On Sunday we headed down to Dunstable for Granny’s 60th birthday. The journey down was 2 hours of sheer Hell – accident on the M1, H screaming and tantrumming the whole way (joined at one point by Alfie too!) – “I don’t want to go to Granny’s birthday”, “I don’t want this dress on”, “I don’t want this cover on my seat” and a hundred variations, all accompanied by that fake, deafening cry of a tired, frustrated toddler. However, once we got there she said “I’m calm now and can go to Granny’s birthday” and proceeded to have a wonderful day! The company was great, the food in the Chinese restaurant tasty, the weather good and a fantastic play area just over the road allowed children who had been sitting down in cars and restaurants for too long to expend some much needed energy excess. Uncle Steve was a star helping the kids with the monkey bars and made their day

Yesterday Funky Monkey’s soft play accompanied by Nanny so the kids could have a run round and I could book H’s birthday party. It was our 7th wedding anniversary too, and we were meant to be going for a meal whilst my parents babysat. I was feeling so rank after returning from the doctor’s where my UTI was diagnosed though that we decided to get a takeaway instead. The food from Mumbai Flavour was excellent and I enjoyed some rare time with Rich.

Today, Not Back to School Picnic at Walsall Arboretum with fellow home edders. I was not in the best condition and struggled a fair bit with my parenting and emotions, but the kids had a great day. Lots of playground fun, conker seeking, tree identifying and nature spotting. This is the part where there is so much more I want to say, but now is not the time as writing may bring regrets. An early night is needed. I am drowning in uncompleted tasks, chores and duties that I just can’t keep up with. All will come right because I am truly blessed in so many ways and this pregnancy insanity is only temporary. I’ve been here before! instead, a couple of pictures from the park today, and H wearing Alfie’s homemade robot head

Yesterday we had a home day. We did some housework, played in and watered the garden (had the tents/tunnels/water table out), made some birthday cards for special people, reorganised Holly’s bookcase and Alfie’s craft box, read some books and played some games. The lovely Bex treated me to a most delicious curry at Regards in the evening for my birthday – great food, even better company

Today we went to home ed meet up at Leamore, then met Julia and Foxy the dog for coffee and a walk at Blackroot Pool. Good times.

Witley Court home education trip yesterday. We love the place anyway, but it was great being able to use the education room and have wildlife spotters for the wildflowers and butterflies in the wilderness gardens.

Today we met some fellow Green Parenters, Sarah with the lovely Alice and Saul, and Clair with the equally lovely Isabella and Megan. The kids had a fab day at the farm and playground in the unexpected sunshine. Despite an almighty Alfie tantrum at lunchtime it was a fantastic day. No photos though I’m afraid.

In other news, baby now kicks like a trooper! Real full-on thumps and wiggles, which is nice. H now settles herself to sleep at night and sleeps through about 70% of the time (Alfie 99% of the time). Equilibrium is being restored for the first time in 4 years just in time to be disrupted by a new baby (for another 4 years probably LOL!) H still breastfeeds twice a day although now the milk has changed to colostrum I don’t know how much she actually gets out and boy does it hurt! Both kids are coming on in leaps and bounds in their counting and letter recognition with absolutely no coercion or formal teaching. Today they kept wanting to practice 1-20 over and over again H is still weeing on the toilet about 50% of the time but never ever tells you she needs one and nearly always has  a wet nappy. In her own time she’ll get there. She doesn’t want pants at all so I won’t push it. I know with both my little ones that they do everything in their own time and coercion is never needed

Today we got Alfie’s hair cut at One Stop, bought a croquet set in the sales and duly tested it out (after Alfie’s appetite was whetted at Canons Ashby’s croquet lawn on Saturday LOL!), made homemade pizza, cleaned the kitchen, played Save the Animals board game, did lots of laundry and generally just caught up a bit

Yesterday was a fab day out at Dudley Zoo’s under 5s party day. It was great to see so many of my home ed friends and the lovely Sal and Evie The zoo was packed but everyone had a fantastic day. There were lots of activities in the castle courtyard too – bouncy castle, giant inflatable slide, TV show characters, balloon modelling etc. Thanks to Sal for climbing the castle tower twice with Alfie and for accompanying all the kid son the crooked cottage

Pub with the gorgeous Bex in the evening. So nice to chill out and chat with your bestie

Aquanatal this morning whilst Mom and the kids played in the garden. Anomaly scan this afternoon whilst Mom and Dad looked after small people. It was mainly fantastic. Baby is looking good. The gender remains a secret though as s/he just would not let us see!!!!!

Then a bad night. I was delirious dreaming about having flu or awake in agony from swollen tonsils all night and today have a streaming cold and feel GRIM. The home ed group was a no no in this state so a quiet day at home ensued. As well as board games, wooden train tracks, jigsaws, laundry and making butter bean burgers with homemade potato wedges, we……

Holly is really into her letters at the moment, asking what each one was and taking all the D for Daddy ones into the conservatory to Rich Alfie is preparing to shoot Holly with his cannon in one of the pix above. She had been upstairs building funny faces with the game of it we have, and he kept calling her to see when she’d be down just so he could shoot her LOL. Luckily, when she did come down she saw the funny side Alfie spent an hour and a quarter playing with the cornflour gloop whilst H did play dough and I did my grocery shop online It’s so handy having the PC in the kitchen/diner

Today we got the train into Birmingham and met Sally for lunch in Bella Italia as well as some garden play and gardening.

I am feeling so sick at the moment. When will it end??? I am 14.5 weeks!!! The tumble dryer failed yesterday too – water pump went. *Sigh* Keep thinking positive

Today we went on a home educators’ bug hunt and pond dipping excursion in Beacon Park, Lichfield. It was great fun and Alfie particularly enjoyed the tree shake, where he found a caterpillar, spider, flies and a ladybird! It gave us lots of ideas for our own forays into nature Pond dipping revealed tadpoles, cadds fly larvae, water boatmen and fish. Afterwards we drove for 1.5 hours (!!) to Toby’s birthday party in Stourbridge. We were very late but the kids loved the bouncy castle and party games.

Today we went to home ed pre-school meet-up at Leamore Park. The children had a great time playing with their friends and riding their bikes around the skate park. It was great to chat with Jane, Harriet and Toni whilst the kids had fun. Back home, lots of spring sorting. We are buying a load of cloth nappies off a friend of Harriet’s so sorted all the threadbare and holey ones of ours (that have been through 2 children already!) out for the textile bank. We sorted and tidied both children’s bookcases, put away 6(!) loads of clean washing, did lots of playing and counting. I got some plastic counting bears from a charity shop before Xmas, unsure if they’d be much use, but Alfie loves them. He likes doing the little sums on the cards that come with them. He had been struggling to understand subtraction, but by actually taking the bears and making them walk away from their “friends” he is really grasping the concept now and can do simple sums. I never, ever “teach” or coerce. He just gets them out every now and then and asks me for assistance. I’m sure if I ever tried to teach him he’d just dig his heels in, which is just one of many reasons why school is such a bad idea. Autonomous learning rocks, and my bright and curious little monkeys show everyone why

Other updates? Well, H is down to 2 breastfeeds a day. I don’t know whether she’ll self wean during this pregnancy. Her bedtime feed is patchy, largely because she eats vast quantities of dinner before bed, but she generally feeds for 45-60 minutes each morning when she comes into our bed. If she does then she does, but I am more than happy to tandem feed. After a period of sleeping through, she’s up again a few times a night and is a very early riser. I’ve ordered a special clock to hopefully help her see when it’s time to get up. How can you say it’s not morning yet when it’s light out and she has no way of telling the time?? Alfie has been sleeping through for a long while now and finally dropped his middle of the night milk a few weeks back. They do things at their own pace and are happy and well adjusted for it (tantrums aside lol!)