Then Suddenly, The School Gods Did Smile Upon Them.

December 19, 2012 By 5 Comments

And did call up Mrs MBM yesterday, and grant Noah a place at the same school as his brother in the new year.

And thus, the brothers were to attend school together, in the same building and Mrs MBM did contemplate cutting down on drinking, after a celebratory liqor.

The Gods did choose to smile upon Mrs MBM and co, though Mrs MBM wondered if the joy of Christmas would still go ahead as now all pennies to be squandered upon Christmas cheer, were now to be willing given to Clive Marks Schoolwear for a whole new uniform.

Lo, Noah did graciously and calmly accept the fate of leaving his 2nd school this year, for Noah is a cool and laid-back child, thus. For this, his mother was glad.

And so, Mrs MBM did weep a little, but was immensely thankful to no-longer refrain from yelling obscenities at people who did not move the fuck out of the way when whizzing from one school to the next each morning.

Mrs MBM and co did thank The Very Gods for their graciousness. And then she did contemplate ways to sell her soul to pay for the new year.

And so it was, a merry Christmas.

Filed Under: MAKE IT STOP, Noah, School

On Discovering Kids Have PMT

December 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I do not know WHAT the hell is going on at the moment, but I’m pretty sure both Noah and Isaac have PMT.

Or, they’re slowly turning into women.

Or, Jesus SAVE ME NOW, they’re going through puberty already.

I can deal with tantrums and sulky strops and whatever with the best of them. To be fair, neither of them have sulky strops very often, and I can’t remember the last tantrum in this house; it was easily over a year ago.

However. There is a new breed of What The Fuckadoo circulating at the moment, and it seems to involve someone flipping some kind of invisible switch. I was aware of this switch, to be honest. I knew it existed. But what I didn’t see coming, was the speed AND extremities with which that switch could be flipped.

Example. They’re playing on the floor with Lego and a train. Noah is lying in the way, Isaac politely says “excuse me”, and Noah pretty much ignores him, refusing to move. I ask Noah to move, quite sternly, since he’s being so rude. He moves, and then starts crying, really loudly. Isaac carries on playing. I ask Noah what’s wrong and he doesn’t even know.

Umm….say what now?

I tell Noah to stop crying otherwise he’ll go in time out, and if he STILL keeps on going, he’ll go straight to bed. He stops immediately, and then less than 10 seconds later he’s laughing and joking over some music he heard which was his favourite part from a film.

Tear tracks still fresh on his face.

What the ever-living fuck.

As this is one example of about a frillion, from the last 2 or 3 hours alone, I’m sitting here wondering if I ever had PMT as bad as what I’m observing. I don’t think I ever did, but holy crap do I apologise to anyone who was ever on the receiving end. I’m thinking of going into that spiel about toddlers, and kids, and this is what they do, and blah blah it gets worse (or better, fuck only knows at this stage), but I’m sure I gave birth to 2 boys who had no plans on turning into girls.

I guess, and quite fairly, I have to consider certain affecting facts. Like, the imminent Christmas Day Excitement, the hideous dark mornings and evenings, slight disruptions to school with Nativities and parties, the fact that the grass is short, a cat meowed, one of them sniffed, and of course the most important, there’s a number in today’s date.

The closer it gets to the Christmas holidays, I find my train of thoughts flickering wildly. Originally, I was all “HELL YES. They will wake up, I’ll send them downstairs to get muesli  snackbars out of the cupboard for breakfast, they can pour themselves some milk from the fridge (doesn’t matter if they spill; it’s a tiled floor and will mop right up) and then they can play with their toys or come watch films on the iPad while I continue to dose until, ideally, 11:30am.”

INSTEAD, I am now thinking “Please God, let them be allowed to go through school all through the holidays and ideally in the evenings and then have someone bring them home and hand them to me for a kiss and cuddle and then someone else put them to bed.”

I’m happy with both of those options.

I don’t reckon I’ll get either of those options.

Filed Under: Isaac, MAKE IT STOP, Noah, wtf

Damn you, School Run. Damn you to HELL.

December 12, 2012 By 3 Comments

When we managed to get Noah into a school which is 30 seconds up the road, rather than one 15 minutes away from the school Isaac was in, I confessed I breathed a sigh of relief. I was all, “Fuck yeah!! The two schools are now minutes apart, and I’ve got a whole 15 minutes to get from one to the next! PISS EASY.”

I what a stupid naive asshat I am.

Turns out, I forgot to account for getting to and from the car, yelling at them to get in and out the car, being able to get in and out of the car parks, finding somewhere to park, and of course, the sprint from car to door to car to door. It’s good fun.

No, really.

And with it being snowy and frosty and shit, instead of driving with normal care and consideration, everyone’s all “WTF BITCH! I AM SO NOT LETTING YOU OUT OF THAT SPACE, FUCK OFF I HAVE PLACES TO GO!!!!!”

Well, not quite, but the adamant look on their faces, and the crazy honking of horns suggests the above.

This morning I’ve made it on time, as usual, by the sheer luck of the gods. I dunno which  gods, but certainly one of them. I confess as I dropped off Isaac and was trying to get out to get to Noah’s school, I nearly hit 2 other cars whom I didn’t see while I was reversing out. Why didn’t I see them? Because they didn’t have their lights on (IT’S DARK AND FOGGY FOR FUCK’S SAKE!) and they seem to forget that 30mph through the car park isn’t acceptable (UH – HELLO? YOUR CHILD WALKS THROUGH THAT CAR PARK. GOOD LUCK EXPLAINING TO THEM WHY THE FUCK YOU MOWED THEM DOWN.)

I’m eternally thankful for the school run I did last year while the boys were at the private school; it taught me so much on how to not lose my marbles around people. It also helped that the boys were going to the same frigging building, I could do the run in one go, and I wasn’t expected to do it again until the end of the school day. Plus, parent attitudes, kids behaviour, blah blah usual crap.

I fucking hate the school run at the moment. I would sooner do the 30 minute journey I was doing last year, than this super stressy bull-shit, trying to make sure they don’t get into trouble from staff, or be That Kid Who Is Always Late, or as was the case recently, having to literally run Noah across streets and the playground to get to the line up in time for the bell, to have him exhausted already and begging for a drink. It’s just not right.

The waiting game continues. I need to seriously up my wedding photography game, hoping and praying I book enough weddings to meet goals and the like in the next 18 months. Noah stays put until a space opens up at the school Isaac currently attends. We’re desperate for them to be in their original school, for a trillion reasons. They deserve the absolute best I can give them, and I’d like to not be the mom who’s holding back the tears every fucking morning, wondering how the hell we got to this situation and trying to figure out what I need to do to make it better.

It does get better, I’m sure of it. This story being written is no story of mine, not if this school run is anything to go by.

Filed Under: Education, Isaac, MAKE IT STOP, Mutha-Hood, Noah, School

Society Stinks

October 18, 2012 By 6 Comments

One of the reasons I’m looking forward to getting Noah out of current Crappy School, is quite honestly, because of the standards. Don’t get me wrong, I have found his teacher Mrs H to be absolutely LOVELY. In fact, if it were possible, I would ask that Noah can take her to his new school. Unfortunately, it’s the rest of the school and/or attendees which make me cross.

The Mr and I are raising Noah and Isaac to be well mannered, polite, caring and considerate boys. It’s not that hard. Actually, it’s quite easy, especially when you lead by example (though I do have to prod The Mr occasionally to remind him to say please, thank you and excuse me…). But I think it’s important in life. I think they are some incredibly important and necessary life skills.

So, when I’m walking along the path to Noah’s school gate, with Isaac in his pushchair, or I have them both either side of me, and people seem incapable of not taking up the entire path when walking towards me, I get cross. And I get severely fucked off when Isaac or Noah get shoved out of the way, because people won’t move the hell over. I also get reeeeeally annoyed when (already running late), The Smalls stop to let people through gates and doorways, and they are completely unacknowledged. Or when I let them through and they don’t even look me in the eye. No nod of gratitude.

And it’s not just at school.

I get sick of people’s rude attitudes in general. It fucks me off that people seem to forget how to have a two-way conversation. I seem to have figured out how to build up some friendships lately, though I don’t know how far or deep they will go. And one of the things I LOVE, is a “Hey, how you doing?” and not bombarding me with a ton of shit, but actually talking to me because they WANT to. Not because they are just looking for the first person to vent their spleen at.

For the record, I don’t mind people venting their spleen at me, I know we’re all stress-heads in this environment today. But it goes two ways. It always goes two ways.

Weirdly, I’m a sucker for the “Hey, how you doing?” message. Whether it’s on twitter, facebook, email, text, iMessage, Whatsapp, whatever. It will never fail to make me smile, no matter who it’s from. It’s always nice to think “ah! They actually want to talk to me! They were thinking of me! Ok they want to vent, but they were nice enough to acknowledge first!”

And there’s a key word. “Acknowledge“. It’s not hard.

Maybe I’m too old fashioned. Maybe I should accept that we now live in a world where manners, consideration for others, respect, is becoming a non existant thing. And yet, I continue the fight for Noah and Isaac to be back in private school. Why? Because even from the age of 3, they are expected to wear shirts and ties. If Isaac was still in the school, his uniform this year would be a shirt, school tie (albeit on elastic), knee length grey shorts, regulation knee high socks, v-neck school jumper, and a blazer. And going in/out of school, he is to wear a regulation school cap. He would be expected to say “good morning” or “good afternoon” to every member of staff who adresses him. When the headmaster walks into a classroom, they are to stand and adress him (or her…) in unison. The school revolves around tradition; focuses on VALUES.

But on the whole, it’s not fucking hard to acknowledge someone. Especially if you are going to make an effort to continue to speak to them. So you know what, Society of Human Beings? Pull your head out of your arse, and start thinking about those other people around you. It’s a wonderful feeling, trust me. Some of them are amazingly great people! But you won’t know that until you stop being a self-obsessed asshat.

Filed Under: asshats, Just a Thought, MAKE IT STOP, RANT.

I TRIED. Urgh.

October 8, 2012 By 10 Comments

Child 1: “I HATE YOU! I don’t like you!”

Child 2: *raises hand in a “talk to this” style*

Parent of child 1: “OI. Do you want a smack? You SHUT IT!”

…

Child running away from parent.

Parent of child: “OI! C’MERE YER LITTLE SHIT!” She looks around. “Oops, I mean, YER LITTLE SOD!”

…

Child running across grass.

Parent of child: “GEORGE! STOP BLOODY RUNNING AWAY AND GET YOURSELF ERE NOW!”

…

I have no idea if this is acceptable to hear for most parents and children out there. The above were three different incidents, albeit small incidents, heard at Noah’s school in the space of 2 days. I have watched children run out in front of cars in the car park, whilst the parent stood by and shouted (rather than actually chasing them, or even better, keeping a hold on them in the first place).

On Noah’s first day, he told me of a little boy who was spitting at him. Obviously I asked him if he mentioned it to the teacher; he had done. The child had continued, but apparently stopped after a little while. Another child in the playground, every single pick up and drop off, is riding a scoot-bike (no pedals), and repeatedly rams into parents and children. He’s hit Isaac numerous times. The mother, stood very close by, does nothing to stop him.

Maybe, just maybe, I set my standards too high. Maybe, I expect to much of youngsters at school (all of the above incidents were with children who could not have been older than 6). Maybe I am indeed a snob, and should learn to accept some kind of regular way of life.

The thing is, I can’t tolerate what I’m seeing. It grates me. It leaves me cold. It makes me cross. I scream repeatedly on the inside. Every single morning and afternoon, I literally run in and out of the school as fast as possible with the boys. I know, I know, we can’t live in a bubble. They have to “experience real life”. I get that. However, there are things I do not want my children exposed to, because it is not a way of life. Not in our house. Not ever.

I knew I had a sinking feeling about the school when we first took Noah, and at the time I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. As we have completed the first week, and starting the second, my desperation to get him the hell out as soon as possible, is making me physically sick. Every single day, I hope and pray to the Gods of The County Councils, that they will phone or write and say that a space is available for Noah at one of the nearer schools. All of which, are gorgeous and lovely and perfect.

I know and trust that Noah is an incredibly sound and level headed boy. I know he has a surprising amount of common sense, and he knows what is right and wrong. But that doesn’t make me feel happy knowing he is exposed to the crap such as that above. I shout and swear a lot. A whole lot. But NEVER, NEVER in front of my children. Or in front of other people’s children. Or in the goddamn school playground; an environment supposedly safe for parents and children alike. (In theory.)

A letter arrived today confirming Noah’s placement on another waiting list at a nearby school. The three schools near us – he is now listed for them all. We have reached the point where there is nothing, nothing more I can do. The school run will continue to try and grind me down, and through the winter I can only hope I make it through without being crushed by depression. I hang on desperately to the fact that I’m booking my weddings next year, with some booked for 2014 already. The hope is getting the boys back into private education by 2014/15.

I just want the absolute best for them. And right now, what I’m giving them sure as hell is not good enough.

Filed Under: MAKE IT STOP, Noah, School, wtf
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