Happy New Year!

I posted the following on a homeschooling forum today - and I thought, hey, what a good thing to pop on my poor neglected blog. It's a short and sweet wrap up of our year that was - hope your year went well too. xoxo

"Well, so long 2010, it's been nice knowing ya, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

This year has been, well, just another year, really. It's our second year of 'proper' homeschooling, and I feel like I both found my stride and lost my way a little - I think we've got a good routine going, and I'm happy with my overall curriculum choices, but I think now that Miss6 is almost 7 I need to be introducing a bit more work that requires her focussed attention and I'm not totally sure what direction that will take us. The down side is that as the year progressed, I've been letting the laptop draw my attention away from the kids during the day and consequently I've been 'reactively' parenting - putting out fires, yelling and generally not being on top of my game. I need to be more disciplined in this and not turn the computer on during the day, and also start the day in prayer and be mindful about what we're doing that day as a family with each member's needs in mind (including my own!)

In non-educational spheres it has been the year when my (probably last) baby turned into a toddler, my toddler turned into a little girl and my little girl turned into a big one! I am both sad and happy about all of those things. Merl got made redundant and started a new job, and we bought a second car to accomodate that, with all it's accompanying repairs and expenses. I've also finally decided to get rid of my saggy tummy and get some real exercise on a more than sporadic basis.

At the end of this year, I am thankful for my Saviour, my wonderful family, my good marriage, and the freedom to homeschool!

So how has 2010 been for you? Good, bad, scary, challenging, indifferent?... Here's your chance to say goodbye to it all, and no matter how your year has been, what is something you are thankful for?

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Nope, we're not dead

That's right - still in the land of the living. Life is pretty full around here and blogging has taken a back seat (which, with a people mover, is a loooong way back).

Some of the things taking my attention and energy at the moment are

the kids
Of course. Beautiful, smart, funny, engaging, energetic, hilarious and infuriating by turns, my babies take up by far the most of my time. And most days I love it. At the moment I'm using a more 'Classical' approach to the education bit, and it is working well - it satisfies my own need for actually feeling like we are 'doing something', but because it is very literature based it's not boring worksheets or make-work and the kids like it. Miss6 is still the only one I really require to do any work, but Miss3 hates to be left out and begs to do maths too... so what's a Mum to do, except bring out the flash cards for her too? MrBaby will be Mr1 next month. Boy has the last year flown by!

SHEAF
If you mosey over to this blog you'll find our local home education support group. I've been neglecting this blog in order to look after that one.

NCHENZ
And I recently somehow found myself on the committee for the National Council of Home Educators. Which has been kinda busy this last couple of weeks with lots of adminy type stuff.

And that's about it, really.

See you next time!
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A spot of gardening - sowing winter veg

Well howdy folks, long time no see!

Our little MrBaby slept ALL NIGHT last night! (perhaps to make up for not sleeping at all - okay, perhaps for an hour or so - the night before!). Even so, I have a little bit of headspace to be blogging.

Aren't you lucky?

I thought I'd do an update on our garden.

Having completely neglected my veggie patch (and all the rest of the garden) in order to pour my energy into the baby and his sisters for the last 7+ months, I had the urge to get my hands dirty a couple of days ago.

So while Miss6 sat inside reading a book and MrBaby had a wee sleep, Miss3 and I sallied forth.
First, we took a couple of days to double-dig the small garden patch, incorporating the manured straw from the chicken's coop into the top-soil. If I was tougher and more dedicated it could have been done in one day, but I'm not. Big deal.

Meanwhile, I looked up the gardening book to see what would grow as a winter crop in our climate. The answer? silverbeet, cabbage and cauliflower. Excellent. I have seeds for a variation on that theme, so I set them aside and went back to readying the patch.

Once the soil was well dug and raked out to a (relatively) fine tilth (not anally retentively fine - but not too lumpy either), I marked it out into square-feet.

I'm using the 'square-foot' approach instead of the 'rows' approach. The idea is to plant out the veg into little blocks of plants. You can fit more into the patch, and it's better for soil health and weed control than having great stretches of bare earth open to the weather. Anyhow, I've never quite managed it before, so I figured it was worth a crack.

The patch is about 12 square feet, so I planted out 6 this week and will plant the other half in a couple of weeks to give a bit of a succession for the winter, instead of a glut (I hope).

So far I have 2 types of silverbeet (swiss chard), red cabbage, green cabbage, pak choi and kale

Now all I need to do is remember to keep it moist.

And find some way of keeping the chickens off it.
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Radio interview with Haami Sam Tutu Chapman

While folding my epic pile of laundry this morning (5 days' worth = lots and lots), I was listening to the Waitangi Day broadcast on National Radio. Kim Hill was hosting the show from a tent in Waitangi and her interview lineup was particularly interesting this morning.

Her interview with Sam Chapman was remarkable - not just because of what he had to say, but because Kim (who can be frightfully abrasive and intolerant of views that clash with her own) was a gracious host who let him express himself without talking over him.

Haami (Sam) Tutu Chapman is a youth and community worker based in Otara, Auckland. Earlier this week in the New Zealander of the Year Awards, he won the Local Hero category. This interview contains one of the clearest pictures of the gospel of grace that I have ever heard. I wish I had the courage to follow his example more closely.

The morning's lineup can be found on the Radio New Zealand National/Saturday page - just make sure you're looking at Saturday, 06 February 2010

I'm not sure if this will work, but I'll put the Sam Chapman interview mp3 link here. Hopefully you'll be able to download the podcast directly. Yes, it is 43 minutes long, but you'll be left with a warm glow inside.

Now, I know that they only keep some interviews on their site for a couple of weeks, so if you want to listen to it, get in quick :~)
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Welcome to 2010

Things are kinda crazy around here - not sure how much blogging will get done as I try to work out my new routines with home educating a 6 year old and a 3 year old while dealing with the ever-changing routines of a 5month+ teething baby!

For those who know me IRL, I still keep up with facebook. For those who only know me here then do feel free to keep checking back in every so often - I'll try to post something at least monthly (but no promises!)

have a lovely year!


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pik n mix

I thought I'd do a quick catch up on the last month's events - how the baby is doing, happenings in the land of home education, what actually happened to our Jesse tree...

Okay, so, the previous post was all about how I was going to be super-mum and bake cinnamon ornaments every week for our Jesse tree. Yeah, well. It turns out that super mum doesn't actually live here after all! Who'd a thunk it?

So instead I printed off the ornaments and readings from this site, laminated them for future use, drew an outline on a big bit of paper and voila - this year's Jesse tree. Not too shabby, and a whole lot less stressful. The plan is that by next year I'll have a fabric tree with velcro dots all ready and waiting. But we'll just see how that goes, won't we?


Here's our wee fella. Just too cute for words. I'm starting to wean him off sleeping in the front pack. My body is too decrepit to carry him around 24/7 and my knees have been protesting for a week or so, and now my left hip is giving me gyp about it, so it's time that he learnt to sleep in the bassinet during the day and not just at night. Sadly, he doesn't think so! Yesterday worked out well, with him even resettling himself for one sleep - an hour and a half! But today he thinks he should be asleep on ME and is very indignant about being put down in another room. He'll get over it. I'm surprised at how much more energy I have from not carrying 6.5kg of baby around all the time. But I'm also a bit sad that our snuggly newborn has moved onto his next phase already.

Here are his big sisters reading him stories while he couldn't care less cos he's in his Jolly Jumper! I must remember to pack it for when we are up north these holidays. Miss5-and-almost-6 had the idea to read to him first, and deliberately chose a babies' story about animals so that he would find the experience educational. Miss2-and-almost-3 is 'reading' aloud her favourite Hairy McLary book for him, because anything her sister can do, she can do too!

Which brings me to the next photo. Miss5-and-almost-6 found that the grapes we had bought at the supermarket had seeds in them, and wanted to plant them. So she carefully spat out the seeds, got some potting mix and little pottles and planted them all nicely somewhere outside. Miss2-and-almost-3 clearly couldn't see the point in messing around with potting mix and little pottles... or even in removing the seeds from the grapes. And she figured she'd try it with tomatoes too.


Our last stop on our photo tour of the month is the not-class photo of the home educators group that I belong to. We got together at one of the local parks for a picnic and mess-around, and to take a photo of everyone who made it that day.

If they look a little droopy and bedraggled it's because they are. It poured with rain the whole time, just clearing for about 2 minutes during the photo-taking before bucketing down again. It wasn't terribly cold - just very very wet. Thankfully there are little shelters with roofs and seats for us mums to sit in and keep ourselves, the food, the bags, jackets and shoes, and MrBaby dry. The kids loved it. It's not often they get to play outside and get soaked to the skin, warmish rain being very unusual here.

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jesse tree

Advent is nearly upon us and in place of the standard store-bought Disney-branded advent calendar we're going to do a Jesse tree again.

We did this last year too, but it would appear that I completely didn't blog about it! How about that.

From one of the numerous sites about Jesse trees

The Jesse Tree is a centuries-old family Advent devotion that has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in recent years. It has particular value since it helps both kids and adults alike to locate Jesus, the Messiah, within the lineage of the shepherd boy who became King of Israel--David, son of Jesse.

The whole idea of the Jesse Tree comes right out of a classic Advent passage from the prophet Isaiah: "A shoot will sprout from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit" (Isaiah 11:1). The Jesse Tree is hung with ornaments representing Old Testament people and events and lead up to Jesus. The traditional symbols hung on the tree are based on the genealogy of Jesus as reccounted by the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew.

A selection of sites about Jesse trees, including some where you can just download and print out the various symbols:
Jesse Tree-an Advent Tradition
Download Jesse Tree Ornaments
Jesse Tree Advent Custom
Jesse Tree Instructions
Making a Jesse Tree

We're planning to bake our ornaments out of gingerbread-man dough and hang them on a branch. Only time will tell if we're actually organised enough to do this! :) The first baking day will be tomorrow, and we'll do a week's worth each Saturday. Worth a shot.

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Interview with John Taylor Gatto

Break out your tinfoil hats, people!

This interview with John Taylor Gatto is fabulous. If you've never come across this perspective on schooling before, you will be rolling your eyes at his breathtakingly nutty conspiracy-theorist ravings.

And then you will begin to wonder if perhaps he has a point afterall...


An interview with John Taylor Gatto

A couple of things you may like to keep in mind:
1. Until the end of WWII, eugenics was not a dirty word - it was considered a noble and patriotic pursuit throughout Europe and the US
2. Even though NZ's schooling history is different to that of the US, the current trends, goals and ideals of schooling and educational theory are often American in origin.

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Heads in the sand

This protest action tickled my fancy

Heads in sand G20 protest - Europe

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Elephant on a trampoline

We have a new favourite video clip in our house




Resulting comments from various members of the family;
"Wow!"
"Careful, Mr Elephant!"
"Don't believe this, Mum, it isn't a true video"
"Hmmm, they've got the physics a bit wrong there..."

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Night feeding

This baby seems to be the one for trying out new stuff. I never got the hang of feeding lying down with either of the girls, but its working out this time. Yay. Especially "yay" for the first thing in the morning feed...

My big discovery was a way to keep my shoulders and arms warm and snuggly, while not completely covering the baby with the duvet. The solution is simple, once you think of it - I wear my dressing gown to bed! ta-daa. The duvet only gets pulled up to my waist, thus keeping the baby's head well clear of a soft, downy smothering, and I stay super-snuggly warm.

Image (and nice position instructions) from ParentingWeb

So that is what I do first thing in the morning - or if MrBaby doesn't re-settle after his normal night feed, which I still get up and do on the couch while listening to National Radio.

I know some people successfully bed-share with their babies all night, which theoretically makes feeding during the night a cinch. All good if it works for you (and if you never attempt it after consuming drugs or alcohol, don't smoke, and don't have too-soft, fluffy bedding - all of which dramatically increase the chance of SIDS when combined with bed-sharing). But, as Merl will tell you, I am a world-class fidget in my sleep.

I cannot stand to stay in the same position, or even facing the same side for much longer than about an hour and a half. But moving the baby wakes him up. And I don't want to turn my back to him. So total bed-sharing is out. When MrBaby was very very little he slept with us most nights, so I know of what I speak.

So we 'co-sleep' - he's in a bassinet in our room, which allows me to respond to him before he gets majorly distressed, and most nights he ends up in our bed sometime around 5.30am. Then he feeds, I doze off, and generally we have a good cozy start to the day/end of the night.

The 3am-ish feed is a different kettle of fish. If I feed him in bed at 3am then I fall quite deeply asleep while he's feeding and then he, quite naturally, doesn't want to go back to his bassinet - and who can blame him? But then I have the 'aargh, I can't fidget and roll over' problem I described before. Instead, I get up and feed him in the dark in the living-room while listening to the radio. He's much happier to go back into the bassinet this way, though I'm not entirely sure why.

The radio is great - it keeps me from falling asleep on the couch and waking up horribly stiff and sore, and there are some really interesting programs on - mostly repeats of interviews and documentaries from during the day when I don't have the radio going. Yay for National Radio. An added bonus is that our radio is also a flashlight, so I can briefly switch it on to get MrBaby properly latched without needing to turn the main lights on.

Our torch-radio (flashlight) (except ours is yellow)

After 2 months, it's nice to see that we're getting to know our little guy and working out how he's different from either of the girls, and learning the kinds of things that will work for both him and us.
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Wearing my baby

We have found a better way!

MrBaby has settled into a cosy new routine. He'll happily sleep in his bassinet (in our room) at night for 3 or 4 hours, from about 10 or 11 pm until about 3am. Then he'll have a long lazy feed (he doesn't feed any other way) and about an hour and a half later will usually settle back into the bassinet for another couple of hours sleep.

That bit of his 'routine' is unchanged - the new and better bit concerns what happens for the rest of the day...

The first feed of the day is followed by an extended wakey time - he's very happy to lie with his pants off and kick for a while on the change-mat - or the babygym for variety - or being held (with pants on) by his sisters, while Merl and I buzz around getting dressed, dressing children, eating breakfast and generally getting started on the day.

I used to then put him back in the bassinet (following the exalted 'feed, wake, sleep' rhythm that worked so well for Miss2). Cue much unsettled crying, which stopped when I picked him up, and started as soon as I put him down, and continued in this pattern until he was obviously out the other side of 'tired' and was now also 'hungry'. This continued for much of the day, while I completely failed to get anything else done as I spent most of the day either on the couch feeding, or standing beside the bassinet trying to get him to sleep.

Now I might have a go at settling him in the bassinet, but if he doesn't settle fairly happily (i.e. still not happy after a couple of attempts to resettle him) I give up, give him another feed and pop him into the baby wrap.

Baby wraps are magic!

If I get the position right, he can feed whenever he wants to have a wee top-up, and he sleeps very happily tucked up on my chest. Instant quiet, instant peace, and I am able to read stories and play games with the other children without continually yo-yoing into the bedroom. And at the end of the day, he still cluster-feeds himself into a coma and I can pop him into bed. Bliss.

Now the girls have got their own babywraps for their own babies...

...and their elephants too. (Miss2 has got a little pink elephant tucked into her wrap in this photo). She then proceeded to jump around like a kangaroo with a baby in its pouch. Extremely cute.

My first foray into baby-slinging involved a 4m length of fabric which I had in my fabric stash. This was long enough to wrap over one shoulder, and around my middle, but not both shoulders. It was okay, but not very comfortable for more than an hour or so, and I felt a bit lop-sided. So I looked for improvements, and found a couple of great websites showing lots of different ways to wear your baby (links at the end of the post). I'm borrowing wraps from a couple of different friends to see what works for us, before getting my own.

This was the first 2-shoulder wrap I tried. A friend made this wrap using a 6 or 7 metre length of muslin. I can see this being a good one for summer, being a lovely open-weave cotton. It is comfortable, but not very stretchy/flexible, so I found I needed to tie it just right or it pulled quite tightly in places.

This one is the Moby wrap, borrowed from another friend. It is awesome. Its a soft, tight-knit cotton which is not very stretchy at all, but is stretchy enough to easily adjust around the baby and myself. Folks, we have a winner. Now I just need to decide whether I can be bothered making one myself or if I'll just buy one (they seem awfully expensive for what they are).

I know, I know 'making' one only involves going to the fabric shop, choosing some fabric, slicing it in half lengthwise and overlocking the edges - but that's possibly more hassle than I can be bothered with just right now. And by the time I have enough headspace or time to do something like that, the baby won't be a baby anymore!

Babywearing sites:
Wrap Your Baby - Very clear step-by-step instructions, with photos, for lots and lots of different ways to tie the wrap.
The Mamatoto Project - Includes instructions for using different types of cloth, including shorter scarves and traditional wraps from baby-wearing cultures. The videos are particularly helpful.
La Leche League NZ - Articles on all things baby, including babywearing
Make a Babysling - instructions for making your own.

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visual catchup

Some photos from the last few weeks. No, Merl and I aren't in them, because we are usually behind the camera - or are too exhausted-looking to be fit for public viewing.

Look below the jump for the pics.

Grandma (Merl's Mum) and the girls. I am very lucky to have my MIL. We get on very well and she is brilliant with the kids. She came to stay for just over 2 weeks when the little guy was born and was just generally brilliant.

Grandad (my Dad) with MrBaby and Miss2. It's great to be living so close to Dad. And I think he's much more involved with the kids than he would have been were Mum still alive. He used to back off and leave the child stuff to her, but he's been really great - he looks after Miss2 every week while I take Miss5 to her swimming lesson, and tomorrow he's going with Miss5 to the fracture clinic - hopefully to get her cast removed. Yay.

Miss2. Really getting the hang of hide and seek.

Who says the baby gym is just for the baby?

Oh, yes. Remember I mentioned Miss5's cast? Here's the x-ray...

And here's the cast. She fell off the top bunk at 4am. When Ben was still only a few weeks old. Yeah, that was fun. Thankfully she was only in a lot of pain for that first day, and now she even has a super-duper water-proof cast on that she can go swimming in! Very cool.

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Aisling Symes update

At the very time that I was blogging on Monday evening, the Symes family were informed that their little girl's body had been found in a storm drain near where she went missing a week earlier.


There was no foul play, and no abduction - she had fallen in the fast flowing water drain and drowned (there had been heavy rain recently). Searchers had not found her because her body was swept over 20 metres down the drain.

You may think me heartless, but my first thought was "Thank God". The wee poppet was not being tortured by some sick weirdo, frightened and desperate for her Mum. Her parents are now spared the waking nightmare of other parents who never find out what happened to their babies. There is no prowling child abductor stalking suburban Auckland.

All of which is cold comfort for Alan and Angela Symes, who will never hold their small one in their arms again.

My spirit weeps.

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Aisling Symes

This week I've been deeply affected by the disappearance of Auckland toddler Aisling Symes.

Aisling's family were tidying up a relative's house, to get it ready for sale, last Monday afternoon. Both parents were there. Both kids playing happily. Aisling's Mum was doing something with the washing machine, saw Aisling watching her, turned back to turn the tap off, turned around again and Aisling was gone. She hasn't been seen since.

Every parent's worst nightmare.

Police searched the neighbourhood for 2 days, including nearby waterways, but have since concluded that she must have been abducted. But there are no leads, and no ransom request, and absolutely no clue as to where she might be.

They are hoping that she has been taken by someone who has a desperate urge to have and care for a child, and that she is alive.

We can only pray that this is the case, and that this person will have a fit of remorse and drop Aisling off somewhere safe to be returned to her family.

This has struck particularly close to home as we have children the same age as the Symes' kids. Miss2 even looks kinda like Aisling - blonde, cute, round-faced.

We even know what it's like to have a child vanish (as do most parents, at some point). Miss5 wandered out of church one Sunday when my back was turned for a minute or two (she was three at the time). We found her half an hour later in the pet shop at the corner.

That was without a doubt the most frightening half hour of my life.

I spent the whole time telling myself it was OK, she'd be just around the corner, or inside playing with the bigger kids and then I'd feel silly for being so scared. Trying not to think of all the terrible things that could have happened. Trying to walk, not run, to stay calm and not to panic because that might actually make it real.

I simply cannot imagine living for a whole week with that icy cold terror settling into a certainty. It would drive me absolutely over the edge and into the abyss. To know that even if she is now found 'safe and well', that the scars of this experience will never leave the family. That I would never really know everything that had happened to her while she was away.

That sometimes, monsters do exist, and our fears are fully justified.

If you, or anyone you know, is in the North Island of New Zealand, this little poppet may be near you.

Do you know anyone who has had a young 'cousin' come to stay 'for a while'?
Any new toddlers in the neighbourhood?
Anything just not gel, or that feels wrong?
Keep an eye out for wandering kids - if she was snatched that way, she may be released that way too.

And, of course, pray.

'cause only a miracle will give this story a happy ending.

Note:Update post here
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Sensible policies for a happier Britain

Just stumbled on this. Just what our country needs to bring us out of the recession.

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Ideas worth spreading

We've spent alot of time recently (exhausting our 5GB per month datacap) looking at seminars from TED, an invitation only conference that puts the presentations online for free.

From "five dangerous things for kids" to "why we do what we do" and "social innovation", these seminars make for excellent and thought provoking viewing.

Miss5 has even sat through a 'magic' presentation, wanting to watch it multiple times.

Now to watch a presentation about wireless electricity.

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more photos

More photos from the last week - this time, you can even see his little face!

sunbathing to help with some slight jaundice

Miss2 gets a chance to be a 'BIG sister'!

Our three children - aren't they beautiful?

Just to prove it hasn't been all baby all the time :)

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He's arrived!

Mum a bub are both doing well. Mr0 was 10lb (4.53kg) when he got weighed. We don't know yet how long he is but he's already out of the 00 size stuff.

Now to survive night feeding...
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keeping on keeping on

Yep. Still pregnant.

For a general pregnancy/quilting obsession update, see after the cut...



The final few days of pregnancy suck. (Oh please let it only be "days"!) I feel like I've been in the early stages of labour for about 3 weeks now - I get a couple of hours of proper contractions here and there - strong enough to stop me in my tracks and get the wheat-sacks out - but just when I'm thinking it might actually be ready to roll it all dies down and goes away. Very frustrating!

I'm not sure what's worse - worrying that when I finally decide that I am in labour I'll be 10 minutes away from pushing it out and have to give birth in the carpark - or the other nightmare scenario of turning up at the hospital thinking that I've been labouring well for a while and must have made some progress to find that I'm only 2cm and have hours and hours of work still to go! My midwife plans to do a 'stretch and sweep' on Friday (the 40 week mark) so I guess I'll find out then a little more about the state of play.

As far as 'schooling' goes, we've gone ultra-unstructured the closer we get to the baby's due date, so the kids' 'work' has mostly been colouring in, role-playing with dolls and puppets, reading, chasing the chickens around the yard, helping Daddy cook tea... just generally living life.

As far as 'what do you do all day?' goes, I've discovered hand-piecing patchwork and am now subject to a whole new craft addiction I had been carrying on with piecing a quilt that my Mum had only just started (having finished the other one), but found the paper-piecing technique to be tedious, and the colour-scheme she chose to be dull and boring. So I checked some quilting books out of the library for inspiration and found one which has step-wise instructions for hand-piecing using a running stitch (instructions are great - Jinny Beyer doesn't even assume that you've threaded a needle before). This is much much much faster, so I've set Mum's 'boring quilt' aside and am making a bright scrap-quilt using random bits and pieces from my fabric stash. I plan to use the 'Squares and Triangles' pattern from this book by Lynne Edwards (also from the library), but have just started by making the random-fabric four-patch blocks so there's room to be flexible with my final pattern if I change my mind!

I never thought I'd enjoy hand-piecing. But it really is more convenient than machine piecing. I'm sure the machine would be tons faster - but I just never get around to sitting down in front of it. Hand-piecing is easy to do on the couch in the evenings, and in odd moments here and there, so it actually gets done.

Other than that, we're just hanging around waiting for the baby to be born. It all feels a bit surreal, really. I've been organised and ready for almost too long now - I'm starting to un-organised again (taking things out of the hospital bag because I need them for something else, the bassinet is somehow not made up properly anymore, the 'baby' corner of our room has had a few piles of non-baby stuff stashed there 'out of the way'...)
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