2020 Life Update

Hi everyone!

Well, originally this post was going to say Happy New Year! And I guess I still can, but now that we are in mid March, it kind of feels a bit odd to say it. However, I do hope that everyone had a happy and safe new year and I do apologise for taking THIS LONG to write up a new post.

So far in 2020, a few things have changed around our house and in our lives.

Firstly, our son Henry, has gone back into mainstream schooling, and it has been a great move. He now attends a good public school (probably the best public one in our town) and it has been good so far. I am not going to go into details of why he went back, but we felt that it was better for him as well as our family. It was a very emotional time for me. I would get upset because I felt like I had failed him. I know that homeschooling can be amazing, and I wanted nothing more than for this to work. But sadly, I don't think any amount of time would have helped the things we were dealing with. I think having some space and for him to have the routine of regular school and having those friendships was best for him, as well as for myself, my husband and our daughter.

But he is in his 4th week (year 5) and his teacher is really nice.

With Henry most likely on the spectrum, dyslexic and also suffers from Auditory Processing Disorder, we want to do what we can to help him. He only has 2 years left of primary school and then he will be off the highschool in 2022, so we have some good time to get help and prepare him for those 6 years in highschool.

We still plan on homeschooling our daughter Claire. She is 4 and a half now, and she would have technically started the first year of school (prep here in Queensland) next year, but we hope to homeschool her for as long as she wants and needs and if for some reason she wants to head to school, she can. Claire is a very different from her brother. She is curious and clever, and although she struggles with difficulties (she most likely on the spectrum as well), she has good comprehension skills already. She has pretty good reasoning and negotiation skills so far, and she enjoys learning about things. Once we get past the meltdowns in a particular moment, she is apologetic when needed and can understand what we are trying to say. This is very different to her brother. These days, we are just spending the days together and during this year we will be working our which kind of homeschooling program we want to do with her. At the moment, we are just hanging out, painting or drawing, learning our numbers, reading some books together, going to playgroup once or twice at the local community center and yes, there is some tv watching (probably a little more than what I would like to be honest) but we are just trying to relax and connect. We will be working on the alphabet very soon.

Something that we have done since the beginning of February, is going vegetarian. For the first 3 weeks, I went Vegan. However, as this is the first time I have gone vegan with 2 picking kids and a working husband, I found being vegan to be challenging at this time. When we started, Kyle was just going back to work after the Christmas school holidays (he works in schools as a piano teacher and accompanist), and we felt that going from one thing to another while we were just getting back into the routine was a big challenge. So for Kyle and I, we eat mainly vegan but call ourselves vegetarian. We love the dairy alternatives and will continue to have these because they are so much better. So we have been enjoying rice milk, coconut yogurt and ice creams etc. Lots of simple fruits, vegetables, beans and lentils, pasta, breads and cereals and all the yummies that we can make with them. As I said, there are times that we will get something is not vegan. My husband was really missing halloumi cheese, so a small block is usually in the fridge. I do add some to my usually vegan breakfast but not every time. One time we got a carton of local free range eggs, but when I have one, I felt grossed out, and have not had another. A couple of times I have had some regular chocolate and ice cream, but it did not go down too well, so I avoid it as much as possible. I think being a vegetarian, who mainly eats vegan has been the best choice for us right now, but I would like to have transitioned to vegan by the end of the year.

Kyle has been so supportive of this choice and he really wanted to do this too. Both he and I have not eating any meats or fish for almost 6 weeks (oh I just remembered that one time, he got a quiche for a work day and didn't realise it had bacon in it). I admit that we sometimes still have feeling of missing meat. Usually when we are super hungry, and we want something a bit heavier, but we will go onto something vegan and that goes away. And quickly with the kids, they eat vegetarian/vegan at home, but can choose to have meat if they really want too when we are out. We are doing the best we can to educate them on how the meat comes from the animal to the shops (in age appropriate ways) and we have told them why we have chosen this life style. The kids have had the occasional chicken product (usually nuggets or Henry will have a burger) when we head out and his only happens when we decided to go to McDonald's or Hungry Jacks and while Kyle and I will chose the veg or vegan options, I try to take the chance to say to the kids "you know that it's a chicken right? Would you like to try the other options?" but have yet to see them make the change. It's fine if we end up going somewhere that is mainly all veg or vegan. But yes, at home the kids eat vegetarian/vegan too. And the best part, is they are eating more veggies and things than they ever have :)

So that has been some of the more bigger changes to have happened since my lasts posts and I will be aiming to write more on a regular basis. I am currently making more videos for my YouTube channel, but as I have said in the past, I find writing to be a little easier when I want to share things in more details. I have just made a video that kicks off my minimalist series on my channel, and I will be creating blog posts to go along with each video. So please stick around and I hope that you will enjoy what I create as we progress through 2020!

Take Care,

Beke.