Tea Room the Thirteenth

[amberlight]

Welcome to the newest instalment of the One Parent Families tea room. As it's heading for spring, we're now in a nice warm orangery surrounded by woodland filled with spring flowers. All are very welcome to join in with us parents of one (or indeed more!), the tea room gardener/handyman Mellors, various virtual Bishops (don't ask) and a variety of other characters from previous tea rooms. Grab a cuppa, relax!...

MaryBS - while I agree that CMOT's very detailed list with timings would be ideal in a perfect world and should be what they should offer DS, I don't honestly think it is going to happen like that. In the real world things go wrong, people make it up as they go along. Even in my class I could only achieve that for a few hours and if OfSTED were watching and if the other 31 children just offered to sit quietly for the whole session.

I know because I had a very important observed lesson yesterday - timed and equipped to the last second - and then assembly ran on far too long because the vicar got a bit carried away with the drama, then the school nurse 'just popped in' to weigh some of the Y6's, which caused our 'challenging behaviour' child to leap up and start shouting about 'jabs', causing panic among some of the other children ... and all the time I was trying to model a stimulating and creative lesson about complex sentences.

I think volunteers are even less likely to achieve total control. Could they maybe give you a rough idea about the planning, and then feed DS with small chunks as they occur, ie 'We are going to be making mother's day cards but until we have got all the stuff ready we will play a game where one child covers his eyes and listens really hard'? When they saw that DS was uspet, couldn't they have just got the child to cover his eyes with his hands?

Daisy, yes, virtual running does count. But only for burning virtual calories.

that being said, I actually saw a bit on TV once where they measured the metabolic rate of students watching sport and found that it did go up. But not very much.

Have just had RL fish and chips followed by coffee cake with a very large friend. Trouble is, she is stunningly beautiful and so it doesn't matter what she eats or how large she is ....

Hmm. Have to say, wearing my rather fetching Brown Owl's uniform here, that Racingsnake is quite right that running a Cub's meeting in the rigorously timetabled way that Cmot recommends is probably not going to happen. Generalising from my own experience, even the most carefully-crafted plans go awry because the children arrive late and the meeting gets off to a late start, the children subvert one's meticulous plan (they get engrossed in one thing and don't want to move on to the next) and we are all volunteers (albeit trained volunteers) with very few sanctions to get children to cooperate if they don't want to. But, even so, they do need to do more to accommodate Mary's ds's needs. Finding games that don't traumatise him would be an obvious start.

Well, sun's over the yardarm so who would care for a little snifter?

Sniffer? Did I hear sniffer? Yes please
I watched so much olympics I must have been getting fit so that's ok. I can relax with booze and twiglets now xx

How's fings in the world of jurisprudence, then, Daisy?

When saying that Cubs leaders are volunteers, T&E, I wasn't casting nasturtiums on their skills, dedication or abilities; just feel that they are not being paid to bash their heads against brick walls (so to speak, Amber, not literally) trying to rigidly stick to impossible timetables.

Racing - I didn't think you were casting nasturtiums. If anything, I'm painfully aware that I don't have the repertoire of child-wrangling techniques which professionals like you acquire at college or in your working life. I have an hour and a half a week in which to hone those skills. Eek. And that, I think, is half (or more than half) the difficulty. We also have an hour and a half in which to ensure that 20 children have an interesting and fun experience. We can do a bit of differentiation but we simply don't have the capacity to provide differentiated experiences in the way that school can. None of which makes what happened to Mary's son OK.

evening all. Unis waves her glass hopefully near teh bottle of snifter.

fell asleep at yoga AGAIN. ho hum.

SO I've stoked up the AGA and dug out the hand made by potters jug and mugs, whisked up a batch of nearly solid fluff hot choc for you all and the hot water bottles I'm tucking myself up on the sofa with.

In laws tomorrow. wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.... toodle pip.

Ah Trowel, it's buggeringly busy up my way. Hence sporadic posting. I am waivering between desperate desperate need for sleep and desperate desperate need to get stuff done

I think when considering the Brown Owl thing, you should recall that childhood feeling - I remember being a Brownie and basically we considered is enjoyable mayhem. I would not more have considered a requirement to listen to Brown Owl than fly - and that's not because it's not fun but because it is after school and voluntary for kids too

I think its super hard to organise....and I don't mean that as saying what happened to Baby MaryBS is ok

Thumb I just wanted to say how are you feeling today? I missed posting when you were feeling down
I know that feeling, is there anything you can do - it's so hard settling into a new place

Have you been indoctrinating speaking to my Brownies, Daisy?

I know it's voluntary on all our parts, but when they're dangling by their toes from the rafters, then we do need them to listen to us, because we want their experience to be interesting, fun and non-fatal. Being a Brownie is optional, but complying with a few rules intended to ensure your health and safety and those of the other Brownies isn't. And also, to be serious for a nano-second, if it is just a riot for 90 minutes there's a greater risk that the more sensitive or fragile children will get literally or metaphorically pummelled.

More Bolly anyone?

Bolly - great! I'll have some, MIL has just taken miniThumb off for the morning.[bad mother emoticon]

Daisy, thanks, I am feeling a bit brighter today. I do have to go back to the shops though since I checked my receipt and discovered that rather than taking off the two items that had been mis-priced and I therefore no longer wanted, they added on another 2, thus overcharging me by $30! I phoned the shop yesterday but couldn't be arsed to go back in last night (it's an hour's round trip). Still, without DS in tow I might be able to look at some of the other shops as well - although one of the more depressing things about shopping here is that it is mostly shite!

I loved being a brownie - not in my first six because I wasn't with any friends, but when I moved from being an Elf to being a Pixie it was much better. My best friend has just sent me a pic of our whole troop, and a pic of us doing the Hi Ho song from Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, dressed of course as the 7 Dwarves. Ahhh, fond memories...

Let's drink a toast to MILs!

Ah g'wan then - to MILs (even UniS's) - they have their uses!

oh Trowel I agree, I agree, but I'm an adult now, I was just remembering

Thanks everyone. While exact timings are nice, they can be a distraction in themselves, because if you clock watch, then even a few seconds after 5:30 isn't 5:30 ! He doesn't need exact timings, but if they know what they are going to do, it would help if they tell him, rather than say "you'll find out". I like the idea of distraction, because he loves being helpful, so if they give him a job to do (providing he isn't too stressed by now), like helping to get biscuits ready in the kitchen (he'd like that), it will take his mind off it. Aspie minds don't stop processing, so if he's sitting in a corner, then he'll be feeling miserable and left out and fretting. I can help him snap out of tantrums by telling him things like "hey, I've got a new map at home, and you'll never guess where its a map of..."

I think I'll email them, asking if they want helpful suggestions, and write some down. The group leader knows I have Aspergers too, so I hope that'll help when it comes to explaining.

Is it too early for Bolly, or is that a silly question?

Dh is on a trial run day for a 3 month contract!!!! Pay's not great. But its work. And its paid!!!!!!! Yet to hear about the other 3 jobs from last week.

Got to the cloakroom with mini-loon this morning and he said 'I'm going to be sick' so removed his coat v. quickly and told him to run to the toilets - 100% sucess rate. By the time he got into the classroom you wouldn't have believed that he'd just lost his breakfast! I think he drank too much juice because I'd given him one of my mugs rather than one of his (run out) - he normally has one of his (smaller) mugs if I remind him to finish it - this morning he had 2 large mugs - and probably the journey was the last straw. At least he wasn't sick in the 'not ours' car that is going to be sold by the company to someone else who is picking it up lunchtime that we came in this morning! (breathes sigh of relief!)

Oh the delights of having a car sick child...

I suppose at least it means he knows that he is going to be sick and managed to get to the toilet in time....

Sorry! No doubt, just what everyone needed to hear this morning!

Yay for MrMistlethrush!

And for mistlechick. We carry a plastic mixing bowl in the car now, permanently available for children who wish to vomit. Fortunately they never seem to want to be sick at the same time!

Feeling low - have CBT appt later, lets see how that goes...

Hope appointment goes OK Mary. Would you like to take a tearoom special hot chocolate and cake with you?

Meant to say earlier - TW I think it would be a really good idea if you asked the other person about regulation. I would have thought that you could get confirmation of your training from the original body if you can't find the originals. But it would mean that you recaptured the 'you' as well as being a wife and mother.

Hurrah for MrMistle !!!!!! A 3 month contract might well go on further

Thoughts with you Mary. Not knowing your DS at all, had no idea whether he would work better with timings or not. Must confess that when I was a guider, my brownie meeting was pretty planned, but then I ran straight from work to there, so I needed to know exactly what we were going to do - not to the minute, but certainly to the 15

you aren't going to be down saarth this weekend are you btw ? Tomorrows plans have fallen through (well, actually annoying family have just cancelled, as they are wont to do), so am going to my parents to pick up a bird cage for DS. Apparently he wants a plastic budgie, and neeeds a cage for it to go in. Don't ask me

That's funny - mistlechick was commenting this morning that one of his classmates is going to get a budgie - whehter this is true or wishful thinking I don't know!

No, we're staying up here - Dh has 2 performances of the Mikado tomorrow... Oh, and, of course, we might need to look for a car!!!

Quick nip in...at conference, have embarassed myself by not recognising one of my Bishops at breakfast (eek!) but have spent hilarious time with another faith leader who is frankly quite bonkers and now really need to go and be social at dinner...

just strolling by - got woken up by unfeasibly loud train going through so here I am.

Fingers crossed for MrMistle that one of them works out, even if it's not the first one.

Yes I plan to see if I can talk to this woman and discuss things - I can't be doing with going through the professional body if I don't have to, I was never a member of one in the UK because they weren't much cop, I got my insurance through my college. Sadly they don't do overseas cover.

Amber, your conference sounds full of interest and entertainment - how long does it go on for?

CBT appointment went well, she DID say I seem to use a lot of the standard coping techniques that they recommend anyway, in fact she said I coped amazingly well, given everything that happens. She said it sounded like I could do with proper support though, and was there any available - I said not that I knew of, I'd looked.

On a lighter note, DS had to do experiments with ice cubes, and time how long it would take for one to melt on a radiator (!), window ledge inside, window ledge outside and in the fridge. He was fed up of waiting for the one in the fridge to melt - so he altered the thermostat! Fortunately I caught him doing it! Incidently the one outside took longer to melt than the one in the fridge (we started at 3:20pm).

Mistle family - congratulations on the new job. I am delighted!

This may sound odd but I really think you should all be very very proud - you see jobs are hard to get hold of at the moment. I deeply believe that even superman would only succeed in baggin' a goodun' with a very strong woman and lovely boy behind him. From things you've posted in the tearoom I know this success really is a big team effort. So... WELL DONE TEAM MISTLE - I only hope if we are in the same boat you were in (fingers, legs and eyes crossed) we will follow your excellent example!!! xxxx

It is dress up day next week at Milk's school. She has decided that going in as a mouse could be pretty fun. So we made her costume this morning and she rather noisily tried it on!

Did you hear the eeek eeek eeeek-ing in Australia Thumb!??!