Dec 11: Not tonight dear, I've got a haddock.

[PerilousStiletto]

I liked this one. :)

Darcie is in a brilliant state primary and best of all it's the best mainstream school in the area that helps with ASD children. I had a meeting with Darcie's new class teacher and put her ipa in place. We can't afford private but there are some pretty good state secondary's here. Sky will be going the same schooling route Darcie has so far, which is nursery, preschool, infants & juniors all on one ground.

So thankful I mowed the lawn yesterday as it rained loads today.

Sky can count to twenty now and vocabulary is getting larger all the time and she babbles on loads.

Sky has slept thru the night for the last 4 nights...I think she knows winter is coming and her body clock is adjusting

My Mickey Mouse clubhouse cake was brilliant and the birthday boy loved it.

Question: what recipes do you all use for Christmas fruit cake?

Oh hinky you're not a shit mum. I'm a rubbish shouty mum tbh, but I love being at home with the DCs more than anything, and I just muddle through trying my best.

BIL got a 3 year suspended sentence. I should be happy that there's less chance anyone will find out, but I'm a bit narked that he didn't get what he deserved tbh. Apparently they took into account that he lives with his elderly (78yo) mum who he looks after, it's completely the other way around, she still treats him like a child, has his tea ready on the table when he gets home, makes his bed, tidies his room and makes his packed lunch.

After DH complained about working too many hours and having his hours changed for daft reasons at short notices, he got a text today from his boss, he now has to change his shift on Tuesday because his boss would rather play golf than work, which now puts him up to 53 hours this week. So fed up, I don't think it's fair on the DCs that when he's here he's always asleep or grumpy because his work is having such a shit effect on our family life.

Maybe we should start a Friday night moan, anyone else want to join in? :o

hinkyhonk sorry to be dense but are you a recent member or a name change? I'm awful with name changes I'm afraid Hope wine helps anyway. If you don't want to be stay at home mum would you consider working for free or paying a bit to work for a while? Could you afford it? Cos kids won't be this small forever and childcare will get less in a few years.

I don't even know where minim will go to primary cos we are going to move (although STILL not finished decorating and house therefore not on market Gah!). It is sort of hard to find out where is good and bad without knowing parents in the relevant areas. I'd defs agree on waiting until secondary to pay though. Not that I'll be able to afford it I imagine. I think the state secondary schools around here are grand though. Hopefully they still will be in ten years time! It seems a fairly good spot at the moment anyway.

I'm totally knackered after first week and still only written 1.5 lectures :( I'll be lecturing in two hour blocks two times a week as well as six hours of seminars every second week and some extra lectures some weeks. So need to get faster at writing them :( Ugh stress. Big hit of stress this week with the driving as well. Only went twice but hadn't driven it on my own before so was nervewracking. Very. I'm so tired. Might go get a glass of wine myself actually!

seven really sorry to hear about sentencing and MIL head in sand. Stress. I'm sure your husband won't get grief. Surely people will realise it is nowt to do with him. How horrid for you all though

Peril well impressed with your gardening skills! Nom.

xiao your boy (s?) will get amazing education. I think all the extra curricular activities amazing. It's such a shame for state school pupils not to get those opportunities. I was at a state school and all my music lessons were private. I'd never have had the chance to learn the violin at school. I just had parents who were able to afford to give me that privilege.

Right. Wine then early bed. Then shopping for a new rain coat for minim. She's grown so much! Lashing today and she had no coat. She has got on brilliantly at nursery all week and been very happy there every day. Thank God cos I've been feeling horribly guilty about leaving her there fulltime. Right. Shut up mopsy and get your wine!

Sorry seven cross post. Yeah is good ppl won't know but shit like you say that he's not getting his come uppance.

Bloody hell Queen Minimopsy can't count at all, not even 1, 2. Is that bad at 20 months? is that behind? Didn't even occur to me. She is chatting loads but is gobbledegook apart from maybe 30-40 words. That normal?

(Hinkyhonk - you're a name change - but I can't decipher who you are... Anyway, there are no crap mums on this thread. I'm certain of it.
Sorry you're feeling crappy. I hope the wine gave you a kick up the bum to realise that you really are rather brilliant, and can actually take on anything that this silly world throws at you. ...after all, it is a silly old world. Deep breath, big glug, , carry on!
Chin up, chin chin!
Friends are due to arrive from Dundee any minute. We'll be drinking wine into the early hours, and then the Boi will be up before 7. I could probably sleep now!
But the wine is nice.

Yeah wine is yumyum Peril . Bottle shared with Mr. Mopsy now empty though and baba up early so guess better hit the sack!

Yes we are all good mums! No beating ourselves up!

Sorry hawthers here been a bit AWOL since April when my child care went tits up and then we moved. Just struggling with it all at the moment. Apologies for the self indulgent rant

We're all damned awesome, so there!

We survived the first week back. Boo is tired but happier. I had a good chat with his new teacher and she's already put in place a couple of coping strategies that were mooted last year but never acted on. He now has a visual timetable and a timer so he knows where he is, and if they're given a timescale for completing things it isn't abstract and he can deal better. The autism team have been in touch and they're rocking up to school in a few weeks to do some obs and to chat with him, me and some of the staff. I hope this is the start of getting him some help coping with his moods and social issues. He needs break, as do the rest of us.

Squidge has, rather on topic for the thread right now, just had her notification for senior school admissions. We have no choice but to choose state. I just hope we make the right choice. We're going to go to open events, have a look at what the syllabuses are like and what their extra curricular programmes are like. I'm not too concerned with league tables and exam results. She's a bright child, and we're encouraging and she can work hard. We have seven weeks to decide. There are three big comprehensives within a walk or ten minute bus ride. A big faith school and an all girls school. Just over the boundary there is another large comp. Of these the faith is discounted as we don't meet the criteria, and one of the two close comps is one that I'd prefer to avoid. That still leaves a lot of choice. No doubt I'll wibble on here a fair bit. You'll be bored but well versed in it all come March! :o

We are all damned awesome. And a tinsy winsy bit pissed. Friends not here yet.
(...they need to learn to drive like me!)

And music: Squidge parps in a noisy brass manner. She loves it. Provision is through the local authority. Schools can choose to buy in music and can either pass the cost on to parents, subsidise completely or mix it up. I pay £105 annually. For that she gets 20 minutes a week lesson in school, the opportunity to join and perform with multiple bands (she currently rocks out with the training brads and wind bands) as well as the loan of the instrument for as long as she chooses to play. Bloody good value. I don't have a lot of spare cash, so I pay in installments, but I'd never say no, it's important to her and to me too. School have a steel band that she's going to hopefully join this year too.

Despite all this awesome, the damn child still likes a Wand Erection song :(

Boo is impatient as he has to wait until y4 to start lessons.

octo I'd choose the all-girls if it doesn't seem worse than the others, unless you'd rather Boo goes to the same one later (sorry I can't remember how far apart their ages are). Are you hoping to get a statement for Boo? Glad he's happier, and you sound like you're doing better too :)

mopsy DD1 is a chatterbox, I've got no idea how many words she has, probably 100? No sign of counting though. I'm hoping it has nothing to do with intelligence, she's not that bright though, she manages to walk into walls or doorframes at last once a day because she doesn't look where she's going, good job she's cute :o

I meant to say the other night I was out walking with mum, we took a short cut through a field and saw a cougar/puma/whatever you want to call it. I know I sound crazy, it was about 60m away and sitting in long grass so couldn't see clearly, but golden brown, rounded cat shaped head, size about half way between a domestic cat and a lion. There's been other sightings around here before, glad I wasn't alone though and I won't be going back round said country road again!

The all girls is a good school. Most of her peers will go to either BigComp or there. One thing putting me off though is the uniform. They just changed to shirts, ties and blazers. The ties are clip on ones?! The hell!

All-girls is generally (I understand) good for results but see if it suits her as some can get a bit bitchy...
I love the idea of musicality stuff, am hoping to persuade the school to let DD1 get some state-music lessons this year: the old head discontinued private music lessons but the council say they can reinstate them if the school agrees and there's demand. I reckon she's a trumpet player personality (and DD2 is a euph player through and through). Brass is fab cos it's so very versatile....

vent away hinky, you're doing a lot better than you think. I too will be trying to break even over the next few months, so sympathy on the high-costs aspect of work as a parent...

Mopsy, chatter and babble is normal. Counting to twenty is not remotely standard at this age. No proper words other than mum, dada and more is allowable, you may notice repeated babble words,and then they will come in lumps. My (very clever) mate who has a Maths degree from Oxford and a phD in computing, didn't say a word until he was almost four. He then started in complete (long) sentences.

Fucking sick bastard. It's in the paper, 1026 images, levels 1-5 plus videos, I feel sick and shaky. They seized 2 computers, she said they didn't take anything. Paper says he's not allowed interned access, DH said he was in the pub last night online on his phone, I've told him to phone the police and tell them. Oh God.

Jesus seven. That's awful. I hope you guys don't get any grief over it

That does sound bad Seven. I think the best thing is to try to keep away from bil and mil if she can't admit that he is guilty as it's just not worth the hassle :(

Glad I'm not the only one getting nervous about driving Mopsy! I'm sure it's a case of keep driving and we will lose the nerves, but I hate the feeling of dread at the pit of my stomach! Still, I'd rather be driving than squeezing onto the school bus with DS in the mornings!

Hinky I'm pretty awful at remembering who does what etc., but would there be any possibility of condensing your hours into a 4 day week and then saving 1 days childcare, or maybe working from home?

I think personally I would rather DS wasn't at nursery for such long days, but if I'm not working 9-5.30 I'm earning less and the nursery just charges a full day whether I pick him up at 3.30 or 6.00. Once DS is at school I'd like to change my hours to Mon-Fri 9-2.30, but we'll see nearer the time!

Speaking of school, there's no way private school is an option. We have some good schools around us, but the closest secondary school has a dreadful reputation! I like to think that those who are going to do well will no matter what. I think as long as we give DS plenty of encouragement and he has the self belief he will do fine wherever he goes. I do get why private school is chosen by some parents though, and if we had the money, we probably would send him to private school.

Oh Christ seven, having Level 5 images is not good, I won't go there. Although weirdly the amount is actually relatively small, often it runs into the tens of thousands. Given that his sentence is suspended, he has to 'behave' for those three years. From the sounds of it (although it may have just been the football scores or something) he's possibly broken the terms of it already by going on the internet- not sure if he has to do something actually illegal or just forbidden for it to be a breach.
How grim for you and DH- how does he feel about it all, given that you obviously don't want to see his brother (and potentially his mother) even again...? I would report it btw, but can understand if your DH feels wobbly.
Shit. Definitely time

You have my sympathy too hinky about the costs of childcare/stress of work, as well as an affectionate slap around the chops as you are NOT a crap Mum. There's no worse feeling than only being able to give about 43% to each 'role' in your life and knowing you could do better, if only... But you are doing a good job, promise.

Still jealous of all you musical sorts on the thread- if DS manages to sing without Human Rights legislation being invoked he'll have done better than his parents .

On schools, I don't know what we'll do. I'm a big believer in comprehensive education (and even turned down both grammar and a full scholarship to private as a kid ) but we're in a grammar county. And, to make it even more fun, the local school was- literally, and I mean that in its proper sense- the worst school in the country about three years ago. One child got 5 A*-C
I just want to get back up North to somewhere like Manchester!

Fairly shattered today- had to be in work all day, leaving the house at 7am, to facilitate training- and had some awkward customers (one stalked off!). Off to do a second viewing on a house on Monday, it's come down in price to being on the edge of affordable...but hasn't been updated since, oooh, 1983...

Small rant ahoy, grab yer rubber ring...
I think good comprehensive education is an ideal. In practice many people cite they are "doing their best for their children" as justification to pull them out of state education and either pay for a better school, move to a more privileged cachement, or develop a faith connection or spend £ on tutoring to get them into a selective environment. This steepens the incline for the comprehensive/community system, by removing a good proportion of the more motivated parents/children. Of course children will often be perceived to do better at a school with better funding, less SEN pupils, smaller class sizes, more exam-motivated staff and parents, better extracurricular opportunities. From a societal mixing point of view, keeping education truly accessible for all in mixed community schools would probably be better for society as a whole. But that's not the way the world works. It does annoy me though, when parents pre-judge a school by how much it costs to go there or how upmarket the other parents are (or what the ofsted people say). Our old school got a slating from Ofsted a few years ago (rather unfairly as it was a nice little school) and there were several parents who immediately pulled their kids out as they "wanted a naicer school for little Veronica". No matter that little V was perfectly happy there, and with the reduction in pupils from the parents that jumped ship, we ended up with a rather enviable 20-22 kids in a class, and next time got an ofsted 2 "good"!
Rant over!.....

Aethel, you've met my Dad then?! Little bro has been whisked out of his local primary to go to a private school to get him through his 11+. It made me laugh when my Dad was going on about the unacceptable schools round him that 'only' had a 70% A*-C pass rate and they couldn't possibly consider the kids going there.... I gently reminded him that in our slightly less refined (cough) area, the aforementioned school had a 2% pass rate, ie that one child!!

Oh, and am up at this ungodly hour as DS wailed at half 4, DP went to get him as it's my lie-in day, but am so stressed with work/house that I've just stayed awake.... nothing compared to what seven's going through, just an immensely annoying situation.

Oh dear Northern :( that's so annoying, when you're. wrecked but can't sleep.

Oh no northern, much sympathy for the stress/sleep situation, really not what you need. I was in a similar house related situation last year if you remember, and as I sit typing this I'm munching my porridge in my sun-filled kitchen and it seems a long time ago. There was a radio 4 programme on yesterday I am turning into my parents which had an interview with Martha Lane Fox. The interviewer said "life is full of adversity, bad things happen to everyone, it's how you handle the bad stuff that makes each of us different". I hereby hand you a and some for coping with ongoing rubbish beyond-your-control work stress.... The house thing will rumble on and then suddenly a great new house will come on and it will all happen.

And just to add to last night that while I aspire to good inclusive education for all, I am in no way criticising directly anyone on thread who chooses to educate privately/publically. We live in a free market and some parents have more money/choices than others, I totally get that some of you feel more comfortable with the private system generally. I look at the costs (especially for three) and just wonder how super-fabby the benefits really are... Hubby has a perfectly OK income but our money has gone into house expansion rather than school fees. I'm happy with that decision so far. (admittedly the DDs seemed to be v happy with their first days back and it's heaven having!them in the same school...) oh and there's a nursery so in a year and a half DS can join in!

Just a quick one - I've come down with a bloody sickness bug :( why do they always start in middle of night?! Sorry for tmi had it from both ends :( stopped vomiting now but still have diarrhoea and stomach cramps. So far no one else has it so fx it stays away from them.

Oh dear poor you Queen :(

We just bought a tin of Danish butter cookies from Aldi. Anyone remember them from when we were kids? Talk about a proustian rush... must be twenty five years since I tasted one!

Ooh the ones with crystallised sugar on the top?? Lush!!