The somethings and nothings of Puddling along.

It isn’t that there isn’t anything to blog, nor even lack of time to blog (lack of time to READ blogs seems to be more of a problem though!) – it isn’t even a lack of interest in blogging. I just haven’t. I’ve hibernated a bit, muddled along a bit and mainly just BEEN. Twitter keeps me in touch for half the week, till my 250 text tweets run out, then i’m hidden away for 4 days till i get them back. I think i need to get a life. Or at least get the half of my life that keeps going missing 😆

So what have we been up to? Josie has played a game on the windowsill for approximately a week. It involves K’nex, dinosaurs, My Jungle Animals and PlayMobil in equal measures and would amuse my sister very much. Josie is an actual carbon copy of me, i think. Amelie is being a smart alec 🙄 but lovely with it. Her reading and writing is coming along very fast and she is busy renegotiating a role within the slightly altered dynamics of the current sisterhood structure. Fran is a bit more of an “older loner” at the moment and so the younger 3 play together more. It’s good for Maddy, interesting for Amelie and slightly less good for Josie, who isn’t given the same quarter by the middle 2 as she gets from big sister Fran. This may have something to do with why she is playing on her own!!!!

Fran is absorbed in Harry Potter, now on to The Goblet of Fire and her cello and is very excited about starting lessons tonight. She is becoming much more studious, much more ready to work at things and farm ore bookish. She is enjoying Horrible Geography and spends a good bit of time Googling and reading Newsround. They’ve all been fairly upset by the new of Mark Speight’s death this week as they were real fans of his programme and art. As a piece of social development news, it certainly covers all bases… drugs, alcohol, relationships, depression, guilt, suicide. We’ve had some thoughtful discussions. It’s been very sad, i think and a very telling reminder of how quickly things can go from roses to ashes 🙁 Couldn’t totally decide if i approved of how Newsround covered it; bit coy i thought, but then i suppose there must be issues with covering suicide for children given the recent stories of teenage suicide. Tricky.

Maddy and Amelie have been enjoying Explode the Code and coming on very fast. We’re doing less written maths but more ordinary life maths and mental maths skills and lots of art and story reading. Maddy has started to really read for pleasure now and tucks herself into corners with a book a fair bit. Current favourites are Amelia Bedilia’s, Usborne Readers and she has been working through Ruby the Red Fairy. I’m not convinced Fairy books are Maddy’s thing but i have a feeling she thinks they are some sort of ‘Rite of Passage’ series that you HAVE to read before you read anything else! 😆

We’ve been playing a fair bit of recorder, maracas and anything else that comes to hand. Must sort out the rest of the lessons out. Have also found gym lessons for the big 3 and we’ve decided to stop one ballet lesson (out of 3 and out of anywhere from 4-6 dancing lessons a week for the big ones!) to fit it in. I’m quite keen to widen their experience a bit as i think dancing is in danger of becoming frustrating; there seem to be people there who will always get the top slot and i’d rather they had an option to do other stuff and not either get fixated on being noticed or bitter if they feel ignored.

I’ve been looking into summer schools; there is a week long day camp at Pboro High School and a Youth Theatre too so i’m going to enquire about those. Better hope for another wet summer so people buy craft stuff!!!!!!

We’ve finished the Borrowers (“What do you think Borrowers take in our house?” “HAIRBOBBLES!!!!!”) and i’ve had to move straight on to The Borrowers Afield as they all enjoyed it so much. I love older books with ambiguous endings instead of the modern obsession with closure at the end of a film. I love that the books leave it very much up to you to decide what to believe. I was hoping to go on to The Hobbit – maybe next time. It is great to have the slot for bedtime reading back – i had missed it so much when work was taking over so totally. It has become a real feature of the day again.

Right… trying to avoid thinking about Fran having blood test and ward visits but it isn’t working so i shall go and tidy the dining room. Younger 3 are playing PlayMobil now the normals are done; just asked Amelie while she was standing in the middle of the game singing while Maddy went to the toilet – apparently Maddy had asked her to “pause the game.” 😆