Our Tribe

Our Tribe

Sunday 21 July 2013

Here comes the summer

The last few days have been as busy as ever. Bean is enjoying minecraft and experimenting with different ideas. Mostly it's houses with various features including swimming pool, balconies, tunnels and underground rooms. He's also building different sized gardens and greenhouses.
Pumpkin has been watching endless Pink Panther (cartoons) and interestingly starting to produce his own narrative to each episode. Plum is busy entertaining herself happily. She enjoys putting things away in the right places, giving me my sunglasses and emptying my purse on to the floor.

Thursday was our new gymnastics day followed by a play at Tilgate Park. It was amazingly hot and I did try to dissuade them from the park but they were both keen. By 3pm Bean was saying he was too hot and could we go home so I seized the moment and we headed home. It took us half an hour to walk back to the car as Pumpkin was slowly dragging his feet but we made it without incident and by the time I had left the car park all three smalls were asleep. I also managed to successfully transfer all three from the car into the house and they all continued sleeping. So, for the first time in years I had a few hours to myself during the day. Bean slept for 2 hours, Pumpkin 2 1/2' and Plum 3 hours. Of course, this meant that they were all up much later than usual but we have a far more pleasant time in the cool of the evening than the heat of the day.

Friday saw us taking a spontaneous trip to see friends for a few hours in the middle of the day. Bean and I made clay pots in the afternoon and there was some painting with old make up sponges that I found.
Daddy spent hours in the evening playing board games with all three smalls as I had some admin to do for CAC and I needed the time and space to get my head around it.

Saturday turned out to be a lazy day, in as much as we didn't have anything planned (surprisingly). I spent the whole morning in the kitchen and daddy did various bits and pieces around the house. He took the boys out to the park in the afternoon and Plum slept for a couple of hours. By the time they got back we had a short while until we headed down to the beach with our church family for an evening of BBQ, climbing on rocks, paddling/swimming in the sea.

Sunday is church day. Daddy was leading the service and after yesterday's late night we were all up late this morning. We had friends around for lunch and spent a relaxed afternoon eating, chatting, return trip to the park, tea and playing in the garden. I had a long chat with our neighbour about Beans's ability to remember things and discovered he has been giving our neighbour advice on his ant problem.

Mostly, we are enjoying being together. Pumpkin continues to get upset when I mention that I'm going out for the evening even though it is daddy who is with them at home. He feels the pain of separation more so than Bean or Plum atm. As it is the end of the school year, there is a lot of talk about children starting school in September and I am once again reminded of how different our lives are as they revolve less around a school year than most. I'm also reminded that it is Pumpkin's peers who are entering school in September and am so thankful that we have the opportunity to home ed. for all sorts of reasons, school is not right for Pumpkin, although I know he would adapt and 'be okay in the end,' I'm glad he doesn't have to go through that process and the benefits of him being at home far outweigh any notion of his need to be in school. I guess I'm just feeling grateful for being able to spend my children's childhood with them.

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Summer days

Today. Hot. Melting.

We were up early today as Plum has taken to waking around 6am, not my time of day! But it does mean that we are up and out with a large number of chores done by 10am. Wow! We had a few errands to run. I am loving having the Little Craft Shop on my doorstep (it will bankrupt me), and then to the bank and the post office before a walk and a play and a paddle at Southwater Country Park. We arrived there about 10.15am. The play area was empty and we enjoyed having the space to ourselves. Although with Plum being so mobile now and none of the equipment really being a suitable size for her she needed a lot of support spotting which meant I couldn't help Pumpkin as much as he would have liked on the zip wire, although he did have several goes and Bean watched Plum for a while.

We took Plum on the long long slide, which she was very excited about. Bean took a little video of us going down. Bean also managed to work out how to get out of the tubular rope net and climb on the top of it, similarly Pumpkin climbed on top of the tunnel and crawled across it. There is little shade in the play area and I was not feeling great in the heat, despite the food and water supplies, so I had to call it a day.

We walked back to the car via the 'beach' and had a paddle. The water was really warm. Plum refused to put her toes in when I was holding her but then proceeded to take off her own shoes, walk across the shingle and go into the water on her own.

Plum feel asleep on the way home and me and her slept for an hour on the bed. The boys played downstairs. For the rest of the afternoon we decorated t shirts with fabric paints, did extra special bubble blowing, read books together and lay about keeping cool.

Daddy says that Beans's minecraft creations look like Frank Lloyd Wright architecture. And sat with him for a while to show him some examples. Pumpkin has been busy playing games on the cbeebies website and it's good to see him having some uninterrupted and unguided (by his brother)time. It's also giving him a chance to improve his mouse skills, although I suppose so much is touch screen now that they may well be an outdated skill.

And finally, both boys offered to help Hoover this evening, crazy days! Must be the heat!

How does your garden grow?

Yesterday we went to Nyman's Gardens. Yes! Again. I'm not sure what it is exactly about it that I love so much but I do love it! It was just over a year ago now that we learned of the home education membership that the National Trust offer and decided to go for it (I know this because we have just renewed it) i can't say I was ever really interested before but it is too good an opportunity to pass by and now I am a avid fan. Nyman's Gardens is our closest haunt and we go regularly but we have also taken advantage of the membership and visited several local and some further afield properties.

Nyman's garden has it all for us. Architecture, gardens with wield and wonderful collections as well as beautiful commonly seen plants, woodland, nooks and crannies, a fairy tale house, and lots of space. And on a day like today, shade.

The staff are always amazing with the children and today was no exception. The house normally hides a toy fox named Foxy that the smalls enjoy looking for but they have a new art exhibition displaying E Shepherds work for The Wind in the Willows and so they had character toys for them to find. It's the details that I love. The boys laughed their heads off at the large Toad escaping from the upstairs window, hanging on to bed sheets. They also enjoyed the art exhibition and we walked round it and then returned later to see it again. We have had the stories before but I think a revisit will be in order.

We spent a large amount of time out in the shade of the Cedar tree in the lawn. The smalls made friends with another girl and played, hide and seek, what's the time mr. Wolf, tag, and horse and donkeys. It was the perfect place to be on such a hot day.

This outing was topped and tailed by a town trip including signing up for the summer reading scheme at the library, and lots of minecraft, reading, lego building, all sitting in the cool of our living room.

Sunday 7 July 2013

Out with the old

In with the new....I'll let you decided what's what!

Monday: our usual routine? No! Today bean finally gave up his gymnastics class for real. No more talking about it and then changing his mind. Today we went to the class and he told his teacher that he wasn't doing it anymore. I'm not sure what has finally pushed him to committing to not doing it but the deed is done. So, we spent an extra long time playing in the park where we met up with people who are familiar faces to us but we haven't had the opportunity to get to know them better before today. The sun is finally shining and we had a great time in the sand pit, which is an unusual play spot for us.

Tuesday: family outing.
I had this plan to take the boys to Leed's castle today and then Bodium castle tomorrow. Almost topic based learning inspired! But it wasn't to work out that way. We went out to Bedgebury Pinetum with grandma and pops and FA#2 to celebrate pop's birthday. 69 years old and still climbing on the trim trail! We all had a go and a more than a few laughs especially as pumpkin described fa#2 as old (she is one of the youngest in our immediate family relations) We had family dinner at fa#1 and stayed the night. Plum has had a temp since Sunday evening and after struggling to keep it down and it peaking at 39.6 degrees we gave her meds but she had an incredibly unsettled night. And then bean wet in the middle of the night and I had only bought one set of bedding and clothes with me so he ended up wearing the previous days shorts and t-shirts and sleeping under a bath towel!

Wednesday:a trip to Bodium Castle.
The national trust don't specialise in castles but this one was left to them. I remember it well from childhood school trips and today there were plenty of those around. It was good though. There were people in character and the staff were really helpful and knowledgable and both boys asked some really amazing questions. Bean wanted to know what the silk merchants wife did and pumpkin was intrigued where the stones had gone.
It was a long journey home and all three smalls fell asleep in the car which is unusual these days.

Thursday: the new gymnastics day!
The boys have started a new gymnastics class in a new venue that they can take together. This suits them just fine. A few people have mentioned that the boys might like to do things separate but it just doesn't sit we'll with them and who am I to cause deliberate discord between siblings? After this we went and picnicked in the nearby park, tilgate, with several home ed families. We enjoyed meeting new people and the boys played amazingly in a group of boys all of similar ages. They played their own version of Star Wars for hours. It's the first time I've seen both the boys really involved in a group game. Some families left as the afternoon progressed but we stayed for four hours and just caught the ice cream man at 5pm before he left. It was such a beautiful day. Plum was clearly a lot better but being outside has really helped her.

Friday: a well earned rest.
We planned a day at home and preparations for our trip to nana and grandad's tomorrow to celebrate daddy's birthday. I spent time in the garden and doing chores and the boys played indoor hockey with their umbrellas and a ball and then devised a crazy golf course in the garden.
In the afternoon we went strawberry picking. Bean declared that he wanted to pick strawberries when he's older and pumpkin spent the whole time bounding around the field  shouting "this is the best ever!"

Saturday: we took a trip to see daddy's family and spent a beautiful day with BBQ in the back garden.

The mood has changed some what since the sun came out and we are all happy and relaxed. It's forecast to last a while too, just before school term ends, yippee.