"This too shall pass..."

It has been ages since I last felt the twinkle of a post starting to form in my brain.  I guess this has mostly been to me working a bit more - brain full of work instead of kids and home, and then tired brain not wanting to think of anything! But here I am again!

 I've just read over all the blogs I've written so far - it really is lovely to see how far the girls have come, and it really does solidify in my head that this (homeschooling / unschooling) approach to life and learning is the right one for us.  Yes I still have days where I doubt it - doesn't everyone doubt things sometimes?  And yes I have days where I think 8 hours of time at home on my own, or available to work, would be nice.  But then something pops up and shuts down the doubts and little voices.

I was listening to a pod cast about unschooling the other day and the lady talking was in the USA.  She was talking about all the different reasons that people she knew chose to homeschool. One of the most common reasons given was family time and knowing their children.  People commonly felt that when their kids leave home at 6 or 7 in the morning and don't come home until 5 in the evening, when they finish high school and head off to college they felt like they hardly knew them.  I love that homeschooling gives me the opportunity to feel like I really know my girls.  Even if I don't get to sit and watch Netflix on my own, like ever!

So where are we now?  Miss M is almost 5, Miss F is almost 3.  And for all the parents out there struggling with the 1 - 4 age group, whether there's one kid in there or more, IT GETS EASIER! Or at least it did for me.  Not sure if it has to do with Miss M being on the spectrum (ASD) or not.  But oh wow has she calmed down a lot! Things are smoother, mostly.  Yes there is attitude, but it's kind of entertaining.  I don't mind when she sounds like a grumpy, sarcastic, full-of-attitude version of myself.  Its so much easier than the freaked out, not coping, melt downs of her 3 year old self.

From having months of in house routine and not many commitments with the outside world we have blossomed into a busy homeschooling family with things on option most days - park, bike rides, brunch dates, play dates, bush walks, shopping, errands, playgroup, ballet, gymnastics etc.  Some days we still choose a quiet home day (like today, and yesterday, and the day before...), but some weeks we are out every day.  It is all played by ear and depends what the girls want to do.

When we do go out we often connect with a lovely local group of homeschoolers and do a range of different activities - skatepark, playing in the mud somewhere, bush walks, indoor playcenters, whatever is going.  It's lovely to see the kids of all ages include each other and play random, made up games together, no one gets left out, even the youngest kids are included.

When we stay in we do whatever the girls want to do.  Some days that is iPads or movies all day.  Some days are spent in the back yard.  I just become "yes" mum.  Miss 4 is very much in crafting and will often come up with random things to make or activities to do.  A favourite lately is mixing paint - she doesn't actually want to paint anything, just mix the paint to make different colours.

Today is an iPad and netflix day.  Yesterday was a craft day - we played with air drying clay and watched youtube videos of people using pottery wheels, and drew pictures, and did colouring in.  Tomorrow is a day of outings and events.

Miss M (4) is loving numbers still.  When we go for drives out and about the girls love to yell out when they see a "number sign" (speed sign) and are both learning which numbers are called what, and which is higher or lower than the previous sign.  We are currently growing carrot tops in some cotton wool, every morning we measure how big they are and write it down and see how much they have grown.  Writing is still a challenge for Miss M, but she is slowing getting interested.  Miss F is all about letters and what noises we make for them.


My previous frustrations with bedtimes have, mostly, resolved. Very thankful for that! We have kept a very relaxed bedtime routine.  When one looks tired we offer bed and a cuddle and a book, while the other keeps playing quietly at whatever takes their interest.  Some nights they are both asleep by 8.30, sometimes they are still up at 10.30.  But it is, almost, always calmer that it used to be.  I don't yell, or get angry, we just plod through the evening and what will be will be.  We are slowly releasing all the rules we used to have around bedtime, and replacing them with an opportunity for the girls to figure out their own needs and learn what their bodies are saying to them.  This is still a work in progress.

Bring on a different day every day, while still being the same.

bedtimes, reading and puddles.

This is not strictly a homeschooling blog... but I figure if you're reading this you've got kids, and you can probably relate.

So in september I wrote about hating our bedtimes and how the girls both fight sleep for HOURS! Remember that whinge??  So we tried giving the girls books to look at and some quiet toys along with their favourite quiet music playing in the background.  Well that worked a bit better for a little while, but they still fought sleep until 10pm or thereabouts.  And we found ourselves back in the routine of "back to bed please" "head on pillows" "quiet time please girls" until we'd lose our patience and yell.  Not fun for anyone.

So I've lost my patience again with bedtimes and am deleting that phrase from our house completely! Not sure how this is going to look just yet.  For the last week we've let the girls play with whatever quiet toys or activity they wanted after dinner. If a shower or bath is wanted we will organise it for them, if not, then so be it - Miss M (4) is ASD and sometimes the sensation of water on her is just that little bit too much for her at the end of a long day. If they want to play lego or blocks or whatever, that's fine as long as it's quiet.  If they want to read books then we will sit and read to them, otherwise we sit and read our own books or do our own quiet thing while they wind down in their own little worlds.  No TV, no iPads, no phones, no screens after dinner - it's the only time we have limited screens as we've found that they both have amazing stamina when staring at a screen and can stay awake way past their tired point.  

So for the last week Miss F (2) has looked tired around 7, so we lie down in her bed and read books until she's asleep - so far she's asleep by 7.30 or 8 at the latest.  Then Miss M and I do some quiet things together.  One night it was jigsaw puzzles, another it was french knitting, another night we read books for hours.   She seems to love the 1:1 time together, and generally seems much calmer during the day since we made this change.  She is still not going to sleep until 10.30 - 11ish.  But she is sleeping in until 8am, which is pretty good for her, and there's no yelling, no drama, no frustration - on either part.  

I'm not sure how this will look in another week, or a month.  But for the moment we've found something that, mostly, works for our family.  Although it does have me reading aloud for two or more hours every night.... we'll just see how that goes.  

Miss M is all about being able to read at the moment.  She's very frustrated that she can't read.  We've found her some apps for her iPad that look helpful, as well as printed some work sheets looking at letter recognition etc (although I think I enjoy them more that she does!).  At the moment Miss M and I are reading Roald Dahl's "Matilda" at night and loving it! In the beginning of the book it talks about how, at 4 years old, Matilda could read anything, "pfffft" said Miss M when we got to that bit.

We're trying to find her every opportunity to step closer to being able to read.  There has been lots of writing her name - something she is still very interested in, and naming those letters, and making the sounds.  Lots of me "casually" pointing out words on games, like "done" "next" etc.  Lots of colouring in options that have the alphabet or a word or something.  Lots of games with letters, spelling, sounds.  The trick with Miss M is that they all have to be subtle and fun, and there can't be too much of it seeming like I'm 'quizzing' her or testing her, because then she shuts down and looses interest.  I do a lot of playing dumb, but she's quickly catching onto that too! It's definitely challenging trying to 'teach' without looking like I'm teaching, or at least without Miss M noticing! It usually looks like me making something available to her and then walking away.  MUCH harder than it sounds!

Miss F is now all about counting.  She still loves her colours and shapes, but just recently I noticed that she counts things - so far up to three or four.  It's easy to miss the things the second child does that are amazing, life is much busier than when it was Miss M starting to count and amaze us.  I must remember to pay attention and join in.

I think a challenge we're going to face more and more in this house is providing opportunities for Miss F while catering to Miss M's needs of a predictable, calm routine.  There's a dozen things I would love to get Miss F too, but I know that Miss M would not enjoy or cope very well with the noise or excitement, so I need to find a way to take Miss F without Miss M.  Life's little challenges.

We've had a lot of weather recently that has had us shut inside - really hot for a week and then torrential rain for a few days - so we've had to find things to do inside that use up energy and get the girls off their games and moving around.  We've done baking, legos, playing fetch with a ball (the girls pretend to be dogs, it's brilliant, lasts for at least an hour!).  I've stuck balloons tied with string onto the ceiling and let them have at them with fly swats and hitting them.  Watching them jump around like crazy kids is always fun.  Then they realised they could hit one balloon and, by knocking it into other, create a cascade of balloon movements, they had a ball.  I think this is one of my favourite things to do with them at the moment.  We'll do this again!

And of course we did the required puddle jumping in the massive puddle left by the rain at the end of our street.  It's always fun to see Miss M step out of her usual sensory comfort zone and walk through puddles bare feet and become amazed at the water ripples she creates.  I'll always love puddles, even if just for this memory.