New year New Start?

Well November and December passed me by in a whirl of nausea, vommiting and utter disbelief that I could really be that bad at early pregnancy!!!! One minute there we are getting all excited, booking our lovely midwife and laughing about where the birth pool will go since I reorganised the playroom then suddenly the only in depth conversations I seem to be having are with the toilet bowl!!! My lovely Mum had to come down to look after the kids (and me) as I limped my way towards the end of 2007 thinking what and apt ending that was to a pretty pants year! Thank goddess we worked through the summer is all I can say as Nov and Dec was sporadic at best education wise. Telly was watched, walks were had and I believe meals were eaten but its all a bit of a blur really. So imagine my surprise when I sit down with T in early Jan when I'm beginning to feel human again, despite a stinking cold, and I get out his maths workbook and he ploughs through a couple of pages in a matter of minutes???!!!! Apparently the questions were very easy! I was also amazed to see that his reading had improved as well! He sat and read me 6 pages of his new reading book straight off where as it used to be a battle for me to get him to read me two! I was explaining this strange phenomenon to a friend G at home ed group and she directed me to "Free range education" and a chapter called "Lessons from the leg break fairy" in which another Mum describes this continuation of learning despite her being bed bound due to a badly broken leg. Apparently the break just allowed T to consolidate organise the things we had been learning so when he re-encountered them after the break they seemed easier as they had stuck in his brain!!!! I have to say relief was the first emotion followed by immense proudness!

So, sofar we've been cracking away into Jan. Today we sat down with his Live and Learn Space lap book and covered the mini book of the layers of the sun. He also helped D relocate the chooks to a plush new pad in the shed. This involved screwing the rungs on a ladder for them and hammering fance posts into the ground. At this point I had to go inside as 5 yr old + mallet to me signifes a trip to A&E so away I walked and all was well! He even managed to pick up the cockrell without being savaged!

He's storming through Education city now being half way through yr 2 Maths, 3/4 of the way through yr 2 Literacy and having very nearly completed Yr 3 science. Flying through his addition and subtraction books and although its his least favourite thing to do his writing is looking very good.

We sat at the table today with L painting, T writing and me cutting up, and gluing mini books ready for the next page of the lapbook and for a brief moment peace reigned! We're back into Ballet and Gym and enjoying them, he's on about rugby and learning the guitar as well as tennis and swimming and whilst we would love him to be able to do them all and hate to start geting him to choose, the financial pot is not bottomless and with L coming up to the age where he'll start wanting to do stuff soon I think we might have to adopt a suck it and see then choose your 2 or 3 faves approach, especially with baby Mk 3 on the way!

Despite T's happiness with the current situation I still regularly get the wibbles and relish seeing the other parents at our weekly meets to share these collywobbles with. Apparently the doubts stop when the kids are in their 20's with decent jobs!!!!! so only....20ish yrs to go then!!!!!!