somehow feel I am on the cusp of yet more big self discoveries at the moment. Having previously read a little on TCS and dismissed it as something I would completely not be into I came home from evangelishing about HE and parenting in general at Vickie’s house and sort of stumbled across the TCS site again. This time I stayed a bit longer and read some stuff which made sense. I think it is still against a lot of my nature to go with any one specific route but I have opened my mind to some new ideas once again and found them really quite thought provoking and helpful if only in a reinforcing what I am already doing manner. More on this to come I suspect…
Spent this morning mainly lazing after a rough night with Tarly last night – Ady tried to manage it but she was adamant she wanted Mummy (hard for him that, as she is normally a Daddy’s girl and he had not seen her for 48 hours so was expecting her to be thrilled with him appearing at 1am when she woke instead of which he got ‘I don’t want you, I don’t like you, I want MUMMMEEEEEE’ pretty crap for me too actually, I’d far rather have been sleeping 😉 ), so I got to lay in ’til 8am which still felt spookily like about 5,30am 🙁
Kids played with lego and were totally engrossed in some sort of space game – I do love watching them as each others’ playmates, it does give me such a warm glowy feeling 🙂 I finally roused myself to get dressed at about 10.30am and they followed me upstairs. I put into practise some TCS style parenting when Davies asked to do various things today and we taked through why we couldn’t – he asked to go to Paradise Park but I explained that we were due at TT2 in a couple of hours and as we’ve already paid for that and it is expensive, not to mention something he enjoys we didn’t really have a choice to not go there. He worked out for himself that we didn’t have time to get to paradise Park and TT2 as they are too far away from each other. He then asked to play with playdough (which I confess I had no intention of doing!) and instead of saying No I asked him why we couldn’t go straight downstairs and do so. He correctly explained that the lego was everywhere and there was no room for playdough, that the lego and the playdough are not complementary toys to have out together and that I also needed to actually make some playdough before they could play with any. We discussed how he could go downstairs and start to tidy up the lego which would give us time to get playdough out before having lunch and going to TT2, we discussed why I couldn’t come straight down and help him tidy (I was getting dressed and would need to be dressed to go out later to TT2) and in the end – reluctantly – he chose not to tidy up the lego by himself which therefore meant he didn’t get to play with playdough. He was not thrilled but it *was* his choice and his thought process – I reckon I took him seriously 🙂
Had lunch and set off to TT2, were running slightly late and the venue is opposite the local Islamic centre which was the target of a racist arson attack earlier this year. It had briefly crossed my mind earlier so I was not entirely surprised to find several police officers lurking outside – it just so happens that 1pm on a Friday is a time when there is a lot of activity there anyway (start of their sabbath? not sure, really should look that up as I’m surprised the kids have not asked me already) so it is always swarming with Muslims. Today there appeared to be various other religious folks there from other denominations, not sure if perhaps there was some sort of service of local tolerance there going on. Fortunately we were able to park and in we ran..
Tarly did really well actually today. She doesn’t really like the format of TT2 and simply wants to demostrate her ability on the equipment, not fanny about pretending to be an animal, get a sticker or sing about the wheels on the bus 😉 But we had a small chat about it and she held it together well, she is very agile and hugely independant about not being held on the balance bars and so on. She had one small moment so I removed her from her audience, held her very tight and spoke to her calmly and quietly about being a good girl and making me proud, doing what she had promised to do and gettting on with it. She listened, said ‘sorry Mummy’ and came back with me and finished the circuit 😉 another victory for talking something through and remaining calm I thought. She then staggered me by not only staying for the sitting back in a circle and singing a song but waiting for and being proud of having a sticker too – the shallow bint 😉
Vickie, Andrew and twins arrived while we were waiting for Davies’ class to start and it was very odd to watch Davies running around ring leading his little possee of five others (including Tarly) while Andrew stood on the sidelines – that was Davies a year ago…. Had a small chat with him about trying to help others join the group and he made a very heart-touching effort to introduce him into the game and help him join in.
Sat and chatted to Vickie while Scarlett did a great impression of a neglected and free range child drawing on herself with felt tips, spitting water about the place and looking grubby 🙂
Ady was already home when we got back, I sat and played with Tarly while Davies played in the garden with Ady and then I read to them both for a while and had some tickle fights. Both asleep very early, Ady cooked me corn on the cob dripping with butter, followed by steak and new potatoes, onion rings and pepper sauce with garlic bread all washed down with copious amounts of wine. Lovely.
I so have stuff I want to blog about educational musings but I will get round to it, I need to be in the right frame of mind for it. Tomorrow we are over at Chris and Julie’s and may go there via the big local tent shop to go and ogle camping stuff…
“and found them really quite thought provoking and helpful if only in a reinforcing what I am already doing manner”
LOL – a woman after my own heart. Things are very helpful indeed if they reinforce the total rightness of what I am already doing 😉
Comment by Joyce — 08 July 2005 @ 10:35 pm
And if they don’t, hey, they must be wrong, mustn’t they?!
Comment by Sarah — 09 July 2005 @ 7:02 am
giggle – too right! Or at least not suitable for us as a family. Basically if the book says I’m doing a great job then the author is a genius, if they so much as insinuate I am anything other than the perfect mother than they are nonsensical claptrap. Glad we got that clear 😉
Comment by Nic — 09 July 2005 @ 9:27 am
I am all for TPS. 🙂
Comment by Tim — 09 July 2005 @ 10:22 am
nah no one takes parents seriously! you achieve idiot status as soon as you are blatantly pregnant (not just fat!) and then it’s not long before even your own kids are not taking you seriously – infact perhaps that is sometimes for the best, I am probably personally better off *never* being taken seriously 😉
Comment by Nic — 09 July 2005 @ 8:56 pm