Cow Bells & Cuckoo Clocks

Next 10 Books

2011-02-21T10:22:00.000+01:00

We're on to our next set of books in the reading challenge. The last challenge almost wasn't completed, until there was a late surge at the weekend. Dr John chose, as his prize, 10 nanos which are collectable 'things' that you get from the supermarket every time you spend 20CHF. I have a 'secret stash' that I distribute at random times (particularly if I need a bribe, lol!) and Dr John chose to have 10 from the stash. Strange really, as he will get them all anyway, and he could've chosen anything else within reason (I was guessing something from the lego Ninjago range). Still, saves me money ;-)

So, what have we chosen for the next set? A good mix I hope. Some new stories, a couple of classics, a non-fiction and a French book.

T'choupi fait du vélo - Our first attempt at reading a French book. I'm aware that he won't understand some of the words at first, but I'm using this as the starting point for learning the french sounds. It may not work.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy - As requested by Dr John.

The Monster Gang - An Usborne Young Reading level 1 book.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit - I always forget that these books are longer than I think.

Freya and Heath are Home Educated - To balance up the American Home Ed book he read last time.

Jack and the Beanstalk - This is the version of the story where Jack collects the goose and the harp etc.

Key Words 5b - We have the whole set of these now, so I am going to try and include at least one in each challenge.

I've Won, No I've Won, No I've Won - A Charlie and Lola book.

Why Do We Eat? - An Usborne Beginners book, a non fiction offering. Chosen mainly for his current interest in the body.

Chill Out Scooby Doo! - I bought this when we took a short trip back to the UK for my niece's birthday. Its an interesting inclusion as the English isn't that great in it (a lot of casual language in it, e.g. "Like, shouldn't we be there by now?") but hopefully this will open up some discussions.

Puidoux to Lutry hike

2011-02-17T09:59:00.000+01:00

Today was our first family hike of the year. In fact, it was our first hike as a family of four. Pip was carried by Chris Evans in the backpack for the first time and at 11.30 we took the 9 minute train ride to Puidoux-Chexbres station.
Its a walk we've done before, but this time we took a picnic lunch and stopped at one of the picnic tables along the way.
Its a lovely walk through the vineyards, and I think it is really best done between January and April as I find it just too hot in the summer walking on the south facing slopes (I know, I'm a wimp when it comes to the sun!).
We took the scooter too so that Dr John could practice on the flat bits (we're hoping that he'll get his balance enough so that he'll want to tackle his bike in the summer). As it turned out, my ligaments haven't completely sorted themselves out after the birth of Pip, so the scooter helped me home without the need for the emergency services!

We walked to the north of Cully, through Grandvaux and down to Lutry where we caught the bus home. Chris Evans wanted to walk into Lutry to get ice cream, but I was done, so he went to the petrol station for a cone when we got home, and came back with some roses and an apple crumble from the bakery. How romantic!

I never thought I'd say that I enjoy hiking so much. We always have a great time, chatting away. Sometimes we do have to ask Dr John to stop talking for a moment so the rest of us can get a word in edgeways, and on occasion he will do something dangerous or silly like climbing around a storm drain, which gave us a heart attack!
I'm really looking forward to warmer weather so we can do many more hikes through beautiful countryside.

What are we up to?

2011-02-05T14:53:00.000+01:00

It has yet again been too long between blog posts.

Our days have settled into something of a rhythm. Each day sees some reading, maths, and French, and if things have been going well (!) I encourage some writing.

Dr John is a little behind on his 11 books challenge, but he is becoming more confident with reading and is reading more to himself (lego catalogue, magazines etc). He still will only do odd words outside of his 'official' reading, but to see him decide to read anything is a joy.

I have been teaching him how to tell the time. I went way too quickly at first, not thinking that the correlation between minutes and the numbers actually written on the clock would be so hard. Its a great chance for us to use a clock that I made in pottery class that I still haven't put up on the wall, particularly as we only have one other visible clock in the appartment, and thats the digital one on the oven.

French comes and goes in waves. He had a lesson a couple of weeks ago that the teacher labelled 'fantastic' and declared that he would be flying in a couple of months. Although not wishing to be too negative I did warn her not to get too excited, and sure enough the following week, although not a bad lesson, wasn't at the dizzy heights of the previous week. He appears to understand an awful lot, but doesn't speak it. I suspect this could be down to him wanting it to be perfect, almost the feeling that if he can't get it completely right, he'd better not attempt it at all.

I have still been trying to come up with more creative ways of encouraging his writing. So last week I asked him to empty the tins cupboard and make a list of what was in there. This has served several purposes: writing practice, a stocktake for me and then we can use the results to make bar charts, tally charts etc.

This week he has been to his theatre class and I think they have started practising for their spectacle in June. The teacher cam out and asked me what crevette means in English (prawn) so I dread to think what its about!
He went to his atelier too as usual where this term they are looking at exhibitions. They are making a totem pole. I love this place and will be very sad, as will Dr John, when he has to stop going in the summer.
He was meant to be going to rugby, which is inside for 6 weeks (only 3 weeks to go, and I'm sure the weather will get worse just as they go back outside!) but our neighbour has been taking him, and I didn't check my phone until just before they were due to leave, so missed the text saying that her son had hit his head and wasn't going to go, so we didn't go, as we would've turned up way too late (one of the downsides of not having a car).
Yoga was, as usual, manic. Which seems a strange thing to say, but when they come out, they are all fired up, and then get to run around the play place for 30 minutes before we leave.
On Friday, as Pip and I missed her Kindermusik class on Wednesday as we went to look round a house, all three of us went. Dr John had fun and was helpful and kind to all the babies, even though I could tell a lot of the mums were wondering what a 6 year old was doing there during school time, particularly one wearing an elf's hat!
In the afternoon we went ice skating with a friend who has just started at a montessori school after being home educated. The school doesn't have sports facilities so has to give the children the whole of Friday off.

And so to the weekend. This afternoon, Chris Evans is taking the children to the park and the supermarket so I can get on with some sewing without having a little lady pressing on the sewing machine pedal! And then as the weather looks like it might be even warmer tomorrow, I think we are going for a walk in the vineyards. Perfect.

When small things lead to danger

2011-02-05T13:59:00.000+01:00

I've tried to copy and paste this in its entirety here, but for some reason I can't get the pics to appear, so instead here's a link to a snowshoe walk Chris Evans and Dr John did together:

http://www.maxant.co.uk/stories/whenSmallThingsLeadToDanger.pdf

I hope you enjoy reading it!

The complexities of life

2010-12-06T20:42:00.000+01:00

Dr John asked us yesterday if someone could have two wives or two husbands by law. I replied that no, not by swiss law and inquired as to why he had asked that question. He said that he wants to marry E but she says that although she loves Dr John, she is going to marry N so Dr John thought he could solve the problem if they could both marry her.

So his parents proceeded to offer two different pieces of advice.
Chris Evan's? Play it cooler than N and she'll choose you.
Me? You have years until you have to solve this so I'd worry about it then.

I wonder what this says about our differing philosophies of life...

The 11 Book Challenge

2010-12-03T09:59:00.000+01:00

After the success of the 10 book challenge, Dr John has asked to do another one.

So, I chose 4 books and he chose the rest and we discussed the suitability of all of them. Dr John declared it an 11 book challenge as he couldn't cut it down to 10, which is my kind of dilemma!

So, we now have (with links to be added when I get time):

Usborne Spiders beginners book
The Musicians of Bremen
The Emperor and the Nightingale
Baba Yaga and the Flying Witch
Barn on Fire
The Ugly Duckling
Stories of Magical Animals
See Inside Ancient Rome
The Cuddliest Cuddle in the World
I am Learning All the Time
Commotion in the Ocean

No doubt, as before, the selection will change, but I don't think reading should be that rigid, should it?

The 10 Book Challenge - Complete!

2010-12-03T09:54:00.000+01:00

Yes, the 10 book challenge is complete. Dr John has really been motivated to read because of this (Okay, I realise that the 'prize' at the end was a huge factor, but still) and there has been a definite improvement in his reading.

Of course, Dr John wouldn't be Dr John if we hadn't had a lot of chopping and changing along the way, so not only did the prize change (he chose a lego advent calendar in the end, which we probably would've got him anyway, cheeky mummy!) but the 10 books too.

So he read:
The Leopard and the Sky God
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Michael Recycle
Green Eggs and Ham
Happy Hector
Lost and Found
The Little Red Hen
The Scaredy Cat
The Wish Fish
and The Gingerbread Man

A great selection of books, which all gave some challenges. I'm very proud of my lad.

How do you have...

2010-11-28T09:02:00.000+01:00

...two children, one 6 years old and the other 6 months old playing in the same room, when the 6 year old is playing with lego and all its associated small pieces, and the 6 month old is crawling and wanting to play with everything her big brother is playing with?

Pip is too young to learn to leave Dr John's things alone and of course his things hold so much more allure than her own, and to me it seems unfair that the onus is solely on Dr John to be careful with his things.

I know, I know, its hardly an earth stopping problem. I just need other people to do my thinking for me at the moment :(

Our Approach

2010-11-16T14:18:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned a little while ago, we have slightly changed our approach. Whereas before, Dr John had a chart with space for 20 tasks that he had to complete in a week, now we have taken that and the responsibility away from him. We have explained (and simplified it) that at school he would have to do 4 hours of work a day whereas at home he only has to do 1. Sometimes the mere mention of school can send him in a spin, and so during those times when he is showing a reluctance to do anything we use the 4 or 1 question - do you want to do 4 hours of work or 1? For some reason it seems to work. And so, if any charts are going to be kept, it is privately by me.
I have tried to create a rough idea of what we would like to achieve.

Reading
There is the 10 book challenge which is going really well and he is even asking if some books can go in the next challenge. So far he is onto his sixth book, and I think is beginning to see the benefit of reading, finding out what is going to happen next etc.

Maths
He either does a page from his math calcul sticker book or does sums on his magnetic board, eg 57+66 ones which he makes up and ones that I do. Interestingly we discovered a few days ago that he can read numbers up to 1000 but doesn't really know what order they come in ie that 200 comes after 199 etc. so we have been working a bit on that and we are going to put up a (very long!) number line around the apartment to help.

French
He continues with his weekly lesson and we have got the flashcards out again for vocabulary competitions although we do need to move on a bit to sentences and conversation so I'm going to bring out a poster we did a while back with j'aime, je n'aime pas etc and develop that a bit more with some verbs too.

Science
In the last few days he has asked to do some of the kits that we have had knocking about for ages so they will probably form the basis of our science work complemented by resources such as Magic School Bus, The Way Things Work and lots of the fab Usborne books that I sell :) There is also a body book that a friend has blogged about that I would like to get. Its so important that the resources are readily accessible and ready to go so that when he asks to do one we have everything we need, unlike the water filter column kit he wanted to do yesterday and we've had to put off as we didn't have everything we needed. In the end we did a colour mixing kit (I need to put links in this blog!) which will continue using a Light and Colour book I have. I also bought some undyed wool from my lovely friend at NZ Wools which will be a nice ending to that topic.

Cooking
Dr John is showing a real interest in cooking so I will sit down with him and go through our cookbooks to find recipes he'd like to do. This may lead on to a bit of geography too, as we have a round the world cookbook and we can talk about food miles too. Already he has written out a recipe for chocolate muffins he likes doing and hopefully from that he will see the value of practising his writing as I suspect that when we next come to it, he won't be able to read what he's written!

Writing
Writing is a bit of a sticking point. His letter formation isn't too bad as long as you don't mind capitals but at times the size and overall appearance render it illegible. As he is a child that doesn't like sitting down and doing workbooks I have been at a bit of a loss as to what to do about it. So I asked him. We agreed that his writing needs some work but that he doesn't like doing it. So I am going to make up a story and each day give him a sentence or two to write. It has to have capitals and small letters and basic punctuation in the right places or he has to do it again. In reality this may be tricky to implement, but to be honest the alternative (as I've set it out) is letter formation repetition so hopefully he will choose the more fruitful and less painful approach. If it doesn't work, then maybe we'll use Handwriting Without Tears or Getty and Dubay, but I hope we don't have to.

Geography
No firm plans on this one. We tend to talk about physical geography when we go for hikes. A copout answer is that it naturally comes up in day to day life. Hmmm.

History
This is an area that I need to work on not dismissing, particularly as it was the subject I was least interested in at school. We have The Story of the World (+ activity book) so I think we may just read through that.

Art
Dr John is starting to draw more. He has never been interested before. I really don't want him to think that anything he does is wrong so I will leave him to get on with it unless he wants help.
There is however a Picasso exhibition on in Zurich so we will visit that and do some support work too. (Hmm, I wonder if there is a Djeco Picasso kit....)
After that, I may use The Usborne Book of Art to study various works.
I would also like to introduce him to the camera. For a long time now, I personally have wanted to do a photo study on graffiti, so talking about that (and doing it!), coupled with visits to the camera museum in Vevey and the musee de l'Elysee in Lausanne should cover that.

Music
This takes many forms. We have a cd about Beethoven so we will listen to that frequently and discuss it and YouTube some performances of his works. I have bought a music theory book so we can start that and a beginners piano book so that we can move away from my crude colour coded keys.

Other Stuff
I have a poetry book, I Like This Poem, from my childhood that we can dip into. The first poem is the witches spell from Macbeth so we can also read Macbeth, doing a bit of re-enactment with glove puppets, and some art work depicting the scenes too.

It may seem like this is very structured but really it is only for my benefit. I need to have a plan and things to hand when required and I think this is the best way of doing so.
It was clearly illustrated to me last week that he doesn't work well with knowledge of a plan. On Thursday we achieved a lot of different things, including his french lesson and yoga, just by me suggesting things to do, and he was happy to do so, so on Friday I thought that we should have a list of things we needed to do before we went ice skating. Not everything got done, and there was a lot of tension flying around.

(A list for me also helps to focus ME when I am floundering due to sleep deprivation which is quite often at the moment thanks to my beautiful daughter ;) )

I wish I lived nearer Winterthur...

2010-11-05T09:31:00.000+01:00

...because then we would be able to go to the fabulous technorama more often. Its 300km away, so possibly doable in a very long day but not ideal.
So on Thursday evening directly after yoga we set off in the van. We got almost to Zurich before stopping for the night at a service stop. Unfortunately, for me in particular, we were extremely close to the motorway and Pip woke up very frequently so I wasn't as refreshed as I could've been.

After breakfast of croissants and coffee or hot chocolate (depending on your age) we drove on to the Technorama. Every exhibit is hands on which means that you really can spend the entire day exploring the 3 floors (and the slightly out of place lame model train display in the basement) and still not do everything. They also a few demonstrations of which we participated in two.
The first was to do with forces and Dr John and Chris Evans went in a spinning seating area where they rolled balls to one another and tried to walk in a straight line amongst other things. I was quite glad I was on Pip minding duty as spinning things really aren't my thing. I get dizzy on a playground roundabout!

The second demonstration was about gases, involving balloons, helium, carbon dioxide, oxygen and lots of bangs. It was in German but they handed out brief explanations in English so I was able to let Dr John know what was going on.

We had lunch in the cafeteria there, and left just before it closed. As I say, I wish it was closer so we could go more often. We then drove towards Zurich and stayed the night in another service station. The next day we stopped off on our way to Zurich zoo as I was buying some fabric remnants from someone. I got 2 large bags of fabric from her, and she very kindly gave me a craft book too. Its in German, but has lots of pictures! I find it so difficult to find reasonably priced fabric here in small prices. I only make small things, bibs, blankets etc so don't need metres.

Anyway, we made our way to the zoo. It was raining so we started in the rainforest exhibit. We saw lots of wonderful birds flying around our heads and occasionally there would be terrifying shrieks from the monkeys up in the roof. Its a great set up in there as they do a little tour around it and take you on little paths and across rope bridges that
you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. On our tour we were joined by a French speaking family so the guide was speaking to us in English with Chris Evans translating a few words she didn't know from German and then I was translating it into French. A great linguistic
workout for me!

After lunch looking into the rainforest we ventured outside. Not so much fun due to the weather but we saw everything we wanted to, including spending a lot of time with the gorillas. That evening we drove along the motorway a bit further, stopping at another service station before continuing home the next day. A lovely weekend and leaving on Thursday evening meant that we were home by lunchtime on Sunday and it was completely relaxed with no rushing about. And we got to spend another weekend in the camper which is always a bonus. Roll on the time when we go away for another couple of months like we did 3 years ago.

The 10 Book Challenge

2010-10-12T11:58:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago we went to the English bookshop to get another Jack and Annie (Magic Tree House) book.

He saw a Star Wars Encyclopedia there that he desperately wanted, but didn't have enough money (he gets a certain amount a week) to buy it.
So I agreed that he could earn it. And so, the 10 Book Challenge.

Chris Evans and I have chosen (with the agreement of Dr John) 10 books that he has to read to either of us. Once he has done that, we will buy him the Stars Wars book. We are roughly aiming for the challenge to be complete by Christmas (about 10 weeks away!) but not with loads of pressure.

The 10 books are:
The Runaway Pancake
The Wish Fish
The Little Red Hen
The Scaredy Cat

A nice mix of books I think. Some easy, some not so. Reading is something that Dr John doesn't have too many issues with, but I think this will add a bit of spice to things.

A Clean Break

2010-10-10T17:06:00.000+02:00

The start of a new school year brings with it new decisions. What after school clubs should be done?
Enfantine which took place before drama was okay, but didn't really offer anything that I couldn't. Drama for in my opinion the worse when the old teacher left and it turned into more of a movement class. We stopped football when I got too pregnant as it was too much to get to on a bus, train and walk in 45 minutes. And Dr John was still enjoying yoga and atelier.

The biggest issue for me wrt his classes was that except for atelier, they were all in English. So we had to have a balance between what Dr John wanted to do and what we thought would benefit him the most. Drama had always been a favourite so I found a theatre class in French. Atelier stayed (I'm not looking forward to his last day there) and instead of football he agreed to try rugby (its in French and a 15 minute bus ride from our house). Yoga stayed too although there was a discussion about a local football class near our house instead of yoga but the lure of playing with his friends in the soft play afterwards was just too great.

So quite a big shift towards French speaking classes but he really needs a bit of a kick to practice his oral skills. So far it appears to be going great. His atelier has commented that he is getting more involved with the other children which is also helped by there being no other Anglophones in the class. We have changed French teachers as his previous one was no longer coming to our house after the birth of her baby and it was just too far for us to travel to her on public transport. His new teacher is lovely. She is a retired primary school teacher and takes such a relaxed approach to his lessons. She refuses to speak English to him but they can often be heard giggling away. A definite result!

The theatre class he enjoys although the language is a slight issue but the teacher and another child translates in times of great need. You can see the downside of not being fluent in French in rugby as he is always a bit behind as he has to watch what the others are doing. He enjoys it though, particularly the full on tackling (at 6?! heart in mouth stuff!) and he took part in his first tournament a couple of weeks ago. Its just a shame that he will miss several weeks after he fractured his hand in training! I wasn't there as we are sharing pick ups with a neighbour whose son also goes but apparently the coach had said several times not to sit down between the exercises which Dr John kept doing, and right at the end of the session he did it again and coach tripped over him, standing on his hand!
Of course being the crappy mother that I am I didn't take him to the hospital that day but 4 days later after he had played a match in his first tournament. To be fair it wasn't that painful or swollen but he is now the proud owner of a cast. Amusingly we had to get his cast replaced as he broke the first one! I don't think the plaster guy at the hospital was too amused.
Still I can forgive a slightly abrupt manner as both times we were in and out of the hospital (xrays, plaster and everything) in less than 90 minutes.
He has the plaster on for 3 weeks, and then he can get back into the swing of things again. He hasn't been too upset at the things he hasn't been able to do, but he will definitely be pleased to be able to climb in the park, do proper cooking, and lay in the bath for ages as he loves to do!

Villars to Le Diableret

2010-10-07T22:22:00.000+02:00

One weekend we took the camper van to Le Diableret for Chris Evans and Dr Johns' mammoth walk.
They took the bus to Villars and then walked back.
I'm going to leave Chris Evans to blog it, but I will say now that I am extremely proud of both of them.

Holiday, part 2

2010-09-10T13:13:00.000+02:00

We didn't stay with MIL this time, partly as the warden in her sheltered housing wasn't too happy at having the camper van parked in the car park overnight and partly because MIL lives in a very small 2 bed bungalow and we are now one extra. So we were booked into a campsite called Thornton's Holt a few kms away. We also got Chris Evans put onto MIL's car insurance so we could borrow her car for the week. She is going through a tough time at the moment which means that she isn't comfortable using the car, so there was no problem with us using it. Even though there is a good bus service into the city from the campsite, this was one instance where I was glad that we had a car.

On Saturday we took a trip to a working inner city windmill and science centre. It was free entry so I had no problem with buying a couple of bags of flour and a book about the original miller and scientist and mathematician, George Green. The science centre was very small but well thought out, and the sort of place I could see us returning to regularly if we lived in the area each time we'd learnt the theory behind each principle demonstrated.

No idea what happened on Sunday, but on Monday we had planned it so that Chris Evans had a bottle of expressed milk and was going to take Dr John and Pip to the caves under the city whilst I went shopping for clothes but the cave tour was at 12 and Chris Evans thought it might prove a little tricky if Pip woke up in the middle of it, so they tried the castle but that is closed on Mondays so they came and met me for lunch. At that point I'd only been to the market for some material and haberdashery and I also got a first piano book for Dr John and grade 1 and 2 pieces for me so I can see what level I'm at.
I was grateful for their company in the afternoon as Dr John is a great clothes shopper, always picking great things for me, and Chris Evans isn't bad either. They are both better than me at finding clothes anyway! I hate clothes shopping. So I came away pretty happy with a few sale pieces from Monsoon. We then headed over to SIL and BIL's for a bbq. BIL is Star Wars mad and is keen to indoctrinate Dr John with the ways of the force. I'm not too sure how happy I am about that, but there doesn't seem much stopping it.

On Tuesday, Chris Evans and Dr John seemed to properly develop their colds, so it looked like we were going to be unable to take advantage of the heated swimming pool on the campsite. We have tried formal swimming lessons before when Dr John was much smaller which were a disaster and we decided that maybe he would suit learning with us informally, but we have been so rubbish at going that maybe it is time to rethink that strategy although that would be another after school activity to try and fit in. Anyway, on Tuesday we headed back into the city to attempt the caves again. Underground is one of my least favourite places to be, so Pip and I went underwear shopping in M&S whilst the boys finally did the tour. Dr John seemed to enjoy it and I got told various snippets about it although I think I will see if Chris Evans will blog it for any more detail than that! That night Pip had caught the cold too so she just wanted to comfort feed all night so I didn't get much sleep.

The next morning I was able to get an hour or so's extra sleep whilst the others went to the playground and in the afternoon while Dr John stayed with MIL, we took Pip to visit grandma (Chris Evans' grandma) who is staying in a respite care home while MIL sorts herself out. Then back to the camper van via Morrisons to pick up a roast chicken and salad and a couple of other things to take back to Switzerland like spaghetti hoops and monster munch (good healthy stuff!) which we take back as a treat.

Thursday saw us saying goodbye to MIL and making our way down to Dover. We had booked passage on a ferry on Friday morning but when we arrived at the port at 5.45pm we thought we'd see if we could get on a ferry then and stay in Calais overnight rather than Dover. We had to pay a bit extra as it was outside the 2 hour of our booking but figured that it was worth it as we could eat on the boat and wouldn't have to get up so early the next day (not really an issue for me, but always a bonus for Chris Evans!). So, after my last fish and chips for a while we arrived in Calais. By this point I was developing a sore throat and losing my voice so was glad that we quickly made our way to a camper van park by the beach and within a couple of kms of the docks and settled down for the night. We awoke to a ticket on the windscreen for 7 Euros for the priviledge of staying the night, so paid that and went on our way.

6 & 60

2010-09-10T13:01:00.000+02:00

The next day we walked into town and grabbed lunch in a local cafe. Dr John had his first taste of a 'proper' sausage roll and wasn't too impressed, although did like the softness of the bread in his sandwich. Its the little things. We then went to Sainsbury's for things for Dr John's birthday bbq and got lost in it and apparently thats not even a big one! You can tell we've been in Switzerland a long time!

By the early evening, excitement had reached fever pitch. After all, its not every day you turn 6. Dr John shares a birthday with my mum too and it was going to be her 60th, so extra reason to get excited.
The big day dawned. With a not too early start celebrations commenced. There was the general chaos of present opening during which Dr John received some lego, a James Bond dvd and secret spy stuff to satisfy his current career choices (lego mini figure creator, dvd producer and secret spy, all in one day - he's going to be a busy lad!) amongst other gifts. Then everyone helped prepare for the party, only stopping for the early arrival of my sister and family and more presents (more lego). Just about all my maternal aunts and uncles came which was nice to see them all together. Dr John remembered a couple of them but to be fair he's only seen them a couple of times when he was very young.

I would say that the party was a success. Dr John had great fun playing with his cousin Suzanna*, who is 4 and also home educated, and there was a lot of chatting and eating and cooing over the baby. The cakes, which I'd had to ice due to the original baker going on holiday, were extremely yummy and I think everyone went home happy. My sister and her family stayed the night which was good fun, although I don't think we should've stayed up until 1am playing Lego Harry Potter on the Wii!

The next day we pottered about playing and chatting and then we all went to a local pub for dinner which was lovely until an incident spoilt things and we went back to my parents rather abruptly. A shame as it seemed to take the shine off our visit. But thats families I guess.

The next day, Thursday, Chris Evans and I went with Pip to the city to do some shopping (I was really overwhelmed by the size of everything and the number of people) whilst Dr John stayed with my parents and watched dvds and ran them ragged. Thursday evening was spent packing the van in preparation for our trip up to the midlands to visit MIL.

On the Way to the UK

2010-09-10T12:54:00.000+02:00

On the way to 2 weeks in the UK we stopped at Le Musée de la Grande Guerre in Peronne. Did the pond walk which was so well signposted we (wrongly) assumed it was worth doing, but was literally walking round a large pond, not even with a path, and there was so much dog poo about.
Then we went into the museum as soon as it opened as we didn't have much time to look around and get to the ferry before it left. The recommended time to look around the museum was 2 hours and to be honest I'm not really sure where they got that figure from. We only took 30 minutes and even taking into account that Dr John flits about a bit, on my own it wouldn't have taken 4 times as long.

We had a disaster in the gift shop. Dr John picked up a cup to show it to me and dropped it. I offered to pay but it was okay as it was covered on insurance. I was almost upset by it as it was part of a set of two and I quite fancied the other half but didn't think Chris Evans would've been too happy about it!

They had exhibits of the different costumes and equipment which was really interesting as everything was explained in good detail and was laid out on the floor (albeit recessed and alarmed!) so that even littlies could see everything. It was really well arranged and Dr John was interested in a lot of it, especially the guns. I think he's really reaching an age where he can appreciate exhibits more. I still have to speed read the descriptions and summarise as he won't stay still long enough for me to read anything out but at least he will listen to some of it!

We arrived at the ferry 2 hours early and were allowed on an earlier crossing. Funnily enough my mum and dad were crossing the channel with P&O too (they had gone on a weekend coach trip to Paris) but if we had gone at the same time as them we wouldn't have made it to their house the same evening. As it was their ferry was changed to 30 minutes earlier and we arrived at their house just over an hour before them. Luckily they don't live any further away as Pip had just about reached her travelling limit. At least Dr John was able to see his grandparents that evening as I think he would've been very upset if not.

The Inbetweener

2010-08-27T08:45:00.003+02:00

There was a week between the last Edukids session and our trip to the UK and it was a fairly relaxed week. I managed to get to the hairdresser after many months and Dr John and Chris Evans did some more training for a big hike they are planning by walking from Caux to Rochers de Naye and back again. Dr John had friends round to play on two separate occasions, one of which he managed to behave spectacularly badly and even though his friend wasn't perfect either, I was suitably embarrassed particularly as his friend's mum had cooked us a yummy Filipino dish called Adobo.

He also did some writing off his own back which helps reaffirm our decision that this year at least we will try and be as hands off as possible and allow his learning to be self directed. We also however had a two day stand off over the state of his room which eventually got tidied enough so that you don't break any bones trying to get to the bed, wardrobe or the window. Sigh. One step forward, etc.

Be Still These Voices in my Head

2010-08-27T08:41:00.002+02:00

I don't really know how it came about but Dr John told me one day that he has voices in his head. He can certainly be a very angry little boy but also has an extreme imagination, loves stories and films and loves creating characters. Not a bus journey goes by without him asking 'who are you from made up world' or 'which bad guy are you in super hero land?'.

But voices in his head? Should I be concerned? Apparently they are voices that go very fast and he doesn't know really what they are saying but they only stop when he is angry or asleep. Hmm. Chris Evans says that he used to hear voices when he was a child but he thinks it was to do with his bilingualism, but by instinct I just don't think this is the case with Dr John. I just feel that maybe this and his tendency for a short fuse may be linked. I'm going to look into calming techniques for children, but anyone got any suggestions?

A Working Break

2010-08-26T11:35:00.002+02:00

Since getting Helga our camping van 18 months ago we have spent a couple of weeks at a campsite in the city where Chris Evans works. This means that he can be 'home' at 5pm rather than his usual 7pm and we get a week lounging around with a new city's attractions to explore.

One downside to this week was that it was so hot (33 degree hot) that we didn't want to go anywhere particularly with a small baby so we hung around the van trying to find some shade. We had some of Chris Evans' work colleagues for a bbq which was made tricky as someone forgot to pack the grill part of it. I also struggled a bit as small talk appears to have deserted me and they kept lapsing into German which I have a basic understanding of, but not really enough to hold a conversation.

The kids and I managed to go for a couple of small walks in the mornings and Chris Evans got home by about 430 to 5pm on most days so all in all it was a fun week, marred only by Dr John's inability to go to bed without a wailing and screaming fit most nights. Very wearing.

Chris Evans was also brave enough to go for a swim in the glacial waters of the river Aare which is fairly fast flowing and I would've loved to have also done, but I guess it will be several years before I can do so unless we could find someone to look after the children as I don't think I would be brave enough to do it on my own!

Apologies

2010-08-26T11:30:00.002+02:00

Apologies for the bombardment of posts that will be coming in the next couple of days.

Its what happens when you are up in the middle of the night with a phone that you can write posts on, but can't post on the internet, due to being on holiday in the UK (and therefore it would cost a fortune if I tried to do so).

Workshops, Classes, Camps

2010-08-23T08:48:00.010+02:00

Summer is a busy time for us. It is a time when we join in with the school children on their holidays.

Anyway, we'd looked at all the possibilities and chosen 3 weeks. I feel a little bad that we didn't really involve Dr John in the decision making process but a lot of the time he would be quite happy to stay at home with his lego which we feel is something that can be done at any time and we need to make the most of our opportunities.

So the first week was mornings at the same place he has his drama class, Edukids. They were 'doing' Le Petit Prince. I'm not sure exactly that they went through the whole story but I have a copy in French so (note to self) it would probably be a good idea to follow up on that. They talked about future careers and Dr John wants to be a lego designer so we had a look on the lego website (one of his favourites) and found the lego creator application. Its a little tricky for him at the moment particularly in the 3d visualization but the promise of ordering one of his creations will be a spur I think.

The second week was the one he was most reluctant about. I'm always surprised when my outgoing little boy seems a little shy or sacred of doing something and I must remember to treat his feelings with the respect they deserve. Anyway, the second week was 9 to 530 at the place that he has been to his atelier for the past 4 years (hence my surprise at his reluctance to go). I explained though that he could ask them to phone me if he wanted to come home for whatever reason. I think his main issue was that it was such a long day and that he would be having lunch there.
Lunch. That they supplied lunch was a surprise. That it was a cooked lunch was an even bigger surprise. Very few schools in Switzerland have a canteen or anywhere to have lunch (children come home every day at lunchtime making it very difficult for the primary caregiver to work) . But this place, which I think is such a wonderful set up, provided them with things like lasagna. They even got Dr John to eat a piece of salad every day!

The theme for the week was 'Say it with Flowers' and to be honest I was a little unsure as to how much Dr John would actually get out of it as it was all in French. But as usual he surprised me. On Tuesday morning as we were on our way there he told me about boy seeds and girl seeds. It took me a while to realise that he was talking about what they had done the day before and that none of it was in English! Now, if he would just start speaking it...

They spent each day playing lots but also doing some craft and having what I guess you could call an 'educational' session. This is where he learnt about the boy and girl seeds - (in relation to flowers I hasten to add!) - but also tasted flowers, drank flower sirops and smelt flower perfumes.

He had such a great time that he wanted to know if he could go the next week, and when I explained that he'd have to wait until the autumn holidays he asked me to sign him up straight away! I would say thats a result! And all subsidized by the city council so approximately half the cost of the Edukids sessions which itself is cheaper than other places he's been to before. His favourite bit of the week? The face painting and chasing the girls...

After a break of a week in which we went away which I will blog separately he was back at Edukids for four days. The subject this week was 'The Magic of Science' which seemed to revolve around the senses. I say 'seemed' because I didn't really find out much about it partly I think because the previous session he had been to at the Vallée had been such a success. I had to giggle one day though as I was told that he and another boy had had an argument about colouring. This little boy was adamant that you MUST colour in within the lines and Dr John insisted that it didn't matter. A stand off ensued, which was only resolved by the teacher getting them to agree, albeit reluctantly, that they both had valid points and it was perfectly acceptable to colour in whichever way they chose. That's my boy!

All in all, he had a good time. We're learning all the time what type of things he likes, and I've learnt that I shouldn't be scared that he will struggle with anything in French.

And in other news....

2010-07-15T13:45:00.000+02:00

In May, 3 became 4.

Yes that's right, I gave birth to our daughter, Pip, (not her real name, her in utero one, but it seems to have stuck a bit) on the 22nd May.
Dr John is delighted. He really wanted a sister, and had the great honour of choosing her middle name.
We're all settling in nicely. A few issues with Dr John and me but I think they are slowly being ironed out.
I'm a little disappointed that none of our families have come to visit, but meh, you can't have everything!

A Plea

2009-10-05T17:55:00.002+02:00

I know my blogging has been dismal, but I come with a request.

Thanks to the brochure inside a board game advertising Memoir 44, Dr John has been asking me about WWII (and WWI). So far the questions have been along the lines of "How many people were killed" (thanks Wikipedia!), but I'm aware that if the questions move on much more than that I will be completely unable to answer as my 20th century history is non-existant, due to absolutely detesting history at school (thank you Mrs Benns).

So, does anyone have any good recommendation for (primarily, but not exclusively) books on the world wars that would be suitable for a 5 year old? Fiction or non-fiction would suffice.

Thank you.

And I promise, normal blogging will be resumed shortly.

Interplanetary Travel

2009-08-19T17:40:00.002+02:00

Please can someone advise me on how to retrieve Dr John from the planet he is on?
I don't mean this in a flippant way, I am very serious as he is driving me insane.

He doesn't just seem to daydream, he just seems unable to focus on things. Not just educational ones either. Today he sauntered into the kitchen wanting a drink, so got the carton of juice from the fridge and wandered off with it. When I called him back to pour it into a glass, he almost seemed unaware that he had it in his hands!

He has been saying every now and then that he is bored, but I just need to suggest something and he is okay again.

Any thoughts? Is this something that is characteristic of 5 year old boys? Do I have to grin and bear it (I'm trying very hard not to get cross, but it is annoying me somewhat!)?

What do YOU want to do?

2009-06-24T09:08:00.005+02:00

Inspired by a blog post by Jax, I asked Dr John what he wanted to learn about. I phrased it a few ways, and he came up with the following:

What do you want to learn about?

England - what people do there (?!), especially Gran
North America - the Native Americans and just America
Egypt (I suspect he means the Ancient Egyptians than anything else)

What do you want to know about?

Planets, the sun, cows, ducks and dinosaurs

What questions do you want to know the answer to?

Why does snow melt and why doesn't the sun melt?

Where would you like to visit?

Bees making honey

A varied collection of things there!

So, of course that has led to one of my favourite pastimes - looking for books!

I'm going to order a couple of books about America in the hope that we can refine the subject a bit more:

We already have a few books on native Americans, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle (Picture Puffin) and More Than Moccasins: A Kid's Activity Guide to Traditional North American Indian Life amongst them.

Ancient Egypt is fairly well covered too, with a fairly good section in Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Ancient Times: 1
Egypt (See Inside) and Egyptians (Usborne Beginners)

I don't have much on cows or ducks, but have a lot of info on planets, the sun and dinosaurs including a solar system model that needs to be finished.

We plan on going to the bee museum too. I find this a strange one as Dr John is quite vehement in his reluctance to even try honey. I don't think that me explaining that the nectar is turned into honey in the bees stomach and then is regurgitated helped very much!

I did also ask if he wanted to learn to read, to which the reply was "of course!".

At least now, when he wants to do anything on these things I may be able to cover them!

Although it may be a while. At the moment, he is watching The Magic Roundabout for the second time this morning, as this time he is doing the quiz that goes with it. He seems to like quizzes, particularly associated with a film or programme. He discovered the quiz that goes with the Magic School Bus dvds yesterday and enjoyed them. Of course, if I asked him questions about the film, I probably wouldn't get a response!

Yesterday, at Dr John's request, we made some gingerbread men. They were yummy and it was good to see Dr John being a little more interested in food and cooking.

Later we go to the doctors for hopefully a referral to a dermatologist for Dr John's eczema. I get the feeling his paed is more a cure-it doctor rather than a preventative type, so hopefully I won't have to fight too much.

Tomorrow, another home ed get together. Its a shame we'll have to leave early to go to yoga, but its great that people are keen on these meetings. I desparately want them to become regular events. I guess I should think about what we can do in the winter.

Meeting Up

2009-06-17T08:11:00.004+02:00

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (or should that now refer to an mp3, or are they obsolete already?) I need to blog more. I have posts in my head, but they just don't make it onto the screen, and they should do, as I'm on the puter enough!

Anyway, we have been meeting up with other home educators! Yes, its true!

We had found a family that we originally met a couple of years ago when S gave up being an Usborne organiser and I bought her stock from her, but we didn't contact each other for a while. Since we met again earlier this year, we have seen each other roughly once every couple of weeks. It is great to have someone to chew the fat with, who 'gets' our HE choice. She has two sons, Thomas and Curly (not their real names, but I feel that I need to start using more than initials!). Thomas is 5, and Curly is 3.5. The three boys get on great together, and as Carrie (blog name for S!) and I can chat for England, its a great relationship.

Carrie organised a home ed get together at her house, which was extremely brave of her, particularly as Thomas is on the autistic spectrum and doesn't cope too well with lots of people. I can't recall how many came, but I just remember that the kids spent all their time outside and the mums (and one dad!) hogged the kitchen. It was great. I had met several families before at the Not Back to School Picnic last Sept, but met a couple of new faces too.
Conversation revolved quite a lot around the standard introductory questions: "why do you it?", "what regulations do you have to follow?", "do you have permission?" etc. Hopefully the more we meet up, the more we can move away from these and get into the nitty gritty of life!

Inspired by this, I organised a meetup down by the lake. I'm aware that Bildung zu Hause, the Swiss Homeschooling organisation is very Swiss German, so invited several French/Swiss Romande families that I had heard about.
We ended up being at least 9 families, 3 of whom were French speaking. We had to leave at 4.30pm to get the van ready for Chris Evans (my blog name for dh!) to take Dr John (used to be M!) away for the night and they were still going strong.

I feel positive. These people do exist, and they seem keen to get together on a regular basis. I had thrown out the idea of a coop, a bit like latinetc (see elsewhere on the blog ring) a few weeks ago and I had a couple of replies, but I think now that it may have been a bit early. I do tend to run away with myself a bit!

Conversation of the Day

2009-04-17T13:59:00.002+02:00

M: Mummy, I'm going to learn about life......

M: Mummy, which came first, the romans or the egyptians?

Me: The egyptians.

M: I don't believe what I'm hearing.

Accountability and Knowledge

2009-04-17T10:53:00.003+02:00

So, I'm sitting here, translating the curriculum for years CIN, CYP1 and CYP2 into English, and its strikes me how little parents of schooled kids know about their education. I wonder how many of them have even considered looking at the curriculum, or the education departments website, or know what is expected of their children to progress to the following year. How many parents turn up at parents evening, listen to all the positive words that the teachers has to use and go home again glowing at the report, and happy in the knowledge that the school is doing everything it should be for their child, even if they have no clue what that is.

Maybe I'm doing a disservice to other parents, and everyone is sitting there, as I am, reading or translating this wonderful 100 page document (but I doubt it!).

This may be a thought that is obvious to seasoned home educators, but really didn't occur to me until I was trying to work out what
"By language activities, the competence to communicate already acquired by the child's family environment is developed. This skill is essential to develop the best in authentic communication situations where the child is the receiver, or the issuer."
actually means!

Big Update

2009-02-23T16:40:00.017+01:00

I keep making notes of what we've been doing over the last 3 weeks, but it never seems to make it into a blog post, so I'm condensing everything into one.

Melrose
We had a fab time. It was great to see people again that we haven't seen since the last Kessingland, and also meet new people. For one thing, it means that I don't feel so much of a stalker going round the blog ring now!
I got moulded to one of the kitchen chairs, M spent the whole time off playing, particularly with S, and A was happy. If I'm honest I was more worried about A than any of us, because his laptop is surgically attached to him, but he was happy playing with the kids, doing some washing up (wonders will never cease!) and playing board games (we now own Carcassone).

Atelier
M has continued going to atelier twice a week. He does really enjoy it. I will be sad when he has to stop going in the summer, although he may be able to join on a Wednesday with the kids from ecole enfantine (first two school years) although we will have to think about that, as lots of other activities happen on a Wednesday (school half day).
I've set him a challenge each time to come home with a new French word. Obviously he always forgets until he sees me at the end, and hurriedly asks the monitrice what the first thing he sees in French is. Although last week she was confused she told me as she didn't know what 'poo' was. Just hope that he didn't see one of them lying around!

French
M and I had a meeting with a language school last week, about getting lessons for him. All seemed to be very positive and exciting - until we got the price. I imagine that there are some private schools that would cost less for 6 months, than it would cost us for M to have a 90 minutes lesson once a week for 6 months!
Still, we have another lead for a teacher who got a friends eldest child up to speed for entering school that I am going to contact.

'Educashun'
Amongst other things:
We checked the life of a load of batteries and sorted them into dead and alive.
We went to the supermarket and used their hand held scanners to do the shopping. I also showed M how to weigh all the fruit and veg (making sure he wasn't leaning on the scales whilst doing so!)
We planted some seeds in troughs for the windowsill (lavender, asters, mixed herbs and mixed salad leaves). The salad leaves led into a discussion about doing things for others, as M doesn't like lettuce so wanted to know why he had to plant some!
We read through the Usborne book See Inside Your Body, as a result of a bony cuddle (me having the bony arms, apparently!).

Health
On the evening we arrived back from the UK, M had just gone to bed when we heard a shout. He had managed to get his plastic kaleidoscope stuck on his finger! In the end we had to cut it off (the kaleidoscope, obviously!), but managed to salvage the 'mirrors' and the end of it, so at some point we'll get round to putting it back together again.
Over the winter M's eczema has got worse again, so we've tried him on lactose free milk and yogurts. A definite improvement. It hasn't solved it (the summer will be the true test) but its a start.
Both M and I have had a cough almost all the time since coming back. Its beginning to annoy me somewhat, although M seems to be unfazed by it.
We've all been to the dentist for a checkup and clean. M's teeth were fine, as were A's, but I've had to have a wisdom tooth out and a filling. Hopefully that will be it for me for a while!

Craft
We made some fimo aliens (pics maybe, when I get them off the camera) from a kit from Merry.
We drew a scene for some animal stickers to go into, finding out that we could smudge the felt tip on the photo paper to give different effects.
We also made a stained glass type picture of a bird, adding feathers for a tail to dramatic effect.
Conquistadors are one of M's fascinations (he wants to be one when he grows up!) so we made a Spanish flag for his ship. (Note to self, Christopher Colombus)
I bought M a small hardback book with blank pages, to take with us on the train etc. He has been drawing in it, and then likes to write the name of what he has drawn. We have also done some writing on the whiteboard, either him asking me how to spell something, or I ask him. I think that he has a good idea in his head how things are written and how to split up words, but cannot translate a written word into speech (ie reading). I find the whole thing fascinating.

TV
M has investigated a few more of the Daily Mail DVDs that MIL sent us a while ago, including Black Arrow and Westward Ho. He was interested to know that the same author, Robert Louis Stevenson, had written a couple of them. Maybe I can follow that up by finding out more about the guy.
Tintin is still watched, over and over again.
We also have French TV on in the mornings. There are several English favourites dubbed into French, and M doesn't sit down so much to watch it, but I'm working on an idea of osmosis!

Books
We went to the English storytime session at the local English bookshop. M was definitely more attentive than the others (schooled, you see ;P ) although I was slightly concerned that when we got home he insisted that we could only speak if we raised our hand.
We bought a couple more Magic Tree House books when we were in England. It hadn't occurred to me that there would be an American and British version, so the two new books have a different cover style to the ones we already own, which seems to offend my sense of completeness! Anyway, I have read Night of the Ninjas to him setting off lots of sneaking around play, and also Lions on the Loose (I know, I realise that they are probably best read in order!).
His English and French magazines arrived and they've made good bedtime stories.
Lots of other book reading going on, and I am slowly suggesting that he spell out one word in the story, although he normally does that once and refuses to read the same word in the rest of the story. I guess reading will be another thing that he comes to in his own way.

Discussions
Obviously plenty of these have happened, but a few have stood out for one reason or another.
We talked about charity, what it means and the idea of doing something without expecting anything in return. I tried not to focus too much on the 'starving children in Africa' side of things, partly because M is very sensitive about anyone being hurt (although this doesn't translate to his playmobil games!) and can start wailing at the most surprising things (Nanny McPhee was an example yesterday) and partly because I would like him to get hold of the global idea of charity. Obviously this concept will take a while!

'Socialisation'
Aside from the usual playdates and playing at atelier, and being with other kids at football and yoga (am I allowed to say that the yoga teacher thinks he is attentive and responsive and really a great kid? ;) ) we had a sleepover (M and me) and we also went to visit a homeschool family in another canton that we had met about 2 years ago. I expected to stay a couple of hours, but after 8 hours I decided it was probably time to go! S and I chatted about anything and everything, I admired and coveted her vast array of books and resources and M, A and L played with very few hiccups. I think that S enjoyed it, as A is autistic and as a result they find it difficult to go anywhere and meet new people.
We also met up with some friends to go to a time exhibition in the same building as M's atelier, also with a exhibition by Niki de Saint Phalle. Unfortunately, M wasn't feeling very well, and spent most of the time on my lap, but as it is so close, we can go back again.

Other Stuff
M has had a haircut :( We have always left it his choice, but ask him every now and then if he would like one. However, in this case I think that he was influenced by certain members of my family when we visited them. Grrrrr!
There has, as usual, been lots of playmobil playing going on. We really need to have a sort out, although I've been saying that for weeks now, but the amount we have is really ridiculous.
The base ten blocks and pattern blocks have come out and structures made. One day, we might get round to using them for the purpose for which they were made!

Phew! Of course, I've now taken so long to write this that another few days have stacked up, but they will have to come in another post.

Catch Up

2009-02-03T10:25:00.002+01:00

I keep writing notes to help me remember what we have been doing and then not blogging them, so I'm making the effort today!

Over the past week, and by no means exclusively we have:

discussed the healthiness of apples, if they are classed as sweet things and what type of sugar they have in them.
played shops. Chose items to sell, decided what price to sell them for, wrote the price stickers, then sold some items and we worked out what change was needed
read M some Faraway Tree, most specifically the part where Connie gets ink on her dress
more being read to.
played with the pattern blocks, making pictures leading to a discussion about the differences between squares, rectangles and diamonds, introducing the idea of right angles (which I found extremely difficult to explain for some reason)
lots of den and dungeon making, including making me an accessory to an escape attempt
card sewing (you know, the cards that have pictures and pre-punched holes in them)
had a film afternoon - watched Madagascar in the blacked out living room with popcorn
discussed what camels eat. I wish I was a bit more confident in my answers. I felt the need to check my reply, whereas M had the confidence of youth, and was right anyway.
gone to football. I love watching M playing football. He isn't that skilled in it, but he concentrates so hard. I just wish some of the others were a little less aggressive and more friendly. A lot of them go to the same school and so know each other pretty well. They can be quite mean to kids that they don't know. It makes me sad. I was impressed by M helping the coach to put the bibs, balls and goal posts away without being asked. It was only him and another child doing it, all the rest buggered off home.
watched quite a lot of tv as usual. The Peter Pan obssession has calmed down a little, which I am grateful for, as I find that film disturbing in so many ways. Even though the dvds that MIL got from the Daily Mail are poorly produced, they cover some good stories, and this week he has watched The Odyssey, Hiawatha and Tom Sawyer again.
more story dictation has occurred. When we are in the UK next week, I am going to see if I can get hold of a dictaphone for M so that he can record stories in his own time. Maybe we'll try to develop them a little and draw pictures to accompany them.
learnt some French. We've done a little more with Léo and Lulu the puppets from La Jolie Ronde and I challenged M to learn a new French word at atelier on Tuesday. I said that if he did, he could have a small treat (which ended up being half a piece of chewing gum Lol!). When I went to collect him, he turned to his teacher and said, "Ima, whats twin in French?" and then ran outside to tell me the answer and demand his treat. Not quite what I was wanting, but he did fulfill the terms of the agreement!
Today we are going to see if he can do a taster session of yoga. All his friends do it, but in the past he hasn't wanted to go. He has now changed his mind, partly I think because he will be able to see his friends regularly.

In other news, I have enrolled myself on an intermediate French course. I feel that my French is of a reasonable standard, but I'm not really progressing much, so I need a helping hand.

Tomorrow we are going to look at some camper vans. We had planned to do another Big Trip this year to Canada, but A has a contract until at least July, and the flights alone were a lot of money so we thought it would be better to buy a camper and then we can just take off more easily at weekends etc.

And then on Sunday we fly to the UK to go to Melrose for the week and then visit rellies for a week. I always get apprehensive attending these type of events, partly because a lot of people know each other pretty well, including the children, and also I can find them fairly intense.
So go easy on me! Please.

Pirates

2009-02-02T15:20:00.001+01:00

(as dictated to me by M)

Pirates
Once upon a time in a far off land there was a guard called Sir Maxalot, and he just loved money, but there were pirates in the caribbean and that was a problem because he lived in the caribbean sea too.

One night as they were sleeping, a big big ship arrived which looked like a merchant ship but was actually a pirate ship!

Then they saw it, and they raised the conquistador and navy flag, and then there was a big battle and some got killed and some were alive and there was 100 guards and there was 1000 pirates and then all the guards got killed but there was still one left, Sir Maxalot and then he took out his spear and the pirates raised their guns and swords and axes and then there was a big cry from the magic fairy and she was going to get killed but she had spells and the pirates also had a naughty witch who cast a spell on her and turned her into ice!

Then Sir Maxalot took out his lance and then the pirates raised their guns right into his eyes. Then they raised all of their weapons in his eyes. Then Sir Maxalot took his knife out and stabbed one in the eye so he had to have a pirate patch. One was a grumpy pirate and he got out his two guns and he spat right on the leg of the armour. He was a really grumpy and nasty pirate.
Then Sir Maxalot and Sir Lancelot came and there were a few surprise attacks. Then the prince came with a really long sword and then the king came. Then the guard came, so there was a lot of good guys to defend and a lot of bad guys to attack. There was a big battle.

Finally the prince was dead and the guard and the king was still alive, and he chopped all the pirates in half pieces.

Then they all lived happily ever after and that is the end of the story.

We Have the Lurgy.....

2009-01-16T09:50:00.002+01:00

Yep, M and I are afflicted. Cough, headache, sore throat etc. Add on to that 2 nights of no sleep for me and we've been quite pathetic.

I have managed to read Magic Tree House 1, 2 and 3 to M though and played a few games of Junior Monopoly, McD's Monopoly (which is between the junior and adult version), Les Chevaliers Tumultueux and got the train set, so we haven't done too badly!
Obviously lots of tv watching has occurred too (Tintin, Walking with Dinosaurs, Peter Pan, Wallace and Gromit).

Hopefully the weekend will see a return to form, and we can get out and about again.

Back to it Monday

2009-01-06T08:26:00.002+01:00

A was back at work today. Its been nice having him here for 2 weeks and makes me hanker for our long holidays. This year we had planned to go to Spain and North Africa for a couple of months in about April, but A's contract has been extended again until the end of June, so we'll do Melrose, and spend a week afterwards visiting relatives and then probably 'do' Spain for a month in July, although maybe we'll travel the length of Italy instead.
So really, we have no idea!
Of course all this depends on buying a camper van, and for that we need our swiss driving licences.

In the morning M did about 10 pages of a Wizard Whimstaff maths book. I asked, but he seemed happy to do it, and I didn't push him too much, so it was a pleasant experience. And to think that a few days ago I commented that he didn't seem like a workbook sort of guy!

I read some of his French magazine to him, and then we decided to go into town in the afternoon to get some more French books. I wanted to get the books suggested in the La Jolie Ronde book I have, but turns out that they were all out of stock or unreferenced. Guess I'll be getting them from Amazon then :rolleyes (need to get some emoticons on this blog, but no idea how)
We got 5 books in the end, Sur La Banquise (I am a bit concerned that the colony of penguins live in the north pole), T'choupi fait du vélo, T'choupi au square, Petit Lapin Blanc fait les courses and Je suis Puma Féroce. Should keep us going with the books I found in the charity shop the other day.
France 5 also have a kids section, Debout les Zouzous and Midi les Zouzous, so we watched that this morning. Samsam is a great hit (he's in our magazine too) and having Roary and Peppa Pig helps as he recognises them from UK tv.
We really want to ramp up the French now. It seems strange that M is so reluctant to learn it, as it would mean that he could speak to his friends at atelier, and he hears it every day, but I think that it is because he doesn't really have a choice. My stubborn little boy! (like mother, like son)

The evening was a bit strained, a combination I think of daddy coming home and being tired from our trip to town (we spent 90 minutes in the bookshop; M occupied himself looking at the Tintin books and was most put out when an assistant asked him to sit on the sofa to read it, rather than lying on the floor!). A and M played with a train set that A picked up cheap, but meant that M didn't want to go to bed and it descended into chaos pretty quickly. Thats what happens when you don't read the signs. I tried not to interfere, but I had to have words (with A!).

A bit of Wii fitting for A and I in the evening (loving the Step exercises, A not so much), and then I finished Sims Kingdom. Maybe now I will get to bed in a reasonable time. I should probably practice what I preach........

Isn't it great....

2009-01-05T08:58:00.002+01:00

...when you have a conversation about stretch marks and veins before 7.30am?!

A few of his new favourite things

2009-01-03T18:40:00.004+01:00

As usual (well for the last couple of years anyway!) we spent Christmas very quietly. Christmas day was spent at home, just the three of us, with the usual present opening, turkey scoffing and film watching.

Then on Boxing Day we had friends round. I cooked a Hairy Bakers turkey and ham pie, which was lovely, even if the cranberry top didn't quite set. I also did a trifle and Christmas cake, which I'm not sure that they had ever had before. I'm not sure if that is because they are American or not, but I think that B made a valiant attempt at the Christmas cake considering he doesn't like dried fruit of any type, and he managed to fairly surreptitiously pass it onto N!
M had a few meltdowns, mainly over sharing his toys (and not necessarily his new ones) which surprised me, as normally he is pretty good at it. Its possible that we have shut ourselves off a bit just recently from the world, and that hasn't helped. It raised fears in A (and myself a little) that M doesn't meet up with others enough and the meltdowns are a result of home ed, but I have heard enough stories from friends with 4 year olds to realise that it is more an age thing than anything else. Whoever coined the phrase 'the terrible twos' was lying according to this little boy, as the twos were fairly calm, and we definitely have the 'foul fours'!

Then on the 27th we went to Leukerbad, as we did last year, and spent 3 nights in the mountains in a hotel. Thankfully I stayed in good health this year, as last year I missed the whole thing by staying in bed, ill. We went sledging, which was great fun, and M and A spent a morning skiing, with M going down the nursery slope on his own several times, which was a first for him. We also did a lot of swimming, and we definitely would rebook at the hotel, as it had a great thermal pool, which was fairly quiet as it is small and there are a couple of much more impressive public pools up the road, and of course the pool was free to hotel guests. M really seemed to enjoy the water this time, just using the frites to swim around and a few times even ducking himself by the edge. I have to start going regularly with him, maybe incorporating a trip to the new Bern swimming pool with lunch with A, if he can get over there from work.

Again, New Year's eve was quiet, which is just the way we like it. I've always seen the 31st of December as just another day, and actually resent the fact that (back in the days) nightclubs, taxis etc charge a lot more for that one night. I'm liking the idea that the 21st December is to be celebrated as the New Year (as read about on one of Gill's blogs ) but I guess I have another year to think about this one, and I'm not sure that A would be too pleased if I changed his year around (doesn't really like change much, does my dear hubby).
At midnight we went out onto the balcony to watch the fireworks at Ouchy, but were disappointed when none materialised. So we watched a Viennese waltz on ORF (which brought back loads of childhood memories for A), a troupe of naked Swiss Romande ladies dancing to a bizarre military marching tune, and then stayed up another hour to watch the fireworks in London, on the BBC. My nightmare evening was on ITV (honestly, an evening with Elton John, where's the celebration in that???) so the remote was hidden.

A took M skiing on New Year's day leaving me to do some end of year business accounts, which still aren't done, so I will be using Sunday to finish them off when the boys go skiing again.

So, what are M's new favourite things? Through copious amounts of Christmas tv watching (which I didn't think much of this year, although I did like Jonathan Creek and the Martin Clunes thing, The Man Who Lost his Head, I think it was) we found out that M loves slapstick comedy, Wallace and Gromit and darts, and he also has a new found interest in skiing, sledging and swimming. Things to be capitalised on, I think.

101 Things to Do in 1001 days

2008-12-31T09:48:00.023+01:00

I found this on the Home Baked Education blog on the Early Years HE blogring. This was originally taken from here. The rules are simple:

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

I feel like I need a bit of focus in my life at the moment. You would think that I would have enough to focus on, what with M being with me all the time and running a book selling business, but I am such a procrastinator that things never seem to get done.
So here goes:

1. Enrol and attend a French class
2. Get my Swiss driving licence
3. Translate Vaud school laws
4. Translate Vaud curriculum
5. Knit cupcake tea cosy
6. Sew an item of clothing for me
7. Paint a clock for the living room
8. Send 10 cards 'just because' (0/10)
9. Save 5 cents in a jar and donate to charity
10. Cook proper chinese meal once a month (1/33)
11. Finish my latin book
12. Learn chinese
13. Get my clarinet fixed
14. Write proper meal planner 3 weeks out of 4 (3/107)
15. Go swimming once every 3 weeks (1/107)
16. Visit Eden project
17. Visit Centre for Alternative technology
18. Lose 10kg in 6 months (1.7/10)
19. Buy a camper van
20. Investigate Le Jardin Potager and decide between that and Bio Direct
21. Read Buddhism Made Simple
22. Take and hang arty pics for kitchen
23. Do graffiti photo project
24. Make a recipe file
25. Keep flickr up to date
26. Keep BookStore up to date monthly (1/33)
27. Read the Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
28. Sort out the basement
29. Make M a bow and arrow, and take him out to use them
30. Go snowboarding 6 times (0/6)
31. Create a balcony garden
32. Replace toilet paper
33. Write blog at least once a week (3/143)
34. Set up Usborne group forum
35. Do previous 4 years of filing
36. Organise my inbox
37. Make a will
38. Go geocaching
39. Join the library
40. Meet up with Home Ed families once a month (0/33)
41. Complete NaNoWriMo
42. Meet up with 5 online friends (0/5)
43. Have a Dharma and Greg marathon
44. Clean out my parents house of my stuff
45. Create a timeline in the hall
46. Visit the St Bernard museum
47. Visit Chateau Prangins
48. Go down the salt mines at Bex (big fear factor this one!)
49. Make M a tepee
50. Make M a knights costume
51. Update our map
52. Go strawberry picking
53. Go mushroom picking
54. Make a meal from foraged stuff
55. Do the Moonwalk
56. Do a lapbook with M
57. Take M to the park at least once a fortnight (0/72)
58. Watch a French movie in French (without subtitles) once a month (0/33)
59. Sort out beads and put up for sale
60. Go on a cooking course
61. Buy an Olive tree
62. Save 1CHF a day for 1001 days and then blow the lot at the end
63. Read a book about the history of Switzerland
64. Tidy my bedroom once a week 2/143)
65. Knit a pair of socks
66. Travel around Spain for a month
67. Travel the length of Italy including Sicily
68. Attend a first aid course
69. Join Pronatura for a year
70. Go on a Pronatura event
71. Read every bookclub book even if I don't go to each meeting (1/1)
72. Ensure that 50% of the presents I give are homemade or second hand (hm 1/new 2)
73. Sail on Lac Leman
74. Go to bed before 10pm every night for a week (0/7)
75. Don't use the computer for 48 hours when I am at home
76. Have lymphatic drainage
77. Buy a saxophone
78. Learn to play the saxophone
79. Visit the Fairy Grotto in St Maurice
80. Visit another medieval re-enactment
81. Dress up at medieval re-enactment
82. Have a 35th birthday party
83. Visit the Papiliorama
84. Make a kite and fly it
85. Make and edit a video with M
86. Visit the chateau at Aigle
87. Visit the Alimentarium museum
88. Stop buying 10 foods that have excess packaging and make my own (0/10)
89. Cut my rubbish in half
90. Cook every recipe from 'Vegetarian Main Dishes from Around the World' (2/75)
91. Learn to roller skate or skateboard
92. Go to an ice hockey match
93. Go walking with MC
94. Go to the top of a mountain and shout very loudly
95. Do a bridge/crab/that thing you do at gymnastics when you bend your back backwards
96. See the osteopath again (may need it after doing no. 95!)
97. Visit a homeopath
98. Write to tax office to tell them I haven't lived in the UK for 4 years
99. For friends to fill in for me (any suggestions welcome!)
100. For friends to fill in for me (any suggestions welcome!)
101. Donate 5CHF to Terre des Hommes for any tasks not done

This list finishes on Saturday, 1st October 2011...

(Completed tasks in blue, tasks in progress in red)

A bit of a panic and French

2008-12-15T15:36:00.002+01:00

We received a letter today, inviting us to an open evening of the education system (or something like that) so that we can hear what the directrice of the area has to say.

It set my heart aflutter a little bit. I know that M doesn't have to legally go to school yet, but the fact that they've sent us this first letter, and apparently will send us another one in January just got me worried.
The way they big up these 2 years of 'cycle initial' makes you think - how can we possibly refuse?

Which brings me onto the French. M has, for a long while now, refused to learn French. I've tried the softly, softly approach and the 'right we are sitting down at the table and learning French' approach. But up until now, my varied approaches have fallen on deaf ears. Until now. We can now have basic conversations and he is asking what words are in French.

My little boy really does come to decisions in his own way. The idea that he had to do it meant that there was no way in hell that he was going to, but if he can decide to do it himself, I believe that he will enjoy it more. Which makes sense really, but that sort of decision making is just not possible in the school system.

I would much rather he came to decisions on his own, and enjoy a subject than be forced into doing something he wants to, and not enjoy it. The idea that children should have to learn to 'do what they are told' and learn to do things they don't want to seems a bizarre concept to me.

I was lucky that I loved school (probably because I excelled in most things) and was able to drop the subjects I didn't enjoy (history) as soon as I could.

Of course the worry we had (and A still has really) is that M's French won't be good enough and will be forced into school. Of course my argument is that kids at the International schools here only learn French as a second language, so why should M have to learn in French? Of course, these fears aren't particularly backed up with fact, as we (read that as I) have yet to fully translate the education/curriculum laws.

Anyway, its amazing how one little letter can throw things up a bit. I'm sure it'll all be fine.........

Toy Fair

2008-10-03T10:25:00.003+02:00

We are aiming to go to the Toy Fair in Bern this afternoon, meeting up with a family of home edders who we get on really well with, even though their boys are much older than M.
I may be in considerable pain by the end though as a siege tower somehow (god knows how, after all it wouldn't be just left lying on the floor would it?) got embedded in the bottom of my foot and although it isn't a huge cut, I foolishly decided that it didn't needing tending to and have continued walking around barefoot as is my norm and now it feels slightly tender.

Of course, we may not go to the toy fair at all, as I have just received an email from D saying that has been a fire in the hall so maybe it has been closed down. Just getting A on the case (being the German speaker and actually working in the city it occurred - the online news sites here seem to be slower than the newspaper for up to date news).

Oh, looks like its just the model hall which is damaged, but the list of model exhibitors exhibiting is still as long as your arm. Shame in some ways, as the model hall is the place that bores me rigid. Two years ago when we went, A and M spent the longest time in there, so this time I am taking a book! What a terrible person I am.

Do you have permission?

2008-09-22T09:35:00.002+02:00

Something is bothering me.

On a forum I'm a member of, there is periodically a question about travelling abroad alone with your child/ren, particularly to the US.

The question revolves around what authorisation you have to take your child out of the country (or into another one) without both parents being present.

A lot of families have obtained a notarised authorisation stating that the father of the child gives the mother (or vice versa) permission to travel alone with the child.

Got me thinking. Why the hell should you have to prove that you have the right to travel with your child? Why is there an assumption that a child is in a 2 parent family anyway? If I was a single parent, would I need to have the father's permission to enter, e.g. the US with my child? And what makes some passport control officers choose certain individuals to question? I know of several people who have been asked for authorisation several times and many others who have never been asked.

Most people would say that if there's a possibility that you will be refused entry to the country then you might as well get the notarised permission. But for me, it is about the principle of the thing.

I understand that in a few cases, one parent may be trying to remove the child from the care of the other parent illegally. But surely, that happens so rarely that isn't the onus on the authorities to prove these few illegal cases, rather than on parents to prove that they are legal and above board?
Oh, no, silly me, its just the gloomongerers and pessimists who get to make the rules, common sense and TRUST doesn't come into it.
Makes me sad.

Photo Day

2008-09-18T11:37:00.022+02:00

Yesterday we did a photo day swap. The little boy is the son of someone on a forum I'm a member of.
So I thought I'd post it here too.
We managed to bring home chicken pox with us from our holiday so the first few days back have been spent inside.

In bed with mummy - she was telling me about Billy Bones, Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins!

Jumping on mummy and daddy's bed.

My breakfast - a milk roll and sirop

Helping mummy to empty the dishwasher

Watching Lazytown, the Tweenies and Boo!

I'm doing some playmobil games on my computer. I can't wait until the new pirate game starts.

I was jumping down and also mummy was taking pictures and I loved it.

This is my volcano.

This is my lunch. It is brilliant and cool and fantastic and a bit spicy. It is (falafel) sausages and carrot.

I was dancing with a ball.

We made a pirate ship that I got for my birthday from C with stuff that you cut and stick on with water.

I played a game with mummy. She was princess Clara and I was the bad knight and I had to steal daddy's metal (medal) by spelling mummy and she fell asleep and I stole the metal.

I helped mummy take the shopping out of the bags. We got a big box of apple juice so I can have apple juice and sirop for a drink.

A came through into the living room at 7.45 after making his dinner to find this.........

I guess all that photo posing was too much for him!

Walking and Pampering

2008-08-31T10:00:00.003+02:00

Yesterday we decided to get a hike in before the weather turns bad and the snow starts to come. I know that is probably several weeks away, but we are going on holiday next week for 2 weekends and then I have lots of book sales and stuff booked so it may be our last opportunity to get up into the mountains, which is really sad.

So we went up to Leysin on the cable car, and walked down to the village which took 1h 45mins, which according to A took us 15mins less than when we last did the walk in 2005, which made me so chuffed. Losing a bit of weight really does make a difference.

The sun was very hot though. We were slathered in cream, but I still managed to get a bit pink.
M was happy in the backpack as usual. He fell asleep for about an hour and was so amusing when he woke up. I knew exactly when he fell asleep because he stopped talking! That boy really does start talking when he wakes up and doesn't stop unless he is watching tv or asleep. Even eating doesn't stop him!

I need to get him used to walking more though. I think its probably just habit that he is in the backpack when we hike, but I'm sure that next summer A won't be able to carry him.

I needed to get home by at the latest, 6pm as I was going for a Mary Kay wellness session but we got to the train station at 4.10pm and the train left at 3.58pm. So we had to wait until 4.58pm for the next one which meant that I didn't get home until 6.30pm, leaving me 15mins to have a shower, get dressed and eat before my friend arrived to collect me. I ended up having a packet of crisps on the train. Such a healthy and sustaining dinner!

The pampering session was good. Nice to get a chance to chat to a few people that I only ever see with child in tow.
One of the women there is such an educator though. She firmly believes in early learning, the school way, and is very up to date with all the legal stuff going on in Switzerland at the moment with regards to education and is very happy to quote stuff at me.
I realise that I am probably quite ostrich-like, but I figure that as M legally doesn't have to go to school until 2011, I'll worry about it then.
Her latest thing is that apparently last year, Lausanne passed a law stating that all children must follow a Swiss-French syllabus. Strange then, that noone I know who is home educating in Lausanne has even mentioned it. And what about the International Schools? Surely they must have an exemption, so there must be a loop hole available somewhere to exploit.....

I also got quizzed on the system that we are using, specifically a reading system.
Stunned silence and disbelief when I said that we didn't. Why do we need to, when he's doing perfectly okay on his own?
To be honest, I felt sorry for them, so I said that we had subscribed to Education City, but not as a regular activity, just whenever he feels like using the computer. The sighs of relief were audible. I tried to make it clear that its not a 'timetabled' activity, its completely up to M when he does it, but I could tell that by then the relief that we actually had something in our possession written by experts blocked everything else I said, out!

Amusing conversation this morning:
Me: Can you do the rhyme like they do on the Green Balloon Club? The one about reaching to the moon?
M: Don't be silly, I'm not going to reach to the moon, because its too high!

Hiawatha

2008-08-26T08:54:00.003+02:00

Ages since I've posted (as usual!).

We've been doing lots of camping, and our Vango Orchy 400 has done us good (appalling grammar!). At only 11.5kg it means that we can carry it around on an Ikea trolley and we haven't needed a car (apart from perhaps for the campsite that was 30 mins walk from the train station up a steep dirt track!)

A little bit of EC has been done, and I have moved M up to Maths Reception level as he just about finished the Nursery level, and he wasn't that taken with it. He's had several birthday cards to write in recently and we're at the stage where if I say the letter he will write it down. I was completely shocked the first time I tried this, as we've done no writing practice.

Pirates are beginning to get on my nerves. M's vocabulary has moved on to the uglier side of pirating (if there is a nicer side!) and I have to explain that its not so nice to talk about being stabbed and using knives and swords around his friends because they don't understand. To which he replied, "But Mummy, I'll just explain it to them and they will understand and then it will be okay."

Yesterday, M found another of the Daily Mail DVDs that MIL sent us; Hiawatha. Since yesterday we have watched it about 6 times. Never say that my son doesn't have obsessions!
I've ordered the children's Penguin version of the poem and a book about Native American crafts for us to do.
Its opened up a few good discussions already. One of which I'm stuck on. How do you explain what belief is to a 4 year old? I'm trying to explain why the Native Americans believe that the comet will bring a great calamity, but that its what they believe, rather than the comet actually bringing starvation......

All of M's friends start school this week, even though legally they don't have to go for another couple of years :rolleyes
I've had my usual start of school year jitters, mainly revolving around trying to work out who is doing what when so that I can plan when we can get together with M's friends to play. Luckily this year he has some friends schooling in the morning, some in the afternoon and some all day, so we have all bases free at some point.

M will go back to atelier again starting when we come back from our holiday in mid September, but going 2 afternoons now. I've also signed him up for football again, and I'm looking for some sort of gymnastics class as he's said that he would like to do that, but its proving very difficult. Most of the classes are for babies (I don't need any more reminders that I am sans bébé, thank you!) so I think I'll try the commune office and see what they suggest.

I probably should do a birthday post, seeing as my little boy turned 4 two weeks ago. Apparently we are officially now allowed to call him a big boy!

My big boy turns 34 tomorrow, so we are off into town this morning to get him a present. M wants to get him some chocolate biscuits, and A has requested a pillow. Note the personalities of the pair of them coming through here..........

Catchup

2008-07-02T11:29:00.004+02:00

Noone turned up for book swap which was disappointing, but at least the house was tidy.

On Thursday, M went to atelier. Only one more week left until the end of term, and then in September he goes in the afternoons. Again, I've only signed him up for 2 sessions, but it was difficult trying to decide which two days! I'm trying to fit around what his friends are doing, so monday and Tuesday seemed the best days, as I think we are going to try football again on Wednesday, lots of his friends have yoga (which he doesn't want to do) at a soft play place on Thursdays and then play there afterwards so we go along, and on Fridays we always seem to be doing something or going away somewhere.
One of his friends, MS is only going to school in the afternoons, which is good for us as it means that we can get together with him in the mornings, so hopefully the transition of everyone else going to school will be less painful.

So Thursday lunchtime we went to our favourite cafe. The women love him there, and think its so cute when he orders his 'petit sandwich jambon, mini carac and jus de pomme s'il vous plaît'. I'm just glad that he's getting a bit more confidence in speaking French, particularly with me around.
He's had a few problems at atelier with one little boy, A, so I've suggested that if we learn French together over the summer, then A will understand him, and maybe he won't push him around. M seems to like that idea, so I think lots of French reading and doing the French section on EC is in order.
Anyway, after lunch we went back home before going off to see friends after their yoga class, but there was only one friend there.

Friday, I really can't remember. I know that it was M's vernissage in the evening, where there is a display of all the things the kids have made at atelier, and then you get to take them home. Unfortunately, a lot of M's stuff was inexplicably missing. I'm thinking that the parents of one of the other children who has a name very similar to his must have taken it. Quite disappointing really. Their theme this term has been great. It was a different colour every week, and without fail they would completely decorate the nursery and even the food at gouter was the right colour!
We then went to a local restaurant for dinner, so it was about 9pm by the time we got home, which I guess just set ourselves up for the next few days of miserableness.

Saturday morning - well, we'll forget about that. Not one of the three of us covered ourselves in glory there.
Saturday afternoon, we flew to England for MIL's 70th birthday celebrations. Flew into Luton and hired a car for the day. We'd booked into the Marriott in Northampton, mainly because it had a pool. Got there to discover that due to water contamination, Anglian Water was recommending not to use it. Annoyed mainly because they appeared to know about this a few days before we arrived, and the hotel hadn't done the courtesy of letting us know.
Still it got worse. On checking out, we mentioned about the pool closure, to which the receptionist replied that it had been opened since Friday! WTF?!
"Was the guy who told you about it Polish?", she says.
I couldn't give a monkeys what nationality he was. That had nothing to do with it. There was also a notice on reception saying about it too.
We were a tad miffed, so a letter is possibly going to find its way to Marriott head office. I know the circumstances were out of the hotels control, but they could have handled it a darn sight better.

Anyway, on to the party. We went to the Peppermill pub in Daventry, which was okay, but not necessarily my cup of tea. The carvery just seemed a bit too much for a warm summer's day.
M had two of A's cousins sons (don't know exactly what relation they are to him), T & C to play with, which made the afternoon more enjoyable for him, until he had 2 complete meltdowns in quick succession. I fear M will be known as the child whose screams can break glass!
We got back home in Lausanne at about 11.30, to absolute chaos. The streets were packed with celebrating Spaniards, hooting and drumming and cheering. I think that M was a little unsure.

Monday, and M woke up at 9.30 (thank goodness after going to bed at 11.30!). We stayed in all day due to the heat, and didn't kill each other even though there was some tiredness on both sides.
Until bedtime. A put M to bed and a few minutes later he came out to ask if he could watch the tennis for a few minutes. Seeing as it had been on all afternoon and he hadn't shown an interest in it, I said no, and that he should go back to bed. To which I got shouted at. So I said that he was having no sticker today because he shouted (an incentive to try to curb the aggression he's been showing lately). So he stands in front of me and does a wonderful ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream.
Thank god A took control. Playmobil confiscation and time out ensued. Finally he came to apologise, but was still very upset. Turns out that he was sad, because he was feeling so bad, and that he'd made me feel bad. I can but hope that this is a marker for him to look back on in the future when he's getting cross.

Tuesday was better, although again we stayed in all afternoon after atelier in the morning.

Overall, M has been doing quite a bit of EC (I really think we should subscribe), lots of playmobil playing, spending time in the sandpit on the balcony, some baking, and helping me with the dishwasher and washing (although we have to make this into a game for him to help me!)

We are off camping with some friends at the weekend, which I am really looking forward to, and then I am looking after N and MC in the mornings next week while their mum M has a French course.

All in all, not a very exciting catchup. I'll have to try better next time!

Salve

2008-06-25T10:35:00.003+02:00

I am waiting for people to come to book swap, so I thought I'd do a quick post, although I'm not actually sure anyone is coming, as I have had two people cancel already this morning, and I don't think anyone else confirmed they were coming. Oh well, at least we have a tidy apartment.

Yesterday after atelier we went straight down to the lake to play. The weather has been so hot that on Monday we stayed in with the fan on and the shutters down, but I decided that we really needed to get out of the house.

Its strange how M will complain about walking home from atelier (max 10 mins), yet was perfectly happy to walk 30 mins to the lake....

We found a spot on the sand under a tree, and M played with his playmobil while I tried to read a book (Up Country by Nelson de Mille). I explained that if he took his playmobil onto the sand they were his responsibility, so we had a quick discussion about responsibility and I was reassured that he understood.

Time seemed to go very slowly, and I somehow didn't get much of my book read although M was very good at not disturbing me. Lunch was nice though; I'd taken salad and some cold sausages and then at 2.30pm I'd had enough and we went to the cafe for ice cream.
After that we went to the playground next door, but that didn't last very long as M didn't like the swarms of little flies.

A little stand off over where we were going next (I suggested the nearby Roman museum, M didn't want to do anything, go home, stay in the playground, go to the beach again), but it was resolved when I stated that I was going to the Roman museum and if he wanted to, he could stay there. Not a usual tactic of mine, but he wasn't offering a viable alternative.

It was the first time we have gone to the Roman museum. 8CHF for me to get in, so not too bad, although not really a large place. They had a graffiti exhibition on, so we got torches to shine on the walls (the place was pitch black) to see the exhibits, and there was exciting glass pebbles under our feet, making it a quite nice sensory experience.
Even though we went round it twice, M wasn't too keen on lingering though, which was a shame as I was struggling with the translation in places and it was pretty interesting.

At the end they had set up a graffiti wall that you could add to with the styluses (or is that stylii or stylus'?) so M obliged by scratching his name in it.

We then went round the normal museum. By this point M was really flagging so it was super speedy, although he was quite keen on sticking his head in the coffin....

We then walked home and I was impressed that M understood with minimum fuss that he had to walk as I had too many things to carry. Walking any distance has always been a problem for him. Not sure whether thats through laziness or just having thin legs (they really are ridiculously thin for his height), so it was nice to see him strolling along beside me.

Back home and a bit of computer time. I've signed up for the free trial of Education City, and although A doesn't think that we should pay for that sort of thing, I think it is just what M needs, as he can do it with minimal input from me, which he seems to favour at the moment. So if anyone has a code they would like to share, that would be great. Is that how it works?

Well, it looks like noone is going to turn up today, but never mind, its given me a chance to catch up with a few things.

Welcome to Polvere Nera!

2008-06-23T16:06:00.004+02:00

For those of you in the dark, this is the Gunpowder Italian restaurant that M and I spent part of the day creating.

As with most things here, it centred on Playmobil. Mainly pirates, knights and romans, with the main emphasis on goodies and baddies.
Hence the italian restaurant that he wanted to create was constantly in danger from baddies attacking it, until I suggested that maybe the baddies could just come to the restaurant to eat as, after all, baddies have to eat too.
So I translated Gunpowder to italian and we made a sign for the restaurant, M colouring in the letters, and built a restaurant complete with terrace from the playmobil castle.

M then decided on the food (pizza, salad and pasta), drink (apple juice, rum(!) and water) and dessert (donuts and ice cream) and we made a menu. He wanted to try to spell the words out and managed donut and rum. I was pleasantly surprised, particularly with the words that he got wrong, as he made a good phonetic attempt. Will have to look into the Montessori stuff I was reading the other day about reading and writing.

We have also played lots of shops, with me as the shopkeeper and M as the customer, leading to lots of 'maths', with M having to decide what coins to give me and whether to give me too much money and get change, or to make the amount up with more than one coin.

Obviously he has played a few games from the playmobil website, spent 5 minutes in the sandput on the balcony, and watched a bit of CBeebies.

Thankfully he let me make a batch of ratatouille and an apricot cake without too many disruptions. The weather is just too hot for arguments, although when the needle is pushing 30 degrees, arguments are never too far from the surface.

I really need to blog about the weekend too, as we went camping for the first time this summer in our new tent, spending Friday and Saturday night in Enney, near Gruyeres castle, which was holding a fete de St Jean including medieval re-enactment type stuff (a bit like Kentwell, I guess)

Places to go, things to see.....

2008-04-30T09:26:00.004+02:00

List of stuff to do over the summer.

Prehisto Parc et Grottes de Reclere

Dino Zoo, Parc Prehistorique

Chateau de Prangins

The Lavaux Express (train ride through the vineyards) - done with friends. Not as unique as it may have been as we had been hiking there the previous weekend

Swiss Vapeur Parc - M and A went with E & M when they went camping. Definitely worth a visit, although apparently m got bored after about 90 minutes.

Chateau d'Aigle

La Grotte aux Fees

Fondation Pierre Gianadda

Lac Souterrain St-Leonard

Papiliorama, Kerzers

Blonay Steam Park

Chateau de Chillon

Musee et Chiens du Saint Bernard

Forestland

Musee de l'Alimentation

Hotel le Relais les Crosets (feeding the animals)

Mines de Sel, Bex (although A may have to do this one with M, as I think it may terrify me, being that far underground!)

Chez Gaby

They Exist!

2008-04-18T16:49:00.002+02:00

Swiss home-edders that is.

On Thursday we went to the Swiss Games Museum to meet some people from the Swiss Homeschooling Forum.
There were 6 adults and 13 children of varying ages (M was the youngest I think) and one family had even travelled from Basel (they are the only homeschoolers in the county!).
It was nice to meet them, and to know that we aren't alone.

Our decision to home educate seems to be looming ever more momentous in my mind at the moment as I am so conscious of the fact that M's friends are all going to school in August. The "S" word keeps going round my head, particularly as M is always so keen to play with his friends.
The fact that I know lots of home-edding families who have 3,4 or 5 children, and very few with only one has also been concerning me. I know that if we were in the UK it wouldn't bother me as much as the 'scene' is so much bigger.

Anyway, we wandered around the museum for a while, trying out some of the games including Huli Gatta which I want to make a board for at home and Wackel Brucke (which we didn't really play, as I couldn't understand the German instructions!)

Ended up buying Camelot Jr which M loves and is doing really well with. He breezed through the first 13 challenges and I was a little concerned that it was a waste of money, but they definitely get a lot harder!

I'm going to make a list of places we want to visit from myswitzerland.com and aim for one place a fortnight and open it up to the forum, so we can hopefully have a more regular meet up and start to build a sense of community.

No firm plans for the weekend, although I really desire some sleep (don't know why I'm so knackered). I also have a lot of book orders to sort through, and of course we half put up the doors on the wardrobes, so that needs finishing, so I'm going to see if A will take M to the robotics festival tomorrow so I can tackle the mess!

Today may be some time

2008-03-17T08:55:00.003+01:00

It really might.

It started at 6am, which is a habit we seem to be falling into that I am desparately trying to change. I realise that harsh shouty-type words at that time are not the answer, and so this morning (admittedly it was a little later once I'd prised my eyes open and calmed down) I attempt the 'let's sit down and talk this through sensibly' method.
Apparently just switching the bedroom light on and sitting quietly in bed either reading or playing is beyond M, as he 'will get lonely'.
I've changed his bunny clock to 7am, and hopefully A will back me up in enforcing the 'don't come out of your room until bunny wakes up' rule. Unfortunately at that time of the morning he is all for the easy life, so indulges it, but he has the distinct advantage of being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat (is that the right expression?) whereas with me, once I am woken up find it nigh on impossible to sleep again.

So its 9am and I'm feeling grumpy. I think the best plan of action is action. So I've printed some craft ideas from here that we can do together.
Weather looks like being crappy again, so a trip to the shops for dinner might be the only trip out today.

Wish me luck!

Speak no evil

2008-03-12T10:19:00.002+01:00

We've just spent about 10 minutes (and they were the quietest 10 minutes we've had awake in months!) not speaking.

It all came about from T-Rex not being able to tell me where he wanted me to put the next piece of the puzzle. We (M and I, not T-Rex) talked about communication and the different ways we could communicate if we couldn't speak.
So we decided to try doing it for a few minutes. We decided that drawing pictures would take too long and M can't write more than his name yet, so we opted for signing. Well, pointing really.
But we managed to put the puzzle away, get a yogurt out, mix it up and eat it and clear away.
Things broke down a little when it came to asking for drawing material, but I think M did really well, particularly as this is a little boy who can't go for more than a minute without talking.

This activity ties in with one we did the other day, when M led me home from the bus stop whilst I had my eyes closed (on the path round the back of the buildings so no cars or roads involved!). The next day I did the same for him. I think I found it more difficult than he did to lead as I've always found that sort of thing (ie words!) quite tricky.

Trying to think of ways now to explore other sensory deprivation.....

Quite busy doing little things today. Still trying to recover being woken at 5.30am.....yawn.
But we've done puzzles, made soda bread rolls, done the not speaking thing, and M has just finished making a bird picture with drawing and glueing and feathers and stuff, completely off his own back, which I love.

Friends coming round to play this arvo, so I guess I should get dressed and stuff.

Me Like!

2008-03-12T08:10:00.002+01:00

The Recipe For Clare

3 parts Intensity

2 parts Impishness

1 part Attractiveness

Splash of Genius

Shake vigorously

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Let me teach you how to read Mummy

2008-03-07T11:27:00.002+01:00

M has shown an interest in words recently, and in particular creating words to spell out. So far we have only done the sounds of letters rather than the names of them, and certainly not combinations of letters, like 'oo' etc.

So today he is in the bath, and asks me to read what he has stuck to the side of the bath. So I take a look.

s ə c a

He then spelt out a, c, e, s, so I pointed out that you read from left to right (he has a tendency to read and write his name from right to left :dunno) and rearranged them

a c e s

I realised that there might be a problem, so tried to explain that 'a' was actually 'A' in this case, and that 'ce' together is 's', so it spelt out aces.

No mummy, try again. Its a, cuh, eh, suh - acuhehsuh

Which I have to repeat several times, before finally achieving a 'very well done, mummy' said in such a patronising tone I was embarrassed!

In other news, I bought Connect 4, a travel version from the supermarket yesterday. I was a little wary as it says 7+ on it, but M loves it. He particularly likes the idea that he has to stop people winning (I have such a masochistic son!) but on occasion the concentration on his face was a picture (in fact I may have to try and capture it). I have a feeling we will be playing it lots more, just as long as the counters don't get lost....

My favourite waste of time

2008-02-14T18:29:00.004+01:00

No, not the Owen Paul ditty (although you'll be humming it all day now and I can't believe it only got to number 19 in the Swiss 'hit parade'!).

My favourite waste of time is walking up to the café with M, I nurse a renversé (no cakes for me now I'm being relatively good on WW) and he orders a jus de pomme and a mini carac. We read, play with playmobil and set the world to rights like 2 old women.

Today I had a parcel to post so we stopped at the post office on the way, with M sitting there shouting "carac" from behind his hands.

I had a horrible feeling that our usual café was closed as it is half term, and after a bet (M was convinced it would be open) it was indeed closed. Luckily there is a bus stop right outside, so we decided to hop on the bus until we saw a café (which obviously had to sell caracs!). Just as the bus pulled up, M decided that he wanted to go home instead, so we started walking home. I thought we should try a bakery for a carac, but we passed a hotel with what I thought was a café, so we went in. Turns out it was a bar, but they did coffee and apple juice so we stayed. They also produced a doughnut for M, which in hindsight was a bad thing, as he was a nightmare in the supermarket later.
I seem to think that we had a conversation about rabbits, but I have absolutely no idea what about.

We called into the supermarket on the way home, as I had grand plans to vaguely acknowledge Valentine's day by buying some little pots of Movenpick icecream for dessert, and cooking dinner just for A and I (obviously with M eating beforehand!). M grabbed a basket, put it on wheels and then proceeded to hare around the place with me trying to remain calm and unruffled, but failing miserably (combination of PMT, tiredness and general moodiness).

On the walk back, M thought he spotted E, one of the educatrices from atelier, as he saw a lady with long brown hair, boots and a baby in her tummy. We then chatted about how the baby came out, the fact that babies grow in wombs not tummies, that men can't have babies because they don't have wombs and that babies are (generally) born through a woman's vagina (thats where your period comes from isn't it mummy?).

We also cut our way through a jungle to get home, and talked about alligators and crocodiles (starting with 'see you later alligator, in a while crocodile') and decided that we need to find out the differences between them (I think this may be an internet task as I don't think we have an adequate book).

Now at home, A has skyped to say he is going to be late again (at this rate the earliest he'll be home is 10pm :( ) I'm hoping that the amount of work he is doing will mean that his fixed hour contract will finish mid-March so we'll have a couple of weeks with him at home before his next contract starts, but just occasionally I would like a bit of help at bedtime, and I know M misses him.

Let M stay up until 8pm, because Flat Stanley was the CBeebies bedtime story. I bought the book for him a while back and we haven't quite gotten through it yet, but he was listening spellbound to the version on tv, I guess because its a somewhat shortened version.
He's now leafing through See Inside Castles, which I'm guessing I'll have to remove from his face in a few minutes as he is so tired. Well, thats the plan anyway!

So that's how its done!

2008-02-01T08:13:00.000+01:00

I had one of those 'ohhhhh' moments this morning.

7.30am and M is leafing through his favourite book, the Playmobil catalogue :rolleyes. He'd previously spotted a baby guinea pig looking for its parents on our balcony, and we'd talked about being in front or behind something.
He then saw a guinea pig in the catalogue, but turns out it was a wild boar. Then looking at the zoo scene, questions came to me (do crocodiles lay eggs? whats the difference between a crocodile and an alligator?) and after some swift googling we had the answers.
Then on to the dinosaurs page (did dinosaurs live at the same time as people? M knew the answer to that one) and we tried to identify the different dinosaurs in the catalogue (ignoring the names at the bottom of the page). A bit of a chat about fossils, and then Lazytown came on, so obviously that was all chat over!

I just see that sort of exchange as being typical of our daily stuff. I'd love it if it was like that. I'll probably still have to make sure there are workbooks and 'educational stuff' around (cos thats the way I am!) but I realise that I need to be able to step back and accept that chatting can be just as informative, and M can chat for Switzerland so we should be okay there.

On more specific stuff, M seems to have more of an interest in letters and words just lately. Previously he was really into numbers and just wanted to count things, but in the last week or so he is trying to spell out words. Can be quite funny to listen to as on occasions he completely makes it up ('dinosaur' becomes 'big T-rex in the forest', but with all the syllables drawn out) but he shocked me by reading the word 'act' on a fruit bar wrapper. And his name is getting written on everything. Sometimes written from left to right, sometimes from right to left. Makes me wonder if he has some left handed tendencies (both me and A are lefties) but I don't know enough about the subject to know whether I'm just talking codswallop!

I made a mistake by ordering the Opitec catalogue and I'm also browsing the Yellow Moon and ETAHomeschool sites. Liking the look of the number balance, pattern blocks and cuisenaire rods. Not that I am maths obsessed though, you understand........

Watch out Hermann Maier!

2008-01-20T07:38:00.000+01:00

I was busy at a book sale today, A was 'in charge' all day. Predictably they went skiing, although they did look in on me for an hour which was appreciated (8 hours at soft play was quite headache-inducing!).

I have no pictures and no footage of M's first solo effort down the hill. I bought A a helmet cam for Christmas and it only came out of the packaging tonight, after I moaned that it hadn't been used yet.
Apparently he was able to go on the baby slope conveyor belt lift thing (well, I don't know what they are called!) on his own, and then managed the bottom 1/3 of the hill on his own. Obviously A hasn't taught him how to stop yet. :rolleyes
There is such obvious pride in A's voice when he talks about M's skiing exploits; its very touching. Just glad that M doesn't take after me and thinks that skiing is pretty pointless. I don't think A's heart would be able to take it!

Off skiing next Sunday with one of M's friends (although the mummies are either going to the balloon festival or a spa) and then the following week we are off to Meribel for a week of skiing with friends (again I will be reading lots, swimming lots and sleeping lots!) so when we come back he'll be doing black runs like a pro (well, in A's mind anyway).

A is off skiing with a friend today (this is what its like from December to March) so I think we will have a lazy day. I have to do an online shop, place an Usborne order before the Fairytale Sticker sets sell out, and we might venture out on bike (M) and scooter (me), but otherwise I'm sure there's lots of tennis and CBeebies to watch. We now have a proper mouse for M to use, so maybe a bit of Beebies games are in order ("mummy, go to bbb dot doe dot uk slash cbeebies") to while away the day.

What a shock!

2008-01-17T10:28:00.000+01:00

When on my Usborne conference I shared a room with someone I'd never met before, K. Lovely lady and we chatted like 2 teenagers well into the wee hours.
Anyway, she has a son a few months older than M, and she just mentioned in passing that J was going to school in September.
And then it hit me. If we lived in the UK, so would M! I was speechless. I broke out in a cold sweat. Then I started saying 'But, but, but.....' a lot, and all the while my brain was saying, 'But surely not! He's too little! Isn't he?'

In Switzerland ecole maternelle starts at age 4, but this isn't compulsory, and the cut off date is July 30th. So as M's 4th birthday is in August this year, he would have to wait until next year to go unless he got a special dispensation.
Ecole primaire then starts at 6, again with a cut off of July 30th. Ecole primaire is compulsory.
So M doesn't actually have to go to school until August 2011, which is ages away. So no wonder I was a little shocked that children of his age are going to school in the UK.

OK, so I know that in the UK you don't actually have to go to school (unless of course you educate otherwise ;) ) until the term after you turn 5, but I reckon that a lot of parents aren't aware of this, or are happy to send them off at 4 anyway.

And of course, M has friends here that go to 'school' and certainly some of the International-type schools take children earlier than 6 as they follow a British or American system, but you don't have to.

We have chosen to home educate, and so issues like what school M would go to, what forms to fill out, who to butter up etc don't apply to us, but the conversation with K scared me as very shortly the routine of getting up early, doing the school run, packing school bags, remembering to pick him up at the end of the day (!) could have been my life.

Uuuuhhhhhh, makes me shudder.

Un, deux, trois

2008-01-16T11:25:00.000+01:00

Woefully inadequate with blog posting again. Oh well.

Just back from a trip to the UK which wasn't stunning, but better in some places and worse in others than expected.

Went to the Usborne conference (an overnighter and M stayed with Gran, which he loved) which was very inspirational. Still need to figure out what it means for us overseas organisers, but I have a lot of ideas and motivation, so onwards and upwards for 2008!

M is obsessed with the playmobil pirate ship and castle that he got from Santa. We constantly have good/bad conversations. I think I need to explain a bit more why swords and guns aren't particularly nice things, and incorporate that into history-type stuff. Not entirely sure myself why knights of old didn't just sit down and talk things through, and how our governmental system seems to prevent feuds (or does it?!). I suspect this may be a little too much for a 3 year old to handle, particularly as its not clear for me!

My new Latin books arrived at my parents house, so looking forward to sitting down and starting to work through those (although plenty of other things to be doing first).

We have made a sponge cake this morning for a gathering this afternoon at the management school to introduce the new intake of spouses to the local expat community. Going to take some leaflets for my preview party and it will be a good chance for M to meet some new kids (not that he doesn't have enough friends already!)
Note to self: need to either put stickers on scales or get new set of scales that weigh in ounces. I know it is an outdated measurement system, but it would be useful when we are cooking together for M to be able to weigh things out and my current scales only have 20, 50, 100, 200 etc grammes on them.

A has been home late all this week (last night it was 11pm) through work, but hoping that this will mean he will be happy to take a few hours off every now and then (as he only gets paid for hours worked). M has found it quite difficult I think as he missed him when we were in the UK, and now has hardly seen him at all since we've been back. Still, I have a book stall at the relaunch party of KidSpace on Saturday so plenty of time for them to have fun together.

Oh, and M surprised us the other day by counting to ten in French. I guess going to atelier twice a week is useful!

Medicine Anyone?

2007-11-21T18:48:00.000+01:00

Took M to the doctors this afternoon. I was pretty certain the spots on the back of his legs were Molluscum Contagiosa for which there isn't any cure really (they go after a few months even though they are contagious, hence the name!), but A wanted me to go check it out, just to be sure.

Its the first time M has been to the doctors, ever, apart from routine checkups, so it felt a bit strange, like we'd broken our record.

Anyway, there was a stand-in doctor there, who's there every Wednesday afternoon and he was much better than our usual one, who is a bit standoffish (although that could be a language thing).

We came away with 5, yes FIVE, treatments.
- cream for the spots if they get scratched to prevent infection
- drops to put in water and drunk if the spots get too itchy (can make you drowsy)
- spray for M's snotty nose
- cream for the tip of M's nose where its a teensy bit red from lots of blowing
- cough mixture for his cough (can also make him drowsy)

I don't think we'll be using everything. Seems a bit excessive, and people wonder why I don't take M to the doctors for what I see as everyday stuff.

Thank god the insurance is paying, is all I can say!

A Swiss Friend

2007-11-21T13:42:00.000+01:00

Today was a first. M had a Swiss friend to play. This may not seem like such a big deal, but the Swiss have their circle of friends it seems, and within them they stay. Obviously this relates more to the parents than the kids, but it is very common to be going to the same playgroup for 3 years and still only know all the mothers as the "maman de *".

So, this historic breakthrough came about because of M's apparent unhappiness at atelier. A couple of weeks ago, both times when I picked him up and we were walking home, he declared that he "didn't like atelier because I don't have any friends". Near broke my heart, particularly as he has several english-speaking friends outside of atelier and I was already beating myself up a bit as they all seem to be going to the same school either this year or next.

So I spoke to one of the educatrices at atelier, C, who will happily speak in English to me, and does the same with M. Explained that I was concerned about the language barrier, and asked if there were other english-speaking kids there that maybe he could play a bit more with, or I could invite round to play (obviously without wanting to force 2 children together!). She said that she would do what she could, observe him in particular and her and her colleagues would meet up to discuss the matter.

Anyway, the same day I spoke to her, on the way home we saw E and his mum at the bus stop. I just casually asked M if he would like E to come round and play and the answer was an enthusiastic yes! This is the little boy that M complains about at the end of almost every session to me - "E hit me", "E pushed me", " E took my yellow spade". Naturally I thought that E was the devil himself and that the pair of them should stay well away from each other. How wrong can I be?

Taking a deep breath and oceans of courage I spoke to E's mum. My French is never that good under pressure but she got that we wanted them to come round and play, and was happy to do so. Apparently E is always talking about M!

So that brings us to today. I was terrified. The house was, well, not spotless, but passably tidy and M was under strict instructions to watch the television until they arrived (I figured that at the very least it should start tidy).

They arrived 20 minutes late. I was imagining all sorts of things, mainly revolving around "she doesn't like me", as the Swiss are NEVER late.
As soon as they arrived, E and M ran off and E's baby brother S tried to follow.

I decided it was time to introduce myself properly. "Je m'appelle Clare" I say, knowing that there is a proper, formal way to say these things, but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is. She obviously gave the formal reply which involved the words "presente" and "vous" and her name, S. Phew! No longer is she the "maman d'E"

Coffee made (only instant something which is sooooo English!) and we settled down for a chat. I surprise myself sometimes at how fluent my French is, but I think in everyday situations I get myself flustered easily whereas sitting down chatting to someone the conversation just rolled off my tongue.

The kids played nicely too, even though they don't speak the same language, although thank god "pirate" is just about the same!
A few disagreements, normally resulting in M overreacting and crying for a good 5 minutes like the world was about to end, something that I either need to get in quick and head off, or deal with better than I do now.

Eventually all 3 children were flagging as the disputes became more frequent, so they swaddled themselves up against the cold and rain, and went home, with the promise that we will organise another playdate very soon at their house, which is only a few bus stops away. Hurray!!

Day to day

2007-10-08T10:06:00.000+02:00

Well, the trip blog went well, didn't it?! Just as well the actual trip was fantastic! (I will try to update later, honest!)

I've decided that I am going to at the very least just list what we do each day on a regular basis, just to reassure myself that we are keeping ourselves busy (have I said that before?).

So today, after total disintegration because daddy was going to work, we did a bit of cbeebies and poisson rouge. He's definitely getting frustrated using the mousepad after more than about 2 minutes, so we really need to get a proper mouse soon. He played some Tommy Zoom and the old favourite, Fireman Sam. He played a shape game on Poisson Rouge where he saw pentagons and hexagons for probably the first time as shapes, although he did think that pentagon was a silly name. (!)
We've done a bit of size stuff too with some polystyrene packing bits, fitting them in his Happyland fence square, then seeing if his chewy bar and his snow boot will fit in too.
We did the first page of the Usborne First Numbers sticker book. M really seems to like numbers, always counting things (particularly stones that he's collected!) and has started talking about how many you have if you take some away, so I thought we'd give the book a go. The first page was counting things and putting the sticker next to it, so not too hard, but the main thing for M was keeping his concentration for the 15 minutes it took to do it. He said he wanted to do the next page (counting animals on a farm) but it was an exercise too far, so we settled with one page.

During lunch I had a look on Starfall and M wanted to have a play, so we chose a couple of letters to follow through and then looked at the calendar and gingerbread man. Again something that we really need a proper mouse for.

After lunch was naptime, and it took me a while to realise that I'd left Fun Radio on! Swiftly rectified that.

We had an invitation to go for a walk by the lake, but tbh, M has slept so little recently (A let him watch Top Gear last night) that I was hoping for a long nap.

2.5 hours, not as long as he quite often sleeps but certainly better than the last few days, and he was woken up by someone hammering.

So, we made some bourbon biscuits, but couldn't finish them as I couldn't find/had run out of icing sugar.

M then played spaceships with various bottles and things, including a metal veg steamer, which fascinated him as he could make patterns by reflecting the sun off it.

A little drawing on his magnetic board while I cleaned the kitchen and then back to his favourite game of pirates.

All in all, quite a productive day. Tomorrow we are possibly swimming and picnicing (sp). So a day out, to balance today's day in.

Day Four - Tuesday 6th August

2007-08-13T22:11:00.002+02:00

We had planned to drive up to Skagen, a little village on the coast and northerly tip of Denmark where the Baltic sea meets the something or other sea, and then travel down to Give to spend the night, but we decided that that would really be too much, so we got in the van and made our leisurely way down to the campsite at Give. We pulled off onto a tiny side road to have our lunch at the side of a field, which I was a bit dubious about, and I was a bit apprehensive everytime a tractor went past, expecting the guy to shout “Get orf my land!”, but it was a really nice thing to do, and was miles better than stopping at another service station. We saw some great insects, all of which M wanted to hold, so a lot of scrabbling around after the little blighters ensued!
We got to the new campsite at about 2pm, and although we couldn`t camp close to the playground this time, we were very close to the toilet/shower/kitchen block and there was a large pile of large stones to keep m busy. The facilities, particularly the kitchen were superb. Although we have a 2 ring gas cooker in the van, it is a lot easier to cook elsewhere, as you have so much more space so meals for the next 2 nights were cooked in the great kitchen block.
Later in the afternoon we went to the outdoor swimming pool which has to be the coldest swimming pool I have ever been in. A pushed me in, as I was gingerly lowering myself into the water which I thought was rather unfair of him, particularly as he then refused to get in for at least another 10 minutes. M stood thigh deep in the baby pool, and kicked up a right stink when I lifted him into the main pool, and spent the 5 minutes he was in there trying to scramble onto my head to get out of the water! We finally gave up and had an icecream, marvelling at the way the Danes were happy to spend seemingly hours in the freezing water.

The site also had a selection of other toys/games etc, marketed as an adventure playground, which I guess was almost an accurate description. I was very proud of the fact that I went on everything, the trampoline (showing off the skills I learnt many moons ago at Saturday trampolining club at the Sports Centre, including a wicked Seat Drop – Half Turn – Seat Drop), the bizarre bikes with 2 handles instead of handlebars or steering wheel (a bit difficult to explain really) and another bouncy cushion (this time with everything staying intact!). They really seem to be popular in Scandinavia.

The site also had a train, so A and M went on that whilst I made dinner. I seem to have fallen into a role on this trip, a rather housewifey one, which actually I am enjoying as it means that I can have a bit of time on my own. It also means that I don`t have to do the boring things involved in camping, like moving all our stuff around constantly, and sweeping the van out and stuff.

Day Three - Monday 6th August

2007-08-13T22:11:00.001+02:00

Today was a long driving day, but not as long as it might have been as we went further than we had planned yesterday. We made it into Denmark though! We drove all the way up to Nibe in the north and found the campsite after a few wrong turns (Gina Patricia Saunders doesn`t have all the little roads in Scandinavia at her disposal, so we were a bit lost when she stopped giving us directions.
The campsite was on the banks of a fjord, although our pitch was tucked way back, but again we were really close to the playground, so M was able to go off and play while we got on with things at the van, as we could stick our heads up and see him.
Every evening the owner gets his train out and takes the kids (and any adults too!) around the campsite, which thrilled M no end. They also had a large bouncy cushion, sort of like a bouncy castle, but with no walls, iykwim, which was great fun for all of us, well, until my pelvic floor muscles gave out!

Day Two - Sunday 5th August

2007-08-06T23:05:00.000+02:00

M wakes up at 6.15am, asking for milk as usual. A seems amazingly awake, whilst I struggle to open my eyes.
It is usually the other way round in our house when the alarm goes off. I did have a disturbed night though, first struggling to get to sleep because of my headache, then getting cold and not being able to find the duvet. Did have a nice dream about Julie Roberts though. Not sure what it was about, just remember that she was in it.

We decide to rearrange the van before we leave, so that at least future stops may be less painful than the previous nights. I suspect that we may have a few more side-of-the road overnighters before the 2 months is up, but its not really a problem, and it does save us some money!
We may also have got ourselves sorted out properly in the van by the time 2 months is over too!

Leave the parking place at about 8am, to find somewhere to have breakfast. Travel for about 20 minutes and find a service station, with another nice restaurant/cafe. Share croissant au chocolat and phili on roll. I get my morning fix of coffee (2 in fact, to keep me going!). M charms one of the waitresses into giving him a children's coffee (frothy milk), an amaretto biscuit and a lollipop, which he ignores my pleas to not eat quite yet, and then complains that his teeth are sticking together!

M is finding this all a bit daunting I think. The van is a fascinating place for an almost 3 year old with all its switches and buttons and cupboards and nooks and crannies. Unfortunately I am so terrified that he is going to break something as it all seems rather delicate, that I seem to be saying 'Don't touch', 'No' and 'Be Careful' a rather lot. Still its just something to add to the long list of things that M seems to be currently holding against me.

My feet are swelling up quite badly, a combination of hot weather and sitting still for so long. I really hope that they aren't like this for whole of the trip. It will annoy me. Have been sitting here, trying to move them around a bit, but they still look like lumps of meat on the end of my legs. Any remedies greatly appreciated.

We hope to stop at about lunchtime and get some bread, cheese and ham for diy sandwiches, but the service station we stop at has nothing of the sort. CB radios, seat covers, dirty dvds, crisps, biscuits and sweets, but no bread.

To be continued......

….continuing this several days later so have sort of forgotten exactly what happened, except that we had planned to stop in Clausthal-Zellerfeld in Germany, but as we were making such good time we decided to continue further up the motorway to Soltau.Really glad we did, as it was a great campsite. We managed to get a pitch right next to the playground so M was happy as we made dinner and again tidied the van – its all we seem to be doing!

He managed to annoy a 9 year old by insisting on taking sand from the ramp he had just built, although the 9 year old tried to get his own back by asking us quite insistently if we had seen his blue car, looking at M all the time he was asking us!

The toilet/shower block was absolutely fabulous. Real hotel quality. The radio was constantly piped into each toilet and shower room, and they had cool family bathrooms. I can tell that I will be boring people with my appraisal of each and every campsite, of which there are going to be many, seeing as we are staying in a lot of places only one night!

Day One - Saturday 4th August

2007-08-06T23:02:00.000+02:00

Started off at 5pm, 1 hour later than planned. Almost immediately pulled into garage as front left was looking a bit flat. Just needed some air.

After not many more kilometres, M suddenly declares that he's done pee-pee and is all wet. Sure enough, its soaked the child seat and the suede car seat. Stop to change clothes and put towel on seat. Just past Bern he does another one. Then declares that he needs a poo. Stop again. Decide that we won't make it to the first campsite until well past 8pm, so we better stop somewhere to eat. Stop at Cindy's Diner, a very authentic looking American style diner. Plans for healthy eating holiday go out the window as we have burgers and chicken nuggets and chips and things. M bullies a 9 year old into submission over the use of a Gameboy.

I feel a bit tired and have a bit of a headache, but drive part of the way anyway, because I was finding M's inability to stop shrieking at me for some reason or other rather wearing.
At 10pm we finally make it to the first campsite, but the gate is closed. Find the owner, who states that he is full, so carry on to find somewhere else. M finally falls asleep: I think he was holding out to sleep in the roof.

Decide that actually we aren't going to find a campsite, so stop at a parking layby. These places in Germany are pretty good; you can still hear the road, but some of them have toilets, picnic benches and lots of space.

Realise that we packed really badly because almost everything has to come out of the van to put the bed up. M gets posted into the roof, still asleep. A and I settle down for the night at about 11.30, after experiencing the toilet which flushes when you lock and unlock the door. Share the van with a fly and a moth.

Catch Up

2007-07-09T11:08:00.000+02:00

Well, obviously I can't really catch up almost 6 months worth of stuff, but I can do a bit.

Starting with today:
M amazingly slept until 8am, which is unheard of (normally its 6am!) and A went into work a bit late, just cos he could.
I still haven't got dressed at 11.15am, but I don't care as we've had a good morning.
Non-existant breakfast, followed by just laying on the sofa chatting about nothing, then I read Sinbad the Sailor from Illustrated Stories for Boys which is the longest story I've ever read to M. He was flagging at the end (not really enough different pirates/dragons/monsters in it).
We then made cushion towers, and then I made us both a cup of tea and we discussed cogs in the salad spinner following on from a chat about gear sticks we had in the hire car last week.
Bringing us up to now, where predictably I am unable to type for more than a few seconds without interruptions. Why is that? And why is it that at the weekend, when A was looking after M whilst I was finally unpacking in the bedroom, A could get on with stuff in the kitchen whilst M played happily by himself. He never lets me do that!

Off to a play centre this afternoon as the weather is, once again, rubbish. Atelier finished last week - we made sure we were back from the UK in time for the last atelier session and the vernissage (an exhibition of all the kids work over the last term which you can then tear down from the walls and take home - must take pics and post) - so we have full weeks with nothing on.

Still, off to Scandinavia in 27 days for 2 months. Getting excited now. I spent a lot of yesterday (another rain-delayed day) going through the camping book we have and marking the sites on our road map, just so that even though we aren't going to book anywhere, we have a rough idea of where the nearest sites are when we are on the road. A tried to load lots of maps onto his GPS phone thingy, which worked ok until he realised that he didn't have the code anymore because he'd reinstalled it, so he had to go searching for the code to make it work. See, I still believe a good old-fashioned map is better. At least you can't lose your position due to the malalignment of the satellites or whatever it uses! OK, you can be a crap map reader, but I have more faith in my map reading abilities than in A's ability to sort out the GPS!

We're hiring this van. There seems to be so much space in it, although I'm sure I won't be saying that come the end of September! M has insisted that he won't be sleeping in the roof, which scuppers our plans a little, but we've reassured him that if he goes to sleep in the roof, we will move him to the lower bed when we go to bed. The only thing that concerns me about that is that the gas stove and the fridge, cupboards etc are in the lower part of the van, but then I would be surprised if he managed to do too much damage without me waking up, seeing as my sleeping is pathetic at the moment.

We're planning on driving up through Germany to Denmark, hoping to visit Legoland for M's birthday on the 10th Aug, then across to Sweden (on the really long bridge, can't remember what its called just now), visiting Gothenburg and Stockholm, then across to Oslo and Bergen in Norway, followed by a huge trip (probably 5 days driving) to Tromso which is in the Arctic Circle (can't quite persuade A to go up to North Cape) and then across to Finland, visiting Santa Claus at his village on the way down to Helsinki. Then take the ferry across to Tallinn in Estonia, and back home, probably going through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, and trying to avoid Russia as the van is uninsured for there. All in 2 months...... We must be mad, expecially travelling with a 3 year old who is unused to car travel, seeing as we don't actually have one!

Am planning on taking the laptop for M to watch DVDs etc, so hopefully I will be able to write a few posts about our adventures and load them up on the rare occasions we have Wifi at the campsite.

Have had a funny few days myself since coming back from the UK. I have been pretty tired even though it was a holiday (chasing around after an almost 3 year old, and waking up at 4.30 every morning in a tent is not my ideal holiday I have to say!) and M was quite grouchy as he never quite got enough sleep. Also 2 of my friends have just given birth, which while it is a fantastic occasion and congratulations to K and C, leaves me feeling a bit deflated. Being the only person in my group of mummy friends who isn't pregnant for the second time is hard to take sometimes. If it was down to nature why I wasn't pregnant, then I think I may be able to cope better, but knowing that I could be pregnant if only A would change his mind, makes it a little harder to take I think. I am trying very hard not to let my feelings show to my friends, as it is not their fault in any way, but it may be why I've been in a funny mood lately, knowing that this is the start of at least 6 births in the next couple of months.

Still, A did say never say never, so you never know!

Where did that come from?

2007-02-08T18:28:00.000+01:00

Sitting watching Aunty Mabel and Pippen with M, and she's looking after a rabbit.

I say that if we had a garden it might be nice to have a rabbit.
M: 'But we would have 2 bunnies, mummy'
Me: 'Maybe if we had a garden'
M: 'But I have a kitchen garden mummy'
Me: 'Really?'
M: 'A bunny and tortoise come to visit in my kitchen garden'

Where the hell does he get this from?

What did we do?

2007-01-29T12:54:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I know that the St Anton adventure isn't finished yet, but I'll get round to it, I promise.

Just wanted to blog about what we've been doing today, mainly because I feel that if I actually write down what we do day to day, I might feel that we actually do something (or not, as the case may be, but then that may be the kick up the backside I need). Obviously, even though I say that its going to be a regular thing, as with most things I do, I won't follow through (note to self: another post might be in order here).

So today.......

Had to wait for an Ikea delivery (8am to 9.30am, they arrived at 9.05am) with new mattress. Woohoo, may actually get a good nights sleep for the first time in about a year.

Put washing in (better go get it out before it starts to smell), still got 10,000 loads to do from holiday.

Finished off the online shop that I started last night, and annoyingly (ok, so I went a little over the top with how cross I was) couldn't finish as the site kept failing and then our bb access went down. Should arrive at 7pm, which isn't bad considering last night I booked the 2.30pm slot but was convinced that I'd have to take a slot in a couple of days, and so I'd have to go to the shops, which was going to p me off even more.

Have put the new slats and mattress on the bed with a little help from M (this help consisted of him pulling the mattress over and hiding underneath, which is amusing the first 4 times, but then starts to wear a little thin).

Also semi-fixed 4 new shelves to our wardrobe which we'd ordered. We aren't really clothes hanging people, so to increase our pathetic amount of storage space, we've bought some shelves to replace the rail. I'm sure that when A gets home I will have put them in the wrong place or something.

Read M his tractor book, doing a few counting things and colour descriptions. Unfortunately there was only a maximum of 4 of any one thing in the book, so unless we were going to count fence slats (which I thought was taking it a bit far!) it was quite straightforward.

A police car going past with sirens blaring necessitated a trip to the balcony to have a look. I am so terrified that one day I'm going to throw him off, not because I feel depressed or anything, almost like I believe that some freak gust of wind is going to wrest him from my grasp and throw 11 floors to the ground below. I think some weird things sometimes.
Anyway, the police car brought forth a new word - unfortunately.
M wanted to wait outside until an ambulance and a fire engine went past to, but I had to explain that 'unfortunately they don't always travel in threes'. Cue lots of 'unfortunately', 'unfortunately' etc.

We also did some drawing which M asked to do. Sometimes I think I make things hard for myself. When he asks to do some sort of crafty thing, I believe that we have to do some fantastic creation, when really, with a small boy with the concentration span of maximum 15 minutes, something simple would probably work best.
So I got out some coloured paper (for once he chose the blue, normally its pink or red) and various crayons, pens and chalk and left him to it.

I was pretty pleased with what he did, not necessarily the drawing (although of course every drawing he does is beautiful! Lol!) but more the fact that most of the time he held the pen the right way, instead of in a fist. I think he realised himself that he had a bit more control doing it that way. His circles are also coming on, so there almost looks like some structure to his drawing. He also kept all the stuff on the table, which is a first!

We also did some train and tower building with blocks. Sometimes I think some duplo might be good, but then I know that he has more than enough toys to be getting on with.

We also listened to M's Milk and Cookies Kindermusik cd (we had to listen to one song about 8 times!). Of course if I had just said 'Let's listen to your Kindermusik cd' all would've been fine, but because I mentioned milk & cookies, I then had to go get some......

Anyway, that was a really productive morning. I think I will probably flag in the afternoon and I'm sure that A would say that I should really take a nap when M does, but the quiet time is nice. Why waste it sleeping?!

St Anton Adventure Part 1

2007-01-22T11:00:00.000+01:00

It all started on Saturday. The 9.20 train from Lausanne. 4 train changes and 5 hours later and we arrive at our destination; St Anton am Arlberg, Austria.

The train journey was pretty good, made easier by A's DIY job on our wooden sledge. He'd taken 4 wheels from his roller blades and attached them using long screws and bolts to the runners. This meant that we had our own trolley to carry our luggage. Of course we couldn't steer it, and the sheer volume of luggage he'd insisted on bringing (we're staying in a luxury hotel, so our stay should be luxurious, apparently) meant that even on the way to the bus stop to get to the train station the bags fell off several times and we made the bus with only a minute to spare (the sight of him running up the road because he thought the no 4 that had just passed him was the no 1 was a sight to behold).

What was also good was the fact that the first train, 2 ½ hours to Zurich had a family carriage, so M could play on the slide and climbing frame to his hearts content. I find it so amusing listening to him rabbiting on at all the other kids in English, not really realising that most of the time they don't understand a word he's saying. Between A and I we understand both German and French so we can normally get the gist of what the other kids were saying. One particular exchange was particularly amusing. M was telling some small child that it was fun to hide under the slide, and why doesn't he come with M? He then proceeded to tell him that we live in Lausanne (a favourite topic of conversation with M at the moment). The poor child turned to his mother and in Swiss German said, “Mummy, why can't I understand what he's saying?”. “Because he's speaking in English, darling”. Bless her, she then asked M what his name was in English, to which he duly replied, adding to the end “and I live in Lausanne”!

The train from Zurich to Sargans, was initially not so pleasant. We only had 9 minutes to cross platforms (not a small feat with all our luggage) and I got on first with M in the buggy to find it packed out.
The entrance to the carriage was very small and there were lots of people behind me, so with M asleep I tried to go down the aisle of the carriage. However, at the entrance to the carriage proper, there was a suitcase blocking the buggy's path. There was a woman sitting looking at me, so in my halting German said, “Können Sie...” and then indicated that maybe she could move the suitcase out of my way as I could not get past the buggy to move it, and there was a big guy directly behind me. She just looked at me and shrugged. I began to feel my blood beginning to boil. I did not need someone pretending that they had no idea what I wanted help with, someone who seemed content to let me struggle, when I knew that A was trying to get all the bags onboard, and the train was about to leave at any moment. Luckily, an English guy realised what the problem was, and cleared a path for me.
Then I had to find a seat. By this time, M was awake, albeit rather groggy. I went down the carriage and then a woman spoke to me in Swiss German and stood up. From what I could gather, she was getting off at the next stop so we could have her seats. Of course, trying to persuade M to get out of the buggy into a seat so I could fold up the buggy and get it out of the way was not an easy thing, and the young woman behind me was giving me dirty looks. By this point I almost told her that if she was so keen to get past, why didn't she just climb onto my back and leapfrog over M.
Eventually we sat down, and then I realised that the train was moving and there was no sign of A. Panicking slightly, I left a still groggy M sitting in his seat, and went back down the carriage. I found most of our bags at the entrance, but no sign of the sledge or our large case. Panicking slightly more now, particularly as A had the tickets, I went back to our seats, only to see him coming towards me. He had run out of space where we got on, and so went one carriage further up to put the rest of the stuff on!
He'd also found a spare 6 seater carriage further down the train (think the individual carriages on the Hogwarts Express!) so after all that faff of getting a seat, we moved everything, including a now sleeping M, to our 'own' carriage.

The next train to Buchs was packed, and people weren't particularly bothered that their skis, and bags were just at the right level to hit the buggy as they turned round. Luckily, M managed to sleep through it all, including the next train from Buchs to Feldkirchen.

We were expecting at some point to have to get our passports out, but it seems that no undesirables would ever imagine of doing this journey, so our passports stayed firmly in our pockets. One other advantage of going on the train was that our travel passes (giving us free travel in the whole of Switzerland on buses, trains, trams and boats) also gave us 25% discount (or was that 75% discount) on travel in Austria too, so the entire journey cost us 85CHF (about £37)!

We got off the last train in St Anton, and found our minibus to our hotel, realising with horror that we hadn't brought the carseat and once we set off, the driver seemed to tear round the corners like a maniac. We'd used the normal seatbelt to strap M in, but it was far from ideal, and something we would never normally do (I refused a lift from a neighbour from the swimming pool recently because we didn't have the car seat with us). I was concerned that the journey was a long one, and listening in on A's conversation with the driver, I was sure that he said it was going to take 10 minutes to get there, so when the car pulled up at the hotel after about 90 seconds, I was mightily relieved (turns out it takes 10 minutes to travel the length of the village).

End of part 1......(just because this is going to be long and I thought I'd tempt you with bits and pieces)

150 Things

2006-10-18T16:48:00.000+02:00

Have seen this a few times but originally on Jax's blog.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables - it just tastes better
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children - well in the process!
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Rain, Rain

2006-10-01T17:53:00.000+02:00

Well, I think I've managed to get out of going out in the pouring rain today. We don't need to go out for any particular reason, but A thought it might be nice just to suit up and go splash in a few puddles.
Which it would've been, in the middle of the afternoon, when you can come home and snuggle up on the sofa with warm milk and cookies, but not really that great when the rain has been incessant and its 5.45pm. We're not even ready to go yet, so by the time we get back I'd have to rush around making dinner.

So I may get left here after promising to make a fabulous risotto whilst they are out. I can but hope.

Been so busy lately. Started selling Usborne books and I'm going to an exhibition next Sunday in Geneva and trying to organise a Christmas fair with a friend as well as doing some home parties too.

Obviously also been having fun with M. On Friday we actually spontaneously made a frog, using glue and stuff (our first time together), after M showed an interest in tadpoles and frogs from seeing one on the CBeebies Come Outside game.

Really feel like we're started to learn things, albeit (I love that word!) in a fun round about way. I'm obviously not trying to push learning, but I feel that he is actually starting to listen a bit to me when I explain stuff. I'm sure the listening thing will last until he's about 4, and then I'll have a struggle making myself heard at least until he leaves home!

Been having a few interesting discussions with friends about school and HE. They all seem to be looking into schools (mainly private ecole enfantine) for their LO's and I am partly feeling smug because I know that we don't have to worry about things like that what with teaching M at home, but also feeling partly left out of the conversation too. Silly really. I know we're doing the right thing, but it feels like this is the first time our decision is being tested iyswim.

Ok, so A has decided not to go out after all, the wimp! Guess I should go and start this risotto....

Back in the Bosom of his Family

2006-08-28T19:51:00.001+02:00

Hoorah!!

Worm is safe and sound, back in his ice cream container.

Obviously, I know now not to make any snap judgements of the conduct of my son in the future, assuming that it was he who spirited Worm away to another place (I even contemplated the fact that he may have eaten him!).

No, as soon as A got home from work, and started looking for him, he found him, stuck to the side of the dining table, about 10cm away from where I'd been sitting all afternoon, drinking coffee. It seems as if he'd made a run for it.

I think this must be a first. In all the time I have known A, almost 13 years, he has never once been able to find something that I haven't. I must be losing my touch.

Still, there may be trouble brewing. M refused to hold Worm when he reappeared. I think he maybe trying to punish him for trying to do a runner. Its possible the love affair has ended.

*I am assuming that Worm is male; he could of course be a she. Anyone know how to sex a snail?

Back in the Bosom of his Family

2006-08-28T19:51:00.000+02:00

The Hunt is On

2006-08-28T10:03:00.000+02:00

Anyone seen a snail?

Worm seems to have gone missing. I don't think he's made a run for it, rather that a little boy has put him in a 'safe' place, which obviously is now unknown.

I've tried all sorts of ways of trying to discover where Worm is, but I think it is a secret that only he and M are destined to share.

The worst thing is having to watch where I stand and sit, just in case!

So, if anyone finds a brown and beige striped snail, answering to the name of Worm, could you please send it this way?!

When 3 became 4

2006-08-22T14:05:00.000+02:00

No, don't panic, no major news!

Just that last night (well, I guess it must've been Sunday cos we found him when putting the tent away) we acquired a new pet.

Worm the snail (yes M did name 'him', don't know why he chose Worm, cos he knows its a snail!) is now living in an ice cream container on the dining room table.
Will try to post a picture when I can.

He was given a Cheerio for breakfast this morning. I think M and I need to have a chat about what snails eat!

Short but sweet post; I really need to get myself sorted out.

Too Damn Hot!

2006-07-17T12:24:00.000+02:00

It really is.

Last week on the way back from the Morrissey concert, which was fandabbydozy, I got to the train station at half past midnight and the temperature was still 29 degrees. Now thats just silly.

We have spent a lot of time inside doing puzzles and baking and stuff, which seems to defeat the purpose of summer. I think M would be okay, but its me thats the problem. I just melt at any heat, always have done. I think the biggest problem is that there didn't seem to be any proper spring here, you know where the temp is about 20-23, there is a nice fresh breeze and its wonderfully sunny. Nope, just cold and wet to hot and dry. Oh well.

I guess M wasn't really helped by the heat on Wednesday and Thursday as he had a fever, poor thing. Got to 38.9 at one point and we almost went to the doctors, but then when he woke on Friday, it was as if it had never happened. He had all the energy of an almost 2 year old. Of course I was dead on my feet cos I'd been up with him most of the night, but that doesn't matter - "Mummy, play", "Mummy, walk", "Mummy run awell".

Of course, dh is now in bed with the same fever (no other symptoms), so I'm just hoping that if I get it too, its either today or tomorrow, as dh starts his new job on Thursday, so he won't be home to look after me and M.

This new job will be a bit of a change for us. Its only 4 months long, but whereas we were used before to him coming home for lunch and home by 6.30, this new job is in Bern which is an hours train journey away, so he'll probably be leaving at 7am and back at 7pm. I know other families deal with this sort of thing all the time, but I feel like I need to prepare both physically (tidying the house, preparing games etc for M and I to do) and emotionally (I used to have a mini meltdown every day at 5.30, because the day with M just seemed so long).

At least with only a 4 month contract, if its really bad I know it won't last forever, and at the end he should be able to take a month or so off.

I've just been brought lunch, so I need to make the most of it!

My soul?!

2006-07-17T12:21:00.000+02:00

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are a wanderer. You constantly long for a new adventure, challenge, or eve a completely different life.
You are a very grounded, responsible, and realistic person. People may not want to hear the truth from you, but they're going to get it.
You believe that people see you for how you are, not how you look. But deep down, you know that's not exactly true.
Your near future is still unknown, and a little scary. You'll get through wild times - and you'll textually enjoy it.
For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

I wish......

2006-07-01T23:26:00.000+02:00

........that I could be more eloquent (not even sure that is the right word!).

Stuff is in my head, but I find it difficult to write it down in the way that it sounds to me. Its not that I use fancy words in my head, but it just sounds so much better in my head, so that the words that are written down don't sound right. Does that make any sense?

I read other blogs that seem to capture the mood of the author just right. Unless, of course that they feel exactly the same way as me, and what I feel like they are trying to say isn't what they are trying to say at all!

How.......

2006-07-01T23:18:00.000+02:00

.....do you get chewing gum out of a pair of trousers?

I've got the majority of it out, but some still remains, along with the greasy bits. I've tried it in the freezer, but because there's so little of it left, theres not enough to scrap off.

I think the dry cleaners may be the next stop, but want to try everything else first.

Why........

2006-07-01T23:08:00.000+02:00

......when I'm so diligent about smothering M in suncream, buying a UV suit and hat for him, do I forget to do the same for me (ok, I don't want a UV suit!) even though I know I have the sort of skin that goes red at the first sight of sun?

Of course, today, I convinced myself that because I was sitting in the shade all day I would be fine. Of course, the sensible among you would question why, if I'd even had that thought, didn't I just put the sun cream on anyway? Because I'm daft, thats why!

I wasn't that bad, just a slightly red nose, which really finished the week off nicely in terms of incidents to my nose, after being clonked on the bridge with a digger brandished by M. He didn't mean it, obviously, but it blooming hurt! One of these days I'll manage not to cry when it happens, but then I'm a bit of a wuss, so I won't hold my breath!

Diggers, Birds, Boats and Puddles

2006-06-28T12:42:00.000+02:00

I'm being unusually on the ball and blogging this before the day is even out, mainly cos I know that if I don't, I'll forget everything and we had such a lovely morning that I wanted to record it.

After a massive thunderstorm last night, where our electricity and seemingly all the electricity as far as the eye could see (and thats a long way, cos we're on the 11th floor) went off near midnight, I wasn't hopeful that today would be anything other than an at home day, and I so wanted us to get outside, because to be honest the last couple of days we haven't really got up to much.

But this morning we woke up to reasonable weather, so at about 10 we ventured out, armed only with a few coins, my phone, a bottle of water and the hip seat.
At first I thought we were only going to get as far as outside the building, as a man was mowing the grass on his ride on mower, so several minutes were spent watching him going up and down. But we finally tore ourselves away and wandered down to the old football pitch where there is currently a lot of work going on with diggers, steam rollers and so on. I found out that they are building an all weather pitch, which isn't nearly as exciting as the proposed go kart track, or skateboard park which A and I were convinced was being built!

Just for all those digger lovers out there, here are a few pics:

The last pic shows our apartment building in the background. Its the right hand tower block of the three, so we have been able to watch the building work from our balcony.

It was really tough to tear M away from the 'little digger' (I think the man was just putting on a show for us, cos as soon as we left, he stopped working!), but the promise of a croissant did the job!

On the way there, M collected several sticks, including one that I was hoping he would realise was a little large:

Luckily he dropped that one in favour of one that in the end just proved to much of a handful!

We went to a nice cafe by the harbour, and had croissant, coffee and water (with a straw so that lots of bubbles could be blown!). The croissant attracted lots of sparrows, and while I was trying to persuade M to have the last bit before I scoffed it, one cheeky one swooped down, grabbed it right out of my hand and flew off, almost hitting M in the face! I was in shock! The waiter seemed to think it was the funniest thing in the world though!
I think that this may have been the culprit, look at that innocent face.........

We then went to have a look for a duck or two by the water, but instead watched a man struggling to get his boat down the slipway into the lake. I guess us watching him was a bit offputting, but M certainly found it fascinating, the way he used a machine to roll the boat halfway in and then had to use brute force to push it the rest of the way. No photos for this part of the expedition - I thought it was a bit unfair on the guy!

By this time, M was getting tired, but insisted on walking just a little bit further. He also discovered the pockets of his shorts and these are my favourite sort of shots, where he looks so grown up, but really just a little cutie!

Not long after this, he decided that being carried was the way forward, but not before we jumped in a few (small!) puddles left over from last nights storm.

So, our short trip to watch the diggers turned into a 2 hour adventure which wore the little guy out. He is now sleeping, and to be honest, I don't blame him. I wish I could join him!

Typical!

2006-06-23T19:35:00.000+02:00

I have spent the last couple of days trying to explain to M that nee-naws (police, ambulance and fire engines) have blue lights and a siren and other vehicles that have orange lights aren't nee-naws.
I haven't been forcing the issue, just gently saying 'thats not a nee- naw, its a ......'

Of course this morning M brings his fire truck (note I said truck, not engine) that Nanny and Grandad bought him from Sainsburys into the living room, and lo and behold, it has an orange light! Why do I bother?!

After lunch today, we both had some raisins. I picked out the biggest ones to show to him, whereupon he promptly took them off me and ate them! After that though, he looked for big ones in his pot, and did pretty well. He has also begun to put simple sentences together and I could almost see his cogs turning trying to say 'Eat bigger raisins'!

He went off to nursery in the afternoon. I wasn't sure how he would feel about me leaving as he hasn't been for 3 weeks, but as usual, there was no looking back.
A left work early to come on a coffee and icecream date, and then we picked M up from nursery. Apparently he had a bit of a wobble about 30 minutes in, but one of the acceuilantes took him aside and played in the water with him and he was happy as larry. He also had a bit of a set-to with Gabriel, but the same thing happened at playgroup on Thursday, so I think they're going through a bit of a 'checking each other out' phase.
We also (sounds awful, all this stuff!) were told that he pushed a non-walking baby over, but the acceuilante, Veronique, thinks it was because he had been playing with one of those clown things that pops back up if you push it over, and he wanted to see if the baby did it too! Shouldn't laugh, but I'm amazed at how their little minds work!

I did ask if she thought we had a problem, or the beginning of a problem with his behaviour, but she reassured me that it was perfectly normal. I probably knew that anyway, but I guess just needed some reassurance. Of course, its not acceptable, but these are the sort of things M needs to work out for himself, with some guidance from us, obviously.

In the evening we watched the Switzerland-South Korea match. M woke up half way through and so he sat on my lap for a big cuddle until he dropped off again. Its the second night in a row we've done it, the first night because he had a nightmare (we think); he woke up crying and dripping with sweat.

Switzerland won, and are through to the second round. Honestly you'd think that they'd won the whole tournament, the amount of noise they made. There were so many cars out until about 12.30am tooting their horns, people shouting out of their windows. Luckily M didn't wake up though. They play Ukraine next. Wonder what the reaction will be if they win that one........

Muddle Puddle Camp at Kessingland

2006-06-20T12:25:00.000+02:00

OK, I promise I will write about this soon. Preferably before I forget what happened when. Maybe I'll just drip feed it to you, not particularly deliberately, but just cos I'm rubbish at keeping my blog up to date.

We had a good time though!

April's Resolutions

2006-04-07T08:42:00.000+02:00

Ok, I guess these are a bit like New Year's resolutions, but seeing as it's now April, I can't really call them that.
I think just recently I have been lacking motivation to do *anything* and my life feels very bitty, so maybe writing a list will help (although I admit that it doesn't force me to actually do anything)

1. Start eating healthily. This doesn't necessarily mean go on a diet, just cut out the rubbish I've been eating. Snacks are fine in between meals, as long as they are healthy snacks, which at the moment they definitely are not.

2. Book a check up for M at the paediatrician. This sounds like such a small and silly thing to do, but its a good indication of my lack of motivation recently, as this is his 18month checkup and he is now almost 20 months. No doubt the paed will have something to say about it, just like her pithy comment when she prescribed some Vitamin D for him this winter - "I'm only prescribing it this year, just to see if you can actually finish the entire course" (I made the mistake of admitting that last winter we didn't really give it to him very much, cos I didn't think it was that necessary). Also the fact that I delayed his first MMR by 6 months didn't go down very well, and at his 18 month checkup he is meant to have another Meningitis jab and another 5-in-1 (I'm going to decline the 5-in-1), so me and her have a peachy relationship! She's ok though, no need to change paeds or anything, I just have to be brave when I go!

3. Get my business http://www.dragonflyjane.com in some sort of order. We haven't done much with it since Christmas, and although E has lots of excuses (marriage, honeymoon, crap time at work), I have none. So I need to use the time when M is at Espace Bebes for 3 hours a week to get the accounts in order, design new pieces, and just generally get on top of things so we can plan another party.

4. Get the seeds planted. We may only have a balcony, but I really want to grow some of our own veg this year. We did it last year with tomatoes, but this year I want to do more. Its silly really, I want to do this stuff, I feel its important, but somehow I 'never get round to doing it', and its not as if I am really busy, I have time to do it, I just end up wasting time doing nothing.

I guess there's plenty more things I want to achieve, but I think I'll just leave it there for now. Too much stuff, and I'll just get overwhelmed as usual, and end up achieving nothing again. Maybe I'll leave the other stuff for next month...........

Jaded-ness

2006-04-06T12:06:00.000+02:00

I felt very sad the other night when I came home from dinner with a group of mums. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time, even though they weren't really my sort of people.

It was just that they all seemed so jaded. It was commented that I must be the one with the youngest child, as I was still so positive in my outlook. I admit that I was the only one there with less than 2 children, and I have no idea what difference more than 1 has on your life compared to just having a single child.

They just seemed to place such little value on what they do, what mothers do. They feel that they achieve nothing all day. One said (let's call her C) that it regularly takes her a couple of hours to get out of the house because her eldest just won't allow it. My reply to her was that she got out of the house eventually and so that was an achievement in itself. I understand that sometimes mums go from having a 'career' to being a SAHM and that the two worlds are very different, and it can open up a whole load of different emotions, guilt, inadequacy, etc but sometimes I feel that we only accent the negative stuff and don't celebrate the positive, however small it may be.

I just feel that mums do a fantastic job, and sometimes we don't feel like that, either because no one tells us (and we need telling every now and then) or because it doesn't feel like we achieve anything compared to the woman who leaves the house to go to work.

I certainly worry that I am frequently fobbing M off, when he wants to play, and to be honest, I just can't be bothered. But then even little things can teach him stuff and please him immensely. For example, just now, I pushed him up and down the hall on his ride-along, and even though I was wondering how I could stop pushing him without it causing a scene, I was trying to show him how to steer it so we didn't end up in the wall. Only a little thing, but important nonetheless, especially if you want to cut down on bruises and blood loss!

So, come on mums, value what you do, you are doing an extremely important and difficult job, and you know what, you're doing great!

He's Leaving Home!!!

2006-03-15T17:42:00.000+01:00

Its true; a couple of minutes ago, M put his hat on, and my shoes, said bye-bye, blew me a kiss and walked out the door (my fault for forgetting to lock it).

As I type he is stood at the lift door, waiting for the lift to arrive, which it won't as he can't reach the call button. At least I hope he can't!!!

I didn't realise he was so eager to get away!!

Oh, the shame!

2006-02-17T09:04:00.000+01:00

Right, I think I should pack my bags now.

This morning we went to wave daddy off at the lift just in our dressing gowns. The only difference between M and me was that I was wearing underwear. He still had no nappy on after his shower.

Dh left and I went back inside, knowing that M would follow in a couple of minutes when he was good and ready.

All of a sudden I hear "pee-pee". I rushed outside, but it was too late. He had peed right on the neighbours doorstep!! I quickly cleared it up, but I have this horrible feeling that some may have seeped under the door. What's worse is that I don't think anyone is living there at the moment, so it could be quite horrendous when they return.

I know that people have got chucked out of the building for a lot less, so we could find ourselves homeless very soon.........

Illness? I'm a Mother!

2006-02-16T11:59:00.000+01:00

It struck me the other day that since I had M, I have generally been less ill (appalling sentence structure there, but hey ho!).

And, when I do feel pants, it is just impossible for me to curl up in a ball like I used to. Almost to the point where I struggle through the day, knowing that I am ill, but not wanting it to get to me, but then as soon as A walks through the door at the end of the day, illness overcomes me, and I feel pants.

Why is that? Its because I'm a mother. How can I possibly let my son down; not spend time with him during the day; fall into the self-pitying stupor that I used to do?

I don't think that I soldier on regardless as such, just that I won't allow myself to get ill. Is that psychological? Does that mean that previously I used to not actually be that ill, but convince myself that I was, just because it was so easy back then to take a day out from life?

And I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm sure that legions of mothers do exactly the same thing. We convince ourselves that we feel fine, because what other option do we have?
When A is too sick to work, he doesn't go. When I am too sick to look after my son, what happens? I look after my son. A doesn't take time off work to look after M (or me for that matter!), because what would he say to his employers? He doesn't get paid for the first few sick days as it is, so saying that he's taking time off to look after his son is hardly going to go down well.
I'm not saying that if I was really ill, he would carry on working, just that in the past I would have taken time off for a lot less.

OK, I'm really not sure where I'm going with this. I had a point initially but it feels like its got lost somewhere along the way.
I guess its something that I just noticed, and felt worth commenting on (you may disagree!)

Johari Window

2006-02-13T13:30:00.000+01:00

I nicked this from Jodi's blog - Ta, Jodi!

One of these days I will actually write a proper post on here again, but for now you'll have to make do with this!

Go here to see my Johari window

Basically I need you guys to tell me what sort of person I am, or at least what sort of person you think I am!

I Love Dead People!

2006-02-04T12:24:00.000+01:00

OK, thats not strictly true, obviously, but I've just been watching a TOTP2 special on BBC Prime about Marc Bolan.

How sexy was that man? Looking at him has made me go all goosebumpy (although his hairstyles in 1976 were a bit rubbish)

Had to find a pic of him for on here.

Should I get one?

2006-02-02T21:35:00.000+01:00

You Should Get an Abstract Tattoo

Artistic and uniqueYou're the most likely type to personally design your tattoo

What Tattoo Should You Get?

Babies and Bacon

2006-01-16T14:40:00.000+01:00

As it's snowing outside, and M is having a kip, I thought I'd settle down with a cup of coffee and a biscuit to write my blog. All I need now is a roaring fire and the picture would be complete.

What have we been up to? Well, I became an auntie on Saturday. My sister gave birth to a little girl, Rosie Suzanne, weighing in at 7lb 7oz, at 6.45am. They were both home in the afternoon (she didn't get the homebirth she'd planned for) and I got to see them on the webcam that evening! She has lots of dark hair, and was sleeping when I saw her, so long may that continue!

Apart from that, Saturday was fairly uneventful, just shopping and stuff. I bought some more wool, as I was being far too optimistic in thinking that 4 balls of wool was going to make a cushion cover, so I now have 12 in total. I have absolutely no idea how many balls its going to take. Oh well, its nice wool, so if I have any left over, I'll just have to knit some clothes for M's baby doll.

Sunday was actually really lovely. I bought an English newspaper from the station, went to a café, and sat there for a lovely 2½ hours, reading and sipping coffee. Then A & M joined me for a late lunch. This café is the only place in Lausanne that we have found that does anything resembling a cooked breakfast, so A & I both ordered the John Steed (croissants, bread, jam, bacon, scrambled egg & sautéed potatoes). Admittedly the bacon is almost unrecognisable from what we are used to in the UK, but it's the thought that counts.
We ate that rather leisurely and then walked home. It was bitterly cold, but it was nice to come into the warm appartment and snuggle up in front of the tv.

Unfortunately, by late afternoon, both A & I were feeling under the weather, so we were probably paying less attention to M than he desired, so we had a few rounds on the naughty step. I feel bad when that happens, as partly it was our fault, but then I guess M has to learn at some point that he can't have what he wants all the time. I just don't know if it's too soon for him to learn it.

I made some bread rolls for dinner to go with some tuna & sweetcorn mayo and also dried out some old veggies to then freeze and grind up to make sort of vegetable bouillon powder. I have no idea how its going to turn out, but it was worth a try.

A & I then had a lazy evening in front of the tv (nothing really worth watching, except this Derren Brown thing where he tries to convince 4 middle managers to rob a bank - amazing viewing). I went to bed pretty early to read The Secret History by Donna Tartt. After the first couple of pages I thought that it was going to be rubbish, but then I have really got into it, so much so that I didn't want to put it down, and I have a feeling that I haven't even got to the best bit yet!

Oogle googling

2006-01-13T20:38:00.000+01:00

This one seems to be doing the rounds (nicked it from Al) so I thought I'd join in. Go to Google Images and post the first picture that comes up when you type in:

Name of town where you were born:

Name of town where you live now:

Your Name:

Your Grandma's Name:

Your favourite Food:

Your favourite drink:

Your favourite smell:

Some of them are fairly obvious, maybe next time, I'll use say the third image, cos some of them were weird!

Getting the Needle

2006-01-12T11:53:00.001+01:00

Well, even though it will completely shock and surprise some of you, I have bought some knitting needles, and some wool and I have started to knit a cushion cover!

As a kid, however hard my mother tried, I just couldn't seem to get the hang of knitting (thought it might be to do with bring left-handed and being taught right-handed). It was far from a relaxing pastime for me, more like a laborious chore!

But today, with the help of the faithful Internet, I managed to cast on and do a few rows before M wanted to play, so as long as I keep it up, new cushions here we come! I have no idea if the number of stitches I cast on will be the right size for the cushion inner (which I haven't bought yet), but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I've probably bought the wring type of wool for my first project. Its all bobbly, and the bobbles (which are really quite big) keep getting in the way. Still, if I had bought some wool that I wasn't that fussed about, it would've been pointless to even start.

My tension seems to be pretty tight too, but I guess that'll come with practice. I'm am just literally knitting at the moment, no purl or anything else. Still, to complete something will be a huge achievement for me, so best to keep it simple.

Last night we had friends round for Mexican and poker. It was good fun. P managed to clean up, even though he was adamant at the start that he had no clue how to play. Think he was using his French-ness (well, ykwim) as a convincing bluff.
We didn't play for money, which was just as well, as the boys particularly were going a bit crazy with their bets.

Today M is getting his haircut. I've cut it twice before with the clippers, but since its got long, there is no way its going back to the crewcut that I gave him, so I'll be forking out 20CHF to get it done at a childrens hairdresser (who also bizarrely sells shoes). Just hope he sits still for long enough.

M's favourite game at the moment is wandering around with a small tub of pasta, filling any receptacle that he can find. At least its dried pasta! I'm sure I'm going to be finding pasta in all sorts of weird places. I need to think what other things we can do with filling and emptying (hopefully stuff that doesn't make too much mess!)

Number One

2006-01-09T10:23:00.000+01:00

Well, I guess it had to be done..........

I imagine that posting will be thin on the ground, seeing as I am very flaky with things like this, and my commitment to projects like this is not outstanding.

My motivation behind this (because to be honest, I've never written a diary) is to provide friends and family who we've moved away from, which is most of them (it's nothing personal, honest!), with an update (I won't say regular, as it's unlikely to be) of whats going on in our lives.

This also means that I can use it as an excuse for being so crap at using the phone, so it's for selfish reasons too.

I might even be able to post a few pictures at some point too!

So, what about my day?

Well, M slept until 7.30am which, given the last few nights we've had since he's been ill, is fantastic. I slept really well, and felt pretty refreshed this morning.
I then spent the morning doing the usual houseworky things, and of course, creating this blog.

Realised at 10.45 that there was only one bread roll in the freezer, so quickly stuck some stuff in the breadmaker in the hope that it would be done for lunchtime.

Then M went for his nap, and I settled into the bath, which is a rare event for me. Don't know why I don't do it more often, especially when M is kipping.

I must apologise if this blog starts out rather boring and samey. I expect that in time I will find a style that I feel comfortable writing in, but until then, you'll just have to make do with a rundown of my day!