From Hollywood............. to Shepperton

And we're back.  Sunny Warm Pretty Shepperton welcomed us back on Wednesday afternoon after a long night flight from LAX.  Our journey was completed with a grumpy arse cheerful taxi driver.

As we settle back into normal home life and get ready for the autumn, it's hard to imagine that just a week ago we were hanging out in LA, swimming in the beautiful evening sun and enjoying the last few days of our American journey.

After the peace of Yosemite, the coolness of San Francisco and the beauty of the Big Sur, I found Los Angeles to be a bit 'in your face'; so aside from the obligatory tours visiting some of Hollywood's most famous landmarks, we also visited the beautiful Pasadena (as recommended by my friend Em), hung out at the hotel pool, shopped in the exclusive Fashion Island (home of the Orange County real housewives), enjoyed an all american baseball game and had an awesome day at Universal Studios.

It was a fantastic end to an amazing road trip; we learnt so much about ourselves and each other (I will blog about that later), saw places I have always dreamed of visiting, and had the most awesome time as a family.  

Roll on the next road trip!

angela x

Patience, Parenting and Participation.

One of the aims of our road trip has been to reflect on our current lives and think about changes that would benefit us all as a family.  Since January this year, I have been immersed in the campaign to save Independent Midwifery; whilst my focus has been elsewhere, I have slowly paid less attention to my parenting, participated less in overseeing our home education, and allowed screen time use to creep up and up.  These are all things I wanted to address.

In our friends home, there is no TV in the main living area; screens are available in the family room and the use of this is limited.  The first week was tough (particularly for Noah) but we created a list of things to do that did not involve technology and over the past 10 days I have seen my children's imagination come back to life: I have watched them attempt things like swimming across the river to reach their goal, read books in record time (we have visited the local beautiful book store to choose more), play endlessly with Lego, ride bikes and make new friends.  Screen time is now earned - and generally shared as a family, and Noah's overwhelming addiction to Minecraft has been curbed.  My children are participating in their own adventures - not just watching them on screen! The plan is to continue this once we return and I am so looking forward to that.

Parenting has to be one of the biggest challenges you can face; being a full-time parent to home-educated children is intense, and I do struggle at times.  Sharing living space with another family and being a guest in their home also comes with its own challenges, and after a week here my children were asked to live by our hosts rules.  Now, you may think that having someone else tell your children how to behave would have been hard to accept - but on the contrary;  my friends noticed behaviour that I was struggling with (rudeness, being disrespectful, fighting, slamming doors etc.) and explained to the children that this was not acceptable, and introduced consequences for displaying those behaviours.  Of course it initially went down like a lead balloon with the children, BUT, with the support of my friends, things have improved hugely.  It's like having my own personal Super Nanny!  Another area we are planning to continue with!

Finally, Patience is becoming another part of daily life, especially for the children's.  As we wait for the arrival of this baby (nothing new to me) the children are having to adjust and accept that there is no rushing nature:  it is what it is.  Great lessons we are all learning.

I am feeling so full of energy and love for my children - and am looking forward to the rest of our road trip so much!  In the meantime, here are some photos of our last few days for you to enjoy...

angela xx

Joy

I have put 2012 behind me and am looking to start 2013 with a new sense of energy.....something I have done to help me do this is use a great workbook that is a gift from the blogger and author Susannah Conway.  It was a really powerful little book that has helped me immensely and I want to share it with you too..... so go ahead, download it and spend an hour (or two) looking to the future.

Last night I also created an 'inspiration board' for my 2013 in the 'Wombyns Circle' I am part of; I have never made an inspiration board but had seen my lovely friend Keeley use them.  Keeley (a celebrant and soulful doula) helped us settle into our thoughts as we created our boards and it was an energising evening.  Again, something I really wanted to share and perhaps inspire you to do to!

My word for the year is JOY and I am working mindfully to bring that into my every-day; I do have to work hard at this: as I pointed out to Sophie who was moaning about our first back to school session (see below) that no, I do not wake up every day going 'yay' - a full day with my children today; no, I do not skip around the house thinking 'yippee' - I am responsible for my children's education, and no, I do not relish justifying our choices to new people we meet, and if I can put the f****** effort in, so can she.  And of course, all said with complete JOY.


This week we are 'back to school!'  We sat down on Tuesday and brainstormed ideas for this half term, which I am now putting into plans and actions; one of our projects for this half-term is to review the local super-markets.  After feeling fed up with the children moaning about putting away the shopping (delivered in colour coded bags in a one hour slot I might add) Ben suggested they should undertake the challenge of experiencing a weekly shop in full.  The three of them had to list all the major supermarkets they could think of, and then narrow those to 6 shops; next they had to decided what we would be reviewing / looking at as part of the trip and how they would rate each shop and finally put these into a table format.  At the end of the 6 weeks they will then use Excel to produce and publish the results of their findings.  It was so great to see them debate what and how and who, and to take our first shopping trip with a real degree of interest; they have used / will use so many skills with this project , so thanks Ben for the idea...... watch this space!

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. John Dewey 

angela x