NotSheep

Well, not just for Merry, but I know she’s doing a project on China, and I couldn’t think of a good title. Anyone who’s doing a project on China - or, for that matter, anyone who’s vaguely interested - can find out their Chinese birthday here

Okay, the British and Canadian slang bits I understand - but prison slang? The closest I’ve ever been to prison is watching Porridge!

Bit of a slow start this morning - I was to be found making breakfast at 9.20 - but once we got going, we seemed to catch up pretty well. Toby didn’t really settle all morning though - poor thing still has a runny nose and a hoarse little cough, and I think he just isn’t feeling great - and by noon I’d sent the boys off to play so I could feed him to sleep in peace. A bit later, Barney made some lunch for everyone, and I decided I was bored, plus it seemed like everyone needed to get out for a while, so I suggested we could walk into town to go to the library. Last time we walked into town, they all moaned that it was too far, so I wasn’t expecting a very positive response, but they were all keen, so off we went.

I carried Toby in the Storchie rather than take the stroller, which meant someone had to carry the books… Barney, George and Freddy took turns to carry the bag and complain. Barney carried them most, but probably did the least complaining. I think if we do that again, I’ll suggest they take a small bag each - hey, we’ll look like schoolies coming home!

I had to go to the bank, but we passed the library on our way, so I asked Barney and George if they wanted to go on in, and said I’d be back with the others in ten minutes or so. That turned out to be more than slightly optimistic - there was a huge queue in the bank (not a good idea to do that on a Friday afternoon then…) and I got sidetracked in a couple of charity shops too. When I got back to the library, I found Barney by the front desk in tears - he’d been worried about me because we’d taken so long He’d very sensibly gone to the librarian and asked her to phone me, which she did, but my phone either doesn’t ring or it doesn’t ring loudly enough so I didn’t know. It was only a few more minutes before I got back, but poor Barney

In the meantime, George was sitting reading and not bothered about where I’d got to at all

Barney did cheer up quite quickly when he saw our charity-shop haul though. Before we got to the bank, we went into one shop and saw a bunch of Bionicles, but I wondered if all the pieces would be there, so we didn’t buy any. After the library, we stopped at another shop, and discovered they’d quite a collection of Action Men in very good condition. We’ve never actually owned any Action Men, and it’s not something I’ve ever thought much about, but I suppose they’re all right really. They’re not Barbies, so they gain lots of points for that anyway There were a couple with great big torpedo-gun things, and I said we’d leave those for someone else - but we offered the charity shop woman a tenner for the rest of them, and so we’ve brought eight Action Men home (unless you count Scratchy, in which case it’s still eight ;-)) The other woman in the shop came over and handed us another plastic bag of small toys with the words “Here, have these too, they’ll enjoy them” - very nice

Leaving that shop, Freddy mentioned that some of the Bionicles in the first shop had been models that he and Barney had been wanting for ages… call me a sucker, but we went back. They’d a big plastic crate full of various kinds of Bionicles; Freddy opened a few and said they had all their parts (though how he could be sure, I don’t know!) and I asked if they’d give me them cheaper as a job-lot. She had to go ask, and she came back with a price of £20, which was a bit higher than I’d hoped, to be honest - but she also threw in a model of a Mini that Jack was eye-ing, and a recorder (which means we now have three, which works well since we have three recorder-playing kids).

So… chose books, got them out, Scratchy picked us up, and the kids spread out all the new toys across the kitchen floor while dinner cooked. It seems the Bionicles do indeed have all their parts Then I lay down with Toby while Scratchy and Barney headed off to play basketball. The others were told that their room needs to be tidy before they go swimming tomorrow morning, but I have no idea whether it is or not, and I’m not going to look

Well, it is if you didn’t know what the problem was, and you were worried it might be expensive to fix!

We’d a builder come by today to look at the delightful black bits on several front walls of our house, and the dampness on one of them. Although I’d never met him before, I knew he’d be good because he’s done a lot of work for a good friend over the years. We’re fairly useless when it comes to house repairs etc, but we knew we had to find out what was causing the damp. My biggest concern was that it would be coming from under the floor in the downstairs bathroom, because that would have meant lifting ceramic floor-tiles, and the same tiles run right through the whole hall. But G (the builder) said it’s “classic condensation” and it’s all on the surface (which makes sense, none of the plaster or anything is damp or crumbling) and so it’s easy to deal with. He suggested we redecorate using anti-fungal paint and wallpaper paste - not a big deal, it’s one half-wall in the bedroom and a touch-up on the ceiling, plus the powder-room, which I’d wanted to decorate anyway. He also said to use an anti-fungal spray once a month or so through the winter, and said that if we can pick up a small, cheap dehumidifier, we could put it by the front bedroom window in our room and run it for an hour in the mornings. I breathed a sigh of relief that we’re not going to have to spend lots of money to sort it out! He didn’t even need to suck in his teeth

He also gave us rough prices for a couple of things we’d thought of doing to the house - none of it soon, but it’s good to know how much we could expect to pay if we decided to do them in a year or two.

Apart from that, a fairly usual Saturday: swimming for Barney, George and Freddy this morning, where they were given their certificates and badges from the last session - more sewing for me! George arrived back after swimming, rather than staying at the leisure centre and waiting for trampoline class to start, as he usually does. He said he didn’t want to go to trampoline According to his instructor a couple of weeks ago, he’s talented but inconsistent. According to George, all the things he gets to do are “easy and boring”. I think what’s happening is that because he thinks they’re easy and boring, he doesn’t make much effort, and therefore sometimes does them right, sometimes not (lands wrong or something) - and the instructor isn’t willing to move him onto new stuff until he’s got the current stuff absolutely solid. I can see both their points - so I took George back to the leisure centre, having a chat with him in the car on the way and explaining what was going on, and promising to remind him to practice on the trampoline in the garden every day. By the time we got there (about six minutes LOL), he was happy to go in. Afterwards, I asked him how it went, and he started to say “good” but then said “it wasn’t too bad”

We spent the afternoon doing bits and pieces around the house - including me completely demolishing the vertical blinds from the bedroom, because they had mold (there’s no u, is there? in this kind of mold?) growing on them. I tried soaking them in hot water in the bath, and I tried soap and tea-tree oil, but it wasn’t really coming off, so I put them in a pillowcase in the washing-machine. Let’s just say that they weren’t really blinds when they came out - more a bag of string Fortunately it’s a fairly standard-sized window, so replacing them shouldn’t cost a lot! One of the neighbourhood kids arrived to play, and they all got the Flubber out - he was impressed and demanded the recipe

Later in the afternoon, a friend phoned to see if she could come over for a while. I hadn’t seen her since before Christmas - she’s been very busy rehearsing for a play she’s involved in and doing various other things - but there’s been some difficult times in her life recently, so I was glad of the opportunity for a chat. She arrived with her two sons, and all the boys ran about having a great time for the next couple of hours, while Scratchy disappeared to play Runescape and the two of us sat in the kitchen over cups of tea. She also brought a puppy! - and he’s gorgeous He’s a lab/husky mix, 13 weeks old, and just so sweet. He fell asleep on the kitchen floor cuddled up to a soft-toy dog that my kids own *ahhhh* Now I want a puppy

Dinner tonight was yummy - fried whitefish fillets with herb butter, rice, peas and salad - and all made by Barney and George. They did get a bit of help, but they did do most of it themselves, and very good it was too. We got a great kids cooking book at Christmas, and they’ve plans to work their way through it. I’m not complaining

Jack has now flaked out, the others are all reading (Freddy’s reading The Hobbit!) I’m about to take Toby to bed, and do some Sudoku over his shoulder while he feeds to sleep. Night night…

It’s been one of those blah days - you know the ones when you just can’t manage to get yourself motivated? Well that’s been today for me.

The kids played with Flubber and spent most of the afternoon on various computers, R from across the road came back to play for a while… Toby’s been clingy, I think he’s still feeling the effects of the cold, though he’s not coughing now. Scratchy fixed the handle on the door from the kitchen to the garage, which was no longer horizontal due to children hanging on it. He did something else too, but I can’t remember what now! Brain too fuzzy

As for me, I’ve… um… well, I’ve… er… well, I had a bath and held Toby. Sounds even worse now I’ve written it down

Need to wake up more motivated tomorrow…

I’m cold!

The house seemed cool this morning, but I altered the heat settings on Saturday to make the heat run slightly shorter times, so I thought that was it. I noticed at 2.50 p.m. that the heat wasn’t on, at a time when it should have been, but of course it cycles on and off throughout those periods so the fact that the furnace wasn’t running wasn’t extraordinary. I thought “must check that” - and promptly forgot.

Went to the obstetric physio and got home shortly before 5, and the kitchen and dining-room were fairly warm - due to cooking, obviously - and since that’s as far as I got until after dinner, I didn’t realise that the rest of the house was cold.

It turns out we have no heating oil left.

Well, not “no oil”, but not enough to cover the tube that feeds it to the furnace. So effectively, no oil.

What fun.

Scratchy is planning to buy some in portable drums while the boys are at ju-jitsu, though I’m not sure about this plan - is it the right stuff? And will it be enough to cover that feeder-tube anyway?

If not, we’re in for a cold night

Also today: kids worked and played, I cooked and supervised. I left Toby at home with Scratchy for an hour while I saw the physio - she wanted to work with me on the exercises, and even hands-free with a sling/wrap doesn’t work for that. Barney’s tired and cranky (because he stayed up really late last night), George hasn’t gone to ju-jitsu (because he feels tired, and tbh he doesn’t look so hot either - hope he’s not getting sick). Freddy played Zoombinis with Jack’s “help” for an hour this afternoon. So not much else to report then… except to mention that I know exactly what I was doing this time six months ago

So the oil thing didn’t work. So Scratchy thinks it’s because the line needs bled. Or something. So we’ll ask the oil delivery people if they’ll bleed it tomorrow, when they deliver the oil, because they will deliver oil tomorrow, won’t they? If we call them first thing and explain that we have no heating and a baby, they will make us a priority, won’t they?

So it’s still cold.

So Scratchy has been sent to Argos to buy a room-heater, and we will all be sleeping in one room tonight.

So… that was the plan. But Scratchy just phoned, and the shopping centre with Argos in it is closed. Huh.

So he’s going to try B&Q, which is near the shopping centre, and might be open. Or might not.

Brrr. (Yeah, I know I said that already.)

So if B&Q is closed, we either all sleep in the living-room, where there’s a gas fire (though I don’t know how much gas is left), or… well, or we’re cold.

Toby is six months old today - at 4.39 a.m., to be exact, which is why this is getting posted at 4.39 a.m. (It’s posting at that time because of blog-magic, not because I am awake at that time. At least, I hope I’m not!)

He’s lovely. He’s tiny, but bright and alert and babbling and sweet and quick to smile. Just lovely

On the one hand, it can seem like the time since his birth has flown, but on the other hand, it seems like he’s been part of our family forever. His brothers are still besotted with him (and his parents too, just a bit ;-))

Remember that whole this-is-the-last-one thing? Well, I’m making nobody any promises.

Tonight - well, last night, by the time this posts - I found the text-record of an instant-messenger conversation I had with a friend while I was in labour. It’s full of typos, short sentences, one-word answers, long pauses, threats to do things to Scratchy, and even a bit of swearing At the time, I wasn’t sure if it was “really it” - there’d been so much stop-start stuff - but reading it now, it is so obvious

My oil is here (and my food processor - roll on the weekend!) but my heat is not. Stupid burner needs priming or something and I am a) clueless and b) unable, with baby in arms/wrap, to squeeze through three-inch wide space and bend double, as required for reaching what needs done.

Very glad we got that heater!

Your Birthdate: February 27

You are a spiritual soul - a person who tries to find meaning in everything. You spend a good amount of time meditating, trying to figure out life. Helping others is also important to you. You enjoy social activities with that goal. You are very generous and giving. Yet you expect very little in return. Your strength: Getting along with anyone and everyone Your weakness: Needing a good amount of downtime to recharge Your power color: Cobalt blue Your power symbol: Dove Your power month: September

Bits of it spot-on, bits of it absolutely and humongously inaccurate.

I’m not going to post the whole family’s here, but…

Scratchy’s couldn’t have been more wrong if it tried. Anyone who knows him well enough to know his birthdate should go look - it’s so wrong it will make you laugh!

Barney’s was fairly accurate. George’s was so-so. Freddy’s was right in bits. Jack’s was pretty close. Toby’s not really old enough to tell yet, but given the track record, I’m not putting much faith in it

That’s what the furnace said - eventually!

I pushed that little button over and over and over. And let me tell you, that was no easy feat. It involved squatting in front of the sink in the garage and poking my arm around the side of the washing machine (at an angle my arm was not designed for!) and sticking my finger in a little hole (and trying very hard not to think about what kinds of things might live in there) - after two hours of doing that every few minutes, the heat still wasn’t staying on for more than 10-15 seconds.

But men have their uses (apparently ;-)) and Scratchy came home and after dinner (you have to get your priorities straight!), he shoved the washing machine half-way across the garage and fiddled and faffed with the button and screwdrivers and I-don’t-know-what and the heat came on and stayed on

So no sleepover tonight. I love my children, and I don’t mind them being in with me, and they’ve all left my bed and my room in their own time - but I do prefer not to have to pick my way through an assortment of legs, arms and heads while crossing the bedroom floor to get to the bathroom!

First - something I forgot to mention yesterday when I said the heat was back on.

The guy who delivered the oil came in to see if he could prime the pump. He came through the kitchen, and into the garage, and turned and looked at the big white box, and said, “I don’t know much about these burners.”

And I replied, “That’s a freezer.”

“Oh,” he said, “I thought it was.”

Anyway - on to today. We got up and used the new-and-super food processor to make smoothies for breakfast, then the boys did some work. Barney woke up in a foul mood - he was up late on Sunday because he chose to lie in bed occasionally making what he thought were clever remarks rather than go to sleep, then he was up late on Monday because of the “sleepover”, then he stayed up late reading last night. When he doesn’t get enough sleep, he’s miserable - and the rest of us pay too - and I’d warned him last night that he shouldn’t expect me to cut him any slack if he chooses to stay up late. When he had fought with everyone within five minutes of waking today, I told him he was going to bed early tonight. Tonight is Scouts night, and Scouts doesn’t finish until 9.30, so early-bed meant no-Scouts. I don’t think he took me seriously, and I knew I’d be tempted to give in, so I phoned Scratchy and asked him to make sure I didn’t

This afternoon was spent doing - well, I don’t know what, but I must have done something!

George had Cub Scouts tonight, which he declared “brilliant”. Right now it’s very quiet - I do think that some of my children might actually be asleep!

The chaotic mess bit, that is

You Are 36% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at high risk for having a borderline personality. It is very likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at medium risk for having a social phobia. It is somewhat likely that you feel most comfortable in your mom’s basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

The social phobia bit might be right by this evening too!

It is 9.20 a.m. and my three eldest have gone to their swimming lessons. I am lying in bed with my youngest cuddled tightly against me, and my second-youngest snoring in the mini-bed (aka a cot with one side removed and shoved against my bed). I don’t want to move for fear of waking them

We’d an ordinary day yesterday. Barney has been in much better form since his early night on Wednesday, and George made it through the entire day on Thursday without a hint of a wobbly, which was quite good, considering the excitement of visiting the science centre and meeting up with friends, and the long day.

George’s trampoline class today has been cancelled, so he’ll be home shortly with the others, and then there will be food (them) and chores (Scratchy and me). And then… we’ll see what the day brings

Upstairs needed vacuuming. Last night after dinner, I brought the vacuum cleaner up and vacuumed the carpet in my room (which gets amazingly grubby, I can never figure out where all those little bits of thread and fluff come from). And I left it on the landing, figuring I’d do the kids’ rooms today - a ten-minute job.

Or it should be.

And it would be - if it weren’t for the 27 dirty socks, 49 socks which might or might not have been worn, the 14 dirty t-shirts, the 12 dirty pairs of trousers, the rotten apple-core and the whole-but-split-open-so-rotting banana, and the six zillion toys and bits of toys.

I think it was about 11.30 when I started. I did take a break for lunch, and I’ve just finished.

They have open wire mesh drawers - very easy to put stuff in. There’s a laundry bag in the bathroom - mere steps from their bedroom door. So why do they find it easier to roll clothes into a ball and push them behind dressers, under beds, and inside toy-boxes?

I mean, (said with clenched teeth), what is the big deal?

An article in the Sunday Times discusses parents’ “right to know” about various aspects of their children’s lives. I’ve been thinking about this all week.

Last week we had the story of a 17-year-old pupil at a fee-paying school in London, caught trying to use a photocopied travel pass. The school knew that she was prosecuted, and indeed provided a teacher to accompany her to court, where the girl pleaded guilty to theft and was fined £100.

The first her parents knew about it, however, was a year later, when their daughter was being threatened with the bailiffs over non-payment of the fine. They have now publicly expressed their fury with the school for not telling them of the girl’s plight.

I think the school acted correctly here, for a couple of reasons. First, the offence took place outside school premises. The school had no right to know, so how could it be obliged to inform the parents? Presumably the girl approached the school for support - would she have done so if she had believed the school would inform her parents, who she clearly did not wish to know? Had the school been required to inform the parents, it seems likely she wouldn’t have told the school either.

Second, a 17-year-old could quite legally be living independently, earning her own money and paying her own rent - and many do. A 17-year-old could even be a parent herself (or himself). I don’t think such a person’s parents would have any right to know about a criminal charge or conviction, and I don’t think it makes much difference that this particular 17-year-old was still studying and living at home. Being a pupil should not remove a person’s rights.

I hope, of course, that if my children ever need support, they’ll feel able to approach their father or me. If they didn’t, however, I’d much prefer that they had access to other sources of support, rather than having to handle problems alone out of fear of lack of confidentiality.

Parents now do not have the right to bar their children from having sexual relationships even if they are minors; and as Sue Axon from Manchester discovered in a High Court ruling last month, parents also do not have the right to ban their children from receiving confidential advice on contraception and abortion.

I’m a great believer in answering children’s questions about sex whenever they ask them. I think that most, if not all, children who ask for information about contraception are probably served better by giving them that information than by withholding it. Refusing to allow a child to get such information from a responsible source will only result in them getting it from somewhere else - probably somewhere less accurate, and quite possibly their would-be sexual partner.

It seems even more extraordinary when you consider that, while parents are having crucial information about their children’s health, behaviour and wellbeing denied them, they can now, thanks to Tony Blair’s Respect agenda, be sent to prison for their children’s misdemeanours - such as bunking off school or breaking Asbos.

Indeed it does seem extraordinary - but the problem here, in my opinion, is that you have one person being punished for the actions of another. That’s not how the justice system is supposed to work.

In the early years of this government Gordon Brown said that “all new rights will be matched by new responsibilities”, but instead we have a situation in which children have new rights without responsibilities and parents new responsibilities without rights.

Parents have been rendered as powerless by the state as Plato would have wished in his Republic, even if they are still allowed to bring up their children. The attitude of the state seems to be that parents can never do as good a job as professionals - whether these are doctors, lawyers or head teachers.

The last sentence sums it up. From the minute a woman gets pregnant, she is told that the experts know best. She can’t possibly know better than the midwife or the obstetrician; they will tell her what to eat, how to behave, where and how to have her baby. Then they’ll tell her what to do with her baby, and then the health visitor will take over. And soon - as soon as possible in Blairland - the child will be off to daycare and then nursery and school, where teachers will of course know best. And after a dozen or so years of being told that the experts know best, if something goes wrong, parents are suddenly told that it’s all their fault.

How can parents be expected to take responsibility for their children if, from conception, they are told they can’t possibly know how to parent unless they have a team of experts telling them what to do?

The reason I’ve been thinking about this all week is that while I believe that parents have rights (despite the state’s attempts to disempower them), I also believe that children have rights. The problem, of course, is determining when the rights of one over-rule the rights of the other. But I don’t think denying information, support or confidentiality is going to help anyone.

After spending all that time cleaning bedrooms yesterday, I was a bit fed up. Then, cleaning up the kitchen later, when I said “Can someone put that in the dishwasher please?” and all my children stood and stared blankly at me, then all started to move away I decided I’d had it. So I told them I’m on strike.

I’m striking for better working conditions I want more cooperation and more help and less shouting and less fighting. Until then, they’re on their own. I’m around, but not participating.

Barney, George and Freddy spent most of the afternoon in the dining-room, drawing and doing origami. Interestingly, none of them went off anywhere else to play - either they were hovering to see just how far I was taking this, or they were avoiding making a mess in their rooms Jack doesn’t get it at all - he keeps coming and showing me things and asking me to fix things etc.

Scratchy is clearly doubtful about this whole strategy, so he’s sort of hovering in the background. But he made dinner for him and me, and we told the rest that they would have to see to their own. Unfortunately there were too many leftovers in the refrigerator, so they didn’t have any trouble at all

Being on strike doesn’t mean I get to sit about on my backside, though. Toby is, of course, exempt, and there’s still plenty for me to do. I can’t, for example, bring myself to ignore the mountains of laundry… and I’ve already broken up a fight between George and Jack this morning. I’m hoping the hunger-pangs stimulate them to go and make themselves breakfast soon, because they could really use some food, but I don’t really want to make it!

On the subject of food - Toby has been trying out a few things. Banana, as mentioned, is very popular - great enthusiasm there. He very much enjoyed sucking on a wedge of apple yesterday too. Potato and oatmeal, on the other hand, he has no time for.

Now since I’m not being the grown-up in the family, I’ll be the grown-up on the blogring and say that I hope all the Melrose-rs have a great time this week, even if what I really want to do is yell bah! and stomp my foot ’cause I can’t go. (I note that when I agreed to join the blogring admin last week, Jax didn’t mention that the rest of it would be away this week and leaving me to it! LOL)

That’s the opinion of Steve Biddulph, quoted in today’s Sunday Times.

He warns that

“placing children younger than three in nurseries risks damaging their development” and that “instead of subsidising nurseries, which do a ’second-rate’ job, the government should put in place policies to enable mothers to stay at home with their babies.”

He’s not the only expert in childcare who says this. Penelope Leach agrees, as do many childcare researchers.

The education department says this:

“We are not telling parents what to do but we are trying to provide them with choices,”

and:

“We want to make sure every parent has access to high-quality, safe, stimulating and affordable childcare, so they have greater flexibility in how they balance their lives.”

“Not telling parents what to do”, hm…. no, not straight-out. But here’s certainly government support for parents who go out to work - subsidised daycare places, tax credits, etc - and a distinct lack of similar support for parents who want to spend their children’s early years with them.

“Providing choices” is all very well, but true support for parents would require equal support for both options.

Jack just told me that he is on strike.

Hm.

After a very unproductive weekend, today somehow managed to be quite productive. Not sure how that happened; must try harder

The kids did some work this morning - maths, geography, history, Latin, literacy… the usual things. They’re still enjoying The Weatherbirds a lot, and we generally start with that on a Monday. By lunchtime, they’d all done quite a bit, so after lunch they pulled out a science kit and started playing with that - this one was on sound and soundwaves. It kept them busy for a good couple of hours

Scratchy also had a productive day - had new tyres fitted to the car, got his hair cut, had a root canal 8-O… When he got home he started to cook and I took Toby off for a bath, since between his snotty nose and his love of banana, he was fairly icky During dinner, George announced that he needed a poster and a model and … something else I can’t remember now - all for Cubs on Wednesday. The poster is easy enough - lots of stuff for artwork here! And I felt like a very organised mother when I was able to simply reach up to a shelf in the dining-room and pull down not one but four wooden dinosaur model kits Dinner was fairly early this evening, so afterwards I worked on one of those with George - the others want to work on them too, but they have many small pieces and require quite a bit of fiddling and gluing and so forth, so I said it would be better to do one at a time. Anyway, George’s is done, and I’ve suggested that Scratchy do one with Freddy tomorrow evening, since Beavers is cancelled and I’ll be going to a Scouting meeting.

After all that, Barney, George and Freddy headed off to ju-jitsu; they’ve just returned a few minutes ago. I’ve only talked to Freddy so far (I’m lying in bed nursing Toby) and he didn’t have a good time. Apparently he got kicked in the head and in the ear and also managed to hurt his hand on the car while getting out (I heard that wail from the driveway!)

They’re now all downstairs, apparently doing something very secretive with Scratchy. Wonder if it’s got anything to do with tomorrow being Valentine’s Day

And on the subject of the last couple of days, that is all I’m going to say.

A couple of days ago, someone on the Early Years list asked about a computer game called Age of Empires. There was a bit of a thread about it, with the consensus being that it was pretty good. I’d never heard of it before.

Five minutes ago, Scratchy walked in, having been to Tesco. They have some stuff on clearance, apparently. Including a few computer games for prices from 99p to £2.99. Guess what he’d bought?

You might have sussed, from the brevity of the last-post-but-one, and the almost total lack of posts otherwise since Tuesday, that this has not been the best week ever.

It was Wednesday that started it, really. I don’t know why, but nothing seemed right on Wednesday. I was tired, kids were grumpy and everyone was getting on everyone else’s nerves. In the end, I went off in a sulk and hid in my bedroom, leaving them to it. I phoned Scratchy and ordered asked him to take Thursday off. At that point I was thinking maybe he could take the older four out for the day on Thursday, and I could stay at home and have a mental health day, but by the time he got home things were just getting worse; George and Barney went to bed instead of Cubs and Scouts, and I spent the evening working out the practicalities of sending them all to school.

In the end, on Thursday we went shopping. We didn’t buy a great deal - and we didn’t buy shoes for school, though it was close! Freddy actually said he wanted to go to school, but when asked why, his only reason was “So I don’t have to clean up after lunch.” Erm… uhuh… They did get to go to archery on Thursday, though I think that was mainly because Scratchy reckoned there should be some space between them and me.

Friday was a lost day - I seem to have managed to catch Melrose Disease without actually going to Melrose, though thankfully it was only the D bit and not the V bit. By evening, I was fairly dehydrated and not actually able to do much about it. I did smile when i heard Jack sitting on the toilet and singing though: “Scaramouche, scaramouche, do the fandango…”

Fortunately I felt much better by yesterday morning. The boys had their swimming lesson, and while George was at trampoline class, the rest of us headed into the city to visit a proper aquarium shop (i.e. not one in the back of a pet shop). It was fab, and I might have brought home some more fish if it hadn’t been for Barney noticing white spots on ours before we left - so I brought home treatment for whitespot and a couple of bits of wood for the aquarium. I did a fair-sized water change, put the wood in, added back water, dosed the aquarium with the whitespot treatment, and crossed my fingers. The plan now is more whitespot treatment every two days until that’s cleared up, and then I’ll order my plants, get some rock and a new background, drop the water down to 50%, do some interior decorating and put in a few clown loaches (which should also take care of the minor snail problem we’ve noticed).

We also tidied up the garage yesterday, and I stuck a few bits on Freecycle - I’ve had several responses for each of them, so I’ve replied to the first one for each item and will let the rest know it’s gone once I hear back.

Barney wanted to make pancakes this morning, so he started to do that with Scratchy’s help. A friend phoned and I took the phone to the living-room to talk with her (it was impossible to hear over the noise in the kitchen and dining-room). A few minutes later I heard a - well, you could call it a screech but that would be under-estimating both the volume and ferocity - from Scratchy. I did a quick “I’ll phone you back” and headed for the kitchen where I found Jack had poured a five-litre bottle of water across the kitchen floor. Aren’t three-year-olds great?

Scratchy was not responding well to this turn of events so I pretty much ordered him out of the way and took over with the clean-up. To be honest, it wasn’t so bad - the floor is ceramic tiles, so it’s not as if it’s damaged by water in those quantities, and a couple of towels soaked up most of the water. It needed mopped anyway, so he did me a favour Tomorrow I’ll leave a bottle or two in the conservatory - the floor in there really needs a good wash

After all that excitement (and George pointing out to Scratchy that he’d just done exactly what he tells George there’s no need for, when George is doing it…) I got back on the phone to the friend, chatted for ages, and then we decided her family was coming over here So they all came over for a visit - ostensibly lunch, but by the time they got here and we sorted out food, it was really dinner Anyway, we all enjoyed their visit (well, maybe excepting Mollycat, who really wasn’t keen on being held down by the tail…) - I hope they had a good time too.

Aaaaannnd… tomorrow’s Monday. Wish me luck

No, not me - my neighbours

Things were a bit better today than they were last week - I think a full weekend, followed by a busy Monday, has helped

Since Freddy was wondering what it was like to be at school, we had a “school-start” morning - I didn’t wake the boys, but I did get them doing teeth-cleaning etc earlier than usual, and everyone had eaten by 8.30. Then I told them to put on their coats and shoes and to go sit in the conservatory for ten minutes and pretend it was a car on a school-run

They did some work, though less than I’d intended since it some of the locals are on half-term this week and came calling - so after lunch all except Toby went out to play. At about 4.30 Freddy came asking if they were allowed into their friend N’s house (they’re not supposed to go in anyone’s house without letting me know) and I said yes - never thinking that N’s parents are used to having one child in the house! The shock of six kids (N, a cousin, and my four) was too much for them and they sent two of mine home

Freddy fell to bits at dinner-time when he realised that he couldn’t go back to N’s after dinner (he was one of the two sent home), and between that and nobody bothering to tidy up the living-room or the landing or their bedrooms, the decision was taken that bed was a more suitable goal for the evening than ju-jitsu.

Toby is just being a darling - all chatty and smiley. He’s really grabbing things now, and it’s getting harder to eat or drink or email or blog with him around! Scratchy and I were commenting on how fab he is yesterday, and I nearly gave Scratchy a stroke by saying that one more baby couldn’t hurt… - half-joking, half-serious to be honest. I’ll blog more about my feelings on that topic another time, when I’m not about to start on a cup of tea

There’s been a bit of discussion around the blogring this week about the proposed legislation that would protect breastfeeding women from harassment. I’m going to look at it from a slightly different point of view.

Let’s say I’m in a public place - a cafe, or a museum, or on a bus, or a park bench. That okay? Should it be okay for someone to harass me for just sitting there? Is it okay for someone to make nasty comments about me just sitting there, or to make me go and sit somewhere else just because they don’t like something about me?

………

What if I’m breastfeeding?

Should the act of breastfeeding a child reduce my basic rights to sit in a public place?

It seems that a some people think it does - and those are the people who make nasty remarks and tell breastfeeding women that they have to move. It shouldn’t be necessary to explicitly protect breastfeeding women, but it appears that it is.

I know it doesn’t happen very often - but it does happen - it has happened to me (in an art gallery, of all places!) and it has happened to others. And I know - from having provided peer support to breastfeeding women on post-natal wards, and from having spoken to antenatal classes about breastfeeding - that anxiety about breastfeeding in public really does put women off breastfeeding, and it does make them choose to stop sooner.

I know there are lots of other things that we, as a society, could be doing to encourage breastfeeding. But you know what? We don’t have to choose just one. We can do many things. Better training in breastfeeding support for healthcare providers would be great. So would longer maternity leaves, more baby-friendly hospitals, and lots of other stuff. But you know what this one, this little bit of legislation, has in its favour over all of those? It’s easy. It costs nearly nothing. And that makes it more likely to happen than all those other initiatives. And once it’s in place, and women know that they can breastfeed Martini-style (anytime anyplace anywhere, wasn’t it?) - there’s absolutely nothing stopping us for pushing for all those other things.

So why not?

I have the greatest admiration for Alison, who can remember what her family did all week and put it all in a great big long blog-post - but if I don’t record it the same day, it’s gone forever. So this will be a great deal shorter than three days worth of blogging would normally be (do I hear a few sighs of relief? ;-))

Tuesday - I thought since it was half-term for the local schoolkids, we’d not bother with doing any work. Except that none of them was around - presumably back at school. Poor things

George and Barney had St John Ambulance Badgers and Cadets respectively on Tuesday night, but Beavers was cancelled (due to half-term… I thought…) so Freddy had a night off. While the others were out, though, a friend who lives a few miles away phoned to ask if I could have her kids for the day on Wednesday, since they were still off on half-term, but their dad (who’s a teacher) wasn’t. So Wednesday was a busy day, with seven kids here instead of the usual five. Surprisingly little difference - just extra quantities of food

Today, we’d a bit of a catch-up on homework, then Scratchy took Barney, George and Freddy off to archery - they’ve just recently got back, which is why I’m blogging - Toby is playing with Barney so I’ve finally got two hands free. I’m down a finger though, since I tried to slice the top of one of them off this afternoon while washing the blade from my new food processor. I do like my food processor - been making lots of yummy things including many many smoothies - but I wasn’t so fond of it this afternoon when I was bleeding all over the kitchen. It was one of those stupid moments - I was washing up one-handed, and turning the blade around inside the bowl (which was filled with soapy water) and thinking “need to be careful not to cut myself here” - famous last words, eh? I should know better really - I’m not good with fingers generally: I tend to get them caught on things and stuck in things and burn them a lot. On one memorable occasion I managed to burn all the fingers on my right hand when I lifted a tray to put it in the oven, forgetting that I’d only taken it out a minute before, and then, five minutes later, now operating left-handed (because the right one hurt!), I plunged my other hand into a basin of hot washing-up water - fast, because I knew the water was hot - and realised too late that there was a bread-knife in the bottom of it. That was most impressive, but apparently didn’t teach me anything

Ooh, and has anyone noticed my new and (I think) snazzy favicon? (Apart from Scratchy, that is, who wasn’t given any choice in the matter LOL)

A few interesting education-related tidbits in the news this week:

The Telegraph reports that more able students are being discouraged in maths by teachers who can’t - well, who can’t do maths. After providing several examples of such howlers, the author comments:

Kurt Vonnegut has a story about a perfectly egalitarian Utopia in which all the fast runners have weights chained to their ankles and fast thinkers have to wear headphones that send a regular buzz through their brains to sabotage all coherent thought.

Under the guise of numeracy, our schools are tending to hold back the hot young mathematicians and lock them up with a numerical ball and chain so that everyone else can catch up. And buzz their brains, every so often, with manifest absurdities.

Philip Beadle writes in the Guardian of the absurdity of expecting effective individualised learning plans within a school system:

Assessing students’ learning styles, keeping the data and using it to plan lessons is, like the rest of the cod-psychological tosh on the web, a bucketful of nonsense. You cannot take a snapshot of someone’s preferences on one day and use it to plan their whole future, as their responses are dictated by mood. Tomorrow, perhaps, I may be feeling more entrepreneurial, more kinesthetic, more political, less intuitive. My answers, and consequently my profile, will be different.

The notion of personalised learning has excited many in the education world. It strikes the Department for Education and Skills as a way forward. It worries me. No teacher in the world has the time or technical ability to plan a lesson that is differentiated 30 ways. And you can have all the data in the world on a class: it doesn’t mean you will be able to teach them.

Finally there’s the news that a primary school has banned pencil sharpeners after some children smashed them to remove the blades.

You Are Likely A Forth Born

At your darkest moments, you feel angry. At work and school, you do best when your analyzing. When you love someone, you tend to be very giving. In friendship, you don’t take the initiative in reaching out. Your ideal jobs are: factory jobs, comedy, and dentistry. You will leave your mark on the world with your own personal philosophy.

Huh? Factory jobs? Dentistry?!!!!

Like I care what they say - they can’t even spell “fourth” correctly, or figure out the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

And I’m the oldest, so yah-boo-sucks

Ideal job for me: proof-reader.

You are a Balanced Babe!

You’re direct and to the point, but never dramatic You’ve got the confidence to speak your mind to anyone But you leave the theatrics to Hollywood Level headed and emotionally stable, no wonder everyone loves you

Mostly right, I’d say

(More right than it was before I fixed the error in the code anyway - what the heck is a “Blanced Babe”? LOL)

A very normal day. Bah.

Freddy asked for his own blog, so I set one up for him. Barney and George both updated theirs, and they all did various bits and pieces - maths, Latin, geography, history, French… the usual stuff. Somebody from the Freecycle list came and took away my old stroller (not very old, actually - just too awkward for getting in and out of the car, which is why we got a less-awkward one). The fish seem to have recovered from their ich, and now two of them have signs of fungus *sigh* but at least the background is staying put and there don’t seem to have been any negative effects from covering the silicone with water. Must go in a minute and order the aquarium plants.

Nobody went to ju-jitsu tonight: George was too tired and cranky, Freddy was borderline and then said he didn’t want to go anyway, and I’m not sure what happened with Barney, because 15 minutes before it was due to start, he was going - but he didn’t go.

I’m sure there was more than that to blog about, but I can’t think what now.

I keep thinking today is Wednesday; I don’t know why. I don’t seem to have a very good grasp of time these days. I can’t believe it’s already the end of February. I can’t believe I’m 38 - when did that happen?! And I definitely can’t believe that Jack will be four years old in a couple of weeks. Or that I’ve been blogging for nearly a year.

There was a sprinkling of snow on the ground here this morning (that’ll be because I was calling it spring-like the other day then…) but nothing you could even roll into a snowball. There was quite impressive hail later though. Still, while it’s not too cold to walk into town, it’s cold enough to give me an excuse not to bother

I showed George and Freddy how to make their own porridge (using the microwave). Freddy likes honey in his; the others are with me on the subject of honey and prefer jam and/or raisins, occasionally brown sugar instead. Once they’d all eaten, I sat down with Freddy to help him write a story from his English book. His handwriting is just about legible, but he’s got two parents with poor handwriting and he’s left-handed, so he’s got a lot to overcome His story was short but well-told, and once written, he copied it into his blog (with help from George).

George had a stomachache which started while he was eating his porridge, apparently, and ended up lying on the sofa with one of those heat-bag-things on his tum, but it seems to have done the trick, because he was up and lively an hour later. I’m always slightly wary about this kind of thing, because I spent four days with a stomachache when I was 12, before the doctor decided that maybe I should be in hospital - and about four hours later, my appendix burst. My appendix was not where it was expected to be (which is why it took so long to diagnose), but much higher up, and we were told it might run in the family - so I end up prodding sore bellies without really looking for anything more specific than a very tender spot.

We did some more of our Romans in Britain project with Barney, George and Freddy - with “help” from Jack (hm) - today talking about how the Roman forces were organised, and about how the Roman Empire was governed. We read that 20 emperors were murdered in a span of something like 70 years (can’t quite remember now and can’t be bothered to go and look again), and we wondered how the 20th must have felt when he became emperor - a tad anxious, we reckon

Barney and George did some French, and both blogged. George also did some ICT - both he and Barney have spent a long time with a paint-program this week. I scoffed the leftovers from last night’s dinner for lunch, and left Barney making sandwiches for everyone else while I nursed Toby to sleep. He’s been a bit unsettled this week - just not quite his usual self. I can see his first tooth just sitting right under his gum, so maybe that’s the reason.

George, Freddy and Jack are now playing with Flubber (the instructions said it would be good for a couple of weeks, but ours is fine after about five) and Barney is - well, I don’t know what he’s doing, but reading’s a fair bet. We were talking on Sunday about what he’d like to do when he’s older, and he says that he’d either like to be a scientist or a writer. “But,” he confessed, “the truth is, I like reading more than I like writing.” - which led to discussion of how he could get paid for reading, and now he’s thinking about a career in publishing

I can’t believe he’s 11 years old either. He seems so grown-up one minute, so much still a child the next. It’s almost scary how fast the time with children passes. I’m trying to bear in mind what Sue wrote a few weeks ago, when her first son was preparing to leave home; she recalled when her children were young and she found herself wishing the time wouldn’t pass so slowly - until she met a child who had numerous medical problems which meant he would be dependent on his family for the rest of his life:

I was humbled, and saddened. I also realised that it’s right and good for children to grow up, to develop new skills, and eventually to become independent. I started to give thanks for the contented passing of the days, and my children’s growing skills, rather than regretting the swift passage of time.

There’s a comic-strip here which sums it up in a slightly different, but equally thought-provoking way