School update October 5, 2007

I meant to write about school – so far Reception is going well, all settled in and bar the odd tired tantrum, we’re doing OK. Admittedly child no.1 and 2 are both in bed by 6.45pm so I guess we’re keeping on top of the tiredness. I have even got one of those things they call an ‘evening’ back again though I am spending the extra time finding friends on Facebook (one friend has 127 friends – Toby you know who you are – and yet I only have 28, do people like him more than me or is it not that simple? Does he simply not have children and so he and all his friends fritter the day away on these things…?).

The only thing I’m not coping with is the notes home, currently I’m in the midst of working out which Foods from around the World we’ll be bringing, arranging a shoe box for the Romanian orphanage Christmas appeal and deciding what I can give to the promises auction, putting my name down for paint pot washing, bringing in the baking money, packed lunches, PE kit, junk modelling boxes and pots, school nurse notes, cakes for cake baking day, how-I-get-to-school-survey etc etc.

Lord knows how the full time working mums do it, maybe the point is that I don’t have to do it all? But surely they know my obssessive compulsive tendencies to try to do it all? Suffice it t say that I’ll let you know how I get on…

School uniform – a sustainable parent’s dilemma August 24, 2007

So I grabbed a pack of 2 red polo shirts in Asda (my son school just do red polo shirts and blue sweaters with logos as uniform) and when I got home I was shocked to see they were £2 – just £1 each. The claim most supermarkets make that you can get an entire uniform for less than £20 is true then.

Now I’m a bit of an old hippy when it comes to organic, fair trade and the like but I’m also aware, not having the luxury to live in an ivory tower, that trying to keep afloat financially with kids (at whatever level of income) can be hard at the best of times. So what to do?

The clothes my employer Tatty Bumpkin  makes are either made on a fair trade co-op in Sri Lanka or in a very kosher factory in Turkey that we’ve checked out so I feel like a hypocrite buying these clothes knowing full well the state of the factories that make clothes that cheapily. Alas we don’t make organic / fair trade polo shirts.

I then came across Spirit of Nature – an eco-online store that makes organic and bamboo mix polo shirts (check them out) – bamboo is an amazing fibre we use in the Tatty Bumpkin kid’s clothing collection. It’s got a long list of environmental benefits, is UV resistant, feels like silk, dries quickly, regenerates quickly, needs no pesticides, even does the washing up, sends the birthday cards and will cook the tea if you ask it nicely!

So the compromise I’ve gone for are 3 organic / bamboo polo shirts and 2 Asda sports and 2 uniform as back up. Not a great solution but the best I could afford!

Starting school May 27, 2007

Gabe is now 4 and a half and Jude is 2-and-a-bit. Gabe is at a brilliant preschool and starts school in September. I share childcare with a good friend, well we do a school day with the other one’s children which works brilliantly (most of the time!).

School sounds so daunting, I even find the playground scary and I’m a grown up! Luckily the school doesn’t have glamour mums, they are a all pretty down-to-earth and care about their kids!