Making It Up

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once upon a time

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by

Jax Blunt
in

I had patience, and interest in what my children were going. Now all I have is a kind of desperation to get through the day without screaming at anyone. And once I’ve screamed, even that has gone 🙁

Big is up in her room sobbing. She wants to make a pirate treasure map like on Mr Maker. Mr Maker has not seen fit to share those instructions online, and I didn’t see the program. So I searched for instructions, and found some which started “take a piece of white paper and tear the edges”.

This was apparently not part of the routine on Mr Maker, and so this was not something she could cope with. So I suggested she just do it the way she remembered, but she couldn’t remember. So I explained that tearing the paper was supposed to just give it rough edges to make it look old, but that still wasn’t acceptable – she didn’t know how to tear the paper. And so it went on, with no suggestions I made getting us anywhere and her just sitting there looking at me sadly saying “I want some help”. In the end I yelled at her, she burst into tears and was sent to her room.

Then she came downstairs and screamed at me some more, so now she’s been sent to her room til teatime. Oh what a lovely day we’ve had.

In between the screaming, Small came in to tell me that we never get him anything and what he really wants is a transformer. I explained Christmas to him, and said that he wasn’t getting any more toys now. So he’s really happy with me too.

Is it bedtime yet?

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Comments

7 responses to “once upon a time”

  1. Sarah avatar
    Sarah

    Hey, I can empathise to a degree, the only thing I achieved after we finally got up today was going to Tescos where Josiah spent most of the time at the till on the floor having a strop because I said he couldn’t buy sweets and he hadn’t been able to find anything else he wanted.
    It was heaving in the shop, and the car park was full to overflowing too, so there was someone waiting for my space when I was loading the shopping into the car.
    Then Abigail had a hissy fit in the car over the seatbelt, and I yelled at her to move seats just so she could do the side seatbelt up instead of faffing with the middle one. Then that descended into crying and screaming (her) and me telling them all (in a very loud voice) to shut up until I had finished getting fuel.
    It has marginally improved this afternoon – they did baking which kept them quiet, and then watched a film which kept them even more quiet.
    Have rather hogged your comments box to say all this (at least i won’t have to blog now!)
    Hope your teatime is peaceful and you retrieve some nice family time afterwards.

    Reply
  2. SallyM avatar
    SallyM

    *hugs* We have many days like that.

    Reply
  3. Tech avatar
    Tech

    Dab it all over with a wet tea bag then scrunch it up and then flatten it out again – to make it look old. We had to sit through it this afternoon 😉

    Reply
  4. Michelle avatar
    Michelle

    We had a similar frustration after Clo wanted to make an egg get in a bottle (seen on tv). I finally found instruction online but have never been able to find the wide neck glass oasis bottle the trick required.

    Reply
  5. Michelle avatar
    Michelle

    Oh. Meant to add. Clo has made old maps by burning the edges of tea stained paper but can’t believe that would have been on telly.

    Reply
  6. Owen avatar
    Owen

    I caught that one and I agree with Tech except that I remember it as being scrunch up the paper and then rub it all over with the wet tea bag.
    There was no edge burning Michelle and you should be able to use a variety of bottles for the egg trick (see http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=egg+bottle+trick+suction ).

    Reply
  7. Owen avatar
    Owen

    I stand corrected – Tech was right. You can see the episode on the Beeb’s iPlayer service.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b0080bvp.shtml?q=mister+maker&start=1&scope=iplayersearch&go=Find+Programmes&version_pid=b0080brr Mr Maker Episode 3 from 10.48 to 12.12

    Reply

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