NotSheep

For a variety of reasons, it’s not been a particularly fun week around here, and I still haven’t found the words to describe how I feel about the main thing that’s been on my mind, so I haven’t felt like writing much. Thanks to those who sent hugs after my last post, particularly Alison, who came back a couple of days later to offer more support (when she wasn’t boasting about being a neglectful mother on usenet and )

Barney has been up and down all week - one minute it’s “I hate French and I’m not learning it!”, the next he’s looking forward to going to France. Jack told him at lunchtime that he didn’t want him to go to France, and at dinner he said, in his you-do-know-I-actually-run-the-place voice, “Well if Barney’s going to France, I’m going with him.” When someone said “Why?”, his response, given in his well-of-course-and-what-a-stupid-question voice, was “He’s my brother!”

Henry was astonished when I told him that he’s got a natural talent for geometry, and I saw this week just how much his confidence in maths has grown, which was very rewarding for me because I have put in a huge amount of effort with his maths, and will admit there have been times when I was ready to tear my hair out over it. I hope his confidence spreads to other subjects when he returns to school. I told him I expected him to come top in his English tests (no pressure though LOL)

At dinner tonight, we were trying to remember how to say “ground beef” in French, and we didn’t get any further than boeuf until George piped up, “boeuf de terre!” Later this evening though, he had the mother of all meltdowns; it’s been building for a while, so I hope that now he’s got it all out, he’ll cope with things better. He’s filled out an exchange application, though we are only doing a one-way exchange for him at this point, due to his need for help with his big feelings (see previous sentence).

Freddy’s mental arithmetic is now impressive, perhaps in part because he has taken to weighing himself before and after going to the toilet because they said in Brainiac that you lose weight when you, er, go

Jack, having seemed slightly calmer recently, is back in I-never-stop-talking mode. I heard Henry mutter, “Jack, stop talking!” from the back of the car today; that dispels any doubts there might have been about him being part of the family then

Toby is, despite my complaints, an absolute delight. He was a bit “off” last weekend - off-form, off-his-food, but not off-my-chest - which I think was because the antibiotics were making him feel that way, but they’re done and his fingers are better (though I think he’s going to lose the two nails) and he’s back to being very lively and inquisitive. He totally knows how to get his own way: yell at the person who’s stopping you until they stop stopping you He’s running about everywhere, and we’re going to have to review our stair-security soon; we have two gates but they aren’t wide enough to be stable on the stairs (and Toby knows it!) so right now there’s an ottoman across the bottom of the stairs and when we’re upstairs we just chase him frantically. He managed to climb onto the ottoman a couple of days ago though, so that’s not going to work for much longer. He’s a very effective human vacuum cleaner; when climbing the stairs, he picks up every little bit of anything and gives it to the person who’s following him. He hasn’t realised yet we mostly just toss it over the rail into the hall, to be sucked up next time the actual vacuum cleaner comes out In the pool today, he got his hands on a small plastic watering-can and spent about 40 minutes investigating how it worked and what he could do with it (no concerns about his attention-span then!) He and Jack are playing together a lot these days.

We’ve not done anything very exciting; it’s been half-term so we’ve been avoiding the hordes The boys have all done lots of work, and I’m hoping we can finish what we need to with Barney and Henry by the end of February, so we can take a couple of weeks off completely before they go. Certainly there’ll be no studying by anyone the week they actually leave; I’ll be in no fit state to support it Henry, Barney and George went to St John Ambulance on Tuesday and to Cubs/Scouts on Wednesday; Freddy went to Badgers with George, as there was no Beavers (lots of boys don’t come when it’s half-term, so we decided to take a week off). We all went swimming this afternoon and then left Barney and George in the pool with the instructor for their lesson while the rest of us ate chips in the cafeteria.

Henry’s mother in France has been into the school to talk to the head of the year about Barney’s arrival. It feels very strange knowing that Barney will be going to school, but even stranger knowing that some other parent is making the arrangements. What I mean is, I always thought that if any of the boys was going to go to school, we’d go together to visit a few possibilities, talk to the staff etc, before making a decision - and this is a very different scenario from that. I am worried about how he’ll manage, but it’s completely beyond my control so all I can do is hope. I wrote an email to Henry’s mother in France saying that I didn’t expect the school to teach him anything, but what I meant was that I don’t hold them in any way responsible for his education. If he goes and absorbs French all day and gets absolutely nothing else educational from attending, that’s fine with me; in fact it would be my preference if the teachers would just take that attitude and let him sit and join in as he can without pushing him at all - I daresay he’d learn just as much, and it would take some of the pressure off him.

The exchange organisation is keen for us to contact the media before the boys go; they’re always looking for English-speaking families and we’re the first family in the province to do an exchange. The guy who runs it all loved the photographs of the boys in their uniform and suggested we give a copy of the second photo in that blog-post to the media. But Barney says if we make a big fuss it will just make it harder for him to leave, so I feel we have to respect that. Perhaps when he comes back (assuming he stays, and assuming it’s a positive experience for him).

Right, busy day tomorrow, so I’m off to bed. Have a good weekend