A LIFE WORTH LIVING....: Snuggles in the snow.

Monday, 24 March 2008

Snuggles in the snow.

SNOW!!!!! couldn't resist going out each time there was a flurry....

Who does she take after?????

Snuggles in the snow....

It has tried hard but sadly no snow has lasted.
Alan had to go out on his scooter today before work tomorrow to ensure the battery wasn't dead and as I couldn't really be bothered to go out he went shopping for the bit's I needed to make a pudding as my contribution to the meal we were going to have this evening over at my sisters.He then got back and had to take the car for a run, yesterday he washed the car and as he was cleaning it he had the radio on,when Emily and I got in to go off to our friends the car was dead!!! The RAC man arrived at the same time as our friends who had decided to come and visit us as we were unable to get to them :-))The battery had died due to the radio being on and the cold weather so he had to run the car for 40 Min's yesterday and went for a drive today to ensure it stayed charged.

I had a parcel from Amazon when we returned from Holiday, some books for Emily and The highly sensitive child for me to read. I started it last night.Last year I found a link for the website and took the checklist test and was aware Emily came out as a highly sensitive child.After a post by Michelle over at To the manor born I decided to get the book. I thought I understood what the term Highly sensitive meant but reading the book is fleshing out exactly what it means. I hope that by the time I have finished the book I will have an even better understanding and will have a whole new set of coping strategies to help Emily through the things she finds difficult.

Fairy fever has taken over, Milly has been listening to The Midnight Fairy by Jacqueline Wilson.We found the book in a charity shop in Alnwick and when we got home she asked Al to get the story tape again from the library for the third time, so she has been listening during the day and we have also been reading the book at bedtime,she knows parts of it word for word!! She has spent a great deal of time drawing and cutting out fairy's and told us a lovely story about the animal fairy, she used beautiful language and great descriptive words.We had hung the fairy's above her bed and this morning she wanted to refine some of them so I took them down only to find large parts of the paintwork coming away with the white tack, bit of a pain, we decided to put them back up around the wooden surround for the loft hatch in the dining room save Dad any more touching up job's!!!

Beauty has come back from her stay in Kennels with no apparent problems and has slotted back in to life here very well, thankfully... Here is a lovely picture Milly took of her before we went away, a picture she looked at many times whilst we were away.....

We went over to my sisters this afternoon for a lovely tea, My mum and Dad where there.My nephew who is nearly 12 has become a young man seemingly overnight and now is very much into teenager mode!!!!Still loves a big cuddle and kiss from his Auntie, just so long as it is not in front of his mates ;-))

A friend who looked after both children when they were younger is taking Emily and my nephew out to Keswick tomorrow, it would have been a great time for me to have some time to myself however bad planning means I will have a plumber in fixing the shower(only been broke 4 years!!!) and a few other plumbing jobs.Still it will be good to have a shower again,I like a long hot bath some nights but a quick shower on a morning is much easier,in time,in a financial sense,and an ecological sense,every little helps.

4 comments:

Stacie said...: Hi Lynn,
Glad to see your back to blogging! We are sick of snow, and have been having beautiful blue and sunny skies. I am sure we will see a few more flurries before it's done though!

Oh, I read not the highly sensitive child, but some version of that book a few years back. I too am a highly sensitive person. I have learned to deal with the many things that go along with that, but I had to do it on my own, in my late 20's. How lucky Emily is to have a mom to do all that learning work for her, to help her understand herself, so that she will have coping mechanisms long before she is an adult. Good for you!

Every time I read about Emily, I see a bit of me as a child.; 24 March 2008 at 22:29
Lynn said...: We get so excited at any sign of snow but rarely get any lasting.We will have to do what we normally do and travel to the nearby hills for some snow fun...
I think this book could be a turning point for us,although I have known Emily's differences for a very long time I think there has still been a lingering feeling that I have been doing something wrong and that by not pushing her and allowing her to have choice in the activities she wants to do I have enabled her "shyness" by reading this I am beggining to understand so much more about her personality and realise that most of what we are doing is what she needs ;-))); 25 March 2008 at 08:21
piscesgrrl said...: You might also try doing some research on right-brained learners. I heard a speaker on this topic and she explained a lot about my sensitive child and also gave some very good concrete tools for working with them, such as making sure to tell them what's going on the next day as they don't like surprises and need to prepare, etc. Her name is Cindy Gaddis - if you do a search for her, maybe something will come up.

Another book along these lines is "Indigo Children" - I think that's the title.; 30 March 2008 at 18:19
Lynn said...: Thanks Laura, my Homeopath leant me the book a long time ago but I think I would benefit from reading it again .
I have done a little reading on line about right brained learners recently and will check out Cindy Gaddis.xx; 30 March 2008 at 19:26

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