T-Bird Anni Rides Again

Today seemed to rush past in a bit of a blur.  There was "schooly bits" in the morning complete with some puzzles and a discovery that I have broken my previous record…. this time I got to week 19 before I got totally out of sync with the Sonlight Instructor guide and gave it up as a bad job.  Maybe by the time we hit "senior school" we will have cracked this whole following instructions thing.  We ahve really enjoyed the Greek Myths book which has been our story book for the last few weeks but now, intead of pushing on to A Year with Miss Agnes, Aprilia wants a return visit to Homer Price, especially the one with the donuts. I’m thinking of recording it to audio CD for her so she can have it as a bedtime book.  In fact I’m thinking of doing that for a few of her favourites and building up a bit of a better library for her, she’s grown out of the faerie story CDs now really and it costs a fortune to keep buying new ones, although dad does his best to remember to buy the Telegraph every time there’s a CD in it.

I also had to build a new desk today.  Duke has revamped his "office" and has lusted after my corner desk for long enough, he was going to get one for himself from Ikea but it appears it’s discontinued so in a moment of weakness I said he could have mine as when we revamp our room I want it a bit more bedroom-like and less office cum storeroom cum general disaster zone (I’ve mentioned this before I’m sure)  So yesterday I emptied not only the desk but all the stuff arround it onto the bed so taht Duke could run off with my desk, thinking we could then assemble Duke’s old one in it’s place and get stuff back off the bed before bedtime.  Didn’t work though.  I made do with an upside down crate so I could finish my essay (which was due yesterday, not today after all!!!) whilst I waited for him to be ready to give me a hand.  This is what it all looked like at this point.  i feel I have to point out that a lot of the stuff there is because, in trying to get his desk area just so, Duke had strewn a lot of the stuff that was previously stacked by his side of teh bed to find specific cables, gizmos and gadgets, but there is a lot of clean washing (usually stacked just by the desk) stray Rainbow books and more books than I have any right to keep on a desk!

By the time the corner desk was out of the bedroom and reassembled in his office and he had fastened various gadgets and gizmos to it, installed all his stuff on it and sat admiring the effect for a short while it was too late to start putting anything together for me.  So we slept on the sofa bed, which claims to be a double and once more we remembered that actually it really isn’t.  So today I put the desk together myself and managed to do it with remarkably few problems besides actually finding the bits (how can one desk spread itself out over so much house?)  I’ll get used to it I guess.  Trouble is, of course, that now he’s back to one job the revamp of the rest of the house is on hold so who knows when I’ll get this.  I sort of liked teh minimalist effect of the up ended basket but it was a bit hard on the joints to sit cross legged for the 2 hours it took to write the essay

Oh, and it was Rainbows, and I couldn’t think what we were supposed to do nor find the book we are using so I declared it a parachute game meeting, took them onto teh field and pretended that I’d planned it taht way.

And then, being as it’s Duke’s birthday, we went out for tea.  

All of which probably explains why today was a bit blured round the edges, looks rather busy now I look on it from this end  

This was a SuperBike weekend at Oulton so I was there on the overnight cover for 3 nights.  Now, usually this involves much sitting about drinking coffee, watching telly and gossiping (beleive me, if you think women can talk, you need to meet a paramedic.  they make me look positively withdrawn a lot of them!) then going to bed "with one ear on the radio" at about midnight once the folks have dissipated from the bar.  We may occaisionally get a scraped knee to deal with but that’s normally it.  This weekend we have had

1 "teenage girl syndrome"  (got all upset and hyperventilated - it seems to be a teenage girl thing)

1 pyrexic, projectile vomiting baby 

3 brawl injuries plus a further 2 not injured in another incident but needed a cuppa and TLC

1 indecent assault

1 spousal assault (who didn’t want to involve teh police but security had already called them and Cheshire has a zero tollerance policy so they refused to cancel the call, took a statement of anyone willing to give one and hauled the offender away for a night to "think about his actions")

1 choking incident which could have been very nasty had someone else not been very quick off the mark - he was at the far end of the site and it would have taken us too long had there not been a Good Samaritan handy

1 lady not looking where she was going and walked into something 

which all adds up to more incidents in one weekend that I have delt with in the other 15 or so sets of nights I’ve done over the past few years.

Then there was Aprilia’s friend from Rainbows who came round for a play date on Saturday when we pitched the "small" tent on the front, discovered taht half of it is missing (pegs, 1 ground sheet, 1 pod) somewhere in the garage.  Sunday she went on the return leg of the play date whilst I did 1/3 of my essay (due in tomorrow so I’d better get on with it!)  Monday she didn’t look too well so we got the sofa bed out and watched the entire MIHigh day thing on CBBC followed by last week’s Dr Who that we had recorded or at least, she watched MIHigh, I slumped next to her and napped most of the day and still managed a very good night’s sleep last night (ah, you apreciate your own bed when you have slept on an examination table for 3 nights!)  Today we JJ-ed in the morning and went for a walk to the park in the afternoon which restored some colour to her very pale face.

So there it is, all caught up again and if you are still with me at the bottom of all this I’m impressed! 

Arpilia has just tidied up her room in record time and without a whisper of complaint.  Why?  She wants to invite a Rainbow friend round to play and aparently her room is always "imacleanate" - I suspect because, being at school all day, she doesn’t spend so much time and energy getting it messy……  Shame her concern doesn’t stretch to the rest of the house as her mum’s bit of the house is also imaculate whereas, well, lets be honest, ours isn’t!  Which does mean taht really I should now be doing teh "crisis cleaning" bit but actually I’m hvaing 5 minutes peace.  I’m hoping parent will drop child off without stopping as once Aprilia is busy I can crack on with latest TMA but I can’t see that happening somehow!

Today we have shopped, including buying her a pair of "croc-a-likes" for £2 off the market which she is ever so happy about.  Then we gardened for several hours and although there wasn’t a lot to show for it we did at least get the first sowing of peas in.  And there was swimming, 2 "rations" of DS time for her (we have a timer, she likes to know when her half hour ration is up!) a visit from the BT engineer who agreed that the fault really was at the junction where it should have been fixed lsat time but wasn’t   and lots of generally just being.  I’m sure some of it was randomly educational.  I’m not sure which bits though!  I suspect I’m a traitor to the "stuctured home ed" brigade just now, but we are really, we are just having a "rest" from it for a while

for those of you who are my friends on Facebook, there are now 2 videos of Aprilia "reporting" on the state of our back yard and on w hy she hates litter.  They are rather comical in that 7 year old trying to sound like a grown up and failing sort of way. 

I just looked something up on the SMart bit of the BBC website for Aprilia and she’s somewhat upset that Mark is no longer on there.  I think she sort of assumed that his pic would stay up there as she sees it as "his" and Kirsten’sTV show not the American bloke and Kirsten’s show.  She doesn’t like the American bloke,no real idea but she doesn’t.  However, she’s currently downstairs covered in paint doing the siluette thing they did several years ago but was re-played last year (though why it’s suddenly come to the surface of her brain we shall never know!!) so at least she’s still being arty!

Amongst other things today we have…..

Chatted under her duvet for hours

Taken delivery of a pair of jeans that fit her (THANK YOU ALISON!!!!!) and look fab

Baked chocolate squidgy cake and frosted it - actually she did taht all by herself with just help reading the instructions, it was for her Brownie Cook badge.

Swum with Harley who won’t be with us swimming now for a while as he’s back at work now (phased return so this week he was only doing mornings, next week he’s back properly I think) which was fun but I feel sad that we won’t have our big daft teddy bear in teh pool any more.  Aprilia adores him and has declared him to be just right for cuddles!

Took Aprilia to Brownies, she passed the cook badge, having offered round the messiest, squidgiest cake in the world to a bunch of small children…. they didn’t ahve time to test her on her craft badge but will do it next time and she took part in a "Brownies Got Talent" thing which she won!!!!!!  Oh boy was she excited!  So now she is in the church talent contest representing Brownies.

Meanwhile I was at Harley’s house whilst he audited the accounts for Rainbows.  Not quite so exicting but hey  ho, that’s done and finished now. 

Got home and she made me a cuppa, now how’s that for domestication then?  And a very good cuppa it was too  

I have Red Cross uniform that FITS!  And is vaguely PRACTICAL!!!  Much as I love my overalls (boiler suit, whatever you want to call it) they are now 5 or 6 years old and showing it.  They sort of hang on me like a lumpy sack and have been repaired more times than I care to think about due to the fact that a) they are badly made so a whole seam fell apart after 2 months of wear and b) the fabric is so thin they snag and rip way too easily when you are playing with racing cars.  Oh, and they are a wretched nuicance when you need the loo as you have to strip off the top half thus risking dangling the sleeves in whatever is on the floor (and at some places I go you just don’t want to do that!!!) and meaning you need to part company with your coat, which is also something you just dont want to do when the local youths have put out the windows in the loo block and there is a huricane blowing through

Not a lot else happened yesterday.  We were "treated" to some spectacular displays of vile temperedness from L at Jungle Jim which was a bit wearing, and had to deal with 2 irate mothers whose kids had been slapped, scratched or pushed by her and who assumed that I was somehow partly responsible for her.  I’m afraid I pointed out that MY child hadn’t laid a hand on their kids so they could leave me out of it.  and yes, I know she wasn’t involved because I saw it happen and Aprilia sort of stood there looking shocked then did her "I’m a bossy thing and I’m going to tell you off for being mean" which is comical to watch but doesn’t really help    I do feel quite sorry for A but I also think that she needs to get a grip on the situation either with meds or with behavioural "therapy" before L is much older and gets totally unmanagable.

But anyway, tis first night back at Rainbows this evening and I have yet to produce, let alone print off the programme and I also need to write a letter about 2 events so I had better get going really! 

Aprilai has turned into a friut bat in an attempt to (how does one put this politely?) "go" without a strain.  So far it’s having no effect at all but hey, she’s eating fruit by the tonne and thus has no space for snacks other than fruit so it’s got to be good!  I’m assuming that a few days of fruit has got to shift things through and get her back to going normally surely?  Not sure I can cope with the expense of feeding a fruit bat for more than a week!!!!  She scofffed a full bag of grapes yesterday and half a punnet of plums (so surely she should ahve been up all night on the loo with that many fruit skins?????)

Anyway, enough of that!

Whre can I post up a video clip for you all to watch that isn’t public?  I’m guessing I can’f flickr it?  She got hold of the camera yesterday and discovered the video feature so we have a clip of her doing a "piece to camera" about our back garden.  It’s very comical but not entirely truthful…. aparently she and her friends have absolutely no fun in our back garden because it is so muddy but it always looks fun when they are out there - maybe they are just good at making the best of a raw deal?

I did the card last night, it’s nothign special, but it’s hand made and that makes all the difference.  So now I need to remember to POST IT TODAY otherwise I’m going to ahve to hand deliver it which I don’t really want to do

"school" is going well, she’s rediscovered Study Dog , finished level 1 and now has level 2 installed and had a good go at that yesterday, shame I didn’t download level 3 before they withdrew teh free versions, it’s good but not good enough to pay that much for the limited use she would get from it.  I am still looking at Education City though, I do think that it would be worth shelling out for some time soon if for no other reasons that it’s on line (so it must be good if you are 7 and a potential Geek!) StringBean already has it (and anything yoru mates have is therefore cool) and I can access "reports" to waft under certain noses.

She also did multiple pages of Miquon - it was more easy stuff, in fact she surprised herself by looking at one four digit sum and "just knowing" the answer.  I am trying to romp her through the bits I know she can do easily really fast to give her a feel for just how much she can actually do to hopefully bost the confidence for when we get to new stuff which she tends to instantly assume she can’t do!

Oh, and I promise to to a nice big Flickr upload later today, I just realised I’ve not been very diligent with Flickr recently and I have some very cute shots for you to giggle at! 

but I do wish I could train Duke to actually LOOK at the package sizes before saying "yes, of course it will fit in my Volvo"  because this is twice now we ahve really, really struggled and ended up with me driving it home with the seat as far forwards as it will go (which means I am seriously up close and personal with the stearing wheel)  Which was sort of excuseable in the past but these days Ikea deliver!  And I dont’ care how much it costs (don’t think it’s too bad though) it HAS to be better than me having to drive with my face 6" off teh airbag and Aprilia having to sit slightly skewed because the item is shoving her carseat over slightly.

Hey ho, Aprilia is now the proud owner of a bright red "Billy" bookcase and we spent today transfering all the books off her floor (shriek!) and all her books from teh bookcases in teh living room into it.  It sort of burped and said "is taht all you have to give me?" whilst the shelves downstiars wept with relief at having huge numbers of books evicted!  She also agreed to part with a few that she has outgrown so we have stuff for charity shop tomorrow.

She celebrated by reading me 3 Cahrlie and Lola books.  Not saying it was fluent but it was reading and it was pausing to work out what a word was and it was a damned sight more interesting than listening to her read desperately boring "learn to read" books.  There really is a light at the end of this tunnel isn’t there?  Just need to break this panic reaction she gets to books with more than 3 lines of text.  It’s not that I don’t understand this panic, I’ve been known to break into a cold sweat at close packed, small typeface text myself, but she does need to learn to deal with it somehow!