Crepeys on the Verge of an Examination Meltdown

[whattodoforthebest2]

Not sure if I should be starting the new thread as I'm the last poster on the old one - is this how it works?

Grade 5?! That's pretty stratospheric. Dd has Grade 1 piano. All you musicky crepeys with highly talented dc. What good mums. Fingers crossed for you, Rose.

I'm wondering whether to say to dd's school: do you realise what a crock of shit her home life is? What she has to put up with? But maybe I won't.

Wow, MI, am well impressed at grade 5.

Everyone wants the cats to be rehomed. Even my big pussy boy has to go apparently.

Is her home life that awful, though? I say this as someone riven with guilt over lack of parental support and occasional domestic disharmony...

DD2 is not a bad musician when she can be arsed to work at it. Sadly, she takes after her mother in this respect - we can both get away with minimal practice - and this tends to catch her out in the exams.

MI - grade 5 trumpet - do you live in a detached house?

DD got up at 11 am today (10 - British time) she actually said it was nice to be home ie. to have full laundry and catering facilities! She is very tired, grubby and I suspect iron deficient - lots of red meat will be served.

Rose - don't remember getting clean sheets every week where I was.

MI DD2 sounds like ds (grade four piano here) - he does bugger all practice and can get away with the pieces but his sight reading was dire last time!

Hatty - we used to get one sheet changed a week - so you'd swap the top for the bottom..

MA I am sure dds home life is fine (shoves MI up on the guilty parenting/discord bench)

MrsS :( re cats....

Well he came out of the grade the way he always does....on the verge of tears and saying it went badly. He has now calmed down and said it was "alright" Despite his lovely playing he has never done better than scraping a pass. His teacher and I believe that the sight reading the examiner gave him, with four ( 4, iv) flats was plain mean. I don't think he'll go beyond grade 6 ...he's had enough but says he might do Grade 7 theory. I asked him in the car if maybe we should have gone for Trinity Guildhall instead but he said no, because ABRSM is more prestigious and guildhall don't do classical pieces. What do I know..

Good luck to DD2 and her trumpet, MI

Nonsense Molly I have only met you twice but I am confident that your home life is not a crock of shit and you are lovely parents. I might say something to the school along the lines of, if they notice a lack of confidence in your DD they might reflect on how they reward and recognise the students.....
When I sit in the waiting area at the exam centre with all the tiger mothers and their DC doing grade 8 diplomas at age three, I don't think I've been a good mother at all. I had DS1 who got to grade 4 drums and the sold his beautiful Zildjan kit to finance a car which he never bought. dS2 who I haven't pushed musically at all...maybe I should have as he has real talent. And poor Dd who doesn't do any instrument....and is desperate to play guitar, but she's so dyspraxic that I keep putting her off.
We are all doing our best...aren't we.

Have stopped off in Leon at a mall, for a superfood salad really want at least two fish finger wraps and a cake on the way back from the long trek to drop DS at school.

So sorry about the cats MrsS

Hatty they used to bring round one sheet a week. You put your top sheet on the bottom, and the clean sheet on the top. If you didn't leave the old one outide the door on the right day, you got nothing! BTW we live quite close to Elstree!

I'm having flashbacks to sheet arrangements. I think ours was the same as Rose's - good job, or I'd never have changed them. My tea/coffee cups only got washed once they had mould growing in the bottom.

Just back from the formal feedback session from my observation of last week, and it was officially 'very good'. Even the course leader approached me and said she'd heard everyone was 'very impressed'. So they must have been talking about me! Well chuffed.

Less chuffed that a strike at my teaching college for tomorrow has been called off, so have to do some last-minute scrabbling about for a lesson. However, it's just a session of revision games, so it will be fun. I'm going to do a version of Countdown, and possibly a version of the Rizla game - stick 'occupations' on each other's forehead, and guess what they are.

I am fighting the urge to attack the vv nice cake DD1 made for fathers' day...

...I did do 50 lengths at 7am, though.

I am going out for a drink this evening with a Nice Young Man (who lives with another NYM: he's the editor of one of the medical magazines I write for) and will leave my children supper as will be out till 8ish, I guess. Tomorrow I have DD1's Y9 pre-GSCE talk at school so will leave them salad with strict instructions to heat up fishcakes. On Weds it's DD2's birthday. On Thurs I'm singing and on Fri out with you lot. Am not doing brilliantly on the hands-on food production, am I...

Well done to all the musical DC. Mine got their grade ones (DD piano, DS trumpet) before packing it in!

Well done Herbs

Just spoken to DM who is now saying people have been in her house.... Spoke to her man that comes to do the garden and he confirmed that she is agitated about the Memory Clinic and so is getting more confused

Also, the place we are going to on Friday needs confirmation of numbers - can all the maybe's let me know one way or the other asap please?
I have definites as:
BTM
Stropps
MI
Lalsy
What
Molly
MrsS
Addle

Maybes as
WAF?
BD?
Where?
CV?
Herbs?
QQ, Auriga, anyone else?

Yes, I will be there. But probably still not drinking. I had a very small glass of wine last night and DH finished the bottle as usual.

Really sorry to hear about the puddy-tat shituation, MrsS. :(

I have 2 vast boxes of neatly filed and obsessively labelled coursework and have submitted one job app. Go me.

DP has a prior-booked engagement, so at current standing I won't be able to join. However, he doesn't seem very keen on going, so I may be able to whizz along at the last moment, if venue would be amenable.

I am desperate for DS to be musical. When he was younger he would sing all the time, and always at perfect pitch, making me think he had a natural talent. And he spotted the fact that each character in Star Wars has their own theme tune (and with variations, depending on circumstances), which must mean genius-level. Thought I might start him off with the piano, but not sure what's the best age to begin. I've tried teaching him a bit myself, but without great success. Am I right in thinking it's best to learn a simple tune first, then how it's notated, rather than the other way around?

Herbs

Found it really useful...

Ah. I now remember you recommending that book before, which means I must have asked exactly the same question before. And not bought the book.

Mrs S - I'm sad about your puss cats. But have no useful advice. You seem to have done all the 'right' things.

of singing child.

I am always slightly surprised that DD2 has turned out musical. Her sister has ears of cloth. V pretty ears, and she bestrides the stage like a smallish colossus, but she virtually has to be dubbed for school plays.

Well done Stropps.

MI, the rule is that at this time of year you don't have to provide home-cooked meals for your dc unless they are doing exams (and there will be years of that so don't put the handcuffs on before you have to). It is far too nice being outside or being flexible or having summer fun. And they've all had enough of term and need to be left in peace to eat fishcakes in front of the telly. Or that's always been my take anyway.

Lalsy, I like your thinking.

If having non-musical children makes you a bad parent, then call social services immediately. None of mine have ever shown the slightest inclination, and as far as I know can't hold a tune or read a note of music. To be fair, it's not in their genes - plenty of artistic antecedents but no musical ones. I can sing reasonably and played piano to grade 5, but haven't done either for years. I do have a lovely piano, though! It is mainly used to display family photographs.

I was a prefect too (well, Head of House), but to be fair, there were only two of us in 6th form in our house, and the other girl was painfully shy and virtually mute, so it was a question of prefect by default.

Friday.... I'm going to say "no" this time... DD1 has a late pm orthodontist appointment and DS needs dropping at a party, so it's going to be tricky getting away.

BTM I am going to say no to Friday too - money's too tight to mention, plus holiday next month, plus logistics......

It's a no from me too I'm afraid (soooo X factor round here).

Whither What and Where?

Pussy is now on anti-stress food... I think I should just divert a large chunk of my salary to the vet. But perhaps more to the point, what is it about me/us that causes our cats to pee everywhere when they are stressed? And why are they getting stressed in the first place?