another little thing...

God is working in absoulte perfect timing and I no longer believe there is an external enemy (ie Satan). the enemy is in our mind - our knowledge of evil. Jesus is clear that we have the mind of Christ so when we feel out of kilter with that we can just ask Him to re-align us.

He is TRANSFORMING us by the RENEWAL of our MIND!

a little thing!

the amazing thing about marriage was shared recently with me with an unmarried male friend. he said "i want to be married so i can step out with the courage that comes from someone loving you whatever comes to pass and you loving them back" WOW!

Does my bum look big in this post?

I've been thinking about body image. a couple of weeks ago i had a body image wobble. it was the first one in a very long time and it was awful - to think i used to live my life in that state of mind. interestingly around the same time there was a lot of news coverage about the designer Mark Fast's use of size 12 and 14 models for London Fashion Week. My body image wobble came about because I bought a gorgeous dress for £5 in a charity shop and whenever I wore it I felt fab and even looking in the mirror I felt fab. But then I saw myself in some photos that my mum took and I was crushed. I look awkward, 'fat' even.

I run. Not a lot but I run. Even when it feels like I am made of lead and wading through treacle. When I was running last night I had Rage Against The Machine on my mp3 player and a lot of random thoughts in and out of my mind. I found myself reflecting on the body image thing. Quite often I feel heavy. Not because I have weighed myself (I only do this every few months when I return to my parents' house) but because my body just feels slow and heavy. It is worsened when I feel tired or if I've just eaten too much but I still find that I feel that my body doesn't want to feel this way.

But I am not fat. At least not very fat. I am the kind of weight where I actually look fairly good and other people would tell me that I look amazing if I hinted at feeling fat. But I started to wonder while I was running whether there is a 'truth' being shared in our society about weight and image that is actually a lie. But one of those clever lies that is so common-place that you don't notice it. Like the lie that we should all praise our kids because it will build their confidence and self esteem, when in fact the opposite is true. (That is another post though!)

I also know there are campaigns around to encourage women to feel good in their own skin. The Dove Campaign has done amazing things for women, and especially for blowing apart the beauty industry's portrayal of women. The video below shows just how much deception there is:



So we endeavour to accept ourselves and others as they are and as they look. We have sexualised our bodies so much that we also spend time encouraging women to feel confident in the bedroom with their curves and wobbly bits and tell women that even if they are bigger they can still wear sexy clothes. And when someone like me, who isn't particularly fat but intuitively feels 'heavy' shares this with friends the response draws the woman back to being beautiful as she is. And YES, I am beautiful as I am, and my husband adores me - in fact when I do lose a bit of weight he grieves the loss of my tummy (which faithfully follows my every move like a puppy). But I am also overweight by standard medical weight charts. But my focus is not these weight charts, not as it would have been 10 years ago. My focus is how I feel, and ten years on I find I am much more in tune with my body and this intuition leaves me feeling that I am carrying too much weight and this concurs with the BMI (body mass index) charts.



So I am finding 'truth' about my body and I am listening to my body and it is not telling me lies anymore (or at least I am not hearing lies within my body) and yet society doesn't want to hear this as truth. Society wants me to be happy and beautiful as I am. And I am these things but actually my body wants me to lose a bit of weight so it can operate with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. The extra weight I carry puts stress on joints, on my heart and lungs, and keeps me in the cycle of 'feel heavy, feel sluggish, don't get active, eat more'!

And it takes a very strong woman to turn to her friend, who just shared she feels heavy and wants to lose a few pounds, and say, "I get that. That's a healthy choice. I'll support you - what do you need?". I don't think I'm talking about situations when someone is seriously overweight, even obese, because as a society we have conceded that at that point something does need to be done. But how sad that we wait until then. I don't think we should go round to our friends who are carrying a bit of extra weight and start suggesting they should do something about it either! I think what I am talking about is this middle ground - no man's land - where we all want to be slim but we all try to keep each other buoyant and accepting of their extra weight. Because we are beautiful just as we are, but so much of that is the beauty that's on the inside which shines through a size 12 or a size 20.

I propose a third way! A way that allows a woman to find freedom with her body so that she can intuitively hear what her body is telling her about its ideal weight for optimum efficiency and productivity. This is the woman who will successfully manage all the juggling balls that she finds she's carrying in today's world, or even to allow her to run without feeling like she is made of lead, wading through treacle! And a third way as friends of women who can walk with friends through this journey and be there when the body issues come up and go through to freedom together. Because I think I may just have a few sneaky body issues lying round the corner when I do start to get back down inside my ideal weight range. And I hope my friends will walk with me rather than encourage me to prop myself up on the fence and be beautiful just as I am. I will be no more and no less beautiful when I am slimmer. But I will be healthier and going about my life without that 'heavy' feeling.

70% merino 30% silk blend - beautiful!

i'm just learning how to spin my own yarn. a couple of years ago on orkney my friend debbie showed me how to use a drop spindle but, despite buying a book, i never got round to buying the drop spindle.

at the weekend there was a wool fair in a hall near us and i popped in. what glorious things were there! the boys sat with andy watching a woman spin on a wheel - apparently you can no longer take spinning wheels into schools for health and safety reasons! i bought a drop spindle (only £2.70) and some gorgeous merino silk fibre (aka roving i think). i am loving it. Chloe also bought a drop spindle and some fibre and we got together last night to share our learning - there is a lot of inconsistency in the thickness of the yarn being produced and also a lot of breakages!

today we went to the adventure playground and the boys got stuck in - robin with friends and jos on his own. i love watching them go about their business (although i did also enjoy chatting with lots of friends too!). haven't made it to home ed at highfields for so long and it was great to be back. it's one of those places that, without a car, is a logistical challenge!

people are amazing. they really are. and children are amazing too. we really don't take them seriously enough and at the moment i have a bee in my bonnet about the idea that childhood is preparation for life when really childhood IS life and children have so much to teach us.

on the tram on the way home Robin invented (conceptually, as with most of his inventions) a device using rollers which would straighten and flatten his crumpled sticker sheet. i told him he had just invented a mangle! i think he thought i was a little odd at giving his invention a name and he didn't ask what a mangle was so i trust that this is a bit of knowledge he doesn't need yet!

pizza on the way - couldn't face making food. the house is such a tip but the 80:20 superstar (Andy!) will put his skills to work later in a 'crazed hour' of tidying and sorting.

some things to remember about this time in my life as a mum

jos' warm hand sliding into mine as we walk through the park.

robin's exchange with me on the tram during fresher's week:
me - look at all those styodents
robin - what's that?
me - styodents means students.
robin - what - like rodents?
me - exactly!

robin's inventions. yesterday he asked me if he could take my granny's sewing machine apart to use for inventing because it doesn't work any more. i said that i wasn't happy for him to do that - i'd rather we see if we can get it fixed. so he says, "well. i'll use it to make an invention. i'll attach the phone to it so that when you speak in the phone the words go into the sewing machine. and then i'll put a tube on the light so that when you turn the sewing machine on the light goes on and heats up and all the words in the tube get hot. and then that will make the power for the sewing machine to make your words go onto fabric. and then you can speak in the phone and your words will be on fabric. he is a boy of possibility!

jos' reason for why he has to do something is "cos this is part of my master plan!"

robin came up to me and asked for a hug. he put his arms around me and said that he was sorry for nearly hurting me at the top of the spider frame and that he loves me. - when a child says sorry because they feel sorry it is so beautiful. so different to when a child says sorry because it is asked of them or expected of them.

seeing my family all around me last thing at night and first thing in the morning. and hearing what they say in their sleep!

long time no post - this could be my regular blog title!

lots of excuses but reality is i'm not managing my time that well at the mo. an RU (radical unschooling) contact sent me an email last week to see ow i was getting on and to let me know a bit of her news. it was lovely tat she thought about me as we had met several months ago on the RU forum and were bot from UK and both starting our RU journey at the same time with kids of a similar age. I replied to the email and then realised that the email reply was probably a perfect blog post to share where things are up to for us. I've edited it where it needed it for the purposes of a blog but here goes:

So nice to hear from you. We are doing really well, in that crazy chaotic creative way that seems to colour our Radical Unschooling life! It is very much a journey of trusting our children and trusting ourselves. I have been having so many of my beliefs and thoughts challenged - the process of sifting through all the ideas and info out there is a challenging one but I try to just take it one day at a time.

Funny you should mention blogs. I so want to be blogging but it is hard to find the time. That said we are now in a lovely rhythm of sleep as a family. We all go to bed together, which my husband and I are both at the same place with finally, and the boys sleep til 10am. This means that Andy and I get two to three hours in the morning together when we are refreshed rather than a couple of tired hours together in the evening post bedtime like we used to try for. Our kids are sleeping better doing it like this too which is interesting. I need to use my morning time a bit better on the days i wake up first. today i have annoyingly woken at 5 because robin was agitated in his sleep and i couldn't get back to sleep again. perhaps this morning i'll blog!

tv and food are still the things of note within our home in terms of how RU has seen big binge change! but i am seeing enough of the positives through lifting restrictions to be able to trust this is right. we no longer do sweets at breakfast (!) and we even have days when we don't buy sweets! Jos (3.5) loves to bake cakes but often isn't bothered by eating them. robin (5) now puts sweet things down when he's had enough. so he'll get half way through an ice cream and decide he's had enough, or he'll ask for biscuits and if i have them in the house i'll give him a couple to start with and sometimes he'll only eat one. it's interesting you mention your eating disorders because for me (in context - i also had an eating disorder) it is incredible to watch small children get to places of freedom with food so that they can decide for themselves when they've had enough, or Jos can make a cake and not want to lick the spoon or eat it every time. but i do still have days when i think we might be making one giant mistake and i still have days when i just wish they went to boarding school!! :o)

i don't go on the RU forum any more. i found it a very difficult place to be vulnerable and some of the voices on there were too strong for my liking. I discovered the Radical Christian Unschooling group on yahoo and that has been amazing for me and for my RU journey. It is a completely different environment to the RU forum and I feel that people meet me where i'm at on my journey and i never feel judgement or criticism for not being further along or for not 'getting it' more.

there are so many things to work out with RU though. yesterday i just seemed to be impatient all day long and i find it hard sometimes to reconcile my children's way with things and know how to deal with it in the best way - they tend to be quite destructive and not look after toys or our home in a way i want. so i find myself going round and round in my head working out what is my business and what isn't!

but we're all doing the best with the resources we have available aren't we?! and i feel able to disagree with some of the things naomi aldort says which is interesting because for a while i kind of idolised her.

i think my husband is so much more on board too these days. how is yours getting on? perhaps we could work out a way to hang out together. my friend niki and her boy eli (4) are up for doing RU hang outs. i think she mentioned ages ago that you and she had made contact around the time of the RU conference in London.

So there's an update for anyone who actually reads this blog! i really do want to blog more but i seem to have more to say than i have time to say it so i end up saying nothing!

radical unschooling

here is the blurb from blogtalk radio. it precedes the interview with Dayna Martin.

Unschooling philosophy holds that children are natural learners, they learn all the time, and they learn most effectively through inner motivation. Unschooling children may use a variety of methods, including the use of conventional educational materials, to accomplish their learning goals. The key is that it is child-directed learning, or natural learning. The role of an unschooling parent is to support their children's interests, trust their children to make decisions for themselves, and help their children accomplish their goals, which may include answering questions, finding answers, giving instruction or guidance, and locating apprenticeship opportunities or other sources of knowledge and experience. "Radical Unschooling is an evolution of our understanding about learning and the rights and respect of children. We are on the cusp of change and many people are looking for alternatives to the traditional schooling model. With Unschooling, we are reprioritizing. We are taking back our freedom and putting happiness, connection and family first!" Dayna Martin.

The interview is great if you aren't sure what radical unschooling is and want to find out more or understand more. It's also great if you want to understand a bit more about the path we are on as a family.

cunning plans and clever tricks

i had a funny text exchange with a friend the other day. he's someone we used to hang out with back in the day when everyone lived in crookes, only the first round of weddings was taking place and kids were still twinkles in their daddy's eye.

i was on the bus heading and saw this friend from the window walking down the street looking very pensive. so i texted him about it and within the text exchange i was able to use the phrase (from roald dahl's "The Enormous Crocodile") "cunning plans and clever tricks". i really enjoyed that - it made me smile. i love when things like that happen - the mixing of the imaginary with reality. although i suppose not so imaginary now that it is immortalised in a book!

a couple of things have been bugging me about radical unschooling recently. andy started an interesting discussion on the radical unschooler's network about the cost of unrestricted food. our boys are loving their binge on sweets and like to go to the shops fairly regularly to top up. we are seeing changes though - both boys are starting to dislike certain sweets and choosing not to eat them as a result. this means we've had open bags of uneaten fudge and other things lying around! also we've been creating monkey platters for them and they've been happily digging in to those and eating all sorts of yummy goodies.

i am trying to relax about the excess of sweets as i see the changes take place and trying to trust that the boys will find their natural groove with self-regulation. i know for me as someone who experienced an eating disorder, along with all the crap our culture puts on food and our relationship with food, learning to self-regulate is hard. but i am convinced that it is harder as an adult than for a child because by adulthood you have so much more baggage.

the thing is though that i had an image in my head that the children who have been unschooled from day dot would be so self-regulated that they'd be fairly slim having achieved a healthy balance between food and exercise. that they'd have fallen into rhythms of eating that enable them to stop when full and just have a little of something they fancy because they know the 'banquet' is always there for a re-visit. this meant i was shocked to follow a link to a young adult who was unschooled from birth (including food) and see someone overweight. my friend samantha will roll her eyes when she reads this. she has been involved with a project that seeks to share the 'truth' that fat and fit is a healthy option. i suppose it is a healthier option but it doesn't fly with me for various reasons. however i also know that the info disseminated to us is hugely biased and full of propaganda (take vaccinations for example)so perhaps fat can be healthy.

anyway - as incoherent as this post is, it is my thoughts and struggle at the moment!

Last night a movie saved my life...

well not quite. andy did go and see star trek (yawn) and said it was great. my boys and i have been watching lots and LOTS of DVDs recently. well, since we started lifting restrictions on media. so yesterday we were in full-on Kung Fu Panda mode and today we are in full-on Madagascar mode.

the beautiful thing about it is hearing how much they laugh out loud. proper belly laughs that consume their whole being. and each time they see the film again they laugh even more as they get more and more understanding of the various layers of each joke. trust DreamWorks to layer their jokes!

the other thing i'm noticing about watching movie after movie with them is that we have such wonderful conversations as a result of the film. the kids certainly aren't in a coma-state as some research suggests children take on. in fact they are animated and engaged and enthralled and inspired. we talk about geography, history, zoology, art, biology, physics, chemistry, sociology and on and on as a result of watching these films again and again. and the great thing is about choosing to trust this process is realising that without such a degree of immersion they wouldn't be developing the layers of understanding that are allowing for the interesting conversations and games that flow out of the experience.

both boys have colds at the moment and it's nice to snuggle together in front of a film instead of expecting them to be more active and then having to deal with the moaning because they feel under the weather.

i want to put up recent photos but not getting round to it. i shall do soon i hope!

warm rosy cheeks - a special end of day glow.

we've been doing fun things and not a lot of time for thinking outside of them. here's some of what we've been enjoying:

making decorations by threading wrappers and fabric its and milk bottle tops and foil etc onto thread.

full body painting on cardboard outside

awesome den building in the garden using duvet covers and sheets etc.

painting and play dough

baking

planting up beetroots and pumpkins

beer festival

watching films

creating swings from rope and pull-up bars

eating green eggs and ham (well known by dr seuss fans)

spending hours in the shower enjoying the sensory experience

making and drinking vanilla milkshakes

harvesting rhubarb

sword fighting with foam lagging

saying 'i love you' unexpectedly and frequently

watching tadpoles in our pond

spontaneous prayer

taking calls from fireman sam


i shall hopefully put pictures up soon but it's a slow process as we can't work out how to easily re-size photos on our current software. windows vista isn't the same as the last windows we had (at least that's how i understand it!).

ooh, and some mormon missionaries came round yesterday and after a long conversation with us they asked if they could help us out with anything so we asked them to put up the venetian blinds we had been meaning to get up for yonks. fantastic!

mmmmmm...

made yummy cookies today - invited both the boys to join in but neither interested. they were enjoying having a wonderful time with paints and straws at the kitchen table. discovered a great site called Poisson Rouge which is full of wonderful things to do and explore. Robin is hooked and loves to show everyone. He even tried to describe it to our neighbour and couldn't find a word in the English language which expressed how amazing it was so he made one up! i wish i could remember what it was but sadly it slipped right out my mind.

also today had train tracks out and had fun walk to nursery in the rain - we told them about Poisson Rouge so they found it on their computer and Robin mostly played that i believe. we took a tram to the university and walked up to Weston Park Museum where we met chloe and her girls and mirja and her daughter. there is the most amazing bug exhibition on at the moment with a wonderful film that i'd like to go back and watch by myself!

home on the bus and andy made the most delicious japanese miso noodle soup. yummy yummy yummy!

today was a most enjoyable home-ed day!

some thoughts on socialisation

so these are very raw thoughts. i realise from experience that it's unlikely i'll come back and blog them once they're refined so i'm going to spill it out now.

(if you get bored at any point there's a paragraph at the bottom that sums up what we did today! pics to follow)

i have often considered that our culture expects our children to be far more social that 'natural' at an early age. we accept the 'clingy' phase as if it is some truth simply because the majority of kids go through it.

i remember at nursery the staff peeling a child from my arms because the child didn't want to leave me and me feeling between a rock and a hard place because no one at the nursery empathised with my view that my child was just letting me know that he wasn't ready and that was fine with me (although in reality, struggling with the difficulties of pregnancy i found myself making huge compromises and walking away from a crying child because i felt so unable to keep giving when i felt so crap). now i wish i could turn back the time on that. both my boys have generally been fairly social but also making it clear when they feel unable to be in a social environment. for a long time i didn't realise robin's aggression was his way of saying 'i need mummy to intervene/rescue/comfort me' and that is sad for me.

looking at robin now we have lots of thoughts and wondering about him and how he is socially - what others expect of him and what he can manage. on the RU site today someone had posted a reply to a thread and said the following which really turned a light on for me:

I think with any child, autistic or not, it's good to look at things from the mindset that they might have sensory issues and their social skills and understanding of situations are not fully developed yet. That's true for all kids: their nervous systems are immature and they just haven't been on Earth that long. Autistic kids have more trouble with this stuff, but all kids can have sensory overload (adults too, but kids get it more often) and they're all still learning social skills and empathy. I think it's something all parents should keep in mind.

for along time now God keeps calling me back to a place of trust. LOVE TRUSTS. trusting God, trusting myself, trusting andy, trusting the kids, trusting others. not blind trust such as leaving my kids with a stranger but trusting that my children/husband/myself is always trying their hardest at any given time. i've been reflecting recently on this thought that at any given time my boys are trying their hardest. in a culture of high behavioural expectation and high social expectation it is a challenge not to slip into regularly practiced coercive and controlling parenting. examples would be directing my child to say hello/goodbye when they are choosing not to. telling my child to share when that child has choice and my response could be to support the other child for whom disappointment is now their reality.

further thoughts on the reflection of trust is our response to our children when accidents happen. a child knocks a bottle of milk onto the floor and it smashes. so often parents, including me, respond without thought and give the child a lesson in being more careful, thinking of what they are about to do before they do it, waste of food, danger of broken glass on floor etc etc. i have caught myself doing things such as this on a number of occasions and in the last few months i have tried to observe myself and catch my response so that instead of the above i respond as if my best friend was visiting and had done the same thing. if my best friend came over and knocked the bottle of milk onto the floor i would say, "not to worry. i'll grab a cloth and dustpan. i've got loads more milk/i'll pop to the shops and pick up more milk in a minute. you take a seat and i'll sort it out". freedom, peace and joy in place of anger, shame and distrust.

for me, the hardest part in all this is staying peaceful in it all rather than letting years of other programing take over on autopilot. it is hard to start questioning the 'truths' of our culture's way of doing things and then responding to what comes out of that questioning. it sets you apart and sends you off down a road less traveled.

i want to start talking about the socialisation of home ed which is something lots of home edders get asked about. i'll do that in a new post another time!

TODAY we had a BBQ, boys enjoyed playing with pots and soil and stones, creating rescue re-enactments on the earth patch, counting out sweets to meet a 25p budget, watched woodlice and ants go about their business, pulled a wriggly worm out long and discovered that it could no longer wriggle, made up songs, sang favourite songs, remembered forgotten songs, shared a favourite film with a neighbour, talked about where glass comes from and how you can make glass from sugar at home, talked about where robots come from, who makes robots, where does grass come from, and plastic and rubber and can you make plastic from olive oil - what about from chicken or noodles? then decided that olive oil, noodles and chicken couldn't make plastic but could make yummy tea. spied a bumblebee in some long grass, filled the pond with water after noticing that some tadpoles were drying out when they got stranded, set up an animal hospital for a stuffed toy, played football.

it was a good day!

fun things

the boys had great fun a couple of days ago turning themselves into soldiers, which in their world simply means decorating their body with felt-tip pens and glitter! Robin had a great time posing for the camera and Jos kindly did his own thing but keeing Robin's modesty intact at all times!





so then the sun was shining and we decided to grab our swim things and head down to the Peace Gardens and play in the fountains. It was so fun. The boys have such different characters - Jos goes straight for the water and introduces himself eagerly whilst enjoying the thrill of the cold water and the surprises that the fountains bring. Robin, on the other hand, takes his time with the water but heads off to seek out the surrounding areas and check out all the other people who have come down for the afternoon. I did not partake in the swimming costume thing in the centre of town but I did facilitate some water play with bottles and took some good photos! Robin is a budding photographer and took the one of me.

hee hee hee!

just changed status on facebook to 'blogging again' and the security words for my post were 'growth' and 'extoll' - how apt for an unschooling approach!

sunny days, everythings, a-ok!

the last couple of weeks i've been thinking a lot on radical unschooling (RU). i have no idea how to define it succinctly but this is what is said on the christian unschooling site

At the time when John Holt coined the term unschooling, it simply meant 'not schooled', as in, educated elsewhere than at a school — or home schooled. However, I don't believe that homeschooling as it exists today was exactly what John Holt had in mind when he encouraged parents to teach their own children. John Holt had a vision for an education that was rather different to what existed in the schools he encountered.

Today, the term unschooling has come to refer to a specific type of home education, i.e. education that is in the control of the one doing the learning. And I think this term more accurately describes the kind of learning experience John Holt had in mind.

In the UK, this educational approach is better known as autonomous education. Unschooling has also been described as child-centred learning, self-directed learning, delight-directed learning, and development-directed learning.

Unschooling is the freedom to learn what you want to learn, when you want to learn it, how you want to learn it, where you want to learn it, and for your own reasons.

Essentially, unschooling is self-education.

i started thinking about it because of lovely niki who told me about all this fab stuff she had found on the interweb about it. i have to say i am rather grabbed by it all and am thankful for a wise husband who slows me down and ensures that as a family we make gradual changes.

i think i'm going to start blogging again regularly, partly for myself, partly for the LEA (if ever needed!) and then for anyone else who wants to follow and see where we're up to and what the next crazy thing we're doing is!

here are some links that i've really enjoyed in the last couple of weeks:

sandra dodd
Dayna Martin youtube
Radical Unschoolers Network
Christian Unschooling

niki wrote the following quote up on their easel and it has been flowing back and forth through my mind since:

6[Remember] this: he who sows sparingly and grudgingly will also reap sparingly and grudgingly, and he who sows generously [[a]that blessings may come to someone] will also reap generously and with blessings.

7Let each one [give] as he has made up his own mind and purposed in his heart, not reluctantly or sorrowfully or under compulsion, for God loves (He [b]takes pleasure in, prizes above other things, and is unwilling to abandon or to do without) a cheerful (joyous, "prompt to do it") giver [whose heart is in his giving].(A)

8And God is able to make all grace (every favor and [c]earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need [d]be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation].

2 Corinthians 9:6-8 (Amplified Bible)


so there we go. join me on the journey if it isn't too crazy for you! i would really enjoy reading your comments too!