Happy@Home

Another photo blog … one of firsts: first play dough session, piano playing, first birthday, first party (at the swimming pool and tea and cakes at the restaurant afterwards with lots of friends), ….

first train ride … on a steam train.

Piano playing

first photo!

first truly Lilliputian moment!

first class petting!

first upside down play dough session with Freya! How did the photo get upside down? don’t know, but as Freya is usually most at home upside down I think it will be funny and appropriate to leave it in anti gravity mode!

first helping Mum cook! Well, actually she is eating all the crispy skin off a boiling hot chicken whilst blowing her fingers. She wanted it, and who am I to say she can’t peel your Sunday lunch? I’d let her sink her teeth into your leg if you came for lunch, if she asked, probably! (well, anyway, I think that’s the concern my mum has when she comes up against my weird parenting choices!)

first act of anarchic incitement (well, unlikely to be the first or last!) Miyuki managed to go from ‘can I put my hands in Clare’s washing up bowl’ to slipping her feet in (at which point I thought “oh well, I suppose it’s easier than dangling her.”) to sliding her bum in! Now, if she’d suggested bum in in the first place I might have had the sense to divert her to something else (maybe). So, now Claris is totally into sitting in her kitchen sink! Not sure how pleased Clare was Lani also decided to mention the anatomical bit of the birds and bees, and her feelings about the spuriousness of fairies, Father Christmas and God … all in the same session! (We’ve previously discussed the politics of doing this and I think she was having an anarchic moment too!) Thankfully they are home educators so we can’t incite their kids in that way because they are already there. However, I know that Clare has been having a few conversations she thought she’d got away without having! I think her eldest, Molly, had been putting pressure on Lani (so she felt) to believe in God, and it may have been her rebellious reaction to Molly’s suggestion that you don’t need proof, you just have to believe (in God, fairies and Father Christmas).

first birthday party.   Here are a few of the folks that came swimming with us.  That’s just some of the kids … the age range was from about 55 down to 5 months.  Just how we like it.   Swimming was chosen because it is Miyuki’s favourite activity and we thought she’d choose it if she could!  We then went off for tea and cakes in the restaurant, en mass, before Jon and a few others went off with the kids to the swings (it was getting difficult to contain the really tiny ones who were following the free range older ones into the park, awol.)  Meanwhile, some of us lounged around drinking tea, eating cake and discussing the pros and cons of power struggles with our kids, and the feasibility or otherwise of non-coercive family relationships.  I’m getting pretty good at the latter (in terms of understanding and being able to debate the ideology … also better at living it gradually.)  Most people’s questions or objections have previously been my own.  They are obvious assumptions or concerns, but I finally have the answers to most of them from my reading and from my attempts to live it (like the big sugar eating debate!)

On Sunday I also began to read Jan Fortune-Wood’s “doing it their way” (or something like that … haven’t got it right next to me.)   I’ve always felt very skeptical (as a child and as an adult, as a sociologist, as a student teacher, as a teacher, as a Montessori teacher and as a home educating parent) about the subject matter taught to kids, and the point or otherwise of it!  This book has begun to answer some of those questions.

baby awakes.

Birthday parties and birthday cakes:

Lani has been flirting with the idea of being an ‘Emo’ … she dyed her hair (temporarily) black and dressed the part. However, she is getting through an existentialist angst moment : discovering that she is far too free range and complex to be a ’something’ without feeling a bit odd and constrained by it all. She’s gone back to being her rich and varied self (like she ever had a choice!) … but with gradually fading hair. Brown suits her quite well! Oh, and mostly people have got off my case about ‘letting my 8 year old dye her hair’. “’snot my hair.” I just can’t work out what it has to do with age? However, it certainly puts the cat among the pigeons. If it was not bad enough that we home educate (and make their kids aware, therein, that there are other options than school) … we also do too many other things that disturb absolute acceptance of their boundaries. Hmmm, my job in life? Job well done then!

Here’s her cake … we had a few disasters prior to this one, which was finally ready and cool enough to ice some time AFTER the party started! I had a large audience of folks of all ages ohhhing and ahhhing and generally sitting on the worktop and jogging my elbows. It was fun. I couldn’t bring myself to stop, it was so satisfying to do. So I went mad a bit more in white icing too.

Here is the one Lani iced too:

Whoops, we ate it … but got a photo just in time (I think Jon has a photo of it whole somewhere).  Two lots of candles and two cakes.  This one was a weird muffin cake with carob and molasses!  It turned out to be a bit of a favourite and Lani loved the opportunity to get icing.

We had a really cool party ending up in the playground at the school across the road, skating and on bikes and generally hanging out en mass.  Only good use for a school yard IMO! LOL!

It coincided with Darcy’s visit and we saw too little of her. Then she got her wallet and tickets nicked on the way home to Bath … so we finally got to show our true dedication

we’ve been very busy with birthdays and visitors all month. (My internet connection remains dreadful, so let’s see how we go)

Here is a posting in photos:

Kicking back after a very busy day. five days of fantastic and sometimes frustrating (heh Darcy?) non-coercive cohabitation! Did the bigs get the balance right and remember to insert their own self-interest into the mix too? Maybe? Must have managed it because nostalgia rules!

We love this photo. Flo looks like a fairy on Poppy’s shoulder. Everyone sliding down the stair lift tracks on the bandstand. Eating ice creams and then running down to see how the photo came out.

Matching knickers were found and worn. ‘Butt presentations’ were required!

Even Lani kipped in with Poppy (and she is very attached to her own bed). There was joy and harmony and a whole, huge lot of love. Ahhh, old times revisited. Sad partings, but ok because we are planning to meet them somewhere in Spain in December!

then … Freya climbed ALL they way up here (overhanging the river!) … and got stuck. Spindly branches too fragile for me to climb but Darcy was light enough to get up to coax her low enough to jump into my arms! Life saver!  Free range is good, but sometimes I have to hold my breath!

No pictures of the Darc? How can that be …. may have to rehash an old one!

Have been having lots of fun though.  Too busy spinning (thanks to spinning Jayne and the Fischer family for inspiration!) .. knitting, hanging out with the kids (who are equally madly busy) and socialising … a big HI to Liz and kids at the Cole house … was lovely to meet you and to spend such a cool day swimming etc!  What a lot of coincidences too … including we were born in the same place!  Wierd!  Hope to do it again soon.

Well, feel the draw of my spinning wheel, especially as I’ve got the evening off unexpectedly as I was supposed to be teaching English to a Polish friend who couldn’t come and the kids put themselves to bed early … with Ellie on a sleepover here too!  We’ve acquired her most days as she is so local and home ed, and it is really fab (not least because she emptied the dishwasher and helped clean out the guinea pigs today!  Go Ellie!)   The three of them (Lani, Ellie and freya have been repeatedly stating “One for all and all for one!” … so that is really good news and there is usually pretty impressive harmony in the house when she is here.)

Miyuki is properly walking and has to try to fall over to perform her old joke “splats|” on the sitting room floor!  She has taken to walking up to people and putting her head on them and giving them cuddles … even people she doesn’t know, like the lady who measured her feet at Clarks on Saturday!

Oh, and a mention to Hardwick Hall … which we visited on Sunday.  I have a lovely woolly feeling about it after scrumping apples from their orchards and tasting all the herbs with the kids and Jon in the herb garden.  House was great too, especially if you like tapestry works!  Food was good in the restaurant, but ridiculously stingy portion of salmon in the salmon salad … about 3″ by 1 & 1/2″ wide!  Nice folks all round though.  Unusually pleasant and humble for NT volunteers ;-D

Going to be even busier because my really good friend Darcy is coming with her kids for 5 days and then my mum of 5 days and my father in law for 4 days …. meanwhile we have two birthdays … Lani is 8 on the 14th and Miyuki is 1 on the 23rd.  We will be having two great big parties (the all day, whole family, multi age variety that Lani loves) … carefully spaced a fortnight apart so no one gets eclipsed by anyone else’s birthday … etc.

Lani is collecting contributions for a wardrobe overhaul for her birthday (that’s not a request ;-D) … and is going to dye her hair black (with a temp dye).  Ellie has decided to join her and Freya is petitioning for a red dye (to go with her red hair!)  My FIL will be gently scandalized!   He He He…