we read about the government plan to introduce a curriculum for the under 5 age group! I joined a Yahoo group for home-schooling parents in the UK (yay!) and have also got some first contacts with other home-schooling families in our area, which I plan to look into further in the New Year (hopefully there will be a local group we can go to!), and the curriculum thing was one of the topics for discussion during my first few days at the group. I had noooo idea. Well, nobody did, obviously. But yeah. I read the above article to Neil in absolute horror, and he just hung his jaw while I read and then said, “Okay, if there was ever any doubt about homeschooling!...” I’m just so happy with our decision. There is SO much relief, and so much pressure off our kids with them out of the school system. There is so much less pressure on us as parents, too. I think it is going to be really really hard, especially during the first year (so I’ve heard) as we get started. But I don’t have to worry about it too much. Some families homeschool quite.... what’s the word? In a very structured way, and follow a curriculum, etc. It’s very much like school, but at home instead of in the classroom. At the other end of the scale, some families practise what is known in the States as “unschooling”, where NO structured, academic learning is done, and all learning is done by practical, child-led activities, as and when interest leads them. I feel nervous about that end of the scale! Though I do know that families who home-school like that have children who learn at the same rate (and more so) as any other kids who learn by more conventional methods.
Right now, it’s early days. I don’t have a whole lot of ideas about the hows and whys just yet. I have a vague idea of what I am aiming at, and that is that I do not want to “run school” at home with desks and workbooks and me grading papers in the evenings! I don’t want to be a school teacher at home to my children. I COULD do it. But it’s not exactly how I want to educate them. At the moment I would probably put myself as sitting in the middle of those two extremes of “how to homeschool your kids”, not wanting to be too structured and academic, but also somewhat shy of not feeling like I’m “teaching” them at all! I feel like I could easily find confidence in the unschooling method, but I am too anxious about others at the moment – what they’d think when they heard/saw that I do not apparently TEACH my kids at all! I’d feel accountable, and like I was being neglectful of their educational needs – in the eyes of others, you understand! I don’t disagree with unschooling at ALL. I love some of the homeschooling blogs I read where the kids are “unschooled”! I wish I could do the same! I just don’t know if I’d be 100% comfortable with it. I think I itch to sit and teach my children things, to some degree, so I will probably be most comfortable doing some structured teaching, and letting the rest go to child-led fun activities and educational-ish (!) outings and stuff. I think I will end up doing a bit of both. I need to have some idea of how exactly I want to proceed though, especially by the time Arthur is getting to school age. At nursery age, I am not worried about it too much. Arthur has already learnt basically everything he would learn at nursery, although I know nursery is largely for play and social interaction, not learning stuff as such, yet. He knows numbers, letters and a billion colours. So I am not worried about teaching him stuff too much until later. I will still look for ideas and fun “school” things to do from pre-school resource sites and homeschooling sites in the toddlers/pre-schoolers sections, though. And he will be used to the fact that we do school pretty much every day. I am happy to be very flexible for now, and will probably need to be for a while, somewhere from late January onwards!
So those are our homeschooling plans! And I’m very excited about them!!! People at church know we are planning to homeschool, and I don’t really know what they think about it. I’m kind of curious to know really! But it doesn’t matter what others think (or, shouldn’t matter, anyway!) – I am trying to keep reminding myself of this! I am probably going to need to develop more of a thick skin if I am going to have a bunch of kids in this particular society (it’s crazy insane to have more than 2 kids, in general *sigh*), and homeschool them on top of that. So far nobody seems to have considered the concept of homeschooling, and I’m not getting negative comments, but I am getting the exaggerated shocked expressions that say, “Why on earth would you want to do something like that?!” or something similar. Which I don’t feel too comfortable receiving, but oh well. Also, other people at church who I haven’t told are coming up to me and saying, “I hear you’re thinking of homeschooling?” so I guess people are talking. I hope it’s positive stuff!
Other than that, we haven’t really told anybody. We don’t really KNOW anybody else, haha! Most of our family knows that we are either “interested in” homeschooling, or planning to do it. My parents know we are definitely doing it. My grandparents do not have a clue that their great-grandchildren will not be going to school, and I’m dreeeeeeading telling them. Dreading. Dreading. Dreading. They have both been teachers their whole lives – Grandoug was a headmaster at a couple of 1950s boys’ schools, and is pretty strict on issues of education! He is also a fanatic about learning, and has still not stopped at age 82. I know it wasn’t an easy place to grow up as a school child, for my dad, because there was a lot of pressure at home about academic stuff. And when my dad finished school, and sat his ‘O’ levels, Grandoug (his own father!) decided to sit some ‘A’ levels, so they both got results for those at the same kind of time. So competitive, which can’t be good. Grandoug just did degree after degree – he did a doctorate when I was a child even. He and Granny do Italian classes at the moment. It’s WONDERFUL for them! They get so much out of learning and are so vibrant and involved in life and use their brains such a lot. They get a lot of social contact all the time through things they choose to study. They use the things they study – travel to the countries whose languages they have learned, and make friends for life there, who they visit and invite to stay with them each year. I definitely don’t think it has been a bad thing. But there’s the situation – they are BIG TIME into school and all the educational benefits it can bring. I didn’t even live with them when I was at school, being their grandchild and not their child, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel under pressure from them about my performance at school, or not even school so much as something I was learning. I was constantly quizzed on things at the dinner table when we were over for Sunday lunch or something, as a child. When I was in my early teens and HUGELY rebelling at school, I remember they came over and Grandoug had a serious talk with my dad about what he was going to “do” with me over it all!! At the time I just thought they were all in it together, all out to make my life miserable over school issues and academic pressure, etc. But looking back, my poor Daddy.... HE was under pressure when he didn’t want to be, and he SHOULDN’T have been! It wasn’t Grandoug’s place at all to have that conversation with his son! But anyway. Daddy rebelled against education to a large degree as well, once he was at the end of school and at college. He started various college programmes and degrees but never finished one. I did exactly the same thing. Academic pressure. Ugh. I would not wish it on anyone!
So. There is NO WAY they will be all, “That’s nice dear” when I tell them that our kids are not going to school, and that I’ll teach them at home. And that, no, I am not planning to get all the school text books and keep up with the work he “should” be doing at school at his age, etc. I think they will be VERY shaken by the idea, and struggle to find a way to be supportive and comfortable with it. They are already concerned that Arthur is not enrolled at a nursery school, and that we haven’t started the ball rolling on that. So far they aren’t pushing it too much because they know we’re kind of up in the air about where we might be living at any given moment, with Neil being out of work and open to getting jobs elsewhere. So far they know that we can’t really enrol Arthur in a nursery school if we’re about to move away, as the waiting lists can be long anyway, and I think that is why they aren’t mentioning it too much at the moment. I feel bad that they are still so unaware of our plans that they are expecting us to do that any day now! I should update them and tell them about it. But it’s just such a huuuuge hurdle and I am dreading it. They think Arthur needs to be in nursery school, like other children. They think any teeny tiny issue that he appears to have while they are visiting (a tantrum, a random moment where he says he has “gone sad” for no particular reason, or gets shy for a moment during a game with them, etc) is possibly due to the fact that he doesn’t get much social contact with other children his age, and that it would all get better if he just started going to nursery school. Yeurgh. I just don’t feel like I have the energy to tackle the whole issue with them. But I will have to, and probably pretty soon.
That was as far as I got last night before Matthew woke! Oh my, what a night. He woke up around 1am and did not go back to sleep till around 4am. He wanted to be held all the time, or if I was able to put him down in his cot, he would lift his head every few minutes to be sure I was awake. If I didn’t immediately see his head go up and say something reassuring, he would cry and need picking up again, so I couldn’t go to sleep till 4am either! Bennie and Sarah and Thea came to see us this morning, yay! We haven’t seen them since September, so it was lovely to see them again! It’s crazy, since they live so locally. Time just passes and we just don’t realise, or we don’t get around to arranging to meet up, etc. Anyway, they were coming at 10am, and I could NOT go back to sleep after Matthew woke at 7.30, so I have felt wrung out today. He at least made up a bit of his night sleep by lying in till 7.30am though, so that’s good. He normally wakes around 6am at the moment, urgh! Arthur was also awake on and off between 2 and 4am. I think he was disturbed by Matthew and then was all wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep. Matthew seemed unable to go to off to sleep for all those hours, and it was exactly like his disturbed night at the beginning of the week. Both times, when I picked him up his body felt very stiff and tense, and he just wanted to be held. He didn’t make any sound when I held him, but stayed wide awake, even after 30 minutes of holding him or so. After that I had to put him down again, but I stayed right there because he would cry otherwise. He lay quiet in his cot and didn’t move much, but his eyes stayed wide open. It was weird behaviour for him, and I didn’t think he was quite right. The first night it happened I got anxious that he was getting sick and very nervous that at any moment he was going to throw up on me or something! But he didn’t. I figured he must have some sore wind in his tummy, because he was holding his torso and legs all stiff and funny, and seeming uncomfortable. Also, I would hear his tummy groan and creak from time to time. He had the same kind of wake times the first night, as last night. From about 1am, but the first time it happened he was back to sleep somewhere just after 3am. He went off to sleep in the end last night – I breastfed him for a while, but he wasn’t swallowing much and seemed a bit reluctant to do so (which worried me again about the possibility of being vomited upon! But he didn’t.), and then I went to sleep too. Both times, when he woke in the morning he was bright and smiley and cheerful, had his normal breastfeed in my bed, and then sat up and did a long series of the noisiest foghorny farts I have ever heard him produce! So I know it had to be wind, poor lovey. He did so well to just bear it quietly in the night. When Arthur used to get sore wind in the night when he was tiny, he would just cry and writhe and scream till it passed, and I have to say, *I* would be inclined to cry about it if it were me, and I was a little tiny person who couldn’t use words to tell Mummy that my tummy HURT! Sore wind in the night can be soooo painful. He did so well, bless his heart.
Anyway. I’m thankful that I didn’t feel bad about him keeping me awake all that time because I just wanted to be there for him, you know? I knew he must be hurting and that there wasn’t anything I could really do for him, and he was doing so well dealing with it, so I just wanted to make sure that I WAS right there every time he popped his head up to hear me reassure him, and to just make him as comfortable as he could be. I held him for ages, and put him in his cot if he let me, and held him some more after that. I breastfed him a couple of times, for a bit, and lay him in my bed for a while and sat rubbing his back. I burped him like a newborn for as long as my arm could pat him, and he just stayed quiet through it all and let me try to help him. But that wind would NOT budge. Poor baby. Anyway. At least he must have felt better enough in the end and went off to sleep, and he had reassurance all the time. And his body fixed it for him by the morning, both times! The first morning-after, he got up after breastfeeding and just RAN joyfully to his daddy, calling out “Hah!” (hi) and beaming big smiles as he tooted away noisily from his rear end whilst running along! ;) So I’m glad it’s all mended by the morning. I have no idea why he’s had two such windy nights when he never gets that normally. We can’t think of food he’s eaten that could have particularly given him wind on those days. He is teething right now and has had to have Calpol FIVE days running. He has his four first molars, nearly all in, though some of their corners are yet to follow through. He doesn’t have any canines yet, and those are next on the “to do” list (!), so maybe he’s working on those? I will have to check Arthur’s red book and see when he got his canines. Matthew is still missing one of his bottom incisors! He only has 3 middle teeth at the bottom – his left lateral incisor (well, MY left, as I look at him) is nowhere to be seen! That’s on the “to do” teething list well before the first molars! But funnily enough, I checked Arthur’s red book (where I recorded all his teething stats as they came in) a while ago, and discovered that he only had the same 3 bottom incisors even after getting his molars! That missing toothie finally arrived at 17 months old for Arthur. But Matthew’s 18 months now and still no sign. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll turn up eventually!
So maybe it’s a bunch of canines all about to come through at once? I don’t know. He has large patches of the day where he just cries and won’t be consoled, and the WHOLE time he is just chewing on his whoooole hand, with it stuffed into his mouth up to mid-palm level, pulling his cheek right out on one side as he chews his hand over his molar-ish area on either side. He drools like crazy with it, and has had a few horrible teething poos that we are well familiar with by now! He is better for Calpol and the chewing stops, but sometimes it appears to wear off before he can even have another dose. I guess he is just teething really badly at the moment, and maybe that’s causing the tummy ache at night or the excessive wind?? Can teething do that – anyone know? I can’t think what else. He’s definitely not poorly with anything, and he’s also DEFINITELY teething a lot right now, so I’m trying to put 2 and 2 together.
Anyway, I really hope he does not have any more nights with pain and lots of sleep disturbance! He was tired today too, but very cheerful! He’s such a sweetie pie!
I have photos! But not ones I can post from the laptop – they’re on the computer and Neil is watching a movie there. I will have to post them in a separate entry. I have tried and tried to get photos of the boys to send out with the Christmas cards like I do every year, but to no avail. I was so bummed about it! They just will not sit still long enough, and I can’t get them both looking at the camera at the same time. If I sit them side-by-side on the sofa, they immediately play rough-and-tumble and climb all over each other! I’ll post some of my attempts tomorrow if I get chance, to show you what I mean! I have got a really sweet picture of Matthew (camera actually behaved for once, yay!) that I would have liked to send instead, but I couldn’t get one of Arthur to go with it. He is often doing exaggerated smiles for the camera now, or else he is just a huge blur as he won’t stop moving just as I take the picture! So, poo. It means a lot to me to send out pictures of my sweeties with Christmas cards each year. I like everyone to see them! Most of the people we send cards to are people who we never actually get to see, so they only see our children growing up through photos that I send with Christmas cards. It really gets to me that I can’t send any this year! I would have sent our Christmas cards out at the beginning of December (as planned) but the photo thing held it up. And I didn’t finish the last 15 or so, which I still need to do! Yikes! It’s getting too late, and overseas friends and family are probably not going to receive their cards in time for Christmas, but oh well. I am hoping to finish writing the cards this weekend and post them all on Monday, but I don’t think I will manage it. Today we had visitors, and in the afternoon Arthur and I marzipaned the Christmas cake (did I say we made my great-grandmother’s traditional Christmas cake for the VERY FIRST TIME this year?!!! So excited and proud – I feel really grown up, haha!). Now it has to dry for a week and then we’ll ice it! I LOVE Christmas cake! I wonder what the boys will make of it? Arthur thinks it’s going to be chocolate cake because it’s dark brown (rich fruit cake) and will NOT hear otherwise! He might be disappointed on Christmas Day!
Anyway – got sidetracked a bit. So, this evening I neeeeeded to finish this diary entry. And tomorrow we will go to church and – please God – not pick up any viruses in crèche. I am super paranoid in the 2nd half of December. I guess I just want Christmas to be healthy for us, and also I have twice got nasty lurgies pretty much on this very day of December in previous years which RUINED things for us – Dec 17th 1999 I came down with that really nasty influenza strain that left me housebound with M.E. for the next 2 years - that was fun! And I got it innocently shopping in town for Christmas tree decorations on a busy Saturday morning. And then Dec 16th 2004 we took Arthur to Olan Mills photo studios to get our first family portrait done – he was not quite 6 weeks old! And the wait was horrendous in this tiny waiting area full of annoyed children. And 2 days later – bam. Nasty influenza again. I got it, and gave it to Neil, and we could not spend Arthur’s first Christmas with family that year – we just were sooooooooo ill on Christmas Day and I didn’t know how we’d care for our tiny boy at all. I don’t know how we DID, either. But we did. It took till like February to get over that flu. Sucky. So yeah, I am understandably slightly more paranoid than normal at this time of year! There are such nasty things about at the moment, it seems. But it’s the same every year I guess. And the boys mix with other kids, so I just have to pray! Please let us miss the nasty lurgies. Yeurgh.
So we’ll go to church tomorrow morning, and then I MUST update my pregnancy diary (32 weeks tomorrow!! How can that be?!). And hopefully put photos on here. So I don’t see how I’ll finish the Christmas cards! But I hope to somehow. Arthur and I had a great time making them! We made 50, although we probably need to send more like 70. I have some non-homemade Christmas cards leftover from other years (before kids!) that I can send out if we run out of homemade cards. I’m excited about next year because (we’ll do homemade Christmas cards every year, it’s so much fun with kiddies!) Matthew will be 2½ by then, and totally a part of making Christmas cards with his brother for the first time! We made Christmas cards last year, and Arthur was only just 2, and it was totally doable, so I know Matthew and Arthur will make the cards together next year, which is exciting! Nathan will be 10 months old next Christmas. It’s a crazy thought! If our apparent “pattern” of childbearing continues, next Christmas might be when I find out I’m pregnant again. Or not. I don’t think we have a plan as such! Maybe I’ll already be pregnant by then? Maybe not till the next year. I’m already excited about it, and I am still pregnant with Nathan right now! :) I love being pregnant and having babies!
Okay, there’s sure to be more, but this entry SURELY can’t hold another word, it’s so long! And it’s very late. So I will post it, and hopefully get chance tomorrow to post photos. I might not, if I try to finish the Christmas cards instead, so then I will try the next day. I will prioritise my pregnancy diary tomorrow though. MUST update there. I am so behind at that diary this pregnancy :(
Back soon! :)
