Welcome to the madhouse!!!

All the better to chew your finger off !!!

Photo taken today - she's got her smile back !

Signs and Symptoms of Croup

Croup is characterized by a loud cough that may sound to you like the barking of a seal and may be accompanied by fast or difficult breathing and sometimes a grunting noise or wheezing while breathing. At first, a child may have cold symptoms like a stuffy or runny nose for a few days and may also have fever. As the upper airway (the lining of the windpipe and the voice box) becomes progressively inflamed and swollen, the child may become hoarse, with a harsh, barking cough. If the upper airway becomes swollen to the point where it is partially blocked off, it becomes even more difficult for a child to breathe. This happens with severe croup. With severe croup, there may be a high-pitched or squeaking noise when breathing in (this is called stridor). A child will tend to breathe very fast, and the stomach or the skin between the child's ribs may seem to pull in during breathing. The child may also appear pale or bluish around the mouth because he is not getting enough oxygen.Symptoms of croup often worsen at night and when the child is upset or crying. In addition to the effects on the upper airway, the infections that cause croup can result in inflammation further down the airway, including the bronchi (breathing tubes) and the lungs.

This is what Sophie and Juliette both had, and it really does sound like a seal barking when they cough! Juliette got it first - a nasty cough, runny nose and fever, but I just put it down to teething. Then Sophie (who'd had a bit of a cold too) started doing the seal cough on Friday night, which was very impressive - the more she coughed the more she cried, the more she cried the worse it got and she couldn't breathe properly, then she'd be sick ... needless to say, I got no sleep at all! The next day Mike was off helping some friends move all day and I couldn't get hold of my doctor or the girls' doctor, so I ended up phoning up "SOS-médecins" for the emergency call-out doctor.

He prescribed everything the chemist stocks (4 different potions for both of them 3 times a day - I came out with two big bagfuls!) and I managed to get the neighbour to sit in with the girls while I ran off to the chemist's (literally, because it was about to close)! Sophie spent all day long on the settee, totally crashed out, running a high temperature and coughing as soon as she moved, didn't want anything to eat (even refused McDonalds or sweets!!!) ... and suddenly, at 5pm, started singing, hid under the blanket on the settee and started giggling !!! (I think the ibuprofen kicked in!) Mike arrived home at 5.30pm so I don't think he believed a word when I said how sick they had been all day long (well, Juliette slept all day and was actually full of beans when she was awake, but she was off her food too.)

Anyway, panic over, Sophie's back to doing naughty things today so she's definitely feeling better (to the point of getting me out of bed at 5am because she was hungry !!! And I didn't even mind !!!) It's 10.45am now and Juliette hasn't woken up yet (she is still breathing, I did check !!!) so looks like life is back to normal! *Huge sigh of relief* !

I was going to call this something like "Sophie's a little shucker" but I'm not entirely sure that's what shucking corn is all about ... anyway, you get the gist of it !!! Sophie's got dinner under control ...

Going to school is such hard work ...

Meanwhile Juliette practices being a double-jointed gymnast ...

Well you usually only get to see the gorgeous girlie pics, so here are a couple for the rogues gallery !!!

Normally smiley Juliette has been grizzly for the past couple of days and has woken up at 5.30am and refused to go back down (and as my alarm goes off at 6.20, that's the end of my night !) .... but hopefull that's it now because tooth number two has already come through. It's just next to tooth number one, on the bottom, on the left of the bigger tooth. Yeah I know this pic is mean but the smiley version was too blurry to make out the tooth !!!

Sophie wanted me to point out that she's got lots of teeth too so here you go, so that she doesn't get jealous !!!

Why is it kids remember some things straight away but others take longer? Sophie's been learning the alphabet at school for weeks and still makes a few mistakes. I recited her a bit of Edward Lear ("One had a trumpet, one had a drum, and one had a pancake stuck up his bum" - but where did that come from ???!!!) and she's been running around saying it over and over again word perfect ever since ... although nobody can understand her because she dissolves into giggles after the word pancake !!!

She's obviously got a great career in songwriting lined up too because she sat me down and told me to listen to one she made up : "Pooey-bum, Pooey-bum, Pooey-pooey-bum" to the tune of Jingle Bells. Can you see a recurring theme here?!!!

No, I haven't given up being a blogger, I just haven't had a minute to myself since me and Sophie went back to school. Despite finding an absolutely fantastic website that has done 95% of my project preparation work (www.enchantedlearning.com for any other teachers who might pass by here !), I'm still snowed under with paperwork and lesson planning. Oh well, only another month or so and I'll be on holiday again !!!

On top of all the schoolwork, there have been loads of added extras this week too. On Monday I got called up to go and do some mystery shopping - you go along and check out the shop, how clean it is, how helpful and knowledgeable the shop assistant is, etc and fill in a report afterwards. I won't say where I went because the company will have to come along and kill me afterwards (on the phone they offer you a "secret mission" and you have to sign a contract the first time to say you'll keep everything confidential !!!) but I had to ask for "a clown fish and sea anemone ornament". I'd already found them myself and was standing just in front of them but the woman still told me they didn't have any !!! I think she might have failed!! But I didn't, so I still got paid my €10 (£6.50).

Tuesday was a meeting at work to decide on how many crosses to give (for kids forgetting their books and stuff) before giving them a detention and how long to confiscate MP3 players or mobile phones for - riveting stuff !

Wednesday was post office day (sending off all the packages from last week's ebay sales).

Thursday was just a normal work day so I had the evening to relax .... but I crashed out in front of the telly at 8.30pm so didn't really make the most of it !!! (I think Juliette's second tooth is about to make an appearance, so the night before, she was awake every 2 hours and funnily enough, Mike didn't hear any of it!)

Friday was free ads day on ebay so I obviously HAD to list a load more freebies ... ummm I mean unwanted items (mini Incredibles radio is at €1,50 at the moment so I might have to get some more !!!)

Saturday, Mike had a seminar at work and I had the joyous job of filling in all the paperwork with the childminder - it took all morning and I've still got to follow it up with all the declarations at the tax office and benefits office (so I get some cash back). And then I had the bright idea of taking the girls to McDonalds and the park while Mike was at work (and I don't know who out of me and Sophie had the most fun looking for conkers in amongst all the dead leaves, until Sophie kicked a conker that turned out to be a bit of mouldy old dog poo !!!). Then to top it all off, I took Sophie roller-skating in the car park opposite and she almost wet herself laughing every time she fell over !

Today you almost got a piccie of Sophie eating a humungous great corn on the cob, but the camera's obviously had a hard week too and the battery needs recharging (and I know just how it feels !)

Next week isn't looking any better - tomorrow morning I work (three whole hours !!!) , then in the afternoon, it's Sophie's 4 year checkup. She'll see a doctor (general checkup) and a nurse (hearing and sight) and they say to allow an hour and a half !!! Sophie's a bit concerned about why they want a little pot of her wee and asked if they'll give her an injection in her bum, so I don't know who she's been talking to !!!

Roll on 22nd October I say (half term holidays!!!)

When I was a kid at school, I used to think teachers knew everything ... or at least, all the stuff they were teaching. Now that I'm a teacher, I realise that they only knew it all because they looked up the answers in the teacher's book just before the lesson started !!!

So today, I've been learning all the stuff I'll be teaching to the kids next week in immersion (project work) - I now know all about Johnny Appleseed (sort of half-fictional half-factual folk hero who went about planting apple seeds all over the northern states of the US with his cooking pot on his head !!!), Louisiana (also known as the Pelican State whose state flag is a mother pelican feeding baby pelicans in a nest, to represent the state looking after its citizens), where hurricanes start and what to pack in an emergency kit in case of tornadoes .... the only thing is, I've survived all these years without knowing any of that so do they really need to learn this stuff?!!!

(I wonder why all my blog entries end up having songs as titles)

It absolutely poured hard last night so after hearing the pitter-patter of the rain on the window, I heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet (no not that tiny, Juliette may now be able to "crawl" on her tummy ... she doesn't actually get anywhere much but she moves round in a circle ... kinda like slow-motion breakdancing really !!!) and Sophie appeared in bed beside me because she was scared.

Just as well really because 10 minutes later, the thunder started rumbling. It got pretty loud so I reached out my arm to stroke Sophie's head on the pillow and .... she wasn't there !!! Moved down a bit ... she still wasn't there ... Aaaagggghhhhh has there been an alien abduction and I missed it?!!! I said "Sophie ? Where are you ???" and a muffled little voice said "down here" - she was hiding at the bottom of the bed totally under the quilt !!! Which made we wonder, why is it that when you're a kid, you think a bit of material is going to save you from the horrible scary monsters?!!! Or is it a case of If I can't see you, you can't see me !!!

At some point, there was a humungous great bang but I've no idea what time it was because there was a power cut for the rest of the night (although, strangely, the street lights stayed on so they must be on a different circuit - just as well when we had to venture out downstairs to the toilet mid-storm in the pitch black!) Anyway, Sophie was well-trained after the power cut at "Nanny & Grangran's" this summer so that didn't bother her - but she wanted to know if the man who mended the electricity was going to be able to come over on the boat - she must think there's only one bloke in the whole world who fixes storm damage !!! - a sort of Santa Claus driving around in a Seeboard van !!!

We've since found out this morning that the boom was a house being struck by lightning at Malo-les-Bains, ie the bit of Dunkerque by the beach, and the mother and her kids have had to be rehoused so it must be pretty bad. And all the traffic was diverted to get into the town centre because some of the roads were flooded (I think the canal overflowed) and we could see people sweeping all the water out of our garages around where we live (but we got away with it). So the question is ... are we still on water restrictions after the drought this summer or have they lifted the hosepipe ban now ?!!!

How do kids grow up so quickly? Sophie's now back at school in the "moyenne section" - that's the "medium section" which comes after the "petite section" ("small section") and "toute petite section" ("really small section") - I'm not making this up, honest !!! (The really small section is for 2-year-olds so they are really small too!) And yes, you've guessed it, next year is the "grande section" - the "big section" !!!

Anyway, she's now in Mme Potier's class - that's the headmistress, who has a reputation as a bit of a dragon ! Also all the naughty kids get hoiked out of their class and sent off to Madame Potier's class for bad behaviour, so I think Sophie half thinks she's in there as a punishment ! They've mixed up all the classes so she's lost some of her old mates from last year, but she IS now in the same class as Arthur, who used to go to the same childminder as her. And it was true love back then!!!

And as for Juliette ... 6 & 1/2 months old and when she had a big yawn earlier, I noticed that her first tooth has just come through ! She hasn't been grumpy, had a fever or had nappy rash at all, which was always the signs with Sophie. She did get a bit moany earlier so I sang the theme tune to the kids' cartoon Mona the Vampire ... and Sophie joined in singing Moany the Grandpa, which is apparently what she thinks the words are !!!

Now this is the best thing you can come home to after a hectic day at work !!!

Well, I know you're dying to know if I'll be putting in a full day's work this year or not so here goes for this year's timetable ...

I've got 2 classes of 6e (the youngest - 11 year olds), one class of 5e (12 year olds), 2 hours of "immersion" with the 5e and 3 hours of "immersion" with the 6e (not the same ones I have in normal English classes). "Immersion" is a new thing this year - it's basically project work about "English" culture in any shape or form - America, Australia, celebrations, British food, the royal family, etc ... I'll have to get my thinking cap on but it could be great fun ... and the great thing is, there are no tests to prepare or mark ! And because of that, the kids should be happy so will be easier to teach (or alternatively, they won't give a sh*t because it won't count for their end of year grades, so they'll play up instead!!!) On top of that, I've got IDD - "itiniéraires de découvertes" - literally "pathways to discovery"! It's similar to projectwork but is a joint project with another subject - this year it will either be with technology or physics, and it does have to fit in with their syllabuses in both subjects so it can be a bit tricky. But as it's so tricky, we get five weeks preparation time without the kids, 10 weeks work, five weeks preparation time again (for the second session) and ten weeks work again ... and thanks to email, most of the preparation work can be done from the comfort of your own home, so that's a result !!!

That may all sound like a lot, but it's still only 18 hours in the classroom ! (But before you call me a skiver, I did offer to do an extra hour of "help with homework" - paid overtime of course ! Well, what did you expect?!!!)

So this year I'll be working :

Monday 8-11am

Tuesday 9-12am & 2-5pm (6pm if I do the help with homework hour)

Wednesday 8-9 & 10-11am

Thursday 9-11am & 2-3pm (and 4-5pm on the weeks I have IDD)

Friday 8-10am & 2-3pm

I can hear you saying "Is that it?!!!" from here !!!!