Everybody needs A Star Book…

to Reinforce the Positive and Encourage Achievement. First let me explain how we came to create the Star Book.

Throughout almost all of last term, Georgia, moaned and whined and made a fuss of going to school. She would be clingy and there were even daily tears.  It was awful! For those of you whose children skip happily along to school, you’re really lucky… 🙂

It helped tremendously that I knew and trusted her teachers and their feedback was always taken positively, and it was great knowing that we were partners working together towards a common goal. However, it was still a challenge every morning.

Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, as a treat to myself, (I had been good :)) I read Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles. Now if you like me watched The Secret and liked it but never really got to the practise of  ‘the secret’, Canfield’s book provides and almost step-by-step guide (an all very logical too) to achieving anything you set your mind to. One of the chapters in the book, suggests that you list every day, 5 achievements for the day (even if you did not accomplish things that you set out to do that day, if you reflect on your day, you will often find achievements each day) and to focus on goals for the next day.

So we thought, what a great way for Georgia, and especially for us, to focus on what we can achieve and to celebrate the successes each day, and that was how we came to create the Star Book.

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Conversations with Georgia: Noah’s Ark

Georgia mentioned that she saw a video clip about Noah’s Ark in school yesterday, so this morning I asked her…

Me: So what did you learn about Noah’s Ark yesterday?
G: Noah?
Me: Yeah…
G: Noah …..washed all of the BAD people away! (She explained this complete with actions – with a ‘wooshing’ motion)

It was actually quite funny….but the conversation carried on.

Me: Are you sure that was Noah?
G: Yes…wasn’t it?
Me: I thought it was supposed to be God?
G: Oh yeah…maybe it was.

Now….was that REALLY the reason for the big flood? Because I’m sure we could use it in some countries 🙂

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Conversations with Georgia: Have a baby?

An on-going obsession in our household is with babies, so Georgia pretends to feed, change, dress and basically anything you do with babies, she does with her Dorothy (a.k.a Thumper). So although it was not surprising this conversation took place, it was still nonetheless very sweet.

Georgia looks at me very intently and then says:

G: Mummy, when you were a baby, and you grew up, did you just decide to have a baby?

Me: Umm…yes

G: Well, I’m going to have a baby too!

Me: That will be nice….

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Conversations with Georgia: When I am old….

Georgia is fascinated with gadgets and basically anything that looks as if it may make life a little easier.  She has been impressed by the walk-in baths, the ones with the doors on the side, and fascinated by walking sticks.

So one day as we were getting ready to get in to the bath,

G: Mummy when I am old, please can you get me a walking stick and the open-door bath?

I just burst out laughing….but what a lovely thought.

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Conversations with Georgia: Brang the past tense of Bring

It’s amazing how Georgia’s english grammar is almost always perfect. We have never attempted to teach or explain to her why we use past tense or present tense – she seems to have picked it up perfectly.

This is evident in the use of : Brang…
As Georgie would say, I brang this baby here today.

After all, if the past tense of sing is sang and the past tense of ring is rang….then why not the past tense of bring be brang!

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The First (accidental) Pun

Dr Gray Dr Green Dr Red, Dr Blue…

Dr Orange my bed…

as in Dr arrange my bed

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Conversations with Georgia: Mummy, when were you a baby?

We’re in the car travelling back home from Cardiff when a little voice in the back seat asks:

G: Mummy, when were you a baby?
Me: Oh that was quite a long time ago.
G: So where was I when you were a baby?
Me: You were not born yet…
G: Yes but where was I?

…. what would you have said, given that Georgia is just over 3 years old.

Dad eventually joins the conversation:

D: Mummy and daddy did not know each other then, we were only babies. So you were not born yet.
G: But why?

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Trial at Undy Nursery – 1/4/2009

Having arrived back from a busy London trip on Tuesday, 31st March, we were lucky to have managed to pull off the Undy Nursery trial session without too much challenge.

Given that 1-3pm is usually nap time – Georgia did exceedingly well, and was very well behaved at the trial session. She was not particularly keen on letting me go initially but after hanging about for half an hour, I managed to convince her that I needed to use the loo at home, and she was quite happy to stay at nursery for about an hour more before I came to pick her up.

So the trial session went well – now to see how actual nursery goes! Goodbye afternoon naps!

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Conversations with Georgia: Sorry!

Daddy knocked his knee on the dining table.
Georgia looks up at him and says “Daddy, say sorry to yourself!”

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A little distraction…

It’s hard to find ‘the’ balance, and harder still when it’s emotionally relevant.

I try to find a little time in my day for my own ‘me’ time, usually when Georgia’s napping and I always aim to fill that time constructively. Now constructively does not mean for my sanity or peace of mind, constructively really means – a sense acheivement. These days it’s a case of finishing up my 2 000 or 3 000 word chapter to meet my mid-Dec deadline of the Principles textbook.

Typically though, procrastination rules and i often find that in that one hour of time that i have, it is swallowed completely by writing long chatty emails to my classmates the other side of the world (Marie in Aus, Jac in Penang, Mei in US); stopping a while to catch up on Facebook, reading reading and more reading – The Star, BBC News….and worse of all are the lovely often deliciously provocative blogs of other mummys. Why and how are they able to acheive so much in the same amounts of time that I have in a day?

The bigger questions arrives every Thursday, for this is when Georgia spends a full day at St Johns. I’m so glad that she is now a full time convert – it has no longer become a war to get her going to St Johns.

It is also when I arrive home from Tescos after our early morning grocery shop before ‘school’ and I find the house unusually lonely and quiet. And as I try to focus my attention to the seemingly mountainous task of writing I am distracted by the quietness of the house.

Without Georgia here, there is a sense of stillness which so easily slips in to occasional awarenes of looming loneliness.

I do miss my girl when she’s at nursery.

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