When shall we three meet again? The not quite NT, not quite weightloss thread ......

[moosemama]

We were full up ladies, so we finally have our very own weightloss-ish thread!

Gawd, moose, it's never ending.

I am also having foot drama this morning. Last night amid the 'get your dinner eaten, bath done and into bed, you have schooltomorrow' chaos, I managed to land with all eleven and a half stone on my heel on a 'something' on the stairs. Felt it pierce the skin and make that horrid 'graunching' noise as it embedded deep. It stopped bleeding, but I'm pretty sure whatever it is is still in there (glass? Dunno) dh rooted around a bit, but it was a bit grim, he thinks there's something in there too. So, this morning I get to walk on my toes until the kids are at school, and then figure out whether go or just emerg.

Gp.

Ooo that sounds really nasty. It's bad enough when you tread on a piece of lego, let alone actually feeling something embedding itself in your foot!

Did you manage to get it checked out by a doc?

I haven't gone yet. I'm fannying about.

I did go to the lab at the hospital and get my bloods and urine done for my follow up kidney appt next fri though, but I felt completely ridiculous about popping to the ER and shoving my hoof in the air and saying 'erm, I think there might be something stuck in that'...

So, I think I'm going for gp. Had popped online to see what the drop in hours are today. 5pm, which is rubbish, so will call them and see what they say. It's Tuesday after a long weekend, though.

I feel like a loon. It's the equivalent of a splinter, but neither dh nor I can see it or get to it. I am convinced there's something there though. And it's making me walk funny. But that might be psychological...

Hope you get an appointment soon.

I know what you mean about walking funny. I'm scared to relax my foot because of the odd position of the pain and I'm pretty sure I look bonkers walking around using only the inside edge of my foot.

Mind you, it would help if dd hadn't trodden on it twice and dropped a piece of wooden dolls house furniture on it, all in the space of one afternoon.

And to think you don't want her to start nursery...

Ouch.

So did you go and get your foot checked out then?

WARNING MAHOOSIVE MEGA RANT - STRESS DOWNLOAD REQUIRED URGENTLY!!!

I have spent the day frantically cleaning the house in preparation for dd's nursery teachers' visit tomorrow afternoon. After that and hoiking myself up to the school to fetch the boys, my foot is blooming killing me.

Also busy getting everything together for ds1's residential next week and struggling to get both boys to hand in letters and reply slips to the school.

Honestly, on the last day of last term ds2 had two letters to hand in. One was his report reply slip, the other a letter explaining his sickness absence as he was off all but the last day of the last week. He also needed to give back his reading books, which of course hadn't been collected because he was absent. He failed to hand in anything. So I sent them all with him yesterday, with lots and lots of talk-through's and reminders, including one as he stood in the queue, just about to go into school. Of course, he failed yet again to hand any of them in.

Yesterday ds2 came home with a letter about swimming that had to be replied to by return. I sat with him, filled it in, put it in an envelope and told him to go and put it in his bag. This morning, as he left the house, I reminded him, to hand in that slip, plus the other letters from last term and the reading books.

No sooner had he gone than I found one of the letters on the stairs. So, I took it to the office myself on the way to pick him up this afternoon. He came out and I asked him straight away if he had handed in the reply slip about swimming - "Oops!" was his reply. So I took it out his bag, handed it to him and told him to take it to his teacher - who of course had gone by then, so we ended up bringing the slip home again. When we got home I asked if he had any letters for me.

Me: "Ds2, have you got any letters for me?"
Ds2: "No"
Me: "Well what about the one I saw in your bag when I got the slip out?"
Ds2:

Me: " go and fetch your bag"
Ds2: Fetches bag and lo and behold, there is the other letter he's been failing to hand in since last term, plus another copy of the swimming letter - and of course the swimming reply slip he also failed to hand in.

Me: "Ds2, why have we got another copy of the swimming letter?"
Ds2 "Oh .... because I thought I hadn't had one, or I might have lost it.".
Me: "AAAARGH! How could you think you'd lost it, when you sat with me to write it out, then you put it in straight into your folder in your bag and it's clear as day that it's in there, because it's a see through folder that you have to get your diary out of umpteen times a day?"
Ds2:

At this point I notice he's also failed - again - to hand in the two reading books.

Me: "Oh for heavens sake, why haven't you handed in your reading books?"
Ds2: "I forgot"
Me: ".. and that is all you've got to say about this mess?"
Ds2: ".... er, sorry?"
Me:

Of course a similar scenario took place with ds1 regarding the letter he brought home yesterday about a secondary school meeting, which also had to be handed in by return. Even down to them having given him a second letter assuming he'd lost it, despite their being a bloody reply slip in his folder with his feelings diary AND a note on the contact sheet to inform the teacher he had it! Of course she wouldn't know that - because they haven't bloody well done his feelings diary at all since he went back, even though his ASD teacher was in this morning. It's not even that his teacher doesn't know she is supposed to do it with him, there's been a comprehensive handover from last year's teacher and I've discussed it with her myself. Not to mention he now has a finalised statement that they are failing to meet in several ways.

Of course he has yet another letter with reply slip today, that has to be in tomorrow or he won't be able to attend cricket club.

The thing is, she's also the teacher accompanying the residential trip and the one I briefed about what his additional needs for the trip will be. I'm now really worried she hasn't listened to a word I said (or wrote in the briefing notes) about his pastoral care, let alone his medications. Fears not allayed by finding out they've put one of the year's bullies in his blooming bedroom for the duration of the trip, despite me specifically asking them to make sure he was in a small, supportive group of peers and to avoid having him in the same group, let alone dorm as any of the 'bullies'.

Ffs, only two days into term and I am already tamping mad and about ready to go and tell the head exactly what I think of the place.

As for the boys? Well I expect it of ds1, but ds2 is supposed to be nt fgs.

Why does it have to be so blooming complicated? I was talking to my Mum about it and she said even when my little sister was at primary school - mid-eighties to early nineties - they didn't have this level of bureaucracy and paperwork to deal with. It's neverending and increasingly short notice.

As for nursery teacher home-visits - I never had it with the boys, but now everyone gets a home visit from the teacher and teaching assistant a week before they start nursery. The thing is, the teacher is actually the mum of a boy in ds2's class and also has a dd the same age as mine. We used to get together with another mum for the dds to play when they were toddling, but I managed to avoid them coming here, basically because I am ashamed of my house and didn't want them to see it. Now I have no choice, she is coming whether I like it or not and I have had to overhaul the whole of the downstairs to accommodate the visit, whilst suffering from an injured foot and gastritis. I am also worried about staff-room gossip. All they need is another reason to bitch about me.

Sorry for the rant. Just needed to let of steam.

Gawd, it's like a rerun of ds1's bloody pizza form multiplied by a gazillion.

I freaking hate these forms. Ds1 never ever ever remembers to give me them. Yesterday I plucked a sheaf out of his bag, just the bog standard 'have any of the registration details changed' type thing, to find out that they haven't added any of his dx to his notes. They just have the vague one liner I wrote a year ago, which was then followed by a full pyscho-Ed evaluation and two specific educational codes, which should have been apt on his record. Oh, and to top it off, the fact that they were discussing grade skipping him last yr (into 6, so he would in theory have been starting g7) has apparently been forgotten, and they've put him into a 5/6 split class. I was pretty sure dh was going to have a coronary. I know they will just say it doesn't matter. even though he took the end of g6 testing and passed it, last yr.

Dd2 has the same teacher as last year.

I've spent nigh on 8 years in the belief that schools actually care about their pupils, and try to do their best by them, but honest to goodness, I do get the impression that actually, no teachers read handover files at all. And whoever does the class allocation/ room allocation for trips etc, does so with a hat full of names and no actual thought.

So, harrumph, I'm with you today.

Fortunately mine were too old for the school home visits crap, but I share your pain, courtesy of dd2 I've had more randoms traipsing in and out of my house than I care to think about. It must be awful knowing them in another context. yup. Noone's coming here today, even I have to fight them on the doorstep.

I did get my foot checked out by gp. She half heartedly scraped over it at skin level, and plucked a bit ineffectually with a needle. Nowhere near as deep as I think the thang is. So I'm stuck with soaking it four times a day, massaging gently around the area to loosen (!) and keeping it soaked in antiseptic gunk.

Ah well. I tried.

Have been to one meeting this morning re not for profit, have a planning meeting next (but in cafe for lunch) and then a pot luck for different not for profit, followed by district meeting for guides. Somewhere in that, dd2 has a guitar lesson, and I need to work out how to pay the mortgage, which is currently eluding me.

Remind me that I said I was looking forward to September?

Can you distract the visitor with an extensive array of buns?

I hate busybodies.

Sorry to hear you are having school trials and tribulations as well Madwoman. It's incredible the amount of rage that can built up inside so quickly when it's the same bloody repeat performance year-in, year out. On the flip-side, it's a relief to know you understand and didn't roll your eyes and run screaming in the opposite direction.

Sounds like your medical care is approximating NHS levels of care and attention as well then. Hope your soaking yields some reward and your errant foot resident evacuates the premises soon.

I am sitting on the sofa with dh 'Vanish' treating the sofa around me. I know it won't make it look much cleaner, but at least it will smell nicer.

Just hobbled out to clean my front windows (I only do it under cover of darkness) only to be confronted by a giant wolf spider which has made it's home in the holly bush, using the window frame for support! So I only managed to do 3/4 of the window. No way was I going anywhere near that 'orrible thing. They bite y'know, and it hurts.

Great minds think alike with the buns. I am planning to do a quick final whip round with the duster, clean the toilet room and then bake some of the gorgeous chocolate brownies I made for us to take on holiday. Bit masochistic really, as I can't eat any of them myself, but needs must and all that. They 'jokingly' said at the parents' meeting that parents will no longer be judged on the quality of biscuits provided, this year they are upping the ante to baked goods. Unfortunately, she knows I'm a baker, so will be expected something good.

What makes all this much worse is that I've been to 'her' house and it's lovely.

Oi Lamb, you too busy reading these days - or have I frightened you off with all my moaning?

Ditto TLP - without the reading, although you may well be reading as well of course.

Hello all!

No don't worry moose you haven't frightened me off! Though I am quite concerned about you and you madwoman - what the hell's the matter with you both?!

Have been getting back into the school routine (argh!), like you madwoman I was really looking forward to September and the new term but the reality is just insane and I'd like to stop and get off now please. I actually had to bribe ds2 into getting dressed this morning with a present my mum had bought for him when it was ds1's birthday last month (incase he was jealous. He wasn't). I knew it would come in handy for just this scenario. Don't know what I'm going to do for all the other days in the term though.

I've suggested to the school that rather than they force him to go into assembly everyday he could spend that time on the computer 'decompressing'. It sounds quite indulgent but getting him to school is so hard and he finds it so stressful, it could be a way of him coming back down and give him something to look forward to that he can focus on. Plus they quite often keep him back from assembly anyway in a time out because his anxiety levels are through the roof and he just can't cope (like today).

Re: the reading, I'm being pretty demand avoidant there myself. I know I have to read up on Intertextuality, I've bought a really good book on it I just can't quite bring myself to read it. I've been dragging it around everywhere with me kidding myself I'm going to read it. It looks nicely scuffed from being in the bottom of my bag (feels like being back at school).

Porridge diet eh? I knew someone at Art School who went on that (preferred to spend his money on beer), got scurvy. Just saying

Ooh sorry forgot to ask - how was the nursery home visit? I had one of those for ds2, the place was a tip but they were very polite. I could only distract with tea and can only just make that!

So, that's three of us having hellish first week backs then. Where's TLP? Could her absence be a sign that things are similar over at The Light-house?

Computer rather than assembly sounds like a good plan. They used to let ds1 have access to the computer regularly when he was really going through it in year 4 and it really helped to keep him calm.

As for scurvy! It's only been a week and a half (although it feels much, much longer) and I have been throwing half a very ripe banana into the mix every now and again.

I was thinking of trying to ease back into proper food over the weekend, but am too scared to try anything and have absolutely no clue where to start.

I have spent yet another day doing one-legged housework. The downstairs is now passable and the upstairs looks like it doesn't belong to the downstairs.

Nursery teachers came this afternoon, for a whole 15 minutes. all that work for 15 minutes! Went very well, dd was confident and chatty and the chocolate brownies were gratefully received. Am so glad it's over and done with.

Next trial is packing for ds1's trip, he is driving me bonkers relaying all the info they're getting at school, that I already have from the parents' meeting. Fortunately the excitement is winning out over the anxiety at the moment - I think because he's being carried along by his classmates enthusiasm.

Dh went in this morning to ask why the feelings diary hasn't been done and whether or not the teacher had seen his statement. The answer was no - she knew he was getting one but hasn't had sight of the final one and will speak to the SENCO. Dh asked her how she was going to facilitate ds completing his feelings diary three times a day and the answer? "I don't know, I'll have to think about it." Surely she should have thought about it well before he actually started back this term.

raaaaaaaaaaargh!

'surely she should have thought about it well before he actually started back this term?' epitomises pretty much where i am at, as well.

scurvy made me proper laugh, though, so thanks lamb, i needed that! (as well as the vision of dh vanishing the sofa around your comatose form, moose!)

i emailed the principal this morning, just to query whether last year's G5 teacher, learning support teacher, AND psychologist's advice had been taken into account with ds1's current class placement, and erm, how the advice was expected to be implemented in that environment. i resisted the urge to email the new teacher and ask how she was going to implement the differentiation, because i am damned sure she doesn't even know he's coded twice, let alone has read the reports, digested them, and come up with a plan. but y'know, i've been wrong before.

not often, though.

i made the mistake of discussing it with ds, as well. which now means he's uber-anxious in case he has to change class, as of course he is entirely rule bound and has been allocated a class and a teacher and a peer group, and had got his head around the new norm, only for me to suggest that it wasn't a great fit for him. and obv, to move a kid with social issues and anxiety once he's established, leads us nicely back to:

'surely she should have thought about it well before he actually started back this term?'

i am, however, not surprised that i have had no holding response from the principal. i can't decide whether this is because he is firefighting an out of control inbox, gibbering under his desk trying to speed read reports, or ignoring me in the hope i'll go away, or at least long enough that he can claim it would be detrimental to move him. a la last year's non-existent grade advancement, as it took them five months to read the psych report.

glad the nursery visit was short and sweet - and you now have an oasis of calm to relax in.

get that blardy book open, lamb!!!

Book is now lying open at the Introduction where it will stay

I wasn't comatose while dh was 'vanishing' - I was yelling instructions offering helpful advice.

More tales of school woe today.

Feelings diary was completed - with the teacher. Unfortunately it transpired that the great numpties had managed to put ds in a different activity group to his best friend for the duration of the residential. Cue much distress and panic.

Found out another poor lad had somehow ended up in a room completely on his own. All the more ridiculous when you consider that I had asked if ds could go into a room that wasn't full (6 per room) as he got on better with fewer children last time and that was done and supervised by the HT. Poor kid was understandably devastated. On what planet would any teacher ever think it was acceptable to put all the children on a trip into rooms of 6 - except one, who was dumped in a room on his own! He's a lovely boy as well, really gentle and gets on with everyone, so it's not as if it was because he's any trouble. His mum was there with her boots blacked this morning and went into see the teacher this afternoon.

So, again, not exactly inspiring confidence in terms of them supporting ds through the trip, especially when you couple it with the fact his teachers haven't even read his statement, so really don't have a clue as to half of what his issues really entail.

I have to take all ds's inhalers and medicines in tomorrow, so think I might have to go and speak to the teacher again to reinforce the importance of them both understanding just how much ds's ASD and physical impairments affect him on a daily basis and making sure the professionals from the centre are fully informed and up to speed with it all.

As for your email. I reckon the Principal et al have gone into 'oo er we've dropped a clanger' mode and are scrambling around for a way out of the situation that leaves them with the least amout of egg of their faces.

Lol Lamb. Gwan, get stuck in.

on. his. own.

i rest my case.

do you ever get the feeling that life is just one huge conspiracy? that they are all feigning incompetence for some sort of documentary a la the Truman Show? for entertainment? and going home and chortling with glee?

read it!

Hello ladies, TBH it's been me with the melt downs at the the Light House of late, things at work getting on top of me - trying to get too much done in worse conditions and feeling rather unappreciated shall we say. Cinderella/death by a thousand cuts. The new school year has been OK, as DS has same teacher as he had last year, but DS did come home from first day and switch on to Cbeebies, which he hadn't watched for months (well apart from Charlie and Lola, which doesn't count, that is literary or something, isn't it? ! The movicol dept is going q well atm, I am managing to get Ds to drink 7 X200 mls per day but who knows how long that will last for.

Sorry to hear of both your new school year traumas, Mad and Moose, makes you wonder what these so called professionals are paid to do. especially when they like to take such an expert patronising air. Hope that school sorts out DS2 residential, and that they are suitably embarassed by evident failure to keep up with feelings book.

Lamb - even the word intertextuality sounds scarily intellectual - I guess it's about connections between pairs of books/plays with similar source material/storylines?

Madwoman - oddly enough I have actually expended brain cells on the whole Truman Show theory. Like you, I find it hard to believe that 'professionals' who clearly believe they are really this incompetent. It has to be some sort of joke - surely?

Had to laugh - just looked in his feelings diary. Entry for this morning:

Scale: 4
Emotion: Bored!

Laughing stopped short when I noticed the note saying they kept him in at play to complete his maths questions though. If they'd read his damned statement or bothered to listed to his previous year's maths teachers, they'd bloody know that he has slow processing, which means he doesn't complete work, but grasps the concept and usually gets between 95 and 100% correct answers for the ones he completes. He should not be bloody punished for not completing classwork ffs and this has been agreed at a handover meeting that was attended by the HT! Aaargh!

Should've know something was up when he took himself off to his room and immersed himself in a book rather than spending time with his beloved Grandma after school. He hates being on his own and normally refuses to go up their without ds2. I think he was just so overloaded he didn't know what else to do to shut the world out. He didn't say a word about it either, which fits in with the whole problem of his low self esteem being connected to his academic performance, maths in particular.

TLP - Sorry work is so dire. Any chance of it starting to look up in the near future?

Good to hear ds has settled back at school well and the whole movicol thing is 'moving along nicely' (see what I did there ).

Forgot to say earlier, but ds1 had a social/communication achievement today. The class was discussing the residential and one of the girls said she was embarrassed to tell them, but she is terrified of abseiling. She doesn't mind the rock-climbing, just the abseiling down afterwards. Ds said he didn't like to think of her being embarrassed and thinking it was just her, so he went up to her afterwards and told her not to be embarrassed, because lots of the children probably felt the same and he was just the same - ok with rock-climbing but scared of abseiling.

Big dilemmas in the Moose household this evening. Dh has been offered a job at a significantly greater salary than he is currently on. He is desperate to leave the place he's currently at, but isn't 100% sure he likes what this other company does for a living, iyswim. He's been on the phone with various mates all evening discussing the pros and cons. I think he's probably going to take it though, he is so miserable where he is, that anything would be better and this job has the advantage of only being a 20 minute drive from home, although he doesn't have any info on hours etc as yet. He said when he went for his second interview he arrived at just before 6.00 pm and there was only the boss left in the building though - so it doesn't appear like they are slave drivers.

Not sure what I think really. I am concerned, because his current boss lets him pop out for IEP meetings and medical appointments for me and the dcs and I don't know how I would cope if that had to stop. He also thinks he might have to be in pretty early, so I would have to do both school runs and it would also impact on how we manage to get ds to secondary school and the others to their school at the same time next year.

They only called at 7.30 this evening and he has to let them know if he wants it by tomorrow.

Oi Lamb - get that book out!

tearful meltdown at work today had some reasonable sympathetic but bracing advice from a colleague I trust. Yes and no re: whether likely to improve.

I think it's sinister and kafkaesque, the way schools etc collude to minimise problems. Atm it's like when DS was 2, and I was being fobbed off by profesionals and friends - the wide range of normal/just a boy bullshit - but given time the shit will eventually hit the fan...The school system troubles me in genreally, I suspect it isn't a picnic for the socalled "normal" child, especially at 2ndary.

gosh I am full of cheer today!

Moose - re:job - sounds like DH may be happier tho i nnew job, and could extra money make things easier - cleaner, taxis etc

I have read the introduction!

It is good and now I'm in I'll be able to keep going (like swimming in the sea). Thank you one and all for giving me a shove

Not necessarily similar source TLP more that a text is infused with whatever cultural experiences are going on that the reader is bringing to it as opposed to the idea of Influence which is author as god. Bottom up not top down.