One word? When seven would do…

Saturday I worked in the morning. I spent quite a bit of time on the enquiry desk. I’d been deliberately kept away from the Summer Reading Challenge as Abi was worried I’d ignore children wanting to talk to me about books they’d read in favour of cross examining them about whether they thought 8 year olds should run off to camp and leave their poor mothers for a whole week! 😆

I talked to a retired lady about the local U3A which has really taken off and I think is an amazing and inspirational thing. I confessed I was looking forward to being old if there was all this on offer :). I also helped an elderly couple who were changing bank accounts and really struggling to find addresses for all the places that paid money into their account to change the details. They were very vague and I really hope I did give them all the correct addresses for companies. I’m sure their own bank could provide such details but he was very cagey about asking them, I think assuming they would be unhelpful as he was closing that account. It was very quiet in the libarary and I was glad not to be working all day as I suspect it would have really dragged.

I had an interesting chat with a new colleague about Home Ed – the usual questions but she seemed genuinely interested. I’m always shocked at the surprise people show at parents actually wanting to spend time with their children though. I also chatted to the Saturday assistant at teabreak. She is 17 and has just come back from two weeks staying with her brother and his family in America.

Back home the countdown was in full swing and we did final packing up of stuff, I ran through once again with Davies how he could come home any time, he wasn’t to be made to feel he had to do anything he didn’t want to do, by adults or other children and that he was going to have fun and enjoy not endure the week. Really struggled to find the balance between openly listing all the things I am privately fretting about and therefore turning him off the whole idea and not feeling like I’d sufficiently prepared him to deal with anything bad happening should it do so.

Finally it was 230 and time to head off. We arrived at the camp dead on 3pm and joined the queue of people checking in. Davies was issued with a programme for the week, name badge and camp t shirt. We handed in his mobile phone and his pocket money for the week and then took him to his tent to settle in. He’s in a tent of 6 boys – 3 Badgers (so other 8-10 year olds) and 3 cadets (10-16 year olds). The other 2 Badgers are twins, one of whom he does know from his Badgers in Worthing after he joined Worthing earlier this year. His twin still goes to Littlehampton Badgers where they live but D was being bullied there so moved across to Worthing. Their Dad is one of the parents I chat to each week and they arrived as we left. Davies doesn’t really have much to do with D I don’t think normally but at least it is the only other person from Badgers he knows in his tent (They are the only two from Davies’ Badgers there this week). Two of the three cadets were already there – the Tent Leader, a large lad dressed in a pink cardidan and with a pink suitcase (can;t decide if I like the idea of him being with someone so obviously quirky or whether this worries me) and a very stroppy and quite hard looking lad of about 13 who barely acknowledged us.

I had a quick look through the programme, helped Davies put his sleeping bag out and then as we were clearly in the way we left. I gave Davies a hug and felt like I was utterly abandoning him despite all the ‘he’ll be fine’s echoing around from various people. He looked rather shell-shocked and I think it had started to sink in with him just what a huge thing this was he was doing.

I managed to hold it together all the way off the field until we were in the car when Scarlett suddenly looked at me and said ‘mummy, you’re crying!’ at which point I gave in to sobbing 🙁

This whole thing is just so huge. Davies only had his first ever night away from home last month and that was for 12 hours with someone he knows and loves in a house he’s very comfortable in with people I trust 100% to look after him and care about him. This is plonking him in a field with over 100 people none of whom either he or I have ever met before. He might hate the food, not be able to wash the shampoo out of his hair properly, not manage to work his mobile phone even if he wants to ring me, get bullied for being short / home educated / not able to read very well / having an odd name / me calling him ‘Baby’ when I put his sleeping bag out for him / any of the 3 million other things that make him Davies. He might get hurt / scared / lonely and I won’t be there to know that and give him a cuddle / touch his hair as he walks past me / just notice he’s being a bit quiet / any of the other small, inconsequential things I do probably 100s of times each day without even thinking about and he probably relies on me to do without even thinking about either.
They are going on several day trips – this involves coach trips (one of them on motorways), being out in public places where he could get lost / have to cross roads.

Davies went off, proudly wearing his ‘I can’t go to school, I’m autodidactic’ tshirt. When I was at school being different was the worst possible thing to be. I was short, freckly, ginger haired, had well off parents and was quite bright – some of these I could, and did, hide. Others I was less able to secrete but I knew that blending in and being like everyone else as much as possible was the key to survival. Neither of my children are any good at being like anyone else or blending in. They are proud of the differences that make them individuals and I have fostered that knowing that in adulthood being proud of who you are rather than how like other people you are is a great skill.

My problem is that I haven’t done my job properly at all in preparing Davies for any of this. I’ve been focussing on honing and developing and nurturing all the things that I believe he’ll need in adulthood, when he is independant and off on his own. If he’d gone to school I’d have focussed on skills for surviving school but he isn’t so I’ve not bothered. I’m now worried that in ignoring all of that he won’t be ready for this experience.

And all of that is quite aside from the fact that I, personally, selfishly, am missing him like crazy. Because quite apart from dedicating the last nine years to being Davies’ mother and now feeling really rather lost without him around to need mothering aswell as loving Davies I really quite like him a lot too. He is a nice person to be round, I enjoy his company. He makes me laugh, entertains me, holds engaging conversations with me and is very intuitive and thoughtful of how I’m doing. And I get all this from him for about 14 hours a day or more, most days. So I have this great big Davies shaped hole next to me, an empty hand where normally I’d be holding his.

If I was utterly confident he was off having a wonderful time,if all my fears about what could go wrong could be allayed and I was just having to get over my own feelings of missing him I think I could cope with this a lot better. On that basis I suspect when he next goes off, as I know he will, I will be far better able to deal with all this. I am just feeling the massive implications from knowing that whatever happens this week nothing will ever quite be the same again. Hopefully this will all be for the good in the same way that with your toddlers first steps you are thrilled whilst knowing it’s the end of dependancy on you to move them about and you’ll have to start being more careful about where you leave stuff. Or when a teen leaves home and you are so excited for them off on the beginning of their life journey but at the same time feeling the emptiness of not having them resident in your home any more.

So we went to Sainsburys for a few bits and obviously in my wobbly and tear stained state we bumped into someone I know – a local HEor that I’ve not seen for ages but had only been talking about earlier this week to someone. Nice to see her though.

Back home again I continued to feel sorry for myself so decided to put together the new chicken shed. I rang my Dad to ask for a loan of his tools and he came over to help. We struggled with it a bit and it got dark before we completely finished but it was an ideal distraction therapy.

My Mum came over too and we had dinner, all the while with me watching the screensaver on my laptop of photos, most of which of course featured Davies from tiny baby up to recently. Not sure whether that helped or not really…

I was exhausted so went off to bed fairly early.