Tag Archives: children

July 22, 2010 · 6:00 pm

By heck Grommet(s)!

BILLY has finally got his hospital appointment to have grommets fitted. *Shudders.

It’s been a on-going problem, as previous detailed in these pages. Six-year old Bill can be very shouty. The consultant ear-docs and audiologists finally persuaded me that it’s just gone on too long to keep ‘waiting and seeing’ if he’ll literally grow out of it.

His glue ear, a very common problem in young children, could be fixed now by having tiny tubes called grommets surgically inserted into his lug-holes under general anaesthetic.

Now, I’m not unduly worried about the operation, but the thought of watching my baby go under anaesthetic makes me want to weep. Already. But not in front of him. I am cheerful and matter-of-fact in my smiley explanations to him about his ear-op, and the subsequent antibiotics and cotton wool plugs at bath-time to prevent infection.

My friends who have already been through worse hospital operations with their kids tell me it will be fine, and that I’m being a wuss.

Doesn’t stop me stressing though, to the point where I’m buying weird nose balloon contraptions on the internet to try and fix it without the GA. I’ll keep you posted. . .

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July 21, 2010 · 9:46 am

Where’s your Daddeee gone?

GETTING my Bloke back this week, for a fortnight anyway. He’s been working in Edinburgh for the past couple of months and so we’ve only had him home for weekends.

It’s been a bit like being a single mum, without the emotional trauma and reduction in income.

Or a Forces wife, without the anguish and concern for his safety. I do worry, every Monday and Friday, when he’s getting on trains and planes. Not quite the same as worrying about him stepping on an Improvised Explosive Device or shot by friendly fire.

Being on your own with four kids is fun but knackering. It’s also pretty lonely. You miss having someone to talk to, and you can’t really go out on your own. I can never really justify the cost of a babysitter just for me.

The last few months without Bloke have been weird for us all. Our eldest said he was seeing less of his Dad than his friends whose parents were divorced, but without the extra presents. The novelty of living in hotels wore off for Bloke after about a fortnight.

The most annoying thing for me is having to put the bins out. I might cope with all the rest but it’s HIS job. And he does it with ruthless Man efficiency.

I wake up at 2am when I finally remember they need doing, clatter around the house collecting what needs to be put out and shuffle out into the street in my dressing-gown, clutching smelly black bags and cursing under my breath.

At least we’re all back together for the next fortnight. Bin duty reinstated. Someone to yak to about everything and nothing. Order restored.

He’ll be desperate to get back to work.

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July 19, 2010 · 9:01 am

Why keeping a lawn ‘for the kids’ is a lie

THE lawn looks an absolute mess, mostly due to the lack of rain. I haven’t had to mow for weeks, as there are so many bare patches, and the soil is so hard and compacted, it hardly grows.

The kids don’t help. They insist on daily games of “honestly Mum it’s not football” and have worn huge bald patches into a not-very-big-in-the-first-place lawn. The paddling pool has added circular yellow patterns to the mix.

I refuse to get stressed about it. The damn couch grass at the allotment is so persistent it would survive a nuclear bomb. The more civilised lawn at home just needs a few regular nights of rain and some patching with a rake, compost and some seed. It will be rampant by autumn, you’ll see. . .

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July 15, 2010 · 2:09 pm

Transfer Day

IT was Transfer Day on Monday. To those of you without children, this is when they get a ‘test day’ at their new class, with their new teacher for September.

It’s all very well if you are just dropping them off at a new door, but for those with children changing schools, it’s a little more complicated and for some, worrying.

We’ve got a complicated set-up, having four children who need to be in different places. Doug went to his new secondary school, Northampton School for Boys (and yes, I do still feel guilty). Thankfully they wanted him earlier, so that was an 8.30am drop-off.

Then Billy went to his normal school but a new classroom. Bonnie met Childminder Clare at the school gates, while Jed had a more confusing set-up.

He’s not really got a new classroom to go to, because they haven’t made it yet. He’s not even sure the new Malcolm Arnold Academy will even go ahead now since the Tories have pulled the plug on the funding, despite the high-profile Tory donor who’s supposed to be running it.

So for now, he’s still a Unity (formerly Trinity) pupil.

I guess those new Year Sevens who were due to see their new school might have had an unenlightening day. All these kids – and the teachers – at Unity and Weston Favell (the nearly academies) have had enough uncertainty and disruption over the past two years thanks to Northants county council. It’s stupid, and it needs to get sorted. No politician or council officer responsible for the academy changeover should be allowed to disappear on holiday until it is.

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July 15, 2010 · 9:05 am

She has Wii arm

I AM suffering from “Wii-arm” (pronounced: Wee-arm). It’s a relatively new condition.

The symptoms are a dull ache in the bicep, inability to fully straighten at the elbow, and a burning desire to try and beat your six-year old on a computer game.

We have too many computer games in our house. I can’t really moan as they were bought by the kids with their own money, but I often wonder if we need both an Xbox and a Wii.

The Xbox is newer and currently gets all the attention. But at the weekend the Wii came off the bench and kept everyone amused when it was just too hot to be active outside.

As the elder two were out doing Saturday clubs, it fell to Mum to be Player 2 while Bonnie reluctantly went for her nap.

Ten tennis matches, boxing, golf, bowling, and far too many baseball games later, I’d been roundly beaten by a six-year old and was actually perspiring. Still stubborn enough to do the Fitness Test though, to find that the machine puts my fitness age at 39.

“Don’t worry Mum,” consoled Bill. “At least it’s not your real age.”

No love. It’s one year below my real age. . .

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July 13, 2010 · 12:31 am

She’s disappointed by the quality of rainfall

Made my first-ever jar of blackcurrant jam. I feel guiltily domesticated.

RIGHT, enough now. This is England and it’s summer so it should rain. Properly rain. Chuck it down. Not this pathetic drizzle that does nothing more than make girls’ hair go fluffy.

It’s been weeks since we had more than a smattering of a shower and the garden is struggling to cope.

I’m getting some sort of workout lugging watering cans up and down the allotment but the clay soil is set rock hard. Much of the water isn’t penetrating very deeply, even when the planting hole is slightly bowl-shaped to hold it in place and stop it just running away.

After last year’s wet weather we had stunning fruit and vegetable harvests. This year the fruit is looking small. My apple tree dropped all its applets, the raspberries are tiny. Strawberries gave up quickly and the beans aren’t producing as quickly as they should. They might need misting with a hand sprayer to help them along.

My early spuds are ready, and the first lot I dug were horrible, all pock marked, part rotten and holey. Very disappointing. It could be slugs or scab (where the skin is, well, scabby, but the spud is still edible underneath) is common where watering is erratic.

I’ve never had to water potatoes or raspberries before and I think it might be too late to start. Thankfully the third potato plant I dug had some healthy tubers. Not as many as I’d have expected but at least we’re eating something.

The garlic has been picked and hung up to dry at home, the red, autumn-sown onions look fat and ready and the shallots have had a bumper year. I suspect I planted some too deep though, because as they expand, they poke up towards the sun and swell near the surface, whereas mine have become trapped and squashed by the rock-hard soil. When you do water, do it early or leave it until the evening. If you use a hose, use a spray attachment or the force of the water will just make deep holes around your beds and expose the roots. When you think you’ve given a plant enough, give it some more. Shallow watering is no good.

Fill watering cans from water butts, empty paddling pools, washing-up and even bathwater, the plants won’t mind. I’m hoping for a massive downpour and a heavy shower every night next week.

Last week’s appeal about how to harvest blackcurrants furnished me with lots of advice, thanks very much.

This week I cut all the stems heavy with ripe black fruit and carefully removed the bunches of berries. Once home, I plonked them in water, separated off the leaves and stems, and then put the berries into plastic boxes and stuck them in the freezer. Once solid, its much easier to remove those fiddly flower ends (preferably while watching telly with a glass of something alcoholic to hand). Another wash, stick them in a big pan with a drop of water and preserving sugar and soon you have gooey, sweet blackcurrant jam (or jelly of you strain it). I’ve produced my first ever jars of blackcurrant jam. It’s so nice with scones, or swirled into cream and poured over meringues. Shame I’m supposed to be on a diet.. . .

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July 9, 2010 · 10:30 pm

She peed in my shoes

The slippers (after a wash)

THE Terrible Twos are in full swing in our house. Our Baby Bonnie is no longer a baby but a full-on foot-stomping, screaming, temper-tantrum-throwing little madam.

 

I don’t ever wish to gender stereotype but she does seem stroppier than the boys were at the same age. It might have taken slightly longer for her to twig on to the power of an all-out bout of the screaming ab-dabs, but boy, is she making up for lost time.

Bonnie is now two and four months old. She can speak fairly well, is mostly good at making it to the loo in time and knows exactly what she likes (tomatoes, ice-cream, the garden and Peppa Pig) and what she doesn’t like (being told NOT to do something).

We’re now at that wearying stage where she is aware that she’s doing something she shouldn’t.

The tantrum stage is all about independence and testing boundaries. You want her in the car seat, she wants to go in Billy’s booster seat. Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough, Mum.

I can just about manhandle a twisting, kicking child into a car seat, but her wriggling out of holding hands and running off is testing both my patience and fitness.

Bonnie used to come when called. Not now. She will zoom off and when you call her back she will actually pick up speed.

I’ve attempted the tried and trusted Counting Backwards from Five technique (this still works with the boys who can’t resist the competitive element of racing back before “. . .one!”). But she’s not bothered. She wants you to have to run after her and then has a full on tantrum when you prevent her from being run-over.

Extra annoying, of course, is that she reserves this behaviour for me. The childminder will only get a mildly sulky version. Daddy gets adoration.

Despite ignoring her, or picking her up and taking her elsewhere when she does that blood-curdling scream, and resolutely not giving her whatever she wanted in the first place, it does wear you down. And girls don’t seem to forget how annoyed they were with you two hours previously.

The tantrums will pass, but by gum, you have to resist the temptation to join in.

On the other hand, she can be an absolute delight. She insisted on having “lady toes” when she found me re-painting my chipped toe nail varnish (my one attempt at femininity).

She loves shoes, and found my forgotten shiny silver slippers and insisted on wearing them around the house saying: “I a ladeee.”

Until the moment she looked me right in the eye and said: “Mummy, these are your slippers” . . . and then did a wee in them.

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July 8, 2010 · 10:09 pm

Death and the next-day nightmare

THE hot weather has meant restless nights all round. Both Billy and Dougie have had random, unexpected, one-night only hay-fever symptoms. (Pharmacist tip: put a bowl of water beneath an open bedroom window which will attract any pollen in the air like a magnet).
Everyone’s been a little over-emotional through lack of shut-eye.
Nothing prepared me though, for Billy’s next-day-nightmare.

Six-year old Bill is quite chirpy, not one to dwell on things and never afraid to ask a question. He’s usually a good sleeper but about once a month will wake up absolutely crying his head off. It’s quite a shocker, and usually happens just a couple of hours after he’s gone to bed.

He doesn’t take long to calm down, usually agrees to be taken to the loo, and despite trying to get him to tell us what’s wrong, he’s so quick to go back to sleep we don’t ask anymore.We had one of these wake-up-screamings this week.
The following day, Billy came to me in floods of tears, sobbing uncontrollably, asking if it was true that when you died you never woke up again? And when your heart stops, why doesn’t it just start again? And when you die, where does your brain go?

It took ten minutes of cuddling and cooing to calm him down enough so we could talk. Why had he suddenly got so upset about it? “It was what I was thinking when I woke up last night but when you asked what was wrong I couldn’t tell you,” he sobbed.

How do you explain death to a six-year old without scaring them even more?

We’re not religious. The whole “going to heaven” idea felt insincere.

You shouldn’t go on about people ‘going to sleep and never waking up’ either, or that a loved one has “gone to a better place,” prompting the child to think, “well, why didn’t they take me then?”

I tried to be as truthful as I could without being too graphic. I said that sometimes people’s bodies just wore out, or got broken, but some people believe that when your body stops working, your thoughts go to places you like and do things you enjoy, and they call that heaven.

He seemed to accept the explanation that unlike Mummy’s plants, humans can have brilliant long lives and even live for 100 years, and that every time someone dies, a new baby is born somewhere in the world.
Once we’d discussed the logistics of there needing to be room for new babies, he chirped right up and hasn’t mentioned it since.

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July 4, 2010 · 3:28 pm

Baby Blackbirds fighting it out

For the past fortnight we’ve been watching our resident blackbird couple feeding the chicks in a nest they precariously built in the climbing hydrangea. In a matter of days they hatched, then we could hear them cheeping only when ma and pa were nearby.

Yesterday we saw them, poking their beaks out of the well-concealed nest. We think there are two chicks. The boys have been banned from playing football, and are most put-out to have to give up their backgarden. They already have to avoid certain games to avoid damaging plants. Now it’s birds.

We found a dead bird (not the blackbirds, a little one with white markings on the wings) yesterday that we think had been got by a cat.

So the boys have been given permission to chase and squirt water pistols at any cats they see setting so much as a paw in our plot. I’m determined those blackbird babies will survive.

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June 30, 2010 · 11:16 am

Tripping worries me

DO school trips scare the bejesus out of you? After all these years they still terrify me. Paranoia is set to maximum.

I know it’s irrational. I know accidents are few and far between, and more injuries happen in the home than anywhere else, but I can’t help it. Coaches, travelling, peer pressure and teachers off their own territory. Terrifying.

They might still have a month left until the summer holidays, but my lot seem to be on school trips every week.

Jed’s already been to The Black Country Museum, and went to Thorpe Park last Friday. Thorpe Park, a blinkin’ theme park, with big roller-coasters. And it’s miles and miles away. He had to cycle to school alone at 7am. I couldn’t even be there to check the coach’s tyre pressures and smell the driver’s breath.

He groaned as I made him put on sun-cream before he left and failed to persuade him to wear a hat. He said the words no mother wants to hear: “Stop fussing Mum, you’re turning into Grandma.”

All day I was checking my mobile for messages. I gave in after lunch and sent a text while trying to be nonchalant: “How’s your day going?”

“Brill” came the eloquent reply. Eventually. 

Next week Dougie’s off to Warwick Castle (high walls), then there’s Jed’s trip to London’s West End (at night, for goodness sake), Billy goes to Twycross Zoo (wild animals!) and Doug has a French day at Wicksteed Park (don’t even get me started). Jed’s the only one of them allowed a mobile phone. I’m going to be a nervous wreck. Thank goodness the day-trip to France was cancelled. . .

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