Rye has been really under the weather for a few days, and to add to his misery is his reaction ot his own snot; emotionally and physcially. Poor kid, the snot chaps his face, his lips, making him red raw; and he stresses so much when he's snotty, screaming he's snotty and crying. I am firm with the stress, and instead ask him to politely ask me for a hanky, or for help blowing his nose etc. It's working he is less dramatical about it; still it clearly distresses him.
I forked out a small fortune on Monday picking up remedies; oblas oil, euclyptus oil, belladonna, wealda weather protection cream (fantastic!), manukee honey (ouch!), and other stuff I needed too. So a very expensive trip indeed. It's helped though, Rye is very much on the mend. I have also been making natural lemslip:
apples
1 small lime
inch or so of ginger
pinch of cinnamon
large tsp of manukee honey
drop or 2 of Echinea tincture.
Hot water. (not boiling.)
I juice the fruit and ginger, add the cinnamon, honey and echindea, stir well and then add some hot water to make the drink nice and warm. Oh my, it tastes beautiful, and I'm convinced it's why... touch wood... I'm not ill, and if I do get the sniffles, I'm hopeful it will be a mild dose. Still, my darling germ incubators will undoubtedly lay me low at some point this winter.... we've already had the winter vomitting bug, so fingers cross that one won't be paying us a visit again....... just have to wait and see, I guess.
Today was our fortnightly Letterland day,, at the beginning of the week I really did not think we'd make it today. Last night Rye snuggled up to me and miserably told me he'd prefer to stay home and snuggle today. This morning, he leapt out of bed, telling me he felt much better and could we go to M's after all? **melt** So off we went, along with venision meatballs (letter V today) and Rye's old 6 foot bean bag bed, as I have no room for it, now I've bought Rye his first real bed (a mid sleeper with a slide).
Today was not a calm meet. All the kids were in the throes of colds and coughs, so lots of big feelings, whinging, tale telling and lack of tolerance for others. So a wee bit stressful for the grown ups. Mind, I do feel performing a huge 2 finger salue to Matthew Wright though - I obviously did not see his show, but I've heard via Face book about today's show on Home Education and the usual claptrap sprouted.
The old chestnut of course is Socialisation... it's usually used in the context of children making friends, and seemingly experiencing bullying to toughen 'em up for later life. - Sigh, don't get me started on that crock of shit.... but anyway, socialisation.......... apparently home ed kids are kept home all day, lonely and live in a bubble....
So no, we didn't spend 7 hours with 2 other home ed families, total of 10 kids; learning and working through things like, working together, science experiments, tolerance, give and take, eating together, receiving and following instruction from grown ups other than the parent(s), managing emotions, anger, learning what is acceptable responses and what is not...and just good old fashion play.......... nah none of that.
Nor am I taking Rye to forest school tomorrow, in which there will be a range of children and grown ups, he won't be interacting with people, he won't be learning about the woods and it's fauna and flora, I won't be encouraging him to stretch his wings and experience some independence from me... gosh no, I want to keep him tied to me forever!
Gah. I mean, seriously?
Moving on.
Inspite of colds and coughs, I think the kids had fun; there was a new huge bean bag to jump on, a volcano to make, lava to spew, other experiments with fizzy vimto and palma violets... to see if the violets sweets caused the vimto to spew like coke does when mentos are added to it. There was reading stories, writing on a big blackboard (the kids not me), helping at tidy up time, sharing meals together... and yes there were a lot of tears because everyone was feeling a bit blah and the slightest knock meant the end of the world, the slightest push past, or taking a toy that someone else wanted to play with, was the destruction of the universe.
Rye, being on the mend, has been a little less stressy, and he certainly enjoyed himself. He didn't want to leave this evening, and was upset when he realised we would not be going back to M's house tomorrow.
And in between this all
I've kicked myself again for not writing down how I made the first slipper boot and I've made a list of scrubbies, face clothes, decorated jars, beeswax candles, decorative edging etc for Yule gifts. Started a list of things to do each day for our "advent" to Yule, which here will begin on the 28th Nov.
It's all busy, satisfying and fun............. and to my joy, I've found being more gentle in my parenting, modelling the behaviour I would like to see, and encouraging the children to try again if they speak unkindly to each other, snatch, or are generally stroppy - and by jove it's working. While there's still snatching and unkind words etc; there was far less arguing and screaming at each other today.
So yup feeling very positive.
No comments:
Post a Comment