"Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive"

I honestly don't know how I'd cope without these two in my life, they are the best friends a guy could ask for. I think the pair of them could seriously get me through anything life throws at me. 

"Where oils lumber... watercolours prance."

With the last 15 months being like an emotional rollercoaster, it's been really difficult at times to properly relax and get myself (and Opeie) into a good, clear headspace. When you're dealing with a heartbroken kid its hard to think about anything else. Ive been doing my best to keep us both entertained though and have been really surprised at some of the things we have found to relax.

We've always been an arty pair, always creating something and we've used so many different mediums over the years,  I've always avoided watercolour though out of fear. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous but I was 110% confident in the fact that I couldn't produce something I was proud of and because of that I held Opeie back too (naughty daddy), until now.

With a little creative guidance from someone that knows what they are talking about we found ourself a few weeks back sat at a desk with paper taped down and paints and brushes at the ready. It turns out that painting is one of the most relaxing activities (after LEGO of course) that we could have been doing and definitely nothing to be afraid of. 

There is something so satisfying about experimenting with colours and then turning the experiment into something fun. I can quite easily get a little lost in the activity, which recently I feel pretty thankful for.

Opeie has really been getting into the beetles too but he's also been having fun with colour mixing and creating galaxies (as you can see he's a bit of a Doctor Who fan). I love seeing him get into creative ventures like this, its nice to see him concentrating on something so positive and activities like this are really good for the soul.  

So thanks for the tips, sitting with us and taking the edge off of my watercolour fear, you know who you are. 💜

"And I found you like a melody, You were singin' in the same key as me"

https://youtu.be/0lxA1FXOiv0

"Colour is the finishing touch on everything"

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

Im really having to force myself over this blogging hump and its getting to the point where I'm driving myself insane, Its like I'm desperately trying to claw back my confidence. Aside from the boys obviously, writing was one of the things that really kept me going through the emotional battlefield I had been dealing with for the last four or so years.  I would look forward to that quite time when the boys were asleep so that I could get on here and write down my thoughts and document all the fun we had been having, for them to look back on. Things had to go and get complicated though and in no time at all that fire to write had gone out and that evening quiet time, became the darkest time of the day for me. I had a plan, it involved a strong family unit,  content and happy children and life of adventure and learning together. Im still working on that daily and to a certain extent we still have it, but now there is a dark cloud looming over all of us that we just can't shake.

I want to see the blog as a positive again but with so many people that I know reading it, it can at times make me feel a little uneasy. Especially when they get the hump about light comments written within the more personal posts. I need to get myself back to that place I was when writing was exciting, there is so much that I've not written about over the last 15 or so months and I want to continue giving the boys something amazing to look back on. 

Im not the same person I was a two years ago and I'm only just starting to realise just how much has changed. My views on life and relationships are so much clearer now and feel like I've reached the point where I can move forward in hopefully a healthy way. So for now, a bunch of short posts to ease me back in gently and hopefully I'll have my confidence back in no time at all. 

"Little things make big days"

There really is never a dull day in our house, we always seem to be doing some random activity or out looking for adventure. For all the fun that we have though there are always those random days here and there that stand out from the rest and today was one of those days. What seemed like forever ago, when we read the first of M.G. Leonard's books (Beetle boy) our whole world was opened up to to the fascinating world of Coleoptera. I can honestly say that I had never given beetles a second thought, I barely even noticed them, but those first few chapters changed everything for Opeie (and myself) and in no time at all it had made us so much more aware of the things that are around us.

The second installment of the story (Beetle Queen) was released and we were hooked, becoming more and more interested in beetles and why they are so important to the natural world. I had been so desperate for Opeie to take a real interest in something and this was it, so it became the driving force for a lot of the things we were doing with his home education. 

By the time the third and final book came out for the Beetle boy trilogy (Battle of the beetles), We could be found many times a week crawling around in the woods, turning over rotten logs and rummaging through leaf piles, it had become a way of life. We have a beetle hunting kit (which we take out everywhere), we stopped cutting our grass in the back garden and gathered rotten logs so the beetles had somewhere to live and the house became a shrine to all things beetle, with decorations and themed furniture everywhere.

When the forth book (The Beetle Collector's Handbook) had been released we had got to the point in our beetle loving lives where we were in farmers fields breaking up pooh looking for Dung beetles, I guess you could say that we had fully embraced Opeie's main interest and honestly, I was loving every minute of it.

We owed a lot to the hero Darkus and his amazing transgenic beetle Baxter, but more so to their creator and Opeie was desperate to meet her. The magic of this generation means that we were able to chat to her occasionally via social media which was awesome and we hoped that at some point that she would be book signing somewhere over our way in Shropshire. It was a long shot but we were patient. While we waited for this encounter to happen we continued our Coleoptera adventure, attending Entomology events, visiting museums and even spending an afternoon with a Dung beetle specialist in Oxford (which was really interesting). We made a list of all the places we wanted to visit and at the top of that list was Dr Beynons bug farm over in Pembrokeshire. The plan was to visit over the summer but then...

It was like a dream come true for Opeie, His favourite author at Dr beynons, Suddenly it was all systems go, Opeie was going to meet his hero and there was so much excitement surrounding the event. We tweeted Maya and let her know that we were coming to meet her finally and to have her pen ready to sign Opeie's books. The plan was to take Opeie's beetle book that he has been creating as part of his home schooling to show her so that she could see what a huge inspiration she has been to him. 

As we pulled into Dr Beynons Bug Farm on the morning of the visit another car followed us in, it wasn't until we were getting our things together ready for the visit that we realised it was Maya and her family. Opeie was in complete awe and just watched her walk by with his mouth open, Starstruck. 

Not wanting to pounce on her from the get go we spent a couple of hours looking around the bug farm, it was full of interesting information and some beautiful beetles including the Rainbow Stag Beetle which Opeie has decided he would really love as a pet.

The talk by Maya and Sarah was awesome and hearing Maya read an extract from the book in her very flamboyant way must have made my bedtime reading seem really dull, she really drew us in with how she saw the characters personalities. After the talk we waited for all the other visitors to chat and get their books signed and then it was our time to pounce. Opeie was in his element and I was feeling pretty excited for him. We chatted beetles and both Maya and Sarah read through Opeie's beetle book and seemed genuinely impressed by the work he has been doing, Sarah even requested a copy of his beetle poem to display somewhere in the beetle farm which is really exciting.

It was one of those days that was just filled with pure happiness. 

By the time we got home we were exhausted, it was one of the most fun days out we had ever had and as Opeie drifted off to sleep the huge smile on his face said it all. There must be something so satisfying when your heroes actually turn out to be heroes in real life and Maya is as super as they come.

"You couldn't be kindred spirits with a beetle . . . could you? "

Opeie was adamant on the build up to world book day that he didn't want to dress up. He just wanted a day of reading and to take cake and biscuits in for the staff at the library to say thank you for all the books they have ordered in for him in the last 12 months. That of course all changed on the morning of world book day when he informed me that he did infect want to dress up and as expected he wanted to be Darkus from M.G, Leonards Beetle Boy. So we quickly headed out mooching around our local charity shops for an oversized brown wooly jumper and a headband to hot glue his beetle too. Im So glad he chose something doable on a short timescale.

With the costume complete we headed down to the library with our gifts for the staff and came away with a handful of new books for an afternoon of reading. It was a pretty awesome world book day.

Bringing back the festive cheer, with a Coleoptera Christmas.

Its crazy to think about how much I was dreading this Christmas. The run up to what should have been one of the most amazing days of the year for the boys was clouded with negativity, with both boys saying "I wish Christmas wasn't happening this year!". I can't believe what an absolute disaster this year has been. With so much going on in the boys and my own head its no surprise that they were feeling the way they were. Seth point blank refused to write a Christmas list and Opeie wrote a heartbreaking letter to Santa explaining how much he had been let down this year. So the Christmas lists were put on hold. I boycotted advent calendars this year (clearly they didn't need the Christmas countdown) and I concentrated on what should always be the most important part of the festive period, being around the ones that love you and embracing festive activities together.

Despite all the doom and gloom I was pretty confident that with some serious effort I could pull it back. So at the start of December I decided to blow off the homeschooling and spend the month concentrating on Opeies emotional well being. I arranged lots of meet ups with friends and we filled December with Christmas crafts, tailoring this years Christmas celebrations with his main interest, Beetles! It's crazy to think that this love of beetles started with us reading Beetle boy together.  I have loved fully embracing this new passion of his.

While Opeie had his friends round one afternoon, me and my bestie Helen sat drinking coffee and making snow flakes for the window. After a crash course on how to make them (with a few disastrous outcomes) we were soon sitting there chatting away cutting out beetle themed snowflakes to cover the windows in the house.

Having to pretty much start the Christmas decoration collection from scratch again this year actually ended up being a good thing as we could give the tree the beetle makeover that it needed. Thanks to a special someone we ended up with glittery beetle decorations and opeie used his big dung beetle for the top of the tree. we finished it off with brown (dung) baubles too. It definitely suited our more Coleoptera loving sides.

One of the things I was really stressing about this year was the stockings as Opeie was unsure which house Santa would take our usual stockings to and it was something that was really upsetting him. Luckily though, it turns out that I am Santa, is pretty slick with a needle and thread and didn't let us down this Christmas when we came downstairs on Christmas morning and found fancy new beetle stockings hanging up for us, even Rose got a mini one full of little treats. It really added to the excitement and Opeie was all smiles.

We filled the house with Grinch themed paper chains, we made a gingerbread house, mince pies and basically jam packed our December with family fun. by the time we had reached Christmas Eve the magic was back and we ended up having the most amazing Christmas morning, which just goes to show that a little effort and creativity can go a long way. With Christmas out of the way it's time to start working on making 2019 the most fun it can be and I'm thinking the beetles are going to be playing a huge part in that.

Happy new year all.

"Read enough about the dung beetle, and a picture of its character emerges: patient, optimistic, uncomplaining."

Home educating Opeie has really helped me embrace our day to day adventures and I couldn't be happier with how it's turning out. Over the last few years I have been regularly reminded that you never know what is around the corner and some of our home ed days out have taken some pretty amazing and surprising turns. Last week we ended up on an unexpected trip to Oxford, as our friend Charlotte was dropping off some of her amazing work at the Ashmoleon. The plan was to have a look around the museum, visit the natural history museum and then the Pitt rivers museum too (pretty awesome day out I thought, little did we know where the day would take us).

The Ashmoleon was fab and was a great help for Opeie's current Egypt project. We spent a good couple of hours taking it all in. Opeie was pretty eager to get to the natural history museum though and who could blame him, our last visit had been such a great day out and Opeie and his friends had found it fascinating. We'd only been in the museum 5 minutes when we noticed a chap with a tray of beetles, as expected Opeie was super excited so we went over for a chat. Darren had us completely mesmerised from the moment he started talking. An expert in all things 'Dung beetle' and so passionate about his field, I think we could have sat and listened to him all day. I love a 'come on! lets sit on the floor and chat' kind of person too.

Darren had me and Charlotte standing in the middle of the museum pretending to be trees as he explained why dung beetles were so important and Opeie loved every minute of it. I asked him where the best place would be to go and see a large Coleoptera collection and he said 'Here!' then continued to explain just how many beetles they had behind the scenes. Thats when he said 'Meet me at the main doors in 20 minutes and I'll take you backstage and show you some beetles', well it was like Christmas from that point. Opeie was so excited, I was trying to stay calm but was doing cartwheels inside and Charlotte had picked up on us nerdy boys getting into it and was loving it all too.

Darren took us to his office and showed Opeie some beetles under his pretty impressive microscope and even had Opeie help him identify some of the beetles that had been sent to him using an extensive collection of books on dung beetles from around he world. This is the sort of thing that would never haver happened so organically had it not have been for home ed, and being in the museum midweek. It was lovely to take a step back and watch Darren really take the time to talk to Opeie and explain in detail what it was that he does and how he got to where he was, with stories from his own childhood and his interest in beetles.

One of the things that really stuck out for me was when Darren told Opeie that he hadn't really done very well at uni but his passion for Dung beetles got him to where he was. From a home ed point of view that really summed up how I feel about Opeie's education. Ive always said from day one that if theres one thing that I want Opeie to come away with from this, its a passion for something, whatever it is. When I left school I had no passion or motivation for anything because not a single thing had inspired me.

After identifying some interesting beetles Darren took is further into the backstage area of the museum to where there were an insane amount of cabinets full of beetles. From the always impressive Goliath beetle to a beetle that was the size of a pinhead, it was fascinating and I would love an afternoon there going through each and every cabinet looking at each tray of beetles. This for me was the Most perfect (and unexpected) home ed day.

As we left, Darren gave Opeie his card and said that if he ever wanted to chat about beetles or if he was struggling to identify one then we could email, which I thought was so kind. After such an amazing visit to the museum we wanted to do something to say thank you. Opeie wanted to write a letter and Charlotte (absolutely loving being a part of a home ed adventure) asked Opeie to draw a beetle picture so that she could print it onto a travel mug at her studio to send to Darren as a surprise.

A gift from us wouldn't be a gift without immortalising the awesome chap in LEGO, a full on team effort by the three of us. Complete with a dung beetle and ball of pooh to roll around. I'm not sure that all of Darren's talk of rummaging through pooh has got Opeie to that point in his beetle loving adventure yet, but his passion and excitement has definitely pushed him that little bit further.

"Music can change the world because it can change people."

Blogging has opened up so many interesting doors over the years, We've been invited to so many amazing events and have reviewed some really interesting products. One product though has stuck out above all of the others recently because of the huge impact it has had (and will continue to have) on Seth. Back in 2016 we had an email asking if we would be interested in reviewing a pBone, the first professional plastic trombone. If I'm honest I read the email and had a little chuckle to myself at the sheer randomness of it, but I was also really intrigued, so of course I said yes. The pBone arrived and we all had a little toot and followed it up with a review. As much as I loved the idea of the boys being musical the following few months left the lovely purple pBone collecting dust in the boys room.

Then another email came through from pBone inviting us to one of their events at the symphony hall which had a real impact on Seth and catapulted him into the amazing world of music. He left the event feeling inspired and asked if he could start trombone lessons. I'm fully aware of the fact that I have covered all this in previous posts but stay with me because the pBone adventure just gets better and better. I wrote about the event and Seth began his trombone lessons at school. He said he enjoyed the lessons but he never seemed to practice at home and I genuinely thought it was going to be one of those things that eventually fizzled out. Until one day he came home and told us that he was playing a song at his schools music show. As I hadn't heard him practice at all I was worried that he may have jumped in and offered prematurely to be a part of it but on the day he completely shocked me and played in front of his peers and the all the parents, with all the audience getting involved and clapping as he played we will rock you. It was one of those moments where a wave of pride washes over you as a parent. So this is where I have covered before in previous posts.

Seth has just finished his final year at primary school so the last few months have been pretty busy with sorting out the transition to secondary school. Seth (like all of the kids in his year) had been visiting schools trying to work out which was the best fit for him. Which, after viewing quite a few was made really clear to him early on. Unfortunately the school was out of our catchment area and we were pretty sure it was going to be a no go. The school however is big on music and their many bands travel all over the world for shows and when entering the main doors you are greeted with cabinets full of the trophies that the amazing children have won over the years. Seth had his heart set on the school. Despite being out of the catchment area the school offered a handful of places for musical children to join their bands. To be in with a chance Seth had to attend an interview and complete a musical aptitude test. On the morning of the test Seth was so nervous but  he went in and gave it his all. Weeks passed and a letter arrived through the post. Obviously you know whats coming, I wouldn't be writing about the failings of an 11-year-old.

Seth had been accepted, which was amazing news. He had only technically been playing a few months but they had seen something in him that they were looking for. Part of the acceptance letter stated that he needed to start taking lessons at the school on Saturday mornings on the run up to the summer holidays to get him ready for the musical side of his secondary school experience. So, he started attending the Saturday classes which he enjoyed and on his third week they asked him to stop the lessons and move into the schools big band. Which again was the most amazing news for Seth and us ever doting parents.

Within a couple of weeks of that his teacher just casually threw in his grade one trombone exam without telling him which he passed no problems and although he came out from his class trying to play it cool I could see that there were secretly fireworks going off inside. Its amazing to think that all of this amazingness has come from a chance email sent our way, for something that we would have never even thought about looking at had it not had been pointed out to us. 

I always wanted the boys to try and take up an instrument because despite wanting to when I was younger it was never an option. Every moment of the pBone being introduced into our lives has been an amazing experience for me as a parent. Not only has it boosted Seths confidence more than I could have ever imagined, it has also ended up putting in some serious groundwork for Seths transition into 'big school' helping him to meet new friends in the band before he had even reached his start date in September. Since starting his first term he has now also been invited into a second school band, adding to the excitement of it all. Watching his big brother learn to play an instrument has also given Opeie the passion for learning to play an instrument and he has started drum lessons too. pBone has had such a huge impact on us all as a family and I can see that its going to get even better. 

Seths passion for the instrument has also got him desperately wanting to share what he has learnt and I find it so moorish that Ive even considered getting one myself (I quite like the pink one) so he can teach me too and we can play together, watch this space.

Thinking of getting your kids into music and want to find out more? Visit the pBone website here.