Nowie

 A treat for you today: a guest post from my sister Jess about her little boy Nowie, who you may remember from this blog. 

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I didn't know what I was missing. So I never actually missed anything.

I mean, he's perfect. He was born perfect, born in a perfect manner, at the perfect time on a perfect day, and he looked perfect. The first six months, when we had nothing to do except spend long hot days together, in a relaxed cycle of feeding and changing and cuddling, were the happiest time of my life. I didn't notice that he didn't react to toys, didn't interact with my face, didn't lock eyes with me while he was feeding and didn't care when I was gone. That's just my boy.

It's only now, now his baby sister is here, having hysterics at my face and visibly enjoying me talking to her and doing her best already to talk back to me, that I've noticed the difference.

And that feels beautiful to me - that I had them this way round, that we never felt any lack of anything.

Obviously it's got more noticeable as he's got older how delayed he is. He's said a handful of words, then he's stopped saying them. He's learned to play with toys, but the toys I bought him two years ago. I don't care - I love to see him finally getting to grips with them, enjoying the buttons and lights and noises. He makes a lot of noise himself, and it's no longer indistinguishable from baby babble. He has public meltdowns, when all I can do is crouch between him and the traffic and wait for him to calm down and get up again.

We communicate in our own way. I do everything I know how to encourage his speech, but sometimes it's nice to just know what he wants and to give it without making him wail in frustration first. I like that I understand him.

He wraps his arms tight around me and he's started using his legs to hang on now as well. He makes me feel like the best mum in the world.

He likes helping me change the baby. He passes me her nappy, then her vest, then her babygrow. He knows the order they go on.

He climbs up to the window and waits for his daddy to come home and pick him up and spin him around and make him laugh hysterically. Sometimes he sees the neighbours get in their cars and leave, and he cries and cries - I know how he feels.

He likes collecting things: a set of books, or two handfuls of plastic balls, or a bunch of plastic cutlery. He carries them to his window, and lines them up, runs them through his hands, explores their shapes and colours. He always looks at books the right way round. I hope he'll be a great reader.

I can't pretend I wouldn't love it if he started chatting, but otherwise, I wouldn't change a single thing about him.

He has been officially diagnosed with autism today. I'm so relieved, so happy that we'll get some help. I'm autistic myself (undiagnosed), and I struggled mightily with school, and with making friends.

He'll always know vast wellsprings of love at home. I'm so glad to think he might feel safe and looked after and loved at school, too.

Oh God, Not Again

 We thought we had seen the back of homeschooling, but COVID had better ideas.

The first term of 2020/21 was plagued with small quarantines,v Jack in September, with ?covid that ended up being a vicious chest infection, Alex in October and Jack again in November. Neither of them off at the same time (except for the few days of house-quarantine in September) so it wasn't too bad. But a short-term homeschool period is nothing compared to endless weeks of it.

I took it badly. I cried and a had a panic attack, or seven, and then stared bleakly through time while I adjusted to the horror. But I feel better now. Sometimes, you just have to get on with it. 

This week has been...fraught. Jimmy's school closed in the last lockdown, but there's been significant lobbying to get them to stay open this time. They have closed to many pupils, but Jimmy has a place. A place subject to weekly PCR tests which I am sure he is going to LOVE, but this is a major relief. 

You see, since the last lockdown, I've started a PhD, and yes I KNOW YOU KNOW. But doing a PhD is a weird sort of half-job. I'm not technically or legally employed, and I don't pay tax on my income from it. I don't qualify for furlough, and I'm not teaching so I'm not a key worker...but I still have to work. A lot of this work is reading books, and if you know me, you'll know I read constantly. But there's a difference between reading Jilly Cooper on the sofa, and reading a book and distilling notes into two actual notebooks, a bibliography program and two Word docs simultaneously. My concentration is frequently broken by cries of "MUUUUUUM, I'm BOOOORED, I need a YOGHUUUURT, I want to go to OUTSIDE in a SHORT SLEEVED SHIRT even though it's MINUS TWO!" Homeschool takes up most of the morning. With Jim in the mix as well, it would have taken up the entire day and I would have been found frozen in the garden, dead in a pool of rum.

The work the school have given out is much more structured and focused than last time, which is a blessing. "Remember the book you read four months ago? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?" was not a helpful work suggestion last time around. But this also means that there's less flexibility. On Wednesday, we had no work for the kids until lunch time, so we did a taste test to learn about the senses and I got Jack to write a choose-your-own-adventure story and put it on Twine, which he thought was AMAZING. But there's no room for that sort of thing now we actually have the school work. I try to make it fun, but as I think I've made clear several time, I fucking hate teaching. 

There are more apps now, a maths app for each of them, a classroom app. As with last time, homeschool is not set up for the technology-less family - I've had to borrow a tablet off my ex to make sure the boys have one each to run the classroom app. 

Alex has come on massively since he's been in year one. He can write:

But this does not mean he WANTS to write. "I HATE doing my work, it's STUPID" he told me this morning, as I valiantly attempted to get him to write an equals sign. "I HATE reading, I don't WANT to read" he stomped, before whispering his way through a Biff, Chip and Kipper tale. 

Jack is still a morose child when made to do anything. He is learning algebra, which he has taken against on principle, despite it being THE EASIEST OF MATHS. I am a halfwit who can't do my seven times table, and I can do algebra. He also doesn't get why he needs to show his working, which SAME MATE.

So, that's where we are. The School of the Mad has reopened, albeit with a reduced cohort and a much busier headteacher.

PJ

Today, I have a special treat for you. A GUEST BIRTH STORY from my sister Jess! You may remember Jess from previous tales of birth on here. However, this time, I wasn't allowed to be at the birth (damn COVID), so I went home at 11pm and missed Polly's EXTRAORDINARY arrival. 

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My usual birth blogger was only present for a little while because of 'covid-19', 'needing to sleep', 'it will probably take ages', the usual excuses. So I've had to write my own.

12pm on Saturday I decide I absolutely must have a Chiquitos meal today, and duly book one online.

1pm on Saturday Scott suggests we have an afternoon walk.

2pm we return from the walk and I go to hang up some washing. "Hmm, a Braxton Hick," I think to myself, "no doubt brought on by the fairly long walk."

At 3pm we sit down in Chiquitos. "I don't want to alarm you," I say calmly to Scott, "but I seem to be having fairly intense Braxton Hicks."

I google Braxton Hicks to find out how painful they're supposed to be. Answer: not very, but then, is this really pain, or am I a wuss? - so, inconclusive.

We eat, we pay, we leave, and I ring Sophie, the Birth Pterodactyl, the Labour Wizard. 

Sophie deduces at once that these are actual contractions, but assures me it could be days before I actually go into established labour.

Nevertheless, she offers to come over to be with me for a bit while I get through them - after all, when else will we have the chance to dance and rap to Hamilton without any of our small boys around?

A break in the dancing. Sophie does have a video...

By 9pm Scott and I have decided to pack Noah off to his grandparents, just in case the baby does make a break for it in the night. At this point I've had no show, no waters breaking, no real sign of labour - only contractions of varying length, strength and intensity. The contractions come pretty randomly, pretty much any time I exert any effort, such as climbing the stairs to the toilet, or attempting a sexy knock-knees slutdrop á la Lin-Manuel Miranda. If this is labour, it's completely different from my last labour. 

Hamilton finishes and we take Soph home. She has been fantastic, but she got what she came for: uninterrupted Hamilton. Also we still believe at this point that I could be going for another couple of days yet. So attempting sleep is the order of the night.

Scott and I go to bed and I continue contracting, with burgeoning intensity, and much pain in the back and arse. A few times I get up and go to the loo, partly because pregnancy has turned my bladder into a seive, and partly to see if there's anything coming out. Getting out of bed makes me shake like a leaf. "This is my body's way of telling me this house is too cold for a newborn," I tell myself through chattering teeth. The last time this happens, I decide I must run myself a bath to warm up and hopefully make the contractions easier to deal with. Later, I realise this is probably the same give-up-or-go-home mindset that usually signals the barmy transition phase. 

At 1:40 I get in the bath on my knees and instantly need to push. And I do push. "Gordon Bennett," I cry, "I cannot push, I've barely had a real contraction yet."

I sit back, contract again almost instantly, and out comes a lovely meaty show.

Hard on the heels of this one follows another great pushy contraction, which expels breaking water like a jetski engine being kicked into touch, practically hurling me backwards through the bath water.

At this point I realise I should probably already be in hospital. 

I shout Scott and he wakes up and comes running. Within five minutes we are in the car, and I am wailing and panicking - after what until this point has been a very quiet, fuss-free labour - because I need to push and I WILL push. I can feel the baby's head crowning in the car. There is no traffic; we reach the hospital in less than 10 minutes, grab whatever we can, and stagger towards the mat unit. I am hysterical because the baby is about to be born in the car park. I have the urge to "get low" in Soph's words - not in an apple-bottom-jeans, boots-with-the-fur way - more that I need to hunker down on the concrete and deliver. Scott rings the button and I sob "THE BABY'S HEAD HAS COME OUT" into the intercom. I don't know how I get all the way to triage, which is on the first floor. Scott is trying fruitlessly to make me go faster, reassuring me that the baby's head can't possibly be out, and telling me to breathe. I am panting, to try and keep her in!

Thank goodness, despite the total lack of warning, midwives are at the ready. No waiting for triage this time. I am bundled in to the nearest delivery room, and stagger towards the bed, trying to shrug off my pants. Scott sees, to his amazement, that actually the baby's head IS hanging out. I barely get a knee on the bed and out she tumbles, all 7lb 15oz of her. "Did you want to keep these pants?" says the midwife doubtfully. They are in the bin now.

In the madness that follows - me trying to remove my clothes and snuggle the child at the same time; the midwives jabbing me and pulling the placenta out; my undercarriage being assessed for damage - someone says politely to Scott: "and what is your name?"

Jess looking fresh and not as all as though she's just had a baby

Polly Joanne, oblivious to her insane entrance

The midwives were fantastic; Sophie was fantastic; Scott was fantastic. I was largely an idiot. I didn't realise how far in labour I was until I started pushing, at which point it was already too late to try to get to the hospital, but we went anyway. The labour was completely different from my first, when my waters broke and then contractions steadily increased in frequency and intensity until I gave birth. The contractions hurt so much last time that I bellowed and yelled and punched the bed while I was waiting for gas and air. This time, they hurt a lot, but not enough to shout about. The pushing stage came as a complete shock. 

No regrets: I have a feeling that trying desperately to hold her in prevented me from doing what I would've done otherwise - namely, panic-pushing the head out in one fell swoop. All in all, a magnificent birth that I've spent the last couple of days happily reliving, like a particularly nice date. 10/10.

***

I thought I'd better give my Thoughts on Jess' Mad Birth. See, she rang me around 5pm because she was having 'Braxton Hicks'. At term+1? With a second baby? "Er, Jess" I said, "Are they starting at the bottom and radiating up?" Yes. "They're not Hicks, they're labour". She sends me a photo of the bump. "Do you think she looks lower?", she asks. The bump is a clear four inches lower than it was a few days before. 

I went over at 7pm, mainly to check her with my OWN EYES and WATCH HAMILTON. At around 9pm, she had a contraction that made her wince, and we had a small dance of celebration for real labour. When I left her at 11pm (mainly because she kept saying she should go to bed, actually), she was still able to talk during them. I was CONCERNED after the speed that Noah was born that she would experience an acceleration when her waters went, but I had no fucking CONCEPT of how fast that acceleration would be. So, I went to sleep at 1am, after checking that she was OK.

And I was awoken at 3am, by Alex, and discovered the following message chain:

FUCK. 

I messaged her, I messaged Scott, I sat and waited and Scott sent me a photo of them a few minutes later. Now, had I got the message at leg-shaky stage, I would have told her to go to hospital, since she was in FUCKING TRANSITION. 

If I had BEEN there, I would have phoned an ambulance and delivered the baby myself. 

But I was not there, so I was cheated of birth heroics. 

Stat attack: Established labour at roughly midnight, transition at 1:29am, SROM at 1:45am, delivery at 2:11am. Maybe have a homebirth next time, yeah?

I am very proud! WHAT A CERVIX! WHAT A BIRTH STORY! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL ROUND-HEADED NIECE! 

And the Beat Goes On

When I finished my MA, in January 2019, I thought I'd finished with university. But my OU journey was not quite over.

I knew I wanted to do a PhD before I'd even finished my masters dissertation. I knew there was so much more in my field of research that hadn't been done, that tied into multiple other fields of criminal and social history. I didn't want to stop. So I began to put a PhD proposal together almost as soon as I got my results back last March. I started working as a local historian, doing lots of family history and giving local lectures, and I started putting together a sample catalogue of inquests.

It took ages to put my PhD proposal together, since I was doing it more or less 'blind', with no supervision. I had some help from my MA tutor, and some help from my clever twitter peeps. I submitted it at the end of August last year.

And I heard nothing.

I was disappointed, but unsurprised. It was foolish to even think they'd be interested in any research I had to do. Everyone suffers from imposter syndrome at some point in academia, and I had it in spades. I never did A levels, my undergrad isn't even in history, I'm studying a niche area that nobody's terribly interested in. Why would anyone care?

In December, I noticed the History Faculty were still taking applications into their scholarship programme, so I fired off an email.

Within days, I'd had an email from the head of history apologising that I'd never recieved feedback on my application, with loads of feedback that should have been sent in September. He really liked my application, although it needed some work, and he wanted to call me and talk to me about it. He phoned me on December 16th. Now, you have to remember that ideally, PhD applicants get SEVERAL MONTHS of preliminary work with their likely supervisor preparing a formal proposal. Imagine my surprise when he asked me to formally apply. Imagine my surprise when I realised the deadline was THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY.

I panicked. I read a lot of stuff on methodology. I got my application in. I waited. I waited a bit more. I was offered an interview. I got my interview date and time on 24th January. On 25th January, my baby niece was diagnosed with a brain tumour. The next week was a confusing blur of phone calls and texts, critical illness and life-saving surgery, and waiting, and worrying, and trying to prepare for this interview. The interview was on 31st January, the same day my niece's brain tumour histology was due to come back. I did the interview in the morning, we found out it was cancerous in the afternoon. A very strange, intense day. You can read about my little niece here.

Next up, before I even found out if I had a PhD place, I had to apply for funding. I can't afford to pay for a PhD outright, and I can't justify the loan and taking myself out of the work market for several years. So, I applied to the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership funding programme. They pay all fees and a studentship, and run multiple amazing training events. They award 77 candidates a year, in twenty-odd different arts and humanities subjects. HUNDREDS of people apply for these funding packages, mostly from Oxbridge. I had a tiny chance of getting one, so I went for it.

I found out that I had won a PhD place on 10th February, right before I did the school run. I was so delighted, I ended up blurting it out at the business manager at the school!

I found out that the university was supporting my application for funding (subject to minimal revisions) on 17th February. This is when it suddenly felt really terrifying. Funding applications are HARD: you have to sell yourself and your project in roughly 1500 words, making yourself sound like A Boss, while having to cut loads of words out of your original proposal because it's too long. You have to retain sense, and you have to make it sound really novel and exciting. I'm quite lucky that my branch of history is both novel AND interesting to non-history folk. I got it done and in by 25th February, coincidentally the same day my niece started chemo.

And then, more waiting. The funding consortium met twice in March, and the results were due to come out in the first week of April. During this interim period, COVID-19 hit and, in the maelstrom of home-schooling kids, overanalysing every cough and sneeze, and trying desperately to source pasta, I forgot about the whole PhD thing for a bit.

After my birthday, I started thinking about it a bit. I thought, 'I probably haven't won it, so I need to think about what to do instead', and started putting my business in order. But on 8th April, I got a surprise.

I won the funding award.

I SCREAMED the house down, I STARTLED the neighbours, then I CRIED, then I read the terms and conditions and accepted the award.

Then I waited to have my formal PhD offer from uni. And waited. And waited. These things take time, particularly in a pandemic. In the meantime, corona raged, people died in their thousands, and I homeschooled my kids every day. The summer holidays rolled around, my siblings registered for their next uni modules. Still, I waited. I started to think it was all a fever dream, while simultaneously reminding myself that bureaucracy is slow and coronavirus is slower. 

Finally, on 5th August, my contract came through. I signed it and returned it within about five minutes. On 13th August, my registration was confirmed. I celebrated, then I had a few days of deep self-doubt, and now here we are.

I have eight years to do my thesis, and nearly seven years of funding, but I'd like to do it in five. And now it begins. The research, the research, the reams of research. But research is what I love the most, with every case file a mystery to solve. I picked a subject with a lot of human interest, a lot of drama and a a lot of gore, because I am a massive goth. Hopefully the archives reopen soon!

But first, new laptop and stationery...

Soph's School of the Mad: Final Week

My god, it had BETTER be the final week. I have learned much about myself in the last few months, and the main thing is no, I really do not want to be a teacher. But I've done my best, and I don't feel like the older two have wildly suffered academically, and that is the main thing. Alex is a totally different matter. As things stand, they're going back to school in September. Alex will be in year one, Jack in year five and Jim in year seven.

On Monday, Jim did some work on pollination, mainly sniggering about plants DOING SEX on themselves. Part of the work was doing a quiz, identifying fruit and vegetables by the plant. I incorrectly identified a grape vine as 'WINE'. WINE! IT GROWS ON THE WINE VINE!

We tasted honey, we did some pollination using chalk and this amazing diagram:

And we had a really good look at the anatomy of a poppy. Then we declared that we would never look at plant biology again.

Jack wrote a letter to his new teacher, warning her that he has an extremely short temper but "gets over it quickly". The child speaks the truth.

Then me and Jim had a Teams meeting to meet his new teacher and TA for next year. Jim, nervous as hell, ate nine cookies during this half hour meeting and informed the new teacher than people are God's cookies, so he certainly got to sample the madness of Jim.

Tuesday began with a walk to the chemist. Jack proved HIGHLY reluctant to do any work after this, but managed this acrostic poem:

What a wonderful day it was
Everyone outside, playing and shouting
And then, all of a sudden
Thunder destroying everything in its path
Hail knocking people out
Everyone rushed to their homes
Restless and ruined, everyone went to bed

Goth.

Jim started work on his All About Me powerpoint. Highlights included:

On Wednesday, Jack and Alex (with CONSIDERABLE GUIDANCE AND HELP) made some thank you cards for their teachers. Can't help but feel they should be making ME cards, but fuck it:

Do you remember Jim did his SATs (for NO REASON) a couple of weeks ago? Well, he got the results. He got 95 in maths, which is absolutely standard for year six. He got 111 in English, which is AMAZING. Considering he did no revision at all, and did them at home, I think he did astonishingly well and actually feel quite weepy about it. It's hard to replicate school at home, and it's 100 times harder to replicate a SEN school at home, but this feels like external validation that I haven't done a shit job.

His teacher came over on Wednesday to take his laptop back to school, so we got to say goodbye. She's gone above and beyond throughout this whole thing, and has become an extension of our family. Alex told her he loved her on video chat, and then she brought Jim a fig tree for being a STUDIOUS GOOSE. I have to say, he's been remarkably amenable to home schooling, all things considered. I think he's enjoyed the routine:

On Thursday, I was woken up by Alex dropping onto my abdomen on both knees, and then weeping at my wailing. I survived, and tried to get Jack and Alex to watch Blue Planet so they could LEARN OF THE SEA, but they were not interested in LEARNING OF THE SEA, so they abandoned ship. I do not think any of my children will be mariners, unlike their forebears.

Jim's school issued a sports day challenge, which he did in the most grudging, half-hearted way you can imagine. "I WILL NOT DO PRESS UPS" he screamed. "I CAN'T DO THIS" he howled, after two laps of the garden. "THIS IS TORTURE" he wailed as he flapped through six star jumps. He will never be an Olympian:

Then he finished off his Harry Potter comprehension and I ran out of work to give him.

We went to the primary school to say goodbye to the boys' teachers at lunchtime. This was EMOTIONALLY NECESSARY for all of us. When Alex saw his TA, he ran up to her and sat on her knee and we all tried not to cry. He hasn't seen her since March! She took him to see his new classroom and meet his new teacher. We also said goodbye to Jack's old teacher who's leaving the school and their SENCo.

Today, Friday, the kids have had a day off, as they would have at actual school. Alex insisted on finishing his reading program:

THE PRIDE!
The big two are planning on watching ALL FOUR SHREKS BACK TO BACK, and I have sorted out all the stuff they've done, filing much into the bin, turning my dining room back into something approaching a normal family room rather than a school (albeit, filled with Warhammer). Tom's got some time off work- actual time off, not working from home - and I've got a PhD to prepare for.

The last day of reception, year four and year six. What a fucking weird year:

Thank you to Tracey, Claire and Louise for keeping me sane, and thank you to ALL the teachers at Discovery for being superstars.

And thank you, o general reader, for reading my weekly blog of madness. Lockdown has been weird and lonely, frustrating and endless. Way back in March, I posted on Facebook suggesting that families try and have a routine to teach their kids because 'they might end up being out of school for six months', never dreaming that would end up being the case. SEN schools weren't supposed to close. They did. Alex was supposed to be able to go back to school. He didn't. Jack, the one child desperate to go back, was never given the option. It has been a bizarre juggling act of trying to teach them, trying to teach ME to be a teacher, trying to meet their SEN needs, and trying to still be mum at the end of it while also working myself.

If I have to do it again, I will. But I don't want to.

Enjoy your summer. Stay safe. CONSTANT VIGILANCE.

Soph's School of the Mad: Week Thirteen

The fifth and final household birthday of the year took place on Saturday. Alex was FIVE! We went to see his grandparents, and he reacted completely normally to being sung to...


On Monday, I asked him to sound out this word:

"SUN-KUH! CUNT!"

No...not quite.

This week, as the end of term draws near, Jimmy has been asked to do a piece of creative writing so his teachers can assess his English ready for year seven. On Monday, we started with some planning, and also looked at Cinnabar moths. Our garden is OVERRUN with cinnabar caterpillars, but apparently they'll all eat each other soon so we won't have a garden of beautiful red moths. Boo.

Jack's topic this week is SPORT. Ostensibly, the cancelled Olympics, but he has requested to learn more about rugby as well. So...I guess we will.

On Tuesday, a relatively quiet morning. Jim worked on his MAGNUM OPUS, screeching with indignation because I disabled the autocorrect grammar tool on Word. He WILL learn what punctuation means.

Jack had to interview me about lockdown life. He asked some good questions: "Do you like Boris Johnson?" (NEWP), "How much beer or wine have you drunk?" (ONE BOTTLE, JUST ONE). We also took a lovely SELFIE:

God, I need to dye my hair. I haven't been this blonde since 2011.

We also got word on Alex and Jack's class allocations for next year, which sent me into a panicked spiral. HOW CAN HE GO INTO YEAR ONE WHEN HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT A SENTENCE IS???

On Wednesday, Jim got up at the CRACK in order to finish his Great Work. Jack watched some videos about bullying and nouns. Alex did absolutely nothing, because (and I'll own it), I fucking forgot. Jim can go into this mode of being so absolutely overwhelming that you lose the will to live. Full Colin Robinson style. And on Wednesday, he did this with such FEROCITY that I was close to tears by midday.

I also bought some school uniform. Who knows if they'll ACTUALLY go back to school in September? Who knows anything anymore? What ARE plans? What IS the future? Based on this instability, I have refused to pay £6.20 for a single, tiny logo'd polo shirt, and bought supermarket crap. SUPERMARKET CRAP ALL ROUND. Jim gets to wear black polo shirts next year, because he's in year 7. I don't know who's more delighted: him for getting to wear black, or me because I don't have to do a white wash every week.

On Thursday, Jim edited his Great Work (reluctantly):

And illustrated My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson. Jimmy HATES this poem. It is for 'babies' apparently. No taste:

We also looked at how far two metres is.

About four times further than he initially believed.

Jack was asked to do a sport related newspaper frontpage, and WE WENT ALL OUT MOTHERFUCKER:

Look, it's been a really long week and sometimes I like to overachieve on my children's behalf.

Alex has spent the week in a post-birthday comedown. Yesterday, he VERY SLIGHTLY grazed his foot and went around for the rest of the day wrapped in a fleece. Then he fell asleep, so we couldn't get him to bed when the time came. Then he had a bath and WOULD NOT PUT HIS SLIGHTLY GRAZED FOOT IN THE WATER, so spent the bath on one leg, like a fucking flamingo. Sometimes, parenting autistic children is a voyage of discovery and genius. Mostly, it's trying to persuade your kid to do things like PUT BOTH FEET IN THE WATER.

C'est la vie.

FRIDAY, FRIDAY, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY. Jim did some beautiful botanical drawing, as he's supposed to be learning about plant biology, but apparently 'already knows it all'. Steady on there, Carl Linnaeus:

Yes, that's the real poppy alongside.

He also has some FEELINGS on time travel.

At one point this morning, I turned to see Jack's book review descending into madness:

QUITE.

Anyway, one more week, and it's mostly a week of doing FUCK ALL, THANK GOD.

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.