rmc28 | Entries tagged with parenting

You may have noticed it's been hot in England. So a lot of this week has just been the extra routines to cope with that (airing out the house at night / early morning, extra hydration, more naps).

It was a three-day week at work for me, with Monday my travel day back from Prague, and Wednesday a multi-errand day. Tuesday was a hectic day at work, but a rare evening with very few plans, so I actually rested. Wednesday had EHCP review for one child; a lunchtime skating lesson for me; a school bowling trip, hospital appointment and shopping all with the other child; and then Kodiaks practice in the evening.

( lots of ice hockey )

This week and next are 4-day weeks at work for me; I am having a long weekend away in Portsmouth with one of my oldest friends from university. Probably my only trip away this year that isn't directly about ice hockey. (But there is a rink in Gosport and both of us skate.) We plan to visit the Mary Rose, and I at least want to visit both the Submarine Museum and the Explosion Museum. I have been intrigued by the latter since I saw a road sign for it on the way to Gosport rink last month, but haven't yet found anything else about it apart from name and location. No spoilers!

Last week I dragged C to see the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival production of Macbeth, as it's outdoor theatre and has been for decades. Also he's going to study the play next year for English GCSE so I wanted him to get to know it before he learns to hate it. (Possibly this is not the inevitable result of studying a text for English GCSE but it was for me and every text I had to study. Romeo and Juliet was eventually redeemed for me by Baz Luhrmann but pretty much everything else has remained in the "I would not read it again if you paid me" box.)

It was my first live theatre since late 2019 (since March 2020 if we count cinema-broadcast Cyrano de Bergerac) and at first I was just so delighted to be watching! a! play!, but it turned out as it went on that I do still have Opinions about how actors are playing roles. I thought Macbeth did a good descent into madness, complete with gratuitous losing his shirt, but I thought Lady Macbeth was disappointingly one-note obsessive / intense / already mad from her first scene. Anyway, C didn't hate it and we talked a bit about it on the way home, and then I inflicted Mitch Benn's version on him once we got home.

Anyway, I am of the firm opinion that the best way to really get to know a Shakespeare play is to watch multiple different productions. I have found two films on Amazon Prime: a 2011 film starring Patrick Stewart and a 2015 one starring Michael Fassbender, which will probably do to start with. I'd love some more recs (or disrecommendations of either of these films!), if you have them, for productions we can stream or get on DVD.

Snooze Airlines worked moderately well for shifting my body clock at least the first few days, but I underslept both Friday and Saturday, and had less sleep this morning (after my lovely dawn walk) than I'd hoped to shift back. But I think an early night tonight and careful attention in the next week should sort me out.

I was feeling a bit guilty about not spending much of my one solid week off work this year with the children, but then I realised that literally every other day of leave I take this year has been and will be for the purposes of school-wrangling and/or hanging out with them. So maybe prioritising my own interests this one week is not so bad.

I went to a lot of panels and five klatches, and mostly had a good time doing so. I learned on the first day though that I need to make notes as the panel goes, or the interesting discussions go in one ear and out the other, and I've forgotten all the main points a few hours later. I have SO MANY notes to write up and SO MANY reading recs to look forward to reading, and a whole new load of people I'm following on twitter or subscribed to blogs/newsletters, and Tony & I are now Adult Friend supporters of Glasgow 2024. (I, perhaps foolishly, ticked the box saying I was interested in helping with the Con too.)

And back to work tomorrow! Not as rested as I'd hoped but I think refreshed.

It's the weekend! I am no longer trying to work or support school work, and won't again until Monday. Phew.

( review of the week )

The weather was so nice this afternoon that we put the exercise trampoline on the patio for fresh-air bouncing, and that worked really well. I cleaned off its feet before bringing it back inside, and will happily do that every day if this weather continues.

And a short while ago, Tony and Charles and I went into the back garden and saw the ISS pass overhead, thanks to

ceb mentioning it yesterday and linking to https://www.meteorwatch.org/iss-international-space-station-times-uk-spring-2020/. I'm going to try to watch it the next few evenings as well, it makes me feel oddly connected to people outside my house, watching a small metal container of people falling forever past this planet.

It has been A Week: this household is now entirely WFH and homeschooling until further notice. I've come up with a trial timetable for the next week, and we'll no doubt iterate and improve it. But whatever happens I'm going to have far less leisure time than Before.

Each child's school has provided assigned work and we'll do our best to support them through it. There's also oodles of resources for homeschooling being circulated, but I'm currently too overwhelmed to sort through it all.

What I could really do with right now are recs for:

Maths games, for school years/grades 3 through 6, with no competitive element - no racing the timer or leaderboards or anything that stresses a demand-avoidant person at the best of times. Can be browser or Android app, could be Steam at a push, but PC time is at a premium around here.
Exercise videos, suitable for children and/or those with short attention spans, which can be done in a smallish space (2x3m). We have an exercise trampoline, which is doing sterling service, and we can (currently) go for long walks, but we could do with some variety.

I read a really good thoughtful long piece about parenting and the choices parents make about what to share about their children, written in response to a terrible editorial which I did not like at all and am cordially not linking to. In any case, the piece mostly stands alone:
https://drakkinabrarian.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/posting-as-a-parent-on-the-internet-do-remember-your-child-is-a-person/

This is a thing I have become more thoughtful about as my children grow up. I don't post as much detail in unlocked posts as I did when they were small. I'm more careful about what photos I post - and I would as a matter of course take down any photo if they wished me to. For the last year or two I've been explicitly asking for Charles's permission before posting anything about him, including to the private groupchats I'm on with family; Nico I'm still mostly telling after the fact rather than getting permission in advance, but I can see that balance shifting. I don't know if I'm getting it right, but I'm trying.

I don't watch much TV for myself, but I do often stream CBeebies shows for Nico, and some of his choices lately I've enjoyed a lot.

Do You Know has Maddie explain how things work, often using one of her "special cameras" e.g. an IR camera to look at the hot water in a bath, or a slow-mo camera to watch an automated recycling sorter. Each episode is 14 minutes long and covers two "things", not always obviously related (e.g. Episode 2.1: Shipping Container and Bubble Wrap), with a bit of a recap at the end. There are two series, I think both with 25 episodes, of which some random rotating selection can usually be found on iPlayer.

Catie's Amazing Machines only started a couple of weeks ago (we're up to episode 13). Catie's a rally driver, and in each episode she introduces (and often drives) three different machines on a theme e.g. today's was Snow Machines, yesterdays' was Underwater Machines, and so on. There's little bits of filmed responses from small children, and everyone gets encouraged to choose their favourite. Nico's favourite is often different from Catie's. Again, 14 minutes long.

CBeebies Stargazing turns up every now and again with a week-long 5-episode series presented by my favourite TV scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock alongside Chris and Robert the Robot. They've also managed to rope in Tim Peake in at least two of the series (there was a bit in one of the previous weeks where he was filmed on the space station answering questions from the Miss Mouse puppet and I was slightly in awe of the reach of the BBC). The fourth week is currently on iPlayer, but they don't seem to get repeated, nor can I find them to buy anywhere.

Numberblocks is five-minute mostly-musical episodes about animated numbers 1-10 (and occasional guest 0), which manages to sneak in a lot of practice of adding, subtracting, number bonds and patterns. Series 3 in particular has provided a lot of entertainment, and ended with a brilliant noir spoof in The Wrong Number.

And finally, Gudrun: The Viking Princess is a set of five-minute adventures of a little Viking girl (lots of lovely period costume and setting), heavily focused on Scottish wildlife and landscapes. And it's available in Gaelic too. A little extra nerd bonus is that the English voiceover for Series 1 is provided by David Tennant (but not the Gaelic, and someone else does Series 2).

First day of half-term: the children were united in wanting a pyjama day, while I made a to-do list of the many (many) tasks accumulating during the week.

I've stripped and remade two beds, run the dishwasher 4 times, the washing machine 5 times, the tumble-dryer ditto (well, it is running load 5 now). I also managed to cook a roast-in-bag whole chicken for lunch for the three of us, along with copious veg, and turned the carcass into stock and then soup, which has turned out satisfyingly tasty. This is more cooking than I normally ever do, but it's the sort of thing Tony does quite often, and I was missing him a lot.

I also dealt with headlice, about which the least said the better. I could wish for one of Bujold's sorcerers venting disorder.

Tony gets home tomorrow evening, probably just after the end of Doctor Who. Hurrah.

We're more than halfway through Tony's absence due to work conference. The house is not entirely disastrous and bedtimes have mostly been observed, but I am very tired. I have finally done Yet Another Tedious Piece Of EHCP Paperwork and it's ready to post in the morning, hurrah. Two short emails related to it to send, and then I can reward myself with something fun.

Next week is half-term, which seems to have arrived much sooner than I expected. I have the entire week off work and some ideas of Fun Things To Do, but I really want to get the children involved in sorting out the plans for the week. I think post-it notes and the whiteboard may be involved.

Of course, that also means I have only today and tomorrow to finish off all the things I need to do at work before disappearing for a week ...

ETA: Did the two short emails, thought I'd start sketching a half-term plan on the whiteboard, but it needs a serious scrubbing. *sigh*

The thing I am currently particularly hating about the process of seeking support for children with additional needs is the way we have to document everything at its worst on the worst days; we have to fill out lengthy documents about how difficult and disruptive and generally hard work they are, and how much they are struggling, and never talk about how brilliant and delightful and wonderful and amazing they are.

And then for some reason I find myself feeling miserable and useless and a failure as a parent[1] I WONDER WHY. And then it's harder to look after them, and harder to keep up with the paperwork, and I end up second-guessing all my life choices. Sometimes it makes me want to burn everything down and start again, except that's what villains do.

(And yes, it is probably harder as a disabled adult advocating for oneself and for sure it is not as hard as being the child trying to navigate the world that is not designed with them in mind. I'm not trying to be the disability-parent making it all about me. I'm just finding it hard a lot at the moment.)

[1] for clarity, I mean my failure to support them enough directly, and to cause sufficient support to be provided for them in school; I emphatically do not see my children's additional needs as a failure on anyone's part.

Yesterday afternoon I reached the stage of the cough where I feel like I will never ever be well again, I don't even remember what it's like not to have a cough, everything is awful and I am doomed to be sick and frail forever. From experience, this means I will be over it in about 2 more days, 3 at most. I'll still feel rotten for most of that time, but now I recognise this pattern it's much easier to cope with.

We had family tickets for a "Relaxed Performance" of a local pantomime today, but neither Tony nor I felt up to leaving the house, so none of us went. I got an apology email from the theatre this afternoon, which implies that one of the actors was either hurt or drastically unwell during the performance, meaning it had to be stopped part-way through. I'm glad to read that the actor is "recovering well and being looked after", but I'm even more glad we didn't go; the children would have found the disruption distressing, and Tony and I would have been worried about the actor. (And of course, the audience that seeks out a Relaxed Performance is even more likely than most to get upset by unexpected disruptions - what bad luck all round.)

Anyway, we are having an even more quiet and retiring seasonal holiday than planned, but thankfully the children seem happy enough and able to mostly keep themselves entertained.

We have almost made this a habit now, I think - for most Sundays of the last two months, I have got me and the children out to the Fun Splash session at our local pool. Everyone seems happier on days when we manage this, and it's a habit I intend to keep up as much as possible.

Today Nicholas threw a most epic tantrum about a last-minute change of plans (he does not like sudden changes in plans) and I exercised most of my Parental Diplomacy skillset in getting him to calm down and get changed, after which he basically trotted off to the pool as if nothing had happened. He can't quite swim independently yet, but he's had nearly two terms of lessons now, and is growing in confidence and abiity. Today, he spent a considerable amount of time cheerfully experimenting with ducking himself underwater and swimming back up, utterly trusting me to pull him up if he had any difficulty. So much fun for him, so much Obvious Parenting Metaphor for me.

... instead of the piles of clothes that have been obscuring them. I think about 18-24 months' worth of outgrown children's clothes, plus a lurking stash of rags, and a surprise stash of clothes which I must have put aside for Nicholas to grow into - they happen to fit him perfectly now, hurrah! He is very excited about them. I filled 2.5 Really Useful Boxes with size 8-10 years clothing, have several packages to send to smaller relatives, another bag of recycling, and a half-full Bag For School which can go in on Friday week.

Sorting out the clothes was a blocker on the big job I really want to get done this weekend, which is moving Nicholas into what was our spare room. Sharing a room is triggering a lot of arguments between the children, and we always intended to give them a room each eventually, we're just advancing the timetable. But so much stuff to move around to make it work, ugh.

We were away just under 22 days and we've been home a bit over 48 hours, and work / holiday club start up again tomorrow, plus I have to go get a bone marrow sample (bleh). We got the unpacking and post-opening done Saturday evening. Yesterday and today we have been mostly going splat and chilling, with a shopping trip for me and the children this afternoon. (Build-A-Bear, new school shoes for Nicholas, and then a bunch of new sleepwear for both of them because they were smitten as we walked past on the way to the shoes.)

The holiday was much harder on the children than I'd expected, to keep changing location so much. The journey legs themselves mostly went well, all with their share of Children Are Bored, but also all with a fair share of Children Finding It Exciting. The bigger problem was that settling into a new place to sleep every few nights was Too Much for them, and Worldcon was too big and intimidating. They were stressed, which stressed the adults too. So we did a lot less tourism and a lot more chilling-out and going-swimming than I'd envisaged, and I did a whole lot more emotional labour than usual (from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, etc) and everyone got home a bit tired and fed up with each other and very, very glad to be back in our own territory.

In terms of lessons identified:

Charles doesn't want to go to another convention again unless he's sure it's on topics that interest him. Unfortunately most of the children's track at Worldcon didn't work for him, and by the time we realised that, he was in a place where he didn't want to engage with me trying to find things of interest to him, he just wanted to stay away from the con.
While the rail-trip approach works for me and Tony, the children really just want to go to a place, stay there, do a gentle mix of touristing and chilling out, and go straight home afterward.
Three weeks was probably too long for everyone, though it's hard to separate that from the problems of moving too frequently. Two weeks is probably a good maximum for future family holidays.
Multi-room apartments with self-catering capability is definitely preferable to hotel rooms, and Airbnb worked well for us. (There was some difficulty getting into our flat in Stockholm, which is its own story, but the Airbnb customer service were helpful and supportive and once we were in, everything ran smoothly.)
When I'm not working, and not studying (much), even with the extra load of looking after my over-stressed little family, I have SO much energy. I only had 2 migraines the whole time away (one during Worldcon, one on our last day) and both were controlled by sumatriptan. In another two weeks I'll have finished studying entirely (for now).

I'm glad we went. If I were to plan it all over again I'd do it differently, but I didn't know then what I know now. I particularly want to go back to Copenhagen for longer, and to see more of Stockholm than we managed.

0.5 days of the new school year, before Charles was sent home with a stomach bug.
36 more hours before he can go back (fingers-crossed he seems to be over it now).
12 hours today before my own stomach settled enough to eat something resembling a meal.
1 OU assignment submitted, 6 days before the deadline.
5.5 days to go until the exam in the other module.

1 day before the websites for the next two modules open.

14 days before Nico also starts school.

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/503107.html

Things achieved today:

evicting half a dozen wasps from the living room
soothing child terrified (but unstung) by wasps
getting fanf to locate wasp nest
booking wasp extermination for tomorrow
taking child to gymnastics, with bonus social time for me
booking child's birthday party sufficiently in advance to get desired date (unlike last year)
4.5 hours of OU study

Things not achieved today:

attending OU tutorial
eating any vegetables at all

Things to do in the next nine days:

complete and submit final assessment for intro-to-engineering module
revise for and take exam for management accounting module
take N for visit 1 of 2 to school & after-school club
visit my mum and stepdad before their epic trip around the world (we will next see each other in Helsinki next year)

Also,

fanf wrote about his rather-too-exciting trip to the supermarket last weekend, with bonus beard photos.

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/502877.html

We've been holidaying in York this week, just the four of us. At some point I may post photos but right now I never want to move again. What we did:

visited York's Chocolate Story
found a local playground for the children
found a man blowing enormous bubbles near the Minster
had lunch in the basement cafe of the Treasurer's House
found our way to Rowntree Park, and back again via the Millennium Bridge
took an evening boat tour
visited the National Railway Museum
took the bus to Castle Howard and spent a lovely day wandering the grounds
had a delicious meal at Mason's with an incredibly nice server
visited all three of the Barley Hall, Richard III Experience & Henry VII Experience, and walked around a large portion of the city walls

I couldn't help comparing with Bristol a year and two weeks earlier: short version is I was much less breathless, but much more easily tired. However, I did at least have more stamina than in Llandudno 2.5 months ago. I did crash one day mid-week and had to spend most of an afternoon and evening zonked out on the hotel bed. Sadly that was the day we went to the NRM: I left early and got very little out of the time I did spend there, so I think I will need to go back again sometime.

I think that was the last time I will ever book all four of us into a single family room for more than one night; we all need more alone time than was possible to achieve, and I'm giving up on all but essential plans for the weekend as a result, plus it gets ever harder to get the children to sleep when we are still awake in the same room. (And they still wake up at least an hour before I want to.) I think either adjoining hotel rooms or holiday cottages / apartments are the way to go, even if it does cost more.

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/501440.html

I went to a short meeting at school to confirm arrangements for Nicholas's start in September. They are being more flexible than when Charles started: for the first ten days of term, they are offering half-day drop-ins for the new starters, but leaving it up to parents which days and how many sessions to sign up for, suggesting a minimum of two. Then they are starting the children full time, in three waves. Nicholas is in the last wave, presumably because he's among the youngest. So we are able to start sorting out logistics, what days off we will need, giving notice at nursery, and so on.

Charles's class ran an assembly for the rest of the school, showing what they've been working on. One of those things was filming and editing montages of themselves doing sports, and Charles's montage was one of the ones selected to be shown. I was terribly proud :-)

Tony and I began our couples counselling with Maggie's Wallace, which seemed to get off to a good start.

I went out and socialised last night with lovely people.

Although I was very tired this morning, I have managed to be sensible and pace myself and get essential things done but not exhaust myself.

Bird of the day: Lesser White-Fronted Goose

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/495721.html

Nico has been accepted by the same school as Charles. It's what we were expecting, but there's a difference between "very likely" and "formally confirmed". Now I can move on with a bunch of medium-term planning. First step, finding out if there's room in the afterschool club for him.

Once we get past the initial reception settling-in phase, our weekday logistics will be a lot less complicated for the next two years. But in about a year's time I have to start evaluating secondary schools, eek.

(If you want to know how the schools application process works, it's all here: http://www4.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/info/20059/schools_and_learning/363/applying_for_a_school_place/4)

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/491647.html

I fell asleep sometime after midnight. At some point after that Nico woke up and came into my bed. Charles woke me up at 5am, but was persuaded to go away again. And at 6am. And at 7am. At 8am I finally felt ready to wake up properly.

Nico got much more into opening his stocking this year; Charles mostly resisted the urge to play with all his brother's stocking-contents as well as his own. As last year, I put the (excessive number of) presents behind the fireguard in front of the unused fire to keep them out of curious toddler hands. Mid-morning there was a little present avalanche and the fireguard fell over. We put it back up up but further out from the fire, and left the presents where they had slid.

I'm wearing a tshirt with Olaf from Frozen, with the slogan "I'm All Out Of Shape". We've had a mellow morning eating treat breakfasts and too much chocolate, and Nico playing Let It Go and dancing/singing along. Now Tony has made the salmon-on-bread and poured the bucks fizz. Charles is wearing a Santa hat and preparing to hand out presents, and all is well with the world inside my home.

I went to work today, leaving Tony and the children at home. Late morning I got a call on my mobile from an incredibly distraught Charles, who had applied the latest update to his Angry Birds Go app, which had wiped out all the upgrades he'd earned over hours and hours of gameplay.

This is how you can tell I am a parent and a software developer: first I spent several minutes expressing sympathy and suggesting local sources of comfort; then I said that when he was ready we were going to write down exactly what happened and send it to Rovio. And finally (after he'd rung off, much calmer), I looked up the support page and mailed it to both Charles and Tony.

My colleague (also a parent) was amused.

(I have only just sat down after coming home; the bug report has yet to be written)

Over the last months, Nico has gone from singing along occasional words with Let It Go to singing entire lines both with and without the original, to singing a recognisable Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, to a little repertoire of recognisable nursery rhymes.

And he likes to change the words. So for example he has a whole song about Yellow Yellow Ye-e-low, and another about Daddy Daddy Da-Da-Dee (both to Twinkle Twinkle) and additional verses to The Wheels on the Bus where Mummy goes cuddle-cuddle-cuddle and Daddy is either fast asleep or goes snore-snore-snore. (Not the fairest division of labour, I feel.)

Yesterday was the most complex yet, where he was singing about an orange plate to Let It Go.

Meanwhile, C just about tolerates N singing the wrong words but Tony and I are absolutely not allowed.

Yesterday I walked into town with Nicholas to get him new shoes and do other errands. He asked to walk when we crossed Jesus Green, and as we were making our slow erratic way across the park he gestured and asked about the people playing some kind of ball game enthusiastically to our right. I glanced over properly (most of my focus being on him up until that point), and took in the three goals at each end, and the sticks between players' legs, and the pattern of play.

"Yes darling," I said. "They're playing Quidditch."

I'm not sure I'm happier that there were people playing Quidditch in the park on a Sunday lunchtime, or that I could recognise it in a glance.

Nico has not been paying sufficient attention to Harry Potter to care about such things. Charles might have done, if he'd been with me. We haven't got much further through the books because he is focused on Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its sequels. I'd rather be reading Harry Potter but so long as there is reading at all, I am not complaining. Too easy to kill his enthusiasm.

Last weekend when I was migrainey, I spent a bit of time thinking and ordering stuff to improve our hallway and kitchen. The stuff arrived during the week, and I spent much of yesterday sorting it out and installing it, variously assisted by children and spouse.

( In probably tedious detail if you aren't me )

C: "Mum, I know why the tooth fairy was a day late that one time when I put the tooth under my pillow and she didn't come and take it away that night but the next one. It's because you fell asleep early that night, and you are disguising yourself as the tooth fairy!"

Me: "Is that so? Shall I stop?"

C: "No! Because I like getting the money."

There is a new tooth going under the pillow tonight. I'm currently considering leaving extra tonight as a bonus for having worked it out.

I'm wondering if when he'll take the next logical step and figure out who's filling the stockings on Christmas Eve.

(Now both children are dancing around the kitchen to Talking 'Bout My Generation. Sometimes they are lovely together.)

1. New words. New words all the time. New phonemes rather less often, so guesswork is frequently required. On the other hand, the most recent new word is a very clear "Hey!" complete with indignant intonation. Yesterday I was well impressed with "toc milk" i.e. chocolate milk.

2. No. Alongside all the new words is a lot of no no no no no. "Do you want a cuddle?" "No" "Do you want a drink?" "No" "Time for a nappy change." "No". Sometimes complete and furious meltdown when he isn't getting what he wants. Two is clearly hard.

3. He's currently utterly fascinated with putting the DVDs in and out of the player. Sometimes he doesn't even want to watch them very much, just establish which one they are and then get a different one. As he's got more stable and careful, I've become more relaxed about letting him be in control of what goes in.

1. He wants ukulele lessons. I am entirely happy to support this, but it just took me five minutes to find my chequebook. I wonder if I can persuade the music teacher to take bank transfers if he sticks with it after this half-term.

2. He has convinced me he can cross the one quiet road safely so he is now walking (most of the way) to school by himself. Except the first bit is my route to work so yesterday we had an argument because he wanted to Do It Himself so refused to walk with me, and I wouldn't set off for work until I knew he was on his way. So we had this embarrassing standoff halfway down the road until a friend of his turned up and he could save face by walking with friend.

3. He was losing his temper in the shop yesterday and
a) actually listened when I suggested going outside to wait for me and calm down and
b) found that it did actually work and came back much calmer, if still upset, about five minutes later.
We continue to discuss the merits of walking away and counting to ten. I'm making a lot of use of the latter at the moment ....

Tony and I are going to Dysprosium (Eastercon) next year! I'm really looking forward to it. The children will stay home and a couple of family members have kindly agreed to spend the long weekend taking care of them, which we think will work better all round than bringing them along.

We finally got our head around the voting-on-future-Worldcons process (after we'd got home, and after completely missing all information on how to vote at Loncon3 for 2016). So we're now both supporting members of 2015's Worldcon, Sasquan, which means later on we can pay out some more money in order to vote on the four-way contest for 2017, which in turn will give us a supporting membership for whatever wins 2017, so we can do the same again to vote on/join 2019.

We are blatantly biased in favour of "potential worldcons we can attend without flying", i.e. Helsinki in 2017 and Dublin in 2019. I am also having far too much fun reading about various train/ferry routes to Helsinki.

Supporting memberships mean we can carry on voting on Hugos, at least for the odd-numbered years, and nominating in all years. I rather enjoyed that aspect of this year's Worldcon, in particular the various discussions and blog posts among my friends and people I follow online.

I've talked to some people in person about this, but I wanted to make a brief public post, not least because this topic is going to absorb a lot of my attention for the foreseeable future.

Charles was formally diagnosed with high-functioning autism last month. Tony & I were not entirely surprised, but now that our suspicions have been formally confirmed, we have a lot of catch-up learning to do.

The letter we have says "high functioning autistic spectrum disorder (also known as Asperger's syndrome)" and later on says "in the medical profession, the term Asperger's syndrome is being phased out and the term high functioning autistic spectrum disorder is being used more frequently". Meanwhile the National Autistic Society insists there is a difference between autism and AS.

The doctor who made the final diagnosis talked with me for some time and recommended a number of resources (listed below). In addition, I can talk with my youngest brother, who was diagnosed very young, and with our parents for their perspective.

I am interested in recommendations / feedback on recommendations, and will prioritise in the following order:

people who have an autism/AS diagnosis
people parenting children who have an autism/AS diagnosis
therapists, psychiatrists, or similarly-qualified people with recent experience working with people who have an autism/AS diagnosis
everyone else

Comments here, or emails to me at rmcf @ cb4.eu if you want to keep it non-public.

I don't want to talk specifically about Charles on this post, and will probably keep that to locked posts and direct conversations.

Resources
From the doctor:
National Autistic Society, in particular the resources on visual supports
The Complete Guide to Asperger's by Anthony Attwod
Managing Anxiety in People with Asperger's by Anne Chalfant
Mental Health Aspects of Autism by Mohammad Ghaziuddin

From this Captain Awkward post I also identified:
Asperger's From The Inside Out by Michael John Carley

I've got copies of all the above books now.

Based on the NAS website age-appropriate recommendations I've picked out the following to read with Charles, which are on their way.
I Know Someone With Autism by Sue Barraclough
Can I Tell You About Autism? by Jude Welton
A Book About What Autism Can Be Like by Sue Adams

and we also have the NAS's own publication What is Asperger syndrome and how will it affect me? on the way (they are out of stock of I have Autism .... what's that? but I will look out for it being back in stock if the AS one is any good).

I think we started the school year with 6 each of trousers, polo shirts, jumpers.
We end it with: 5 trousers (1 with a tiny hole in the knee), 3 polo shirts, 1 jumper.

I think this is the worst yet for losing things. At least the jumpers were all cheap ones? (Because I left restocking to the last minute last summer and my preferred supplier had sold out of everything - trying not to do that this year, but maybe I should just go cheap anyway if this is the rate of attrition.)

Also C is still apparently in the same school uniform size as last year. What are the odds of him doing a growth spurt at the start of next term?

Today was so warm I wore sandals. The children voluntarily went out into the garden. I took them to the playground this morning, an idea greeted with enormous enthusiasm:

[Two children grinning at the camera in bright sunlight, in front of some crocuses]

They were especially keen on the swings, either with me pushing them both:

[Same two children sitting together on a large round swing, one looking up, one looking down]

or with Charles playing big brother:

[The older child is mid-push of the younger in a baby swing; in the background all the play equipment basks in the sun]

This week I have been to "Christmas songs" featuring Charles's year group at primary school, and "Nativity Play" featuring what seemed to be the entire enrolment of Nico's nursery. The two events have left me filled with
a) delight in the enthusiasm and creativity of children and the teachers and childcarers
b) increasingly homicidal rage towards other parents/carers who keep standing up and blocking my view of a)

Being British, I expressed b) by folding my arms and frowning slightly at their backs while internally vowing to turn up at least 15 minutes early next year so I can sit in the first couple of rows.

I'm having a similarly split attitude towards Christmas in general: where my family and friends are concerned I've been enjoying the planning and the choosing of gifts and the social events and the getting ready, but as far as people in general are concerned I basically cannot wait for the point where I get to go home on Christmas Eve and shut the door on the outside world for at least a couple of days.

I think my lurking misanthropy stems from being deeply tired: work is busiest from August through to November, so I have just started to catch up on things-not-instantly-urgent. I am ~~struggling~~ failing to keep up with my study schedule, and the children are both being clingy and demanding in different infuriating, entirely understandable, age-appropriate ways. A week off work isn't going to fix any of this, but it will help.

Charles is very excited about Christmas, and Nico is just old enough to start appreciating that something special is happening - he was rapt and delighted by the decorations C & T put up yesterday. I have bought both children far too many presents (which need wrapping, argh) and am very much looking forward to watching their reactions when they get to open them.

Exchanging very punny emails with my older child (at a distance of about 10m). Every so often he leans back from the family computer and says "MUM I SENT YOU ANOTHER ONE", watching to see my reaction as I read it.

His puns are ~~funny~~ to my taste, and he has spelled everything correctly too!

1. I have been heard to say that I am too lazy to puree food for babies, let them just help themselves off whatever the parent is eating when they aren't having milk.

Well, that worked for Charles. Nico it turns out is very keen on eating whatever his parents are eating, but lacks teeth and competence to eat a lot of it without choking. So I have an icecube-tray or two of roughly-blended adult food in the freezer, and if my meal looks like he might choke on it, I microwave up a cube and spoonfeed it to him. (I've started making him his own little bowl of porridge in the morning because I like to adulterate mine with seeds).

2. I have been heard to say that Elimination Communication is lovely-sounding, but far too likely to be messy and difficult for us to even try, especially with baby moving between three main carers (me, Tony, nursery).

Except that this baby's attempts to tell me how much he hates wetting his nappies are finally sinking in and I'm admitting that part-time EC is better than none.

Turns out different babies are different and parents may need to adapt to individual needs. Who'd have thought.

We thought it was time to introduce Charles to the British pantomime tradition, and at fairly short notice got tickets to the evening performance of Jack and the Beanstalk at Cambridge Arts Theatre on Saturday.

Apart from the sound system being a bit too loud for my preference, I enjoyed it very much. Charles was caught up in it very quickly, and even Nicholas showed a lot more interest than I had expected, focusing hard on all the music and movement until he zonked out all of a sudden at the interval. The audience was sadly a little small but Tony & I at least held up our share of audience participation.

The script had the requisite bad puns, contemporary references (Olympics, the 99%, Gangnam style) and local place-name checks. The costuming was lovely, with the Widow in particular having some excellently silly and over-the-top outfits. The choreography and dancing of the chorus was solidly good, providing a background pleasure to my laughter. The musical references were either very recent or from my teenage years, firmly reinforcing that Tony & I are now in the parents-of-young-children demographic.

Charles had a very loud and prolonged tantrum immediately afterwards, which I think was an unsurprising reaction to being so completely wound-up by the performance. Luckily it gave him the energy to march all the way home, complaining most of the way. We had a serious conversation about acceptable behaviour after he'd calmed down, and I live in hope that some of it sticks.

Work
I restarted work! Mondays and Tuesdays only. Tony is not working on those days, and brings Nico to me at lunchtime. We heat up lunch in the little kitchen microwave and sit together at a table in the foyer of my building. I eat and cuddle my baby and feed him, and most times I also take him off to the ladies' loos and change him, and almost always I get to show him off to a passing colleague or three. And then I give him back and go back to the office and work for another 4 hours.

I love it: being back at work, feeling useful and competent, but not having to go too long without my baby cuddles, and getting to do a big feed rather than a big pump at lunchtime. It's not quite as good as the conference creche but it's SO much better than going all day without seeing my baby at all, and a huge improvement on the work pattern we did with Charles where I went from 0730 to 1330 without my baby 5 days a week and didn't see Tony properly except at weekends.

Running
All the updates are on

c25k but basically it's going well and I am liking it more than I thought I would. I've had a cold this weekend which has kept me indoors and I am missing it more than I expected.

Study
Going well, though I have been less good at getting in my weekly hours since starting work. There was a tutorial yesterday at Hill's Road and I was too ill to go, which annoyed me.

Charles turned 6 last weekend and we held a party at home for some of his schoolfriends (note for future reference that "colouring in pictures" which I'd thought of as an easy-to-join-on-arrival activity kept the assembled children happy for nearly an hour). He asked for an Angry Birds theme and we did our best, including commissioning this most excellent cake from

planetxanna (it was delicious too):

Pay cake #1: Angry Birds. On time! on Twitpic

He seems to be enjoying year 1 of school and certainly it is stretching him a bit harder than Reception. We are supposed to get him to read out loud to us for 10 minutes a day and we probably manage it 80% of the time. He has started spontaneously reading out random signs on the street and titles of books we leave lying around. It is really, really cool to see him starting to use this skill as a tool for himself rather than just something we or school ask him to perform.

Nicholas is three months old, almost certainly teething (dribbling, gumming hard down on things), smiling at people with great enthusiasm, failing to sit up but wanting to, sleeping midnight to six most nights plus several other naps each day, continuing to breastfeed plentifully and remaining beautifully baby-chubby. He is getting the hang of hitting and grabbing things on the baby gym but would mostly rather be held/carried in a sling.

[I wrote this for LibDemVoice, where it was published yesterday]

A baby in a sling makes an amazing Conference icebreaker. Over the five days I lost count of the number of people who stopped to admire my darling and ask questions, to the point where occasionally I gave the answers without being asked ("11 weeks", "Nicholas", "no, not after the Leader, after his father's uncle). During the day when I wasn't carrying him, I frequently got stopped and asked "where's your baby?".

"In the crèche," I would reply, and almost always got the response "There's a crèche?"

Yes, there is a crèche at conference, on site inside the secure area and just a few minutes walk from the auditorium. It runs from 8:30am to 6pm and the cost is subsidised by the party to ensure access for all parents. The staff are qualified professional childcare workers. They were wonderful, asking me about my son's routine and adapting to my preferred parenting approach. We managed breastfeeding-on-demand via text message most of the time, but I was also able to block out times when I needed to be completely uninterrupted, such as when I had a speaker's card in for a debate.

The crèche allowed me to fully participate in the business of conference: debates, votes, speeches, lunchtime fringes and at one point a campaign meeting. Without it, I could not have attended at all. With the crèche, I had the best of both worlds: regular cuddles with my son grounding me in between policy debates & ministerial Q&As.

My mother tells me that as a baby I was part of a protest at Liberal Party conference about the lack of crèche. The front row was filled with activists and their babies for the Leader's speech. The following conference had a crèche. It remains vital for keeping activists included and involved after they have children.

This week I return to work part-time, while my husband reduces his working hours to cover the days I am working. I realised during conference that if I had similar close good-quality childcare at work, I would happily be returning full-time, able to fit in my eight hours a day around three or four "baby breaks". Sadly there isn't any such childcare available, so part-time it is for now.

I am glad and grateful that party conference has set such a high standard for keeping parents included. Nico and I will be back in the spring.

Nicholas is now nearly 5 weeks old, and is getting more demanding. That mellow easy-baby stuff, it was probably just a phase.

I'm back in non-maternity clothes now, which feels great. There are pockets! They are clothes I like rather than the least-bad stuff available in my size! It was very cathartic putting everything into a bag for my mother to ebay (that way I know they are going somewhere useful, but I don't need to put any more effort or thought into them). My taste for diet coke returned, and my alcohol tolerance is slowly increasing again. As I find myself saying delightedly at intervals, I'm not pregnant any more.

Tony's sister got married two weeks ago, and it was a lovely ceremony and reception and party, plus a smaller family-only party the next day. Nicholas got a mention in the father-of-the-bride speech, and was passed around lots of the family. We both got fussed over which was pleasant. We also survived travelling through London to and from, with buggy and car seats and luggage and all.

Tony's mum came home with us after the wedding and stayed for 10 days. It was lovely to have the extra company and help, and she got plenty of time with both the children.

The novelty of saying "the children" hasn't worn off yet. I still get a little buzz of happiness every time I do.

I seem to be healing up well, I mostly don't need painkillers any more and I'm slowly rebuilding my stamina.

The washing machine has stopped turning the drum, as we discovered Friday morning.

fanf found and booked someone to come and take a look at it on Monday, and

pseudomonas very kindly let us run a washload through his machine yesterday, so we're surviving for now. No cloth nappies of course until it's fixed, and I'm fed up of disposables already.

I'm fed up of leaking milk over everything I wear too; hopefully in time my production will settle down a bit, but it's not helping the washing situation.

We got the AC/DC Iron Man 2 album, which was the nearest thing I could find to a greatest hits album. It works wonders in getting Nicholas off to sleep, and makes the yelling tired-baby phase of falling asleep a bit more bearable

1.
Being carried in my Hotslings pouch sling. My theory is that it holds him fairly snugly against me with his head right on my chest where he can hear the heartbeat. The Tricotti double-pouch isn't as effective, I think because it's a bit looser and he sits a bit lower in it. The Tricotti is also far too hot for me to wear in the current weather. I've been avoiding the Mei Tais because they need tying around the waist and I need to heal up some more before I can tolerate that, but Tony has used the lighter one with some success. We have a Connecta supposedly on its way (much-delayed, I should chase the supplier again), primarily for him, but I think I'll like it too when I can do waistbands again.

I've been playing hunt-extra-slings on eBay, with the aim of getting two or three more second hand for the cost of a new one. The Hotslings pouch is great, but the pattern clashes wildly with some of my currently most-comfortable clothes.

2.
Being held close and jiggled gently to music. This first was noticable when we were getting his passport photos, and there was a long wait to pay for them, and he was grumpy, and I was dance-jiggling him to the piped music. He relaxed and went off to sleep in the middle of Flashdance, and it's proved fairly effective since. I should try him with the Prodigy, it worked on Charles.

3.
Breastfeeding to full - but this is no longer as effective as it was even a week ago. He is staying awake more and more in between feeds, and sometimes he seems to really want to go to sleep and not be sure how, which results in loud complaining. This is where the sling and the dancing come in ...

+ He breastfed enthusiastically from day 1 (hour 1, really). I haven't had to pump at all.
+ He lost less than 10% of his birthweight and has now regained it all.
+ He had no problems at all at the newborn health check.
+ He sleeps in his own bed (moses basket), for much of the night, and quite a bit of the day.
+ He is bigger: there are clothes I remember Charles wearing even with cloth nappies that are already too small for Nicholas in same.

- He wees on at least half of his nappy changes. Surprise fountains keep catching me out.
- Surprise projectile vomiting when he has overfed.

He is now 2 weeks old, gosh wow where did the last 10 days go? [answer: breastfeeding, eating, changing nappies, sleeping, reading, rinse, repeat]. He still primarily eats, sleeps and fills his nappy but he is managing longer periods of quiet wakefulness now, mostly staring at faces.

I have progressed from "when is my next painkiller dose due?" to "why am I ratty? oh, I should have taken painkillers an hour ago" and a reduced dosage. Healing seems to be going well. Starting on day 5, I have managed a short walks most days (or a rather longer walk followed by a day of not leaving the house). I made it to the pub last Thursday & into the city centre on Saturday, and we have achieved passport applications and the acquisition of a new buggy.

Charles continues to be sweetly affectionate to his little brother while also slightly jealous of the attention he gets.

We've been home since Wednesday evening. I've spent most of the intervening time in or on my bed, though I am slowly increasing the amount of time I spend downstairs each day.
( Cut to spare reading pages )

Tomorrow I may venture out of the house and I think we should be up to visitors from Monday.

Charles and I went to the local shops this lunchtime. Given the weather, he put on his purple waterproof, a lightweight packaway thing he chose last summer. Then he asked me if I'd bring its bag "so I can take it off in the shop". I said no, he could keep his coat on in the shop.

"But I don't want people to think I'm a a girl," he said sadly.

So I sighed and said "It's not just girls that wear purple." I thought for a bit and asked "Do you like wearing purple?" A nod. "Do you want to let silly people who think only girls wear purple stop you wearing purple?" A shake of the head and a bit of a smile.

So off we went to the shops together, and Charles talked about my favourite colours and his favourite colours, and then got distracted by All The Toys in the charity shop, and eventually he chose one small toy and bought it before we went to the co-op to pick up some lunch.

He was a bit naughty in the shop, wanting a bag of sweets which I told him to put back and we weren't buying it - so he scanned it for the cashier and said "now it's on the bill!" I asked the cashier to take it back off again, which they did. And then they said "She's very clever, most children don't know that's how checkouts work". And I saw Charles had heard and was upset.

It is breaking my heart: despite our best efforts he is absorbing the messages that a) to be a girl is to be inferior and b) to be a boy he must not like pink or purple or fairies, or be too gentle or too kind. I'm watching the boy box close around him and it fits him as badly as the girl box fit around me. At least for me being a tomboy was socially acceptable. It was ok for me to like trousers and blue and space and rockets and trains and science. There is no non-derogatory equivalent of tomboy for a boy who likes "girly stuff".

Every time someone asks me if I "know what I'm having yet", it reminds me of the pervasive stereotyping and colour-coding of children that is affecting my first child so badly. I deliberately asked not to be told, because I don't want to inflict the blue/pink divide on my second child any earlier than I have to. Right now I'm not feeling too keen on telling people after it's born either.

So far on my day off I have:

Done the morning school run, which always raises Tony in my admiration for managing it every day. (It will be my job for much of maternity leave and when working part-time, so I will need to get better at it.)
Obtained lucozade for the silly "lucozade challenge test" . Still hate lucozade as much as I did when pregnant with Charles.
Walked to doctors for blood test following above.
Returned unread and overdue library books: I am still struggling to make time to read for fun.
Walked home again.
After a short rest, cycled to Histon and picked up a hire car for the weekend.
Packed surplus eggs to take to sister-in-law

Still to do:

Pack for weekend and family wedding
Pick up Charles from school
Pick up Tony's mother from Stansted
Drive to High Wycombe (M25 at around 5pm on a Friday, what could possibly go wrong?)

Tony & Charles have new suits for the wedding. I have failed utterly to find a dress that I like so am improvising with palazzo trousers, a pretty top and a jacket. I'm not going to be as smart as them, but at least I have a really obvious reason why.

My bump seems to be growing daily; my appetite has got silly; and I have started having Braxton Hicks contractions. It took me a while to be sure that's what they were, but a series of them yesterday evening convinced me. They don't hurt (at least, they don't hurt me) but can be surprisingly distracting: the muscles around the belly all tighten up involuntarily for a while and then relax. With Charles they didn't start until much later, but perhaps my body wants to get ready nice and early.

I have three weeks left of work and am very ready for the break,. I've still got slightly more to do than is realistic in that time, but it should all be doable or delegatable now. I've caught myself eyeing up cleaning & decluttering tasks around the house, which is unusually houseproud for me, so probably early manifestation of nesting. There's still two weeks of local election campaigning and a final OU assignment to finish before I can start on that, though.

I wrote a blog post which was accepted for and published on LibDemVoice today. Here's what I wrote (behind the cut):

( Read more... )

I did a quick check-and-response to comments at LDV at lunchtime; I'll do more this evening (there and here).

I tried out home-dying my hair ( photo and tedious detail behind cut )

The children at nursery are impressed anyway. Speaking of which, Charles continues the Campaign for a New Baby Sister or CaNBS.

C: "And Mummy, Z's mummy has a BABY BUMP"
R: "That's nice"
C: "But Mummy, look at your tummy!"
R: "There's no baby in my tummy"
C: "But look, your tummy is very big, Mummy"
R: "Yes, that's because I'm fat"
C: "What?"
R: "I am a chubby mummy,that is why my tummy is big, not a baby bump"
C: *bouncing on bed* "Chubby mummy, chubby mummy, chubby mummy"

And finally I made a silly photo blog for the AV referendum: http://yes2avbike.blogspot.com/ and am keeping it updated daily with

fanf's help.

In December, Charles started asking to "dress up like a princess", presumably inspired by his friends at nursery. Because I am an indulgent parent, I promptly set out to get him a couple of "princess dresses". We got one lovely Chinese-style one at the EACH shop, and another massively-reduced dress from an M&S sale in Leeds. Charles was happy, dressed up in them, I took photos ... and then I had a funny block when going to upload my photos.

"What if he gets bullied?" I thought. "What if people pick on him because they find baby photos on the internet when he's older?" I'm not telling him he can't wear dresses or be gentle and kind and sweet to babies, or any other stereotypical gender role stuff. So why am I feeling odd here?

Every single adult to whom I mentioned the "princess dresses" said "Oh yes, lots of boys do that at that age". All the grandparents, the nursery staff, everyone. Some of them as though I needed reassuring. So maybe, just maybe, the person with a problem with the princess dress, is not some hypothetical "they". Maybe it's me.

Which given how many cross-dressing adults I know and love is both strange and hypocritical. Ok for my friends to dress up, but not my little boy? Not a comfortable thought, and time for me to dig a little into my assumptions.

In the meantime, have a picture of my beautiful child, happily dressed up:

(Of course, if I had a daughter, I'd have a whole different set of wibbles about buying princess dresses.)

Tony and I decided to watch the 2004 remake of the Manchurian Candidate, as it was on. I'm pretty certain we saw it together at the cinema back then, but I'd forgotten most of it. I'd certainly forgotten how graphic some of the violence is, but I'm expert at looking-away-now when things are too much for my squeamish self.

Some things that struck me this time: (cut contains spoilers)

( Read more... )

Anyway, a good start to the weekend, though I vetoed following it with Law & Order: ~~Dead Babies~~ Special Victims Unit. (I have discovered in recent months that "entertainment" featuring the abuse and murder of children is just too distressing for me. Tony seems to be less affected.)

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/432830.html

(Cross-posted to plan_survive)

Charles has just finished his 4th week of nursery and seems to be settling in ok. He's making some friends and talking about them by name, but sadly he is also getting occasional physical attacks from other children: biting, pinching, hitting. The nursery takes it fairly seriously, so I know about it because I get told about it each day something happens, and sign a form to say I've been told. (The parents of the child doing the violence get a different form to sign too, I gather.) The nursery policy is that staff can't tell me who the assailants are, but Charles tells me anyway when talking about it, so I know that it's limited to two boys, and it's always a result of disputes over favoured toys.

I am wrestling with angry mama-bear "so this is what people mean by nursery-will-teach-social-skills is it?" and not wanting to overreact (it is relatively minor stuff, it's taken seriously and stopped asap by the staff, he is building friendships there too). But I feel a need to do more to ensure Charles doesn't think minor violence every few days is ok or to be tolerated, and to give him non-violent tools to handle it.

After yet another incident on Friday, yesterday morning I talked with Charles a bit about saying loudly and firmly "No! Don't pinch me! That hurts!" and similar for biting, etc. Charles turned this into a game where his toys bit/pinched/hit me and I protested loudly and he came and stopped them, and then they bit/hit/pinched him and he protested loudly and I came and stopped them. He played the game much later in the day too, when Tony was around and could join in too. (In passing, I find it really interesting how his instinctive response is to turn tricky things like this into games to practice/play out the new concept.)

We talked about how if he speaks out loudly then the nursery staff, or other people around him, will know what is happening and can come and help. We talked a bit about maybe walking away from people who are hurting him, and how he doesn't have to play with them or be their friend. And I emphasised that it's absolutely not ok to hit/pinch/bite back (at least he hasn't done so yet - a small bit of pride I can take from the situation).

Is this enough? Too much? I think the setup at the nursery is such that this will be positive, and give the staff more warning when stuff is happening. I also hope that the loud "no, don't bite me" might just have a direct effect on the attacking child.

Suggestions/comments/experience welcome.

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/429043.html

Today's new parenting experience: helping resolve unexpected violence between friends.
( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/421008.html

( ramblings )
This afternoon we have been to an alumnae Family Day at Murray Edwards, with barbecue, toys, treasure hunt, face painting, afternoon tea with yummy cake and lots of conversations with other alumnae parents. Luckily there is plenty of shade in the Fellows Garden so I survived quite well. Tomorrow we're going to a Family Barbecue at Trinity which will be busier and with less shade, but hopefully will still include interesting conversation and fun things for children.

And now I am going to rest and attempt to cool down a bit before contemplating doing anything else today.

Crossposts: http://rmc28.livejournal.com/420365.html

Profile

Rachel Coleman

January 2026

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Page Summary

Events of note this week (mostly hockey)
Macbeth
Back on UK time
Survived another week
Recommend me (some very specific) things
Writing about one's children in public
CBeebies recs of the nerd parent
Domesticity
Halfway marks
Under stress, we're breaking down like fractions
The downswing before the end
Sunday morning swim
I can see the books on my bookshelves!
Home again
My life in numbers
My life in bulletpoints
Holiday things
Good things this week
Cambridgeshire school places get confirmed today
Non-yuletide celebrations
bug report: app update left my child in tears
Little filker
Quidditch in the park
Little improvements
Discovered!
3 things about Nico
3 things about Charles
Convention stuff
Autism diagnosis and resources
School uniform audit
Spring makes an appearance
Divided responses
Unanticipated pleasures
Never say never
Pantomime
Updates
Conference crèche keeps parents activists
Drive-by update
Things which reliably send Nicholas to sleep
Nicholas is not Charles
Day 4: gratuitous photo update post
Can we stop colour-coding children yet?
Day off
On schools and working parents
The hair that doesn't dye and other frivolity
Princess dress
Listen to me
Tools for handling violence from other children
Conflict resolution
Hot days and cool things

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