11th Sept 2014

I apologise for the delay in any updates on the page. I must try and make more time for writing, though heaven knows where I’ll find it! Time seems to flash by so quickly … There’s never enough hours in the day, or days in the week, for all I want to do!

The summer holidays weren’t as jam packed with adventure as I’d hoped it would be. I had high hopes for lots of days out with J, visits to the coast and adventure parks, visits to friends and stays at the caravan. Partly due to my work, partly due to the lack of much sunshine over the summer and partly due to money issues we didn’t get round to doing half of what I wanted to do. Still, we did have fun and celebrating J’s 4^th birthday was just one event we enjoyed. We did manage a stay at the coast (just me and J) and a couple of days out but nothing like what I’d hoped. I aim to get more time off work next summer hols so we can have more time to do more!

As he is now a ‘big boy’ of four years old, this year he started Reception. He’d been attending nursery at the local school for the last year, so I was hopeful he’d get a place in Reception class at the same school but of course you’re warned that this isn’t guaranteed. He did get a place though, so last week he had his first afternoon in his new class, with his new teacher. This week they’ve been doing mornings only, and starting on Monday next week they’ll be doing full days. Personally I think this is a bit of a slow development for them – I think it would have been better to do Monday and Tuesday half day this week, then Wednesday and Thursday have the kids stay for lunch hour and eat their lunch at school so they get used to that idea, then have a full day on Friday so they then have 2 days off to recover from the shock! But instead of that they’re doing mornings only again tomorrow and then from Monday it’ll be full days.

I’m nervous for him, of course, and I’m scared and excited and proud as well. He’s generally a very well behaved child, with maturity beyond his age, but then he has these moments of complete hellishness that leave me feeling completely useless. For instance, because he didn’t want to go into class this morning when the teachers came to the playground for the kids to go in, he ran away. When I tried to get hold of him by the hand to bring him to the classroom he screamed at me and started hitting out. This is becoming too regular for my liking – he becomes upset, or frustrated, and he lashes out straight away. I don’t know why he thinks it’s the thing to do as I’ve never hit him, and every time he does it and I tell him off and tell him it’s not nice he’s remorseful and says sorry and that he won’t do it again, but then he does. However his teacher from nursery never once reported him hitting her, or the teaching assistant, or any of the other kids, and after his kick up this morning his Reception teacher said she’d take him through into the classroom if I would like her to (as it’s first week we’ve been walking them all the way to the class) J was happy enough to go with her, so off he went, and when I went to collect at lunchtime she said they’d had no issues and he even got an “Excellent” sticker! I don’t think he’ll have any issues at school really, his biggest issue is going to be his concentration – particularly if he isn’t interested. If he’s interested in something he’s very single minded and will devote hours to it; if not, then he’s simply not interested at all, whatsoever. My brother was very similar as a child, and so was I – hence in subjects I liked and enjoyed I got OK grades at GCSE and for subjects I didn’t like or enjoy I got rubbish grades. I just turned off!

One of the main things that occurred over the summer was that our household was increased by one rather small and scaly extra. The adoption of a bearded dragon wasn’t something that I had a lot of time to think about – Daddy P discussed with me at Christmas the fact that a work colleague was looking to rehome her sons dragon, and we sort of had a little chat about it and decided yes on a preliminary basis but then it was never mentioned again and I all but forgot about it. The next thing is he comes home from work in June and says they’re bringing the dragon round tonight! So we adopted Oscar, and so started a new journey finding out more about bearded dragons, and the care they need.

It’s been excellent for J, because it’s not a ‘normal’ sort of pet that everyone has and he’d never seen one before Oscar arrived (come to think of it, I don’t think I had) He greets everyone who comes to our house now by pointing at the vivarium and saying, “That’s our dragon Oscar but he doesn’t have wings or breathe fire!” Part of my education about bearded dragons has included finding out that they go into brumation around September time which is kind of like hibernation and prior to them doing this you should have them tested for parasites. So for a week I had to collect samples of Oscar’s waste and send it off for tests. It turned out that there were pinworms found, so I popped off to the vets with Oscar for treatment. There I found out that Oscar is not an Oscar at all – she’s a girl! So we re-named her (in a way) Lady Oscar. One thing I never anticipated with owning a dragon was how affectionate they are, and how without you really noticing you become very attached. I love sitting on the sofa in the evening having cuddles with Lady O (as I call her) She gets  a bath in the bathroom sink every other night (every night if she’s shedding) and her favourite foods are locusts and dandelion leaves. She’s totally my baby girl and I can’t imagine life without her now, even though she’s turned into an expensive pet so far (as well as the vet treatment for the pinworms there will be cost for a new vivarium and lights set up as the one she came with is not right) It’s been a steep learning curve, that’s for sure!

In other news, there’s much excitement building at work with the preparations for the launch of the 2015 Collection. The Cologne trade show in October is the showcase for most 2015 products so make sure you check out any images and information from that if you’re due a baby in 2015! Sounds like there will be some brilliant new products being launched – I’ve training coming up in a few weeks on some new items – I’m looking forward to the company launching some fab stuff. What interests me is that so much is based on customer feedback – when a company says “thanks for your feedback, we’ll let the design team know” you kind of think it’s a cop out, but that’s one thing I’ve learned is that customer feedback really is listened to – at least within this company – and that will be reflected in some of the 2015 products really clearly.

Well it’s time for me to cook dinner for my hungry boys now, so I’ll sign off for now but I’m going to make it my mission to devote some more time to writing and keep this blog much more up to date in future!

Love, Mummy P