Long term readers of my blog will know that I have adopted children, one of whom has full-blown foetal alcohol syndrome and is in a dedicated special school, where he is now settled after a few years of sad instability at the hands of the education department staff.
He is now 12 years old and heading towards the teen years very fast.
He has also just begun to learn how to join simple words from some simple letters. Read cat sat on the mat, but not so advanced yet. Just the cat is a huge deal.
For 12 and a half years, he has rarely watched TV, and on the rare occasions he has, it hasn’t been sustained, but more of a one-off.
Imagine my surprise when he came through to see me last night. He’d been in the family room while I was in the lounge, reading in peace.
“Mum, the news is bad.”
“What’s on the news?”
“Well, the army has killed two of their own people. Cigarettes are now banned forever so dad has to stop smoking or he’ll be in jail, and Saharan sand is smothering everybody and we’re all going to die.”
Then, off he pops, happy as Larry, to listen to more gore from the news while I go and put on the kettle.