I had a magic wand, but at least I have a sunny day. So I can’t wave a wand to stop the children fighting, but at least I can send them outside to do it!
If I had a wand, would I wave it? Maybe, to get rid of the boxes. It’s getting me down, living in rooms steadily decreasing in size as we stack stuff against the walls hopelessly, with no real idea of what we’re going to do with it all, or where it all came from in the first place. I know other ppl have houses like that, though possibly not quite as drastic as this is at the moment - when we moved in we thought we could store stuff in the cellar but it’s very not dry down there, so it’s not really possible.
I wish that the children would stop just abandoning shoes and socks all over the floor. Do other ppl’s children do that? What’s it all about? And then the next day they can’t find them and it’s all traumatic and we end up with another shouting match. I could do without it. We have far too many shouting matches. I’ve tried to do some more sewing with Big this afternoon, but she stropped when I asked her not to leave pins, needles and scissors on the floor and threw everything back into her bag in a heap and went out to play. I didn’t get as far as being unreasonable - her standard instant reaction to me atm is to shout and strop, I’m sure it will be something I have done, but I don’t seem to have the power to undo it whatever it was.
Back to wishing for that magic wand. If only I could make her as happy as Small. Happy is his default state. He does do heartbreakingly miserable, and furiously angry (never one for half-measures my boy) but overall, he seems to be happy. I don’t know that I parented them particularly differently, apart of course from the added neuroticism first time around of not knowing what I was doing at all, oh, and of course, the disappearing back to work at 14 weeks. Sigh. But it really wouldn’t have been better if I’d stayed at home, she pretty much screamed at me all the time, and the staff at her nursery taught me so much about how to help her, she was happy there.
I’m not sure what I could do now to make things better. I’m not sure that being in her environment helps her at all, but we’re plodding on. He seems to have settled to it - he comes and goes between elementary and children’s house, does his own thing, which at the moment is an explosion into phonetic writing and invented spelling while covering sheet after sheet of paper with his fantastical drawings. She, on the other hand, has had so many invasions and changes with new teachers and new pupils that she is constantly off balance. Friday and gardening seemed to help, I think we need more of that, productive, constructive outdoor work while we can. We’re looking into a mini straw bale build for the children to participate in, which would be great. And I want to work with my power house, I’ve had it sitting for far too long, but again, I don’t know where to work with it.
Sigh. Moan. Little whinge. Actually, the sun is shining, and it doesn’t seem to bad today. I could just do with an extra day of weekend, as yesterday evaporated in a training course, and next Saturday is spoken for as well. Still, that’s the way it goes sometimes. Might see if I can get some time off at half term, think am going to need a break.
I’m hoping to finish the whole thing off in the next couple of weeks and then discuss doing the Lower Elementary course.
We spent a little time exploring, and Small gave us another giggle when he found a book in the second hand bookshop that “has passwords in it, look.” So:
Please tell me all this is hormonal and it will pass?
. I think it was 
. As always it was an interactive story read, with the children reading different parts, Big playing Junie and Small Jakie, then Big morphing to be the baby as she saves the day. I don’t actually need the book to read the story as it were, we’ve read it so many times, I can recite it from memory, and I still like it. Got to be the measure of a good book.
. It’s a lovely book, all about children playing through the year, and somehow it makes me think of the Beans, don’t know why