We had our new friends rescheduled visiting today from Monday.
I’d slept in a funny position so have a stiff neck/back/shoulder although it has eased through the day but it got me up earlier than normal as it was painful lying in bed. So I had a burst of efficiency first thing and replied to lots of emails and sent out details about the Butser trip, washed up and did some random tidying up.
I realised we had very little in the way of lunchtime offerings so we nipped out to the newly opened Asda in Lancing (we did have a Coop and a Somerfield but Coop bought out Somerfield so have revamped the Somerfield store and moved into that and their old unit is now a mini Asda. I’m not a huge fan of loads of supermarkets but given they were already both supermarkets anyway it’s nice to have two decent ones so close – we now have a Sainsburys, Asda and Coop all within about 2 miles of our house.) We picked up bread, crisps, some biscuits and fruit for lunch and the kids noticed Madagascar 2 on dvd for £7 and decided to go halves on buying it with their money (Scarlett had £13 from the week Davies was away, in theory to spend in Winchester and at Marwell but she saved it and has so far spent £3 on a Michael Jackson cd and £2 on a soft toy for Davies, today she spent another £3.50 on her half of the dvd and £1 on buying a kinderegg each for her and Davies. Davies had £8 left over from the £20 pocket money he had at camp and has spent £2 on a bead necklace and now £3.50 on his half of the dvd. It’s good to record it here as I’m losing track! So Tarly has £3.50 left and Davies has £2.50). I bought Davies a comb as he has suddenly started combing his rather long hair in a sort of hippy The Fonz style 😆 Scarlett said she wanted a comb too but I explained the chances of getting a comb through her hair were virtually nil so she settled on a little fold up brush instead.
On the way home we talked about some ‘house rules’ for the visit which included ‘no harm to animals or plants’ when out in the garden (our many plants can get a bit of a battering when kids come over to play, particularly tomatoes and strawberries which get picked to use in games and I’m always worried about other children and the chickens) and shutting all bedroom doors as Candle is on a pooing wherever she can mission in protest of having people over. We also talked about how to ‘enforce the rules and why I couldn’t just tell the boys when they arrived as that would imply to them and their mum that I expected them to need telling not to trash our home and garden and that could cause offence.
Davies suggested playing outside straight away so that when they arrived they would already be outside which seemed like a good plan so I left them out the front and went through to put the shopping away and hang some washing out. E rang me to say she was lost as she was where she thought she should be but the house had a big white VW bus so it couldn’t be our house. I said it was indeed our house and our bus and went out to meet them! 😆 Definitely need that artwork on it so everyone knows it!
They arrived about 1130 and stayed til 430 but actually the time flew. M, the oldest gets on very well with Davies and Scarlett and the three of them played really well together, indoors and outside, both at the front and in short bursts with the chickens. They would have happily stayed with the chickens the whole time and built a ‘chicken playground’ which the chickens tolerated with good grace but I kept it to half an hour or so at a time and then a break so they didn’t get too stressed by the invasion of kids. T, the younger one, who is actually a lot younger than I’d realised and doesn’t turn 6 until shortly before Scarlett turns 7 so there is nearly a whole year between them, is very hard work. E certainly doesn’t deal with him in the same way I would but she seems to have a very effective method of managing to not get herself stressed, which is, I suspect very healthy given I don’t think T’s issues are naughtiness as such. They are clearly behavioural problems but I suspect are more deep rooted than just a lack of discipline, especially as his older brother seems so nice and clearly has the same parenting. So despite some demonstrations of fairly atrocious behaviour I found myself warming to him and wanting to help him see the world around him more positively rather than simply wanting to put him over my knee or shriek at him!
E and I had some very interesting chats and I recommended a couple of books to her that I’ve come across through work which are ‘situational’ books designed to help angry or otherwise special needs kids cope with stuff by way of giving them a story that they can identify with the characters in. We also talked about self esteem in kids, how I’ve often totally over analysed every little personality quirk in Davies and Scarlett from being supersensitive to them having been around them 24 hours a day and come to accept that as humans we are all flawed anyway and I can’t manage every little oddity out of them anyway simply by parenting alone.
It was a nice couple of hours anyway, I enjoy E’s company, Davies and Scarlett like spending time with M and I hope we can all overlook the trials of being with T and maintain a friendship.
They all left, I cooked tea for Davies and Scarlett and then Ady arrived home. Our food shopping order arrived so I spent time putting that away and then prepared the play room for guests, clearing away a load of stuff including the tent which needed putting all back in it’s bag after being aired on the washing line, a pile of clean washing, various toys and paperwork and more. It needs a good clear out in there again but I’m not feeling motivated to do it just now – more of a winter task I think.
Scarlett did some clearing up in her room and then Scarlett and I both helped Davies clear loads of stuff from his bedroom including about 6 cardboard boxes. He is such a womble! Scarlett settled into Davies’ room for a sleepover, Ady and I had baths and I put a curry on for later and set the rice cooker up. Ady made some bombay potatoes and we settled in to wait for Kirsty and James to arrive. They hit some traffic but were with us before 11pm. Scarlett was already asleep, but Davies came down to say hello to Marcus and Alex who were sleeping in Scarlett’s room for the first night. He went back up to bed and we had a lovely curry and enjoyable evening playing ‘name that tune’ with music from the laptop :).