Back to School and Starting Secondary

My son has now been at secondary school for a week so we are both getting into routines and learning the system at this school:

Timetable

He came home with his 2 week timetable stuck into his planner that he must show me every day so I can check his homework:

I have written this up onto a chalkboard and hung it on the stairs so that we can both see what lessons he has each day:

End of an Era - Primary School is done

It doesn't seem like nearly 7 years ago when my son started in Reception at school. He does look oh so young on the obligatory first day at school photo:

He has mostly loved being at school (apart from Year 3) and coped very well with a change in primary for Year 4. Today was his leavers' assembly so I armed myself with a few tissues:

He obligingly posed for his last day at primary photo:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Feeling Festive! #R2BC

Sorry for a late post on this but its been the school Christmas plays this week so I have been working extra long hours... Here are my festive reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) Proud Mum

It was my daughter's turn to shine this week as she sang at her teacher's Christmas showcase. She took on an incredibly difficult song and did herself proud:

2) Me and my girl

Now she is a teen we don't spend as much time together on our own. So even a walk to the shops can be a treat. Scary that she is almost as tall as me at 13 though:

3) Advent calendar

My Virgin Wine advent calendar is proving to be a hit! I haven't loved all the wines but knowing that after a long day at work there is something like this waiting for me is making me cheerful (PS this was lush!):

4) Teaching gifts

The advantage of being in an infant class is that the children still love to give me little things. One boy made me this heart out of plasticine that I have to keep safe always!

4) Proud teacher

There was not a dry eye in the house at every performance of the school Christmas play this week. All the children from Reception to Year 6 had a big role to play with singing, narrating or acting. These occasions are just magical:

Hopefully you have found lots of reasons to smile this week too and I look forward to reading them.

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Reasons to be Cheerful: Back to School #R2BC

The hostess with the mostest this month is Michelle so I hope you all pop over and say hi! I enjoyed reading everyone's posts last week and hope there are a lots of you joining in this week. Here are my back to school reasons to be cheerful:

1) Back on the Helm

Back to school means back to the Helm for running club on a Wednesday night. What a cracking first evening back up there too:

2) Carpet

I spent time at the weekend helping my son clear his bedroom so that he now has a completely clear floor. It looks so much better without the accumulation of toys etc:

3) New class

I spent several days organising my new classroom ahead of the children coming in this week its exciting having the power to do what I want with the space for the best teaching:

4) Parkrun

At a rather soggy parkrun last weekend I knocked 23 seconds off my previous time to send me back on track and in the right direction again. So pleased that my son was once again keen to help out by sorting the finish tokens:

5) My girl

We used the flood measure to prove that she really has sprouted upwards a long way over the last year! I received a super phone call from her new music teacher at school this week so here is hoping that year 8 is a fabulous year for her:

Let's hope all 3 of us have a great academic year!

Reasons to be Cheerful: the February Half term edition #R2BC

I know its not half term everywhere but it is for us in Cumbria which makes me happy as I get more time with my children! Here are the other reasons that I am smiling this week:

1) Nostalgia

After chatting on Facebook and Twitter about the various Brownie badges on my camp blanket it brought back memories of doing the Crafting badge: 

I remember making a macrame owl which was hung up in my granny's breakfast room for decades but sadly vanished when she moved to a smaller home. So I decided to order myself a macrame owl kit (Amazon affiliate) to make another one nearly 40 years after doing the first! Watch this space..

2) Monkeying around

As parents of tweens and teens will know parenting can be a real roller coaster of emotions! So the days when my daughter wants to be in my company and is full of smiles and mischief brings smiles all round:

5 reasons all parents should learn First Aid

I was lucky as a teenager that I learned First Aid at both the Red Cross and in Guides. I never really got the chance to use it in anger apart from the odd sprained ankle and a few rugby injuries though.. Once I became a parent I considered re-doing my first aid training but there never seemed to be time to do it. Luckily some of the basics had always stuck with me, so when my children had some potentially scary accidents I:

1) Didn't panic

When my son was 3 he had a tumble on a friend's trampoline and came into the house with blood everywhere from his head. Thanks to first aid training I knew that 

a) head wounds usually look worse than they are 
b) applying pressure with a clean cloth will reduce/stop the bleeding 

So I sat quietly with my son on my lap and he calmed down whilst the pressure worked - on this occasion it was just a large graze!

2) Reassuring for children

Both my children have had the kind of knocks and bumps that have required the simplest forms of First Aid with a clean up, a plaster and maybe something cold to sooth or take down swelling. They feel that I know what I am doing which is reassuring for them.

Where does the time go?

Tonight with my daughter I attended the first proper event on her road to secondary school. It was a road show where one of the local secondaries visited her current primary to let pupils and parents know what they have to offer. I can't believe that my daughter is old enough to be making this kind of choice! It doesn't seem all that long since she started in reception:

Now she is faced with choosing which secondary school to go in 17 months time! We live in an area where you don't have to go to your nearest secondary school as the schools all have surplus spaces due to low birth rates. This means that there really is a choice and the majority of children get the one that they want to attend.

So we have an array of taster visits, presentations and tempting visits by teachers from the secondary schools to entice pupils to apply to their school! I have to admit it would be a lost easier (and cheaper!) for her to go to our nearest school. It is only about 20 minutes to walk or 10 minutes on a bicycle to get there in the morning. If she chooses the other school children from her primary go to she would have an early start to catch a bus after 15 minute walk to the bus stop. The third option involves walking/cycling all the way across town.

But it is up to her which school she feels that she would be happiest at. The one where she can do the subjects she loves and can offer her extra curricular activities that she enjoys. If she isn't happy for 5 years at a school then she won't achieve her full potential. I know she is very bright and should do well were ever she goes. In fact she would like to take the 11+ and try for the grammar school in Lancaster but it is almost impossible for Kendal girls to get in there due to the distance.

She has until October to make the final choice. With her primary school lying between 2 secondary catchments her class mates will head in opposite directions at the end of year 6. I just hope that whatever choice she makes it will be the right one for her!

Recipe for a lazy Saturday

1) A co-operative Minecraft session:

Planning their minecraft build

Showing big sister how to play Minecraft

Reasons to be Cheerful week 14 #R2BC

I've handed back to the lovely Jo at Ojo's World for April, I know she will look after everyone! So back to my own reasons:

1) Family fun

We had a super weekend enjoying the Kendal Festival of Food. A couple of days exploring the foods that Cumbria has on offer plus sunshine and cute animals:

I had a huge smile on my face for most of the weekend!

2) Mother's Day

I felt thoroughly spoilt this Mother's Day weekend. The children had made beautiful cards at school and my son couldn't wait to give me his so I had it Friday night! Then on Saturday I was awarded a lie in and breakfast in bed cooked by my daughter:

I was given the hand sewn bookmark my son had made at school:

Then whilst we were out my son chose me this heart necklace from a charity shop:

On Sunday I was presented with Choco Snaps in bed by my son before we headed back into town for more food festival! My final treat was Sunday dinner at Table Table - yummy.

3) Blue Skies

There is nothing quite like blue sky to keep you smiling:

If you are smiling then join in the hop!

“What's happening to me?” by Usborne Books

There comes a time all parents dread when you know its time for that conversation, you know the one about puberty and all the things to do with your child changing into a grown up. We all know it happens but maybe aren't confident enough to broach the subject.

With a 10 year old daughter I know that I ought to be talking to her now and not leaving it until its too late. So luckily friends recommended an Usborne guide:

“What's happening to me? (girls)” so I armed myself with a copy and last night had a perusal through it. The book has sections on all the bits that girls want/need to know:

• boobs
• periods
• pubic hair
• spots
• body image
• sex and babies 

Its a no nonsense book that will hopefully answer most of the questions a girl needs to know. It may raise a few too but hopefully I will be able to answer them!

Of course there is an equivalent for the boys:

I had a look at this with some mum's of boys the same age as my daughter and they have all bought copy! It is very similar to the girls one but obviously has:

• voice breaking
• changes to boy bits
• wet dreams

This one I hopefully won't need to buy for a little while yet for myself but I will bare it in mind for when my son gets to double digits... Obviously being a woman I have no personal experience of male puberty so this could be enlightening for me too!

How do you deal with discussing puberty with your children?

Teaching Life Skills

As a parent I know I need to teach my children various life skills to equip them for their later lives. Of course I have to ensure that they are capable of them before letting them loose! The purchase of a flat pack guinea pig run on Saturday was a great opportunity for my daughter to hone her assembling and screw driving skills:

First of all following the instructions and putting things in the right place:

At this point she pointed out that I had omitted to screw the first panel on to the triangles and she set to screwing them together:

The reward for her labours? A mug of soup in the cold garden whilst watching the guinea pigs have their first experience of grass:

As for her little brother who is a little young for flat pack furniture he was getting in some valuable practice at washing up:

What essential life skills are you teaching your children for independent living when they grow up?

Reasons to be Cheerful: My Blue Eyed Boy is 7 #R2BC

When we have been house bound since Tuesday night with tummy bugs its hard to be cheerful but today is my son's 7th birthday so that is a reason to smile! My son was born by C-Section after going 12 days overdue! So glad he came out this way as he weighed in at 10 pounds!

What was really nice was that my grandmother had come down south with my parents the day he arrived so she got a cuddle when he was only about 2 hours old:

He turned out to be a blond, blue eyed handsome young fella:

Think he is turning out pretty well:

Why are you smiling this week?

Time!

Like most working parents with primary aged children I find that time is so precious now school is back. Life seems to be ruled by the clock..

Time for school

Getting 3 of us up and out by 8:35 every weekday can sometimes be a battle. Some days the children are up and fully dressed by 8 and on others I am wrestling my son into his socks and shoes when we are supposed to be out the door.. I hate sandwiches made the night before but think I need to start putting all the extra bits ready in the lunch boxes the night before.

Time for housework

This all gets squeezed into the mornings after the school run and before work. I am going to try the FlyLady system again as I need to establish some more of a routine. The fact that the whole house needs a thorough sort out is not helpful! 

Time for after school activities

This is the one that nearly killed us all last week! Both children now have a couple of after school activities as my daughter started both Guides and Tread:

The biggest complications come from a) the clash of Guides finishing after my son should be in bed b) Wednesday both have activities that result in me driving backwards and forwards with little time to spare! Going to take practice to get these all right..

Time to eat

With a new schedule I have to adjust our eating. Every day I need to eat by 11:30 to get to work on time. The range of after school activities means or food needs vary. Getting a healthy evening meal into all of us is sometimes a juggle. Good job I have my microwave cheese sauce to fall back on. 

Time to exercise

I have lost my aerobics session to my accommodate my children's activities! Now I just have time to run twice a week (unless kids come too). Also its a shorter route at the minute with less time to spare - not that I can run as far any way.. I am contemplating gym membership as work get discount but will I have time to go?

Time for me

If I don't time out during the week just to have grown up time with other adults then I burn out. So glad I have my Monday and Wednesday mornings with other mums. Getting a whole day at Blog Summit was a real blessing. I have been invited for a weekend away without the children... just need to butter up my parents to baby sit for me..

Sticks and Stones may hurt my bones...

... but words can really hurt me! How many of us can remember being called names at school decades on? I had the misfortune to be a) taller than everyone else including boys and b) about the only child with spectacles at primary school. This led to two main nasty nicknames Godzilla and Speccy Becky. I was also sometimes called Medusa though I'm not 100% sure why! These names have stuck in my memory for the last 30 years even though the children that used them are long gone from my life. I am sure that I probably joined in name calling others too as its something most children do...

Today I witnessed two of my daughter's classmates start giggling and whispering to each other as my daughter walked into school near them. They refused to let her walk with them and continued to whisper and stare at her. I have no idea what they were saying but it didn't look nice. She quickly decided to walk away from the situation which I am glad about.

My daughter is a bit of a free spirit and tends to do things differently from others and also believes her way is the best way. This can lead to sparks with other children especially ones who know that if they push her buttons too hard she will explode and get into trouble. She says that other children can be really mean to her and don't let her join in or get things done. 

It is really hard to know how much of this is true and how much she invents to get out of trouble herself. It is hard to get across to her that sometimes adults only see the end of a situation when she is reacting to things that have happened before. There have to be ways for her to learn not to have such a short fuse so that a) people don't try and wind her up b) she isn't getting told off herself!

If anyone has any useful tips then I am open to suggestions!

Teaching children about pornography

The recent news articles about children needing to be educated about pornography really made me think as a mum of 2 young children. They are both allowed on the Internet and use both a PC and my iPad to access web sites and YouTube. Obviously at ages 9 and 6 this is under supervision and with parental controls in place.

However for a while the iPad was popping up mildly pornographic web sites due to automatic redirects from innocent seeming adverts. I don't think this happened when my children were using it but I would be distressed if they had been exposed to these images of naked women.

We have always had an open attitude to questions in the family. If my children ask me questions related to the birds and the bees I respond with the truth using appropriate levels of knowledge. The names of body parts are given their proper names even if we generally describe them as boy or girl bits for normal usage! My daughter has known for a while that a baby is made by a daddy putting it in the mummy's tummy.

On getting in the car on Monday night the radio automatically came on and BBC local radio was discussing the topic of teaching children about pornography. Of course my daughter heard the word and asked what it meant... So whilst driving along I had to give both children a brief description of pornography suitable for their age... They were both unsure as to why anyone would want to look at any as at the moment the thought of sex is thank goodness unappealing!

Then my daughter decided to use this is a chance to ask me for more details about how daddies put babies in mummies' tummies.. Not ideal timing with me driving and little brother in the back seat but honesty is best policy. They were then both trying to work out how the daddy didn't pee by mistake instead of making a baby... It's quite sweet that they think it just takes having sex once to make a baby (hope that discourages them from experimenting when older!).

How do you cope with questions about sex, babies and pornography from your children?

Growing up fast

It amazes me how quickly my Pre teen is changing from being a little girl to a mini grown up. A lot of this is in a positive way luckily! Today she and I went shopping for the much wanted denim jacket to complete her latest look. On advise from the girl in Top Shop (haven't been in there for far too many years!) we looked at size 6 adult clothes. Eventually tracked a cropped jacket in New Look that was a great fit (with sleeves rolled up). Does make you wonder if adults actually fit into size 6 as my daughter is very skinny:

Where has my little girl gone?

 

Tonsils out!

Yesterday my daughter was scheduled to have her tonsils out at Furness General Hospital (the downside of living in south Cumbria is that our hospitals are up to a hour away!). She had been repeatedly suffering from tonsillitis which was impacting on both home and school life. It hadn't taken much convincing of the consultant once our GP finally referred her. So at 6:30 yesterday morning she and I set off on the hour long drive out to Barrow in Furness. Its a beautiful drive when your mind isn't elsewhere!

The hospital is on the outskirts of the town and as we were there so early it was easy to get to and also find on road parking. Then we found our way to the front entrance and someone directed us to the right ward - typically right at the other end of the hospital! We were half an hour early but they let us in and showed us the side ward my daughter was assigned to. 

An initial chat with the nurse (including the magic local anaesthetic gel) was followed by the surgeon arriving, he informed us that her notes were still at the Westmorland General in Kendal! This put a delay on her operation as they were waiting for a taxi to bring them over... Meantime a nursing assistant explained more of the operation to my daughter and the anaesthetist came to see her. Then she was allowed to play whilst I had a coffee.

When the time came a nurse led us through a few corridors to the operating theatre. She looked so tiny lying on the trolley as I distracted her from the needle going in. All too soon she was asleep and I was told to distract myself for an hour! I went outside with a paper but it was hard to concentrate and I was soon back in in the ward.

My daughter was a bit upset and disorientated when she came round but I sat and held her hand. She tried to sleep and eat but it was all a bit much. 

In the end they decided to keep her overnight as a precaution. The ward had fold out beds so I could sleep next to her. Just wish I'd thought to bring over night gear for myself!

It wasn't a great night as when we first tried to sleep a teenager down the corridor had too many loud visitors. Then a baby kept crying! I am a light sleeper so the random electronic beeps, phone calls and corridor lights weren't good. I ended up watching kids' films on the bedside TV until I was too tired to stay awake! A nurse checked my daughter at 2 am (my daughter slept through that! Then at 3 the fire alarms went off... I was getting out of bed when a nurse assured me it wasn't in our part of the hospital and to get back to sleep! Hard for us to do when the alarm wouldn't shut up...

This morning I was told that if she ate some toast we could leave as she looked and felt a lot better. I was so relieved when she managed to do this. It was a good feeling to walk back out of the hospital and to our car. We are both a bit tired (despite having a sleep when we got home!) and she is still feeling a bit rough but hopefully a couple of weeks off school and she will soon be back to old bubbly self!

My top tips for accompanying children to hospital:

1. If you are far from home have an overnight bag in car for both you and the child. Earplugs and eye mask could be useful!
2. Unlike me take your phone charger..
3. Have a good book or other distractions for you and the child
4. Take plenty of snacks for yourself as hospital food is expensive
5. Have a decent travel hot drink mug (the ones at Furness dripped on me!)

Do you have any other tips?

iamtired.com

Sometimes you really know you have been overdoing things when you want to go to bed before your children! Its been an incredible couple of weeks but think I am approaching burn out..

We have enjoyed some fantastic days out as a family: Kendal Festival of Food, a trip to Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, walking more as a family and on my own in all weathers.  These have all been fabulous but they all take out a lot of energy. An almost full day out and about on Mother's Day (as part of our 5 miles that day) was fun but knackering too:

On top of that I am increasing my training runs for the Star Walk 10 k run which I am really enjoying but its stretching my endurance and stamina. Having that 30 minutes or so of being out on my own on the roads (albeit with friendly faces to wave at en route) is a lovely break in my day though!

This week my back up childcare plan and football class takers have been away so I have been doing everything with both children in tow. Its been rushing everywhere as the walking has reduced the gaps between events. 

Today I started a 3 day first aid course for work which is a full day instead of my usual half day. So we are all having to leave the house 15 minutes earlier than normal so that my children can be dropped off to be taken to school. 

Housework is being kept to a minimum due to lack of time and energy but of course its not being done by anyone else so I need to catch up soon! I am glad I did the charity walk but next time I need to do it when the rest of my life is a lot less manic... Right now I am only still up as I've only been able to out the washing machine on at about 8:30 so I have to wait for it to finish to hang it up to dry!

I am so looking forward to my Saturday lie in and I am not doing anything outside the home but I will have to catch up on all that housework.... Do you ever feel like you have taken on too much?