Category: Kids
You are viewing all posts from this category, beginning with the most recent.
Break in Transmission
Last week’s swimming lesson was cancelled, and the week before that, we went away for half-term. To a very wet and wild north-east Lincolnshire right by the sea (or the Humber Estuary). With no wifi, and very poor data connectivity. In a tin can caravan.
But we all had fun, and the kids got to spend time with their grandparents who live nearby. And use their wifi.
On the night before we left I met up with a couple of my oldest and best friends, Murray and Aaron, who I hadn’t seen for ten (Aaron) and thirty (!) (Murray) years. It was really great to have a couple of pints and talk shit with them, just like the old days, as if it was only yesterday.
Frank
Frank was my great grandfather on my dad’s side.
I only met him a couple of times. One time, me and my brother were made to wear the most ridiculous and embarrassing outfits, and we just felt very uncomfortable and ill-at-ease meeting this very old man from another time.
He was born in the early 1901. So he must have been 80 or so when we met him. Not so old these days, but back then he really was like a dinosaur, or a fossil.
I remember a couple of stories about him. After the Great War, when he was a young man with a new wife and baby daughter (my grandmother), he had to walk twenty-five miles to work, where he would labour hard for sixteen hours before walking home again, only to be brutally murdered by his father before going to bed and getting up the next morning to do the same thing over and over again. Well, he certainly had to work hard, just to survive and raise a family.
Life was no doubt much harder then than any of us can really imagine, but you try and tell that to the young people of today. Would they believe you? No!
My great grandmother, Ellen, was committed to Lancaster Asylum some time after my grandmother Freda was born. I don’t know what the reason was, but it’s possible it was because she was suffering from what would now be recognised as post-natal depression.
In those days, it was a life sentence, not to mention the shame it brought upon the family.
Frank divorced Ellen and married “Auntie Florrie”. I don’t know if Florrie was actually Ellen’s sister, but it’s possible.
Freda never forgot her mum, and secretly visited her whenever she could.
When Frank got the cancer that would kill him, Freda took him in and looked after him in her bed until he died.
Getting Dressed
My three and a half year old is going through that stage where he doesn’t want to get dressed in the morning to go to nursery.
I remember with my oldest lad some mornings I used to be in tears trying to get him ready.
Fortunately, their mum is now working from home and has taken on this task with the little one. My main job now is to remind my nine year old to “sit at the table and eat your breakfast” every two minutes.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, my secondary role was as assistant little kid dresser. I would sit him on my knee with one arm around his chest holding his arms down, while trying to hold a leg or a foot so that his mum could forcibly put on his underpants, socks and trousers without him kicking or pulling them off again.
Mum has now found a much more kid-friendly method, with no tears.
Underpants are now butterflies, fluttering around looking for somewhere to land. Socks, of course, make great foot-puppets. Trousers are caterpillars crawling on a tree branch, and his coat is a big brown bear who just wants a hug.
It’s still exhausting, but it makes the morning a little bit happier for everyone.
Haircut
My nine year old had a trim the other day. No one else can really tell, but his massive afro isn’t quite so massive as it was last week, and certainly a little less knotted.
Should make it easier to get his swimming cap on.
His mum cuts his hair. We took him to a barber’s when he was younger, and I literally had to hold him down while the barber did his work.
I never liked having my hair cut. I used to have very thick curly hair as a boy, although not an afro. My mum used to use what she called thinning scissors, which were kind of like scissors with teeth. It felt like having my hair pulled out.
I think as kids we’re just so much more sensitive to all these things. And my lad’s hair is a core part of his identity. (When he was younger, he used to identify as a lion, so his hair was his mane.)
I managed to overcome my fear of hair cutting as an adult, and even found a reliable barber pre-covid. Since the pandemic, like many others, I bought a pair of clippers and do it myself now.
Catwoman
Last week, we had a visitor.
Catwoman appeared, to save the day!
All the way from leafy Surrey, she turned up in her Porsche 4x4 and catsuit to catch our community cats and take them to the vet “because they have cat flu”.
With her ten year old assistant, and cat trap, she tried for (what seemed like) hours to catch a cat, or a kitten, to no avail.
Impossible Job
Last week, my boss asked me to produce a professional looking ten page job profile for a potential new appointment.
He provided me with an example from another employer, and asked me to use the same format.
He wanted me to find some suitable photographs “online” to use.
This was all outside of his skillset.
And mine.
He wanted it “by tomorrow” (Wednesday), and gave me the text he’d written for the first page, as well as the headings he wanted to use for the remaining pages.
The formatted example he’d given me was a pdf. I was very pleased to discover that Adobe now provides a free pdf to Word conversion, which certainly made my job easier.
It was easy enough to find photographs, of course, but not so much photographs that are free to use. My boss later told me he wasn’t worried about that, as he “wasn’t using them for commercial purposes.”
The next day (Wednesday), my boss emailed to say he would send me the final nine pages of text he still hadn’t written “tomorrow morning” (Thursday), and that “we” would “populate” the template document then.
While I was eating lunch the next day (Thursday), his email arrived leaving me two hours to put the whole thing together. I didn’t think it would be enough time, but just got on with it.
Two hours later, I still had two pages to do, but had to collect my kids from nursery and school, make their tea (or dinner, as they call it), and get them in the bath. I managed to finish it later while they watched TV.
My boss was very pleased, although he said he didn’t expect anyone would actually see it.
Community Cats
Just around the corner from my lad’s school by the canal is a cul-de-sac which is home to some “community cats”.
Having spoken to a few of the people who live there, it seems that none of the seven or eight cats and kittens have homes or owners, but are looked after by the people who live there.
So they’re not strays, but they’re not feral, either. They’re community cats.
These cats have been around for as long as I can remember (which admittedly isn’t so long these days), but it’s only in the last few weeks that they have become of growing interest to my lad and some of his friends on their way to and from school.
What started off as simply “aw, look there’s a cat”, has now become a financial investment in daily supplies of cat food, and extra time in the morning and afternoon to stop, feed and stroke Tab, Abby, Popcorn, Tiny, Smoky, Toffee and one or two others I can’t remember the names of.
I made the mistake of sharing a few photos of these cats with my cat obsessed mother, who was very upset that they don’t have warm, dry homes and owners who overfeed them with specially bought and cooked fish. I’ve tried to reassure her that they look healthy (shiny coats), well-fed and looked after.
Play Street
We used to play in the street outside our home as kids growing up in the 70s. In rural Lincolnshire. Of course, it wasn’t a main road, it was the road on our council estate. Pretty much everyone had a car, and many of the houses had their own garage.
In London, or Greater London, it’s generally not safe for kids to play in the street, although we’re lucky where we are that our little cul-de-sac can double-up as a relatively safe enough play area most of the time.
The road next to us is an HGV Access Road, thanks to our local ward councillor and current council leader.
It’s definitely NOT safe for kids to play in at all.
Not until the Water Company came along. For the past two or three weeks, they have closed part of the road where my sons’ friends live to clear the pipes of wet wipes, sanitary products, fat and oil.
They’ve dug a massive hole in the road, which I’ve told my nine year old is The Pit of Tartarus. It’s all barricaded off, with heavy machinery, waste skips and various bits of equipment.
So the road is now a no through road, with access only for residents and deliveries.
My kids and their friends have really enjoyed playing out in the street whenever they can, thanks also to our “Indian Summer”.
Of course, there are plenty of drivers who ignore (or don’t see?) the signs telling them the road is closed, and drive down it anyway. My job was mostly to tell them, “No, you can’t drive on the pavement. Can’t you see there are kids playing? Plus, it’s a pavement. This isn’t the Wild West!”
Fortunately, everyone was reasonable enough when challenged to back away, turnaround and drive around following the “diverted traffic” signs.
Thankfully, my job was made redundant by the older kids in the group, who took it upon themselves to relieve me of my onerous duties. They barricaded the pavements with spare cones, and now they marshall the traffic. Much more effective!
Class
Thinking about Maths at school, got me thinking about the origin and meaning of class.
It’s a classic word, and means so many different things depending on the context in which it’s used.
Its Roman origin relates to the dividing up of society, or groups of people for war or military objectives.
My Latin teacher at school was obsessed with lining up the desks and chairs at the end of each lesson.
“Caecilius pater est” is the only Latin I can remember.
We rebelled, and persuaded our headteacher to teach us Classics in Translation instead. That was fun. Reading, and learning all about ancient Greek philosophy and mythology.
Distraction
It’s easy to get distracted.
My nine year old told his mum last night that he was so distracted by thoughts in his head at school that the teacher gave him a blank piece of paper and a pen to “download” everything in his mind.
All he could think about was Super Mario and Nintendo.
Well, it was Maths.
I always liked Maths at school. Mainly because there was no homework, or writing, or revision to do. Either I knew it or I didn’t. And I mostly did, up until A Levels.
My “Pure Maths” teacher told me I would never amount to anything. I guess he was right about that.
My “Applied Maths” teacher tried to make lessons more memorable by telling us a story about a man who grew jellies in his garden. I guess he was right about that.
I got a B grade in O Level Maths. If I’d actually made any kind of effort I could probably have got an A. Things could have been oh so different!