NotSheep

Starting from Monday - only a four-day catch-up this time, so maybe it will be shorter than the sidebar for once

On Monday night, Freddy had ju-jitsu and Barney had Air Cadets. Freddy complained of a headache and feeling dizzy when he got home; apparently he’d been feeling unwell enough during the class that he sat out for part of it. I put him to bed in the hope that he wouldn’t fall prey to whatever it was that struck Barney last week, but he seemed better by Tuesday morning.

Barney wants to go to an Air Cadets camp in the summer. It’s quite a bit longer than he’s ever done with Scouts - nine days - and it’s in England (Shrewsbury, I think, although he’s not entirely sure of the location!) He’s the only Cadet from his squadron to volunteer, so he’d be going without knowing anyone else there at all. Scratchy wasn’t very happy with the idea of him going, and while I’m not entirely easy with it, I also don’t want to be the kind of parent who discourages her children from trying new and adventurous things - and I must admit, I’m proud of him for having the confidence to do so, especially when it’s a situation like this, when nobody else he knows is going. When we deregistered him from school (nearly seven years ago!) the head teacher (who had also been his class teacher the previous year) was supportive, but expressed concerns about his social skills - not the usual “but how will he learn to get along with other children?” that all home-educators are used to, but more “he’s not very socially confident, I think that’s something to keep an eye on”. He’d always been a very self-aware child, so her thoughts were no surprise to me - but within weeks of deregistering him, I noticed that he was less bothered about what other people thought, and was acting in a more relaxed way, more to please himself. And here we are, nearly seven years later, and he’s gone off to France on his own for months, and now he wants to head off to England on a boat with a bunch of other Cadets he’s never met, to a camp in a place he’s never been. We don’t know how strict it will be, how much it will differ from Scout camps he’s attended - and neither does he, but he wants to go anyway. I wouldn’t have had that confidence at 13; I’d have needed a mate holding my hand

So we all read as much as we could on-line about Air Cadet camps, and talked it over and decided he can go. The forms went in on Monday night, and Barney came home with a big bag full of the uniform bits he’ll need - and which he’ll have to learn to launder and iron and sew things onto…which means he’s no longer a probationer. I suppose he’ll need proper uniform shoes too - it’ll be the first time in years that he’s had dress-shoes!

Meanwhile we’ve been trying to come up with baby-names. Girls’ names are easy enough, although our list does seem substantially shorter than it has on previous occasions, for some unknown reason. But names for a boy…well, we’ve got five boys, each with three given names - which kind of means we’ve used up nearly everything we like. This could be the first child we’ve had who hasn’t had a name chosen before birth (or before he turns 18…)

On Wednesday, after a rough start to the day when it seemed everyone was bickering with everyone else, and after individual conversations with each of the older three pointing out that their behaviour was affecting each child younger than them, and as a whole it was affecting me, and that not only could they do something about it, but they were in the fortunate position of their doing something actually being much more effective than if their younger brothers did something (does that make sense? it did at the time) - things improved a bit. Barney spent a good portion of the day reviewing French vocabulary, practising his presentation etc. for next week’s speaking test.

George and Freddy finally made it to Cubs on Wednesday evening, and both came home with more badges to be sewn on. Between them, they now have 15 badges waiting to be sewn onto their uniforms. This is not going to be done by me - I’m still waking each morning with a left hand that feels like it’s twice its usual size (it isn’t, but it still feels that way), numbness in the tips of my fingers, and tingling in my hand and shooting pains up my arm each time I do something that involves any kind of repetitive small motor movement. Lotsa fun. Barney made it to Scouts too, and came home with news of yet another camp he wants to attend - only a weekend this time, and it’s quite likely Scratchy will go to this one too.

I was supposed to be running errands this morning, but what I was able to do was limited by the fact that Jack can only find one shoe. I hit the bank and post office, and Freddy ran into the library to return as many books as we could find, and Barney got his hair cut - going from the long-haired-hippy look to a semi-military cut (”I feel a bit cold now” ) - but at least it doesn’t take half an hour to dry after a shower anymore. Must take a photo of him when he lets me