1. Oranges
2. Baby
3. All playing in the same space
4. First conker of the year
5. Board game night at the Book Cafe
6. Derby Feste
7. Green Man
Showing posts with label siblings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label siblings. Show all posts
28 September 2014
Seven Days: a very busy week!
1. Oranges
2. Baby
3. All playing in the same space
4. First conker of the year
5. Board game night at the Book Cafe
6. Derby Feste
7. Green Man
20 September 2014
Seven Days of Autumning
1. Calke Abbey babies
2. Night time walk
3. Board game time
4. Clay and twig hedgehogs (and cat hair *sigh*)
5. Child-felted acorns
6. Morgan found a person hiding in the olive jar
7. Talia tasting the rain
30 August 2014
Just a Week
The laptop broke, again. Talia kicked it off the armchair. This coincided with me wanting to spend the week pretty much knitting and watching Stargate, so you don't get a Seven Days post out of me this week. We spent one day at a Tesco home ed trip, followed by buying donuts from the bakery and finding a cool card game and some hippy kids clothes in a charity shop. The next day was mostly about the scooters and running up and down the hill at the park.
Then the weather turned damp and grey and cool, the air started to smell like Autumn, and we pretty much did painting, hot chocolate, lots of stories, and one entire day of the kids alternating between being sick and sleeping on the sofa (you would not believe how much tidying up I can get done when there is nowhere to sit down and knit).
Without Jenna in the house it is surprisingly quiet.
OK, not so surprising.
Morgan and Rowan get on much better when Jenna is here, so I thought they would be louder in compensation. We actually had a nice, sedate, week. My tidying of the bookshelves led to the rediscovery of form drawing and handwriting practice books. I set up Kerplunk at least thirty times (which then takes them about a tenth of the time to play that it took me to put up!) and read Elmer at least twenty times (Talia now recites large chunks of it by heart).
Then the weather turned damp and grey and cool, the air started to smell like Autumn, and we pretty much did painting, hot chocolate, lots of stories, and one entire day of the kids alternating between being sick and sleeping on the sofa (you would not believe how much tidying up I can get done when there is nowhere to sit down and knit).
Without Jenna in the house it is surprisingly quiet.
OK, not so surprising.
Morgan and Rowan get on much better when Jenna is here, so I thought they would be louder in compensation. We actually had a nice, sedate, week. My tidying of the bookshelves led to the rediscovery of form drawing and handwriting practice books. I set up Kerplunk at least thirty times (which then takes them about a tenth of the time to play that it took me to put up!) and read Elmer at least twenty times (Talia now recites large chunks of it by heart).
10 August 2014
Seven Days (including rainbows)
1. Jumping Clay workshop
2. Sisterly sweetness
3. Pony play
4. Tree blocks
5. Making books
6. Hair chalk
7. Rainbow Dash yarn
30 March 2014
Seven Days - Rainbows and Visits
1. Rainbow
2. Gymnastics
3. Lots of eggs!
4. Sister-wearing
5. Roo writing notes
6. Cerys meeting the chickens
7. Rainbow visitors
14 March 2014
Weird Kid the Fourth
Miss Pickle here brings me the phone almost every day and asks to "phown Gram-ma me" or "phown Ash-ee me". Usually followed by a request for, "Gram-ma take me car?" Already so keen to be off out adventuring without us, hmph.
I love love love this toddler-some business and talking and actually holding conversations with her - albeit really strange ones. I love seeing her blossom into a person I can understand, and watching how her personality reveals itself. She is such a live-wire!
She is extremely attached to all kinds of shoes. Her favourites are her skull-and-crossbones shoes ("Pi-te shoosh!") and her red spotty penguin wellies ("Pengy bootsh!") but really, and shoes are apparently super-exciting. We have more conversations about socks and shoes than almost anything else.
Tilly also loves playing with lego. And the lego box. Especially in the following configuration: empty lego on to nearest floor (bonus points if you can spread it across more than one room), place lego box on head, stretch out hands to prevent running head first in to door post, walk around saying, "da-yek" [Dalek].
She wears most of her clothes inside out at the moment, because she has a case of "me do it SELF!" I'm not sure if people generally think that I'm too distracted to dress her properly, poor little fourth child, or if it's obvious that she dresses herself! That's even when she can be persuaded into clothes. Nine tenths of the time (or more) if we're at home, she's toddling round in the nude - or better yet, naked but wearing boots...
My little Talia, still following along, always trying to keep up with the big ones, adopting their interests, copying their phrases, asserting herself on their space. Littlest sister is very Two. And a very fine Two she is.
I love love love this toddler-some business and talking and actually holding conversations with her - albeit really strange ones. I love seeing her blossom into a person I can understand, and watching how her personality reveals itself. She is such a live-wire!
She is extremely attached to all kinds of shoes. Her favourites are her skull-and-crossbones shoes ("Pi-te shoosh!") and her red spotty penguin wellies ("Pengy bootsh!") but really, and shoes are apparently super-exciting. We have more conversations about socks and shoes than almost anything else.
Tilly also loves playing with lego. And the lego box. Especially in the following configuration: empty lego on to nearest floor (bonus points if you can spread it across more than one room), place lego box on head, stretch out hands to prevent running head first in to door post, walk around saying, "da-yek" [Dalek].
She wears most of her clothes inside out at the moment, because she has a case of "me do it SELF!" I'm not sure if people generally think that I'm too distracted to dress her properly, poor little fourth child, or if it's obvious that she dresses herself! That's even when she can be persuaded into clothes. Nine tenths of the time (or more) if we're at home, she's toddling round in the nude - or better yet, naked but wearing boots...
My little Talia, still following along, always trying to keep up with the big ones, adopting their interests, copying their phrases, asserting herself on their space. Littlest sister is very Two. And a very fine Two she is.
6 February 2014
More adventures, unschooling, and beautiful chaos
On Tuesday, Talia had her two year check. It was a bit twilight-zone-like. The health visitors are lovely, and enthusiastic about my sweet family, but Talia was really not sure about being in a play area without her sisters (she kept burying her face in me to hide from the other children, and taking me to the door to see if her sisters were still outside). Poor funny little fraggle.
We'd planned to head to Nottingham in the afternoon, maybe visit an art gallery or just take a wander around a less familiar place. We've never really taken the children in to Nottingham city centre before, only to specific places away from the shopping areas. Our first stop was lunch, followed by the market square where the children wanted to play in the fountains in spite of the freezing weather. We'd left their bag of spare clothes at home so we improvised a bit and spend a small amount in the Primark sale to make up suitable warm dry outfits they could change in to when they came out of the water!
As soon as they were dry and wrapped up warmly, the sun came out! They had such a wonderful time in the water, though, and it was another time I was so glad we could find a way to say "yes". Lots of people stopped to watch them play and laugh, and almost every single one smiled to see them.
We couldn't remember exactly how far away the art gallery we wanted to visit would be, and the children weren't wanting to walk far, so we visited The Token House (my favourite quirky little gift shop and fixture of my own childhood) where the children found hearts made from shells, beautiful boxes, reels of ribbon, soft fuzzy toy animals, a gorgeous map book, and rainbow egg cups. We rather wished we could afford to bring it all home with us!
Martin remembered how to get to the gallery from there, just around the corner, so off we went. There was an exhibition of paintings which was rather poop-themed, a giant latex alien-bug creature, some post-apocalyptic dioramas, a papier mache temple with a golden cat-goddess head inside, and an actual Cat Bus filled with squashy rainbow coloured cushions to sit on.
The beans were ready for another drink by then, so we relocated to the cafe inside Waterstones. After chocolate muffins and warm milk we washed hands, looked at a book about tropical fish and another about big cats, and went up and down the escalators (which have their mechanisms on display under glass).
Then back to the car, through the main shopping centre!
On our walk we found street musicians, and a lot of beautiful painted elephants. The children were particularly keen on one inspired by the rose window at York Minster, and I loved the one decorated in the style of Japanese lacquer-work. :) Morgan was interested in the artist's descriptions, and played hunt-the-signature. Rowan liked the brightest colours the best (she liked one painted all over with sweets, and one with iconic English birds and mammals).
Wednesday, we were all so tired we opted for the quietest day possible, which is never really all that quiet. The children spent a good couple of hours "duelling" (shouting Harry-Potter-accurate spells at each other brandishing knitting needles and chopsticks), and playing an elaborate game in which they were sneaking food from the house elves (ie my kitchen cupboards) and trying to get it past me and up the stairs as I in turn tried very hard not to see (or laugh at their antics).
Talia was so fascinated with her new melamine Elmer mug she insisted on almost hourly cups of tea (alternating between chamomile, peppermint, and english breakfast with milk and sugar!) and so tired from her very busy day that she breastfed and dozed quite a bit of the rest of the time.
The Sylvanians and the Ostheimer mummy and baby wolf shared the doll house nicely.
We painted. Had showers. Pretended to look after Pygmy Puffs. And watched Star Trek (TNG).
The house started off relatively tidy in the morning, and now beautiful evidence of life and living and learning is, well, overflowing somewhat. It took me hours yesterday afternoon to write this, with breaks to facilitate for children, and fetch snacks, and read stories, and hand over the laptop for Jenna to do some design work, and pick up the tired unhappy toddler again, and spell out a few words, and find a silver pen for Morgan. It's taking a good while this morning to edit.
This is what unschooling looks like, for us, right now, at these ages and stages. Lots of "yes". Lots of trying to keep up. Lots of running late. Lots of laughter and art and colour and snuggling on the sofa and watching the rain. :)
We'd planned to head to Nottingham in the afternoon, maybe visit an art gallery or just take a wander around a less familiar place. We've never really taken the children in to Nottingham city centre before, only to specific places away from the shopping areas. Our first stop was lunch, followed by the market square where the children wanted to play in the fountains in spite of the freezing weather. We'd left their bag of spare clothes at home so we improvised a bit and spend a small amount in the Primark sale to make up suitable warm dry outfits they could change in to when they came out of the water!
As soon as they were dry and wrapped up warmly, the sun came out! They had such a wonderful time in the water, though, and it was another time I was so glad we could find a way to say "yes". Lots of people stopped to watch them play and laugh, and almost every single one smiled to see them.
We couldn't remember exactly how far away the art gallery we wanted to visit would be, and the children weren't wanting to walk far, so we visited The Token House (my favourite quirky little gift shop and fixture of my own childhood) where the children found hearts made from shells, beautiful boxes, reels of ribbon, soft fuzzy toy animals, a gorgeous map book, and rainbow egg cups. We rather wished we could afford to bring it all home with us!
Martin remembered how to get to the gallery from there, just around the corner, so off we went. There was an exhibition of paintings which was rather poop-themed, a giant latex alien-bug creature, some post-apocalyptic dioramas, a papier mache temple with a golden cat-goddess head inside, and an actual Cat Bus filled with squashy rainbow coloured cushions to sit on.
The beans were ready for another drink by then, so we relocated to the cafe inside Waterstones. After chocolate muffins and warm milk we washed hands, looked at a book about tropical fish and another about big cats, and went up and down the escalators (which have their mechanisms on display under glass).
Then back to the car, through the main shopping centre!
On our walk we found street musicians, and a lot of beautiful painted elephants. The children were particularly keen on one inspired by the rose window at York Minster, and I loved the one decorated in the style of Japanese lacquer-work. :) Morgan was interested in the artist's descriptions, and played hunt-the-signature. Rowan liked the brightest colours the best (she liked one painted all over with sweets, and one with iconic English birds and mammals).
Wednesday, we were all so tired we opted for the quietest day possible, which is never really all that quiet. The children spent a good couple of hours "duelling" (shouting Harry-Potter-accurate spells at each other brandishing knitting needles and chopsticks), and playing an elaborate game in which they were sneaking food from the house elves (ie my kitchen cupboards) and trying to get it past me and up the stairs as I in turn tried very hard not to see (or laugh at their antics).
Talia was so fascinated with her new melamine Elmer mug she insisted on almost hourly cups of tea (alternating between chamomile, peppermint, and english breakfast with milk and sugar!) and so tired from her very busy day that she breastfed and dozed quite a bit of the rest of the time.
The Sylvanians and the Ostheimer mummy and baby wolf shared the doll house nicely.
We painted. Had showers. Pretended to look after Pygmy Puffs. And watched Star Trek (TNG).
The house started off relatively tidy in the morning, and now beautiful evidence of life and living and learning is, well, overflowing somewhat. It took me hours yesterday afternoon to write this, with breaks to facilitate for children, and fetch snacks, and read stories, and hand over the laptop for Jenna to do some design work, and pick up the tired unhappy toddler again, and spell out a few words, and find a silver pen for Morgan. It's taking a good while this morning to edit.
This is what unschooling looks like, for us, right now, at these ages and stages. Lots of "yes". Lots of trying to keep up. Lots of running late. Lots of laughter and art and colour and snuggling on the sofa and watching the rain. :)
24 January 2014
This Toddler
This toddler...
...flings herself head first off furniture and anything else she can climb.
...shouts "two, two THREE!" in warning that she is about to try something dangerous.
...is instantly totally devoted to any animal she meets. Especially my mum's scaredy rescue dog Lucy, and our obnoxious guard-cat Izzy.
...brings life to a halt by climbing in to my lap and shouting BOOOOB when she is tired.
...likes snippy scissors, which we have a hell of a time keeping out of her way. This week she snipped the back cover out of one of our Horrible History books.
...says, "oh sheet" when she breaks something. (Oops.)
...climbs in to my bed at an unmentionable time of the morning and stays there snuggled up until she hears her preferred entertainment downstairs (sisters). Sometimes she even climbs on to their bunks and shouts at them to WAKE UP until they pay her attention.
...cries for Jenna any time Jenna goes out, or any time she doesn't hear her calling. Big sisters are better than mummy for hand holding on long walks, especially.
...eats more macaroni cheese than any of the adults in the family.
...has favourite favourite toys including: Jenna's doll, Rowan's rainbow dash pony, Jenna's miniature Daleks, and my knitting needles.
...is still babied and adored by all of us (of course). :)
...flings herself head first off furniture and anything else she can climb.
...shouts "two, two THREE!" in warning that she is about to try something dangerous.
...is instantly totally devoted to any animal she meets. Especially my mum's scaredy rescue dog Lucy, and our obnoxious guard-cat Izzy.
...brings life to a halt by climbing in to my lap and shouting BOOOOB when she is tired.
...likes snippy scissors, which we have a hell of a time keeping out of her way. This week she snipped the back cover out of one of our Horrible History books.
...says, "oh sheet" when she breaks something. (Oops.)
...climbs in to my bed at an unmentionable time of the morning and stays there snuggled up until she hears her preferred entertainment downstairs (sisters). Sometimes she even climbs on to their bunks and shouts at them to WAKE UP until they pay her attention.
...cries for Jenna any time Jenna goes out, or any time she doesn't hear her calling. Big sisters are better than mummy for hand holding on long walks, especially.
...eats more macaroni cheese than any of the adults in the family.
...has favourite favourite toys including: Jenna's doll, Rowan's rainbow dash pony, Jenna's miniature Daleks, and my knitting needles.
...is still babied and adored by all of us (of course). :)
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