"“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.”"

Day 73:

Ive said it so many times since this lockdown started, The #creativelockdownproject that has really kept me and Opeie in a happy creative headspace and I don't think I've ever been this creatively motivated in a long time. Its been great to really reinforce to Opeie that art is everywhere and it doesn't have to be something that has taken a chunk of time to create, to make people smile. as the creative word today is 'books' Opeie decided to search through his collection and make a book rainbow. It certainly put a smile on my face.

"There must be something in the water"

Day 65:

You know those days that can just f#€* off? well today was one of them. I seriously need to wipe it from my memory and have a nice do-over tomorrow. Despite the day being an absolute flop Opeie and I still managed to build something colourful for our daily creative word, which was 'Rainbow'. I'm definitely looking forward to more colourful days.

"We live in a rainbow of chaos."

Day 45:

My laptop desktop is always full of inspiring images for future projects that I'd like to get stuck into. Not all projects make the cut and sometimes those images just sit there collecting virtual dust. Being stuck at home though has given me the kick up the bum to tackle these little projects and they've been perfect for getting us through these strange days. A few months back I spotted a LEGO rainbow made from a mismatch of parts, so today while the sun was out and I was feeling super happy, I opened up the back doors and sat in the sun and built. It ended up coming out a lot better than I had hoped and was one of those builds that really made me smile. 

I also felt that the build was really fitting to to our current situation and a grateful nod to our NHS staff and all the amazing work they are doing during this testing time. 

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take You Everywhere"

day 12:

I think we've done well so far not to have been bored for too long yet. concentrating on our mental health through all of this, over everything else has meant that a huge chunk of Opeie's learning has been through play. And today we found ourselves in a long drawn out LEGO drama around me trying to stop a wedding in a rainbow coloured monster truck. All ended well after winning back my lady from the sleazy 'captain Elvis guy'.  I love that little dude of mines imagination.

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

Gifts from the pirates blossomed from the early days of becoming a step-dad. I had never been in a relationship with anyone with a child before and it was a real life changing experience for me. One of the hardest things to try and get around was how to react to a child that wasn't mine when they were acting up, in many ways in those early days I was still the guardian as such but there are lines that I feel you don't cross and working out the guidelines for that can be tough.

This is why I created 'The Pirates', a way of communicating with Seth about his behaviour without having to cross any of those lines. He was never a naughty kid but he did know how to throw a tantrum of epic proportions. The Pirates were a crew of magical folk that kept an eye on his behaviour and kept him in check, rewarding him when he deserved it. They visited many times over those first few years but in no time at all Seth had calmed down.

I never really needed to use them with Opeie as he has always been so relaxed, but there was a few times that they visited during the night to leave him something when he had done something awesome. Aside from naming the blog after them, I thought I had long ago got to the point where they were no longer needed. That was until recently. I met up with a friend last week and we got chatting about school etc as the holidays are coming to an end and she started telling me about how much her little boy had changed on the build up to him starting school this year. She said that he had become very anxious and didn't want to talk about it at all and that she was really starting to worry. The conversation got me thinking a lot about the complete change in Opeie's personality during the few weeks that he attended nursery . The whole thing really played on my mind and then a couple of days later I was talking to my friend again and her little boy had accidentally completely destroyed his favourite sword. I felt like the poor kid was having a tough time so later that day I messaged and said ask him what sort of sword he would like and I'll make it for him, but don't tell him.

She messaged back with a drawing that he had done with his mom and he said that he would really love a rainbow sword with an anchor on. As with most creative things I do, I had no idea what I was doing, Its all about the winging it with me. So I searched the shed looking for wood and got to work. While I was In the garden sawing away I started thinking again about his anxiety and Opeie's face over this nursery months and that's when I thought the Pirates might come in handy again, So I wrote a letter from that very famous pirate Captain Rainbow beard...

After a secret stealth mission with the boys today, sneaking the sword and letter around to their house, I received a lovely message that I will never forget from my friend saying how much it meant to her and Euan. As expected he loved the sword but more importantly liked the fact that he was contacted by rainbow beard and was excited about being part of his crew.This of course was lovely to read, but that was topped an hour or so later when she messaged to say that he had packed his school bag ready (despite not starting for another 5 days), and this from an anxious child that didn't even want to talk about going to school. 

It turns out that the newest member of our recently expanding crew couldn't wait to write to his captain and drew a lovely picture of rainbow beard which he dropped in the post box earlier (with a starburst). So I should probably get creating the next letter which I shall probably make sure has arrived on the morning of his first school day, to give him that extra boost of bravery for his big day.

It's situations like this that reinforce my whole philosophy that a little bit of effort and randomness really goes a long way and can have such a great impact on a Childs emotional well being.

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow."

With Seth's first day of secondary school being tomorrow, I should be really thinking about starting the home ed for Opeie tomorrow too. In great home ed style though I'm not. Instead we have decided to have a 'home ed appreciation day' before getting into all of the adventuring and creative learning. We both feel really lucky to be in a position to be educating/learning on our terms and were going to spend tomorrow really thinking about that as we see the local children leaving for school. Tomorrow will be a day of staying in our pj's, reading, baking and playing because... well we can.

I think its amazing how far we have come as a team and I often think back to those unnerving few months around (what would have been) his official 'start date', all the 'what if's' and 'Am I doing the right thing'. It seems crazy now to think that I had that little confidence in not only myself, but Opeie's ability to learn outside of a classroom environment. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't still have the same occasional thoughts every now and again when I am having an off day, but luckily on these days (which thankfully are getting less and less), I take myself back to a single moment.

We had decided to go on a spur of the moment mid week camping trip (because as home edders you can do that kind of thing). As we pulled into the campsite car park at Devils bridge the heavens opened. Not a light delicate shower but the sort of rain that meant that we couldn't park next to the tent pitch for fear of getting stuck on the field. We managed to get the tent up in the rain and flopped onto the beds to read for a while. The rain died down and the sun came out and we saw that as an opening to go exploring. We decided to walk Devils bridge falls (which is beautiful) while reading the local legend that surrounds the bridge.Within 5 minutes of the walk the rain came down even harder than before. We were drenched! usually I love the adventure, but I felt like the trip was going to be a flop and I seriously started questioning the whole 'Home Ed' thing. As we walked up the waterfall though with the rain still coming down and the spray from the falls almost hitting us too, the sun came out behind it all and what appeared a few feet in front of us was the most beautiful sight. 

In an instant, all of those negative feelings I had about Home Ed seemed to vanish and as we stood and stared at a rainbow (that we could almost touch) curving over the waterfall in front of us, I was left with an enlightened feeling of 'This is exactly where we should be right now'. 

"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.