Babies Born ~ February 16th-28th 2009 #16

Malyna - feel free to PM me any questions about studying psych or the field generally as a career. It's pretty broad. I'm currently considering a change in direction and employer. Bit scary after 13 years!

Sent from my phone.

OP - maybe you would consider to be a beta reader for me with the second book (you get to read the final draft and make comments on it and tear it to shreds). Although I've made the story line so darn complicated that I've got so many twists in it, it's taken quite a bit of work to weave it around to make it make sense (if that makes sense - LOL)

Kaz - thanks. I know the feeling. I've been doing office admin work for 20ish years and now I'm thinking about something totally different. I will PM you. Thanks sweetie.

Garden bug has hit again. Been drooling over garden catalogues. Just will have to convince the possums and the kangaroos to give up attacking my seedlings and then I'll have a nice garden.

Wow. No posts in here for a while!

How is everyone doing?

Good! I'm really loving DD's age/stage ATM. She is such a loving, helpful big sister. Still has a tanty every now and then but it much easier to calm down and discuss things rationally.

She adores kinder, which is good.

I'm sending her to school next year, eek! Big preppie!

I love this age too OP. I say that about every age, LOL. You can really see their little personalities develop and can have such interesting conversations.

I can't believe they will be school age next year already!! OMG, seems like they were just born!! We are homeschooling which we're pretty excited about, will be heaps of fun.

Definitely decided that Heaven? I know you were thinking about it. How does it all work? Do you need to register somewhere?

What will DD2 do while you're doing the school stuff with DD1?

Just curious :)

Sure, ask away! But you might not get me to shut up about it now, LOL.

Yep, we've definitely decided. You just register with the Home Education Unit when they're 6.5 (compulsory school age). It's different in different states but here you just send in a learning plan at the beginning of each year and a report on their progress at the end.

Never thought I'd homeschool! I imagined it was just for crazy hippies, lol. And I thought it was like 'school at home' where you sat at the kitchen table with your mum all day doing workbooks. But it's not like that at all. A whole different lifestyle. Because a lot of the time in school is spent on behaviour management, lining up, moving from room to room, etc etc, you can get the same amount of learning done in much less time at home. So say for prep I might only be doing some more deliberate work with her for 1/2 hr, 4 days a week. So fitting that in with DD2 around is easy. We might be doing something that she can join in with on her level, or I can set up an activity for her that will easily keep her engaged for that long, or she can just have some independent play time without DD1 bossing her around, LOL. And then as she gets older she will be able to join in more and more. And as DD1 gets older and is able to read and write she will be working a lot more independently anyway, without me needing to sit with her, and I can just be near enough for answering questions and seeing how she's doing IYKWIM.

So I'm pretty excited because there are lots of possibilities for the things we can do. When we were looking at school I really wanted to find one that was more play based in the early years but unfortunately there is no good schools around here. Actually, the opposite, I have only heard bad things. DH's sister is a teacher and she told us not to send the girls to the schools in our area. (We're in a nice area but it's pretty new and the schools aren't that old, and they have lots of kids in the younger grades. They seem to have big problems with bullying too, no thanks.) Then a teacher friend of mine asked if I'd ever thought of homeschooling, and I started looking into it. The more I read, the more it felt right for us.

I just want them to be happy and to be who they are meant to be. I don't believe academics is more important than creativity and I want to nurture all their interests. I want them to have hours of outside time every day, I want to tailor their education to their interests to make it more meaningful for them, I want them to love learning and not feel pressured by it, I want lots of play-based and natural learning every day, I want to learn at a pace that suits them, I want us all to have great relationships with each other and lots of time together, I want them to be confident and social, I want them to have great friends of any age, and so many more things!

I suppose lots of things we all want for our kids! I think I can better do all that at home at this point in time so that's what I'm going with. I am definitely not anti-school, most kids do great in school! I do think they will go to school one day, when they're much older. I know there are some fabulous schools out there, and also some really great teachers! But for now, this feels the right way for us!

Anyone who has me on FB will know I take a crazy amount of photos, LOL. You know one of the things that was hard for me when deciding this? I won't have a cute first day of school photo!!!!!!!!! lol. With their brand new uniform and oversized backpack!! lol. I will have to make up my own or something. You'll all have to share your super cute preppie photos with me!!

Heaven I want you to be my mummy!!
I think you'll are amazing and your girls will thrive even more with homeschooling!!

DD is going great, in 3 yr old kinder this year and doing really well! She loves 'reading' her books, I love how they naturally start the reading process without even realising it. Like her big sister likes drawing, ATM it's flowers lol! Can spell and write her name which she has been practising for a while but it's now clicked.

Thanks Olive! I really expected some negative reactions when we told people, especially from some family members (they thought BLS was outrageous, ROFL). I have had only positive comments though!! So surprised!!

LOL, what is with the flowers? That is all DD is drawing right now too!

So I've been MIA on here for a very long time. Hmmm... What's happened? Heaps of things. Major one being I've gone back to work full time - three weeks ago. Was offered a 4 month job, which covered the huge hole that DH's contract may/may not be renewed, seemed to be increasing our worry levels.

DH discovered he has no cartlidge in his left ankle, his right is heading the same way. Not much they can do. These are, apparently, the issues with long term renal failure - the body starts to fall apart.

So while DH is on borrowed time (his kidney is now 16 years old, hips are 12years), we are chugging along. Gotta go bbl. Been offered a go on the Wii with monster trucks with 4 year old, who can resist - I actually might win for a change... no... doubt that!

**okay, I totally sucked with the monster truck game, but I had fun.

DS is totally toilet trained. Thanks Det for your wisdom and advice. It did happen, gradually. It was weird though, because he was dry at daycare, needed a nappy to poo in, and only wet the bed every 2 or 3rd night. We probably started in about January, and finished nappies completely (without asking for them) in early April. It seemed that once 'the shops ran out of nappies' then the countdown began and I'd say "Well you only have 5 nappies left, you'd better start pooing in the loo."

Can't believe all our 'babies' are heading off to school next year.... sigh

Can't believe our babies are school age! How are they all doing?

Hi all,
Didn't realise you were all still chatting.
You have new bubs too, congratualtions!
Well it is a tough time at the moment for me, as all the kindy kids have started school and I wish Milana was starting with them.
Hope all your little ones are settled and well.
Just thought I would mention that if all goes smoothly, my miss Milana will be a big sister again.
High risk preg again, but hoping to get through to the same as my other little guy, he was born at 30 weeks.
Take care all

I was just thinking of you - I always do at this time of the year. Congratulations, I hope this pregnancy goes well for you and I'm sure Milana is watching over you.

Happy 5th birthday miss J xxx