Little Star Homeschool

Sometimes I have days when my feet barely touch the floor. I do too much I am sure, homeschooling, gardening, going out to work and working from home.... So about once every few weeks we fall back on takeaway food. I know its bad for us but what choice do I have when I am exhausted.

Well now I have a choice and a very good one. Real food, healthy food I can order in over the internet and it works out cheaper for a family meal than Dominos! And they deliver nationwide using a network of local suppliers. How cool is that.

Wiltshire Farm Foods extensive menu has something for everyone – from hearty, traditional favourites such as roasts, pies and stews to more exotic dishes like Duck in Brandy Sauce, Coq au Vin and Fillet of Trout with Prawns.

And if you fancy something sweet, a huge array of delightful desserts await to tantalise your taste buds…from crumbles and puddings to cooler, refreshing choices such as cheesecakes and trifles!

Choose from more than175 delicious dishes and enjoy great food as often as you like, every day, or as a special treat – the choice is yours.

You can enjoy scrumptious dishes like hearty Beef and Stout Pie, tender Lamb Steak with Ratatouille and creamy Coronation Chicken.

Each dish is balanced, nutritious and full of flavour, with carefully controlled levels of salt, sugar and fat.

They can provide details of meals ‘free from’ nuts, dairy, onions etc and also cater for a range of special diets. Look for the colour-coded symbols indicating diabetic, lower fat, reducing, moderate salt, gluten free and vegetarian options.

Convenience is one of many advantages of Wiltshire Farm Foods. Meals are so very easy and quick to prepare. Meals arrive frozen, in sturdy plastic trays, ready to put in the freezer. When you fancy something to eat, it couldn’t be easier, you simply heat your meal from frozen in a matter of minutes and enjoy.

John said to me today quite wistfully "Robert's nearly six, theres only 10 years left 'til he's sixteen."

10 years!

Is that all?

We have only got 10 years to teach him EVERYTHING.

10 Years to teach Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Maths, History, English, Geography, Geology, Economics, IT, Cookery.....AND all about how to survive life in the adult working world.

But we've hardly scratched the surface and in many subjects he's way ahead of his state educated contemporaries. How do they manage?!

*Takes a deep breath*

OK, easy now.....

On Tuesday Robert and I went to Tesco, he asked me to buy him a pineapple. They were half price so I agreed thinking I would end up eating it rather than him. He then asked me to turn this strange spiky fruit into homemade ice cream. I dug out the ice cream maker and froze the bowl. On Wednesday we chopped up the pineapple, blitzed it, added sugar and double cream and created the best ice cream ever! And Robert loves it.

Then Robert started asking me about gravity.

Gravity is a force which tries to pull two objects toward each other. Anything which has mass also has a gravitational pull. The more massive an object is, the stronger its gravitational pull is. Earth's gravity is what keeps you on the ground and what causes objects to fall. Gravity is what holds the planets in orbit around the sun and what keeps the moon in orbit around Earth. The closer you are to an object, the stonger its gravitational pull is. Gravity is what gives you weight. It is the force that pulls on all of the mass in your body.

I've found the perfect cure if you are feeling down in the dumps. And to celebrate the return of big Brother (which I vehemently loath and detest) a return to the good old days of innocent but mindless violence on TV.

We spent the evening making paper planes from the Paper Plane Kit that came with todays Guardian newspaper. Designs were contributed by Nick Robinson and Mark Bolitho. Here's one of Nick's designs if you missed todays Guardian, just click the image to see it full size.

I came home from work yesterday to find this strange concoction in the kitchen.



I wondered what it was and Robert was keeping quiet on the subject. An empty sugar packet was a clue. Then John came in and said he had wondered why Robert's hands were blue earlier. He thought it might be felt pen.

So here's the recipe - don't try this at home!

Half a packet of caster sugar (oh yes not just any sugar but my baking sugar)
Several drops or maybe a splash of blue food colouring (I don't know the exact amount)
Some seedless grapes (mushed up of course)

Mix well with bare hands and grin when its done.

Robert has spent most of today sleeping and watching a bit of TV because he is poorly. The usual symptoms, runny nose and sneezes yesterday and general malaise today.

Monday night I had a dream. I dreamed huge rabbits were flying, using their large ears as helicopter blades. They flew towards me through a beautiful field of daisies. On Tuesday I told Robert about this dream because I knew it would make him laugh. After the giggles subsided he said, "you know Mummy. You had the dream because you watched Curse of the Were-Rabbit and that had a giant rabbit in it and Sonic Heroes and that has a rabbit that flies with its ears in it."

Thank you Sigmund.

Bugguide is a great site for bug fans. Its focus is US and Canada insect life but worth a look at if your kids are doing a project on mini beasts.

Bugguide is hosted by Iowa State University Entomology and is easy to use when beginning to learn about species classification. The photos are high quality showing the detail you need when studying insects.

The community is run by an online community of naturalists who enjoy learning about and sharing our observations of insects, spiders, and other related creatures.

Robert's latest mathematical quest is to know the names of every 2 dimensional geometrical object. If you are curious too, here they are (courtesy of Dr Math):

1  monogon                  (Monogon and digon can only
   2  digon                     be used in rather special
   3  trigon, triangle          circumstances. Trigon and
   4  tetragon, quadrilateral   tetragon are alternatives to
   5  pentagon                  triangle and quadrilateral;
   6  hexagon                   the adjectival forms trigonal
   7  heptagon                  and tetragonal are more common.)
   8  octagon
   9  enneagon

  10  decagon
  11  hendecagon
  12  dodecagon
  13  triskaidecagon
  14  tetrakaidecagon, tetradecagon
  15  pentakaidecagon, pentadecagon
  16  hexakaidecagon, hexadecagon
  17  heptakaidecagon
  18  octakaidecagon
  19  enneakaidecagon

  20  icosagon
  21  icosikaihenagon, icosihenagon
  22  icosikaidigon
  23  icosikaitrigon
  24  icosikaitetragon
  25  icosikaipentagon
  26  icosikaihexagon
  27  icosikaiheptagon
  28  icosikaioctagon
  29  icosikaienneagon

  30  triacontagon
  31  triacontakaihenagon
  32  triacontakaidigon
  33  triacontakaitrigon
  34  triacontakaitetragon
  35  triacontakaipentagon
  36  triacontakaihexagon
  37  triacontakaiheptagon
  38  triacontakaioctagon
  39  triacontakaienneagon

  40  tetracontagon
  41  tetracontakaihenagon
  42  tetracontakaidigon
  43  tetracontakaitrigon
  44  tetracontakaitetragon
  45  tetracontakaipentagon
  46  tetracontakaihexagon
  47  tetracontakaiheptagon
  48  tetracontakaioctagon
  49  tetracontakaienneagon

  50  pentacontagon ...
  60  hexacontagon ...
  70  heptacontagon ...
  80  octacontagon ...
  90  enneacontagon ...
 100  hectogon, hecatontagon
1000  chiliagon
10000  myriagon

One of the things we like to do when we are not in the garden is to trawl round the net for any freebies we can find. Looking through the exhibitors for the Chelsea Flower Show this year we came a cross a charity courtyard garden. They are trying to encourage gardeners, especially children by giving away a free pack of pumpkin seeds.

The garden is based on a children's book called Where The Wild Things Are. This is one of those truly rare books that can be enjoyed equally by a child and a grown-up. If you disagree, then it's been too long since you've attended a wild rumpus. Max dons his wolf suit in pursuit of some mischief and gets sent to bed without supper. Fortuitously, a forest grows in his room, allowing his wild rampage to continue unimpaired. Sendak's colour illustrations (perhaps his finest) are beautiful, and each turn of the page brings the discovery of a new wonder.

The wild things - with their mismatched parts and giant eyes - manage somehow to be scary- looking without ever really being scary; at times they're downright hilarious. Sendak's defiantly run-on sentences - one of his trademarks - lend the perfect touch of stream of consciousness to the tale, which floats between the land of dreams and a child's imagination.

We took Robert for his first swimming lesson today. He was excited before we went, nervous when he first got into the learner pool and more relaxed as the hour progressed. He enjoyed getting used to the water and towards the end was confident enough to slide into the water from the edge without using the steps. John is an excellent swimmer so he is teaching Robert at the moment and we plan to go once a week. I am a non-swimmer unfortunately but I like to float near the side lol. Saying that, as little as I did my stomach muscles ached when I got out of the pool.

The lifeguard asked how old Robert was and then why he wasn't at school. So we explained about home education and had a moan about the state of our local schools, I guess they see lots of school kids at the baths. Indeed when we were in the cafe that overlooks the pool we had the chance to watch a class in action. Organised chaos was the word. Swimmers swam, non-swimmers floundered and those in-between messed about. Three adults supervised this group of a dozed or so kids. It took me back to when I had swimming lessons in the last year of junior school, I started out as a non-swimmer and as I said I still am. Another addition to my growing list of areas in which school failed me. I won't let this happen to Robert.

On the way home we chatted about swimming. John said to Robert, "Uncle Steve says he'll take you scuba diving when you've learned to swim." Robert replied, "I can't swim with SHARKS!"

Where did that one come from?

The weather seems a bit topsy turvy this year. April was hot and sunny like May usually is and May is wet like April should be. Well, I've always been the sort of person who can make the most of a bad situation so this week we made a rain gauge.

Its just a two litre plastic lemonade bottle cut in half. The top half inverted to make a funnel to catch the rain and prevent evaporation if the sun does shine. Insulating tape holds it together and also makes 10mm markers to measure rainfall.

We will plot rainfall on a graph weekly. With all this weather it should be a good experiment.

Yesterday Robert read about tornadoes in this book about Weather he wanted to know what tornadoes looked like in real life so off we popped to youtube to find clips of twisters. He was in awe of their power and quiet relieved we don't have them in England.

Today I mentioned to Robert how tall he was getting (122cm) he can reach all the light switches in our house now. His reply, "but I am not as wide as a bush."

Went into town yesterday to get a 3D graphics card for the computer and found a twin pack of Learning Ladder CD Roms for Robert, two discs - years 1 & 2.

We had to buy the graphics card so john could play his Call of Cthulhu game which he bought on Tuesday. On trying to run the game he discovered our onboard graphics chip just wasn't up to the job so he got a Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro

So a £19.99 game cost altogether about £95 to run. I said we could take the game back to the shop. John didn't agree, it was obvious the computer needed upgrading. Its got to be a man thing.

We stopped for lunch on the Thames Embankment, cheese and tomato sarnies and coffee in the fresh air you can't beat it.

We pointed out the OXO building, ST Pauls and I explained to Robert that this was where his Nana (my mum) walked to and from work and also where my dad courted her. That would have all happened in the 1940's.

The OXO Building

A relic of London's industrial past, the OXO Tower building has been inventively remodeled to engage with the busy cultural and commercial life of the city.

Once lined with grime encrusted warehouses, London's South Bank has gradually evolved into a modern cultural and commercial riverside strip. The stalwart functionalism of industry has given way to a heterogeneous assortment of buildings baying across the River Thames. Just east of the beton brut grandeur of the National Theatre and the execrable King's Reach Tower lies the Oxo building, preserved like an archaeological specimen as the sole reminder of the area's past life. Originally constructed at the turn of the century as a Post Office generating station, it was extensively remodeled as a meat warehouse between 1928 and 1930, acquiring, in the process, its famous Art Deco tower. Punctuated by a trio of glazed apertures that might look like innocuous noughts and crosses, they actually spell out 'OXO', the name of the British meat products company. Designed by A. W. Moore, this brazen appendage cunningly circumvented restrictions on advertising along the river and has now assumed the status of minor London landmark.

After a long period of uncertainty, the original building has now been inventively remodeled for mixed residential and commercial use. Five intermediate floors provide 78 flats for Coin Street Secondary Housing Association (occupied by people who either live or work in the local borough), while the lower three storeys have been refurbished to house designer studios and small speciality shops. On the second floor overlooking the dramatic sweep of the river from St Paul's Cathedral to Charing Cross Station, is a cheerfully demotic cafe designed by Apicella Associates.

Lisa brought Harry up from Wales for a visit for a few days, I forgot how exhausting babies can be. Harry is 7 months old now, starting to push up ready for crawling and very lively and wriggly. The visit was a complete surprise and Robert was thrilled to see his sister again.

I have given my Freebie Blog a revamp. new template and new discount codes.

I have also been busy redesigning JS Discounts this is a site I designed for my brother in law's company and he's very pleased with it.

John has started a separate gardening blog on Wordpress. Hopefully it will make things less complicated to have all the gardening stuff in a new blog plus we can see if we like Wordpress. You can take a look here: John the Gardener Its a bit plain at the moment until we get the hang of the style sheets, widgets, etc. so bear with us and keep checking back for improvements!

I hold the small of my back with one hand,
resting the other on the spade I sigh.
My son is five and making mud pies on the path,
I'll have to sweep it later and the washing isn't dry

I've planted rows of vegetables and scattered flower seeds,
my nails are cracked, my back aches and I need to prop the line.
I look at my son who's advanced to castles
and am taken in wonder, he's me
and I am my mother looking bewildered at the mess.

I rub my back and think, have I time for a cuppa?
Before I sweep away his little empire
and take his bare mud caked feet into the bath
and wash the dust from his hair ready for another day.

You may never see another photo like this...

A quick snap before the train arrived. We boarded the train and within two minutes a train announcer told us flash photography was forbidden. It was really weird too being told off like that, made me feel paranoid in a big brother is watching you kind of way.

Heres why, the full article on the London Underground on wikipedia explains.

Photography for personal use is permitted in public areas of the Underground, but the use of tripods and other supports is forbidden as it poses a danger in the often cramped spaces and crowds found underground. Flash photography is also forbidden as it may distract drivers and disrupt fire-detection equipment. For the same reason bright auto-focus assist lights should be switched off or covered when photographing in the Underground. Due to the recent heightened security situation any persons taking photos of any kind on the London underground network are liable to be stopped and questioned by police under anti-terrorism laws, it is vital to speak to the station supervisor before using any photographic equipment. You can contact the LU film unit to purchase a photographic pass. A student permit for a month costs £25.00.

Oops.

Yesterday we hopped on a train to London. Robert wanted to go on the tube and see the lines featured in Underground Ernie Although I have visited London before a trip on the underground was a first for me too.

Our route: Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square. Change to the Northern Line for the Embankment where we had lunch. Back on the tube, Circle line to St James' Park. Circle Line to South Kensington for the Science Museum. Return to St. Pancras via the Circle Line, this time taking the longer route through Paddington to pass through as many different stations as we could.

The first train was very crowded and hot, standing room only. Robert wasn't too happy but the journey was short and quick. The next trains had seats available from time to time and weren't crowded at all. We had fun trying to 'beat' the ticket barriers. Robert's travel on the tube was free so he had to go through the automatic barriers in front of me. I got as close to the barrier as I could, reaching back for the ticket as it popped up. This meant that I invariably got my bottom trapped in the closing barrier as I tried to get through it. Some stations had an attendant to swipe the barrier to let kids through but most didn't. The day rover tickets John and I used were good value for money at £10.50 for both, giving us unlimited travel in Zone 1.

John helped Robert with the escalators, they are faster than those at home and I learned that you have to stand on the right to let people in a hurry overtake. I have never climbed so many stairs before. My legs are still aching as I type.

I've not been at work today so it was time to build Charlie's Rocket as featured on cbeebies Charlie and Lola section and the fantastic Charlie and Lola book Whoops But It Wasn't Me

It took us weeks of collecting cereal boxes and yogurt pots. Its taken all day to make but what a rocket we built.

We used:
3 cereal boxes
7 yogurt pots
4 sparkly pipe cleaners
1 lemonade bottle (500ml)
half a roll of sticky tape
some insulating tape (red)
half a roll of extra wide tin foil
sweet wrappers (assorted colours)
clear cellophane
corrugated card (for the base)
black tissue paper
glitter paint
1 sheet of sticky stars
2 types of glue - PVA and a glue stick
1 silver paper crown left over from xmas
1 picture of Charlie and Lola

Features: Robert added the go-faster stripe and I added the green, red and silver 'flag' stripes on the nose cone. John designed the fins (if he hadn't come in the room at the right moment the rocket wouldn't have had fins at all). I was responsible for the design of the rest of the superstructure. The rocket also features an airlock, two portholes showing Charlie in the top window and Lola in the bottom window. Robert supervised, sticky taped, painted and glued.

And I still managed to top up and aerate the compost bin, dig some compost into the garden and hang 3 loads of washing out.

Now what shall we do tomorrow?

Found this on You Tube. Kenneth Williams finest hour lol.

Robert's bird, made in Photoimpact.

We poured some milk onto a side-plate and dropped in three different food colourings (red, yellow and blue). A small drop of washing up liquid was drizzled onto a cotton bud. The bud was dipped into the milk in the centre of the plate. We observed the colour swirls as the proteins and fat broke down.

The flowers turned out really well. Yellow coloured the petals quickest but red gave us the most dramatic veining.


Robert and I did some baking today, made anzac biscuits, flapjacks and choc chip muffins. I have struggled through the day a bit after I fell in the bathroom yesterday. I have a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my hip, cuts on my arm and foot and my ribs are sore. I'm still debating whether to go to the doctors. My self-pitying side wants x-rays and pills and my logical side knows the response will be the usual prescription for Ibuprofen and a scathing look from the GP that makes me feel like a hypochondriac. I don't know why I fell either, one minute I am stood up, I bend down to pick something up and then down I go. I remember the room spun round once bfore everything went into slow motion. That was fortunate because if I had not sensed the fall I would have knocked myself out on the radiator. Instead I twisted to avoid it thus hurting my ribs. And of course me being me I trotted of to work half an hour later thinking I was OK. It was when I laid down in bed last night everything started to hurt. John cooked dinner tonight and has been helping with a few esssential jobs around the house, other things will have to wait til I'm feeling better. robert kept himself busy making pictures from sticky shapes and glitter and building himself a den.

I've just switched this blog over to the new blogger, so things may or may not be a little bit disorganised for a couple of days while I get everything back in order. Overall I prefer the new blogger, its just a real pain having to re-do the sidebar widgets. I'm off to look for some new blogger hacks now to give it some style lol.

The petals are coloured after 24 hrs...more tomorrow.

Robert got out Carol Vorderman's English Made Easy Ages 5-6 tonight which he's been working through for a while. He was filling in labels on a picture when I suddenly noticed how neat and accurate his writing has become. He no longer hesitates and is almost on the line. His letters are small but still a little squashed together. He has also mastered writing eights.

I know its early but I've never been known for my patience so we've started doing some science projects a little before the actual start of Science Week. The first experiment involves some carnations, three vases filled with water and the addition of three different food colourings. We chose red, blue and yellow. This is the photo for the beginning of the experiment. I asked Robert what he thought might happen to the flowers and he answered in a roundabout way that they will drink the water and change colour according to the water they are in. I will take another photo tomorrow.



After setting up the flower experiment it was art time.



And here's one he made earlier...

Robert and I stayed up on Saturday night watching Charlie and Lola DVDs in the big bed and of course the lunar eclipse. There were plenty of wow's as I explained what was happening to the moon.

Took some books out of the library for Robert yesterday and bought a new fridge, the old one is quite literally blowing hot and cold. Having to buy chilled food almost daily til new fridge is delivered next week.

Robert's been busy painting and adding and doubling numbers while I've been rearranging our "library" - we have twelve (I think) bookcases which I am organising to make a quiet reading area on the landing and thus freeing more space in the office so Robert can have his own desk. We've installed a chest freezer too so I can store more bread from Tesco when I do the main shop rather than paying convenience store prices through the week. The chest freezer will also mean I can double up when cooking stews, shepherds pies, curries and chillis and freeze portions for the weekends when we John and I find ourselves too busy to cook something substantial for ourselves.

For national science week in March I am looking out some simple experiments to do with Robert, will post more about them in a couple of weeks.

Robert's drawing is improving. He produced this self-portrait today.


He also wrote this poem, he began with making a fish sound with his mouth then writing what came to mind.

At first we only told the people that mattered we were home educating Robert, family and closest friends. Recently we have been telling the wider audience of aquaintances. I must admit I was suprised by the enthusiastic response and the nods of agreement when I explained my disappointment in the current state educational system, other parents admit to feeling let down by their child's school and teachers and wish they had had the time and /or dedication to home-ed. Some asked lengthy questions about teaching him higher mathematics and the pedantic rules of English grammar and others asked the simpler questions like "what do you teach him?" and "how do you keep him interested?" I must look the truly proud parent when I reply "I just teach the rules and concepts, he learns from the world around him because he is receptive and naturally capable of grasping new concepts."

Now he is learning to multiply, divide and I am introducing fractions. We take a little bit of time each day phonetically spelling out medium length words. Today he made a desert island and yesterday a collage. He is snoring very loudly as I type this, he's caught my tonsilitis.

Almost forgot...John was making some notes in a notebook and Robert wanted to see. "Oooooh, Daddy" he said " you have written a lot. You deserve a hug for that" and gave his Daddy a big hug.

Its a new year and yes we are still here, home-edding. Sorry peeps for the gaps between posts but life is so hectic now I rarely sit at the puter. Robert is coming on in leaps and bounds especially with his maths, adding and subtracting small numbers with ease and getting to grips with tens up to millions. he has a fundamental grasp of 3 dimensional shapes and his knowledge of the natural world simply amazes me. his handwriting is gradually gaining in legibility, as with most boys its not his fave activity and he would rather use the puter sometimes than paper and pen. hes a happy chap tho and grasps new subjects quickly and has a phenomenally good memory.

Another reason I have been busier than usual is due to the arrival of my first step-gransdon (if thats the correct term) Lisa, my step-daughter gave birth to a healthy baby boy last October and the phone rings nearly every day with her news, worries and general moans and groans. She lives in South Wales now with her boyfriend but she still managed to visit a couple of times before Christmas and we are thrilled at becoming grandparents.

And yes, we have Guardian posters everywhere!!! Its the new wallpaper.

Johns maternal grandmother passed away a couple of weeks ago and while it wasnt unexpected, she was ninety-four, it was still an emotional time for all the family.

Meanwhile I have been going slowly green, hehe. Onwards and upwards from composting to switching to a green energy supplier for our electricity (its generated by wind turbines I am told) and running about the house changing all the bulbs to lovely energy efficient ones. We are looking at installing a wood-burning room heater later in the year and improving our homes insulation.

At present I am getting over a bout of tonsilitis, The winter viruses have hit me hard this year and for a good couple of months I have hardly been well, the doc put me on yet another gruelling course of antibiotics. I cough as I type...Robert however has a cold for two days and is up and running again, ahhhh what it is to be young *sighs*

I will blog more often....I'm sure I will, if I keep telling myself one day it may come true.

Thursday it began to snow...so we threw snowballs...


Made a snowman...


Felt how cold it is...


And just looked in awe at it...

By saturday it was all gone. Robert said "snow is my favourite and my best mummy."

Went into town today to fetch some new trainers to wear for work mostly because I discovered my boots leak when I went out in the snow the other day! Popped into the RSPCA charity shop and the sales woman asked Robert "not in school today?" I just quipped back without thinking really "he's home educated" and started a quick conversation concerning the legal ins and outs of home ed. I could have made an excuse and said he was off sick but why shouldn't we be proud of what we do?

Roberts learning to read new words from The Cat in the Hat Dictionary by Dr Seuss. He can read a lot of stuff from this book however its still filling in a lot of gaps in his reading knowledge.

Robert and Daddy spent the rest of the afternoon playing Harry Potter on the playstation while I made a curried shepherds pie for dinner.....experimental cooking using Indian spices to cook from scratch rather than buying ready made curry sauces to reduce our intake of trans-fats, sugars and artificial additives.

I'm off work this week...a much needed break because in a couple of weeks I will be covering my colleague when she goes into hospital for an op. More shifts : ( but the extra money will be useful.

I'm thinking of growing some veg in the garden this year, I read an article by Monty Don in last Sundays Mail and he claims it can be done in a small garden and we have a small garden lying fallow after the winter. I like flowers a lot but veg somehow seems more progressive towards a healthier lifestyle and when I was little gardening with my dad we grew some amazing stuff. I can still remember how good home grown runner beans tasted.

We had some snow on Friday, now the sun is shining and its looking more spring like. I better get the vacuum cleaner out now and try to find the carpet lol

I woke this morning with the 'lurgy' sore throat, fever, lethargy...yuk! Still, there's no lying in bed feeling sorry for oneself when kids are around and on pancake day? Never been known! So guess what we had to eat today : )

Robert is asking what day is it again, hoping for the answer to be monday so he can go to the Muddle Puddle group again. I have marked the next meet on the calendar so he can keep track of the days.

Meanwhile he is expounding on his theories regarding plumbing and sewage, he reckons toilets must like what goes into them (I think this is because he doesn't consume things he doesn't like.) Then he chattered on about the consequences of not having a bottom. Cats do not have bottoms I am told "only tails."

Yesterday Robert and I went to our first Muddle Puddle Group over in Sheffield. After initially sitting on the sidelines with his coat firmly on, Robert soon joined in. Its the most relaxing afternoon I've had in ages too. When we got home he was quiet and reflective, he gave Daddy a rundown of the main happenings such as who cried and such. He wants to go again. Yay!

Its worth commenting on the difference I noticed in home-ed kids when compared to school-ed kids, John's first two children (now 20 and 21) were school educated and they and their peers were very different in their treatment of adults and class-mates. Yesterday I was watching mixed age kids play without conflict and talking to adults in a completely confident and relaxed manner. There were no 'crowd-control' issues that overwhelm the classroom and children used their initiative to develop games. Older children naturally shepherded the little ones, this wasn't just a group of kids but a team of like-minded individuals working together. Now that's something you will be hard-pressed to find in the adult world.

Home-ed kids do not learn the adversarial attitudes bred in schools, there's no 'them and us' divide between kids and adults, yet they understand who is in authority should they need help or a child is getting into danger. Now then, if they do not need to defy authority because it is not eroding their self-esteem then these potential teens will not need to rebel against authority in order to build the false ego and will grow to become well-rounded adults comfortable within themselves and their place in society.

We bathe under the midnight starry sky
and sweep careless drops of mik from our hair
We sigh and marvel at creation every day
and in our wonderings create so much more
Are we godesses woven from aphrodites loom
More than that we are daughters and mothers
This silent sorority who sit with our cheeks pressed
staring listlessly at the rain watching the window cry
And chase away the shadows with a song
We share our dreams and delights for the days ahead
Whilst innocently dabbling in water, earth and ink
Wiping away the heavy dew pressing us down into slumber
we are fond of this life with all its passing drone of hectic noise
We are pleased with who we are.

Robert created this on Ulead PhotoImpact after watching me use it countless times. He built the image up from set shapes coloured with bucket fill and multivision and defraction filters added last. I think its stylish and shows he has a a good eye for colour.

This afternoon Robert and I tidied the master bedroom, well...I tidied while he bounced on the bed. Later I attempted some Soduko - I've only been doing them for about a week so I am a bit slow and I get stuck. On commenting that I was indeed clueless Robert came out with the broad statement, "6 is just a 9 upside down." "yes it is" I replied adding the ubiquitous "very clever." Not to be outdone he continued, "they are both actually curly numbers. Thats all." He wandered off, I went back to my puzzle.

What can I say, http://earth.google.com/ is fantastic, totally addictive. Spent the morning taking a virtual cruise of the Norfolk Broads. Chesterfield is a bit blurry though but they are working on it apparently. We can't see our house : (

John is a great fan of hypnosis and spotted this rather garish book with its red and yellow cover while shopping in WHSmith. It was a rare impulse purchase and one which has changed his life. He was a 20 - 30 a day smoker who had made many attempts over 30 years to give up the habit. He tried patches, gum, willpower, herbal cigarettes, Skoll Bandits (remember them), snuff and even Fishermans Friends (throat lozenges).

The book is 123 pages long and divided into two parts with a hypnosis CD. The idea is you read the first part of the book, listen to the hypnosis CD then read the rest of the book. The first part makes sobering reading, it is full of facts and figures of what smoking does to the body and the mind. Statistics abound on the number of people who die horribly from the dreaded weed and also for good measure includes a nice statistic on the number of people who need to have limbs amputated as well. Pretty shocking and the old smokers addage "it won't happen to me" is exploded once and for all. Susan Hepburn does insist that you really must want to give up smoking. This is the most important point of the book. Without this commitment you will not stop smoking. The CD follows a pattern which is common to many hypnosis CDs that is the "talk down induction" where the subject is put into a deep state of relaxation which calms the conscious mind thus allowing the hypnotic commands to be delivered straight to the subconscious where they will be acted upon without question. After this the induction is reversed to bring the subject back to full awareness. I should mention that whilst under hypnosis one is still aware of what is going on around them and should an emergency arise one can wake up instantly. This is mentioned on the CD and is one of the things one must look for when purchasing, although it is fair to say that any professionally created hypnosis CD will have these instructions.Suprisingly on first using the CD John wasn't impressed, it seemed to simple. He had previously given up smoking for two years using Paul McKenna's method but obviously lapsed. Pretty soon however he began to realise that the beauty of this CD lies in its simplicity. No jargon or age regression which in effect takes you back to before you smoked, just the author telling you that you will not smoke again. He used the CD late at night and read the rest of the book before going to bed. He woke next morning with no desire to smoke and hasn't smoked since. After two days he picked up a cigarette put it in his mouth then put the cigarette back in the packet and said "what is the point of that, I don't know why I ever smoked in the first place." Its been 4 weeks now since he quit and he is quite happy to sit with smokers, never feeling the urge to ask for a cigarette and has no desire to 'borrow' cigarettes if they are left lying around. He has not compensated by snacking, munching on mints or any other habit replacement 'therapy.' The second part of the book reinforces the first, continuing in a similar vein. It is now two weeks on and he has not had a single craving for a cigarette, cigar, pipe, nicotine gum or patch.

He says that he has forgotten how to smoke. I guess its my turn next.

'Sis' has come to visit...this is Roberts step-sister by John's previous marriage. Robert waited for "one hundred hours" and now she's here and he's happy as a sandboy. Since sis moved to Wales to live with her boyfriend she has been sorely missed by her brother. Its been a good year since he saw her last and has had to make do with brief chats on the phone. All is well.

I actually remembered to get some meat out of the freezer for tomorrow's dinner. We had to make do with pasta tonight. I get so tired with the extra shifts at work, we are short-staffed as it is and because I am the reliable one who never goes off sick I work when the others are off.

Will do baking with Robert tomorrow, he's took to liking carrot cake. I am a sneaky devious person when it comes to getting him to eat his veg. You'd be suprised what I can hide in a muffin!

I really don't do winter all that well, all i want to do is hibernate with a good book and then I get loads of extra shifts at work. Its been an absolute nightmare since I got back off holiday in October and this blog has really suffered as I have tried to maintain my other e-interests. I am back, I think.

Well, to catch up...Robert's reading has come on in leaps and bounds. I picked up 5 Dr. Seuss books in my local remainder bookshop, the cat in the hat, the cat in the hat comes back, fox in socks, hop on pop and green eggs and ham. His reading age is now about 7 years 3 months. Reading words like sometimes and phrases such as upside down with ease. I can recommend Dr. Seuss wholeheartedly.

Now we are 4 we are seriously into Charlie and Lola and have added the word 'ablsolutely' onto the end of every sentence *sighs*

We have 'fessed up to being home schoolers among some of our friends who have asked if Robert is 'in school yet' reactions are varied to say the least from pure joy to downright sarcasm. Some people seem incapable of greeting the unknown with positive feedback.

I've also been working my socks off for some cash to fund our next holiday on the Norfolk Broads doing consumer reviews on Ciao and surveys. Ipoints have funded some more Dr. Seuss books from Amazon and a new DVD player. We've had a horrendous couple of months for electrical breakdowns, first the washer/dryer and thats essential equipment, then the DVD player followed by the printer.

If you are interested in joining Ciao and earning a few bob reviewing consumer goods click the banner plus if you sign up and get going I earn a bit more cash for books!

I will upload some holiday pics later because blogger is having an off day today.

Debs

I've booked our annual hols, boating on the norfolk broads here we come....Robert of course asks every morning if we are going today. He has also told me a shortlist of things we will need to take, books, deck shoes, lifejacket, milk and a picnic. We have printed out a calendar and pinned it up so we can cross of the days until we go. I am particularly looking forward to getting away because they have given me extra shifts at work again, someone's off sick and another on holiday...again, and because I was standing there when the sicky was rung in it seemed obvious to my boss to ask me, he's a simple fellow *sighs* still the money is always useful.