thedivinegoat_archive

(I tried posting this last night, but thanks to a massive thunderstorm, the network went down.)

Trying to read the threads at Slashdot make my head hurt. :-(

We went up to Camerton Primary this evening, to meet the teachers and find out what's expected of us as parents when Owen starts there in september.

It's the cutest little school, this year they have a confirmed intake of three, and two more possibles. Owen's class will consist of 3 Reception age children, 8 Year Ones and 6 Year Twos. The whole school is sixty children in total. My neice's school is one of the smaller Bristol schools, and their intake this september will be about a hundred.

One of the things that got mentioned was taking the classes out for walks, and the Teacher said how she always made sure her class was the first each Autumn to walk down the track to the Conker Tree, (Horsechestnut) so that the little ones get first go at the conkers. Made me all nostalgic. (I can remember coming home from school with conkers spilling out of my coat pockets, I'd collected so many.)

But it is really wierd to think he's going to be at School in November. We're going to be ordering his uniform soon, (the school emblem is a Miner's Lamp) and I still can't get my head around the fact that he's now longer a toddler.

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One thing that's taken me by surprise is the sheer quality of the New Who fanfic thats appearing in the comms; the good stuff, at the moment, is out numbering the bad stuff. I know the bad stuff's out there, (I had a brief look over at ff.net and eek!) but it doesn't seem to be as pervasive as it normally is. Do people agree, or is my perception wacked? And if you do agree, any theories as to why?

Couple of recs...

Once Upon a Time by tangledwood - Jabe fic, spoilers up to The End of The World. Absolutely stunning look at Jabe, and making her death a lot harder to bear.

Breaking the Rules by boro_girl - Do not read until you have seen Parting of the Ways. Why Rose makes the choices she does.

And lastly mythichistorian has got four parts written of a Doctor Who/Buffy crossover. Go read. Now.

(Oh, and if you haven't read sangga's Deshabille, why not?)

Is it Christmas yet?

Owen's party went amazingly well today, the weather was perfect, the kids had a whale of a time, and the adults seemed to enjoy themselves too. Plus the Cake didn't turn out too bad (I made all the fences myself /pride ).

The only bad thing was that I got interupted putting on my suncream, and forgot that I hadn't finished doing it.  I now have really bad sunburn on my shoulder and across my back.  (Normally I'm really parinoid about the sun, and wear a 5 star factor 50).  Ouch!

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Doctor Who related - jacinthsong is holding a mini caption contest over in her journal...

Also I'm confused. ( spoilers for tonight and speculation )

And did anyone catch Doctor Who Confidential? When Tom Baker, (at least I think it was he) said "Fanlove is superior to normal love, because fanlove endures."

I <3 Tom Baker.

Owen's really into Tractors at the moment - part of this obsession involves me reading and re-reading his Fergus the Tractor books. Oh God how I hate these books. They're hideous to read, having no flow as the writer seem more interested in accuracy and realism rather than readability and storyline. Give Janet and Allan Allberg or the Gruffalo any day. Now those are fun books to read aloud. (They have rhythm! and flow!)

But Fergus the Tractor - ack! What children's book has the farmer going out to see a sick cow, and has her called "Number 74"? It should be Daisy, or Buttercup, or Esmerelda. Not "Number 74". Yes, in the real world they are numbered, but then in the real world there's BSE and Foot & Mouth, and they haven't included those. In fact if the books were factually accurate they would have Farmer Tom taking his shotgun to his top field, and blowing his brains out because the bank foreclosed on his mortgage after he was screwed by the government.

There you go - I've written their next book for them.

I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted here.

I've spent the last few weeks thinking I must post this in my journal tonight, but not being able to due to work for NCT/son refusing to sleep/exhaustion/more work for the NCT.

I haven't even been able to keep up with my friends journals. It's left me feeling rather disconnected from things.... Oh Well, I'm back now.

PS Why is Trevor McDonald talking about Kylie Minogue's knickers? It's not exactly as if it's a slow news day.

PPS On the subject of underwear, who wears thongs when pregnant? 'Cos huh?

I swear I will scream if one more person says this to me. I mean it - I will scream and I can scream very, very loud.

Person, after person says this to me - and surprise surprise, most of those are mothers of girls. The rate has increased tenfold (I do like that word, it has a nice feel to it) in the last week.

You see last week I took my son to the health visitor, as at 18 months he's not saying any words yet. Hearing seems fine, majorly sociable, comprehends things we've said and can babble for England. But he just doesn't have any words yet. Now I know we've got a little time before we should really start worrying, but as there's a really, really strong history of dyslexia (amongst other things) on both sides of the family, (both I and my husband are dyslexic), so it's something I want to catch early. (Especially as there's a six to nine month waiting list for a speech therapist!) So off we. went to the health visitor and he's now being referred to the speech therapist.

But nearly every person I told about this has, without fail, said, "oh but boys are more lazy than girls aren't they." [I promise you, I will scream the next time someone says this to me.

Now I would just like people to ponder a few things

1) We're talking about babies and toddlers here. They start out with few thoughts - food, sleep, warmth, comfort/love. They then progress onto things like - sweet food, shiny button, Mummy's attention, cat, shiny toy that that other child has got, big puddle. But still they're not thinking complex thoughts yet. They're still pretty simple creatures.

2) To be lazy you have to think about the effort involved. You have to think, (even if it's subcounciously) 'I can't be bothered to turn over the telly, because the remote's to far away.'

3) Babies and toddlers learn to do things because it is instinct to do so. (BTW, who else saw Professor Winston's Human Instinct on BBC tonight? Excellent program) They learn to walk, talk and sit up, because it is part of our human instinct.

4) Babies and toddlers don't decide to put off learning to do something because there's too much effort involved. They might have no desire curently to walk across the room, they might have been momentarily been put of by a failure, (such as falling down and hurting themselves), or their brains might still be doing the necessary re-wiring to enable them to learn to new skill.

5) Because they can't learn to do somethings until they have the necessary leg muscles, co-ordination, brain development.

6) And enviromental factors way in too - how much a child gets talked, played with etc.

7) And ignoring everything above it's just a big generalisation - which just pees me off anyway

So if boys learn to crawl, walk, talk later than girls, (which I dispute anyway) it's not laziness, and anyone who thinks so is a lazy thinker.

Little man had some kind of stomach bug today - it's amazing how quickly you build up tolerance for sick and poo when you become a parent. When I was little, I was always amazed by the way Mum could clear up vomit without seeming to be bothered by it. I didn't realize it's because you have no choice but to deal with it. Great fun!

Got pissed last night for the first time in ages. Scotch is wonderful for coughs if you're allergic to cough medicines, (it is the original medicinal) problems only arising when you're a complete lightweight, as I am. Well it wouldn't have been too bad if the first (very) large double hadn't made me forget why I'm careful about how much I drink, and just reminded me about how much I like scotch. A couple more and I was reeling all over the place. No one would have been the wiser though, if I hadn't then woken my husband just to tell him just how pissed I was. ;-)