He survived!!

:-)

He came out smiling and full of beans. His teacher is really into Doctor Who so they gelled well, and the other kids in his class were ok. They did some work on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which is right up his alley and he said it only took him an hour or so to stop feeling wobbly so that's good. Hopefully he'll have the same to report when he gets out today.

Issy worked well today again, I think a few wires are starting to join up in her brain because she is working well with her workbooks and they are aimed at 6-7 so she must be doing ok. She's still slow with her reading but I have been looking through a website with resources that lovely Immy pointed us towards and shall start implementing some of these strategies with her. She is improving but she has such little confidence in it and tends to sound out every word rather than attempt splitting it into separate syllables etc. She is much happier doing maths and science work! But we shall perservere...

anyhow must go and help Alex do a jigsaw as he is climbing on my head :-S

he's gone..

*sniff*

Boy wonder left me this morning. Took him to the playground and he was so quiet, he was clearly nervous. Starting Juniors as well, so most of the kids were older than him and although he knows a few of them from footy training etc it's not the same, as they all know each other and he was just so blatantly new. The other mums too - I didn't recognise anyone so chances are I shall once again be Billy No Mates, twiddling my thumbs awkwardly while they chat away. Oh well.... stick with what you know,eh?

Anyway, a lady from the office came out and I asked her which line to join and when the teacher came out they all filed in. Mrs Carlisle is his teacher, and she greeted him with a big smile and asked him if he was Callum and he said he was, and that's all I caught before the door shut. He didn't look back, which I guess is a good sign.

Issy settled to work very well this morning, we did a little of English, Maths and Science and she tried hard and we had fun, which is most important. Then Alex's nursery teachers, Miss Lawson and Mrs Hefford visited to meet Alex properly - he was very quiet and shy at first but warmed up a little. He starts next Tuesday and I hope he'll be ok....... it was nice to have them here anyway as they are both lovely and gave me the gossip on their new headmistress,lol!!

I will update with Cal's opinion of his day later but for now here is my baby.. he was very brave and I was so proud of him. I so hope he has a good day. Fingers crossed everyone!!

ok, I'm back!

Right then.

So I start again, minus a pupil, as of next week and arrrrgggggh it's scary! Cal is off to St Johns school and I am quite sure it was the right decision for him as he is very excited about it all. I hope he will slot back in ok and that he has learned something these past months! I know that I tried my best and I know that we have had 9 months of being together and having a lot of fun which is infinitely more memorable, right?

So Issy and I will be battling it alone for the time being. I think at the moment she is feeling a bit put out as we've made a big thing of Cal going to school and I worry that she feels left out and 'punished' almost by staying home for a bit. But the school can't take her as well - they are full to capacity for year one and we have to wait until a)someone leaves or b)she goes into year 3, whichever comes first. I am all edgy about it tbh, now I know that is where she is going to end up, I worry about getting her to a certain level, and then when she does go school will be totally new - I don't want her to struggle or be unhappy. So the pressure is really on me to get her somewhere and up to a decent standard. I have bought her some CGP workbooks today for English, Maths and Science KS1 that will take her up to SATS level by the end of the year, and I have chosen a few books that I want her to attempt reading, as she's still not quite there yet. I have also told her to start thinking about a subject she is interested in that we can research, and so far she has suggested Golf.

Golf??

Anyway... we will be starting on Wednesday, as Cal will be at school and *sob* Alex will be starting nursery school!! I can't believe he's going - he still seems such a baby to me, but I know he'll be ok. Mrs Hefford, his teacher, looked after Isobel when she was there and she's solid gold, I know she'll treat him like her own. I just have to try and get my head around the whole school runs in the rain and lunchboxes and uniforms thing again and at the moment I am a bit AARRRGGHHH about it all.

The last few months have been so laid back and fun, especially the summer break - they've been up to all sorts in the garden with their friends, and to the cinema, and soft play, and a holiday to Nanny's and its been great. I have managed to pick myself up and have improved personally lots in terms of my confidence in doing things alone, now that I have finally decided to just be their mum for the time being and stop putting pressure on myself to do everything at once. It's going to be hard to get back to the 'real world' and more than anything else I am going to really miss Cal, and at the same time I feel like I have really let myself down... why did I have to be ill? Why wasn't I better at it? How come I couldn't just relax and see what happened? When Rich was at home with us it was all great and went really well, and when he went back I just was crap and got ill. I know we can't live in cloud cuckoo land and that he had to work, but we did have such a great few months all together and I wish that it could have been like it all the time and that this hadn't happened... you know? But I have to look on the flip side - Cal is wanting to go to school, and it will be easier just having to concentrate on Issy, she works well without Cal. I hope so much that I can do it this time and that I don't let her down.

Parenting sucks. It is such a fecking guiltfest!


I shall leave you with a few photos of how they all look now:

sorry for going awol..

.. as some of you will know it's because I have been quite ill since March. I had some gynae health problems which meant that teaching the kids has been impossible. Heck, getting up has been impossible. It was a really tough time, unfortunately, I have been really scared and shaken up as I have never had anything wrong with me in my life before other than the odd cold and cough. I have struggled through it as best I can but education wise there's not much to report, Rich has had to be at work most of the time while I was suffering so couldn't really help in that respect, it's been a case of surviving with our heads above water with no energy for anything else.. We've made sure they've been reading every day and writing as much as poss and we've been watching a lot of National Geographic stuff but that's really all I have managed. I feel horrendously guilty about the whole thing tbh :-( this wasn't what we signed up for - it was meant to be a better way of learning for them and instead they have completely lost any self discipline to learn that they had. Cal in particular is being difficult because he's just not being stimulated enough for the past few months. I feel pants about it but there's nothing else I could have done, you know? It's just me and Rich doing the practical applications of this and it seems that if one of us is ill then the whole thing just crumbles.

Anyway. On the positive side Issy's reading is slowly improving so it seems, I did a reading age test with her and she got 5 yrs 11 mths and she's 5yrs 3 mths, so it's not brilliant but not bad either. My health is much better all round, I have a good pill that I am taking that seems to have resolved my problems and I'm eating lots better which means I have lost a stone, only another 3 to go.. lol. But I am trying to feel positive and look at it from the POV that had I been ill and the kids were at school I would not have been physically able to take them and pick them up each day - which would have concerned the school and social services would have been on the door step, so every cloud...

Hoping that that is the end of it anyway, and we are in the planning stages of a new strategy which may involve Cal going back into school in September, a place has become available at an excellent Catholic school close to my house and I am thinking I may need to surrender my anti faith schools principles. I will do whatever I have to do for him to do well and the head seems to be a decent sensible man. You cannot argue with the Ofsted report anyway..We shall see, I suppose. I have a few tricks up my sleeve on a personal level too that may involve a massive shake up for the whole family... but again I won't say too much now because I am wary of jinxing it.

Anyhow, I shall keep you updated as soon as I know what the heck is going on chez moi.

Much love, Rach xxx

Thank you Immy!!

Today my lovely, wonderful, inspirational and flipping downright marvellous friend Immy sent me some really valuable help for teaching Issy to read after seeing my post bemoaning the fact that we are struggling. It's a system that the government uses to teach children in schools and from what I have seen it should make a huge difference to her - making it a lot more fun and less stress for all involved. In the parcel were some chocolate coins, and the kids wanted to say thanks for them, so here they are doing that.

Thank you Immy - you are a superstar!!

another new nappy...

I know, again not educational, but I am not really up to much at the moment! lol

Here is Sammy in his itti bitti d'lish..
and another so you can see his little furry butt.. I love it!!

I know,I know... it's not educational, but it IS cute...

Look at the itty bitty baby in his new Spidey nappy...