Out with the old...

I have finally started sorting the boys' bedroom. We have been in this house over 18 months now and in all that time the boys have not been able to play in their own bedroom despite it being the largest of our three bedrooms because it has doubled up as our 'storage room'. The problem is that nearly all of the stuff being stored did not need to be kept, some of it should have been sold/given away/disposed of before we even moved here.

Today I have given away three bin bags full of boys clothes ranging from newborn to five years and two car stereos (why did we have two?) via our local Freecycle list. I've also offered an old printer, scanner and bedding although I expect that they will end up in the tip due to their age. I've also filled a bin bag for the clothes bank and filled two bin bags for the tip.

I bagged up some baby and toddler toys with the intention of also offering them on Freecycle, however when I had two full bin bags I decided that there was quite a lot of toys which might collectively be worth something at a car boot. So next week, if the weather is nice again, we intend to go to the car boot with a load a baby and toddler toys, girls clothes (I have still have a lot of Sarah's baby clothes), a crib (only used for four months until I followed my instincts to co-sleep), a couple of children's bikes and possibly a couple of other bits too. If the weather is bad I will post a few bundles on Ebay and Freecycle the rest. I'm on a roll now!

What we've been doing

Since I lasted posted the children, the dog and I have been to visit my parents for a few days. We visited the circus which was the children's first visit to the circus. Percy loved it! He especially liked the slapstick comedy of the clowns such as the clown having a drink and water squirting out of his bottom and hat! Sarah enjoyed the acrobatic acts and Bill hated it and finally decided that the best solution was to go to sleep on my knee...until the next loud act woke him up again :-( In the car when the other children were discussing the best bits, Bill said that he didn't like the circus and never wanted to go again. However, by the time we had got back to my parents' house (10 mins) he told my sister that he'd had a nice time and loved the motorbikes at the end!

We also went to a dinosaur evolution exhibition at a leisure centre local to my parents. It was really good. It had lots to look at as well as some fun hands-on activities including a video wall where you could see your self walking with dinosaurs! Unfortunately, that particular activity just made me feel that I ought to start dieting or exercising, or both, soon!

The children also discovered that playing 'two- player' on the ds was fun as both my brother and my Mum have one. It looks like I need to start saving up for a ds for Percy's birthday!

We drove home on Wednesday (3 hours) and went straight to the HE group that I co-run and all had a lovely afternoon as usual.

On Thursday we spent the afternoon with a friend and her children. It was really lovely because all the children played together all afternoon without needing any adult intervention to solve any disputes. Whilst my children have always counted my friend's children among their best friends (and vice versa, I think!), in reality they have often found it difficult to find things to play and play peacefully due to their different stages of development and their different personalities. On this occasion my friend and I were able to enjoy our cups of tea and chocolate with much less interruption!

On Saturday dh came home from America with gifts for the children. Sarah had the cooking game that she had requested for her ds, Percy got Mario Karts for Sarah's ds and Bill got a fossil that he had to release from a rock with a hammer and dinosaur mosaic sticker set. They were all very pleased with their presents and also very pleased to see their dad as he has never had to go abroad with work or left us for a whole week before. After lunch we went to J's 7th birthday party. Sarah and I met J and his mum when Sarah and J more just 7 and 6 months old at Aquatots, a swimming class for babies. On this occasion J was having a joint party with his friend E who Sarah went to kindergarten with. Sarah and E have only seen each other twice since E left kindergarten to go to mainstream school over two years ago. Both of these occasions have been J's birthday parties, and both times the two girls have chosen to play together. This party was no exception, E hugged Sarah when we arrived, they held hands throughout most of the party and E's mum and I have been made to promise that we'll arrange a play-date soon!

On Monday, the children went to their friend's house without me, an arrangement we have for every second Monday.

Wednesday was French Club as usual followed by an HE gathering at a local soft play centre. The children had a fantastic time at the soft play place and I've had to arrange more play-dates - next week is looking busy already!

The rest of the time the children have spent playing various role play games that they play for hours at a time, playing on the ds, playing on club penguin, watching their new Power Rangers dvd, we've finished reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and started on The Horse and his Boy, and they've probably done loads of other stuff that I can't remember now.

Now I'm going to google 'animation' because Percy wants to know they make Lady and the Tramp move if they're only drawings!

Lost post

I've just come to write a blog post because, yet again, it's been 2 weeks since the last one and found that my last post hadn't published properly. All you could see was the title! Fortunately, I don't have many readers yet so I don't need to feel too silly!

Baking and making

Today, Bill and I made more mini muffins, triple choc and plain (for Percy). He's getting really good at mixing as long as the butter is really soft.

Percy watched more Power Rangers on Youtube and also Star Wars lego movies. Sarah wanted to make 'diaries' for the game that she wanted to play with her friends tomorrow (you've guessed it, Power Rangers!). I asked her what she envisaged these diaries to look like - I've learnt from experience not to assume that the idea I have is the same as the one that she has had. I then made a quick sample of what I thought she was describing and we discovered that we hadn't many staples left. I suggested that I used a bookbinding technique that I learnt last summer to sew the books together. She agreed and insisted that the book covers had to be white. We made the books by cutting three sheets of white A4 paper and one sheet of A4 card in half. We lay all the paper on one half of the card and folded to make a twelve leaf book. I sewed the spine using a figure-of-8 techqniue, starting and finishing in the middle. Sarah cut out Power Ranger figures and stuck them on and finished off by drawing flowers or footballs on them.

Bill came to join us and cut out his own pictures to stick on his book. I had no idea that he could cut so well!

Sarah then made rings using a kit that she had been given for her birthday.

This evening Sarah went to drama and we had chinese takeaway for tea. I've been really good recently, ordering our weekly shop online but this week we didn't do a weekly shop and have eaten mostly what we had in the house, needing only to buy a few extras such as bread and milk. Hence, I thought that we had saved enough to afford a treat!

Power Rangers and Socialisation

Tuesday:
Sarah and Percy spent much of the day on Youtube watching the latest series of Power Rangers which isn't released on dvd until next week. There was a time when this would have bothered me, not only because of the 'plugged in' aspect but also the whole commercialism side of of things. However, with regards to the television watching, I have noticed that the children seem to have self-regulated their viewing habits. I no longer panic when they spend a whole day in front of the television, or even a few days because they don't do this every day and can go for days or weeks without switching it on.

The issues I have with the whole commercialism and marketing aspect have probably been harder for me to let go of but seeing the children loving playing with their Power Ranger figures and dressing up in their costumes has made me realise that is much more beneficial for them to chose their own toys, and really enjoy them, than have the ones that I think that they should have. I have also really enjoyed watching the way that they play Power Rangers inspired games. Anti-TV people often use the argument that watching television and playing with television character toys hinders children's imaginations. This has not been what I have observed. My children play Power Ranger games in several different ways; they do sometimes re-enact storylines that they've seen on television, but more often than not they make up their own story lines whilst in character. They use the plastic figures along side other small dolls, flower fairies, My Little Ponies and various small teddies to create all sorts of imaginative games, often including getting married and having children. I do wonder how many children dress their Power Rangers up in dolls clothes!

Meanwhile, Bill and I made mini chocolate chip muffins and he did one of his Usbourne Apple Tree Farm sticker books.

Sarah had her ballet lesson and Bill fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Wednesday:
We went to French club first thing. It is held in a lovely arts cafe in town which is about a twenty minute walk with children and often we don't have any breakfast before we go. Today was one of those days that we hadn't had breakfast and I had forgotten my purse. Fortunately, we had a friend that was able to lend us some money. We walked home, had lunch and went out to our HE meeting. It was a really nice meeting. The children played mostly outside (more Power Rangers I think) and made small 'gardens' in tins and tubs. Bill made friends with another little boy the same age as him and we arranged for Sarah and Percy's new friends to come and play on Friday. Percy also played with a little boy who we have known for ages. Percy has always said that B was not his friend because B never speaks to him. I think that the truth is that they are as shy as each other and neither of them have been brave enough to speak to the other before. Anyway, today they played together, discovered they have some mutual interests and both desperately want to play at each other's house! Socialisation: tick! We dropped off the little girl that we take with us and went to get our tea from the McDonalds drive-thru because we were in a rush to get Sarah home and ready for Rainbows and me for work. Why do I feel that I have to explain why we went to McDonalds?

Unplugged project - bottle

This weeks Unplugged Project theme is bottle. Somewhat lacking in inspiration, I looked at my various 'things to do' books and found a page with the title 'Expanding and Contracting' in The Usbourne Big Book of Experiments which descibed three experiments involving bottles. I thought that they looked fun and visually appealing to three young children. So I checked I had all the materials that we needed and this morning we got started. However it wasn't to be a successful morning!

Bottle Fountain:

I made a hole in the screw top of a glass bottle, pushed a drinking straw through the hole and sealed it with playdough. I half filled the bottle with water and food colouring, and replaced the lid with sthe straw. Then we put the bottle in a bowl of hot water and waited...

and waited! The water did rise up the straw but not with enough force to give the fountain effect.

Cooling and shrinking:

Whilst waiting for the bottle fountain not to do its thing, I asked Sarah to break up some ice cubes in a plastic bag using a rolling pin.

We then put the broken up ice into a small plastic bottle and replaced its cap and waited...

and waited! Nothing happened. After a while Sarah said, 'the experiment's working, the ice is melting and turning into water.' However, this was not the result I was hoping for. The ice was supposed to cool the air inside the bottle causing the air inside to contract and pull the sides of th eplastic bottle in.

Magic balloon bottle:

Feeling a little disheartened we started our final experiment. I warmed another glass bottle and stretched a balloon over its neck and then stood the bottle in a bowl of cold water. Then we waited...

and waited! The balloon was pulled down into the bottle a bit but not completely.

So not the most successful activity! We will try these experiments again when the mood takes us though.

Next weeks theme is happy.

Unplugged project - clothing

I've been intending to join the unplugged project for a few weeks now. We finally got around to it this week albeit a little bit late. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll be in sync with all the other participants. For more information about this project, go to unplug your kids.

Last summer I made Percy some felted slippers and recently Sarah and Bill have been asking for some too. So when I saw that this weeks unplugged theme was clothing I immediately ordered the merino wool in Sarah and Bill's chosen colours.

Making Bill's slippers: to make the template, Sarah drew around Bill's feet, then I drew a line around it, rounding it off and enlarging it by about an inch all round. I drew two lines up to make a boot shape then cut out a template using a plastic placemat. Meanwhile Sarah decided to make a pair of slippers for one of their Power Rangers!

I then started to lay the wool over the template. On the first layer we lay the fibres running from left to right then on the next layer we positioned the fibres running from top to bottom. I repeated this so that we had four layers making sure that each layer was about 1 inch larger than the template. Then we dampened the wool with some hot, soapy water to press the fibres to gether before carefully lifting the template and wool up and turning it so the the wool was now on the table (on top of a towel, beach mat and bubble wrap). Next, I folded the excess wool over the sides of the template then repeated the above process.

Next I covered the wool with a net curtain and massaged the wool through the curtain. When the wool appeared to be felting I removed the curtain and rolled the wool covered template in the the bubble wrap and beach mat and rolled backwards continuously, only stopping to move the template around in different directions.

I then cut through the wool and template to separate the slippers and continued to roll them a few more times.

Then I started on Sarah's slippers. At some point the children decided that their Power Rangers and dolls needed rugs and blankets, so this is what they were doing:

And the end results:

For some reason neither of the two pairs of slippers that I made yesterday felted as well as Percy's (in the middle). I'll have to find an experienced felter to ask where I'm going wrong. Nonetheless, we had fun and I'm still reasonably pleased with the results. If you want to try making these slippers, I used this pattern and from there you can link to the method.

The next theme for the unplugged project is bottle, due to be blogged on Monday.

Unplugged?

Does wireless count? Thought not!

About time we start our first Unplugged Project then!

Starting a blog: Take two!

There have been loads of things in the last four weeks that I would have liked to have blogged; there was the snow, Sarah's birthday party, her seventh birthday, walking up one of the Malvern Hills with my parents and plenty of other things that I can't remember right now. Then there are all those little 'educational' moments like Bill counting and wanting to know how to write the initial letter of his name, Percy taking a guess at reading some words based on their initial sound, and Sarah coming up with the idea of separating alfalfa seeds from rice using a sieve. The fact that I'm struggling to remember many examples even though I know that there have been loads of these moments is a good reminder of why I wanted to start a blog in the first place. Must try harder this time!

Today was our busy HE day. We went to French Club this morning which is conveniently held in a lovely arts cafe so we got there early and had croissants for breakfast. Usually Bill and I go and do a few errands whilst the older two are at French but I was still drinking my tea and Bill was still eating his croissant when the class started so we stayed in to watch today. Sarah was really keen to participate today although she forgot how to say how old she is despite practising on the way! Percy introduced himself well and appeared to enjoy joining in the actions to the songs and rhymes but was reluctant to speak too much. This isn't unusual for him and we are really lucky that the French teacher is very patient and understanding; he always speaks to all the children and gives them a turn but never pushes them to answer just moves on to the next child.

After French we went to Oxfam to get the dried mango that the children like and as usual I picked up a couple of books. Meanwhile Percy was looking at the toys and found two of the Power Ranger figures that we were looking to replace, still in their packaging. I never have that kind of luck in charity shops!

We went home, the children played and I caught up with a few emails. We had lunch and I looked up a playdough recipe on the internet only to find that we had no salt. I decided that I would buy the salt on the way to our HE meeting and make the playdough there instead of interupting the children's play.

Today was the HE meeting that my friend and I run together. There were two families there that I haven't met before and both seemed really nice. One live in the same town as us and the other live not far from us and have a seven year old girl who Sarah got on really well with. As usual most of the children spent most of the time outside. Sarah, Percy and Bill were all playing Power Rangers with some of their friends, none of whom had known anything about Power Rangers before today!

Tonight Sarah took herself off to bed about 8 o'clock, Bill came and asked for 'mummy milk' and went to sleep on the sofa about an hour later and Percy played a game which involved lining up his plastic dinosaurs and soft animal toys and numbering them, starting at 50 and working backwards! Eventually he came give me a cuddle and fell asleep shortly after asking me to leave his toys out so that he can play the same game in the morning!

Time for me to go to sleep now I think. I have plans for a blog-worthy day tomorrow!

Another HE Wednesday!

Today Sarah and Percy went to French club whilst Bill and I went and did a bit of shopping in town. Bill is reasonably cooperative now as long as I buy him a packet of crisps (for breakfast!)and some dried mango to share with the others on the walk home and I do like being able to get a few jobs done with just one child in tow rather than three! Hopefully, later this year Bill will go to French club too and I will be able to get my hair cut on my own!


We walked home only stopping in the park to run about on the skate-ramp area and I had to hide my smile as I noticed an older lady giving the children funny looks. I'm sure that she didn't approve of three obviously school-aged children (I had an extra one) and a slightly younger one running about in the late morning. If she had asked, I was going to tell her that they had had their French lesson and were now doing P.E. and then reminded myself that I shouldn't be using school-talk anyway...we don't do school. At home the children played, had lunch and played some more whilst I made biscuits to take to our HE group.


After lunch, we went to the HE group that I help run. Today one of the mum's had brought marshmallows and dried spaghetti to build structures (very sticky!), another had brought some cress seeds to sow in yoghurt pots and we had the ever popular playdough table. As usual the children dipped into each of these activities but mostly played their own games outside. I saw Bill playing with lots of bigger children. Apparently he was a monkey being fed by the older children. I saw Sarah organising a 'sport club' and also teaching ballet to three boys all older than herself. I saw Percy joining in with Sarah's sports club until about an hour before the meeting ended when I found him hiding by the car. He refused to tell me what the matter was and would not return to play with his friends. Knowing him as I do, I thought that he was probably embarrassed about something so I reassured him that whatever had happened nobody else seemed to be upset about it and he had nothing to worry about. He seemed a bit happier but chose to stay in the car until five minutes before leaving when he finally couldn't resist swinging around a pole with some friends!

Also, today was the first time that I have had to deal with an 'incident of inappropriate behaviour'. My friend, with whom I run the group, and I had talked about how we might handle such situations but when it actually happened she had gone home early! Anyway I spoke to the mother of the child and hope that she will speak to him before the next meeting and that it will not happen again.

As usual, Bill was asleep by the time we got home and we had to rush to get Sarah ready for Rainbows. K came to collect her son and Percy watched Star Wars...again!

Baking and fractions

When Sarah came home from her friend's yesterday she told me that she had eaten their home-made lemon curd and it was delicious. So today, not wanting to be outdone by other HEing families, we made some too! Sarah did most of it herself with just a bit of 'help' zesting and juicing the lemons from Bill! When we had made the lemon curd we decided that we needed to make lemon tarts. At which point Percy arrived in the kitchen announcing that his tummy was hungry so we stopped for cheese sandwiches. After lunch the older two disappeared of to play a game that appears to involve most of their Power Ranger figures and My Little Ponies. So I assumed that lemon tart making had been postponed.

An hour later, Sarah came down to ask if I've made the lemon curd tarts yet! I said that I hadn't because I thought that she might have wanted to make them with me. She said she was busy playing at the moment and I agreed to make some later. It wasn't long before she was back to tell me that she was ready to make the tarts!


Whilst we were getting ready I asked Sarah to turn the dial on the oven half way round. It wasn't until the tarts had been in the oven that I saw that she had only turned it a quarter of the way round to only 100'C. I called her to show her what temperature I had wanted the oven which led to a spontaneous lesson on fractions on the back of an envelope! I drew around one of the pastry cutters and asked her to divide it into two halves and then into quarters. She did all of this without a problem. I took the opportunity to show her the notation for writing one half and one quarter and we saw that one half was two quarters and that one half plus one quarter was three-quarters. To be fair to her I think that the mistake she made with the oven setting was that she had thought that the dial turned from 'off' at the top to 'on' at the bottom so she turned the dial to halfway between these two points.

Just an ordinary Monday!

This morning, Sarah painted her paint-your-own-mug that she won in the pass the parcel at party yesterday. When she had finished she chopped the mushrooms and garlic for our lunch.

After lunch, the children played outside with the puppy whilst I did a few jobs. Then I took Sarah and Percy to play at a friend's house. I think that they ended up playing mostly with the dad whilst the little girl played with her other friend. They came home with a bag full of apples from their friend's garden.

They spent all evening watching Power Rangers and were still watching it when I got home at 10.30! Just as well they haven't got to be up for school in the morning!

Last week

I've been thinking about whether to start this blog all week and have taken photos just in case. It would be a shame not to use them so I'll start this blog with a mammoth week-long post. Here goes!

Saturday - Birthday Party

The children were invited to a 5th birthday party with a princess theme. Sarah had to decide between wearing her Disney 'Belle' dress or her other princess dress. She chose the latter (I was pleased as I prefer that one!) and adorned herself with a necklace, bracelet and the tiara thing that I wore on my wedding day. Percy put on his best shirt with his knight tunic over the top and armed himself with his sword. He decided that he was Prince Caspian. I tied an orange play-silk around Bill's neck as a cape and put a felt crown on his head. He said he was King Aslan. When Sarah heard that her brothers were Narnian royalty she decided to be High Queen Susan of Narnia. The children all enjoyed the party and I found about a ballroom class for Sarah.

After the party we went to our local Pets At Home to buy more puppy food and had to resist buying a rabbit, guinea pig and a russian hamster and left talking about the possibility of getting a kitten. The truth is we're only just managing to cope with owning a puppy and plan to get chickens sometime too!

Monday - Shopping (or Numeracy, if you prefer!)

Today Sarah's new till arrived in the post. She was given it for Christmas but unfortunately the solar powered calculator didn't work so we had to send it back and the one that arrived today was its replacement. Naturally she wanted to play with it straight away! So with the help of Percy and Bill, we set to work collecting toys and books for Sarah to sell in her shop and then Sarah made price labels. She glanced at our homemade number poster on the wall a few times, presumably to remind herself which way round to write some of the numbers. She then gave me some play money in a purse and opened her shop. She knew how to use her calculator to add up the prices to find the total and I showed her how to work out the amount of change to give. Eventually we swapped places and Sarah was the customer.

I had to take photos of Bill mixing his playdough because he was sitting next to Sarah saying "and me, and me" and of course, he is so gorgeous! Percy was not in the mood to be photographed.

Tuesday - Catching dreams

For a long time now, Percy has been asking to make a dreamcatcher. He probably found out about them from something on cbeebies, I don't know. Anyway, he gets bad dreams from time to time and seems to believe that a dreamcatcher will stop them. Percy threaded his own beads and I wrapped the wool around the frame for him. Sarah did hers with very little help.

Arranged for Sarah to go to ballet on another day so that she can still go to drama as well.

The best cottage pie ever!

All the children helped me use the leftovers from Sunday lunch to make a cottage pie this afternoon. They all ate lots and Sarah made up a song full of praise for it!

Wednesday - Poorly children

Wednesdays are our 'HE days'. Sarah and Percy go to French club very early in the morning and in the afternoon we go to our local HE social groups. We have two that we regularly go to, one of which I help to run, and they both meet fortnightly on alternate weeks. Therefore we always have somewhere to go to on Wednesday afternoons. This week we were all meeting at a local soft play place whilst a new venue for one of our usual groups was being rearranged.

However, it was clear very early this morning that we were going to have to rearrange our plans as Percy had woken up with a cold and was wheezing quite a bit. Although he's not really affected by asthma most of the time, both Percy and Sarah do seem prone to asthma symptoms when they have a cold (I blame their father's dodgy genes!). Anyway it seemed unfair that Sarah should miss French club because her brother was ill so I arranged for a friend, whose child also goes to French club, to take her. Just before our friend arrived to collect her, I thought that she also sounded slightly wheezy so gave her a puff on the inhaler. When our friend collected Sarah she offered to take her to the soft play this afternoon as well so I sent Sarah of with an inhaler and told my friend that Sarah knew how to use it. Sarah arrived home saying that she had had a good time but was absolutely exhausted and wheezing quite a bit. She put her pyjamas on straight away and was asleep on the settee by twenty past five!

Meanwhile, Percy slept most of the day only waking up every now and again to tell me that he couldn't breathe which meant that I got to spend the day with just Bill. This is something that rarely happens and we both enjoyed it. Although, I had forgotten how boring playing Bob the Builder games on the cbeebies website over and over again can be!

Thursday - A restful day

The children seemed much better this morning but needed a calm restful day. They played and watched dvds.

Friday - Impromptu HE outing!

This morning I was unusually organised. I went downstairs before the children, who were busy playing a game that seemed to draw from both Narnia and Star Wars, to make them eggy bread for breakfast. After breakfast they went back to their game and I made soup and bread ready for lunch with our friends and then started preparing tea for tonight. Whilst I was doing this, a good friend and ex-neighbour, who I don't see so often any more, popped round for a cup of tea. She was very impressed with how clean and tidy my kitchen was and that I was preparing proper food! Then dh's carpenter friend arrived to measure our doorways so that he can adjust a door to fit our smaller then standard doorway and make us a sliding door for the kitchen.

Fortunately our other friends were running slightly late and arrived just after the other had gone. The children found things to play with and eventually even the puppy calmed down. After lunch we decided to walk the dog at a local field and bumped into another HE family around the corner just as they were about to take their puppy out too. So three mums, two very excited puppies, and eleven nearly as excited children had a lovely walk in the cold sunshine. After our friends went home, the children decided to watch their Power Rangers dvds after a discussion during tea about which episode Bill's favourite character first appears.

I've spent the whole evening starting this blog! Tomorrow, hopefully I'll work out how to upload photos so that I publish this post.

Saturday

...was spent rearranging the house so that we could get our new-to-us sofa bed in.

Sunday - Another Birthday Party

Today we went to a joint 4th and 29th birthday party. The birthday girls are mother and daughter and we have known them since the little girl was a very little baby and they were one of the first HE families we met.

My children all enjoyed the party, especially the parachute games. Actually, I think that my children would quite like to adopt the grandparents and uncle from the other family!

Now I really am going to upload the photos and publish this post before it gets any longer!

Introduction

I am a full-time mum to three lovely children who don't go to school. Instead they play and learn in their own way in their own time with help and guidance from me when they want/need it. In this blog they will be referred to using the pseudonyms Sarah, Percy and Bill. I have taken these names from the book Owl Babies by Martin Waddell because my husband often has to read this book replacing the owls' names with our children's names so I've decided to do the reverse here. Sarah is nearly 7, Percy is 5 and Bill is 3.

And for those of you who are wondering, I haven't read E.Nesbit's The Railway Children although it is on my list of children's classics that I haven't read but will read one day! The title is a reference to how close to the railway we live. However, having read the synopsis, I can tell you that the similarities between my railway children and those in the book are that there are three of them, they don't go to school and they live close to the railway. The differences are that most of my children's adventures are with their mum, or at least with her close by, and that their dad is not imprisoned for espionage!

I intend to use this blog primarily, although not exclusively, as a journal to record the things my children get up to and my thoughts and observations as I watch them grow. Of course, there will probably be many rants and rambles, sorry, I mean posts, about plenty of other things as I go along.