Fantastic Mr Clooney

I mean Mr Fox, of course. Isabel was invited to a classmate's birthday party this afternoon - it was actually a joint party, and they took the whole class to see Fantastic Mr Fox at the local theatre (which also, rather confusingly, occasionally doubles as a cinema). Our darling girl has a tendency to get very involved in movies and usually gets quite frightened, mostly because she's so worried that things won't work out right. We tried to pre-empt any problems by reading her the book first, so she'd know that the story works out in favour of the foxes (sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone!), and I decided that I'd offer my services and selflessly see the movie with the kids.

OK, the truth - I LOVE going to the movies, and was very keen to go, I'd have elbowed several children out of the way if need be. And it was a great movie - George Clooney suitably smooth and charming in the title role, and Meryl Streep also very good as his wife. I think it was actually more of an adult's movie than a kid's movie, but they all seemed to enjoy it. And, true to form, Isabel ended up in my lap about three quarters of the way through, so I was glad to be there.

I forgot - she was actually in tears even before the movie started. I'd sent her along with six fun size of bags of Maltesers which I had left over from Christmas - I thought she might like to share them with her friends. And share them she did - so generously that she ended up with nothing, and then looked at me with tears in her eyes when I asked if she had any left for herself. I had to go out to the foyer and grab a tub of Minstrels which we split with one of the other mums, who also has a daughter who gets rather too involved in movies for her own good! It was very cute, but left me worried that she'll be such an open person when she grows up that she'll continuously be getting her heart broken. Oh no, now I'm the one in tears!

Oh dear John Terry

I don't know why the recent revelations about John Terry are surprising. "Footballer has affair" is hardly a shocker. It's a bit like "French politician has affair" - it's expected, almost de rigeur. But Terry has always seemed like a solid and well meaning fellow, not necessarily bright but somehow honest. But even then he's a footballer, so I wasn't really surprised.

I started to understand, however, as the details emerged, why he'd wanted that injunction. "Footballer has affair" - fine. "Footballer has affair with wife's best friend" - ouch, slightly sordid. "Footballer has affair with wife's best friend who also happens to be said footballer's best friend's missus" - noooooo! Really? Yuk! How to destroy your life in one fell swoop - I wonder if the three strikes and you're out rule applies in this case.

And with that little judgmental rant over, herewith a couple of John Terry jokes which are already doing the rounds.

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Latest scores: John Terry 1, Tiger Woods 12. Let me just stress that this is a latest score.

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For Valentine's Day Wayne Bridge had a model of his willy made out of Cadbury's chocolate for his girlfriend. It's a shame she prefers Terry's.


Baboom tsssccchhhhh!

I said I'd blog every day this week

But I don't have much to say tonight - for a change! We've had a busy day - took Emily to weighing where we found she'd lost weight and gone back down under a stone (NOOOOOOOOOOOO!) but on the plus side we got a letter from the paediatrician saying all her blood tests were fine. Gives with one hand, takes away with the other. And then after school Isabel had a friend home from school - glad I asked her mother what she liked to eat since it turns out she doesn't like cheese. Cheese! All children love cheese, surely?! Isabel likes more cheeses than I do - she's a big brie and camembert fan, neither of which I like.

See, I told you I had nothing to say really. I've just managed to stay awake through Jonathan Ross (OK, I had a little nap first, so sue me...) and now that I've blogged I'm heading to bed to see if I can finish The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Or maybe I'll just nod off, book in hand, and wake up an hour later with the bookmark poking me in the eye. I think I know which is more likely...!

Do I want an iPad? Well, I wouldn't turn one away....

I spent much of the day reading about the new Apple iPad and writing a piece on it for work. It's a pretty fun job sometimes. And while I love my iPod Touch and am a bit of a gadget geek I'm not sure that I want an iPad. Yet.

There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, I don't use my iPod Touch as much as I thought I would. Our Wifi signal upstairs isn't brilliant so while I would have liked to use it in bed the signal quality means that I don't very often. I used to use it a lot when I was still breastfeeding - it's a brilliant gadget to rest on the arm of a chair while feeding and catch up with something on BBC iPlayer, or check e-mail. Also, I want to do things with it that I can't do - for example, I'd like to copy DVDs onto it but haven't worked out how to do this. And since I'm not commuting any more, I don't use it much as a music player. I do if I'm taking Emily for a walk if I think she'll fall asleep, but if I want her to stay awake I tend to leave it at home so that I can chat to her (she's probably thinking "shut up mother, for goodness sake!").

So I'm worried that while I love the look of the iPad, I might not really use it. I use my laptop all day and most evenings, but usually I'm do a lot of typing which isn't really what the iPad is designed for. And if I want to watch a DVD or a TV show I'll use the TV (controversial, I know). And as for e-books - I still can't resist the feel of a print on paper book. Latent Luddite tendencies. Finally, I've never really been someone who buys into the first version of a new gadget - I usually dribble over it for ages, and finally get one in its second or third iteration.

So I don't think I'm an iPad customer yet. But I hope to grow up and become one sooner or later, and if anyone's got an iPad going spare I would be happy to take it off their hands....!

The medical saga marches onwards

Emily's second hospital visit today - this time for an ultrasound on her kidneys. Since she had a urine infection last year, and we didn't know how long it had gone untreated, the paediatrician advised us to take her for a scan to make sure that the infection hadn't damaged anything. And, hooray hooray, it hasn't. I didn't think it had - she probably would have had some symptoms if that had been the case - but it was reassuring to have it confirmed. And she was so good during the scan - lay first on one side and then the other and then on her back, smiled at the ultrasoundist (I know that isn't a word, but it should be) and was generally lovely. And best of all, she didn't pee on me, which I was a bit nervous about since the ultrasoundist (there's that word again!) said she had a full bladder.

But that's not her only medical adventure this week - I've booked her in to have a swine flu jab on Saturday morning. I was a bit nervous about this having heard some rumours about the vaccine having been rushed out and not fully tested. Also, there's been nothing about swine flu in the papers for weeks and I think that number of cases has fallen dramatically. I don't think I'm the only one to have doubts -take-up of the vaccine amongst health professionals doesn't seem to have been very high. So I asked a doctor friend of mine what she was doing with her own twins who are just a few months older than Emily. She gave me very sensible and direct advice - better to have the vaccine than the disease, in her opinion it was safe, and her kids were having it next week. So, that's what we're doing too. I'm generally a great believer in vaccinations and don't have any qualms, but this one seemed a bit out of the ordinary. I suppose we live in extraordinary times.

The result of this week will therefore be that Emily is healthy and protected against nastiness - I guess we'll have to rely on her to nurse the rest of us if we all come down with swine flu though!

The family that Wiis together...

It was my little brother's 15th birthday this weekend. Last year we all went bowling and for lunch at Wagamama's, which was really fun, but we didn't want to do that again, and we just couldn't decide what to do this year that everyone would enjoy. When I say "everyone", this had to include my dad and stepmother, Husbandio and I, my teenage brother and sister, and Isabel and Emily. It's a pretty wide age range - 9 months up to early 60s.

The Wii, however, managed to unite us. Watching us all play must have been like watching one of those annoying adverts with Ant and Dec or the Redknapps. We were eight in total - Dad, self, Husbandio, Isabel, little bro, little sis and her boyfriend, and a friend of mine who was staying for the weekend. Emily was deemed still a bit too small - she was the mascot though.

We played seven events in all - I even had to set up scorecards in Word and a spreadsheet in Excel to calculate the results! Surprises included a win for my Dad in the Javelin and a win for Isabel at table tennis. I won nothing (boo hoo!) but came second in the bowling. Once the final scores had been counted and verified, Husbandio had won overall, my brother was second, and Isabel was third! She may have had a little help along the way, but still a great result! She was very pleased, and we all celebrated with homemade cake. After all, we needed some energy after all our exertions....!

Pushy parent (in training)

I don't think I'm a pushy parent, but I know I have the potential. I suspect that this is true of most mothers, maybe more than fathers since mothers tend to be more connected to the day to day details of their children's lives. That's not a criticism, but I think it's true. And this means that it's usually mothers who do the school drop off and pick up, talk to other mothers about their impressions of the teachers, and step in to fix things which they perceive as being broken.

And that's the situation we're facing at the moment. The teacher in Isabel's Reception year was brilliant - the kids loved her, the parents loved her, she communicated well with the parents, the kids were clearly learning and also having fun. What more could you ask for? Now that Isabel's in Year 1, it's not the same at all. I know that Year 1 is very different from Reception, which is really a bridge year between nursery and real school. There's a lot more structured work in Year 1, which has often caused Isabel to sigh, and say, "I wish I was back in Reception...". But she's managing the work with no problem so far.

The problem is, unfortunately, with the teacher. She's newly qualified, which I had hoped might mean that she would be really enthusiastic and up to date with teaching techniques. The latter may be true, but the former doesn't seem to be. And while she may be good in front of the class, which appears to be the case, she's woefully disorganised. She communicates badly with the parents too, and just isn't very personable. And some of the things they're being taught are just plain wrong - Isabel's writing a lot now, but isn't writing all of her letters correctly (e.g. starting an 'f' from the bottom instead of the top) and this will cause her problems when it comes to trying to do joined up writing. To combat this, I've downloaded some letter formation sheets and she's doing extra practice on three letters per night to try to correct the problem before it gets worse, or before it become ingrained and difficult to shift.

I've already been to see the teacher to ask her to move Isabel up to a new reading level (she ended up moving from level 2 to level 5, which is a jump large enough that I would have thought someone else should have suggested it before I did), and every week we either fail to get the homework, the spellings for the following week's test, or both. I spoke to her yesterday to find out why no-one's been hearing Isabel read (she's meant to read out loud to a staff member or "reading parent" at least twice a week) and was told that the reading parents only started this week after Christmas because of the snow, and also that she would from now on be hearing every child read once a week. So she should, she's their teacher! And then today Isabel said that the teacher hadn't heard her read, she'd forgotten.

This means I'll have to go back and speak to her again tomorrow. Is it usual to have to do this much pushing to get the basic stuff right? Should I see the headmaster, or is it just because she's new and finding her feet? I don't know whether I'm making too much of a fuss or not enough fuss - advice from anyone very much welcomed!