First day of 'school'

Today's our first day back to school!!!! Er, I'm not sure that 'school's' the right word as what we do certainly doesn't fit into anything anyone outside of our home would recognise as school, but still - you get the jist. The girls have had a bath and I'm procrastinating and putting off as much as possible. Sylvie is soooo not up for doing anything that taxes her brain and it sounds like Bea's helping herself to rice crispies. Help. I need motivation!

summer?

is it really summer? I feel as though the seasons are lying to me. Every day seems to bring more rain and with theta incomes thecancellation of plans and routines that generally help to keep me sane!!! when plans are left unfulfilled I worry that things won't get back on track and that our home ed group might disband leaving the girl and I socially isolated. I know fine well that this is probably an over reaction to something quite normal but still it is a worry. I daren't invite anyone 'round for a play date as the carpets are such a mess. Annabelle just can not grasp that she needs to wee and pooh in the toilet!!! It's so frustrating and feels like it might be never ending. Bea's fairly wild at the moment which doesn't make things any easier. All in all I'm a bit fed up and certainly feeling the isolation which is. Down side of home educating the ladies. It would be so nice to have family near - just somewhere to go every now and again for a cup of tea. My dads house just does not count!

Where are we going with this?

I've not blogged for ages and I think it's because I hate the way Blogger seems to crash when I've spent forever uploading lots of photos. It's really doing my head in. I was thinking of starting a totally new blog with WordPress but instead of doing that I'm going to keep typing here, but I'll probs not be so hung up about including loads of photographs! What have we been up to? Loads, now that I come to think of it but nothing related to formal academia! The girls started ballet class last Wednesay and so far they're excited for tomorrow's class. Sylvie is loving climbing. She's going every Sunday and each week she climbs higher and higher. Bea, Anna, Mark and I trudge along with her too. I watch in awe, Bea draws and Annie just runs 'round being Annie - sometimes a pain but usually a pleasure! The girls are loving their lego. Bea uses it to make animals then the animals each have a part in a story. Sylvie is refusing to do any kind of 'school work' proclaiming that it's boring and she hates it... hummmmm, we'll have to see about that! I've been thinking about school - but not for too many minutes of the day for the thoughts to trouble me. I still don't think it's the right thing though at this point I admitt that the space it would give me during the day would be very welcomed. We've had dreadful weather. MArk took the girls to his parent's house last Thursday and couldn't make it home until Friday evening due to flash floods, fork lightning strikes and general infrastructure failiure in the face of serious adversity. Only one person was killed - thank goodness no more lost their lives. Bea's trying to write. Sylvie's trying NOT to read OR write anything. We have an allotment but we've not visited it much yet. I need a rocket up my backside. I'm seriously underwhelmed by life and totally lacking motivation at present. I'm just so bloomin' TIRED! Onwards and upwards eh.

Ferdinand

We rowed Ferdinand and although I thought this would be short and sharp, it was actually really good fun and we managed to spread the row out over a week. I tried to make a time table and more importantly, tried to stick to it!!! I used the weekly planning sheets in the back of the FIAR manual and you know what, we did it!!!! Instead of my usual habit of blasting everything off in a couple of days we did a little bit each day and covered all of the main subject areas. All good! I've already blogged about this once but my computer was hungry and ate everything I wrote, so, here we go again.... ... ON the Friday before we started reading Ferdinand Mark and I took Sylvie to a tapas bar for dinner. We had a lovely time. The waiter helped her to count to 10 in Spanish and she really enjoyed chosing what she was going to eat and looking at the paintings on the wall. I felt a bit guilty about leaving the other two at home with dad but still, it's not like it's going to happen again for a longgggggggg long time! I think I might just have to spam you with photos 'cause I can't remember what we did - it's been such a long time! We've been camping and Mark's had a weeks holiday since we rowed Ferdinand! The next three photos show the girls writing and acting! We printed off some fantastic drama cards to go with Ferdinand. I basically flashed a picture card at the girls and they acted out what was happening, 'Ferdinand smelling the flowers' etc. They loved doing this! Blogger has decided that it doesn't want to upload any more photos so this will have to do for now.

Sometimes things just don't work out....

I woke up full of plans this morning... well, full of plans to make plans. I intended to start rowing The Story of Ferdinand with the girls, however, Annabelle's bowels had other ideas. Yes, you got it, another poohy post. My lovely little girl did a couple of huge poohs in my bedroom. I couldn't believe it! I filled the carpet cleaner with water and pine fresh toilet cleaner, banished all the girls to Sylvie's room to play and set to work on the clean up mission. All is now fine, I, however, am no longer feeling like doing much of anything which is a shame! We're watching a film and we've made plans to go to soft play with some buddies this afternoon which should be fun. It's pouring down outside and I'm not one for puddle jumping so I think we've made the best of what the day has given us. '... this too shall pass'... one can hope, eh?!

Urgh, what's that smell?

Well, today has quite literally been a bit shitty. We met a lovely friend at soft play this afternoon. Two minutes after we got there Bea went to the loo and had pooh everywhere so her knickers went in the bin. Half an hour later Anna had a cheeky pooh in her pants which spread EVERYWHERE so her leggings and knicers went in the bin... then Bea had another pooh ON THE FLOOR. My goodness.

... it doesn't last for long

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the minute. So much to do, so little time and all that jazz. Some days I feel as though I need another 8 of me to be able to meet the needs of these children, but there's just one of me! Then I found this clip........... ... and it really made me think! This too, shall pass and I'll miss the chaos, the fighting, the playing, the awe, the mess, the games, the laughter, the screaming, the play dates, the drawings, the learning, the huge boat loads of love and everything else.