Song 2

I’m quite enjoying this sahm lark, for the most part. But then it could be because I’m only a couple of weeks in and I’ve not started working yet. Ask me next week and I might have an entirely different answer. But, so far, it’s been good. Getting out of the house every day has been vital, for both of us. We’ve done toddler group, visited friends, been to the Great North museum and even something as simple as shopping in town works – although I did that on our first day and spent around £100 on stuff, mostly presents for my brother’s 30th and Father’s Day, all this weekend. Duncan is getting the new Guitar Hero Metallica game, which he said he wanted. It’s so rare for him to say he actually wants something.

We did soft play yesterday with the other mums from my nct group. It was nice to see them all again – we don’t tend to get together as a big group very often, although that may change, because it’s a nightmare co-ordinating everyone’s working hours and groups. Of the 6 of us, 4 now have 2 children, which adds an extra layer to the co-ordination of it all. Anyway, we did soft play yesterday. It took Zoe a while to warm up to the idea of going into the play area so I had to spend the first 30 minutes crawling around a climbing area designed for toddlers. I felt knackered by the end of it! After that though, she plucked up the courage to do it herself and by the end, she was climbing up and sliding down with no fear. I think it helped that after the first 20 minutes or so, there was just our group in there – when we’d arrived, there’d been some slightly older and boistrous boys there, who Zoe was very wary of. So I then got a nice chat with the other mums. 2 of them I see on a fairly regular basis but I hadn’t seen the other 2 for ages and I was reminded why I tend to shy away from one of them. Everything, to her, is all about getting her children to be as independent as possible from the beginning. Which, if that’s what she wants, is fair enough, but why does she always feel the need to project that onto others?  But maybe I’m still smarting from her "But you’re starving her" comment when she found out I was still breastfeeding past 12 months. I don’t know, I have enough guilt as a mother, especially since I’ve left work, without having her try and add more onto me. I don’t care if she needs her daughter to still be at the childminder’s so often while she’s on maternity leave, I don’t need the same. I’m sure she wouldn’t take kindly to me telling her that maybe her daughter would like spending more time with her (which I never would dream of saying), so why can’t she have the same common courtesy?

Of course, now that we have almost 3-year-olds, talk inevitably ends up about mursery and school. Most of the children from our nct group will be off to nursery in September, but because of the way the school year works, Zoe won’t go until September 2010 (although she could go in January if there was a space, but she won’t be). There’s such an obsession with the ‘right’ nursery and the ‘right’ school, not just among our group, but all mums I’ve spoken to or overheard. In some areas, this is easier to negotiate than others. In one area nearby, the Catholic school is the best first school in the area, so most want their child to go there – 52 children will enter the nursery in September but there are only 30 places in the school, so getting into the nursery guarantees nothing. There are mums I’ve spoken to who will consider becoming Catholic just to get into the school, because obviously the first priority will go to Catholic children. This just wouldn’t be an option for us, Zoe’s not even christened, leaving aside my whole thing about organised religion and indoctrination. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being a bit ostrich like about it all. We don’t live in a fancy area, we live in quite a deprived area and moving to get into a better school is just not an option. The nearest first school to us is an improving school, which is better than the secondary school which is failing. So we’ll put her down for the nearest first school and see where we go from there. I firmly believe that the level of parental involvment can be a huge influence on the child, especially in the early years.

But, all the same, I wonder about home education. Zoe just doesn’t do well in large groups and gets quite distressed by the noise of large groups or other children, so I wonder just how she will cope in school. I’m quite receptive to the idea of home education at this age because I’m comfortable with the depth of coverage on subjects and feel I could do it. But if I was to do it, I’d have to give up doing the postnatal stuff for the nct (although I’m still quite sick of the nct bureaucracy at the moment and not feeling particularly motivated to get on with my studies, but that’s another matter). Plus, I wonder if the best way to deal with her sensitivity to loud noise and large groups is to remove her from them. I don’t know. Duncan’s supportive either way, thankfully. I think we’ll wait and see what happens when she starts nursery, there’s a chance she could become better as she gets older, but I’m gonna keep an open mind on switching to home education if I need to.

Probably not very interesting to read, but it feels better to get it out.

Until there is a next time…
xx