Some More Catching Up!!

Friday: I spent the morning bullying anyone who stood still long enough, into helping me tidy up ready for some more HOST students arriving just after lunchtime. We managed to get quite a lot done, and the house didn't look too bad. I went off early to pick the students (whole family - Mum, Dad and two kids) so that I could call in the supermarket on the way and get some suitable food, as they are vegetarians. By the time I got to the station the family were already there waiting, so we got straight into the car and headed off home. It was very hot and stuffy in the car and the 4 year old little girl did not enjoy the trip at all. By the time we got out of the car she was hot, sweaty and very grumpy! We showed the family straight to their room as they wanted to get the little girl changed into some cooler clothes. Ten minutes later she came downstairs on her own, and sat silently ignoring all our questions, until she noticed the TV (hard to miss a whopping great 52" screen lol) and exclaimed "Jetix" and then "Power Rangers" that was it, she and Little Prince hit it off and spent a while playing with his Power Rangers and then his Disney Cars. When her parents appeared she went all shy again for a few minutes before recovering. She really was a little sweetie :-) Her older brother was an extremely quiet and shy young man, and charming in his own way too :-) After we had chatted for a while the parents went out for a walk round the village, leaving the children behind. Once Mr Messy came home we all ate together and chatted about the differences between England and Turkey. We carried on chatting until quite late, when we all decided we'd better go to bed as the children were bound to wake us up early the next morning!
Saturday: The HOST children weren't very impressed with being given toast with chocolate spread for breakfast and neither of them ate very much at all. We were at a bit of a loss as we didn't know where the parents were, we think they had gone for another walk! They reappeared and announced they had received a phone call from their home town in the UK and would have to return immediately!! We were very shocked by this, and I was quite worried that we had somehow done something to offend the family!! But we dutifully got everything stowed back into the car and I drove them back to the station. The little girl fared even worse on this trip, and we had to stop part way there as she was going to be sick, poor little mite. Luckily after that stop we managed to make it to the station without her getting too much worse. I hope she was OK on the train journey home again, we don't know as the students haven't answered my email asking if they got home OK. Which makes me suspect that we DID do something to upset them :-( This is the first time we've had HOST students that we didn't get a photograph of, or to write in our Student Guest Book :-(
Saturday: I finally got to speak to the Occupational Therapist who assessed Little Prince recently (she had gone on holiday straight after we received her report). I was very (VERY VERY) relieved to finally get to speak to her, and be reassured that despite the seemingly extreme difficulties Little Prince has, that, with her input and our support he will come on in leaps and bounds. We spent ages chatting on the phone about different things that could help him and different ways we can support this. She was extremely honest, and said there is no point having weekly sessions with her, as Little Prince's attention difficulties will make it very hard for him to respond to that. It would be much better if she visited monthly or so, gave us ideas on how to work with him and let us do the activities with him for short periods of time each day and her review his progress each month and suggest new ways to work with him if he needs it. She also asked if it would be possible to speak to his teacher for next year too, and I said I would try my best to arrange for her to be here when the therapist visits next Saturday. One huge advantage of living in a tiny village - you know everyone and everyone supports each other (Mr Messy fixes Teacher's computer - Teacher is very supportive and has agreed to come and meet with the Therapist to get her advice). I was so thrilled by this and feel that a huge weight has been taken off my shoulders :-) I'm not sure how Little Prince will cope with having the Therapist and Miss Teacher at his house lol.
In the evening I had to drop LMS off at one of her friend's house for friend's 18th birthday party. It was a fancy dress party and LMS was dressed as a Can Can Girl from the film Moulin Rouge - see her social networking site for pictures if you know who she is :-) She looked gorgeous as usual :-)
It was fairly late once I'd dropped her (and three other friends I'd had to pick up on the way) off so I decided to nip into a supermarket on the way home and pick up a newspaper and a snack to have for my tea. It isn't my usual supermarket so it took me ages to find the snack I wanted (white chocolate cookies YUM) and by the time I got to the tills there were queues at all of them, although there were only about 3 or 4 open. I had stood in the queue for about five minutes when the cashier announced she was closing and we would have to go to a different queue! I thought cashiers finished the queue and THEN closed the till?! So me and another shopper dutifully moved to the next open till, and again we stood there for about 5 minutes when the second cashier made the same announcement!!! The shopper in front of me asked where she suggested we go, she just shrugged and repeated that she was finishing at 8 O'Clock! I just dumped my stuff and stormed out!!! I had a fast food meal at the next door McDonalds instead and chuntered crossly on the phone to Mr Messy about cr*p customer service!!
Sunday: Drama Teen spent the day getting her bag packed for her annual adventure camp. Apart from when she dragged Mr Messy to the shops to get her some stuff she still needed - suncream, bug repellant and water shoes! She packed all her things herself and didn't want me to check her bags, which I've got to admit drove me a bit nuts - what if she's forgotten something!! But she is right she is old enough now to take the consequences if she has, and I'm proud of her independance :-)
Monday: Mr Messy worked from home today, so that he could drive Drama Teen to her camp coach pick up point. I don't envy them the drive at all in this weather!! Little Prince cried and cried when they left and has made comments about missing Drama Teen all day since. Mr Messy rang up not long after lunch to say they had successfully met up with the coach and after waiting a while for latecomers, Drama Teen was safely on her way. I hope she has a fantastic time, I'm sure she will :-) There are so many activities planned for the kids to do, she won't have time to not have fun lol. We haven't really done much today, its been too hot lol. Although this evening one of Little Prince's friends rang up to see if he would come to the village park to play, well the friend's parent rang up lol. So we spent an hour or so sat on a park bench chatting with the various other Mum's there while the kids ran around and got all hot and bothered. Next time I'll remember to take a drink for Little Prince!!