My daughter collected her GCSEs yesterday and, having successfully achieved the requisite grades for her choice of course, is going to college* in September.
This isn’t really my news to share, so I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty about grades and courses and choices (funny how I used to blog everything and then having kids flipped that upside down) but it feels like too significant a milestone to pass by without comment. I’ve not really done a good job of journaling these since she was a toddler, something I regret now.
I think it feels particularly poignant because of the struggles we’ve had at home and at school over the years (spoilers: undiagnosed autism x 2 isn’t fun), but maybe I’m actually doing an OK job at dragging her up despite my many failings & f*ck-ups?!
I look forward to seeing how college shapes her, and what the next couple of years have in store…
* For my American readers: UK ‘college’ is further education completed after school at age 16-18, generally. USA ‘college’ is more akin to university here.
What a month. WHAT A MONTH. Is it just me, or is May easily the busiest month of the year? (It probably is just me.) The end of April (that’s basically May, right?) saw this blog – well, domain – reach 15. FIFTEEN years of dodgy web design, blogging about everything from poop to programming,… read full entry »
That’s it. The milestone I was dreading has come and gone. We have a lot of ‘seven’ left to go, but that initial mountain has been climbed and conquered. Not made any easier by the organisation of the birthday party, because some bright spark thought that’d be a great idea. For some reason, when I… read full entry »
My daughter turns seven years old on Monday. It’s a milestone I’ve been dreading for some years. Seven years old. I have organised a party. A disco with music and lights. I’ve bought glow sticks, I’m making a buffet and building a rainbow My Little Pony layer cake. I’ve told her to invite all her… read full entry »
You’d think having not blogged for over a month I’d have a huge array of exciting developments to fill you in on. Unfortunately, however, my life is just chores, bum-wiping and work, and I’m too lazy to make anything exciting up so you’re not disappointed by my very existance. But in a nutshell (for those… read full entry »
Back in February I asked my GP for referral for a sterilisation. I saw the consultant last Monday to confirm that I fully understood what was involved in the process and the fact that it was a permanent, non-reversible contraception etc etc. I was offered a newer, non-surgical procedure called Essure®, which basically involves inserting… read full entry »
Would it be controversial of me to suggest that failing to teach your children to cook is neglecting a hugely important of parenting? That is, missing out a huge part of a range of life skills that should be imparted upon your kids. As I lovingly prepared a homemade lasagne earlier (by which I mean… read full entry »
It’s Tuesday morning, 6:50am. The kids have just asked me if it’s morning yet and can we get up, and I send them back to bed knowing full well the alarm is going to go off in 5 minutes, but every second I can spend tucked in bed wrapped in limbs and duvet improves the… read full entry »
Although my parenting ‘method’ is very much make-it-up-as-you-go-along, I have a set of core principles that I believe are important to creating well-rounded little human beings. Autonomy I strongly believe in a level of autonomy for my children. Primarily this means bodily autonomy: the freedom to make choices about themselves without judgement or coercion. This… read full entry »
I got a little bit excited yesterday evening after Izzy told me her mouth was hurting as we brushed her teeth (oops, that sounds awful!) I had assumed she was just complaining because she was tired and grumpy, but nope… turns out she has two permanent teeth coming in. Took me a little by surprise… read full entry »