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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Am I the only parent who is Bah Humbug about the school soft toy comming to stay for the weekend?

70 replies

LynetteScavo · 01/03/2010 13:39

I know I should be pleased, and find it cute etc, but, actually it was really inconvenient having the teddy to stay this week end.

Firsty, I had planned to spend the weekend doing housework while DC's played in the garden. Which wouldn't be very exciteing to write about would it, so we had to have a special trip out, to take photos of teddy doing fun things. Why couldn't' he come on the weekend we'd planned to go to Paris?

Bah Humbug.

Secondly, I really don't need to constantly be checking teddy hasn't been lost in Sainsburys or where ever.

Bah Humbug.

Thirdly, DS2 struggles to write, so it took ages for him to put down what he wanted to say, and we both started to get frustrated, to the point where DS1 offered to do it for him.

Bah Humbug.

Obviously I'm being very unreasonable, but suely there is someone else who hates having soft toys come to stay as much as I do.

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Katz · 01/03/2010 19:33

we have honey the bear and i was really quite relieved she came home the night DD2 does ballet and tap as that's what Honey the bear did, then we served him chicken nuggets and alphabites (spelling honey) and then he went to bed. Some of her adventures in the book are quite interesting. She's been to a few house a couple of times and one child's parents are divorced and there's a spot of point scoring going on in the diary.

BadGardener · 01/03/2010 19:37

I don't think our school has one. They are a very old-fashioned, non-trendy school.
If we did have one there would be no competition - it would be 'Teddy went to Morrisons. Teddy watched Dad wash the car. Teddy watched CBeebies.'

Original poster

LynetteScavo · 01/03/2010 23:10

At one point DS actually used the school teddy to wipe his nose on. I now feel justified in putting the nursery squirel straight into the wash when it came to visit.

OP posts:

BoggleJunior · 01/03/2010 23:29

OK, we haven't had a bear home yet.

But after one, actually very eventful holiday, my eldest wrote "I had a shower" as his full holiday write-up in class.

Although I am not competitive, I was a little mortified at the implication that:
(1) we don't wash in term time
(2) we don't leave the house in the holidays (or even, apparently, do anything in the house)

abitworried · 02/03/2010 09:01

When Barnaby came home to ours many years ago he was so grubby & horrible that he had a 'style makeover' - proper wash, fur brush, and some new clothes (stolen from miscellaneous random toys of ours)

We took 'before' and 'after' pics !!

BimiBluebell · 02/03/2010 09:10

I think everyone feels the same. And, yes, that included swanky prep school people (of whom I am one). When the class teddy comes to our house, he has tea and goes to bed. Oddly enough, that's what he does at everyone's house. We obviously all need to work on our competitive skills to fulfil the prep school stereotype.

Elibean · 02/03/2010 09:29

Weekend?!?

Thankfully, Max the Monkey only gets to spend one weekday night in a child's house!

I do try and groan quietly when dd comes out beaming and clutching the tatty shoebox that is Max's: feels like extra homework to me. Never mind his thousand accumulated accessories that fall out of the box and get lost.

I do love the parents who decide Max needs a bath and puts him through the washing machine once in a while, though....

yumimummi · 02/03/2010 10:14

Eek - completely hate class teddy and DS also at prep school, although not sure I am one of the swanky ones! Having said that DS asked to take the ted on our ski holiday (asked the teacher, not me!) and OMG the stress was awful! Wanted to leave it at home and pretend it had gone but instead had to look after the silly thing more carefully than the kids and take it up the mountain in order to take photos to 'prove' it had gone. As we had it for the whole xmas hols felt compelled as apparently lots of the other little darlings would have liked to have it (!) Have to say though I blatently did the photos myself and sent them in about three weeks later - no pretence that DS did it whatsoever!

I think the neurosis about losing/damaging the bear is in fact more due to my having had the school gerbils for the summer holidays when I was about 7 and having accidentally killed one of them by leaving the cage on a sunny window ledge all day. I spent the rest of the hols imagining how much trouble I was going to be in come September! It could have been natural causes but I doubt it. I think we should all be grateful it is just a stuffed bear and not a real animal these days!! Still, hope they don't have one in Y2...

Original poster

LynetteScavo · 02/03/2010 11:41

yummimummi, going skiing over Christmas is officially swanky.

OP posts:

claricebeansmum · 02/03/2010 11:50

I am sooo pleased that my kids never had to do this. Sounds absolutely bloody awful.

PanicMode · 02/03/2010 12:20

We had the bloody thing for half term once and it was so stressful as we weren't going away anywhere swanky as others had done. We went to the county show, and managed to get the bear photographed in a fire engine, on a horse etc - but the pressure of a whole week of things to think about was terrible!!

I'm another one whose heart sinks on seeing the grin on my child's face as s/he runs out clutching the bear!!

time4tipple · 02/03/2010 12:28

I had a playground conversation about dd's class bear last week. It is minging & fellow mums also felt it needed a good boil wash - trouble is none of us were brave enough to do it - incase we came across neurotic! Now feel inspired to follow abitworried's example & give it a makeover...

Wheelybug · 02/03/2010 12:32

I think our nursery were particularly sadistic. We had 'cheeky chick' for 3 weeks over christmas when I was 7 months pregnant and DH had recently got out of hospital after being v. seriously ill indeed. Then we had to make sure we took Cheeky Chick to panto, to see father christmas, down to stay with my parents for christmas, out on the tiles for new year.

When you looked back through the previous photos though you could tell that at some point cheeky chick had clearly been replace by an imposter chick (who was in fact a duck) and those photos where cheeky chick had been photo shopped onto holiday photos (that's what I'll be doing next time).

frumpygrumpy · 02/03/2010 12:42

Any toys that visit our house get shoved in the washing machine the moment they arrive a gentle bath and then have their photo taken going to bed. They usually hang about the couch all weekend help out with cooking the Sunday fry up/ choose honey at the supermarket/tell jokes/hide shoes and generally are packed off asap the best house guest we've ever had

frumpygrumpy · 02/03/2010 12:47

I do quite like the giggle you get with it though........its a bit like the gnomes that are stolen and send postcards from all over the world and then, one day, come back. Wonderful!

orienteerer · 02/03/2010 12:49

Our school Barnaby has not been seen since swine flu, I fear he succumed!

2010aQuintessentialOdyssey · 02/03/2010 12:51

Yanbu

There was one weekend where our account read as follows:

"Teddy slept in late till about 3 pm, so he spent the afternoon alone at our house, while DS went to visit grandma."

But I do like to read what Teddy has been up to in other peoples homes....

Joolyjoolyjoo · 02/03/2010 12:54

Oh God, I hated this! We had a "friendly dragon", who had fun playing on the trampoline with the kids until ds (2) pulled his bloody tail off! Cue one hysterical dd.

Luckily I am a vet, so took him to work and did some photos of his tail-reattachment operation. After that, he was under strict bed rest, and therefore we selflessly cancelled our weekend full of educational fun outings just to attend to his every whim

PreachyPeachyRantsALot · 02/03/2010 12:57

Oh I hate these bloody toys!

My kids are always the last to get them, someone has to be but that someone always ends up in tears for the six weeks before finally getting a turn.

Sometimes we have done cool- 'Flea ridden bear rode on teh carnival float with me when I eprformed' but we have never seen him since asd ds3 was sent home with one and we replied with 'bear spent the weekend on the spare potty watching ds3 miss his aim'

tkband3 · 02/03/2010 12:59

I have DTs in separate reception classes and their teachers were kind enough () to let them both have their school 'pets' over half term. (They said it was a measure of how much they trusted me, but I'm not so sure...).

We did have quite a busy half term, but kept forgetting to take the blooming things with us or take photos of them doing anything . I did manage to get both of them to and from London on the train and the bus without losing them. It's not like they're small cuddly toys either - one is a large turtle puppet (Tesha) and the other is a large toucan puppet (Squawky - and yes it does, loudly ) so in between carrying them, picnic for 4, woolly hats, gloves, coats etc I was exhausted by the time we got home.

A friend of mine was telling another mum what they had done with the Tesha the turtle. The other mum was becoming increasingly incredulous and when my friend said 'and DS insisted on Tesha sleeping with him' was verging on hysteria. It was then gently pointed out that Tesha was not a real turtle, but simply a puppet - she was extremely relieved .

Veritythebrave · 02/03/2010 14:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lupo · 02/03/2010 17:31

Ds goes to prep school and this yeas was quite low key but apparently last year was super competitive.. this is xxx bear by our 8ft pool, this is bear on daddys maserati..this is bear at our holiday home...shocking esp as not all parents (myself included) can afford to do or even want to do this stuff with a stuffed bear.

I would have loved to have stuck him infront of xbox with a happy meal and a bottle of vodka...

Its just more pressure on parents and a pain in the neck..though the kids love it

lupo · 02/03/2010 17:34

Our bear is called barnaby too..where about are you? May be the same school

orienteerer · 02/03/2010 17:38

I suspect www.barnabybear.co.uk/ this is why Barnaby is so popular.

lupo · 02/03/2010 17:41

yes sorry, long day..was beginning to wonder why there were so many barnaby's

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