Took Davies off to Badgers while Ady and Scarlett did their Monday night bonding. I sat in the car reading my book – which was only a trashy chick lit but had a happy ending and made me cry 😳 When I went in to collect him the leader, assistant leader and the leader’s 16 year old daughter were all at the front of the assembled children singing and dancing a song about Zombies which the children were joining in with. Except Davies. He seemed happy enough and was watching them all and laughing, but he was standing to one side, next to the leader’s daughter’s baby (yes, the 16 year old).
He came out with a cup and string telephone he’d made and along with all the other children coming out with them showed me how to use it. He’d coloured one cup red and one cup pink as red is his favourite colour and pink is Tarly’s. He said he’d made it to share with Tarly and they were going to take it everywhere – even on holiday! I asked him about the Zombie song and he explained that the adults had performed it and then asked ‘who wants to learn it?’ everyone else had said yes of course, but Davies, having been given the option had weighed it up and decided it was ‘a bit too mad!’ so declined and stood with the baby instead. I love that he is so confident of his own decisions and would rather mark himself as the odd one out by standing alone than participate in something he is not keen to do. Not such a follower my son…
He’d missed out on our semi-regular McDonalds after leaving Chris and Julie’s yesterday as we left so early and just after lunch so Ady had told him if he was well behaved today I might take him there after Badgers, just him and me. I don’t know how contrived this was on Ady’s part but it was actually just what Davies and I needed. We’ve had a bit of a rough patch the last week or so, ending with a rather tough line drawn under it at the weekend. But it has opened lines of communication back up and we’ve had lots of very informative chats, with me finally learning to listen to him and learning a bit about him (and me) in the process. Funny how you can learn from a six year old and feel quite so in awe of their wisdom at times isn’t it? He’s working really hard to explain and understand why he does stuff, which is helping him to start to think before he acts at times and helping me to realise that all behaviour has a reason, sometimes it is actually very justified and at others it is the reason we need to deal with rather than the behaviour. Anyway, he has made huge efforts to work on the stuff he knows upsets me the last two days, I have made similar efforts and we have both been rewarded by two lovely days. So an hour or so of taking him to McDonalds for a Happy Meal – which I just gave him the money for and he went up and ordered – and sitting and chatting with him while he ate it, then walking round Tescos for a few bits of food shopping with him afterwards was lovely and just what we needed to reconnect. There is also a small swimming pool on the same site so we called in there and put his name down for swimming lessons – there should be a space after Christmas for him so that is good and another thing ticked off my list of things I really must organise. 🙂
Home for a bath and bed for him, a bath and dinner for me. I’d foolishly frozen chilli and bolognaise without labelling which was which so I’d defrosted it and hoped it was bolognaise. It wasn’t, although it was perfectly edible with pasta instead of rice.
I’ve had a very odd few weeks, feeling quite fragile and got at, for a variety of reasons – not least of which was probably Davies’ party and the huge time and effort I put into it. Davies brought his party up tonight and I was thrilled to realise just how much he had appreciated it, enjoyed it and known what had gone into it. Along with having a bit of a breakthrough with a rocky patch of parenting and resuming control of a couple of other things I’m feeling lots more positive again today. Which is just as well as I seem to be going down with a cold and it is mooncup time – all of which might have tipped me over the edge otherwise! Tomorrow is X Box day, with trips to the post office and the library both necessary at some point.
Time with D sounds really good, I bet you both benefited from that. And that does show great confidence in himself and his own decisions that he chose not to learn the song. He’s growing up, isn’t he? Sort of having another leap of becoming more himself, his own person.
Hope the cold doesn’t get a grip and mooncup time not too bad and things continue to look more positive.
Sounds like one of those “turning point” days. Hope the cold vanishes quickly (are you sure it wasn’t just being snuffly from the chic lit?)
commiserations with fragileness.
its amazing what having a small amount of 1:1 without needing to be doing or being somewhere else does for the balance.