Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 May 2006 22:33:34
halleluja, Dith's banning of the snot demons seems to be working. She's a woman to be wary of, that Dith. Scares me, anyway ;) After a night of sniffling and snuffling and filling a large paper bin with ... well, I'll leave that bit to your imaginations (or, for those of you who are fellow sufferers, just look in your own waste paper bin) ... I woke this morning feeling slightly more human and have improved as the day has progressed. I am now only fractionally snotty and headachy, the throat is far happier and I can mainly breath. Thanks be to God. I will be able to visit Dad tomorrow.
Good news - I have marked (illicitly, as they were supposed to be handed in straight away without me looking at them) the SATs papers for all my groups bar the Year Sixes, and those of you who know anything about teaching will know how absolutely over the moon I am to discover that three of my year fives got level three, three of my year sevens got level four, all but two of my year eights got level four or above with... wait for it, wait for it.... two getting level five! It's unheard of!!! Goodness, I'm good, you know! ;) Actually it's all credit to the kids who rose to the occasion, pulled out all the stops and worked incredibly hard to achieve it. Wonder how Tiddles did! I don't care for the league tables, but I care about the tremendous boost this will give my kids and, for the year eights, the foundation it will give them to survive in the big wide world (and high school) with numeracy.
Difficult news - we're making plans, and it's incredibly hard. Dad will probably come home from the hospice next week. They can give us no guidance as to how long he has or what quality of life lies ahead, but when we said we were absolutely reluctant to consider a nursing home, they suggested we give him a good summer and then, if necessary, face the prospect of a nursing home come September. He's very frail and is sleeping a lot and knows he's now in the next stage. They have the dilemma - to keep him lucid and enjoying life mentally means to leave him in pain, to increase the pain killers will send him into that morphine-induced muddle which scares him too. We have the dilemma of how best to cater for his needs, for our needs and for the children's needs. First step, I take six weeks without pay for the last half term up to the holidays. We all know that I cannot do it alone, though, so we are discussing and debating how best to ensure that the burden is not too great and is shared out amongst us and deciding what help to call in. There aren't enough hours in the day to think about it all.
In other news, tonight my little Smudgelet is away in a manger. He should be (though he probably isn't, yet) all curled up and fast asleep in the wooden bunk beds in the converted animal sheds where his class are staying for two nights' residential trip. Woohooo... my baby's growing up! It's strange in the bungalow without him. I could say I miss him, but actually it's rather nice ;)