Soph's School of the Mad: Week Twelve

The boys were at their dad's at the weekend, and rather than do anything productive, I sat around in an immense pre-menstrual piss, watching old Glastonbury. Alex, however, went mad in the garden doing chalk lines everywhere

And planting stuff

Then he sorted his cars out into colours and CRIED BECAUSE I WOULDN'T LET HIM RACE THEM ALL AGAINST EACH OTHER.

It would have taken THE REST OF HIS NATURAL LIFE.

Monday dawned.  Urgh. Nobody wanted to get out of bed, least of all me. I've adjusted Jack's timetable again to take the element of choice out of it because I think it was stressing him out. He likes to know what he's doing and get it done.

Meanwhile, Jim was doing some of the craft stuff we didn't do last week because of BLOODY MATHS. We made Stonehenge out of Bourbon biscuits

Surprisingly difficult, but a good breakfast

Then he designed this Iron Age shield. LOOK AT THE DETAIL! LOOK AT THE BOSS! WHAT A BOSS!

On Monday lunchtime, Jim's teacher brought round a stack of SATs-esque papers. Here's the thing with year six SATs. Mainstream schools start telling kids in year five how important their SATs are, how desperately, critically VITAL they are to a good transition into secondary school, which as any fule kno is bullshit. Jim was in mainstream in year five. He firmly believes that he will SIMPLY NOT BE ALLOWED into secondary phase unless he has done his SATs. So he asked to do some tests. I asked him teacher if she could facilitate this (he would have done his SATs if they hadn't been abandoned) and therefore we have had SATs week over a month late. And to be fair to Jim, there has been very little howling.

Jack was asked to do some work on Tim Peake. Jack is thoroughly unimpressed with astronauts. Going into space is his idea of hell. He does not think going into space was the peak of Peake's career. He would not like to go himself, no thank you madam. Oh, and he wants to join Scouts RIGHT NOW, when no groups are meeting.

On Tuesday, we began the SATs. In Jim's school, exam conditions are not quite the same as mainstream, and Jim's teacher had no issue with using cat videos and sweets to keep him regulated while he did them:

And to his credit, he did the whole maths reasoning paper without screaming once. On Wednesday, he did two of the English papers, again without screaming:

On Thursday, two more English papers. Still no screaming.

In non-SATs news, he also wrote a twisted version of the Three Little Pigs in which the pigs mutilated the wolf, because my children are very like me.

Jack's loathing of astronauts continued throughout the week. God, he hates astronauts. On Wednesday, he sulked because I ASKED HIM TO READ A BOOK. The child who normally has at least four books on the go.

He was also horrified by this video. Look at his face. "MUM, THIS IS CRINGE, he yelled.

Tbf, I made him watch Beyonce at Glastonbury on Monday, so he knows what this song SHOULD BE.

I asked Jack to write about what exactly he hates about the idea of being an astronaut. Some highlights:
"You have to wear a big heavy suit that makes you look like an alien. When you get to space, there is nothing to do until lunch except jump up and down, shouting 'WE MADE IT! WOO HOO!'"

Quite.

Alex hasn't done a lot this week. I keep feeling dreadful about him in particular missing out at school. I'm trying to be reassured that everyone is the same, and the school will help him catch up, but I'm still struggling to reconcile this with my terror of his developmental delays becoming intractable. Anyway, he has discovered that he REALLY LIKES Top Gear, and watches it in rapt silence in the mornings while his brothers are working.

I taught him a bit about money:

Not sure he actually understands the PHILOSOPHY of money, but then who does? He knows the nominal value of coins, which isn't particularly useful when everyone's paying on contactless at the moment. And his letter formation is gradually, so gradually, improving:

Bless his little face. He's FIVE tomorrow. Fucking five. Five years ago, it was one of the hottest days of the year, so I naturally celebrated by spending half the day in hospital, missing Wimbledon, and then having my waters break all over the hallway when I got home. Memories!

On Friday, Jim did his arithmetic paper, truly saving the best for last. He did finish it, although I shouted "WHAT IS THIRTY SIX PLUS SEVEN??" at him so loud that it made Alex cry. Oops. Meanwhile, Jack wrote a space book for Alex:

Apocalyptic, I like it.

We got word from all schools that they expect to re-open in September, so I wept openly with relief. Jim, as usual, summed it up rather succinctly in his Harry Potter comprehension:

Two more weeks.