Week in the life of...

I try to get up before my boys in the morning, not being little anymore they don't leap out of bed at 6am and demand fun, so I need an alarm clock now. I usually assess my day the night before and try and see how late I can arise with out messing up my carefully planned morning routine.

So yes I spring out of bed full of vim and vigour (sarcasm) and start my day with a morning routine of folding clean clothes before leaving bedroom, get dress, carry dirty clothes, my gadget bag (contains essential to life electronic devices) and struggle downstairs slightly overloaded to my bathroom. I put on the washing machine, clean the bathroom, and prepare myself for the day. As we only have one bathroom, if I get interrupted in this routine I get stressy.

Then I go let the dog out into the garden and go start cooking bacon and eggs, or similar for breakfast. Make a cup of tea for me and the boys, plus empty my dishwasher. While the breakfast is cooking I go drag children out of bed. This is achieved with a 'Mum of teens' dog lick attack. I take the dog with me upstairs and get him in turn to leap on the boys and lick them awake. If this doesn't work, I have taken to lately dragging my eldest legs out of bed and sitting him up, then quickly positioning the dog so he can't lay back down. I have tried removal of covers, stealing pillows, suggesting the use of an alarm clock..well the alarm clock is useless he can have a siren going off by his head and sleep through it. I have tried leaving him to sleep in, but all this does is turn him nocturnal, which isn't good for productivity.

After breakfast, depending on how dozy the boys are we either go for a walk and do a strength workout or watch a documentary. We are going through different science/history/social studies/geography documentaries which we watch may be three a week on different days.

 Every week day morning we do maths (exceptional circumstances withstanding). Sometime my youngest does maths while I cook breakfast, they are both using the online conquer maths program, most days I like to sit with my youngest and help him find ways of thinking through the maths, I never answers the questions for him, but I do show him clever tricks for quick mental calculations. My eldest like to work by himself on maths, unless really stuck.

My weekly plan for structured work I would like us to get through changes termly, depending on our goals and aims. Its totally geared towards the boys ambitions and dreams.

Currently this term we are working on iGCSE Physics using this book, we are all working through it together, my eldest is making note cards with key terms and formulas for revision and my youngest is just making general notes. We all snuggle up on the sofa and I read through and explain, until they understand one topic or part topic if a complex one. I use real life examples they can relate to, for example, how would you work out the velocity of our dog as he runs from one end of the room to the other?

This may seem quite a formal approach to learning, but my eldest son has goals which require certain exams, so we need to work through some set work for the exams. As a home ed. Mum I am always very aware of the balance between interest and driving the boys to achieve. If they are not interested they won't learn, so I drop the subject or find something that gives them the motivation to regain that interest. I am also aware of age differences between my boys (3 years), so obviously I don't expect my youngest to concentrate for as long and if it gets too technical and switches his brain off, its time for him to go do something else.

On top of the above formal work, my eldest works on English, which is set by his tutor. He is currently working on English literature iGCSE, having just passed his English language iGCSE.

All other learning is informal and autonomous, here is an interesting article on autonomous learning. Our days are full of spontaneous conversations, discussions on every topic you can imagine, for example, this morning we had a 'film studies' type discussion on about Star Trek and how the different aliens were supposed to be based on different stereotype national identities. This discussion also included the big question 'Do aliens exist?'. All quite fascinating, and as always learning happened whilst laughing.

My sons are both avid computer gamers, I gave up trying to turn them in to gardeners or chefs quite a few years ago, they love computer games, much like their father and myself. I can't really condemn this love of PC gaming, when one of my favourite ways to relax is to load up 'League of Legends' and play a few competitive online matches, trying to keep the 17 year old gamers on their toes! I have an extremely competitive streak and this is a fun outlet for it. Anyway digress slightly, my boys have found that role play gaming is fun, its basically drama online, so you act the part of the character in the game you are playing, this is usually part of a community of players, who you can chat to whilst playing. Its sounds mindless, but believe me its highly complex including flying realistic flight simulators whilst talking to a control tower, mapping flight paths and rescuing comrades. I challenge Mums and Dads to attempt to play these games, the multi tasking involved is huge. Both boys have become server admins for servers running gaming communities, to do this they had to write application  and submit them, they had to show maturity and responsibility, believe me there is nothing worse than an 'online gaming troll' so they both are learning to be polite respectful, but also how to deal with idiots (a useful life skill). Both boys have learn't internet safety, how to avoid scamming and how to keep a balance between real life and online life. I discourage night time gaming, so most of the time they go on the PC is in the afternoon, before dinner. This is if we are not out swimming with friends or visiting interesting places.

The boys evenings are jam packed. I guess this is my season as taxi driver, I remember my Mum and Dad taxi driving me about at this age too.  My eldest is very involved with the Air Cadets and is highly motivated to be a pilot, hence the exam work. He is also working on his Duke of Edinburgh award so he is helping to lead the local cub pack. He does many sporting and physical activities with the Aircadets and is also working through a BTEC in aviation. Nearly every weekend has some sort of activity, from service in the community to flying aeroplanes.

My youngest loves Scouts and the camping, archery, hiking, shooting and chopping wood with axes that this involves. He is also learning Karate, which is excellent exercise. He reads every night at bedtime, spy stories and wants to be a Ninja.

Then we all love to watch TV in the evenings together as long as it is an episode of Castle or Chuck, or similar.

So this is us...how we roll...

Today's Pigeon rescue.

Dreams over breakfast...

...Sitting here listening to my youngest son play his guitar, cuddled up with my border collie...could life be better? I love watching my kids grow and learn...

 This morning over breakfast youngest son was telling me how he wishes 'Cherub' existed, this is an organisation that trains child spies in the book he is reading, The Recruit.  Along with wanting to be a spy, he wanted to know what were the views like from the top of Mount Everest, iPad came out, over sausage and eggs we googled mountain views, came across an interesting blog.  We especially liked the facts about how most of the year because of the jet stream there are 118 mile an hour winds across the top of the mountain.Then his eyes got bigger at the thought that Mount Everest is getting higher ever year by a few centimeters, he started calculating how high it would be in a thousand years.

...it's very hard to type a blog with a wet dog nose snuffling under your iPad, the dog has worked out how to flip the cover of my iPad shut, so I have to look at him instead!...


I asked young son if he knew what acclimatisation mean't, he said no but when I said its your body adjusting to the reduction of Oxygen as you climb the mountain, he then said, oh I know how climbers deal with that, they go up the mountain, then come down a bit to rest, then go up some more, so they gradually adjust to the lack of Oxygen.

...Oh ok! Now the Border Collie is snuggling up to me, by pushing and wriggling, knocking my iPad out of my hand...shove off Mutt!...

Then we checked the weather for the Lake District, we head off in two days for the mountains, I am seriously excited now. Camping equipment is piled up on our floor, I am getting slightly fed up of tripping over it, so I will be happy to get it all organised in to my car on Saturday. The weather is going to be perfect and the day we climb Scarfell Pike is looking to be the best day, so I have checked I have enough batteries for my camera so I can get some mountain photo's.

Young son is now planning in his head, he wants to climb all the highest mountains and he asked whilst munching his sausage,"If I climb enough mountains, do you think I could climb Mount Everest?" ...I love big dreams.

Son's on a mountain in the Italian Alps

Why get out of bed?

The roar of the river was in competition with desperate cries for help from my youngest son, who was eight years old. He was stuck in his kayak half way down a fast moving weir. My heart started pumping double time as adrenaline rushed through me. My husband and eldest son had just shot the weir and were paddling hard to hold position near the bottom to wait for us, I knew I was going to have to rescue him.

 The water was drowning out my shouts of reassurance back to him as I paddled fiercely over to the bank to abandon my kayak on some rocks. Amazing how you never forget to pray in these situations, usually along the lines of "Oh God help!", which was the prayer on my lips at that moment. I stood on the rocks that led out over the river, I could see myself being washed over the weir if I didn't take care, the water in the middle was a couple of feet deep and a strong flow. My sons cries where getting more desperate as he was helpless to do anything, I yelled back, but again he couldn't hear me, no time to waste I got on all fours and clambered out across the slippery cold rocks. I inhaled hard as I entered the icy water, there seemed to be a ridge of rocks just where the water tipped over the edge, I managed to wedge my feet under it as I crawled up to my neck in water, holding on very tightly. I got to the middle where I could reach the end of my sons kayak, my mind was working fast, do I pull him up or give him a big shove down? I decided down, hubby and big son could drag him out quick if he capsized at the bottom.... It worked and he didn't capsize.... Feeling pretty shaky by the time I reached my kayak again, I dragged it over the rocks to the bottom of the weir, I didn't need the thrill of shooting it.

This river trip was in France on Haute-Saône Doubs a river that flowed through the eurocamp site at Bonnal. Very beautiful wooded area of Burgundy. All I can say is the French idea of a gentle family canoe trip down the river, didn't quite match mine. Our 'trip', or should I call it 'adventure' was a catalogue of trials; I had to rescue my youngest a number of time, from weirs, trapped under brambles upside down, difficult weirs where the only way to avoid them was dragging the canoes up slippery banks, my husband capsized in a really deep bit, lost his glasses and we ran out of crunchy bars.

 After about five hours of paddling my youngest was getting tired, so he came along side me and held our kayaks close while I paddled us both, I started to teach him how to keep going when something is tough, I pin pointed a tree or bush up river from us and we made that our next goal to achieve. After seven hours and a final weir which I plainly refused to even go near, but the alternative was drag the canoes over a large mound of nettle strewn ground. I felt nettle stings were favourable to more traumatic child rescue missions. We were about to enter our kayaks again and I took one look at little son, his lips were turning blue... That's it I declared we are abandoning the kayaks and walking to warm up... After about a mile we found we were back at the campsite, we arrived at 7.30pm after leaving midday, just as the receptionist was locking the door of the camp office where we needed to return our paddles...needless to say, that evening we treated ourselves to delicious French cuisine at the local restaurant.

This all happened a couple of years ago, but I thought of it again as I have found myself talking to my boys in the last few days about 'mental strength'. Explaining to them how sometimes we want to give up in a moment of hardship, either physically or mental, but we have to stop and remember what we were trying to achieve when we started and ask ourselves do we still want that goal?

Both boys have ambitions for the future that will require significant strength of mind and body to achieve, they are quite determined and set on their ideas. So I am now using their aims as focus for motivation when they are struggling either with exam work for my eldest or exercise and self discipline for my youngest... It's that question we all have to ask ourselves..."Why get out of bed today?"

At our post 'kayak adventure' meal...
"We made it Mummy"










French food is good recovery food...

Life is for living...

Running with sons is fun, we went running today through the woods. It's a very up and down route, good for preparing our mountain legs I tell my boys. The woods near us were lovely today, with fresh damp smell of the trees, and Woodpeckers and Jays lively over head. It was very muddy, but call me crazy I love running in mud far more than pounding a pavement.

The boys haven't always come running with me, in the last year they have started to ask me if they can come join me on my runs, which made me grin. I started running three yeas ago, determined to regain some vigour and bounce. The boys have watched me run and train for a race in CaniX (cross country running with dogs), which is really noisy, especially on the starting line with the dogs barking and the huskies howling all excited to run. You harness you dog to your waist with a bungee lead and off you go... Like a rocket! I have labelled my dog "a random speed generator" as he loves to run, but then gets distracted and suddenly stops in front of me or veers off the path after a squirrel, but the low branches he dives under are the most dangerous... So yes, CaniX is a danger sport.

I have found there is three ingredients for fitness and sports when home educating; example, inspiration and opportunity. So setting an example, by heading out myself for two years three times a week running, and doing a strength work out at home with the boys watching me and giggling when my dog tries to sit on my face when I am doing sit ups. Now they join in, both are very motivated and want to be strong.

For inspiration, we have watched Born Survivor avidly, Bear Grylls is now my youngest male role model for adventure and what you can achieve physically. My eldest has been inspired to exercise and sports by his determination that he wants to be a pilot, he knows he needs to be fit and is now fixed on that. Also inspiring is our dog, having an energetic working dog living with you who thinks being active is the best thing EVER.. add waggy tail here...is so movitating to movement.

The boys have had endless opportunities for all different sports, through scouting, AirCadets, and group events with other home educators. I had my eldest at one time begging me to buy him kangaroo legs after trying them at a Scout Jamboree camp.

I am slightly bias about sports as I have always preferred adventure sports, like sailing, hiking, basically any sport that takes me some where beautiful or wild... The boys are very competitive so any thing that they can achieve and claim as a victory motivates them.
 
So in conclusion, anything that inspires or motivates my boys to be able to enjoy life and be active counts as sports too me... Life is for living.

CaniX racing with my dog