Of saying goodbye to summer...

There's a real back-to-school feeling in this house. Not just for DS1, who is whinging about next week already, but for me too. It has been an amazing summer. It has been the summer of Crush 2.0 absolutely, but it's been so much more than that - some sparked by him, some just me...


It's been the summer when I had male friends again, when a world that had been completely full of mums and children for so long suddenly opened up.
It's been a time when I've had fun, real fun, for the first time in a very very long time.
It's been a time when I've remembered I'm an artist, and that that used to mean something to me, and maybe it's starting to again
It's been a time when I've realised that maybe the me that I was with DS1's dad was not as completely stupid and naive as I'd come to think she was. That maybe I didn't need to throw out the baby with the bath water.
It's been a time when I've been intellectually challenged again, by the books Crush 2.0 has introduced me to.
It's been a time when I've been creative and I've written song after song after song.
It's been a time when I've let go completely of the notion of tidying and cleaning and just enjoyed my time with my kids.
It's been a time when I've let go of thinking 'I must do xxx for the kids sake' and just done stuff for me.
It's been a time when I've developed new business contacts.
It's been a time when I've deepened friendships with mum friends that were previously just another face in the playground.
It's been a time when I've let go of the dream of having another child.

The Magic show, the headmaster and the unfortunate phone incident

It's all been about DS1s school talent show in our house for the last two weeks. My work days have gone out of the window in a frenzy of magic show prop making - our house looks like a slightly crapper version of the Blue Peter studio with the endless bits of cardboard boxes, white paper and prittstick littering the place.

DS1 has paid little interest in this frenzy I have to say. It's only because I suddenly realised that all his tricks - out of the magic set his Dad got him for Christmas - were just too tiny for a big audience to see, so I had to do something. I was wondering if I was just being 'competitive mum' - and of course I am a bit - but mainly it was that I didn't want him to have to experience of an audience reaction to him mumbling over a table of small objects for five minutes. Could have been deadly.

It was only when we got to school yesterday to practise for the first time I discovered they'd already thought of that. There was a microphone and a 'visualiser' (a camera attached to a computer, which projected onto a screen - see why they went with the one word then) so he could be seen and heard. Not the perfect set up but it did work a bit.

So, in theory, I needn't have bothered with making a final trick big enough for everyone to see and join in with. However, then I wouldn't have had the fun of watching DS1s headmaster stand up and shout something stupid at the top of his voice in front of parents and peers - which is how the final trick ends.

Some might say I engineered the entire thing just to humiliate said headmaster -  I couldn't possibly comment...  other than to say that if he will sit and patronise me for three-quarters of an hour when I dare to suggest that perhaps DS1 isn't being challenged to his full capacity, then he deserves everything that's coming. And if I had my way entirely, he'd be shouting 'twat' or 'idiot', but I fear that might be a bit much for DS1s delicate ears.

Of Time and Thomas...

It’s been a while again hasn’t it? Sorry. I really want to know where parent bloggers find time to blog, and then chat on forums about blogs, and tweet and facebook and everything else that goes along with it. These men/women must have found some secret pocket of time that seems to elude me. How do you do it guys?

I can’t believe that it’s just because I’m a single mum, because I’ve never really believed that having a husband gives you that much more time to yourself. Presumably if you have one, you need to spend time with them, or I suppose ideally, you want to spend time with them. Then if you’re a stay-at-home mum while they go out to work, then you presumably have to do all their washing and cleaning and cooking too, so that’s an extra person on top of your kids to tend to, that I just don’t have to do. So I can’t really believe it’s that.

Maybe it’s the age of my kids – DS2 certainly takes up much more time now than he used to – there’s much less napping going on and much more demands for attention and to be read to/played with. Even when he does play alone, it’s hard to concentrate with the constant singing to himself of “They’re 2, they’re 4, they’re 6, they’re 8…” – or more precisely “Da da, da da, da six, da ay….” and you only know he’s got to the middle break when you hear ‘Emimy ealy know er su’ (‘Emily really knows her stuff’ for the non-Thomas initiated of you).

Happy New Yell...

'Twas the night before term time and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the ever-whinging-nearly-6-year-old who has misbehaved and complained his way through most of the holidays...


As you can tell, I am definitely ready for DS1 to go back to school. I was so looking forward to Christmas and although bits of it were lovely, almost every nice thing we did was marred by him not doing what he was told and complaining incessantly. He surpassed himself on New Year's Eve when, in the middle of playing a tickling game with his brother on the floor, he decided to kick him in the face - and then screamed the house down when I sent him to bed as punishment. "Why? What did I do? I said sorry!!!" He claimed it was an accident, but I was sat two feet from him and watched him do it - you know when you see something happening and you can't quite believe it and it seems to go in slow motion?  I know its all about attention seeking and its tied up with having to go to and from his Dad's, but its so tiring for me and unsettling (and often painful!) for DS2 - and I do think now he's nearly six, he could help himself a bit more. I mean, I give him every chance to talk about how he feels and try to help him find different ways of expressing it, but no matter what I do, he always seems to end up taking it out on either me or DS2, and doesn't seem happy until he's totally ruined a good chunk of our family time together.

DS2 went to the childminders today, so, in theory, DS1 and I could spend some quality time together and get him ready for school. I managed to just about get through giving him a haircut  - I only had to leave the room three times to calm down in the face of his constant refusal to sit still/sit up/stop whinging - and I only threatened death/social services twice, which given the provocation and the fact I had a sharp pair of scissors in my hand I think that was positively restrained!!

Herod's servant and the great staging triumph...

I think DS1 should win the prize for 'most token part ever given to a child in a nativity'. He was Herod's servant, which involved walking on with the three wise men, opening an imaginary door for them, and walking off again. They all watched him leave, somewhat bemused, and then got back to the scene. It was unintentionally highly comical, not least because of the seriousness with which DS1 took it. Fortunately DS1 didn't realise, and has so far not noticed the camera shake on my video footage, caused by me suppressing the urge to giggle.

380zs, Clever kids, cleaning and a Michael Portillo cameo

Thanks for the memories
Googe Images

Hello again - feels like its been a while, but only a week I think. Perhaps that's not surprising as it's all been a bit crazy - another book festival last weekend, and I've been trying to keep up with DS1's desire for learning that his school aren't even coming close to meeting. What is it with state schools and clever kids? I remember when I was at school in the early 80s and they put me up a year, but I was still cleverer than everyone else and I hated it - used to get really badly bullied just for being different. My class teacher's solution was to stick me in the computer room - which at that time was one 380z, in what can only be described as a cupboard. I seem to remember being given a leaflet which had the basics of BASIC (which apparently stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code - not that there was Google around to tell me that at the time) and then left. (Heaven forbid that a teacher would actually try to teach me anything - or indeed engage in any form of conversation at all.) Mainly, I would sit there getting it to write my name over the whole screen:

10 PRINT "ATO MUM"
20 GO TO 10

Ring any bells anyone?

Looks like we made it...

Well the good news is we made it to the end of the first week of term more or less intact. Well, DS2 managed to throw himself down a couple of stairs tonight before DS1 caught him, but that only caused a small nosebleed - I'm hoping this will teach him to be more careful on the stairs, but it didn't work last time. He only seems to fall when we're on the stairs watching him - I think he likes to see us panic.

New term, new blog, same nonsense...

The 1st day of term for DS1 could've started better. He was knackered anyway from only just getting back from a weekend at his Dad's, and he was still on Summer holiday speed for getting up. So I thought, 'I'll be a kind mum, and drive him to school today'.  (And it was chucking it down, so really didn't want to get me and DS2 soaked too). So, chased down DS2 to put his socks, shoes and coat on;  shouted at DS1 to put his brain in gear as he stared blankly at the book bag and PE bag I'd put out for him the night before; and eventually we made it to the car. Children in, bags in, seatbelts on, turned the key and.... nothing, zip, nada.