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!