The countdown has begun

So we have managed to reach day 5 out of 47 and we are all still alive. I have reached a critical point though. I don't like being a referee. Thank heavens for the sun and the garden. At least there can be more distance between the boys.I had started to think that the rain would never leave and I would have to deal with them all summer fighting over the TV.

It is in excess of 80 degrees. I have one outside in the paddling pool and one in the dining room playing CBBC website. They are both bored. Neither will do what the other one wants. When one chooses a TV programme, the other gets upset. Depending on which way round this is, the older one will moan, whine and maybe even cry about it until I tell him to watch in the other room or play something else. If the younger one is losing out, then he will pinch, kick, punch and grab the older one until I step in and physically separate them.

We have had a couple of so called quiet days this week. Partly to relax after finishing school and also to build myself up for taking them out - alone. This quiet week will consist of a visit to the library, visiting Great Grandad, cinema, Pizza Hut, playing in the garden, 2 days of cricket and a sleepover at a friends house. I am finally sitting down for an afternoon -

if only this involved no interruptions. One will want a drink, so I ask the other if he would too. No is the response. Not 10 minutes later I get asked by the other one for a drink. Then it's food, clothes, toys, building a bug hotel, finding a Lego piece...

This morning I went back to school to collect the things left behind by older son on the last day of term. Neither wanted to go, but it was their fault.

The happy pills must be doing some good, because I don't think I would have reached this far into the holiday without them. 42 days to go and what joy will that bring I wonder? And how far will I get before I break?

SLEEPY (already)

On Making Friends 3...

Off I trot to the local shopping centres, CV in hand. I'm looking for any full time work to get me some money. I buy the local newspapers. I look through all the job adds and apply for a couple of jobs. What do I want to do with my life? What career do I want?
I get an interview. My first ever interview. It's with a food manufacturing company in their laboratory, checking for bacteria and testing the food before it is passed onto quality control. I was petrified before the interview but something must have gone right as I was offered the job. The boss was horrible and kept disappearing to play squash with another manager. The other lab assistant was someone I had known from school. She had been in the year above, but a friend of my longest standing friend so I knew her a bit. What a relief.

What was the job like? I hated it. You had to test the workers hands for bacteria, but through interpreters. When there was a problem we had to retest to try and pass everything. How long did I last? 3 months. I left. I couldn't bear it. Not the people, even though the manager was obnoxious, I ignored him. It was the work, environment and atmosphere.

So I signed on. Luckily for only 6 weeks. I spent my time visiting shopping centres again and scouring the newspapers. I got another interview. This time in a video shop. It was small with a staff of only 4. I would be part time but it was work. Within a few months I was made full time and given the opportunity to be on the experienced crew training new staff and opening a new flagship store in Lakeside. I enjoyed the work, but couldn't fit in with the team as well as I did in the smaller store.
I missed my friends and got into my head that someone else was taking them from me and taking my job. I could never warm to her. Was I jealous or insecure? Not sure. I did this for 3 months and then moved back to my original store.
I started applying for assistant manager posts. I must have come through the worst of things. I wanted more responsibility, more money and was actually enjoying my job. I was socialising with the rest of the team. I got a promotion to another store and fitted in well. I loved my job. I got married and things were looking great.

Only to find that they started closing the stores down. They were not renewing the leases as they were expiring.  Uncertainty crept in again. I didn't want to start again. I was finally happy and wanted the feeling to last forever. I didn't want to have to deal with change again. What was I to do? Where was I to go?


BASHFUL

On Mathematicians...

My husband works for a bus company compiling timetables and schedules in London. It is a very maths based department involving long formulae and calculations, although not degree level, as well as general arithmetic. His office of 9 people is an all male environment. It is a very intriguing mix of personalities.
There is the boss. He is a womaniser and constantly telling stories of the times he had whilst on the bus stands at the end of routes in his driving days. Jail bait and Two-bagger are frequently mentioned.
The deputy lives miles away and leaves home at 4am to catch the train to the office for about 6am. Why? So he can leave at 3pm and be home by 4ish.
Then there is Mr Negative, The Silent Terrorist,  Thingy the MCP, Mr Smelly 1 and Mr Smelly 2, The Manic Depressive and 1930's Geek. They all have one thing in common. They are weird in their own sweet way and all use maths in their work daily.

I've been studying Maths courses with Open University for the last 6 years and met some incredible people. Some students and some lecturers. OK, so it is Maths and whenever anyone asks what I'm studying their faces contort into poses that would challenge any gurning champion. Yet if they met some of the people I have shared rooms with at tutorials then they would be picking their jaw up from the floor. They are either smelly with hair that hasn't ever been washed and their laptop intravenously attached to their chest, or the women in the trousers that are too short and traditional maths teacher jumpers. There are the people who sit, listen and go home, seeming quite normal. Then there are the ones who query everything the lecturer says and delay us from completing the work we should in the time allocated.
If I take anything from any of the 11 courses I'll study for my degree it will be a comment made by one of my lecturers that had absolutely nothing to do with our course.

"All mathematicians feature on the autistic spectrum disorder."
This is so true. I've achieved  distinctions in all my level 2 courses and distinctions/grade 2 in my level 3 courses so far. And yes I am including myself in this group. Mathematicians cannot socialise. They prefer their own company. They are perfectionists, as maths is either right or wrong and in life mathematicians have to be right or they aren't satisfied. I have seen enough people involved in maths to wholeheartedly believe this.

So beware, look at dating a mathematician and you know what you're going to get!

DOC

On Playground Politics...

Why do I dread walking to school in the mornings and evenings? I'm nearly 40 and fear going to school. I don't work there. I'm not related to anyone there. It should be straight forward - walk the children to the playground, watch them go in, go home. So why do I try my utmost to avoid bumping into certain people?

If I see certain Mum's walk past the house on their way to school, I'll wait and follow at a safe distance. If I misjudge it and leave in front of them, I'll march to school so they can't catch up. I've even been known to cross the road when I don't actually need to so I can hide from them. What sane reasoning do I have behind this irrational behaviour?

These Mum's are extremely overprotective of their little boys. And it is only the boy's Mums'. I get on fine with the Mum's of girls. But these boys seem to be wrapped in cotton wool by their parents and when another child "does something" or "says something" to their precious little one, then World War Three starts on the parents. Yet their son never harms anyone or says anything to anyone. He's perfect...

Well that's what they think. I'm not saying that my son is an angel because he's not. He knows right from wrong, but is easily distracted and has a memory smaller than a goldfish. He probably has called other children names in the playground. What boy hasn't thought that "poo poo face" was funny? What playground games don't involve chasing when you are a 6 year old boy? Are these things wrong? Is it something I can deal with when I'm at home or shopping and he's in the school playground?

So why should my son get a punch in the face and I get an earful from a parent because my son called hers a "poo poo face"? I made him apologise to the boy and thought that was it. The other boy refused to apologise. The next day less people are saying hello to me, or so it seems. Paranoia? Maybe.
I then get the "sticky beak of the playground" catch me in the street and tell me that "...she said to her who said to her... that my son did..." Do I need to know fourth hand gossip? If there is something going on with my son that I need to know I expect and hope the school will tell me, not the local parental snitch. She then accused my son of making her son not want to go to school? What is it to do with me if her son is too precious to deal with playground antics, or is a typical boy who doesn't want to go to school? Toughen up. You can't be the nice guy all the time as a parent.

Next thing I hear is that my son has been pushed over and kicked a few times by relatives of the boy who punched him. Nice. This has happened twice now and the boys have confessed to doing it. They had no choice really as they were seen. They got into trouble and that is now my fault too. We seem to have a Mafia style clan at the school. Most of the children involved are cousins. The extra ones are either Rent-a-thug or the playground gossips kids in for the action.

Am I being silly not wanting to come into contact with these Mum's? Or do I just not want any hassle on a 5 minute walk to and from school? Just so long as I'm not being attacked on Facebook like another Mum I heard about I guess that's fine with me. I'm not on Facebook, so guess I'll never know. Probably best I don't.

Have these people got nothing better to do than stand around spreading idle gossip and unfounded rumours about other people and their children? Why don't they teach their kids about how to live life properly and what is expected of them instead of bitching to other Mum's.
And we wonder where our morals and good citizenship in society have gone.


DOC

On making friends 2...

Oh no. You are 18 and leave school. Some of your friends go to university in a remote part of the country. Some go off to work. As decisive as ever, I head off to college in London and stay living at home. But what does this mean. Yet again I have no friends with me. I have to start all over again.

As I travel to London on the train on the first day, panic sets in. Where am I going? Who will be there? What will they be like? I arrive at the college and find my way to a room filled with lots of new faces to take in. They're all chatting away as if they have known each other for years. Maybe they have. I find a seat. A group of girls start talking to me immediately. Was I comfortable with this? Probably not. I wasn't ready for that kind of interaction. As a lecturer comes in, the room settles as he explains what the day entails.After a very long hour, I head off to pay my grant to the admin team. I am alone again. Lost in a sea of unusual people and strange surroundings.

It is lunchtime and the group of girls from earlier are heading out to explore Leicester Square and what it has to offer. I tag along, feeling uneasy and an outsider. They are all chatting about where they come from and what they want to do. I answer direct questions and listen. That's what I'm good at. I watch people and listen to things around me.

The afternoon brings more of the same. Finding out timetables and where rooms are. Now this I can handle. Sitting in silence and listening. However, my life will change again during this afternoon. My course has been changed and I'm now only doing part of what I want to do. Part has been cut. What do I do? I make a quick exit after we finish to avoid having to talk to the others. I make my way home pondering my options.

Decision made. The next day I go back to college and quit. Was it the easy option? Was it just the change in course that made me give up my college opportunity? Or was it just too daunting to make new friends again? I start looking for work. I had worked in Woolworths at weekends for nearly 4 years and got extra shifts to get myself money. But I needed full time work. This meant applications, interviews, meeting new people and interacting with them.

I hadn't changed since school. Making friends hadn't got easier over those few years. How long will it take until this simple process becomes second nature? Should I have a label? Would I feature somewhere on the autistic spectrum if tested now or back then? Would it have helped me? Who knows?

BASHFUL 

On making friends...

It's 30 years ago. You are at school. You have trouble making friends. You get lonely. You live with it. You get on with your life in your own special way. People pick on you because you are "different"; you are an easy target.
What did anyone do about it? Absolutely nothing. You remained a shy person, not mixing well with new people.
What happens today? Tests are done. You are observed. Your parents worry that you might have x, y or z. Where did the shyness come from? Is it hereditary?


In my case I found making friends one of the hardest things to do. I was far happier with my head in a book or playing on my Atari games console/BBC B/Atari ST/PC as I grew up. Did I want to make friends? No, not really.
I had a couple of very close friends at primary school. I was happy and enjoyed school. I did well and moved onto Grammar School - without my close friends.
Does making new friends get harder as you get older? I say it does. Nearly 20 people from my primary school went with me to secondary school, but none of them were my close friends. They split us amongst the 6 new classes so that we didn't stick together as a group. It was supposed to help us make new friends. Did this help me? No way. By now I am scared. I am slow to get into the new classroom on the first day and find the other 2 girls from primary school had sat together, and I don't blame them. You would think that a Grammar School would be full of like minded individuals who were there for the study and not to become bitches of the century. It seems I was wrong there.

I went through the first 3 years of senior school without a true friend. I was always the third member of a group. And whoever said "three's a crowd" was so damn right. It just doesn't work. In each year I was in a different three. The other two would meet up after school and at weekends and I wouldn't get invited. Why? Was I that freaky? I was called names and laughed at.
Why is it all the bitches are good at sport? I was hopeless at sport and so ridiculed constantly. I was last to be picked for teams. This to me was some form of psychological bullying. They were saying to me that I was useless and they were never going to be friends with me. So there I was guaranteed to be excluded from the "it crowd" for the rest of my school days. Being good at maths or chemistry just wasn't cool.

It was only when we moved into the fourth year - current year 10 - that I finally fell into a friendship that has lasted 25 years and is still going strong. She had been through the same sorts of things at senior school and always been on the outside of a group. She had been persecuted and called names that you would think 14 year olds knew nothing about back then.

I know this is part of growing up, but are children allowed the same naivety that we were 30 years ago? Would it have helped either of us to have been called "autistic" or have "aspergers syndrome"? Probably not.
Does it help now? As a parent, it answers questions, but does it really benefit the child. I hope so. Will it help them make new friends? I doubt it.


BASHFUL