Bringing Up Boys - it's not a 100m dash it's a marathon!

They're brilliant - aren't they?

It's dreadful isn't it when you have a higher sense of the worthiness of your child than the teachers and you don't even believe that you're really that biased. 

Of course you are aware he's a bubbly personality who's always on the move  but compared to your eldest he's a positive genius. Surely he HAS to be doing well?

But doing well is a relative issue.

As I said my youngest is a genius compared to his brother but compared to the other hot house flowers...he, as I found out, and by extension I, am sadly wanting.

It was all supposed to be so good. 

"Right Mrs B, Bog Boy!" she says it so brightly that I am totalling unprepared for the first cut. "Not the brightest chap, is he"

What? Well of course he is...he's a genius. He's always telling me so.

She pats my knee sympathetically and smiles. "He's not going to be top of the class..."

Oh, really, OK then...

"Reading - he is a bit behind and as for his writing..."

His writing is great it's already better than his brother's writing and Bog Boy is left handed

"His writing development is slow but it is better than The Boy's - I know I used to take him for extra English." she smiles again.

Oh Brilliant! Get two with one blow why don't you! I really don't like her smile...

"He hasn't really grasped punctuation and although he can be helped with capital letters, his spelling really lets him down."

Oh good grief! My hackles are up and I try to rally but that is my fatal mistake...

"I don't  really concentrate on his spellings as such, " I say  in what I think sounds like worldly authority. "I rather have my hands full with my eldest and trying to help him. I don't feel Bog Boy needs to be rushed at it so, as yet." 

But I am up against a master - I forget she's already retired twice...

"What a refreshing attitude," she chirrups, smiling again; "and you're quite right a child should be a child for as long as possible, it goes so quickly...."

My hackles are smoothed and I soften up.

"Perhaps you could bring mathematics into his play life with measuring, and weights and money" she says it as she would to a small defiant child and I swear she's about to pat me on the head as well.

Oh god I walked onto that one didn't I?

I begin to panic and hyperventilate and I feel suddenly very uncomfortable on the small blue plastic chair. She, of course, is sitting on a normal chair bolstering her position of ultimate superiority. I fluster.

"But he'll be OK to go into Year 3 won't he?"

"Yes, yes," I am told, "he'll be fine just not up there with the top of the class!" she says with another sympathetic pat on my knee.

And before I know it I am dismissed.

I leave in a daze and it's not until I am halfway home that I start to get enough life in me to get angry. "Right!" I think, "that's it. I'll show her, my kids are brilliant!"

I should have metaphorically ripped her to shreds.

"HOW DARE SHE!!! How dare she say that crap to me, how dare she pronounce via her crystal ball that my kids are not going to make it. I am determined to push my kids to the utmost throughout the holidays so that they are perfect in all their lessons when the new year academic year begins."

My dander is up. I know my kids can do it...
"Right no TV, no sweeties, no no no anything nice until work is done. Every Day! Two hours a day..

well maybe 45 minutes, children cannot concentrate for more than 45 minutes I remembered from somwehre. Music lessons. Extra sports coaching. Tutor?"

It's all beginning to sound very expensive and very time consuming.

I try not to think about the essay I saw that one of Bog Boy's chums had written and which I espied when I was waiting in the Year 2 Classroom. A whole page about a boy going on holiday with proper punctuation - even speech marks! And all joined up and it made sense.

"Oh heck! Even my eldest cannot do that!!!"

By the time I reach home all of 20 minutes later I am a gibbering wreck as I look with clear eye at the enormity of what I am trying to achieve.

And then I remember what they said about Winston Churchill being backward and at the bottom of the class - and he got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 as well as being Prime Minister! (oh they don't make them like they used to, do they!)

One has to hold firm and not panic the bringing up of boys is not a 100m dash, it is rather a marathon - just one I wish I didn't have to run too!

Bringing up boys: When age starts to count...(the quest to have his own puppy continues)

The Puppy In Question...

God I am so undecided!

Has he really done enough to earn one? Is he really mature enough to cope?

Half of me says: “Let him rise to the challenge even if you are unsure!” The other half says: “No Way! This is going to be a total disaster!

While I may be unsure, I do know that he has tried his very best. He has been helpful. He has cleared up when I asked without a murmur and under very trying circumstances, for while he is busy being good and doing all and sundry, his younger brother is allowed to get away with doing very little and that irks.

It irks, badly.

“It’s Not Fair!” is the refrain.

And I have to keep reminding him what he is doing it all for. Sometimes I think he wishes he wasn’t trying to earn a puppy. Sometimes

I think he just wants to forget it all and be allowed to go back to being able to just hang out.

It has been particularly hard now that they are back at school. For my eldest has homework that takes over and hour to do each evening while the younger boy just has to do a bit of reading and a few spelling – all of 10 minutes. I hate to inform my eldest but that is not going to change for quite some time.

I think he forgets that he IS three years’ older than his brother and now the difference in age seems enormous as my eldest really starts to grow-up.

It’s a combination of finally coming off his epilepsy drugs and just being 10 years’ old. Suddenly he can think clearly, concentrate, see and hear without anything getting in his way, he is more co-ordinated, able to take on instructions without us having to hover over him to make sure he gets it right. He’s more trustworthy – most of the time.

I’d like to say my youngest is taking everything in his stride too – but life isn’t that tidy.

Bog Boy is at his brother night and day making life difficult and I do know why. Suddenly he’s not the one who gets everything right, suddenly he’s not the one making great leaps and bounds in learning and sport and most anything you can imagine. He’s not the top dog he thought he was and he’s just a tad envious too of all the attention his brother is garnering.

It makes for an exciting household, car journeys, meal times, bedtimes, bath times….and it is so very difficult to be mature and ignore your pesky younger brother – and doesn’t your younger brother know it!

And that is where the rub is – can I say my eldest is mature enough to have a puppy when he gets so wound up by his younger brother that he thumps him? Screeches at him? Wails that life is unfair? Albeit with extreme provocation?

The coin is being tossed….

Bringing up Boys - Puppies, Boys and The Ultimate Challenge

Whippet puppy: Five days old

I don’t think that it was the cleverest idea I had and certainly not one that I should have voiced.

However, it’s over and one now and I have to stick with it come hell or high water. I promised.

Somewhere along the line I voiced my wish that it would be great to keep a puppy from the Wickedest Whippet’s latest litter. Never mind that we already have four dogs. I actually said I wanted one.

And I said it in my boys’ hearing.

Stupid woman!

“Really Mum?” says my eldest; the one who came to watch the puppies being born, the one who found the whole thing amazing, sickening and fascinating and yucky all at the same time. “Can we really keep one?”

It was too late to backtrack and he said it with such yearning and before I knew it I was tumbling back the years to when I longed for a dog too.

I could feel it gnawing at my soul, and it hurt just like it did then when I begged and cajoled my parents. When bliss for me was being left alone to play with other people’s dogs on long Sunday afternoons when we went round for interminably long lunches that drifted well into Drinks’ time.

Being the eldest child amongst my parents’ friends by some years meant that when I was little the only companions who could actually play with me invariably would be the dogs. Not that I complained.

And then there I was with my son looking at me with such longing. And I don’t know how but I agreed, and even got my husband to agree, that if my eldest could demonstrate to us that he was mature enough to look after a puppy then he could keep it.

This is now a MAJOR quest.

My eldest, aged 10, has to go from Zero to Hero in less than two months. It is a massive ask. From lazy slug-abed living in a bombsite with Lego IEDs littered everywhere, serious attitude problems especially when told to do anything, incapable of getting from Point A to Point B without getting  distracted or forgetting things to uber-organised angel boy at home and school.

It’s impossible!

This is probably the greatest challenge in his life so far and I am terrified he won't be able to do it. But he wants it so badly. He is trying SO hard - getting it SO wrong but for all the right reasons.

He certainly gets up without a mumur in the morning to do a list of jobs from letting the dogs out to laying the table and even bringing me tea in bed - problem is he's doing it at 5.30am in the morning. A tad too early for me but I can't tell him off can I?

He is focussed at last, he is working so hard and I am praying that he'll succeed.

Oh please wish him luck!

Puppies!!!!

 Such precious time wasters....

Bringing up Boys: the truth about the facts of life (a practical tale...)

Waiting For The Great Event

We've had puppies. Lots of lovely whippet puppies and it has been a tad chaotic; especially last Friday when at a quarter to eight in the morning I took my leave of a very pregnant whippet just before rushing off on the school run.

Seeing her staring at the moon and making whimpering noises, I soon realised that there was no way on earth I would be able to take the boys in to school - everything seemed so very imminent plus the fact that the wickedest whippet aka Sassy had grabbed my hand by this time and trying to get to school with heaving pregnant dog  clamped to my right hand while I drove the car wasn't going to be easy to explain to the local constabulary if I had an accident.

I made a call

The Boys could stay at home and learn first-hand all about the wonderful way Mother Nature worked.

Educational.

Exciting.

And it was Friday and I wouldn't have to drive anywhere - perfect!

There was a holiday atmosphere and the boys gleefully divested themselves of school uniform and prepared to hunker down in front of the telly.

"Oi! You Lot! No way are you watching telly all day! This is NOT a holiday. Tidy up and wait down here until I tell you that you can come upstairs to watch THE most amazing thing on earth!"

It was said brightly in an effort to get the boys on board with the day's educational programme but already I could see my youngest growing mutinous - he's never been that into our animals; I mean it took him nearly five years before he deigned to remember the names of the cats.

I will admit I hadn't really thought through the whole letting-the-boys-see-the-mother-nature-at-work thing properly and perhaps I should have been a tad more circumspect; after all nature is red in tooth and claw!

However, it all started out fine.

Both boys came up to see Sassy and sat quietly on my bed watching as I tried to explain what was going on. Luckily at this stage not much.

Sassy strained and whimpered and the boys could see she wasn't all that happy.

"Is she alright Mum?" said my eldest.

"She's Ok sweetheart, just a bit uncomfortable at the moment."

The dog started to pant heavily.

"Mum are you sure?"

"Really darling it's fine. It’s natural to pant like that. It helps ease the pain of the contractions which are pushing the puppies out."

The dog strained on time.

"Oh it looks like she's doing a poo"

"Yes you could say that..." I replied, thinking back to giving birth to him and flinching at the memories. Thank god I thought that I had had a caesarean - his head was enormous!

After watching for several more minutes he chirped up: "Do ALL girls have to do this?"

"Yes sweetie, they do." said I, being VERY worldly wise. "It's a thing all females have to go through in order to have babies, we are all the same. Arn't you lucky it won't ever happen to you."

I know, I probably laid it on a bit thick but that's what comes of living as the only girl in a household of boys.

Both boys were very quiet as they digested this thought.

"It's BOOORING," announced my youngest.

This IT generation have no patience so rather than force him to hang about any longer and become seriously annoying I let him off the hook. Boys will be boys I thought and just don't get it. My eldest took the opportunity to scarper as well and for a couple of hours it was just me and her communing in that most elemental way that all females do on the matter of life and producing it.

Finally at 11.45 it was the moment jus - the first puppy arrived and it was at exactly that moment that my eldest returned to the scene in time to watch in horror as my beautiful whippet atet up the placenta...

"Ewwww Gross! Is that what you had to do as well!!!!!!!..."

The wickedest whippet and the beginning of the longest night....

Sassy aka The EBJ looking unusually winsome and angelic...

It's been a massive secret but even I could no longer fool my husband into thinking the dog was just fat - she is very definitely preggers.

Up until a week ago you'd have been hard pressed to notice but now she just looks like an overweight  sausage dog on stilts. Gone is the slender waist, the sylph like form and in its place a roly poly pudding of a dog.
Whippets, when the are heavily pregnant, do not look like whippets and for a large part of the time don't act like whippets either apart from the nicking all and any edible morsel, and sometimes in edible morsels, they can find.
Mostly she's been asleep, or eating just occasionally in the middle of the night she's been nesting.
How do I know she does this in the middle of the night?
Because she wakes me up to help her.
She comes up to my bed rests her head on the mattress as close as she can get to me and stares until I awake. It is seriously disconcerting to wake up with your nose millimetres from your dogs face especially when you normally wear glasses.
Once awake she licks me to ensure I stay awake then she moves off to where she has been trying to make a nest and then looks at me again until I get up and help her to get comfy. I don't know why I bother because it seems like only minutes before she wakes me again to make her a nest in another part of the room.
Of course I could put her in the back kitchen, out of sight and harms way, but she just prefers to make her nests in my bedroom and I haven't the heart to stop her. I'd also worry myself senseless if she wasn't close at hand.
What if she got into trouble?
If the puppies were in difficulties?
If I needed to call the vet?
So she has had me up making nests and sorting her wheel ping box out at least twice a night for the past week and now finally tonight I think it is THE night...
I bet it's a long  one!

Musings on menfolk, missing socks and nefarious blond fluffy floozies

Could he really live without me?

Do you ever wonder if your family could live without you? I mean function as a unit through the mundane tasks of the daily grind? Do they know how to switch on the washing machine, work the dishwasher and more importantly know where to put the crockery afterwards?

I don’t think mine can, but it’s not as if I am one for doing everything for them.

Quite the reverse. Get ‘em cooking, cleaning and doing the housework as soon as possible is my motto. Every opportunity I have them hoovering and dusting and helping me out but it obviously fails to sink in.

And as for my other half – don’t make me laugh.

He’s just come in complaining he can’t find any socks. What DOES he do to them? He is always losing them.

I thought I had a fail safe system. I launder everything from Sunday to Tuesday and dry it all ready for ironing on Wednesday. On Thursday everything that isn’t being ironed is brought upstairs to be sorted. All odd socks go to an odd-sock drawer which EVERYONE knows about. This means that perfectly good socks are not thrown out when their pair goes missing for a couple of months weeks. Once sorted all clothing is put on the beds of each individual for them to put away in their chest of drawers and cupboards. So if socks or indeed any other undergarment goes missing it has to be the individual’s fault, for once it is in their room I take no responsibility for it at all.

Still doesn’t seem to stop them all from yelling at me to find everything for them. I wonder if they need their eyesight checked? Invariably the thing that they are searching for so assiduously I find immediately.

Are males hardwired to be helpless? I always thought that was what females were meant to be, or certainly that is the way it seemed in the all the fairy tales that I read as a child, where princesses had to be rescued from fire breathing dragons by knights in shining armour.

Or is it that males see the ‘whole picture, as my other half so predictably says, that it is difficult for them to concentrate on the details? Personally I’d have thought being able to feed oneself is a little bit more than just a detail in one’s life.

I do know of females who make their menfolk totally dependent. I find them weird and slightly creepy in a 'Stepford Wives' way.

It’s done so subtlety that the menfolk have no idea it is happening at all. They don’t understand that their independence and free will is quietly being sapped from them as they are offered slippers and ironed newspapers, along with an evening whisky on their return from a hard day at the office before a three course cordon bleu dinner by candlelight after which she asks for NOTHING at all but to sit at his feet and listen in rapt wonder to his pronouncements about the ‘State Of The World Today’.

Sort of Night of the Vampire Mummys…with Cath Kidson.

Scary.

No, I won’t let that happen to my boys, I’ll get them to see that that sort of thing is just a honey trap to make their brains turn to mush so that they can be manipulated by alien blond fluffy floozies whose sole purpose is to take over the world for their own nefarious purposes – such as making every girl in the world wear pink…

Not sure that any of that is clear but it makes up for the fact that I was the ditzy brunette that drove the car into a puddle and wrote it off….