Summing up

I know we haven't quite hit the weekend and end of the year yet but my thoughts are turning, with the year, to the new. And before that happens I would like to take stock of all the things that have happened this year, good and bad.

Sorry, by the way, but this is entirely for my benefit and if it gets boring please feel free to leave and return next time I post. I'll try not to be too selfish!

So, the not so good.

Ed's health. In my ordinary life there are very few (Sam, Kayleigh and Hannah) who know how I feel about Ed and his diabetes. To most people I seem the supportive and non-judgemental wife. In fact, I would guess from Ed's comments that he has no idea how I really feel. That is how I want to keep it. Just between ourselves though, I have to fight myself to be supportive and non-judgemental to his face because what I really want to yell is "Are you kidding? You brought this on yourself and now you are miserable because you have cateracts/disturbed vision/cuts on your legs that heal SOOOO slowly/ claim that you can only diet when you are happy and can't see that unless you diet you never will be happy so just get on with it and stop making excuses and diet.

The kids still fight. I know - it is normal. It is healthy. It drives me insane and I say/shout awful things to stop them. My least good parenting moments come when I have had sibling arguements all day and nothing I have done has helped. I have all the books, try all the strategies and still - epic arguements. I am tempted next time to lock them in the back garden for half an hour and let them sort it out in the cold (and hopefully rain) and they'll be sograteful to get back inside that they will stop arguing. Maybe!!!!

I haven't done anything about the biology GCSE or whatever I am going to do after it. I have a yearning to learn more and be better qualified but really have still not made a decision about how I am going to go about it. There is the possibility of a course being run that is a Montessori 6-9 degree with Qualified Teacher Status confered with it. That would be the answer to all my prayers as I would love to do the 6-9 course, seeing as I am teaching that age group. I would also love to have QTS as that is the govornment recognition of teacher status and is what I would need to teach elsewhere (although that is not something I am thinking of at the moment bu might if Ed's health fails or he dies. (It's possible. I am a realist.) I would also like to do a degree in child development or education but need to know where either course would take me. I woudl also love to be an education psychologist but I think that would mean starting again.

Abigail. She is still pulling her hair. There are no patches, thank goodness but the underlying worry and the stress is still and always there. I know there is no easy way and no cure but I wish I could somehow help her over it. One problem for me is, I know that her school can be very stressful particularly for girls. I felt it and had many years of not eating properly and throwing up meals. I don't want her going down that route. Why do we send her there? Because the upside of the school is that there is so much that is positive for her going on there and she loves her friends and the lessons and the extra-curricula activites. I know that I am the kind of person to want to opt out of society and to reject what the majority holds to be important, particularly when it comes to what children "should" be doing and when.

My dad has to have heart surgery at the beginning of January. What more can I say? He had better make it, that's all.

The good.

We are happy. We are a loving family and I know that the bad is far out-weighed by the good. Everyone has days when it all goes pearshaped, at least the overall pattern of our relationships seems to be healthy and nurturing. I think it is a good thing that I constantly ask myself if I am doing the right thing for each child because in doing so, I am conciously "following the child" and that must mean that althought they don't get equal, they do get needed.

School. I love my job. I find it stressful and tiring sometimes and often think that three days a week would be perfect but we can't afford for me to drop another day. In fact, at the moment, we would save money if I stopped working because of tax breaks and I would spend less on clothes and travel and other stuff. However, I have faith that this year will change that and in return I will work as hard as I ever have done.
In the past year I have done some things to make my life easier, including creating a record keeping system. My next step is to plan and create a planning record and a marking rationale so that record keeping, work setting and marking are all matched up and work alongside each other.

My extended family.
Ed's family has been very welcoming this year as we have trotted up and down to London for Hebrew lessons and other Jewish events. They have been welcoming even when there was no other reason to go other than to see them! My nephew celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in style a month ago and made us very proud.
My family is great and I am very happy that we all live so near to each other. One brother told us today that he and his wife are expecting their third baby in August, so very early days yet but very exciting!

Abi. She has got through the difficult year six, as we hoped and tried to help happen, without falling apart under the stress of the entrance exam. She has blossomed into a beautiful and humourous young lady and is intelligent and fairly hardworking and most importantly, mostly happy at school and at home and with her friends. She got an A1 in maths - a first! We have told her that if she never gets an A again we don't care and are proud of that one. I never got an A in maths, in fact, I don't think I got an A in any academic subject. All pressure off, we are just trying to get her to enjoy that one! She has much to learn, as she ought to at her age! However, she seems to be enjoying growing up.

Johnny. This kid defines himself through sport. He loves whatever he plays and has a lot of natural talent. We are having to begin making some dicisions about how much we push him into particular sports as various people have made noises about having extra coaching. However, these sports include rugby, football, tennis and cricket. Surely, aged nine, he should just be enjoying himself? How do we/he choose between four different sports? He is also a nice little cellist and pianist and plays music for pleasure and to release tension. His report was hilarious. Everything is going nicely except for presentation. Really? He is nine and he hates writing. Be thankful he presents anything! He has a few ongoing problems with kids at school. I think, reading between the lines that the daily football games are a matter of life and death for some kids and they resent him for being naturally such a good sportsman and so he gets it in the neck. Many of our bedtime chats have been about how to reduce the meaness directed at him. Sometimes it has worked, sometimes not. He has come to understand that the lunchtime games are not his time to shine, as this means he gets accused of "hogging the ball" when in fact, no-one can tackle him. He is now trying to pass the ball, even if it means losing the ball and using the opportunity to practice different types of pass depending on who is recieving the ball.

Livi - is no longer a baby and I am trying very hard to give in to her demands to be treated like one. I have tried to find out what is being achieved from her point of view, and I think it is getting more attention. So I am working hard to make sure that she gets some good 1-1 time with me and this seems to be helping. Her confidence in her school work was sky high this time last year. It has plummeted this year and I hate to hear her say that she is rubbish at maths or finds it hard to concentrate. As this is eerily like Abi I am keepng a wary eye on her. She certainly finds it very hard to get maths concepts and the schools insistance that everyone memorises without real understanding is a big disadvantage. However, all schools have this methodology and as we are certainly not going to home school and I am dubious in the extreme about having a child of my own at my school, we shall have to manage as best we can.
She is a very funny child, with a well developed sense of humour. She loves the ridiculous, which is lucky, living with me! She loves her dolls and plays with them for hours. She is stubborn and will go without a meal rather than force down one mouthful of a food she has decided she doesn't like/want. As we have learnt from bitter experience that she will not let herself go really hungry we try to avoid the confrontations as far as possible, trying to honour her autonomy in deciding how much she wants to eat, while sticking with the family rule that only one meal is served to the entire family and everyone has to partake. We know what each child really does not like and wouldn't drea of forcing her to eat a food she hates. When it is a mind game, however, she is out of luck because I do not like having my buttons pushed and can be more stubborn than her. Besides which, I can still pick her up and put her to bed. Which I did, just last night as it happens. She was asleep in 30 seconds, there-by confirming my gut feeling that she was not hungry but was exhausted.

Ed - despite his struggles with weight (although he is losing it slowly but surely) there is plenty more to this lovely man. He is truly a joy to be married to. He cooks, he does the laundry, he shares in the upbringing of the children and usually follows my lead. He won't read the books but likes to get a digest of it from me, usually late at night, complete with how this relates to each child individually. He has absorbed the Montessori ethos, how it works at school and how it works at home and although it is the complete opposite of what he experienced growing up and is therefore alien to him, he puts it into practice, at times better than me!
He is funny, witty, loving, incredibly intelligent, loving, a great cook, terrible at tidying up (truly, I have to give him lists with bullet points so he knows how to tidy a particular room but at least he does it!), did I mention loving? I can't imagine many men who would listen to me rabbiting on about school and education and child development and be happy to  have a conversation about it!

So - there was my year, in bits and pieces.

I hope yours was good and your new year is happy.
love
Anna xxxx