Everyone seems to be on an economy drive these days, whether it be for environmental or economical reasons. In keeping with that after Christmas we'll be switching to washable nappies with our new addition (I apologise to all hard-core green mums I cannot cope with recovering from a C-section, 2 other children and washing a zillion newborn nappies a day) and today tried some alternative to soap powder - soapnuts and essential oils- in our environmentally evil washer/dryer. I set our central heating timed programs to be cooler yesterday and we've switched to energy saving lightbulbs all over the house in the last few months. Our sky box, which we previous left on all night (*holds out hands for smacking*) has started to help us out by deciding to turn it's self off if we leave it without changing channel for too long.
That said the type of energy I would REALLY like to conserve today is mental energy! Having a C-section scheduled in less than 2 weeks and more than 2 weeks of 2 ill children behind us a good old rest would be lovely, is that likely? No of course not.After hiding under a quilt with my 3 yr old poorly boy for the morning I managed to coax him out from under it and after a dinner of a piece of cheese and some crisps which it took me an hour to persuade him to eat, we went to get his hair cut in preparation for the seemingly far-off day that he is well enough to go back to nursery. Armed with hat, scarf, jumper and thick coat he unwilling trudged there and back and sat in stoic silence while his unruly mop was tamed.
On our return home the phone was ringing, of course, force me to walk across our newly laid and lovely floor with my outdoor shoes on to answer it. Of course I now wish I hadn't bothered. On the other end was an education welfare officer calling to ask about our son's poor attendance at his (non-compulsory) pre-school nursery place. I admit to being a bit irritated and curtly explained that due to our local school's inability to provide proper support for our autistic daughter she has to go to a school that takes me over an hour to get to on public transport and does not have a nursery while our son goes to the local school. This means we have to rely on the kindness of friends, family and occasionally strangers to pick up our daughter so that I can get to nursery to pick up our son who finishes just 10 minutes later and (before you ask) does not have an after-school club to go to. I then catalogued the hospital appointments that both children have had over the last term, my own hospitalisation with a heart problem, failure of friend's arrangements meaning we had to keep one of them at home, then passingly mention the string of illnesses he has been sick with since starting at the local germ factory; 2 viruses each taking over 2 weeks to leave him, a chest infection and currently an ear infection requiring a week of anti-biotics.
SO no I am not irritated by the referral leaving us more to deal with, and do not think that the actual referral was motivated by the fact we have previously made a complaint (which was upheld) about the school, no not at all.
In the interests of saving energy we should probably withdraw him from the pre-school place he has, as its not compulsory, and allow him to have fun at playgroups and trips out without causing us stress and continually draining his immune system. Not to mention all the electricity used up in writing such a long blog post!
