Somehow, I’ve got out of the habit of writing here. Sorry about that.

It’s been a mixed week. I’ve been busy (nicely so) and have written posts for Chocablog and Fotonomy (okay, the latter was a bit over a week ago), got some stuff done in the garden, been watching talks on TED, but the main reason I’ve not been around much is that I’ve also been a bit up and down with my health.

I had a migraine a couple of weeks ago – completely out of the blue and the first in over a year. Since then, I just haven’t been quite right – I’ve pretty much had a headache every single afternoon since, starting around 2pm ish, with a few exceptions. There’s lots of different reasons why I might be getting them: hormonal changes, light changes (I’ve also had to start my light therapy again this week), end of a sinussy cold, some sort of allergy… none of them really explain it 100% though.

On top of that, just to really make sure the headaches get most bang for the buck, the kids have been particularly argumentative and antagonistic towards each other. The level of vindictiveness and spite is definitely getting me down – yet I find it hard to know when to intervene and when to just let them get on with it. When I’m not feeling 100% I know I end up intervening more than I should (just so they’ll stop the yelling!), so I suspect that’s drawn the ill-feeling out longer than necessary.

So, this afternoon after school I downed a couple of ibuprofen, sat them down and together we’ve come up with a list of ground rules:

• I will not interfere unless someone is about to get badly hurt.
• They will talk nicely about the problem instead of fighting.
• They will go away to calm down.
• They will not hurt each other by hitting, kicking, throwing or in any other way.
• They will not use name calling.
• If they want what the other is playing with they will suggest other things to play with, play with something together instead, or take turns.

Any guesses as to how long they’ll stick to this?! If it lasts the afternoon, I think I’ll be happy!

The ideal:

• child gets to autonomously review work already done in class.
• the teacher gets feedback as to how much of the work has been understood.
• parent feels involved and gets feedback on the topics their child is learning about.

The reality:

• child sits at the dining room table, takes one look at it and bursts into tears. “I CAN’T DO IT!”
• parent tries to explain it in cack-handed manner using techniques that haven’t been seen in a classroom for the last 20 years.
• child gets even more confused and upset.
• parent gets frustrated and angry.
• session ends with a row or just nasty atmosphere with parent ending up virtually telling child what to write.
• rinse repeat every single afternoon after school.
• parent/child relations disintegrate totally involving lots of therapy for all.

The frustrating part is that I’m continually being told that Akra Jr is bright, enthusiastic and engaged, but the futility of homework in Key Stage 2 is driving all of us insane. God knows how the less bright ones are coping. I can’t see how this nightly torture is helping his learning at all.

At least I can delegate the weekly spelling test revision to the computer (thank you look cover). So that leaves his reading book which he’s hardly touched this week despite reading voraciously on his own, because Harry Potter is far more fun and interesting.

I honestly am beginning to think that homework at primary level should be banned.

… what goes through kids’ heads sometimes. I try not to make too many posts along the line of “hey look what cute thing MY child said today”, but I couldn’t resist sharing these two:

Akra Jr: “Did dinosaurs stamp on where our house is?”
Me: “I don’t know dear, I wasn’t there”
Akra Jr: “But Nana was…”

Just hope he doesn’t repeat that one in front of Nana – I’m sure she’d be thrilled to know that her grandson thinks she is around 64 million years old.

Li’l Bhaji: “I don’t want to be dead. I want to be Lego.”

My youngest son has some weird ideas about death at the moment (if ever I mention when he or I am older he’ll cheerfully reply “oh, when you’re dead?”) but this one takes the biscuit.

I think it’s something to do with Lego Star Wars game where they don’t really die if they run out of life, just respawn. It’s as good an afterlife theory as any, I suppose, and better than a good few.

Yes, this is the obligatory “my youngest started school today” blog post, so if the thought of reading yet another one makes you want to hang yourself or me (you know who you are!) then feel free to skip this.

For the minority who were curious as to how we got on (and the majority who really couldn’t give a toss either way but are currently wasting time before their next coffee break), I’d like to reassure you that I had a lovely, quiet, relaxing and peaceful afternoon.

Oh. And Li’l Bhaji got on alright too.

The end.

(No, really… he came home covered in pavement chalk from an art activity, I’m sure he had a fab time even if all he could be bothered to tell me is that he played with Lego).

(Edit: of course, the thought occurs that it might not have been an art activity and he may have mugged the teacher for her chalk. Then again, they have interactive white boards these days, so I think we’re safe).

My youngest son has had a Cuski since birth. Well I say a Cuski… he’s actually had several (spares for washing and replacements as they’ve fallen apart after intense loving), but only ever had one at a time.

It’s not that he’s been unaware of the existence of the duplicates, I never kept that from him, but it’s never overly concerned him. I suppose he treats them the same as pyjamas or bedlinen; for him, his Cuski is something that helps him calm down or get to sleep by sucking the label – a tool, not a beloved toy.

And now, suddenly, he’s decided he doesn’t want them any more. Stopped cold turkey. Settling himself without recourse to a friendly soggy label or by twirling the soft fabric around his fingers.

He wants them thrown away, but I’m not quite ready to do that yet. They’re hidden in the back of the airing cupboard, nice and warm and soft – just in case their owner ever feels the need to reclaim them.

He hasn’t yet.

My baby is grown.

There’s an old motto (from the Jesuits apparently, but I had to look that part up) which says “give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”. Or, in other words, it’s the first seven years of a child’s life which is the most crucial, the time where their personality and world view is fully formed for the rest of their days.

I find the concept terrifying.

It’s terrifying because my eldest son is now seven and when I look at him, I see the man he will become. Have I done a good enough job? I know I haven’t been the mother I should have been.

I have been short tempered when I should have been patient, distracted when I should have been involved and careless when I should have been sensitive to his feelings. The first seven years of his life have seen upheaval and change. The irony is, that while the early years of a child’s life are so important, they are also the most stressful and draining years for the parent (well at least until the teenage years – but don’t tell me about that yet, please!)

The traits I dislike most in myself, I see echoes of in my son. The silent sulks when he’s told off or not got his own way. The nasty cutting remarks to his brother when they disagree (almost direct copies of my worst waspishness when I’m bad tempered). The insecurities and the irrational fears. I look at them all and think… I did that and it’s too late to undo them.

But then I get a grip. A hug and a kiss for his brother when they say goodbye at the nursery door. An interesting intellectual conversation on the problems of the world on the walk to school. A morning cuddle. A glowing school report. His passions for reading, Star Wars and Lego. His friendliness and helpfulness. I had a hand in those too.

I love the boy with all my heart and soul and mind. And he’s going to make an awesome man.

… as it’s Li’l Bhaji’s birthday today – he’s FOUR!

I know he’s getting older as he put off breakfast until 10 o’clock because he was too busy playing with his birthday presents – now THAT would never have happened before!

Unfortunately, Akra Jr is being quite sulky – which is a shame, because Li’l Bhaji was openly cheerful during Akra Jr’s special day last week. So far Li’l Bhaji hasn’t noticed and isn’t spoiling his day, though. Hopefully Akra Jr will cheer up soon or we will be having words.

FOUR… who’da thunk it?

… Akra Jr is 7 years old today. My first baby. That can’t be right, can it?!

I celebrated by chucking away all the bibs, toddler cutlery and cups that have sat in a drawer – given that Li’l Bhaji is 4 in a week and hasn’t used any of them for the last 2 years, it seems a bit daft to still have them.

I shall commiserate with cake later on.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, the kids have really got into Star Wars lately. Li’l Bhaji and I were talking about all the characters on the walk back from nursery this afternoon.

He was pretending he had a lightsaber and was making the appropriate whummmm whummmm noises. I asked him who he was.

Apparently, he was his FAVOURITE character.

You know, Mummy.

Ben KeNobody.

We have now had it categorically confirmed why PC gaming is far superior to console gaming.

Akra Jr lent his Lego Star Wars II The Original Trilogy GBA cartridge to his brother. I erroneously assumed that the game was stored on the console not the cartridge, but in any case set Li’l Bhaji up on Game 3 save game just in case.

The only problem is, that when Li’l Bhaji gets bored and wants to start again, he switches the gameboy off and switches it back on again. That defaults any save games back to Game 1. And Game 1 is where Akra Jr had collected 20 characters and got through the majority of the levels.

All wiped.

Akra Jr is devastated. We had ten solid minutes of body-wracking sobs once he realised what had happened. It wasn’t Li’l Bhaji’s fault – after all, he can’t read let alone understand the “are you sure” messages he just clicked his way through. If anyone knows any cheat codes that can bring back specific characters to save Akra Jr having to play through the lot again, it would really be appreciated.

What it does bring home to me though, is how crap consoles are with save games. Even on the Wii with loads of storage space, the maximum you can save is up to 3 save games (great when you have 4 in the family who all like to play games). Some games only have 1 save game (now there’s a family argument about to happen). Very few of them allow you to change the name of the save game to remind you which save was which.

Now, I may be overly conditioned with Daggerfall, which regularly used to corrupt save games, but on the PC I am religious about saving multiple copies of every game I play. It’s named something obvious like “Pewari’s Game” or “Pewari pre-quest”. I save to lots of duplicate files so if one does get corrupted or I want to revert back to earlier in the game before I cocked up, I haven’t lost too much progress. There is no limit on how many save games I, or any other family member, can make. Well, apart from hard drive space.

With memory cards becoming cheaper all the time, why are console games so limiting?

Or should I just resign myself to buying two copies of every Gameboy game just to stop sibling armageddon?