Christmas School (3)

Our next activity for Christmas school was a choice, as I had planned both Thursday and Friday morning for craft and realised that there was just not going to be time. Each child chose a different project, with a collage fairy, a snowflake garland and a hand-made Christmas card under construction.
The children were all busy and entertained and so I decided to join in too. I got out paints, card and glue and had a go at making a greetings card. So pleased was I with the result and so much did I enjoy doing it that I made another, and then bought some prettier card when I was out shopping to make others. Simple and quick, yet requiring enough skill in order to get an attractive result to be engaging: I am looking forward to putting some time aside in the next week create more. For me, it is one of the precious Home Ed moments, when I am alongside the children, learning and active with them, enjoying developing myself as much as them.

The peace and goodwill of the approaching Christmas season has clearly permeated the household and the furry residents are gradually improving their relationship. Coco knows her place and waits patiently for Barney to want to play. Barney will never want to play, but he has, at least, condescended to remain in the room with her.

Dog Days

She did it! She is, officially, a very good girl! Well done Coco!The cat, however, I can only describe as underwhelmed.

Spooked

While Coco, the puppy, has been settling in very well (only one indoor pee yesterday, and that on the lino), Barney, the cat, is less happy. He has been content to stay upstairs all day everyday, eat in the bathroom and allow us to open the front door for him whenever he'd like to go out, but I am beginning to feel that I need to work on our own entente cordiale. So yesterday, with Coco in her crate and being fed treats to keep her otherwise entertained, I brought the cat through the kitchen, past his arch-enemy. He puffed up and growled, but we made it through. We did this twice and later, while the cat was in the garden, I took Coco out on the lead. Barney took moments to disappear although the puppy showed no interest in him at all.
I didn't see Barney again until this morning! He showed up at the front door but was reluctant to come in. I had to round him up like an unskilled sheepdog and finally lunged at and caught him. I really needed him home as he is due at the vets for his booster vaccinations (having missed them last week due to running away from the dog). Poor Barney, he really is having a bad week!

Dogs

There really doesn't seem much else to write about in my life at the moment than these two dogs. Discussions are running high as to whether we might get a dog of our own. As we let them out in the sunshine of Bushy Park yesterday afternoon and the children and I tramped through the bracken enjoying being outdoors, I was ready to head straight to a puppy breeder and hand over cash. After it had rained and we came home with the smell of wet dog filling the car and two muddy dogs in my utility room-come-office I was less sure. As I went to bed and stroked my cat (who is camping out upstairs so now I have cat food in the bathroom) I was relieved by his complete indifference to my presence. At last, someone who didn't want something from me, but was soft and fluffy and purred.
With the start of term, laminated time-tables and all, and two energetic dogs, it feels as if my life has gone into fast forward. The dogs are proving a draw to the neighbourhood children too and so both my middle son and my daughter had friends to play after school. From waking up to putting the children to bed feels like one long sprint, always five minutes behind where I should be. I successfully exhausted the dogs yesterday, by a quarter to nine they were flopped on the floor, the only problem was that so was I!

Foster Mum

On Sunday, two King Charles Spaniels, Lexie and Ivy, arrived at our house, to the delight of my youngest and the horror of my eldest! My little girl has always loved dogs and never misses an opportunity to ask a passing owner if she may stroke his or her pet. While five years ago my response to the suggestion of dog ownership would have been, 'over my dead body', repeated interactions with all sorts of breeds and friendly owners, and a little dog-sitting in Yorkshire, has mellowed me. I love my cat dearly, but he does not love me and he is aloof and stand-offish. That's fine, he's a cat, but there is something about my arrival causing a tail to wag that warms my heart. So I am beginning to consider the issue and we are having a trial run. Even if we decide against, having dogs for a week occasionally is better for my daughter than never having dogs.
Lexie and Ivy are high maintenance! It's not the practical needs that worry me, feeding twice and day, letting in the garden to do their business and walking round the block, it's the emotional need. They look up at me, their eyes pools of earnest desire, wagging their tails in unison, and I have no idea what they want. The door is open and they can go play, I have fed them, I have exercised them, I have tickled their ears. I am failing them in some way. When their owner left on Sunday, she reminded me not to feel guilty about how much activity or attention they got. 'In the kennels,' she told me, 'they would be in a concrete cell and have three lots of twenty minutes exercise.' I am doing much better than that. They have had the run of the garden, three children to play with, the sofa to sit on (yes, really, I am such a softie!) and two walks a day - even in the pouring rain. But I can't quite escape the feeling that I am a disappointment!
Perhaps I need to find my affirmation from another source!

Do you know anyone who eats rats whole?

On Sunday night, I got an e-mail from my friend Kathy at Restoration Place. (Kathy, I would reply, but it's now sitting in a mysterious black box between my old and sad PC and the shiny new superspeed one and I will have to wait for my husband to retrieve it!)
Kathy complimented my cat Barney on his general gorgeousness and how he has grown since I first posted about him. He looks, she commented, like a good mouser. Oh no, I smiled to myself, not Barney. Gorgeous? Definitely. Fluffy? Beyond a doubt. But not the brightest cookie. I didn't reckon his chances of catching a mouse.
However, it turns out that Barney also read the e-mail (I can think of no other explanation) because first thing yesterday he appeared at the cat-flap with a large, furry, comprensively dead mouse in his mouth. I responded rapidly by locking the flap and shouting at him until he took his offering elsewhere. He dropped it just outside the living room window, in full view. In one of those crazy, grab every opportunity, home education moments, it seemed like a good idea to point the dead mouse out to my children, who were duly fascinated.
Returning to the window later on, I was peturbed to see that the mouse, the dead mouse, had gone. A large stick was lying near its not-so-final resting place. My children's shoes were in a heap by the back door. Apparently a dead mouse is one of the most interesting things in the world and they had only picked it up with sticks and not touched it, only its tail. It hadn't gone, either, it was on the outside window sill. Indeed it was. I expressed my unhappiness with having a corpse at such close quarters and my hygiene concerns over their playing with the mouse. Indignantly my daughter, who clearly thought I was over-reacting, informed me that mice are not that bad and that some people swallow rats whole. I refuted this but she was adamant: her brother had told her. On further questioning, I discovered that these rat-eaters were in fact sailors on Ferdinand Magellan's first crossing of the Pacific Ocean, who had been at sea for three months and were also cooking and eating their boots! (Although why they cooked the boots and not the rats is a thought that has only just occured to me.)
I was impressed at that evidence of good connections made, and, after all, isn't that what education is all about? I was also very glad when my husband came home and removed the mouse to the end of the garden!

House Guests

While my friend Jacki is away over half-term, we are rabbit-sitting.Their arrival was greeted with much excitement by my three children, but Barney wasn't too sure!

Yesterday, we had the rabbits free-range in the living room and Barney came in to join us. For a while they watched each other, creeping closer, only to back away suddenly if the other moved too quickly. Then Barney remembered that he is a cat, darn it, he's a predator. In a move strikingly resembling a lion's approach to a zebra he pounced on one of the rabbits, pinning it to the ground with his teeth at its neck! The rabbit appeared undisturbed and Barney looked a little lost, as if not sure what he was supposed to do next. However, I didn't think the prospects of Barney playing nice were high, so the rabbits were returned to their cage.

Lost and Found

My emotions have been somewhat fraught this week. When we arrived in Swaledale, my friend Kate announced that she had found us a car. The perfect car, just what we needed, at a price we could afford and we could even have it the next day. However, as the week proceeded, first the current owner couldn't get hold of her new car and didn't want to let this one go until her replacement arrived, then she wanted cash, which was difficult to access at a moment's notice. Would we, wouldn't we? As the week went on I worried more and more, although I was aware what a waste this was! Although we had had no expectation of coming home with a new car, having had the possibility introduced, I was very disappointed that we might lose it. Eventually, on Thursday, the lady rang to say that we could take it and Kate is driving it home for us today.

As we approached home last night, the children were excitedly talking about who would get to hold Barney first. They raced in and searched the house for him, while my husband stood at the kitchen table reading the note from our neighbours saying that they hadn't seen any sign of the cat since Thursday morning. We were gutted! I was in tears, the children were in tears. I was convinced that he was dead. We sadly put the children to bed and sat glumly, trying to work out all the possibilities and the likelihood that we would see him again.

This morning, I returned the borrowed car and ran home; resiting the urge to come straight back fret I put in a few miles. All the time I was hoping my mobile would ring. At the vet's, I peered in, hoping to see a notice that a cat had been found and then I took the route round behind the house - calling his name. I studied my husband's face at the window as I came up the drive, but there was no big grin.

Looking into the garden from the lounge, there was Barney! He was ambling around without a care in the world. I rushed out to get him, scooped him up and brought him in. He looked at me as if to say, "Remind me again who you are?" There has been great rejoicing in our house and he has been well cuddled.

Not getting it!

My cat has just burst in the cat-flap, which is right next to my computer, and raced over to his litter-tray with a worried look on his face. Moments later, looking decidedly more relaxed, he has gone outdoors again.
Barney - this is not the point!!

Cat on my desk

Barney, my cat, feels right at home on my desk. I don't think he quite gets it though and he tries to chase the cursor round the screen. His presence is not always helpful - I can't always see what I'm typing,or even get to the keyboard. But he knows I love him!