ELEVENSES HERE *****************************************************************************************

[MaryAnnSingleton]

think we've been deleted,so shall we put ourselves here in other subjects ?
Sleepless night fretting about T and loos and lunches at big school - how neurotic am I ?!

Glad you enjoyed it

Good luck at the hospital today, will be thinking of T. Have you got a nice treat planned for afterwards?

We are having an early lunch at my mad DCI friend. Have made some chocolate brownies to take with us.
And then I have to head into Guildford to take Dillydog for his haircut! He is looking a bit yeti like, will try to put up some pics

thank you - we're going to Wagamama afterwards
Hope lunch was fun ( mmm,brownies !) and that Dilly dog's hairdo looks nice !

well all went very well....the journey was fine (not my favourite) and the hospital car park which was a nightmare has been reorganised so parking was easy peasy and we were seen almost straight away. Different consultant and paediatrician there but the same lovely nurse - they didn;t even press his tummy - saw from previous blood test that haemoglobin etc was fine and he is obviously growing and looks healthy. He was remarkably calm and decided to have the freeze spray instead of emla cream - he was quite nervous about that but it all went brilliantly and he was a star ! (previous visits have been incredibly fraught with tears and real fearfulness) Afterwards we went to Festival Place in Basingstoke and did som,e shopping (trousers and t shirt in the Gap for dh) and chocolate for us all in Hotel Chocolat. Lovely early supper in Wagamama after that.
Thanks for thinking of him - I told him you were

Brilliant! I am so glad it went well

Took Dillydog to the groomers today adn got stuck in hopeless traffic in Guildford. Then Dill had to have teh most radical haircut because his second layer of fur (the bottom layer or undercoat) had become all matted like cotton wool. (groomer blamed the snow
So I now have a very skinny looking almost bald dog
Had a lovely lunch at my friend's house. The children played well together.

Need to pop out tomorrow and get a little present and card for boy J whose leaving party O is attending tomorrow afternoon.

And then half term is over already

just popped in briefly to say I've put a nice picture of T on my profile,taken yesterday when we out at lunch - 2 of my friends in the background

Awww, lovely picture T is so very very handsome!
Did you have a nice lunch? Where did you go, what did you have? [nosy emoticon]

Did you see my new pictures? (walk in the woods and hairy dog ones)

Back to school tomorrow, O very excited, E reluctant-ish...

great new pictures - love E's coat ! Dillydog made me laugh
We went to a Prezzo in Brentford, near where I used to live - met up with 4 of my friends from my Waterstones days- L &P and their two boys and J and T - was really nice day out.Went back to J's house as she lives nearby,a few doors down from my old house.

oh forgot to say - T had a funghi pizza and I had a goats cheese salad !

Oh thank goodness I've found you! I've been searching and searching and somehow 'search' didn't track you down. Phew - was beginning to panic

You both sound like you've had good half-terms. Hasn't it gone fast? We're lucky, we have an INSET tomorrow, so think we're off to London for the day. Can't decide whether to brave the Science Museum or the Natural History Museum...

We've had a lovely H/T. We haven't done too much, lots of pottering, which has been nice. We went to the theatre on Tuesday to see a weird clay show which B really enjoyed. Had a play with a friend who isn't at B's school. We met them at the local garden centre and they played and played, then fed the ducks. Lots of dogwalking, bit of gardening etc etc oh, and loads of physio appointments for me and dh!

The photos are great! We don't have any recent ones as the camera packed up I'm bereft, but we are keeping our eyes out for a bargain one.

MAS - glad T's hospital appointment went well. Must be a huge relief!

Hope back to school goes OK and that E is happier this half term.

hey hotcross ! we will have to start a new thread soon I think - we're nearly at 1000 posts ! Glad you've had a good half term too - enjoy your extra day tomorrow - I love both the Science and Nat. History - think I'd pick the Science Museum if I was going tomorrow though !

Hi hotcross glad to hear you had a lovely half-term too. Am at your inset day.

Lunch sounds lovely MAS! (I love E's coat too, I absolutely adore it, and I sometimes am more worried about the coat then about E )

Dh is off to Leeds for the whole week next week. I am purposely keeping myself busy - have a coffee morning and a lunch to attend next week, am helping at Rainbows, E is having a friend for tea on Tuesday, and they both are having a friend for tea on Thursday. The car needs an MOT, the dog needs walking and I have to finish my CV.
Am dreading dh not being here.
Never mind, will just be on here a lot!!

Better go, have brownies in the oven to take to my mad dci friend for the coffee morning tomorrow - I think they are nearly ready

purposely is not a word is it??

Morning

How are you both doing? Did your dcs have a good first day back? Hippi - is your dh away this week? I don't like it when my dh goes away, so if there's anything I can do let me know. I'm not too far...

Thanks for your advice about London MAS. We had a lovely lovely day. B really enjoyed the train journey of course, and the underground too. We went to the Science Museum first. TBH it wasn't a great success...I feel I should whisper that really, as it's much hallowed on here. It was much busier than I'd anticipated, they'd run out of maps so we just wandered. B whizzed through the exhibits, not really wanting to stop and actually look at things, and ended up at the Pattern Pod bit. Unfortunately, lots of the hands on stuff was broken, so we were only there for a few minutes, before we went down to The Garden. Again, lots of red tape saying out of order and about 100 children crowded round the water thing. We go to the Look Out in Bracknell quite often and think it's actually better organised with more to do... Maybe going just after halfterm was a bad idea, as they hadn't had a chance to fix it up yet?

Anyway, B was dragging herself around, not that interested, so we decided to quickly go to the Natural History Museum instead. She LOVED it! I can see we'll have to go back again and again to look round all of it. We only had time to go through the volcano exhibition and of course the dinosaurs, so only a fraction of what is there. She insisted when we got home on writing all about what she'd seen there so she could show her class!

Am in a heap today of course. Going up to London always seems so exhausting, but I'm glad we did go. The double decker bus ride back to Waterloo would have been reason enough to make the effort

Right, off to tidy the house. Half term always leaves a bombsite! Then B has her new ballet class this afternoon - I'm really hoping it's not a disappointment...

Hi hotcross, thanks for the kind offer
We really should all meet up soon!

My two also prefer the Natural History Museum - it is fabulous!!

New ballet class? Tell us more - is this with the old and good teacher? What have you done about the other lessons with the annoying bouncy teacher?? (am picturing Tigger in a Tutu here )

O had a fab day back, so no worries there. E was okay. I get the feeling the classroom situation is getting her down a bit. And I gather from her comments (and a bit of reading between the lines) that now a lot of new friendships are emerging and she is being left on the sidelines
Never mind, she is her own little person and has to find her own place within the class.
I helped at Rainbows yesterday. It was lovely, we made pancakes and the girls loved them! We also did a pancake-inspired obstacle race, great fun!

Have just come home from lunch with two of my old friends (we met at toddler swimming classes when O and their dds were 2)
Better go and do the school run, back later

Think T prefers Nat Hist too ! What a shame stuff was broken or out of bounds...
Hope new ballet class is a success !
Glad O had a good first day back - am sure that E will find her way, there will always be stuff like this to deal with, I guess it's all part of growing up, painful though it may be.
T had a good day I think..today he has successfully booked appointments with 3 teachers for parent consultation evening - sensibly timed too ! He had to draw a halved tomato for art homework and we only have the teeny ones so sent him up to the Co-op to buy a couple. No singing group today for some reason but luckily I was back from Winchester in time to let him in...went with my friend S to swap dh's birthday present and to mooch about...nice cheese scone and coffee in the Cathedral cafe.
Have just had my last scrapings of nutella before Lent - will certainly miss it !

Hi
No Nutella on a pancake for you then tonight MAS??

Great news about the teacher appointments. My friend's ds is in Y8, and last year when he had to book the appointments for the first time he booked some at the start of the evening and some right at the end. My friend and her dh attended the first few appointments, popped out for a bite to eat local to the school, and then headed back to school for the rest of the appointments. She said it made for an interesting evening

Am sure E will find her own way. Went to the park after school for a bit and 4 girls from her class were playing on the roundabout. E walk past them and amused herself on the climbing frame. I then asked her did she want to go on the roundabout, she walked up, took part. No-one seemed particularly pleased to see her, but neither did they stop her from joining in. She had fun for a while, then little S arrived, beckoned E from across the park and E immediately got up to see little S.
So much for me trying to get her mixing with others!!

Never mind. I get the feeling she is quite happy as she is. She only tells me tales of woe if I specifically ask her about her classmates or playtime. So have decided to stop asking and wait if she volunteers information. Am working on the principle that if she is not volunteering anything it can't be bothering her that much....
(hope I am doing the right thing, [fret])

yes, I think you're doing the right thing hippi - try not to worry
Pancake will have maple syrup on !

Just finished our pancakes. Very traditional in the hotcross house - we all had lemon and sugar

Glad T and O got on well. I don't think we had to make our own appointments for parents evening at sceondary, think parents just queued for each teacher, but that sounds mad, so I suppose some sort of system must have been in place

I think you're right to not ask E directly, hard though that is. She will tell you if there is a real problem I think... Who knows though - there isn't a right or wrong I don't think. She sounds a bit like B with groups of friends tbh. B is always usually on the circumference of things, quite self-contained. I'm always suggesting she should join in more, but she never does and doesn't really seem to need to. I don't know whether this is more acceptable while they are still little and will get more noticeable later or not???

Good news! Ballet went really well It's with a completely new ballet school, and we have to travel a bit further, but the teacher seems lovely and B already knows a little girl in the class from Nursery, so they disappeared into class together. They use the same music to the same steps, so B just slotted in I think. Apparently she had to demonstrate how to jump to her friend so doesn't seem out f her depth or anything. Phew - I am so relieved, especially as I had a snooty letter today from the old ballet school...

Just spotted the name change again Hippi - WELL DONE!

Thanks hotcross. It has taken me 6 weeks, so must be the slowest weightloss in history

Oooh, what was teh snooty letter from the old ballet school?? [nosy, me? never!]

We had pancakes with maple syrup, nutella, jam, cheese and ham. Not all at the same time!!!
E has decided that this year she does not like pancakes. She proclaimed them 'too slimy'. Mmmm
She was not too keen on the ones at Rainbows yesterday either, those were 'too spongy'.
Me thinks I have a fussy little madam on my hands [sigh]

O's friend's mum just phoned to invite O to the theatre with her ds next month. At Woking, to see ScoobyDoo. She has front row seats for them!! O is very very excited! (This is the friend who came for the sleepover and with whom O goes to drama club)

Am glad to hear B is on teh periphery a bit aswell hotcross, I think some children are just meant to be like that. O has always been 'not part of the in-crowd' but has found some good like-minded pals now (who are into drama, cars, comedy and anything which is not football) so am not too worried about him for now. But E seems soooo apart from it all. Like she is participating behind a glass wall - she is there but not really part of it, does that make sense?
Anyway, she seems happy, so I am happy

Arf, that read wrong. Am not glad B is on the outskirts too, am glad that E is not the only one and that it must be quite normal.

Sorry Fingers and brain are not reading from the same page tonight...

excellent loss of 4 pounds hippi - well done !
T is always on the outskirts, it does worry me but am not sure how to get over it,apart from encouraging them to join in etc..obviously our children are likeminded and very special
Had my last chocolate just now and pancakes with maple syrup and ice cream - yum yum !
T is giving up playing with his old rubbery snake,which he has had since he was little - he uses it as a 'prop' to his thinking,kind of bashing it around - he's done it for years and I suppose it looks quite odd if you were to observe it as an outsider - we are so used to his doing this...his hands get sore with the bashing on the floor...in a way it's like a kind of tic.he seems to do it to unwind,zone out,relax etc.Anyway, he has decided to give it up for Lent - he has been wanting to cut down anyway as he feels it is something he should be stopping...gosh,that all sonds quite bizarre..when I was his age or younger I used to push a broom or bounce a ball around the garden to help me think/imagine things - I loved making up my own fantasy world and a prop always helped !

didn't take it the wrong way Hippi! I think some children are just destined not to be right in the centre of things.

How are you doing today MAS? Won't mention the 'C' word

Have just got back from Sainsburys. I found it really hard not to spend a fortune today. I picked out 3 plums for B - not huge ones - and they were going to cost £1.40 The lady on the till seemed surprised when I put them back... Still spent nearly £80, but am hoping it'll keep us going for most of the week now

The ballet letter... paraphrasing 'in 25 years of teaching I've been acknowledged as a good judge of whether a child is enjoying our classes, so I'm amazed to have been so wrong in B's case'...etc etc. I'm very relieved B enjoyed the new class so much, I sort of feel vindicated if that makes sense?

MAS - your Natalie Merchant thread has ruined me! I spent hours on You Tube last night trawling through her performances, and then went off searching for other favourites. I've got Barenaked Ladies on ATM. I can see I'm going to lose hours on it now!

3 plums for £1.40
Mind you, I paid 33p for 1 tomato at the weekend
At this rate I shall dig the entire garden over and grow my own!!
(except that I have a tendency to kill anything green so we may go hungry!)

I don't know why I am worrying about E - I was always on the outskirts too and I have turned out allright! (that is debatable say hotcross and mas )
Anyroad, our children are fab and that is the end of it!

Have just come back from collecting the car from it's MOT. Nothing too scary luckily, the old thing lives to see another year!

Thanks for the congrats on the weightloss But I think I undid all the good work last night when I munched some left-over pancakes with Nutella on at 10pm and had a large hot chocolate with it
I blame it on dh being away - am comfort eating....

I think T's 2 tomatoes cost him 45p - I gave him £1 to buy a couple or if not available separately then 4 in a pack...I probably wouldn't have given him enough money in that case ! Went to Sainsb and my bill was £86 I think, but am sure I missed something - didn't buy any chocolate as dh has enough supplies and besides it's his birthday on Sunday and I know he is getting some nice chocs from T and from my parents...
Am not missing it yet...
So glad ballet went well hotcross
My car had it's MOT and service on Monday - something like £500+ for service (new wiper blades/replaced wheel cylinder thing which was leaking brake fluid) and other bits and pieces - yikes.
Off to collect little S and no doubt play doctors

Two tomatoes for 45p is not too bad I suppose, but it is still shocking how much everything seems to have gone up!
I popped into the Co-op at the end of our road on the way home from the school run and there was an old lady almost sobbing in the veg aisle because of the price of cabbages!

I am on here trying to stay sane whilst O is grappeling with fractions. He has some fab maths homework, questions such as
"Mr Murrin is 160cm tall and his brother Tom is 7/8 as tall as him. How tall is tom?
and
Skateboards cost £36 each in my local store. The shopkeeper says if I buy one I can buy another for only 7/9 of the normal price. How much would a second skateboard cost?

I love love love those kinds of questions and have to stop myself from taking over and just letting O work them out for himself....

[sits on hands]