Accidents at school

My son started going to his current pre-school in September and has come home with 3 accident forms. The first two were bumped heads and bruises and despite stating what had happened on the forms, there were “no witnesses”, so how they could tell me exactly what happened is beyond me.
Yesterday, he came home with a 3rd accident form. My other half warned me that he had an accident at school before I opened the front door as he knows that I panic. (A couple of years ago, my son was jumping on the sofa and somehow flipped over the back of it, catching his teeth on the shelf of a bookcase behind the sofa. There was blood everywhere and he was covered. I totally freaked out and didn’t know what to do. Luckily, my husband was able to remain calm and rational. Paramedics came and pulled out the tooth that had been torn out and had wedged itself in his bottom lip. We were then bundled in an ambulance and my son had to have a further 2 teeth taken out under a general, as well as having his gum stitched back together because it was ripped on both sides. Ever since that happened, I can’t cope with him having any kind on injury. If I hear him cry I just freeze and assume it’s going to be awful again.)
I opened the door and he was barely recognizable! He was bleeding from his nose and his top lip was about 5 times bigger than it should’ve been. I looked at the accident form and saw, once again, NO WITNESSES! I find it a little bit too coincidental that there have been 3 accidents that have taken place at the precise moment that the staff just happened to be looking in another direction. I spoke to the manager of the pre-school and she tried to reassure me that he was responded to straight away. Not only that, but there were FOUR members of staff in the garden area at the time. The outside area is small. Just one person could easily see all the kids by just standing in the doorway, so it worries me that there were 4 people and not one person saw the accident happen.

Is this acceptable? Harlan has just turned 4 and has always been clumsy and he is so easily distracted that accidents can, and do happen. But the thing is, if I took him in to school 3 times in 4 months with the same injuries and I told them that no one witnessed what had happened, they would have an obligation to report me. If I went to the doctor and Harlan had these injuries, and again I said nobody had witnessed any of the incidents then they would report me as well!
The manager has acknowledged that Harlan is distracted, full of energy, clumsy and very active, so you would think that after the first 2 accidents, they would keep a better eye on him.

When you leave your child in someone else’s care, you expect them to come home in the same state they were in when you dropped them off.

MissesCee xxx

My problem with dogs.

Dogs

I live in a world full on animal lovers. While I wouldn’t describe myself as an animal hater, I’m not a lover either, especially when it comes to dogs.

When I was, I don’t know, 6 or 7, we got a family dog. I don’t remember or know what breed it was. I always think of him as a ‘bit of everything’. Black, medium sized, normal looking dog.

He was called Wellard (I know, right?) I woke up one morning, went downstairs and saw this adorable little puppy sitting in our armchair. I don’t remember what happened between puppyness and adultdogness, but I do remember that he turned nasty. My brothers dad, a disgusting excuse for a human being, would abuse Wellard. Shouting at him, kicking him across the room, punching him etc. So it was no wonder that he wasn’t the friendliest of pets. Steve’s cuntish ways extended further than just the dog, but I will leave that for another time.

I remember Steve getting my hamster out of its cage and putting it on the floor and encouraging the dog to attack it and kill it. I was powerless to do anything but watch. Stuff like this went on for a long time and it resulted in the dog literally running from one end of the room to the other, in a straight line. He would smack his whole body in to the wall, turn and run and smash in to the other wall. This would go on for ages and was fucking scary.

Moving on to the ‘incident’, One day after dinner, someone, can’t remember who, left their dinner plate on the floor of the living room. I had to pick it up and take it to the kitchen. Wellard was licking the plate and as I bend down to get it, he turned and went for me. He clamped his teeth down on to my face and was hanging there whilst I screamed. He was so strong and would not let go. I don’t remember how the dog let go of my face or much of what happened after. But I do remember blood pouring from everywhere and having a cut through my lip and one worryingly close to my left eye.

It may surprise you, but that wasn’t the end of Wellard. He stayed for years after that, and was me, yes me that was forced to walk him 3 times each day on a lead about 12 inches long, (Slight exaggeration but not by much). As you can gather, the dog was not obedient and did not walk by my side. He pulled and pulled and 9 times out of 10 came off the lead altogether where he would go for other people or attack their dogs. Each time he vanished totally, I had to find him. No words can describe the fear that came with being anywhere near him, let alone having to bend down and get close enough to attach his pointless lead. He did bite/attack me several times after the main incident but they were never as bad. Probably because I stayed as far away from him as I was able to. The mutt was eventually taken to the police station (Why? I don’t know) after he bit someone else’s child. I do wish they have gotten rid when I was attacked the first time, but I don’t know why he was kept.

But skip forward to nearly 20 years after the vicious attack and I am still shit scared of dogs. All dogs. Big ones, little ones, even ones in handbags. No matter how much I try and remain calm around a dog off the lead, I go in to panic mode and I just freeze. Because of this, my 4 year old is petrified of all dogs , on or off leads. And It’s fucking horrible watching him make himself as small as possible, squeezing his eyes shut when an owner walks by with their dog. It sucks that I have passed this fear on. That said, I am so bored of people saying “Aww, no need to worry, he/she wouldn’t hurt a fly!”. Especially when I have disproven their point more than once. Bitten on the hand by a lady whose dog was “like a baby” and had “never done that before to anyone”. They say dogs can smell fear and that may well be true, but please do not relax totally in your dogs perfect history and temperament If your dogs has teeth, he/she CAN bite. Dogs have instincts and no matter how lovely they are or how well trained, if someone stand on their foot or tail, they may well react. Whether it was accidental or otherwise. I do agree with the “It’s not the dog, it’s the owners” point, because I know what the obvious cause for Wellard being so evil, but no matter how secure I felt there is nothing on Earth anyone could do to convince me that it was risk free to leave a small child alone with a dog. so many YouTube video’s with the “Owners not the dog” tagline, showing a baby sleeping next to a Rottweiler or something. It makes me feel physically sick. And even though I assume the video ends well, I can’t carry on watching because in my head, I already have the image of the child being ripped to shreds, and my mind treats the recorded video as if it were being streamed live.  where I live, there is a short cut in to town that we have taken a few times, but the snag is that it’s a dog walking area. I kept walking that way and having to encounter many dogs off the leads. Most people were great and called their dogs back, put the lead back on or were just generally pleasant, but there were also some that gave me a shitty look for fearing their dog. Those people suck! *Blows raspberry*.

In fairness, I did say to one dog owner that I should not walk that way when I know there will be dogs and that I should walk the slightly longer way. They were there first and walking that way and then panicking is my own silly fault.

I won’t get started on dog shit on public paths right now as I want to eat my dinner. But I will at some point. YUCK!

 

MissesCee xx

TalkTalk. The MINI rant.

TalkTalk. Where do I start?

I have suffered being a customer of this company for over a year now. In that time they have repeated lied to me,
overcharged me, ignored me and even hung up on me. (More than once).
I am stuck in a contract that I can’t get out of just yet and it’s just fab!

“All our calls are recorded and monitored for training purposes”. There is the first lie. I have lost count of how many
times I have complained to TalkTalk about an issue and had them tell me that they’ve put a note on my account about
whatever the problem was. I have then needed to call them back after the issue wasn’t resolved, only to find that no one
knows what I am talking about and I get passed from person to person and department to department where I have to explain
the whole thing again. This process usually goes on for 3 or 4 calls before it finally gets sorted out.

9 times out of 10, I will rant at them, giving them lots and lots of details and specifics for them to just tell me
something infuriating, such as:

Me: You have restricted my services because of an outstanding balance. I paid my bill 2 days ago and I was assured by
TalkTalk more than once that the payment had been accepted and no restrictions would be placed on my services. However,
this morning the internet is off and all calls I try to make are diverted to TalkTalk

Them: I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Your services have been restricted because you have an outstanding balance.

Me: As I explained, the balance was paid in full 2 days ago and I was assured that no restrictions would be placed on my
account. I just told you this!

Them: As soon as you have paid your outstanding balance your services will be reactivated.

…………..
I’m sure you can sense the frustration.

Another time, out YouView TV was not working. None of the ‘Boost’ channels that we pay TalkTalk for were working. I
explained that I checked all leads, turned it all on and off, reset the router, checked for updates, reset the box, etc,
and they just make me follow these steps again and again and again. My favourite time (this happened a few times) was when
I was told the problem was with my powerline adapters. I was told by one of the TalkTalk robots that as a “goodwill
gesture” they would sell me a pair for £17.50 which was a special 50% discount offer, just for me. They usually sell them
for £35. Upon checking their website, I discovered that there was no offer at all. The full price for these particular
adapters was, you won’t believe this……. £17.50!! Lying wankers!
After all that, turned out my YouView box was broken and they had to replace it. My adapters were totally fine.

I also find that the million or so engineers that I’ve had around the house from TalkTalk could sit all day and talk to you
about how shite they are.

This reminds me of what I call ‘Engineer Gate’. After being with TalkTalk just a month or two, we decided to upgrade to the
Fibre Optic Broadband. I ordered it easy enough and was given a date for a bloke to come round and set it all up. I was
repeatedly warned that if I dared not to be home that I would face a hefty fine. Well, I waited in all day for the first
appointment and no bugger showed up. I rang them and they insisted there was no such appointment, despite my confirmation
texts and emails! With no apologies they gave me a new appointment. Guess what? No bugger showed up. By this point I was
pretty fucking pissed off.
I called TalkTalk twice.. The first time they hung up. Second time they said the appointment had been cancelled, by me! The
third time, they offered me a third appointment which I obviously refused and said I wasn’t going to bother upgrading and
giving TalkTalk more profit. Literally 20 minutes later, an engineer knocks at my door telling me TalkTalk people had just
called him as he was in the area and asked him to fit our fibre as a “last minute appointment”. After all of the hassles,
They lovely people promised not to charge me the extortionate £50 installation fee. Aww, isn’t that nice. NO! Because the
fuckers still billed me for it!

I started to feel like I was constantly calling them to complain about some crap, so I decided I was going to bill them £50
for each appointment they didn’t bother keeping. the same threat they shoved at me. Sending an email and getting nowhere, I
discovered that each different department has its own email address. So I clicked ‘Help’ and chose a different category
each time and then pasted the identical email to every single address they had. My phone was constantly ringing with them
trying to resolve the issue. 3 or 4 calls in, they credited my account with the money I had demanded. Win! And just to add
further to the crap about them recording and monitoring calls and leaving ‘notes’ on accounts, for at least a week AFTER
the matter had been closed, done and finished with, I was still getting at least 3 calls a day from them wanting to resolve
the issue. Mental!!!!

Wow. How therapeutic that was. And I didn’t even get to start on the bullshit hacking scandal that was packed with lies and
contradictions from start to finish. Perhaps I will start on that lot when they have invented a computer with infinite
memory for me to save my Word document on!

The second my contract is done, I am gone. Seriously, I would never ever ever recommend this shitty company to anyone. Ever. Genuinely terrible customer service. They wonder why they are always voted the worst in every category going, yet they always tell us that they are always working to improve their services. Wank.
Cheers!

MissesCee x

Bullshit.

I hate the politics or parenting. We all do the mum or dad thing differently, and as long as the same principles are followed then we have no actual right to judge other parents. We all have things from our own childhoods that would be frowned upon now, such as a variety of punishments that just wouldn’t be allowed here in 2015. For the majority of us, ‘We turned out alright, didn’t we?’.

But I find myself almost playing up to other parents. I will elaborate slightly and say that if I am in the process of telling my child off just as another ‘rent walks by, I feel the need to over explain the situation to my child just so the other parent will assume I am doing a good job. Harlan, my youngest (3) is a nightmare. He has 7000 times more energy than any other child on Earth and just doesn’t seem to care or respond to much! So most of the time we are out of the house, I am looking pretty harassed. I am a (wo)man of my word though. If I tell him he has one more chance before such and such happens, then I mean it. But passers by don’t know that and probably assume that I have told my child this 5 or 6 times. It frustrates me because that isn’t the case. But again, I feel the need to look good in front of others. I, myself have seen parents in the supermarket saying “Right, if you do that again then you aren’t having any sweets!”. The child will continue with whatever he or she was doing and mum will repeat this same threat. We’ve all heard it, and we’ve all seen it. I sigh to myself and move on. I don’t comment on it, it isn’t my place. I might form an opinion but that’s as far as it goes.

Anyway, I recently had a man stop me to tell me that if I want my child to listen to me, then I must follow through with what I have said. Fuck you! I do. 100% of the time. I am by no means a perfect parent, quite frankly I have no example to follow. My mum never passed on any valuable information to me when I was growing up. No life skills, no suggestions or anything, just lot’s of shouting, really. My mums other half just beat us up and told us how ugly and worthless we all were, but despite all that, I try my fucking hardest to get all the right ideas across to my kids. I live on a council estate, yes. We moved here earlier this year as renting privately was far too expensive and we had 3 children sharing one bedroom. I have lots of facial piercings, it isn’t that phase I was told I was going through when I was 15, 12 years later, I still look the same. I wear wigs that are brightly coloured and such because I have no hair of my own and I don’t really fancy the blonde-bob wigs that are more widely available. I wear red and black, well, everything because those are my favourite colours and I like the style of clothes that I like! I can read, I can write and I can even spell properly which is incredible considering I left school at 13 years old and while this may only be one other example of someone that went to the same secondary school that I did, she completed years 9, 10 and 11 whereas I left in year 8, but the point I am getting to is that she spelled croissant as “Qwozont”. If I am totally unsure on how to spell a word, I would just avoid it. I am digressing but I wanted to try and explain that I am not totally fick. I can cook (without the need for Dolmio, HomePride or chicken nuggets), I can sew and make clothes and blankets and toys. I have mounds of motivation and drive when I am in between bouts of Anxiety and Depression and above all else, I don’t need advice from some random on the street that thinks he has the right to look down his nose at me and undermine me in front of my son!

I may have exaggerated slightly when I said I could write. Finishing school may have helped me learn how to form paragraphs properly and control myself when it comes to easing from one subject to another. I also never learned what the semi colon was for. I have just reminded myself that the point of me writing any of this was purely so I would have somewhere, anywhere to get my frustrations out and I must also remind myself that there is not a single view of any of my posts. So with that, I will note that my mission has been accomplished and continue making my daughter the angel wings she needs for her Christmas play. Night!

SIDENOTE:

I do have the occasional Dolmio day, HomePride Pasta Bakes are gorgeous (Cheese & Bacon, I love you) and I am partial to a chicken nugget dipped in gravy. Providing the nuggets actually have chicken in them. Never have been a fan of areholes, poultry or otherwise. Ciao!