'There are friends, there is family, and then there are friends that become family.'

 

Ive spent so much time worrying about Opeie since this whole covid fiasco started. Stressing about the impact that this situation is having in him, the fact that he's not seen some of his friends for a while and his general well being. The parent guilt is constantly banging at the door even though I know it is out of my control. As I stood in the house this week and watched him sitting on the shed outside with his besties watching the sun set I was reassured that actually, despite the confusing government guidelines and the massive change to our lives, he's actually got everything he needs. A calm, loving home, a doting dad, and the kind of friends that you could spend your whole life hoping for... (the excessive amount of LEGO is a bonus too). 

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

Day 90:

Homeschooling (in our usual way) went out the window pretty quickly when all this crazy started. For most of us the days have all just merged into one big oddity, Ive lost all track of days and time and in my foggy head I'm now stuck at 'before Corona (BC)' and During Corona (DC). It's get harder and harder to motivate Opeie in the way I would have BC because he misses his friends so much. So I now just fully focus on what makes him happy. His latest idea for a comic has been keeping us busy in the LEGO department, focusing on set designs and letting our brick creativity flow. This should be a pretty awesome project, stay tuned.

"Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened"

Day 26:

Although all of us in this country are living these crazy times in unison and many of us are feeling hard done by because of it, it's important to remember that we all have our own personal struggles and heartaches on top of all this madness and this social distancing is putting a huge barrier between us and the people we love most. Ive found it really difficult over the last few weeks that I couldn't be there in person for a friend I care about as she has just lost her lovely mom and its been playing heavily on my mind. With the funeral being today, Opeie and I decided to have a painting session in her honour, lots of colour and happiness. I asked Opeie what he wanted to paint and he said 'happy sausages'. Ive no idea whether she was a big fan of sausages (I mean they are pretty special) but I'm  sure she would have loved the sentiment.

So todays picture is for you Carol Ann Beale, I hope you are in a better place.

"Be Excellent to each other, and Party on Dudes!"

Day 8:

It will no doubt be one of the weirdest birthdays that Opeie is going to experience with everything that's going on in the world at the moment but I wanted him to feel just as special when he woke up this morning. Its crazy that 9 years have flown by this quickly and although I clearly didn't envision us spending it in isolation, he's had a pretty lovely day. Despite the current situation the only thing that was missing was him being able to spend it with his friends. As I write this though I can hear him downstairs playing online with his besties, So I'm pretty thankful for technology today.

Also I'm looking forward to the cake.

"I want to run towards something. Not away."

Autumn is by far my favourite time of year, Unlike most I'm a big fan of the temperature drop, Ive always had a thing about my coat going on, making our outdoor adventures that little more cosy. And who doesn't love the colours on the trees, that autumn change is pretty magical. For the boys it's an exciting time of year because we get to go up the loft and start bringing down those end of year decorations. It's always so nice to transform the house and make it that little more interesting and of course that always includes some spooky LEGO building. We were all wrapped up one evening with hot chocolates making Halloween characters and a big sign for the wall in The LEGO room.

Opeie requested we build a witches house another evening and despite not feeling in a creative mood we stuck with it and it all turned out pretty lovely. The LEGO building really got us into the build up to halloween festivities.

With the decorations out and the house feeling a little more spooky we were pretty excited about the fun that was going to be had. Pumpkin carving at home and maybe a spooky party.

Then at the last minute our plans changed and a couple of days before the big spooky celebration we found ourselves driving down to the Cornish coast to Boscastle to for a few nights away. With a mass of negativity starting to muscle its way into our lives at home I think we were both really needing to get away for a bit.

Halloween ended up being an awesome day at Tintagel, adventuring around Merlins cave, Stomping up some big hills and finding waterfalls, perfection.

Happy Halloween ya'll.

"Get out of my way, you Cakesniffers!"

Its been a tough few months with our lives changing so much with the split. As I said in the last post I feel like I've really lost myself in all of it and I know the boys are feeling the same way, Opeie especially. With his mom not being around I've been trying as best I can to keep him busy and in the company of the people that love spending time with him. This has not been difficult at all because we have the best group of friends around us and they definitely more than make up for our lack of family. 

Over the last few months we've spent a lot of time hanging out with our friends Charlotte and Rich, usually walking the streets of Shropshire in search of Pokemon. To continue the love of all things Pokemon and our blossoming friendship, they invited us round to theirs today to bake cakes and decorate them in a way that only Pokemon enthusiasts know how.

As the saying goes 'A baking session isn't successful unless you've messed up a couple of batches first'. No you're right, no one has ever said that, but as we all had a good laugh about the mess we made and Rich pointed out that the one batch looked like it needed vegetables and gravy with them, it was clear that the muck ups really add to the memories of the afternoon.

We soon had a decent batch to work with though so we set about adding some flair to our cupcakes. While we created our masterpieces we chatted about all sorts and I was reminded yet again how in awe I am of that amazing 7-year-old of mine. He loves being around other adults and is such a confident kid when it comes to general chit chat, everyone seems to adore him as much as I do.

With the first couple of cakes finished it was time for an action shot, Pikachu... I choose you!

The cakes ended up taking so much longer than we expected but thats the great thing about being around amazing friends, you get lost in all the fun and the time just flies by. With the cakes finished the only thing left to do was check to see if our creations tasted as good as they looked...they totally did.

These may be some of the toughest months we've been through but being surrounded by such amazing and caring people has made us realise that we really are the luckiest three boys.

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go."

When it comes to homeschooling kids you've really got to have some creativity in you yourself to keep everything exciting. We've found this mostly with Opeie's writing as although he does love writing, he loses interest pretty quick and wants to move on to something else. He has created newspapers and magazines and keeps various diaries about his interests and our day to day fun. We are always looking for new ways to keep the writing fresh though and a few weeks back a package came through the door (the usual weekly LEGO purchase delivery) and Opeie did his usual excited dance wondering what it was. It made me think about how excited I would get as a child when mail came with my name on it (I loved those Beano club deliveries). It was clear then that what Opeie needed was a pen pal, or two (or three).

I have a lovely friend who I met through Micro scooters, who's daughter is a few weeks younger than Opeie, they both love their scooters, LEGO and Superheroes, it was a perfect fit. Around the same time someone from one of the online Homeschooling groups I am part of was looking for a pen pal for her little boy, also the same age as Opeie and another fan of those magical bricks, it was like it was meant to be.

After securing two new friends to write to, Opeie got straight to work writing them both a letter introducing himself and letting them know a little about his interests. It's always lovely to see Opeie getting excited about the work he is doing and a lot of effort went into the handwriting and spelling, I know this because of the tongue sticking out of the side of his face as he was concentrating (something I always did myself at his age).

  With the letters posted, Opeie had reached a new peak of excitement and couldn't contain it for the next few days everytime he heard the mail drop through the letter box. It didn't take long for his first reply to arrive and as expected the reply spurred on an instant writing session to try and beat our local post collection. Writing can seem so daunting to some children but if you find the right outlet for it you can have them motivated in no time. Opeie has always seen both Mrs M and I writing various things for companies and publications so he see's it as the norm.

Since the pen palling began, Opeie has since secured another pen pal through one of Mrs M's friends who we are yet to write to yet but I'm sure we will be getting on with that in the next few days. What I love about this the most, is the confidence in his writing and the motivation to continue. I'm sure that Max, Daisy, Talulah will end up being the best of friends to Opeie. 

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

Back in November I wrote about Opeie's news paper 'Happy Times', which started out as a fun activity one afternoon, thought up by Mrs M. They took photos of Opeie's toys and came up with funny stories to go with the pictures. Opeie got so excited making it that we decided to incorporate it in to his homeschooling and back in Decemeber we started the second edition which Opeie decided was going to be titled "The rainbow edition".

The news paper has been great for both Opeie's reading and writing, we've used this for all sorts of different activities and it has really helped with keeping him motivated with this side of learning. On top of all the other positives its great for keeping me coming up with new places to go, its all about the experiences.

When I asked him a few days back why he loved writing Happy Times? He told me that he thought it was like the blog, but on paper which I thought was really lovely. Its great to see Opeie so confident with what he is creating too. Whenever we have people over he is eager to get it out and show it off.

I'm really hoping that when he is older this will be something great to look back on, to show him all of the great things that we got up to during this homeschooling adventure. It has been interesting for me as we have gone through the pages to see the clear development in the penmanship and the confidence in his writing.

'Happy Times' is here to stay and as his writing progresses I'll look more in to the structure of the sentences he is writing to help him further with creative writing. Even though I am loving the home education I still have days where I worry that I am maybe not doing enough but then I see him producing work like this that he is excited about doing and it completely backs up our decision to keep Opeie home and educated in a way that is suited to his needs and development.

"There's so much more to a book than just the reading."

A few weeks back me and the awesomeness that is Emma from Another Last Story were talking about books and charity shops which we seem to do a lot when we get together as the two go perfectly hand in hand. Emma came up with the idea of a fun book related charity shop competition and after chatting about it a little, the day was upon us and it was time to put our plans in to motion. We met up on the morning of the great book off in Shrewsbury, where there are plenty of charity shops to mooch around. Before heading out and starting the competition though we popped in to the library with the boys to read a few books in hope that it would be a great start to an afternoon of children's literature.

The plan was to hit the charity shops armed with £5. We had a list of rules, one adult book, a selection of children's books and one gifted book to each other, but minutes before we kicked off the fun we decided to just go and buy books, spend a fiver and meet up to compare our spoils. Emma threw a huge spanner in the works early on when she declared 'No Shoplifting!' so as you can imagine the fun started on a down note. There was a bit of smack talk before we kicked off but then we went our separate ways. We had roughly 40 minutes before meeting for lunch so we split up and me and Opeie hit the shops hard. Our first find was a book about Nessie which fit in perfectly with Mrs M working away at Loch Ness this week, It was a great way to start the hunt.

We managed to grab some great bargains in what turned out to be the first leg of our book hunting adventure. The plan was to meet up at 12:00, i tried my luck with a text saying "how about 12:30" to which I received a rather blunt reply "12:00", that told us! We managed to grab Oliver Jeffers A way back home and a vintage nursery rhymes book that had seen better days but had a lot of character (I knew Emma would love it). We regrouped back at the library for lunch and added our friends Lucie and Martha to the fun. The smack talk continued and Lucie joined forces with Emma (because clearly she needed the help).

Rose found a quiet spot for lunch on Charles Darwin, meow.

With £1.50 left to spend it was time for round 2 and me and Opeie ventured to a different part of town where the charity shops are a little more classy. Opeie had set an extra task of finding a cool pop up book for us, which we did although it took us over our budget so we couldn't include it in the game. When I visit any charity shop I always have a few "Id love to find" books in mind. At the moment I keep hoping Ill stumble upon the Robert Sabuda pop up edition of The wonderful Wizard of Oz because I cant warrant paying the price it goes for online or anything by Florence Upton (I love those illustrations).

We spent our remaining money on an adults Roald Dahl book for Emma that I had never seen before as I knew she was a big fan. Me and Opeie had come home from a morning out last week to find presents waiting for us from Emma and Matthew, which was so kind of them, so we thought it was cute to stick with the Roald Dahl theme.

Part two flew by and we arranged to meet at Shrewsbury museum for what Emma called "an Opeie friendly hot chocolate" (Soya). As the kids sat and had what looked like a very sophisticated coffee date us adults filled the table with our findings and exchanged gifts. Emma had found us an atlas of Dinosaurs which went down a treat with Opeie and a copy of Mr Popper's penguins which me and Opeie are really looking forward to reading after we have finished James and the giant peach.

Sophisticated and friendly hot chocolate aside it did get to that point in the afternoon where the winner had to be announced so we turned to the referee's that had joined us mid competition. While going through our spoils we found that the other team already owned our gifted Oliver Jeffers book so it went to Lucie and Martha which may have swung Martha's vote when she announced we had won. Thankfully though our awesome children decided that 'everyone is the winner' and rightly so if you can pick up that many amazing books for £5 how can you not be a winner. 

Our charity shop adventure was so much fun and we are now thinking about making it a regular thing as it will be interesting to see what we find in different towns. It looks like Bridgnorth may be our next destination so if you are from the surrounding area be generous with your book donations. 

As we made our way back to the car everyone pointed out foxes for our next Gifts from the pirates fox hunt post too...

...and Emma pointed out 'There's a couple of Foxes over here!', Love these guys!

 Another Last Story have got plenty to say about our afternoon of fun and Emma certainly has a way with words, I love reading her posts, so check it out...

There's Nothing Like A Bit Of Healthy Competition

 

"Friendship is a sheltering tree."

A few days back me and Opeie were sitting on the sofa ploughing through a pile of books and we started to read a book about plants that were found during the jurassic time period that were eaten by Herbivores. We soon came to the Araucaria, a tree that still grows today and can be found in South America, Which got us talking about our awesome friends Sam and Jamie who are backpacking in South America at the moment. Opeie asked me if I thought they could get a picture of them standing next to one while they were there and as we had been chatting to them on and off while away we set them a challenge. 7 hours later we received "Challenge accepted....and done... We can see one from our window", which they sent us a picture of.

But by Opeie's challenge rules we needed to see them standing next to one. We had told them about why we wanted a picture and how the challenge had come about and being the amazing friends that they are they fully embraced our request and we received a few more pictures which Opeie loved.

 I cant even begin to tell you how awesome these guys are, I feel really lucky to have them as friends. Being able to chat to them and exchange photos and videos while they are away is going to be a great bit of home education for Opeie (and Seth), learning about different cultures from books we're going looking for in the library and being able to see things from them as well as setting them more challenges. Seth has sent the next challenge, to come up with a food that we don't have in this country, should be interesting.

Seth's challenge got me thinking about a game we could play while they away which I'm going to mention to them when we talk next.

 The South American fun didn't end there though and we were soon sent another fun dinosaur related picture, Amazing! I know which direction I would be going after seeing this sign!!!

I know you will be reading this soon so thank you guys, the pictures have really been entertaining us over the last few months, enjoy your trip x

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usherstorm, but to add color to my sunset sky."

We've had such a lovely weekend, quality family time and great friends. Despite things not so great that linger in the background it was a weekend of smiles and laughter. As I came downstairs this evening and sat at the back door the beautiful pink sky summed up how I was feeling. 

I hope you all had a great weekend.