Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Some days

Some days my kids are so adorable that every single person who sees them gushes over them.

Today was one of those days :)

We headed to Coles today for a few things and what should have taken 5 minutes in and out took almost an hour. We had elderly people tickling Elijah and a lovely man stopped to chat to the boys and the deli people giving the boys polony. Then when they were playing on the non moving 'give me your money' ride a lovely lady stopped and gushed about how lovely they were behaving and put in $2 for a ride for them.

It's so nice to have other people appreciate how great they are.

Probably helped that they all slept for about half an hour in the car before our shopping stop...

Monday, November 26, 2012

Animals everywhere!

Yesterday we went to Peel Zoo. I have to say, of all the zoos that I have been to I love it the most. There aren't lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) but there is so much to see and do.



Walking in you'll be greeted by the cutest and sweetest cockatoo ever, who says "hello! what you doing?". He will also do a little dance for you. 





If you aren't holding the carpet python as soon as you enter, you're in the bird aviary with parrots and lorikeets and cockatoos and Major Mitchell on your shoulder. Then you're off into the feeding area where you can get up close with kangaroos, llamas, emus, sheep, goats and deer.





If you come at the right time, you can hold a koala or pat a Tasmanian Devil.



Or if you're my kids, you can come just as the male kangaroo is a bit randy and chasing the female around the enclosure. Then you get to see them mate. I couldn't stop laughing and Elijah wanted so desperately to pat them (he had no idea what was going on). 



They also got to see a little joey in it's mummas pouch. Eli was very fond of this one and spent almost 30 minutes patting and cuddling and kissing it. Very sweet.


Today the boys and I went to the library to get some early readers and some non fiction books. Oceans, trees and vikings were the pick of the day. It's handy having a library card. You can have 10 books for 4 weeks, so we can have up to 50 library books at one time. Today I think we took about 30 :)

I started the registration process for home education today! Then I phoned the boys school and let them know. I also let child care know that I will still use them for 1 day a week as I'd cancelled it. I must say, every single person who I've told have been so supportive! Not the reaction I was expecting at all :) 

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Lazy Sunday


This is what I woke up to this morning. 2 little ones in the hammock and Chase pushing it.

My immediate response was to say "Hey boys, one at a time. It's not a swing and be careful getting in and out!!". But I stopped and evaluated the situation.

They are playing nicely together.
They are learning about sharing.
They are practising their balance.
They are working together.
They are having fun.

So instead I sat down and said nothing and said a quiet thank you. My parenting really has grown to a better place this past fortnight.




Saturday, November 24, 2012

Natural learning

Mainstream schooling is just what is 'normal' to me. I'm that parent who's often found saying "I can't wait for the school holidays. I hate school" and is almost always greeted with odd looks from people who think I'm crazy. Who in their right mind would want to have no time to themselves? Who in their right mind would want to have 4 kids around, 24/7? The answer is me.

I miss them while they are at school. I wish for them to come home so we can hang out. I am always wishing they were home so we could just go to the beach and hang out, or go camping midweek, or visit friends during school hours. That's me in a nut shell.

Yes, like all other parents, I feel smothered sometimes. I wish for a hot shower in peace. I wish to go to the toilet alone. I wish they would just sit down quietly and pretend they weren't there. I wish they would stop bickering, and start getting along.

This past 2 weeks my boys have been home. What started as me keeping them home to avoid them spreading gastro (which they didn't catch any way) ended with me re-evaluating everything. Home schooling is something that I've wanted to do for years. I've looked into it numerous times, but haven't had the confidence to jump in and do it. Until now. Monday, we are going to register and I am so excited.

The possibilities are endless! No more waiting until 3pm to go for a swim. No more waiting until the weekend to camp. All those craft ideas I have bookmarked we can do when I'm not completely exhausted at 4pm when we all get home.

Let me tell you a little bit about our past week and how the boys have changed in just a fortnight.

The first part of the week was spent with me sitting back and letting the boys free range. They played a lot of computer games (Reading Eggs, Friv, Minecraft, Cool Math) and watched quite a lot of ABC kids. I heard a lot of bickering about things, more than one mega tantrum involving hitting each other, and a lot of "mum I'm bored". This is normal.

Towards the end of the first week I was seeing changes in the boys. They weren't fighting as much, they were laughing a lot more, and they were even taking turns on the iPad (yes, you heard correctly). Jaidan had taken to involving all of the boys in building with the lego, and anyone who knows my children knows how short a fuse he has with the 2 and 4 year olds.

That weekend we went camping. We explored a new area, saw kangaroos and their joeys, swam, built sandcastles, and laid in the tent listening to the owls hoot. We even stopped on the side of the road to get out and watch a golden eagle soar. By the end of the second day I was in my happy place. Then came the vomit (gastro) and we packed up and left quickly, but lets not put a cloud over the sunshine.


Week 2 was the big change. At the beginning of the week Jaidan and Chase were reading together. They pulled out their sight words and I found Jaidan going through them with Chase, and encouraging him. This actually made me cry to see it, because they always fight. They sat there for around an hour and both had a pile of words. When I asked what they were, Jaidan said he'd asked Chase to try and read every word, even the hard ones. The ones he could read, he got to put in his pile. The ones he couldn't read, Jaidan helped him through them and told him the word and put them in his pile. Jaidan's pile was the practice words.  This was unguided learning through play.

A few days later, I found Jaidan trying to ride his bike. He's almost 9 years old, and we've tried over and over to get him to ride. It's always ended up in big meltdowns, often with him crying hysterically and throwing the bike and each time I can see a little piece of his self confidence has been lost. It always makes me so sad.
To see him trying on his own was amazing. So I pulled out all of our bikes into the street. We rode. Up and down, around and around. The whole time, Chase stayed with Jaidan and encouraged him. "You can do it! I know you can!" he kept on saying. And he did. He rode it all on his own without falling. So we decided we'd cycle to McDonalds and get an ice cream cone to celebrate. Aunty Tammi works there, and we really wanted to share his achievement and make a really big deal out of it. It was so nice but the most amazing part was that he fell, twice. Both time he got back up and kept on going, even when he was crying because it hurt. I was so proud of him, and I still am.


The rest of the week was spend doing various things, none of which were structured learning, and each activity saw the boys getting along better and teaching each other things.

So here we are. It's the weekend and so far today we've done nothing overly exciting. The big ones are helping tidy up and the little ones are playing Mickey Mouse clubhouse on their iPads in bed. What they are learning today, is how to just be. To be a kid, to be part of a family unit, to be brothers, to be helpful, to be kind, and to be free.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Another day, another lesson learnt.

Ask me any day what I think the right way to parent is, and I'll start ranting about how I hate Tizzie Hall, and how smacking is abusive, and how I don't believe in time outs. Which is true. That's how I roll. I believe only in positive and gentle and respectful parenting.

Then ask me how I parent, and I'll admit that it's a work in progress. Coming from a home where there was smacking, time outs and often yelling, it's a hard cycle to break. Sometimes I lose my shit and yell (possibly more often than sometimes?) and occasionally I'll smack a butt as it walks past me. Then there have been the times when I've snapped and there's been screaming, smacking, crying and sometimes even a door slammed or something thrown (oh yes, thrown. Don't ask me about the crockery incident). Immediately, I feel bad. Most of the time I'll calm down and we'll talk about it. Not always, but most of the time. I believe this is the best way to deal with moments where you lose control. It teaches them that it's not okay, but it happens and shows them the correct way to deal with it.

The other day I was so sick and tired of my 8.5 year old's bad attitude. Getting him to be kind and considerate was out of the question, and all I was getting was eye rolling and nastiness. So I sent him to his room.

I don't usually use the room thing unless it's a time out for me. I believe that sending a child who is upset/angry etc to their room doesn't teach them anything. Are they sitting in their room saying "oh I wish I hadn't of hit my brother. I shouldn't have done that and I won't do it again"? No. Chances are they are in there thinking about the 100 ways to get back at their horrible parent who they hate with a passion, or wishing they'd hit him out of sight so they could claim self defence.

This is proof it does not work.





This says "Dik haed". Next to the word mum. Nice.



Was he in his room thinking about why he should drop the bad attitude? Hell no! He was in there thinking how much of a dick head his mother was, clearly. I love how he wrote Ashton's name, because then maybe I'd think Ashton did it and not him. Nice try, but I know what 8 year old hand writing looks like and it's a lot different to 4 year old handwriting.

What he's yet to learn is I prefer the term "bitch". Plenty of life left for him to realise that though.