March 06 *#* all around the world

[UniS]

sorry couldn;t think of a funny title. but here goes.

Anyone with Dcs born March 06 welcome to come on in and introduce yourselves.

Uni you should have popped by for a cuppa you're welcome if ever you're passing. Glad you all in the house now though, even if you are still getting settled, these things take a while eh! I'm dreading our next move (husband who hordes, sigh)

Very busy weekend here, but everyones had fun the girls stayed at Grans sat night and thru sunday, so I got to go and play in the woods yesterday and got hailed on we've also had two nights of solid game playing! busy busy! girls are still sharing a room tonight, bless them, no need, but they wanted too, awwww

Uni, take a breather and go and sit in your new garden missus!

Friz, a weekend with no kids sounds lovely. Mine have driven me to ditraction to the point where I shouted that I hated them last night when they were in the bath. It's the arguing. It just ruins every day whatever we have planned. Anyway, I am making a reward chart later and it is coming into operation to earn weekend treats and it's going to be harsh! Bootcamp rules until our hols!!

My girls have taken to sharing a bed these days. It's a weekend treat though as they don't sleep as well as in their bunks. DP stayed out on Sat and they slept in with me...toasty!

Heard from Caddy on FB - she is a bit lonely out there I think so FB her if you get a mo.

She needs to get on here LL

You can't hate your kids if you let them share a bed with you eh? just a momentary thing, it's horrible when they have those bickering moments/days/weeks, but so lovely when they decide to get on eh?

dd2 decided this am (before we got up) to colour her face in with an orange pen from her sisters room orange specs, and war paint all over her face, luckily it came off in the bath and we managed to keep a straight face telling her off

oh haven't done a propper catch up for ages and still haven't - but just saying hi hope you're all well.

LL I KNOW how the fighting can wind me up too Sometimes its so constant huh?

Mothers day here tomorrow. DH been to see his mum 3 hours away Friday to Sat pm, so I expect he may not have organised anything for me I live in hope!

DD2 crook again/still...coughing till she vomits, so back to GP next week. Enjoying gorgeous autumn weather though

Oooh poor dd2 Astro, hope Dr can help fix her. Happy Mothers Day to you! hope dh did something nice for you?

DH outdid himself and cooked lovely breakfast and sorted a gift with all the essential ingredients: chololate, alcohol (limoncelo!) and flowers

I must try to be busy with home ed this week as we are being inspected for registration next week...either that or I just fudge some ta=imetables and programs to make it look like we do more that we do. Makes me a bit cross - they want us to show that we are doing 'comparable' amount of work to school 9-3...which is crazy as we can easily complete all the 'busy' (writen) work a child would do in a classroom within an hour, and then the rest of our day baking, shopping, gardening, playing is all too learning as far as I'm concerned...but not sure they will see it that way . Still, the Board of Studies lady who called me sounded nice and not threatening, so hopefully she isn't out to get us.

How are your Mondays?

Cripes you get inspected I don't know why but I never imagined home ed'ers would get inspected?! I agree with what you're saying though, surely all the day to day stuff you do is educational too.

What did I do on Monday then? Oh yeah, dh and I got a friend to bbsit and we went to see Iron Man 2 great movie, recommend it to all for some fab fun action and hollywood glam!

best of everything for being inspected.

LOTS of stuff can be classified as educational

Cooking is science, shopping is numeracy, making shopping list is literacy, walking to the shops is PE... Write it all down in a folder, have a bunch of "day plans" , have a set of targets for the period till XXX . Have some way of recording meeting or not of those targets.

Astro, I thought that school wasn't compulsory in Oz til age 7 so why will they inspect you? DD1 is 6 right? Uni is right though, as long as you qualify every activity and give it a learning aim (or whatever they call it) you should be fine.

We too are having inspection fears at the playgroup...due any day and we are failing badly in lots of areas. The staff are bloody useless really. Here am I sat writing minutes at 11.30pm and was at a meeting until same time last night and they say they don't have time to do their observations.

The playgroup is taking over my life at the mo but must do some work as have a deadline on Friday for a new client.

Hey, 2 of my team dropped out (preggers and injured - women eh??) for this challenge in June so someone may be joining us who runs for GB!!!! Erk - better get a rocket up my bum.

Night out at the cinema sounds great Friz.

cinema does sound lovey friz - last time I went I was preggers - prob a year ago now!

LL, school is complulory from 6, and she is almost 6 so we get inspected. If we chose not to register I don't think anyone would chase us or antyhing, but I'd like to keep things simple for DD1 to go to school in Feb or the next Feb, and that will be more straihghtforward if she is in the system.

I don't think they are out to make life hard for us, but they obviously have a philosophy of education that they want everyone to agree with...whihc I think is not fair because natural/autonomous/free range learning (whilst I personally think it has its flaws) is a valid perspective.

Anyway, no sweat, I think we'll be fine..I just don't like the feeling of being 'inspected'. I keep a daily journal and have a list to tick off over the week - so 10 boxes say DD reads to me, 5 say I read to DD, 4 say maths - number, 2 say maths - space/shape/measurement etc etc and if we do cooking she DD measures things out, I tick off one maths box, tick for 'science' if we do gardening etc.

LL the playgroup sounds like a nightmare! Maybe if you fail inspection it will close down and then you can get a babysitter and go see a film too!?

My thoughts exactly Astro re playgroup!! You do get to a stage where you stop caring!

Sounds like your inspection will be much better than ours.

Oooh I don't envy either of you girls....

Waves at Uni!

dd1 looking poorly here.....lots of snot and earache, am off to pop her into a hot (ish) bath, see if we can get her fixed for the weekend/tomorrow. I was evil mum this am and sent her to school with nurofen...as it was just earache she was mumbling about....and I have to work.....

Unis waves back, must go and stop messing a bout on line and dooooo something usefull.

But MNing is useful Uni .

All three other family members are coughing and snotting away here - as usual I am fine!

Just spent a very hectic day doing a Comic Relief bid for a new client, our local Mind centre...think I may need some counselling myself after ploughing through that form. I am still in my pyjamas...no point getting dressed now as will have bath with girls after tea.

What is everyone planning for the weekend? I have a launch event in a park in Fleetwood tomorrow and think we will go to The sandcastle at Blackpool after (pools/slides etc.). That chlorine should clear some snot! Family and friends day at the farm on Sun as the menfolk are doing a crazy training run involving tunnels and many hills!

Those men sounds mad LL Blackpool sounds like fun.
I'm off to work tomorrow, then when I finish it's a dash down to CSWS's for our yearly feb meet up Looking forward to a night with good girly chat and wine! and I get to cuddle Flames baby and then give it back too her dd2 is sooo gorgeous!

sounds fun friz and LL Just had SIL and bros "baby party" (Dbro was adamant it was NOT a baby shower)today, as well as a mothers day breakfast at DS's Kindy this morning where the kindy director made us all choc chip pancakes on the BBQ...mmmmm. Was lovely and SO rare to spend time alone with DS. Bless him, he is such a sweet, funny kid. Today he said that if any other boys tried to marry dd2 he would have to spit on them or maybe just tell them to 'shoo'.

Tomorrow we are visiting friends at manly who have just built a wood fired pizza oven in their garden. Yum! Then after that we pick up a dishwasher we won on ebay hurrah!

Astro that sounds heavenly I wish our climate was just a tad warmer, so we could do things like that without freezing or getting soaked.....

Had a lovely night at CSWS's last night, great to catch up with the girls and some of the newer children too Had a lovely surprise visit from my cousin with her kids this afternoon too

Glad you enjoyed the get together Friz - you Feb lot are so proactive! Can you spread the word on there that I am after 2 family camping tickets for Latitide festival if anyone has any spare - our friends didn't get any before it sold out so we are on our lonesome.

Astro - pancakes on the BBQ sound lovely!

We had fun at the launch event and Sandcastle...then had rather yummy meal and brownie at my sisters....a day of cake at mum's farmhouse yesterday put paid to my slimming world mission to get my stone certificate ...have to lose 1/2 pound this week to get it before we go on hols. SURELY I can manage that!!

Lonely old me reporting for duty!

Life is busy so I don't have much time to wallow.

I ordered new curriculum for the fall so I am officially committed to H-Ed for at least one more academic year. Thankfully, there seems to be a large, active group of homeschoolers here so we should not feel isolated.

Dd2 started a Kindermusik ABCMusic and me class two weeks ago and is loving it so that makes her miss the ballet class somewhat less. She has two solid friends and has been invited round for playdates with three different families so that is a fabulous start. Now to catch the older three up...

LL and Astro: I hope your inspections go well. Let's hope your inspectors are human...

Uni: How was RL when you got back there?

Friz: Sounds as though you have been
socialising enough for both of us. Thanks!

Must run and get to bed as it is 11:00pm and the rest of the house is quiet and dark which only means that they will have a jump-start on me tomorrow. Yikes!

Nice to hear from you stranger .

Sounds like you're settling in well and have some good social support...what you need .

Just waiting for girls to get back from Beavers as a friend picked them up from school and had them for tea....doing well on huge list of things to do before holidays next Tues!!!

House is still a tip but am leaving it all until Mon evening/Tues morning and will clean my way out the front door....I hate coming back to a mess when you're all relaxed.

ROFL at cleaning your way out of the front door bet that doesn't happen! Have a great hols, going anywhere nice?

Caddy sounds like you have life well under way/control in your new home great news that dd2 has some good new buddies, hope the rest of the crew make good new friends soon.

Yes I did have a rather busy, but fun weekend didn't I! it makes up for all the ones stuck at home during winter! We're off camping for larp this weekend, should be fun and hurrah for good weather

Will you be taking your giant cardboard games table/storage unit with you a la Junior Apprentice Friz?

We are off to Brittany - Benodet. Eurocamp mobile home with another family. Think of us if it rains for a week!!

Overnight ferry on Tues night so will be off the radar for about 10 days....so looking forward to forgetting about work but sadly my friend coming with us does same job as me.We MUST talk about other things!!

Hellllloooo????? Anybody out there????

Just saying hello and goodbye before we leave for France tomorrow - hurrah!!

Catch you in a week or so....

Happy Holidays LL we're off to France next week too! try not to talk shop too much eh

I managed to resist taking the junior apprentice table n storage unit, gaw'd that was awful! Was a very hot weekend to be camping, had to abandon tent from 8am-7pm, as far too hot in there! was busy doing larp stuff n entertaining the kids anyway, so no worries there dd1 has developed an irrational fear of flys and spiders though, which we have to sort out as I'm not dealing with total meltdown for the whole summer everytime she sees a fly.....

hellllloooooo. Its gonna be an INTERESTING half term next week. DH is working away and his sister and her kids ( and hubby) are coming to stay here. I'm trying to work out a shopping list/ menu for cooking for 10 instead of 3. It'll be fun.

Hope you guys have a good week in France.

Hi Caddy, glad your getting stuff settled a bit.