Sometimes i almost look back fondly on the days when Max went out to work, i stayed at home bored out of my mind with a bunch of teeny weeny people and everything was the same every day. These days, we’re always trying some new combination of things/stuff/blah blah.
We’re working on my having a sabbatical from BM/PM – much as i like it, i do slightly resent the fact that it takes me away from the kids and HEing and if this is my last year of HEing 4 full time at home kids, i’d like to enjoy it. Plus the businesses really need a different brain type applied to them, i’m not really very profit focused at all, whereas Max is. So we’re trying to do things in another way; i’m popping in once a day in the evening to straighten up, see what needs doing and keep on top of problems and doing customer stuff from home and Max is gradually taking over my days there. I really don’t mind and it’s a good opportunity for him to see if he finds it fulfilling. Hopefully, soon, i’ll have my Wednesdays and Fridays back and i’ll be able to go away more again. Obviously with Christmas coming i’m bound to have to work hard but if we can employ Max’s organisational skills, maybe it will be easier than it was last year. At least the house won’t be covered with boxes and we might even have room for a Christmas tree!
Today we tried to really get down to working consistently again. Fran made a start on GP English and did several exercises, (inspired by seeing Gwenny was slightly ahead of her!) mostly with success. I’m trying very hard to encourage her to work on her handwriting at the moment and being a bit stricter on things, i really would like her to find writing significantly easier before she goes off to school. She gets very frustrated by it at times but actually, she really isn’t bad, just a bit cramped up and inconsistent. Punctuation doesn’t come easily to her either, but she is trying. She does know it, she just forgets – a lot! After that she did quite a lot more of stuff on Europe and several quizzes on stuff to do with the UK – i dug out a couple of KS2 CGP books that she’s going to work through over the next few weeks too, just to see if there is anything that we’ve never really talked about. We’ve got a vague plan of looking at Europe in terms of geographical landforms, cultures and politics etc Then she did some reading and i supervised a reasonably intense (and extremely badly received!) cello practise on bow holds and fingering 🙄
Maddy had a productive day; she asked for “geography like Fran” but wanted to focus on Africa, so more sheets got printed out for her, she did a lot of work on time in Singapore 3B (nearly finished it now) and she and i worked out how many months old she is (104). She did well. She also read quite a bit (Magic Treehouse, Amelia Bedelia) and answered some GP English questions. It was all very harmonious. Maddy guitared to herself, Amelie violined endlessly (will have to supervise tomorrow) and generally it all went well.
Amelie and Josie played a long, complicated game all day, so we left them to it. Once the afternoon had arrived and i’d fashioned dinner out of the scant remains of food we had in the house, we tidied up as much as possible, found all the jazz and gym stuff and finished off The Starlight Barking, since Fran would be home too late tonight. Not sure what we’ll read next, we’ve got quite a stack to get through.
Tonight i got to watch the end of the middle two doing gym and was fairly startled by how strong Amelie seems to have got; she was doing something half way up the wall that made my eyes water and way hauling herself about on the bars with such confidence that i was quite gobsmacked. Maddy was much happier in her new leotard, so hopefully we’ve solved that. Fran, Josie and i popped to work then i dropped her off; i really hope she enjoys being in Novice tonight 🙂
it does all sound rather excellent. and i am hoping i get to see you at some point, when working life allows!