Amelie loves this song at the moment, i think i could probably record a cd which was just “Bad Day” interspersed with the odd other things and it would suit her just fine. She calls it, at times, the “magic is lost” song – spawning the comment when Max started the cd at the wrong place “noooo… magic is lost, you SILLY boy.”
Today was indeed a bad day so i shall “sing a sad song just to turn it around.” It had some good bits to it really, but i was tired (1am makes me a cow, go to bed earlier, woman :roll:), everyone was tired and everyone was being an ungrateful, spoilt little bitch. Including me. Fran was back in her room by 9am, Maddy had been given a fairly stiff ultimatum about her behaviour, and Amelie was watching a dvd. Sometime during the day i sent Max a text that said “Have had kids adopted and Fran sent down the mines. Have moved to Arctic for easy life; your ticket is under your pillow should you choose to follow.” But i don’t think it actually got worse than that.
Something that has really changed with Fran is her attitude to sit down normals; suddenly she seems to recognise that she likes being stretched a bit. Most mornings this last week she has done her ExTC before 9am, and done it well. Today she finished Book 3, meaning she got to start HP1 with me. And after she’d done it, she sat down and did 4 ten minute tests, from a 6-7 (so i suppose end of KS1) book. Hugely thrilled by the “colour in how many you got right” thing, she did very well and can indeed add up to 20, do sums to 100 in money, knows her shapes and right number words. All achieved without 2 years of mindnumbing Numeracy Hours. So doubters be silent 🙂
She and i had a chat about this book and decided it would be quite useful to use it as a way of spotting anything that would be helpful to brush up on, so i feel i have her onside about that; given she’s 9 months younger than the oldest people in her “school year” i’d have been utterly comfortable if she was 9 months off gripping that level of achievement yet. So totally chuffed for us all that she is much better than “just able.” Practically her maths has some way to go, which i’d like to be better, but tbh i am rubbish at giving them the opportunity to explore maths in a practical way. Must try harder.
After that, she did some work on a cross stitch bookmark, played on the computer, bummed around a bit.
Maddy and i had spent some time with the Egyptology book and with Time Traveller. For someone who wants to know about Egypt, she is a bit reluctant to actually learn about it though 🙄 I perservered for a while but eventually gave up and gossiped with Kate instead. You can lead a horse to water and all that.
We have achieved gym class, albeit with a lot of dashing back and forwards. Predictably Fran has been moved up to the next group within the class. I’m really pleased they like it so much. And the only finally annoying thing is that my camera is in warranty, but it’ll have to be sent away and will take at least 3 weeks. Gr.
Storywise, the children have arrived in Narnia, Olga has resumed for Maddy (good merry, GOOD Merry) and she had a chapter of that while Fran and Daddy played chess and Fran read the first 2 paragraphs of Harry Potter and then i read her a few more.
The big difficulty of the day came when Ammi’s keyworkers from nursery arrived. She has been so excited for so long then did an abrupt about face in the middle of the holiday. And today she was utterly silent and uncommunicative with them and after they’d gone, quite definite that she didn’t want to go.
This leaves me in a bit of a quandary really. I don’t want her to go, Max does, but then he doesn’t have to do all the fetching and taking it will involve. I knew Maddy needed to go, Fran was going before i had any feelings about it. I hadn’t planned on Amelie going, Max thinks she’ll get a lot out of it. I don’t want her to not go just because i can’t be bothered, i don’t want to allow her just simply to chicken out on a whim when she has been realy up for it, but its against my policy not to let her chicken out too. I’d like her to enjoy it as the other two have, i’d like to try it differently.
All of which leaves me in a position of feeling somewhat obliged to persuade a child who doesn’t want to do something to do something i don’t want them to do, just so i don’t have guilt about not feeling guilty. Which, if i may say so, only proves what i’ve believed about myself for a long time. I just can’t think what that was.
