Growing Up

I didn't realise it had been this many days since I last wrote!

So, what have we been up to?

Thursday I went with Roarke to have his echocardiogram done at Medway Maritime. All was fine - as we knew it would be.

On Friday morning our lead Elder came around for a chat, getting to know us better and arranging when we can formally "come into membership" at the church. All very exciting, as he is open and honest with us about how we will be able to develop our gifts within the fellowship, and the opportunities he is happy to open to us, including suggesting that we consider leadership training (Roarke, that is).

In the afternoon I took the boys over to the Bromley Common group of home educators, which was good. A chance to chat with different families, and for the kids to make some new friends.

Saturday - can't actually remember anything that we did on Saturday! Oh yes, we went to the library all of us to get some new books.

On Sunday we had the church picnic - nearly rained off, but we managed with just a few, quick light showers. It was a good opportunity to talk to people who are, by now, familiar faces but with whom I've not had a chance to get to know yet. Unfortunately, I had a migraine develop late Saturday and was still recovering in the morning, so we only stayed for 2 1/2 hrs (Roarke was there for the first hour before going to work).

Today we have tackled a tough subject - puberty! As Joshua is a "sensitive", I knew that if he experienced any, erm, signs of puberty without knowing in advance what they mean, it would cause him a horrendous amount of distress. We therefore decided to raise the subject with him, even though he's only 11.

He first went with his Dad to collect some educational resources from a lady on Freecycle, and whilst they were out, they had a "chat" - basing the discussion around what the Bible teaches about the fall, sex, relationships and marriage. Joshua - as expected - found this all quite tough and got quite distressed about the fact that he "doesn't want to grow up". I remember feeling quite similar at his age.

So, to do some follow up, I gave him a hand out about male parts, and 2 worksheets, to do in the privacy of his own room. I let him "mark" them himself, and said he can talk to us about any questions they raised. I've also explained to him why we are having these conversations now, and he is doing his best to take it into his stride.

However, it has set me wondering how/when to deal with this for Samuel (8 1/2). He is a big lad, obviously with high-testosterone levels, and it would not surprise me if he enters puberty on the early side of the range. He may well turn out to be able to take it straight away, and all in his stride, but with his semantic/pragmatic issues, I want to make sure that I use the right words, and descriptions, to avoid any confusion.

No-one said these would be easy!

But there are some positives to the growing up thing.. at lunch today 100% his own iniative (I hadn't even realised it was nearly lunchtime) Joshua went into the kitchen and prepared lunch for him and his brothers (doing them first) - handling toaster and microwave like a pro - and then came and asked me what I wanted! A real step forward.

To balance things, I asked Samuel to wash up - which as least these days doesn't involve having to rewash everything once he's out of the room, even if I did have to replace everything in the proper way on the drainer so it actually drained...

I recently rediscovered the Lego site - bad idea, as I am seriously addicated to Junkbot! I've now got William fighting for the computer to play it too!

I found some nice ideas for language "lessons" today, including this nice internet one for basic French, using cheese! As it would provide us with an excuse to buy and eat lots of French cheese, it sounds great to me!

Talking of French things, it will be our wedding anniversary soon (somewhat inauspiciously 9th September..) and we usually take a day trip to France. However, I fear this year the funds will not stretch to it, which is a seriously depressing thought. :0(