Getting into Gear

Oh dear. Two weeks have passed. Still here, still in one piece. Quite looking forward to being in 2 pieces now really. Have reached that “oh my god i am SO pregnant!” stage while simultaneously still not actually believing i am. I am slightly worried that the production of a person is going to be rather a shock.

Excuses for not blogging are that i knitted and crocheted a baby blanket and that we’ve been working very hard on getting new stock and improvements done to our websites etc. So my evenings have been take up. Added to which i managed to develop a horrid growth on my hand, apparently pregnancy induced, which is making doing anything somewhat harder at the moment. Hopefully having it cut off tomorrow. Baby is due on Tuesday, so i guess i know i am into the last couple of weeks now anyway.

So, we gradually recovered from the rabbit disaster; big girls had a chance to go Karting with the local HE group. Max took them along with DaddyBean and SB while Amelie slept through an asthma crisis and Josie and BB played here.

Apparently the karters had a fabulous time, although the kids did say the daddy’s took it a bit seriously 😆 🙄 Meanwhile Josie and BB did their best ever bit of socialising together and had a truly lovely time in each others company. I was very impressed by them as they often take a while to warm up but this time were just very happy. They played with animals, tucked away in a bedroom and there were gales of laughter the entire time.

A couple of other things have happened recently. One was Maddy really wanting to make a version of an arcade booth grabber, so Max spent a morning working at designs for that and then they made a working model out of lego. Along the way she found out about different types of gears, how they work and what they get used for. I do feel that really that stuff is “real home ed” and he does it much better than me!

Another thing was a random game he and the girls found on the internet which was a very simple fire an arrow in the air and try to hit the other player type one. They got talking about angles, trajectories and things like wind resistance and, while i half snoozed on the bed with one ear open, i heard them using protractors, plotting graphs, using excel to explain angles and predict things – it was all rather amazingly educational. See? He does it better 😉

I hired a doula, which i am happy about.

My dad came and whipped the girls away for a few days to give them a break and hopefully put the rabbit thing behind them – they had a lovely time and came back refreshed and ready for the music festival.

Found myself watching Fran kind of in awe a couple of times that week. The first was the festival, the second was during a little gym session she helps out at. She goes along when Josie does and learns the ropes of coaching, although she has strict boundaries of what she can do there but being able to demo, chat to them, encourage them etc is all very good for her. She was dressed in bootleg dancing trousers, a hoody and had her hair twisted up in a clip and suddenly looked so grown up. And just so assured; the coaches like her and she is really at home among them, she was demo-ing a vault and doing it in clothes just suddenly made her seem so capable and able and BIG! One of the kids there needs lots of support and she looks after her in a TA-ish fashion she does such an amazing job of it. I’m constantly getting parents tell me how fab she is and how grown up and mature etc etc. It has made me see her in a whole extra light – and see how teaching/coaching could very well be going to be her thing; all those sisters have given her some very good skills. This week she had a badge group and was showing thme how to do the skills (floor balances etc) all on her own and she did a fabulous job. I was very proud of her.

The other thing was watching through the window while she finished off her freestyle class not a little girl any more, a really rather big girl who is also a really rather accomplished dancer 😯 And then in the next minute she is asking me if it is okay to NOT have a boyfriend or want to watch 15 films like her KYT friends as really she still likes to be little and doesn’t want to have to do all those things. And it makes me so glad they have the space to grow up in their own time 🙂

We’ve had some lovely days with friends, done some work and lots of craft. Nothing very dramatic just ploughing through more basics, doing project work (Ballet for Fran) and so on. But having a relaxed time in general, so long as people are busy and gainfully employed.

This week we’ve had a visit from the Djeco man, which meant lots of crafting from the samples he left, in company with Chloe and Latinetc day; girls had French home work which they’ve done, did music theory and practical, Latin and as usual, really great science which this week was fist looking at the light maze made for a bean and then moving on to making slides from the bacteria they had grown in petri dishes from their teeth and nails. Very interesting. Do love Latinetc.

Fran and Amelie have had a good gym week; Amelie got enough confidence to really throw herself at the move she broke her arm doing and then managed to do it from the high bar too – she was VERY happy. Fran has been partially moved groups so that she is now with a coach who is a tumbling specialist on one night. She’s ready for a change as working so hard on minute technique with the other (very good) coach has slightly squashed her natural exuberance. Although she was unsure about it, her demeanour on Tuesday night was very upbeat and she’d had a lot of fun. She’s ready to be stretched again. Maddy is still loving TKD too – so all that is good and had a fab week at rugby too.

Josie is seeming terribly grown up all of a sudden.

I love this picture 🙂

She had requested maths and reading workbooks so she can join in when the others do their more school-y bits so i got her some. She likes Explode the Code and seems to be getting much more confident with sounds and sounding out. We built some -at words and then used the two spare letters to say a new word and then she had to swap in the right front letter. Was good.

Today was music lesson morning; apart from Amelie i think they all had a bit of a blippy day today. Amelie is really flying because she has added violin to the list of things she is going to be ‘best’ at 🙄 Fran and Maddy have some work to do. 😆 Still, Fran has The Pink Panther as her Grade 2 piece which is inspiring her – they are all currently watching episodes of the cartoon on YouTube. I call it research and immersion 😉