YouTube QUEEEEEEEEEEEN!

Kids YouTube videos.

You love them or you hate them. Generally if you love them you actually are a kid and if you hate them then you are an adult who, for 5 minutes of peace, lets your kid watch them and before you know it they've been watching for an hour and you are going to hear the theme song from whichever surprise egg video has caught their attention, in your sleep for the next week.

Our little Butterfly has her favourites. She gets an allocation of "YouTube time" each weekend in which to binge watch them and then that's it for the week. Every now and then I catch her playing a real life game in which she is a YouTube Kid. She pretends to be unboxing a toy or unwrapping a Shopkin from it's packaging. So you can imagine that then when she actually gets one she wants to do a real YouTube reveal video or unboxing video.

This week she had earned a treat and picked a Lego Minifig blind bag from the available stash.  Instead of tearing into it she asked if I could set up the camera so she could do a video. Now this girl has approximately 10 million words that she needs to use each day. At this point in the day, around lunch time, she was well on her way to beating her word count by more than double so when she asked to make a reveal video I figured it would be PERFECT! She could use up some of her words on imaginary friends!! My ears could rest and I wouldn't have to feel guilty when I realised I had tuned out of her 48 minute recount of a 3 minute event.

I did however tune in and out when she was recording and found that it was actually quite funny. I shared on my Facebook page that this is what she was doing and a couple of people suggested that we do actually put it on YouTube. Well later that night I watched it with Wolf and it was hilarious! Not so much the intentional content of the blind bag opening and then the second video she made of herself playing with play dough, but the "extra dash of crazy" that she brings to everything she does.  It gave a great insight into what life with our Butterfly is like. She actually dubbed herself YouTube Queen! So while I was out enjoying a coffee with a friend in between youth group drop off and pick up, Wolf got to editing... all the crazy into one almost 4 minute video. Actually, it wasn't even ALL the crazy, but 4 minutes felt like long enough.

So, without further ado, here is Butterfly McTavish, self professed YouTube QUEEEEEEEEEN!

Mopping up the remains of my mind.

Mopping seems to be the most futile of domestic chores. At least I feel like making dinner and washing the dishes serves some useful purpose, but mopping feels like it is truly a waste of my time. Washing toddler clothes feels somewhat pointless when they are just going to wear all 17 different outfits again tomorrow and somehow get tomato sauce on all of them (even though they didn't have tomato sauce at all that day), but at least that keeps the tomato sauce stains from growing into some sentient being and taking over the earth. Cleaning a toilet that is mostly used by boys feels futile, but then I remember that if it keeps our indoor plumbing from smelling like a long drop then it's never futile. Mopping just tips me over the edge.

I harp on some nights about how I love to cook, I just don't like to HAVE to cook so the drudgery of preparing 3 2 meals (I don't serve up breakfast, they get their own while I sleep... it really is as wonderful as it sounds) and snacks for my family of 6 every day can feel like it's futile and leaves me trapped in a never ending cycle of cooking and then cleaning the dishes just to dirty them again.

But mopping. Mopping. Mopping the floor is a genuine waste of my time. Sweeping I can see the point to, but mopping, unless there is a large spill or an obvious large sticky patch, makes me want to cry.  It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's pointless!

I mopped the whole house, for the first time in a LONG time (I have done here or there as needed often enough to not have the white tiles turn grey) the other day as I was stress cleaning while trying to decide if Lion had a broken arm or not (he didn't). Within an hour, there were at least 3 patches that a more mop-loving mother than I would have re-mopped. I just used the wet rag that one of the kids had wiped up a spill with to then wipe over the bits that "needed" mopping. And this is precisely WHY it's so futile. I live with 4 mess making creatures. If you see a tea towel, rag or old cloth nappy on our floor it is because it is our current "mop". The kids spill so much water just pouring drinks that there is always a wet cloth somewhere nearby so if something sticky is spilled then I just grab that, wipe it over, and that's the cue for it to go in the wash and we wait for the next water spill to find out what our next "mop" will look like.

All of that aside, the real kick to my mop bucket (I don't use a mop bucket, I have a microfibre mop and a steam mop) came the next day when the kids who had been refusing for days to weed the side yard suddenly decided that now, while I have shiny clean floors, on the muddiest day of the year, is the time to get in and do the job they've been asked to do... but to walk inside 2984757 times while they are doing it spreading wet mucky garden junk through the house every time they did.

I love those kids.

But I think I need to teach them to mop.

Just kidding... cleaning up after a kid who has mopped is probably worse than mopping myself in the first place!

What's a chore you feel serves no purpose?
Or one that you feel the returns are hardly worth the amount of effort required.

Don't be this dude.

My oil light flicked on and off the other day so this conversation happened with Wolf...

Sounds pretty easy, right?

I popped by an auto shop to grab some oil. I had just spent the morning sitting on a non-waterproof picnic blanket on the wet ground so my pants were wet... I was looking forward to getting home, not to this.  I had Wolf's assurance that it was as simple as walking in and grabbing some oil. What could go wrong? (Other than that my pants looked like I had wet myself... and I had a sense of impending doom rising in the pit of my stomach... Auto shops and I don't get along, I've never had particular success in finding what I need without running into some kind of issue.)

Well this is what could go wrong.

Apparently it's not as simple as all that. It seems there is a choice of 37493 different oils and when you use their handy dandy little oil selector iPads strapped to the shelves they only tell you the 35 options for your car from that one brand... they don't consider that you have 639 different brands to pick from.

So I sent Wolf another text...

Stupid phones cutting down the image for a preview

made it look like there was only 375 choices.

Thankfully a kind assistant came to help me hurry up so I could get my 4 kids who were touching their stock out of the store. The assistant dude helped me pick some and said I needed to put some in immediately if it's so low that the light is coming on. So out to the carpark, kids safely in the car, I pop the bonnet and start trying to get the oil cap off. I can get it to move a tiny bit, but it's pretty much stuck. I wrestle with it, move around to get a better grip, battle it as best I am able but it won't move. The benefit of this is that my shorts have dried now while doing oil cap battle in the sun. Short of climbing up in the engine cavity to get a better handle on it there is nothing left that I can do, nothing other than to use my finely tuned mother skills on it. I stand back and stare at it hoping to frighten it into submission with my displeased gaze... I hear laughing. Surely the cap is not laughing at me. There's nearly 12 years of practice in that displeased gaze... I can break a child's will with that gaze. A ute a few cars down has two blokes in it, one about my age, one in his 60s, I soon realise it's them laughing, and they are clearly laughing at me. Not even trying to hide it. 

Their arrogance makes me more determined. I grab a tissue to try and clean the cap to maybe get a better grip... It continues for what seems like a very long time out in the Townsville sun.

Eventually, defeated, I gather my stuff and load it in the car with one last displeased stare at the now closed bonnet. Out of the corner of my eye I notice one of the guys, the younger one, walking over. "Do you need a hand at all? I saw you struggling." I resist the urge to vent my frustrations about his arrogant laughter and accept his help.

He goes to twist the cap... It doesn't budge.

He uses a little more force... It stays stuck.

He makes a lame joke about how it's been put on really tight... I am not feeling like joking.

He tries to not grunt as he uses all his effort to finally make it loosen.

It's off.

Old mate in the ute cheers for him.

I thank him, he gets in his ute, and they drive off (making it appear they were hanging around for the show and nothing else, though I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming there is more to their story). I stay and fill my engine oil then take my kids home with yet another undesirable auto shop experience under my belt.

An artists cynical impression of the events unfolding

The moral of this story, for those who desire a point to blog posts, is that kindness is free, and laughing at someone who is doing their best at a task and still failing, instead of offering to help, is not only unkind, but a waste of their time and yours.

The corollary is that if you are going to laugh at someone struggling to do a task, you'd better make darn sure that you are confident in your ability to do it effortlessly!

I am honestly thankful that he offered his help when he didn't have to. I also appreciated the chance to share with my kids how it made me feel to be laughed at and that I expect great things of them, kindness even when it's not expected or necessarily your responsibility is the least of these.

There's Gaps in Our Diet

I hate diets.

I don't particularly like being told that I can't have certain things... it tends to make me want them more.

I don't really care for cutting out whole food groups either, it just feels kind of... not unhealthy, but unbalanced.

But things here had to change.

Lion is diagnosed Aspergers. Monkey is undiagnosed something... I feel like it's Aspergers but with different traits to Lion (since we homeschool I'm not pursuing a diagnosis, it won't get extra funding or extra help or extra anything so we'll just plod along). Dragon has an unhealthy gut, without too many details, lets just call it "Mother's intuition". Butterfly is an unknown as yet. She shows a lot of the same "quirks" as Lion and Monkey, but is much more of a mimicker than any of the others were so I'm not sure how many are naturally her and how many are learnt behaviours. Wolf has his own gut issues which I'm sure he'd rather I didn't broadcast. Then there's me... My body is currently not absorbing iron like it should which as you an imagine presents issues when I lose a lot of iron on a monthly basis. I also have nerve damage that we suspect is from B12 deficiency related to the low iron (they are buddies and do everything together, apparently) or possibly Raynauds. I have mood swings that frustrate me and I know are better when my iron/B12 is where it should be, but I'm also so incredibly forgetful that remembering to take my supplements is not happening (and they make me feel sick).

So I researched. I looked into how our diet could help at least some of our issues. I was leaning towards a paleo-ish style menu but would probably still eat those treats that I like because the occasional treat wouldn't be that bad, right?  So I researched and looked and I knew that heaps of people had successfully eased many Aspergers symptoms/traits (I have no idea what to call them) on a wheat free diet so I assumed that would be a large part of what we did, but I'd just replace those things with wheat free replacements... how hard would that be... But I kept looking and coming back to this "Gaps" diet. I researched it some more and it seemed to offer the potential relief of so many of each persons issues. But I wanted something that wasn't just some quack offering to heal everything if you spend a million dollars on all their products. I wanted something backed by science, that still contained good food and wasn't going to leave my family lacking vital nutrition. The further I looked the better it looked. Then I started to see it mentioned on one of my favourite blogs/facebook groups, Quirky Cooking.  Except I realised that I was only just really noticing something she had been talking about for a long time. Jo had even written a program that is similar to what she implemented for her family to take on the Gaps diet. And the best part yet... it wasn't a forever diet! You heal your gut and get it functioning properly, at the same time you are figuring out what foods your body doesn't like, what doesn't work well for you and then you start to add back in foods that you can tolerate and slowly increase the variety you are eating. I LOVE VARIETY!!!

"But I don't need to spend any money, I can do this." I say as I keep researching and researching and slowly become more and more overwhelmed with what I would have to do. Okay, so I spent the money.

Lamb Tagine

One of the Stage 6 recipes Jo has produced

I am so glad I did. There is so much support and help and it's step by step... seriously, how good is that!!! There's a Facebook group for those on the program to chat and help each other and to reassure each other that whatever stage you are struggling on, it will get better.

Even better than all of that... it's not a 6 month membership. It's not a 12 month membership. It's a forever membership! That means that you can take your time to wrap your head around it, go through all of Jo's helpful videos and cheat sheets and read up on what helped other people and THEN start. You can slowly build the recipes into your family's menu plan before kicking off so that it's not such a shock (both to them and their gut) and if you fall off the wagon you don't have to worry about not completing the program, you can go back as far as you need or start again from the beginning and you won't run out of time, you won't get out of sync with the others on the program, you just do it at your own speed.

So here is Clan McTavish, at the starting line of Gaps. We have introduced a few meals from the menu plans that have been met with varied responses (lets just say we have discovered a mutual dislike for a few items which are now off all menus). We haven't bought a loaf of bread for over a week (that's a long time to go without bread for these kids). We have had our last meal of pasta. We finished our last bottle of milk this morning. We are ready to start... but when.

The kids are not keen. They aren't outright rebelling... mostly. But they aren't all for it. I kind of had this fairy land idea that when I explained to them the things that might get better with a diet change they would give up sugar and wheat and potatoes and every comfort food they've ever had on the promise of potential health benefits. Yeah, sounds stupid to me too now that I say it out loud.

So just a word of warning... I'm likely to blog our journey, maybe... that requires remembering to blog it... but it also will mean that I can go back and see how far we've come.  The blog is pretty quiet now, not many visitors still stumble past even when I do post, so it'll likely go rather unnoticed for the most part.

Another word of warning. I'm tired. Chronically tired. Posts are likely to be longish and boringish because I can barely string together two sentences, let alone a blog with cohesive thoughts. Though I'm hoping that's something that might improve. There's been many women reporting that their brain fog has lifted as they improved their diet... so lets see how we go.

Ring my bell

Butterfly is a little hard to understand most of the time. Not because her words aren't clear... it's her meaning that we have trouble figuring out.

About an hour ago we were playing a game where we were throwing this small pink frisbee inside and then when it was my turn to throw it she would leave and I would throw it and then ring the bell for her to come and pick it up for me and bring it back. It really was quite a lovely lazy game for me.

Eventually she got distracted, I didn't ring the bell and she didn't notice.

Fastforward an hour and she is in the bathroom blowing bubbles and I'm messing around on my computer when I hear a command... "RING THE BELL!"

I'm exhausted and it's time for my afternoon coffee so I ignore her and hope for the best.

"YOU NEED TO RING THE BELL NOW!"

*sigh* I ring the bell.

She comes running back and starts looking around on the floor, then looks at me exasperated and says "Why did you need me to come and get mine Tinkerbell frisbee right now?"

"I didn't," I reply, "you told me to ring the bell"

"Yes, I told you to ring the bell so I would come and find mine Tinkerbell frisbee for you." She counters.

"Yes, but... I... you... oh never mind."

No Joke

Monkey read a 208 page joke book today, each double page spread had around 10 jokes on it. I'm his mother and his teacher and I am shocked by this... which I kind of feel bad about, you'd think I would know he could do this stuff.

He sounded out "Archeologist" and then struggled with a word further on and realised that because it was about an archeologist then the word must be tomb. Giraffe was the only one that really got him so stuck I had to help. Not bad for my little year one boy.

I was amazed, astounded, astonished. He even gave up some of his coveted internet time (where they get a bit of time on the weekend to watch their favourite you tubers play minecraft) to read.

But all of that aside... I'm not doing the maths right now but the number of mindless little kid jokes I heard today is somewhere between "That's a crazy lot of jokes" and "that's cruel and unusual punishment".

I'd burn that book tonight while he sleeps... except he's tucked it under his pillow.

No joke.

Old Maths Teachers Never Die...

...They just don't count any more.

Well today maths just about killed us... so just for fun I added a bit more to it.

While I sat with Dragon he took between 30 seconds and 1 minute for each problem depending on which times tables he needed to recall.

While I was busy helping other kids or getting dinner prepped for tonight he took an eternity... well, kind of.

So once he was finally finished we used the same skills he had just been doing in his maths work to figure out just how much time he wasted.

The boy is a professional time waster!

Consequently, this is where I am currently at. 

I put timers on to try to give them an awareness of the passing time and they have a meltdown because I'm "hurrying" them. I let them take as much time as they "need" and they get upset that their maths took soooooooo long. I sit with them to keep them moving and they get upset that I'm being bossy.

Can't win.

Better just drink more coffee...

We've got the look

A week ago our homeschool group was planning a clean up day in one of the local parks. We were going to take rubbish bags and gloves and go and tidy they place up a bit. Unfortunately it was scheduled for what was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the year with an extreme UV warning...

9am:
Mummy McT: "The park activity has been cancelled because it's too dangerous to have all the kids out in the sun cleaning up the park."
Boys: "Awww, it's okay, we would just drink lots of water and we'd be fine"

10am:
Mummy McT: "Time to hang out the washing, boys"
Boys: "But mum, it's too dangerous to be outside doing stuff like that because it's so hot"
Mummy McT: *stares them in the eyes* "drink some water"

They know the Mummy Stare... unfortunately some of them have adopted it into their own repertoire of smart-a**ery and can deliver a killer comeback with a deadpan face and eyes locked on their target.

I'm sure it was passed on by genetics and is not a learned behaviour... nope, that one just couldn't be helped... now lets just pray they use it for good and not evil.

Monkey knows the power of a well timed look

"I don't like writing"

Monkey resists writing as much as possible. The funny thing is he so often writes in his own time. He's actually really enjoying having a way to express himself and it helps us to understand his emotions instead of just having a meltdown.

I'm wondering if these are admissible as writing examples to submit with our homeschooling report...

"Never believe your parents"

"Do not disturb me"

I wish I could remember what I did to deserve these beautifully written signs getting placed around my house... probably something horrible like asking him to do a little more writing for his school work.  But I can't remember, we had our cuddles, we did some exercises to let his body download the drama and we moved on.

Kids.

If you didn't laugh you'd cry.

All week it was nothing but pain to get even one sentence from him. Then, at 3:30 on Friday afternoon, he decided to write a book. Yes, a book. Just in case you weren't sure the definition of a book is "lots and lots of sentences one after the other" I had to double check with him that we both had the same definition because I honestly couldn't believe it.

I don't know if I should cheer, cry, or tear my hair out.  Maybe I should just write about it.

Do as I say, not as I do.

Going through my draft posts (there's a lot) and found this from March last year.

*****
I'm finding myself in a situation that is all too familiar for one or two of my kids. I've had my confidence knocked... hard.

I've talked all the boys through it at times, even Butterfly in her own little way has been encouraged to "just keep trying" which I guess is much the same thing. I know what I tell them to do, I know I say it because it really is the best advice for the situation. I know that if you believe that what you are doing is right then you need to stand up for yourself. Assess the criticism (which may not even be criticism, but just feels like it), see if it holds merit, decide if you need to change what you are doing or your opinion, then act on your decision. At this point you either stay the same or you change.

Right now I'm at the assessing stage... the more I assess the more I am convincing myself that it's a personal attack... yet somewhere inside I know it's not...

*****

So... nearly a year on... it's kind of still hurting. I spoke to those with knowledge in the field and established that I SHOULD keep going. I saw the problem from both perspectives, I sought more views from the opposing perspective to make sure I understood. I came to the decision that I SHOULD stick to my guns and although in this situation neither party was exactly wrong, they were just different approaches to the same thing, I knew that the answer I had to give to those questioning me was a "your way" or "my way" answer.

But "shoulds" are one thing, next I had to decide if this was a sword I was willing to fall on. Would I step back, allow the requested changes to be made or would I stand firm, believing that it wasn't just "but we've always done it this way" it was actually what was currently the right way to do it?

I stood.

I don't feel like it's a win.

I feel like I'm constantly scrutinised to see if I made the wrong decision... but I also feel like that's stupid and of course I'm not.

Why is it so easy to dish out advice to our kids but to act on it ourselves takes courage that we forget we, and our kids, possess.

I recently told my sweet Monkey to "Just keep doing what you are doing, hopefully you will see the change in your friendship" when he was telling me about a friendship struggle he's having. "I don't want you to talk to X's mum, so maybe it's best if I'm just not friends with X any more." I answered him "well, it's just one part of an otherwise great friendship... stick with it, you'll be glad you did". He's not so sure, but with courage he's going to try. Friendships take a lot of courage. Sticking with a friendship through the hard times takes HUGE amounts of courage.

There's really not much point to this... just a reminder, sent out into the great big internet land, to take courage. What an example we can be to our kids when we really can be proud if they do what we do.

What if "Until Next Time" means "See you in Heaven"?

Sorry, emotional release here...

I had to say goodbye to a friend today. She's moving just about as far away as she can without leaving the country.

I say goodbye to lots of friends here. Living long term in a largely transient town means that every year there are friends working for mines that close who get shuffled off to the next location, defence friends come and go with sad frequency, many others "do their time" so they can earn their return to the "big city"... it's jus the way it is. Some you get really close to, others you don't. I don't form many tight close friendships so usually the goodbyes are just the regular kind of rough... this one wasn't. Not long after they moved here N, her husband (P) and their 1 year old son (A) came along to our church and N & A came to our playgroup. We clicked... we were so different, but so much the same. I feel like that's kind of the basis of most good friendships. She needed a friend who would take her as she was (ups and downs related to a past injury), I needed a friend who would take me as I was (scatterbrained and messy). We fit well together. She didn't judge me for the state of my housekeeping, in fact she offered to help me out (folding seems more fun with a friend, after all). I didn't mind if she had to cancel plans at the last minute or rearrange plans to fit with her health, I'd just go with the flow.

Do you ever wonder what our heavenly reunions will be like?

Today we had to say goodbye. They leave on Sunday for their new posting in Hobart. HOBART! There were tears. Both of us realise that even though I am desperate for a Tasmanian holiday (I was telling A (now 4yo) how lovely it will be that it's so green there since we are in drought here and he said "No, it's WHITE there because it SNOWS!!") and even though she has a brother up here who she may possibly come and visit or they may possibly by posted back here by the army at some point, it's all "what if" and "maybe". The only assurance we have that we will see each other again is the faith we both have that Jesus has promised that those who love him will one day be in Heaven.

Whenever I consider that day I'm never really sure what that meeting will be like. Will we seek out a reunion of our earthly relationships? Will all else pale in comparison to being in Christ's glory? I don't know. But I know that sometimes, "Until next time" is very likely to mean "See you in Heaven". 

A Fresher Start

When we started homeschooling I figured that was a fresh start for us. Then on our 1 year anniversary we un-enrolled from the Distance Ed school we were with and started going it alone. In Qld you are supposed to register with the HEU (Home Education Unit) if you aren't using a DE school. Though the penalties for not doing so are minor, usually a reprimand with "register within this period and we won't do anything" and I'm not sure if that is even followed up on. We finished out term 3 carrying on roughly with the plan we were already working on with the DE school but with a few modifications. So now, in term 4, we are starting fresh again... so it's a fresher start or something like that.

I thought I might just throw in some links here for what we are getting up to this term. If nothing else it will help me when it comes to reporting time to look back at what I PLANNED to get done.

Our overall theme for this term is The Great Barrier Reef. Our homeschool group has 4 excursions planned to Reef HQ for specific educational tours. To go along with that I'm using some great resources from GBRMPA (which for those not in the know of reef associated acronyms is Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority). If you are interested in those you can find them here. They are awesome full unit plans that are geared towards science but there's plenty of other stuff in there.

I got these decorator test tube "vases" from Kmart.

They aren't suitable for anything too serious, but they'll work for us... until I buy a bunsen burner...

For Science we are trying out resources from Super Charged Science. I'm a bit excited about these. They are designed by an ex-NASA scientist and she "teaches" via video and there's workbooks that outline the materials you need and it's done with the intention that the homeschooling parent doesn't need to be involved if they don't want to... but I love science so I'll be getting right in there with the kiddos.

For Maths they are finishing off the workbooks that we were using with the DE school. They are standard books for their year levels so I know they are covering all the relevant topics. BUT there will be a whole lot of maths involved in Economics.

For Economics (which is technically only a subject that Lion "needs" to do for Year 5, but they are all doing it to whatever level they are capable) we are using SimCity BuildIt app. The kids started playing it and I started so I could answer Monkey's questions and check it was a safe game for them to be playing (I sacrifice so much for these kids)... but I quickly realised there's so much they are able to learn with this game. So much they are learning without even realising it and so much scope for me to use it to make learning what they need to know more fun!

Then comes PE, I don't really include it as an actual subject usually, I felt like we could for this term. Much of the PE curriculum is incorporated into day to day learning with homeschooling. They research sports the like, they borrow books from the library to find out rules, they learn about general health in day to day life and being involved in purposeful discussions about food choices etc. So why is it an actual subject for this term? Because we got this...

It's a slack line! If you don't know what a slack line is then it's kind of like tightrope walking on a ratchet strap. For now we just need to learn to balance and walk on it, so there will be no tricks, but if you look up some of the awesome videos on youtube you'll find people risking life and limb doing crazy crazy stuff on their strap.

Ours is staying low to the ground for now and we have to use a helper strap which is a bit tricky to find a height that works for all 3 of the boys... though I don't think Monkey will need it for long. That kid really is a little monkey!

For English they are still using Grammar books that we've been going on all year. Gum Drops Grammar, they are fantastic and we've found some new books that interest the boys through them. English is incorporated into various other subjects and I'm writing my own plan for that but we are also possibly participating in the young writers version of NaNoWriMo. I need to decide if I have the patience for that.

Now most of that is for the big two, Lion and Dragon. Monkey is just in Prep, the first year of school in Qld and it's still not actually compulsory just highly encouraged, so I'm just keeping him interested in learning anything at all at the moment while we work on the skills that are the foundation of his future learning, basic number and letter skills and he's started to really shoot ahead with his reading after a very rough start. I find it hard to not compare what he knows to kids in a mainstream classroom... then I remind myself that I actually think those kids are pushed too hard too soon so why would I compare my kid to them? I would love to see the younger years being much more focused on hands on learning, play based learning, fewer workbooks and more reading books. He rides along when he wants to on activities and projects his brothers are doing and he does love his Maths workbook and there are certain things that at some point he needs to learn... but when to push and when to hold myself back is probably something I'll never figure out.

So that's the plan for Term 4, 2015. I'll add more if I think of it. I'm not sure if this will be a regular feature, I guess it depends if I find it helpful to refer back to or not.

You have a blog?

Blogging comes up often amongst homeschoolers. A lot of them keep a blog of sorts to help keep track of their schooling journey or to record when they did what, what programs and curriculum they were using... lots of reason... also in spite of the constant pace of things homeschool mums tend to get bored, I think. Not regular "there's nothing to do" kind of bored, more tired of the monotony and the education-centric thinking of almost every aspect of their day.

Without fail when blogging comes up and I mention that we have a blog I get this response... "You have a blog? You should put all that crazy stuff from Facebook on your blog!" And I know I should, but the short and sweet format of Facebook fits better with my schedule, or lack of schedule.

Right now though, I miss the cathartic outlet of writing, the focus that it allows me (even if the writing has nothing to do with whatever I need to focus on, it's weird) and the creative expression.  So............ I'm going to try and get blogging again. I might just do a few lines here and there, maybe a little catch up from my Facebook posts, maybe I'll fade away again after a week or two, but I need to get my fingers typing and record some of our year of homeschooling.

So for now, until I get my backside moving, here's a photo of Butterfly doing what girls do...

Guest post of Wolfbooks.

Mummy McTavish wrote this post for another blog.  Titled:

3 Series That Get Boys Hooked On Reading

You can read it here or head over to Wolfsbooks to read it.

Being a avid reader and married to a bibliophile, I just assumed that our kids would naturally be readers and lovers of books as well.  Let me tell you that this is not the case and has been a source of frustration for us, my wife especially, to get our boys interested in reading for enjoyment.

We recently seem to have turned a corner so I have asked my wife to write a 'guest post' on what she thinks has caused the turn around.

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An expert, I am not. A homeschooling mother, desperate for her kids to find a love of reading, I most certainly am.

Until recently I was getting ready to pay my boys for finishing a book. They started so many and finished none of them. I was tearing my hair out and going crazy! I had books recommended by friends as sure winners for their age groups, I had bought many of these books only to see them sit unread or unfinished (this is where the library is your friend… unless you forget to return them, then lose them and end up paying 3 times the retail price to replace them).

I don’t know exactly what it was that turned the boys around, where they will now willingly pick up a book that isn’t about minecraft, where they can read for periods of time and actually lose track of time because they are enjoying reading, but I can tell you which books they were in at the time which I am pretty sure had something to do with it.

The 13 Story Tree House.

Okay, so it’s below their reading level… or where their reading level should have been, but I’ll get to that later. It’s hilarious, apparently. I don’ t see it, but I’m a 30+ year old mum who has a limit on how many poo jokes she can handle in one sitting. The best thing is, it’s short chapters so they get their confidence built up as they finish each chapter and with many pictures through the book they have finished what seems to be a reasonably thick book in no time at all… and they now have a dozen or more poo jokes added to their repertoire.

The story is written by Andy Griffiths and illustrated by Terry Denton, and it is about their (highly exaggerated) process of writing this actual story. As a bonus… there’s plenty more of these books with at least one in the works to be released later this year.

Zac Power

He’s a boy spy. There’s mystery, intrigue, villains, good guys, cool gadgets, space ships and again… nice short chapters to build their confidence! There are a few different Zac Power series, they are written by a team of writers under the pseudonym H I Larry.

Start off with the Test Drive or Spy Camp series made for younger/beginner readers, they are the ones that got my wannabe spy sucked in and waiting for me to buy him the next books.

Boy vs Beast

Now I’m not so up to speed on these ones, I just know that I forked out for the next 11 books in the series that he’s reading because Scholastic had a half price sale and that’s not to be sneezed at! I’m not sure that each series is named in any particular way. The books follow Kai Masters, Border Captain, as he battles beasts (bet you didn’t guess that one) to keep earth safe.

The series is the brainchild of two women, Louise Park and Susannah McFarlane, writing under the pseudonym Mac Park. Interestingly, Susannah is the concept creator of the Zac Power books… she obviously knows what kids want to read!

These are the books that my reluctant readers have so far decided they can’t put down. All of them are aimed at readers between 6 & 8 years old, but don’t let that stop you if you have a struggling 10 year old like I do. There’s no point in presenting a struggling reader with books aimed at his age level when he will feel like he is constantly failing because it’s too hard. The other undesirable outcome is that he reads because you are telling him to and he reads the words but gets no enjoyment from the story because concentrating on the words he’s reading is more than enough work for him! Honestly, once they are reading, let them read at the level they feel comfortable. For sure, give them stuff that challenges them too, but don’t let them get lost in the “shoulds” of reading levels and grade averages. If they can’t read it then dial it back to something they can read and get them enjoying the reading. Once they are enjoying it they will naturally push themselves further.

All of these are by Australian authors, which is wonderful to see, but also means that there aren’t many references that the kids wont understand. I remember reading books growing up and there were so many American cultural references that I had no idea what was going on in some sections.

Other books that we have enjoyed…

The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Written by Brian Selznick and now turned into a movie as well (Hugo, released in 2011). I love this book, it’s daunting to pick it up, it’s one hefty book, but as you look through you see that there, interspersed through the story, are pages and pages of the most beautiful drawings. Sometimes you have to pour over half a dozen pages of drawings before you get to the next page of writing. I think it’s a beautiful way for kids who are now reading chapter books to get to remember some of that wonder of reading a picture book.

The Faraway Tree Series.

Didn’t we all read Enid Blyton books as a kid? The language is fast becoming out-dated but we have read them as read-alouds together and when my voice fades we also have the audio CD. This means that I can explain some of the more unusual phrases. These are also great for developing listening skills. There are so many detailed descriptions throughout the stories and it’s fun to get the kids to draw what they think the tree looks like, or one of the characters or to explain who lives above and below certain other people in the tree.

Toad Away

Morris Gleitzman is a funny man. This is another one we have just started reading aloud. I asked my facebook friends for suggestions for read-aloud books and Gleitzman was recommended by a few of them so… we started. Now, a word of warning… do not start doing voices for all of the characters if you aren’t in it for the long haul. I can carry that on for a chapter at a time but they love it and the story is so engaging and funny that they aren’t happy with just one chapter at a time!

The Speed of Life

Life is busy.

Very busy.

With four kids there's actually no way to stop it being busy. You can cut every extra curricular activity from your schedule and still find that just having kids around makes you busy.

Recently though our life has slowed right down. Riiiiiiight down.

August 11th 2014... that's the day we started homeschooling.

We had considered it since before Lion was to start school. We just couldn't wrap our head around it, it just wasn't the right time for us, I guess. Now, with so many changes going on it became evident that this was the right time. This was when we were to do it. Mid-primary school, mid-year, mid-term, mid-toddlerhood (yeah, that's a fun learning curve), mid-aspergers-diagnosis (there's another post there), right in the middle of everything that would be used to tell us that "maybe you should wait a little longer". Nope. Waiting for my kids every afternoon and feeling my stomach knot up as I wondered how their day went, if they were picked on, did they have friends today, how much further behind did they fall in that subject they are just struggling with... YIKES. I was stressed, as I watched their faces round that corner each afternoon and tried to judge from 20m away how their day was, I was seeing that THEY were stressed. The playground was a rough place at their school. We had to report one school kid to the principal for simulating sex acts... unfortunately not before the damage had been done in our house and ill-gotten knowledge was passed on to younger siblings. Though that was a bigger than average situation, when you have kids who take disobedience quite seriously and are constantly surrounded by kids who are disobedient and don't care at all if they are caught and punished for it... it's both exhausting for them and slowly, slowly, slowly it eats away at their own behaviour and you find them copying what they have seen, you hear them mimicking the words they have heard other kids use to those in authority when they get in trouble, it breaks your heart.

Then, you have a holiday. Two weeks off for the mid-year holiday and by the end of it I was starting to catch glimpses of the kids I used to have... The relaxed and calm 9 year old who just wants to invent stuff, the 7 year old who is so kind and gentle. Hey, that's right, these are my kids! Where did these kids go?

For years every time I've brought up homeschooling, even just to chat and "do you think we'll ever..." with Wolf the response has been resoundingly full of reasons why we shouldn't. Although we could both see the reasons why it would be good, he was my level head, the reminder that I had a newborn and was already struggling emotionally, the reminder that we still weren't finished having kids and how would I handle falling pregnant and homeschooling. It's not to say that if we had started sooner we couldn't have dealt with those things, or even that now we were excuse free, but at the time they were our reasons for not homeschooling. This time though his first answer was "Yeah, how soon do you think we could start". I think I might have started crying... I don't remember... We decided that it was best to send them back to school to start the new term, we really didn't know how long it took to get this homeschooling thing happening.  At first we thought we'd see out the year... then maybe just the next term... then we started to look at it in terms of days... we needed to get them out of there.

Towards the end of term 2 they ASKED me to start homeschooling them. Their friends had just announced they were starting and it seemed appealing. I assumed it was the fact that they had heard that the school day is a lot shorter for homeschoolers so I suggested that Wolf and I would consider their request and they should go away, discuss why they want to be homeschooled and come back to us. They came back with a well thought through argument for homeschooling, not a single mention of finishing school before lunch.

Lion was stressed. Lion was seeing a psychologist for anxiety. Lion was not coping in the classroom. Lion had recently been diagnosed "Aspergers with severe anxiety". School just wasn't fitting him well. It had become heavy on the testing and "scores" and if a kid fell behind there was no room to catch them up. I was hearing what a great student he was and how he was doing really well with a couple of areas that were causing him struggles, but the reality of it was that there was becoming a bigger and bigger gap between his "good" areas and his "struggling" areas. 

His teacher was fantastic, the psychologist was giving him ideas to help cope with his anxiety in class, he just didn't fit the system and the system didn't have room for much flexibility.

So we started, we met with the principal, with each teacher, with the psychologist, we met with everyone, we made sure everyone knew that we loved the school, we loved the teachers, we just needed to get out of this system that wasn't working. We cried. We found as many of their past teachers as we could to say goodbye to. The biggest tears were for the teacher aide that they both had for prep... I couldn't bring myself to go see her until the very last day.

Two weeks after we started, Lion has another psychologist appointment. She had a quick chat before taking him in, then after a very short time they were back out. She asked me to come in to her office... then she told me she didn't want to see us again. She confirmed over and over that homeschooling is right for him, he didn't have anything that was making him worried or nervous or anxious in any way. I got some more ideas for how to help him with his non-school related anxieties and then we left.

It's not been all smooth sailing, we go through a Christian distance education school and they are great at helping us figure out where we are going with things and what needs to be tweaked and what we are doing right. I read an article after our first couple of weeks saying that some families find it takes 1-2 years to find their groove, at which point I ran to Wolf and burst into tears saying "I need to find my groove and it can't take 2 years!" I think we are settling into that groove, I am finding that for the first time in my life I am enjoying and embracing routines and predictability. It's kind of frightening. This year we started Monkey doing Prep, that's brought along some new challenges now that I have two kids doing roughly the same work and one doing the very basics, but we have a lot of flexibility so we are getting through. We are still busily filling the gaps that have been left from when they were trying to keep up with the school curriculum, but we are also learning new and exciting things all the time.

So now we are at home a lot. We are also out a lot, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as crazy busy as it did before. We have joined the local homeschool group, we have youth groups and church and sunday school and cousins and playgroup and catch ups with friends... I'm feeling like it's the right kind of busy now.

So things keep moving at the speed of life, which I am pretty sure is faster than the speed of light, because my toddler seems to be growing up right before my eyes!

I didn't take many first day of homeschooling photos... but this one was one of the few I did get.

Merry Christmas 2014

Today we put up the Christmas tree.  A lot of photos were taken, and I'm sure once Mummy has completed her obsessive photo editing, she will put up a nice post.

But in the meantime, I present to you my favourite photos of the kids...

Merry McTavish Christmas 2014.

A Blatantly Obvious Plug...

While it's been a bit slow over here on Samster-dot-com, Wolf has been busy reworking and adding to his blog.  Covering subjects he likes but including a relational story to it.

So, if your still craving a bit of McTavish adventures have a look at one of his latest posts Why we-buy:the science of shopping, you'll get the short version of how we met and some back story to our pre-children days.  You'll also get a review on a book he thinks everyone should read.

Enjoy.

Older and wiser. I'm growing up.

It's true, I am growing up... well, growing older anyway.

I remember I had a few mums that, years ago, I would go to for help on things that I knew they had experienced because their family dynamic was similar to ours, just that little bit further ahead than ours. The conversation usually started like this... "I've got a problem and I'm wondering if you've been through this before... "

Honestly, I still feel out of my depth a lot of the time with this parenting thing, I think Ben does too. The problem is, nothing is static. The kids just keep growing and forcing us to learn new stuff and hitting new stages and doing things we haven't had any experience with before.

I still ask questions.

I ask my mum, my sister, my friends, the internet... it's still kind of a village experience going into raising a child, kind of, the village has just changed it's borders and looks a little different.

So it came as a surprise one day recently, when I was struggling to keep my head above water, when a friend came to me... "I've got a problem and I'm wondering if you've been through this before..."

How did I end up as the "older and wiser" one?

Well, I have had some fantastic godly examples of how to offer advice though I can only answer from my small research experience of my own 4 kids. I feel like I am far less coherent in my answers than they were in their answers to me... but that's just generally me, in everything. Sometimes when I'm writing I amaze myself with how coherent it is, my speech rarely comes out in a fluid sense making way. (yeah, that < right there, I'm all over this coherent sense making thing).

But of course, I'm still struggling with those new experiences too and will always be asking my "older and wiser" friends. I mean my kid just put a lion shaped castanet in my coffee... anyone experienced that before?

People Grow, People Change.

Warning: The more delicate reader may find this too much toilet related info.

Years ago I couldn't even wee if I knew there was someone waiting outside the toilet door. (Public toilets were a nightmare! The longer the cue, the more impossible the task.)

NOW I can change a small child out of their minion costume (including a skivvy/turtle neck) and never skip a beat, so to speak. Why the minion customer thing couldn't wait, I don't know. But I kind of dream of the day when I am one day afforded the luxury of having "stage fright" once again.

Aren't you glad I blogged again? (There will be more posts soon, I hope)

New Blog Header

Grannysaurus has been at me for AGES to update the header on the blog. Yes, the nearly two year old Butterfly wasn't even thought of yet didn't even feature in it. Yes, the nearly five year old was only five months old when the photos were taken. So FINALLY, now that I am trying to blog a bit more I decided that I would do my best to take/find photos of all four kids that could be used for a new header... because a photo of them all together is just not going to happen... ever. So, here it is.

Lion, 9yrs 3mths; Dragon, 7yrs 3mths; Monkey, 4yrs 9mths; Butterfly, 1yr 11mths.

Now I've got another 4 years before I need to do anything about updating this one... right?

The tape I used is by Hummie of Hummies World