Vastness, supanovas, quizzes, time telling, money handling, mushrooms growing and not being very well.

Owen decided to make his own breakfast ..this involved cooking oatcakes ( the Staffordshire variety) and making himself a milky coffee. Coffee is a current obsession with Owen , we are going with it, frankly , I am just glad he's drinking something without me nagging him.

He's very vocal, even more than usual and is speaking so fast, I have to keep asking him to repeat himself. He's talking about the universe sandbox game on the PC, he wants to learn more about the 'the cosmos Mum' and 'supanovas'...I try to look intelligent and not to sing and Oasis song.

So we do some research...

He watches some videos about it whilst I make some bread...he finds a supernova.

More reading and watching

And a bit of work on Chemistry

And a mooch around physics for the heck of it...

He then went to experiment on the Universe application on the PC.

Sam did some reading, he has a new book about twins on his Kindle, then he wanted to do some more practice on his time telling skills. I love how his little face screws up in concentration when he's working it out.

We also downloaded a quiz app where you can choose the subjects and it sets some questions. Sam answered as many questions as he could on food and African animals. I wasnt surprised about his knowledge because I know he studies nature a great deal and is fascinated by wildlife...but his delight at being able to answer so many right, especially as it was timed ( which can be stressful for him), was delightful to see.

Later Blokey took them to Jujitsu class. Owen was over tired when they got back and needed cuddles as he was a little teary...it's taken ages to get both of them settled.

Owen made his breakfast again, whilst Sam and I worked together. We did some money work, researched products online that Sam wanted to budget for and ordered the one he finalised on.

Following on from that Sam wanted to do some more on Khan academy and set me tasks. This used to bother me, I wrongly assumed I was doing all the work. I now realise this is his way of coping with new skills. He sits by me and watches, I talk as I go, explaining how I work things out. A couple of times he pointed out an error I had made and then took over. He enjoying himself so much he sat there for an hour going through stuff with me. He's very confident on time telling now it's taken just over a week of him working solidly and because he wanted to do it, he has, quickly, beautifully and efficiently.

He looked at some other subjects and had a go at new problems etc.

He earned enough points to upgrade his avatar, so spent some time working out which one he preferred and how to change it.

After a while Owen asked for me to work with him but he still seems under the weather in himself, so we sang and hugged in between tasks. A new maths problem was learnt and we played some Uno, chatted and bonded. He wanted to do some money work and chores because he's seen a special offer...he didn't quite have enough money, so worked out what chores to do to make up the shortfall.

Everyone is very lack lustre today, Sam is looking very unwell and his peak flow is dropping. He is uncharacteristically quiet and I don't like his colour. I explain we may have to start a course of steroids if the salbutamol doesn't being his peak flow rate up. Both boys are very teary and I suggest a quiet day playing board games and watching films. 

Sam still insists on doing more work on his time telling lessons .

We all play Uno and Owen informs me ( quite rightly) that I have told them some of the rules wrong. He reads through the instructions and explains the error of my ways.

Sam plots his next move...I swear the colour seemed to be draining out of him as the morning went on.

Owen decided to play with his friends on the home ed servers but Sam wanted cuddles and chats, so we snuggled the sofa. 

Next day Sam is no better and we start his steroids, I hope we can keep him home and manage till the GP practice opens in Monday ..fingers crossed. Steroids aren't ideal but I am hoping he picks up soon.

Owen listens to music and plays games with me and Sam whilst Blokey fixes a special light switch in Owens room. It's one we can set to go for after a certain time, Owen can over ride it every hour but we are hoping it will mean he doesn't leave it on quite so often. He's started switching the light on in his sleep and it's been upsetting him.

The "horror" of having the electricity off is quite stressful for the children 😂😂 but I manage to keep them occupied so Blokey can crack on. 

Sam got the Buy It Right game for us to play and had his first stint at being the banker. It's quite a lot to take on and remember your place in the game. Blokey and I reminded him when he forgot what he was doing...which is hard for him on a good day, but pumped full of steroids was more of a tall order. He did really well but 'I may not do banking next time we play ..I was busy all the time!'.

Sam was very upset to miss his swimming session today, he's still poorly and the steroids haven't kicked in fully yet. I cheer him up with cuddles and showing him our mushroom growing kit.

'Lets do it mum!' ..so we get to work.

I explain that the White 'fur' inside is the mushroom spores..

Sam: is it called mycelium mum?..they have that in Minecraft . 

I tell him he is absolutely correct and he looks incredibly pleased. We need to soak the growing compound and mycelium overnight, so he helps me get it prepared.

And we are ready to grow..Sam has taken responsibility for spraying the mushrooms daily..I just have to remind him ... Read...I put a reminder on my iPad to remind me, to remind him 😜

Bike rides to the park, the eye of the storm, resting, birthday parties, small claims, the cosmos and Wildlife

After the wild weather in the night, the morning got off to a brighter start. We had kite flying or bike riding on our list. Since the wind had dropped considerably, we decided bikes were the order of the day.

There was the inevitable scrum for the bikes and both boys lost their tempers with each other. Once that was sorted, we headed off to the post office, got some cash and cards we needed for later in the week. On to the park for a play and then a ride out of the village down the lanes. 

Owen going all 'ommmm' on me.

I always feel nervous about going on the roads out of the village, today was no exception. There is a lot of construction work going on locally, due to road/rail 'improvements' a mile or two away. This means many more lorries coming up the narrow lanes.

It was hairy..to be fair 99% are really brilliant and careful when they see us..but one driver nearly ran us off the road and Sam got understandably concerned and wanted to turn back after a few miles. I had to agree with him. He's extra nervous since being knocked off, when someone failed to stop at a junction at our old place..this incident didnt help much.

We cover a few miles and shouted hello to the people we passed...'nice dog!' was called to a few walkers and people smile as we go by.

Maths today, which means Khan academy. Sam wanted to do some more work on time telling..he's making connections between rival he different phrases like 15 mins past and quarter past now too.

Owen worked on absolute values and answering maths questions from a sentence. He finds these things annoying and has to be reminded to read all of the 'story' so that he knows what they are actually asking him. It's mad really, if they just asked the question out right he would have it in a flash...but the ASD part of him finds it hard to pick apart all the red herrings in sentence style questions.

'Why don't they just SAY that mum?!' He insists on seeing the session to the end and gets into the swing of it a bit towards the end..it just reminds me about how hard he has to work to understand certain dialogues.

I also taught him how to play Majong and he was rather hooked on it.

 

I needed to rest this afternoon, so the boys played on the home education server with friends, whilst I had a lie down. Suddenly the wind got up and a tremendous storm started. It felt like the roof would lift off and freaked both dogs and children out. Blokey and the children battled the bad weather to get to jujitsu but it was still howling a gale all evening.

Sam struggled to settle to sleep and came down asking us to 'switch the wind off please!'.

The next morning, Sam was up early and came outside to assess the 'damage'. There were many leaves and twigs all over the garden, so he followed me round whilst I swept them up and we discussed the benefits of leaf mulch. We then played with Shadow and did some training. 

Sam was in 'full on mode' now..think squirrel on speed..so I was doing my best to slow him down. I hadn't even had my breakfast yet and he was pushing things on at warp factor. It didn't help that I was feeling terribly sick. I explained I needed to do my treatment and then we could move on to the next thing. Of course Sam being Sam, he had forgotten in five minutes and was doing a laps around me as I used my gammercore and firing rapid questions ( which he didn't need answers for) at me the whole time. I take a deep breathe and try to swallow my anti sickness meds...it's still only 7:30. It's like someone filled him with mints and Coke. He's made so much racket Owen has come down to complain about the noise.

I get Sam writing birthday cards and he settles (as much as he is able) into some maths work. I try and get Owen to decide on breakfast ...it takes some time and he's grouchy and avoidant ..apparently Sam is 'wrong'....I head that off at the pass and see Owens mouth settle into a firm line *sigh*.

We are off to see friends this afternoon, and there is a birthday theme because it's our twin friends birthdays this week. Sam does a good job on their cards.

Since writing is a particularly hard thing for him, it's good to see an improvement and that he's taking pride in his achievements.

Owen finally finishes his breakfast and works on his maths. It's a new lesson and he winces at the thought of learning a new method...we go through it together and I help explain the stages he needs to follow. By the fifth one it's starting to click with him and he takes over and brightens considerably.

Afterwards he writes his friends cards really nicely 'don't watch Mum'. I am still feeling really poorly but I am hoping that I can get us to our friends house later for the party. Since leaving the house causes them stress , I have scheduled in free play for the rest of the morning to keep anxiety to the minimum.

Owen hugs me and says 'sorry I was grumpy mum' and goes off to play.

I carry on throwing up for most of the morning..it's been a miserable time and the pain in my head has me rocking and crying in private away from the children's eyes. I throw every med I have at it because I don't want to let them or our friends down today.

Thankfully I pick up enough to get us out the house for a couple of hours. We have a good time, even though I am aware I am lousy company again. I am very grateful people put up with me.

They are all such an amazing bunch of children ..*sighs happily* I get home and collapse in a heap. I thank the God of freezers for the defrosted home cooked meal I had the foresight to get out because it means Blokey has a hot meal when he gets home...sadly I can't face any food.

There's not much to write today..I am so poorly. Friends keep in touch via text to check on me. I feel incredibly low in spirit ..the pain just won't let up and I wonder how much more I can take. Despite this the boys work on their maths and are really helpful at meal times and generally keep themselves gainfully occupied. In the main I pace the house, use my meds and curse mentally at the crapness of today.

Blokey is off work today as he has to be in court ...we are perusing a small claim ( it's not small to us). The boys are very interested in the process and Blokey takes time to explain what we have to do. Owen is very keen to come along...we suspect he wants to intimidate the people who owe us money.

Blokey dons his suit and the boys find this hilarious..I faff about with instructions and we check his notes..I strongly suspect I am not helping..my mental functioning leaves a lot to be desired and I am so glad I am not expected to attend.

When Blokey leaves Sam spends ages working on his time telling skills...he can actually do it more accurately than me right now..he beams with pleasure at his achievements and works solidly, asking for more and more problems to solve. He can even do it with an unlabelled clock but due to the writing process being hard , he checks his number chart to make sure he's writing them in correctly.

Owen and I try and work on simplifying fractions,we both scratch our heads over this as they are getting more complicated as we progress. Our hearts really aren't in it today so we look at absolute values instead for a while. 

Owen admits he can't get his head round maths 'like this..and what actually do I need these fractions for anyway?' ..I do agree with him but explain about exams..but again, if it's not something he needs at the moment why push him into boredom with it? It's clearly not the right time ( I wonder if there will be one but I have been surprised before). 

'I want to look at cosmology Mum' ...so that's what we do. 

We chuckle at the scale of our world and 'puny people' compared to the universe.

Owen: Wow Mum, it's very hard to grasp isn't it...? He doesn't the sign with this hands to express 'mind blown '...

' and you know what? When you see how insignificant we are in the universe. It really does wonder why we are bothering to learn about fractions at all!' He rolls his eyes dramatically and I laugh.

Me: with fractions it's all just about sharing cake and pizza out really isn't it? After that ..

Owen: yeah..just numbers..we are all just numbers...he chuckles ...and I will leave you with that bombshell Mum.

I have been laid up with shingles this weekend , just a consequence of being run down etc. Blokeys is helping out but after 1 day in bed resting,  I get totally stir crazy and we decide we will visit the Peak Wildlife Park. We have been in the past but it's changed hands and was rescued from the brink of closure last year, so we didint quite know what to expect.

Despite wrapping up warm..it was FREEEZING on the moors but we had a fab time. We were the only people to brave the cold, so it was us and the staff. It was such fun, we got to talk for long periods to the keepers and they asked us if we wanted to help feed some of the animals..which we did. We had a  rare opportunity to find out a lot more about the various personalities of the creatures.

This is Alan..he has recently developed a strange interest in trousers.

We fed Wallabies and Capybara 

Got to stroke the Wallaby's , who were timid but inquisitive.

Learnt all about the penguins and the local heron that steals their left overs ...we were treated to him swooping overhead after we watched the Penguins dive for their dinner.

More animals

Running around, laughing and taking photos:

 The boys had a wonderful and educating time...even if it did take us ages to warm up afterwards. 

Learning works, Remembrance Day, the fair and a trip to Nanny and Grandads

We attended the Into Film Festival today and thoroughly enjoyed it. Sam did his usual bombing around up and down, but I managed to settle him with the aide of a blanket. He struggled with the amount of noise and we talked about ear defenders in the future. I ordered a pair for him..but it's possible he won't wear them lol.

Owen went on learning works and did some engineering on Cargo Bridge...'do you think this one with hold mum?'

Sam read his book for a while , then had a crack at engineering himself.

They then played this

Which is done so energetically, it counts as PE amongst other things.

They were blurs.

They also looked at this game...as they tell me..'it's balancing, planning and time management skills'..that's me told.

We then play Uno and snap...followed by self directed play after lunch ( Minecraft with friends...is there anything else) .

We tied tacos for our evening meal...the boys weren't keen on the spicy mince but enjoyed the chicken strips I had done ( just in case), so at least they were all set up for their jujitsu lesson.

It's Remeberance Day, we have some literature from the British Legion to look at. The whole thing stirs up many, many questions about war. Good a valid questions, some I can't answer fully and i push my personal feelings aside to try and give fair responses so the boys can make their own decisions. 

We watch a documentary on the Battle of the Somme and look at more modern day conflicts and how soldiers are affected by it. Sobering stuff and the boys cope admirably with the subject matter. I have had this literature for some time now, but didn't feel they were quite ready before...especially Sam, who takes after his mum in the emotional response stakes. I still shed a few quite tears as we watch.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-one/battles-of-world-war-one/the-battle-of-the-somme/

Later we play chess 

They both beat me as is usual now ...they do so with utter glee...*chuckles*

We are battling high anxiety levels , especially with Owen at the moment..so it's a question of fitting in what we can , when we can. His self esteem is all over the place and it is a full time job trying to keep ahead of the game, make sure Sam gets the attention he needs and that things don't completely decend into chaos.

We attempted and failed at various activities this week, due to the above. We did however manage to play games together, watch wildlife programmes and go to jujitsu . 

Off we go to a friends house to play for the afternoon...the morning was hellish. The bottom line was Owen decided his friend was going to die, because said friend had swallowed some gum..he had it in his head that death was imminent ..it was a long conversation, it took awhile to get there and before we did he had three meltdowns that I couldn't fathom...and breathe.

Once in the car, calm and on the way, both children perked up and we had a fab afternoon catching up. On the way home Owen sang all the way back and Sam and I laughed at a workman breakdancing by the roadworks.

The next day we visited Nanny and Grandad and they children stayed there , whilst I went to my neuro appointment. The neuro wants to help more, as the team can see that my pain levels, attacks are coming thick and fast. Also during the night time again..I look and feel exhausted. I was shocked at how badly it's affecting me as I walked the short distance from my in laws to the hospital...I have to stop three times to rest and struggle with the noise and nausea.

We also did our annual trip to Donnington Fair. I held the coats, Blokey held me up..often..I was so poorly but glad I made it, as it's a family tradition in its 5th year and the children don ear defenders and love the rides. I am completely done in when we get home.

The next day I can't go to swimming, as I am still feeling really unwell..so Blokey takes the children on his own.