A parent on the go

It is tough both for both parents when their child falls ill and the other parent is away. I got an advance notice what will lie ahead, when Number One Son suddenly fell ill, while I am travelling from one place to another in order to fulfil work and other commitments. One will happily attend a conference or work away when one knows that everything is fine and childcare will provide decent working hours for the other half.

Only the phone messages tell about the agony in the other end, while the other party tries to get ahead with the task in hand. When one does not see one’s child, there is no tangible idea how ill the child is and how deep is the unhappiness and possible sheer pain. A parent can only hope that the other party does not become too tired to cope in the short term.

The situation is not so bad when one can head to home in the evening and comfort the child and give the other parent a respite. However, if one has to run off the following days in order to keep the promised work commitments and the other half can only keep holding the 'baby', there will be guilt. Hopefully not blame, if the other half at home does not face too much of a loss of income.

Potentially, this situation will be lived as a long-distance reality in one season’s time. This thought is scary, but unfortunately, during these harsh economic times, one has to try to ‘bring in the bacon’. Of course, Archaeologist Husband may get his revenge when he will be working abroad during the summer and I will look after Number One Son.

The importance of support

After Number One Son started to misbehave in the nursery, we approached the speech therapy services and asked for more support. As a result we got a long extra home visit that has been really beneficial, since we got advice relevant to the current developmental phase Number One Son is going through. Archaeologist Husband was present during the visit as well, so we had intensive training into the correct strategies and the speech therapist could assess Number One Son’s speech properly.

Now we know to apply input modelling in order to improve his pronunciation and try to introduce more verbs – partly helped by the game cards found under his bed when cleaning up. Storing all the presents and keeping his room at least in some order means that you forget what he actually has. Now we can play with delightful Finnish animal cards. It is good to have relatives and ‘godless parents’ who remember Number One Son.

It seems that his developmental progress is the key element to the new gains. Now he happily repeats words and goes ‘mm-mmm’ with you. Six months ago this was a distant dream and I was getting frustrated explaining everything in two word simple sentences and supporting his English while trying to keep his passive Finnish skills intact. Now he even occasionally repeats a word of Finnish. Not often, but ‘Ei’, ‘No’ in Finnish comes quickly if he really does not want something.

What does this learning curve teach us. It shows that one has to keep asking for support and inform authorities of any negative changes. With the normal schedule of monitoring visits, the speech therapist would have realised the need for support well into the summer term, and Number One Son would have got improved help only by the time of the reception class entry. One now only wonders how the families shy to ‘cause trouble’ or insist for help are managing to get support is anybody’s guess. Same question was aired by another NCT mother, whose child has a joint condition that was only spotted after they asked their GP for a referral to a pediatrician after the child did not learn to walk properly.

School induction already!

Suddenly my baby has grown so much he is going to go to the reception class in September. How daunting when he still does not pull together proper sentences and runs around and is not listening the nursery assistants like a three-year old. More alarmingly, it seems that I will be a working away researcher mother that adds an extra butterfly to my tummy. However, one archaeologist has to have a steady salary, and although the coming position will be only for a year, I will be partly clearing the decks and partly looking for and testing new ideas. One never knows: may be they will be able to offer us a small family flat, but it seemed unlikely when I asked the accommodation office.

Any way, now a busy archaeologist mum has to put her sight to more earthly matters and scrub the toilet and head for a birthday party picnic after that.

Bad behaviour

Number One Son’s behaviour has taken a turn to the worst and our bet is that this has to do with the frustration of not being able to communicate effectively with his peers. He makes progress, but it is still painfully slow, even if Archaeologist Husband did notice a clear difference over a couple of days he was away in the TRAC. Nevertheless, our son is far behind from the other children, who converse in full sentences and can tell their parents what has happened during the nursery day. Number One Son may be conversing, but we cannot decipher most of it.

When trying to understand what is happening, it turned out that we at home have been using totally different language in telling Number One Son off from the nursery. They have had problems when Number One Son throws a tantrum or pushes other children, and worse. When they have put Number One Son apart, he has not stayed 'on the naughty spot' and has not understood the significance of the practice. I asked them, if they make it explicitly clear that he has been naughty, it turned out their house practice does not allow using that word and they say ‘you have been very silly’. Many families may use this expression, but we do not. For us, as the children of the 1970s, silly is a walk by a tall Monty Python and refers to funniness. Thus, the message may have been totally muddled.

Now we are trying to incorporate the silly word and ‘brainwash’ Number One Son not to push other children. He is in the phase in his personal journey where he tries to rule the roost, so everybody has to be very firm and consistent.

Steam trains a plenty

The last weekend of Easter holiday ended up being a railway themed. A friend who is also the organiser of the local NCT coffee group sent a text circular telling people that there was a model railway event in the ‘poo’ museum, a.k.a. Abbey Pumping Station. This turned out to be an exciting visit for Number One Son. He got really excited joining the other boys in following the travels of a plastic poo in the model toilet and drain. The museum itself was interesting and gave the children a lot. Not only the definite ‘poo demonstration’ but also other machinery and the original decorated features of the pumping station itself.

On a train

However, the real draw was the marvellous model railways presented by different local societies and private hobbyists. Number One Son really enjoyed the model of a harbour in Yorkshire made in a year by a model railway society member from Syston. It combined tiny model trains, painstakingly prepared harbour scenery and boats. The older children could help in operating the model, which was ace for them. Suddenly, I got a glimpse of a possible future where the local model train shop will get a new small customer...

Even better was the ride on the narrow track railway on site. It was marvellously sunny day after the greyness of this ‘cold spring’ and the surreal sight of the Space Centre added to the experience. It just then occurred to me that even if we have had a ride on the Great Central Railway with Number One Son, he has never travelled with train. We have to take him to the British Museum relatively soon.

On Sunday I could not resist going to the Rothley Station to check their outdoors model railway and see a real full-sized steam engine in operation. Number One Son was so excited following the stopping train in the Charnwood Forest (Garden) Railway that he was running back and forth checking the end points. He also enjoyed playing with Thomas the Tank Engine outside the cafeteria as well. The real engine made him hopping in excitement. We waited two services to pass so he got a good look. Although he did not appreciate I did not allow him to run to the track in front of the stopped engine but kept the gate hooked!

Looking for Richard

Masses of people have visited the exhibition on the finding of the remains of Richard III. Now with the Easter bank holidays we as a family were drawn towards the presentation. Naturally, Number One Son probably would not care a bit of the panels or information, but Guildhall is a beautiful Medieval Hall and the cobbled courtyard would have given him an unusual place to explore.

Leicester's Search for a King (Leicester City Council)

But it was not going to be. We had hoped that the variable weather and the coldness had kept people away from the centre. The New Walk Museum was definitely less crowded than I expected, but that may have something to do with their children’s area and the Egyptian collection being closed for some building work next door. The dinosaurs the small boys come to see anyway were there and the computer graphics and joysticks were once again roughly manhandled by our toddler. But appreciated, much appreciated.

After spending quite a lot of the holidays indoors due to the grey and chilly weather, we wanted to have a proper walk and let Number One Son to have enough exercise to give him a good night’s sleep. Thus we continued down the New Walk towards the Cathedral. Just when we entered the Cathedral precinct, the snowflakes started to float in the air. We had just one look at the not-so-long-but-long-enough-when-holding-an-impatient-small-boy queue and decided to return to the car. Richard can and will wait. Unless he goes to York after the court case.

Pirates ohoy!

Number One Son’s birthday party this year could have not been more different from the last year’s. Last year all the children from his nursery group were invited to a big party in a hall with a bumpy castle. This year we had a small party for his best friends in our house. It was slowly snowing outside and the temperature was freezing, so there was no egg hunt in the garden. The bubble machine arrived two days after the party, but that had been better to use outside in sunshine – that was not on offer.

Last year it was partially overcast, but it was basically a T-shirt wearing day. This year one would have been blue in a couple of minutes without a coat. People arrived with skiing suits and warm hats. Wellington boots were a hot ticket.

The theme was pirates, but Number One Son refused to have his costume on. Anyway, for him it was more important that he could jump up and down with his best mate. Archaeologist Husband had baked a treasure chest chocolate fudge cake filled with fruit sweets and chocolate coins. It was a sure hit with all the mothers who apparently wanted to have Archaeologist Husband to come and bake their birthday cakes as well!

The food hit among the children was the bright orange cheese puffs. They vanished without a delay. Grapes were popular, too, and all the kids liked to drink their juice from their cartons with straws. Just when the atmospheric temperature was rising after all the children had eaten a lot of salty and sweet treats, I draw my ace from my sleeve. I had found pirate sticker packs from Poundland and all the guests became visibly more concentrated and relaxed when sticking treasure chests onto island scenes or pirates onto a sea map. We avoided any accidents or children starting to fight when the children did not get overexcited. Only one kid was missing a bumpy castle, but perhaps next year...