Yule Advent, Day 16-21

Crazy busy.
So busy the mind is a bit of a blur of what this week has consisted of.
There's been more snowflakes made.
More crochet, ooh such fun crochet, which I will share soon.  
A friend's eldest daughter has been over a couple times this week, and we've made fudge, coconut ice and peppermint creams - although the creams were not overly successful.  The fudge tho, oh my the fudge.
I reduced the chocolate and it worked brilliantly, much more fudgelike
We have been to a Christmas Party at a toddler group.

 Rye sporting the crowns he made at the toddler Christmas party.  (over his pirate hat)

Chocolatey face from eating fudge!

There was the seasonal crafts at the Home Ed group.
One of our members is a professional photograher too, and she took photos of the kids, I also asked her to take one of the group too.

By Buss-Burns Photograhy

Giving Rye a new book:  The Snowman which comes with CD.  Which we snuggled into bed and read.  Later we will listen to the CD too.
We watched excitedly the snow falling - although too wet for it to settle.
I've ordered some seasonal dvds for us to watch; The Snowman, The Grinch, Miracle on 24th Street, The Polar Express.
More crochet
More paper snowflakes

And inbetween I've been working.  Minding during the day with the little girl I mind, and through the night for the little boy.  Exhausting, especially as one night the poor wee lad kept waking up crying, because he's was very bunged up.  Burning some Oblas oil helped a lot.  I was rather zonked the next day, and bless Rye he slept till 11am - and even then I had to wake him up!

And now it's 4 days to Yule and still so much to do, I'm on annual leave from 5.30pm 20th December until 3rd January, and phew, I can't wait!

Samhain 2011.

Bit stop and start.  Originally the plan was to have a few friends over for soup, bread, brownies and hot chocolate around a Samhain fire, and naturally this included toasting marshmellows.  Plans were scuppered when Rye announced yesterday he felt sick.  Cue sinking heart.  The D&V bug is hanging around like a bad smell at the moment.  One poor family has had it on and off for a month now!  However, Rye wasn't sick, I think it was just one of those 24hr mysterious fevers that children seem to get now and again.

Annoyingly though, my sinuses are playing up again, and I've been rubbing on tiger balm and popping pills all day, along with sinus rinses and deep breathing and facial massage; anything to get through the day and have celebrate Samhain this evening!

And in the end we managed; it was just Rye and myself, with a friend popping over for an hour after work; but, I have to say we've had a lovely evening.

 Oooh I've been meaning to show you this fella for a while.  I met the lady who makes these, at the Mercian Gathering in September; she's a friend of Sarie.  I bought a little green man at the festival, but I really, really wanted one of her big ones...and some weeks back, I bought him.  He is gorgeous and Rye adores him.

 Our unlit Samhain season table - yes ok, I couldn't resist a bit of cobwebbry stuff with the plastic spiders...  and you know, even though I KNOW they are plastic, still makes my skin crawl.  LOL.

 Our pumpkins.  Rye declared them the best pumpkins ever!

 And oooh they did look very  effective in the garden. 

 Sitting near the fire waiting for his soup and bread. 

 Gotta love a good bonfire.  Sent blessings and love to those who have passed through the veil; Richard, Peter, Mum, Dad, Uncle Fred, Aunt Beatrice, Rye's paternal grandmother, and great grandmother, and to all the ancestors that came before.

 And our lovely sentinels, keeping those naughty spirits away :-)
Later when Jenny arrived, we wrote out those things we wanted to put aside/behind us, and things we hope to achieve in the year to come, and then we burned them on the fire.  Rye, bless him, couldn't think of anything he wanted to get rid of.  He asked for "more fun" for the year to come.  ;-)  I think that is doable.

 Our Samhain season table lit up.

More of our candles burning, lit with friends in mind.

 And what is a celebration without hot chocolate, squirty cream and marshmellows?????   Followed by scary Scooby Doo dvd?

And yes mama indulged a wee bit too.

Happy Samhain, may the ancestors guide you in the year to come.

A Typical Home Ed Day in Photos Carnival

Merry, over on Home Educating the Puddle Chicks, is hosting a "Typical Home Ed Day in Photos", Carnival.

This is our day:

Purchasing this blackboard is money well spent!  Rye has shown a renewed interest in letters recently and this morning, even before my first cup of coffee, he was asking to "learn my letters".   

Progressing to me asking him to draw a self portrait and then write "Rye" underneath....

To drawing my mindie.  This is she, with arms and legs, I was so excited, I don't recall seeing Rye draw arms and legs on his faces up to now.  Indeed, I was beginning to think he'd regressed as I've only seen him scribble for ages!

Then he needed to add hair, and do more face drawings. 

And this one, he asked me how to draw hands, so I showed him a very stylised hand (on the left) and he sort of had a go on the right - 'cept he had run out of space.  Still, noticing these details to add is great and shows how his observational skills are developing.

Oh, and he had to draw a spider of course!    Rye draws spiders a lot, not sure why, I think he just likes the "shape". 

And then he decided to do a puzzle and chose, rather appropriately, the Alphabet Train.  Again, very impressed, he hasn't completed this puzzle for such a long time, and there are some letters he is still a little hazy on - nonetheless he did brilliantly, and completed the train with me only saying which letter came next! 

All that brain power usage makes for hungry tums.  So we made pancakes; Rye measuring all the ingredients out, and then stirring the batter:

 Yum, pancakes with summer fruit syrup and Rye asked for some homemade yoghurt too.

Naturally, one must then indulge in a bit of lounge rally racing, with much banging into chair legs and getting stuck under the sofa.  Yet also a great lesson in cause and effect!

Touch of imaginative, horror play going on here - the finger puppets were being crushed by the theatre..hmmm, not quite sure where that came from, lol.

Making me soup.

Learning about gravity.

"Muuuum, it keeps hitting the floor!"  Huff.
"That's because there is an unseen force, Rye, called "Gravity" that pulls things down, that's how we can walk on the ground - otherwise we'd float."
"Ooooh mum, I'm jumping, gravity is pulling me down".    Falls to floor.

A bit of magic painting - cor quite a bit of science going on here today.

Chill out with Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs, DVD.
I sneaked off upstairs for a quick wizz on the laptop, and ended up looking at Reading Eggs and signing up for a 2 week trial.  Rye, appeared at my elbow with a very excited look on his face, and proceeded to suprise me with his aptitude on the laptop and control of the mouse.  Not only has he been learning the sounds of "S" and "M" he's been learning listening skills too, and doing really well, he had to listen for "S" sound of two objects and then choose the object.  He did remarkably well. 

Teatime - Grilled lamb steaks, mash potatoes and mixed veg with gravy.  (I had planned to do a roast dinner, alas time got away with us).  "What's this?"  Rye asked, chewing on a piece of meat.
"Lamb, you know, the sheep we saw, lambs are their young, and that's what you're eating."
"Oooh, Lamb mummies make lamb for us to eat." 
"Err, yeah, but we kill the lambs so we can eat them.
"Yuck!"  Shoving a large piece of lamb in his mouth!

Reading his Oxford Reading Tree books.  We read two of these and Rye did really well - really noticing what is happening in the pictures, and being able to complete the sentences, and say the word I was pointing to etc.

We sang the tidy up song:
Now's the time to tidy up,
Lets be busy pixies,
Busy pixies hard at work
Tidying everything away.

Rye tidied up super quick, because I'd promised him he could have another ten minutes on the Reading Egg site, if he tidied up quickly, had his bath, cleaned his teeth and got into his pjs.



I confess though, today was a little unusual, trialing the Reading Eggs has meant Rye has really focused on letters and reading.  But, I am a Waldorf, automonous (sort of), child led home educator and today, this is where he went. 

More sun, garden and crochet.

Ahh bliss.
I have actually enjoyed today; and for a little while I even "forgot" about Pete's death and looming funeral, although I don't think a date will be set until next week.

Anyway, today.
Well, another glorious day, incredibly warm - in fact it feels like summer here in Folkestone.  Even in the shade it's pleasantly warm, whereas a few short weeks ago it was warmish in the sun but darn nippy in the shade!  This morning I was minding, and it was a pleasant morning, minimal squabbling and tetchiness over sharing things... indeed there was some excellent sharing/takeing turns going on at times.  Kids really do mirror your emotional state.  Beginning of the week when I was pretty miserable, far too quick to shout, and just a litany of "Don't do that and this" and "Stop!" and well just harranging the kids basically, to the past few days when I've found a bit more balance in my moods, (all hail crochet lol), and the children have played together better, being more cooperative, and when talking to the children I've been more postitive rather than only seeing the negative.  Which makes for a much more pleasant time together.

The crochet project is coming along nicely, I really love the play of the colours as I work it together.  I'm creating each motif and working in ends as I go, so I don't have a multitude left at the end, and I'm joining as I go, which is slowing me down a bit; but it's worth it.  My only concern is that the cotton I'm using is quite thick and doesn't feel as soft as I expected when worked up; so I'm not sure how comfortable it will be to wear.  Does look beautiful though.  I fully plan to make myself one, although i have a slightly different configuration in mind and I've seen some gorgeous, gorgeous yarn I want to make it from.  The Mini Mochi flaming rainbow colourway is beautiful and I think would make a gorgeous shawl, and as it's a thin yarn should also drape beautifully...which is a concern I'm having with the rico creative cotton, aran. 

Today has pretty much been spent in the garden, Izzy and her children came around this afternoon, the older kids did some work at the garden table, lol under protest, before going off to play, although I think they enjoyed my interest in what they were doing.  And then Izzy and I sat and chatted, and tried to figure out where she was in a pattern for a lovely cardy from the Stitch and Bitch book.  Wow, the pattern is quite hard to understand; but I think we got there eventually.  If you have the stitch and bitch book (Happy Hooker), it's the purple cardy in it.    And then it was time for Izzy and kids to go and I had snuggles with Rye, a wee snooze on the sofa.  Lately it gets to half four/five o'clock and I find myself feeling exhausted, I do perk up again, but for a wee while I feel utterly shattered, yet it's too late to have a nap really.  More snuggle with Rye, watched a bit of Miss Spider/Sunny Patch dvd with him and then bed for him and a bit of a catch up on here.

Tomorrow spritz around the house, prepare food for a Home Ed group bbq tomorrow, and then in the afternoon, the bbq at the park across from my house.  Looking forward to it, weather looks like it will be glorious again.. and after that I have a few days off for the Easter break, which I'm so looking forward to and also Rye is visiting is dad on Monday, back Tuesday evening.  I have plans so I don't turn in Miss Mardy Pants - not that's there anything with grieving of course, but I am a bit of a wallower, so keeping busy is good for me; and I am still giving myself time to grieve too - but it does kinda feel a bit in limbo at the moment, once the date for the funeral is known, then I'm sure it will hit me more; so again rather relieved for the bank holiday's and time off from work to give me that opportunity to grieve without the need to put on a "brave" face, as it were, for the kids.

Anyhoos, I'm off to crochet some more :-) 

Poxy Blessings.

Today has been filled with laughter and joy... oh and a bit of baking.  Mmmm perfect.
The children played on the bean bag, laughing and giggling as they fell on it, then rolled off; and generally got into big heaps.

We had fun playing with the jigsaws, and YAH! Rye seems to have passed the "I can't do it," and sulking stage and really had a good go at the jigsaws; most of which he can do now, so time to start looking for more complex ones I guess.  My charge had a decent go too; although she was more interested in holding the cat piece and shouting "CAT!"  lmao.

Thursday's are half days for my charge, so at 1pm, her mum picked her up.  I flumped onto the sofa with a cuppa and the laptop for half hour... and much to my amusement this was my various views as I looked up occasionally;

 I had wondered how long it would take him to figure something like that out lol.

He asked to play with the v'tec reader thingy; it's been sat on top of other book case for months, and today I was feeling magnamious, so I got it down for him.  The shorts disappeared in a frantic dash for the loo.  Rye is going through a somewhat frustrating phase of waiting too long to go to the loo, and thus wetting himself.  Most of the frustration is his because he is getting modest in his old age, and wants trousers on - 'cept he's going through 4 or 5 pairs a day and I simply cannot keep on top of the washing when I can't put clothes outside to dry.  Today has been a mostly dry day though, as I've sent him upstairs as soon as I've seen the slightest hint of a jig or willy holding.

And the poxy blessings?  Well, that's because normally on a Thursday I would be at HE Group with the kids, owing to the spotty lurgy we stayed home, so after C was picked up an afternoon home.  Well, the kitchen called me and as Rye had taken himself upstairs with his cars and the v-tec reader thingy, and after I checked just what he was up to; (cuddled in my bed watching Bob the Builder Dvd and playing with his cars), I delightfully stepped into my kitchen.

Quick tidy up; and then baking; well that was the plan; but then I decided to use up the last of the veggies because my Riverford Veg Box arrives tomorrow.  The plan initially was to make vegetable root soup; it morphed into red lentil curry with brown basmalti rice. YUM.  There is bread dough rising, I'll pop that in the fridge though and bake off in the morning - hmmm fresh bread.

And I was going to bake the lemony shortbread again; but just below that recipe was another for lemony bars.  It is basically a shortbread/buscuity base that is baked off; and then a lemony "custard" poured on top, which sort of seeps into the base, while a little stays on top.  Delicious; tastes a bit like a cross between lemon cheesecake and shortbread.  Very, very rich and tasty :-)

And then after tea; the rain began to pound against the window, the lightening flashed and a huge crack of thunder overhead.  Rye raced to the window to watch the storm :-)  It was a beauty, although over in flash ;-)

Oh Bollo*ks its raining

that was my unthinking exclamation this afternoon because I'd optimistically hung some washing out.  It was nearly dry too; and then the rain came.  My son also heard my exclamation and spent the rest of the afternoon telling me it was raining, "Ohhhhh bolloxs", he would then add.  Will I ever learn to watch my mouth?

Rye has drawn pictures - spiders apparently, played with the plasticine, played with his cars, the leapfrog reading thing, which I hate but of course he loves, I hide it and only bring it out when I'm sure I can cope with the constant wailing "its broken," because he's knocked the memory stick thingy and it's stopped working.  He's watched dvds, requested porriage and pancakes for tea, (we had scone pizza instead), and then much to my surprise fell asleep while cuddling up to me, while watching Merlin on Iplayer.  So he's in bed, asleep, with virtually no effort from me!

Regardless of the weather, we're going out for a walk tomorrow.  I feel all fuzzy head from spending the day indoors and, I guess, spending more time than normal online too.  Need some fresh air to blow the cobwebs away.

The crochet pinfore dress is coming along too, I want to get it finished and out of the way so I can concentrate on other projects, so for the next few days I will be concentrating on the dress, on the plus side I'm starting to speed up as I get use to the tension, and I had a brain wave.  Every 6 rows there are decreases, factor in the tight tension too, it means its been difficult to determine exactly which is the last stitch of the row, so I've had to spend ages counting and recounting to make sure I have the correct number of stitiches on each line, which slowed me down further.... then I suddenly realised that if I use my stitch markers at the beginning and end of each row, I won't have to count constantly, because I won't be accidently adding any stitches, or decreasing when I shouldn't be. 

For someone who tends to work more freeform, following a pattern is proving challenging; I'm starting to see the shape of the dress though and the satisfaction of seeing something almost magically grow, is kicking in.  I can't wait to see it completed :-)

This is the dress so far, the back would have been finished had I not needed to frog so many rows when I realised I had made a mistake...still its coming along and I'm pleased:

P.S.  There's two yarns lengths there because I'm simply carrying the colour not been used up each row, this saves on lots of ends to darn in, (and on yarn too), and actually makes for a sturdier fabric, as sometimes those ends can work free, particularly if an item is worn and washed alot - this way it reduces the risk of any unravelling.  And ok, I hate darning in loads of yarn ends!

Sunny Sands.

Another afternoon spent down at the beach.
This morning I had some phone calls to make etc and then weeeee, we were off to the beach. I was initially a bit dismayed because it looked like the tide was in.. thankfully, it was on it's way out.
I popped Rye in the ring sling and paddled in the water to try and get him use to the sea, but he wasn't very happy :-(

So we sat on the minute bit of sand left and built sand castles, tunnels for his cars, and played with his ball, which because of the wind kept going in the sea. Rye did get it himself once, but a wave came in gently and wet his feet and he legged it and wouldn't go within 5 feet of the sea after that.

Sadly, our time ended all too quickly and we had to head back to the car; Rye was creamcrackered and fell asleep immediately. Rather creamcrackered myself too, so I treated us to chips for tea.

Rye is now watch Tractor Tom again. This has become his favourite DVD and if he can get into my room, it's the first thing he does. Still, I've relaxed my stance on dvd's a bit of late; solong we've done "stuff" during the day I don't mind him putting a dvd on before bed, and as he can only watch it upstairs; it does mean it only happens if I fancy lazing on the bed while he watches :-)

And his verbal skills, wow they have steamed a head in the past week or so. He's now speaking in simple sentences and constantly chattering away to himself and parroting every word he hears so having to be very careful.

Ohhh and final note; I was dead chuffed to see a lady on the beach with her child in a mei tai - I think it was a connecta type, and she was breastfeeding too! Made me want to grab Rye and start breastfeeding him too - solidarity and all that. And you know, I don't think anyone really noticed either. Brilliant!

Success.

Last night bedtime was a bit of a battle with Rye.
For some reason he cried everytime he went to sit in the bath; it wasn't too hot because I use a bath thermometer. I had put in some lavender bathsalts (bought ones) and while I've used once before, I do wonder if perhaps there was something in them that felt icky on his skin - he does have a persistent tiny patch of nappy rash, so perhaps it was stinging that?

Then I asked to clean his teeth and he cried "noooo", whined and wouldn't come near me. Unfortunately, I became annoyed with him a couple weeks ago when he wouldn't stop wriggling as I tried to clean his teeth, so I pinned him with one of my legs. Gosh, he screamed hysterically and since then he's been decidedly iffy about letting me clean his teeth.

I stayed calm and allowed him to come to me in his own time and then as he laid face down; just letting me getting the toothbrush in his mouth I made a big deal of saying "thank you for letting me clean your teeth Rye" and then gave him the toothbrush too - he only chews on it - better than nothing though, I hope. Part of me thinking I ought to make him let me clean his teeth because it's important, the other part of thinks they are his milk teeth and while I don't want him getting any decay; better with milk teeth than adult teeth and taking it gently and not forcing the issue will hopefully get him over his teethbrushing phobia and set him up for good oral hygiene later on in life. I make a big deal when I clean my teeth too, telling him how nice and clean my teeth feel and blowing on his saying "minty fresh breath" which makes him giggle. Fingers crossed it works.

His happy in his own room now too; rather cute, he jumps on his bed and then snuggles down, pulling the duvet up to his chin, bless. Much to my shock Thursday night he actually shoved me out of bed and then turned his back on me and went to sleep. I was stunned and just said "Ok, well night then" but he was fast asleep. When he wakes in the morning he knocks on his door - he can let himself out - yet he knocks, I find it very cute if slightly annoying so I do sometimes leave the door ajar when I check on him before I go to bed so all I get is his padding little feet across the laminate, the duvet being flung off me and then his little body snuggling up to me as he latches on for a feed. I love our morning snuggles.

Sleep for me last night was a wary affair however, I slept with the light on, why, because I scared myself watching Bones. It was an episode about a gorgmon canibal who is killing and eating parts of masonic members and itw as revealed all about the master canibal and apprentice and the making of this gruesome skelton...all that though, not so bothered, it was the end of the episode where a cannibal leaps snarling out of a closet to kill one of the masonic members, and the show ended there. It really gave me a start. Daft I know but I was wigged out, I nearly went and slept in with Rye!