"“Somedays you eat the bear, somedays the bear eats you”"

Day 69:

After a pretty crappy few days I started to feel myself again today, Opeie clearly picked up on that too which really made all the difference to our day. We went for a really long walk around Jackfield and sat in the sun... with Mr.T and talked about everything. Turning my phone off really helped too, I'm finding it really distracting at the moment and need to remind myself that its not something I need to check all the time. Today has been a good one and I'm going to hold on to that tightly.

"Smile is a good reply to the dark world."

Day 67:

Life can throw some serious curve balls at times. The last few days have been awful, If it wasn't for the endless smiles caused by Baby Yoda being delivered today I think I may have had a mini breakdown. One thing I can always rely on is this little dude being there to pick me up when I'm having an emotionally challenging day. Being a dad (especially to this superstar) is what life is all about. 

"Almost all creativity involves purposeful play."

Day 38:

Our style of home-ed has gone completely out of the window since all this began, It was never really structured to start with but I always had a plan in my head each morning of the work we were probably going to be doing. These days I think it's far more important to be focusing on the mental health of our kids. All this is so much for them to deal with emotionally. So with that In mind our days have been all about the creative side of learning, we do what ever makes Opeie feel happiest. Today we made a dinosaur mask for his LEGO Boost and he did some coding. It's always a fun educational activity that never disappoints. 

This whole thing is hard enough without having to worry about academic learning while the schools are closed. get playing with your kids, that's where the real magic is.

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity."

Day 36:

As expected yesterdays miserable day was long gone when we woke up this morning. Shockingly I slept from 8:30 till just before 7:30 which is really unlike me. We got straight up and went for an hours walk which was lush. The morning was filled with LEGO creating for our #creativelockdownproject which today was 'Botanical'. Before heading out again in the car to make the most of the Pokemon Go community day (with no community 😥). Everything about today was happy and we're both hoping that the coming days are much the same, I need to hold on to this sunshine feeling.

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay."

Day 31:

Today Opeie spent the day making a LEGO comic book all about me turning into a zombie. I love that he had the whole thing planned out in his head, he just needed a little help with setting up the scenes and taking the pics. When he's in this kind of creative mood its really moorish and it put some seriously happy vibes on our day of self isolation. More days like this please!

“Colours are brighter when the mind is open”.

Day 16:

While Opeie was mark making with inks yesterday he commented on how lovely the water was when cleaning his quill in a glass of water. The blue pigment was really striking and he decided that he wanted to keep it to make 'potions'. This morning while we were sitting eating our breakfast we were looking at the water again and decided to fill a few bottles with different colours for the sun to shine through. A little bit of colour during these strange times is really good for the soul and has made us realise that we can add a lot more little happy colourful touches to the house to make us smile.

"Theories pass. The frog remains."

Day 4:

While we are all in our homes confused about what is going on around us the rest of the natural world are happily living their lives oblivious to the stresses and strains that we are all facing. While gardening today we spotted this happy little frog casually doing its own thing and it really did make the pair of us smile. It made me realise just how much we've got to hold on to these moments of happiness and focus our energy into those to get us through this bizarre time.

Get in your gardens people and make the most of this weather.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

It seems that every year at the end of march, that Ferris Beuller quote pops into my head "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Tonight was no different, as I stood in the kitchen making a cup of coffee, thinking about Opeie's birthday yesterday, it surfaced again. These are words to live by. 6 years can go by so quickly and the last 6 have been my quickest to date. Becoming a parent seems to push the accelerator down on life and as I reminisced about that first time I saw that boy of mine, I found myself feeling so proud of how much we've packed into this time, it may have flown by but we have embraced every family moment.

Those first years, as difficult as they were at times, taught me so much about myself and shaped me into the person I always wanted to be, becoming a father was my defining moment. As Opeie developed so did I and things have been that way ever since. Parenting has been the most amazing adventure and I feel so lucky to have both of the boys in my life. With each birthday of Opeie's that passes, I find myself going over all of the the things that we have accomplished as a family and it really blows my mind.

During those early years I never could have envisioned me being the stay at home parent, let alone home educating Opeie too, but that is where our lives have taken us and I would never change a thing. Watching your children grow up and pass that birthday milestone each year is amazing but home educating adds an extra level to that feeling because you get to fully see that development and be a full time part of it. Knowing that you have been the one to teach them to read and write, learn maths and be a fountain of information at the age of 6 is a huge thing for us.

6 years on and I honestly couldn't ask for a more amazing child.  Opeie has completely changed my world. He is witty and kind and so much fun to be around but most importantly, he is always smiling, which for me was the most important thing to concentrate on as a parent.

In my head this was going to be a post about his birthday celebration, but as usual I've waffled on.

There was only one way he wanted to kick off his birthday fun, and when given the option of what he wanted to do on his very special day he opted to go to Ikea (which made us chuckle). It wasn't quite what I was expecting him to say but our little Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen has big design plans for his bedroom wall and was desperate to get some colourful picture frames so that he could start redesigning, I love his creativity. Yesterday was a day of family and he had an awesome time. 

Another year has passed and I cannot wait to see what the next 6 years have in store for us. Being a dad is Awesome!!!

"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.

"You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart."

A couple of weeks ago we were having one of those relaxing weekends where we had nothing to do but play and take it easy. I was pottering about tidying up and I could hear Opeie and Mrs M chatting excitedly so I went to have a look what they were up to. They had come up with the idea of writing their own newspaper. They were using Opeie's toys and making up news stories like 'Mr Broccoli wins strong man competition'. Mrs M had bought us a Polaroid Pogo printer a few years back which was coming in really handy for printing out stickers for their paper and she was writing the words in pencil for Opeie to go over, to practice his writing. I loved watching how excited he was so as with everything in our house 'if they love it, we embrace it'.

 Since that afternoon me and Opeie have continued to write the first edition of his new monthly paper 'Happy Times', documenting some of the things that we get up to, which has been so much fun. Opeie likes to think of it as his own blog which I think is adorable. We scrapped the drawing over penciled letters though and have changed it to me writing the words, explaining the sounds and structure of the sentence and then him copying it in his very best handwriting. The outcome has turned in to an insight in to the things that Opeie loves, If only all papers were this happy.

I have found this new way of learning for Opeie fascinating and it has made me realise even more that home education was the right thing for us to do. Most days Opeie is motivated and really excited by what he is doing but every now and again he really isn't in the mood and really who can blame him. One afternoon he wrote the letter 'C' wrong and got really worked up about it and was adamant that he was incapable of ever writing it. We stopped writing, put on our helmets and went out scooting and he was fine, when we got home we wrote the word 'confidence' and I explained what it means (he didn't even mention the two 'C's').  We all have off days, but in state education if a child has one of these days, in many cases they are branded the naughty child and made an example of through lack of awards or special time at the end of the day to do their own thing.

I love that we have effortlessly managed to create this in a few weeks despite all the other things we do throughout our days, but then with no distractions and fun 1 to 1 learning I guess its no surprise.  So many people have commented over the years at how switched on Opeie is for a 4 year old and it is clear to see the impact mine and Mrs M's way of educating is having on his development, especially his emotional development.

The great thing about the newspaper aside from the literacy and numeracy side of things is the confidence that is building up and the pride he has in his work. Opeie is so excited about what he has achieved that he wants to show everyone that visits the house. Which has now got me thinking about an extension for this fun activity, so watch this space.

As we finished off our final page (the sports section) a few days back, I was so proud of Opeie's sentence 'we did exercise at the park' the letters were clear, the same size and he wrote confidently in a straight line. It was a great end to the first edition of Happy times...

and now our excited mini journalist is eager to get the ball rolling on issue 2, stay tuned!

"a picture speaks a thousand words"

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."

I wish I could be a child again, if only for a day. As adults we are hardened to many things and don't see the excitement in the small things around us. But as a parent to two young boys you get a glimpse into this way of looking at life. Last weekend we were all having breakfast at a hotel and Opeie got really excited about the Elephant he saw in his fruit compote, it may not be something that many people would be entertained by but from a creative side of parenting this sort of thing really makes me smile as i love the boys innocence...

I'd love to see things through their eyes, it reminded me of the Christmas themed post I wrote last year (which is actually one of my favourite posts I've written).

On the other side of our breakfast table was Seth, his enthusiasm for the machine that in his words 'plopped out pancakes' was infectious. I love seeing the boys smiling from ear to ear about these little things because to me it means that are happy children. Especially with Seth as sometimes he can be a little stressy (but we do understand why).

I like to think that with many things i can play at their level and fully get involved with what they are doing but its little things like this that are continuously teaching me to relax and and take in the small, sometimes insignificant beauty around me, thanks boys. xx

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."

I'm  not really sure why but sometimes I write posts (or start to write posts) and they never get published. This evening I clicked on my drafts folder and found 50 posts in there. I started clicking on each one, some were jibberish, some were clearly during a bad day, some where heartbreaking but some were just lost, never finding their way to the publish button. So this evening I thought I would post one from around this time 2 years ago, enjoy...

Although it's a very British way to be I try not to moan too much about the bad weather in this country. I like to think that as a family we are creative enough to make the most of any weather, braving all of the elements in search of adventure. That being said though I love how much easier everything becomes during continuous bouts of great weather. I don't crave days that are baking hot, in fact, they make me feel irritable. I'm more content with just being able to open up the back door at 7am and leave it open while I'm making breakfast. 

This was going to be a post about the things I love doing during the summer months but as I made a folder of images to use I realised that all the things I love could quite easily be done during the winter months, it just takes a little more effort to motivate myself.

The sunshine does put me in a great mood and I always find that generally people seem to be a little more friendly when the sun is out. The big exciting part of the summer for me is Seth not being at school. A woman in the supermarket today said "6 weeks is too long" (she was complaining about her child though) but honestly I don't think it's nearly enough time. The summer is all about fun but that doesn't mean you can't throw daily fun learning in there too. That muddy winter back garden with leafless dead looking trees that you have put up with for months becomes a dry warm and colourful platform for learning like no other, crawling around on your hands and knees looking for new friends in the bushes.

I love wrapping up and going to the beach out of season but warm days and sunshine means lighter clothes and not being restricted by coats and hats. you can run up and down the beach and splash in the sea care free.

Getting out on our Micro scooters has been a huge thing this summer, it's given the boys that extra independence and has been fantastic for Seth's mobility issues as he seems to find scooting effortless.

We love going out walking no matter what this British weather is throwing at us, in fact, its how me and Opeie spend a huge chunk of our weeks, fully embracing our surroundings, (throw in a picnic and there's really no comparison). These walks are so much nicer though when you can take off your shoes and splash those hot and tired feet in the stream, warm sunshine adds a much more relaxed feel to any day out.

One of my favourite things about summer, when I was younger was being able to take my indoor activities outside in the garden including simple good old fashion pen and paper. Suddenly you're not confined to the four walls of your room and every bush, tree and rock can become part of your creative adventure. You can let your imagination run wild, the summer weather for us really opens up our world to creativity.

Everywhere looks far more attractive when the sun is out and the summer gives you some great photo opportunities, flowers are in bloom, the sky is blue and everywhere is colourful and bright which is how I see my life and the beautiful family I have...

 In the hunt for summer pictures I found an old shot that made me well up (I always get mushy over old pictures of Opeie). It was taken almost three years ago and it made me think of just how happy we all were (and still are). The sunshine brings out the best in most people and it makes everything seem that little bit more fun. Summer will always be my favourite time of year, because...

...There's no holding us back from our adventures.