This was May...

So another month gone...and that 40th birthday is getting closer...
Here is what we did this month:

Birthday !!!
At the beginning of the month Little Acorn celebrated her 3rd birthday and got SO many new toys including a playhouse and a slide.
Nanny and Grandad Bill came up to spend the day with us.
We all had a very lovely day.

A few days later LA had a party and Sophie, Joseph, Scarlet, Libby and Morgan came. We played pass the parcel and musical bumps and had another fantastic day.
Then the next week we went to Josephs party, and we had fun on the bouncy castle.

Farm Park












We spent a very sunny day at the Farm Park. Looking at and feeding all the lambs, goats, ponies and ducks. And playing on the playground too...

Sticking and Gluing
We've done lots of sticking and gluing (as usual), and painting, and cooking and drawing and playing.




And finally,
LA ended the month, calm and happy, after her disastrous liaison with Aspartame yesterday.

And as parents we have made the decision not to send LA to school next year, and to look seriously at the possibility of HE following that.
For me, it was a huge relief and a very big scary decision, but having made it, I also end the month calm and happy.

Peace returns

Peace has returned to the Acorn abode. After 24 hours of disruption - tears, tantrums, shrieking, crying, sobbing, nightmares, clinging to Mum, laughing which dissolves into tears and speechtofasttocomprehend, we are kicking back and relaxing.

I think I may have finally convinced Rich that LA has a problem with aspartame...although, please don't hold your breath, he is a man and as such will probably require further proof before he is totally convinced. Big and middle acorn need no further proof, I don't think they will be trying to smuggle in sweeties for LA anytime soon.

LA is now playing happily with water, pouring and splashing and smiling.

Middle Acorn has got a job at the local chippy. She seems to be enjoying it. I am very proud, as she has dyscalculia and really struggles with numbers - but she's managing to work the till and work out the change.

Big Acorn has been revising all day for his Biology AS on Monday, his "worse" subject, then its History on Wednesday and its all over for another year.
Phew!

Stickers, Aspartame and Hair

We went into Leicester today. I hadn't been in since Christmas, I hate cities. We went in search of stickers, plain old stickers in different shapes and colours that you can make a picture out of.
Could we find them? No hope. Every other thing you can imagine in a sticker - but squares, triangles and circles? Nowhere. If anyone knows where I can get some from - please let me know!!!

Then we went to Subways for lunch. Rich decided that it would be a good idea to let Little Acorn have some fizzy drink, I negotiated the cola to lemonade - but I knew I should just have put my foot down and said NO! We have had a distressed manic little girl all afternoon.
She appears to have several "foods" that she cannot eat - all of them contain dodgy chemicals. Aspartame is particularly bad - it always makes her mood miserable and her behaviour hyper.
Food additives and colourings seem to have the same effect. When kindly Nanny slips her some sweeties, we have dreadful trouble.
Its not usually an issue, because we don't really eat food with additives in at home.

Then we went to the hairdressers, LA has only ever been once before and found the whole thing very exciting - unfortunately at that point in time it was too much for her and she flung herself on the floor and threw a full scale tantrum the moment we walked in - her first tantrum ever.

Eventually she had her haircut and while we waited for her big brother to have his cut, she ran round and round and round the hairdressers, shouting. She was calmed down by a long extended cuddle, which seemed to remind her that she was safe and we played "i-spy" for 30 minutes.

When we got home, she threw her dinner across the table and went to sit alone on the hall. She let me join her and we talked about how she was feeling angry and sad and confused, and how she was running around and getting very angry. We talked about fizzy drinks and sweeties and how they made her feel this way and how we would try to avoid them in the future and be like Sporticus and eat Sports Candy.

I suspect we are in for a long long night...

At the front of our house...

Our front garden is an oasis!
OK so that's not quite what the neighbours call it, but nonetheless, it is.
Our entire road is concrete hell, all the front gardens have been paved over to make way for the compulsory 3-4 cars each house has. But our front garden is green from the front border to the house.
We also have a pond that is swarming with life. Its only diddy, our garden is only about 30ft square, and our pond is about 5ft by 4ft, but we counted 54 frogs in it last year. We have the occasional newt looking back at us, and bugs by the million.
We can't see the road, there are too many trees and bushes blocking the way, its a beautiful wall of green.

Concrete has an advantage though (not that we'd even consider it), you don't have to cut it. Today we have been cutting back the Hawthorn (Ouch), Ivy (itch) and Honeysuckle that is threatening to overthrow us in some kind of ecological military coup.
The ivy had already made its way through the double glazing in the hall... so it needed to be stopped!!

Little Acorn has been marvelling at all the wildlife this has turned up, spiders, woodlice, ladybirds, earwigs, things with far too many legs and threatening looking beetles (why do they carry a shield if they are not expecting a fight??).
We have discovered mice in the garage (we have 5 cats...who have now been placed on "find it yourself" rations), a big fat toad and hedgehogs.

How did they all get here? They must have survived the trek across the concrete jungle to the safety of our garden.

We have also talked about the rhubarb, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, black and red currants, beans, tomatoes, Hazel nuts and herbs herbs herbs that we have growing there.

Aside from that, while Dads been building his shed, we have been to the library. We listened to the stories and poems, and got some more books. We've listened to happy music and sad music (as identified by little acorn) and talked about accents. We live in Leicestershire, but I was born in Suffolk and Rich in Kent, so we don't have local accents and it has been noted!!!

Disempowerment (I rant on...)

This post (RANT) was inspired by a post on http://playingitbyear.homeschooljournal.net/2007/05/27/disempowerment/

I went to comment - then realised my comment would be more of a take over bid than a comment, so I'll post it here.

I drive a lot in my job, and as well as looking at the wonderful views I get to look at the back of a lot of lorrys, so I think a lot... and recently I have been pondering the fabric of society...oh yes, deep thinking...

I was thinking about breastfeeding (not that I do that anymore), but it's one of those topics that people seek me out to talk about, along with the moon, giving birth, and psychosis.
Anyhow, there I was pondering breastfeeding and this image of shelves in a supermarket with pasteurised human milk struck me squarely between the eyes.
Isn't it odd, how unacceptable that image is.
Yet, we feed our young milk from cows everyday. Milk that is designed for cows is acceptable, Milk that is designed for humans is disgusting.

and so I pondered on...
I breastfed my little one for 2 1/2 years. At the end, I had a lot of pressure put on me to stop by my family and I kept it secret from the rest of the world. So back to the imagery then... if it is so disgusting for a human to feed their young then we need to stop all other mammals doing so too. Stop those little lambs helping themselves to their mothers milk, stop those calves from sucking , ban the boob, the udder and all other mammary organs. Ban them all.


As you can tell, the journey was boring and my poor passenger was now regretting coming with me... as they often do...

Obviously with my recent reading about schools and Home Education my imagination took the short trip there... and off I went...why is it the world thinks I will not be able to provide my daughter with a decent education? How dare they even suggest that? I'm a well qualified professional, with an absolute desire to spend as much quality time with my daughter as possible and No, breakfast time ("GET UP" "EAT UP" "HURRY UP") and dinner time ("WAKE UP" "EAT UP" and "GO UP TO BED") will not be sufficient. They are not taking my child away to sit bored in a classroom all day, she is my child, and I am capable.

Passenger politely points out beautiful sunset...

Baking with the Cat in the Hat

I've spent the morning baking. I love baking, hate the washing up - but LOVE baking. This morning I baked 20 celery and onion pies. After half an hour out of the oven, I had 3 left. Honest!
I have bred a house full of vultures, greedy greedy vultures.

Little Acorn has been playing with her Big Acorn and Middle Acorn (who has now calmed down and thinks HE might be a good idea, and can she "help"...?). This is after 20 minutes looking at LA books!

and Nanny White (named after the colour of her hair) sent LA a "Cat in the Hat" CD. LA loves it, she has been quoting it all morning:
"You should not be here when our mother is not,
You should not be here, said the fish in the pot".

A star in the making!!

Catch up time

Hello!! According to the stats - people read this...Hello (Yes you...)

Friday 25th May
In the morning we printed out some pictures of our Farm trip and stuck them on a big piece of paper. LA was very enthusiastic about the gluing, so I haven't been able to write on it yet, but I have been instructed on what I should write!! Girls are really bossy. Then it was Tescos for lunch.
Big Acorn had his A2 Geography exams, and thinks he's either passed or failed...
I went to work in the afternoon, had a horrid shift trying to communicate with a GP from Hell.
I think GPs get worse...

Saturday 26th May
Little Acorn has spent the morning with Daddy while I have been at work clearing up the mess from yesterdays saga.
She is noticing numbers everywhere and demanding to know what they mean, houses, lamp posts, drain covers... she's right, they are EVERYWHERE... and luckily for me, it was Daddy's turn to explain them all today.
They've been playing with shadows this afternoon and since I got in at 4 I have read every book in the house - at least it feels like it.
The cress we planted on Wednesday is now ready and has mostly been eaten by little acorn.

and its half term - so Daddy is here all week...mostly building a shed and hopefully putting in a new toilet.

Preschool targets and funding

I have just spent an hour at LA playschool learning about funding and the targets they set. As I am one of those people that has to digest information....I haven't yet formed an opinion.
Basically, they have a list of "goals" that they observe the child obtaining and then document this. They structure some activities so that they can see if the child is able to obtain the goals, and when the child receives a funded place (the term after they are 3 - so September...) they concentrate on this a little more.
That fact that I had read these goals and were aware of the documents that they based their care on surprised them a great deal. I found this very sad. Maybe I'm a nerd who reads everything...
I asked how much pressure they put on a child to achieve these goals or take part in the activities - they say very little. I explained my concerns about pushing learning activities putting children off learning, and they did seem aware of this. They like to encourage the activities, but can see that if the child is not interested then the child will not learn and they will not get to tick it off on their form and so do not "push" to complete the activity.
They asked me which school she would be attending - and I explained that at the moment we were not expecting her to be attending any. But that this was open to review and we couldn't say for certain. They have given me a handout, which has the "correct letter formations" on it.
They did seem very aware of HE and not at all down on it as a concept. We talked about the opportunities for socialising and learning with others that were around locally and the playschool leader said that if I needed some advice or to get hold of documents or contacts in the LEA, to let her know and she would help.
Meanwhile, I have been gently opening the way with Little Acorn - explaining to her that not everyone goes to school and some lucky children get to stay at home with Mummy and do lots of fun things.
I have to work this afternoon, and so will absorb this information as I am driving around Leicestershire.

Meanwhile - a real shocker: I have just seen Middle Acorn in the co-op with a BOY!!!
I went to speak to her, but she pretended it was all normal and fine and didn't acknowledge the fact she was with a BOY at all. I didn't feel it was appropriate to start asking him about his intentions....at least, not in the co-op!!

A day on the Farm

We went to West Lodge Rural Centre (a Farm Park) in Desborough today. We are now completely exhausted...
LA has had a wonderful time playing on the play equipment, we even managed to spend a little time looking at the animals!! The weather was beautiful and the park is very friendly. We fed the goats and the sheep and made a huge fuss over the Shetland ponies.
But LA liked the play area best of all - so we spent most of our time there.

Conflict!!!

Oh dear - here we go again...

Middle Acorn (15) is not happy. She doesn't think we should even be considering HE for Little Acorn (3).

I don't want to write too much - as her argument is that she has thoroughly enjoyed her school days. I am very glad she remembers them that way, and I would not ever wish to change that - therefore I cannot sit here and write about how I remember her early school years.

Middle Acorn is a very lovely and kind person, and I would never wish to upset her. I'm very glad she has happy memories from school.
Big Acorn (17) is more resigned to our strange ways - he knows that we will do what we will do and although he is happy to express his opinion (mostly concerns about having no friends and dressing in anoraks), he is not trying to change our minds.

Its difficult - we can't argue back and this is frustrating for Middle Acorn as she cannot understand why. We have always been prepared to give her a rational for our decisions, and this time, we won't.


So my Darling Middle Acorn - please forgive us for not having this discussion. We do love you and value your opinions very much. Its good to know that you have so many happy memories of school and its lovely to know that you want your sister to have the same experience.

I suppose its about remembering that different isn't necessarily worse.

Different can be good too.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was an Orangutan who couldn't remember his name, so he asked the Platypus "whats my name?" "Balloon" said the Platypus. "No, that's not right" said the Orangutan. So he asked the Kookaburra "whats my name?" "Boo" said the Kookaburra. "No, that's not right" said the Orangutan. So he asked the Numberjacks "whats my name?" "Aboo" said the Numberjacks. "Oh Yes, That's right" said the Orangutan, "Thank you". And they all lived happily ever after.


By Little Acorn, aged 3 years 2 weeks and 2 days.

A Busy Sunday

While I've been sleeping the morning away LA has been very busy with Daddy. They have apparently walked the dog and bathed her after she rolled in poo, done some painting and planted out the beans.
There is no sign of her slowing down yet, as she insists I play Doctors, we dye some sand and make some castles, and as Holly still smells terrible she helps us wash her again...
After dinner, she demands a bath and finally falls asleep on the sofa!!

And tomorrow morning between 5am and 6am - we'll start all over again.
Life is Good!

Medium Acorn has a "Hissy fit"

We received some information through the post today about Home Education, my oldest daughter (15) flew into a rage when she realised that we intended to "deprive her sister of the best years of her life".
I wasn't really expecting that - I need to digest it, calm down and ponder a while... more on this later I suspect...

I'd like to be a Flamingo Please.

I'm on a night shift tonight, hoping that the 'phone stays quite for a little while longer so I can finish this.
We went to Josephs party today, little acorn didn't know anyone there (she had only met Joseph once!), but that didn't hold her back at all. Oh no, it was a party and she intended to enjoy every moment, from the face painting to the bouncy castle and musical bumps to chocolate cake.
She doesn't quite understand musical bumps - or at least if she does, the dancing is so much fun that the lack of music isn't going to stop her...
When asked how she'd like her face painted - she said she'd like to be a flamingo. I was accused of setting her up! Me!! I didn't even know she knew what a flamingo was.
It was good seeing her with the other children, who all knew each other from nursery. She certainly didn't lack any social skills or confidence.

All Grown up

Here is my littlest Acorn, all dressed up ready for Playschool. I can't believe how grown up she looks. She has a lovely bruise on her cheek, after a fall while playing hide and seek with Daddy. She was 3 earlier this month, I will blog her birthday another day.

Grumpy Mum

Wednesday - I like Wednesday. Its the only day of the week that neither Little Acorn or I have to go somewhere. We usually go out somewhere fun, have lunch and eventually return home to smile at the housework I "should" have been doing.
However...Little Acorn has developed an allergy to sleep. Its a terrible affliction which shows itself in overexcitedness at 3am. For the last week, we have been joining in the dawn chorus, albeit not very tunefully!!
Little Acorn likes the early hours, and the late hours. In fact she doesn't and never has been one to sleep. She only started sleeping through the night in the week before her 3rd birthday. So even though a whole nights sleep is still something of a novelty to Rich and I - it has been cruelly taken from our grasp, before we could get used to it.
Therefore, I have been "Grumpy Mum" today and we have not left the house. She has on several occasions tried to kiss my tiredness better, and while I went to the bathroom first thing this morning, she laid the breakfast table without being asked (not bad for a 3 year old...).

Instead of our usual outing we have been cooking bread and cheese biscuits.
Oh and eating them of course.

Making Sense of the World

A song for you from the little acorn:

"A mouse lived in a window in Old Amsterdam,
A window with a mouse in, it was so exciting,
He sang every morning, how lucky I am,
Living in a window in Old Amsterdam.

"I saw a mouse"
"Where?"

"There on the stair"
"Where on the stair?"
"Right There"
"A little mouse with clocks on,
Well I declare, going clip clippety clop on the stair""

Playschool

Little Acorn goes to Playschool (although they call it preschool), she started this before we began looking at Home Education. She goes two mornings a week, and she seems to enjoy it.
We jumped in the puddles on the way there, and arrived looking as though we'd spent the night in a field! We got a few disapproving looks from some better dressed mothers, but I pretend I don't notice.
After playschool we planned to make playdough, but we live in one of those houses where the ingredients go missing, so after a frantic search for the cream of tartar, we abandoned the idea, I'll have to go and get some though - little acorns don't forget.

Falling from the Tree

This week we have been exploring the option of Home Education for our littlest acorn. Its been a strange experience - very uplifting and yet quite stressful, and so far all we're doing is considering it......it has however dawned on me loudly and clearly that having explored the option of Home Education, I have raised my expectations of schools. This could be a problem as they weren't meeting my lower expectations anyway.
I know that this is what I want to do, I have always resented the state taking my children away to educate them, and giving them back tired, irritable and hungry at the end of the day. I want to continue doing what I am doing now, showing her the world and helping her take part in it.We have some time to make our decision as our daughter has only just turned 3, and although locally the expectation is that we will send her to school next September, we have already decided that is not going to happen, well- not then anyway.