Who’s Normal Anyway?

The Sky installation engineer was due today and rang first thing to say it would be mid afternoon before he got here. We had a trip into town to get a few bits and pieces and it was a chance for me to check I could find the way there and back without getting lost! It was bitterly cold again so we hurried between the shops. M spent his pocket money and World Book Day token on 2 more Astrosaurs books and got a bargain in WH Smith where it rang up as £2.49 instead of £4.99 and then he got another £1 off. Then the book shop (WHS didn’t have both books he wanted) was doing £1 off too.

At home M has played computer games and mooched around. L has been into everything the last few days and today was the same. He is pulling up on everything and is very insistent about what he wants. He wants to have any pen I’m holding, type on the keyboard, have a knife and bash it on my plate when I’m eating (or push all the food off on to the floor) - not that I let him, but it’s what he would like to do and he gets very frustrated when he can’t! He’s crawled through the chair and table legs and round boxes and pulled out videos and all sorts, and come a cropper a couple of times so now he has a bruise on his face from a miscalculated manoeuver beneath the dining table (thank goodness for the arnica or I think it would’ve been huge).

The Sky engineer turned up just as it was beginning to snow this afternoon. I wasn’t sure what to make of him to begin with, he kept calling me “Ma’am” on the phone and being too polite and when he arrived he looked a bit like a stereotypical Neo-Nazi (OK, I’m being awful) with a skin head and big boots and his South African accent just finished it all off somehow. Anyway, he was very helpful, exceedingly polite and quite chatty with A who came home early and sorted out the ins and outs of where the cabling needed to go. We’re sharing next door’s Sky dish because there’s a huge tree in the way for us getting a signal. Lucky we have nice neighbours! L was in heaven when he got to crawl behind the TV.

While I remember, I’m quite warming to our new garden. It looks better than when we saw it before we moved, because the hedges have all been trimmed. We’ve got loads of birds visiting - mainly starlings and sparrows but also chaffinches and a robin. They’re going to be hard to count if this many keep coming at once we it gets round to next year’s Big Garden Birdwatch. We have the bird feeder outside the dining room window and I can look out at them as I’m on the PC. I took this photo this morning and the fat block is almost all gone now.

Tech pointed this out and I was intrigued. The Johari Window was invented as a way of mapping personality awareness. “By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.”

If you’d like to pick some words to describe me and add to my Johari window, you can do so here.

We’ve moved and got into our new house safely and hurray, we’re back online! Going to take me a little while to catch up with what we’ve been doing though. I almost blogged last week on A’s laptop, but then I couldn’t remember my log in details for Blogsome. Here’s the first installment.

The packers arrived earlier than we’d been told to expect them, about 9.15am. We were at least up and dressed! They came in and did a quick tour, looked horrified and called for an extra person to come up from York to help. They started in the kitchen after almost packing all our shoes and coats, which we hadn’t put into the car out of the way yet.

The house was freezing with all the doors open and nowhere was safe for L to crawl, so M, L and I bailed out to the community centre coffee shop and left A to it with the removals men. They were OK but not very chatty and I hate having people in the house. Last time we moved it was a different firm and they were really friendly and easy to have around, they chatted to M, listened to what we were saying and did a great packing job, but this lot were distinctly “average”.

We bumped into an acquaintance in the cafe who invited us round to hers for the afternoon, so after some TV and meeting A for lunch we went round to her house and M played with her kids while we chatted and kept L out of mischief.

Mid afternoon we went home and the removals men were long gone and the house was all packed up apart from the mattresses, TV, fridge, vac and drinks things. I don’t know what all the fuss was about, they could have moved us in 2 days instead of 3 easily. The house was cold and echoey and didn’t feel like ours anymore, so we went out to Pizza Hut for tea and then watched Chicken Little. We had an early night and barely stayed awake to watch Desperate Housewives, but then didn’t sleep well in nervous anticipation for Thursday.

I’ll blog the next bit later, I’d better catch up with A a bit before I carry on. I might password some posts so I can be a bit more specific and I’ll email the password to regulars I know about, but feel free to ask for a password.

We’re back and we had lots of fun catching up with people and forgetting about packing up to move.

The Highlights For Me

• Seeing old friends and meeting new ones.
• Geocaching with the Rainedrops along the old Roman road.

• Making more pizza and salad than people could eat in one sitting, and getting it served up within 40 mins. Thanks Kris and Joyce for all your help and suggestions and thanks to Jax and all the veggie choppers for your assistance - couldn’t have done it without you.
• Porridge provided every morning. Very yummy it was too!
• Kris’s stew. Well done for stepping in to the breach and making it so tasty.
• Everyone pulling together to clean the hostel on Thursday afternoon/evening, despite the sickness worries.
• Seeing all the children enjoying the Valentine’s disco and party.

• The deer park visit, especially the falconry display. Thanks for the lifts and sorry about the screaming baby.

The Down Side

• People getting ill and leaving early.
• Being thrown up on - but he’s such a cute baby I’ll forgive him LOL.
• Missing families who weren’t there this year, particularly Ros’s family and Sarah and her children. M was sad not to be able to play with any of them or Mattie.
• The baking running out so quickly and before I got any of Joyce’s goodies. Jan’s shortbread was as delicious as ever and Katy’s baking was yummy - must get the recipes!

We’re back. No one has been sick (yet!) but we’ve all got chesty colds. It was good to sleep in our own beds but sad to leave early and miss the last evening. The journey back from Melrose was in the record time of 2.5 hours. We didn’t stop except to swap seats so I could try and encourage L to sleep instead of scream and to get milk at Scotch Corner, where we waved at Merry who’d stopped too.

I’m not making enough time to blog at the moment and it’ll get worse before it gets better, what with Melrose next week and moving house the week after, so here are a few notable points for the past week.

A has now officially left the mountain rescue team. Earlier this week he was up in Scotland with them for a training week, but came back early to go on holiday. He was pretty fed up it didn’t snow til after he’d come home - they had to do ice climbing indoors. But he did get to go on 2 call outs, so a bit of excitement. The team leaving ceremony has been banned on the grounds it looks like bullying to members of the public, so A was a little sad (and possibly relieved given the weather) not to be “swum”, but he did get lots of whiskeys bought on his last evening out.

Yesterday A persuaded me he really needed to go and buy some of his own climbing gear now he’s not on the team. He got a new harness, stickies (climbing boots), bug and something else I can’t remember the name of LOL and hammered the credit card. But it was a bargain because he got it using team discount before we move

M has had lots of lasts, and more today. It was his final Beavers on Tuesday, last West Park on Wednesday and last Musical Theatre class yesterday. We’re hoping to keep in touch with people from WP though and at MT it was sweet because we were given leaving cards and one family even got us leaving pressies. So we’ve finally swapped names (!) and addresses and may write sometimes. I’ve enjoyed chatting to the mums and grans in the changing room while M’s had his lesson and they’ve seen L grow from bump through tiny baby to crawling around under everyone’s legs.

Today is M’s last dance class and then we’re seeing the doublets and family for soft play and pizza and goodbyes - though they’d better come visit, so not too final.

L has marked the week by finishing one cold and then starting another. He’s honing his pulling up skills ’specially for our week away and was popping up and down to M’s chair over and over yesterday evening, practising. He’s so pleased with himself when he does it. He also does a sweet raspberry noise (well, sweet except when he climbed on top of me in the middle of the night, socked me in the nose, grinned and blew raspberries : ). He’s teething and is waking sometimes hourly. His 2 bottom teeth popped through on Thursday afternoon. There’s no dosing him with anything though, he just won’t open his mouth and squirms away.

My highlight of the week was going shopping yesterday to spend Chirstmas M&S vouchers in Per Una and finding I could buy a size 16 skirt! Haven’t done that in a long while.

Decided it might be useful to do an end of each month update on how far my goals for the year have got. (OK, I know it’s several days into Feb already, but I’m always behind.) Italicised items are things I’m leaving til after we’ve moved.

5 personal goals for this year

1. Write the articles I’ve got in mind in my head but haven’t got around to committing to paper/computer - Haven’t time to think about this and sort out moving just now
2. Find something to do just for me, just because I want to - nope, no ideas on this one yet!
3. Reply to emails as they arrive - stop procrastinating - no progress!
4. Fill in L’s baby book before I forget stuff - I’ve caught up a bit and stuck in some handprints we did weeks ago, and I’ve also sorted out some pics to get printed off properly to stick in, plus I’ve made a list of things to remember for each month.
5. Keep on top of the ABM website / emails - Ahem! Must get onto some of it this week.

5 home ed goals for this year

1. With M, pick some projects to work on and make something of them - even finish some of them! - No real progress here. He hasn’t suggested anything he wants to do.
2. Write an ed phil and in the process review what we’re doing and if our priorities are being met - haven’t started it yet. Anyone got theirs on their blog and want to post a link in the comments so I can pilfer some ideas?
3. Build up a home ed network for us where we are moving to - I’ve been in touch via email with a couple of people. They don’t have a local Yahoo group!! Will have to get along to a few things as soon as we can after moving and get into the word of mouth thing.
4. Use the BA science things and do science more often because M loves it when we do - haven’t done any this month
5. Start fitting in more German and more music - no progress on the German but we’ve been incorporating The Song Tree and Music Workshop from BBC Schools radio regularly.

5 family goals for this year

1. Eat all our meals together at the dining table - been doing this much more than before. It would probably help if I got the piles of books and scrapbooks and oddments off the end of the table to make a bit more space.
2. Start a weekly family night in with games or a family film
3. Invite friends to visit and fit in visiting them too
4. More geocaching than we’ve fitted in this year
5. Explore and do things together at weekends - don’t waste them on shopping and TV

5 house and home goals for this year

1. Stick to the routines we decide on until they are routine and then maintain them, especially for keeping on top of housework
2. Involve M in a way that helps him feel useful, needed and important, but not put upon - not sure how we’re getting on with this really. I’m trying!
3. Work on settling in to our new house and make it feel like home
4. Plan and develop new garden with A (and allotment? must enquire once we’re settled) and grow bedding plants and veggies
5. Sort out an organic veg box and regularly cook home made healthy meals
   

So, a bit of progress, but not an awful lot. Still, there’s another 11 months to go til the end of the year.

Yesterday we went to visit Jan and family. Before we set off we did some home ed things though. M worked through a few more sums in his basic maths book - he’s working through the dividing by 2 section. We’re taking a break from Miquon for a bit and consolidating some basic facts, then we’ll go back to it again. He seems to be calmer doing fairly repetitive maths for the time being, but it is helping his times tables stick and he is learning, so good all round really. He listened to the next part of Treasure Island on BBC Schools radio too, then we made some choc chip cookies and set off to Jan’s.

I managed to get there without getting lost on the way and L slept well on the journey. M went straight off to play and there was lots of running about and silliness, and L explored J’s toys while Jan and I chatted about home ed and allsorts. L also stalked one of the cats but luckily the cat was very tolerant!

Jan made tasty pizza for lunch and M amazed me by eating some lunch for a change, so it must’ve been especially good. He cried that some of the pizza sauce was too hot when it dribbled on his chin and I felt guilty in the evening when his chin had come up in a pink splodgy burn mark

We left in time to go to my sister’s for tea. Mum is looking a lot better in herself and had been to the hospital and had her pot (cast for non-Yorkshire people!) changed to a fibreglass one - doesn’t look as “swollen” now. Mum entertained L with Duplo while my sis and I played Sorry with M. We drove home after the rush hour traffic had cleared.

Today home ed wise we’ve done a bit more than yesterday because we stayed in til mid afternoon. M’s done more maths and some spelling from Writing Road to Reading. We read The Cat That Walked By Himself and chatted about why cats, horses and dogs are like they are and the explanations in the story. The part about the cat and the baby seemed very apt after L and Jan’s cat yesterday LOL. Afterwards we read Puss in Boots and M narrated it back through drawings. He usually narrates out loud and I type it up for him, but today we tried something different and he drew a series of pictures from the story and used those to tell the story back to me. I enjoy seeing what details he will choose to include in his drawings. While M was doing all this L was mooching around the room playing and hunting out cables to tug - he has a bit of a thing about cables.

After lunch M Neopetted and made a shop behind the dining table and L crawled beneath the table getting stuck in the chairs while I caught up on a few blogs and some emails. A came home from work early (his last proper day at work because next week he’s on a course and the week after we’re at Melrose, then we move the following week) so we all went out to M’s Musical Theatre class. Afterwards we went for a Chinese meal. L was fairly well behaved though he had to sit on our knees because they didn’t have any highchairs - we coped OK even with chopsticks and fending L off grabbing all the bowls and so on. M was impressed that when they brought our coffee there were mint chocs for A and I but a Kinder egg each for M and L!