a rare family day out

It was chucking it down one Saturday morning, but Tristan had no work and we had no other plans, so I announced that we were going to the woods, did the boys want to walk or bike ride?  Rowan suddenly said he was going to ride his pedal bike all the way to the otter bridge as he could do that!  This was the first time Rowan had not mentioned needing his balance bike, so we chucked the bikes in the boot, donned our waterproofs and off we went. 
By the time we got there the sun had come out and we all had a lovely day

Reuben: " Mummy look, those ducks are friends with that squirrel and they are having a feast together on that grass"

Toy trains and stuff

I have been planning some trips and visits for the home ed group and the other week we went to a vintage toy and mining museum.
http://www.moseleymuseum.com/home.html
It was bizarre and everyone loved it.  It was basically a bunch of old boys playing with their amazing collection of toy trains and they are more than happy for people to come and have a look and show some interest. They also have loads of toys they have built using mecano and also a large collection of mining artefacts, a reconditioned mining train, their own track to ride the train on and even a reconstruction of a coal mine!
The kids loved it (and the dads too!)and most really want to go back again!

Cuteness

On a trip to Helston boating lake Reuben and I saw these cygnets and just had to stop and watch them waddling along.  Until mama swan got out of the water!

Broody chook!

A couple of weeks ago, Eggbert, Rowans chicken disapeared.  It was a day when Rowan was out with Nanny and Grandad and I went out to collect eggs.  the hens were all out in the garden, but Eggy was nowhere to be seen.  I got the corn cup and tapped out a tune with my ring on the cup which normally gets them all running to my feet.  They all came on cue, but still no Eggy.  I went out and around the block, not that she could actually get out but I couldn't find her anywhere. I even asked the builders around the back if they had seen a big, black chicken!
So when Rowan got home i explained that Eggy was missing and she may have built a nest somewhere, but as she had only been laying for about 2 weeks we thought this unlikely.  Rowan said very calmly, "Maybe a fox has got her".  He didn't seem that bothered, but he was straight out the back looking in under every bush and tree in the garden.  Still no Eggy.  Then all of a sudden she comes bouncing across the garden as if nothing had happened!
We were all very relieved but still non the wiser.  That was until the following evening when something made me climb over a heap of old chicken wire right at the back of the garden to then catch out of the corner of my eye a nest, very well hidden in the base of a multi stemmed Sycamore tree.  In the nest were 7 eggs!
I felt really bad taking away her eggs, but thats what is recommended with a broody hen and as we have no cockeral it seemed pointless leaving her sit on them.
She seemed to take it ok, and has gone back to laying in the coop again.
They are funny creatures these chickens!

Busy times

Time just seems to fly by at the moment and I don't get a chance to get on here as much as would like to, and I keep forgetting to take out my camera, so not being inspired by loads of photos backed up on the camera to post has meant I have been neglecting my blog recently.  I do find it hard to find the time to write anything on here too.  Tris has taken the boys to the park for a pasty picnic whilst I stay here and rest as I have done my back in!  So I thought I will catch up on here.

So what have we been doing?  Tris came back from Scotland after climbing mountains through blizzards and generally having a great time.  The boys were very excited to wake up in the morning to come into my room and find Daddy in bed.

We went to the Fal River festival, which was very busy, we caught the end of a puppet show, which we saw last year but it is very funny and the boys really love it, and we popped into the maritime museum again, but it was bit too packed and full of half term kids and activites.

We went to a local PYO farm and picked some strawberries, very yummy. rowan was very serious in his role as cheif strawberry picker and wouldn't eat any as they were to take home, whereas Reu didn't want to put any in the basket 'no these are for my tummy!'

We went to an inflatable session at the swimming pool where Rowan overcame yet more fears and went on a big inflatable crocodile thing and went down a big slide into deep water and loved it.  His swimming has come on so much.  I have been making sure we go every week and he absolutley loves it, I am still amazed at how confident in the water he is - Its great!

We have been meeting up weekly at our home ed group, but most weeks it has just been us and Rowans best friend, which is fun but not what we hoped for.  We have, however, managed to organise a lot of trips out this term which so far seem to be popular.

Yesterday we went to the Royal Cornwall Show, which is the biggest agricultural show here in the year.  Again, I didn't take my camera, but I hope to get some photos from my friend.  We all had a great day, apart from frequently losing Rowan (he has gone from never leaving your side to seeing something and just wandering off to it).  We saw a motorbike stunt show, which i think was the highlight for the older boys and we also saw the chooks, goats, bees, rabbits and lots of tractors and the biggest machines ever!

So that about all we have been doing.  I have been trying to be more relaxed with the children recently, which I think is making life a bit easier, but I think I will watch this space before commenting too much on that!

Rowan in the maritime museum

 Reuben chose the Octonauts comic the other day and inside was the instructions for making the Octopod (The Octonauts HQ).  We had to go to the shops to buy yogurt pots in the correct shape - Rowan likes to follow the instructions excatly,  and we had to buy a shop bought trifle!

But we were all very impressed with the finished Octopod.  It has been played with loads

Oh, and of course our clever chooks need a mention - they are all layers now! 

First camp of the year

We bought a new tent earlier this year as our older one was just not big enough for a family of four and a family of fours stuff and playing children on a rainy wet morning! We have been saying 'this weekend we will test it' for ages and something kept coming up.  But the other weekend we managaed to test it out.  

We only went to campsite about 5 miles away, as we could only go for the one night and had to pop back to shut the chickens in their run, but it was a beautiful, sunny, very warm day and overall we had a great time.  It was so lovely to see the boys just having fun and enjoying each others company in a field with hardly any toys or other influences.
They were constantly making up games to play in the relativley empty campsite.  

The tent was great, it felt very strange being in a large tent and we didn't realise when we bought it that it had 2 seperate bedrooms, which wasn't so good, but by the time we all fell asleep after toasting marshmallows then watching some fireworks lit by the campers next to us, no one cared where they slept!

The next day, however was tough, as we all had a lot less sleep than normal, it was very hot and we had to pack up to go home.  We treid to ride our bikes to the beach, but it just didn't work out like that!

The new tent

Happy rowan on the swing next to our tent

This boy sure loves camping!

All that fresh air makes one very sleepy!

Reuben was very excited by something!

'Take a photo of me doing this mum!'

Mummy and Reuben taken by Rowan

Self portrait taken by Rowan

Reuben being his usual silly self!

More ninja poses!

Happy skipping children!

Rowan decided to make up a game trying to throw a small ball into the bucket and if you missed you had to put your hands to your eyes and sigh very very loudly!

So next camping will be further away from home and longer (9 days and 10 nights is Rowans request!)

Yes!

Yes was todays theme and hopefully most days to come.  I have been reading Dayna Martins book Radical Unschooling and it has really made me think.  You know sometimes you pick up a book or bump into someone or hear something on the radio that is just the right thing for that moment, well being lent this book is like that for me. 

Over the last few weeks I have been feeling like I am losing my way with parenting.  I had turned into shouty mama, who didn’t want mess in the house and said “No!” all the time.  This isn’t how I wanted to parent, this isn’t how I wanted my children to be bought up – being afraid of making any mess because mama will get angry and shout.  Rowan had learnt to shout back and scream in my face.  Harsh, but made me realise.

This week Tris has been away and its given me time in the evenings to think about how we parent and how happy the children are or not as the case may be(I am always thinking about this, just with having no company after the children are in bed my thought are more intense). 

So I realised that I had to change something, somewhere and that something was my attitude – lighten up Michelle!  Then after thinking like this I was lent this book and although similar to other books I have read this one seemed to ring more bells.

So today I woke up and thought, we have no plans let’s just see what happens, but the one thing that isn’t going to happen is me saying no and shouting.

Well, I did shout a little at the very end of the day, but the rest of the day was happy and fun. 

It was a cold and drizzley day and the boys wanted to watch iplayer, so we all sat down to watch some childrens telly.  Then I suggested going to video shop after a trip to the supermarket.  The boys agreed, but the first thing they said was, “Can we have a comic?”

Now before I would have said no, or maybe and then tried to persuade them to go for one that doesn’t come with ten tons of plastic crap or a Ben 10 one (Ben 10 is a big bug bear of mine, but hey that’s my issue, Rowan really likes him), so I said “of course you can choose a comic.”

Then when we get there Reuben wants to go on the Noddy car outside, now I know I have said no to no, but I only have so much money, so I explained that if he went on Noddy there wouldn’t be any money left for a comic, so he decided to look at the comics first (he choose a comic and had a pretend go on Noddy later).

In the supermarket they were great, whizzing down the aisles that were empty, helping me find things and generally being happy kids (an old man even said how wonderful and happy they were!)  I have always made food shopping with both of them an issue as they always want want want, but today they didn’t ask for anything other than comics and raspberries, oh and Dennis the menace bun mix.  I have never bought a ready made cake mix in my life, but they wanted to know what it was, so I suggested buying it and finding out.  The boys were delighted!

The rest of the day pretty much followed suit, they agreed on a DVD - Teenage mutant ninja turtles – again before I would have swayed their choice to something non violent etc etc, but its their choice and I planned on watching it with them.

We made buns, the boys ate 5 each! (they were very small!)

The DVD was loved and prompted a huge amount of role play after – lots of jumping off chairs being superhero turtles!

Then we had really loud music and a good dancing session.

After tea we did a bit in the garden, well I did whilst the boys continued being ninja turtles, then they went to bed very happy.

I can spend all my time enforcing my ideals on them – no violence, no sugary junk food, no plastic toys etc etc, but at the end of the day all I am doing is making them think but why and even giving them explanations it is still going to make it taboo and more exciting for them to want it.  I know if I was told no as a child it made it much more desirable.

So heres to YES and trusting my children to know what they want.