NotSheep

From Alice in Wonderland, I mean. The one who needed more time. It’s been ages and ages since I blogged. Partly that’s because I’ve been so busy, partly it’s because I was sick and hiding in bed as much as possible for a couple of days, and partly it’s that on the rare occasions when I have two hands free, I’ve been doing things that are slightly higher-priority than blogging, like making dinner. Of course a real blogger wouldn’t put food before blogging, but I have an appetite (and a desire for sleep).

So, with the aid of the things I’ve posted on Brightkite over the past week or two, here is a rundown of what has been going on.

Toby had a speech therapy assessment with the new speech therapist (the old one is still on maternity leave). She was impressed how much language he has; the delay is only in his pronunciation, not at all in his vocabulary or his ability to use it. The old ST is called Anne, the new one is not - but Toby was adamant that she was “New Anne”. As we were leaving, he told me he’d come back and play with New Anne again. Toby has also been telling me about his “baby button” and that all “my bruvvers” have one too.

Louie decided that 4 o’clock in the morning is wake-up-and-start-the-day time. Uh, no. Especially not if you’re the mummy who can’t get to sleep until 1 o’clock in the morning.

Jack had a couple of days of coughing, during which his breathing was getting worse too; I was almost on the point of taking him to the hospital when he got better.

Barney had a day away with Air Cadets - he had to be delivered into town by 7 a.m. to get on a bus with all the others. That’s 7 a.m. on a Sunday. The only good thing about that is that it wasn’t me who had to deliver him He had a great day, doing all sorts of activities at the airport, and returned home after 7.30 p.m., exhausted and famished. He coped through Monday, but we’d the mother of all meltdowns on Tuesday, when he just wasn’t able to cope with anything. Cuddles and talking and a couple of hours of peace and quiet helped him tremendously. He did make it to Air Cadets on Monday night, but he skipped St John Ambulance on Tuesday and went to bed early instead.

I managed to go through all the kitchen cupboards - I was getting tired of a) not being able to find anything and b) not being able to get anything out of them without six other things falling on me. The kitchen has been largely Scratchy’s domain over the last few months - a fact reflected in Toby’s statement to Scratchy: “My mum is in your cupboards!” However Scratchy is not nearly as organised as me, and tends to shove things wherever there’s a space. The consequence of that is that the plate-cupboard contains everything from instruction manuals to vaseline, and that we have four large packages of paprika and six containers of chili. I wonder what I can cook…

We had my friend J and her children to visit - we don’t see enough of them, but we somehow managed to see them twice this week. On Monday J had a meeting near here, so she left the children here while she did that, and then they all stayed for dinner. I thought my fatigue on Tuesday was as a result of a busy day on Monday, but by Wednesday I was feverish and sneezing again, so maybe not. Wednesday and Thursday were write-offs due to me being sick, but on Friday we made up for it by doing lots of errands, including visiting the library, where I’d one of those conversations - a perfect stranger commented on how great the boys were, we chatted for a minute, then she asked didn’t they go to school and I said we home-educated and she asked a bunch of interested questions and agreed about all the problems of the school system and remarked on how well home-education seemed to work, and then, in a sort of embarrassed manner, she confessed to being a teacher

We also managed to buy shoes for Freddy, Jack and Toby. Jack’s new trainers have Marvel Comics Heroes on them and Toby’s have Scooby-Doo - it’s hard to say which of them is more pleased

After all our errands, we went to hang out at J’s house while we waited to hear if Scratchy’s car had passed its MOT. Fortunately it had, and J kindly drove me to our mechanic to go pick it up. And then we came home with J’s miniature Schnauzer (because J is going away this weekend) and her sat-nav (because I wanted to play with it, and she knows how to get where she’s going this weekend). I thought we might see how well it worked for geocaching, but there’s so much else to do, and the skies are getting a bit grey now…

With the kitchen straightened, I got cooking. I tried to make meringues (we’d made something that called for egg-yolks, so I had whites left over) using a recipe I found for making them in the microwave, but it…well, let’s just say it didn’t work very well. They were either mushy blobs or brown cement. I gave up after the first few and made the rest in the oven, which was much more successful. And I’ve been using my slow-cooker a lot, although it doesn’t help that the digital control panel on the front isn’t working, which means I can only use it on one setting. (I discovered several on-line reviews talking about the same problem in that model, so I phoned the manufacturer, but their response was less than impressive - if I send it back to them (at my expense), they’ll look at it, and if they decide there is indeed a fault, they might offer me a new one at a discounted price. I told them that seemed like throwing good money after bad.) We also made flapjacks, which went down very well with everyone. I might do more of those this weekend, if I ever finish sorting through children’s clothes - yes, it’s that time of year again (is it ever not that time of year?)

Need to think about: Christmas presents and Hallowe’en costumes. In that order, because Scratchy’s off to Canada for a week later this month, and he might be able to pick up some gifts there, if I plan well enough.

Oops, I forgot to publish this after I wrote it. But with the magic of Wordpress, you’ll never know

I keep writing blog-posts. Unfortunately I mostly only write them in my head, so here’s another random-stuff-we’ve-been-doing post.

Lots and lots of laundry, as I finally made it through all the kids’ clothes. Somehow Toby has only two pairs of trousers which fit. I also went through all the coats to see what would fit through the winter, and found some hats shaped like animal heads, which I’d long forgotten about - Toby was thrilled with these, and when we dug out the giraffe-head one, he was absolutely speechless with delight. When he’s not speechless, he’s often very amusing. He pointed to a picture and told me, “Look!”, and when I replied, “Yes, a sun!”, he gave me a scathing look and said “It’s not a sun! It’s a planet!”

Louie continues to change every day. He rolled over both ways a few days ago, though hasn’t repeated it - but then he spends most of his time either in someone’s arms or tucked up close beside me, so he doesn’t have much opportunity. He likes it when Barney talks to him, and is doing lots of “talking” himself, but when George is playing with him, Louie likes to be sung to. Mika is a particular hit

One of the pcs in the dining-room died - right after we’d finally bought a new monitor for it. Looks like Scratchy and the boys will be rebuilding that then.

And I’ve been talking to the Open University - but for Barney, not me. A few weeks ago we asked if Barney could take one of their maths short courses. He’s already worked his way through the course textbook, but he wants to do it “officially”, with the end-of-course assessment etc. The first person I spoke to said they would never allow someone as young as him to take a maths course, and when I informed her that he had a friend who’d taken the same course at about age ten, she just kept repeating “I find that very hard to believe” - but when she put me through to the right person, that person was very positive. We’ve heard back from them now, and they think it will all be fine - they just want a reference (which, because they want someone involved in the education system, is coming from the exams officer at the school where he sat his French GCSE, rather than my friend who knows him very well and used to be an OU maths tutor, but anyway…) and they want him to come in for a chat - that’s been arranged for the end of this month. I really hope it’s all okay, because apart from OU materials being much better than any other textbooks I’ve seen, they also might allow him on one of the Level 2 French courses - we’d assumed that wouldn’t be at all possible because there are residential schools involved, but the woman we spoke to said they might be able to arrange something for him - which would solve the problem of where-to-go-next-in-French

We’ve been schools-film-weeking. Yesterday we went to see two movies - I booked both because usually something that we’ve booked gets cancelled. Of course this year that didn’t happen, so we went to watch The Golden Compass in the morning, and Ratatouille in the afternoon.

We liked both of them. Barney and Toby had an arm-wrestling contest to pass the time while we waited for The Golden Compass to start - Toby was very firm about the rules, especially the one about taking it in turns to win Jack watched the scary bits of the movie whilst crouching down behind the seat in front of us, but Toby wasn’t a bit bothered. “Are you okay?” I whispered during a scary leading-up-to-a-battle scene. He nodded and exclaimed, “I like the bear!”

I commented on Brightkite etc that watching the reactions of teachers as they spot the home-educators at “schools” events makes an interesting game. Some of them look surprised, some of them look taken aback, some of them look cross. Sometimes they’re really positive - one even offered to get me a cup of coffee when she was going for some for the other adults in her group. And sometimes they’re astonishingly rude (especially for people who are supposed to be setting an example to their pupils) - we even had one a couple of years ago who was so bad that the cinema staff apologised to me for her behaviour.

But today, we had a new reaction - which I don’t think had anything to do with us being home-educators - and which I can only call “absurd”.

As always, I sat near the exit, because I want to be able to slip out easily if one of the younger children is scared or fussing etc. And as always, we were there in good time - the booking confirmation tells groups to arrive half an hour before the movie is due to start, but they never do. We were there at 9.40, but the first school-group arrived at 9.58. As the school-children filed in, several of the girls did the “aw! look at the lovely wee baby!” thing. Not one of them showed any sign of noticing that I was breastfeeding him. No funny looks, no embarassment, no giggles, no nudges, nothing.

And yet, a few minutes later the cinema manager approached me and said that one of the teachers had complained about me feeding my baby - “because of the children” - and wanted me to leave.

I was quite shocked, really - as well as being a bit embarrassed (for the manager, mostly!) and faintly amused. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced any negativity towards breastfeeding in public - and to be quite honest, you’d have had to look pretty darn hard to see anything. I was feeding discreetly, in an oversized t-shirt, in a dimly-lit cinema. I’d bet she sees mums at the school gates exposing more flesh than I was - maybe even teachers too!

I told the cinema manager that I’d no intention of abandoning my other children in the theatre, nor of dragging them all out, and asked if any of the children were bothered. (It’s remarkable how many adults who complain about breastfeeding are only doing so “for the sake of the children” - without any indication that the children have a problem with it at all.) He said no, they didn’t seem to, and apologised and muttered something about having to speak to me since she’d complained. I suggested he go back and ask her if she’d find it less disturbing to have my baby crying through the movie. He told me that his own two children had been breastfed and that he had no problem with it and apologised again. I said that perhaps a breastfeeding policy would be a good idea, and he nodded and scurried off.

Nobody said anything more about it

The problem is that if I’d been someone who was less confident about breastfeeding in public, I might not take my children out with a baby - or I might stop breastfeeding. I’m perfectly capable of telling someone where they can shove their complaints, but lots of mums aren’t. And so after the movie, I asked one of the staff if the manager was available. He wasn’t, but I left information about a scheme which runs here - a scheme in which a business or leisure centre or whatever agree that babies can breastfeed anywhere in their premises that they’re allowed to be, and get listed on the scheme’s website and get stickers for their doors to show that they are supporting the scheme. And I emailed the chain the cinema is part of, suggesting the scheme to them too.

I would love it if that teacher returned to the cinema to find that it had become part of that scheme - as a result of her complaint.

When I reported the episode on Brightkite etc, someone I know suggested that I should apologise to the teacher for exposing her children to one of the more lovely aspects of reality

One more movie tomorrow, although it’s more for the older kids, and as Scratchy has the day off, he’s going to take them and let me stay at home with the younger ones. And then he goes off to Canada for a week, to see his mum. We arranged his trip to coincide with half-term because I figured the various evening activities would be off for the week - thereby minimising the taxi-ing required - but I discovered this morning that both ju-jitsu and Air Cadets will still be on - which will make next Monday evening interesting, as I’ll need to pack up all six children to leave three of them off in two different places at the same time, then take the youngest three to collect two of the others, then somehow get Barney home after 10. If I can’t arrange a lift for him, I’ll pay for a taxi. And on Saturday, I have to get him to a nearby town, where he has volunteered to spend three hours testing a life-raft. I asked if that meant he’d be getting wet and he replied, “Only if it doesn’t work properly!” - but he’ll be taking spare clothes just in case.

Anyone know where Jack’s coat is? I only sorted the coats out on the weekend, and he’s already unable to find it.

I’ve been doing a lot of pointless driving. Not that I knew any of it was pointless while I was doing it, of course.

On Thursday I drove to the airport three times. The first time, we left soon after 8 a.m., to take Scratchy to catch his flight to Newark, from where he would continue to Toronto. I left Barney at home in bed - there isn’t room for everyone in the car, and he’d been out at Scouts on Wednesday evening, so he was happy to have a lie-in. The only problem was that I forgot to tell him in advance, so I had to wake him on Thursday morning anyway, or he’d have woken to an empty house without knowing we’d all gone!

After lunch I went back to the airport, to collect Scratchy, whose flight had been delayed by 14 hours because a part was needed to repair the plane (very reassuring!) He could have stayed at the airport, of course, but it’s boring and expensive, so he came home for a few hours. Before I went to collect him, I had to phone his mum, because she’d arranged to go with a friend to collect him from the airport, and we’d no idea when he’d finally get there. His mum isn’t great in English on the phone, so it took a few minutes to get past the “Who’s this? Who you want? I think you have the wrong number!” before I was even able to start trying to explain what was going on.

Eventually Scratchy did get on a plane, and the plane did take off. The delay meant he arrived in Newark too late for his connection, of course - and it meant he arrived in the early hours of the morning, when there are no commuter flights to Toronto (at least not on Continental), so he had another few hours to wait. By the time he got to Toronto, he’d been travelling for about 30 hours.

This morning I got everyone ready to be out before 9.30 to take Barney to a nearby town where they were testing a new life-raft - he’d volunteered for this during Air Cadets on Monday night. We woke to wild winds and driving rain but he wasn’t at all put off going. We got to the harbour and left him along with the other volunteers, and I started to drive home. I nearly finished driving home too, before my mobile phone rang - Barney, to tell me that the test had been cancelled because of the weather. On the one hand, wild windy weather seems the perfect time to test out a life-raft, since that’s the kind of weather it might have to handle once it’s in use - but I suppose once it’s in use it will already have been tested, whereas so far it hasn’t been. So I turned around again and went back to collect him again. 25 minutes each way, twice. It was time for lunch before we got home.

The rest of the week - well, apart from adventures already reported…ju-jitsu for George and Freddy on Monday night, where someone told Freddy that hundreds of the girls wanted to be his girlfriend. Freddy is my most boyish boy - he doesn’t do girly at all. Doesn’t like girls, won’t touch anything pink, believes Barbie is evil, etc. (Actually, I might be with him on the last one.) So he was quite bemused by this news, and didn’t really seem to have any idea what he should think about it. On Tuesday I cried off Beavers (it was Investiture, which I’d rather not miss, but on the other hand it meant they didn’t need a programme from me for the evening) because I was so tired and feeling achy, and didn’t want to get sick just as Scratchy was leaving for a week. On Wednesday Scratchy took Barney, George and Freddy to yet another Film Education showing (this one being for older kids) while I stayed at home with the others, and then in the evening George and Freddy went to Cubs and Barney had Scouts. On Friday we all stayed home, except for a brief trip out to collect a new inhaler for Jack, whose chest was heaving again. The GP didn’t want to phone a prescription through for him (against protocol, apparently - better to leave a six-year-old to have trouble breathing, obviously) but I persisted and eventually he agreed - although he still didn’t phone it through for another three hours. Jack’s breathing seemed pretty rough beforehand, but he had a remarkable recovery after just a couple of puffs on the inhaler and hasn’t needed any more since. Hm.