The other half of the week.

Despite how it felt, it wasn’t all parcels! (Although, i’ve just printed out my end of week report and i sent 182! 😯 )

Tuesday we had a visit from H and co – finally, the kids all seemed to relax with each other and we barely saw them as they were too busy hurtling about in witch outfits, playing gamecube and various other slightly insane pursuits. This did mean that h and i got lovely chatting time, aside from trying to stop the only boy in residence from flinging himself down the stairs. At some point Kate turned up (i measured her all round last night… 44 inches round at 31 weeks!) and we gossiped more. Josie chose this moment to choke; upended her quickly to see a geomag and ball fall out of her mouth so put her back down, only for her to carry on choking and beginning to turn blue 😯 Much back banging, fighting her as she frantically tried to cuddle me and eventually the full on heimlich manoeuvre (thank god i learned that at the age of 12) got the other geoball up that must have gone quite a long way down before it got stuck 🙁

I wouldn’t mind, but she was right in front of me; i’d mind even less if she’d learned from it but that evening i heard her going up the stairs with a mouth full of the balls! We’ve put them away for now; in a house of 4 kids and 3 floors, i really can’t risk her choking somewhere i can’t see her. When my brother was 9 months or so, he choked on a 1/2p piece and was blue and floopy when the 5 year old friend who was round dragged him into where my mum was. It was horrible and i’d rather be excused the experience!

As it was, all credit to the happy pills because my heartbeat didn’t even increase; i don’t think H or Kate could quite believe how unphased i was!

Tuesday ended up with me banning going to dancing because they had scattered al ltheir stuff, lost their hairbrushes and didn’t get ready despite being asked several times and frankly, i’m not going to spend my blood pressure on shrieking at them about it.

Wednesday was somewhat hampered by the whole late delivery thing but it didn’t seem to bother the girls; after a period of being very antzy with one another, they’ve rebonded lately and are playing beautifully. Lots of gamecube, some reading, some EdCity, lots of fimo-ing – they’ve got much better at just “getting on” with stuff.

In the afternoon we went out to That Painting Place. my 3 seem to respond pretty well to being “taught”, although Fran did get a bit stressed by trying to paint thin lines, but she did stick at it and imprive and all of them did nice mugs. Amelie’s was gorgeous, she has almost more patience than anyone else! I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

We’re giving swimming a miss for a bit, though i will try to take them on Sunday nights; i want to reorganise our week a bit and between now and Xmas, i could just use the break from the onslaught of evening rushing about. Maddy has requested more HE groups though, so i must investigate going to the eo group again. I’ve been such a hermit this year, i’m amazed anyone can remember who i am!

Thursday was good; we did a bit of a clear up then they spent a lot of the day doing Fimo, while i read to them. We read about Christopher Columbus and had the globe out so we could look at all the places; covered lots of geography including various seas and oceans, the Panama and Suez canals, Cuba and the Cuban Crisis, what a continent is, the difference between the Arctic and Antarctic and what to do if you ever happen to be stood on the Arctic on the day it melts (!!!) and of course the actual point of the story too. Linked up Ferdinand and Isabella with Katharine of Aragon, discussed some European History (luckily the subject of my A Level History, some of which i can even remember!) and talked about the disease exchange between Europeans and Natives, discussed the gold/no gold issue and a variety of shipping terms and ideas (back to mapping there!). Finished it in 2 days, since this was pretty much Fridays educational doodah too and the kids really liked it. Decided that as we’d done quite a few famous people/explorers this year we’d keep on with that and do some on the Sonlight American core i bought (in our own way, of course!)

Thursday also meant a family trip to Fran’s Brownie show which was erm.. exquisite torture. Lots of embarrassed dancing in the first half, but then a rather lovely campfire singing session as the second half. Fran does seem a bit lost there at times, but did love the campfire stuff, especially when Josie decided that she wasn’t going to be left out and went and plonked herself on Frans lap. That wasn’t so bad, but towards then end she decided to pretend to be a dog and started crawling around doing big puppy eyes and licking knees 😳 By that time though, i’d given up trying to control her as she already made Max and i roll our eyes at each other by shrieking “I finished that side mummy.. i want other side boob!!!!” for all to hear!!!

I am thinking of geting involved with Brownes though, when Maddym oves up, because then the timing will be better and i can leave the little ones with Max. I’d like to be a brown Owl one day i think 🙂

And i’ll leave you with this comment from Fran…

“I like the way you home educate us mummy, but when i home educate my children, i’m going to teach them to read when they are little and then just give them loads of history books and let them have quiet time to read them every day.”

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