Friday night thread (it must be night somewhere? - NZ?)

[StarlightDicKenzie]

Hi all,

Gambados for us again tonight so thought I'd start early. Also just wanted a chat really!

Ninja., just wait to be a granny, I'm sure it won't be long...

Ninja, well if my dh's manflu cold is anything to go on, you could well be right there.

Beca, no Y5, they always do the Tudors in Y4 at the boys school.

He has a mahoosive four part project on the Tudors to do over the holidays - including blooming baking! Some of his classmates were so keen that they've done tonnes of work and handed theirs in already. Ds1 on the other hand is employing every avoidance tactic in the book. He's already been given special dispensation to type his text and download pictures instead of drawing and he still doesn't want to do it. Odd really, as he actually loves history and is really enjoying the topic itself.

moose ugh. ds1 had to do it too...he did a week in the life of a tudor farm One his classmates made a model of a tudor house!!! (it was v v impressive)

This half term its India as a project subject...I dont know anything about India

haha ellen, dd1 has been watching one born every minute and has decided this series that it may not be such bad thing, as opposed to the total OMFG that was the reaction to the previous couple of series Although I can quite happily wait a few years!

Maybe no rush, then! One of my friends has a 22 year gap between her two kids, she really thought she'd be a granny before being a mum again.

oh oh oh. i forgot. i have very excellent news too. i have an interview for a job i really really really want. really must do some prep. have a presentation to do and everything.

Beca, DS2 had to do a project about India. Google is your friend. Climate, animals, diversity of languages, religions, and Bollywood! There, and I he got a merit mark for it.

I have a question for you lot.

Ds1 came out of school the other day absolutely distraught. I knew straight away that something was up when his teacher came and met me half way across ds2's playground, before he'd even come out.

I had him sobbing and wailing on my knee for over an hour, saying he couldn't tell anyone what was wrong, "not Mummy or Daddy or my teacher, Mrs X (SENCO) or ds2 or Grandma or anybody, I can't tell anyone".

I was so worried thinking about what it might be. Eventually he said it was something to do with something that happened in afternoon assembly, just before they came home, but wouldn't tell me what it was. His teacher had already told me that he became distressed during assembly but wouldn't tell anyone why.

Eventually after lots of hugging and gentle talking I managed to prise out of him that a y6 boy had brought in a huge football cup that his team had won, to show to the school and it was at the front of the hall during assembly. Everyone was saying how big and impressive it was and that it was the World Cup. Then the boy who brought it in whispered and passed along the row that its was only a replica - and this is why ds1 got distressed, but he couldn't explain why it distressed him so much. He made me promise not to tell ds2 because he thought it would upset him just as much.

I managed to work out that he thought that they (meaning all the other pupils and the teachers) all thought it was THE World Cup and then four different boys in his class told him it was a replica - including his best friend. I explained that the cup was the top league cup for the league the y6 boy's club was in and was therefore technically the 'World Cup' for his league. The FIFA World Cup is for the adult football teams etc, but that this cup was made to look like the FIFA one and was therefore technically a replica, but still their World Cup. After that he calmed down a bit and said that made sense.

What I don't get is why he was so distraught about it. I know he didn't want to tell anyone at the school in case it upset them as much as it had him, but that doesn't explain why he wouldn't tell dh and I - or Grandma.

I did ask if perhaps he was a bit embarrassed that he thought it was the FIFA cup at first and then realised he was wrong, but he insisted that wasn't why he was upset. He just kept repeating that he was upset, because it wasn't real and his friends had told him it wasn't, which meant he was upset with them as well.

I checked if his friends told him in a sort of "gotcha" kind of way, but he said they didn't they just said that the boy who'd brought it in had said it was a replica of the FIFA world cup.

He also kept saying that he couldn't explain why he was so upset about it - he just was.

So, can anyone help me untangle this. Basically, he says he was so upset, not because he was embarrassed, not because he initially thought it was the world cup, but because it was a replica and because his best friend had told him that he says he can't explain why ...

good luck cervix

zzzzz, I know what you mean, I was so glad when dd3 started school as everyone then visited her there.

ellen, I need to perfect my evil mil side first, we don't see much of her boyfriend so I feel I've not had quite enough practice yet

Beca, ds2 - Y3 has a project to do on Egypt this half term as well. I flipping hate it. All this project work is, is homework for the parents. There's absolutely no way some of the kids in my boys' school have done theirs on their own.

zzzzz, that's pretty much what I told the paed at the SA medical when she started to reel of a list of people and organisations that could 'offer support'. I politely pointed out that I already knew about them all and there was very little any of them could offer us.

Same thing as the SNs group at our local SureStart centre. They were determined that I should attend their 'group sessions/support group' when they found out about ds1, but when I asked them what they had to offer, they just said - support and waffled on about stuff that was completely irrelevant to us/ds. I politely said that I didn't need help with any of those things, but as someone who'd been through it already, I would be willing to come and support the other members of the group - they took my details and have never called me back.

I would love to know what this mysterious 'support' is that all these people can offer - because sitting around with a cup of weak coffee and a digestive is simply not my idea of support.

Oooh Good luck Cervix.

SF The hospital is in a Borough beginning with K, and is called K hospital.

I doubt I will be going there.

zzzzz You know you will be down as 'refusing support' now!? Sometimes this is actually quite helpful as you don't have to fight so hard for services as you get put on the 'needing outreach' list or 'in denial' list which can actually mean better 'support' in the long run as when you 'come to your senses' they fall over themselves to provide you with what you need.

zzzzz, apparently they dance by - ^eeeeeeuuuurgh- touching girls on their hands!

Good luck with the interview Cervix.

My dh went into work this morning with some hairbrained scheme to offer to move into the position he's been interviewing for all week, because its actually more money and less stress. Lord knows what's going to happen now. Imho, men with manflu colds should remember that they are incapable of sensible thought and forward planning.

Moose Blimey! Poor ds.

Could it be that it was the weight of knowing and feeling like he had to keep a secret of a huge magnitude and struggling with the whole theory of mind thing and not being able to work out what others might think if he told them/didn't tell them and just didn't know what to do with the information he had?

Probably no help at all, but your account reminded me of the episode in the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon found it so impossible and distressing not to tell his friend something that Penny had told him he had to move out, and it wasn't even that big a secret.

Hi all,

There was I thinking I'd be able to keep up with the thread this week . Not a chance.

Mixed week here. DS has had cold so hasn't been quite so co-operative at school. DH also has a cold, but has been soldiering on . We have had a bit of a frustrating day as he took it off in order to have an early Valentine's day with me (the dcs are off Mon,Tues and Wed next week). Anyway DH and I got to a museum at 10 am to find it doesn't open until 11 am on a Fri . Then decided to go for coffee and spent so long looking for a parking space we didn't get a coffee before going back to the museum. Museum visit was good, but then spent time sitting in a traffic jam . Managed to get a nice lunch, but on return to the house the passport office had sent letters saying applications for DCs rejected due to birth certificates not full ones (we did the payment to get everthing checked too, so mega annoyed ). DH decided to sort it out, so no more 'us' time as DCs were coming home from school.

Sorry for long post. Needed to sound off!

Anyone got good ideas for getting DCs into bed early?

Phew.

Thank you zzzzz, that's sort of the conclusion I came to as well. It helps to know I'm on the right track. I really struggled to get inside his head on this one, probably because my own head isn't exactly firing on all cylinders at the moment anyway.

I think he's now happy that it is A World Cup, but not THE World Cup and is starting to understand that the others understand that as well.

I think the real vs false thing was a big mind melt for him at the time and as you said, he felt the whole school was being tricked, which is not what he would expect of his beloved best friend.

He so all over the place at the moment, with massive out of proportion over-reactions. I dread to think what the next thing is going to be.

Ah, Star, good point about that Big Bang episode, yes it does feel a bit like that. He thought that there was only a handful of children in the school who knew 'the truth' and just didn't know how to handle having that knowledge.

Creatovator, your post isn't long - have you seen mine!

Sorry your Valentines Day was a washout.

As for getting dcs into bed early - I find moving all the clocks forward an hour helps!

Cervix glad to hear about your interview. Hope it goes well.

Moose sorry to hear about your DS

star, if that's the K I think it is just don't start looking east for a hospital as that's the way I live and K has a much better rep than our local units.

we had to do country dancing at junior school and were always paired boy/girl [shudder] I think I may still have the scars from having to hold one particular boys hand, he was all sweaty and yucky

That hospital with k turned me down for ds1 if it's the one I think, it's very good apparently hence the demand there...people book as early as 4 weeks Pg in that borough.

Had ds1 in the hospital near hospital k and will not recommend it either.

LOL at K being better. It has to have been so far the absolutely worst service from the NHS I have experienced (although the least detrimental - so far iyswim).