No Caté please, we're British

I've just discovered that Steristrips do actually work! The proof is on my youngest's eyebrow which he opened up last Friday after falling off his skateboard.
I'm very squeamish and hate having to do anything painful to my boys so luckily he did it down the road with his pal. His pal rushed him to his home, a kind neighbour who is a nurse cleaned and patched him up, and he came home saying he needed 3 stitches.

This was a Friday evening and the thought of spending the next several hours in Emergency was not an attractive one, so I remembered the Steristrips. As he was all nice and clean, I just had to read the instructions and go for it. Even squeamish me could do that.

He's been walking around with his battle wound for the last week, and I've just removed the Steristrips now. To my utter amazement, the wound looks great and he may not even have a scar. I think he was quite looking forward to adding to his repertoire though. Never mind.

For such an active boy, he has spent remarkably little time in Emergency. We have also done the rounds in the UK - dentist, hospital, but for minor scrapes (thank goodness). I have a friend who said she and her husband opened a bottle of champagne on their son's 5th birthday because they thought he'd never make it he spent so much time in Emergency!

Mine enjoys adventure and risk but for the moment, fingers crossed, hasn't come too much of a cropper. He was hoping to join some sort of cadet army association at the Journée des Associations so he could have some active fun, but they don't have that here. What he saw was the Veterans' group and they told him he was too young.

I thought, a few years ago, that the scouts would be a good organisation to join, but they have a lot of trouble getting leaders and although my eldest signed up, we never heard back from them despite several email reminders. Actually it's probably just as well as it's a very Catho Catho organisation here and my eldest is not interested in religion in the slightest. He would have been a subversive element lol.

I tried to show willing and get him to do catechism but he loathed it and in the end, not being a Catholic myself, I decided it wasn't worth going through the hassle. He could it do later if he wanted. Of course when I was young, my elder brother and I were forced to attend confirmation classes very much against our wills, where I developed a loathing for the word 'fellowship'.

We secretly admired our younger brother who pretended to go too, a few years later, but who, in fact, bunked off the classes and didn't even tell my mother the date of the ceremony. She only found out the day before by chatting to a friend who said 'see you tomorrow at the ceremony!' My bro's name was mud for a while after that and he was obliged to go through with the ceremony too, although as he hadn't been to many of the classes I'm surprised they let him do it! He was furious that she'd found out and looked darkly sulky throughout.

I'm not sad not to put them through first communion. I'm not a Catholic and if their father is that keen, he can organise it himself. As he's yet to get his youngest christened he's obviously in no hurry!