A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Twists and turns

Friday, 8 February 2008

Twists and turns

I started this morning early as I got up to see to Beauty.I had a cuppa and managed a couple of blogs before Milly came down.It is her best friends Birthday and she wanted to phone her before she went off to school so she could sing happy birthday.She couldn't sleep last night and came down a couple of times complaining of being unnwell so it was about 10.15 before she got off to sleep.I had expected her to be a tad grumpy but she was just so happy and excited for Amy.

We started off the morning with the intention of getting the tie dye t'shirt done and to work through some science experiments.We sat at the table and Milly decided she just wanted to do a picture of Sorrel and I read The Hunger as she drew. She then decided that she would collate all her Sorrel info that she had produced and we ended up some hours later with a folder of work she and I did on the PC containing certificates of passage through London,certificates to verify who she was,paperwork to show she was now plague free,all done with official royal stamps and in different fonts, some money, I could not find a site to show examples of old paper money so we made some up and drew the kings head on, she made a badge for Sorrel to wear to let others know she was plague free and we sealed some of the important papers with a wax seal.All the time we were chatting and amongst many other things, she was telling me bits about Charles the second.

As we were on the computer we noticed in the documents a story we started ages ago and added a little to it and the printed,photographed and blogged it then laminated it to finish.Pictures and the story are here She also answered some comments she had on her blog and did it all herself with no help for spelling and was not unhappy even though she knew she had made some mistakes so her confidence is really high .I love to listen to her sounding out the words and then looking at the word she has come up with and can see is not right and she will try again.

Before lunch it was time for us both to have a bath and wash hair so I got in first whilst she played on the landing and we chatted about all sorts of things.We discussed slaves and babies being born and skin to skin contact with Mummy amongst other topics.I never cease to be amazed at the twists and turns a conversation can take,a little like our day had done.

After lunch we had a couple of games of cards and I finished reading The Hunger whilst she pottered on the PC .I cried at the end of the book,I cried at The voyage on the Titanicwhen we read that a while ago as well,I am particularly sensitive it seems.

A cuddle and reading to Al before getting ready to go to her best friends house for a play and tea.I walked her round to meet her off the school bus and met a friend I hadn't seen for a while who also has ME and she told me of a lymphatic drainage massage treatment she had been on and how she is bounding with energy. It is something I am going to look into as bounding sounds good to me!!!!

2 comments:

Stacie said...: I read and commented on Emily's blog today. What a great story. I sometimes wish I had an art and writing-loving daughter instead of a math and computer-loving son. It is at times difficult since we have very few interests in common. But I know he has stretched me and widened my interests, and I'm thankful for that.

What is ME? I see in your profile you have CFS. Is that cystic fibrosis? How does it affect your health?; 8 February 2008 at 23:05
Lynn said...: Hi Stacie,
Thank you for checking out Emily's blog.She is working hard at it and absolutely loves it when she see's new comments.
CFS stands for chronic fatigue syndrome and ME stands for myalgo enchephomylitis( think this is spelt right!!)They are one and the same thing really .The illness causes fatigue that is out of proportion to the effort exerted and my body kind of shuts down physically and mentally and emotionally.In a nutshell and simplistically I feel as though I have the flu all the time with aches and pains and extreme lethargy.Thats on a good day HaHa.
I cope quite well as I have learnt to pace myself so as not to get over tired.
I loved the story on your blog about the lego and I can see as time goes on you will both find even more common groundxx; 8 February 2008 at 23:19

This is me.....

There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be and don't try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.” Stacey Charter.

Why we Home educate

( Slightly edited from a blog post I did when we started out) In the end the actual decision to take Emily out only took a matter of days but before that it had been around a year and a half of talking about ti and reading books, Free range education by Terri Dowty, Educating your child at home by Jane Lowe and Alan Thomas were two that had a real impact for different reasons. Free range education has lots of examples of real life home educators and I think I can say that it was this one that convinced me the most that we could do it. We are two very average people ,neither of us left school with many qualifications, we went on to do quite well in our chosen professions and had no need to think about the education system at all until Emily came along.

I knew about home education and when Emily was born considered it as an optionbut always felt my lack of education would be a problem and that I wouldn't be capable of providing her with what she would need.Looking back with hindsight it is easy to see how wrong I was!!

School never really suited Emily......After the nursery year at a very highly rated, high achieving school we knew that particular School wasn't for us and took her out. We enrolled her in a lovely village school with only 70 children in the whole school .The ethos of the school was totally different, the children didn't wear uniforms and there was much more emphasis on the children being individuals.The head was a sensitive and principled man who wanted the best for the children. We thought we had struck gold.Over the reception and year 1 Emily gained confidence and really started to bloom. It was at this time she was diagnosed with dyspraxia( we had had to go down the diagnosis route as our observations of Emily's difficulties were not enough to enable the teachers to tailor things so she was helped and given less work in class) but she managed quite well in the more relaxed play orientated early years.Year 2 with more emphasis on academic activities got progressively harder for her. She is very sensitive and it wasn't just the academic side it was the embarassment of having to put her hand up for the toilet,seeing others being told off and worrying in case she did something wrong and got the same treatment, panicking because she couldn't do the work and the teacher never had time to sit with her (alot of this did not come out until she had left school) her behaviour at home became worse and worse she was so angry and obviously stressed . At this time we began to seriously consider taking her out but held back because of my lack of confidence in my ability to provide her with an adequate education ,my health being so poor was also a major stumbling block.

Then in year three it became blatantly obvious that something needed to change .She was struggling on all levels and we couldn't allow the school system to damage our daughter anymore.She became ill with a bug that was doing the rounds and she was off for two weeks , during that time I had a conversation with a friend who home educates her two children and I was so upset I couldn't make a decision and she said just go with whats in your heart and that really helped me to shift my thinking and stop worrying about what I couldn't give her and focus on what I could give her.

We never sent her back.I still get emotional when I think of that time , the look on Emily's face when we told her she would never have to go back to school was priceless,the immense sense of relief that we were off the treadmill of school life and the excitement of the time ahead and to be honest the fear of the unknown......

So here we are four years on and a lot of reading and researching later I feel comfortable with what we are doing . The changes that have happened so far have been helped along the way by the many wonderful blogs out there.They are so varied and there are so many different approaches , I have found ones that I can identify with and have read a lot of archive material that has been written in each and found answers to so many of the questions I have had that they have helped me to sort out what will work best for us .As much as I wish we had done this earlier and saved Emily from the distress that she went through I do believe things happen for a reason and that the time was right for us to take her out and that looking on the bright side one of the benefits is that at least she has had a taste of school and now we all know without a doubt that it is not for us !!!!

It is very liberating to be making decisions based on what works best for us as a family and not what society expects.

Let your child be a child.

No child was ever spoiled by too much love.

Be authentic with your child.

Listen openly to your child’s needs.

Believe in your child’s good intentions.

Find the humour.

Look past the behaviour… what is your child feeling?

Have fun with your child today!

“There is no reason why we cannot say ‘No’ to children in just as kind a way as we say ‘Yes’.” - John Holt

“Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers

“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” - Oscar Wilde

Children thrive in a peaceful and loving environment.

A child needs love most when things go wrong.

Children reflect the treatment they receive.

A few qoutes I like....

Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in, broadside, thouroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly shouting, 'WOW'.... Beth Moore

The perpetual testing of public school children is like a gardener constantly pulling his plants up by the roots to see if they are growing....(unknown)

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instuction...Helen Kellers teacher

I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand...Confusious