Dyslexia - we don't do that face, ever

If you ever want an afternoon where you wish to depress yourself into a black hole of grimness just Google 'dyslexia'  You will see that there are two distinct categories into which you could fall if you are dyslexic; the very slim chance of being like total genius mega-bucks Richard Branson or most likely a serial prison visitor for petty-crime and drugs. Seriously, go do it now.  The teenager is dyslexic, picked up at primary school in Y3 by a great teacher, he's now just started Y10.  Like the common cold there is a wide and varied scale of how this affects people, with my teen it's spelling and writing, so much so he gets a reader and scribe in most of his exams.  The proof is in the pudding as he has done test with no help and he's not even finished the paper and his result was inline with bedrock, with help and he's up in the clouds with a finished paper.  Just proves he knows what he wants and needs to say, his brain and hand just don't work well together.

But we don't do that face, the sort of woeful face, with sad eyes and a down-turned mouth, which is what a lot of the so call industry do that has sprung up to do with dyslexia do. Talk about a half full glass ethos.

I once went to a conference designed to help parents with dyslexic children and it was as it was full of misery-loves-company type people.   The endless talk of 'special schools' or 'not academic children' and 'lifelong issues faced' was enough to make me reach for a crack-pipe.  I left at lunchtime and went to Pret to have a brownie to cheer myself up.  Are there worse things a child could have?  You bet there are.  This down-trodden attitude is no good for anyone, least of all the child.  Yes it's an utter arse-ache at times and he gets thoroughly pissed off with it all.  It's fortunate he lives in 2016 with voice to text tech, iPhone voice memos, shit-hot teachers who email home Power Point presentations from lessons and quite frankly the list of stuff you can get your hands on to help is endless and free (he learnt to type for free for example).  You just need to get off your arse, investigate stuff and do what works for you. But never ever do 'that face' as if your world has ended.  Oh a never to go a dyslexia conference unless there is a Pret nearby. My teens glass is not only half full, but brimming over with fizzy pop.

Here is a great book on the subject with no self-pity crap anywhere to be seen The Dyslexia Advantage

Shit, I'm older

Now I have a teenager it made me realise I am getting older, I know, like durr.  I remember my 87 year-old Grandmother telling me she still felt 25 in her head, but her body just disagreed with her and to quote unquote 'it pissed her off' and I sooo get that now.  I once could work all day and drink and party all night, just turn my knickers inside out and rock up at 9am at the office with a cappuccino looking like a fresh faced super model (ish) with the vitality of a sheepdog!  Now I more mint tea/Estee Lauder Overnight Repair Serum/vitality of a hedgehog on a good day.

Ten years of having babies and caring for your children makes you knackered, worn out, brain fried; and of course I wouldn't change it for the world and I never ever want to spend another day wearing inside-out knickers. Now they are older 14.5 and 9.5 the freedom is creeping back in, they are less hands on manual heavy, they do their own stuff and you get get on with yours.  I still have that party animal in me; check me out going to bed at 2am at the weekend, after a hard-core night out, smashing it at game of Pointless, walking home drunk, in the middle of the road after eating a selection of cheeses from around the globe.  Told you, still got it.

Brotherly Love

I have a love and loathe kind of relationship with my two year older brother.  He was protective at school, but I was not allowed to look at him at school, let alone talk to him.  When the class bitch pushed me down the steps of a school coach after a swimming trip, he jumped off the wall he was sitting on with his oh so cool mates and slapper her across the face.
Everyone froze except me and my heroic bro, we moved thought the pause of people quickly, my knees red hot from the pavement scrape.  I thought right there and then to myself 'wow, my brother is a super-hero!'  He's done the same sort of thing on and off over the years; after a particularly nasty work incident he told me he could arrange to have their 'palms blow torched' as much as I would have loved to say yes, I declined. This is the same brother who once put all my soft toys in the big chest freezer we had in the garage as a joke, I can still remember that the ears of my Snoopy were stuck frozen to the side of his head.  He also gave me some plaque disclosing tablets telling me they were new sweets; I foam pink at the mouth all the way home.  Siblings, brothers, sisters and brothers and sisters can be vile to one another but I reckon most of the time they have your back even when you are 45.  What stories my two boys, the teenager and his younger brother will have when they are older I have no idea!

Nice Tits

So after a care-free Summer in which I hardly saw the teenager as he was off with shis mates from lunchtime till dusk.  He woke between 11 - 12, consumed a large amount of Oats & More, with even more toast with jam and lemon curd.  Then he was off on his bike, yes with a cycle helmet on.  He told me I was just like Claire from Modern Family; in a recent episode watched together Claire chased Luke down the road yelling about the helmet.  I'm not quite that bad, instead I use my mate who is a critical injury specialist lawyer to tell him tales of crushed brains, popping eye-balls and horrific injuries to ensure the helmet goes on each and every time.  It works, try it, scaring the utter shit out of the them way outweighs any banter from his mates about it.  And to be honest most do wear the helmet.  We did have a fun chat one night when he asked me why a girl had Snap Chat'd him a picture of her cleavage.   Hmmm, was my reaction.  He then went on to tell me she had been texting him a lot asking him to meet up, asking him where he was going, why didn't he respond to her, was he at football later etc  The texts and messages were endless.  He had not replied to any, as he says 'girls are too much effort' and after that barrage of messaging it would seem so.  Not to mention the 'Sharpie eybrows' 'endless tears' and 'shreiking' that he finds perplexing.  I didn't know the girls parents but I knew a mutual friend, who passed on the details.  Her Mum called, mortified and thankful and the same time.  I felt awkward talking to her, but I asked myself the question, would I have like to have known?  The answer was yes.  Drama over, girl now told to cool it, all is well again. He's nearly 15 and is literally more interested Fifa, football, movies and his mates than girls.  It will flip I'm sure, but eventually boobs on his iPhone will, I am sure, be a lot more interesting at some point.

PS: Pic shown not actual boobs mentioned, just a random internet pic to illustrate and wow what a selection to choose from when you Google 'cleavage'  80% fake I reckon.

What do they wash their face with?

When I was a teenager it was all cucumber facial peel masks and Twilight Teazer lipstick.  You only scrubbed your face if you happen to fall off your bike on to the road.  Skincare was just Witch Hazel or your Mum's Nivea or Oil of Ulay if you really wanted to go 'luxury.'  I wasn't sure what the jig was with puberty and boys, of course when I was 13 I never ever looked at a boy of my own age, they were juvenile and smelled of musty bottoms.  I was way ahead in the puberty steaks and would have been mortified is such a pubescent peasant even talked to me. 

No7 Twilight Teaser - 80's Must Have

So now having said 13 year old son I can see those girls in his year walking down this same path.  They look like mini super-models, all long legs and billowing hair, even I'm intimidated.  I had pretty good skin during my teenage years, not like some friends who were battered by the acne stick.  And how other kids were so deeply cruel, I remember tripping another girl up on purpose once because she had been so heart crunching vile to one of my friends whose skin was bad (that friend no longer has spots and looks younger than me now)  There is a ton of stuff for girls to use to wash their face, but not a lot for the teenage boys.  He just wants to wash his face, not burn off a layer with a medicated facial wash or scrub.  Plus washing your face with just soap is hardly worth it. 

Good skin care is in the same category as good general health and well being but I can't understand why the teenage girl skincare market is so well catered for but the teenage boy skincare market presumes they are all splattered with grease, spots and pimples.  Type in 'teenage skin washing' into Google and only pictures of girls come up.   So far he likes the Simple range because it just washes his face and it does not want to go to war in his epidermis.  The skincare giants of the world are definately missing a big boy shaped trick with this; L'Oreal have Hugh Lawrie and McDreamy advertsing men's skincare, but they late 40's early 50's.  What happens from the ages of 13 - 49?

Batteries and rechargers

My teenage son's life is all about the recharge.  The recharge for his iphone, his ipad, the recharge for his portable chargers and his batteries for his X-Box to be recharged, not to mention the sleep he needs to be recharged and not a narky swine.   Tori Spelling was rumoured to have a gift wrapping room in her Hollywood mansion, I need a re-charging room in my semi detached.

What makes me most crazy is when I schlep out of bed in the morning and flick on my cute little pink DAB radio only to hear silence as he's nicked the batteries, again.  I need a mix of Absolute 80's/Radio 5 Live to get me started in the morning.  We have two battery rechargers and several rechargeable batteries, to turn over from uncharged to charged should be simple, but seems like it just too much hassle to put empty batteries in to charge.  Much less hassle to piss Mum off first thing due to lack of Wham and a detailed weather forecast.  So i've painted four batteries with pink nail polish as a deterrent.  Will it work?  Who knows but it is worth the try, the mornings are getting darker and I need Andrew and George to help me.

Summer Hols

After the freedom of the Summer hols I always feel so mean shoving their free, brown, feral feet back into black leather school schools which according to my teen 'feel like bloody concrete blocks'  Said concrete blocks are a pair of sized 10 £85 Clarks men's shoes.  We've tried cheaper brands but they never last, they fall apart and are just plain crap in comparison; no Aldi alternatives when it comes to school shoes.

'Family time' is a much used bullshit phrase to try and make you feel guilty about not having Kodak/Ahh Bisto moments each week.  I'll tell you what family times means on holiday, it means two weeks of all being in the same room together because its cheaper!  This way you get to know each other more, inside and out, including yelling at each other to hurry up as you need the loo and being the only female in the household you can't just pee in a cup in the kitchen.

My boys made me laugh me head off as well as did my head in during our two weeks driving about France.  My teen held my hand in the midst of the biggest, wildest, loudest thunder and lightening storm I've ever seen.  He was laughing at me because I was genuinely scared, my boys were not, but I loved the fact he grabbed my hand to comfort me at the same time.  He did my head in because he was always hungry and he always wanted to be up, out and about doing something.  And for this I thank the international language of football, which on Ile De Re, he played with Italian, French and German boys each and every afternoon.  With some (literally) schoolboy German they all managed to communicate well enough to have a great time.  Even my 8 year old was in goal and was called 'De Gea' by his international team mates which made him beam from ear to ear.

We saw Notre Dame (13 yo -Mum, it's massive!)  went to the Louvre (8yo -Mum, why was everyone sad and naked in the olden days?) and looked at Anish Kapoors giant vagina art in Versailles (no comment from either child).  (Both - Can we have another Nutella crepe?)  When we got home I asked the boys which bit they liked the best and both unanimously said 'being at the very front of the car ferry on the way home when the ramp was put down in Dover and being first off the boat.'  Mechanics and engerneeering trumps thousands of years of arts and culture, so be it.
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