Monday, 15 October 2012

System is Rebooting...

Rebooting my internal system that is (not a schedule kind of system) - just a complete "switch off and restart".  When my laptop/ PC freezes or starts 'throwing a wobbly' (usually because there are too many processes being computed - hmmm...), the first thing I do is switch off and start again.  So I'm doing the same for myself after my HE wobble last week - just switching off and starting again.  Switching off = no restrictions, no expectations, no suggestions - as mentioned on Saturday's post, Deschooling Top-up.  And just enjoying my boys and celebrating who they are... that's what I call starting again: focusing on the main thing, which is my beautiful children.  So I'm deliberately avoiding looking at the so-called "educational achievements" of today, & focusing instead on the fun we had together (none of which, I hasten to add, was instigated by me - hooray)...

I had some lovely cuddly time with Youngest: enjoying tickles and giggles; reading 'Percy the Park-keeper stories (his current favourite); playing at puppies and tigers; and having quite a surreal conversation where our socked feet turned into aliens who had got here from space via a flying van.  We also spent some time together on my laptop, printing off pictures to colour in, and playing the Alphablocks game on the CBeebies website, which he loves.

Middle and I had some cute little chats (very sincere on his part while I just tried not to kiss his serious little face) about when he can go camping with Daddy again and have a campfire - and also about thinking we should do some more cooking (sadly no baking possible until the groceries arrive tomorrow)... and we had a lovely snuggly time making up stories with each other - starting off fairly innocuously with a a hedgehog who farted his way almost to the moon and back (inspired partly I think by the awesome Felix Baumgartner's stratosphere jump that we watched live yesterday - altough I suspect his fuel was a little more refined).  Our story then progressed to a whole new level of surrealism.  I'll spare you the details, but just mention that it involved shrink-rays, butt-holes and exploding eyeballs.  It was such a precious time with my boy, having him giggling so much that he was struggling to get the words out to finish the story :)

Eldest has spent most of the day on the computer, which is not as isolating as it sounds.  He has a little notepad computer that has a broken screen so he hasn't been able to use it for a while.  Clever Daddy hooked it up to a normal monitor for him yesterday, so he can still use the laptop & all the things he had saved on it.  So today we spent some time together uploading all of his photos, and I showed him how to edit them & play around with effects etc in Picasa - my favourite free downloadable photo-editing (and sharing) software.  He had a great time - has been waiting to do it for ages, so it was lovely to get some time to spend helping him make it happen.  This was one of his favourite works of art, called "my alien Daddy"...


At one point today I did ask them to come away from their respective screens, so they could rest their eyes - otherwise they'd have stayed on the various computers etc all day which would not have been healthy.  Not a set restriction, just common sense in my opinion...  Anyway, Youngest found my set of cuisenaire rods and they all played with those for a while, then Middle and Youngest went and jumped in the leaves that are accumulating rapidly on the trampoline (hooray for fresh air) while Eldest found more things to take photos of.  He also drew some comic-strips that beautifully capture the juxtaposed realities found in his beloved Calvin & Hobbes, but the first one of which sadly I can't share here as he mentions himself and his brother by name.  I will have to transcribe & hope you catch some of the fun:
box 1: picture of snow leopard, with caption: "(Eldest) the snow-leopard creeps up on his prey"
box 2: picture of snow leopard leaping, with caption: "and then pounces on his prey"
box 3: picture of snow leopard on top of deer, with caption: "he grabs his prey tightly"
box 4: picture identical to box 3, except it is two boys, named as Eldest on top of Middle
Hmmm, it definitely loses something by not being able to see it. Well, here's his second one...

Before you ask (not that you would), I'm not sharing this as an academic achievement - I'm sharing it cos it's my blog and I'll brag if I want to... because he's my boy and he makes me laugh :)
In fact, laughs have figured highly in today's rebooting session... so that's the rest of the week planned out then: laughter!

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