Davies and Scarlett had a sleepover in Davies’ bedroom last night. It’s really strange, I’ve always valued own space and remember as a child feeling very fortunate to have my own bedroom when so many of my friends had to share bedrooms with siblings. It was one of the things I was adamant about before we had children -that they would each have their own bedroom and space to call totally their own. Davies and Scarlett do indeed have that with their bedroom each and they enjoy ownership of their own spaces that they need to grant permission to each other and any friends who come round to enter and can retreat to when they feel the need for their own company and some space and privacy. But in doing so they often crave the sharing of a room that some of their friends have with siblings…
Often after being away camping where they either share a pod with each other or we are all in together, but either way Davies and Scarlett will have gone to sleep sharing a double camping map and lying next to each other until the first falls asleep they will request a ‘sleepover’ at home. This is fairly straightforward as Davies has two mattresses on his bed so it’s a simple case of tugging one off onto the floor and Scarlett bringing her bedding up. They don’t want to share a room all the time but I suspect would like to have sleepovers pretty much every night if we agreed to it.
So they had a late-ish night last night and this morning was a lazy start as a result. We set the radio up in the lounge so we could all listen to Ali, Freya and a few other localish folk we don’t know do a fine job of being interviewed on the radio about Home Ed. While that was on I set to putting together the unnecessarily flatpacked and non-assembled bits of our smoker which Ady had made sufficient hints about me putting together which I’d not picked up until he came right out last night and asked ‘so are you going to put it together or what then? You know I’m no good at that sort of thing!’ 😆
I did various loads of washing and tent airing and we had lunch. Scarlett had been busy with the lego and they’d spent some time playing in Davies’ bedroom while I got on with things.
We then headed over to Elizabeth’s house for the afternoon. Davies and Scarlett met and made friends with Matthew at Forest School – he is just 8 so a little younger than Davies and his brother Thomas is 5 so a shade younger than Scarlett. They’d bonded less with Thomas but liked Matthew so much they’d asked me to speak to his Mum and see if we could arrange to see him again. We met at the park a few weeks ago and had arranged to visit them at their house two weeks ago but then Joyce came so I blew them out in favour of my imaginary friend from 500 miles away and rescheduled for today instead.
We got there about 230 and didn’t end up leaving until 730pm! Davies spent some time playing by himself with their impressive lego collection but was quite content and had just removed himself from a game he wasn’t enjoying and then joined back in again when the rest of them moved on. They have the most wonderful next door neighbours (retired couple) who adore their boys and have put a gate between their gardens and opened their garden out to the children to use too so Davies and Scarlett were in their element playing outside for the whole time pretty much.
I had some really interesting getting to know you chats with Elizabeth who I warmed to lots thanks to all the flattering things she had to say about how great Davies and Scarlett are 🙂 😉
Once home, where Ady had beaten us again the kids had a quick wash and got into pjs then Ady read them some Charlie Small while I got the dinner on and had a bath.
Davies and I had an interesting conversation about how much I’d miss him while he’s away. We decided it was like when I go to work – he’d really rather I didn’t but he knows I get a lot out of it so although he misses me he wouldn’t want to stop me from going as that would be selfish and he appreciates what we all get out of me working. I am going to miss him terribly but that is my issue and all he needs to take from that is to know I love him and to go and have a fantastic time – I can do enough missing for the both of us freeing him up to concentrate on enjoying it and bringing back loads to tell me when he gets home :). I love that he is able to have me flinging myself on him saying ‘Oh Davies, I don’t want you to go!’ without that making him feel bad or guilty, just loved :).
I have however been gauging how slowly this week goes from Saturday to see how it will feel….can’t believe it’s still only Tuesday…
As an only child I never had an option about sharing bedrooms, but my Mum is one of 4 – she had a much older sister who had her own room, then two brothers who shared a room together, and she always listened to her brothers chatting and laughing after bedtime and wished she had someone to share with. So my children have always shared, and now they are getting their own rooms (we’re gradually getting round to it) so they can have some of their own space, but I doubt they will sleep alone very often.
not giving the girls a choice – we contemplated giving them their own rooms over the summer as we’re redecorating/moving rooms around, until a friend at work with older teens said she wished she’d never done it with her two since they now want boyfriends to come and stay in their ‘own’ rooms!!!
that was enough for me to be persuaded that they can carry on sharing until they leave home. Plus it might make them leave home a bit quicker 😉
Joe often ends up sleeping in the girls room or they in his, during holidays or at weekends – but it is nice to have different spaces to retreat to if you want. Hey ho – they’ve got their own beds, how much space do they need?!!