Its been a while

I have been utterly rubbish at updating but have had the best excuse not to. I've been enjoying our new baby girl. Gabrielle is 11 weeks now and the time seems to have flown by. She is lovely and I could spend hour after hour watching her. I love her smiles and when she does a mini chuckle which is sooo sweet. She is completely besotted with Josh especially. If he is on the computer and I'm sat feeding her she twists round to see what he's done and saves her best smiles for him lol.

Joshua was 11 on Easter Sunday. It seems so long since he was a baby. It is scary to think that when Gabrielle is his age he will be nearly 22!!!! We have had quite a few conversations with him lately about the amount of time he is spending either in front of the computer or on his ds and he has agreed it is fairly excessive. We haven't managed to follow any form of structure really since he came back out of school last July. He has done bits of written work but not a great deal although he has learnt lots about looking after babies lol!! His reading has really taken off which I am thankful for and he is now reading for pleasure which is something I never thought I would say.

Back in September we went to look at a high school as my mother was nagging but it ended up that Josh quite liked what he saw and decided he wanted to apply. We found out at the beginning of March that he had been offered a place at his one and only choice but by then he was not sure whether to go or not. After a week of discussing it we all decided to accept the place but he would make a decision in the next month or so about whether he actually wanted to go or not. I know they have a day at the end of June for all the new pupils to go for the day and see how things are. I think as it gets closer he is getting more and more unsure of whether he wants to go or not. He keeps asking what I think and I feel torn too. On the one hand if he is to try school then it would probably be the best time to try it as it is new for everyone and it will be easier for him to make friends at that time but on the other hand both he and I are worried about him being bullied again. It is only really now (9 months after he came out of school) that I have my Josh back again. The bullying he had at school really dented his confidence and it is only recently he has got this back and I have my happy boy back again. I am scared that if he goes to school and it all goes belly up again that it will do serious mental damage to him.

Also Josh is so not a morning person and does not do early starts very well (neither do I lol!) but he would have to be up, breakfasted, washed and ready to leave the house by 8am to catch the school bus which at the moment seems an impossibility. He likes to stay awake in his room late and get up around 11am although he will get up earlier if I call him or we need to get out earlier. We have tried allsorts to try and get him to sleep earlier but he is a night bird so we have given up and finds it hard to concentrate first thing so I see little point in dragging him out of bed too early.

I think the list for him to continue being home educated is much longer than the list for going to school. Its still such a hard decision though and one in which we are struggling to make. I think we are all leaning towards Josh remaining home educated but have said the final decision rests with him and if he wants to try school then we will support him all the way. I feel as though we need to decide soonish though.

Ellie will be 8 at the end of May and has earned the nick name 'mini mum' as she loves helping with Gabrielle and helps feed her and always wants to do things for her. She often gets out her maths & english workbooks and does them of her own accord as I have been incredibly lax at setting work for them to do for a long while. She is adamant that she is never going back to school!!

I do mean to try and get us into some kind of routine starting next week as I feel the days are passing us by rather too quick. Nothing too structured but just to give the days more of a pleasant flow and help them stay off the computer and ds during the daytime and work together when Gabrielle is asleep rather than trying to catch up on housework.

We have been going to a program called MEND for a few weeks now twice weekly that they both really enjoy. It stands for Mind, Exercise, Nutrition, Do it!! It has given us all better eating habits and we are doing more exercise as a family and eating healthier which is great especially as dh has just been diagnosed diabetic so it has come as a big kick up the bum to get into some healthier eating for the whole family.

We had a letter off the LEA in early March stating they were coming to visit us on 23rd March. I phoned up and got the visit cancelled and haven't heard anymore from them since. I am currently working on a new ed phil and have no intention of having anymore visits from them. They can go to hell!!

Feeling very pleased that the home ed parts of the csf bill didn't make it through especially as from Blackpool's responses to the Graham Badman report they were very eager to get more powers including interviewing the children alone!!

Right had better go as Gabs is stirring for a feed and need to get ready for MEND tonight.

Hopefully will post again over the weekend.