Yes, I do still have children!

One day soon, I will explain this picture. 

It's occurred to me that I haven't really written a post about the children in a while. No particular reason, I just don't have a lot that's new to say about them. They still amuse and frustrate me in equal measure. They drive me bonkers, but are just as likely to stop what they are doing and come and give me a hug.

Both are still doing well at school. Monkey got re-elected to School Council and he didn't even get to use this manifesto promise. Apparently, in the end, they just asked each class to vote for whoever they wanted so I'm proud he got chosen again. Missy Woo wasn't impressed though as she didn't - although she came 3rd last year and got put on school council because one of the children left school. Missy Woo gets some extra attention with her maths because she is doing so well with it. She's now learning the recorder with one of the teaching assistants in a lunchtime session. As you can imagine, this marries well with Monkey's ukulele. Music practice has been relegated to their rooms or I will go slowly mad.

Monkey also joined the school book club which also takes place at lunchtime. This is for the KS2 children so he's one of the youngest in the group. However, I'm not sure how much of this decision is swayed by the fact that he gets a biscuit. Yes, my son is that swayed by food. The book is a David Walliams and he does seem to like it.

Out of school, Monkey seems to have fallen seriously out of love with playing football. He's been going to the FA skills course for two years but it's a faff to get there on time and he tells me he's bored so he's stopping at Christmas - if I can get him to go to the last two as he keeps coming out of school and saying he doesn't want to go. We've decided he can do swimming lessons instead, and he went for a trial lesson on Sunday morning. As we were waiting for the previous class to finish, he confessed to me that he was "a little bit nervous" (later he told me that he was "petrified") but he needn't have worried. He seemed to spend the whole of the half hour lesson with a huge grin on his face as the group was smaller than usual and he seemed to be the best at what the teacher asked them to do.

Missy Woo still loves her dancing, although came out one day with a "sad face" because she couldn't do something in ballet. It turns out that her teacher is trying to prepare them for an exam early next year and she struggles with doing one thing. I had to give her a little pep talk about how she needs to practice things to get better at them and that the teacher still thinks she's a great dancer. She just  needs a little confidence boost every now and then. I can really see now that she has lessons in the way she holds her limbs if she does a little dance move.

They still fight, but equally, they drive me mad by getting the giggles together.They are thick as thieves sometimes but they are just as likely to be outraged if one of them gets something the other one doesn't. Monkey is the main culprit at this - he'll go to tea at a friend's house and have treats galore but complain if in the meantime, I have taken Missy Woo somewhere or let her have a sweet.

And there was me saying I didn't have much to say about them! They are growing every day but still not reached the age where they sleep in of a morning. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that phase!

Rubbish excuses but here's why I've been quiet!

Yes, that is me. I haven't posted in 4 days, which is a lot for me. I've even missed posting the next Life Circle task because I've been so busy. In that time, I have:

- done a fair amount of work;
- agreed some work with a new client;
- attended my second ever governors meeting;
- been to a meeting in Huddersfield (more of which some other time);
- wrangled two children outside school hours;
- and spent most of a day tearing my hair out at my laptop, something I could have done without.

Something has gone on the power supply and it won't charge the battery nor will it just supply power to it, despite it being connected properly. I realised the writing was on the wall for it so I tried to get the important stuff off it and then went out and bought a new one on Saturday. I have got most of it backed up somewhere but there are a few things I'd like to get off to make the transfer smoother and easier. Remembering I have a slightly duff spare battery helped but of course, just as I was trying to copy the last file I needed to transfer to the new one and it died forever didn't it? Grrrrr..... If anyone can think of ways to charge dead batteries without connecting it to the adapter without spending oodles of money, I'd be grateful.

Oh, and I know that I could have just got it fixed but a) I'd have had to wait for that to be done and b) there are other things that are going on it and it's 4 years old, reaching the point at which everything annoys you and I really need a reliable fast PC to work on. I probably will get it fixed so that the children can use it once I've got all I need off it, and hope it doesn't die completely.

So, my day and my evening has been about me downloading all the software I need, installing it all, along with stuff like printers, setting up email accounts and hoping I can remember everything I need off my old machine. Just what I could have done without today, as I had lots of things I needed to get done. Typical.

So, if you came here looking for Life Circle, I am sorry. I need to write the post still and set the next task. Sincerely hoping I get it done for Thursday, but I have a new governor workshop to attend on00 Monday which is possibly going to set me back even further.

Please bear with me, and I promise I'll get myself back to normal soon. In the meantime, pray I can get these last few things off my old machine, OK?

Confidence trick - update

I can't believe it was only two weeks ago that I blogged about my concerns about Missy Woo and her occasional lack of confidence with her reading. Typically, and pretty much as often happens, things got better by themselves without much intervention by itself. I had some great comments on here and on Twitter about her. Eventually, I decided to speak to her teacher about it after school one day and she told me she'd got a special book out for her to try that week in addition to her usual book as she felt she needed stretching. Missy Woo loved this as she told me she knew she was the only one who got this treat. We read some of both books together at home and she was way more confident.

Since then, she's got better and better. She loves to write, even if her spelling is not 100% - we've started the Christmas lists, which are a hoot to read, and over the half term, she's written notes to her friends and a list of all her classmates' names. They weren't all correct but we sat down together and I wrote some of them out the right way for her, rather than tell her she was wrong.