Breezy Saturday

Today was a breezy, sunny and laid back kind of Saturday. It is nearly nine, but as everyone is feeling calm I’m not rushing to get the kids to bed. The boys are reading and the girls are playing with toys.
I took the girls to the park earlier and while we were there I noticed a couple of middle aged men watching from the adjoining tennis court. After a few minutes one of them spoke to me saying that I must be feeling particularly bad about the newspapers these days. I had no idea what he meant. Then he pointed at U saying “She looks just like her”. Then I realised. Your own child is just your own child, looking like no other (except their twin brother of course), but now someone has pointed it out I suppose U does look a bit like Madeline, it is mainly the hair, but something of the look as well maybe. I was shocked of course, and hurriedly pointed out that U is only two, Ia is four, and obviously bigger. But they kept looking, and asking questions, in a friendly way, discussing the news and so on. In the end they said, “We had to ask”. Later someone else seemed to be looking at U as well, I felt a bit uncomfortable, maybe just paranoid, so we went to join the boys and H in the field, where the boys practised cricket and the girls chased after balls.
I’ve started packing in a slow kind of way and for the rest of the day everyone occupied themselves. The boys had a Quran lesson, and did a little more work on symmetry. Their Quran teacher is making them work hard to cram the tajweed rules into whatever period remains before the move, insh’Allah. We will certainly miss her good teaching, I think it has been three years now. I’ll miss her anyway, maybe the boys will not miss their lessons as much! R says he enjoys tajweed rules, he saw a book on it in the bookshop and asked to buy it. Surprising, alhamdulillah!
Ia is becoming more aware of letter sounds, although I have not been formally working on this at all. On the way to the park today she commented that on the handwriting page about “S” they could have included sandals. She can write numbers to 10 reversing some and struggling with 8. She has become confident enough to try copying some letters rather than just tracing.
U is trying to be helpful. She offers me a turn on the swings and slide in the park, “You turn now!” even offering to push me on the swing. Earlier when H was trying to sort out a problem with the digital camera I must have been hovering by him too much as she said “When Papa finish puter you turn”. She also seems to have a good memory, maashAllah, as this evening she recounted events which happened on Wednesday involving her good friend Hj. She also helps me to type on the keyboard (!) and to put out laundry, wet or dry, either type anywhere will do. She has also become skilled at removing her trousers. Could be useful when it comes to potty training.
I would have a photo of Ia’s painting of Mr Fox with his sad friend each holding balloons, if the connection was working!
Speaking of foxes the girls just spotted the fox coming over the garden fence again. Mr Fox in the picture is apparently a puppet though. He is painted as happy. U looked through a Mr Men book last week, “reading” the pictures by pointing at the characters and saying either “happy”, “sad” or “bored”. Bored was for a flat line mouth. But what does she know about bored?

Sunshine

A lovely sunny day for the children to play out side in the park, with their friends. The boys getting into their usual play fights, with no hard feelings. The girls chatting and imagining together. Then it was back home again, to checking the email for updates on the house move. Finally a bit of progress today, insh’Allah, as a bit of paperwork I’ve been chasing for weeks has finally been received by my solicitor. After all the frustrations of waiting to see this done! Like the change in the weather today, a change in events. Alhamdulillah. Of course this is only a breather, I’ll soon be on to stressing about the next bit! Really all this is taking up too much mental time. The home ed is ticking along, all the basics are getting done, but there is not much creativity at the moment, I’m too distracted.
Plus the kids are always hungry, are they about to grow suddenly? All day there are requests for more, for every meal I increase the amounts, but still they want more. Is the healthy food plan resulting in bigger appetites?

More about U

U has been sleeping in her own bed for almost a week now, the first night she came out half way through but since then she has wanted to settle there herself. She is making progress in other areas too, recognising and saying some of the colour words, (yellow, red, orange and black) matching them fairly reliably to the crayons. Today when I announced that it was time for maths she was the only one to come straight to the table “mafs, mafs”. Of course she may be demanding “mafs” in the same way she demanded chicken pox.
14/05/07
This morning the girls saw the fox in the garden. I have seen it quite often, usually in the early morning when the children are asleep. They were fascinated to see it jump off the fence, dig for something under a bush, which it then ate, and go back to hide in the bushes again.

Quick note

Emails and phone calls for the house move have been a big distraction today. The science session got a bit shortened as a result, but the boys did a study of pumice, including floating the sample across the basin, reportedly in 22 seconds. This afternoon they started a section on symmetry, while Ia was at nursery. Today she brought home more bulky junk models, she always seems to have the largest and most of these, maashAllah!

Contd

J has been learning how to help out. He has washed up, helped bake the bread and flapjacks and unloaded the washing machine. The two of them had a go at remaking the double bed, with the mattress protector ending up upside down and the sheet on back to front with its corners tucked in very oddly. But it’s never looked like that before has it?
U did not want to have her nappy changed this morning, blaming the bad smell on the cat!
Ia’s best friend has just come out in chicken pox. I told Ia that she would not be seeing B at nursery next week, and that she might get chicken pox too. U, not wanting to be left out of something B has and Ia might get said “Me, me, I ticken box!” Similarly this morning she said “I diving lessin”, as I was about to go out for mine. She gets so cross about being sidelined!
In the afternoon the boys did a spelling sheet and capacity work in between computer games and a DVD. Ia followed up capacity by experimenting with various containers and then putting most of the dinosaurs into a sink of water.
I have been sorting out some of the photos, U insists that pictures of Ia at 18 months or below are really of her, in fact she gets quite angry with Ia for it, “No, dat ME!”

Saturday

Saturday began with Ia wanting to make butterflies.
I did have a timetable in mind for other activities, but everyone else had different ideas. The boys had received an email, and found out how to download attached photos into the correct file. Then they sent email, attaching photos which they had taken.They also did some spelling work today, had a Quran lesson, went to town with H, played computer games, read and did some practical work on capacity, followed by the workbook.
Ia and U made more mess, went to the park to play on the swings and played internet games.

Not quite worked out photos

Touching flour. " I need to play this", said U.

Ia's best colouring

U's essential selection

1/05/07
I’m now into my second week of feeling ill, alhamdulillah. Last week it was earache and a sore throat, now it is a draining cold. I decided not to try to get Ia to nursery today as I didn’t feel up to it. I called the nursery and the sister there was making me feel guilty, saying that next week would be a short week anyway with the bank holiday, basically I was causing my child to miss out. And she did feel that she had missed out too. Even the boys were fed up by the end of the day as I was too exhausted to do anything with them. H took them out to the park for cricket practice.
We did spend some pleasant time in the garden reading, until the girls got grumpy with that too.
U loves to scribble in old (already used by someone else) workbooks. A few evenings ago she was scribbling away when she closed the book and said loudly in her just talking, two year old voice “I finished my lesson!”
04/05/07
Since then….I felt better, alhamdulillah and we started our study of rocks, with the recently arrived rock set. Everyone enjoyed handling the rocks, then the boys chose to study obsidian in more detail. So we looked it up in the rock book and they noted some points down.
In the afternoon we took Ia to nursery (where she made another yoghurt pot shaker, and learnt more about minibeasts). The rest of us browsed the bookshop and went to the park.
Ia wants to touch the leaves on the trees in the park. U likes touching them too but she still seems scared! Ia brought a leaf home and left it on the floor in the corridor, U refused to walk past it and shouted “leaf, leaf”
Yesterday Ia asked me whether Roo (Winnie the Pooh) used to have a dad but he died!!!

Photos are here, but not in the right place.