Saturday
We have been out most of the day..a trip to the sawmill..which was closed for lunch. Then on to the DIY shoppe..but we went the back roads, which meandered us in a lovely spring time , enchanted woods fashion.
We realised we were by a nice pub we used to go to, that has a restaurant in railway carriages and decided to stop for lunch.
It was great fun and we were all full as eggs when we came out.
On to the DIY place where we grabbed outdoor paint, compost, a few plants and looked at Arbours and seating.
Off to Maplins next. Our old hard drive decided to fail when Blokey tried to build it into the new PC ( he was gutted). Down the road is a fab coal fired bakery, but sadly it had already closed when we arrived.
Back to the Sawmill and we found the perfect seat at a very good price. We also took a shine to the guy running the place and he showed us round the old buildings and talked about its history when we expressed and interest. After offering us a discount, he followed us home with the seat/arbor in his pick up and it's now in our garden..*happy dance* he also gave a delighted Sam a bird box for free and explained all about making sure it faced South . Apparently the extra warmth can bring the chicks to flight quicker and mean you may be fortunate to get a second brood. Sam's face as he was listening was rapt..he loves his birds.
I was looking for Sam later and found him here, looking very happy.
We are all still really full from lunch so are having sandwiches in front of Dr Who later... I hope he doesn't mind ;-)
Sunday
The men were up early for swimming and plotting in a giggle fashion. I assume it's Mother's Day stuff. There is a great deal of winking and gurning. Whilst they are out, I play with the dogs outside and get the weeks bread on the go.
They all came back in foul moods after braving the shops and I tried really hard not to laugh at their grumpy faces. I mean bless them..they hate going to the shops and it was all for my benefit, which makes it a bit special .
Woke up without a headache , which is wonderful, but it's getting all shadowy again now. I get an attack at this time of day ( 9 am) every day and another biggie round 3 pm. The term shadowing is when you have pain around your affected side that usually signals an attack coming. With the new meds I am getting more shadowing without major break throughs. I am still getting up to eight attacks a day but quite a few of them are not full blown...think 'Clusterlite'. I am starting to have issues with side effects now so am debating staying on the current dose. I know they really want to 'turn off' all the attacks and keep increasing the meds but I honestly don't know if I want to keep going. I always knew this would be a huge dilemma for me. Fact is there's a sort of odd reasoning that 'I know where I am' with the attacks and the introvert in me hates all the appointments and fighting over the treatment plan stuff. That side of managing the treatment really ramps up my anxiety and makes me want to draw the curtains and hide.
Anyhooooo........I did some baking, was instructed to sit quiet and dinner would be served at 5-5:30... It was and it was delicious. Had a couple of glasses of fizz..which I enjoyed but it woke beastie up..boo hiss.
We sat and watched Masterchef together and the boys made me smile with their added commentaries. We were incredibly enamoured by the gentle man with who resembled a Black and White movie villain ...epic moustashe..Blokey is contemplating a copy cat restyling.
Monday
I had a lot of chores, *shudder*,paperwork, *bigger shudder* and wanted to look at suitable resources for the day ahead. So I got in with that whilst the boys played with a friend online, building etc.
After lunch we used some of the 'youcubed' activities and resources for some number work. I am trying to introduce the concept of multiplication, which has proved hard in the past. We played a brilliant game called 'how close to 100'.
The boys really enjoyed it and grasped the 'lots of' and then moved on to seeing it as 'times'..break through. We spent some time talking about the concept of 1x another number,which Sam was struggling to understand. Using the grid as a visual tool he worked it out. I can remember having exactly the same confusion about this myself when younger, so it was nice for him to be able to see how it worked. They enjoyed the game and I quickly had to copy some more sheets as they wanted to try again.
http://youcubed.stanford.edu/category/teaching-ideas/number-sense/
I had planned on looking at some science videos afterwards but both boys wanted a bike ride , so we did that instead. It was cold but dry and we explored the developments on the estate, which houses were sold and finished off having races up and down the lanes.
When we came back Owen wanted to play Top Trumps, so we used our creatures of the deep packs and he laughed every time I cringed at the picture of the angler fish. The freak is high with that fish. *aarrrghh*
The evening was spent eating curry ( three of us) and Owen having cheese crackers and fruit. After which we played 2dots ( ok I admit I maybe a little addicted to this) and watch Christopher Ecclestone in Dr Who.
Tuesday
Woke up feeling pretty yucky, Owen slept in and Sam decided he wanted to 'do some mopping'. Sam then spent some time on Minecraft and working out how many jobs he would have to do to make £40. Then whilst Owen ate breakfast Sam wanted to work out, how much £7 per week would work out at over a year. There was then a long discussion about if that was per day..and they tried to convince me that this is what I should be giving them. Me: Nice one boys, but no cigar.
Boys: it was worth a try though?
We talked about the pros and cons of getting another PC and where it could be stored. This brought up a few issues and the children decided this could all be settled with a contract about usage and sharing. This has worked well in the past so I will talk to Blokey about making this happen.
After lunch we worked on some coding, played in the garden with the dogs and did lots of chatting about EVERYTHING. Back indoors it was Top Trumps, more coding, more strategy with Dots, then an exhausting round of boxing, golf and tennis on the Wii.
Owen enjoyed this but completed it easily, so I will look at something more involved for him to have a try at. This is listed as age range 4-8 but it's a little easy for most savvy 8 yr olds I know but a good taster into building a website as it's very basic.
CodeQuest - Learn how to Code on a Magical Quest with Games by Codarica Inc
https://appsto.re/gb/99y12.i
Snack time and I was relieved when they requested the film UP, so I could grab a cuppa....we are nearly at the bit that makes me cry EVERYTIME. Sniff...we are there, I am blubbing and they are laughing at me.
I look across at Shadow...I think we wore him out?
Sam did some pictures and we discussed why we think Pixar are FAB.
Wednesday
Owen is always tired after jujitsu so has had a lie in. Sam and I looked at a puzzle book from the library and some creatures from the deep statistics.
Later Owen and I took a look at coding with Code Academy, had a look at how to build a website moonfruit.co.uk.
It was lovely outside so I spent some time doing jobs in the garden and started painting one of my planters...Shadow was very interested in what I was doing,so it proved difficult to carry on and I abandoned the job with only one side completed. He then chased me round whilst I swept the paving stones.
After lunch Sam and I played with the dogs outside and he helped me put the water butt back and move some bits and pieces around. Owen was still struggling with his mood but I managed to get him engaged in some sports activities and we looked at our animal books. His mood picked up a bit after that and he joined in a jogging game in the wii with Sam till he was tired. He then had a little meltdown but after some chatting he decided he wanted to play Cars Operation. We had a really happy hour on that whilst Sam the work out ninja did yoga, star jumps and press ups in the background. I often wish I had half his stamina.
Some 'demand' issues have been rearing their head again in recent weeks, it always catches me out. This always comes as a timely reminder that, when I am ill myself, I may not be phrasing things as carefully as I could be. I am noticing heels being dug firmly in on even the smallest request and that is why I am sitting reading up on strategies. Reminding myself I need to back off and trust the children to do what they need to do....without me fussing and interfering.
Even when you are aware of issues, it's easy to take your eye off the ball and I am very tired, i find I am making more work for us all, instead of less. However, I also realise that unless I deal with these issues correctly, we are heading for a non productive, stressful, shit storm of frustration (technical term). So I need to step back, remember what worked and implement it like a drowning woman scrabbling for buoyancy aide. It helped that a friend posted a useful article on PDA today, you could have seen the lightbulb ping above my head as I went....'oh yeah..that'. Thanks L for doing that.
This is why I love Facebook, yes it's a distraction but it also puts me in touch with a wealth of people , people who have changed our lives for the better and information and ideas that have helped me immensely.
Oh and the car is very poorly...sounds expensive poorly too..booooo.
Thursday
3 am wake up call with the beastie..darn him...serves me right for thinking..'oh no night time attacks for two weeks' . Couldn't get back to sleep after so did more reading on PDA..oh...more and more interesting and it's explaining a lot of what happens here. On reading some of the posts I am once again relieved the children aren't in school.
http://understandingpda.com/strategies-that-do-work-for-mollie-and-strategies-that-dont/
I am really tired after a tough night and the boys are happy to amuse themselves whilst I do more research. During the day the children bring me various things to do together and the whole house ticks along in harmony. Sam and I have a kick about with the football. That means I wince at getting smacked in the face, as he misjudges the force of his kicks...at least I think that's what it is *eek*. We play with the dogs and water the plants...that means I get squirted in the face and he laughs. There is some science stuff to do with the eclipse and camera obscurer's tomorrow and we look at wildlife facts and figures, then more Top Trumps.
Friday
Owen gets up early for the eclipse. Read: Owen gets up early to ask me a million questions about whether he will actually watch the eclipse and whether he is going to experiment with going blind or not. Sam is already up and concerned about the cloud coverage. I explain that even if we can't use our Pinhole cameras to get an image, it will still be worth observing what happens , as it will go stormy looking and the birds may all go quiet.
We all pile outside with our stuff and Sam is instantly terrified of going blind. It takes ages to persuade Sam that, just standing in the garden with his eyes open,will not make him lose his sight. Owen and I watched as he bumps off the planters like a human pinball...not only is he insisting that he have them shut, he is also covering them with his hands.
We get a good image of the eclipse but the boys were slightly disappointed that the UK isn't plunged into complete darkness...bad move Moon, they were expecting full gothic horror. They went on to search more about the different types of eclipse and look at photos and reports from around the UK
http://www.meteorwatch.org/solar-eclipse-march-20th-2015-easy-guide/
Over the weekend Blokey built and installed the extra PC we discussed, so that the boys can both access one independently. Owen was very excited about all this and once it was in place, took time to personalise the new one how he liked it.
As I wasn't feeling too well over the weekend, Blokey took them to the swimming baths. I was hesitant because it wasn't their normal swim session and had reservations over him taking them to the inflatable assault course session.
There was no need, I was happily proved wrong and both boys enjoyed themselves and came back tired. Sam struggled a bit with it being so busy and noisy, so he is going to have a think about whether he wants to have another go. Owen definitely would like to do it again, it's a reminder about how far he has travelled.
No comments:
Post a Comment