Sunday 27 January 2008

I haven't posted in about a week. I've a funny old week, I have struggled in coping with Lily's behaviour and with Patch the puppy, I have not coped well with either of them. To the point that if I have not turned things around with Patch and Lily when they are together, within a month, then I going to have to find Patch a home. It really saddens me that I have reached this decision, as I had made a promise to my self, that come hell or high water, that yet another pet would not come in to our home and then have to be given away for one reason or another. It seems to have been this way for the last 16yrs and it used to devastate me every time we had to See them go. But in my infinite wisdom I thought that now I was living on my own with Lily, that no one would be able to decide that the pet had to go .... not sure this is making sense. But anyway I feel really down that I have come to this decision.



Patch is fine with me, sometimes puppy boisterous, nothing out the norm, but when Lily is in the house and the same room, it's another story. He just won't leave her alone, jumping up , pulling at her clothes, tries to grab her feet as she is walking, if she is sitting he is jumping on her all the time. Lily won't take control and I think Patch has realised this and is therefore taking control of Lily. Hope this makes sense. And to be quite honest I've had enough of all the shenanigans, it had me in tears several times over the last week. I have had a chat with Lily about and we are going to try and find a puppy training class , some where in the County Durham area, so if any one knows of a local puppy class, feel free to post a comment and let me know.

I'm not sure if my coping skills where so low with the stress of life in general, I 'm sure the fact of how well I'm coping / not coping has a huge impact on Lily and her behaviour or if I'm stressed weather I'm just less tolerant. Who knows!

Any way It is Lily's birthday today, she is 7yr. Wow where has the time gone. Lily had her birthday party yesterday, she had a trampolining party, there was her self and 11 of her friends there. the age range was from 19 months to 11yrs, so very interesting the mix of ages but all got on really well and seemed to really enjoy it. My son Ben is 15yr really enjoyed him self playing David Bailey ( or in his words, Jimmy Olsen, the photographer out of superman) and taking photos of every one. Lily received some amazing gifts from her friends, Window art, a red shaped heart bag and barbie accessories set, a jewelry box in the shape of a chair and pouffe, a child's guitar. joke book and another bag, a selection of craft things and one of her Friends made her a plant with flowers in it made out of some kind of felt, all the presents were amazing. Lily has had a fabulous weekend.

Sunday 20 January 2008

The kids unplugged project this week was toothpicks. http://www.unplugyourkids.com and when I told Lily, she became very excited and said she knew exactly what she wanted to for it. Lily had decided that she wanted to make a star mobile. We drew a shape of a star on paper as a guide, then she filled the star with glue, then laid the cocktail sticks one by one in the shape , then left it to dry. We haven't quite finished yet as she wants to peel the paper off and then paint it. Then she wants to hang it in her bedroom. Lily doesn't very often come up with ideas of what she would like to do, but she was really enthused with this. It also tied in nicely with her routine visit to the dentist, which is on Tuesday. So we ended up having little chats about dental hygiene and the uses of a tooth pick. I really must get my self along to Claire's and look for my camera cable, every one's blogs look so nice when you can see the photo's of what people have achieved. So impressive.

Thursday 17 January 2008

Ok I feel that today's blog is a challenge, as in I don't really know what to say.



We have had quite an interesting week this week. Firstly on Monday Lily and I met up with five other local home educating families, in a place called Action Replay, which is a huge soft play area suitable for children of all ages, mainly birth to 12yrs. Not sure that I know many 12 yrs that frequent a big soft play area, but most 2 - 7yr that I know love these kind of places. Lily loves meeting up with her friends here and running of energy and steam and supposedly the parents can chat to each other, if they are not too busy running after their tearaway toddlers. I think we all crave for adult conversation from time to time and sometimes we can manage decent chats between bouts of running after toddlers.

Tuesday turned out to be a loooong busy day, I had an appointment for 10.30 and in order for me to attend it I needed to have Lily in Durham by 9.30, where she was going to be looked after by my ex partner, it's about a 15 - 20 min drive from where I live, then came back for my appointment which was for 50 Min's, then had to go back to Durham to pick Lily up. But while we were there we had our preview session for Lily's photograph that she had took last week, we were there for about 45 Min's and had to select our favourite picture out of 40 photos, this was not an easy task believe me ...... money allowing I would have bought several of the photos. But Lily has truely enjoyed this Christmas gift experience. I can't remember if I mentioned it last week, but the photo portrait sitting was done by Venture http://www.thisisventure.co.uk

Later that evening Lily and I met up with our friends Claire and Hermione and we went off to Durham,. We had bought tickets to see Wototo, an African Children's Gospel choir, which in it self suggests a slight religious overtone. For which I was ok about. I try not to be too judgemental, as living quite an alternative life style my self, I believe that anyone should be allowed to follow any path they choose as long as it does not harm anyone else.

The children were good the dancing and drumming were good, all very talented young children ages from 9 to 13. But in my humble opinion there was not enough singing, dancing or drumming or enough information of the plight of these youngsters, who were all orphans. All their parents died of aids or aids related illnesses, or the children had been rescued from being child soldiers. These children come from Uganda.

These children were encouraged during the performance to talk about God, Gods plan for them, his love for them, how he choose to rescue them and give them new parents and one child even said that 'If he has a problem, then all he had to do was to pick up the phone and God would answer and sort his problem out for him.' Lily later asked me if it was true, if there was a god and if he could answer the phone. During the show they repeatedly asked for money / donations to help fund their trip and the Wototo villagers, which initially was ok, but when it exceeded more than three or four times, it became rather uncomfortable for me. I did really enjoy the singing and the children and Lily really enjoyed the experience. Which is one of the good things about home education, being able to show that there are many other, views, religions and cultures out there, which are not always what we believe in, but that other people do. But does not necessarily make one right and the other wrong. It's about alternative life styles and choices and being strong enough not to judge other people for what they believe is right for them. Oh dear I think I have waffled on a bit here and not sure if I have made any sense.http://raisingthenextgeneration.blogspot.com/ May be my friends links on her site will make more sense.

Monday 14 January 2008

This is the first time that we have actively taken part in the weekly project, so please bear with us, while we plod on in our merry way, and see what you all get up to.

Lily and I decided to do some baking during the week.


Anyway there were plenty of pastry scraps left over and we just started messing around with it, a bit like playdough in away. Which brought me to thinking about a blog that I read often http://unplugyourkids.blogspot.com/ and the suggested topic for this week is sculptures, Lily and I ended up doing a mini version of Stonehenge and a one of a dog eating from a bowl, we later put them in the oven on a very low temp to dry out and harden. Unfortunately I can't take pictures to upload on to my computer as my camera is flat and the charger is at a friends house, hiding somewhere :-) Any way Lily and I had a whale of a time doing this. When we had finished playing with the dough, Lily asked if I could find her some pictures of Stonehenge for her to have a look at. This one with the sunset seems to be our favourite http://www.athenasweb.com/2003/columns/Column082903.html, but there were generally some very awe inspiring pictures of Stonehenge.

Sunday 13 January 2008

I decided to visit my parents today, the visit went fairly well, no real hitches .... that is until I was coming home and got stopped by the Police. I was totally guilty and I hold my hands up. I got stopped for not wearing my seat belt :-( I was in the wrong and totally accept that. I ended up with a fixed penalty of £30 which I have to pay within 28 days, I'm just so pleased that there were no points added to my licence. 2 1/2 years ago I had 3 points put on my licence for speeding, I was dashing over to a friends house who was pregnant at the time and I was doing 34 miles an hour in a 30 zone and I got caught by a speed camera. Needless to say I learn my lessons the hard way.
For a special friend

http://www.6lyrics.com/music/freddie_mercury/lyrics/guide_me_home.aspx

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/poesia-s-guide-me-home-freddie-mercury-and-montserrat-c/68593124

Saturday 12 January 2008

Oh I'll get my moan over quick today. I really really fancied a bacon sandwich for my dinner tonight, but it's been more hassle than it was worth ...... I'd put the bacon on to cook, but Patch was up to something that he shouldn't have been and I burnt the bacon ever so slightly, but the smoke alarm has been going off intermittently ever since. Currently sitting with the back door open as I type.* deep sigh*

I acquired a new and lovely bookcase last night, courtesy of freecycle. And as I was up very early this morning, I decided that I would but all of Lily's books on the bookcase and try and sort out her room (bed), make it less cluttered in the hope that she will find it more appealing to sleep in. She has already stated that she is going to sleep in there come Monday. Fingers crossed. we have co-slept for most of her life apart from a brief spell earlier last year, but when we moved in here in October she took to my bed again. I've been patient about it, but would quite like to have my bed back to myself now. She is seven in a couple of weeks, so I don't think I'm being too unreasonable about it.

I took myself of to Durham late this morning in order to buy a new spring loaded cake tin, in an earnest attempt to start preparing for Lily's Party. She is going to have a trampolining party and we can have up to 12 guests, So Lily is busy getting a list of friends names together . The list changes frequently apart from 3 and they are always at the top, starting with her self, then H and M, after that it changes frequently, I can feel a headache and a challenge coming on :-) I'm so pleased that it only happens once a year.

Also while I was in Durham, I decided that I would buy all the cards I would need, and it just astounds me the price of cards, We have a busy week coming up ...... it starts with my mum's birthday, then my mum and dad's wedding anniversary, close friend's husbands' birthday, lily's birthday and my birthday all in the same week. I ended up buying 6 cards , but at least I'm prepared. :-)

The biggest news so far this week is....... wait for it ...... the TV has been banned. The licence was due for renewal and I have decided that in my infinite wisdom that in the short term we will try and do with out the TV. Don't know how well we will cope, so watch this space. Lily could easily be addicted to the TV and I'm afraid I use it as company on a night, The voices in the background while I'm typing at the PC, makes me feel as if there are others in the house, and you don't get the same effect with music. Although I love all kinds of music, it's just not the same as someone chatting.