-
Appointments
It’s been a week of running to various appointments, most requiring significant driving time. The boys both had dental appointments with a pediatric dentist on Tuesday. This was their first visits to a private dental service and I think it was so worth the extra expense. I won’t say it went completely smoothly though. The anxiety and selective mutism of both boys did cause some bumps along the way. But both cooperated in the end and I think they are less worried about returning, even though Lego Lover claims his dental phobia is worse. I think the worst that happened for him was having to taste the latex gloves used by the dentist. Apparently they try to keep the staff the same at each visit so that children build up trust and confidence in the professionals. I suppose this mostly works until they have staff turnover, of course.
Anyway, both boys got good dental reports with regard to brushing and don’t have to return for another nine months. The dentist was actually gushing about Game Fanatic’s almost model mouth. His teeth have come in beautifully and there hasn’t been any staining or early signs of plaque as he usually see at this age in his patients. So braces will play no part in his future, which is great. Neither the Scientist nor I have had them either so I guess that’s genetics at work.
-
Holiday, part 2
To continue the story of our holiday…Wednesday was a fairly wet and chilly day but we made the best of it. Our journey took us into Denmark, about fifteen minutes away from our cottage. Our first stop there was the visitor centre, which seems quite big for such a small town. It also houses a collection of barometers, including the largest in the world. One of the volunteers provided a map with some local attractions. We chose to visit just a few attractions due to the rain and the limited walking we could do with Game Fanatic’s sore foot.
We spent most of our time in the town centre and visited a few shops. I went into a craft shop that also sold ice cream, a rather bizaar combination. They had a lot of really nice yarns there but I opted not to buy anything since I’ve still got projects to complete. Lego Lover was hungry, of course, so the Scientist and Game Fanatic took him down to the the award-winning bakery for a sausage roll. It was much bigger than what he usually gets and he really liked it. With his lunch taken care of, the rest of us ate lunch at the Fig Tree Cafe. I had a veggie patty on a roll with chips (thick french fries). The rolls was huge, with a thin patty, lots of salad and sauce. It was very messy, but it was good. After we had lunch, Lego Lover was taken to the craft shop to buy an ice cream and they even had his favorite, cookies and cream. It should also be noted that all of us got something to eat at the bakery during our brief time there. The Scientist bought a vanilla slice when he got the sausage roll. I bought a hedgehog slice for dessert (best I’ve tasted and I’m not that keen on them). Then just as we were leaving, we got Game Fanatic a curry pie, which he said was very nice.
-
Holiday, part one (long)
So we left on Monday for the six hour drive down to Cape Howe Cottages where we were staying at the Snug. It was cold and rainy as we left the city, with forecasts for the same over the week. The drive down was mostly uneventful, aside from a bit of a mechanical scare with the car where it was refusing to change certain gears just as we were leaving the city. It was okay after awhile and all was fine the rest of the journey. We stopped for lunch in Kojonup, a small town about two hours aways from our destination. Lego Lover refused to eat there or even to stay inside so waited in the car while we ate. He ate some of the snacks in the car instead and I guess was just fine with that.
We arrived at the cottage around 3pm, I think. It was late afternoon and the owner happened to come out to the gate just as we arrived, which was very timely. The rains had stopped at this point so we were able to take all our belongings inside in our own time. The kids were over the moon to be there and Lego Lover quickly unpacked his little bag and put everything in its place. He and Game Fanatic settled in quite quickly to just hanging out.
-
Another appointment
Seems we’ve been on the run most of the week and possibly will be out on another long journey tomorrow. Part of me hopes we can stay home until Saturday since we’re leaving on our short holiday early Monday morning.
Today’s outing involved Lego Lover’s latest appointment with his pediatrician to review medication issues. The previous medication didn’t have any visible effect so we stopped that one and started on the one he is currently taking. At the time, we had to stop another medication that he takes to help him sleep because the current one is supposed to make him very sleepy. That hasn’t been the case at all and he is often awake well into the morning hours. The good news is that he hasn’t had the typical appetite increase and weight gain that is common with this medication.
-
Constraints
This month marks the second anniversary of our home education experiment. I really shouldn’t call it an experiment since it appears to be the norm for the foreseeable future.
This was our third attempt at home education. The first attempt goes back to Game Fanatic’s second formal year of schooling when we made a temporary move to Canada. My plan was to home school while there so we could keep him up to speed with our local curriculum. That didn’t work out and when September arrived, he started at the primary school. The second attempt followed our return from Canada in the middle of the following year. By late October, he was back in the classroom at a new school.
The reasons the first two attempts failed were many but ultimately, it was due to trying to emulate school in a home environment. For some children this might work but for Game Fanatic it definitely didn’t. By the time we pulled the boys out of school, Game Fanatic was in year seven. It was clear that a classroom learning environment was never going to work for him. We spent four years trying to work out problems that couldn’t be fixed. Actually the first year back went pretty well for him with a brilliant teacher who really “got” him from the start. Teachers like that are rare, and even this teacher was limited by needs of many of the thirty other children in the class.
Lego Lover started formal schooling a couple years into the schooling experiment and all went seemingly well the first year. The second year was a different story and it’s still not completely clear what changed. In retrospect, I think the problems were already there and we were blinded to their effects.
-
Changes
The current school term is winding down and there are two weeks of school holidays, not that it will mean much of a change to our daily life. That’s another topic altogether so I will save that for another post, especially as it is so late and I am tired and liable to make no sense at all.
I’ve decided that the Game Fanatic will no longer attend the homeschool science class. He hasn’t really made much progress and so I don’t think it is valuable enough to warrant dragging ourselves out on cold, wet Friday mornings next term. So our Fridays will be a lot freer. Actually that may not necessarily be so.
-
Happiness is…
Both boys have had a major fix to their obsessions over the past couple of days. Yesterday, the long awaited Lego Club magazine arrived and obviously, Lego Lover was thrilled. Earlier in the day while the Games Fanatic and I were at his Dungeons and Dragons group, I espied a copy of this same magazine and was wondering where LL’s copy was. In fact, it arrived in the mail the same day. The next few hours were spent poring over the new Lego catalogue and describing the next sets on his list to buy.
Today was a momentous day for our Games Fanatic because the very long-awaited Super Smash Brothers Brawl came out. Guess who was at the store quite early this morning to get a copy? I was tucked into a warm bed at the time while the Scientist made the early morning trip with him. Lego Lover was also enthusiastic about the game. so much that I had a battle when I enforced a long break from play today. Normally, we don’t allow video game play very much during the week but made an exception today. Tomorrow, the rules return to normal.
-
Meandering through Whiteman Park
Oh, my body is so sore right now. It was newspaper delivery day (for our weekly paper route) so I went out on my bicycle for most of it. It was a nice thin paper today…good for quick deliveries but not so much money involved. Anyway, that took me a little over an hour.
After I showered, Lego Lover and I went off to Whiteman Park to look for native birds and trees. We didn’t have much luck with the birds. We mostly saw crows and magpies which we can see pretty much any time we want. I did see some galahs just before we left but that was exotic as we found on this particular occasion.
We walked from the village of the park to the Mussel Pool, which is about a kilometre away. There’s what’s called a Children’s Forest along the way and we passed through its many areas in the course of our journey. Lego Lover normally would complain of tiredness but he was having a nice time being “in nature” as he puts it and did quite well. We’ve been worried about his lack of exercise lately. He’s perfectly normal height and weight but his fitness is very poor. So I am making an effort to get him moving more often before he suffers problems from inactivity. He quite enjoyed running around today so it was well worth the short trip (we live five minutes from the park and it’s another five to reach the parking areas).
We both took our cameras but discovered the batteries for his camera were dead. He hasn’t tried to use it in a long time so it should be no surprise. We will have to recharge them before we make another attempt. I took quite a few photos in the course of our meanderings and will try to post some soon. I need to reinstall my photo editing program before I do that…I’ve got so many photos on my camera that it will have to be soon.
Down by the Mussel Pool (that as far as I know has no mussels), Lego Lover played at a tiny playground for quite a while. It was interesting to watch as the sky went from clear blue to mostly dark grey over the course of about forty-five minutes. We had another stop at the big playground at the village when we went back. LL was happy that there weren’t many kids there and had a great time playing. I pretty much had to drag him away before it started raining.
We have plans to go there more regularly, maybe once a week or fortnight to help us with our current project on Australian birds and trees.
I got plenty of exercise today but the body isn’t so happy about the over-exertion. Also, I realised the inserts of my shoes are now well over a year old and need to be replaced which is a likely explantion as to why my knees feel so unstable these days. I’m thinking of seeing a podiatrist before I get new ones so they can tell me all I am doing wrong to my feet.
-
Tidying things up
It was one of those cold and wet days of winter today. The rain has stopped but there’s a chill in the air which reaches my bones. I noticed my knees are feeling better today but other body parts are still aching quite a bit.
I managed to start some school “work” with Lego Lover today but that didn’t quite succeed and we ended up in another battle. Last week we stopped the medication he started back in March. We couldn’t see any positive effects and he ended up with stomach aches most nights so it wasn’t worth it. He has now started a different medication which has me feeling somewhat edgy. From reading the experiences of others, it’s a bit hard to judge how well the meds will work for any particular individual. The same medication can be wonderful for one and really terrible for another. So far, I think Lego Lover falls sort of in the middle since we’ve not had particularly great or bad experiences. I do think the shift from one medication to another could be affecting the current mood and hopefully he will settle down in the next few days.
During a heated discussion about “work”, I threatened to remove access to Lego for a time. This didn’t exactly eventuate because LL finally decided he would cooperate. I also started digging into his messy bedroom and the end result is it’s looking quite tidy at the moment. It is no longer the hazardous zone it’s been for weeks and months. Lego Lover did attempt to assist most of the time. It often happened that he would rediscover a forgotten toy and want to “test” it out, delaying the end of the task at hand. Finally, I was able to bring in the vacuum cleaner and remove the layers of dust.
Tomorrow I must get into Game Fanatic’s room and clear out all the dust that’s accumulated there. In the past, I would have had to do a similar cleanout of his room but I’ve found the he is doing quite well at keeping it in good order in the last year or so. It’s quite remarkable, really, that he’s always been particularly untidy and now he’s not. But he doesn’t take it any further so dusting and vacuuming is required at the moment.
-
Blogging absence
Seems I’ve not been able to blog for one reason or another lately. Mostly, I’ve not felt terribly inspired but hopefully that will change soon. I think maybe it’s a matter of just sitting down and writing a bit.
Life’s going pretty well at the moment. We still have the issue that turned our lives upside down a while back to be resolved. It’s out of our hands right now and it’s really just a matter of time. It’s not affecting us so much on a daily basis but the resolution will be a good thing.
We are at the start of our winter here and it’s been pretty wet so far. I’ve been working on a crocheted afghan I started a couple years ago for Lego Lover. He’s no longer interested in this particular project but I’d like to finish it before starting something new. I had a bit of a spurt today and got through about three small balls of yarn. It’s going to be a very imperfect project because I seem to have lost stitches on one side over several rows but it will be unique and will just be for home anyway. With the cold, wet weather, I should be more motivated to keep going but mostly I’ve been working on it while the Game Fanatic is at Dungeons and Dragon’s on alternating Sundays. Today, I broke out of the rut and worked on it in the evening while we were playing the Zelda game for the Wii that we got a year and a half ago. I quit mainly due to tiredness and soreness from the repetitive motion.
I’m not sure if it’s weather-related but I seem to have acquired lots of aches and pains lately. I’ve had some instability with both my kneecaps and now my shoulder is hurting again. The other sort of arthritic pains have also reappeared.
This past week, we saw my mother-in-law off on a holiday. She will be leaving on a cruise this evening from England for over week, I think. It’s her first cruise so I hope she has a great time. Afterwards she will be visiting her sister for a few months. We also welcomed back my father-in-law, who has been in Sri Lanka for some time. I had a chance to chat with him at length when we went to visit and he was very chatty compared to usual.
I was going to write more but I’m not feeling particularly well at the moment so will try to save my thoughts for more regular posts.