Davies and Scarlett bounced into my bedroom this morning and announced they wanted to stay home and invite someone over to play today. That seemed like a nice idea so via text I arranged for Lucy and The Rs to come over and thought it would all be plain sailing from there.
Or not.
Scarlett was awake in the night and has had two late nights in a row so she was Very Tired and Emotional, what’s that phrase of Jan’s I liked – limited emotional resources? That was Tarly today :(. As mentioned elsewhere I don’t function at all well in the heat either and I suspect I may be post-hormonal too so I had limited patience resources – never a good combination really.
Davies and Scarlett – and it truly was a six of one and half a dozen of the other type situation were really squabbly and irritating each other just by breathing let along the myriad of other things they were deliberately doing to wind each other up. I went off to the kitchen to make some cheese scones as we had no bread and some banana and chocolate cakes as we had bananas which needed using up and within moments was summoned back by a scream and wail to learn that Scarlett had hit Davies so he’d pinched her. He got a massive yelling at for that – I HATE pinching. There was a girl called Deborah Morley in my class when I was five years old and noone liked her because she used to pinch for no reason. It’s a horrible sneaking little way of hurting someone. Lucy and the Rs arrived just as they’d been sent to their rooms so they were brought back out again and told to be nice otherwise their friends would be sent home again.
After an initial shakedown they did all get on and play nicely but Scarlett and I had another falling out when she wanted me to wipe her bum just after I’d painted my nails. I gave her the option of wiping it herself (which she is more than capable of, does regularly and has been doing for well over a year when the mood takes her) or waiting for my nails to dry. Cue huge meltdown with all her classic Tarly drama queen language ‘I can’t BEAR to wait Mummy. I simply can’t BEAR to wipe my own bum. This is the worst day of my life, my heart is breaking’ etc. We overcame that and then she carried on about something else (I think I offered to tie her tear sodden, sweat soaked hair back so she could play without it all in her face) so she got sent to her room. She sat outside her room instead wailing at full volume so my temper was completely compromised and she got sent right into her room and the full finger wagging, full volume, menacing tone treatment including phrases like ‘don’t you DARE’, ‘another think coming’ and ‘just about enough’ before I slammed back out again. We did kiss and make up but it left her very fragile for the rest of the day poor child :(. Her episodes of trying behaviour are fewer and further between, I am usually far better at dealing with them in a diffusing rather than detonating manner and there are almost always circumstances such as tiredness or illness to hold accountable but today I wasn’t in a being the grown up frame of mind myself.
Lucy and The Rs left around 4pm and after checking what was on TV I offered to listen to Davies read a book and he agreed. I’ve been trying to be very casual about what has obviously been a massive leap forward in reading for him and have offered a few times and he’s refused. Today he grabbed a book – one he’d selected from the library and read it start to finish word perfect :). It was brief, there were many clues in the pictures and the rhythm of the book but he truly is reading. I think this is as momentous as his first steps in many ways as that was much longed for, not without false starts, later than I expected or was considered ‘average’ although still well within ‘normal’ and of course life changing and opportunity widening and door opening etc. I’m tremendously proud – of him for doing it and of me for letting him get there this way :).
Scarlett wanted to do some activity / workbook type thing. I do have a stash somewhere but I cleared the shelf and haven’t tracked them down since; must dig them out as she likes the idea of them. I did find her a dot to dot book and she did that for a while. She did the first lesson of 100EL before deciding she doesn’t want to read after all and actually was just struggling to wrestle some of my attention back from Davies. I so rarely grasp that issue that people seem to worry about with HEing different age children but I suppose this was one such moment.
They went back to playing with geomags and were discovering which bits of the Barbie Tanner dog poo pellets and the pooper scopper were magnetic like the rods and which were ball bearings like the balls.
Ady arrived home with some sausages for their tea to cook on a barbecue that we’d been promising them all weekend. I went off to Tescos to do the ill fated food shop. I spent literally hours on the tesco website over the last couple of days slowly amassing a months worth of food shopping only to struggle to get to the checkout this morning and when I finally did it wouldn’t take my card. As it is the end of the month after payday and before the beginning of the month’s bills going out there is a rare in excess of £2K in there so I knew it wasn’t lack of funds and have to assume that like a few other places they don’t take visa electron online. I tried twice and it was having none of it so as the next online slot at Sainsburys wasn’t for days and we needed food I had to go and walk round the supermarket with a trolley, like the olden days! 😆
I got back just after 8pm when the sky had blackened to find Davies had eaten a couple of sausages but Scarlett had chosen to have pasta for tea rather than barbecue fayre and due to impending rain Ady was covering it all back over again. We’ve been expecting this rain for 3 days now and tonight it has finally come with a vengence. I am most tempted to strip off and go and stand in the garden I am so pleased to see / hear / feel it.
We watched the second part of can’t read can’t write which was as powerful and thought provoking as the first part and now because we are off to The Smoke to be prize winners tomorrow I really should go to bed.
heat and hormones not a good combo for me either, hope you all have a better day tomorrow.
i didn’t strip off but i did stick my head out in the rain 😆
Yay D!! seems everyone’s learning to read at the mo!
Comment by Liza — 28 July 2008 @ 11:49 pm
hugs for squabbles. its the heat i think – though cooler this eve
Comment by HelenHaricot — 29 July 2008 @ 12:22 am
and absolutely fab on reading!
Comment by HelenHaricot — 29 July 2008 @ 12:22 am
Very exciting reading 🙂
Comment by Alison — 29 July 2008 @ 7:14 am
Exciting reading 🙂 When Buzz just started on his own accord about 2 years ago I spent days with tears in my eyes as he just kept reading and noticing words. Very much like Linda in the programme last night.
I’m not new age 😉 enough to blame it all on heat I think they push us to test us and sometimes the only thing that works is to put the boundaries down in no uncertain terms. I think we can reason and listen so far and then enough is enough.
We did go outside and stand in it. I may adore the sun but when it rains like that you have to go out! Poor Boo didn’t appreciate the storm that came with it though.
Enjoy the motor show! We all went last year but just Pea and Tony have gone today.
Comment by Roslyn — 29 July 2008 @ 10:04 am
Waiting for your report back as Tony’s has been very male.’ Er yeah all right not as good as last year and nothing took my eye’.
Well that’s informative.
Comment by Roslyn — 29 July 2008 @ 10:41 pm
That rain was a relief, wasn’t it!
I’d rather wipe a bum than paint my nails. I was always totally crap at it. Same with eye make-up – I’d be a panda in two minutes. But I can see it was awkward timing for you!
Hope the trip went well and cool about D’s reading.
Comment by Allie — 30 July 2008 @ 8:28 pm