Cameron handed me the lunch menu from school with an air of disdane. ‘Look at this’ he gasped.. ‘It all looks good on paper but when you actually get there to choose it’s all a load of turd”.
I took the menu and browsed the items listed. “Wow it does all look good on here.. so it’s not much cop then?”
“No”, he replied, “it’s just a load of grumpy middle aged wife women standing around with a basket of grotty baguettes”.
"You distract him Wendy and I'll grab his boxer elastic"
Wil went for a ‘sit down’ and found this cheeky pun hanging on the roll waiting for a victim… I just don’t want to think too much about the circumstances surrounding Cameron running out of toilet paper and smudging his way to the kitchen to get the marker pen.
Now on Flickr in ‘Family’: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxsden/sets/72157604789522872/
Camerons bedroom is a heap. There isn’t even a path from the door to the bed so when he announced he was off out to play I reacted with ‘yeah, after you clear that bomb site up’.
He promptly ran upstairs and did his usual token effort of shoving everything under the bed and in piles in the corners and declared the job done. As I entered the room and began pointing out all the bits he missed, his friend H came to the door to call for him.
Cam let his friend in and when they returned to the bedroom I left stating that since H is a very tidy boy maybe if Cam was to ask nicely H would help show him how it’s done.
As I returned downstairs I heard the boys chatting
Cam: ‘Since YOU’RE so tidy H’ Cam mimicked.. ‘Your bedroom is always SUPER tidy though H’
H: ‘Yeah well, that’s cos my mum tidies it up!’
Marvellous….! Do kids do anything for themselves? Shouldn’t kids be brought up to clear up their own mess?
Twice a year while Cam is away in the states I go into his room and do a mass clear out but that’s only so I can get in there and get rid of all the tat he won’t get rid of when he’s here! I wouldn’t dream of tidying his room on a daily or weekly basis.
You create the mess, you clear it up!
Oh it’s so great to have the little disease bag home. One week is all it took for the boy to return to school and collect a cold virus from the rest of the little grubsters.
I’ve already had 5 out of the 6 colds he suffered between Christmas and July and with a duathlon coming up this weekend the last thing I need is to get ill.
I’m not really one for taking vitamins and medicines when it comes to colds because they’ll turn up and go when they’re ready regardless of what you do but Cam and I have always been very susceptible to colds and coughs. All the running and cycling I’ve been doing lately will have given my immune system a battering and knowing it’d be a matter of time before the boy arrived back home with his usual germ party in full swing I stopped by Asda one evening and stocked up on all things cold preventative. This time I’m not going down without a fight.
This morning I woke up listening to him repeatedly drawing in lloooooonnnnnggggg stuffy snorts through his swollen nostrils. He then padded back and fourth to the bathroom, yanking arm lengths of toilet paper off the roll to screw into a small ball which got passed once across the end of of his nose before being discarded into the toilet. Then snorted his way back to bed.
I knew it wouldn’t be long after he’d gone back to school that I’d be dealing with an enslaught of cold germs and virus’. So I had fully prepared myself with alcohol handrub, Vicks ‘FIRST DEFENCE’ nasal spray and one-a-day Seven Seas Multiprobionta ‘Immune Defence’ vitamins which I began taking a good week or two before he got back from the states. With the sudden threat of germ infested kid in the confines of my home this morning I dug straight into my handbag and attempted to use my Vicks ‘FIRST DEFENCE’ nasal spray.
The Instructions called for 2 or 3 sprays up each nostril 3 or 4 times per day. Then you’re not supposed to blow your nose.
GET AWAY!
Because at the first tiny puff of that toxic concentrated hospital smelling liquid hitting the top of my nasal cavity I thought my brain was going to try and punch it’s way out of my forehead. I’ve never done coke, but if people doing it on tv is anything like reality these two substances seem to provoke the same initial reaction. Which was to grab my nose and squeeze it while my eyes proceed to water and sting. At the same time my brain was looking for a sharp exit while I accompanied the whole ugly scene by growling a noise sounding like ‘GAAAHH’.
The sting subsided, the stink remained and not being able to stand it another second, I blew my nose.
Now I’m relying solely on alcohol hand cleanser, Multiprobionta ‘Immune Defence’ vitamins, lots of water, plenty of sleep and huge doses of luck. If I’m feeling generous I won’t make the boy remove all his clothing in the entrance hall and swab down with alcohol hand rub upon his return from school every day.
Funny because when I wrote that heading I inadvertantly put dropped one of the ‘n’s which made it read ‘winer’ which also would have been an appropriate topic about Cam.
However, I’m not going to pee on the boys chips today because he won best Desert On A Plate and I’m dead pleased for him.
Well done blonde!
The boys school fete is today and they’ve given it a Wild West theme. There are 2 competitions to enter and Cam has entered both.
Best Decorated TeePee
and
Desert On A Plate
Despite jumping up and down with excitement wishing I could enter with my own creations Cam was less than enthusiastic to start with. He had no ideas and no clue where to start. I find this hard to comprehend because I was always quite an artistic kid. I spent hours colouring, drawing pictures and making other bits and pieces. Cameron is very technically minded so the simple understated things don’t come easily to him. Give him a circuit board and some wires and batteries and he’ll build you a car but designing a model Tee Pee is the limit!
I sat him down and we browsed through Google images looking at pictures of the Wild West deserts and Tee Pees trying to gather some ideas on what to do. Obviously I could have just sat there and told him how to make something but I wanted him to come up with the ideas and inspiration himself so that he could feel good about whatever he created as well as learn how to go about something when you have no idea where to start.
After getting him to list things you might find in the desert out west we set about with a large plate, tissue paper, Fimo, some rocks and stones from the driveway, fine ground cornmeal/polenta for sand and a small box. The only thing I helped him make was the Saloon out of a granola bar box and then I left it to him to decorate it. He did a fantastic job, even coming up with the idea for the matchstick support posts. We used a plant book to find ideas for different cactus to make and Cam copied the plants in the book using Fimo modeling clay.
The Tee Pee was made from Canvas supported by some sticks out of the garden. He drew on the canvas with felt tip pens to decorate it and glued down the rocks and bits of wood at the front for the fire.
Despite having no enthusiasm to start with he really got involved and spent a total of 3 hours putting these two pieces together. When he finished he had an uncontrollable grin on his face because he was so pleased with his effort. Good to see him happy with something he’s done for a change.
I’ve just taken both of these pieces to the school and got a sneaky peek at the competition – it’s going to be close!!
I’ll report back later – wish him luck.
Shhhhh…..
Can you hear that?
Can you hear that ear cringeing feedback as the mic repeatedly gets held too close to the speaker?
Can you hear the distortion as his mouth eats the mic with each tone deaf murmur and mis-interpreted lyric?
Are your teeth set on edge from each wrong note strummed on that guitar while the demo tune plays from it’s own speaker competing heavily against the racket already pouring from the speaker on the Karaoke machine?.
And don’t forget the feedback….Ohh the feedback..
It’s 07:45am OF COURSE YOU CAN HEAR IT. It sounds like someone woke you from a dead sleep by dropping a box full of tambourines on your face.
You get to hear it every morning in this house because this 10 year old thinks he sounds like a popstar. And maybe one day with all this practice he might be a popstar and when he is as long as he remembers all those mornings he woke me with this noise he takes pity and is sure to put me in one of the nursing homes that don’t let me sit in my own poo I won’t complain too much. Until then I shall enjoy this breath of relief and pay hommage to the £20 it cost me to send him on Cub Scout Camp for the weekend.
Yay Cubs.
I’m off work for a couple of days during the school half term break to be with Cam only he’s reminded me this morning why doing this Mother/Son quality time DRIVES ME NUTS!
If repeated plays of this by your kid doesn’t make you reach up and tear your own ovaries off their branches I don’t know what will!
And to think all I had to be frustrated about today was Gordon Brown.
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