Are a mum's school gate sobs a tool to make new friends?

Following my last post about Millie starting school, I'm starting to wonder if there's something wrong with me.

Overhearing the other mum's talking at school drop off yesterday they were discussing how they broke down at their last day of nursery and how emotional they are that their baby is starting school.

When I've mentioned to someone how, at 2 weeks after turning 4, Millie is too young to be starting school, they reply saying how tough it was to say goodbye to their little ones on their first day especially their first or others say especially their last and how they worried but they were fine and handled it better than their mummies. No, that's not it, I'm not worried about her and I always say she may be small but she is mighty! I wasn't sentimental about Callum starting, he was ready for it and there is no way I could put up with another morning arguing with Millie that she can't go to school yet she has to go to preschool like we've had regularly for the past 6 months. It is purely that, two weeks prior, she was 3 and that seems bloody young.

The only small waiver I've had was at a play date for Millie's class before they started. She appeared so much younger than her classmates, with her delayed speech and her small size and then at the end when she tried to say goodbye to someone she was blanked, even when I pointed it out to the girl in question she just looked at Millie blankly and went back to playing. At that point I was a little concerned but she is a tough cookie, there's no way she'll let anyone boss her about and she'll make damn sure they notice her and be her friend - I've seen it when she is around older kids.

It's just that I continue to look forward and don't like looking back.

Don't get me wrong, I have and I've felt melancholy about a lost friendship or what might have been if I took a different path but when it comes to my children I'm excited to see the person they are developing to be. I know who they are and their past but who will they become and how will this new chapter shape that?

 Am I the only one? Do I have ice where a heart should be or am I missing a trick?

See I have another theory. Do mums (I say only mums as I've never known a dad to get soppy over their child growing up) use it as a way to bond and build rapport with other mums. They've heard other mums before them say it, they think it is the 'normal' mum thing to do which makes an impression on them (like the power of suggestion) so when it is time for a new chapter in their dear babies life they follow suit and and then it becomes a great tool for bonding with the other new mums in the playground.

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong and find it so hard to meet other school mums. Again I say mums, however, I've no problem meeting other dads but they have usually spied a fellow dad in the playground and joined them for solidarity in numbers against the masses. Surrounded by emotional women when they just want to get in there drop Harry off and get on with their day and if they get chance to share a raised eyebrow with a fellow dad all the better. I'm generalising but they definitely seem less bothered by the clucking and playground politics than us women!

Would love to hear your thoughts - how were you when you said goodbye to nursery and dropped your baby at school?

Half Term Adventures: Thursday

Sorry, time ran away with me toward the end of half term there and I didn’t find the time to blog. So where was I? Thursday? Oh yes, Thursday! We made fossils!

In light of Callum’s homework…sorry home learning we are supposed to call it aren’t we?…anyway, in light of what he had been asked to do by the school over half term, create something on the theme of dinosaurs, and with minds full of the exciting things seen at the museum the day before, I we decided to make fossils! Actually, the fantastic idea came from a Twitter friend @Kellit1085. She suggested we make some salt dough and use Callum’s toy dinosaurs pushed into the dough to make the fossils.

I’d forgotten about Callum’s dinosaurs and, what was better, part of his collection included a skeleton dinosaur as his set was part of a archaeology themed set. Perfect! With that, we also visited our shell collections (Callum has his chosen shells and stones and then I have my own special collection haha) to look for ones that would make good fossil like impressions.

Check me out! Twice in one week I’m crafting with my child in a stress free manner – not to mention the baking also achieved! I’m going to need a holiday after this half term!

Of course the fun starts at the dough making stage, getting fingers all sticky and then beating up needing the dough. Following a tip from this site I’d found on the internet, we also added food colouring to make the dough a browny colour.

Once smooth, I broke off a piece and shaped it and Callum (with maybe a little guidance from me) pushed one of his smaller dinosaurs and the skeleton dinosaur into the dough. Then we tested out all the shells too. I classed this first one as our Callum’s practice fossil. The remaining dough I split in 2 and tried very hard to let Callum do what he liked with one of the pieces while I possessively made my own fossil impressions in the other piece.

When we were happy with our creations, I baked them in the oven for about 1.5 hours at 200 degrees (hotter than I’d usually bake salt dough for but the advice in the above site was a higher temp and I figured it might add to the authentic brown look) then I left them in the oven for another hour while the oven cooled.

Here are our finished fossil creations:

Callum has taken them into school today. I’m so excited about them, I wish I was there to see how they are received.

Half Term Adventures: Day 3

On Wednesday, we went to the National History Museum in London. I’d already suggested to Stuart that it would be nice to spend a family day going to London to the museums. I have wanted to take Callum to see the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum for ages so that’s primarily what we had decided on and if there was time maybe we’d visit another – Ha! Anyway, as luck would have it, Callum came home with his homework book and the latest project which was to be dinosaurs! Bonus! This was one project and homework topic Callum and I could put some effort in – I confess we are a bit slack usually!

My memory of going to London museums when I was little was on a school trip that would be one museum in a whole day but would involve going around it several times answering questions etc and would obviously include the coach trip there and back and lunch. The other time I went was with my friends Grandma and we got on busses and went to a couple of museums in the same day. Things have changed! Yes it was half term but wow! The queue was snaking around, back and forth forever. We got there about 12noon so we decided to go and get some lunch instead and see whether the queue was any better afterwards.

When we came back we saw the queue for the accessible entrance (for wheelchairs and pushchairs) and thankfully it seemed a bit smaller and moving fairly quickly. The other queue was still huge and hardly moving. We ended up queuing for about 40 minutes. We had been warned that we needed to queue for the dinosaurs too so we headed straight there. Yep, the queue said an hour. Thankfully, it moved quickly and again I’d say it was for about 40 minutes.

We had splashed out the fiver for a guide too. They had a generic version and a special children’s version which had games in which was really nicely done and cost the same amount. This helped to keep Callum entertained in the queues. To be fair to Callum and Millie, they were both very very good and patient in the queues. (Wondering how many times I can use the word queue or queues in one blog post?)

Unfortunately, that wasnt it for the queues (not done yet) as, because we had a pushchair with us, we had to queue for the one-person-and-chair-at-a-time lift to the metal walkway.

The dinosaur exhibition was interesting enough for little ones and had facts at their level to read and understand and Millie loved pointing out the dinosaurs. Stuart and I did feel there was room for a bit of updating with the exhibitions – but then the main museum is free so I guess to do so would cost money. However, I would like to see what the Dorchester Dinosaur Museum is like in comparison.

We had enough time to see the dinosaurs, mammals, creepy crawlies, marine creatures and fishes then just before leaving Callum and Stuart headed into this volcano thing but Stuart said we didn’t miss anything (it was up an escalator so Millie and I didn’t go up with the buggy).

We left the museum and headed to High Street Kensington, near the hotel where we had parked the car (£18 for 9 hours parking) to find somewhere for dinner. We were concerned that we wouldn’t find anywhere suitable to take the kids, being as it was pricey High St Ken and in our experience London restaurants aren’t the most accommodating for children but thankfully Stuart spotted a ‘My Old Dutch’ restaurant, a pancake restaurant chain. We had previously been to the Holborn branch and it was perfect for the kids.

After dinner, we went back to the car, got them in the PJs and drove home. All of us exhausted!

Half Term Adventures: Tuesday

Here we are, day two of half term and I don’t think I’ve counted another grey hair! Whoop!

The plan today was to bake bread and see The Lego Movie, with the added bonus of a cousin, Sofia, and Daddy joining us for the afternoon!

Sofia was expected about midday and the film was at 2.30pm. Sofia and Callum were all excited about the bread making when I decided to change the plan to see The Lego Movie so I had to try to get both activities in.

Therefore, after dropping Millie at nursery and Stuart at work, the first task was to make the dough (well actually, after the usual dishes, laundry and cat related chores…there are always chores to do first kids!).

Once more, I had to keep a lid on my inner-control-freak and remember ‘I was doing it for the kids!’ So Callum helped me measure out the ingredients and got his (clean) fingers stuck in to mixing – OK so there was a bit of “let me just see if it is all mixed” and “let me pull in the dry ingredients at the bottom” oh and “Ill start off the needing”…what? Neither of us got stressed. I count that as progress!

He helped need the dough a bit before he thankfully got bored. Then off we took it to the airing cupboard to prove.

That took us until 9.30…still another couple of hours or so until Sofia due, what next?

We played games (while I continued with the odd chore). We played Jenga (which I lost), then Walk the Plank (which I won ) and then I had to teach Callum about the difference between a good loser and a bad loser…

Soon it was lunchtime, ‘Fia arrived and then it was time to get back to the bread making!

They both loved it, treating the dough like play dough and making different shapes and…er…lumps of things. They got covered in flour, wrote their names in the flour and I may have started a flour fight. We each made one thing to put in the oven then the remaining dough I had intended keeping for myself to make another masterpiece *cough* but I relented and let them share it between them for more doughy fun.

After the bread had been baked there was just enough time for a quick taster before we had to head out to pick Stuart up and head to the cinema.

The movie was enjoyable enough – definitely only for those that share an affiliation with lego as the comedy moments are centred around the trials and tribulations of lego crafting. I thought they could’ve played more on those and had a few adult humour moments like they do in the Pixar animations but I found it enjoyable and Stuart had a couple of LOL (while I slunk down in my seat) moments. Callum, bless him, doesn’t get on too well with the glasses, or any glasses for that matter (we went to the 3D version) which I think is down to his little nose which doesn’t have much of a bridge to hold a pair of glasses. He kept taking them off which meant he didn’t get to appreciate the full experience and he seemed to struggle to retain interest for the last half hour but he says he really enjoyed it and that it was his favourite part of the day. Sofia also said she enjoyed it but I saw her fidgeting for the last 20 minutes too. At 5 and 7, I think it is still a long time to expect them to sit still and pay attention. I think what kept Callum’s attention was the inclusion of his favourite characters, Batman, Superman and ‘The Green Ninja’.

Overall, it has been another good day. I’m still surprised at just how upbeat I am after such a miserable winter (both my mood and the weather). Like they say ‘a change is as good as a rest’. That is proving so true this week!

Tomorrow it is the family outing (Stuart and Millie included) to London to check out the Natural History Museum which, despite me thinking of it before I saw Callum’s homework book, fits in nicely with Callum’s half term homework project!

Half-Term Adventures: Monday

It’s half term and, where I’d usually be filled with fear about how we were going to spend the time, keep busy and not just waste it looking out at the rain, struggling to muster up enough motivation to make a cup of tea, I’m actually really looking forward to this week.

I think the reason is because Millie (apart from Wednesday) will still be at nursery each day.

I don’t mean that to sound unfair to Millie. Since Millie was born, I’ve not had much opportunity for mother and son bonding. The odd day or trip to the park just the two of us or, more often, a trip to the supermarket (whoop whoop) while Millie naps at home with Daddy.

Therefore, I’m really looking forward to having fun with my boy and re-establishing the mother and son bond and thought it would be a good blogging opportunity write about our daily half-term activities.

It wont all be just the two of us, we have play dates with my niece and an old nursery friend of his in the pipeline but there’ll be plenty of bonding time.

I had intended to be proactive at making plans and to go out every day but I failed that on day one! The shopping was planned to arrive in the morning and when the weather is grey and wet (like it was today) I really struggle to get motivated to go out in the afternoons. But not all was lost and I think Callum really enjoyed our activity!

It started with the words “Can I keep this to make something with it” as Callum poured the last of a packet of cereal into his breakfast bowl and waved the empty box around.

Now I love the ‘idea’ of crafting! I love sparkly glitter and the opportunity to be creative but the reality of crafting with children rarely meets expectations. I’m too much of a control freak and lose interest when Callum doesn’t see  my ‘vision’ of what I thought we were going to create. Oh, ok, I also struggle to just ‘let go’ when the silver glitter gets mixed in with the gold glitter and he decides to use EVERY feather in the brand new pack, and no don’t put blue paint all over the lovely pretty picture you’ve just created, I don’t think it’s a good idea to make it ‘rain’! (there were a lot of ‘…’ words in that paragraph!)

However, today went well. As we were scrolling through ideas on the ipad, Callum spotted a guitar and I thought, actually, why the hell not!? I had an empty tube from wrapping paper too, I had wool, we could paint it – this could work!

There was enough ‘grown up’ bits that only I could do to meet my control freak fix plus enough that he could do on his own to nurture his creative flair. I’m also keen to encourage anything music related, whether for real or role play (yes, I hope to live my dreams through my child and yes, I do hope he’ll make us millions one day).

Even better, I got to ‘try’ to teach him how to finger knit and also attempt to teach him how to play cats cradle (we didn’t get past the third step and then he lost interest) so more opportunity to regress for me.

Callum was chuffed with the result of his guitar and then enjoyed putting on a concert for me, pretending to play along to the CD player. Thankfully, no rock-star style guitar smashing moments – I think I would’ve cried and vowed never to craft again!

Aside from guitar making, we also had fun doing orange peel smiles and learning about dinosaurs for his homework book – Callum drew a picture and wrote how we are going to London to see dinosaurs. Future dinosaur related craft to come!

Tomorrow my niece, Sofia, is coming over and Stuart has the afternoon off work. Hoping to be able to squeeze in bread making and go to see The Lego Movie at the cinema. Will be back to blog about it tomorrow!

Happy Half Term Adventures All!