We’ve been blown out!

Which is a bit of a bugger as I have been giving the kids assertiveness training all morning!

Supposed to be at Rachel’s now, drinking tea and chatting, perhaps cooing over baby A a bit while Davies and Scarlett test out their new skills at standing up for themselves if E tries to hurt or bully them. We spent time this morning practising ‘No. Do not hit me!’ and ‘Do not call me a stinky bum, I do not like it!’ Scarlett told me that ‘E hit Tarly – Tarly BITE E!’ so I think they were ready for him this time 🙂 But Rachel has just rung to say E has come home from school in a foul mood and she has mastitus so is simply not up to people coming round and being sociable 🙁

Which leaves me with about 4 free hours in which to avoid my job list, Davies is watching ‘Disney Countdown to Christmas’ on TV – which seems strange to me, but perfectly reasonable to him, so there you are, and eating cheese 🙂 Scarlett is in her room, playing a loud and very involved game with all her many Dora figures, the Dora house and a packet of baby wipes and singing ‘wheels on the bus’ at the top of her voice 🙂 And here am I!

Yesterday was a nice day really. We stayed in all day and enjoyed being at home with each other. Davies did his letters quite happily, played with Scarlett really nicely all day and if I could be bothered to recall all the different things we did I am sure I could tick off loads of boxes. I did make some scented playdough which they played with for ages, they did loads of dressing up and creative play, some magic maize, some observation of the worm world (which I have to say is actually very very boring – what are they supposed to do? 🙂 ), some brio, some playing with the PPisland and pirate ship in Davies’ room – all fairly low key and nice to be around. Davies did not get ticks for helping to put away his toys, but it was a considered decision – I asked him to help, he said he’d help later, I said he could help now or not get a star/tick/whatever and he said okay then! I could have left the stuff there for him to clear up later but I can’t deal with unplayed with stuff just lying around so it was sort of my decision to clear it up. He also missed one for ‘don’t be naughty’ although I don’t actually recall what the particular misdemeanor was – I know he got quite rowdy when Ady got home.

I went to Ikea with Julie in the evening so Ady let him stay up a bit later as he wanted to ‘do some bonding with him instead of shouting’. It seems tthat Scarlett is getting all the praise and attention at the moment and I have been craving a bit of time with Davies to be nice to each other too. I want to take him to see The Incredibles actually so if I can sort out a time when Ady can be with Scarlett then I think we’ll do that so we can re-connect a bit. I don’t tend to worry about my relationship with Davies normally – we are very close so I tend to focus on ensuring Scarlett is not left out or unfavoured which has maybe gone a bit the other way of late… While Ady is away next week I plan to let Davies stay up a bit later with me too.

Ikea was okay. I was pretty knackered anyway, it was a crappy night for driving (windy and raining) and it’s a good hour both ways so 2 hours driving was not great fun 🙁 It’s only the second time Julie has been there so she was up for browsing everything too which made the walk round longer than usual. I bought a few bits – the smaller pan to go with the rest Mum got us for Christmas, a rail to hang all the pans on in the kitchen, a snake torch each for the kids reduced to £1, a mini washing line and pegs for Scarlett for 90p and a roll of paper for their easel. Did have nice chats with Julie driving there and back though. Although we see each other twice most weeks we are either with the kids or the kids and Chris and Ady so it’s nice to have some ‘girly’ time to just chat 🙂 Home really late at 10.30pm for my dinner of beef stew (poor Ady had decided to wait and eat his with me and he was starving!), then bath, then bed.

Sadly Scarlett woke up while I was in the bath so she beat me into my bed. She was wide awake and sat there singing ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ and making random demands for ‘juice’, ‘Dora’, ‘Boots’ and ‘more dummies’ all of which I went off to fetch in the hope she might then go to sleep. Ady was in really bad humour, giving a countdown every half hour or so as to how little sleep he was going to get ‘five hours sleep and I’ve got a really busy day tomorrow.’ ‘Four and a half hours sleep and I’ve got a really busy day tomorrow’ etc. I had managed to ignore the budding Britney putting on a live and unplugged show next to me and drifted off to sleep at one point when Ady started doing some really elaborate redistribution of the duvet covers and a further update on how many hours sleep he would be getting 🙁 I think we all fell asleep at about 4ish in the end. I was woken at 7.42am by Davies sitting downstairs on the sofa yelling ‘I NEED MY MILK!!!!’ which woke Scarlett who went down to sit next to him and join in with the yelling!

This morning Davies has been really on top form helping and making a real effort to be good generally. He played with the lego and for the first time ever sat and put it all away, put the lid on the box and brought it back into the playroom, he got himself dressed without being asked and played really nicely with Scarlett at Jack and Jill (not the illfated hill walkers you understand. Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk and at the panto we saw there was a Jill who he married at the end. So Scarlett is Jill – sometimes she is his sister, sometimes his friend and sometimes his wife!) while I sat and watched Little Bill and fantasised about living in New York 🙂

Then we drove into Lancing, had a wander round Woolies, into the library for some books for storytelling at group tomorrow (which I am about to go and try out on the children in a minute so I am semi-familiar with the stories), some more 10p ex-library books, a good haul in the charity shop of some read and rhyme books (which must have been unwanted Christmas pressies as they are brand new) for 39p each and a couple of Roald Dahl also brand new. We also bumped into a friend who we thought we were seeing over Christmas but never turned up. Arranged to go out with her and her DH for a curry in a couple of weeks time which will be nice.

Right then, off to read books to small children!