All together now

Monday morning and Plum, 5, is off to Little Verse with SGG and SGS and had a lovely time, Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8, watched Pirates of the Carribean: Journey to World's End. I mostly sat and watched it with them in between replenishing drinks and snacks. Pippin, 2, was lethargic and cuddly and sat on my lap the entire morning until she finally fell asleep just as the film was ending.

By this time Plum was home. She put on turbo to watch and then sat in the dinning room playing with her ice cream and cake making playdough sets. Next she put on Nanny McPhee three times, she has begun reciting parts of it now, she continued playing playdough all afternoon too. At one point she was taking prints of dollies hands, feet and face and then covered his head in playdough.

Pippin woke with a temperature and we breastfed and cuddled a lot more whilst watching nanny mcphee. We then went and had a look at different programming websites for Bean. We booked marked all the ones that have been recommended to us and began playing on a few of them. We got a lot of suggestions from a fb group called My Unschooler is Interested In. We got plenty of suggestions for us to investigate and find what works for him. His current favourites are Scratch and Codecombat. We also found roblox and i left him and Pumpkin playing games on there.

Plum and I sat on the sofa and cuddled in the evening whilst Pippin had a bath and bed. Bean and Pumpkin had a bath and were watching Dude, That's My Ghost. Pumpkin came downstairs to play a minecraft card game with me that he got for his birthday but it was no where to be seen. We looked for it for about 30 minutes before we gave up. We will resume our search tomorrow.

Robin Hood

I've got a rather exciting knitting project on the go atm. After our busy week of party preparations, I haven't done as much work on it as i would have liked and last night sat up later than i should have knitting. consequently feeling very tired today. Plum had a disturbed night. tossing and turning and crying and refusing milk and cuddles. it was very frustrating and saddening not to be able to help her. After two hours she finally settled about 4.30am and peace was restored. She woke about 7.30 and daddy very kindly got up with her.

It has been an odd day today. mostly because the boys and daddy went on their own separate adventure to Littlehampton to try an archery session. I love archery and would have loved to have joined them but we decided that with only two weekends free between now and mid August I should take advantage and go and run some errands in town. Mostly this meant go to the opticians and order a new pair of prescription glasses and a second pair of day to day glasses (it always makes me nervous that i only have one pair) It was good to go without the boys who can make the sales assistance understandably nervous with their handling and activeness and it is too long for them to sit even if i take distractions. I was rather pleased with my purchases and they should be ready just in time or our big trip over the pond.

Plum slept for nearly two hours and i took to doing some sorting and organising. Plum still woke unsettled and seemed to be missing her brothers and the general hub bub of our home. I played with her for an hour and then she had milk just as they arrived home. She was much improved with their arrival and was particularly pleased to see daddy.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with the boys playing remote control cars and Plum playing piano. We watched some of the videos that daddy took when we were at Legoland and ordering the caterpillars for the butterfly kit that Bean's friends bought for him. There seems to be a lot of wild crazy behaviours going on this evening.

Nutcracker

Thursday 7th June


Today started off with a little den building which now includes the bunting decoration! It is a bunk bed style den with living and sleeping space also on the top of the table, hence the cushion and blanket. A mamoth game followed whereby they went on holiday to the beach. It involved lego and train sets and cushions and blankets and cars. The lego men on the train tracks (picture below) are waiting for a miracle to rescue them before the train comes. It was interesting to watch how Pumpkin is now using voices for the people and talking to other characters in the game to make suggestions and talk through ideas. The game lasted amicably for nearly 2 hours. I was rather grateful for this as I am amazingly tired after a week of being out every evening and poor Plum has been carted about with me so it has made her tired too.

The rest of the day involved: a little colouring;  some music making; and after a brief trip to the shops for batteries, playing with the new remote control cars that fav auntie #1 bought him for his birthday; a one hour long feed from Plum; some reading of books; a marathon tv session in which I realised that Timmy the sheep suffers from unfair labelling and peer pressure and adults that clearly don't understand 3 year olds, the importance of play, how to talk to or relate to children and I started contemplating the message it was givung my children; And all this was interspersed with many a nut cracking as Bean had found a bowl of nuts and after much searching for the nut crackers we spent many a moment eating nuts today: hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nut, cashew nuts, pistachio nuts and peanut butter.

Climb every mountain

This morning was just one of those mornings when everything had to come out of every cupboard and toy box but nothing was played with. I have yet to understand the need for this as a child behaviour but apparently it must be necessary. The photos do not do justice to the devastation that was every corner of our house.

We headed off mid morning to Arundel to join home ed friends and took a walk around Swanbourne lake. It was beautiful and perfect for Bean. Being with others really spurs him on to do things he often muses he wishes he could do but will look at and not do them. This is the case with climbing and I think having others do it in front of him enables him to see that it is possible and gives him the confidence to have a go. Every time I turned around he was climbing a new tree or roots or hill. Pumpkin even joined in for a while.

We also saw lots of wildlife. Pumpkin made me take a photo of one of the ducks so that we could 'find it in a book when we get home.' We found a dead rabbit which fascinated the boys, guts out and flies. Pumpkin and I spotted a coots nest with baby coots in it. I've never seen baby coots before, they have red heads, who would have thought? There was also a baby slow worm and a honey bee nest. 

Pumpkin sharing his ice lolly

The walk around the lake was followed by an ice-cream, a play in the play park and a non paddle in the river. Although others did go in for a paddle, we decided that it was too deep and stood and watched praying that they didn't slip and fall (they didn't.) Bean was really interested in the fact that the River Arun flows here as this is the same river that runs past our house. Must must must look it up on a map for him.

Pumpkin was getting tired and we left the group in the river. Bean decided that he was very tired and couldn't walk anymore. I couldn't really blame him as he had walked, climbed, run for most of the day. He was also saying his arm hurt. A very unpleasant 55 minutes followed as we walked the 1/4 mile to the car along a road with no path. We had to stop three times just to wait for Bean to stop crying and shouting and walk with us again. He out rightly refused to move even when our friends caught up with us and offered to walk with him. It was helped a little however when I remembered that I had a snickers bar in the bottom of my bag (peanuts for energy) and a bottle of water and finally Pumpkin let Bean jump in the buggy whilst he walked a little. It was a real test of my patience but I honestly had no other options and as much as I felt like screaming and shouting at him I knew it would only make things worse. Lots of deep breathing, counting to ten and admiring the beautiful setting that we were in. (This was the mountain that I had to climb today!) Fortunately Plum was asleep at this point. I later discovered an enormous bruise on his arm as he made me inspect it when he was in the bath and it was still hurting. It's got a bit of a bump to it too.

For a hot day Plum had very little feeds and very infrequently until we got home and then she had two huge feeds within an hour of each other. Plum and I shared a bath tonight, which was lovely and our bed time rhythm was slightly disrupted by Plum's late afternoon marathon sleep and Bean's sleep on the journey home.

Through the Looking Glass

Pumpkin's bed consists of two mattresses (one longer, one shorter - it is an extendible bed) two sheets, one towel, two waterproof squares, one duvet, one pillow. In the past week this collection of material has been used to build a camp, a beach, a mountain, a house, a shop and a castle. To the untrained eye they all look much the same but to the boys they are all very different. Today's effort was a castle and also included two bean bags.

We have a very busy week this week and so today we ditched our normal Tuesday routine and headed into town. A few weeks ago my glasses fell apart and today I had an opticians appointment to test my eyes and buy some new ones. I had warned them that I would be bringing three smalls with me and they were amazing. Bean choose to sit outside the room and draw, Pumpkin choose to come in with me and Plum very dutifully slept for the whole appointment. The optician explained everything to Pumpkin, answered all his questions and even let him press a few buttons to move me up and down in the chair. They calmly let the boys try on different glasses and play with the mirrors. It was generally a really positive experience except for the man who wanted the boys to show him how they could 'sit nicely' which I found slightly amusing after my post yesterday. 
We had totally the opposite experience in Argos. Totally unhelpful and unwilling to accommodate my request at all.

This was followed by a library trip, mainly so I could feed Plum and the boys routed through more books, we read about five and they played on the computer. It amazes me how confident and able Pumpkin has become in just the last few weeks. And as it was dry and warm enough for us we picniced in the nearby play area.

We had to go and buy Grandma a birthday present and then we went to Horsham Museum to look in the art gallery. As Bean and Pumpkin have been churning out art work recently I thought it would be nice for them to see how artists display their collections. Pumpkin was a bit tired by this point and mostly moaned but Bean loved it. The display was a photography one taken by a professional pilot whilst in flight, so various views from above, sky lines, sun rises/sets and cloud formations. Bean was really interested in what each of the photos was called and was very articulate about the ones he liked and why.

This morning Bean had asked how do we make jam tarts so we ended our day by making some...actually we ended our day by eating some, yum, yum.

Country house

Pumpkin woke very early this morning. It must have been about 6am, which is the earliest he has woke for a long time. By 6.20 both him and Bean were downstairs playing. Poor daddy mumbled something about them always getting up early on the weekend and dragged himself out of bed. I was woken a 7.20am by Plum, who had had a remarkably good night. I have missed a couple of days of posting this week because it is our 9th anniversary. Last night we went out for a meal and at the last minute decided to leave Plum at home too as she fell asleep just as we were about to leave and so giving us a minimum of three hours before she would wake. As it happened she slept for nearer six hours which is the longest stint she has done for over a month. She then woke and only had half a feed and has continued to only have half a feed at every feed today. Definitely rocking to her own tune.

The boys had some magnetic toys out this morning and in between a lot of negotiating and discussion Bean built some great designs and shapes including, 'the school where you [mummy] used to work,' 'the cross where Jesus died,' 'a wonky house.' Pumpkin was experimenting with how many ball-bearings he could lift on one magnetic stick.  

The National Trust had free entry into some of its sites this weekend so we took the opportunity to visit Polesden Lacey. I used to work up that way and have heard lots of good things about it. We packed a picnic and headed off after church. At the entrance there was a special tent filled with activity ideas for the children to do and free binoculars to borrow. They had a range of ideas for different ages and interests and all of them seemed quite open ended and flexible, no right or wrong answers just observing and collecting. I picked up an activity for the boys but as is often the way they weren't overly interested. They like to find their own way around places and exhibitions, however they are often useful for me as a guide for what to look out for that I can point out to them! Shortly after our picnic an enormous rain cloud rolled up. We dodged the rain showers by looking round the house. The boys were particularly fascinated by the working gramophones, the bathrooms, and the children's Edwardian dressing up clothes.

But what I really wanted to see were the gardens and grounds. There were tulips everywhere but due to a number of factors including the rain and the wind, which Plum was not enjoying in the sling, and Plum wanting a feed and the boys being really over tired, we didn't get to see much of the grounds. I did get to see a tree creeper however.