It’s been nice to spend some quality time just with Nairn recently with him starting an intensive block of swimming lessons last week. Findlay goes away to his Dad’s at the weekend, Erica goes to her dancing class with Bob on a Saturday but Nairn is just generally content to plod along and go with the flow. Although his tantrums are fairly epic, Nairn on the whole is a pretty easy-going laid back kind of chap. So – Monday through Thursday we had to go to a pool in the next town over and every day at the exact same little tunnel Nairn would say, “Who turned the lights out?!” in an incredulous voice because he knows it makes me laugh.

Why am I telling you this?

Nairn tells me I’m beautiful all the time. He tells me that he loves Greer but not Erica because Erica annoys him, steals his toys and hurts him, until I tell him that it makes me sad that he doesn’t love his sister then he changes his perspective to make me happy. When I’m grumpy, he calls my name until I look at him and then he flashes his amazing big grin, winks and blows me a kiss. He asked me a few months ago what planet my brother lives on and I laughed so hard that now if he thinks I’m upset he asks me again, to make me laugh. He is so loving and so conscientious.

But last week I read this article and sat with my mouth agape, a brick plummeting slowly from my breast to the pit of my stomach as I identified Nairn’s behaviour in every word written by another Mother. Some of you might remember that around the time of my breakdown Nairn’s issues were so bad that I’d called in Social Services to help us. Their solution was to fire us onto a positive parenting class that I was extremely reticent about. I was so against the idea of Nairn’s issues being down to our parenting that I went along, certain they’d tell me nothing I didn’t already know but I was very pleasantly surprised. Armed with new tactics, we set about challenging Nairn’s tantrums with reward charts and different reactions and to a point it worked. We thought we’d solved our issues until his assessment for early entry to school.

In Scotland if a child turns five years old by February 28th they start school the preceding August. January & February babies can defer entry for a year, March-July birthdays can apply for early admission but the child must complete a test to see if they are ready. One of the tests Nairn had to do was to sort a number of building blocks by colour – a task I know he could do with his eyes shut – but as it was such a boring task, he elected instead to build a rather impressive transformer with his blocks. Let me remind you again here that Nairn turned four years old in March. Lego is his ‘thing’ and it amazes me the grasp he clearly has on engineering. Nairn is a little Lego professor and that scares me.

With Bob being diagnosed as severely dyslexic (which he writes about under this tag, work from the bottom up) – the second top ‘band’ of dyslexia – we were made aware that our children could have a genetic predisposition towards it. Dyslexia is a spectrum disorder.

I have fought and lost when it comes to having Nairn assessed because I am as certain as I can be that something is not quite right with the way he processes his feelings. He simply cannot relate to other people on an emotional level and hence the tantrums and certainty that he is hated whenever he has a falling out with a friend or sibling.

I wish I knew what to do. With Bob having fallen through the cracks in such a spectacular manner I am quite terrified that Nairn will be written off as a child with a neurotic mother rather than a child with possible support requirements.

Posted under family

This is a review post.

A few weeks ago, the wonderful people at Eurocamp kindly sent us on a much-needed holiday to their Château Lez Eaux campsite in Normandy. Having done a Eurocamp holiday in 2008 – staying here, in a tent – we thought we knew what was coming. We really didn’t.

I had made the executive decision for us to sail from Portsmouth to Caen rather than Dover to Calais. For us, the driving distance on the UK side was the same but it was going to save me roughly 5 hours driving at the other side whilst also giving me 6 hours on the ferry to recuperate. As our children are so young (Findlay is 9, Nairn is 4, Erica is 3 and Greer is only 1) when we drive down South we tend to leave late evening and drive through the night so that the kids aren’t bored the whole trip home. Generally speaking it’s a win-win situation as doing it this way means we miss any heavy traffic normally encountered around Manchester, Birmingham and London and the total driving time is vastly reduced and indeed we did our 440 mile trip in 7.5 hours.

I have to admit that with four young children who had slept almost all night, Bob and I were dreading the ferry trip. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that not only was there a small soft-play area, playroom with colouring-in station & kids DVDs playing but there was also a full entertainment programme for older children including a very energetic quiz and a magician. As I had work to do, I paid for WiFi and got on with that whilst the children played. All in all, a surprisingly relaxing way to travel.

We docked in Caen in the early afternoon and set off towards Saint Pair-Sur-Mer, getting hopelessly lost circumnavigating Granville but still arriving on the site an hour after we got off the ferry which I was extremely relieved about. Now, in the space of 10 days we had been offered the trip, put an emergency passport application in for Greer, arranged for someone to stay at our home to watch over the menagerie and got permission to take Findlay out of school for the week so I must have missed the section of the email that explained that rather than staying in a tent, we’d be hanging out in one of these for the next week:

I have to admit to feeling a little ambivalent about staying in the static caravan rather than the tent but when the heavens opened not half an hour after we arrived, I realised immediately the one difference which became massively important – the kids didn’t end up traipsing mud everywhere. Anyone who has ever been camping will relate to that feeling as if your entire body is filthy no matter how good the ablution facilities are and thankfully, in our 3 bedroom superior we never had that. Having such an expanse of space was excellent too since the boys had a room to themselves where they could escape to play games, the girls had a room to themselves and we still had a comfortably sized living & dining room space too.

We were so exhausted after our trip down that we stayed on the parc for the first few days which is unlike us -we’re the kind of family who goes out and sees things rather than the heading-to-the-beach type – but with beautifully clean swimming pools and excellent facilities on site we wanted for nothing. There was plenty for the kids to do, a shop on-site where we could get the essentials and a bar too where internet access was available.

The kids absolutely loved the swimming pool and I have to admit I was terrified at the prospect of taking four of them to the pool with only two adults but it turned out to be completely manageable. What mainly worried me was that there was no lifeguard supervision (a common occurrence in France) around the pools but the boys took good care of Erica leaving Bob and I to take turns with Greer. Although, we did see a fairly horrific accident involving a teenager, a backflip dive and a certain broken nose. Ouch.

The site had a kids club available but our brood, being quite anti-social wary weren’t too keen on being left there which was fine. Instead they chose to spend a fair amount of time in a well-designed playground. I remember thinking, “Health and safety would never allow a playground like this back home” when watching Nairn clambering up a climbing wall – it was exactly the type of place that kids should always have access to and they absolutely loved it. Look at the smiles!

The Eurocamp staff who had briefed us prior to our departure had mentioned that this parc in particular was beautiful but that didn’t quite do it justice. The site was just stunning, plenty of greenery and a little fishing lake where guests were welcome to sit and indulge themselves. One thing that really impressed me – and which I felt reflected the consideration given to the site’s clientele – was that the entry to the parc was controlled via a security barrier which opened after a PIN number was entered into it. The PIN station was available on both sides of the road meaning that both UK and continental drivers could access it. Clever, eh?

We did do a couple of day trips – to Le Mont-Saint-Michel and to Saint Malo where we visited the Great Aquarium which were both within an hour’s drive of our site – and I shall blog about these later.

All in all, this trip just reinforced how good a holiday a family of our size can have on a budget. A seven-night break in this site, staying in accommodation exactly like ours would cost £987 accommodation only and – as we did – you can book your ferry crossing through Eurocamp who manage to get it significantly cheaper than I ever found quotes for. I’ve been told that Eurocamp can also help organise fly-drives and rail travel too.

For me, the difference between this kind of holiday and a package holiday is simple – you do everything on your own time. Having our car with us meant we could leave when we wanted, go where we wanted and not have to worry about schedules and going off-plan. The Eurocamp couriers spoke English – which was an embarrassing relief as my French has never exceeded schoolgirl level – and were available at the drop of a hat to assist. As an example – on our trip two years ago I came down with a stomach bug and had to go to a Doctor. Our courier found a Doctor and came with me to translate. I get the impression that the sites are picked by people who understand what a family abroad needs, such is the level of detail like ensuring we had a travel cot available for Greer to sleep in and providing loo roll and washing up liquid in the welcome pack.We’ve done two Eurocamp holidays now and I know that we’ll be back. Thanks ever so much for a great time!

Posted under reviews

Posted under family

We weren’t expecting to get away on holiday this year but last week we were offered an amazing opportunity for a last-minute holiday with one snag – Greer doesn’t yet have a passport. Frantic phonecalls to the Identity and Passport Service got me an appointment yesterday for a fast track one week passport. The only criteria? Greer’s application had to be completed and countersigned before we got there. Is it just me or is it frankly RIDICULOUS that a baby has to have her own passport? Total money-making scheme on the part of the Government, there.

It just so happened that I had completed Greer’s online application a few months ago when we were still planning to go away so I had the forms. A wealth of friends stepped forward and volunteered to countersign the application for us. All that was needed was the photograph and being of the stingy and penny-conscious variety, we decided we could do it ourselves. We borrowed a cream-coloured bedsheet from Hot Neighbour, got Greer dressed and took a BEAUTIFUL photo.

Bob resized it on his computer so that when it printed, it would print at the perfect size and all would be good in the world. Then we hit our first snag. The photo needed to be printed at a professional printer, I had developed a phenomenal case of Labyrinthitis thus couldn’t drive, Bob hasn’t passed his test, it was Sunday and we live in Outer Mongolia as far as buses are concerned BUT luckily Greer’s Godmother Kat was popping over to see us and kindly ran Bob up to the shop. Using the Boots print-your-own service, Bob printed off the photo and we were cooking with gas. Something ridiculous like 39p and we’d saved a fortune…

…except the photos didn’t print off at the right size and by the time Bob got home and fixed it, Boots was closed for the evening so we had to resort to the photobooth effort. The first shots didn’t come out because Greer was looking at the floor so ANOTHER FOUR QUID to get a decent shot. I can totally understand how these photobooths bring in a profit!

Luckily the new photograph was just as nice (although Bob had neglected to remove Greer’s bib but I can forgive that now that I’ve got over the wrong-size-photo incident!) and she looked so beautiful that even the passport office dude commented on it and he must see hundreds of babies every week [/smug mummy alert] so I just have to sit on my hands now and HOPE that the blooming thing arrives soon.

Still. It is a really cute photograph to tuck into my purse.

Posted under family

Findlay has this thing right now which has rubbed off on Nairn – this intense need to know who Bob and I consider our best friends. Of course my standard answer is, “Bob” (or “Daddy” when Nairn asks) and Bob’s is, “Your Mum” which tickles the kids into giggling and pleading with us to, “Tell the truth! Who is really your best friend!”

Truth is that Bob is my best friend in the world, there’s no doubt about that. He’s the person that knows me best, who I can share anything with and who I trust with my whole heart. After him, I am blessed with quite literally a gaggle of at least a dozen people who I can’t put in any particular order because they are all so amazing in entirely different ways. Some are parents, some aren’t. Some are in relationships, some aren’t. Some are straight, some are gay, some are religious and some are the most dyed-in-the-wool athiests you could ever meet. All of them play an important role in my life – even the ones who I see rarely these days as a result of our mutually hectic lives – and I thank God every day for their existence.

Anyway, the reason for this little musing is that I found a friendship bracelet that I must have made about 14 years ago whilst tidying up recently. I’m not sure if I have told you this story but when I was 17 and moving into my own flat for the first time, I packed all of my belongings into my parents’ van the night before I was due to move. I put everything I’ve ever owned into the van except the very clothes I stood in and the van was stolen. This is a real issue for me because now, I have none of my old toys to pass to the kids. None of my books. No photographs that I’d taken myself and my teenage diaries which I wrote earnestly for four years are gone. So to find this friendship band was a really pleasant surprise – I was sure it must have disappeared long ago.

I used to make these all the time and I was taught at boarding school by one of my classmates – once I’d learned, I was off! But do you know to this day, nobody has ever made one for me? I’m trying to bully Bob into learning how to make them and being the best husband in the world he’s promised to give it a go. Isn’t he lovely?

The thick band on the left is my ancient friendship bracelet. The one in the middle was made by me trying to relearn old techniques and the one on the right is the one I gave to my best friend. Tradition has it that once you’ve been given a friendship bracelet you can never take it off – so I hope it’s been made as strongly as I think it has. I’m sure with the amount of love and hope weaved in, it’ll be fine.

Posted under family, me

I usually hate all these clichés about how quickly time passes, especially as a mother of kids who really aren’t that young anymore but five years have passed since Bob kissed me for the first time and two years have flown in since we got married.

I can’t believe it. We’ve been joking about it this morning but in all seriousness it barely feels like a month has passed since we first started seeing each other and it’s five years later. It’s funny because I don’t think I really believed in “the one” until Bob came over one night and never left, we’re that sickening couple who are constantly being cutesy with one another and I am proud that I spend every single day of my life with my best friend.

So here’s to the next year and all the others that come after. I love you, honey. Thank you for being my husband.

Posted under family