Dec 08 - The One where they take on the world (school)

[DeidreBarlow]

New thread

Must stop boring you with all my prego ailments and rants!

Beans skip swimming watch a movie.

Nolda well done on the job thing I am putting off ever getting a job.

Must stop boring you with all my prego ailments and rants!

Beans skip swimming watch a movie.

Nolda well done on the job thing I am putting off ever getting a job.

If you can't rant at us who can you rant to Jam?!?

I did swimming. I am a legend. DD3 slept through it all.

Am struggling through a screamy bath time for all 3 girls. have managed to be very calm so far. DH duee home in half an hour. if he DARES to think about taking the dig out for training and walj and not doing bedtime, I may kill him.

clearly dog, not dig!

does he take the dog running in the dark beans?

no, but for s walk and throwd her a ball to find in the dark. v irritating when the girls and I need him at bedtime!

Just be grateful he walks the dog. DH never walks our hound.

Hello everyone!

Going to come back and try and keep up a bit!

Can't hope to catch up.

beans how the hell did you manage swimming with 2 and a baby. Did you go in with them with the baby on the side in car seat. You are a legend, that sounds like logistical nightmare.

Settled into school now here i hope. Still feel like don't know what the hell i am doing every morning with DD one place or another or another (nursery, or preschool, or childminder) and which directions we are going in and remembering all the associated different crap.

DS apparently likes school but that's about the most I get out of him. He has taken to shrieking with laughter "It's like getting blood out of a stone" and then telling me fuck all. And telling me fake names of kids in his class to wind me up when i want to know who his friends are. My parents are here this week and can't get anything out of him either. Although there is apparently a naughty snake at school called SLIZZORS who takes numbers off the number board. Got that little gem from him today. What is a number board? Is this true? I can only guess.

Oh yeah i wanted to ask you guys, do any of your kids do any classes? DS does nothing, no swimming/football, etc, and am wondering if i should start him on something. But I am reluctant to sign up to stuff at weekends as like to be able to do own thing at weekends, and only have two after school evenings, one of which annoyingly i currently have to dial into a work call on so is sort of out as well. He seems happy as he is and we do lots of stuff together so I am minded not to bother. He's still bonkers about his bike rubes we should get them together! He's trying to learn to wheelie, most pissed off that he can't bless him (I can't fecking wheelie properly I'm buggered if he'll get the hang of it before me anyway). We tried him on friends geared islabike and I think he's too small for time being (he could ride it but didn't look comfy) so i think he's going to have to be singlespeed for a while yet though.

Jam, you're right. Although its a new fad and won't last. It is because he's trying to train her.

Summer, hello! How are you doing? All this bike chat worries me. Only just got DD1 on hers with stabilisers and DD2 only interested in her scooter.

Luckily the swimming lessons don't involve me entering the water. Thank god. I couldn't do that! Am so large and hairy at the mo! Like a dugong.

My friend's little girl arrived at 11amon 18th. Same as me, but a month later!

Spooky Beans about the month later. Though wasn't yours born at 10:58 or something.

Summer I really wouldn't get too into loads of activities early. Coming from a mother who got up at a sparrows fart this morning, cycled 50 minutes and is now sipping coffee from a thermos whilst inhaling chlorine from the 50 meter pool below me, there is plenty of time to start and once you have started it is never ending. I'm not sure if you remember my Wednesday missions of cycling 30 minutes to get DS1 to an activity that started at the same time that one of DS2's activities finished. Currently, DS2 does swimming for 45 minutes on a Wednesday (it is mandatory here on account of all the waterways and they have to achieve at least the A diploma swimming test before they can swim at public pools without floaties). He also has just started gymnastics on a monday, I waited until he'd been at school for 8 months so he had gotten used to the extra load of time and so could cope with it. But really it is also so he can have a good old monkey around and all the equipment which is fun. What does DS1 do during the holidays? For things like swimming lessons I would recommend seeing there is a holiday swim course he can do. We have them in Australia and they are great for getting kids to learn to swim all in one go, plus they are often linked to school holidays play groups.

Oh also the reason we chose gymnastics is a) its close by and b) its a pretty general activity, it is good for movement etc but not so specific that they couldn't change to something else later on...but mainly because it's close by. Also our boys are not particularly tall, but they are strong little buggers,so it is perfectly suited to them. DS2 also learns recorder now but that is mainly because DS1's violin teacher is also a recorder teacher and he was interested in learning the flute, so we told him a recorder is a type of flute and he's happy as. He learnt two notes (with the treacher lifting his finger up & down bless him) & was absolutely chuffed to bits.

Beans I'm in no way encouraging DS2 on the bike he can now cycle without stabilisers (they see them as an evil foreign invention here) but I don't want him riding to school yet. Ds1 has started riding along without holding the handle bars so I am bar to having high blood pressure from the school run.

Beans, you are superwoman! We have swimming on Friday afternoons too and I hate it and I only have two to worry about.

Hi Summer, nice to hear from you. DS only does swimming after school. When DD started school, the school she went to ran no after school clubs for year R as they felt it would be too much for them. We do swimming because my DH is boat mad and we need them to be safe round water.

DS only learnt to use a balance bike last term at pre-school. Definitely no wheelies here!

DD is so tired today and horrid. She always has had difficulties dropping off to sleep. Looks like it's time for another bedtime routine clampdown, joy!

Summer!! Your absence has been noted and I'd been meaning to shout out to see if you're out there! I so wish you lived closer as our two are so similar! DS has been banging on about riding to school but it's just not possible with the very beginning being steep and a busy road to cross. He tells me I can wheel it down and carry it across the road and he'll only ride after that, but hasn't taken into account that I can't do all that as well as manage dd and so my latest plan is to see about taking the bike trailer converted into double jogging stroller, or actually tow it but I think they are getting near it's weight limit. haven't seen a wheelie out of ds yet but if he saw E doing it he'd be desperately trying! DH trying to teach him to stand up on the pedals currently still going back and forth on the geared bike or just getting a bigger lighter one in Dec.
As far as activities, I wouldn't worry too much. My two learnt jack shit about swimming when I took them in for baby / toddler lessons all those years - just water confidence really, but when they started with just the instructor, they have improved out of sight. So if you can get them in those lessons they are great, as is the intensive half term courses Vag mentioned. There's one at ours I have been thinking about for DD which is £25 for 7 days of lessons. Other than that, the after school clubs don't start until year 1 and he doesn't go to anything else, but dd is starting a great ballet / modern dance school in January, thank god, as the girl cannot sit still - always twirling around! She even bobs up and down constantly in her swimming lesson - must be so distracting for the other 2 in the class! Apart from that I may start ds in something football related but so far can't find anything that doesn't clash with swimming. DH still on about this bike racing kids thing which he can start from 7 but fortunately a couple of years off yet! [phew]

DS upset me a bit last night as I was reading the round up of the week email from his teacher, and talking to him about all he had done that week and one thing was talking about when they feel angry and what they can do, when they feel that way. Then he volunteered that he said he feels angry when "Mummy flies off on her plane sometimes" I obviously seized on that and then bombarded him with questions so he shut down naturally so got myself all worked up as I really don't work much - (to put it in perspective, I have a trip at the end of this month (I go one morning and home the next evening - so a 2 day) then nothing until around the end of the 1st week in Dec!) I asked him again at bedtime and he started telling me about the other kids angry things , and then he mentioned it's not fair, as I my plane has "good games on it" and he wants to play them again, and "when could we go again" So I'm wondering if it's more about him wanting to come too due to the games, and not so much that I'm leaving him? He also said the teacher just wrote down lots of stuff when the kids were answering her! but dh reckons it's more about her finding out about the kids temperament etc, and not an exercise to find out private stuff! Apparently it was only a 5 min exercise, but I might ask her at the next meeting if it's still on my mind.

The mortgage guy was here till bloody 930pm last night - he has zero sense of urgency when he comes over, but hopefully all progressing. There was me thinking it's got to be just a sign here type thing by now after all these meetings but it really dragged on, when all I wanted to do was get to the shop for wine before 10 ended up sending dh out for takeaway and booze at 945. Hence massive need for a run today. Then perhaps bikes later as ds won't let up anytime dh home at a weekend!

Deids how is the foot?

Must go - sorry for the rambling essay. Have great weekends all.

Hi SL, my two do loads. TBH I wish it was less. Karate, Film Club, Gymnastics (DS2), Swimming, Football & alternate wks Golf (DS1).

Agree with vag holiday swim clubs are great everyday for a wk.

Putting the babies rm together today. Just realised I bought the wrong size cot mattress. So will have to do battle with kiddicare to exchange it.

Poor DS1 is ill. A friend took them home from school for me so I could meet DH in town. Then I got a text to say he was ill. Got a temp and a headache. Really hope we are getting all the bugs over with before no. 3.

Have a great wkend all.

Oh and the boys are watching Christmas movies! All I can hear from downstairs is the soundtrack to Arthur Christmas. Its toooo early!

I got my period! Woohoo!

53 day cycle. That is NOT allowed. Cost me a bleeding fortune in pregnancy tests .

I am so amazingly snowed under with work. Last week of placement next week before back in uni so loads to finish off placement wise and loads to do before lectures start again. hence the vanishing act again.

Take care you wonderful lot. Jammy don't give birth before I resurface .

Ah beans that sounds a bit more doable but you are still amazing!

I used to take DS to swimming lessons when he was just 3 at the gym. I used to take DD in as well and go in while his lesson was on. EVERY week it would stress me out to the point of nearly being in tears and DS hated it. He never learnt to swim, and he hated the teacher, who seemed perfectly nice to me. At the end of 2 terms of lessons he hadn't been moved up from level 1. Such a waste of money!!

But I think now they would enjoy lessons, DD has said she'd like to do them, and DS is now almost swimming (he sort of moves along, sinking under and then coming up and then sinks again, he loves being underwater so this method swimming does not seem to bother him!) so I think he'd only spend a term in level 1 this time! Holiday class would be good, but would be dependent on me being able to take them, which si unlikely as would mean being on hols at home, most likely we either be away on holiday or they would be in holiday club.

beans don't worry about my bike mad one, I guess it's not surprising he's good at biking in this family. vag I am the same re second one and biking, I dread DD being able to ride and wanting to ride to school too. She is on the balance bike at the mo, she's quite good when she wants to be but she is lazy and gives up after not very long and makes me carry it, or wants to go in trailer if I have it. She's also sooo much slower than DS it makes it difficult. I think you were all talking about how we get to school a bit back - we cycle, it is about a mile so not ideal for walking at DD snail pace, DD goes on a bike seat on the back but it's a bit of a pain as she's a bit big now. Cycling also sensible option as I usually cycle straight to work afterwards.

jam i ordered wrong size mattress from kiddicare before DD and I couriered it back to them. Pricy but probably cheaper than fuel to get to kiddicare! (THink it cost about a tenner)

rubes I wouldn't worry too much about the teacher and the angry thing. Maybe he (DS) was just trying to think of something to say! And I expect it was more about talking about emotions, etc, than trying to get stuff out of them about home. Though I guess it is a bit of an odd thing to ask.

Congrats indith! Can imagine the relief!

indith hurrah for period, phew!

Crossed summer! Thanks re angry thing. I suspect you're right. Dh says the same.

I'm going to try the bike trailer next week. Just not sure it'll go down well with ds as he'd rather not be in it. Dd the same as yours re balance bike. Even gets tired / lazy on scooter and makes me carry it.
The newly purchased buggy board was returned to Asda today. Naughty us after using it. However I cleaned it up and it looked mint.

Am sitting outside screw fix in car and it's pouring rain. Plans for bike riding and run not looking so hot. Dh buying a part for running toilet. Hate this shop almost as much as maplin.

DH gets almost as excited by the screw fix catalogue as the children do with the Smyths toy one.

Oh I know. I secretly bin it when it comes through the door. And not just the kitchen bin, the wheelie bin. Otherwise he'd probably fish it out.

Do the trailers have a weight limit Rubes, woops. I still fold DS1 into it in bad weather for the trip to swimming onSaturdays and in really bad weather I shove them both in there for the school run. Though with winter jackets I don't think it will be an option this year.

I hate screw fix too, I'm not in the UK but I listen to Absolute radio and they have the screw fix ads, mainly with two northern sounding men getting excited about the screwfix catalogue, because obviously DIY guys or tradesmen must be northern.

Rubes the boys and DH are making robots as I type I should find the recipe for making them and send it to you, your DH & LOs would love it.

Wow indith I assumed you had had them by now. How annoying and expensive. I just posted a link on FB about Peads nursing on FB, getting very excited about getting back to it one day, I miss nursing so much.

I recently found out one of the very inspiring women who hired me to my last post, passed away, she had breast cancer, such a horrid disease.

Rubes I can actually understand your intial reaction to the anger thing, but actually it is brilliant that she is getting kids to think about anger, we accept crying, laughing, happiness & sadness. However, anger is an emotion we need to feel but it is not very acceptable. It's especially relevant for boys I think as they need to understand it and how it makes them react. Also I'm sure he is missing you, but his understanding of planes is that you sit on them and play games and watch movies. No wonder he is not happy about you going. He's probably jealous. However, even if it is that he is angry your leaving him, that's ok too, it's good for him to express it, for you to acknowledge it and thats it.

haha at screwfix. I hate DIY shops too, fortunately DH is not a big DIY fan, or actually maybe unfortunately as it would be useful.
He does love maplin though being to total geek, and also effing model trains too. Tragic, but i still love him.

rubes does DS like the scaelextric? AS my DS has expressed an interest in one for XMas!

vag recipe for robots?? Can you eat robots?