Best pizzas ever

We had a Saturday night pizza-making session - very tasty indeed :-)

Pre oven

Post oven

And we scoffed the lot while watching Dr Who. Happiness.

I forgot to mention last time - our Ben Nevis climb had to be rescheduled (due to a forecast of gales and blizzards!!!!) so we now plan to do it next Saturday (11th June). Will let you know how we get on.

The insomnia continued into the earlier part of last week, so its all a bit of a blur. A got on with bits and pieces, and all the usual clubs/classes, I was in the background trying not to fall asleep! I'm feeling a bit better about things now, but job hunting has to become a priority I think.

With the prospect of employment, and less time around for A, I'm trying to prepare her and encourage her to do more self-directed work. I've just signed her up for a K3 science course, I'm thinking it will give her a taste of science as an academic discipline (we've done quite a lot of 'sciencey' stuff, but nothing structured) so she can see how she gets on and decide whether she wants to take it further. So with that, and her essay-writing course, and the new maths website we're signing up to, as well as all the unstructured stuff she's doing, I feel we have quite a lot covered! And - most importantly - she seems to be quite up for it all.

I got out running a couple of times this week. A bit disappointing this morning - I thought I could increase my running time a bit, but soon discovered this was not going to happen (really thought I was going to collapse in a sweaty heap). After a few minutes walking I went back to 1min run/1min walk, which was fine, seems to be my level at the moment. Really hate this newbie stage, although of course its necessary to achieve anything. I feel the same in the body pump class, because as much as I love it, I have the tiniest weights while everyone else has got big heavy weights. And I still struggle with some of the exercises. The instructor keeps saying to us "if its getting too much just take some of your weights off", but if I did that I'd just be lifting the pole! I suppose I have to swallow my pride and focus on a future where I am running marathons (or my more realistic short term goal of getting round my 2 mile loop without stopping).

We're off for a hike tomorrow, along the beach, not sure if A's legs know what they're in for next Saturday ;-)

Friday

Merry over at Patch of Puddles is looking for HE people to photo-blog 'a day in the life' for her blog carnival, so I thought I would join in.

This was the beautiful clear sky at 7am when I got up for my early morning jog (A was still fast asleep at this point!)


A couple of hours later and A emerges. First things first - facebook check.

Another crucial task - apply make-up.

After breakfast A does some work on her essay-writing course, she's just started it so is looking at paragraphs and how to make them 'flow'.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing a poster we're making of the periodic table. I've measured and drawn out the structure of the table, A is going to do the arty/pretty stuff - colours and script.

A bit later and she's moved on to maths. A is finishing the 'exams' which conclude the online curriculum she's been following. After struggling with some long multiplication, she manages to get 12 out of 13 correct -yay!

Falafels for lunch!

A pause for some prettiness at the top of the stairs - reflections from the sunshine

Next its off to collect the car (we have a car-share arrangement with Granny)

A has control of the camera while I'm driving:

Music (and singing along) is a definite requirement in the car!

20 miles later we arrive in Elgin, have an hour in the gym, then its skating club for A

After skating one of A's mates comes back with us for a sleepover

Crazy makeover fun!

The day concluded with some late night film-watching in bed for the girls, and a vodka & tonic, and vegging in front of the TV downstairs for me.

Not sure if thats a 'typical' HE day, but that was our Friday :D

I am - most definitely - back

OK, enough with the blog break. It didn't work. Even if no one reads it or wants to know what I think or what we're doing, I have to blog.

I have been motivated today, by some positive news on the work front, to give myself a good kick up the arse and stop being so lazy. I cant use the 'not enough time' line as an excuse - there is NEVER enough time to do everything I want to, thats how my life is. Truth is, I like blogging, I enjoy it, and I've missed it.

I think there may be changes in the way I blog, it has evolved along the way in any case, its bound to. I'm toying with ideas about changing the name and how it looks, but am not sure yet. I think a slight change in perspective may occur, posting more about me and work, but then my life is still predominantly about parent/home ed stuff, so not that much of a change perhaps.

I am going to try to be more honest here. I think I've held back on a lot of issues because I'm not sure who's reading and don't want to upset anyone. A bit ridiculous really, why should I care? Its my blog.

Anyway, here is a little update on some of the things we've been up to:

• went to the science festival at a local college with our HE group. A bit stressful for me as I had been the contact for the group, so lots of emailing to and fro, but all went well on the day and we learnt about volcanoes, made solar power models with K'nex, and met lots of creepy crawlies.

• went for a loooong bike ride in the sunshine.

• watched and discussed a programme called 'American Hate' about the Black Panthers - their history, and the current 'new' Black Panthers. We're going to watch the second part, about the Ku Klux Klan, sometime soon.

• A wrote a letter and drew a picture to send to the African child her Granny is sponsoring

• A created some more fashion designs for her label

• We discussed and researched setting up our own shop on Folksy - watch this space!!

• Talked to Nonno and Nonna about our plans for Italy next year - they are taking us to meet some of A's family out there.

• Lots of maths, English, piano, drama, art, singing, laughing, eating of cake....I could go on...

Films, drama, singing, piano-playing...

This has been quite a hectic week for us. We saw some films as part of the
national_schools_film_week , the first time we've taken part in this as we were away last year, and the Steiner school A used to go to (unsurprisingly!) never participated. It was very easy to book (online), they had no problem accommodating home educators.
On Monday we saw Kirikou_and_the_Sorceress , a fantastic West African film about a little boy born with the ability to walk and speak. Very different from the usual Disney/Pixar films we're bombarded with.
Tuesday Granny took A to see The_Secret_of_Moonacre , which they both seemed to enjoy.
Yesterday we saw The_Spiderwick_Chronicles , which I found a bit scary, although A didn't. Quite fun though.
Kirikou was definitley my favourite, A says Spiderwick was hers.
A also watched The_Cat_Returns , at home. I only saw tiny bits of as I was too busy to sit and watch it, but it looked really good, and A really liked it. We've seen a few of these Japanese animation films now, and love them.

A is having a great time at her new drama class, and they are preparing for their Christmas show next month. Its so good to see her enjoying drama again, she's been in various drama groups since she was about six and always loved them, but there was a bit of a gap where we couldn't find a suitable one, until a local class started up this August. One of her best friends goes as well, and they usually get together after class for a while, so thats a good arrangement for all.

A has also joined a choir, which I'm delighted about because I've been encouraging her to do this for ages (she has a great voice). Its at her old school, so she knows most of the people already, and is a mixture of adults and children which I think is really good. I drop her there and wait in the car - there's no way you'll get me singing (it would be very unpleasant for all invovled) - which is ok as I get to catch up on some reading for an hour or so.

And... I have managed to find a great piano teacher who lives just round the corner from us! I've been trying to find someone to give A piano lessons for months - asking around a lot etc - so its fabulous to have found someone so near. (I'm having to borrow the car every week for choir now as that is ten miles away and we have to get straight back for drama the same night, so I really didn't want to have to borrow it another night for another class.) The piano teacher seems very direct and clear in his approach, but in a gentle way. He doesn't 'talk down' to A, but treats her as the intelligent person she is, and already seems well aware of her tendency to panic when she gets things wrong, reassuring her that she's doing really well. She's only had two lessons so far, but I'm really pleased with how its going, and more importantly so is she!

Workwise, things are going well so far, although I still have panicky moments where it all feels out of control. I'm struggling with time management, but I knew I would, and I also know I'll get there and become more organised as things progress - I'll have to!
Trying to sort out the official stuff like Housing Benefit has been a bit frustrating (again - I knew it would be!) They like all the information to fit the boxes they have to tick, and want definite figures for earnings etc, which is all a bit impossible if you are just starting out as a freelancer! So I'm doing my best to give them as much as I can, hopefully it will all get sorted soon, as its highly unlikely I'll make enough to pay all my rent at this stage. That is the ultimate aim of course, but it will take a while to build things up.

Today was the first day this week we could just be at home, so we had some maths and English this morning - we've been working on place value for maths and A has struggled with this. I think its getting a bit boring for her going over it again and again, I've tried to find different ways of explaining it to make it clearer, but then I worry I'm making it even more confusing by explaining it differently! But I've found some games in this book which a friend gave me a while back that might help. For English A chose to use A Ladybird 'Grammar and Puctuation' workbook that Granny gave us (strangely I cant find a link to it!?). As workbooks go it wasn't bad, and A seemed to focus very well with it. In between all this 'sitting down learning' stuff has been much drumming and other percussion type noises going on in the kitchen, which is always good :0)

Back to work

I'm enjoying getting back into a kind of rhythm after our summer 'break'. A and I had a discussion about how we are going to approach our second year of HE. We talked about things being a little more purposeful this year. For our first year we were kind of finding our way a bit, thats how it feels looking back. Nothing wrong with that, but I think we've both grown to know how things do and don't work for us.


A asked me to put up a chart of all her projects so she can keep track of how much she's doing:



So our basic routine is: some maths and English in the morning (this can take many forms - I'll expand later); then A chooses what she wants to focus on in the afternoon.
This is a very loose, flexible routine - sometimes we'll go out for the day and there's no 'routine'. Sometimes A becomes so engrossed in a project that she spends the whole day on it. Its all good.
But somehow it helps us both to have some kind of framework grounding us, even if we do ignore it at times.
And the routine only works for the days we're based at home together - one or two days a week I have to work, so A spends time with her Granny, where she has some workbooks she sometimes uses, but the two of them also go off on all kinds of adventures. Granny is involved in Adult Literacy classes, so some of the resources she uses for that are quite good for A.




For English we do all kinds of reading and writing - A is much more interested in reading since she did the summer reading challenge at the library, and is often happy to sit and read for a while. Sometimes she'll ask me to give her some titles for stories to write. Other times I'll ask her to write a review or summary of something. I read to A regularly too, something we both still enjoy, and which often sparks off interesting discussions.




I'm feeling very inspired about maths (even if A isn't!). We had a great session on 'angles' today, which seemed to go really well. I'm very excited about Khan_Academy , which I'd put on my favoutires links some time ago but never looked at properly until recently. These little YouTube tutorials look perfect for A - visual, short, clearly explained - I anticipate using these quite a lot. I also had another look at NRICH , which looks promising too.
I'm using a mix and match approach to maths, picking a theme then gathering lots of info from lots of different resouces, and using what I think will appeal to A most. A still has a very negative attitude to maths, so I'm being very gentle and encouraging with it. I'm doing my best to make it enjoyable and relevant. I've told A there are only 2 rules for our maths sessions - 1. she can take as long as she needs to think about/work out things (she reacts very badly when pressured or rushed on maths questions, and completely loses confidence in her ability), and 2. its ok to get things wrong, as thats a crucial part of the learning process.
I keep hoping that my enjoyment of maths (yes, I am that nerdy) will be infectious, but it doesn't seem to be.

More squares

As you can see, I've been busy with more of my squares for the crafty_blog crochet challenge. Trying a few different styles now, but they never come out as neat as the pictures in the book!


A has been back on the BBC_Bitesize site, quite enjoying the maths and science, but got very frustrated and annoyed with the English games. She found it all very rigid/limiting, and I could totally see why, for example - with 'writing a story' she had to fill in the gaps with a choice of several different words/phrases to make up either a scary, romantic or spy story. However, if she didn't put in the 'correct' word or phrase a page came up telling her she had got it wrong. This is what upset A, as she thought her choices were valid, but its difficult to argue your point with a computer!
She then tried the 'Argument' section, and was dismayed to find that you just had to pick out a prewritten point of view and couldn't actually write your own. I tried to explain that its probably difficult to allow any real expression of opinions within these simple computer games, and we came to the conclusion that they are probably not the best way of working on English for A.

It was good to see her working on the 'problem solving' activity for maths, as it was all about shopping: working out what everything costs and giving the correct money. A has always been pretty good at maths in the 'real world', its just the idea of maths as a subject that gets her worried, so I pointed out how quickly she managed to work it out and therefore how good she is at 'maths', which she seemed to acknowledge.

A has also been learning some sign language with Granny, and helped her with this theme at the Quaker's childrens group.

Another idea A has been talking about a lot is designing and making clothes. She has done some of this before, and definately has her own quirky sense of style, so I'm thinking of pushing the practical side of this a bit more - finding some projects she can work on where she has to follow a pattern, borrowing Granny's sewing machine - just to help her develop her skills.

Went to the theatre on Friday night, we took my Mum (as her birthday present) to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company's THE_BIBLE:_THE_COMPLETE_WORD_OF_GOD_(abridged) which had us all crying with laughter. Bit of a scary moment when they started dragging people up on stage for some very humiliating participation (I was sitting on the end of a row very near the front) but they left me alone. I hate that - I think I would just refuse to move out of my seat, although then you risk even more piss-taking.
Unfortunately after a lovely evening out we came home to some sad news - an old friend and neighbour from London, who was a regular visitor up here, had died. He was quite elderly, well into his 80s, and it seems to have been quite a peaceful passing, so I guess it was just his time to go. Still sad though.

I've been giving myself a bit of a hard time recently, and had a mini meltdown on Sunday, when I misread something and got myself in a right old state. Its interesting how quickly I can go back to that 'beating myself up' mindset. I have a long history of depression, although have been pretty stable for the last five years (thanks largely - I believe - to cognitive behaviour therapy), but I spent many years believing that I was the most terrible person in the world. It seems that small things can sometimes feed back into that, and drag me down. The difference now is I manage to bring myself back from it quite quickly, and sometimes can even laugh at the ridiculousness of it. In the past it would have just set me off in a downward spiral that could last weeks or months.
I think I am very lucky to be where I am now, I'm sure I will always have those depressive tendencies but I feel strong enough to manage them now. How ever much of a hard time I give myself, life is good.

So, A had her party. I took them all for lunch first at a little cafe down the road. I had mentioned when I booked the table that it was a birthday thing, but hadn't expected them to do anything special, so I was really touched when they brought out a cake with candles once the girls had finished their lunch, and all the waitresses stood round and sang happy birthday! What lovely people.
The party went ok , I think. There was some of the bitchiness that seems so common among girls of this age. I'm sure I was the same at that age (cant remember - it was so long ago) but its horrible to see, they can be quite brutal. But for the most part I think they had fun. Below is a very poor photo of the disco lights.

We finished Chocolat on Monday, and went straight down to the library to get The_Lollipop_Shoes, which is the sequel to Chocolat. A is really enjoying these, despite my very bad pronounciation of all the French words. Apart from all the mouth watering descriptions of the chocolates and sweets, the stories focus on the relationship between a single mother and her daughter, something we can relate to of course.

A has been using the BBC Bitesize numeracy and literacy games, I thought this would make a change from the workbooks for a while. She seems to be enjoying them, although still a bit wary of anything that looks too mathsy.

We also had a look at the projects she has on the go, and she's decided to focus again on her mushroom one, and try to get it completed. She has lots of photos of wild mushrooms that she took last year, and a few books for reference, so is going to fill a scrapbook with the pics and her own notes. I think its important for her to take some of these projects to a conclusion, I know myself - its so easy to get enthusiastic about something, and then leave it half finished when something more interesting comes along. I know she's still learning when this happens, but I think it will give her a sense of achievement to produce a finished piece of work. On a more practical/boring level, I want to build up a file of her work, for my own reference and also to show any LEA bods who might check up on us at any point.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at present. There seems to be so much I need to do. I'm doing a freelance journalism course, with a view to become self-employed in the near future; I'd like to get more organised with HE resources and aims; I need to start preparing if we are going to move. Its that feeling of it all being so chaotic and disorganised, and the amount of time it will take to get it all sorted. I know I need to manage my time better if I am going to be self employed - I need to put the hours in - but all I really want to do is focus on A and give her all of my time that she needs. I think I might start making 'to do' lists on a daily or weekly basis, hopefully this will give me a bit more clarity about what I need to achieve, one step at a time.

Pink stew

This is my lovely lentil hotpot - one of my favourite winter dishes, so warming. I put beetroot in this one (as you can probably tell from the gorgeous colour!), but its basically fried onion & garlic, then lentils, chopped tomatoes, loads of veg and some stock. I even managed to sneak some kale into this (which A usually refuses to eat). Very nourishing - and delicious too!
We also baked a chocolate cake, just to balance things up a bit ;o)


We had a great day Monday, did loads of fun stuff, including finally getting round to looking at the learn_Italian CD-ROM someone gave me ages ago. We discovered that the book is missing, which was a bit disappointing, but we had a great time playing word games on the children's disc. I think we'll pick up a lot of words quite quickly, but may need another resource for developing sentences and phrases (Nonno perhaps).
We've also been working on our craft Christmas project, making little presents for various friends and family members. We'll need to get them finished and posted soon!

Another project we completed was the 'quiz box' (see below). A had designed a detailed set of intructions for this a little while ago, so we set to work and created it. Then we spent a while drawing up quizzes for each other - I did one on the human body, A did one on the solar system - using books from A's bookshelf. I think she did better than me on the quizzes in the end!
The box seems a bit pointless to me (as a boring adult!), I didn't say that to A of course! But the action of putting in the tick or cross, rather than just saying 'right' or 'wrong' makes the whole thing much more interesting for A, which sums up her visual/physical approach to most things.

The thing I was most impressed with was the set of instructions. This is one of the many wonderful artistic and creative designs A comes up with when in bed at night. It has just hit me this week how she is such a 'night time' person (a bit like me really). Up until now I had been regularly returning to the concern that 'A needs more sleep', and trying to encourage her to get settled and lights out (or dimmed at least) by a certain time each night. The reality is she is getting as much sleep as she needs - she's not tired or grumpy during the day - so I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this idea. It occured to me that what I'm actually doing is trying to limit her most creative moments. So what we've decided is that she will usually go to bed at about 9, but after that its up to her what she does (until I go to bed when all the lights go out, but she's always asleep by then anyway). I pointed out that if she stays awake very late all the time she will feel the effects during the day, especially if its a day we have to get up early and have a lot on, but she'll work that out herself anyway. It feels right to be allowing her a bit more autonomy, she's growing up really fast, and responds well to more responsibility.

We've been continuing the maths and English workbooks, and A has just completed the Smelly_Spelling one, she was very proud of herself, and I think she's more than ready for the next level up. I ordered some more as they seem to be going down well with A, and they are also very reasonably priced! I'm still just using workbooks for these two subjects, we've got more than enough resources to cover whatever else she's interested in learning.

A busy weekend ahead now - A has a friend sleeping over tonight, then the two of them have drama tomorrow morning, and then A is off to Nonna and Nonno's to be taken to see the Pantomime at Eden_Court and stay with them the night. Not sure what I'm doing with my night off, we've been looking for something exciting going on but will probably end up at the pub, then in front of a DVD. Sounds exciting enough for me - maybe I'm getting old!!

Are you impressed??

With my first attempt at knitting - the fabulous dishcloth!!


Probably not!! But I am quite impressed with myself. Off to get some wool tomorrow and will attempt some stripy arm warmers next.

Bit of a stressful day today, just one of those days where I seriously doubt myself.

A wanted a music lesson, which I was quite happy to go along with, thinking it would be lovely - she is very interested in music and already seems to have a good idea of what she's doing. Well, it ended with her in tears and me walking out of the room saying 'we need to get a proper music teacher for you because I'm obviously no good'.

We did discuss things once we'd both calmed down, and continued a bit with what we'd been looking at, but I'm really at a loss as to why we cant seem to work together on this subject. Maybe its my attitude, I did study music for several years as a child/teenager, so maybe I make assumptions about how easy or difficult things are, but we don't seem to have that problem with other subjects.

Maybe its just A's resistance to learning the theoretical side of music, even though she says she wants to. She spends a lot of time on her keyboard, but is used to making up tunes herself, and playing by ear. Having to sit down and read music is not as much fun - and doesn't feel so creative I suppose. I think I'll have to have a look around for some teaching resources that are more fun and interesting to help us. I really want to encourage her in this area as I think she is naturally quite musically talented, and learning the 'mechanics' of music could be very helpful in the longrun, but today just felt like I was doing it all wrong and putting her off.

Maths and English coming along nicely though. She seems to like the Letts workbooks (we're using the age 8-9 at the moment). Maths is more of a struggle, but she gets there in the end. I'm very impressed with her English, we did a dictation test the other day - I just took a passage out of one of our books - and her spelling and handwriting were really good. Her lack of enthusiasm about reading books obviously isn't holding her back.

Strangeface

A few of us went to see a weird and wonderful play last night at the Universal_Hall in Findhorn. 'The Last Resort' by a company called Strangeface. The actors all used masks for the performance, and there were also puppets such as the fantastic devil below.
The masks were quite unnerving to begin with (have a look at the link for some examples), but were very effective. And an interesting storyline about human nature/failings, and redemption. We weren't sure before we went whether it was aimed at kids or adults, and I'm still not sure, but I think we all enjoyed it equally (our group ranged in age from 9 - 84).
After the show the audience were all invited to look around the set and play with the masks and puppets - a great idea, we had to drag the kids away in the end!


Its been a fairly quiet couple of weeks, colder weather has meant a lot more of this:

which is keeping us nice and cosy, in the front room anyway!

We've managed to get into a bit of a routine with some maths and English every day, not always workbooks, we decide day by day what we want to do, but focusing on those subjects.

Since we got back from our holiday A has shown much more interest in the computer (although not her blog! She is intending to blog again soon though, so she says...). I think this is a direct influence from her cousin, who gave her web addresses to some games sites. Consequently, I have become addicted to this bloody annoying game which is driving me mad! I have wasted far too much time on it lately. A is more drawn to the dress-up/make-up type games, although has tried a few others.

I'm kind of in two minds about this increased use of the computer, it was always very much frowned upon by her (Steiner) school, as they have a strong belief that TV and computer games are damaging to children. I felt it was a good idea to limit these things when A was younger, but the older she gets the more I feel she needs to decide things for herself. To be honest I would be very unhappy with her sitting at the computer for hours on end (not least because when I've done that with studying I end up with really bad headaches) but she doesn't seem to want to do that, at the moment anyway. I certainly think its good for her reading skills - she's still not too interested in reading books - as she is reading a lot of instructions for different games.

We've also been on a home ed group outing to Smarty_Art in Grantown, where we painted some pottery. Afterwards we came home and watched Chaplin's The_Great_Dictator, I'd forgotten how much I love this film - we both laughed a lot, and A also learnt a bit about WW2 through discussions about the film.

A has mentioned that she's missing her school friends, I think the long holiday without seeing them, and then a cancelled sleepover she had really been looking forward to have brought it home a bit. She did see all her old classmates at a birthday party last week, and on one level she had a great time seeing them all, but on another it highlights how they are still a group and she is now an outsider. Its difficult as there's nothing I can do really, but she doesn't seem too upset, and is still enjoying HE and insisting she doesn't want to go to the local school.

Castles, mushrooms and nice tai chi ladies

I meant to post these castle creations a while ago as they are so pretty, but forgot, so here they are now. The first one was something me and A did a few weeks ago on a rainy afternoon. The silver one below is something created by A and my Mum ages ago. They are now up on our shelf together in the living room, and get lots of nice comments from visitors.

A took these pics today. She has developed a real interest in fungi, ever since we looked at a book my friend lent me called 'Food_For_Free' to help us with our foraging. I'm too terrified to try any of the wild mushrooms we find, as there seems to be so many 'bad' ones that look like 'good' ones. I also remember seeing a mushroom 'expert' on a Jamie Oliver programme warning about some highly poisonous mushroom that looks exactly like an edible one - the only way you know the difference (unless you are an expert of course!) is if you eat it and die. Well, that may not have been exactly what he said, but thats what stuck in my mind. Maybe I'm just a sissy! Anyway, A has decided to do a project on fungi and is busy collecting information, so along with the photos she took today, and some she made her Nonna take when she was over there, we got some more books out of the library today. We must have a look at some websites too, I'm sure there'll be some helpful ones out there.

Tai Chi this morning, I was chatting to one of the other women afterwards when she looked at A and said "when is she back at school then?", so I smiled sweetly and replied "well, she's not going back actually, I'm home educating now." She then gave a huge smile and said "Really? Well good for you!" and turning to A said "that will be fun, wont it?". What a lovely response!

A and I had a discussion last night about how we will approach things now, as her old school starts back this Wednesday so it feels like time to get a bit more organised. A wants to keep to a bit of a (flexible) routine, so we decided on 2 hours each weekday morning on English and Maths as a basic plan. I think it might be good to have this as a general rule to motivate us (me!) in the mornings - I am not a morning person! We'll see how this goes, I think there's a sense of security in it for A, because she is used to this sort of routine. At school they had their 'main lesson' for two hours every morning. The rest of the time she'll work on her various projects as and when she feels like it. There are some things we will work on together, for example learning Italian, and others I will just support her in when she needs me to. She expressed a real keeness for spelling tests too (?) so I'll go along with that. Things will change and develop I'm sure, we are still at such an early stage, but it does feel nice to have a little bit of a plan.
Bedtime doesn't seem to be such an issue, she is still staying up very late but is happy to go to her room when I ask her to (usually 9 - 9.30). I'm hoping she'll start actually getting to sleep a bit earlier once we have more happening in the mornings.