So much for being a role model

Reading these I'm really glad I don't have a daugther (yet). Do you ladies remember what you were like at their age. Just as rebellious I dare say

and haven't stopped yet!!

Laura, before the independent education system spat out my children (or spat out the two oldest ones - we removed the neurotypical ones in protest when they informed us that, regretfully, educating Ivor the Engine was becoming too much like work), I had the opposite problem - I'd turn up at the school wearing my working clothes and most of the other mummies would be in designer sports kit and their faces would be adorned with perfect make-up instead of encrusted sweat. Or else they'd be participating in the my-shalwar-kameez-are-glitterier-than-yours parade.

Now that he's at a local school, my 8-year-old son hates Thursdays because that's the day I collect him from school - on foot. He only has to walk a mile or so, but he growls and grimaces and roars and generally behaves like a baby raptor when he sees me.

My 11-year-old is so keen not to be a chubby teenager ("like you were, Mummy") that she's happy to come with me on long walks and, having walked up Snowdon, has declared her ambition of climbing Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis before her 12th birthday next June. She's OK when she's away from her siblings, despite the fact that her stock of adjectives has recently been reduced to "dumb", "REALLY annoying" and "not fair".

And we're having a little snigger because, despite spending the past 2 years in the behaviour support system, Kevin cuffed her former classmates in the selective grammar school exams for this year, and by throwing Ivor out when they did the school prevented him from being exposed to a teacher who has recently been banned from entering the Midlands while he awaits trial on internet child porn charges. Which is not at all funny, but when I think of the amount of self-righteous green ink that school expended on us...

Welcome back Vrap, you'll notice your absence has been missed on the forum this week.
I can see you've been through a roller-coaster ride in terms of educating your raptors; sounds inspiring and stressful at the same time. Congrats to Kevin for doing well in her exams, there's nothing like confounding others' gloomy predictions for your kids is there? As for the ex teacher, yes, too uncomfortable to feel smug I'm sure. Love your image of school run one-up-man ship too.

Just come back from hideous school uniform shopping trip, having of course left it to the very last minute.
13 yr old: 'These trousers don't fit' (the waistband perched about 1/2 inch above her pubic bone)
Me: 'Don't think M&S do a line in hipster school trousers'. Husband: '...(hugely amusing joke)'
13 yr old: 'Dad, sometimes you're just so stupid.'.

Truce was finally reached in the shoe shop where she found fashion shoe with heel height acceptable to both of us.

Glad you got up Snowdon - twice (go on, it can't be too boring to tell us why; let me guess, the other raptors insisted on a second ride in the train because the peak was covered in damp cloud the first time?) If you do come up with the intention of doing Sca Fell Pike, get in touch and I will drag mine up as well.

School uniform...bah! I can just about handle shopping for it and paying for it (we haven't got to the heel-height wars yet, although persuading the little ones that the school might prefer them not to wear pink patent shoes remains an issue), but when it comes to sewing the name-tags on it I really wish I'd taken the Pill properly.

I am very seriously considering a Scafell Pike expedition at the end of October. We're all going up to Scotland to spend some time with my parents, and Kevin is up for booking into a B&B within walking distance of the Scafells for the Friday and Saturday nights at the start of the holiday and climbing on the Saturday if the weather permits then going on up to Scotland on the Sunday. Can your littlest one manage the climb? If so, I might persuade Ivor to have a go - he's quite a fit little beastie.

The double Snowdon excursion happened because on gloriously sunny Tuesday Mr V-rap discovered, after dropping off Kevin and me, that all the trains were fully booked, so their Plan B (another railway) came into play. We booked them all seats for Thursday, but Kevin said no way was she getting on no stupid train that went up at THAT dumb angle and was THAT annoyingly crowded, so we walked up by a different path through rain and fog and wind. I can't claim that she held me back very much, either. Cost me a fortune in souvenir t-shirts, but it was worth it.

Vrap, email me nearer the time if you decide to do it.
My Kevin has been up twice; once as a 7 week old babe-in-sling when we were still trying to delude ourselves that having kids wasn't going to change our lives. Got photo of me doing earth mother impression breastfeeding her in the swirling mist at the top. The second time I think she was 10.

What kind of route would keep your kids the happiest? From Wasdale it's short and very steep with a tiny bit of scrambling, but sometimes that's more fun than a long plod. I've never been up from Eskdale but that would be the quietest and one of the least-known routes.

I'll certainly drop you an e-mail, Laura. In fact, I'm going to get the map out in the next few days and start looking for accommodation as demand might be high at that time. Scrambling up rock faces sounds much more fun than trudging up the tripper path, although we don't go as far as ropes and harnesses. If we did that, I'd just bring Kevin and leave Ivor with his daddy.

Kevin's first hill-walk was as a baby in a sling too, in Austria, at about 10 weeks of age. We realised that having a baby DOES change your life when one of the staff in the hotel where we stayed had to be seconded to baby-minding duty for a couple of hours each evening so that we and the other residents could have a meal without it being ruined by colicky screams. Breastfeeding was lovely there, though, because people came over to have a chat and compliment me on having produced such a beautiful baby without batting an eyelid. Which is, of course, how it should be.