2014 Entry

[tabasco]

Probably due to the recent hot and humid weather???? Get an A/C to cool the house down!!!

[cetaylormade]

mikedellfarm I'm sorry but I had to laugh - only because it is such a relief to here someone elses dc behaving extremely erratically!! Tabasco - I'm hoping your right - I may invest in a/c -you never know

[mikedellfarm]

Don't bother, I have an a/c, we're in Turkey and its 38 ! DS just did some English and it was shoddy.. but at least my hair looks shiny and grey free

[Araucana girl]

My dd also losing the plot on english - vocab does not appear to be going in at all. She did the 2011 paper a week or so ago and completely mucked up any section where she had to interpret the text, aaaagggh.

We did a verbal reasoning paper today, this was out of 90 set by a tutor, and she only got 56 and missed answering 10 questions. Even though I keep telling her to answer the easy sections first and then go back to those that take more time she will keep going with the bits she is slower at - can't seem to get any exam technique into her.

Will be pulling my grey hairs out and giving up on the henna!

[bravado]

Can I give a piece of advice, based on the very same happening to DD2 and a very successful outcome on 1st March?

Give them at least a day off....more if you can manage it.


The thought of a day off may well throw you into a complete panic but it will do them ie the ones facing the exam in September, a power of good. The summer term is a beast and like the rest of their peer group, they're exhausted mentally and physically - young brains need rest as well as stimulation. Rest is pivotal. If you can give them a couple of days then even better. If you intend to work with your DC throughout the holidays, then try to have at least a day off per week.

DD2 started to do the most outrageously weird things - try not to let it worry you. Gently go through it with them, repeating the same or similar exercise to ensure that they "get it", then repeat a few days later, a week later etc to see if it's a "meltdown" anomaly. Now's the time to crack those little issues - tell your DC that you welcome those mistakes - better now than on the day It's really important to try and maintain a really positive outlook towards issues, mistakes and dirty-great mess-ups because it builds confidence for you and them

BTW in the words of Rocky Balboa - grey hair "...aint so bad"

Another BTW: pure red henna is amazing (pure, as opposed to the the stuff you get from certain shops, that's mixed with other chemicals and ingredients) but it can cause all sorts of problems if you want to have a change of colour and use more commercial dyes available from the counter or from a hairdresser. The metallic salts react very badly. I expect you already know that but I felt I had to mention it. The only way to remove henna, is to cut it out or grow it out - bad news if you want, or have long hair and a change of colour.

[Araucana girl]

Another BTW: pure red henna is amazing (pure, as opposed to the the stuff you get from certain shops, that's mixed with other chemicals and ingredients) but it can cause all sorts of problems if you want to have a change of colour and use more commercial dyes available from the counter or from a hairdresser. The metallic salts react very badly. I expect you already know that but I felt I had to mention it. The only way to remove henna, is to cut it out or grow it out - bad news if you want, or have long hair and a change of colour.

Ha Ha yes I know that now many many years ago I wanted to lighten my hair with a lightener and then dye it a lighter shade of brown with a commercial dye. Unfortunately I forgot my previous application of henna a few months before. Result a lovely traffic light of blonde, brown and orange hair for the next few months - hairdressers refused to touch it. Luckily I was at uni and would never have purposefully done it myself - loved it for the impact.

I use body art quality henna now and have never looked back since the body shop stopped selling theirs

Thank you for the other comments on giving dd a day off. I will try not to panic. Unfortunately she had just had 4 days off at Latitude Festival when this happened

[bravado]

Ha Ha yes I know that now many many years ago I wanted to lighten my hair with a lightener and then dye it a lighter shade of brown with a commercial dye. Unfortunately I forgot my previous application of henna a few months before. Result a lovely traffic light of blonde, brown and orange hair for the next few months - hairdressers refused to touch it. Luckily I was at uni and would never have purposefully done it myself - loved it for the impact.

I use body art quality henna now and have never looked back since the body shop stopped selling theirs

Luckily, you got off very lightly. It can also turn the hair blue and green and even this is the least of anyone's problems when using a chemical process over henna. I would like to warn people that hair can also melt when in contact with henna and bleach/peroxide/developer etc. That's a genuine fact, as it happened to me in a salon, even after weeks of strand tests with various % volumes of bleach and developer to ensure no problems. I used body-art quality henna, too and it made no difference.
I'd personally never use henna again and whilst I love the ethos behind it, I would counsel anyone considering applying it to their hair, to think very very carefully about using it, as it requires a long-term commitment, unless their hair is very short and regularly cut.

[mikedellfarm]

DS has a full day off a week and one day when he does only 1 hour. The other 5 days we don't do more than 2 1/2 hours and often that includes art time. Art is his great passion and he draws daily, but by incorporating it into his timetable he doesn't feel totally bogged down, also he then uses the timetabled time to draw a specific thing.

He does also do some NVR for 1 hour a week. Actually I didn't realise the importance of it until last week, he came across cube/net work and was terrible at it, so we cut out paper cubes and worked on them. Last week he did a Maths Paper, bought from this site, and it asked him a specific cube question.. ta dah, nailed it.

We have incorporated success points into his schedule and he looks forward to them. Who knows if he'll make it or not, the journey is an experience and I am very happy to reward the effort. As for the grey hair, I can't really blame it all on the 11+

[Araucana girl]

unless their hair is very short and regularly cut.

That would be me then, very short and cut every 6 weeks. Don't ever let anything else near it now anyway so hopefully safe, been using it and nothing else for 20 years now crikey though thanks for the warnings, no more bleach for me, I was lucky then!

[cetaylormade]

I'm only do 1 1/2hrs a day to include Maths, English, VR and NVR with 1 paper a week. I'm also making sure we have at least 1 day of but normally 2 where we just have fun as a family - she has 3 younger brothers

Think it may have been a blip because the last 2 days work was much better (here's hoping anyway ). Today is her fun day and so far there has been kitchen experiments and scratch and colour with a bike ride and swimming this afternoon!!! Think her days off are even more exhausting