A brief picture of my family.
On any one night they can be 1 person in this house or there could be 7.
My family is combined of a husband with 2 children. Step daughter is profoundly disabled and lives in a care home approx 20 miles away. Stepson is 20 and he is in th British Army stationed in Germany.
I have 3 children all boys. Eldest is 17 and is at catering college, Middle son is 14 and a budding football star and youngest is 10, career and ambitions as yet unidenified.
Husband works away most weeks and stays in a company flat in Manchester, where he gets time alone to relax, unwind, have a drink without having to go out to pick kids up from various locations and watch what he wants on the TV. He works very long hours both home and abroad and really misses being away from home.
I work part time in Child Protection, am studying for a degree in Criminology and Psychology and teach Learning Support Assistants on NVQs. I also help to run my sons local football team and I'm an avid supporter of Birmingham City Football Club.
Life in this house is very stressful most of the time. A typical week for me comprises of Sea Cadets for youngest two on Mondays and Fridays, teaching Tuesday nights, Football training on Wednesdays, locally and on Friday evenings middle son trains in Birmingham. Saturdays youngest is at school and Sundays middle son has football matches all across the West Midlands.
All sounds fairly normal, why is this so stressful for me?
A typical evening for me is middle son from school at 3pm, youngest from school at 5pm, cook tea, help with Prep. Take kids to various activities, make pack lunches, wash up, collect eldest at 8pm, washing and ironing, collect kids, tidy away, bath, TV and bed. If my husband comes home that means there's another tea to cook as he's never home when the kids need feeding.
Alternate weekends Step daughter is home, she requires 24 hour supervision, without it she as a risk to herself and others.
Step son comes home on major holidays for several weeks at a time and having another adult in the home doesn't always work out especially when the Alpha male in him is present for the duration.
Eldest is a referre in youth football and is a season ticket holder with Birmingham City, he is rarely at home and when he is he locks himself in his bedroom with his X box and live subscription. He works 3 evenings a week in the kitchens at Malvern College and requires collecting at 8pm.
Middle son is my main concern at the moment he is extremly stressed out with his GCSE's. Today I had a phone call from school with the head of upper school telling me my son needed his head testing. It was parent evening tonight and he had thrown a wobbly last lesson told the science teacher to piss off and stormed out of school...could I please come into school...right now.
I had a chance to see him before I left and he told me the teacher had told him to 'shut up and sit down you sound like a Pixie' It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. FFS Dan is 6ft tall with size 12 feet, have never seen anything so un-Pixie like in my life.
I spoke to the other teachers who informed me that he works hard in lessons, completes his homework and is a popular nice young man, nothing like the science and maths teachers have described in previous reports. However he can be gobby and disprutive but no more than anone else and does respond to being asked firmly to be quiet and get on with his work.
Then there's the youngest, what can I say about him. He attends a boarding school the other side of the Malvern hills, we use the boarding facilities when he is displaying extreme behaviours and when there are fun things on he wants to do. It is also cheaper to have him boarding for a night instead of getting a babysitter. He is dyslexic and has a gluten intollerance. In every other way he is a normal 10 year old with stroppy behaviour when he can't get his own way. However, when he is in a bad mood and has been fed Gluten his behaviour becomes unmanagable to the absolute extreme. As a family with have the full support of CAFCAS, children services and from our Doctor.
So thats my complicated life. Is it any different from yours? There is one plus point to it all apart from the obvious things like all the pleasure the kids give me and how proud I am of them. And that is on alternate weekens they bugger off to stay with their Dad....and relax...no that's when I clean the house and do my studying for my degree.
Oh and don't forget I can always find the time to tweet. I'd go stark raving mad witout it.
Will it ever end?
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Friday, 2 October 2009
#fancydressfriday Twitter
Having fun this week as the winner of #fancydressfriday. Wearing my costume at a variety of locations. Hubby slightly amused over the weekend now thinks I'm completely bonkers, which I probably am. Nagged 17 year old son to crawl round the loft space until he found something I could wear. I rejected his first choice of a Santa hat. His reply 'for god sake Mum, get a life.' Now bribing the kids to take photos.
Spent Friday night celebrating my win with a glass of Rum and coke. Did ask if I could crack open the champagne, that didn't even raise a smile from Hubby. Firmly told 'no' 'grow up'. Then did some sewing as my 14 year old son left for France on Saturday morning with Sea Cadets aboard the TS John Jerwood. By Tuesday he and the crew had made it to Brighton Marina. And finally to bed in costume, hubby lost his patience by now and refused to talk to me till I took the dam thing off, slept like a baby dalek all night in it.
Saturday saw me in #fancydressfriday at Barnard's Green Cricket Club for Malvern Town Wanderers football open day. A huge success we signed 23 mini kickers, gave away goodie bags and footballs. I helped serve up the bacon butties and drinks to parents whilst dressed as a Dalek.
Sunday was the autumn show at the Three Counties Showground, did a bit of gardening in the morning in #fancydressfriday then spent a lovely afternoon with 10 year old son buying useless things that may come in handy one day. Not sure when that day will be but sure we'll find out soon.
Monday in the office all day sorting out case files and chasing up some loose ends. Got spotted by the neighbours hanging up the washing in #fancydressfriday. Tried to explain twitter but they didn't have a clue. I have 2 twitter friends in my town but haven't met either of them yet. Gave up 2 hours of my time to 'help' hubby set up his new computer. For 'help' read 'watch'.
Tuesday spent hanging round the garage, in Cheltenham, for the best part of the day. Popped in to see step daughter for a bounce on the trampoline and cup of tea. Then off to Asda for the weekly shop. Hubby hid #fancydressfriday costume and I finally found it in a case in his office just in time to bake my son his Gluten free cakes for school.
Wednesday a really boring day. Housebound and cleaning windows, bathrooms, dusting and hovering all in #fancydressfriday costume, got a bit hot and there wasn't anyone in so set up the camera on the timer which took more shots of the back of me as I tried to get it right. 17 year old son came home with a friend and is still not speaking to me as I showed him up, his mate, however, is wetting himself laughing and thinks it's great, finally had an audience to talk twitter to as he had at least heard of it but said he doesn't tweet as it's for old people. Cheeky bugger. Hubby away for the night so had uninterrupted fun on Face book.
Thursday in the office for the morning persuaded a colleague to take a photo of me at my desk, although there was a condition I had to let him have a copy of the photo. Agreed as he was the only one in the office that noticed I had had my hair done last week and now have lots of blonde streaks. Don't know if everyone else in the office has noticed it or doesn't like it. Who knows? Who cares? My evening was spent running kids around to various activities.
It is now Friday and my last day of #fancydressfriday. Didn't wear my costume on my epic journey from Worcester to Ramsgate return leaving home at 4am and returning at 2pm. 447 miles and was only there for 10 minutes to collect son and 3 Sea Cadet buddies after they spent the week sailing to France. I won't be putting the costume back in the attic just yet as I wear it every year to hand out the goodies on Halloween. It's sad now that the kids are no longer interested in this activity. 10 year old will go out for half an hour if he can persuade anyone to take him, to rob the neighbours of their sweets but isn't interested in dressing himself or the house up, thankfully the boys still love Christmas, although I think they humour me with the decorating. Will sit down this evening and search for #fancydressfriday and announce the winner live on twitter. I wonder if they will do the same next week or just keep their avatar up. Hope the spirit of #fancydressfriday continues. Last job to do in #fancydressfriday is to wash the costume. Off to bed early tonight as this week’s activities have left me exterminated.
Finally quote from hubby 'thank f*** for that, now will you pay the family some attention this week' huh see above what does he think I've been doing all week?
Spent Friday night celebrating my win with a glass of Rum and coke. Did ask if I could crack open the champagne, that didn't even raise a smile from Hubby. Firmly told 'no' 'grow up'. Then did some sewing as my 14 year old son left for France on Saturday morning with Sea Cadets aboard the TS John Jerwood. By Tuesday he and the crew had made it to Brighton Marina. And finally to bed in costume, hubby lost his patience by now and refused to talk to me till I took the dam thing off, slept like a baby dalek all night in it.
Saturday saw me in #fancydressfriday at Barnard's Green Cricket Club for Malvern Town Wanderers football open day. A huge success we signed 23 mini kickers, gave away goodie bags and footballs. I helped serve up the bacon butties and drinks to parents whilst dressed as a Dalek.
Sunday was the autumn show at the Three Counties Showground, did a bit of gardening in the morning in #fancydressfriday then spent a lovely afternoon with 10 year old son buying useless things that may come in handy one day. Not sure when that day will be but sure we'll find out soon.
Monday in the office all day sorting out case files and chasing up some loose ends. Got spotted by the neighbours hanging up the washing in #fancydressfriday. Tried to explain twitter but they didn't have a clue. I have 2 twitter friends in my town but haven't met either of them yet. Gave up 2 hours of my time to 'help' hubby set up his new computer. For 'help' read 'watch'.
Tuesday spent hanging round the garage, in Cheltenham, for the best part of the day. Popped in to see step daughter for a bounce on the trampoline and cup of tea. Then off to Asda for the weekly shop. Hubby hid #fancydressfriday costume and I finally found it in a case in his office just in time to bake my son his Gluten free cakes for school.
Wednesday a really boring day. Housebound and cleaning windows, bathrooms, dusting and hovering all in #fancydressfriday costume, got a bit hot and there wasn't anyone in so set up the camera on the timer which took more shots of the back of me as I tried to get it right. 17 year old son came home with a friend and is still not speaking to me as I showed him up, his mate, however, is wetting himself laughing and thinks it's great, finally had an audience to talk twitter to as he had at least heard of it but said he doesn't tweet as it's for old people. Cheeky bugger. Hubby away for the night so had uninterrupted fun on Face book.
Thursday in the office for the morning persuaded a colleague to take a photo of me at my desk, although there was a condition I had to let him have a copy of the photo. Agreed as he was the only one in the office that noticed I had had my hair done last week and now have lots of blonde streaks. Don't know if everyone else in the office has noticed it or doesn't like it. Who knows? Who cares? My evening was spent running kids around to various activities.
It is now Friday and my last day of #fancydressfriday. Didn't wear my costume on my epic journey from Worcester to Ramsgate return leaving home at 4am and returning at 2pm. 447 miles and was only there for 10 minutes to collect son and 3 Sea Cadet buddies after they spent the week sailing to France. I won't be putting the costume back in the attic just yet as I wear it every year to hand out the goodies on Halloween. It's sad now that the kids are no longer interested in this activity. 10 year old will go out for half an hour if he can persuade anyone to take him, to rob the neighbours of their sweets but isn't interested in dressing himself or the house up, thankfully the boys still love Christmas, although I think they humour me with the decorating. Will sit down this evening and search for #fancydressfriday and announce the winner live on twitter. I wonder if they will do the same next week or just keep their avatar up. Hope the spirit of #fancydressfriday continues. Last job to do in #fancydressfriday is to wash the costume. Off to bed early tonight as this week’s activities have left me exterminated.
Finally quote from hubby 'thank f*** for that, now will you pay the family some attention this week' huh see above what does he think I've been doing all week?
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