I planned a different post entirely today, but I’m feeling rather drained. Mainly because Akra Jr woke in the night, but also because his teacher took me to one side this afternoon and told me he’d behaved abysmally all day. I’m inclined to believe her, because he then behaved abysmally for me right up until bedtime.

As the late afternoon progressed and he’d already earned an early night with a follow-up session of cleaning my patio furniture planned for tomorrow afternoon (don’t ask), my intentions for the blog radically changed and I started to mentally prepare a post describing my day and how I’d responded – hoping for positive feedback on the sanctions I’d chosen (or at least several posters telling me how much worse their own children had been today), so desperate was I of some indication that I was doing a good job.

It then occurred to me: is this all my blog is for? Am I using it solely as validation for my parenting style?

More importantly, does everyone use their parenting blog as a form of validation?

This is quite a timely thought, due to a recent article on Spiked – Making a Minefield of Motherhood – where the author links declining birthrates to the continual barrage of media negativity on parenthood.

So, over to you – do you think parenting blogs are mainly used for validation purposes as a backlash against mainstream media? Is this a good thing? Does it help to balance the score?

Just a short post today, as I’ve been uncharacteristically wordy recently. I don’t want you to feel like you have to wade through an epic every time you visit!

Anyway, I found this really fab little utility the other day: Temptation Blocker. The idea is if you’ve got stuff to do but just can’t tear yourself away from a computer game, or checking your email, or browsing the web then you can run this little Windows program, tell it which programs to block and it won’t let you run them until the time you specified is up.

Just to make sure you don’t cheat, Windows Task Manager is disabled, so you can’t use ctrl-alt-delete to get back to your favoured distraction. If you really really have to override it, you need to type in a random 32-character string to get back in.

Best of all, Temptation Blocker is completely free, and might help you meet that deadline or get the housework done. I think it’s going to be essential for me in September when I’m determined to get a headstart on my NaNoWriMo planning.

It’s official. Li’l Bhaji is no longer a baby. The cot is packed away in the loft (Akra wants to Ebay it, I’m hanging on to it because to sell it would be to admit to myself that the baby years are all over, and I’m not ready for that yet). Li’l Bhaji is in a Proper Bed.

He was definitely ready for a big boy bed. My youngest son, at just two years old, has been able to unzip himself from his baby sleeping bags for a little while now and attempted to climb out the cot a couple of times (unsuccessfully, but it was only going to be a matter of time). He loves playing “beds” by pretending to sleep in his brother’s or my bed. He needed one of his own.

So I’ve been saving up for a bed (not having £275 plus money for bedding easily to hand) when my mum suggested we have my childhood single bed. Although it’s a bit battered, the mattress is good, it’s the right size and height and has good solid drawers that are inset a little so they’re unlikely to block the door to the room trapping Li’l Bhaji in (yes, that happened to Akra Jr once in the small room – very traumatic for all involved). The only problem was – how to get it the 50 miles from her house to my house. “Leave it to me,” she said. I was unconvinced, but confess to being pretty impressed with its arrival yesterday, strapped to the top of their Vauxhall Corsa.

We put all the bedding on (mum even brought us linen, how cool is that?) We hyped the ownership of a big boy bed to gargantuan proportions as is traditional. He had his lunchtime nap in it and slept beautifully. I even suspected he hadn’t figured out he was allowed to get out of it, as he called to Daddy to get him up once he’d woken up.

Bedtime came – we larked about a bit with me pretending to fall asleep in his bed. Li’l Bhaji got cross and pushed me out: “NO! MY bed, Mummy!” Went to sleep with minimal fuss. I started to feel a bit of a smug Mummy that the transition had been handled so well. You just know where this blog post is going, don’t you?

THUD.

At 1am, a mere 1 hour since Akra and I had gone to sleep huge screams brought us awake suddenly. Li’l Bhaji had fallen out of bed and was now distraught. Even after lots of cuddles (I think it was the shock more than anything, the bed is not very high) he refused to get back into bed.

Akra, bleary eyed, went up into the loft, retrieved a bed guard we’d had with Akra Jr (his was a higher bed), assembled it and placed it on Li’l Bhaji’s bed. Still refused to go to bed.

Big brother Akra Jr sat down with Li’l Bhaji in the hallway (yes, we were all wide awake) giving him a cuddle and reassuring him that he wouldn’t fall out with the bed guard. Still no.

We tried kindly but firmly placing him back in bed every time he got out of it in a vain effort to get the entire family back to sleep.

At 2am we gave up on that and just left his door open, in case he’d suddenly developed a fear of the dark in the last 24hrs.

At 3am it was clear that an open door with the landing light on was being taken to mean it was play time, Li’l Bhaji was getting louder and louder and constantly going into Akra Jr’s room wondering why his brother didn’t want to play too. I decided to try the “rod for my own back” approach and climbed into Li’l Bhaji’s bed with him. He finally got to sleep a little while after that while my arm and chest went slowly numb from the weight.

So here I am, gamely trying to cope on just over an hour’s sleep. Oddly, I don’t feel that sleep deprived which probably means I’m barely functioning and am making stupid and dangerous mistakes left, right and centre.

This lunchtime went a little better. I reverted back to the firm but reassuring approach combined with low-key controlled crying after gently carrying him back each time wasn’t doing the job. After the first visit at one minute, he was still trying to get out the door. Two minutes later, he was still crying but at least lying in his bed (and I heaped him with praise for that). The following four minutes he was completely silent and I can only assume he drifted off to sleep – I didn’t go and check. He was awake 2 hours later full of smiles and looking considerably better rested than me.

So only 3 minutes of crying and only 7 minutes to get him to sleep – considerably quicker than my more humane efforts last night. So why do I still feel like evil-bitch Mummy from hell?

Kids’ bedtime is in T-minus 30 minutes. I’m dreading it.

I had great plans for yesterday as Friday is my “day off”, with both children in either school or nursery. What with teacher training days and half-term recently, any ‘me’ time has taken a back seat as well as a large backlog of household chores.

It was not to be. Thursday evening, my head started to throb. By bedtime, it had turned into blinder of a headache, so I gave up any idea of it getting better by itself and popped a couple of paracetamol certain it’d all be better by the morning. Little did I know that the early hours of the morning would see me with psychadelic patterns behind my eyes and a pressure-band of pain around my head. I did eventually get to sleep, but probably didn’t get much more than 3 hours.

By the morning I felt lousy. It was a relief that I wasn’t expected to interract with the children. Walking Akra Jr to school was torture enough – the combination of bright light and each step jarring pain in my head, down my spine and right into my stomach. The best I can describe the sensation is extreme motion sickness without the sickness and a lot of pain instead. I came home via the pharmacy and got some nurofen plus and that took most of the pain away, but bizarrely left all the other symptoms behind.

Today, the headache is gone, but I’m left sapped, wiped out… no energy or inclination to do anything that requires any interraction or imagination. I just don’t know how to kick-start myself again and the to do list isn’t getting any shorter.

I’ve had killer headaches before, even ones where it’s affected my sight and sapped my energy. I used to get them fairly frequently, but luckily none in recent months. However, I’ve never had a headache that didn’t disappear after a night’s sleep and never had a headache this severe. Migraine? I have no real idea what could possibly have triggered it.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again – the annual torture of the parents in the name of “supporting the school”.

This is where we’re guilted into hanging around for several hours in the blazing hot sunshine, often simultaneously having to look after a younger sibling and prevent them running amok, in the name of seeing our child run a single race and hope against hope that said child hasn’t inherited his parents’ incompetence when it comes to competitive sport (hey, he’s five … he’s got a few years to improve and recover from our influence, right?).

Just to twist the knife, the PTA is mentioned in “conversation” over the tannoy several times, usually in combination with a comment about how undermanned they are, and how they’re doing a fabulous job under the circumstances, but wouldn’t it be nice if more parents would give up every minute of their remaining free time in order to join them by missing every school event manning the refreshments stand (which, incidentally, ran out of icecreams very early on, creating cries of outrage in every child who had been forced to wait until AFTER their race before they were allowed to choose a lolly).

Oh all right then, I confess. I enjoyed it really.

I even ran in the mother’s race and came 3rd last against evil women who weren’t afraid to use elbows for a competitive edge – so wouldn’t have shown up Akra Jr that badly if he’d actually noticed that I’d taken part. I’m telling myself that all the work I do on the exercise bike at home is training me for endurance, not for a fast sprint – that’s why I performed so badly.

And I will keep telling myself that each and every time I go up the stairs today and notice that all the tendons in my legs ache.

If I were in the county council, there’d be a new local by-law for Worcester as of this afternoon:

All residents wishing to barbeque should provide an incinerated beefburger in a soggy white roll drowning in ketchup to each and every neighbour residing downwind.

You know it makes sense. I’m salivating, and I’ve already had my dinner…

I’ve previously posted about my disappointment over the erosion of quality and community over at Fotothing.

Well, there’s a ray of sunshine for my fellow Fotothing refugees as Dom Ramsey (original creator of Fotothing) has been hard at work to bring us a brand new photo sharing site: Fotonomy.

As you would expect from one of Dom’s sites, the design is clean, minimalist and inviting, with a straightforward interface and navigation. It’s easy to dive into the community, as Fotonomy is still small enough to still have a welcoming, individual-focussed atmosphere. Best of all, there’s still plenty of new features in the pipeline. It’s worth getting in at ground level as Dom is very approachable and feedback is always welcomed.

For the time being, Flickr will still be my home – I enjoy the features and have found myself some great friends there (notably the Monthly Scavenger Hunt crowd). However, I’m definitely coming over to Fotonomy from time to time to play.

Those who enjoy sharing photographs but find Flickr too big and intimidating would do well to give Fotonomy a trial – after all, it’s fun and it’s free, what more can you want?

Right, all parents repeat the Mummy Mantra after me:

It’s just a phase
And this too shall pass
It’s just a phase
And this too shall pass
It’s just a phase
And this too shall pass
It’s just a…

Feel any better? Nah, me neither.

Li’l Bhaji’s current “phase” is giving a piercing scream and being wracked with sobs (so loud you think he’s somehow chopped his toes off and gushing blood all over the patio) every time a car comes past.

He can’t see the car, it’s just the noise.

He knows it’s just a car, but somehow that doesn’t make it any better.

He’s heard cars go past our house every five minutes for the last two years, but somehow today is the day they are scary.

Every five minutes.

Every five f*cking minutes.

It’s just a phase and this too shall pass … andthistooshallpass…. oh sod it, pass the vodka.

I think this short film should be made compulsory viewing for every parent to fully appreciate what life is like being the parent to an autistic child. I think too often, the stereotype of autism we hold is that of autistic savant (as portrayed in Rain Man) and as a result have little true tolerance or understanding of the condition.

I consider myself lucky and blessed that this is not an issue that personally affects the Naan household, but there are a number of posters on Mumsnet who have autistic children, and that film is the first real insight I’ve had as to what their lives must be like.

Isn’t there any possible way that funding can be found to give these families proper, substantial support in order to prevent further tragedies (such as that of Alison and Ryan Davies – a well-publicized autism-related suicide) from happening?