Category: School

A long break?

Hello dear audience, I know I’ve been away for a very long time. I think my mental health took a little bit of a downturn. I just couldn’t face writing things down honestly and quite a lot has happened in the last… almost 2 weeks gosh.

But here I am sat in the park with the kiddos on a warm but overcast day and there is a breeze okay there is traffic but will ignore that and quite frankly I’m feeling a little bit at peace.

I also just got handed this treasure from TT and it made me smile

Well in the first case #1 Son’s birthday party happened on Saturday, the 6th of June which was almost 2 weeks ago.

We had had quite a few replies in the positive for the party but on the day of I still could not shake the feeling that he was effectively going to be stood up by his classmates. But I needn’t have worried there was so many kids there it was wonderful. TT had a whale of a time and honestly despite it costing $600 (it was all thanks to Merry Tax-mas that we could pay for it!) it was well worth it.

Yes that is Jestro and The Red Ninja from both Ninjago and Nexo Knights who guest-starred in the party room. #1 Son was ecstatic truly. TT was in the “okay I really want to play with them and I really want to hug them but I know they’re scary!” mode which was sort of hilarious 🤣😂

There was pizza and cake:

So. Much. Cake. And So. Much. Pizza. As part of the booking there were seven pizzas and lord alone knows how many cupcakes included.

All I know is, we brought 4 whole pizzas and 16 cupcakes home!!!

No we weren’t allowed to give some to the staff. We tried.

So H received two pizzas and a box of cupcakes when we returned home, as, sadly, the twins had been poorly and hadn’t been able to attend.

And the gifts. Dear lord. We have never exactly cheaped out when buying the gifts for those classmate birthday parties that he attended, but seeing the sheer generosity from the fellow parents I definitely feel more than a little bit guilty. Well, now we know more for next year.

And I didn’t have to do party bags either praise the good lord Jesus because there was a buildable mini figure for every child included in the party package. That included a Duplo figure for TT so even she was catered for which was lovely.

The next thing to happen really of note was spirit day on the Tuesday which would have made it the 9th of June. Each child had a shirt:

How to make a parent feel old in one easy step? Put the year that their child will graduate overall from high school on the back of the Kindergarten T-shirt. Yeah my son will graduate in 2030.

Welp always good to be prepared right?

So Spirit Day seemed very much an open event but I didn’t manage to get up there as TT wasn’t being cooperative. However class photos were shared 💗

My boy is, as always, clinging to an adult God love him.

He had an amazing time though, and even caught the sun a little.

Fret not dear audience he did not burn

There was also an entire school photo posted on the schools own Facebook page so I feel no compunction about half inching it and popping it up here.

Hint: my son is the one clinging to an adult on the left hand side the bottom.

And after spirit today came DPW day. This is a day to celebrate Melrose Department of Public Works. Which for the adult sounds about as exciting as it probably was except that the kids had such an amazing time.

She’s absolutely in love with that little hardhat and tries to take it with her everywhere. Unfortunately it’s really flimsy plastic so blows off with the slightest breeze so I keep trying to persuade her to keep it in the house.

Again school wanted us to go with him to chaperone but there was free ice cream and snacks there was sunshine and all manner of giant heavy duty vehicles for the kids to climb on and poke, so I consider it a morning well spent.

Sadly it was too far away from the house for me to go it alone with TT so daddy had to come to and drive but we’ll had a pretty good time.

And then, it was Friday. Having chatted with his teacher at DPW day, at length, it was decided that we shouldn’t take him in for the half day on Monday because he actually handled the fifth graders leaving not very well.* And she felt (and I didn’t disagree with her) that given they already finished the formal teaching part of the year it would just add stress to have a half day. Which meant that Friday was his last day of kindergarten. I didn’t really quite know how to feel if I’m honest he’s grown so so much and then I saw this picture:

There just aren’t words to describe the sheer pride I have felt in seeing these pictures. He’s grown, he’s changed and he’s done so so well. And then to top it off his report card came home on Friday as well. Now okay he has slipped a bit in certain areas, but overall? He has excelled compared to the winter report. I’m so so proud of him.

So this update is already super long so I think I’ll leave it there and will try and catch up with this week plus last weekend as soon as I can which hopefully will be tomorrow. Having said that, he’s got his first summer Reading camp tomorrow so we will see how we go.

*We have put so much effort into explaining to him about the transition to 1st grade, the change in class, the change in teacher etc, but we completely forgot that he had a lot of friends in the fifth grade who are moving up to the middle school in September. He was devastated on the Friday.

His first field trip

Well, overall it went much better than expected.

Daddy went with him on chaperone duty.

It wasn’t quite a full day, but there was a tour of a working dairy, a scavenger hunt and a scoop of ice cream.

He loved the scavenger hunt. Particularly as daddy had the brilliant idea to get him to take pictures of the things that he found.

We bought him a FujiFilm instant camera for his birthday – he’s been having loads of fun with it

So that kept him engaged.

He wasn’t quite as enamoured of the dairy. According to the hus-creature he did not wish to learn and was exceedingly sulky.

However he wasn’t the only child with a parental chaperone, and a number of parents decided to come along anyway so there was a ratio of roughly 4 children to one adult.

Oh, and I now have definitely confirmation that #1 Son isn’t the worst behaved in his class. According to the hus-creature:

Ok <child> is worse. They just screamed and spat at another kid

And attacked another kid’s food

Yeah ok #1 Son is not worst

Which is slightly comforting. I would like it though if he did not need chaperoning in order to participate in a field trip.

To end:

Here is my belovéd catbeast refusing to let me sleep

The previous week (and not just in pictures)

Bonjour dear audience.

It’s been a few days hasn’t it?

Actually this time it’s been more that I haven’t had time to sit down and write a full blog post, rather than nothing happening and same old same old.

The weather had been improving a little (it’s gone back to being shite 😞) so on Tuesday last week we all went outside to play for a bit. Actually, what happened is the lovely H rang me on my mobile and asked if we were all free at roughly 5:30 PM and we got invited to play outside; which was lovely. The kids had a whale of a time – all of them together 😊

You see, #1 Son and H’s twin grandsons are close in age (the twins are roughly a year older) but they haven’t really had a chance yet to spend much time together. The twins are sweet kids, and I love them to bits, however they are also autistic and on the more severe end of the spectrum.

And as my own son is, well let’s just say he takes after his mum in having the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the tact of a tank; and as such I was a little concerned about how he would react and be around them once he noticed that they were different to him.

Apparently I needn’t have worried. Honestly it was great. They bonded over ice pops – in that one of the twins decided to half inch my sons one because he had it and he didn’t. (You get points if you worked out who was who there!)

They drew with sidewalk chalks together, they blew bubbles together, they tormented TT together (actually she gave as good as she got 😂🤣) they hunted for insects together and played on the pre-existing outdoor play equipment together.

We really need to get our new swing-set wood stained and built ASAP, however it requires five days of good sunshine that also involves a weekend. And that has been tricky.

Drawing drawing drawing 💕💕

TT also decided that she would help her Aunty H with her gardening and I… don’t really have words for what happened next… so I will let the following videos explain it.

Part the first

Part the second

So I didn’t manage to corral all my children back into the house until way past TT’s bedtime. And as you can see from the videos it wasn’t as if I could just put them straight to bed either as soon as we got in!!! Yep a full bath was required.

Which is fine if you have children that like the bath and, more importantly, hair washing which my children don’t. And the bath? It was black afterward. I mean really, it was black with pine needles and leaves and sycamore seeds and all sorts of other fun stuff 😂🤣. That was okay though – was a mark of fun – especially as I suspect that this is going to be my future from now until approximately November 😂🤣

The only downside to this little excursion is that TT is currently obsessing over “ants”. Both over their existence, and the catching of them.

Then there was the previously documented birthday joy 😁

We decided that given my birthday was midweek, that we would wait to celebrate until the weekend.

H and I went to get our nails done before said celebrations! I went back to chrome:

💕💕💕💕

And I managed to persuade H to try one silver chrome nail on each hand! (Much to the delight of her nail tech lady who had been doing her nails for over twenty years but had never been able to persuade her to do this)

I am clearly magical and a wonderful influence 😂🤣

So on Saturday we went out for belated birthday shenanigans which included a wonderful meal at Fuji restaurant I do love Japanese and I didn’t have loads of sushi. Which is quite surprising for me.

A flight of proper sake and Japanese Whisky (that is the correct spelling – the sommelier told us so!) was also enjoyed:

Utterly gorgeous. If you like whisky/whiskey try Japanese – utterly stunning.

After this, we went to the cinema to see Deadpool 2. I laughed. I cried. I gasped. I sniffled.

GO. SEE. THIS. FILM.

I am still planning on seeing the next Jurassic Park movie on the Big Screen though. And we will be hiring the same sitter again.

My goodness she bought #1 son and myself a birthday gift, read him stories, and did some (unasked for) light housework. The woman is a gem, my son adores her so we are definitely using her again – and yes she got a tip and a bloody good review.

Then came Sunday. There was a baby shower for H’s eldest daughter – she’s having a little boy 💙💙💙💙

And I turned my sewing skills to use and saved the day by sewing in not one, not two, but three buttons on the top H wished to wear:

That has to level up my domestic goddess-ery somehow right?

So TT got all dressed up for “the par-tee”

Why yes, yes that is a party dress with snow boots. My kid is the epitome of fashion and style 😂🤣

It was a lovely party with gorgeous food, presents and… a piano

Listen… if you dare 😂🤣

There were a number of other children there. TT played so well with other toddlers, and #1 Son was polite and well behaved – according to H several members of her extended family and friends were singing my children’s praises 🙀🙀🙀

I’m not taking credit for that beyond being grateful!

So that has been our week.

I’ve gotten #1 Son signed up to a five-week Monday-Thursday Summer Learning Academy, which is free and four hours long where they focus on core skills at an age appropriate level. H told me about it as her grandsons take part (they are a grade above him) and he was able to snag a waiting list place. She will take him and pick him up and next summer it will swap to being at the school just around the corner from us!

He has a Field Trip tomorrow and the school asked for one of us to chaperone him, so daddy gets that honour.

And, to finish off, My son you know the only just six-year-old? Well tonight, when he came home from school, he asked if his friend GG who is the youngest daughter of the lovely lady who drops him off on a weekday, could stay for a sleepover.

I would like to remind the audience that this girl is 11. Yep that would be five years older than him!!!

I’m so going to have trouble with this kid when he’s a teenager aren’t I?

School Science Fair

Well not really, but sort of.

On Thursday #1 Son had his Kids Enquiry Conference. It was 18:30-19:30 and attendance was strongly encouraged.

I can’t say that I was particularly happy about it as it was after TT’s bedtime and ran past his own for a school night. Still, since it was the school making him go, I figured that they could just suck up any residual issues potentially caused by him being late to bed.

As it turned out, it was more of a “kids showing parents what they had been up to during science” in the same manner as the writing wherein we learned all about dolphins

(Please to be remembering that it is, in fact, about dolphins):

And the Maths one I previously wrote about.

So daddy took him up as someone needed to stay behind with TT and I had seen the others. I felt it would be good for #1 Son to spend some time with daddy.

I think they had fun?

😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

It was all pretty standard. The class had been doing group projects building bridges out of cardboard, egg cartons etc.

We also had the school reading and maths lists for the summer sent home.

Big stuff to do sigh. I just hope we can get most of it done.

We are now all signed up with the Melrose Public Library now at least.

And I am also endeavouring to ascertain whether all the reading he does must be off of the prescribed reading list. I’m hoping not.

Readathon Update

#1 Son has completed over 50 minutes of reading.

He has finished The Cat In The Hat, and is currently top in his class for both (recorded) minutes and money raised.

Thank you so much – $110 has been pledged already and we are so grateful.

Since I feel it is my duty to keep plugging away (as it is for the school after all), the sponsorship link is here:

Readathon linky

A sponsored Readathon

From today (March 20th) until April 3, #1 Son is undertaking a sponsored Readathon:

https://fund.whooosreading.org/supports/new?source=sm&student_id=80669

Anyone who feels that they can sponsor him – either as a one off, or per minute/hour read (as he is only in Kindergarten!) your donations are gratefully received.

It’s all done and tracked online, and there are lots of prizes, both individually and for the class.

Many thankings 😘

Many things

It’s been a busy few days.

TT is (whisper it) 100% reliable during the day on the toilet when it comes to doing a wee!

We have also had two days in a row where she has successfully done a poo in the correct place*

We have had no accidents all week thus far.

Night training is not happening, as we are attempting to wean her away from her middle of the night bottle and it’s just cruel to do both at the same time…

That and the one night we tried it she screamed bloody murder, fully woke up, and then actively refused to go back to sleep without said bottle – she won that round!

But she’s doing amazingly – especially when you consider she’s only 26 months old!!

Okay so she doesn’t now need the “cooling” pull ups we bought, or the plastic pants. Bugger. Ah well, we live and learn. And if we hadn’t have bought them, we would have needed them.

Sadly we had a bit of a backslide with #1 Son on the behaviour at school front today. He ran out not once, not twice but five time today, and even ran back into school at pick up time whilst the Mothership was talking to his teacher about the previous five occurrences.

I received an email from her this afternoon confirming that he had had an “emotional” day (stating that no-one would play with him and that he felt that no one loved him 😰) outlining her strategies for helping him tomorrow and giving us a framework to talk to him.

One of the problems is his refusal to accept that other children might just want to play games of their own choosing too – we are working on this…

He has had two more party invites though (one of which is ice skating – but thankfully with options for non skaters) which ought to help a little.

The other is a bouncing party – your guess is as good as ours on that – but that should at least be fun for him.

The lovely H brought up some presents for the kidlets today and he completed one of them

Momma and I are hoping that H will be able to join us on a small night on the town on Saturday.

His reading has come on in leaps and bounds. He actually asked to read with mom when he got home from school!!!!

He still hates writing, so I think that will have to be the next point of focus, but it’s amazing to see how well he is doing.

Mom met up with his teacher on Tuesday afternoon to discuss his progress and ensure that we (mostly her) are not confusing him compared to how they are teaching him in class.

It meant she got to meet his support team, and see his little cubby that they’ve built for him to (effectively) escape into when he gets overwhelmed.

Yes, it is literally a cupboard – it works for him.

He will also be having weekly sessions with his therapist every Tuesday at 07:15 – this means he won’t be too late into school, thus not impacting on his daddy’s work day too much.

As for me? I’m slowly getting back behind the wheel. I’m not great, but at least when I screw up I’m following through and have not (for example) crashed into a roundabout, nor ran a red light, nor turned into oncoming traffic without signalling.

Which are all things I did back in England prior to passing my U.K. licence

So I consider that I am doing okay. I need practice, and I need to pass my theory test (yet again) but I am studying and having gotten through half of the USA equivalent to the Highway Code today.

I’m now exhausted and have an incipient migraine 😂🤣

I also had my second post-op checkup yesterday.

My doctor is very pleased with my progress. I am to increase my doing of things, though not to lift anything heavier than a gallon until I’m the full six weeks post-surgery.

He does however want me to break up with dairy 🙀🙀🙀

(I mentioned I wanted to lose weight)

At the moment dairy and I are merely agreeing to see other people 😂🤣

I can cope with losing chocolate but not my cheese. And I’m trying to work out what I could put in my tea instead of cow’s milk.

But I’m going to try.

He next wants to see me in six months, and this appointment is already booked 😱

Mom and I also went up to knitting group yesterday and had much fun 👍🏻

*With many apologies to the non-parents in my audience, this sort of thing is big news when you are a stay at home parent!

A productive few days

TT has been dry in the day for three days on the trot!!!

This is amazing! And she has completely bypassed the potty and has gone straight to using the toilet.

So I could have saved the $20+ I invested in a mini toilet style potty but never mind eh?

We are struggling a little with #2 at the moment but we are getting there.

We have already thrown at least one pair of underpants out

She has also been a little unwell the last day or so. Wednesday night was awful. She woke screaming in pain at 22:00 and was clearly either constipated or very gassy. We tried a warm bath, Nanny/daddy walking her around, we even gave her an approved constipation tablet – nothing worked.

She was so bad she gave herself a fully hoarse throat the poor wee thing 😰

So we ended up co-sleeping because she just would not settle back in her bed alone.

And it reminded me most forcefully why we do not do the co-sleeping thing.

Poor Daddy ended up curled up on the foot of the bed under the duvet whilst I ended up very sore due to the squirming sleep-thief octopus.

So I spent a lot of yesterday resting because I was exhausted and in pain.

Much better today. However TT has had a slightly upset tummy, so the two events may have been linked. Her pjs were a bit of a state this morning 🤢

#1 Son has been doing reading and writing practice with Nanny. By reading phonetically with the Biff, Chip and Kipper books supplied by other Nanny he is now romping through, and is already on Level 2.

My pride knows no boundaries. We are more than a little concerned though that we are teaching him the British way and not the American way, but it’s working for him – so Momma has volunteered to chat to his teacher about it next week to see if either they can keep letting him learn this way or provide us with suggested resources to help him move on from phonics.

But he is enjoying reading. This is a bloody miracle.

TT decided yesterday that she wasn’t up to being outdone:

Reading practice with TT

I mean, logically it’s nowhere near as impressive, but it’s pretty cute.

Momma has also been trying to tame and tidy the unruly mop that is her hair:

It lasts about ten minutes but hey it’s progress!

We are planning on working on colours and shapes with her next week once #1 Son returns to school.

And as for writing with #1 Son? Well Momma is working on individual upper and lower case letter formation with him, and we are already up to K!!! The hope is that by Monday he will have done the entire alphabet through, but we shall see.

He has also had a full session with his new therapist and he doesn’t hate the musical therapy.

*collapses in relief*

I’m going for a walk at the weekend!!!

💕💕💕💕💕

A trying week

It hasn’t been great this week. It’s one of those tales that if I’d read on say “Hurrah for gin” I’d chuckle and think, thank goodness it’s not me.

But yeah.

I can’t pinpoint all of it but it has consisted of:

Wall Art:

TT has drawn on the walls almost every day this week. Yesterday, I took #1 Son downstairs to J for her to take him to school. Daddy upstairs on the sofa with TT.

I come back up. SHE HAS DRAWN ON THE WALL. Daddy didn’t see her do it. He was sat in the room! This made me feel so much better as I’ve been feeling like I’ve been going blind or mad not seeing it.

¿¿¿Porque no los dos???

So, used over half a tub of wipes scrubbing that off.

Then, we had to pick #1 son up from school because our lovely J had an appointment. Ten minutes before we were due to leave, I actually caught her mid-scribble on the same bit of wall.

Incandescent did not cover it. I shouted, raged and made her watch me throw the crayon in the bin.

I then cleared away all of the remaining crayons I could find. Or so I thought…

You know what’s coming right?

This morning I caught her standing up in her bed, with a piece of crayon – and she had drawn all over the two walls.

This time rage didn’t cover it. I have made her stand there watching me whilst I snapped and binned an entire pack of the bloody crayons.

Expensive? Probably (but Santa got some good Amazon deals) Cathartic? Most definitely. Done any actual measurable good? Meh, who knows?

I’ve told the hus-creature that he needs to get something more heavy duty than what I’ve been using. My hands are shot, my nails this close to wrecked, and I’ve used over an entire tub of wipes.

She just came into the room and asked for kee-ons (crayons)

Rooms:

I had gotten all the new Christmas stuff packed away and sorted on Monday. Their rooms were amazing.

By the end of the day? Oh gods.

Then on Wednesday the following:

#1 Son had a half day. When he came home, he was sporting more marker pen on his face. About two hours after he came home, I noticed his palms were blue. I asked why. I got a shrug.

I later caught him trying to turn the sofa into its bed form. I sent him to his room for that one. He knows to leave that alone for safety. After a couple of minutes, I went in to check on him. To be greeted with:

That would be a refill from a Crayola Marker Maker set.

Again, incandescent with fury. Not because it happened – I can accept it happened. But because he had had at least two opportunities to tell me about it and he didn’t.

There’s only so much I will let him get away with – this is not one of those things.

Thankfully, Crayola do not lie when they say “washable”. Ten minutes scrubbing with floor wipes and it is gone. Thank god for wooden flooring.

The snow:

It can bugger off back to Hades now thank you very much. As previously mentioned, I had to go pick up #1 Son from school yesterday. That’s fine think I, the sidewalks have been shovelled, it’s warming up a bit.

Oh no. Puddles. Sidewalk lakes. TT thought it was great. Up until I got the pram (stroller) stuck in a narrow corridor of snow.

More. Than. Once.

Honestly if you are shovelling – make it wide enough for a goddamn stroller. Oh and let’s not talk about whoever shovelled off a crossroads and blocked off the sidewalk. So I had to walk in the road for half a block til we could mount the kerb again.

And everyone who beeped me? May the fleas of 1,000 camels infest your underwear drawer.

My feet were sodden. TT was grumpy, but we got to school on time.

Only to be told he has spent a good part of the afternoon in the principal’s office

🙄🤭😢🙄🤭😢🙄🤭😢🙄🤭😢

I’m waiting for an email as to why. But I didn’t get called in, so whatever it was, it could have been worse I suppose…

I have made enquiries as to how we go about registering him in the after school club – it will come in handy for days like yesterday, and give him vital socialising opportunities. Apparently you can pre-register and then, in some manner, drop off on the day. That’s handy.

But it has not been all bad: Today he came home with this:

I’m bloody proud.

And I needed it today. Today (thanks to Timehop) I’m really homesick. I don’t like it, and I need it to feck orf.

Yarn therapy is the order of the day/evening.

School dinners

Are very different here.

Admittedly, it’s really difficult to get out of #1 Son what he’s had of a school day – he tends to forget.

But yesterday when I asked, he was adamant it was cereal. I shrugged it off because it was a half day and maybe he was overexcited. But today he told me he had French toast with syrup.

🤭🤔😯😦😧

So I thought I would investigate.

10 January 2018:

Now, you know what? This isn’t too bad. I mean, there’s yoghurt and cheese. I’m shocked that he apparently ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but hey this is good.

Now for today,

11 January 2018:

This? This I am less impressed with. Again it’s a one off, and most days he has a blasted peanut butter and (grape) jelly sandwich, so as a treat fine.

But it has definitely reminded me that I am in the country where pizza is considered a vegetable. I’m not taking his choice away from him though. He’s eating so much better at school than he was. The agency of choice there is vital.

I’m just going to mumble and grumble about options.