Tuesday, 12 April 2011

Imaginative play

They are very into their imaginative play at the moment- especially since we handed over the very rickety old shed to them. Currently camping in there- the basket is a 'fire' and the green ring in her mouth is a 'dummy' (!!!!!)- apparently..... A couple of weeks ago I found them mixing up a big batch of mud pie- and then they started plastering it on the walls of their shed - partly from watching daddy plaster- but also because we had been watching some of Human Planet with children helping to mend their mud house walls.......

Baby play is very popular too- with carrying in slings being high on their list. SJ was going to scoot his brother and sister to Playgroup whilst having flopsy rabbit slung on his chest- until he became worried that she might fall out ( and that would be a disaster!)

Wednesday, 6 April 2011

Tired & plodding

Other than the general tiredness following multiple acitivities mentioned in the last post- we have also been having some wakeful night periods with TP- deciding that mummy & daddies bed is better- but then kicking us and trying to perform 360 degree manouveres........needless to say we don't particularly want to bed share with a whirling dervish- so there is some element of returning going on- of course that is dependent on how asleep the adult opening the bedroom door is as sometimes letting him in seems like the easy option..........
The perfect family shot- I nearly have smiles all around and I am where I am supposed to be- out of sight behind the camera!!!

Have been doing a fair amount of life contemplation at the moment. We are feeling a little like we are stagnating at the moment. Ms Masters is in its final push and one thing we have learned is that we are ALL DONE with formal study until the kids are older - it costs too much to family life. We knew it would be hard- as he started it when TP was a month old- but we are ready to have a daddy back now......


Have been doing a little rethinking on the education front and am trying to be a little less suggestive...... Have been doing quite a bit of reading around philosphies etc and I guess ideally would like to go a little more and more towards unschooling (what I really mean is that I don't want to hear myself uttering the words "if you were at school you would be there from 9-3 and all I'm asking is 20 mins now") on a motivational (coersion) front. However I am not sure that I am thinking this as a 'now he can read we can relax towards this approach'......... I guess to a point I am not sure how we are filling the days as they seem to fly past. I seem to have great intentions but not a lot to show -however then I think and say well he hass done a tremendous amount of K'nex ( the latest craze)- in fact more or less the whole instruction book ( 8+ yrs- not bad for a 6 yr old).


I think my priorities for the next few weeks are.....

I'd like to think up a meal planner for us- more specific than anything we have done previously. I'd like to get better at cycling things through my cupboards/freezer and spend less time thinking 'what shall I cook tonight?'

I'd like to address some of the house things that are bugging us- a little decluttering, general maintenence- then we can think about some bigger projects.

I'd like to start coming up with some longer term goals than merely getting to the end of Ms Masters.

I'd like to revisit our priorities for shopping choices as I feel we have slipped since the recession/economic downturn (whatever the trendy phrase is) began.