ADs Not Flouting, Not Flaunting not even Brazenly Defying.

[RealityExistsInTheHumanMind]

Just trying to live a meaningful life in an increasingly bizarre world in which nothing makes sense any more.

Link to previous thread

Sorry for your loss @RosieLemonade I agree that we need make the most of time with our more elderly relatives whilst we still can. I think a great many of them agree.

I’ve been a lurker on all these threads but popping in to say thanks for the sanity checks - anxiety levels are riding as have 2 going to uni this week and some of the vilification of students in other threads is horrid.

If Anyone wishes refund me the £30k in fees and rent for my 2 this year I’ll happily keep them at home !

... and they will be home at Xmas - I’ll stage a middle aged mother riot myself if they are not allowed!!

@Reedwarbler I agree, students are not going to take this lying down: Saint Boris would do well to remember they are the voters of the future. The irony is, leading a crazy protest is probably the sort of thing he himself would have done as a student, if only to make himself popular.

There's a headline this morning "shop early for Christmas". Government spin? Trying to get people excited about Christmas, because most of it won't happen this year? Trying to bring on panic-buying, to make retail figures look good? Or maybe a desperate plea by the shops themselves? I'm now absolutely certain that every headline (especially BBC ones) are there because Boris or his merry men have ordered them.

Morning all, thanks for the reply @skeptile I do keep watching clips from Melbourne with horror. Have seen that Irish passport thing before, makes me very uneasy.

Welcome @RosieLemonade, sorry for your loss. As you say, it was her time but that doesn't take away the pain of her isolation over the last 6 months for you all.

I saw this the other day, after the announcement on Tuesday and it's really resonated with me.

In other news I'm off to the Lakes today to do my first ever Wainwright! Have woken up to glorious sunshine so am looking forward to fresh air and a day of putting the world to rights with my friend.

Enjoy your day in the Lakes Ibake .

Saw yesterday that parkrun isn't going to restart as planned. I want to feel gutted, but disappointed is the strongest emotion I can muster. I just feel numb. The letter with the news on their website basically says the science says catching the virus outdoors is extremely low risk and the benefits of exercise are enormous but that there is so much fear that public opinion is against them.

Hello @RosieLemonade, that’s really sad. What a world we are living in.

And hello @Eve I don’t envy you with dcs off to uni. We’re all for the middle aged mother riot here 😃

@RosieLemonade sorry for your loss. That is so hard. My dad is very 93 and frail. A couple of months ago he had an infection that was more likely to kill him than covid. No way am I not going to hug him now, though the first time I saw him afterwards he was amazingly nimble getting to me and I didn't have a choice.

Oops sorry @Eve forgot to say hello to you too! The politicians are deluded if they don't think mothers the length and breadth of the country will be the ones making any decisions about Christmas. The Middle Aged Woman rises!

@Eve trust me if they try anything bad with the kids on my course - the middle aged mothers who are mature students and the lecturers will be revolting about it too!

Why shop early? They going to lock us up until Dec 24?!

Who to shop for if there's no one to see?
I'd rather catch illegally Covid in person from my Octogenarian Granny what lunches, or snotty nosed niece who started school than in the queue for the post office.

DS2 has been anti-dementing. The y3 rebellion is active and joyfully sneaking pokémon cards into school for illicit swapping at the sports club where it's less bother than risking it in class. That child has always looked at the boundaries, smiled sweetly with his deceptive baby face and carried on anyway with an air of innocence

He is a credit to you then ☺

@larrygrylls
If a pandemic with a 0.4% overall mortality rate (i.e. not very high) turned out to kill 20% of children under 10 (while making most adults only mildly ill and leaving old people in care homes untouched), then this would be a global disaster, a completely devastating event. And given the developed world's low birth rate, historically unprecedented. If, in that case, the virus were let rip we would end up with a population shortage.

And what would the government response be? Children would certainly be 'locked up'. It's hard to imagine people defending their right to go out to the shops or to see their friends and arguing that we should make it safer for them to do that by all staying at home as much as possible. Why is that? I'm not sure. Is it because the thought of a child dying is so immediately upsetting that we wouldn't be happy with measures that limit but don't stop the virus? Or is it because we don't afford children the same amount of liberty as adults anyway?

As are the year 10s and 11s who only wear a face mask when they see a teacher coming and often wear it around their chins, breathing virus at sometimes just pre retirement age teachers and support staff.

‘Anti dementing’ and pushing those boundaries, until the school closes and staff are seriously ill or worse. Brave, creative students-a credit to their parents!

(And, yes, I know the government, OFSTED, ISTIP, individual schools have made many mistakes. Two wrongs do not a right make).

@BogRollBOGOF

Who to shop for if there's no one to see? I'd rather catch illegally Covid in person from my Octogenarian Granny what lunches, or snotty nosed niece who started school than in the queue for the post office.

DS2 has been anti-dementing. The y3 rebellion is active and joyfully sneaking pokémon cards into school for illicit swapping at the sports club where it's less bother than risking it in class. That child has always looked at the boundaries, smiled sweetly with his deceptive baby face and carried on anyway with an air of innocence

That's DD2 to a tee. Can smile at you with a smile that would melt little old ladies to complete mush, or let one solitary tear and a lip wibble go if she's told off... then just make sure she doesn't get caught next time around. She's a bloody terrifyingly strong-willed little bugger... unlike her sister whose utter incapability to stop talking means she does something wrong and promptly tells you all about it anyway!

They actually had a school swimming trip yesterday - local pool aren't running them so they had to go further afield - they seemed to have loved it - DD1 is a bit annoyed she's not put in the "really good swimmers" group - but that is mainly because she can't stop talking and everytime she starts talking she forgets to swim and bloody well sinks!

Mine know that I think the situation is utterly crap, that it's been appallingly handled and that I think it is perfectly right and OK for them to stand up and say that it's crap and making them unhappy and let the world hear them saying that. That it's OK to be sad, angry, frustrated and annoyed about it - but that at the moment it's grit teeth and go along with things so they can stay in school.

DD1 does tend to loudly critique the talk in school of "need to anti-bac that table down" with the reminder that it's a VIRUS and not a BACTERIA that we're worried about at the moment! I'm not going to censor that because she's got a flipping point!

Schools off here for a few days so a trip to the pictures with DS this afternoon. Exciting as our first for months!

Some exercise first though, started a campaign to get myself fit again so I’m not a fat unfit middle aged mother, and ready to face the winter in a better state, physically and mentally.

DS1's homework this week involved a video from the Oak Academy with the world's most sacherine, patronising teacher.
"Wasn't that FUN!" she trilled
DS1 and I looked at eachother and growled "No!"
We're now trilling "Star Words!" with jazz hands at eachother.
5+ months stuck constantly with his cynical mother was character forming!

Had a Zoom meeting over his targets this week and his teacher (and I) are really pleased with how he's settled into school. On paper he looks hard work, but he's pretty delightful when he masks away in school and he had a good confidence about his strengths.
I just get the flak at home when he's burned out, but even just having the self awareness from his diagnoses has helped relieve a layer of frustration.

Ds' swimming lessons start back this week. He is very excited! Me less so as won't be able to swim at same time but can at least scope out pool situation

@Littlebelina

Ds' swimming lessons start back this week. He is very excited! Me less so as won't be able to swim at same time but can at least scope out pool situation

No word on our "proper" swimming lessons (as opposed to the school few weeks to try to make sure you won't drown) but they use the university pool and so I'm not expecting to hear back for a while yet.

Mine are starting back at swimming lessons today after an epic battle with the Better Leisure website was resolved by losing my temper and driving down to the pool and letting the nice staff there sort it all out...

Ours have been back a few weeks. It never was an easy night and I'm glad it's out of the way at the start of the week, but overall it's good to be back and getting the DCs doing it again.

From what I can see of DS1, he's maintained his technique as he'd come so far Sept- Mar wuth the added school swimming. I can't vouch for his stamina, but his fitness has stayed up anyway so I'm not worried about that.

We're on martial arts tonight. DS1 enjoyed it last week. DS2 didn't make it due to the tummy ache. They've split on a 2 weeks on 1 week off rotation of 3 groups on 2 timeslots. I won't grumble, I'm glad they're doing it and it's not such a bad thing for DS1 anyway.

He's struggling to go to sleep at the moment. I went up and heard him stirring at 11:30 last night, so it was yoga music time. A couple of nights ago he slept in the lounge as he wanted the fish for company

I’ve decided that throughout this whole thing what’s bothered me most has been the affect on my DC. I will take the crapness of mask wearing, home working etc but what breaks my heart is seeing DS1 in tears because he doesn’t want to do another Cubs meeting over Zoom (no disrespect to the leaders, they have gone above and beyond) or DS2 have a massive wobble in the playground at drop off because he’s been out of the routine for so long (previously skipped into school without a backward glance). That’s what has bothered me and continues to bother me as we stare down a Christmas where they won’t get to see their grandparents or their cousins

@ShoeJunkie - I completely agree. It's the impact on DD that has made me miserable. She's now excited about her birthday, which is in December so can't be planned outdoors. At 8 it's all about the party. I have to keep reminding her I don't know if we can have a few friends around then. After this year it feels like another way to keep her down.

Now DD is at school I've asked my parents to consider how much they want to see her, but while they're a bit scared they don't want to miss out on her growing up.

There are so many experiences now that show that we are failing to protect people in the most vulnerable situations. The best way to do that is making sure all public services are available and the only way to fund that is via a strong economy. Whilst all we see is one condition so many others will suffer and they are the ones whose voice goes unheard and ignored.@RosieLemonade I am so sorry for your loss x

For anyone who’s DCs are struggling, the Insight Timer app has thousands of free meditations, including ones for children and teenagers. There are also fairy tales and soothing stories. As well as lots for adults. I find it really helpful and ds uses it too.

And yet STILL we're selfish granny-murdering monsters!

I've posted before about the impact on DD2. She already had speech difficulties but had come on massively with a year of speech therapy (she has verbal dyspraxia) and socially she was in as good a place as she was likely to get as the mums in her class are a nightmare... school had lots of social support groups in place to try to build up friendships and she was loving her teacher (who is amazing) and being the eldest in the infants so able to be a big sister type figure to the younger ones.

She lost a good year or so of the speech sounds she could say, began to stammer and struggle to find words... she would just burst into tears randomly and be inconsolable for hours at how much she missed her friends and her teacher and her school, she would just cling to me wanting to be cuddled constantly and not wanting to do anything at all (this is a child who never ever stops smiling) and she was awake most of the night because of "too much sad in her brain". She's gone from being a kid achieving expected levels, and working above in one area - despite massive challenges from her dyspraxia... to one working below across the board.

She's still not totally back to herself now - her sister struggles with dealing with anger and of course hers all came back onto me - so I got kicked to shit and screamed at on an hourly basis.

And I am selfish for not wanting to go back to that?! No I'm fucking not. They're my kids - my role in life is to protect them and put them first and I'm going to do so - because sure as fuck society isn't doing that at the moment.

I will never ever forgive the government AND society, including the keyboard vigilantees for what they have done to my girls - and me, but I'm more resigned to viewing my own mental health and future as collateral damage - but they will not fuck up my girls.