hey hey it's friday.....!

[signandsmile]

hello everyone. how has your week been? I am feeling virtuous, (for some very 'sad' reasons) I have done 5 trips to the tip with garden and other stuff, so chez sign is looking markedly less cluttered, and I have a 'to do' list that now fits on one page...

ds has been brill, he went to school today dressed as Hermes with wings stapled on his sandals, and instead of going to see the torch (loud, busy, and hot.... ) we went to play with his little friend from school, and ds managed really well, three kids all running in and out of paddling pool stark naked except for hats. he had a lovely relaxed time, and so did I...

dh has been away at his mums and ds actually said 'I miss daddy lots this week'.

Evening sign.

Sounds like you have had a great week. You can come and declutter my house now you've done yours if you like!

My week started badly with being called into school after ds1 had a major meltdown at school. They've never seen him have one before and were really worried.

Basically it was all down to playground stuff and him not getting the fluidity of playground games and relationships, but it also came on the back of him staying at his grandma's for the weekend while dh, dd and I went to a very muddy music festival. Unfortunately he ended up in A&E on Saturday with a head injury and we were stuck in the middle of a field surrounded by other campervans that were stuck up to their axles in mud, so couldn't get home. Fortunately he was ok and managed to visit a stately home in the afternoon complete with two lovely big egg shaped lumps on his forehead!

Oh and he also finished his latest school project - The History of UK Canals - and it was really good. He did it in Photostory 3, which I can highly recommend to anyone who's dc is either averse to or struggles with writing. They can put together a slide show and narrate over the top of it and it's really simple to use. Ds produced a 20 minute talk on the history of canals and the canal system around our area without any help at all (well not after I helped him research the information and photos he needed and come up with a script for each slide). He only did a third of the actual project, as he was supposed to do three topics, but his teacher was still really pleased with it and his classmates were all very impressed, so he was a happy bunny.

Rest of the week has been very quiet. Haven't managed to get back into eating healthily after consuming loads of rubbish last weekend and have pretty much needed to rest all week to recover - but it was worth it to see Adam Ant, MArk Chapman (lead singer of the Levellers), Back to the Planet, RDF, The Selecter and others and dance until my knee gave in. Not impressed that the sun decided to come out the day after we got back from the festy, but we had fun in spite of the mud and at least it didn't rain after Friday night.

We have absolutely nothing planned for this weekend. Might start thinking about doing something with the garden so I can get out and enjoy some of this sunshine.

Hello sign and everyone the paddling pool sounds a great idea. If I had a to do list it would be an arm's length but that's another thing that needs putting on my to do list.
Quiet week here, ds has been tired and grumpy and not much fun. Bought him a fan for his room that he's really pleased with but it's purely for decoration as he refuses to have it switched on
Dd is lovely but then she mostly is, contemplating a trip to the cinema and she is planning a banner for watching the Olympic torch go past so figure the weekend will be creative.
I'm looking forward to half term and we're off to the Isle of Wight first week back so that will be fun I hope.
Hope everyone's well and enjoying the sun

hi moose, (sign waves lazily) ouch re ds's head! and re the festival, just my era..... ( signs slips into 'old fart mode')

embarassingly chez sign is still 'lived in' as far as the clutter goes . life with a horder!

hi insanity sounds like a fun weekend... love the idea of decorative fan .

sign. That's why we do that festival. It's like a timewarp to our misspent youth.

Dd love the whole thing and boogied away with the best of them - having a particularly cute style of skanking to Credit to the Nation in her rainbow wellies and monster face hat.

Insanity, sorry ds has been struggling with the heat. He needs to come and sit in my living room, it's freezing in here. Enjoy your creative weekend.

Hello sign, moose, insanity.

Sign, I can just about remember when my boys actually enjoyed going 'outside.' Nowadays they'll just about manage 10 mins before coming back in to gaze at a screen. I do feel that we don't make the most of the good weather and I feel quite relieved when it's raining, don't feel so guilty. Glad yours still enjoy the paddling pool.

Moose, another festival? Was it Lakefest? Some friends went child free.

Insanity, hope you enjoy the Olympic torch relay. I did manage to get my 3 out to see it on Wed. The atmosphere was great but it would have been better if it hadn't been half an hour late for DS2. He recovered enough to have a blue bubblegum ice cream. You know the one? The one that is non dairy and full of artificial colours and flavours.

Hi Ellen

We only go to one festival a year. No not Lakefest - Bearded Theory. Not the best idea to have one of the first festivals of the season in Derbyshire, as it's always a bit hit and miss with the weather, but it's such a lovely friendly festival and has such great bands that no-one really cares about the weather. Last year and the year before we had some lovely sunshine.

I haven't a clue if the torch is heading our way at any point - how do you find out?

There is a website, I'll find it for you. But the schools often close for it and roads are closed, so that's how I knew.

www.london2012.com/torch-relay/route/

Well, erm, I have some news.

I, LollipopViolet, have officially...

Handed in my final bits of uni work! Got the assessments next week, but the bulk of the work is now done!

Celebrated with DBF by going to a lovely beer garden which overlooks a canal :)

We're off to Manchester Airport tomorrow, for some aviation photography and a Concorde tour (his birthday present from me) :) Can't wait!

I felt like a huge weight had been lifted when I handed in, and told DBF I felt so much lighter. He looked at me, smiled and said, "Yes LV, it's called being relaxed and is a perfectly natural state for a human being to be in" which made me smile even more, it does feel like I forgot how to relax during all the deadline stuff.

Hi All,

Good though toughish week here. We were at a friend's b'day last weekend and waited over an hour for our food. It was in a shopping centre too so DS was sensory overloaded and hyper . Also his whole school moved into a new building with another 2 schools and a nursery. Everything is completely different except the staff and his classmates. The staff have done an amazing job and really prepared DS and other pupils as much as they could, but DS was really, really upset by it all . However, he was able to tell us and the unit head everything that was wrong and didn't have a meltdown (major step forward ). Wednesday was his first day when he got really upset, yesterday was better, the unit head had a chat with him, was extremely understanding and supported him loads. I phoned her before lunch to see how he was - he was still upset, but calmer. By the time he came home he was skipping and said it was a better day. Today was, "good" apparently. Phew what a relief. It was hard to see him go through it.

DD has had a good week, but I haven't with her working on her project which is due in on Monday. She hates doing projects and it takes us 15 mins of complaining before she gets anything done, but we've only got 2 more sections to do .

I'm getting on okay with the dissertation and DH has only had one bad hayfever day .

My Mum also took me out to lunch today which was lovely and then we went looking for elderflowers so that I can make wine - only to discover that it's too early for them in Scotland .

sorry for the long post. Bet I've x posted with everyone.

Sign well done for the decluttering.

Moose well done to your DS for his project.

Insanity sounds like a fun weekend.

Ellen don't mention to my kids about blue bubblegum ice-cream - I'm desperately trying to get them to eat more healthily

Lolli well done and I'm .

Thanks Ellen.

It appears it's not coming to us until July and then it's taking a very strange route indeed. Can't quite work out where we could go to see it without braving the crowds in the town centre and that's not going to happen with ds1.

DD's surgery is cancelled for next Tuesday. Due to the fact that the anaesthetists have not had their surgical review meeting this week. Don't get me started on knowing their arses from their elbows and organising piss-ups in breweries.
She was having teeth extraction under a GA. I know that she is a red flag patient, but seriously it's been planned for the last two months!

Sally I've missed something, but can't see you further up the thread. Sorry you're having such a hard time with DD's not happening surgery.

Funnily enough, moose, DS2 is fine with crowds and noise! Chalk and cheese, our boys.

Lollipop, glad you've handed in your work. Is that it, now? Just waiting for your results?

Creatovator, that sounds like hell for your DS. It sounds like he's managing actually really well, considering. I like to hear that it's not just me who 'helps' with school projects...

Well done for getting all your work in Lollipop. Enjoy your airport and concorde trip.

Creatovator, that must have been really stressful for your ds and for you. I can't imagine how ds would cope with his whole school upping sticks and moving.

Well done to your ds for managing to communicate his worries rather than meltingdown.

Sympathies on the project, I am sick, sick, sick of them. I really want to just tell his teachers he won't be doing any future projects, but then he'd be the only one that doesn't have something to present to the class and would end up really upset about that. So I guess we have to continue just doing what we can to produce something. I'm really pleased that they have agreed to him doing presentations and podcasts instead of great swathes of typing/writing though. It really helps with his motivation and means he can do the actual creation bit himself as long as I help him to organise the structure and garner his thoughts etc. It also means that he impresses his classmates by doing something a bit different. He had a great lunchtime this week with loads of children coming up to tell him how good his presentation was.

Hi SallyBear. Your poor DD. Tooth extraction under GA does not sound fun.

Moose, DS3 likes to produce a PowerPoint presentation with bells and whistles. Sod the content, it's the presentation that matters.

Cross posted. Sally what a pita, how ridiculous letting you down at the last minute just because they couldn't get their backsides together to organise a meeting.

Ellen, ds says he's fine with crowds and noise, but in reality he can't cope, zones out and eventually starts to crack. He usually holds it together while we are there, but is all over the place for quite a while afterwards.

He asked me the other day why his inclusion teacher and class teacher keep saying he doesn't like noise because "noise doesn't bother me Mummy" and I had to smile, as this is the boy that told his sister off for breathing too loudly while he was trying to read.

Yesterday ds2 wanted to listen to some of the music dh and I heard at the festival, so I put on a Levellers album and he and dd and I bopped around the room. Ds1 insisted he liked it and it was fine, managed three songs and then said in a pained voice "Actually Mummy, I think I might need some peace and quiet now".

Yes, everyone thinks Ds has done extremely well including me. I don't think I was too stressed, but I'm not very good at telling, but I found it hard to watch him go through it all.

Moose DD is NT and very sociable. Having to do projects at home is so not her thing. I'm really glad your DS gets such a good response from the other kids. It must do a lot for his confidence.

Sally, some kids bounce through this kind of operation. DS had tooth extraction under GA last year. If you want to ask any questions feel free.

Moose our Ds doesn't like noise unless he's making it. Then it can get VERY VERY LOUD Lol!

Powerpoint was ds1's favourite method of producing homework/projects until their new trainee teacher showed him Photostory. He is a total convert now and currently doing his own personal project on everything he knows about Pokemon - which is a lot! Best thing is that it's a free download, so didn't cost us a penny. (Photostory) There are lots of YouTube demos on how to use it as well.

Ds tends to focus on certain information that is vital knowledge in his opinion and therefore absolutely has to go in, but is happy to leave out huge swathes of information that would actually answer the question.

Creatovator - that sounds familiar. I often say the noisiest thing in our house is ds1!

I think DS3 would love photostory. But as he has no DX and therefore no excuse I may not introduce it.