Who’s Normal Anyway?

M had a 2 hour rollerblading activity this morning to go to as part of the local school holiday playscheme. There hasn’t been a local playscheme before so everything was a little bit up in the air and I waited with him until the coach finally turned up and they’d got boots on and started, then L and I walked home via the shop to get some things for lunch (and some chocolate but perhaps we’ll gloss over that). I then had a good hour before I needed to go back and collect him and it reminded me of when M was in nursery for a year and I used to get allsorts done in the 2.5 hours, it was my time to get some stuff finished or just read uninterrupted. Today I sorted out some website stuff for the ABM that is well behind and got L off to sleep for his nap. A phoned to say he’d come home for lunch and collect M too, so I didn’t need to get L back up to go out of the house.

The afternoon didn’t go quite so smoothly. First of all M was disappointed because he’d signed up for a rugby session for this afternoon (though he would’ve been too tired in hindsight) that was cancelled. Instead I said we’d go to the library and the supermarket, so I asked M to find his Reading Mission card to fill in with the books he’s finished. We hunted for it downstairs for a while and then went into his bedroom to look for it. M stopped looking to read Asterix and L grabbed a page and started crumpling/tearing it and M went mad with him. So I told him off and then he was in tears saying he wasn’t really trying to kill L. Anyway, we recovered it eventually and M showed L his Action Man things while I sorted Lego back into its storage boxes. In the end we came back downstairs and I finally spotted his card on the computer desk.

We drove to the library and L fell asleep in the car. I realised when we got to the car park that I’d forgotten my purse, but figured the staff would probably issue M new books on the basis of ones he returned. So I got slinged up and L out of the car, which woke him, and we walked to the library only to find it was half day closing. So back we went to the car and drove home again.

I did some vacuuming and tidied L’s toys, swapping the boxes over so he has different toys out. M mooned about and finally sat down to watch a Kim Possible DVD from Amazon rentals (when we got rid of lots of Sky channels including the kids ones we subbed him to the cheapest Amazon rental deal instead). L practised his toddling and burst into floods of tears when I wouldn’t let him play with my knitting needles (with knitting on) or touch the rings on the cooker or dibble his fingers in my coffee. It’s a hard and frustrating life being a new toddler LOL. He demonstrated his washer opening and emptying abilities (didn’t realise he could work the catch now) .

When A came home we had tuna pasta bake and A took himself off to bed because he’s full of cold and aching with man flu. Can’t remember what the rest of us did but then it was bathtime and bedtime. L was very tired and rubbing his eyes but not ready to settle down. We had uproar when he snuggled against M’s legs and then bit him in the bottom! M tried to shake him off but he clung on (like a lion according to M). I put him on the floor and cuddled M and when I picked L back up he tried to do it again! He finally settled down to feed to sleep though. I read M more of The Thieves of Ostia but haven’t caught up to where M has read for himself, so he kept telling me what was going to happen next. And now both boys are asleep and I’m having some peace and blogging.

I think our biggest ECing changes in the past fortnight are that L has learned to sign toilet and I’ve been trying to switch to him wearing training pants during the day. L is 12 months and 2 weeks old and is just taking his first steps, toddling part way across a room now before he falls over. He is also getting into climbing, so he has a lot going on all at once.

We’ve been using the BSL sign for toilet for 6 months or so and in the last few weeks L has become able to make the sign. Now he is learning to use it to tell us when he needs to go. Whenever he signs toilet we take him to see if he needs a wee - it’s a two way thing of us all figuring out what the sign means. This week he is signing toilet on average a couple of times a day and usually doing a wee when we take him after he signs. So I’m really pleased the signing is paying off!

When L doesn’t sign I still offer him a wee if it seems like it’s been a while since he last went or if he is getting loud and / or jiggly. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don’t. And sometimes I was right but he didn’t want to go where I offered LOL. I am trying to keep flexible and figure out what he is thinking.

For instance yesterday we were in the bedroom and L was playing on the bed with A while I was doing something else. A said he’d signed toilet so I came in to take him, but by then he’d begun a game of peekaboo with a blanket and didn’t like me interrupting his game. He protested being taken to the toilet so much! So we had a cuddle for a minute or two and then I offered the washbasin instead but he just wanted to play with the soap. I sat him down and he paused, looked at me and weed. It’s all on his terms. He certainly has control of his bladder!

He doesn’t always like to wee even when he needs to go, he will want to play with whatever is to hand. On the toilet on his toddler seat he loves to sit and play with the toilet roll and thinks it is hilarious to pull bits off and put them in his mouth, then look at me provocatively and giggle. I pull a yuck face and remove the paper and it’s a little game. He doesn’t necessarily get on with weeing there though. When I want to hurry him along a bit I hold him in the basic under thigh hold over the washbasin and generally then he’ll go if he needs to. If we’re downstairs offering to wee him over the flower border is a novelty he enjoys! I tell him he’s watering the plants for us LOL.

A couple of times I’ve sat him in the bath while I was getting ready to shower when it seemed he needed to wee but he was holding it. I think sometimes he wants to wee where he wants to wee so that he can splash in it afterwards. I don’t mind in the bath, it’s easily showered off and wee is sterile. I’d prefer him not to decline a wee on the potty then climb off, sit on the carpet and fiddle with his willy, look at me and then wee though. Must be something about making a puddle you can splash in. At least wee is easily mopped up. Recently he’s been wanting to look at what’s in the potty and he loves to stand by the toilet peering into the bowl as it flushes. I guess they all go through these stages of toilet learning.

At the moment with pooing he seems to find it easier if I hold him under his thighs so he’s in a deeper squat than just sitting on the potty. He’s possibly a little bit dehydrated in the heat and finding it harder to poo.

I decided that with the number of misses we’re having in the hot weather I could really go to putting him in training pants now. Certainly when we are out we can go most of the day with no misses (something about the in and out of the car and carrying him that makes staying in tune easier) and training pants are also cooler and smaller to carry spares. I think it’s getting my mind into thinking we can do it OK that is the hard part. L tries to tell us when he needs to go and I thought it was about time I trusted him better. Partly it was reading the latest Infant Pottying Today and thinking "stop being a wuss and just try it" - the DiaperFreeChallenge thing inspired me to go for the next step. Really, training pants aren’t that different to a nappy, they hold a wee for a little bit OK but just aren’t waterproof.

So that’s where we’re at at the moment. We keep on gradually learning and I keep having to remember that L is adjusting all the time. He can hold it much longer now and I need to alter how often I offer him a wee so he doesn’t get annoyed with being taken when he’s not ready to go yet. Now he can hold it it makes it a little bit easier to find potty places when we’re out. I need to take into account that he doesn’t like to be interrupted from playing to go on the potty. When I get it right he has a wee fine and settles down again quickly afterwards. It’s fascinating seeing the process of toilet learning unfold, and he’s keeping comfortable as we go along too.

Yesterday we were up and out really early, driving to Norwich before 8am. We decided we might as well set off as soon as we were ready and get shopping done before it got too hot. We tried a new car park but it proved further to walk than going for the park and ride, even though it was marginally cheaper, which doesn’t outweigh carrying bags of shopping and a baby further out of town.

We went to Lakeland for a fruit straining bag and stand for jam making and then went to the library for Asterix books for M. Then we got some things in Lush and browsed bookshops to spend L’s birthday money. We finally found a magnetic book and a slide the flap one about Poppy Cat that were similar to the type we wanted. We went in M&S’s cafe for a drink in the cool and then picked up a new Argos book and a cheap watch for A (he lost his old one while we were out on Thursday). We got some other bits and pieces and then walked back towards the car. L woke up and needed a wee stop so we dropped in to Sainsburys and did toilets and then while A fetched the car the rest of us bought jam sugar, water and overly expensive melon and grape pieces to eat in the car.

We intended to go raspberry picking next but the place we went to before had taken all their signs down. Maybe the heat finished off the berries. Not sure where we can go to pick fruit now.

Instead we went straight on to Gressenhall because they have extra summer activities on. We walked round the farm part and visited the RSPB stall and chatted from the girl doing that for ages. She showed M how to make a paper frog.

Then we did a little bit of pond dipping but only saw a leech. We stopped for (a late) lunch in their lovely cafe and then took M for a run about in the playground. L wanted to play too but thought he should cover himself in bark chippings and try to eat dirt.

Today we went to church this morning and then to Castle Rising for the afternoon once L woke up from his nap. They had a Napoleonic era (I think) battle thing on with French vs English soldiers skirmishing for the castle. The gunpowder from the guns and cannon was very loud. Glad we went though. We also looked around the castle but it would’ve been a very quick visit without the reenactment things to look at.

You can make your own here

On Sunday we went to Wicken Fen because we were trying to think of a good place to go just for the afternoon (after church) that would be OKish in the heat and interesting. They had activities on this weekend so there was a bit extra to do - oh, and making the most of our National Trust membership before it expires at the end of Aug.

It was sweltering and very heavy and we were all finding the thunderbugs hard going - L’s hair was completely crawling with them, yuck!

M wanted to make a bat box so we did that first. All the pieces were precut and he just had to hammer it all together. Now we need to find a tall suitable tree to put it up on somewhere.

We started off to walk around the fen but it came over stormy and began raining, so we back tracked and went to do some T shirt screen printing instead. M and A did T shirts and I helped and watched what L was getting up to. The outside of the T shirt design was already on the screen but they had to design a creature to go into the middle section, so M made a butterfly and A did a dragonfly and cut them out. This is M’s first attempt at printing - the ink had bled through the writing at the top and he was disappointed with it so the lady let him do it again!

Then we went to get drinks, waited for the rain to finish and went for a walk around the fen. We spent ages spotting butterflies and trying to get photos of them.

We missed M’s last homeopath appointment because I got mixed up about dates and times, so in the end we just spoke on the phone and rearranged his appointment for this week. M hadn’t really changed or improved after his last visit, there was nothing noticeable after taking his remedies like there was after his first visit. The homeopath said she was wondering if he might be sensitive to emissions from the computer etc because his meltdowns are closely related (but not exclusive to) computer use so she sent a remedy to try that through the post.

This weekend I thought I’d better start considering how he’s been since our last visit so I can make relevant comments at the appointment. I have to say the whole electrical sensitivity thing makes me think “oh FFS” but you know, anything is worth a try. And anyway, lots of things I now think of as obvious and important in our family were things I had a similar reaction to initially Thinking back, I realised that M hasn’t had a major meltdown in the last few weeks since he had the remedy. He has had some partial ones, but not to the screaming and throwing things extent of previously. So perhaps there is something in it.

I had a bit of an internet trawl to read more about “electrical sensitivity” and I still have to say about 80% of me is in the “oh FFS” camp, especially when at least half the sites I found were either trying to sell you protective crystals or all about ghost hunting. The other 20% of me is wondering if I should be taking it a bit more seriously given he goes bright red in the face when he’s been on the PC long and getting to meltdown (thought it was an adrenaline thing but it’s listed as an effect of being sensitive to EMR) and the remedy seems to have had a positive effect. Also, other forms of EMR are bad for us in too high amounts - UV light, microwaves for instance. But it is so hard to work out which people are talking complete rubbish about it and keep things in proportion.

Then there’s the question of how do you meaningfully measure the amount of EMF exposure around the house and know what level is too high? How do you make a hassle/potential benefit analysis. Is it sensible to reduce exposure just in case? There is electrical equipment and presumeably EM fields everywhere in the house, we’re surrounded by electrical equipment. And the amounts are only increasing what with the 3 phone handsets, wireless router, baby monitor, computers. We have a substation across the playing area at the bottom of the garden, but A says he thinks that’s too far away to be having an effect in the house. Are some things much worse emitters than others? Shall we just go live in the middle of nowhere and have done with it??!

One site suggested unplugging absolutely everything in the house from the sockets at night (they radiate even when plugged in) and seeing if you sleep better - now if it is really the cause of M sleeping poorly that would be great to find out, so we’ll probably try that (except for the fridge, washing machine, fish tank that can’t be easily turned off). I think we’re supposed to do that anyway from an environmental POV. But after that I’m not sure how far we can sensibly go. Maybe the remedy will put him right and we don’t need to change anything. Maybe I can stick my fingers in my ears and go la la la and forget about it. Or maybe all this technology is just making us ill.

We’ve been doing some more Five in a Row recently and this week we did Who Owns the Sun by Stacy Chbosky for the first time. I do still enjoy the five in a row style of things and M is old enough now at almost 8 to cover some of the harder topics and to do something with lapbooks now and again. Not that lapbooks are necessary to FIAR, but it is nice to do them once in a while. I love how much we find to discuss in FIAR stories and the art lessons are really handy, because I don’t know much about art. We don’t necessarily organise ourselves to do one activity from one subject area per day; I kind of play it by ear and see which things seem like they’ll appeal to M.

On the first day we read the story and then talked about things being too beautiful to own. We looked at the illustrations and the simplicity in the pictures of things the son asks questions about and we talked about which was M’s favourite picture and how it ight have been painted. M made a list of things he thinks are too wonderful to be owned by anyone. Then he had a go at painting his own version of his favourite picture in watercolours and did a second picture along the same lines but this time of some things off the list he made.

On the second day we read the story again and this time M had to point out instances of similes and personification. We’ve covered these and metaphors several times before, so it was a basic review and then trying to spot them in the story. M made flap books to show examples of personification and similes from the story.

On the third day we did some science and talked about healthy eating and went back over the food pyramid idea. This time we did it as a plate of food split into sections showing how much of each food group to eat at a sitting (using a fridge magnet from the BBC Big Challenge). Then we split circles up into sections and M put the father’s lunch items into the correct categories, made a generic food plate example and also planned a healthy lunch, drawing pictures of the items.

The next day we covered slavery which has come up before. We’ve only really talked about slaves in the south of the USA before though (e.g. in Follow the Drinking Gourd) so this time I brought in more information about how Britain was involved in slavery. M completed a map about the slave trade triangle but started getting upset when I asked him to narrate back some info about slavery, because he said it was too upsetting to think about. So we didn’t go on to look at this Slaves’ Stories website I’d found. This is what he narrated instead.

On the 5th day (we didn’t do it Monday to Friday, but fitted in 5 days over a bit longer than a week) we looked at symbolism in the story and especially the trees and how they fit with the events on each page. We also talked about the author a little. Then we got together all the booklets and pictures M had made/found and put them together to make the lapbook. This shows how the opened out folders are arranged.

Then the flap on the right folds in and the slavery things are on the back.

And this is the front cover when the lapbook is folded up completely.

It’s all quiet for the time being - A and M have gone out to some stock car racing and L has just fed off to sleep and is now in bed. So I have downstairs and the computer to myself.

Yesterday was really hot again and we did M’s activities in the morning, finishing off his FIAR lapbook and talking about slavery. He also started on decimals with some sums about tenths and converting them to decimal numbers.

In the afternoon A finished work early and we spent time in the garden with our feet in the paddling pool to cool down! M read us half the first chapter of Just William aloud and I was surprised how fluently he coped with words I didn’t know he could read. He may be a bit daunted by the length of the book but it doesn’t look as though he’s going to have any trouble actually reading it.

Today it’s clouded over off and on and occasionally we’ve had bursts of strong winds and the hint of a storm but they’ve passed us by At least it’s been slightly cooler. This morning M went to the last cricket session and was going to stay for lunch and play some pairs matches in the afternoon, then there was a BBQ on afterwards. We stayed to watch the training session and were about to drive off but M looked so forlorn and lost wandering about on the cricket pitch that I went back to talk to him and he was close to tears because he said no one would let him join in and no one would be friends with him. He’s been going for the past 2 months but still doesn’t know anyone. Everyone else seems to know each other already. I feel really bad for him, he tries so hard to be friendly and join in but it must feel like he’s banging his head against a wall. So I persuaded him to come home and have lunch and then we’d play a family game of cricket in the back field. So that’s what we did.

After that we had more family time in the garden. L and M played for ages in the pool with the watering can while I did some knitting and tried not to get drenched when the hose pipe swung my way. A fixed the shed door and tidied some stuff out of the shed. Then M and I played cards for a while and A came to join us until L was getting restless and bending the cards. We came inside and A watched golf while M and I baked and L wandered. M baked some to-die-for chocolate brownies and I made half and half lasagne with some defrosted bolognaise and courgettes from the fridge/garden. The lasagne went down well.

We had a walk to the shop for a flake and had chocolate brownie sundaes for dessert. M wanted to carry L so when we got back I said he could try him in the sling. I love this photo.

And now L is bathed and asleep for the time being and the others are out so I’m going to have another coffee and relax for a bit.

I wish it would rain. We need a really good thunderstorm to clear the air, it’s sweltering here still. Nevertheless, we got quite a bit done this morning (hopefully makes up for doing pretty much nothing this afternoon).

We were going to continue with a project we’re doing on Who Owns the Sun which is a Five in a Row book about slavery. But while I was sorting L out I asked M to get out his package from the Woodland Trust that arrived while we were away and looking through that sent us off on a completely different tack.

We read through the info about the signs of Autumn to look out for as part of Nature Detectives and M put the posters up on the dining room wall. They sent some lovely booklets, stickers and posters. We got sent an extra set so if anyone hasn’t registered and wants the spare ones let me know. I think we’ll have to go out for more of a local look around and see if there are any brambles close by to watch and see where our nearest horse chestnut trees and so on are.

In with the autumn pack was a flyer for Stop Climate Chaos so we read through that and went to look at the website. Then we got involved in filling in the thing to petition Tony Blair about climate change. This led on to a long discussion which covered global warming, monitoring spring and autumn events to see how they are changing, greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, what makes carbon dioxide and what reduces it, photosynthesis, how a greenhouse works, transferring heat energy through conduction, convection and radiation, the electromagnetic spectrum, fossil fuels and alternative energy (though we didn’t get on to nuclear energy), expecting other nations to implement changes if we aren’t prepared to change things ourselves, reducing energy consumption. We talked about doing the “save it” section for his silver Wildlife Action award but M didn’t get as far as actually starting it. (Ooh, I see RSPB have a new Climate Action award now - might see about sending off for the info for that.)

M also did 3 pages of fractions and is slowly getting the hang of them, I think. Today he was estimating fractions with length, volume and mass. He also surprised me by pulling out his Wizard Whimstaff science book and doing the section on how plants grow.

L went for a nap and A came home and made lunch which was lovely. In the afternoon M pestered me to try and get a computer game working that my mum had passed on to him because it wouldn’t run on her laptop. She might have told me it was in German!! First thing in the morning I had fiddled about on the PC in M’s bedroom to make enough disk space to install it, went through the installation navigating wierd errors with school German and got it running. But the sound doesn’t work properly on that PC and crackles horribly and all the instructions were in spoken German so M wasn’t getting anywhere. I said after lunch I’d try it on the main PC but after alot of fiddling we worked out it just won’t run on XP. So M was really upset and didn’t want to do anything.

We wnet out into the garden for 45 mins and M filled up the paddling pool with the hose. He invented a game with the hose and watering can, making a fountain, and L joined in. They had fun doing that for a while but then L got cold and M got bored and we came back inside.

M watched some Star Wars and L figured out how to climb on his rocking Tigger to look out of the front window - aarghh!! I had to video the process, so this photo is blurry because I’ve taken it from video.

They played for a bit and I looked online for energy saving light bulbs that are a similar size to normal ones, because we’ve tried getting them before and they don’t fit in the uplighter shades we have. Found some on the Green Shop website that look small and seem reasonable for cost and postage, so I’ve ordered one to try.

M went round to play in next door’s paddling pool and L and I went for a cool bath together as we were both hot, sticky and covered in thunderbugs. When A came home we went out to Tesco and the library and M signed up for the Reading Mission even though in Norfolk the librarians are not supposed to sign you up for it until “official launch day” tomorrow when school finishes for the summer. We’ve agreed he’s going to read some chapter books for his 6 books so it’s a slight challenge - otherwise he’d probably pick 6 Asterix books and finish them in a couple of days. He’s chosen some random ghost teachers (?) book and a book of Just William stories (we’ve been listening to Just William from Audible this week).