The One With The Tena Lady

Since having the boy I do have quite a few 'oooops' moments, despite having had physio on 'that area' - yes physio! I try to remember to do my pelvic floor exercises, but a sudden laugh, cough, sneeze or jumping out of my skin at a firework, car horn, someone who thinks it's funny to go 'boo' behind my back, (delete as applicable), causes a bit of... well there's no polite way to put this.... leakage.
  
So when Mumsnet www.mumsnet.com/bloggers-network needed some of us bloggers to review the new Tena Lady Lights range, I jumped at the chance. Although I daren't jump that high you understand.

I'm sad to say that I haven't felt 'safe' going out without a pad on for several years now, but I was just using sanitary pads, which can be bulky. 

Before I go on I want to stress I don't just wee myself with gay abandon. We're talking small little leaks here not full on tsunamis. So the Tena Lady Lights range seemed perfect for me.

Thin and discreet there are four types of Tena Lady Lights, all of which I was kindly sent to try - in abundance. 

There are Light Liners, which are shaped to the contours of a ladies body and are only 3mm thin, so they are really comfortable and you barely know they're there. These are good if you're wearing smaller pants, not your Bridget Jones specials, or if you've got tight jeans or trousers on and you could feel self conscience, as they won't show at all. 

Then there are Liners, both loose in a box for using at home and single wrapped for popping in your handbag. Strangely enough I found the loose ones more comfortable and the wrapped pads a bit bulky, but they should be exactly the same at 3.5mm thick. I do however like having the pads wrapped, as they're easier to dispose of when you've got the packet to wrap around the used towel to put in the bin, (no flushing down the loo please). 

The last type are my personal favourite, the Long Liners. These made me feel very secure as they were nice and thin but covered the whole of my gusset (I know sorry - I never thought I'd write the word gusset in a blog post but this is important stuff).

I've been trying all of these for about 10 days now and I have to say I'm impressed. They absorb moisture well with no odour and most importantly stay put. There's nothing worse than a pad that keeps shifting about. After all, this is about feeling comfortable and secure, especially in social situations, so staying where they are supposed to is very important to me.

At £1.99 a packet, for any of the four types, they are slightly more expensive than the supermarket own brand sanitary pads I have been using. However they're not so expensive that the cost outweighs the quality and comfort. 

If you'd like to find out more about the Tena Lady Lights range then visit their website, http://www.lightsbytena.co.uk/ , where you'll also find some tips and an App you can download to help improve your pelvic floor muscles. 

I kid you not, there's an App to help you stop 'ooooping' yourself now!  

'I am a member of the Mumsnet Bloggers Network Research Panel, a group of parent bloggers who have volunteered to review products, services, events and brands for Mumsnet. I have not paid for the product or to attend an event. I have editorial control and retain full editorial integrity." 

The One With the C Word

No I'm not going to be really rude and use 'that' word.

I'm talking about Christmas.

This is our first Christmas at school and blimey the admin involved. I must have had at least one letter back home in the book bag everyday since the beginning of December.

Firstly there's been the school production where the boy was a snowman. Yes I know I don't remember there being a snowman at the nativity either, but then I also don't remember there being an Elf, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Santa there, but apparently they all were. He did really well bless him and hubby and I did the proud, slightly teary, parent thing. 

After that there was the Christmas lunch to book in for, then next week it's the school theatre trip. There's a parent 'bake off' too, as well as the class Christmas party, which requires you to provide party food to share, then the 'wear your own clothes and bring a toy into school day' at the end of term. Yes they still do that.

I can't keep up with it all.

And of course it all costs money! A £1 for this, a couple of quid for that. It all goes to school funds and I don't begrudge it, but it all takes some remembering.

Today's activity, in a seemingly never ending stream of Christmas fun, was the school fair and Santa was coming. This caused much excitement from the boy, who has been talking about Christmas since May. I'm not entirely sure he's ever really got over Christmas finishing last year to be honest.

Bugger his birthday it's all about the big C for the boy.

You paid £2 and then your child would be accompanied by their teacher during the afternoon to see Santa before the fair began. A kind of first dibs system for reception pupils before siblings all turned up at 3.30. 

So all the way to school this morning he was firing Santa related questions at me. 

When is he coming? Will he have a present for me? What will it be? What will he say? Where will he be? What does he look like? What time is he coming again?

Oh my god the questions! I answered them all patiently and as best I could, whilst negotiating the school run, the icy rain and the kamikaze lollipop ladies who dive in front of you at any given moment. 

Tonight I picked him up as usual and asked if he'd had a good day?

'I saw Father Christmas.' came the excited reply.

'And what did he say darling?' I asked expectantly 

'Ho, Ho, Ho of course' said the boy with a 'duh Mum' tone in his voice. 'Everybody knows that!'

And that's all he had to say about that. 

This answering questions lark obviously doesn't extend both ways it would seem......

The One With The Cat, The Mouse and the Jam Jar

Out of all of us in the Random household I'm always telling Bob Cat that she's no bother, because bless she is no bother.

Well she was no bother until the other day. 

I knew she was stalking something from the moment we got up, but I thought it was a spider. She would hunker down then leap about, next she'd stop very still and wait with her nose pressed to the floor desperately trying to look under the sofa.

I left her to it as she's a skitty kitty and always darting about so I didn't take too much notice, and then later I forgot all about it.

It was after I'd picked the boy up from school and we'd returned home that things developed. 

I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and get him a snack when I heard the boy calling me from the lounge,

"Mummy. We have a problem' came the fateful words.

'What is it darling?' I replied thinking it was probably that I hadn't put Frozen on yet!

The boy joined me in the kitchen.

'Mummy. There's a rat.'

WHAT??????

It'd all gone a bit Fawlty Towers. 

I raced into the lounge. Luckily it wasn't a full scale outbreak of the bubonic plague but there in the middle of the living room floor was a small grey/brown mouse lying on his side and not looking too lively. 

I deduced it's presence was Bob's work from earlier. Bless Oscar, but at 17 years old with the best will in the world he'd do well to catch a cold let alone a mouse.

The mouse hadn't been there when we first got in, so he must still be alive to come out from under the chair, where I assumed he'd been hiding since Bob's stalking spree that morning. So I took it he was playing dead.

The cats? Oh they were nowhere to be seen. Neither use nor ornament those two. They were asleep on the bed. 

'Can you get rid of it please Mummy?' asked the boy. 

He wasn't scared, just inconvenienced. This apparently dead mouse was currently lounging all over his Octonauts Deep Sea Octolab and he wanted to be getting on with his adventure thank you very much. There are no mice in the ocean. They are not legitimate sea creatures. We'll gloss over the fact Captain Barnacles is a polar bear; mice are not part of the game. 

I made that noise you do when you don't know what to do. You know the one. That sort of whining,

'Errrrrrrrr... ummmmmmm.....ahhhhhhh......'

Then a flash of inspiration struck me. I ran to the recycling and grabbed a jam jar and lid. 
The offending rodent was still laying motionless on the carpet so I tiptoed towards it and scoped Mr Mouse up with the jar. I popped the lid on the top and moved quickly to the front door, where I let the little fella go into the front garden.

All the time the boy was following my adventures and when it was done he clapped his hands enthusiastically and declared,

'Well done Mummy. That was brilliant. Can I have a snack now?'

'Yes of course you can darling' I smiled 'Just let me disinfect everything within an inch of it's life first.' 

Bloody cat......... 

The One With The First Week Back

I think half term discombobulated the boy.

Don't get me wrong, he loved being at home, seeing both sets of grandparents, trips to the zoo and the park, going bowling with some of his NCT mates, having play dates with Lemon Cake Boy and Vintage Songstress and her lad and finishing the week with a Halloween tea party and trick or treating.

We packed a lot in.

I just think, especially when he started playing up and being on the want all the time, that this holiday lark was slightly overwhelming. 

The boy needs structure. That has become abundantly clear this week on our return to school. On Sunday we talked about going back and getting everything ready again after half term. Luckily he didn't seem phased. I thought he might because when he was at nursery and pre-school he still went even during the holidays, albeit on shorter hours. The only time we ever had a holiday was when we actually went away somewhere. So the whole concept of half term and then going back was pretty alien to him.

I needn't have worried. When it came to pick up time from school on Monday he was like a different boy. 

Sat in the back of the car with his snack and drink he suddenly enquired,

'Did you have a lovely day Mummy?'

He then proceeded to tell me what he'd had for lunch and something about what he'd done that day. Unheard of. He's since been a darling all week. No bother at all. 

All a far cry from the screaming, sobbing child having a tantrum on the floor of the local museum gift shop because we wouldn't buy him an £18 dinosaur, which led hubby to unceremoniously pick him up and bundle him out of the door after our trip had lasted... oh.. all of 2 minutes. 

It was probably our fault for trying to do too much. School takes up such a huge chunk of the week that when you do get some time together there's this need to make it special. In reality the boy would've probably been just as happy watching Scooby Doo and Frozen over and over again whilst drinking strawberry milk and eating digestives. It's us parents who feel that we have to provide endless activities.

And for this I blame Facebook.

Confronted with constant statuses of ever more elaborate fun filled days out by parents and their kids over half term 'keeping up with the Jones' is now on a global scale.

And it's not just fancy holidays and self congratulatory selfies on family days out with everyone looking happy and no one crying or screaming or throwing their water bottle at a llama. My timeline is full of proud boasts of how little Johnny, who is probably only 3 and a half, can play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or is fluent in Arabic or can read the complete works of pissing Shakespeare already! 

I'm pleased for them, no I really am (she says through gritted teeth) but in this house it's all about little victories. If the boy picks up a crayon and does a scribble we feel like we're won the FA Cup. 

Maybe I'm just jealous because with a child with SEN, I don't feel like we have much to boast about.

So I gave it some thought and realised, yes we do..... yes we bloody well do.

So here goes. Excuse me while I have a damn good boast

The boy is:

Funny - he has a wicked sense of humour and can time a joke to perfection. He's a natural at it.

Creative - his imagination is amazing. He can also weave his current favourite book, TV show and film along with everything and everyone around him into a story.

Musical - he will sing, dance, drum and strum in time and learn the words to songs really quickly. He'll even start riffing new lyrics to tunes once he knows them well.

Kind and Caring - he doesn't have a spiteful bone in his body. He may be hyper and over exuberant at times but he never means any harm. He genuinely loves people and is just so happy to see you. He hates to see his friends cry and feels upset for them. 

Polite - he's got lovely manners even down to saying good morning to the cats when we all wake up. 

Playful - he immerses himself in his games but he doesn't always need toys to have a good time. Give that boy a pile of cushions, a blanket and some cardboard tubes and he'll build dens, forts and castles for hours. 

Good looking - I know I'm bias but the boy is proper handsome. If he does end up being 6ft 6in he could be a top model and keep his mum in style in her old age.

Loving - he tells us he loves us everyday and we tell him too. Then at night just before he goes to sleep he lists all the people in his life he loves. 

Helpful - he tidies his toys away at the end of the day without complaint and helps me cook and bake. He will lay the table and take his cup and plate out to the kitchen. 

He may not be showing many academic traits, yet, but he's the most gorgeous, gentle, loving, kind and wonderful little boy I've ever met and I'm honoured to be his Mummy.

I'll take that over being able to speak 10 languages and having grade 8 clarinet any day. 

The One With Half Term

So we've made it to half term! 

We've had no tears or major tantrums and the boy seems to be enjoying himself. He is however getting tired and I fear the novelty may be wearing off. He keeps asking,

"Where am I going today?"

When I answer  "School darling", he looks forlorn and exclaims "What again? I have been to school a lot you know."

I think he's ready for the break and I have to admit so am I. 

The school run isn't too bad, (7 minutes door to door if the traffic is ok), but I am still negotiating the politics of the playground, and I pride myself that I have managed to get to half term without having actually spoken to any of the other mums.

I know, I know I'm a miserable bugger, but to be brutally honest with you I can't be doing with getting into all that playground mum, coffee morning stuff.

To quote Lemon Cake Husband, when he went to their first NCT meeting, "I've got enough friends thank you."

The mornings are ok because there's no hanging about. It's pick up time that's the problem. That awkward 5 minutes between 3.15 and 3.20 when we stand shivering in the playground waiting for them to come out. I'm not blatantly rude and there are a couple I nod and say hello to, but I really don't want to start being chummy chummy, certainly not at this stage. 

My view is we're in this for the long haul and I want to let the boy form some friendships before I start getting chummy with the mummies.

Also I don't want to get coerced into 'helping out' with school trips, swimming lessons, PTA meetings or running the tombola at the school fete. 

I know I'm mean and horrible but I just don't want to be deal with other people's kids. I love my boy and my friends kids but quite frankly I can't be doing with the rest.

And I bet there's loads of mums who feel the same but aren't brave enough to say it. 

Just because I'm a mum it doesn't mean I suddenly became an earth mother. I'm much better with children than I used to be - I mean loads better - because I used to bloody hate kids. Even as a child I used to hate kids. I wanted to be with the adults and listen to their mystical adult conversation. I couldn't wait to grow up and be like them.

Be careful what you wish for hey!

You know how some girls from about aged 10 onwards are really good with young kids and display that 'motherly' instinct when they play with them? You'd have thought someone had poisoned me if you stuck me near a small child. Cuddling babies! No chance. 

I ditched the toy pram and dollies very quickly in preference of fluffy animals, who I used to marry off to each other most Saturday afternoons. I'd hold a mock service for the happy cuddly couple, followed by a bears wedding reception with tiny little sandwiches, bits of 'Mr Kipling' Victoria sponge and a free bar consisting of a selection of unopened miniature bottles of booze my Nanny had brought back for us off the Felixstowe to Hook of Holland ferry. 

I'd hold all this in the corner of our lounge, as close to the record player as possible, so I could be the DJ and spin those discs at the 'evening do', where yet more fluffs and stuffs would arrive. The light show for the disco would involve a torch and a variety of coloured wrappers from Quality Street chocolates, that were whipped in front of the light very, very quickly. 

You may think that this story shows a little girl who was desperate to get married, but no. I was a little girl desperate to be a DJ and party planner. As long as the guests were all made of nylon stuffing and fake fur and the buffet was in miniature then I was sorted. 

So I know the day will come when one of the mums approaches me to introduce herself, as 'our children seem to be such great friends' and 'maybe we should organise a playdate'? But until then I'm keeping my head down, nodding it occasionally and getting the hell out of that playground the moment the boy comes running towards me Because I'm dreading it. 

Unless of course their kid fancies playing 'bears wedding reception'? 

The One With The Great British Bake Off

My mate Clementine once suggested that I should apply for The Great British Bake Off. 

This was way back when it was still on BBC2 and 3 old ladies and a goat watched it. 

Not like it is now. Prime-time BBC1 with millions of people watching and those same millions all taking to social media to comment as they watch.

We've just this minute found out who has won this series and congratulations to Nancy. You're a better woman than I am.

Now don't get me wrong I can bake. It's not for nothing that the Lemon Cake family have nicknamed me 'Cakie', because I invariably have a freshly baked cake about my person. 
I'm not a bad baker. I'm not fancy though. I make a respectable plain cake. Ginger, lemon drizzle, carrot, chocolate, Victoria sponge - you know the score. I don't ice. I don't adorn. 
I don't decorate.

I don't make my own fondant! (feels the icy death stare from Mary Berry). 

So there's that against me, because as moist (snigger) as my cakes are I can't make the Taj Mahal out of them. Neither can I construct the Hanging Gardens of Babylon from shortbread. 

I make a lovely sausage roll but, as I haven't made pastry since I was at school, I buy it I'm afraid and the only bread I make involves a trick with a bottle of beer (oh grow up - not like that for goodness sake, people have got to eat it).

So all in all I'm on a non, sour dough, starter to be star baker.

But the main reason I can't apply for The Great British Bake Off is this.

It's nothing to do with Mary Berry looking disapprovingly at me when I say I've never made my own filo pastry (seriously who the hell does? even professional chefs don't do that).

It's nothing to do with hubby fancying Sue Perkins (do you want to tell him he's barking up the wrong tree with that one, or shall I?)

It's not even to do with wilting into a middle aged hormonal mess if I come within 5 feet of Mr Paul Hollywood.

It's this.

I'd swear.

I mean I'd really, really swear.

Proper swearing. Not just 'bloody hell' or 'oh bugger this'. It's so tense in that tent that, to quote Mrs Doyle in 'Father Ted',  I'd say feck and worse than feck!  

How in the name of iced fingers do they not eff and jeff like a docker? I would be effing and blinding with the best of them when it all went tits up or I burnt myself on a Swiss roll tin or someone left my ice cream out of the freezer! 

If my dough hadn't risen, or my cake had collapsed, there is no way on this earth I wouldn't utter my Mum's favourite saying "Well that's pissed on the matches!" 

Or when the steely eyed Hollywood was on the prowl, trying to un-nerve me, I couldn't help but muse "He's everywhere him, like shit in a field." 

They literally wouldn't be able to broadcast a single word I said. 

It's not that I'm a foul mouthed person in general it's just that when they're no kids about.. well I do like a a good swear up. Me and Lemon Cake Lady love a bloody good swear when we're away from the boys. We 'apply ourselves' to quote hubby. A good old fashioned, Anglo Saxon swear is relaxing. Just like baking. 

Only it's not relaxing baking in a tent with millions of people watching you and not being able to shout 'bollocks' when you've got your flavours all wrong and your meringue tastes of soap!

Lavender... my arse..... 

The One With The Jolly Phonics

You know in my last blog I said we've all started school? Well we really have!

It would appear that I have to totally re-learn how to read.

For those of you who don't have children, or children at school yet, let me introduce you to the wonderful world of phonics.

Or to be more precise, Jolly Phonics.

Oh and they'll jolly... they are really, really sodding jolly!

Children are now taught to read by sounding out the letters in words to essentially de-code them and that unlocks the mystery of reading. It's ages before they actually learn the name of the letters and do 'a,b,c' etc, they just concentrate on the sounds first. 

I have my reservations about this method, but every school does a form of it and it does seem to be working, so I've had to lay those to one side. Luckily the boys' school does use phonics alongside other reading methods, such as looking at the picture to help you tell the story, and good old fashioned memory, so it's not as sterile and I first feared. 

In Jolly Phonics each letter sound has a song and an action to accompany it, and this helps the children remember what the sound should be. Of course this is perfect for the boy who responds well to learning through rhyme, music and games, rather than traditional methods of sitting up straight and looking at the blackboard. 

Vintage Songtress, (who's son has also just started school), made a good point on Facebook the other day that once you've heard a Jolly Phonics song you can't un-hear it. She is so right. 

I'm delighted the boy is obviously learning but two things are happening. 

One, I can't get the bloody songs out of my head. 

Two, the boy, being the boy, is starting to get bored of the songs in their correct form and is riffing new lyrics to them.

As you can imagine this totally defeats the object, but he thinks it's hilarious.

One of the first letters you learn is 'a', with it's action being ants crawling up your arm, whilst singing the following, to the tune of 'Skip To My Lou',

'a, a, ants on my arm'
'a, a, ants on my arm'
'a, a, ants on my arm'
'They're causing me alarm' 

Well I've had ants everywhere but my arm these last few days. The little buggers have been in every nook and cranny according to my son. I keep trying to tell him that ants on my feet, head, shoulders and boobies isn't going to help him practice his 'a' sound, but that wasn't cutting the mmmmmm for mustard with him. 

I tried doing 'ants on my ankles' but after that I ran out of body parts beginning with 'a'. For a split second I toyed with ' ants on my arse' but that was just asking for a trip to the headmasters office, so I didn't go there. 

Would make a catchy song though,

'a, a, ants in the grass'
'They're nipping at my arse'

My other problem is that I keep forgetting what the sounds should be. Every letter has it's own sound, and some like g have two, then there's double letter sounds like ch, oo and au. 

Now I don't know if you remember how you learnt to read but I certainly don't. From the point I have any proper memories I could read so I've never given it much thought. I just know they didn't do it like this, thank goodness, because I would have struggled. Just pronouncing a 'nnnnn' is a feat of linguistic gymnastics. 

So it's back to school for me and hubby learning the alphabet and how to read all over again.

I'm just pleased they haven't set him any maths homework yet. 

I assume 1+1 still makes 2 otherwise we'll be screwed with that as well! 

The One Where We Start School

We've started school.

And yes I do mean we!

We've all started school.

Well that's how it feels, and run with me on this because it's not as selfish as it first appears, this is a massive change for me.

Well of course it's a massive change for the boy. It's huge. It's the biggest step he's had to take in his life so far. All children who started school over the last week or so are the same, and this is my point, that is well documented.

Starting school has been discussed, analysed and mulled over since kids first went into education. There are articles, blog posts, forums and books on the subject. You can disappear up your own bum reading them all - believe me over the summer I nearly did.

But what about us parents hey? 

I swear the last time a mum gets mentioned in dispatches is just after she's given birth, when all the texts, Facebook posts and e-mails declare, "Mother and baby doing well."  
After that we're out the picture mate. No one gives a stuff.

Over the last fortnight I have heard stories from friends struggling to cope with drop offs and pick ups as school and nursery times don't coincide. Or a younger sibling having a meltdown because they're stuck in a car seat or buggy due to multiple journeys. Tired 4 year olds falling asleep in the car after school on the way to collect their brother or sister from nursery, then not going to bed at a reasonable time. The pressure on mums to take on more work hours now term has started and trying to juggle that with school runs. Tears and tantrums everywhere. 

And that's just the mums and dads! 

So this starting school malarkey is tough on us parents too. 

I'm not that hard faced though, I had a cry in the car on the way home from dropping the boy off at school on his first day. In fact I've pretty much had a tear everyday since and he's been going 2 weeks today. It's just the boy starting school has had a bigger impact on my life than I realised it would. 

The whole pattern of my week is different and the whole rhythm of my day has changed.

We no longer see Vintage Songstress and her boy on a Tuesday, we can no longer just pop over to see Lemon Cake Lady and associated Lemon Cake family on a whim for a mid morning cuppa. Gone are trips to the park and the beach. Our Wednesday pyjama mornings together are no longer. 

Yes I know we have weekends, half terms and holidays but somehow, right now, it's just not the same.

Damn it all I even miss CBeebies!

But above everything, I miss my boy. 

He has to grow up, to go to school, to develop and learn and find his feet in the world. It's all inevitable and I can do nothing to stop it, nor do I want to but.... well.... I just miss him that's all. 

I miss our snack at 10 and a walk up the park, posting a letter, jumping in the car for a trolley adventure at the supermarket, a trip over to Nanny P's to play in the garden and an ice cream at the seaside after a walk along the beach.

I miss the freedom we had to do as we pleased. Not being tied to someone else's timetable. 

I miss our time together. 

However I find it's not something many parents will admit to. That they miss their little one and they feel lost, overwhelmed and disorientated by the new routine. Maybe the Facebook generation, posting pictures of their little darlings resplendent in their freshly pressed school uniforms on their first day (and I did that too), are all too busy boasting about how better their child is than anyone else's to confess they don't want any of this to happen?  

You've seen the kind of statuses I mean,

'Doesn't Tarquin look lovely in his Royal Blue uniform. It's pure silk and hand woven by nuns. Here you see him on his first day clutching his school book (War and Peace - in the original Russian of course) and his lute - he's already on Grade 5'

My status would read,

"Here you see the boy who's clutching my hand... because I don't want to let it go'

But we move on and the boy is doing fine. He surprises me everyday and we've had no tears, no 'I don't want to go to school' or any major problems so this is all I could wish for.

In fact on his first day, when I picked him up in the afternoon the teaching assistant said he'd been entertaining them by re-enacting scenes from 'Wallace and Gromit and The Curse of the WereRabbit'!

"He's had us in stitches today' she said 'He's quite the actor your boy'. 

Looks like they've got the measure of him right from the start. 

I wish I could have seen it......

Roll on October half term hey...... 

The One With The Impressions

The boy has a knack with voices. 

He switches off when he hears mine but otherwise he seems to be developing a talent for 
accents and impressions.

The performer in me is very proud of the speed at which he can just take someone off. The sensible side of me worries that one day I'm going to get thumped when he does it in public to the wrong person.

The boy does a scarily accurate impression of Nanny P and on Monday, on his first ever bus ride, (yes I know he's 4 and a half, that's one of the reasons I wanted him to go on one before he starts school, it's a '50 things to do before you're 5' type of thing), he started doing an impression of me.

We discovered this talent for mimicry on holiday, when we spent a day at Drayton Manor theme park to visit the boys spiritual home, Thomas Land. 

For a start I thought he was going to spontaneously combust with excitement as soon as we walked through the gates. Also hubby and I had discussed getting a second mortgage just to get round the gift shop, but in the end we got away with one train (bought with his holiday spending money), a window sticker and a small book and the boy had probably the best day of his life so far.

However, when we were waiting to get back onto the little Thomas train that linked one part of the park to another (and boy did we go up and down on that train a lot that day), a man with a thick Scottish brogue called his little boy to come closer to him. It wasn't the full Glaswegian but it was pretty strong as accents go.

"Frasier, Frasier" called the guy.

Like a parrot, the boy immediately copied him and called the name out twice himself. 

I don't think the chap heard, or if he did he was too polite to say anything, but I was filled with a mixture of admiration at the speed and accuracy of the impression and down right fear someone was going to get punched.

Then it happened again late one afternoon in our local Co-Op. I'd taken the boy to buy sweets to decorate the cakes we'd baked for his last day at nursery. As we were choosing we heard a lady, obscured from our view and from two aisles across, say in a reasonably deep Suffolk accent,

"Do we need any bread?"

The boy mimicked the way she said bread instantly. 

'Bread? Bread?" and then finished it off with the surreal, 'Pirates eat bread."

"Yes that's right they do dear- Pirates eat bread." I added to make it sound like I was having a perfectly normally conversation with my four year old and he most definitely wasn't taking the piss out of this woman we couldn't see! 

But just to be on the safe side we ducked round the back of the shop and looked at the tinned goods until I was quite sure she was gone.

So today the boy starts school and with his talent for voices and impressions I'm hoping he'll be a popular lad with his classmates in the playground.

I just hope he doesn't take off the teachers.... well not on his first day anyway. 

The One With The Theories

I saw my friend Titfer Tat yesterday. She's been a teaching assistant for a year or so now, so I asked her about the boys lack of skills with holding a pen. I put forward the theory that he hasn't yet decided if he's left of right handed. TT said lots of children his age still hadn't decided that, and not to worry, but the thing to do was to offer him a rolled up piece of paper. Whichever hand he took it with would be his dominant side.

When she and her girls left I tried the theory out.

The boy took the paper with both hands. 

That's my boy! 

This complete disregard of, supposedly tried and tested, theories relating to raising children reminded me of another time when the boys natural, 'I'll bugger that up', gene came to the fore.

Lemon Cake Lady had started counting down from 5 to get Lemon Cake Boy to do as he was told. She had read the theory that if you counted to 10 a defiant child would carry on counting, but if you counted down from 5 to zero, to give the child chance to comply with your wishes, then they have nowhere to go. If you reach zero and they still haven't done as they were asked, then you discipline them with the naughty step, taking a toy away or whatever your particular method is. The theory is that eventually they will do as they are being told before you get to that point. 

Whoever came up with this hadn't figured on the boy!

I tried it out when the boy was playing me up about something.

5...... nothing

4..... come on darling

3.....  still nothing

2..... I'm waiting

1..... still not doing as he was told

0...... that's it! 

Did he suddenly comply for fear of losing out on TV time or similar?

No of course he didn't.

He stood in front of me, raised his arms in the air and shouted,

"Blast off!"

Then he took off like a rocket around the room.

You try not laughing.........

The One with The Transition Meeting

A week or so ago the boy had the second of his trial mornings at his new school, this time with a packed lunch (the week before it was a proper school dinner - and by proper I mean pizza, chips and spaghetti hoops - an eclectic mix).  He loved it and has talked of little else but, 'When can I go to my new school?' and 'When can I go back and see my new teacher?' 

He's slightly in love with his new teacher Mrs R. In fact we are now using her as a disciplining tool, 'Mrs R will be disappointed if you do that' and so on.  It's working, but I don't want to play that card too much, especially before he has even officially got there.

When I picked him up he wanted to say goodbye to Mrs R, which involved actually throwing his arms around her and giving her a massive smacker on the lips. She was slightly taken aback but genuinely touched, although I did say it was probably best not to do that everyday at home time.

That same week we had our second speech and language appointment. The last time we went in April the boy 'baffled' the SLT with his inconsistency. 

Well have you ever met a consistent 4-year-old boy? 

By their very nature 4 year old boys are unpredictable and as good as gold one minute then a ball of incoherent, incomprehensible rage about the slightest thing the next.  Add to this what Lemon Cake Lady has so rightly defined as the 'buggering about gene' from my side of the family, and you can have all the health care experience and qualifications in the world, but nothing can prepare you for the boy.

This time it became apparent that he quite frankly could not be arsed. To be fair if you were taken into a strange room, with a strange woman, then shown a load of pictures and had questions fired at you about them, would you be arsed and inconsistent? 

I think you might.

He wriggled, he squirmed, he changed the subject. He complained he was too hot, he was tired, he was bored, in fact he did everything he could to get out of answering the questions about the pictures in front of him. 

A distraction technique quite obviously, but why? 

Because he didn't know the answers? Because he didn't understand the questions? Or because he couldn't be arsed and he's a 4 year old boy with a wicked sense of humour and a very defiant, stubborn streak when it comes to authority figures?

Hmmmmm... time will tell....

To top the week off  we had a transition meeting at the new school with Mrs R, the schools SENCO, his key worker from preschool and their SENCO. The heath care worker was supposed to come too but she cried off sick, which to be fair I wasn't all that bothered about as she hasn't seen him since March!

A lot has changed with the boy since March!

I told them what had happened at the SLT appointment and how the boy wasn't interested in flat, 2 dimensional pictures, but had come alive with chat when a toy farm came out. We talked about his transition from pre-school to primary school and the support he'll need. Mrs R is lovely and has the air of a lady who isn't phased by any of this and has seen it all before.

'He'll be fine' she said and I'm inclined to believe her. He has some one to one support to start with and we'll assess how it's going as the reception year goes on.

Tonight I have my last parents evening at preschool before the boy leaves in 3 weeks time. I've always felt a bit odd about parents evenings for children so young. It's like the 'Graduation Ceremonies' they have, all a bit made up! 

So maybe that's how I feel about this whole 'your son is a bit different and doesn't tick all our boxes' scenario?  While the situation itself is real, the boxes the various professionals have to tick are 'all a bit made up'. 

As parents we are constantly being told not to compare our children with their peers and that kids all develop at different rates, but when you get a child who genuinely does do that, the charts, reports and check lists come out in full force.

I can't tell you how many tears I've shed over this whole thing since last October and I'm sure they'll be some more to come, but I feel heartened by his progress everyday and by the positive attitude of Mrs R. He's finally starting to ask 'Why?" questions and be a bit interested in letters. OK, so he can't read or write his name, because he can't hold a pen properly, but that's because he never sits still to take the time to do it. We're working on it with paint and sticks in sand and developing his gross motor skills so they can work down to those fine ones (thank you to my dear friend and teaching assistant Titfer Tat for explaining all that to me).

I'm sure he's not the only child who'll start school in September as a 'clean slate', unable to read or write at present. In some ways that's a good thing. I frankly can't get the hang of phonics yet and I'm worried I'll give him the wrong sounds anyway so much better to let Mrs R do what Mrs R does best.

I just hope that when the boy does eventually learn to read and write he doesn't go and snog her face off ... because I just might.....