Meet in the middle at the schultuete shop!

[PiratesKnittingTreasure]

Here we are .

[Gigondas]

That's great that on testing route and were helpful about it (btw my friend who is 43 popped in to see me- is 18 weeks pregnant with "miracle " post ivf told
Couldn't happen naturally baby).

[PiratesKnittingTreasure]

Right, back to reply properly! Secret, I was at that person you met who thought their 3 yr old was ready for school . DS2 is absolutely loving pre-school but is certainly not ready for f/t school, no way. He bloody well will be in 2 years though!!

Glad you had a good GP appt - would second what Gig said on cycle length. I had a 22 day cycle but was being monitored on Day 21 of a mythical 28 day cycle . If you do want to go the fertility route I would strongly recommend going private tbh - fertility is definitely a Cinderella service in the NHS .

Deb, as LG says, you sound like you have a hell of a lot on your plate right now, big hugs. Sorry to hear Ethan found lunch times hard this week - I think they must be one of the most daunting parts of school. I'm pleased to hear school are doing an IEP - although the use of the word 'disability' must have been hard to hear, he does have needs over and above what would be considered 'average' and if those needs are addressed now then hopefully an IEP would only be a short term measure, esp the speech issues.

Gig, great to hear that they've brought forward your chemo so you won't be in for your birthday - I have to say chemo would be fairly high on top of anyone's list of shit ways to celebrate their 40ths . Great news about the concert instead !

LG, yay that DS1 found school good on his first day - hope 2nd was good too .

Have our first big charity do here tomorrow and am very nervous .

Speaking of charity, if anyone fancies sponsoring dh to do a 10k for the hospice, then all donations gratefully received !

The Devine Runners!

[disguisedeb]

Thanks for all your support, really appreciate all your comments. Pirate, you phrased it so well.

Just to let you know I have bought a Christmas present in September, what is the world coming to?

[Gigondas]

deb what have you done?

had lovely lunch with pirate and her boys - despite their post first week fatigue, dd1 and pirates ds1 got over themselves to get into playmobil/attacking the garden/eating snacks. And I was glad that my favourite whirlwind ds2 was in form .

what has everyone else been doing this weekend? I saw some sporty photos on fb secret

laghow you doing?

[PiratesKnittingTreasure]

at deb!!!!!

Gig, we had a lovely time thank you - glad that DS2 entertained you . It was lovely to see the kids playing so well together as always - and that DS1 was honoured enough to be allowed to play with Princess Disco Barbie or whatever her name was !

[MySecretSelf]

at Deb. My work here is done

Thank you comments on testing, fertility etc. I really appreciated it. On the fertility route Pirate, DH and I have agreed that we won't pursue any treatment, we just really want to get an idea of the likelihood of further pregnancy (although obviously it's not an exact science). We don't want to spend the next few years desperately trying to have a baby. Lovely to hear about your 43 year old friend Gig. I'm glad things worked out for her.

Deb, just to add my comments that it sounds like you've got a lot on just now. You're obviously finding comfort in a bit of christmas shopping . No-one will be surprised to know that I ordered DS's main present last week - we're going for imaginext batman stuff here.

Not much else to report - I'm enjoying my study free evenings and weekends, and throwing myself into getting the house sorted out. these are the curtains I've settled on Gig (I think).

The afternoon has run away with me, so I must dash and start cooking dinner. Will try and come back and catch up properly again later!

[LaGuerta]

All well here. DS seems to be liking school. I have gleaned that:
In his class they speak English but in the other classes they speak in foreign languages. The other two reception classes speak in Indian and African apparently
He has a new best friend today who is a girl. They played families. He was the Daddy and she was the Mummy. Their baby got stolen by a bear TWICE and they had to call the police to get the baby back.
That's all I know.

I had a bit of a SMOG incident today when a neighbour with daughters at the school chose to tell me "the thing" with DS's teacher is that she likes good girls but doesn't like naughty boys.

Nice curtains for your DS Secret. We are having our own soft furnishings crisis here . My parents have been back over the weekend to do a blind for DS2 and curtains for DS1 with fabric I have bought on the Internet. Anyway after two days of them stressing and flapping around they have finished off and gone to France. However the curtains are really bad. At my request I wanted them "full" and blackout lined. They are so full that they only draw back to reveal about a third of the window. Basically they need to come down, have the lining taken out and reduced in width by a third. The blind is also not right but is tolerable. I probably sound really ungrateful, but really I feel bad that they have put so much time and emotional energy into it, and it's still not right.

Better go as I need to cook some tea.

[MySecretSelf]

at the goings on at DS's school LaG!

Sympathies on the soft furnishes debacle. It reminds me of when my dad decorated our spare room for us while I was pregnant. I got green tape for the ceiling etc and he insisted that he didn't need masking tape. Lo and behold, a crap finish (I'm very particular about neat edges) along the join between the ceiling and wall, and don't get me started on the light switch, paint on the windows, paint on the skirting board etc. I really really appreciated him giving up his weekend to do it by I was so miffed about the finish. This is the room that we're now doing for DS and I'm miffed about it all over again as I need to paint the ceiling and skirting boards (which I hate) and they wouldn't have needed to be done if my dad had done a good job!

Not much to report here - bit of a duvet day as DS a bit under the weather.

Gig - is this week a hospital or home week for you?

[disguisedeb]

SMOG, please enlighten me?

[disguisedeb]

wonder what my reception children say that we've been doing?

[MySecretSelf]

SMOG = smug mothers of girls I think. As in mothers of girls (not all obv Gig ) who think that girls are angels and boys are terrors on account of their gender.

[Gigondas]

What my girl who has nits (joy ) and the other one who threw up on me this morning without opening her eyes? not sure I am a smog yet.

[MySecretSelf]

You're going about this the wrong way Gig. Clearly some naughty dirty boys brought nits to school

[LaGuerta]

Sorry for the acronym.

The lady in question is very nice but I honestly do wonder about some people's sensitivity sometimes.

No great pearls of wisdom about school today from DS. I do have a question:

Deb - how often do you send your kids home with a new reading book? The same one has arrived home each night for all 4 nights since he started. It's an Oxford reading tree one and has no words apart from "swing ball" which appears once . I am now ignoring it having dutifully gone through it with DS and written comments on the record book on night 1. The teacher has made a point of saying that they won't get a new book every night but a change seems reasonable at this point. I don't want to be unreasonable.

[LaGuerta]

Instead DS1 is very keen on all bible stories that my mother has an endless supply of to pass on. It was Elijah last night (lengthy), Easter at bedtime (gory) and Christmas tonight (exciting if you are 4).

[Gigondas]

Big gig has a book a day and it is all focused on one word. They don't always change so do need to remind them.

Nits seem under control (dh doesn't have them but still had to be treated). But I suspect won't be our last infestation .

lag big gig also into the bible stories they do at school- i liked the puzzled "why did god do that?" as was incredulous about him flooding the earth. From fb looks like your ds secret has been coming out with some classic outbursts . I liked the hard lesson about chocolate and stomach ache.


pirate have had a bumper pre order of playmobil and I big gig has enjoyed going over the catalogue .

[LaGuerta]

I have made my first Christmas purchase: panto tickets for the start of December

It's not a present so does it still count?

[Gigondas]

Oh yes it does (sorry )

pirate knows my view on panto so sooner you than me.

[LaGuerta]

Pleased it counts.

I tend to be a bit of a Scrooge until the last minute, but despite this I am pleased that I have a little surprise to save for ds1. If I tell him now he will pester me about it for the next three months.

We went last year with the same NCT friend who has also since moved away. So we will be returning to Guildford for lunch, a bit of shopping and panto.

[LaGuerta]

I did belatedly get the joke Gig

[PiratesKnittingTreasure]

IME LG books would get changed once a week - repetition is supposed to be good for them, but god it's boring . I can't think of anything more designed to put kids off reading for life than tedious reading schemes, but then almost all kids were free readers (as you'd expect in Y6!) so don't really have much experience. We have Colour Bears at the moment - yawn !

at SMOG woman - silly thing! I had a similar experience with the school photographer on Monday morning - she made a comment about how many boys there were this year, I smiled and agreed (riveting conversation ) and then she replied, "yes, too many, what a nightmare"! What an offensive thing to say to a mum of two boys!! (Who, at the time, were sitting good as gold waiting to have their photo taken while the girl who was supposed to be ahead of us was lying on the floor having a paddy to end all paddys !).

Got involved in a bunfight on here a couple of days ago about the nightmare behaviour of boys - drives me mental .

at bumper order of playmobil - hope nits have gone!

Christmas - I've started knitting decorations .

[PiratesKnittingTreasure]

x-posted! yes, gig and I are at one of the evils of panto !

Hoping ILs will take boys this year!

[LaGuerta]

Thanks for the advice Pirate and Gig, and for clarifying that repetition of books over a few nights is desirable. I was wondering whether this is what was expected.

Reading book update

He came home with a new book tonight , and some positive comments in his reading record about him doing well at a phonics matching game.

It would seem that as a result of this, the new book is a bit of leap from the first one which had no words in it. It is level 2, and focuses on the blended sounds "th, sh and ng". I am a bit as it assumes knowledge of non blended sounds which he doesn't know. Well he knows some basic sounds but probably only half of the alphabet.

Am I being naive here, but wouldn't non blended sounds be the obvious place to start?

I think I am sounding like a nightmare parent, but rest assured, I haven't raised this with his teacher. Do bear with me whilst I get over this bout of PFBitis.

Quick question regarding DS2. He is pinching my neck then giggling alot. I have scratches to show for it. They are sore. Tonight he scratched DS1 when he was getting changed. As a result he has scratch marks on his nipples! . Apart from responding with a "no", a stern look, putting him down, and walking away, there isnt much I can do is there? This response is having no effect. Please reassure me that he wont still be doing this when he is 10. Thanks.

[MySecretSelf]

Ahoy mateys! (Well, it is international talk like a pirate day)

He won't still be doing it when he's 10 LaG Sounds like you're doing exactly the right thing. I wouldn't be able to tease DS with a 'surprise' either, he'd be unbearable!

I would have expected the blended sounds to come a bit later, based on my expert knowledge gained from jolly phonics! Your PFBitis is allowed - I'm here fretting that your DC will all learn to read before DS and wondering if the education system discriminates against the Scottish

Christmas - well today I took delivery of DS's main present . No playmobil though (imaginext batman). What's with the anti-panto views? I thought I might take DS this year, though it would be in-between Christmas and New Year.

Linky to your bunfight Pirate?

[PiratesKnittingTreasure]

Just hate panto - no real reason ! Don't know why - it just brings me out in a rash ! Dh and Gig both share my pain !

I really wouldn't worry about all of our kids learning to read first - DS1 is nowhere near being able to read and as I always remind myself, education is a marathon not a sprint . Yes to learning non-blended sounds first but then the Letters and Sounds programme that DS1 is following appears to bear no resemblance to his reading book . His book is about colours so he can 'read' it all by just looking at the colours - although he seems to have a total mental block over yellow!

The letters is learning are s, a, t and p I think from memory and then they build up from there. We will also have so-called 'tricky' words to learn that don't have any phonic way of learning them.

I will now share my bit of PFBitis - DS1 told me yesterday that he is Square group and I spent 10 minutes grilling him about who is in his group and who are in the other groups . I have no idea at all about the academic abilities of any of these kids so I don't know what I was going to work out with this information but found myself strangely obsessive .

I'm leaving all this reading malarkey to the experts and just trying to let DS1 'enjoy' the books he brings home. Hope this works!

Re DS2, my DS2 went through a terrible biting stage at a similar age LG - he did grow out of it ! I did exactly what you did, put him down and walked away.