Living 2008

Master R has had two eye appointments since I last blogged. The first was at the opticians where the optometrist was not very positive about his improvement (or lack of) and the assistant tried to charge me for the new spectacles. The second was with Scott, the wonderful orthoptist (I think) who reassured us that there was improvement and even though only just being able to see the fourth line on the chart with a thick lens on might not seem great to me it was indeed much better than it was. Although Master R was still struggling to pick out the 3d images apparently his eyes were drawn to them and he could see that something was different. So we are sticking with the patching. I’m aiming for a minimum of four hours a day and Master R is trying for as little time as possible. He seems to be quite happy watching television with his patch on and has had a couple of ‘tv days’ lately. It feels a bit negligent just leaving him sat in front of the box but improving his sight is my main priority for now so I’ve been using the time to do stuff with Ms R. He’s also enjoying playing Lego Starwars and Lego Indianna Jones on his DS.

We have a book that Ms R and I have been looking at together. It drew me in, not because of the words (words like Maths and Study) but because of its cover which is red and shiny (oh I do love red!). I read it one night to refresh my basic maths and to give me an idea of what might be expected of Ms R had she been in school. Oddly it seems to start with some very basic stuff like counting to twenty and then jump to some fairly complicated stuff like adding up huge numbers in your head. I found some of it reassuring knowing that it was things that had cropped up in our normal everyday lives like counting money, halving and doubling and sharing. Some of it seems a bit bizarre, like needing to know about pentagons, hexagons and octagons but not about heptagons. But anyway, Ms R was also drawn to the shiny red cover and we have been reading through it together and then sprouting off in other directions. I missed out page one that stated "Whatever subject you’re doing it’s the same old story - there are lots of facts and you’ve just got to learn them. KS1 Maths is no different" because Ms R would have asked why and I couldn’t have explained it without making the book sound like it should be uninteresting. We went off on a different path altogether and started doing sums the way I learnt years ago, Ms R enjoyed swapping units for tens and tens for hundreds and we went through several bits of paper doing sums together. Afterwards she wrote her name on them and got in a muddle as she was trying to do joined up writing but still using a capital in the middle so I showed her how it was done and she spent a while practicing. Once bored with that she took herself upstairs and started playing the recorder leaving me somewhat surprised that a child would ask for sums, then handwriting practice and then willingly do music practice.

Everyday that I go to work Ms R and Master R wave at me from the bedroom window, they wave until I’m out of sight and then apparently either start a game upstairs or finish what they were doing downstairs. Whatever they are doing they always stop to say good-bye and wave. Recently Master R has been telling me that he’s going to try not to wave me off but rather carry on doing something else when I leave. Usually though his head pops up at the window just as I’m pulling away and I make sure he sees me wave back before going round the corner. I asked him why he was trying not to wave me good-bye anymore and he explained that sometimes it made him feel like crying and that he had to hold his breath for a few minutes after I’d gone so as not to. Colin did reassure me that he doesn’t ever cry though.

We have been going to our home ed group weekly since it started back in September. The Rs are both very confident and happily play with the other children and chat to the adults. Recently all the children have been playing some sort of playground type game together in the hall where someone is ‘it’ and when giving a word everyone runs from one side to the other and the person who is ‘it’ catches someone who becomes the next ‘it’. Really nice to see the ‘group’ thing going on; not initiated or supervised by an adult, every child getting a turn and the bigger ones helping the smaller ones. Not so great seeing Ms R standing in front of all the other children lifting the bottom of her dress up to wipe her nose on and revealing everything from her belly button downwards. I think the kids have benefitted from a weekly meet up with the same people and I hope that it will be one of the things they have fond memories of. There are members who are small enough to be considered babies but big enough to sit up and be played with by Ms R so that keeps her happy. Lately she’s been more keen to join in with whatever activity an adult has put on (they include making and sharing soup for the Harvest Festival  and making paper clocks). Very kindly Jem bought in one of his guitars to show her, she’s had a thing about guitars since she was three and although I suspected that it was the sound of the word rather than the actual instrument she was interested in she proved me wrong by spending half an hour playing with it and letting him show her some basic things. He was quite impressed by her interest and liked that she looked so excited just to be holding one. We’ve given a lift home to our friends who were three but now two since one of them started at school. It’s interesting to hear how thats going, the impact that it has on the whole family and the correspondance from the school on various issues. I know I would be the parent from hell if my child was in school but hope that if oneday either of my children want to try school I’ll have the same strength of character that this Mum shows and be able to offer mine the same level of support and encouragement that she offers to her daughter.

Visits and trips with individual friends have been taking place as usual. Master R seems to get lots out of playing with his friend A who is just a couple of months younger than him, has a lovely gentle character and enjoyes the same sort of thing. Their games usually involve Bowser and Buzz Lightyear with a sprinkling of Sportacus. Ms R enjoys playing with his baby sister which gives us adults a chance to chat. Although my angle is ’child led’ and hers is ’star chart’ dominated I’ve known them since A was just a few weeks old and it is interesting watching how the family has grown, developed and been influenced by home education. I like to think I played a part in their decision as the first time I mentioned home education to her three years ago she reacted with the same horror that most people do when they first hear of it. Ms R enjoys time with her friends but seems to also enjoy doing her own thing too. It’s balanced out from at first not being able to join-in and make friends, to finding it easy and seeming to ‘need’ friends everywhere to being able to play with friends when she wants but also choosing to do something on her own if she wants.

We popped into the library today for me to swap my book and Ms R grabbed a few books that she thought she’d be able to read herself. The first couple were very basic, a sentence a page nursery rhymes which she was a bit disappointed with. The third one she’s looked at is called ‘Stranger Danger’ and actually has chapters. She told me before I went to work that there were too many words and she wouldn’t be able to read it so I told her to put it to one side and we’d take it back tomorrow. When I came home from work she’d already read two chapters and told me that not only is it an interesting story but it is educational too. Master R informs me he’s also done some education today and now knows how big a snooker table is.