Wedding the Sprurd and Poing Gublic

Have talked to 3 different people today about Home Ed - until now I have really resisted any evangelizing, but HE life is feeling so good and so right at the moment that I kind of let it spill out in some social situations. At least I didn't try and get anyone to eat vegan products and use public transport... or did I?

The day started oh-so-early at something before 8 that I don't normally view as daytime. We had to get into town by 10, to attend a free trial session of a quasi-tumbletots type group that is just starting locally. But before we could go I also had to tidy and hoover as we would be meeting a friend with her two children at the station and coming back home with them. The younger of the two is 9 months old and puts things in his mouth, so I had to do a bit of looking at the room from his point of view and trying to remember safety precautions for that age. Just about managed it and made it to the session only 5 minutes late.

The session was OK - F was far and away the tallest/oldest, but that didn't seem to bother her, and she did enjoy it and did a lot of balancing, so I think we will go regularly, at least for one term. I had hoped there would be more Gymboree-type large equipment, trestles and beams and slides etc. This was very much the low balance stuff, sticks with ribbons, beanbags for throwing, hoops, balls and the dear old fave, the parachute. As I say, we will do one term, particularly as our neighbour, lovely laid-back Mandy was there with her nearly 2-yr old twins, who were having a ball. So a bit of singing and group stuff and some free play with the equipment and there we were.

Then we went to the station and met Anya, with Louis (just 4) and Ian (9 mths), to all walk back to our house in the rain. Anya is having a hard time at the moment I think, and Louis seemed kind of sulky and cross and glared at me a lot, then when I rather foolishly complimented him on the quality of glare he was perfecting, he burst into tears. I can't help wondering whether he's developed this glare as a defence at playschool, as his verbal skills seem delayed - in fact his speech seems less confident than last time we saw them. Ian was very cute and reminded me of F at that age in terms of his character - he really wants to be moving and standing and jumping and doing stuff in the world. Active and so interested in everything. Tiring though, I do know.

I did some lunch for us all and the children sort of played OK, finding a mutual interest in horses - although Louis had proper farm model ones and F contributed a variety of pinky purple plastic types. They both seemed not to mind this dichotomy though, which was good, and inspected each others' livestock with serious expressions. Anya told me a friend of hers is considering HE, as she and her family hope to travel over the next few years and that would be their best option. Anya then said that this friend had asked her whether she would consider it, and she had said she was waiting to see how I got on, before deciding! She was partly just being flippant but I think there was some truth in there. So I said that it was going really well and was much easier than I had thought and actually, I would thoroughly and highly recommend it. We didn't get a chance to discuss it further then and there, as children's immediate needs arose and I think she would want to go home and ponder a bit anyway.

Then Mandy from over the road, who had been at pseudo-tumbletots earlier, rang, and I ended up inviting her and the twins over. They came over and stayed a little after Anya left in the late afternoon (Music and Movement was cancelled this week). The twins are at an exciting stage, extremely tiring, but really good fun. Mandy is one of the most relaxed and relaxing people I know, really so easy to chat with and good sense of humour too. Every time we see each other we both intend to do so more often. This time I noticed F interacting with the twins more, now that they are getting a bit more verbal and can do a bit more. She was also very good with baby Ian, letting him play with her hair and smiling and giggling with him, very nicely.

While this social excitement was all going on, the health visitor rang and asked how things were going so I gave her a full run-down of what F has been up to lately. She is nice and very pro-HE, quite envious of the opportunity we have. I went into my second 'What I am mainly loving about HE this month' spiel of the day, repeated later for Mandy's benefit as a final encore.

At some point, F also fitted in some XBox, some interesting drawings, a discussion of how a valve in a sippy cup works, and a bit of a word game based on Spoonerisms, where we started with trants and pousers and went on to humpets and crunny and ended up with bumpets and bunny and flumpets and flunny and grumpets and grunny.
Which is where the day went.