Baby Chick update

Five hatched, five to go...

Easter Holidays and Pet Eggs

The Easter holidays were so much fun. We had beautiful weather and it was great to spend lots of time playing outdoors, digging in the garden and general enjoying the sun.

The children played their first ever game of cricket, watching the new baby tadpoles in our pond, and even took part in some of the planting out.

We started our 'Kitchen Chemistry' online course and they loved experimenting with molecule density using the toaster from the boy's kitchen and a bin bag, and experiment that was repeated with a hair dryer and a mini hot air balloon on a camping trip over the Easter weekend.

Heated molecules are less dense

The children also went to the energy show at the science museum in London with their dad and had a fantastic time as well as Cosmo going camping in the peak district with daddy to climb a 'mountain'.

We had a lovely time celebrating passover with my sister's family and some friends, and the children took great joy in the charoset (I used mango, pear and cinnamon with walnut) as well as joining in with some really fun songs.

 But the part the children have been most excited about this Easter is getting their 'pet eggs'.

We currently have ten eggs incubating in the school room and the children cannot wait to see them hatch. They've been very diligent in checking the temperature regularly and topping up the water and the eggs are due to hatch Thursday or Friday.

I'm sure I'll manage to film it, and will post it here after. The baby chicks will then live in our house 6-9 weeks (weather dependant) and then move out into the chicken coop and run that we have built for them in the orchard.

Exciting times!

Stable Day

Yesterday was stable day with our homeschool co-op. The children had an amazing time learning about how to care for horses, in fact Cosmo's favourite part of the day was mucking out the stables! They learned about feeding and grooming, caring for tack and they also got a riding lesson.

I was so proud of him, because he had been really worried about taking part, but despite initial nerves he did do it and really enjoyed himself.


I think this is also the longest time I have ever left him anywhere (10am-3pm) without an adult he knows well. It was obviously helpful that his cousins were in the class and he knew some other children too, but I was so pleased with the way the owners of the stable made an effort to make him feel comfortable too.

Lychee was insanely jealous (the stables only had insurance for children over four years old) and spent most of the day pretending to ride horses.

But before you feel too sorry for her, she did get to spend an afternoon playing in the woods with me and Cooper, and in the morning we took her to the Japanese Koi Company aka the free zoo. If you haven't been, and you live locally, you are missing out.

They have raccoon dogs, armadillos, spiders, snakes, bunnies, frogs, birds, all kinds of fish and turtles etc... it really is both fun and educational.


Here's the video:

Cooper!!!

We recently got a new puppy!

He's a labernese (a labrador crossed with a bernese mountain dog).

This:

photo credit

plus this:

photo credit

equals this:

A whole bundle of fun! It's been really great for the kids already this week, building cosmo's confidence around animals, and helping with his separation anxiety (I can now take the laundry upstairs and fold it and he hasn't once cried about being on his own downstairs - this may also have something to do with it being school holidays and he's always more settled knowing that dad isn't at work - even if he isn't in the house!) 

Lychee's speech is coming on rapidly and she talks to the puppy LOADS. 'Don't eat me Cooper!' is one of the first things she says to him before shoving her fingers in his face and giggling when he nibbles at them (luckily he has a very gentle mouth). 

We're so excited about having this new addition to our family, and can't wait until his vaccinations are complete and we can book into puppy training classes. We've found a local class at 9am on a monday morning that we can book him into, which is perfect because it means the kids can come and really take a part in his training. 

As they get older I will be giving them more and more responsibility (already they have some 'chores' with the puppy - Lila gives him his regular 'hugs', William is helping me to teach him recall) and I think that this will be a great addition not only as our family pet, but in helping grow the children in character and emotional maturity. 

Yay for dogs and homeschool!

Growing in Compassion

We don't have a TV license, but we have always kept a television to watch movies on and use the Wii. Don't worry, it's totally legit. 

Initially we had a very small 15" TV which we kept up on a high shelf. I didn't want it to dominate the room and be a constant temptation to the children to ask for DVDs.

But then our TV broke, and being the frugal people that we are we got our next one off freecycle. It was quite a lot bigger, if I remember around 21", but it only lasted six months. The next freecycle offering we got so a whopping 44".

Yeah.

And it broke.

It lasted a good while, but finally a friend was selling his (huge) 72" flatscreen LCD TV, so we bought it from him for a great price.

Cosmos response: This is amazing!!! I can't wait until it breaks and we get a cinema!!

Wow.

The thing is, he had a really similar response to his pets. For his second birthday some friends bought him a pet fish, who we called Finley. Cosmo was devastated when Fin died (selfishly the same week Lychee was born!) but cheered up significantly when he got new fish - Ross and Franji. Interestingly, he didn't have the same response when Franji died within a week of getting home. In fact, his response was positive joy, because 'Now I get to go to the garden centre again and choose another fish!!'

Over the coming series of fish it became apparent that he did not have any attachment issues to a particular animal, he just liked being in charge of feeding it and checking on it regularly.

However, his current fish (Eugenie) killed Lychee's fish (Greg) yesterday. He'd been hassling him for as long as they'd shared a tank and poor Greg spent most of his time hiding in a toy volcano. When I told Cosmo that Greg had died, he had the predictable response of 'Will I get to choose Lychee's new fish? '

However, twenty-four hours on and it seems he's been considering it more than I'd given him credit for. Today he's been concerned that Eugenie was bullying Greg because 'I used to kiss Eugenie through the glass every morning and I started kissing Greg too. Maybe Eugenie was jealous and that's why he killed Greg. If we get another fish I'll try not to love it as much as Eugenie'.

Obviously I assured him that some fish are just bullies and nothing he could have done would have increased Greg's odds of survival, but the boy was welling up.

It seems he does care about his pet's after all.