NotSheep

Today did not start well; I’d a headache when I fell asleep last night and it was worse each time I woke during the night. By the time this morning arrived, I was feeling sick, and it took a while for me to feel even vaguely human. Fortunately by lunchtime it was mostly gone and I was nearly back to normal (for me LOL)

Barney and Henry worked together in the morning, with Henry writing about his stay here so far and Barney correcting bits of what he wrote. In the afternoon we took a trip to Toys’R'Us - and I realised that how irritating I find that store is positively-correlated with the number of children accompanying me. Alone, I find it annoying. With one child, it’s slightly worse. With six children - well, let’s just say that those who believe in doing penance are missing a great opportunity there.

We went because Henry wanted to buy a Bionicle of his own (like there aren’t already about 37 here) and because we need more swimming-bags. Henry got a Bionicle (not the one he wanted, but he’s happy anyway), but there were no swimming bags to be found. Half-way through the store, I realised I’d probably have had a better chance on ebay.

George and Freddy have signed up for a sports club thing that happens every Monday for the next few weeks, so I left them off at the leisure centre, then brought Barney and Henry home, since they had plans to meet their friend N, before going to collect Scratchy. We came home and heated up the potato-and-carrot soup I’d made yesterday, and I got a head-start on tomorrow’s dinner - I’m so organised Barney and Henry headed out with N for a while, then came back to ask if they could go to a club at his school tonight - table-tennis and pool and stuff like that, as far as I can gather. I said that was fine, but by the time dinner was over, Barney’s attitude had descended into grumpy, resentful and eye-rolling and since he didn’t seem fit for human company, he went to bed early instead. Henry has gone off to the club with N - the first time he’s done something like that on his own since he got here, and it feels really odd - to me! His English has already improved quite a lot, and I don’t think he’ll have much trouble (apart, possibly, from being the centre of attention - though I don’t think he’ll mind that too much ;-)) - but I feel a bit… well, like he’s growing up too fast or something! How nuts am I?

edit at 9.44 p.m. - Henry is back, safe and sound and having had a good time

Back to Barney’s mood this evening - we’ve had quite a bit of that recently and I have to say it’s not a part of parenting I’m finding thrilling. Another aspect of it is that he’s decided he doesn’t want to have his photo “all over the internet” in case “somebody sees me in the street and recognises me” (because my blog is soooo widely-read…) I suspect this is more to do with being awkward than anything else, but I’ve agreed that posts with photos will be private from now on - i.e. only visible if you’re logged in. I’ll put the posts up publicly at first, then change them to private a few days later, unless his sudden desire for privacy increases I’ll also be making my Flickr photos private, but I think most of the people who look at those either read here or are contacts there anyway.

Freddy’s just come home from ju-jitsu and disappeared to bed without saying a word - he must be tired, because usually I get a run-down of how things went.

I just discovered that a change I made last week resulted in my blog sidebar getting messed up when viewed in IE. So to those reading in IE - sorry! But why did nobody tell me? And why are you using IE anyway, when there are so many far far better options?

Sorta

What we did today:

I helped George tidy his room. When I say “helped”, I mean I sat on one of the beds and fed Toby and kept George “on task” and occasionally tossed a piece of K’nex in the general direction of the K’nex box. Well, mostly when I tossed something towards the K’nex box, George became suddenly energetic and leapt across the room to catch it before it landed in the K’nex box because it was actually a piece of Bionicle. But the floor was eventually visible clear.

We all went downstairs and I had one of my “why does nobody ever put stuff away?” rants for a bit - some of which wasn’t really audible because of the vacuum cleaner (also called Henry - causing some confusion some mirth the same tired old jokes to be repeated at regular intervals). Actually Freddy was on helper duty today and he’d done a better job in the kitchen this morning than any of the rest of them ever do, but the rest of the house made up for it, so I feel justified

Barney and Henry did some more digging for miniscule dinosaur bones in the kitchen. I got Freddy and George started on some maths, then Henry gave up on digging and came into the dining-room and I worked through some of his English book with him. I’m not sure if there’s a point to this or not. I expect that by the time he’s been here for six months, there won’t be much English vocabulary for him to learn. On the other hand it highlights the things he needs to work on, like when there should be a “h” sound and when there shouldn’t (which seems fairly logical to me: there’s a “h” sound when there’s a letter “h”… but then lots of things seem logical to me that don’t seem that way to other people, so :shrug:) and where the verb goes in the sentence. His first language is as much German as it is French, so he tends to put the verb at the end of the sentence or question - for example, “I will more have” and “after breakfast, can I shower have?” (though I also have difficulty understanding that question because it’s not typical of any of the other 11-year-old boys I’ve lived with ;-)) His English is really improving though, and I’m not at all worried about this, so why are we using his English book? Mostly because it’s there and he expects to use it, I think

He did some maths from his French maths book, and we pulled out the Cuisenaire rods to work on the idea of equivalent fractions. It would have been more fun with a huge chocolate bar though

By this time Barney had also had enough of digging for bones, so I gave him his literacy book and he did a page of that (which doesn’t sound like a lot, but given the speed at which he writes… *sigh*)

Toby sat in the dining-room and threw the colouring pencils all over the room, then made a start on some of the toys on the bottom shelf.

Somewhere in there I started making bread.

Lunch consisted of a variety of leftovers, supplemented with sandwiches for those who still weren’t satisfied. I vacuumed again (this is why Henry lives behind the dining-room door, always plugged-in… that’s the vacuum cleaner, not the child) and the children who still had work to do completed it. Some of them drew pictures too; I got a great picture of a flower from Jack, who’d drawn it just for me

Since they’d all done so much yesterday and this morning, and since it was a rainy day, I suggested a DVD in the afternoon. They chose Back to the Future.

Freddy fed the fish and searched for our latest fry, as part of his Animal Friend badge for Beavers - though he also spilled half the food on the floor, so the kitchen got vacuumed for the third time in one day.

When Scratchy arrived, the house was tidy, the boys were all peacefully engaged in productive tasks, there was fresh-baked bread sitting on the counter and the rest of dinner was just about ready to come out of the oven and be served. All of which makes the dinner conversation kind of amusing:
Freddy: I don’t think any other mother could cope with this many children.
Me: You think I cope?
George: Well, most of the time.
Freddy: No.

After dinner the kids requested another movie, and watched The Princess Bride Retro? Ah, they don’t make ‘em like they used to

Of course if I was really domestic, I’d have all those Cubs badges sewn on already. I’ll probably be going at them with fabric glue at twenty past six next Wednesday though. And we won’t even start on the badges that Barney brought home from Scouts, because although as a Scout he’s supposed to sew them on himself, somehow that takes three times as long as me doing it myself (which itself takes ten times as long as it would take anyone else).

Remember our six-legged visitors? I have to put in a plug here for the Nitty Gritty comb, which was recommended by Gill in my comments. I won’t go into details because you can read them on the website and I don’t want to make you itch - but it’s excellent. The people who make it are fantastic too - I left a note on the order-form on Sunday asking if it could be sent quickly since we’d five infested heads, and got an email on Monday saying it had already been sent first-class and offering me a second comb so that we could get through them in half the time - free of charge! I think they were hoping I’d tell the school and the GP etc… but since we don’t have any of those things, I’m singing their praises here

Oh, and Scratchy laughed when I told Toby he couldn’t have my laptop mouse because he’d deleted my last entire blog post last time he grabbed it. Scratchy isn’t taking this blogging business seriously…

I’m going to write boringly about cars now, so if you want to skip that, just jump to about half-way down this post.

I love my car.

Okay, so it’s ten years old, and it’s done 170,000 miles, and it might not be as snazzy or flashy or sexy as some of the other MPVs that are around now - but it’s comfortable, easy to drive, it fits in loads of people and loads of stuff, and I have loved it since we bought it seven years ago. It has only ever let us down once, and that was a couple of weeks ago, when it didn’t start - and a tune-up sorted that out, and now it starts with no bother at all again. It’s a Peugeot 806, and I always thought that when we finally replaced it, we would probably buy a Peugeot 807. So when I went to test-drive one of those today, I thought I’d get out of it and say, “Yep, that’s what I want - we’re looking for one of those.”

Eh… it turns out, not so much.

I do know people who own and love 807s - but I’m afraid that I much prefer the 806. The 807 just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t like the dashboard, I didn’t like the automatic doors, and it just didn’t feel good.

So I think the 807 is off the short-list. Bit of a surprise there.

I looked at a Chrysler Grand Voyager earlier this week, and I really liked that, but that particular vehicle wasn’t meant for us, and there are very few used ones for sale around here, so I don’t think we’ll get one. But one of the things I liked about it was the way the seats are laid out - from front to back, the rows have two, two and three seats, in that order (unlike most MPVs in the UK, which have two, three and two seats). And I figured I’d be lucky to get one like that, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Sedona also has that set-up. Or rather, it did, until the 2006 model - but then we’re not looking for a 2006 model, so that’s okay. So now the shortlist reads: Grand Voyager, Voyager, Sedona. I might settle for the standard seat set-up though - but I’m holding out for sliding doors

Right. That’s enough about cars.

This afternoon we all went swimming as usual. One of the nice things about going early on Friday afternoons is that we usually get the entire pool to ourselves for at least some of the time. Even when other people arrive, it’s usually very small children. And that means my guys have all the floats and balls etc to themselves too. Today they made the most of it, setting up horse-and-cart type arrangements with huge floats and pool-noodles and various other bits and pieces. Toby has really come around to liking swimming - as soon as we get into the changing-room he starts trying to remove his clothes, and once he’s changed and on the floor, he heads towards the door to the pool He even lay on his front on a big frog-shaped float today and got pulled around on that, having a great time

I left Barney and Henry in the pool and Freddy at soccer while I went for Scratchy, then we headed back to collect Freddy and make sure Henry got to soccer on time. After dinner Henry went to basketball with Scratchy, but Barney chose to stay at home, saying he was tired and wanted an early night. Huh… yeah, right. He might have climbed into pyjamas early, but there was nothing early about when he finally went to sleep. He is completely incapable of just putting a book down and closing his eyes; he has to keep reading until either we turn off the light or he just can’t keep his eyes open any longer. He’s not the only one who regularly falls asleep reading; we’re quite used to hearing an occasional thunk after the boys are asleep, as their books fall out of their hands and off their beds…

Partly a normal Saturday morning, partly not: swimming lessons for George and Freddy at 9, followed by Barney’s lesson at 9.30. Nobody went to Fit Kids today - I don’t know if Henry wants to go again, and Barney decided not to go because the alternative was to hit the library - well, if books are involved, you can’t keep him away. (Funny moment at dinner tonight, with George making up a song for Barney, to the tune of “I want to move it” from Madagascar - this version went “I want to read it read it, I want to read it read it”, and then “lots and lots of words, lots and lots of words” LOL)

So they all went off to the library with Scratchy, then walked back to the leisure-centre for George and Freddy’s gymnastics club at noon. In the meantime, I went car-shopping. More about that in a minute.

Scratchy, Barney and Henry were supposed to be going to paint the Scout Hall doors at 1 p.m., but events overtook us and we didn’t get home until nearly 3 - fortunately about ten other Scouts did make it, so the doors, I am told, now look very sharp

As for me, I had a day I won’t quickly forget. For a start, I think I might be about to buy a Chrysler Voyager. I drove it this morning, it looks good, feels good and the price is reasonable. The guy who’s selling it seems honest (it’s a trade sale, not private, but it’s a small place and he’s quite happy for our mechanic to look it over). His wife is very nice too. How do I know that? Because she made me a cup of tea when I was shaken after driving into what, thankfully, turned out not to be a child.

There was nowhere for me to leave my car while I test-drove the Voyager, you see, so it was parked up on a grass verge on the other side of the very narrow country lane where the garage is - in front of the house of the guy who owns the business. As I drove, we were chatting, as you do, and he mentioned he’d four children. We got back, I said I was interested in the car, we agreed I’d call him on Monday morning, etc. Then he went to prepare another car for someone and I got back into mine and started to reverse off the grass.

And that was when there was a bang

I reversed into a car. Or, to be more exact, I reversed my big old MPV into a very small, very red, very shiny, very new-looking, very expensive-looking sports car. Exactly the kind of car you really don’t want to drive into. Not that you want to drive into any kind of car, but if you had to do it and you had a choice, you wouldn’t choose one like that, because you just know the owner of a car like that has spent lots of money on it and has probably quite a lot of emotional investment there too

I had seen it, but I didn’t think it was quite so close, and then, just as my wheel went down off the verge, I hit it. And in the next split second, it went through my head that it could have been a child coming out of the house

It wasn’t a child, thank goodness - just a piece of metal. But still, a very red, very shiny, etc, piece of metal. And its owner, who was talking to the guy who’s selling the Voyager, was not pleased. I wasn’t sure whether he was joking when I was saying “I’m really sorry, it was such a stupid thing to do” and he was replying “Yes, it was a stupid thing to do” etc. The selling-guy was being very reassuring and saying it would polish out in five minutes, telling me not to worry. His wife, who’d seen it happen on their security cameras, came out to see if I was okay, and seeing how shaken I was, insisted on me coming into their house for a cup of tea. The man who owned the sports-car, meanwhile, got into it and drove off.

While I was drinking tea, the sales-guy came in and said that the sports-car owner hadn’t been joking, and that his attitude was unnecessary. I said he’d probably been upset (especially since, I was told, he has no children and the car is very much his baby), but they were both quite cross about the way he’d behaved. I said of course I’d pay for any damage, but the sales-guy said that he’d sort it out, it would only be a few minutes’ work, and I shouldn’t worry. He left and returned again to say the sports-car owner had phoned to say that he’d gone home and polished it and that the mark had just polished off - and that he’d apologised for his attitude! He also said that on his way home, a piece of trim came off a car in front of him and hit the front of his shiny red sports-car… really not his day!

So no harm done in the end, except possibly to my nerves.

(It’s a bit ironic that my car is going into the body-shop on Monday to deal with the damage that was caused when it was hit by another vehicle back in July!)

It was a rainy cold Sunday here. I spent the morning preparing bits and pieces for Beavers investiture, which takes place the-Tuesday-after-next, but we need to have the Beavers practice some things this week. Scratchy made a huge pot of minestrone soup which we had for lunch - quite a spicy minestrone, but good for rainy day like today.

Henry’s parents phoned and he talked with them for a very long time, but there were no tears as there were last week. I think he was too busy nagging us to take him to Tesco so he could buy Yugi-Oh cards

After lunch some of the boys went out on their bicycles, but they didn’t stay out long - it was too cold and wet, I think. Henry fell and bashed his leg and his took a chunk of skin off the palm of his hand. I felt bad making him wince as I cleaned it up, but there was some gravel stuck under the remaining skin and it needed to come out. Their friend R arrived; he was here yesterday shouting because he’d left his Yugi-Oh cards here and he thought they were hiding them, but today he came to tell them he’d found them - in his pocket.

We’ve done hardly any formal work at all recently, so I sat everyone down with workbooks; Freddy was less than impressed at doing maths on a not-a-weekday; he manages to pick and choose the rules of life very selectively Once he got into it, he was fine. George found a question in his maths book that wasn’t written very well: one of those things that you think looks straightforward but when you take the question literally, it’s a different answer. Hence George wailing “I don’t know whether to multiply it by 32 or 33!” The book wanted him to multiply by 32, but actually he was quite right, and answering it as it was worded required multiplying by 33. Henry seemed to be having trouble with decimal fractions, but I think he’s got a hold on it now, and Barney did a page of stuff on congruence and similarity. Meanwhile Jack “read” some his Superphonics book with Scratchy.

We made a huge amount of food for dinner, and it’s quite astonishing how little of it was leftover In the evening, T, my Beavers co-leader came over so we could do some planning together, bringing her own children, so mine, who were on the verge of getting into bed, got their second wind and they all bounced about until they were just too tired to bounce any more. Meanwhile T and I got the planning done for Beavers up until Christmas, so feeling quite good about that

The only thing I wanted to do today that I didn’t get to was working out. I’ve been hovering at the same weight for over a week now, and I’ve really slipped in my exercise since mid-September. Really must make that a priority this week.

Several telephone calls were required this morning. First I had to find out what time to be at the body repair shop (for my car, not for me… though that concept has a certain appeal ;-)) because I didn’t think of calling last week until it was too late. I needed to know what time, because the car-hire people were to meet me there with another MPV. It turned out that nobody from the insurance company had mentioned this to the car-hire people though, so they weren’t able to meet me there until late afternoon.

Then I called the seller of the Voyager I saw on Saturday, and told him we’d buy it. We should have it by the end of this week, maybe even sooner

Since we had a few hours to fill, and a car at our disposal, we headed to my mate S’s house, and nine children bounced around there all day, ate copious amounts, and generally kept themselves well-entertained while S and I nattered. One of her sons took a great liking to a tiny Mrs Incredible that was attached to my mobile phone, so I took it off and gave it to him, and he carried it about for the next three hours or so

(Don’t ask why I had Mrs Incredible attached to my phone - it’s a long story involving ebay, plans for Christmas stockings, and a certain four-year-old who is too curious for his own good!)

We left there about 3 p.m. and headed back across town to the body-repair place, where I moved six children and about nineteen child-seats (well, it felt like that many!) from my car into the hire car. They’ve given me an Espace - which I discovered is short for “Eeeeh, this vehicle hasn’t got much space”. I can’t believe how much less room there is in it than in my own car! To get a stroller in the back, I had to push all the seats forwards until everyone’s knees were touching the seats in front. Now I’ve taken the stroller out and moved the seats so there’s a little bit of leg-room, but the back seats are right up against the back door, so there’s no room for any stuff. Glad I didn’t buy one of those then. Not that I would have anyway, since it hasn’t got sliding doors

I left George and Freddy at the sports club at the leisure centre, collected Scratchy, left him making dinner while I collected George and Freddy, came home and ate fast. The insurance on the hire-car only covers me to drive it, so I’ll be doing the running-about for the next few days Tonight that meant that I had to take Freddy to and from ju-jitsu. Barney and Henry wanted to go to the youth club that Henry went to last week, and since I was going out with Freddy anyway, we struck a deal whereby I would deliver them and their friend N to the school where it’s held, and then N’s parents would bring them back - which allowed me to be back and settling Toby into bed shortly after 8 p.m. - not that Toby had any intention of going to sleep at that time anyway…

Barney and Henry have just returned from the youth club, tired but cheery; I’m told they played basketball, table-soccer, computer games and just hung out. Sounds like a pretty good way to spend an evening if you’re an eleven-year-old boy

It’s been a day of getting things done

I exercised first thing this morning. Mornings are the best time for me to exercise; if I leave it until later in the day it gives me too much time to think up an excuse for not doing it But mornings are also quite a difficult time to fit in exercise, because Toby wants me quite a lot and I’m usually trying to get the others through breakfast and cleaning up afterwards without too much trauma. Today though, I somehow managed it, and felt very virtuous about it too

Then we all sat around the table in the conservatory and did some work. It’s really nice working in there: lots of light, and now that both leaves are in the table, it’s probably the biggest flat surface in the house too. There’s just the small problem of it being cold Actually I’ve recently put a small fan-type heater in there so we can use it to eat in the evenings, but there are radiators in there and if we’re going to use it more during the day, I might even turn them on I don’t suppose the extra energy consumed by the radiators in there would be balanced by not needing any lights turned on though, so it might be more economical to just keep using the fan-heater. Jack wrote lots of “f”s and drew lots of flowers, while the others did bits of science, geography and French (Barney); maths, English and geography (Henry); geography, French and writing stories (George) and maths and geography (Freddy). There might have been something else in there too, but I can’t remember what just now. The story that George wrote was particularly entertaining; all about a king, a hero with a pegasus, and something called a Nobgoblin

The afternoon was a bit less productive; I was tired (too much Kakuro-ing and not enough sleep) and Toby was grouchy so I went and lay in bed with him so he could sleep and I could rest. I collected Scratchy from work and we eventually got dinner on the table, then George went to Cubs. At 7.40ish, everyone else climbed into the nightmare MPV car, and we went to get George and left Barney and Henry at Scouts (and got a Scout shirt for Henry, much to his delight), then drove across the city to collect my new car :-D

Scratchy had to drive it home though, because I’m the only one who’s insured to drive the nightmare MPV hire-car He’ll have to drive it tomorrow too, when he’ll be off work and we have a special outing planned… there will probably be no post tomorrow, but lots of photos soon afterwards - watch this space

This is where I try to remember everything else we’ve done in the last three days

Thursday, as mentioned, was spent doing tourist-y things. The rope-bridge will be taken down for the winter by the end of this month, and we wanted to take Henry across it before that. And since it’s only a few minutes away from one of the things he was really looking forward to, there was no point in doing just one of them

In case you’ve looked at the photographs and wondered why Barney was wearing his sweater around his neck in that weird fashion, the explanation is very simple: he spent the day being Zaphod Beeblebrox. Should I worry?

Friday… well, Friday started spectacularly badly. I shouted at Henry and made him cry Actually I shouted at everyone, but Henry took me much more seriously than any of the others ever do. And he was only asking for an envelope… though it was about the seventh time in two hours, and I had said I’d get him one when I got a minute to do it, and I was in the middle of one of those mornings where you say the same thing over and over (mostly “where are your swimming things?” and “why don’t you have your socks on yet?” this time)… but still… I apologised for shouting, and Henry cried a bit on my shoulder, and we made up. Later on, when I was telling Scratchy what had happened, I said “…but we made friends again”, and Henry came over and put his arm around my shoulder and said “We made family!” - so that was nice. Scratchy’s response to hearing the tale of woe was to stick his hand out to shake Henry’s and to say “You got shouted at? Welcome to the family!”

We got out to the car and I discovered one of the back seats wasn’t latched in properly; it took about 20 minutes to get it in, though it might have been quicker if I’d thought to look in the manual. The day did improve from there though. I took the Voyager (now otherwise known as “the black car”) to my mechanic, where one of the guys who works for him looked at it and made enthusiastic noises like “it’ll do you” and “yeah it’ll go”. Right. Thanks. We came home for lunch, then went swimming (all the kids and me), soccer-ing (Barney and Freddy) and basketball-ing (Henry, Barney and Scratchy).

Jack spent much of the day wailing; he likes to make sure everyone knows it when he’s feeling under the weather. He brightened enough to go swimming (I let him decide if he wanted to swim or watch), though wasn’t up to his usual levels of energy when we were in the pool. He breathes very heavily when he’s sick; I’m wondering if I should get that checked out.

This morning started with swimming lessons for Barney, George and Freddy, as Saturdays usually do - but unlike most Saturdays, I took them today. I wanted to go and work out in the gym. We got out of the car at the leisure centre and as I locked it, Scratchy phoned: George’s swimming stuff was still in the kitchen. I looked at George and Freddy and realised neither of them had a swimming-bag. At least Freddy’s was in the car - but we had to come back for George’s, so they were late to their lesson. Writing this, it’s just occurred to me that I could have sent him in with Barney’s swimming gear and brought Barney back for more, as his lesson doesn’t start until half an hour later… but I didn’t think of that this morning! Anyway, they all got their lessons and I got my workout, and Barney went to Fit Kids and then swam again, and we came back home so George could change into clothing more suitable for gymnastics (because y’know it just wouldn’t do to wear something suitable in the first place…) Meanwhile Henry stayed at home and did maths with Scratchy - Henry’s choice. Funny kid

The four oldest (that’s Barney, Henry, George and Freddy - just in case you were having trouble keeping up - which would be forgiven, because I have to think about it, and I live here LOL) spent the afternoon proving that they were indeed born in a barn, and I spent it saying “shut the door!” Barney and Henry went out with some local friends for a while, then came back in and played computer games; George and Freddy disappeared to R’s house (across the street - R’s mother has four children of her own, including three boys, so the arrival of my lot doesn’t scare her as much as it scares some of the other local mums LOL) Jack is still not quite well but is much better than the last day or two (or at least he’s a better colour and he’s not making nearly as much noise!); he watched Barney and Henry on the computer. Scratchy went to basketball and Toby beat me up with bits of paper and anything else he could find, laughing at himself the whole time. Now they’re all watching a DVD before bed, and I’m going to attempt to catch up on email.

Title lifted from an Oasis song, but it’s true -I’m having trouble finding time to blog

Sunday was Sunday, and don’t ask me what we did, because most of it has long since slipped into the recesses of my memory, never to be seen or heard from again. I do remember that we gathered up the bits of the K’nex Pinball Machine from all over the house and put it back together again. K’nex is so creative; I love it. But the bits end up everywhere; I hate it

Today we left the house early - as in, just after 8.30 a.m. Yes, I got six children fed and organised and out of the house and into the car that early. It’s a bit shocking, but it’s true We had booked to go see Cars with FilmEducation, and that meant getting to a cinema on the other side of the city by 10 o’clock. Traffic was dreadful, and we arrived with not a minute to spare. Getting there took more than three times as long as it took to get home afterwards!

After lunch, all the boys settled down to a bit of work around the table in the conservatory, then I took George and Freddy to their sports club. Toby fell asleep in the car on the way home, so I asked Barney to sit in the car with him and that gave me a chance to start preparing dinner.

The novelty around Henry being here is definitely wearing off - both for Barney and Henry. This weekend, Henry asked to switch rooms with Freddy, which would mean Henry having a room of his own and Freddy sharing with Barney - who was not happy at the prospect. I’m not convinced it’s a good idea for Henry to be in a separate room from the rest just now; I’m concerned he’d end up spending a lot of time in there and not enough time interacting with everyone. After talking about it a bit, it seems he has two problems with sharing with Barney: one, that Barney stays up very late reading, and two, that he’s used to his room being tidy and organised and Barney is, to put it bluntly, a slob. I explained to both of them that part of an exchange like this is that they learn how to rub along with other people who might be quite different to themselves in various ways, and learning to compromise and be tolerant. Barney has agreed to try to be tidier and Henry has agreed to try to make allowances. I suggested he could gently remind Barney when there was stuff to be tidied up, though in retrospect that might not have been such a good idea, as his reminder to Barney this evening wasn’t very gentle Regarding the reading-to-all-hours, Henry is absolutely right - Barney reads far too late. Henry’s complaint about this is that the light is on; my complaint about it is that Barney is grumpy the next day! So we’ve all agreed to lights-out at 9 p.m. when they’re home at that time and straight-to-bed-no-reading if they’re out past then. We’ll look at things again in a couple of weeks and see how everyone feels.

Henry wasn’t very pleased that I wouldn’t allow switching rooms, and he was even less pleased when I had some very stern words with him at dinner tonight for acting as though the food was making him throw up - something I’d already told him to not do while we were making dinner. Nobody has to eat something they really don’t like here, but saying “no thank you, I’ll just make myself a sandwich” is a heck of a lot better than throwing yourself off your chair and retching. First he claimed that it was acceptable behaviour in France; when I said I doubted it but even if it was I certainly wasn’t having it here, he ran from the room and headed upstairs. I left him a few minutes and then went and knocked on the door of the bedroom, where he was crying. We talked for a few minutes and I reminded him that I wouldn’t take that from Barney or George or Freddy, or even Jack, who’s just four years old, and he seemed willing to accept that it was right for us to treat him just like the other children here.

I can see that it’s all part of testing limits, finding out how we’ll react; it’s just hard sometimes finding the right balance between making allowances and not making allowances if you see what I mean!

After dinner I went to collect George and Freddy; the latter requested that Scratchy take him to ju-jitsu this evening because he wanted to go in the new car My Peugeot still isn’t back, so I’m still driving the Espace *spit* (and how glad am I that we managed to get a rental MPV provided rather than try to muddle through a few days without a vehicle!) Then Freddy said that the oldest person should be the boss - I don’t think he’s thought this one through, as that puts him quite far down the ranks I think the conversation was triggered by Henry calling me “Boss”; that’s Scratchy’s doing, but I’m not complaining Freddy said that since Scratchy is older than me, he should be the boss. I said that neither of us was really the boss and that everyone in our family gets a say, at which point George piped up in a cheery voice, “Yeah, our family’s great!” I laughed and asked what made it great, and he said “Well… we home-educate, that’s good!” Then Freddy said “Because there are no girls… er, no that’s not really a reason!”

Ju-jitsu didn’t last very long this evening; Freddy’s just come home saying he has a stomachache Barney’s been feeling a bit rough today too; when we came out of the cinema this morning he said he felt sick and he was certainly a bit grey. He didn’t eat lunch, and didn’t eat much at dinner either - and he’s just arrived in to show me a bunch of spots all over his torso and thighs. Not sure what they are, but I’m sure an infection running through the family will make for so much fun

We went to see another movie courtesy of Filmeducation this morning - this time it was Stormbreaker. It was very nearly excellent; unfortunately the “baddies” were played for cheap laughs and Nadia Vole seems to have had a completely different director to the rest of the movie, as she seems to have been thinking she was acting for Loony Tunes. But anyway.

Apart from one primary school group and us, the entire audience was secondary school groups. I wish I’d had a camera, because anyone who watched them would never again assume that school teaches social skills. There wasn’t a single secondary school group that didn’t take at least twenty minutes to get seated, and which didn’t then promptly lose half its members as they went off to “just going to the toilet” only to return with popcorn and drinks. Fair enough - except that all but one of them arrived after the movie was due to start. It was delayed by over half an hour while the staff - the cinema staff, not the teachers - tried to get everyone settled down.

The theatre is one of those with an aisle running from one side to the other, about half-way back from the screen, and we were sitting in the first row after it. Good for stretching your legs, not so good for teenagers ploughing past you and kicking your feet or your knees or - in one case - the one-year-old standing beside your legs. Not one of them apologised either.

But the schoolkids from at least one of the groups could be forgiven, because they certainly weren’t getting set a good example by their teachers. One of the teachers came in and glanced over at us, gave us avery fake, exaggerated, WTF-type look and then said to the cinema staff “Is this Stormbreaker?” When the cinema staff confirmed it was, she gave us the same look again and said “For secondary?” I was tempted to tell her that most of the kids with me had read the book, and ask how many of those with her had read it - or if she’d read it herself - but then she answered that last question by asking the staff, “What’s it about?” The staff member told her it was like “a teenage James Bond”, whereupon she said something else that I didn’t catch, gave us another long, dirty look and waltzed off down the aisle to sit with some of her students and giggle.

In a way I wish she’d said something to me directly, or at least close enough that I could have challenged her easily - I’d have told her that it was examples like hers we were trying to avoid… or I might have pointed out that we were organised enough to show up on time, courteous enough to get seated quickly and quietly and polite enough not to be making faces at people!

As we were leaving afterwards, one of the cinema staff actually stopped me and apologised for the teacher’s behaviour, and another staff member came over and said they’d been talking about it during the movie and the kids with me had been far better-behaved and more attentive than the ones with the rude teacher

I had a really efficient morning and a really inefficient afternoon

In the morning I got everything all tidied up and the kids did loads of work, all by about 11.30. Barney did a page of maths in half the time it would have taken me - plans and elevations are not my thing! - and I think that Henry is getting a handle on decimals now. George nitpicked his way through some workbook questions (he has no tolerance for poor wording - wonder where he gets that then? ;-)) and Jack drew around his hand and decorated it. Freddy did something too, though I can’t remember what now. Toby stayed awake all morning - a first for him. I realised at about 11.30 that he hadn’t napped at all, so I gave him an early lunch so he could get a good sleep after it, rather than having him wake hungry after a half-hour sleep. I don’t know if this is the start of him moving to a one-nap-a-day pattern; it would be quite good if it was, as at the minute he tends to snooze on-and-off in my arms, and that’s not really conducive to me getting things done. Then again, nor was what he did today, since I went and lay down with him while the rest made and ate their lunch

Henry has discovered the joys of the Argos catalogue, and spent a good portion of the day deciphering the various information given about mp3 players. He also spent some time trying to convince us that he should be able to ask his parents to send him money for one, but he clearly underestimates our ability to negotiate with eleven-year-olds I told him that the best thing might be to write a letter to Santa Claus - so he did, and included all the information about the specific model he likes, including the catalogue number He also said he wanted to write a letter to the guy who runs the exchange organisation - and asked me to help him write it in English - so we did that, and I wrote a short note myself, and then Barney added a bit. So he’ll be getting a fairly thorough run-down of what we all think

When Scratchy walked in this afternoon, I walked out - not because I don’t like him but because I have stalled in my efforts to lose weight and get fit, and I wanted to go to the gym. In fact I’ve bought a three-month membership, in the hope that actually having handed over cash for it will make me feel that I have to get my money’s worth Coming out, I got a phone-call to say that the body-repair place had finished with my car (finally!) so I headed over to collect it - then realised that I couldn’t return the hire-car tonight, so the body-repair guy drove my car to my house and then I took him back. Except that they’d missed the dent in the panel behind the wheel-well, so it will have to go back in for a day at some point to get that fixed Thus there are three MPVs (that’s a total of 21 seats, in case anyone’s counting) in my driveway tonight

Tomorrow is swimming and soccer - except, of course, that Barney won’t be doing either. He’s happy to stay at home while we swim, and Scratchy finishes work early on Fridays so he’ll only be on his own for an hour or two - but I do feel bad for him. As if that wasn’t enough, the Cubs are going on a night-hike through a local forest tomorrow evening, and the Cub leader had said Barney and Henry could go too - but of course Barney can’t now. At least he should be over it in time to go trick-or-treating at Hallowe’en (and I hope nobody else is struck down then, because they’ll be very displeased about missing that!)

That’s me. Timeless.

Not in the sense that a little black dress or a good linen suit or certain music is timeless, but in the sense that I have no time! I’m stealing a few minutes to write this while the kids have breakfast.

So here’s another of those reviews of what we’ve done in the past few days - or rather another of those attempts at such, since I’m generally hopeless at remembering.

*checks to see when last post was. Thursday. Okay. So we’re starting with Friday.*

On Friday morning… uh… the boys did some work and while they were doing that I phoned the car body repair shop to tell them they’d missed a bit, the insurance company to tell them the same, and the car-hire place to ask them to please come and pick up their horrible piece of junk from my driveway. They said they’d send someone but it would be close to 1 o’clock (when I’d said I’d be going out). At 5 to 1, I phoned again and they said they’d nobody available to send, so they’d come in the evening. They didn’t, and the piece of junk remained in the driveway.

In the afternoon, we all went swimming, except for spotty Barney. There’s a small slide beside the children’s pool, and I tried to get Jack to go down it, but he refused. I sat him on the bottom of it (a whole two inches higher than the side of the pool, which he regularly and cheerfully leaps off) and he screamed in my ear. I pulled him off it into the pool. I sat him back up, a little bit higher this time, and he screamed, at a lower volume this time, and I pulled him in again. Then I turned to pay attention to someone else for a few seconds, and turned back to see Jack fly off the bottom of the slide - having climbed the steps and come down from the top. And that was it for the rest of the session - he must have come down that slide at least thirty times

I would never have done that with Barney or George or Freddy; they’d all have reacted differently, but it wouldn’t have worked for any of them. And in general it’s not the way I parent; I don’t force children to do stuff they don’t want to do. But in Jack’s case I knew several things: that he’d love going down the slide, that he’d protest, and that the protest would have more to do with me interfering with his agenda than with any fear or dislike of going down that slide. And that he’d quickly agree that it was great fun and he was glad I’d pushed him to do it. Sure enough, by the time we were getting dressed, he was laughing and saying “you put me on the slide and then I just went down it on my own and I amazed you!”

On Friday evening, George had the Cubs annual night-hike - every year, several local Cub groups hike through a forest in the dark. Scratchy and Henry went along too, and they had a good time, though apparently Henry went through a phase of complaining that it wasn’t as good as the Pyrenees. Huh. He didn’t get much sympathy

Saturday morning… I took Freddy and George to swimming and went to the gym while they were in the pool and getting changed afterwards. They moaned a bit when I stood chatting with someone outside the leisure-centre, but when we got in the car and I reminded them that they liked spending time with their friends, they immediately said “And you don’t get much time with your friends, do you?” and then “So we don’t mind waiting while you talk!” and cheered up!

I phoned the car hire company again, to remind them that I still had their heap of junk, and they said “we don’t have any staff here this morning that we can spare… would you like to buy it?” I said I’d take if it was free but I certainly wasn’t paying good money for it

George and Freddy were back to the leisure-centre for gymnastics later in the morning. My memories of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning have dissolved already; I’ve a vague idea that we all just hung out. Oh - we also put away laundry and I emptied and tidied the linen closet. I went back to the gym (again!) when it opened at noon on Sunday, and since I’d a bit more time I went swimming too. I tried out the “spa pool” but only lasted about a minute in it before I got bored

(Actually that’s my biggest problem with working out: it bores me. I find myself calculating the percentage of time I have left on the treadmill or whatever - what percentage of 20 minutes is 6 minutes 24 seconds etc - just because my mind is going numb. There’s a television which plays music channels, but the music from the speakers is usually from some other source so it’s just annoying, so I avoid looking. Also because of the disgustingly-thin people who populate the world of music videos.)

Scratchy and Henry went to basketball on Sunday afternoon, and N came in and played with the others (once I’d checked that he’d already had chickenpox) - actually I think he played more with Jack than anyone else, but I don’t know if that’s because he likes Jack or if it’s because Jack is very bossy and N doesn’t know how to get away from him

On Monday morning the boys did loads of work: French, geography, art appreciation (i.e. we read some more of the Usborne book together), English, and probably more that I can’t remember. Henry does the same thing with maths that a lot of kids do: when he doesn’t understand something, he nods and says “okay”, rather than saying “Uh, no, actually I don’t get it.” Fortunately with one-on-one it’s easy to spot this so I’ve been able to slow right down with him and work through things in different ways and from different angles until it clicks. He was delighted yesterday to get several of the questions on decimals in his maths book correct first time

After lunch the car-hire people finally came for their lump of metal (getting lost twice on the way, despite me having told them that it was a case of following the road from outside their offices and not turning until they got to my street). Then I took the boys to buy what they needed for their Halloween costumes, since they’ve all been telling me they need this and that for the last couple of weeks. When I’d finally found a parking-space and got everyone out of the car and into the shop, I said to each of them “What do you need for your costume?” - only to discover, as I went through each costume, that they all had everything already!

Freddy and George had sports club at the leisure centre at 4pm, and the rest of us played in the playground there until Scratchy arrived; then I went into the gym (yes, again… and can someone explain exactly why I’m not thin yet?) while Scratchy took the remaining children home and made dinner. I met George and Freddy after they were finished, and we came home too. Freddy had ju-jitsu in the evening, and he came home delighted because he’s been put forward for his yellow belt - from his point of view, this is good in itself, but even better because it means he’s one belt ahead of all the others Henry went to the youth club with his friend N (Barney would have gone too if he hadn’t still been spotty - I don’t think he’s infectious anymore, but he’s still spotty enough to scare people ;-))

And it sounds like breakfast is over, so I’d better go interact with some children

“Where did you leave your head?”

“How come you have three hands and he has none?”

“Go and look in the dining-room in case you left your foot in there.”

“This head looks too small to be yours.”

All these were said by me on Tuesday morning. I can explain though!

We were making life-size paper skeletons. We make them every year at Hallowe’en - they’re easy and cheap and fun and, well, kids love crafts that are as big as they are All you have to do is:
- cut white paper into strips (cheapo printer paper will do)
- make a paper-chain that reaches from the child’s neck to his feet
- make another paper-chain the length of his leg, and attach it to the first at his hip-height
- make two more paper-chains, each the length of his arms, and attach them just below the top of the first chain
- get the child to draw around his hands and feet and cut them out, and attach the hands to the ends of the arms and the feet to the ends of the legs
- get the child to lie down on his back with his head on a bit of paper and you draw around it - or if you’ve got a group, pair them up and have them do it for one another. Cut it out.
- decorate the “face” and attach it to the top of the “skeleton”

Dead easy (pun totally intended LOL) I sent Barney to take photos of everybody with their skeletons this afternoon, but he cut off Freddy’s head (in the photo, not his real or paper-chain head LOL) and made Henry and Jack all fuzzy, so I’ll have to redo the photos tomorrow.

We also made tissue-ghosts; these are even easier. Box of tissues. Take one tissue and crumple it into a ball. Take another tissue and drape it over the first, then tie it with a bit of thread so it contains the first tissue. Make two eyes with a marker and hang it up with the thread. If there’s even the slightest breeze in the room (even just people moving will do), these move about in a floaty, very ghosty kind of way and look great. They look even better if you make lots of them

Freddy and I got to do it all over again with Beavers on Tuesday evening. Meanwhile George went to St John Ambulance Badgers and Barney and Henry went to Cadets - Barney’s first time out since he went all poxy

On Wednesday… uh… er… well, you all know how bad I am at remembering what happened each day if I don’t blog it within 24 hours. I do remember promising a trip to the science centre for today if they tidied up the house and it was still tidy (or tidy again) by bedtime - but that didn’t happen. There was Cubs and Scouts in the evening though. And I do remember feeling very domesticated because we had stinky pizza for lunch and I had dinner going in the slow-cooker (unfortunately it was too slow and had to be finished off in the oven… oops!)

This morning started with me reading the riot act to everyone because of… well, the state of the house, people’s attitudes towards each other and a variety of other things really. Nobody escaped (except Toby, of course). I told them pocket-money would be suspended indefinitely if they didn’t shape up, which seemed to scare them all into making an effort - though I did move Freddy back into the bedroom with George and Jack after I found chocolate chips under his mattress (in a container, thankfully!) Then we sat down in the conservatory and did some schoolywork. Freddy has almost finished the first Minimus book, but Henry requested that I teach him Latin - so I went back to the beginning of it with him. Maybe I was born to be a Latin teacher? *thinks* Nah. Henry has come here in part to become fluent in English; how impressive would it be if he went back to France speaking Latin too?

In the afternoon they all had free time except for Barney, who had some writing to do. Henry complained of having too much time, so I offered to keep him studying for the school hours he’s used to (8.30-4.30), but he declined I did, with Barney’s help, find a pile of books in which the language is simple enough for him to read alone, but which aren’t so little-kid-ish that he won’t enjoy reading them.

I headed to the gym while dinner was being made - I am being so good about that, I wonder how long it will last - then came home so famished (as George would say) that I stuffed my face with two servings of dinner and two bits of apple-pie for dessert. They were only small bits of apple-pie though; Scratchy hasn’t yet come to terms with the number of people living here and continues to buy things like that one at a time - whereas I just assume that everything will need doubling, because leftovers never stay that way for long in a house with six growing boys!

Scratchy drove one of his colleagues home from work today and got to meet his new baby - born about three weeks ago.

And here’s a turn-up for the books: Scratchy’s broody.

I don’t know where the time goes. Here we are again, with me doing (yet) another catch-up blog-post.

Anyway. On with the show and all that.

On Friday morning, I abandoned most of the children. Well, sort of. I had shopping I needed to get done, and I knew they’d all be bored stiff traipsing in and out of shops after me, so I phoned my friend T (also my co-leader at Beavers) and asked if she’d be free to have them for a couple of hours. She was up for it, so I left all except Toby with her and took her eldest, C, off to school. He was going in late, partly because his school-bus hadn’t arrived and partly because he wanted to miss geography anyway. When we were talking in the car on the way to the school, he seemed a bit… well, not quite the way he usually is… and after I dropped him off (only metres from the door), I thought, “If I hadn’t dropped you right at the school door, I’d be thinking you’d have skived off.”

I did my errands, then went back to T’s; she went and collected her younger son and the little girl she childminds from school (half-day since it was the last before half-term) and then made me tea and all the kids lunch. Oh, and her mother came and collected her younger son and took him back with her, to join his older brother who had - guess what? - not actually made it through the school-door after I dropped him off…

We left T’s and headed for the swimming-pool; Jack threw himself down the slide every which way (clearly traumatised by my forcing him onto it last week). Scratchy met us after swimming and took some of the kids home while others went to soccer and I worked out at the gym. Then it was home for dinner, after which Scratchy and Henry went to basketball.

Saturday morning started just like last week: Barney, George and Freddy to swimming lessons and me to the gym. It was assessment week for the kids, and George is to move up a level - putting him in the same class as Barney again, and leaving Freddy on his own. We came home for a snack, then I took George and Freddy to gymnastics, went to exchange something I’d bought, stopped at T’s to leave something with her, and ended up bringing her two boys home with me (collecting George and Freddy on the way). The boys spent the rest of the afternoon bouncing about (at times literally: the trampoline got plenty of use). Freddy complained of being tired, and actually went to bed and slept for a couple of hours - very unlike him (but explained today). T came for them later and we drank yet more tea and talked even more, then it was dinner and bed - though not sleep, at least not immediately, since somebody was setting off fireworks nearby.

This morning started slowly. Scratchy was working today and everybody was still wandering about in pyjamas when Henry’s mum and dad phoned. I’m not sure why, but he dissolved into tears during the call. I think we’re at a difficult point: the novelty has worn off, as has all the on-best-behaviour (for everyone), but he’s not quite at the point of viewing us as part of his family. He’s also deschooling to some extent, and being confined to the house a bit more than usual (with Barney’s chickenpox) didn’t help. After the call, I talked with him for a while and he cried a little but soon settled. His poor parents - having him unhappy on the phone must be so distressing for them I was very glad that they phoned again this evening and I was able to reassure them that this morning wasn’t at all typical of how things are going. It is sometimes difficult for him, and he is sometimes down, but he’s an eleven-year-old boy who’s away from his family, in a foreign country, in a very different environment to the one he’s used to, doing new things, and surrounded by people speaking a new language - and I think that he’s actually doing very well. If he really was unhappy all (or even most of) the time, I wouldn’t want him to stay. There are huge benefits to be had from an exchange like this, but they’re not worth six months of misery. If he wasn’t coping, I’d be doing something about it - including sending him back to France if necessary. But most of the time, he’s fine - and indeed he told Scratchy in the car this evening that “this is my choice, and I will stay for six months”.

Anyway, backing up a bit… while I made lunch, Barney commented that Freddy looked like he had chickenpox - and waddyaknow, he was right. Not just Freddy either. Jack too, and almost certainly George as well. In one way, it’s a good week to get it over with: it’s half-term, so most of the boys’ activities are cancelled anyway. In another way, it’s lousy timing: they won’t get to go trick-or-treating, and Freddy will miss at least one of the two ju-jitsu practices before his grading.

After lunch George and Freddy chose a DVD to watch, but Barney and Henry weren’t thrilled with the choice, so I set Henry up with a Neopets account and Barney “showed him around” the world of Neopia. It didn’t take long before I heard Henry shouting from the dining-room, “I love Neopets!”

The rest of the afternoon was mostly spent vegging in the family room, followed by dinner (brought home by Scratchy - it was just that kind of day), then a fairly early night for all. I can’t believe another week has gone by…

George, Freddy, Jack and Toby have chickenpox.

Jack has more spots than I ever would have thought would fit on his little body. He’s got a spot on his eyelid (he had a stye last weekend and thought he had another and told me, “I’ve got a tie in my eye!”) and a massive one right in one of the creases on his neck. Freddy isn’t far behind him and is complaining of a headache (he’s quite a headache-y child). George isn’t so bad, but still has a good covering of spots. I was hoping Toby wouldn’t get it, but he’s got a handful of small red marks that could be chickenpox, and two large spots on his back that certainly are.

George and Freddy were awake and talking and turning on their bedroom light at 2.30 this morning. It was after 3.30 before they settled down again.

They’ve got friends coming today (the friends have already had chickenpox).

I want to hide