Who’s Normal Anyway?

This morning I finally caught L rolling over. For the past week he’s been going from back to front when no one was looking, so we didn’t see how he was doing it. M never did do rolling over as a developmental step, he just sat and then crawled. (I mean, at some point he must’ve learned to roll, but he didn’t do it as a baby). But today L lifted both legs in the air, twisted on to his right and then neatly flipped over. Now he’s got the hang of it he keeps doing it even when there’s no space to roll into. Must remember to keep him much further away from the bathroom radiator now because it gets so hot and he could roll into it.

We were aiming for an early start this morning, but I couldn’t get out of bed. L woke several times in the night, though at least he didn’t stay awake babbling away chattily for an hour as he has sometimes done recently. So I really didn’t want to get out of bed at 8am, and dragged it out for an extra snooze.

We eventually got up, breakfasted and dressed, and then M and I worked on his maths and sounding for a while. M wound both A and I up this morning with messing around and general bad attitude. We don’t mind if he can’t get something, but it’s so maddening when you are trying to explain something to help him and he shouts you down and won’t even listen to any suggestions. A even threatened sending him to school if he doesn’t lose the attitude. Argh… OK, at school he couldn’t mess about so much and he might then appreciate getting individual help, but I imagine he’d spend the majority of the day either daydreaming or chattering and getting into trouble, not get any work done and pick up even more appalling behaviour and language. I think with maths we might need to recap some of the topics we’ve done in the last 6 months a few more times before we move on, because there’s something he’s not getting somewhere. I’m just not sure what it is.

His phonogram work went much better and I think the Spalding system is really suiting him at the moment. He’s using sensible ways of spelling words he doesn’t know now and the spelling book part of what we do is going smoothly. We’ve just started on classifying words into the parts of speech, but I’m getting stuck. I suppose if I’ve got this far through life without knowing it its not that essential. The idea is to take each word from the spelling list he’s already completed and categorise it as a verb, noun etc. But some words have me stumped, even though I have a crib list from the book sorting each word into its category. For instance, why are so, no and today adverbs?

When we’d got through that we went out to do another cache, a new one with a Halloween theme. We thought it just had to be done on the right date! We found somewhere to park on a little country lane and headed up a bridle path past a farm and down some muddy tracks. We walked about half a mile, past an ancient lake that’s silted up and is marsh land now. Everywhere was so muddy, we squelched along. A carried L in the Baby Bjorn and he chuckled and squawked happily along. M had picked up a big stick and managed not to poke anyone’s eyes out with it, though he came close. What is it with boys and sticks?

The cache was hidden just outside a church graveyard and we found it easily. M took some glow in the dark eyes and we put in some ghoulish fake fingers A had picked up from the shop while we were doing spelling this morning. On the way back to the car we were followed by some horses in one of the fields who were taking rather too much interest in us for my comfort.

We went into town to get some lunch and buy some more appropriately coloured fleece, and some buttons to finish off L’s jacket that I’m knitting. Then it was home for an hour before going back out to take M to his swimming class. Today they were practising breast stroke most of the lesson, then did some floating towards the end, and finished off with diving from kneeling. Had a proud mummy moment when M was picked as an example for the rest of his group to watch, because he was holding his arms in the right position as he dived in.

On Saturday we had a busy day out and about. We went geocaching in the morning, and hunted down 2 micro caches up the A1 from here. A micro cache is a small cache, usually a film canister, that just contains some log sheets and a pencil. They can be tricky to find because they’re so small. The first cache we did was along a main road (luckily there was a place to pull in, though it was hard not to look suspicious LOL) and was hidden inside a bus shelter. Luckily we’re used to the kinds of places people usually hide caches, and we spotted this one without ferreting about beneath the bench too much. Then it was back in the car and some navigating up small country lanes to find the 2nd cache. I stayed in the car to feed L while A and M went to look. The GPSr signal was all over the place so they wandered around for a bit, trying not to attract the attention of a pensioner doing his front garden. Nearly gave up, but then decided to look inside a wooden structure that is the kind of place people tend to choose to hide caches and A got lucky poking his hand into the eaves among the spiders’ webs. Uggh. Don’t think I would have been able to reach it even.

We’ve also been looking at cars, we’re thinking its about time we got a newer one. We’d passed a Citroen garage we didn’t know was there earlier in the morning, so after caching we went back there to have a look round. It’s taking us ages to narrow down what kind of car we actually want and to decide what we think we can afford. So its an ongoing thing.

By this time it was getting past lunch time, so we drove to Morrisons and hit the cafe before doing our supermarket shopping. In the afternoon A and M did some tidying up in the garden ready for winter - tying back this year’s growth on the loganberry bush, digging up the finished gladioli bulbs and generally having a sort out. I can’t remember what I was doing, probably fiddling on the computer and keeping an eye on L.

Yesterday we went swimming first thing for an hour. M played on the giant floats they have out and L splashed around and snorted water. It was really busy and noisy in the pool, but L didn’t seem too phased by that.

Afterwards we went to church, where the new assistant was in charge of the service. I quite like him so far, he’s younger with a young family and seems like he actually believes in God (shocking I know for a vicar! But often I wonder what the other one actually does believe, he pontificates so much without getting anywhere). He is much more “low church” and is of the “singing choruses and childrens songs and praying” variety of vicar. He did a talk for the children based on Thomas the Tank Engine and whether stories are true or made up, then sent them out to Sunday school for a craft and more singing. Then he bravely tackled “Harry Potter, ghouls and Halloween” for his main sermon. Bravely I think, because Halloween can be such a hot topic. We did a quiz on Harry Potter and another on the Bible - guess which topic people got most right on! Would be interesting to talk to him some more, because he barely scratched the surface on what he thinks and why. I couldn’t figure out if he really knew alot about the origins of Halloween or was assuming alot of the details from a quick bit of reading on the internet. But his sermon was along the lines of celebrating Halloween not being wrong per se and how Christian churches should find a way to “claim back” Halloween and do it in a Christian style. This “claim back” thing makes me wince, I mean, the Church put All Saints day in November to distract early Christians away from joining in with Samhain festivities, so how can it be “claimed back”? Hmmm….

In the afternoon I did some sewing. I made the split crotch trousers I mentioned, and also hemmed the edge of one of the chair covers that I’d chopped down to size and never got round to finishing off before. We’ve also been making hand prints. A mum at Mums and Babies sent off for a kit to do her baby’s hand print and it cost a fortune, so she experimented with doing it herself and showed me how she did her own. We rolled out play dough, pushed hand in firmly, then put an ice cream tub with the bottom cut out around the print and filled it in with plaster of Paris. I’m going to smooth off the edges and paint the casts, then put them in a frame with a photo of M and L I think.

M made invitations for our family Guy Fawkes party next Saturday. He drew pictures on black paper using pastels, then typed the invitation on the computer to print out and stick in. Must actually get round to posting them now!

While we were busy being crafty, A made a very tasty roast dinner. Then M went to bed and L dropped off quickly too, and we had a fairly peaceful evening.

Thought I’d post about where we’re currently at with EC, because things change so quickly and it’ll be interesting to look back.

At the moment L is mostly using his potties around the house. Now he’s getting heavier and larger it’s harder to hold him over the utility room sink, and if I do do that he can aim over the top of the edge and hit the door if I’m not careful to angle him forwards, LOL. He can sit on the potty almost unaided and sits well enough that he aims down into it now, so the potty is the simplest to use. It’s also getting colder in the utility room and I know it’ll be freezing in there in the winter (no heating in there or in the kitchen which is between there and the main rooms of the house) so I’d rather we can potty in the front room.

We still have plenty of misses even when we’re at home and I’ve not got alot to distract me, but we also get most poos and quite a few wees in the potty, and L can be pretty insistent he needs to go (some of the time). At night he goes on the potty if he seems like he can’t settle, but if he feeds and goes straight back to sleep I leave him to it.

A is getting more used to EC and offers L the potty when he remembers - he’s getting pretty good at noticing when L might need to go, especially since he’s not with L nearly so much as I am.

At the moment some of L’s signals for needing to go are hand bashing against us, and biting down (well, gumming down) on fingers. To begin with we thought that meant he wanted a feed, bt now we’ve figured out its a toileting signal at least some of the time. General wiggling about and starting to fuss also means he might need to go.

Now it’s starting to get colder I’ve been thinking about what L can wear to make ECing easier. It’s a faff to take trousers on and off alot, so he’s been wearing tops, socks and nappy at home and only putting trousers on to go out. I recently bought him some baby leg warmers from TheECStore and they are great. We’ve had some funny comments about looking like a dancer (from A, and from people at HE group) but never mind. They are so convenient though, cos they keep his legs warm but don’t cover his nappy. They’d be really handy for any baby I think, though there are some mums I know who will only put their babies in co-ordinating outfits with the right labels and I don’t suppose the leg warmers would suit them.

This is L wearing his Baby Legs:

I’ve also been reading on the EC lists recently about using split crotch trousers, and about fleece being water repellant, so I thought I’d have a try at making some. I used some of L’s jogging bottoms to make a pattern and used some spare fleece I had in the cupboard. Unfortunately it’s pink, which I think is probably a step too far for wearing out of the house. But the pattern worked and they fit him fine. The idea is they cover (nearly) everything up, but you don’t need to take them off to put the baby on the potty, the fleece just naturally pulls out of the way when they sit on the potty. You can put a nappy on over the top and change it easily when its wet without taking the trousers off. I’ve tried them this afternoon and they do work - we had a couple of misses while he was wearing a muslin over the top. The muslin soaked everything up and the trousers stayed dry. They’re unconventional, and we’ll probably only use them at home, but what the heck. I like them.

Finally, I think these blog posts about EC are interesting so I’m putting them here so I can find them again.

The Leery Polyp

Part time potty training

We made the 95 mile (didn’t realise before just how far we go!) round trip to the home ed music group near Skipton on Friday. It’s once a month, and covers music and then branches off into lots of other things depending on who is there. This month was all about Divali and J and A did an awesome job of sorting out lots of related activities.

We started off with introducing ourselves around the circle. Then we did some simple dancing to Indian music, and sang a song telling the story of Divali. Then A and J presented a Divali story about Prince Ram and Sita and the demons, which was told in the dark using shadow puppets.

Afterwards there were several Divali/Indian crafts to choose from and we spent a good hour trying them! M chose to make a clay oil lamp first and there were night light candles to put in them to bring home. Other crafts on offer were making princes crowns, decorating rangoli patterns with coloured rice or felt tips and making dancing sticks. There was also plenty of black card so everyone could make their own demon shadow puppet, and M really enjoyed making his:

Then everyone took their puppets back into the darkened room to try them out:

We had spicy samosas for refreshments. J had also bought lots of Indian sweets and some of them were delicious, though I think the adults were enjoying trying them more than the children. M was a bit hesitant about tasting any, but found a couple he liked after taking some tiny nibbles! He shared a samosa with me, but left me most of his when the heat caught up with his tongue.

L was happy baby again, and sat with J’s partner E for a while smiling around and being mobbed by small children, then spent quite a while in the sling while we watched the puppet show and did some crafts.

Last thing before we set off for home, A got out the henna paste and put henna tatoos on the hands of any of the children who wanted one. It was the first time M had had it done, so he was really pleased and nursed his hand carefully most of the way home as the paste dried!

M was much better this morning, and we’d arranged to meet up with home ed friends at Valley Gardens in Harrogate for the afternoon. We decided to still go despite the weather forecast being for rain, and when we first arrived the sun was out and it was a lovely day.

M took his rollerblades to the park, but we parked up the side of the park on a steep hill, so we had a fun time getting into the park itself, with M hanging onto my arm for grim death. He managed better when we cut across the grass to get into the playground, but slipped and landed in a big muddy puddle just before we got in the play park gate. So his bottoms and hands were well covered in mud before we even met our friends LOL.

L was peaceful in the sling, but came out to have a feed and gurgle at friends while all the children raced around playing. It was great to get out of the house for some fresh air.

About 1pm, which was the time we’d arranged to meet up, though some of us had gone earlier, it started to rain and got heavy quite quickly. We found part of the park with a partially covered colonade to shelter in, though to be fair I don’t think the children were at all bothered by the rain, it was just us adults. Well, it’s easier to concentrate on all the home ed gossip if you’re not getting rained on! Having moved from the playground, we’d missed A and her children but they caught up with us later. Another couple of families who said they were coming didn’t appear, so I hope they didn’t come and couldn’t find us.

When the rain stopped we walked a bit further and headed into the cafe for ice creams and hot chocolate. Going in to the cafe we came across M’s penfriend N and his mum who we haven’t seen for ages and we didn’t realise they were coming today, so that was a lovely surprise.

We finished off the afternoon with a bit more time in the play area. M fell off the monkey bars which were slippery with the rain and howled - not sure how much was from the fall (he did land heavily on his face though no blood) and how much was hurt pride at everyone looking at him crying. He was tired out so we headed back to the car and came home.

M complained of a funny tummy Sunday and then woke up poorly Monday and spent alot of the day in bed. He has a cold and it had settled on his stomach, so he threw up a few times Monday and generally looked out of it. He was feeling too awful to really get bored. He watched Wallace and Gromit for a bit and listened to story CDs in bed and had nothing but water and apple juice all day. It was a pretty quiet day with M in bed, so I mainly kept an eye on him, played on the computer and did some washing. I spent quite a while on eBay looking for some Fisher Price Little People Christmas sets that are only sold in the USA, and was eventually successful in buying some at an OK price today.

Yesterday M was a bit better and had stopped throwing up. He still felt ill enough to be in pyjamas all day and do nothing more strenuous than sit in the chair watching videos, but he was getting with it enough to be getting bored. We played some computer games together and looked on Neopets for a bit, and I was persuaded to make ginger biscuits. Apparently I had said sometime in the past that “ginger biscuits are good for funny tummies” (possibly a morning sickness comment?)

L is getting much more active and interested in everything this past week. He’s playing with his toys more now and gets quite frustrated, but he’s very persistent in trying things. He pulls himself up to sit and then does that slowly sinking forward and then tipping over on to his nose thing that small babies do. He’s kicking his legs determinedly and trying to roll over, in fact last night he was suddenly the other way over lying on M’s bed, but we didn’t see what he did, so maybe he was helped over by the bedcovers. Shall have to keep an even closer eye on him if he might be getting into rolling LOL.

L started with a cold yesterday, so last night was more sleepless than I’d have liked! He had a snooze early in the evening when I managed to rock him to sleep but then woke up and couldn’t drop back off. He couldn’t feed very well through his runny nose and was rubbing his eyes with tiredness but just cried. He eventually calmed down just before midnight, then woke up again less than an hour later. Luckily his nose dried up a bit during the night and he managed a 3.5 hour streth up to 7am but then he was awake for the day. Fingers crossed for tonight.

On Saturday we spent the afternoon at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. We got there for about 12.30pm and found they had loads of displays on all afternoon. First of all we looked around the medieval gallery and saw Henry VIII’s jousting lances and lots of armour. There was a display of putting on armour ready for a tournament and so we stayed to watch that. It was interesting but they ban photos at live presentations, so no pics!

We went back to the museum entrance then to see if T and family had arrived yet, and spotted them high above us on one of the internal bridges between sections of the galleries. So we waved and waited while they came down to us. The jousting display was about to begin outside so off we went to watch that in the drizzle. L slept through most of it snuggled in the sling, but woke towards the end and kept looking up at me sweetly - kind of like a little tortoise (in a wooly hat) with his head poking out of his shell. M was excited to be out with C & D so hardly knew he was with me.

Back into the main building, we went to watch the pirate storytelling with lots of swordfighting. It was the true story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who dressed as men to be pirates in the early 1700s.

After that we went to find the nautical crafts session. It was closed, but outside of the craft room were some seats and a giant chess game that M, C & D headed straight for. M & D eventually got to checkmate, but plenty of random moves on both sides I think - not that I can talk. I’m rubbish at chess!

Finally it was off for a cup of tea and time to go home because the museum was closing. I’ve promised M we can go back and take A in a few weeks, and look around the galleries properly because there is so much we didn’t see.

L was so chilled all the afternoon, but didn’t really feed very much. I tried to feed him in the car park before we left but he was fussing so we set off. few minutes up the road he started grizzling and by the time we’d got on the A1M he was obviously hungry, but there was nowhere good to stop for a while. He sucked his fingers and my finger and was not a happy bunny. Finally found somewhere to stop and fed him and he settled down to sleep. We got home and he was still asleep in his car seat so I put the tea on, but when he woke he began screaming and just wouldn’t stop. Nothing calmed him, he screamed for a good 40 mins, only marginally quieting when I held him upright but then he’d do the wobbly lip thing and screech again. It was awful, he hardly cries usually and this was the high pitched in pain cry, plus his tummy was really tight. Considered the doctors, pumping him full of paracetamol, rescue remedy (can you even give that to babies?) but decided to give it half an hour and see if it passed, because he didn’t have a temperature. Finally took him upstairs and sat in the dark with him rubbing his tummy, then tried him on the potty and he did several of those long deep almost-being-sick burps and they seemed to help. Eventually got enough wind up that he’d feed if he was sat upright facing me and he dropped off to sleep. Phew… Think he must just have swallowed a lot of air waiting to be fed and it gave him colicky pains.

We went to a fab Viking workshop at West Park today. We had a living history lady in full Viking get up at the group who did a 2 hour session on Viking food, clothing and storytelling. She was amazing - she brought loads of things to illustrate what she was saying to the children and kept them all enthralled.

For the first hour she talked about Viking food and had a discussion on foraging for some foods, storing food for the winter, making sausages, preserving with salt. She’d brought in some animal skins and had J dressed up as a wild boar - hope he wasn’t too freaked by having a boar skin draped over him! It wasn’t a very veggie/vegan friendly session LOL. Then the children split into groups and each group had to prepare a different type of food, e.g. grinding grain into flour, stringing mushrooms to dry them. M grouped up with C & D and they churned cream into butter, which was a fairly messy process. After it was made the butter was emptied into a wooden dish and they were asked to take it round everyone so people could taste it. Unfortunately M thought it was funny to try flicking the bowl up and down, and tossed the butter neatly out of the dish so it landed splat on the hall floor. Lovely.

While the workshop was going on, I sat at the back of the hall chatting, mainly to A with 4 week old baby E, who is so tiny (already feels like L was never that small!) and cute with a massive mop of dark hair. It was the first time I’d met E, so it was especially lovely to have time to chat. Also chatted to T about Brownies and Beavers and looked at the pink and sparkly Brownie books. It’s changed an awful lot from my day LOL! L was fairly chilled, looking round and happy to be held by other people a little bit, then feeding and sleeping with no fuss. Managed to do well with the ECing for a change at West Park, the last twice L has been too distracted to use his potty but was fine with it today. Sorry T, if L and the potty were having an adverse effect on B!

After the food was finished all the kids had some running round time, then were just settling back down to listen to the next part of the workshop when we were told we had to leave the hall because an electrician had come to do the lights. Seems an odd thing to do, to make a group who’ve booked the hall move out part way through, and it disturbed the children’s focus to move to another room. Once we got settled elsewhere the workshop restarted and covered different natural fabrics and clothing (I think, was too busy chatting to pay proper attention). M was pleased to do some wool carding and get a wool sample to bring home. Then the workshop finished with a story about Thor’s hammer and someone dressing as a woman to get it back (can’t think what the story is called - the one in the Usborne stories from around the world book). That was funny, because they got a dad with a beard to do the dressing up as a bride, and then his mobile went off and he couldn’t decide whether he was allowed to answer it in the middle of the story.

All of a sudden the workshop was over and I was sitting feeding L and people all seemed to be going off to the room we usually use at West Park. M wanted to go too so I said I’d catch him up. I hadn’t realised everyone was mainly just going to pick up their things and go home (sorry I didn’t say goodbye to everyone!) and so a couple of adults were left with extra children, where others of us were still in the other room either helping tidy up or sorting babies. Unfortunately the kids were mostly very hyped up by this time, and I met M coming back to find me to say he’d been kicked in the mouth and his teeth were hurting. Couldn’t see any blood, and they hadn’t fallen out - he was especially worried because it was his 2 top front teeth and he knows they’re the olny ones he’ll get now his adult teeth are through. So we went back to the room and did some tidying and got out of the way before anything else happened. It’s difficult to know how much to intervene with other people’s children.

Had an OK drive home, with a wee and feed stop for L, and then had chilli and rice that A had left ready for us to heat up (he’s at work this evening). Right, off to bed and catch up with a bit of sleep I think, but must set the video for Lost on E4 first!

Quick catch up:

Wednesday

West Park - possibly the less said about that the better. The children were all getting on fine. The adults were having a few challenges on the communications front, shall we say. What is wrong with everyone having an equal say in running a group is beyond me. Anyway, M had fun. He helped build a theme park out of Lego, played in the playhouse, tried snooker and generally kept himself busy. L smiled at everyone and enjoyed being chatted to and held by some other people.

Wednesday evening we let M stay up later than usual and we all watched Freaky Friday on DVD and ate lots of popcorn.

Thursday

After doing his maths and sounding activities I took M into town to buy a Spy Bug from Tescos with his pocket money. He’d spotted it the week before but needed to save his money for another week to afford it. Unfortunately he’d interpreted that as “We’ll go and buy it on Monday” and then when we didn’t go Monday or Tuesday he got upset. So I promised we’d go Thursday if he got on with things in the morning. He got up early and had his maths finished by 7.20am! He also did his phonograms and spelling in double quick time, so that was a bonus. He is so chuffed with his new gadget and keeps trying to hide it around the house to listen in on conversations, but so far he’s not been very subtle and he hasn’t caught us out!

Friday

What did we do on Friday? Erm… M had his Musical Theatre class in the afternoon, and we finished listening to “Great Expectations” during the journey home. I downloaded the small file size of it from Audible (when Kirsty mentioned the free books), which was all I could manage on dial up, but it’s fine to listen to on a car journey. We do so much time in the car getting to things I like to have stories to listen to. This was a little bit too involved for M, so I kept pausing for a round up of events so far, but I think he got the jist and he asked to listen to more.

I applied online to upgrade to broadband after Joyce suggested trying and seeing what they say. I was getting hopeful - our postcode said we could probably get broadband, our phone number said probably not, but when I applied it said we could have the 500K speed though they might need to send an engineer out. Unfortunately a couple of days later I got a letter saying they’d decided our line wasn’t up to it after all. It’s so frustrating! I’d love to be able to download books, send digital photos for printing out easily etc etc but it’s not going to happen for now.

Saturday

We tried driving into town to go to the bank and change pin numbers on new cards, but there were no parking spaces to be had anywhere so we gave up and went supermarket shopping instead. We popped home for a quick lunch and then took M to his dancing class. He seems to be getting the hang of his 2 dances now. Don’t think we did anything memorable on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday

We got up early and went swimming for half an hour before church. It was L’s first time and we weren’t sure how he’d do, but he looked like he was enjoying himself in the pool. A and I took it in turns to hold him and swish him through the water. He liked to go on his tummy and splash his legs, but pulled some peculiar faces when his mouth and nose went in the water. He looked as though he was trying to taste the water with his tongue, then screwed his nose up at it.

Church was church, with a fairly unintelligible sermon about rendering unto Caesar what is Caesars. Why he can’t just say what he means instead of pontificating I don’t know, I just let it wash over my head most of the time. Coffee afterwards was better and I started getting to know the new assistant’s wife. There’s another lady there with a baby of 6 months, so we got chatting about the health visitor and the mums and babies group and stuff. She is the only other mum there who is breastfeeding past a few weeks, cosleeping and so on, and the HV keeps having a go at her for cosleeping and not doing CIO, so we encourage each other. I promised to lend her the Continuum Concept when she has time to read it.

The HV is really irritating me at the moment so I’m giving her a wide berth - whenever I see her (e.g. at baby weighing) she is always telling some poor mum she *should* do this or that, she never says anyone is doing a great job of mothering their baby. It’s all negative - breastfed babies don’t sleep well, the only way to get any sleep is to leave them to cry, grrr…. like there’s only one way of doing things. Do they not learn any counselling skills on these HV courses? What about asking how the mum feels about things before ordering her about?

Sunday afternoon M and A went for a bike ride and then tidied up the garden, and I caught up with a few emails. In the evening we watched another DVD - Maid in Manhattan. It was OK for a romantic comedy - watchable and not taxing. M was falling asleep though so he missed the last 10 minutes.

Today

A did maths with M first thing and then when I got up we did his phonograms and spelling. Then we went out for the day up to Teesside Park, where we watched Wallace and Gromit and the Were-Rabbit. Think it’s one of those films where you’ll see alot more the second time you watch it. We all enjoyed it, L was fascinated by the moving pictures, though the sound was a bit too loud. He screeched a bit (happy screech, but loud) and I tried to BF him off to sleep but he as having none of it - he wanted to be facing the screen. He eventually nodded off sitting up on my knee and slept through the second half of the film, so we could watch without worrying he was disturbing anyone else, though there were only about a dozen of us in.

On Tuesday M was invested as a Beaver Scout. He’s been going since they started back after the school holidays in September. They do lots of racing around playing games and do a bit of craft and M loves it so far. Parents could go to watch the investiture ceremony 15 mins before the end of Beavers, so I was there with the camera doing my proud mummy bit. A arrived by the skin of his teeth just as they were starting. The photo is from video, so a bit dark.

We’ve several Beaver badges to sew on his uniform for Tuesday now. I’ve sewn on his name tape, but M is going to get his membership badge and county/district badge sewn on himself. I’m all for him learning these useful skills as young as possible, where they fit with things he’s doing.

M’s been looking at what Beaver badges he could do in his Beaver log book. He says he’s a computer expert (modesty not being one of his strong points!) and wants to do the IT badge, and could also do the Faith badge fairly easily, so I think we’ll have more of a look at those together this week, while he stays interested. He could also qualify for the Experiment badge if he gets his BA silver award finished (he’s about halfway through). I don’t want to be one of those pushy mothers who lives through their kids’ achievements, but equally I don’t want to ignore the beginnings of an interest in working for a badge that he could do fairly easily and him not end up with any badges through lack of encouragement. For the IT badge he needs to make a poster with text and graphics, which is something we’ve had a bit of a go at before. Then he needs to know how to draw a picture in a painting program, so that will be something new to try. Seems quite an old fashioned thing to do?

Looking at badges has reminded me M is about two thirds through his RSPB wildlife action award too. He’s done several activities but needs to finish writing them up. I think he dictated quite a bit to me in the summer and we stopped because I needed to get pictures off the camera to go in his write ups, so might try and find those for him this week too.