#FailFriday - October 2012

It's that time again where we congregate at the alter of parenting and confess our sins. You know you're not completely innocent or you wouldn't be here, would you?

Have you added your confession to our linky yet? (It's at the bottom of the post just in case you were maybe thinking about possibly linking up).

Don't forget to tweet us with #FailFriday and leave a comment so we know you're around. All good fail stories will be included in next month's round-up, so don't delay. The badge code is to the right >>>>>

So, who were our failures last month?

First off the blocks was Actually Mummy, who's fondness for a certain, mummy-friendly beverage landed her in Embarrassment Town. Oops.

Then there was In A Different Voice who put forward not one, not two, but a fail for every day of the week. That's my girl!

So go and visit and offer some words of comfort to these battle-weary parents. See you next month.

An army of supporters.

Who is your support network? Do you think about the people in your life who help you every day? Are you lucky enough to have an army of helpers around you, or one of the unluckier ones?

I'm not talking about those mums (or dads) with a gaggle of nannies (if that is the correct term for a collective of them), but about those of us who have others we can turn to at times when we need a bit of extra help. 

Yes! Apply within.

Last week, we had illness in our house. First it was the children and then Dad. I had a lot of help from different people in my life. Even people who gave a small amount of help have no idea how useful they were to me. 

First there was my mum and mother-in-law. Apparently, humans are one of the few species (if not the only one) where the female lives longer than her reproductive life, and it is argued that this is a result of either good design or evolution for the purpose of helping younger generations with their own child-rearing efforts. Whatever it is, it rocks!! I so could not have battled through these last couple of weeks without the help of the older females in our extended family. They came over after work and helped with mealtimes, or looked after the children who were well so I could concentrate on the poorly ones. Amazing.

Then there were the other parents in our community. Especially the ones who were kind enough to collect the well children and take them to school in the morning, or collect them from school later and bring them back. They have been a godsend.

The neighbour popped over a couple of times to see if I needed anything from the shop. She tried not to come too far in to the door, or to breathe in hard, but she was able to keep us stocked up on milk.

As I did not show my face in the school playground for a few days, the school have been fantastic in making sure I have been kept informed of anything by email or book-bag notes. Thankfully, there's not been much to worry about. 

The receptionist at the GPs surgery has been wonderful. I know some of them are complete jobsworths, but ours is ace and it would have been a lot more difficult for us if it was a major issue to be able to get reassurance from our lovely doctor. 

I am so grateful for the little army I have around me. It doesn't matter that if we were ever in a fight, they would be rubbish because keeping my family going is the only battle I concern myself with and whoever can help out with that, whatever the circumstances, can be my wing-man any time. 

Who could you not cope without?

Bedtime stories - a battle worth fighting?

The bedtime story - a cornerstone of any child's day. There are some who argue that a bedtime story is an important tool in helping your child to develop necessary language skills, like in this article. But then there are others that dispute it and place the importance on the act of speaking and listening rather than on the book or story per se, like this article in The Telegraph. I don't suppose we will ever know if they make any difference at all for sure. 

Anyway, I have a confession to make - I don't read my children a bedtime story. I don't base this behaviour on some sort of learned philosophy where I know better than the experts about this sort of thing. Simply, I just plain can't be bothered. 

Bedtime stories are one more thing to worry about in an already busy bedtime routine. They make me sleepy. I get bored of the same three books over and over again. So shoot me. 

I'm not saying we don't 'do' books. Our house is packed with books. So much, that we don't even bother getting new ones from the library. We read a lot of books. We like all sorts of things, from Maisy Mouse to Harry Potter. 

With the oldest child, we read a bedtime story every single night, but then we had a lot more time and undivided attention. We were a bit more lax with the next child. We did some bedtime stories, but we're not so much of a slave to it. Now, we don't do any bedtime stories at all. We have a slob, watch a bit of telly and then straight to bed. 

The older two children are doing very well at school, particularly in reading, so it's not like they're suffering in that sense. I do feel a bit guilty that we don't read them a story every single night, but then, I'm sure there are worse things to worry about.

What I need to know is - am I alone in this??

Protecting your children from the fallout of renegade activity. A tale of drugs and fear.

This is a guest post from Michelle, a mother of two who writes at Lost in Blaenavon.

"I know that Flower and Bear are only little, but this is a cruel world. There are paedophiles, drug dealers, drug addicts and generally some nasty people about who are addicted to the thrill that causing someone pain brings! So I'm worried for their safety. Even though I live in a quiet area, I know that there are places that I need to make sure my children avoid, but now it's being forced into their little world. But maybe I should start from the beginning!

I have a brother who is almost eight years my junior. He was a lovely child, who always tried to defend me and would always make sure he helped anyone out whenever he could. When he was about thirteen, he changed overnight! We assumed it was just the fact that he was a teenager and had hormones raging round his system like all teenagers, but it was something a lot more powerful than that, he became very secretive and started stealing money from us. We couldn't prove it was him and so we just made sure we kept no cash in the house.

When he was sixteen, the truth came out and our whole family was devastated! We're a respectable, hard working, religious family so we weren't expecting anything of the sort! It hit us all like a ton of bricks! My brother had been given drugs by a drug dealer in school and he had become addicted to cannabis and cocaine. You name it, he had tried it. He blamed my father's heart attack for his delving into drugs, but I blame the drug dealer that offered him a free sample!

He refused all help and moved out not long after. My parents knew where he was and kept an eye on him. To protect me and my siblings, we weren't told where he was living or anything. I knew a rough area where he lived, but that was it. Maybe it was a good thing, maybe not. For two years, I barely saw him and each time I did he looked worse and worse. How he kept down a job, I have no idea! Every now and then, he'd come home complaining about the lad he was sharing a house with, saying that he couldn't live there anymore, but every time my parents told him the rules for his return home, he would leave the next day and we wouldn't see him for a few months. It was hard because we never knew if the last time we saw him would be the last!

Eventually, after two years, he saw sense. He came home asking for help to free himself of the habits he'd developed so long ago. This was great wasn't it? It was good, except that his drug dealers weren't about to let a cash cow like him get away with dropping the habit! I don't think it helped that he owed them so much money!

They put death threats out on the whole family to try to scare him into giving them the money. Fortunately they didn't know where we lived, but they did have our phone number. Night after night, we would receive threatening phone calls from them and no matter how many numbers we blocked, the following night they would have another ten numbers to ring from.

The police were fabulous! I have to admit! They came and spoke to us and took lists of numbers away and generally reassured us. But the threats to our life were very real. In the first few weeks after my brother came home when the death threats started, the police said to my father that he needed to move his entire family away. We had no choice.

We tried to move my grandmother without telling her, but she was being stubborn and we had a lot of nasty comments from her friends about us taking her away. Eventually, my father told her the truth and she was the first to move. I moved with her as my volunteer work had become too dangerous in the area and I had to transfer.

We left friends and jobs and a beautiful house behind because of my brother's drug habits! In fairness, he has cleaned up his life and doesn't drink or do drugs anymore and now has three boys and a wife. At 23 he's more like the boy he was than when he was 13!

And that is what worries me about Flower and Bear. How do I protect them from the pain that I and my family suffered because of one person's stupidity! How would you do it? How would you protect your family? How can you educate your children about drugs?"