Pluffy and nonsense.

Josie’s latest penguin, well not quite latest but one that came in her stocking, has been named Pluffy, which is rather cute. She is VERY into her penguins and has been learning their names, thanks to a book from the Nuts. I’ve been indulging her as a proper HE mum should do and buying her the odd book, doing stories and stuff and some colouring; we are going to do crafts. Fran and Maddy have been rein-acting the Pingu dance that they used to do when they were little, thanks to the hours of video we had of him back then. The same footage, now on dvd, is an equal hit with all of them; i think Pingu is like some sort of under 10 opium 😆 Actually, MF and i found ourselves watching it through a childfree lunch the other day! 🙄 As you do! We’ve read Penguin Small (there’s a unit study in there all right!) and Penguin and so on; it’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed indulging her adoration. She now sleeps with no fewer than 6 penguins, including the much loved walking one from the Portico, which is no mean feat in a bed the size she sleeps in!

Josie is getting big now though; she argues, plea-bargains, winds the others up and generally is one of the major household personalities (and we needed one of those! 🙄 ) She’s ill this week though, full of cold and has resorted to sleepy mummy cuddles a number of times. Bless.

We had a lovely end to the new year with the Beans and the new year has got off to a good start with the businesses picking up quickly, the house returning to normal (lounge looks like a lounge!) and everyone being very motivated to pick up where we left off and get going. The move to premises is obviously a big one, but following a meeting today, Max is now going to be carrying on only working 2 days a week for at least the next few months and is unlikely to return to full time for the foreseeable. HR and his boss have been immensely supportive so far, which is a great help. For me, it simply means less time alone, more support, more family time and a chance to do things properly and hopefully regain something of the person i used to be. I hate to look back at how changed i am, i hate knowing i have pushed all my friends away, that i can barely go out, that simple things like going to a home ed group now have the power to reduce me to tears for hours afterwards. I hate that i can’t communicate anymore, can’t blog and can’t face either the past or the future. I can’t see how to change it yet, but i am beginning to feel like i might stand a chance. This month i will finally have “not been pregnant” for the longest time in 10 years. I can’t say it hurts me any less, or i feel any less resentful or angry about it. I think there is some hope, mostly i know there isn’t much, that i’ll just live out the rest of it immeasurably sad and damaged. But i’ve got at least some chance of containing it now i think. I’ve finally worked out that i might just as well stay on the pills though, as coming off them doesn’t come anywhere close to working. I can only say that having plumbed more depths than i ever imagined and believed myself to be going insane, i knew that i had a spark of self-preservation left when i stopped myself buying a Stanley knife to split down delivery boxes because i knew i wouldn’t be able to resist damaging myself with it. Honestly never thought i could be so hopelessly dreadfully depressed. Got me back to the doctors though and i won’t make the mistake again.

So 3 months, nearly, on from that, i think the corner we need to turn is in sight, though it has slipped away from my fingers a good few times already. I’ve recovered from things done to me, or things that just happened, before but how do you recover from something you did to yourself?

Kids are thrilled about just about everything, but most of all because daddy being home more might leave more time for Dungeons and Dragons, which all the big three are now into in a BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG way 🙄 😆 I think they played around 12 hours a day for three days over the weekend (see, we have 3 day weekends, how cool is that?!?!?!) Amelie is nearly finished with her level of Studydog and has suddenly discovered the thrill of doing something ‘well’ which is lovely to see. All of them have come on a lot in mental maths, Fran particularly really enjoys that now and asks for sums to do all the time. She’s loving the “Revise” workbooks and doing a good bit of them every day while Maddy is on Singapore 2B and grumpy as it is “too easy and too hard” – giving her more 1-2-1 time is on my priority list. It’s been excellent to get back to “normals” and see, yet again, that life has progressed them all very nicely. Maddy adores the “I Can Read” books from the Sonlight readers and is getting through those at some pace, Fran now just does her own thing now; i know she has read some Drina books, a good bit of Enid Blyton and various other things. She doesn’t seem to feel an urge to stretch herself, but she loves to read, which pulls my string  perfectly adequately 😉

We’ve come up with a bit of a plan for a home ed ‘mini-curriculum type thing’ this year which goes somewhere along the lines of seasons, elements and subjects crashlanding on each other. (This was mainly the kids idea with a bit of shaping help from me) – Fran and i talked over the first section today and came up with starting with Winter and Water, so, so far, our ideas are as follows….

Science – water experiments and learning about cold oceans and the arctic/antarctic (again… but… PENGUINOS!)

Literature – Paddle to the Sea, Narnia and anything else wintery i think of? (Ideas welcome)

Geography – Um… see science.

History – Ocean based explorers and perhaps Arctic ones too.

RE – Neptune (Fran’s input there!) and anything we can find that celebrates water in some way.

ART – must be something… Turner, that man with the snow who begins with G (BN? Help!>?!!?!)

Music – Helen…..?

I’ll give it some more thought then.