Out and About

I have been trying to write a blog for a while now but have been finding it quite difficult what to say, my thoughts are very disjointed at the moment, feeling kind of blank, got so much going on all the time.
But seeing as this is a home education blog, I'll just stick to that - keep it simple!

This is how it is right now - Alex is STILL completely obsessed with Skylanders.
I've realised something though, having just checked my blogs, that it's been 17 weeks since he's had a meltdown! Which is pretty good going! :)

Jamie has decided that she absolutely HATES Alex (even though they play together a lot still) and it's making life quite difficult right now. I can't even trust them to be alone together, as they will get into a massive fight. I know Alex can be very frustrating because for one, he's a brother, but also Alex doesn't quite get certain things like reading body language, and he doesn't understand why Jamie would want to be alone, and he can be quite clumsy and rude sometimes and I think she's feeling a bit 'Alex'ed out'.

I took some advice from 'Siblings without Rivalry' and got her to tell me all the things that Alex does to annoy her, I listened without making judgement and resisting the urge to stick up for Alex (although, at the end, I couldn't help mentioning that if she doesn't like him calling her an 'idiot' then neither should she call him that) and then we went through each problem to see what we could do about it. I explained to Jamie what I have learned from the occupational therapist about why Alex does some of the things he does, and she started to understand that she couldn't do what she wanted to do to sort it out - which was to get inside his brain and make him stop - I explained that she can't change him, but some of the things, like speaking rudely, I will help out with, but his sensory seeking actions are just what he needs to do or can't help. But we did sort most of the problems out (at least I hope so) and we also found one of Alex's (many- not that Jamie hasn't got any but sometimes I feel I talk about Alex's difficulties too much!) lovely attributes, which is no matter how much they fight with each other, within 5 minutes, Alex doesn't hold a grudge and still wants to be Jamie's friend and play, and he really does love her.

Today, we had to drop the car off at the garage. I haven't had the car for over a week and it's been really annoying not knowing when I'm going to be able to get it back. The garage is really far away from our house, so we had to walk all the way back home, and although I was really worn out, we had a great time. We grabbed some lunch from sainsbury's that was nearby, and we had loads of fun trying on all the different Halloween masks there, some of which were really quite scary and frightened Amelia, hope she doesn't have nightmares!  Then we picked up our hamster ball from the post office depot (we were out yesterday when the postman tried to deliver it) and then went to a nearby park which had a metal half-pipe and we all had fun sliding around on it. Then we walked on and got to the aqua park and we stayed there for a while, Alex got soaked having a brilliant time playing in the fountain, Jamie was really chuffed that she could finally do the older childrens rope assault course, we had the whole place to ourselves (my favorite perk to home schooling!) then made our way back home.

Later on Jamie got in a weird mood and just starting irritating everyone on purpose, seeing this as a boredom thing, I suggested she do some of her work books, which she gladly took up, she completed 6 pages of English, for some reason she can't help get the fits of giggles when we're doing the work sheets, it's takes about 3 times longer but we have fun making up funny sentences.

Jamie did something really sweet and made herself and I a 'Feelings' book, where we can write down our feelings. I thought that was a really good idea.

Yesterday we went for a picnic at the common and Alex and Jamie explored the little stream.
In the evening Alex wanted to do some of his maths workbook, and he learnt how to do long addition, he didn't think he could do it at first, and was surprised when he found it quite easy. He also gets the giggles big time doing his work sheets...is it me??? He had a lot of fun thats for sure :)

But apart from that we've just been really busy doing chores and shopping and other stuff like that, we missed craft club on tuesday because they just weren't in the mood for it, I was a bit gutted though, but if they don't feel like being social, I'm not going to force them, I hate it when I'm made to be social when I really don't don't want to. Jamies friend came over in the afternoon anyway, and we went to the park, it was really nice actually, they climbed up the trees on the edge of the fields and I stood and just listened to the autumn wind blowing the leaves and trees around, I love the Autumn.

Here are some photos of some of the stuff we've been up to, mostly outside stuff :) but none from today because the battery died on my phone :(

 Amelia's birthday cake!

 Inside a huge conifer tree

 exploring a stream

We also did Amelias birthday which went really well (she loved the cake!) and Alex has done two more sessions at Beavers, he got his first badge! and we went on a torchlit treasure hunt in some woods which he loved, but was quite disappointed that there wasn't any actual treasure, we had to find something beginning with every letter in the alphabet, which got quite hard and we did kind cheat a teeny little bit.....the van we saw wasn't exactly IN the woods....and I can't even remember what we got for the letter 'x'..........