Oh, I am so unemployable.

I didn't want to have to work full-time, or even part-time until daughter and son were both safely past Year 1 and the phonics that lie therein. But the Cameron Led Armageddong that is the triple dip We Don't Care We're Alright has left me high and dry on the shores of the financially bleak. From being a comfortable family we have slumped to a not very comfy at all family. Husbands employers have cut his hours to 2 days a week. I need to work.

Now, let's see. Can I claim any benefits to help? Apparently not. Despite our annual income being 18K now, I am not entitled to contribution based Job Seekers Allowance because I haven't paid in to NI for the last two years. Apparently, my paying in aged 18 to 36 means nothing. I can't get a bean. No help with anything, in fact. We may, possibly get Tax credits, but probably not,as husband also has registered a self employed sole trader business that he was intending, over a period to build up. Well, he better chuffing do it, because being a sole trader for the Tax Credits demons sets their alarm bells ringing and we won't get a bean until they've investigated. Probably for years. Likewise, with no JSA or benefits, school meals and the like are unobtainable.

I am the squashed middle. Me.

I rang the employment agencies. I can do supply, I said. I was wrong. I can't do supply. Not only have I not taught for 6 years which makes me virtually sea slug on the intellect level, but I have no car, and neither does husband, as it was a company car, so I can't really do that "get called at 7am and be out of the house by 7.10 bunging the kids in handily prepared childcare and zipping off in my car to teach" thing. Neither can I do full-time. Partly this is a from a feeling that to do so would short change my kids, never have I seen such wind blown husks of children than at breakfast club and after-school club. But it's also monetary. If i'm working, and then paying for pre-and-after school care, i'm working for a pittance, and my children have less joy. If I can work part-time, my kids see me work, they do a bit of childcare, but they also get some genuine parent time. So I looked for part-time work that would fit round, maybe, me either doing school pick up OR drop off. I'd prefer pick up, as i know that the walk home is where it all comes out, who hit who, what they got the sticker for, what so-an-so did and why they love science, why pink should be called stink,  and so on. Plus I get to read with them, do two sets of spelling, two sets of homework, two teas. And two keeping on track. That time after school is vital: I can reach out to the teacher, they can grab me, we can connect, immediately, about any problem and nip it in the bud. I don't want to miss that. So I search. Nothing.

So I look for shift work. Maybe I can do that. There is some. I can work 6-12pm, or 12-6am. I could do that, if pushed, couldn't I? I could. Maybe cleaning work. Home care work.

Here I am. Overeducated and underemployed., and most definately underfinanced. I'm not precious. I'd gladly take grunt work in school hours and have time with my family over the long hours of teaching and missing my kids. I just need it to pay. I am now applying for home help work. If you know of an elderly lady or gent who might be in need of a good home help, and the odd bit of banter, point them my way.

A month without facebook, and no kids either.

I haven't been blogging, because i've been filling the vacuum left by the schooling of the kids with cleaning, library visits, and volunteering. In fact, 6 hours vanishes pretty quickly, and I've found that the days are, if not exactly flying by, at least dawdling fairly quickly. 2 mornings reading with the kids classes, 2 afternoons reading with readers who need extra help, 1 day cleaning, 1 afternoon in the library. Plus, i've picked up a child to tutor ( for real cash!) on a weekend, so a couple of afternoons preparation for that. The odd cuppa with a friend. Leaves precious little fiddling around time, really. But what time there is does tend to stretch ahead of me. I've lost the baility to sit and do nothing, to sit and relax. Instead i'll bake cakes, clean the chicken coop, batch cook for the freezer, anything to avoid daytime TV. I get the jobs done, so that the time I actually have with the kids is time well spent, and not spent flinging fishfingers under the grill.

And they do need that time. Son has homework twice a week, and reading every night. Some of it quite time consuming, not least because I have to look up what a cuboid is. Daughter has pretend books. She, according to the teacher, cannot read, so she still has books with no words in. This is astoninshing to me, as at home she can pretty much read anything you put in front of her, without even sounding out. On approaching madam about this, she merely told me she didn't like reading to the teacher, so she wouldn't. the teacher said she couldn't move up a level till she DID read to her. Madam still won't read to the teacher and is happy that she isn't being given any taxing work, and said that the teacher could just spy on her to see if she understood, as that's what she did with maths. Which is actually true, the teacher DID have to spy on her to get anything to say at parents evening, as madam just blanked her everytime she saw her and stopped what she was doing. So I read with madam, every night instead, and am pondering how best to secretly video her reading the ruddy Biff and Kipper books fluently so I can prove the teacher wrong and stop being patronised. I also secretly admire her gall though: she's right, it is the teachers job to make her want to read. I strongly suspect the teacher hasn't come up against such a Machiavellian 4 year old before.If I had to lay bets on who would win, it wouldn't be her.

One thing I have cut out of "free" time is Facebook. I've cut contact, broken it off, spurned it. I found that I was becoming overwhlemed with drivel. I simply don't want to know who is breaking up with who, what peoples' overwheeningly dull opinions on X-Factor are, who has fallen in love, what they're having for lunch. Similarly, I do not care to spend time being bombarded with ads that appear to think me old, fat and unemployed. Neither do I enjoy being told happy news that is apparently important to me as a friend alongside 455 other "friends". I don't enjoy the way people facebook instead of call, and change arrangements on facebook instead of calling, as if everyone were connected to the damn thing by invitrous facebook chip. Just as I found that mobile phones made people ruder, facebook has taken that rudeness and made it normal. As a keen to get pissed up student, I was not only mobile phoneless ( I was not a millionaire, and probably couldn't have carried one then anyway, such were their great size), but house phoneless too. If I wanted to meet my mates at a certain York Brewhouse, i'd have to (gasp!) telephone them from a call box, or actually speak to them and arrange it. We'd say something like "I'll see you are the Brewhouse at 8pm". And (even bigger gasp), we HAD TO TURN UP. We couldn't text or facebook some pathetic excuse, safe in the knowledge that we wouldn't have to speak to the disappointed person face to face. Facebook has, I feel increased that rudeness to the point of normalcy. Now it's ok to not turn up and just facebook it, even if you're not sure the person is a 100% connected to the damn thing as you are.

Furthermore, facebook has denigrated actual contact with real people. I have friends who don't actually even talk to me. They walk past me at the school gate and even I say "Hi!", they don't. I have friend requests from people i've never even met. I have people knowing my business via facebook friends. I have people who will chat on facebook, but won't in real life. I have people who are happy to parade their racist/ misogynist crap around on a public forum and who get cross at the school gate when I defriend them. I have, in short, about 5 real friends who actually bother to phone and visit. And i'm just as guilty. Recently, i've found myself asking friends if they fancy a coffee on it, when I could have just rung them. Why? It's much nicer to have a chat. Why am I allowing myself to be sucked in?

(It should be said that I exclude my far flung real friends from this: there is a real joy in being able to contact my old friends who now live abroad, and too distantly for me to visit. It is not at them this rant is aimed, but the village of people who actually live with me but apparently don't live in the real world).

And, what is most annoying, is how much time it saps. Why not turn the damn thing off a for a bit and see what happens? I'm off grid on facebook till December, and I will be most interested to see which of my 4 gazillion friends bothers to chase me up for a chat.

So, expect the next post to be of a facebook withdrawl symptom mania, with a video of my daughter refusing to read.

Eggbox frenzy in the damp: treasure hunting for kids

I can't claim the idea was mine. Eggbox treasure hunts are a well used idea. But I can claim that, for an easy hour sipping tea while the kids rip flower heads off of your garden plants, this is it.

Take as many egg boxes as there are kids. Paint the egg holes different colours. Type a list of things to find. You can make out mine in a picture. Let them loose, with the instructions to avoid nettles, not rip the entire plant out, and, for the older ones, to get as close to the hue in the eggbox as possible. I left out a book with different types of wild flowers in it for the older ones, so they could label their finds afterwards. Kit yourself out with a jar for the snails, if you are crazy enough to put them on your list. For me this was a no brainer, as the sodding things are eating ALL my spinach, and I have the added bonus of introducing the concept of life (death) cycles to kids via getting them to fling the snack snails at the hens.  Do not put the jar in the kitchen, as I did, and forget about it for 24 hours, to wake in the morning to silvery trails. Get one magnifying glass.

Send them out into the wild. Let them get the stuff, run riot, argue over what is orange and what is yellow. Then, because I am mean, make them draw a picture of a close up, using the magnifying glass, of a snail, or whatever more sensible object you get them to put in the jar, and write a sentence about it. Education over. Feed them with sandwiches and the Haribo as prizes.

The real genius of this is that it kept 9 kids utterly occupied for nigh on 2 hours, and we mums could have a chat.

Things I made my kids do this week: 1 in a Summer series

I am a fully paid up member of the club that suggests that kids need to be bored once in a while to force their imaginations to work. I live in a DS, Nintendo, computer game free world at the mo, and the TV is strictly regulated. I fling them into the garden with buckets and waterproofs and leave them to it while I wash up. I deny them Pokemon on TV and hurl jigsaws at them. I refuse the advance of the DS and crack out the playdough. I open the doors to the kids on the street and let them all in, on the proviso they stay OUTSIDE and leave the chickens alone. But I can't leave them to fester in their own juices for the entire time, not least because as an ex-teacher I am entirely meddlesome and don't want them to forget the last years worth of learning. And so I am sly.

In the first week, we  nipped on the bus to the Ely Wilkinsons and stocked up on paint, glue and scrapbooks. I then force the kids to write a journal every other day about what their exploits, illustrate it, and stick in any treasures. This will be given to the teacher for a few weeks to see how their new pupil is rated on the levels, and then stored in my "Mum" box for me to weep over when they are 18. "I went to the beach and I sor some motorbikes. There was a Hyabusa". I love how he ignores the time spent in rockpools, the spelling of "saw", and his parents and sibling entirely, but details the best motorbike, and spells it correctly.

And then, I organise. I convened a meeting at the end of term of willing mums and invited kids to weekly activities. Yes, I know it's crazy to invite 12 kids into your house, but hey. This week was junk modelling. We spent an hour sticking and gluing in pairs, ate lunch, then an hour painting, then a few minutes describing our models on paper, to win sweets. And here they are. A Robot with 2 guns and big eyes, an alien dog, a fire engine, a car and a Hulk. They worked together, I bunged in some maths ( identifying shapes and comparing cylinders), they wrote about their creations, and ate a LOT. And then all the mums sneaked off and left me with the masterpices. No,wait, come back!


Next week is Treasure hunt week. Even if it rains.

Dealing with doctors and nurses and anger in a 5 year old.

Oh, it's like having a mini-teenager in the house. He's 5. Going on 15. I know he's tired from a long school term, and every morning we have the same conversation about how many more weeks before holiday. I know he's had enough of bloody Kipper and Biff (what sort of name is that for a girl anyway?), and would rather read his motorbike encyclopaedia, as would I, and I never thought i'd write THAT.  I know he's probably having a hormone surge and has come over all weird about some things. (I'm allowed to wipe his bum if it's a particular type of poo, but nobody must see him on the toilet, EVER). He's suddenly aware of being naked, he's suddenly cross about everything. He's had enough of of the little git that bullies him and wants to thump him. (I must concur with him here: a bloodied nose might stop him more effectively than a term being sat on the bench for five minutes at playtime does). He playfights and is a spy. He's not going to marry me anymore, it is going to be Harriet. Or Phoebe. His temper flares up erratically, he shouts, he stomps up each individual stair and yells downstairs that he doesn't CARE! He puts on CD's loudly and lies on his bed, muttering. He's 15. He's 5. He doesn't realise that it's highly amusing to me that he's put on Louis Armstrong, and is being cross to "Blueberry Hill". He hates me, he hates the tea, he wants a Nintendo DS like everyone else, he wants guns (he's 5!)

A lot of this is school. He's mixing with kids who have different boundaries, older siblings. He's mixing with little shits, some of the time. I can't control what he's seeing or hearing come playtime. Some of it is hormone surges, that commonly happen between ages 4-6 for periods lasting months at a time, leaving your previsouly placid boy a raging loony who wants to playfight all the time and look at things on YouTube he shouldn't. (In son's case, a rather alarming Lego re-enaction of "Saving Private Ryan". Er, no). Hence we have the situation where his sister dobbed him in for wanting to see a girls "minny". Much weeping, much wailing, after he finally admitted it, although the object of fascination herself had wandered off unharmed or un-looked at and was eating a packet of  haribo. Much low key discussion about privacy and right and wrong, and a quick description of a diagram I have a half remembered version of in my head, and me left wondering if I handled that properly or he'll be a serial killer blaming me in twenty years.Or if the girls mum now thinks i'm harbouring a pervert.

Worst of all though, after he's had a stomp off and is silent on his bed, he'll say he doesn't mean to be naughty, he just can't help it sometimes, it's his head getting bigger and wanting to know more stuff. And I flashforward to doing the same thing when he's 15. Only hopefully without a pregnant girlfriend.

By your kids' lunchbox shall ye be known.

Last month a survey (by YouGov) revealed that 48% of teachers had seen children come into school hungry. Not just wanting a bag of crisps, hungry. (reported in the Independent, here)  Many parents reading this will be saying to themselves, "Nonsense! How can the teacher tell anyway?". Here is how. Teachers are very aware of how your child is fed. And how they eat. As parents, we all know how you can tell the blood sugar has dipped in your darling by these well trusted signs: lack of concentration, tantrums, sleepiness, whining. It's partly that.  Every teacher loves the mornings, in the main, as the kids (should) have had a breakfast, are awake, and ready to learn. But we can also sense when a child isn't fed enough breakfast by these all too frequent signs. These come from my own experience in both primary and secondary.

If a child is eating a bag of Quavers after being chucked out of the car, that's probably the breakfast.
If a child (we're talking primary here) eats not only their own fruit snack, but the leavings of others, they've not had breakfast. If they stare longingly at the snack bowl all morning until snack time, that's a clue.
If a child drinks their entire water bottle by 9am, and then again, that's either diabetes, or hunger.
If a child eats paper, that's either pica, or hunger.
If a child is given food by their mates, the mates know. 

Similarly, here are some sad lunchboxes i've seen.
One slice of bread. That's all.
A shrivelled satsuma.
A jar of gherkins and a slice of ham. 
Those biscuits you get given in hotels and cafes, wrapped.

Now, it's all too easy to think to yourself that these people are idiots. But often, they are not. They are working or non-working parents in debt, trouble, and poverty. Often, just getting the kids to school is a real effort, and it's one they make because at school, the child is warm ( then the radiators at home can be switched off) and fed. Of course, most of these families will be entitled to free school meals, and let me tell you, thank God for that. It's often the one meal a day they'll get that isn't nourishment poor. But many many children who need school meals don't get them, for a while initially, because of many reasons. The parents English may be poor, the paperwork and benefit entitlement isn't there yet, the wage is high enough to miss out on the meals, yet low enough to leave the family in poverty. That's why the continuation of free school meals for the needy is essential, the roll-out and publicising of them vital. The difference in a child who has eaten well, post lunch, is palpable. Similarly, the child who has eaten poorly at lunch, whether through lack of food or too plentiful a portion of hyping up sugary food, will be the teachers nightmare. So it's a simple case for affordable, available school dinners. By these means, kids get fed, kids get educated, and kids in need are flagged up. Because there is, as every teacher knows, a correlation between kids who eat poorly and kids who wear the same clothes all week, and have shoes with sellotape on. Getting the kids fed also gets them into the system whereby they get help.

And then there's the other end. The fat end. The kid is well dressed, in clothes a good 4 sizes bigger than everyone else. They're loved. Too loved. Here are some lunchboxes i've seen.

Chocolate spread sandwiches, chocolate biscuit, chocolate bar. Sweet drink.
4 rounds of white bread, stuffed with cheese and ham, 2 bags of crisps, chocolate biscuit, token satsuma.  For a 5 year old.
A cold kebab. Yes, really.

The government , this one and the last, worries about childhood obesity, as well they might. It linkes to adult diabetes, early onset diseases of varying ilk, and much cost to the NHS. I live in an area of high childhood obesity, and it's not nice to see kids of 5 waddle as they are dropped off at the school gate by their parents, in cars, looking like human duvets with eyes, squashed into the seats. Yes, the school rules say no  nuts and no fizzy drinks, but it takes a superhuman dinnerlady to wrestle a coke bottle from a screaming Chardonnay-Leanne. And to a certain extent, if the kid eats policed salad all day and then gets driven to the chip shop on the way home what's the point? I've had that kid in my form group. I've seen that kid in my childrens class. I've seen the child who can't physically get on the chair. The solution is not more PE. Fat kids don't like it, and it doesn't work. All it does is destroy their confidence. To my mind, it takes a strong school to enforce a healthy regime, and unfortunately, under this government, it's unlikely that schools will get the back up to do this, Gove having recently released all Free Schools and Academies from the Healthy Eating requirements, ( see here) the free market and possibility to get Burger King into school canteens being more important to him than health. Parents should brace themselves for school dinners in these schools to get worse, and more expensive. Which is shocking. Along we go to the American Way, with Coke sponsoring canteens and McDonalds flogging burgers in schools. And it could be so much better. I can only tell you how much I loved the changes in my own students once the school I taught at banned outside takeaways, students going out for lunch, emptied the snack machines, and revamped the canteen. The students moaned, and one of us had to be on Burger King duty for a while ("No. No. NO. Go back to school"), but they accepted it.

And then, there's the problem end. Any secondary teacher will be able to come up with at least one example of the girl who you catch throwing away her sandwiches, her lunch. The dim one I caught putting them in my bin. Repeatedly. As she shrank. Reported, sorted. The girls flushing their lunches, chucking their lunches, giving away their lunches. Fainting. Yes, I know she's putting some carefully artistically nibbled crusts back into the lunchbox, but she's NOT EATING. At least one case every year for my teaching career.

So, the teacher sees. But what can the teacher do? I had a fruit bowl, i'd sneak the needy apples and so on. I had a cereal bar collection in my drawer, on top of the collection of school shirts from Primark. I donated. I provided a shoulder for the waddling one who feared PE and left carefully placed leaflets for her, word in the ear for the Food Tech teacher and a slow process with Mum. I cranked the wheels of care into motion with the self-starving ones. I fretted. And now as a mum I fret. I argue the toss with daughter and refuse the Rolos until the tangerine is gone. I stuff son's lunchbox with the tuna and rye bread he loves, and allow a sugary yoghurt if the fruit is eaten. I negotiate and hope I don't give them a complex. I cook breakfasts (in my experience, the ten minutes longer it takes to whip up scrambled eggs is well worth it in terms of longer term morning nutrition) and demand they eat them. I know the teachers and dinner lady see it. I'm glad they do.

I just want to stay home and watch Bargain Hunt: what to do when your kids start school?

If anyone asks me "Well, what will you do, come September?" again, i'll brain them. Because daughter is due to start school, she's got her place. She's good to go, with bro. And i'll be, well, what? Naturally, everyone has an opinion.
It seems to be this:  I must get a job immediately. Or I am somehow, despite getting no benefits at all, a drain on the state, and my kids will grow up not having a work ethic, despite seeing their father work all week every week. And me do all the "non-work" at home. The public, and especially the government, seem to view the starting of school as the starting guns for mothers to rush back to full-time employment, and bugger the kids. They can be flung into breakfast clubs and after school clubs. It's GOOD for them, right? You don't need to be a mum when they start school! The school does it!

Wrong. Mum work does not end when the kids start school. Your reception aged child will not suddenly stop needing you. They won't pop off to after school club happily and wave you goodbye in the morning. They'll be knackered, grumpy, tearful, and yes, NEED YOU MORE THAN EVER. And even come years 1-13, there will still need to be a mum to chivvy along the homework, serve up the fishfingers. And more than that: empty the school bag,deal with the friendship crises, the teacher grabbing you after pick-up for  "a word", the after-school judo/swimming/beavers/rainbows, friends round for tea, after-school matches. And guess what,Shiny Dave and Government? Outside of Eton, all this happens between 3 and 6 pm, some of the hours i'm expected to be at work.Not to mention what happens when one of them is ill.

So, the solution is to find part-time work? Of course. I'd LOVE a job-share. I'd be fine with doing just one school-run and sorting out arrangements for the other. That's a good compromise. Can I be a part-time teacher, please? I'd be great, honest. I'd still do all the meetings and parents evenings. What's that you say? You can get an NQT for peanuts who'll work full-time? So sod me? Oh. Let me look in the TES. FT,FT,FT,FT. 20 miles away, 35 miles away. Oh. And if anyone says to me that teaching is a family friendly job, I might nut them. How about I use all my educaitional qualifications to work in the public sector? That's pretty Mum-Friendly, right? What's that you say? It's all been cut to ribbons? My library qualification is worth nowt without libraries. Factory work, then. I'm overqualified? How about I be a TA? A Teaching Assistant? What do you mean, no? I'm overqualified? I won't keep telling the teacher what to do, honest! Supply teaching? Oh, you have Cover Supervisors now. And TA's, who are not teachers, doing it. I see. Why can't I keep on doing it voluntarily? Do I really need to answer that?

So what, then? Watching Bargain Hunt after cleaning the loo it is.

The pox, it cometh.

All that glib talk of chicken pox parties, wanting your kid to get the pox, starts to look really stupid when your kid actually HAS the pox, because Chicken Pox, despite the fluffy name, is NO FUN AT ALL. A few posts ago, I wrote that daughter was feeling ill, feverish. Many days after, lo! The pox, it cometh. And here we are , 5 days in, still popping out new spots and feeling dreadful. Her, because she's itchy, some spots hurt, she's up all night, itching, and she's coughing, and me, because i'm up all night pasting on various ungents and comforting, inadequately.

Pox is hideous. Deprived of the ability to mix with other humans, a chess game of getting the other kid to school has taken up many hours, not least because he doesn't WANT to go now he knows his sister is sitting on the sofa watching Disney. She cannot mix with other kids or pregnant ladies and this means no mixing at the school gate while I drop son off, or evil looks result. So friends have to step in and relay between me and her at the outside entrance. General advice at the outside entrance to school has ranged from the unhelpful to the wise. The general belief is, I find, that Chicken Pox is a relatively harmless, almost fun week or so off of school, with a bit of a snivelly nose. This is far from the truth. Whilst some children may be rendered only slightly annoyed by it, others may be completely floored. In my case, 30 years ago, I managed to make my mother awestruck in silence (no mean feat) with my huge array of spots, which even, I recall, patterned the inside of my nose, mouth and eyelids. I was in bed for days.  My sister on the other hand, had about 20 spots and persisted in riding her trike up and down outside the bedroom door.

Fact is, that chicken pox is vaccinated against in many countries (but not this) for very good reasons. Firstly, for the harm it can do to pregnant women and their unborn children. Like German measles, the chicken pox sufferer may be relatively unbothered, but the recipient of the pox may not be, and it can result in babies being born with the pox, and various problems. So, it follows , that you should avoid pregnant women and newborns when you have it, or may be carrying it. But herein lies the problem. The incubation period of this very effective virus is such that it initially manifests as a cold, or flu like symptoms. Nobody keeps off of work or school for a snotty nose.Very unpopular you would be if you did. And yet this is exactly when the virus is at it's most contagious, BEFORE the spots appear. Hence, this week, son has been miserably attending school, resenting his sisters' placement in front of a Disney DVD while he learns more phonics, probably spreading far and wide the virus. But school policy doesn't say that he shouldn't attend. And he may not be carrying the virus. No point in him missing learning time and knackering the classes attendence figures for no reason. So you can see why vaccination is an attractive prospect to head this dilemma off.

The pox can also lead to complications in the case of children and adults with immune deficiencies, and, those with asthma who are regularly treated with streoids. As this includes most of  the children with asthma, this is quite a serious thought. Although having chicken pox in childhood has been linked to reducing your chances of the onset of asthma and related skin conditions, it's also been linked to worsening of asthma and severe complications if you catch it after a course of steroid tablets, or after an asthma attack or period of intense steroid use. Which means it's a risk to a lot of kids. And it's very nasty to get it as an adult, too.

After trawling around looking at various bits of research, I've found that the pox isn't as straightforward as you might think. For every kid who is biking about with it, there's one who ends up very poorly. There is conflicting advice about medication (ibuprofen, for example, has been shown to lead to complication with chicken pox,  leading to worsening asthma and possibly a link with necrotising skin disorders, and the advice as to whether to continue with steroid asthma medication is confused). Everybody has an idea about the best way to sort it out. Everyone has an idea about when it's contagious, before, after, during the spots. Everyone believes one or more myths about it. I was surprised to find out, for example, that yes, you can get it again. More than twice, even. No limit in fact. And no, the second time you get it, it isn't always shingles.  A good friend has racked up 4 counts of chicken pox. 13% of people have been reported to get it more than once. It seems that some people don't make those antibodies against it. And the incubation period is MASSIVE, 10-21 days from that snivelly cold. Daughter took 12 days to pop her first spot, and during that time, she was merrily away at playgroup, breathing it at people.  After being exposed to someone with the virus for 15 minutes, you are at risk. Playgroup can look forward to being quieter for a bit. It is not possible to catch shingles from chicken pox, and vice versa. Shingles is basically the remains of the childhood chicken pox virus re-activated at some point in your lilfe, possbly because your immune defences are low.You should never give your child aspirin when they have chicken pox as this has been linked to them getting Reyes Syndrome.And so on. For an everyday childhood disease, which is common, there's a lot of humming, hawing, and misinformation out there.

So what works?

• Well, people told me calamine cream, which was as much use as, well, co-co-pops would have been. Aside from smearing itself over the bedsheets, it seems to have done little. Likewise calamine lotion. Piriton worked, but the dosage instructions ban you from using it as frequently as I found she has needed it. So I had recourse to other action. 
• Baking powder is your friend. Tepid baths with 3-4 tablespoons of bicarb in, as often as you can. 
• Make up a paste of bicarb and water, keep it in the fridge, paste it on particularly nasty spots.
• Keep cool. Radiators, clothes, off. No waistbands, no pants. Spots appear where it is warm, in the nether regions and hairline, for example, so strip your child. Keep them out of the sun.
• Witchazel for spots on the face. I found calamine too greasy, and annoying for the face. Witchazel works nicely and can be kept cool in the fridge. 
• Peppermint tea in the bath, or as a cool solution to dab on spots. It also gives your child the satisfactory experience of bathing in what looks like wee. If, as below, they are having trouble weeing, this may be the best place to get them to do it.
• Sudocrem. You know that big pot you got when your kid was a baby that you still have half of? It's that big for a reason. Add some tea-tree oil or lavender oil (only a few drops) to some, and dab on.
• Keep cool inside. Ice pops, ice tea, cold drinks. Cotton sheets.
• All natural fibres when you do get dressed. 
• It's worse at night. Keep the room as cool as you can.
• Cut your nails (they will be filled with sudocrem) and cut theirs. Right down.
• The piriton makes them sleep. This is good.
• Their appetite will vanish, particularly if they have spots in the mouth (yes, you can get them).

And here I am, 4 days into the spot appearing section (they can continue from between 5-10 days), and they show no signs of stopping. I found it enormously hard to find decent pictures of spots online, that were not too small or textbook. Here's my guide to the spot spotting.

• The first spots will look like heat bumps. Daughter started with 5 or 6, round the neck. I thought it was heat rash.
• After a time (10 hours in my case) the first signs will have developed into water carrying blisters. There will be more of them. 
• They can vary in size. Enormously. One on daughter is the size of a 5p. Most are the size of a matchead. 
• After the first few days, you will notice that the older spots are crusting over, but new spots will still be popping up. So you'll have some pink blistery ones alongside crustier, darker ones.
• I'm on day 4. I have a wide range of heat rash-to-be spots, blistery spots, and crusty spots. The crusty ones itch. They also bleed REALLY easily. If you pick the kid up without due care, easily.  Be on guard to slap cream on, and hadle with sensitivity.
• And a note. These spots go EVERYWHERE. Daughter has them on the scalp (washing hair with bicarb water helps, leave it to dry naturally), eyelids, inner ears, and down there. Going to the toilet is painful, so be sure to keep the child well watered, as dehydrated pee is painful. If you see a spot appearing on the actual eyeball, or if any get infected, go to the GP, as it's dangerous. But however nasty the spots "down there" may be to consider, they are normal.

So, I no longer, after a long three nights of hourly wakings plastering on cream and bicarb paste, and listening to daughter wee crying, think of chicken pox as a painless childhood illness. Be prepared.  As one child crawls out of the poxy tunnel, the other one wanders in. He has a runny nose. See you after Easter.And if anyone can tell me why kids fall like flies from chicken pox round Easter, you win a half used tub of calamine cream.
Picture shows daughter unimpressed by Princess Jasmine, sleeping, IN THE DAY, which she hasn't done since she was 12 months. AND she went to sleep tonight. She's ill. Note the spots round the ears, hairline, sweat lines.

I can't add. I could, I can't, I can. My Maths skills story.

Well, it seems we are a nation of mathematical idiots. Articles in all the press this week emphasise the fact that people in the UK can't tell what change to expect, are unemployable, and basically idiotic, although we can read (just). It's my belief though, that this is simply a faliure to take a maths GCSE, NOT a faliure in general. Here is my maths story.

A child genius (according to me and my mum), I was put into my English and Maths O Levels early at 12/13. It was assumed, I think, that as I was really very bright at English, I was faking my complete idiocy at maths. I wasn't. I got the English, failed the maths. Onto the very first, ever, year of GCSE (1988). Passed 10 GCSE's at A and B. Failed maths. Onto A levels. Took 4, passed 4, failed maths GCSE again. And again. Onto university, as thankfully, this was before a maths GCSE was compulsory to go, as they (sensibly) reasoned that to take a History degree, 4 A levels and 2 S levels were perfectly adequate. Here, I retook, and re-failed the maths as a favour to the education department and their investigation into inumeracy. After completeing a postgradute degree, I gave up. I then worked in a large university library, where I had budgetry responsibility for an entire subject department, and regularly used complex formula to determine, amongst other things, wastage, withdrawal of material and reprographic usage. I completed yearly investigations into use of books, worked out percentages, wrote financial end of year reports,  statistical analysis reports, library OPAC computer statistical reports, and generally used maths every single day despite not having a GCSE, without any major disaster.

But then I decided i'd retrain as a teacher. And a maths GCSE was compulsory. So I betook myself off to an evening course and related my sorry history to the teacher. Who promptly undertook to pass me. And lo! at the ripe old age of 28, I finally found a teacher who managed to explain to a very left brained person the right brained side of maths. He got me drawing fractions, imagining equations, and suddenly, for a brief period running up to the exam, I was maths wonderwoman. I dreamt maths. I drew maths. I bored people witless in the pub with maths. We had a debate about the paper to put me in for. Intermediate, I said ( you can get a C, but no more). Higher, he said. He took me out for many beers, and won. I sat the higher. I got an A. My mother still doesn't believe me.

Almost immediately after leaving the exam hall, all knowledge about quadratic equations left me. I found myself, in maths terms, almost exactly the same as I was prior to my mathematical genius being born. Except now, I could teach. So I did. I used my maths to demonstrate hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, to explain communism, the Tithe, the Weregild and taxation. And to write statistical reports. Every, sodding, job. In effect, the GCSE did nothing for me.

No, no. It's not that the GCSE did nothing. It's that the difference between a D grade (fail) and a C grade (pass) is nothing. As a teacher, I know that the crunch point comes when you decide what paper you are going to put the student in for. Lower means you don't expect anything much. Intermediate means they might scrape a C. Higher means that the school is happy for them to risk that League Table status. In any other subject the teacher makes the decision in YEAR 9, sometimes 10. Yes, you read that right. Your kid is already pigeonholed as they start taking the GCSE year(s). In History, one paper fits all, so I was often in the unique situation to see a student who was taking "lower" in all other subjects suddenly come into their own in Year 11, and acheive a B or C in history, which is not, believe me, an easy option. It's simply that, particularly for boys, the "on" switch happens later, and more slowly, for some. It became apparent to me that many, many students were in effect written off and denied the chance to attain a good grade simply because they might be late developers, or not have attained in earlier years. And for the sake of the league tables, schools do not want to risk a "fail". I suffered from blind optimism and bad teaching, other kids suffer from underestimation. So, the first thing to go is the assumption that all kids can be pigeonholed for GCSe paper selection.

Next up is the assumption that to get a "D" grade in maths is to fail. I got a D 5 times. I was a successful, financially responsible person in charge of budgets. Many, many people who bemoan the lack of mathematical intelligence in kids now would benefit from taking a look at what you need to do to get a"C". Frankly, everything you need to know to function as an adult is there at "D". Fractions, percentages, cash knowledge, statistics, measurements, all at "D". "C" is quadratics, trigonometry. Cleverer, yes. Utterly necessary, no.

And then, there's the teaching of maths. It's HARD if you are not a maths person, and it is very hard to make the subject thrilling. Furthermore, it's not the sort of thing that you can  catch up on if you miss a lot. I had months at a time off of school as a child, due to hospitalisation, and whilst I could catch up on reading, and even, indeed, get ahead (on on notable occaision I returned to school having read the entire reading scheme, and was afterwards allowed to bring my own books into school), it is very difficult to keep up with maths. Miss the first few lessons on percentages, and you stand a real chance of never "getting" it.

Add to that the fact that it's teacher relevant. Get a good one, you "get" it. Get a bad one, you don't. I am a perfect example of that. If, at 13, my teacher had shown me the simple tactic of drawing fractions and percentages, I might have had my on-swicth moment a good 15 years earlier.

Of course more people need to get maths. It's shopping, it's special offers, it's averages and pay slips, it's budgets and weekly shops and mortgages. But that is the true measure of worth. Teach money management, teach credit and percentage increase on cards. Your life is better if you can manage money. The ability to solve a quadratic equation, whilst fun, is not vital. Let's make it clear what makes an employable, numerate person. It isn't, always a "C" grade. It isn't, always, an "A" grade. Maths needs a revamp. If i were in charge (oh, please.....), i'd take the route of AS/A2. I'd hive off "real" math from the harder stuff. I'd get together a pass mark that was certified to say "this person can handle a budget". "This person can buy/shop/sell sensibly". Make a new maths pass mark.

That's not to say, mind you, that I don't utterly love my daughters invention of the number "eleventeen".

Behaviour charts, for them, me, him and Them.

After trying a variety of behavioural techniques on daughter and son I have settled on the oldest and best: bribery. Here's some I tried earlier.
Naughty Step. Son notably fell asleep on it, daughter would do the naughty thing then take herself off to it, humming. Fail.

• Sticker chart: son became so focused on gaining stickers he would do something nominally good, for a sticker, then have a paddy if refused, thus losing a sticker. Daughter merely sneaked downstairs and stole stickers for her own chart off of him, or other kids at playgroup. Fail.
• Removal of favourite toys for a pre-determined period. Son would spend the whole of the pre-determined period weeping, daughter would merely say that something else was her favourite toy, ad infinitum, until there were no toys left. Fail.
• Time out in room. Son would weep on the bed then fall asleep, waking and forget the naughtiness, or come downstairs immediately, saying sorry for no reason. Daughter  I once caught, through a gap in the door, making crying noises, to earn sympathy, whilst playing quite happily with her dollshouse. Fail.
• 1,2,3. This is where you are meant to use behavioural management techniques and warn the child before carrying through your punishment. It works with Year 9's. All it did with mine was make them realise they had two attempts to get the naughty thing done before being punished. Fail.

So, onto bribery. I have introduced the concept of pocket money. The alarming amount of 100 new pence a week. Which is like a MILLION when you are 5 and 3. And to earn this goodly amount, they must do the following.
Put dirty washing in the laundry basket.
Tidy their rooms at the end of the day.
Bring plates and cups to the sink.
Put their bikes and scooters in the shed.
AND: the clincher: not get more than 20 "bad" ticks, or they forfeit the pocket money. On the plus side, if they get more than 20 "good" ticks, they can get an extra 10p per 10 ticks.  We have the charts up.
We also have this chart up. As son points out, Daddy isn't particularly good at putting his dirty washing in the basket either.So he drew the chart you see here.

Which leads me to reflect that it is all the more important that the kids get to learn these helpful lifeskills, so that they don't turn into the sort of adult who lives in a cess pit of their own making until a girlfriend/boyfriend/mum comes along to tidy it up for them.

Thus far the bribery is working.

I'm tempted to send a similar chart to my local Council. Only with bigger demands that earn their right to get voted in again. Like, keep a bus service running maybe, or don't give yourself a whacking great payrise while you're cutting the arse off everything else. Unfortunately, bribery works all too well with this lot, and my paltry vote and quid won't go far. If I had a huge plot of land to develop, maybe......

Ill children, ginger biscuits and a moonsand recipe.

I know Madam is ill when she wants cuddles and just lies on me for hours without muttering an insult or asking a why. Now, i'm not saying that I want her to be ill, but once the sweaty fever stage is over and the cuddle stage kicks in, there is a pleasure to be had in sitting on the sofa watching the Wizard Of Oz again (Glinda is a man, I swear, look at her hands).Now madam is 3 (nearly 4, that's very important) and confident enough to take over Greece, it's all "No Mummy, I can do it!" and "Leave me alone, I want to do it!", which is of course, to be lauded and expacted. But a little sad too.

So, once the Calpol has kicked in and things have calmed down enough that i'm no longer worried and she's no longer delirious, we can enjoy a pajama day on the sofa, watching Dorothy be far too big for that frock, really, and the Munchkins smoke enormous cigars. I'm sure they'd not get away with that now. We're too tired for anything else, since the wee hours were spent mopping brows and administering Calpol. Once son has been shifted, grudgingly, to school, wishing he were ill, we can flop out and collapse.  And later on, when she's actually allowed me to prise the lumps from her nose and wipe her face ( a bit), we can bake biscuists (ginger for the cold, naturally), and try out a recipe for homemade knock off moonsand.

First, the worlds easiest ginger biscuit recipe. This recipe makes a LOT of biscuits, about 40 by my sizing, but this is the right amount for this house, wherein they don;t survive long. They are fatter versions of shop biscuits, cracked and crunchy. If you like yours chewy in the middle, swap the golden syrup for black treacle and cook for less time. This recipe is also ultimately child friendly, there's a fair bit for them to do. they can crack and whisk eggs and do the stirring and ball rolling.

You will need (in the dry bowl, sifted)
350g Self-Raising Flour
1 teaspoon bicarb
1 tablespoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. 
You will need, in the wet bowl, melted,
115g butter
85g golden syrup
200g sugar

Melt the wet ingredients. Add a beaten egg. Add to the dry bowl, mix until you get a very stiff plaibale dough. Roll into walnut sized balls.
Bake at Gas mark 3 for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool, eat by the handful, saying they are good for a cold.

And now onto mess making toys.Moonsand, as all parents who have thus far managed to avoid playdough know, is even more epxnsive than playdough and probably much more annoying to clean up. However, all messy toys are good toys, and what better to cheer up an ailing child than giving them things they can be messy with on purpose. This recipe is simple enough, and cheap enough to give the makers of Moonsand cause for concern. The texture is exactly the same, silky "sand" that sticks together and makes nifty castles. Madam spent a happy hour burying her Polly Pockets alive.

Take 8 parts flour to one part baby oil. Mix. That's it! The only bugbear is that you can't add food colouring as it is water, not oil based, and will turn the flour into glop. So a nice scented oil, like baby oil is the way to go, or a bright yellow oil, like rapeseed, will give you a pastel yellow shade. How easy is that?

Other peoples kids love my house

At some point over the Summer holiday, it became apparent that my house was simply the best house on the street. It has a big flashing beacon above it,visible only to those between 3-12, that advertises the fact that we have a) chickens and b) a soft soap mother inside. From August onwards, every knock at the door was a kid. Sometimes 2 or 3. Sometimes with kids that even the kids I knew didn't know. ("Who's he?" "Dunno. He's got a bike") In the (few) sunny days we had, i'd let them in. They'd play in the garden, bounce on the trampoline, eat all my ice pops,  and basically make my 4 year old feel really cool. He'd show off to them and they'd ignore him.

When school started, it thinned. Now we are down to a hardcore of 4 kids who love this house. They play beautifully with my two, and can while away several hours with a handdrawn treasure map and the garden. But things have changed.

Firstly, it's school nights. Secondly, he's 4. Thirdly, I don't want him up till 8pm playing kerbie. And yes, he IS asking because he sees you do it (even though you are 6). And lastly, don't you have to go home and eat, or something? Turns out, no. The weekend just gone, we had 6 kids, from the street, from 11am  until 8pm, at a barbecue we had for friends. Of course, we fed them. Because they didn't go! And nobody came for them. Son thinks it's great, but i'm wondering.

How can a parent allow a child out for that long, round someones house, without actually meeting me? How can they not ask them home? How can they not? And if they cannot do that, how can I send them away?

I'm thinking back to a time when I was about 13, and in a state at home. I had a friend whose mother was probably sick to the back teeth of me mooching about being grim and sad, but she nonetheless fed me, let me stay till hometime, and never hassled me. It was like a little snapshot of how families were. I would watch the  mum and dad chat and talk to each other happily. I'd be amazed at the meals. So big! So home cooked! So not a Findus Crispy pancake!  I loved them. I wanted to be adopted. I'm pretty sure I went as far as asking. In short, they were a lifeline. So i'm not about to turn away a few kids who want to be here rather than there. But I am thinking ground rules. I'd quite like to hear from anyone who has the problem, to see what you think of these:
My house, my rules
You get it out, you tidy it up
You're only in the rooms i say so, and NEVER in mine
Monday-Thursday, my kids bedtime is your time to go. I know you stay up later. I don't care.
You eat, you wash up with me.
If I say go, you go.
You give me your parents phone numbers.

I'm loathe to rush round the houses of the parents and insist on meeting them, but I do wonder if I shouldn't try to see them. But I fret i'll get me head kicked in. Reading back I sound judgemental. Maybe i'm out of time. Maybe everything has reverted back to goalposts for jumpers and everyone playing in the street. Give 'em a jam sandwich and send 'em off all day. Am I being precious? I'd really like an opinion.

School shoes made of fairy gold, only black

How criminally stupid am I that I didn't click to the fact that son will not only need new school shoes now his feet have grown, and Big School beckons, but also shoes to wear out of school. It had clean vanished from my head. I don't know what I was imagining he'd wear at weekends. Maybe the wellies, or Buzz Lightyear slippers. Leastways, even with my cheapskate buying techniques, the Back to School spend has been, well, expensive. I've purchased the minimum, but the minimum is a lot. Despite the school being a comprehensive, so no boater buying, the polo shirts and fleeces add up. Then there's the water bottle, the lunchbox (HOW much for a box?), the bag, the PE kit. All in all, I reckon i've spent the best part of 100 quid, putting me at about average, according to research. And that was before shoes.

The shoes that small boys (and girls) wear are not made as mortal shoes. No, they are made from the finest unicorn skin, heeled in Griffin scales and modelled so as to gift the wearer with the power to fly. As they slip on the shoes, they become magically endowed with the power to make money vanish from the moth eaten purses of parents. "Oh Mummy!" the bairns do cry, "these shoes are magnificent! Surely I will be top of the (overlarge and underfunded) class in these shiny and most drearily coloured feet coverings! Please buy them anon!" And Lo! The parent doth unclasp the purse, and wearily part with the best part of 50 quid for a pair of black Startrites. Before walking the walk of shame to the cheap shoe shop, to buy some trainers, for weekends, that are made, verily, from no natural substance, and will not repel rain. But are 10 quid.

If his feet grow before he's had a good 3 months out of them, i'll weep.

I skipped sports day, and i'm glad

Son is in the midst of preparing for Big School. This means that on his playgroup mornings, he gets taken over to roam the school library, and chat to his new teacher-to-be, to prove she is not a monster. He has been refreshingly blase about his, even to the point of grumbling that the library doesn't have a motorbike encyclopaedia, or even a Hayes manual of a Kawasaki Ninja *sigh*, but one thing he came home completely perplexed about was Sports Day. Well meaning playgroup ladies took the rising receptions over to watch the various children pelt about in the heat, drop eggs from a spoon and mostly, lose. After witnessing this Olympics of Fenland, his only response was that there were too many people running. To his mind, competition only really exists when it's against a sibling. Why run against others when there is no sibling to cry at losing? If you want to practise best, fast running, you can do that alone. You don't need to do it in a  field and maybe lose.
I was, needless to say, hopelessly crap at running. All kinds. Sprinting was out because my overdeveloped chest necessitated more sports bra than Marks and Spencers in the 80's had yet envisioned, plus I couldn't run. Cross Country would have been better if the aptly named "Miss Quick" had not sent us out in navy blue pants to run through snow laden fields, while she followed on the roads as best she could, clad in a puffa jacket, on a moped. Hockey was cold legs being beaten with a stick. Shot putt, I won the acclamation of everyone. Nobody had ever seen a girl throw the bloody thing upright, and then stand still as it descended, to fall on her head and concuss her. Still, I got to sit the rest of sports day out with the ambulance people. High jump is hilarious when you are 5 foot. Long jump is just a run into a cat litter tray. I could swim, for ages, but not properly (how can this be? Swimming teacher after swimming teacher would moan at me. I got my badge for swimming a mile, 2 miles. But apparently it was still wrong because I stuck my head up too much. It was the EIGHTIES. I had a FRINGE!) Tennis, Badminton, rubbish. Javelin, they didn't let me near. Rounders? Yes, please. I'll be fielder. I'll go as....far.....as......I......can and have a fag. Netball? Nah.  The apogee of my sporting prowess at school came aged 5, when, annoyed by Mrs Lines attempts to get me into my leotard, which was itchy and entirely flammable, I ran, nude, out of the changing room and ran my entire first sports day in the nude, leaving them with nowhere to pin the red ribbon for coming first in the roly-poly race. It is the only race I have ever won, and all it earnt me was a ribbon and a smacked arse from an angry mother. Sports at school was laothsome, dreadful, angst ridden crap more about the ones would could catch/throw/leap with their eyes shut lording it over the ones who couldn't, especially if they were pudgy academics (like me), than any sense of real sportsmanship.
Was I therefore an obese monster? No. I did sport, I just did the ones I liked. I biked 6 miles a day, 4 times a day, to muck out a horse and ride it, twice a day, before and after school. On my weekends, I 3 day evented. I did pretty well. I enjoyed it, I was actually pretty fit. What did I get for PE? E's, F's. PE at school is about as useful as a Tory Minister at a morality lecture. It sucks. It does nothing for teamwork, nothing for self esteem, and nothing for the kids who are not any good at it. Of course, there's the argument that everyone needs to learn how to lose, but really, did I need to learn to lose 4 periods a week, for all those years? In the end I bunked every lesson and sneaked into the library instead. Now, I am not saying that sport is not a great and wonderful thing , if you are good at it. I look on in awe at son as he catches balls and leaps from branch to branch with a sure limbed dexterity that I have never had. He is naturally quick, agile, and co-ordinated. Is he mine? He will have a ball, literally. He can already tackle me to the ground. This is the boy that I lectured for 35 minutes about how the first time he rode his bike without stabilisers, he might fall, but he must get back up and try again, only to see him cycle off and within 20 minutes start kicking wheelies. How is he of my loins? Daughter, on the other hand, is mine. She still sits down to come down stairs. She cannot catch, run straight, or jump properly, and neither does she care. Yet. Because by Year 7, she will. She will be (although I plead no, no) the last to be picked. The team captain will sigh as they begrudgingly say her name, the last option against the kid in callipers. That was me. It was beyond crappy.

And this is why I applaud the school in somewhere or other that made the Daily Mail on Thursday for telling it's kids that sports day was optional. Of course, the Daily Mail are spitting bits of Empire about it, but hey, it's a damn good idea, as far as i'm concerned. Why not let the kids who couldn't give a stuff about running do something else? Running isn't a vital life skill, like reading, or adding. Bullying people into it doesn't make it fun. Lord alone knows I had to do enough bullying into it myself, as form tutor. In year 7, it went like this:
me: "Who wants to run the 100/200/400/800/ etc etc?"
Kids: "Me! Me! Me! Miss, me!"
By year 9, it was like this.
Me: "Who wants to run the 100 metres? Anyone? Come on?"
Kids: "      "
And how I laughed as I tried to get them to run the 800m. In the end I had to bribe them and threaten them. How did this happen? Through a mixture of PE and hormones.The ones that were good at PE enjoyed it. The ones that were not, didn't. Plus, they had to contend with bits bulging, skin erupting, classmates taunting and, for girls, the hideous clipboard with monthly information recorded. What actually was there to like about PE if you didn't excel at it? And yet, the girls in my form who hated PE were almsot universally members of the street dance club, which met to thunder it's way round my classroom and never put the desks back properly every lunchtime. I had one form tutee who was a whiz at golf, another who was excellent at bowling. None of these are offered at school.  PE doesn't have to be about winning and losing and humiliation. It can and should be about doing something you enjoy, in small groups, or large. It doesn't have to be competative to be useful in building team skills. It's only the winners who insist that competition is best.

So, if your kid is wetting the bed pre-sports day, and throwing a tin of Scotch Broth down the loo pretending they've been sick (yes, that was me: the giveaway was the Scotch Broth smelt far worse than actual sick), then let 'em off. Write them a sick note. Do some sport they like instead, with them.

IF YOU ARE FROM WIMBLINGTON;
*Alert* Lady from Wimblington: I lost your mail and now cannot find your blog. Please send it to me again!

Pretend that you are calm, and you are calm.

When I was teaching, I had as a mentor a veritable dinosaur of the Secondary system, a teacher who had been teaching for over 25 years and was, amazingly, still not weeping every weekday morning. He gave me much advice, some of which I had to disregard if I wanted to keep my job, and one bit which stuck with me, because it worked. He told me never to loose my temper, even with a class of 35 Year 9's, last lesson, and that before I lost my temper, the best thing to do was to act loosing your temper. Because once you've lost it, you're not in control. But whilst you are acting loosing your temper, you get all the benefits of the shock and awe response, but you can also add little Bette Davies touches that will add to your mystique and legend, and you will be in control. So, before the Year 9's tip you over the edge, pause, and go scenery chewing crazy, stop them in their tracks, and then calmly switch into neutral and carry on. Pretend you haven't done it. You will only ever have to do this with each class once or twice a term. Particularly if, as I did, you misjudge quite how much slamming a door can take and the pane of glass falls out and smashes everywhere. They never played up again.

What has this to do with my usual blurbs, which are usually about parenting, eating, hens, with the occaisional Conservative hate mail? Well, I have of late been losing my rag. It comes in cycles, and I have found that when son develops a new skill, daughter will quickly develop a rival skill or whine to compete. I have weeks that go like this:

son: "Mum, MUM, MUUUM! Look at me do this!" (recites entire Quentin Blake book at me without looking at pages, just holding it above his head)

daughter: "MUM! Mummmmeeeee! Look! Look! I can do this!" (does inexplicable Haka like dance with ugly toy dog she got for her birthday before throwing it at son)

son: "Nooooo! I was READING! You are a stupid stinky bum head!" (sings stinky bum head song repatedly)

daughter: "I am NOT you are and that is not reading it is STINKY like your BUM!"

Slight pause while both of them decide whether to cry to gain most attention or fight. Fight. Pause while they examine themselves for wounds, as wounds command high Mum Attention points, especially if there is blood. Hence, son has stopped screaming if daughter attempts to scratch or bite him, as the end result of the scratch or bite is more pleasing than actually stopping it would be. All this while I am on the loo, trying to have a poo. Now, I have had a few moments of late where I have flared up at this, and ended up shouting the mum equivalent of "stinky poo bum" at them, and we all end up shouting, weeping and feeling bad. I did try to separate and calm them, using the divide and conquer rule, but this fails as it only adds to their sense of injustice, and whilst moments before they were mortal enemies, once in their respective rooms, they become allies, cruelly separated by their Nazi of a mother, and tap the dividing wall, whispering messages to each other. I fully expect to see a Poster of a Honda Fireblade on his side and a pony on hers hiding an escape route. Thing is, they just annoy me. They know how to do it really well, and which whiny voice is going to get the most response the quickest, like they have a little ipod of whines in their heads and they're there thinkg "Hmm, it's almost teatime, and I want some attention. Shall I go for the feeble voiced, weak sounding whine and plead for a snack? Or shall I revert to baby speak, and introduce a sad sob effect, implying I have been abandoned, and then ask for a biscuit?" And I am, by 4pm, cooking, end of tethered, and very liable to explode easily. It couldn't go on.

So I decided to go back to my teaching books. I re-read the very useful "Getting the Buggers to Behave" and various other tomes and I can honestly say that I'll be able to make them behave beautifully when they are 11+ in a classroom setting. But really, it's my old mentors advice that has been useful. And not only in acting mad, but in acting calm too. I decided to reverse things and pretend to be calm when I wasn't. I have spent all week pretending calm and responding calmly, acting calmly when really I wanted to yell. I've been anticipating flare ups and out-calming them. I have been unruffled by the fights, I have NOT yelled. And it has totally freaked them out. Initially wrongfooted by my zen-like responses, they were flustered. But then they calmed down. They've had a good week. And so have I. I am calmer. Maybe there's something in Zen and all that, because by pretending calmness, it has actually, in part, descended upon me. Of course, it helps that I have earplugs.

Knick Knack Paddywhack

Me: "What was all that paddying about then?"

Daughter:" It wasn't really about the biscuit, I just needed to say that" (for an hour, apparently, in increasingly higher pitches)

Me: "What was it really about, then?"

Daughter: "It could be anything, really".

I am envious of the sheer joy of the tantrum. How I long to do what she does: just pick a subject, any subject. The slightest slight, the merest askew look, and just roll, roll with it, until the yells and screams and whines have attained their own music and you've forgotten what it actually was all about. How much nicer you must feel when you've stopped. I can see her, enjoying the stopping of it. It is like she is trying on emotions, for size, for later, for adulthood. And of course, that is in a sense exactly what they are doing. How can a child who is happy and looked after truly know "sad"? My refusing to read the damn stupid Charlie and Lola book is not a reason to be sad. Losing a limb or having me burn the book, possibly. But there they are, trying on emotions, seeing how they fit. I once caught daughter in front of the mirror, doing a "sad face" and trying to cry, for no reason whatsoever. Then, suddenly, you're all meant to stop this nonsense, and stop being emotional and behave. This is school. Then you are a teenager, and for a brief flowering, it's suddenly allowed again, everyone expects you to be an emotional see-saw, so you are. Weeping because, in my case, that one out of the Psychadelic Furs was married, or because you were never ever going to get a Lippizaner stallion. Days spent, later, holed up in my room (which I was not allowed, NOT FAIR to paint black), wallowing in misery, listening to the Smiths and inflicting it on everyone else too. Losing my temper when my dad said I looked like Max Wall in my Goth get-up. Crying because some greasy fringed boy with the only motorbike (and thus, only way out) of the village didn't like me. But really, it could have been anything.

Same sort of time in your life, I suppose. Aged 2 to 4, you are trying out being without your mum, trying boundaries. Will she run after me if I sprint off? If she says "Right, that's it, i'm GOING?", how far will she really go? Round the corner? (If you are me, round the corner and then HIDE. Freaks 'em out. They certainly stop yelling). Screaming for attention. Now. And then, teens, not much different. Suddenly awkward again, only with the opposite sex also pointing out you're awkward, and preparing to leave your mum a bit more. You don't get to do it as an adult (with the notable exception of the year I was on a weird contraceptive pill that sent me into hormone overdrive, that was interesting. And the year my thyroid went hyperactive. That was tantrummy AND hallucinatory. People with back to front knees and faces. Which annoyed me.)Hopefully, by the time my two are teens my standard response of ignore, ignore, ignore, then say "What was that all about then?" whilst barely looking up from my sewing/paper/pint will work then, too. I will also know that the biscuit/boy/popstar/teacher isn't the real reason, either. Sometimes,we all just need to yell.

He's been out from 7am till 6pm. How will he stay in a classroom?

Son is due to start school in September (this is provided we get the school we need, but that's another blog). He's a bright boy. He's sharp, funny, and keen to read, pretty much can already. But, but but.
But: he spends all day, every day, outside. He needs 2 walks a day like a dog. He needs outside air and exercise, like, constantly. If he doesn't get it, he's like a sad gorilla I saw in London Zoo, pawing at the patio door and pacing. He needs outside. I need him to be outside. He runs, he jumps, he climbs, he's happy. He spent all day today in the garden, or out in the park. Even ate his lunch and tea outside. Inside is for bed. The bedtime story is a motorbike manual (Honda Fireblade, since you ask. It's quite a dull read for me).
But: he learns through doing. He's a boy. He wants to know how something works, he takes it apart, puts it together. Takes it apart, puts it together. Learns that insects don't take apart. Learns to observe. He learns, in short, by trying something himself, NOT by listening. If he learnt by listening, I wouldn't have to say everything 4 times.
But:he frets about noise and space. He, like many, many boys, like quiet, space, and time. He will take himself off to his room, for peace. He will avoid noisy, crowded environments. He likes familiarity. On returning from holiday, or even playgroup, he checks everything is as he left it. All rooms. His dad does it too. I don't know how he will get up the nerve to push himself forward at school when he can't even go on the trampoline if someone else is on it.
But: he tires. He is ready for bed at 7. So ready. Sometimes earlier.
But: he likes girls, and girls things, and dancing, and drawing, and imaginative games.
So? But school doesn't cater for boys like this. School, is all day, more or less INDOORS. Sitting, stuck. School is the death of playing with girls for boys. School is small voices lost in too big a class size. (I taught 35 per class, 40 one year. This primary is 25.) Son doesn't like playgroup when it's full (20 kids) because of the noise and sheer kidfullness. School is peer pressure. School is a long, long day for a 4.5 year old, and homework besides. School is learning by listening. School is not designed for active boys.
How do I know? I saw hoardes of boys at age 11 who were already faliures, already bored, already not engaged. Already examined and written off. As a secondary teacher it was obvious to me that boys learn differently. Most do not excel in the usual classroom setting of sitting, listening. As a result, I would pitch my lessons every two or three weeks to include oral and physical learners. Hard, with history, you might think. No, not really. Want to get how Norman England was controlled over to boys? Make the class desks into Britain, add towns and props. Now variously sack and burn some of them (I really did do this: we burnt little models of the principal towns William sacked. And little model sheep, too). Re-enact Hastings in the playground (again, I would advise ensuring that you hand control of the English army to a boy who will actually DO AS HE IS TOLD, rather than try to win). Build a mott and bailey. Get out and look for medieval ditches. Get them to present a show on UK vs Germany in THE AIR WAR. Cook some ration recipes. It's not hard, but it does take effort. We do not school young children well in the UK. Exams? That young? Why, they must be useful, right? Wrong. Useful for league tables, not for schools. I would automatically disregard SATS results at age 11. Within a year of secondary they were null and void, of no earthly use. So why do it? OFSTED. Stick 'em in a classroom all day, why not. Why not? Why not do as Finland and Sweden do, make the school day shorter, more intense, and outside a lot more. Their results don't suffer, in fact they are better than ours, and don't show the boy/girl discrepancy ours do. Why not, in fact, follow a whole lot of Europe and put them into school later? Why not? Ah, work. Mums must work. They must work, now, or lose their benefits. Funny how the Conservatives would seem to promise most for mums but deliver least. Now mums must practically deliver the baby and hand it over, chuck it over the childcare fence, wave it goodbye. No, school for them, soon as, and work for mums.

But how silly it is. Boys do not even physically develop the ability to fine hold a pencil until 6. Yet they are expected to learn to use it. Son can identify all letters, small words, all phonics. Yet, he can't hold a pencil and control it. They lack fine agility, they develop slowly with regard to fine concentration skills. But, they must be benchmarked, and labelled and boxed. My good friend got told at her last parents evening that her son had settled well, he was now like "all the others". Well, what a great aim. Assimilation. Submission. Loss of boyness. No. She's my friend, so she nearly punched the teacher. And yet, it's not their fault. It's the system. The system which is now worse: more guidelines, more strictures. Less ability to teach interestingly. Longer school days, longer hours. Thanks, tories, you are totally ensuring I never go back to teaching.
I will give it a year. Maybe i'll teach my own.

Princesses: what do they actually do, actually?

I inherited a house that was gender specific. When I say I inherited it, I mean that I paid a ridiculously inflated price for a 3 bedroomed semi-detached that we'll be paying off for 25 years after the Fens have vanished beneath the Wash. But I did inherit the paint jobs that were within it, and have sensibly decided to put off painting anything until the kids are past the smearing bodily fluids and else on the walls stage. The paint I inherited was, in my bedroom, dull white. Liveable. For years, probably. In the same way that you don't notice the pile of crap at the bottom of the stairs if you leave it there long enough and start automatically stepping over it like it's another actual step, after a while you don't notice the dirty dull walls and the requisite squashed mosquitos (Believe me, you live in the Fens, there will always be squashed mosquitos). The paint in the second biggest bedroom was Boys blue. The paint in the tiny bedroom was one shade off of neon pink. I could have put son into the tiny pink room, but as older sibling, and at that time, the one who could walk, he got first dibs. Daughter ended up pink. Pink walls, Pink, pink carpet, and white fitted cupboards with pink fittings.

At first, I tried to downsize the pink. I got a red and orange duvet for the cot-bed. Green shelves. It just looked like Tinkerbell had taken acid and invited that boss eyed Linda woman from those changing rooms programmes in, when she was drunk. There is no getting away from this much pink. I ignored it, even though when the sun hit the room of a morning it burnt your retinas. But then, daughter hit the pink stage. Now everything must be pink. Make me pink bunting mummy, make me pink curtains. I must wear my pink pajamas. I must have my pink Sleeping Beauty on the bed. Say WHAT? Go back a bit there. Sleeping Beauty? We have never seen the film. We have never seen ANY Disney Princess film. How can you know which one is which? Are they beaming Disney direct into your brain? Is there a chip in there? Why have they all got such lobotomised expressions? And what happened to Cinderella? She used to be strawberry, red really, and now she's peroxide? ( See pictures: one from the 1950's film, where she is officially "Titian" and one from now, where she looks like, well, any blonde idiot) And HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH ONE SHE IS?

Sobbing, I admit defeat. Yes, have a Princess lunchbox, then, damn you. My defiance of the stupid Disney Princess, in fact any Princess nonsense has failed. Those books I read you, daughter, that featured feisty girls, and nary a pink idiot in sight, did they mean nothing? For Gods' sake, Mog the cat is a better role model than Cinderella! Mog has some oompf about her! Mog refuses to eat the fish and holds out for eggs. Mog doesn't fret about a dress. And Sophie, well, she has dinner with a tiger and goes out for tea in her nightie (possibly because the Tiger is in fact a figment of her mothers imagination, the excuse she gives Daddy about tea not being ready because she has been at the gin and left Sophie in front of Waybaloo, or is that just me?) So we go through a turgid week of reading Cinderella, Disney style as a bedtime story. We purchase a Princess doll with pocket money. I dress daughter in flouncy dresses. I wait.

And then. We are playing "Princesses" with the frankly simple looking Rapunzel doll and the dollshouse crew, who are wooden, have their faces scratched off and hair cut, and look like weird Bagpuss crossed with "Saw" bit part actors. When she suddenly says "What do Princesses do?"

"What do you mean? All the time?"

"No, after they do the marrying, what do they do?"

"Well, the stories stop then"

"What do real Princesses do?"

(Do not mention reality, which is basically : They get super thin despite being surrounded by Fortnums food, pop several out and be miserable, apart from when they smile opening things.And then they die.)

"Well, Princesses don't really do a lot, apart from meet people who like Princesses and wear dresses. What do you think they should do?"

"Fight dragons and be doctors to people and then have tea and do sliding on the slide, and then be friends with the dragon and have a ride".

"Well, that seems very sensible to me, and I bet real princesses would like to do that. Shall we just play something else?"

"Yes. (chucks Rapunzel, picks up manky Baby Anabel). Let's feed her to a dragon".

We go onto re-enact Andromeda and so forth. No more Princess. Rapunzel is still where she was thrown. And that, I hope, is that. Just to be safe, as a reality check, I have a tea towel from the local pound shop which shows the two badly fabric printed beaming faces of Kate and William, in all their glory, only, on a tea towel, and looking a bit weird. Although even the best photos can't disguise the fact that he's going on top, looking more like his dad every day and that she knows it. I heave a sigh of relief. For now.

Bad mother misses Nativity.

And it was his first ever one. Bad brained mother here was just downright empty headed about it and flummoxed by the Medieval system of school security. Unable to process the arcane rituals of gate openings, I was stymied by the blockade and, being 5ft, unable to scale the walls, clutching daughter and the Phil and Teds. Here is how it begins.

I drop son off to the usual playgroup entrance. I access this through the left-hand school gate, Gate A, which is open for the 8.50 drop-off,(Otherwise closed for the 11.50 pick-up, open again at 3pm. Guarded by Cerebrus in the meantime) walk across the school grounds and say "See you at the Nativity!". I then walk into "town" (this is in speechmarks because really, 2 charity shops and a bakery do not make a town). I walk through the Town school gate,Gate B, open for the 8.50 drop-off, but closed for the 11.50 pick-up, open again at 3pm. Otherwise, guarded by Orcs and an all-seeing eye. Gate A saves me a long walk, as Gate C, near to the playgroup and open for the 11.50 pick-up and 3pm pick-up, otherwise closed and guarded by sundry demons, is a mile and half around the town away. So my walk to playgroup in the morning is 2.5 miles, on the way back it is 4 miles. The politics of the Gate are arcane and not open to reason. A friend with SPD and heavily pregnant was not allowed to spare herself the walk at the 11.50 pick up, and was forced to walk the 1.5 extra miles. The Gates cannot be opened. I walked her boy rather than see her struggle. The Gate protects the kids, it must not be breached. Mexico border controls are more lenient than this.

Anyway, I then return, after whiling away an hour in the library with daughter, to Gate C, for the 11.15 performance of Nativity, starring son as shepherd, and many varied carols that bear no relation to ones you might know. Gate C is locked. I ring friend, who is in hall. "Help! Gate C is locked! I can't fling my Phil and Teds over the fence! Can you get someone to open it?" No. Nobody will open it. I must run.

I do not run. Apart from a brief period in the early 90's, which was really all about snaring some unworthwhile bloke, when I went to the gym 3 times a week, I have never run. Never. I may jog, I may speed walk with a double buggy, but I do not run. Until now. Strapping a screaming daughter into the buggy "NOOOOOO! I want to WALKKKKKK!", I pound the pavements, swerving people on mobility buggies and cursing their wheels, run, run, until I reach Gate A, which is open, all the Orcs being inside watching the Nativity that I AM MISSING. I screech to a halt in the school reception and demand to be let into the hall. Obviously, I am bright purple, sweating, about to have a heart attack, and clutching a puce angry daughter. I look insane. The Head comes out as the scretary has evidently pressed the panic button. They let me in. As soon as daughter sees the stage and bright lights she exhibits her (thankfully present) anti-X-Factor genes and screams. We go out again. I find crumb sodden old dummy from last month in bottom of my bag, shove it in and return to see the last song being sung and son looking bored in a tea towel. All the other mums are looking at me. They all have cars. Son asks why I was late. "The Orcs were not at the gates", I tell him. And he just accepts it.

Later, I get the DVD. Sons head is obscured by Marys' voluminous headress throughout.

4 years ago, I stopped working.

Not literally. I mean, my arms and legs still go (althought my thyroid could do with some work), and I still (just about) string a sentence together. So, yes, I still work. But I don't WORK. This time, 4 years ago, I said goodbye to my form group, fellow teachers, and GCSE/AS/A2 students, saying "See you in a year!", and waddled out that door, heavily pregnant, and never went back. I've been at home, with kid(s) ever since. For a while, post son, I said I was going back. 6 months in, I tried to read a book about Napoleonic warfare, and the new syllabus, and failed. My brain hurt. I visited childminders in our neck of East London, fully intending to leave my little bundle with them and return to work. The fact that I wouldn't have left a dog with them decided me. (Amongst the gems were a woman with 6 dogs, one who said she wouldn't take me because I was ethnically wrong, and another who stood smoking on the doorstep saying she "only did it outside" in such a manner that I wondered what it was she did outside, as it could have been any number of things, including soliciting).

We moved. We moved far, and cheap. We moved far and cheap enough so that we could manage on one wage for a few years. Just as well ,as along came surpise daughter. (Yep, really. 6 months in surprise. You know when they say breastfeeding is not a contraceptive? They are right). But what was happening to me? In the (admittedly brief) interim between children, I struggled. I had been a 5.30 am riser, who went to work, worked all day, came back, planned, did some more work, then went to the pub. I was a good, committed teacher and a big socialiser. My love of subject (history and polictics) ,was such that I spent weekends campaigning, visiting musuems, and husband and I courted on the IWW battlefields, in trenches. I loved my job. I loved watching my class set up as the League of Nations, and do a better job than they did. I loved it. I loved my form group. I loved my work. And now, I didn't have it. What was I?

Well, to some of my friends, I was a big wash out, a let-down. Someone who had "wasted" their education. To others, I simply wasn't down the pub anymore, and slipped away. To one, I had "let myself down". I should be being MORE, being a job, an ambition, a dream. What could I say? Yes, I had a half finished novel, but waking up 5 times a night does for that. Yes, I loved my work, but was that all I was? And most importantly, is that all that matters? No.

I can honestly say it took over a year. Over a year to not be upset by my demotion, for, let's be frank, that is what it is. You had a bank account, it had stuff going in, now, it doesn't. You have to ask for money, or set up a joint account. You had a timetable, now you don't, your day is dictated by breastfeeding, weaning, potty training. (See previous posts for how I cope with this: effectively, I just teach a subject a week to them, it gives me a timetable and a focus). You used to have lunchbreaks and piss alone. Now you don't. Ever. (I still don' know what to do on "lady" days. I distract them with a trick.)You used to have a status, now you are "just" a mum. You used to have a purpose, now you are "just" a mum. You used to have targets, discernable results, now the only result comes when they are 18 and not a serial killer. Yet. There's time. It takes time. It took a gut wrench instinct to say "I want to be at home", as every fibre of my intellect screamed that no, I was a working woman, but all my mum fibres said "sod it". I fought it, but I settled. I have seen every first. I have cooked a gazillion refused meals. I wipe up wee. I wipe bums. I read "Peepo" 8 times in a row. But I am still a teacher. I explain sunlight, rainbows. I explain why they need to go to bed. I am lawmaker. I am a scary monster. I am the builder of sofa cushion rafts. I am the one they hate. Until they fall over. I am the bad cop mum who says "What do you say? How do you ask nicely?" when good cop dad can waltz in from work and be fun. I am the dispenser of Savlon. I am a mum. I am not a worker.

And yet. I am. I am there, the whole time. So much that they get bored of me. I am up at 6 sometimes sooner, bed early, for the night shift. I know i'll be up at least twice, for wees, lost toys, wonky duvets. It's work, but the results you want are different. It's not attainment based, it's happiness based. Can I help my son and daughter be happy? Can I make their days at home, with me, a privilige? Can I make them into nice people? Funny people? Tolerable people? When I shout, can I say "sorry"? Can I make them able to enter school, secure in the knowledge that when they come home and ask for fishfingers and mash, I really know they are asking for a hug? It seems like nothing, sometimes, this stay at home lark. But when, as I did today, you hear you son say to the searching playgroup lady, sending him out to be picked up, "My mummy is over there, she ALWAYS is", it does seem worth it, as well as a life sentence. Or am I just justifying my choice? So hard to know. I just know, I'm glad i've done it. Although I wish it had a ruddy wage and some respect. It's a life skill, a diversifiable skill, a transferable skill to be able to find the bedtime teddy when it goes missing. (In the drawer, in a tupperware box. Of course.)