Mmmmmmmm…….

Must stop trying to let the children enjoy themselves. It seems to cause more trouble than trying to force them to learn things!

Maddy was quite poorly last night; she had a headache and a temperature at bedtime and was roasting when i went to bed. So i moved her into my room where she more or less slept through. She talks in her sleep a lot though – the other night she sat up said “I want a game of Pop up Pirate” and then went right back to sleep! It annoys the hell out of Fran :~D Woke at one point to find Ammi asleep on my head with (ewwww) a dirty nappy. So i carried her into Max where she slept peacefully all night. He obviously has a great ability to ignore the smell of poo than i do. Maybe he had been bored into a coma by all those Motorsports; if he so much as considers bringing one to the hospital while i am in labour…

Anyway, Maddy seemed much better today but professed to an earache and cried off nursery, much to my surprise, but hasn’t complained since.

I had to take Ammi to the Doctors for an MOT, she just isn’t getting well and its starting to get me down. Every blooming night she is up coughing and itching and is really taking its toll on her. She looks tired and drawn and her skin is all delicate. Anyway, he agreed that she has a high level of atopy (?) which i assumes mean allergic to the world and we are trying a slightly more agressive tack; steroid inhalers, antibacterial cream and something new in her bath. Even washing her is a nightmare, a quick bath in nothing but water followed by several applications of cream STILL means 1-3 nights of ceaseless itching. He suggested fitting a water softener (we live in a hard water area) but i have yet to discover how reasonable that would be in a rented house. I wonder if you can put anything into a bath to soften it? I’ve never yet managed to find any version of oilatum etc that doesn’t just make the whole thing worse so thats no answer.

Heigh ho. Anyway, we spent ages in Sainsburys collecting her stuff but managed a major 20 questions session on pharmacies (and hence Grannys job) immune systems, what a mascot is, how credit and debit cards work (or on this occasion DON’T work!) etc etc. Pharmacist was approximately 13 but eventually we managed to work it all out between us and he was quite helpful.

Not entirely sure what Moo did for some of the day but she and Fran have just done a reasonable amount of painting; i say reasonable, it lasted 15 minutes which makes me wonder why i bothered but Fran at least seemed to do some actual “pictures” rather than random gunge and Moo painted which was impossible for her less than a year ago due to the mess factor. Given the whole session was a bit short lived i made them tidy up and Fran is just finishing washing the pots.

Fran and i have also managed a bit of sit down time – she is doing simple vertical addition independently now and very pleased with herself (and there is method to this particular bit of mathematical effort; it means she can do the next level of Reader Rabbit which has been defeating her!) and we finished the third box of Bob books as well. Then she wrote out a number square (she loves those, but frankly i fail to see the attraction!), did some money sums which she managed to get uniformly wrong or backwards which was faintly amusing and some really quite nice writing. This gradual “lets copy out one familiar sentence and then practise a few of the letters” approach seems to be working quite well really. I’ve nearly got a Sonlight voucher to spend now and when i have i really might invest it in some of the Getty Dubay type stuff; i know i could “not bother” but i have always hated my handwriting, its so scruffy, and i would quite enjoy learning a prettier version so maybe it would be a useful/enjoyable exercise.

I probably need to do something a bit more concrete about some of the sight words in the Bob books now; i might copy the little activity books and let her loose on those or make up a few games or something. She is getting quite good at reading new words now but the “wild guess thing” drives me balmy… “oh look T-I-P… ummm…… bag?” makes me want to shoot her quite frankly! She is however, completely delighted with a readalong cd and book she got from Macdonalds yesterday; its a major hit so if by chance anyone get duplicates of any but the first Aladdin, we would be highly grateful recipients!

Since we had got the poster paints out of the way now, i thought i might give acrylics a go tomorrow with Fran while Moo is out and then on Wednesday we have our group where we are doing more on Van Gogh so that should “finish him off” nicely and then next week i can maybe start one of the others with Fran. Or alternatively i might have a baby… depending on my mood. i was looking at the Year 2 of AO and feeling mildly disappointed by it, its not really as appealing to me as Year One is – we are a 1/3 of the way through Yr 1’s schedule now, although we haven’t done all of it, so i was thinking of just roughly accummulating bits we have left out/ other things like Story of the World and bits from Sonlight/Tanglewood into something similar for when we are done with this one. Its worked too well to drop it (still assuming we do the other 24 weeks!) but obviously its not going to work AS well if i don’t feel motivated by it.

Edit: What IS it about me and repeating words? I cure myself of random, i cure myself of frankly and now i have NOW everywhere! ARGH.