Had a great day today at a new indoor play centre called Monkey Bizness, one of our home school group organised a free session for us. The place was huge and after my girls had picked themselves up off the floor (even I was trembling with excitement!) we ran, well after we'd been waylaid by the staff to fill in forms, across the football pitch sized room to the slides, ballpools, usual heaven that is the kids play centre!! After a mad crawl through the maze that is 3 areas of soft play obstacle course while clutching a 9 month old baby (I don't remember them using real ones in 'it's a knockout'!) I realised that although they do encourage parents on it is ridiculous trying to squeeze yourself through the rollers and webs of navy rope that stand in your way to get to the huge air pressure machine gun in the centre to fire off soft balls in every direction like a loon! Sometimes you have to back down and let the kids have their space!!
So with a very confused bounced baby I retired to the comfy bean bags with the rest of the parents who probably knew better than to risk life and limb (unless saving a child) on this wonderful and suitable for CHILDREN under 12 equipment!! Ah well my inner child had a ball for a while there!
I didn't see the kids again until they were thirsty or needed the loo. I had to find them for lunch which was another excuse to get on the equipment! We stayed most of the day, there were about 30 or so Home ed parents which is really reassuring so I got to meet some new and catch up with some regulars.
All is quiet now all 3 girls fast asleep they were out for the count at 7pm! No monkey business!!lol
Friday, 30 January 2009
Thursday, 22 January 2009
The day the floods came!
Tuesday 6th January our bath overflowed! During the night! I awoke at 6am to B crying and as I walked out of our room to fetch her realised there was the sound of running water, water was pouring over the bath onto the floor so I ran in and switched off the tap and pulled the plug (we have no overflow on our lovely big old bath!) Downstairs in the kitchen it was raining!!
After a very stressful morning which I think I spent mostly getting angry at Lee for being too laid back! me and the kids packed off to my parents for a fun filled 3 days leaving Lee to sort out the mess.
Mum and Dad looked after us so well the children didn't want to come home but I was eager to be home and get a good nights sleep, I don't do co-sleeping... well not very well, 3 girls and 1 mad mum do not go together in 1 double bed. When we did return home I got the nights sleep but the days have been quite stressful, I've spent most of my time phoning the insurance company and then the restoration company and its still ongoing over 2 weeks later as we deal with the loss adjuster and soon builders too Aaargh!
On the lighter side of life J's 5th birthday was this week and she had 2 lovely parties, one 'dinner party' for her school friends and one for her home school friends at Highfields. So lots of cake and pressies!! She got really involved with what games she wanted and we even had to test some beforehand lol. The favourite one was musical squares, we put down 5 or 6 A3 size papers on the floor and the kids dance round them. when the music stops they have to get on a square, even if they have to share a square! When the music starts again one square is taken away and this carries on until there is only one square left, and then the fun really begins - trying to get 8 children on to one square of paper!! lots of fun and giggles
We bought J a puppet theatre for her birthday which has been a brilliant present, we've took turns in doing puppet shows and when it turns around into a shop we've purchased all sorts of rammel from J's haberdashery lol. Her favourite presents are 'littlest pet shop' THE tiniest toys since Polly pocket and just as annoying to adults of course because you need extremely small fingers to play with them! AND they are going to be lost within lets say 2 weeks! Anyway the children love them and play such imaginative games with them.
I've been reading a book recently called 'Siblings without Rivalry' by Adele Faber. I've been wanting to change the way I deal with squabbles as I'm so rubbish when it comes to property rights fights! Is it the persons toy that has over all say or who had it first! lol I definitely knew that my 'I'll put it in the bin' rant was not sounding good to my ears so I'd been scouring forums and come across this book. It is a very useful book full of good techniques to use and its easy to read, I like the fact that Adele Faber encourages you to hand the problem solving over to your kids more instead of always being the one who must sort it out. I'm not saying I've changed over night but fights seem to be over quicker and there are much less of them (not that the kids fought much but sometimes the intensity was a bit crazy!)
For example J and S were fighting over a doll both had it in a tug of war! usually I would just take it off them and threaten to throw it in the bin this time I said 'I can hear angry voices' to which both of them started telling me their story at the same time so I said 'S you want to play with the doll, J you want to play with doll, that's a tough problem, I'm sure two can come to a solution that's fair to both of you' and then I walked out feeling very pleased that I hadn't shouted. After the initial pause they carried on the wrangle and I had to go back and take the doll! lol but I just said 'I'll look after her while you work out the solution' actually they just decided to play with different dolls and never asked for the doll back but I was so chuffed that it was calm and although I thought I sounded a bit of a plonker at first it worked so who cares!
And then tonight something lovely happened, at first it wasn't too good as B was poorly and unsettled she was really screaming full of snot and coughing till she was sick and in the middle of this J came and asked me to come in to her, I was a bit short with her feeling cross that she hadn't seem to notice what I was doing! then as I settled B I heard J crying so I went through to give her a cuddle and said 'I can see your upset. I was settling B and she is very poorly and I got cross with you I'm sorry' when I said tell me what you wanted she cheered up and was about to tell me when the baby started crying again so I had to go and get her and when I came back with B settling in my arms she said 'I was going to say you could come in my bed with B' I thought it was so sweet I actually did it! lol I put the baby up on the bunk first then climbed in and J cuddled up to us both and within minutes both she and baby were fast asleep and then for me the flood waters really did come!
After a very stressful morning which I think I spent mostly getting angry at Lee for being too laid back! me and the kids packed off to my parents for a fun filled 3 days leaving Lee to sort out the mess.
Mum and Dad looked after us so well the children didn't want to come home but I was eager to be home and get a good nights sleep, I don't do co-sleeping... well not very well, 3 girls and 1 mad mum do not go together in 1 double bed. When we did return home I got the nights sleep but the days have been quite stressful, I've spent most of my time phoning the insurance company and then the restoration company and its still ongoing over 2 weeks later as we deal with the loss adjuster and soon builders too Aaargh!
On the lighter side of life J's 5th birthday was this week and she had 2 lovely parties, one 'dinner party' for her school friends and one for her home school friends at Highfields. So lots of cake and pressies!! She got really involved with what games she wanted and we even had to test some beforehand lol. The favourite one was musical squares, we put down 5 or 6 A3 size papers on the floor and the kids dance round them. when the music stops they have to get on a square, even if they have to share a square! When the music starts again one square is taken away and this carries on until there is only one square left, and then the fun really begins - trying to get 8 children on to one square of paper!! lots of fun and giggles
We bought J a puppet theatre for her birthday which has been a brilliant present, we've took turns in doing puppet shows and when it turns around into a shop we've purchased all sorts of rammel from J's haberdashery lol. Her favourite presents are 'littlest pet shop' THE tiniest toys since Polly pocket and just as annoying to adults of course because you need extremely small fingers to play with them! AND they are going to be lost within lets say 2 weeks! Anyway the children love them and play such imaginative games with them.
I've been reading a book recently called 'Siblings without Rivalry' by Adele Faber. I've been wanting to change the way I deal with squabbles as I'm so rubbish when it comes to property rights fights! Is it the persons toy that has over all say or who had it first! lol I definitely knew that my 'I'll put it in the bin' rant was not sounding good to my ears so I'd been scouring forums and come across this book. It is a very useful book full of good techniques to use and its easy to read, I like the fact that Adele Faber encourages you to hand the problem solving over to your kids more instead of always being the one who must sort it out. I'm not saying I've changed over night but fights seem to be over quicker and there are much less of them (not that the kids fought much but sometimes the intensity was a bit crazy!)
For example J and S were fighting over a doll both had it in a tug of war! usually I would just take it off them and threaten to throw it in the bin this time I said 'I can hear angry voices' to which both of them started telling me their story at the same time so I said 'S you want to play with the doll, J you want to play with doll, that's a tough problem, I'm sure two can come to a solution that's fair to both of you' and then I walked out feeling very pleased that I hadn't shouted. After the initial pause they carried on the wrangle and I had to go back and take the doll! lol but I just said 'I'll look after her while you work out the solution' actually they just decided to play with different dolls and never asked for the doll back but I was so chuffed that it was calm and although I thought I sounded a bit of a plonker at first it worked so who cares!
And then tonight something lovely happened, at first it wasn't too good as B was poorly and unsettled she was really screaming full of snot and coughing till she was sick and in the middle of this J came and asked me to come in to her, I was a bit short with her feeling cross that she hadn't seem to notice what I was doing! then as I settled B I heard J crying so I went through to give her a cuddle and said 'I can see your upset. I was settling B and she is very poorly and I got cross with you I'm sorry' when I said tell me what you wanted she cheered up and was about to tell me when the baby started crying again so I had to go and get her and when I came back with B settling in my arms she said 'I was going to say you could come in my bed with B' I thought it was so sweet I actually did it! lol I put the baby up on the bunk first then climbed in and J cuddled up to us both and within minutes both she and baby were fast asleep and then for me the flood waters really did come!
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