Soph's School of the Mad: Week Eleven

Father's Day! Look at this card that Alex DEFINITELY MADE ALL BY HIMSELF, HONEST GUV:

I do love these horrible, smelly males that I live with.

So, Monday. Another Monday, another absolute lack of shit to do. I set Jack to writing a recipe for this ice cream sundae we had at the weekend:

(Sauce recipe here) (Try it, you will regret nothing but your waistline).

Then, I settled down with Jim to do his EHCP review. EHCPs replaced Statement of Special Education Need a few years ago. They are supposed to be reviewed every year, and this is Jim's first review since he started at Medeshamstede. It's also the first review where he's been old enough to have some input into the process:

"Jim, what do you need to be happy every day?"
"EVERYONE TO DO AS I SAY"
"Ah, of course"

On Tuesday, it got hot. And as it got hot, my fucks dissolved. Jack had to write a fairytale with a new ending. I think they wanted cheerful endings, like Red Riding Hood and the wolf making friends, but this is Jack, so instead they got an elephant eating Jack the Giant Slayer, his mother AND the giant. I'm just sad he didn't go with my idea to have Rapunzel's head get pulled off by the incessant clambering up her hair.

Alex finished his first workbook and was SO PROUD to get a certificate:

Wednesday was MATHS DAY. Cue endless screaming howls of dismay from us all. Me because I had to teach maths, Jim because he had to do maths, Jack because he felt like joining in and Alex because there is a noise outside and the windows are open. Having a noise-averse child closing all the windows when it's 30 degrees outside is NOT MY FAVOURITE.

So, we were doing data handling, which I can do fairly well (literally the only maths thing I CAN do). We started off with skittles:

Delicious skittles. This graph was produced:

Then Jim had to do some independent work on line graphs, all the time eating the skittles.

There were no skittles by 10:30am. Jack's there in the background completely ignoring the work he's been set to listen to Spotify instead.Then we all went to die in the sun like lizards, hissing at each other and weeping tears of pure salt.

On Thursday, I had Jim's EHCP review meeting, so everything was a nightmarish rush to get done by 11. We had to do PIE CHARTS, which Jim understood and did perfectly in between screaming like a wounded animal. While I was in the meeting, he wrote a diary entry about cannibals in the Iron Age. He's decided that cannibalism was rife in the period, and nothing will dissuade him, which is very 1900s historian of him. Jack did some maths, and then wrote a factfile on a monster called The Fred of the Daktala Forest in Jackland.

A Fred:

Alex's teacher rang up to talk about how he's getting on since he's staying at home til September. I put her on speaker phone so she could talk to him, and he FLED, LITERALLY UPPED AND RAN. It might be a struggle to get him back into school in a few months. Alex had a play with some thermodynamic putty, which he loved:

God only knows why he insisted on wearing jeans on the hottest day of the year. Weird kid is weird.

Friday, thank God, and it's a dad-weekend for the older two. Jimmy has been HAUNTING me all week, eavesdropping on my conversations, inserting himself into my personal space, appearing at his bedroom window to scream "WHY HAS MUMMY GOT HER FEET IN WATER????" He's not going back to school after all, and I have taken to drink.

First thing this morning, he had a go at doing some prehistoric art using flour, sticks and buttercups:

I think it has a slightly sinister vibe. I like it.

Jack designed a book cover for his magnum opus, which he's been working on for weeks:

And Jim wrote a powerpoint about the Amazon rainforest, which wasn't exactly what he was supposed to do, but he used full sentence so who cares?

Three more weeks. I can do this. I CAN do this.