Happy New Year for 2012

It's January.  Our Christmas did not go quite as planned.  I was ill before Christmas with a bad cough and some kind of flu-like virus and then on Christmas Eve Springy said she wasn't feeling too well.  On Christmas Day she woke up with a fever and no appetite.  We didn't have Christmas dinner 2011 and most of the next few days were spent on fever management with a cold flannel.

She spent the entire Christmas week at home and no friends round (one of her best friends' father is undergoing cancer treatment so we didn't want to risk giving him an illness either).  Anyway, in some ways the break was just what we needed.  It was simple:  simple meals, simple activities, lots of cuddling up together.

She's now back to Irish Dancing and Cubs (her last term and has just been made a Sixer).  She also got walkie talkies which is what she wanted for Christmas and an American Girl book on the body.  The book is excellent - just what I could have done with at her age in order to prepare for puberty.  It's very matter of fact but also deals with some of the feelings girls have about changes in their bodies.  Springy is a few years off puberty still but some of her friends have started to alter and I think it's useful because she can help them too with the information and it's opened her to knowing that she can trust and ask me about anything she wants.

This week and a bit since the start of the New Year has seen us returning gently to a rhythm for our home education (although it never really stops).  Springy has been painting, we did some maths involving graphs and bar charts (from Galore Park) and also today she has been modelling with Fimo, before going out this afternoon for her aunty's birthday lunch.  I must admit that I was in a panic last year - I felt stretched in so many directions.  As well as home educating I work and the work has not been as busy as we need to pay bills etc.  So I've been worrying about getting another job and then wondering how I could fit that in with home educating and already working.  I'm also studying for a degree and also a BTEC.  This year I'm not able to afford much of my BTEC studies so although I would love to do them (and not doing them is going to affect my therapy business as well the likelihood that I will ever finish the course), it's one less stress in many ways. 

On Wednesday we went down to the harbour to watch the sunset.  It was beautiful. There were loads of swans, oyster catchers, sandpipers and curlews - eerie bird noises along the shoreline and soon the owls were due out.  The tide was going out so the shapes in the mud flats and the bare winter trees looked spectacular.  We've also been watching a series called Earthflight which is about birds, on the BBC.  Although the script is rather 'dumbed down' in places, the visuals have been wonderful.