School

Our school is in trouble. On special measures for probably 2 years now, but now we have a new head and everything is looking up finally. But this improvement brings lots of paperwork, questionnaires, letters galore, ofsted reports etc. Yesterday Littl'un brought home a questionnaire about what we think of the school. The questions go something like this:

"My child is taught well at this school"
"My child's lessons are not disrupted by bad behaviour"
"My child is making good progress at this school".

Now how am I supposed to answer those without having a spy camera in Littl'un's bag?! It's hard enough to get out of Littl'un what he did in a day (mainly "nothing") without asking if he feels he is being taught well! He is 4. The most I know is that in his reading book at home I have to write detailed comments about how he is doing when we read every night. The teacher puts a sticker in his book when they read at school. No comments about progress or anything.

But I have to return the form to his teacher so I can't put anything too damning in case they take it out on him! And I doubt if I wrote a 1000 word essay on what I thought needed improving they would do anything about it.

Click and collect

Littl'un turns 5 next weekend (how did THAT happen?!?!) and I ordered his present from a well known supermarket. I decided to do that new click and collect service they offer, to make sure I didn't waste a trip to the shop only to find it wasn't in stock. The premise of this is that you pay online, and they contact you when it's ready to collect. I've done it a few times with other shops and it's been really easy. This time I realised I hadn't been contacted in well over a week, so I rang them up to check. "Oh yeah," the lady told me cheerily, "when it arrives in store they usually don't bother to scan the packages so the emails don't get sent". And this is normal?! Oh and it gets better. I asked how long they keep them in store before returning them, as if you don't know it's there you aren't going to go and collect it are you? Other stores have a 7 day policy before they refund you and return the goods. Not this one. "Oh, one time someone's stuff was in the store for over a month before we realised!" giggled the lady on the phone. And this is funny?!?! Honestly.

Happy New Year!

Ah New Year's Eve. What am I doing I hear you cry? Well shortly I will be getting the kids to bed, then ordering a takeaway and opening a bottle of fizz in honour of the occasion! And I am really looking forward to it. Hell, I might even go to bed before midnight :)

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you are having a much more rock and roll New Year's Eve than me. One year I might even make it out of the house to an establishment that plays music and dance the night away! You never know what's around the corner!

Happy Birthday!

Littl'un #2 turns 2 today, I have no idea where the time has gone. He celebrated with a packet of Magic Stars! We had the family over at the weekend for his birthday so today seems a bit flat - but I'm sure he doesn't know! He got so many presents I have no room for them, and we still have Christmas to get through. I might have to rewrap them again :)

And talking of the weekend, tell me this. If you were invited over for a child's birthday, and to stay the night, would you come and not even bring a card?! One of my relatives did, didn't even say Happy Birthday. Hell, they could have drawn a card if they didn't want to buy one. It's made me really angry but obviously I can't say anything as in our family we are all so polite to each other it hurts, then the minute we say goodbye we start ripping into each other! I might write a sitcom about it, you couldn't make half of what we have to go through up!

Jingle Bells

I just went to see Littl'un at his christmas singalong at school. He was so good bless him! He's spent the whole of the last week insisting he didn't know any of the songs, yet he was right up there at the front singing his heart out! Most of the other kids were looking at their feet shuffling and half-heartedly singing, not my one! He'll be on the X Factor this time next year! I don't know where he gets it from, I refuse to sing in front of his dad due to some random paranoia that he'd leave me if I was a terrible singer, so the stage presence must be from his dad!

Chocolate santa

In a fit of helpfulness I wrapped 40 selection boxes for the school PTA last weekend. I am very sad and love wrapping and I enjoyed it! It's for the Santa's grotto at the school fair. Littl'un wants to go to the fair and I said "yeah but we don't need to go and see Santa do we?" as they want £1.50 per kid! "Oh yes we do," said Littl'un, "I want my chocolate". The boy ain't silly!

Sparkly!

A new phenomenon has appeared in Celebrity World. Crystal white sparkling straight as you like teeth. It is quite disconcerting. It totally takes your attention away from whatever they are trying to sell you as all you can do is gaze at the lovely sparkly things. Cee Lo Green was the latest I noticed, he started singing and that was it. Never heard a note. But his teeth are lovely. I think it's going over the top now, it totally takes any personality away, what's wrong with slightly off white a bit wonky teeth I ask you? And they are SOOO perfect,  it's like the very expensive celebrity dentist actually got a spirit level in there while he was at it. As soon as any wannabe makes it (ie they have enough dosh to sort them out or the management insist on it) it's out with the normal teeth and in with the SPARKLY teeth. How long till they start sticking things on them again? Diamantes or teeth tattoos? You watch, they'll be advertising their latest single/book/film on their gnashers before long so all they actually have to do is open their mouths...

Ruining the joys of childhood

Littlewoods has a lot to answer for. As does Littl'un's teacher. Firstly, Littlewoods. Someone who is probably being paid an extortionate amount of money for making ads thought that re-enacting a school play where the premise is "mum buys all the Christmas presents" was a great idea. And to show it at all times of the day would be a marvellous idea. Is there no respect for anything anymore? Small children deserve to believe in Father Christmas without the massive corporations treading all over the magic to make a bit more money. It is really shocking to me, is nothing sacred anymore?

But apparently it's not just the big money making firms who like to spoil the dreams of the young. Littl'un told me his teacher told them Father Christmas wasn't real. He is 4. Luckily he believed me when I told him his teacher was basically a big fat liar.

Oh the irony...

The other day I noticed an NHS van being driven erratically down the road. This was what drew my attention. Plastered all over the side was "Smoking Kills" and other scary messages. The driver was driving erratically as he was trying to light a fag.

Gatecrashing and fireworks

Bonfire night round our way is taken very seriously. Friday night the local scouts at the bottom of our garden had their "do" which was very noisy and at one point I thought they were blowing up gas canisters from the noise of the explosions, the windows were even shaking! Then when they finished a pub up the road started off which were even bigger, if possible. Saturday night carried on much the same, fireworks everywhere you looked, which is good if you don't want to pay to go to a display! Littl'un #1 seems to have got over his fear, the past 3 years he has screamed every time a rocket went off. Littl'un #2 seems to be made of stronger stuff, he didn't even flinch. And we got to gatecrash the neighbours' fireworks party as he saw us standing at the back door and invited us over. This included a big vodka and 2 very tired little boys by the end of it, so it was marvellous! And the next day we got to play "how many bits of firework are in our garden" which is quite entertaining, though the wind must have been going the other way this year, last year they were all by the back door and some had even gone over the house! This is no mean feat as our garden is 100ft, those scouts sure know how to throw a mean firework display!

Car journeys with kids

One of the most challenging things you can do as a parent is go on a long car journey with your children. By the end of it they are extremely fractious, grizzled, hungry, thirsty, and there is a good chance one of them will have wet themselves. You will be lucky to have retained your sanity.

On our last trip to visit the olds, it was about 5 hours each way. This involved the following incidents.

1) An hour into the trip Littl'un #1 pipes up with the usual "I need a wee!!!". Queue stop off at next service station for toilet break.

2) Five minutes later down the motorway Littl'un #1 pipes up with "I need a poo!!!" Queue stop off at next service station for yet another toilet break amid furious mutterings of "couldn't you go last time we stopped?" "But I didn't NEED to go then"...

3) Littl'un #2 then clearly feels that he has been left out of the equation for too long and starts whining. Luckily he is still in nappies so that is one problem avoided. (We did consider putting a nappy on his brother after point 2 but there you go). So then we start the great Feeding of Children to Keep Them Quiet part of the journey. Sandwiches, biscuits and crisps are passed to the back of the car and now the car looks like it needs a good hoover. Littl'un #2 is covered in jam and just out of reach, but he can still reach to smear jam all over the interior of the car. Littl'un #1 moans that he didn't want jam and complains mightily for at least 20 minutes.

4) Kids are sated for a little while. Mum decides to put some music on to keep them happy. Littl'un #1 has developed a taste for Meatloaf and after listening to "I would do anything for love but I won't do that" five times in a row, mum is ready to bail and hitch a lift for the rest of the journey. What started off as cute, Littl'un #1 singing along to Meatloaf, is now very annoying and when we try and put something else on he complains loudly that it is rubbish and "can we put Meatloaf on" over and over and over and over...

5) Finally we get to our destination. Kids get out of the car, and immediately say "can we go home now?". We have yet to face the journey home, and are considering ways to drug the kids to sleep on the return journey. 

Clocks

The clocks went back an hour today. In his wisdom Littl'un #2 decided to wake up at 6.15 yesterday's time which is very early for him. This means we have been awake since 5.15. I am refusing to change the clock's yet in a futile attempt to pretend it is still yesterday. Whoever invented the time change was a sadist or didn't have kids.