Who’s Normal Anyway?

We’ve got a busy weekend planned so I’ll catch up with what we’ve been up to the last couple of days while I have a few mins this morning.

Thursday

We went out to a new baby signing class. I’d emailed to check M would be welcome as well as L and the class teacher was happy to have him join in and did a much appreciated job of including him, lending him a big teddy to join in some of the action songs and asking him to help hand out stickers and things. I’m not very consistent in signing to L and he’s shown no inclination to sign anything so far, but I’m going to make more effort to remember to sign when I know the sign and see if he gets more interested now he’s a bit older. M enjoys signing too. I’ll have to check when Something Special is on.

Afterwards we went to do the supermarket shopping as we were close to there, and had some lunch in the cafe too. By the time we got home it was gone 2pm and it seemed such a chunk out of the day, so I’ll have to think about how to get it done faster. Seems sensible to do shopping after signing every week as they are in the same direction.

I can’t remember what else we did when we got home, but A phoned from Glasgow (he flew up there Thursday morning for a course) to say as they were in the taxi to the hotel they’d had a phone call to say the course had been cancelled, so he was stuck on Scotland for the evening and was rearranging flights with Easyjet to come home early on Friday. We had an early tea and then I took M to his first Beaver meeting here. They haven’t been meeting because they’d lost their leader and this was the first one in months. Only 3 Beavers turned up, but M seems to have had a good time. They chose to do the Animal Friend badge so he’s keeping a record of when he feeds our tropical fish - bit stuck on how he is going to exercise them though LOL.

Friday

We had a day in and M played Sonic, did spelling, some maths about odd and even number multiplication, more typing practice and played with L. In the afternoon I started making cookies and leek flan to take out to a party today. M was supposed to be going to help me but he quickly lost interest and then nagged me to make him a YahooID! So I sent him off to do some Cybercafe stuff of the Internet Proficiency Scheme and told him he needed to know more about staying safe before he was going on IM or using the internet with less supervision. He came back a while later to tell me he’d done the email section and something else, but he’d done the email twice because the first time he’d got every answer wrong. I need to make sure he’s absorbing why we do and don’t do certain things, not just learning the right answers to pass the quizzes. I’ve printed out the sheets for lesson 2 and we’ll go through those next I think.

A came home mid afternoon and we had a drive out to look for a tropical fish shop but when we found it we weren’t that impressed because they had a lot of dead fish in their tanks and it all looked a bit dingy. We picked up fish and chips for tea and came home to eat. L had a good go at using cutlery and finally stabbed a chip and got it to his mouth, then it dropped off. LOL He is far more interested in the cutlery and playing with his food than actually eating any of it. He actually ate less than a teaspoon of mushy peas and a flake of fish in the end, and whatever bit of potato he sucked out of the chip. Oh well, good job he’s child number 2 or I’d be having fits about it.

Right, better go get a shower and get dressed.

Have to say I wasn’t with it enough to start taking photos first thing. M got up about 7am and went downstairs to play Sonic. We slowly got breakfast done and came back upstairs to get dressed and bedroom jobs done (sort of). I put washing on and M got out his spelling things, so we did that first. It’s never fast while L is awake and we had numerous interuptions for the phone, pottying L, hugs, watching what L was doing.

M had wanted to do some typing practice but I got sidetracked looking at what Schools Radio programmes are on this term and we ended up listening to Time and Tune about Huan Tsang who travelled the Silk Road to bring Buddhist writings to China from India.

M had a chocolate egg break and did some typing practice while I hung out the washing with L. He was excited he didn’t need to use the keyboard guide on level one, but is very eager to get as far as using the shift keys.

Continuing on with his Leonardo da Vinci project, M drew a portrait of himself while L was roaming the front room and playing.

Then we talked about the Mona Lisa and I read out some info from the internet while L fed to sleep and M styled my hair. Very nice head massage and hair combing (except when he stuck me with the pencil point!)

I put L down for a nap upstairs and M watched some schools TV about science, then started playing Sonic again.

A came home, having been away since Monday, so we all sat and chatted for an hour or so before he had to go into work.

M asked if we could get out the Lego Mindstorms kit and we had that out for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I needed to sort out the Tower set up to connect it to the computer and M was aiming to build the first model to go back through the tutorial again. We were slightly hampered by a roving small baby though Just about managed to keep him out of the Lego box.

M decided he didn’t want to keep building if I was hanging the washing out so was persuaded to help a bit.

He wanted to call for the lad next door but it was too early so M did some maths arrow games for a bit. (Look says, “Are you STILL taking pictures?”)

The boy next door didn’t want to play so I took M and L round to the playpark and M gradually involved himself in a Star Wars game with some slightly older boys. (He says he gave them tips from the films).

We came home for tea and afterwards M got into pyjamas and we all watched Valiant on DVD and ate popcorn. Then it was bedtime.

Wonder how long I’ll manage to type here for before L spots me and comes to pounch on the keyboard? Ah, not long then - must be the clicking of the keys! He’s not long woken up and was playing on the landing with his baby gym so I thought I’d come into the bedroom and blog for a bit. M is using the computer downstairs to play Sonic, his latest game obsession.

Yesterday A went to catch his train at 5.30am and I stayed in bed asleep until a more reasonable hour.

(Had to break off there because L was trying to strangle himself with the keyboard cable in an attempt to get the mouse)

Yesterday was the new home ed group so once we were up and dressed M did a page of Miquon and some spelling and then we went out. There were lots of families came along this week again and there were quite a few who didn’t come last time. It makes a change to go to a HE group where there are so many boys and older children. I hope they all keep coming. We sat in the hut for a while talking while the kids played outside then we went for a walk through the woods, though the older boys didn’t want to join in with that so their families did their own thing. We stayed for about 3 hours in the end.

Afterwards we called in Tescos and then came home and M played Sonic. Again.

L was scratching alot again yesterday. His neck seems to be itchy and he was scratting away at his forehead in the car so I had to resort to the socks on his hands thing again. But he’s working out how to pull them off now. Maybe it’s his cold that’s making his head flare up a bit at the moment.

M’s decided he’s going to find out all about Leonardo da Vinci this week, so I’ve been collecting websites etc to sort out a bit of a plan:

The Leonardo museum in Vinci
http://www.leonet.it/comuni/vinci/

Leonardo WebQuest
http://learning.usd383.org/tlcf/tlcf2001/products/hemphill/default.htm

Mona Lisa (and another WebQuest)
http://www.gardenofpraise.com/art17.htm

Virtual tour of The Last Supper
http://milano.arounder.com/da_vinci_last_supper/fullscreen.html

BBC’s Leonardo pages
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo/

Interactive adventure in Leonardo’s workshop
http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/play/leonardo/index.html

Leonardo’s Mysterious Machinery
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/LeosMysteriousMachinery.html

We’re also going to use these books:

Leonardo and the Flying Boy

Leonardo da Vinci and his Super Brain

The Genius of Leonardo

Leonardo DK Eyewitness Guides

Couldn’t summon enthusiasm and time for blogging earlier in the week, but here’s a quick summary.

Thursday

We were up early and out of the house by 8am to get into the centre of Norwich for a schools’ showing of March of the Penguins at 10am. We had an introductory talk by Malcolm Penny who made Survival documentaries in Antarctica. He told us about filming in the harsh conditions before we watched the film. I saw the first 20 mins and then L started fussing so I took him out to the loo but he fussed there too so we went back in. He was intent on trying to grab M and then got louder and louder so I took him out again into the lobby in the hopes we could go back in if he settled down or fed off for a nap - but no chance of that. M was upset and said he thought I’d left him there and gone off for lunch. Dunno where he gets these ideas! I think he enjoyed the film though it sounded a bit traumatic in places. When the film finished we went to Norwich Castle and got some lunch and then had a brief look around at everything. We must go back for a more detailed look sometime soon because there is loads there to see. We called in the library where M was pleased to find the first Asterix book and then we came home. A was supposed to be in Scotland at a meeting but as we arrived back so did he - had a mix up over plane tickets.

Friday

We had a day at home and M made a poster about the Queen and the royal family and palaces. I can’t remember what else we did but I think we had a few differences of opinion about how much time M could spend on the computer. He was coming down with a cold and he woke in the evening burning hot and crying, so A slept in with him and had a restless night.

Saturday

M woke up feeling better thank goodness because we planned to go to the East Anglia Cache meet up in Ely. The weather was gorgeous for it and we met lots of fellow geocachers outside the Maltings pub. We did an event cache hunting down Captain Redbeard’s treasure and had some lunch at the Maltings. Afterwards we went hunting down clues for another cache around Ely centre but we’ll have to finish it off another day because we ran out of time and energy.

Today L and I also have horrible colds. We went to church this morning and then this afternoon A went out to a Scout St George’s Day parade thing and I took L and M to Oxburgh Hall for their Knights, Damsels and Dragons day. M did a quiz about armour around the orchard and then made a dragon mask. We went around the house and M did a children’s trail about dragons. He wasn’t that interested in the house (I wasn’t ’specially fascinated either, must be said) and an old biddy visitor had a go at him for pointing at details in some wooden panelling, telling him he shouldn’t touch. Grrr…. There was a priest hole M was really interested in but I said there was no way I was going to view it with L on my front and a bag on my back - I was too wide to manoeuver. I was impressed he queued up by himself and got chatting to the guide all about the hole and how big it was and all sorts.

Tomorrow A is being picked up at 5.30am to go to Scotland and he’s not back til Wednesday, then Thursday and Friday he’s off again. I’m feeling stressed about the week ahead already. I have too many things to do and end up not settling to do anything so I get no farther on.

I couldn’t resist a book list when I saw this on Jax’s blog. There’s an awful lot of these books I’ve never even heard of, if I have heard of them I probably don’t know what they’re about, and I’ve read hardly any of them.

Just BOLD those you’ve read, ITALICIZE the ones you’ve been meaning to read and ??? the ones you have never heard of. Anyone care to recommend their “don’t miss” choices? Di?

Alcott, Louisa May – Little Women
Allende, Isabe l– The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret – Cat’s Eye
Austen, Jane – Emma
Bambara, Toni Cade – Salt Eaters ???
Barnes, Djuna – Nightwood ???
de Beauvoir, Simone – The Second Sex
Blume, Judy – Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances – The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily – Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S. – The Good Earth ???
Byatt, A.S. – Possession ???
Cather, Willa – My Antonia ???
Christie, Agatha – Murder on the Orient Express
Cisneros, Sandra – The House on Mango Street ???
Clinton, Hillary Rodham – Living History
Cooper, Anna Julia – A Voice From the South ???
Danticat, Edwidge – Breath, Eyes, Memory ???
Davis, Angela – Women, Culture, and Politics ???
Desai, Anita – Clear Light of Day ???
Dickinson, Emily – Collected Poems ???
Duncan, Lois – I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne – Rebecca
Eliot, George – Middlemarch
Emecheta, Buchi – Second Class Citizen ???
Erdrich, Louise – Tracks ???
Esquivel, Laura – Like Water for Chocolate ???
Flagg, Fannie – Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty – The Feminine Mystique ???
Frank, Anne – Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins – The Yellow Wallpaper ???
Gordimer, Nadine – July’s People ???
Grafton, Sue – S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith – Mythology ???
Highsmith, Patricia – The Talented Mr. Ripley
Hooks, Bell – Bone Black ???
Hurston, Zora Neale – Dust Tracks on the Road ???
Jacobs, Harriet – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jackson, Helen Hunt – Ramona
Jackson, Shirley – The Haunting of Hill House ???
Jong, Erica – Fear of Flying ???
Keene, Carolyn – The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
Kidd, Sue Monk – The Secret Life of Bees
Kincaid, Jamaica – Lucy ???
Kingsolver, Barbara – The Poisonwood Bible ???
Kingston, Maxine Hong – The Woman Warrior ???
Larsen, Nella – Passing ???
L’Engle, Madeleine – A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K. – The Left Hand of Darkness ???
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
Lessing, Doris – The Golden Notebook ???
Lively, Penelope – Moon Tiger ???
Lorde, Audre – The Cancer Journals ???
Martin, Ann M. – The Babysitters Club Series
McCullers, Carson – The Member of the Wedding ???
McMillan, Terry – Disappearing Acts ???
Markandaya, Kamala – Nectar in a Sieve ???
Marshall, Paule – Brown Girl, Brownstones ???
Mitchell, Margaret – Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy – Anne of Green Gables
Morgan, Joan – When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost ???
Morrison, Toni – Song of Solomon ???
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu – The Tale of Genji ???
Munro, Alice – Lives of Girls and Women ???
Murdoch, Iris – Severed Head ???
Naylor, Gloria – Mama Day ???
Niffenegger, Audrey – The Time Traveller’s Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol – We Were the Mulvaneys ???
O’Connor, Flannery – A Good Man is Hard to Find ???
Piercy, Marge – Woman on the Edge of Time ???
Picoult, Jodi – My Sister’s Keeper
Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar ???
Porter, Katharine Anne – Ship of Fools ???
Proulx, E. Annie – The Shipping News ???
Rand, Ayn – The Fountainhead ???
Ray, Rachel – 365: No Repeats ???
Rhys, Jean – Wide Sargasso Sea ???
Robinson, Marilynne – Housekeeping ???
Rocha, Sharon – For Laci ???
Sebold, Alice – The Lovely Bones ???
Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein
Smith, Betty – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie – White Teeth ???
Spark, Muriel – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna – Heidi
Strout, Elizabeth – Amy and Isabelle ???
Steel, Danielle – The House
Tan, Amy – The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah – You’re Wearing That ???
Ulrich, Laurel – A Midwife’s Tale
Urquhart, Jane – Away ???
Walker, Alice – The Temple of My Familiar
Welty, Eudora – One Writer’s Beginnings ???
Wharton, Edith – Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls – Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary – A Vindication of the Rights of Women ???
Woolf, Virginia – A Room of One’s Own

We had a lovely holiday weekend but now A is back at work the days seem a lot longer and harder. Or maybe it’s the rain that is making things dreary!

On Monday we went to Felbrigg Hall near Cromer and arrived before the house, gardens and crucially the cafe (!) were open. We did a cache in the woods there and had a walk around, then stayed for an early lunch. We scrummaged around to pay for it because they didn’t take cards - aarghhh… can’t be doing with these backward places! Afterwards we went to Cromer and walked along the front and on the beach for an hour and got blown away. It was lovely to be out though. We hit the bank holiday traffic on the way home unfortunately, even though we drove home about 2pm.

Yesterday I woke up still very tired and we had quite a shouty morning. Then M escaped to play with the lad next door and stayed there all afternoon. After a couple of hours I knocked to check he was being no trouble and the neighbours were still happy to have him but they said they were so I left him there. He came home very pink cheeked and a bit hyped from playing on the PS2 and computer games all afternoon. He was full of having watched the first part of Star Wars 3 too, which we hadn’t let him see yet. Oh well… L and I had a quiet afternoon but he was a bit miserable because his top tooth was coming through.

Today all the school kids have gone back. This morning we continued a mini rhino project (following on from reading the Just So Stories rhino tale yesterday) and M made a poster. He has the beginnings of fundraising plans to send money to a Save the Rhino appeal but we’ll see if they come to anything. He was quite funny telling me there are “3 classic ways to fundraise - bake cookies and sell them, hold a car wash or run a lemonade stand” - not sure where he gets these ideas from but it made me smile! He’s also played on the Lego website and on Neopets. L has mooched about and followed M and I around depending on who was doing what. This afternoon we’ve been out to the library and supermarket and called in a garden centre on the way back to get some little pots so I could pot on my pepper plants. L slept when we came home so I got on with potting on and M did some maths in the front room, measuring and estimating.

Right, could write more but The Apprentice is about to start!

We’ve been using Elimination Communication (EC) with L since he was about a month old. EC is about looking out for your baby’s signals that they need to wee or poo and working with them to help them go somewhere other than in their nappy. The focus for us is on the communication and treating L respectfully and helping him to be comfortable. I thought it would be interesting to look back on our ECing journey and see where we are at now L is 9 months old so I’m recording what’s happened today.

6.40am We’d been awake maybe 10-20 mins and L had been having his wake up breastfeed. When he slowed down and his sucking changed from regular glugging down to a shallower, more irregular suck I said, “I think it’s time for the potty” and took off his PJ bottoms and his nappy (we use disposables at night so he stays feeling dry - he isn’t always keen to be pottied at night). I sat him on the potty between my knees with the potty slightly tipped back. I find it helps prevent overshoot and I also hold a muslin over the front of the potty because L likes to pull his penis all over the place as he starts to wee! He pooed and weed and then wriggled to get off the potty. I put a disposable on him again because I know I tune out first thing in the morning and miss the first couple of wees.

We then chatted with M as he’d just woken up and after 20 mins we went downstairs to get breakfast. L pottered about playing and I did usual morning things of breakfast, getting dressed, computer time and so on.

8.15am I offered L the potty before we went out to Church. He didn’t want a wee so I just put him in a Swaddlebees cloth nappy and walked to Church with him in my sling. We got to Church with a couple of mins to spare but I decided not to take L for a wee because I’d only recently offered. He was OK during the service and not too fussy. I was juggling baby, candle and service sheet and it was a busy service. He didn’t fuss for a wee so I didn’t take him. He did have a few short feeds during Church but every time he latched on he’d get disturbed by having to go up to the front for communion or to shake hands for the peace or whatever, so not a very peaceful breastfeed!

9.15am At the end of the service I took L straight to the toilet where they have a baby changing area, took his nappy off and it was still dry. I held him over the toilet and cued him with our shwshw noise and he quickly had a wee. I didn’t bother putting his trousers back on becasue he was wearing his baby legs. Then we went through to join everyone else for breakfast. I met someone I hadn’t chatted to before and she offered to hold L while I ate but he wriggled to get down. He roamed about getting underfoot and just playing - he likes to follow a baby who is 4 months older around. I paid little attention other than checking he was still in the room.

9.45am L appeared behind my chair and made fussy noises at me, so I took him to the toilet again. His nappy was still dry and he had another wee. Then we went back to chat and A and M joined us.

10.20am Took L for another wee before the family service started.

10.50am Came out of the service to see if L’s fussing was because he wanted the loo again but he didn’t want to have a wee when I held him in position. Maybe he was just getting fussy with tiredness or maybe he couldn’t relax to wee. When the service ended we went for another coffee and A watched L while I chatted so I wasn’t paying attention. He came to me for a breastfeed and fell asleep about 11.45am.

When we got home I forgot to offer the potty (oops!) and we got on with lunch.

12.30pm L got louder and thrashier while he was in his highchair so I got him down and put him on the potty. His nappy was wet and he also had a wee. I fastened a prefold around him with a Nappi Nippa for while we were in the house.

2.20pm I offered the potty again because we were going out in the car. L was fussing so I breastfed him for a few minutes which helped him to relax. He sat a minute or so on the potty and then did a poo. He started to wee but didn’t let it go and struggled to get off the potty. I didn’t want to fight him about having a wee so put a Fuzzibunz nappy on him and we got into the car. He napped during the journey.

3pm We arrived in the car park for the geocache we were going to do. L was asleep so I put him in the carrier and he woke briefly and then went straight back off to sleep.

4pm Got back to the car after finding the cache and woke L to potty and feed him. His nappy was wet so either he weed when we first set off in the car, or when he briefly woke as I put him in the carrier. He had a wee out of the car door onto the car park dirt (in a forest) and then had a breastfeed.

4.30pm L was starting to make some fussing noises but there was nowhere to pull over in the car, then he seemed to calm down so we just carried on.

4.50pm L was getting loud again so we found a layby and stopped. He had a wet nappy but didn’t want to wee on the potty on my knee in the front seat.

5.20pm We arrived home and L had a wee on the potty once we got into the house. I put him back into a prefold. I offered him another wee before tea but he wasn’t interested.

7pm After tea I started writing this blog and L played on the floor. I became aware that he was trying to get my attention and was a bit fussy and found he was wet. Offered the potty but he wasn’t interested. I took him bare bummed upstairs to get ready for bed and into a disposable and PJs.

7.45pm L was feeding while I read M his bedtime story. He began faffing about and not concentrating on breastfeeding so I took him to sit on his potty in our bedroom and he had a wee.

8.15pm Fussing and faffing while breastfeeding again so I offered the potty. I sing to him to help him relax sometimes, but he sat happily for a couple of mins and didn’t wee so I assumed I’d misread his behaviour.

8.30pm L settled down on my lap to breastfeed to sleep.

And that’s where we’ve got to today. Some days we go all day and “catch” practically nothing. At home L roams around doing his own thing and I easily forget to be aware. He usually comes to tell me when he is wet though (if he is wearing cloth) so he’s keeping awareness. When we are out and I’m carrying L it is much easier to tune in with him.

I think once babies are mobile ECing changes quite alot. Soem days L seems to be on a complete “potty pause” but I know he is learning and changing all the time. I’ve found Charndra’s EC pages really helpful in getting tips for ECing an older baby.

Happy Easter! I’ve been out to the Easter communion service at 8.30am (that was an effort to get there, good job the church is only 5 mins walk away) then stayed for breakfast. A and M joined us for egg rolling and games and then we all went to the family Easter service. There were lots of extra people there and the children were all pretty loud but it was good.

Home for lunch and then we got the Easter gifts out from us and from family. I put out eggs in the garden and M had an egg hunt. We came in and I tried to eat a Creme Egg but L was fussing and A thought he wanted breastfeeding. Ha ha, nope, he was after my egg! I really didn’t want him getting into chocolate this young. on the other hand I suppose at least he’s showing an interest in eating something.

Today we’ve been out geocaching in Thetford forest. I tried out the Ergo Tech leant me - think it makes me look too busty LOL.

We enjoyed the children’s trail with lots of animal sculptures for M to play on. More photos are on Flickr.

Right, just a quicky, off to get creative with who we might know who would qualify to sign L’s passport application and then maybe watch Chocolat.