The Forty Seventh Month: October 2008

10th
Friday: a day with just us two. A busy week, and one where we have both been holding it together. You are often exhausted and I feel especially tested by you when you are. I find It hard to remain patient, calm and detached enough to give you what you need, and be firm about what I know needs to happen. (Like how you always want to play in the street in the afternoons with the other children, but are usually so tired that there is usually a meltdown when I call you in for supper, so I decided that for the moment it’s best if you don’t go out to play at that time).

Today we had a great time. We went for a walk to the Grotto at Paradise Bottom – I am doing a rece for some nice woods for your birhday. We walked for an hour, and had a picnic overlooking the river – the river Avon as you surprisingly correctly identified it! You collected large dry branches (‘for the fire at my birthday’) which we dragged back to the car.
We found a glorious field for a birthday picnic, but may be too far for our purposes. Afterwards we bought lavender bushes from nearby Brackenwood Gdn centre and dropped into BFC for bread, ‘oaks’ and eggs. You said you wanted to play in the toyshop, ‘Scrapstore’, but I said no, because we had already been out for 3 hours or so, and you were looking exhausted. Mostly it was a ‘yes’ day for you, and I went along with your games.

It was good to be on our own, which feels like it doesn’t happen much these days. KG is very full on, lots of friends, play and busyness. Afterwards we sometimes see other people, or go to the park. You always love it all, but then hometime/tea time is trying, meal times are fraught with you playing up, playing with food, throwing things around from over- tiredness and I end up getting wound up and cross.

When we got home I asked if you wanted to make cards in the attic (‘inditation cards’ for your b.day) or help me in the garden. While putting shopping away you disappeared quietly for half an hour. You had blocked plughole with squidged soap – or was that yesterday? Then you tried sliding down stairs on the changing mat – which I said no to, because of large cupboard at bottom. A bit later I found you had bought your nappies downstairs and put them on your two teddy bears.

We spend two hours in the garden, digging up the dead veg/sweet peas. Weeding etc. Are your teddies sleeping now? – ‘yes they are having a snooze’. You soon entertained yourself with the garden canes, making wigwam shapes. I helped you with garden wire and you were soon extending the structure into a house, and ‘locking off’.

Things that have made me livid – you kicking your shoes off in the car after I picked you up – crocs flying through the air when I am driving, also apple cores, toys. God it is exasperating…

I have been on the edge of rage several times in last couple of weeks. Yesterday, in a moment of calm, you said ‘if you get cross again I will move to a different house and daddy will live there and you will be in the same house.’ !! I said this was an interesting idea and asked whether if when you next got cross with me, I should move to a different house. Then you talked about a friend and how you hit each other and said sorry.

Your schemas:
Floating /sinking – toys in the bath
Filling sink with water / blocking taps /plug with soap
Tying string
Blocking off areas / walls – building walls of pillows in the bed

Singing songs /poems in made up rhyming language.

Visits to 2 schools this week. Is this going to be my school? you asked yesterday.

28TH OCT – tues half term

‘Theo ‘s really sparlkly
theo’s very jolly, he likes a laugh..a really lovely character’ – said by 2 different parents who know you.

You came home exhausted from Kindi the other day, and I asked you if you wanted to have a rest and a story with me. And you said ‘ I want to have a loud time!’

Schema’s - more piles – throwing pillows, duvets downstairs when Jim was here – then sliding down the stairs, both of you in a fit of giggles (20.10)

Piling up all the toys in Leon’s room into his cot, then getting on top and pretending it was a boat – with you both in it.

A huge pile of books – all books of your shelf in a pile on the floor.

Now you say, I ‘m making a mess, but I will tidy it up.

The other day you laid your wooden cooker flat out of it’s hinges, and lay the doll’s bed blankets on top, and did a puppet show using a mini hammer and whisk with cork stuck in it, as two little characters, then you lay them under the blankets to sleep, you also liked posting things through the slot in the side of the cooker.

We have had a tricky week, this week. After 7 weeks of ‘term’ (kindergarten class at Katie’s 3 mornings a week 9 – 12.45), your exhaustion began to show – all that playing, negotiating and getting used to new children, new teacher and new classroom, getting used to older children in the group – ‘the big ones’ and ‘the middle ones’.9 I even overheard you talking to yourself ‘ I am a big one, you’re a little one’, like you were playing with it, coming to terms with it all.

So the week off that we have had has been much looked forward to. But you have experienced that as an opportunity to unpack your emotions. So we have had lots of scenes about getting dressed in the morning, or waking up and screaming with frustration about not being able to control things. Even when I have tried to play your games with you, as you like them, I cannot do the right thing, so we have completely mis-connected.

I have tried to remain detached, and empathetic, but it has been very difficult. And I wonder when we are going to be friends again. One day you sat down at the table and said ‘I don’t want that supper’, and later proceeded to spit in your food. So many times I walk out of the room, or out of the front door, leaving you crying, but I have no resources left, or will to engage with you in your obstreperous moods.

Highlights of the hols, was your birthday party – about 7 chidlren. We made crowns, had a treasure hunt and did some dancing/musical statues. Everyone thought it was quite chiiled – inspite of it being a group of mainly boisterous boys. You were so excited to see your friends at your house. WE just had another small celebration with your cousins, at the Monastery, where we went this weekend. Wind icy cold, and snow on the hills. We went tobogganing this morning – and you and Sol loved it. It’s been great to see you together – and with Leon too, when you are not trying to leave him out as the littlest one. You laugh a lot, makes dens and play all sort of inventive games, stay up late talking in bed in the dark and wake far too early , still talking. More children is somehow easier, as there is not the time and space to engage with them individually in the same way, nor the intensity of just me and you. You would be great with siblings now.

The Forty Sixth Month: September 2008

17th

Play today:

‘going to the dump’. The world map floor puzzle in sitting room was dump. Dolls house furniture in front room was the rubbish. My intervention: using the doll’s push chair which you were already working with as the transportation method.

You moved all furniture from house to other room, and building blocks and components of spiral puzzle to ‘dump’. We then sat on sofa and drove off. I was instructed to be reversing ‘beep beeps’ and was told exactly where button was.

I left you at Lucy time for the first time today. You seemed a bit reticent at first, but soon went off, happily separating from me.

2 days in new class with Katie, you are very exhausted in the afternoon. You called it ‘my new school’ and exclaimed with surprise that you had seen Jesse and Noah in the playground. You called their classes ‘new schools’ too.

Sat 20th
A hard week. Me washed out, exhausted from period. You settled Ok in the new class. But were always tired and clingy in the afternoons. My patience was limited and I wavered between being empathetic and exasperated with you. You started playing up again at mealtimes, playing with your food, trying to tip water into it etc, and that always drives me mad. I became drawn into your stuff, and just the day after I had talked to another parent about not engaging with the stuff of our children as a means of coping.

Thurs you said you didn;t want to go to school or Lucy’s ever again. I asked you what you wanted to do, and you said ‘go to the park everyday’. Thurs night you were crying and unsettled at bed time and getting up several times after we had put you to bed. I was trying to get away to make the birthday cake for Grandma, and was trying to be ’strict’ with you, get you to settle alone after I had sat with you a while. In the end, I held you cuddled on my lap and you fell asleep there in a few minutes.

I cried on Monday from exhaustion and period sickness. You were quite oblivious to my distress and carried on climbing on me and playing under the bed covers where I lay. I was later quite numbed by this and wondered if you were going to be an unempathetic man.

I tried to have a day on Friday where I focused on you. We cycled up to a school to have a look round, and past a heavenly smelling bakery on the way home, where I bought you a sticky bun, then we went and ate it in the park. I could see how tired you were, and by the time we got home (1pm) things were descending into madness. You were hitting me and throwing things, started by me removing the stool you were trying to drag upstairs tied to a length of tape measure. I felt a sense of panic and helplessness, as you ignored my requests to stop hitting me, and rang Pete, but had to go into front gardent to do this. Meanwhile you threw everything in the hallway on the floor…it got ugly. And you wanted cuddling

I sat in the garden and ate lunch, numbed and stunned and still feeling hostile towards you. Eventually I got a few things together and we drove to Willsbridge Mill, you slept immediately. We had a lovely afternoon in warm sunshine, playing by a stream, walking and climbing on things, looking at frogs and spiders and getting apples from a tree (you on on my shoulders shaking the tree).

The other day you played the whole day with Indi, and when we come home to have some quiet time in the ‘sofa room’ (reading stories), you sat down next to me and said ‘ I love you’.

We were walking to the park, and you saw a huge fat dead slug on the road.
How do slug’s cross the road is how you started the conversation.
You talked about how it hadn’t held it’s mummy’s hand while crossing the road, so that’s why it was dead, then asked ‘do slug have arms?’

Playing with M in the street the other day I heard you shouting at him: ‘you’re going on the naughty step’ You learned that playing at their house’.


2nd day in Katie’s class, you have news time and told everyone about boats on a lake and remote controls, speaking confidently as part of the group of children around a table.
Apparently at snack time you made everyone laugh with your funny songs..
One afternoon I picked you up and an assistant said how amazing you were, that you didn’t seem to be phased by anything. She asked how you were as a baby – I guess you were unphased – you certainly were very easy-going.

The Forty Fifth Month: August 2008

August 5th Tuesday

Yesterday we had a conversation about you going in the pushchair. I said you were a bit big to go in the pushchair (we walked to Eastville park in the driving rain with Rowan, Martha and Abdull). You noticed that your boots were poking out of the bottom of the rain cover, then said “ when I am big like Jack (neighbour, aged 8), you won’t carry me anymore”, recognizing that you are not going to need me in the same way. “yes, I said, but I can still cuddle you.’

You 3 had a great time throwing sticks in the lake, going perilously close to the edge of the lake, playing going on holidays and monsters by the boat launch. Martha sang to herself, while you two interacted with each other, but there was no squabbling the whole day.

The weekend had been a cornucopia of cultural and magical stimulation. I had frantically tried to get a babysitter so we could see an adaptation of a Moliere play, Dr Love. In the end we went and took you. You sat amazingly still, cuddled up with Daddy, but did not like the ‘shouting’ (ie operatic style singing), and said ‘I don’t like this story’ within the first 10 minutes. ‘ Why is that man shouting?’ then after a while you asked to go home. We left after the interval; as we were all hot and tired.

By co-incidence, the next day, we had tickets to see Gifford’s circus at Frampton on Severn village green. You napped on way there after the previous late night.

It was the most magical, inspiring, breathtaking spectacle I have seen for a long time – a 2 hour-long feast for the senses. You sat mesmerized but asked many questions about why things were either on or off stage and where people/things had gone to. You referred to the clown as ‘that silly man’ – recognizing him using the camera the wrong way round. When a Hungarian horse rider appeared standing on a horse and cracking his whip, you and I had our hands over our ears.

Afterwards you had a red hot little face, and we were all stripped down to our vests. You were entranced by having portions of nutty flapjack thrown to us! Your exhaustion, hunger and over stimulation led to a massive crying fit which lasted til we got home

PlaY: floating things – ie bath toys in the sink and paddling pool, and finding out anything else that floats – eg wooden wheels from ‘meccano’ set.

Rudeness: poo bum willy fart when I tell you off, and you have learned consequences. So if I tell you off or say if you are going to carry on like this , I am going to…(go and eat breakfast in the other room). You say ‘ if you do that I am going to …break all my toys / pour water on the table…

10th August

A week of out door adventures. On Monday we walked to Eastville park in the rain with Rowan Martha and Abdul and on Thursday we went to Bene’s magical birthday party in the woods.(In a clearing surrounded by coloured bunting). We all made hobby horses of cardboard, crayons, ribbons, wool and glitter, then you children ran off and played for hours with twigs and branches. We ate hot dogs and fairy cakes and adults drunk flasks of tea and glasses of damson coloured -cider. Parents chatted and surprisingly children did not get lost.

Saturday morning we got up at 5.30 under a pink streaky sky and went to Ashton Court to see balloons taking off. I felt I could do anything after getting up at that time. The rain held off til 8am (another picnic of croissants and peaches), then we went to John Lewis to look at beds for you…back home for a sauna and then packed for our hols. You slept for 3 hours in the middle of the day, and were full of beans again til 9pm. I was out babysitting and could not stay horizontal after 8pm. A strange re-visit to the land of sleep deprivation.

Today (Sun) we have been at Chepstow castle with Juliet H, and Alexander (8) , Thomas and Louisa (6). You enjoyed the big children and were soon running around, chatting and playing Frisbee, and climbing the ramparts.

Outside the castle gates, you rolled and slid down the steep hills, and soon were covered with mud. All of you were entranced by what I thought was a dead mouse, but turned out to be a rat’s head. You all discussed it for ages and turned it over with a stick.

Afterwards we went for a picnic at the observatory, to see the evening balloon flight but it was blowing a gale. We scurried down to the little playground and you and Bene played while B’s mum, Daddy and I drank cava and bellini’s and ate smoked trout. The sky looked grey and foreboding but we are hardy picnic makers. We managed to last out til 8pm while you two ran around on the rocks, balanced on the wooden logs and swung on tyres.