We Can work It Out

Today has felt like a day of negotiations and somehow we have made it through without incident. Everyone seems tired after the visit from our friends and Bean, 9, woke up still angry with Pumpkin, 8, for not wnting to finish watching Pirates of the Carribean 4, which as it is Pumpkin's means that Bean can't watch it either.

We went out today. We went to Box Hill and met with other Home Educators. They are relatively new families to us who we have only met once before. Pumpkin wasn't keen to get out of the car because he didn't want to walk in the fog. Getting out of the car always takes a while anyway. First we had to pay for parking, then one by one the children decided what they wanted to wear (hat/coat/gloves etc) next i changed Pippin's nappy and then went back to check on Pumpkin. He was adament that he didn't want to come. We talked through the options and negotiated that we would be only an hour and off we went. We walked through the mud and the fog, climbed trees and played on the nature trail. Not one of my children had wellies or walking boots on, in fact, Pippin was even wearing odd shoes. Bean got on really well with one of the other children and asked if she could come back to our house to play. I tried to keep our lot moving so we had time to play in the den area as this is what Bean had said he wanted to do more than anything other. The three families sat in the giant den and ate food and talked about spider's webs. Bean began to recount interesting facts to everyone and then him and Pumpkin moved onto jokes. Before we left we finger painted our faces with some coal that was found in a tree log.

Back home Bean and Pumpkin went to play on the gaming pc and Plum, 5, played with mummy and Pippin, 2. We began with a board game of pirates treasure, then doll's house, cbeebies games, followed by watching Beethoven. Half way through the film she took her tablet upstairs and lay on my bed.

Bean came downstairs and watched Monster's University with Pippin whilst he counted his pocket money ready for a trip to town tomorrow. Pippin played dinosurs and dressing up. Pumpkin and him sat and watched The Loud House whilst i helped Pippin to bed and they also put the dressing up clothes away and got their own snacks. Plum was now lying curled up with her tablet in her bedroom, daddy found the toddler bed mattress for her so she can sleep on that. Plum went to bed in her own room again.

squelch squerch

Wednesday 6th June

Argh! How could I forget to write about our trip to see fav auntie #1 and #2 and cousing B. I uploaded all the photos and forgot to write anything. So, here goes...

It was a wet day and during a break in the weather we took six boys and Plum to the woods for a walk. Unfortunately fav auntie #2 had to unexpectedly go to work (boo) and fav auntie #1 chose to wear walking boots instead of wellies. Fortunately I had made the decision to bring wellies and wear them (both of which could have easily been decisions that I did not make, I could have been in walking boots or even trainers - that would have been disastrous!) There was a lot of mud moving, dam building, dam breaking, river making, puddle splashing, mud sucking, mud jumping, and, of course, getting stuck in the mud, which is where my wellies came in handy. We lost and retrieved two wellies to the pull of the mud. All the boys enjoyed climbing through the woods and the wet, we walked through the area where they were tree felling and we found a den with a door mat in! And just in case you looked at the photo of Pumpkin above and wondered if I had taken spare trousers on our visit...I had not. So on returning to the house he wore his pj's for the rest of the day.

The trip to the woods was sandwiched between, marble run, lego, playing with remote control cars (thank you fav auntie #1) and playing battles, hide and seek and dens outside mostly in the rain. The picture of the empty sofa is a record to show that even when the tv is on (which it was) the call of the wild outdoors and playing with friends can be the more attractive pursuit- all six boys were in the garden.