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Talking to Yourself

One day back and I’m feeling exhausted already.

Not that anything’s really happened, but I can see that there’s a good chance that we’re winding up to needing some Meetings with the School to sort through some things.

However much a modern school may have a just-drop-in, open-door policy, it can still be a big screwing up your courage sort of thing to go and talk about an issue. It can mean time off work for one or both parents, getting someone to look after younger kids, or trying to have a serious discussion with them romping around your feet. The phone isn’t always an option for non-straightforward matters.

So you don’t jump in when it’s still a speck on the horizon. You wait, you gather evidence, you check through your options. And however unwittingly, you find yourself rehearsing the possible scenarios and trying so hard not to script yourself. In this case, I don’t think I could script myself, because I have no idea what I can actually say other than “We’re not happy that…” I like to have at least some idea of what the possible solutions might be.

Drawing a blank right now.

Chilling

Aaaaaah - holidays.

I know I’ve said it before, but that’s because it’s a consistent theme in my life. Take away the school run and the homework and the days feel very, very different indeed.

Yes, in my previous salaried life (I won’t say working because this is a working life too - just unpaid) I had deadlines and time pressures. But they were either within my control or subject to rational negotiation. With small children the control and rationality go out of the window. I can repeat the need to hurry when we are running late for school - they can still be brought to a standstill by the temptation to pick daisies.

And who would dare say that they don’t have the right priorities?

I feel they’re going to spend enough of their lives dealing with commuting and timescales. It’s such a shame that pre-schoolers are already living with these demands, because their parents and older siblings are already on the treadmill.

But even the holidays have time pressures. I’m torn between filling the days with activities - taking the chance to do things we just can’t do in term time. Nothing structured necessarily, just expansive messy play - and just letting the days drift by. Problem with that is we get to the final afternoon and a little voice will pipe up that they wanted to do some complex project, and by then it’s too late.

Losing the daily rush hours is one of the few aspects of my homeschooling friends’ lives that I feel I could embrace.

 

Picture by .scooter

A Love Letter to my Blog

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/2522940936/

Hello Blog.

It’s been a while, I know, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about you. I think about you a lot. I just don’t seem to be able to find much time to spend with you. I write to you in my head. I keep an eye on you and those around you. But sometimes its hard to commit to you.

I’ve got family, you see. A husband. Kids. A house, a car, a pet, a garden, even a bit of a job. They all eat time. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you, it’s just that all the other stuff does keep getting in the way. Spending time with you can seem so… selfish.

But the more I neglect you, the harder it is to pick of the pieces of what we have together, the harder it is to justify finding the space for you. Right now I could be earning money, cleaning, sorting stuff for the kids, making the dinner.

I try to remind myself why we started all this in the first place. I still believe in the communication, the sense of involvement, the chance to express myself. The irony is that the more involved I am in things at school, the less I feel inclined to talk to you!

There’s got to be a way to make this work. Hang in there.

Mothersoup x

 

 

Picture by garryknight

Moondusted

I’m not still reading Moondust - but the Now Reading widget isn’t playing ball… :-(

Should I Stay or Should I Go…?

You wake up to a strange, soft light in the bedroom. Noises from outside seem muted. Oh yes, it’s snowed in the night.

Let’s leave aside the issue of shy did it hold off all weekend and wait till the kids were back at school - what sort of a mean weather trick was that…?

What I love about snowy school mornings is trying to stuff breakfast into excitable children and then excitable children into wellies, all the while maintaining near silence in case Local FM broadcast something about school closures.

I don’t cope well with much breakfast broadcasting. Can’t cope with breakfast TV and many chipper radio presenters and naffo adverts have me reaching for the off-switch. So today I had to:

  • Find school handbook to confirm which local station I required
  • Curse the children to silence while I waltzed the DAB round our transmitter-blackspot of a breakfast table to pick up the blasted station
  • Do all my errands out of the room in little bursts while the music was playing
  • Jump on anyone who so much as snapped, crackled or popped during the talkie bits

Huddling round the radio set made me feel like a spy in a war movie! I’m looking forward to something more technologically advanced. I know there’s a wheeling out of these school text messaging services, but I don’t understand how they work. If it’s so snowy that the secretary can’t get to the school, does that mean the text wouldn’t get sent?  So would no text mean no school, or just no staff on site? Call me a Luddite, if you will…

But school was on: crossing patrols in place, jannies scattering grit like flower girls at a wedding. Bet the school is steaming witgh soaking wet uniforms. Condensation everywhere. Mm-hm.

 

Expeditions to the Land of Counterpane

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbrett/92729376/

Like most houses, we’ve had bouts of illness over the recent weeks, although not as explosive as some seem to have been. With the tiniest Soups, this is still pretty anxious - too young to explain the precise nature of their misery, and too irrational to understand the need for the frequent fluids recommended by the pharmacist, they become pallid bundles of incoherent misery, wringing your heart and pressing all your hormonal parental buttons.

But an older Soup, who generally enjoys Rude Health is currently languishing by my side under a quilt, with book, a hot water bottle, a drink and - a rarity at this more sophisticated age - a Favourite Animal Companion. Said child limped through the final hours of school and barely managed this morning’s extra-curricular activity (and unfortunately it was an Assessment Week). Lunch was spurned in favour of a swift return to the Land of Counterpane.

I can’t say I’ve not appreciated the chance to curl up next to someone who is more usually a whirlwind of energy and constant movement. We’ve shared the laptop, playing its meagre repertoire of games, done some online quizzes, ordered some new goodies.

Now, alas, said Child is getting restless. But being a resourceful mother I’ve already lined up a boardgame as the next item on the agenda. Must go and trounce the Little Invalid.

Starting term

Why is it that after two weeks with plenty of free time in them, I find myself frantically de-scuffing and polishing school shoes on the first morning of term?

Love Your Stuff

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookylamoo/432969435/                                    Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookylamoo/432969435/

Bear with me - this may ramble…

In the car this morning I caught Archbishop of York John Sentamu talking about using the credit crunch to retake some of the basic meaning behind Christmas. In amongst this was the idea of appreciating the value of the truly important things - which are not necessarily material gifts.

And it got me thinking. I was on my way to Fort Kinnaird to buy Christmas presents for a family of dear friends. But although I love them very much, I don’t find them easy to buy for. They enjoy a far more affluent life than the Soup household. It is always hard to balance our tight budget against finding items that fit (even if they don’t match) with their style and interests. I am sure they are careful to judge what they buy for us, not wishing to overwhelm us with gifts that cannot be reciprocated. But welcome as those gifts are, my lasting gratitude will go to them instead for many acts of kindness over the years, which cost little or nothing, but which I will remember for the rest of my life. For instance this summer they gave time and expertise to support me in making some important choices. No money spent, but crucially useful. So the presents, I reminded myself, really are only tokens. Make them good ones, if you can, but don’t fret about them…

And while at Fort Kinnaird, we went into Borders and I picked up a kids’ book called Teach Your Granny to Text. I gave it just a quick flick. It seemed to be a 101 things to do… book with an ecological twist. The page I read was entitled ‘Love Your Stuff‘ about appreciating even your old and tatty things.

I put the book down, but found myself coming back to the idea of ‘Love Your Stuff’ throughout the day. It fitted with my general philosophies about the world. I know I’m a follower of the make do and mend ethos, and I’ve been a little amused to find that so much of the credit crunch advice being bandied about reflects the way we’ve been living for a long time (the downside of this is that it’s harder to find further ways to economise…) But, financial - and ecological - implications aside, I feel there’s a value to loving your stuff as part of a positive mindset.

Then in the afternoon, I took one of the Littlest Soups out for a walk, and we came past a place where we have previously found abandoned toys - discarded, I think, by the children in nearby group of houses. We’ve tried returning them to likely homes, without success. We’ve tried propping them up prominently to be reclaimed, only to see them moulder week after week. This time we spotted a naked, cloth-bodied baby doll, not dropped but hurled to the edge of some undergrowth. She wasn’t there the day before but, from the muck and the mildew, she’d been outdoors for some time.

There’s something tragic about an abandoned doll at any time, but when I picked her up I was struck by her resemblance to the computer-generated images of neglected injuries which have dominated the news in recent days. She summed up for me the antithesis of the ‘Love your Stuff’ ethos. Of all toys, a baby doll is designed to foster affectionate nurturing.

I remember the Council making a deal, some time ago about the provision of houses like the ones from where these toys may have come. They spoke forcefully about the need to supply ‘affordable housing’ for people who don’t have much money to spend. But is our society doing anything to support people in making the most of the things they buy with what little money they can spend?

Well, I’ve spent a little bit of money - I’ve checked out the website of that book’s authors and I’ve ordered a copy of ‘Teach Your Granny…’. As a family we’re going to think anew about making the most of things.

And the doll? I couldn’t just leave her there. She’s been bleached, washed, scrubbed and will be receiving fresh stuffing, a name and a new home somewhere. She’s as good as new.

The Naming of Parts

Tension is mounting for one Little Soup, waiting to find out if they’ll have a role in the Christmas Play and what that role might be.

Apparently the teachers are deciding this week: I have images of children taking every opportunity to show their potential: standing proud in the classroom, facing front and declaiming like a Noel Coward luvvie “Please Miss, may go to the toilettttt?”

Alas, I’m guessing the roles may already be decided. If it’s a traditional nativity play (and there’s no certainty about that) then I’d imagine that Mary and Joseph will be sweet but steady types. The innkeeper is the confident, bossy boy who is savvy enough to say the first lines in many scenes. The angels (who should technically be boys, but then there wouldn’t be enough roles for girls, would there?) are cute but not necessarily the most capable individual speakers. Ditto shepherds for the boys. If you’re lucky enough to have a boy with exotic looks or height, he makes a great Wise Man. Fill in the gaps with animals (if you’re creative) or a choir/percussion orchestra.

Mary and Joseph are of course, seen as plum roles, although frankly, they can seem a bit dull in practice. Kings and angels are sought after for the bling-laden costumes. No-one wants to be livestock.

My Offspring has their heart set on an impressively costumed role, but as they are known as a bit of a Voice I fear they may be disappointed and used for ear-candy rather than eye-candy. I hope they can cope with the highs and lows of casting and auditions, because not everyone can be a star, luvvie.

I may yet be consoling a Cow…

All I learnt at school…

I took the opportunity recently, while I happened to be in the right neighbourhood, of diverting off route just enough to swing past a couple of my old schools.

I’ve not bothered to do this for a long, long time - not since I became a parent (I had the Offspring in the car with me). What a strange experience it was. One school I had remodelled in my mind to resemble one of my Offspring’s schools, which reminded me of it. In real life I realised just how very different it actually was. One school looked very much smaller - and the grounds had been ‘edited’; one school looked very much bigger - but then it had been considerably extended!

I’ve not had the chance to visit these places, or to share memories with fellow pupils, for quite some time. As a result it had all taken on a slightly unreal, dreamlike quality, rather as if they were mental images from a book I had once read. And that links to one of my reasons for making a point of revisiting them.

One of my Offspring has reached a stage where they are reading many of the books I can so clearly remember enjoying in my schooldays. And for me the memory of these books and the memory of those schools are firmly intertwined. I don’t know what the room layouts are like inside now, but I could go back to the classroom and the very desk where I read particular books. I could point to the precise place where my favourites were shelved. I can practically smell them.

I’ve lost track of most of the teachers and pupils, few individual lessons stand out from my memory, but the memory of those books have come down the years with me. Once I had children I started to search the internet and began to build up a collection of the ones I hoped my children would themselves enjoy one day. They’re not going to read them in school: there’s nothing wrong with the school library, or indeed the public library, but a significant number of books which were popular among my class are now out of print.

Sharing books with my kids is one of the greatest joys of parenthood. I hope they can grow up with memories as vivid and cherished as mine.