Sunday, July 4, 2010

6 Months Later

So I felt as if I was writing into the ether and kinda stopped for a while but comments that I have received over the last few months have inspired me to put fingers to keyboard again.

Eldest is growing at an alarming rate - a great streak of legs and arms and feet as big as mine now! At least I will know where my shoes have gone. At the moment she is still asking if she can try my shoes on and then stalking around the house in 4" heels saying how comfortable they are whilst trying not to break an ankle. It is as strange time I have come to realise and a hard adjustment not just for the tweenie but for the parent too. The tweenie has the excuse of hundreds of hormones racing through their body to allow them to behave in erratic ways - what does the parent have except the abject fear produced by watching helplessly from the sidelines as the child they have cherished and loved for all these years changes almost beyond recognition and begins to find you embarrassing as well as annoying. Ahh that maybe a tad harsh as Eldest really does love spending time with me but there are moments when she would rather be with her mates. This became patently obvious on a recent trip to Glastonbury festival. If we go again next year then I know we are going to have to take one of her mates and we will only see her when she needs more food, money or both!

As for number one son well he is trying his best to rule the roost and gets narky when his plans are thwarted. I want to liken him to Brain from the cartoon 'Pinky and the Brain' - 'What are we going to do tonight Brain'..... 'The same thing we do every night Pinky, we are going to take over the world!' or something like that. I am sure that is what goes through his head. The latest test being to stop going to school for ever. He had a brief taster when I removed him from his last school as he was being bullied and physically abused. The school where not great in their response to my concerns and even tried to pretend that certain things did not happen so I took a decision to remove him and try to home school whilst I considered the options and where to go from here. It was not an easy time as I was trying to work from home, keep the place clean and tidy, keep an income going and still be there for eldest as well so I am afraid that Number One was given quite a bit of down time which he thoroughly enjoyed but resulted in a lot of cartoons and I have now made a rod for my own back. Still I will keep going with the schooling as I have found him a place at a very lovely but strict primary school a bit further away. He has homework every night which we are both finding a little difficult but if I want him to get a good education then perhaps I have to put the effort in as well. He is my child and this is not a one way street with all the effort coming from the school.

Having said that he is finding it hard to settle and find friends. I am not saying the child there are in anyway horrible to him they are in fact very lovely and kind. I am just getting the impression that he needs to toughen up a little and start to stand his ground, it is a very hard lesson to learn and even harder to stand back and allow your child to go through the process. He came home on two consecutive nights last week very upset as the kids were teasing him about being the youngest in the class - he has my curse of having a birthday in August so basically being almost a year younger than some of his class mates. You can never have a full on birthday party on your actual birthday as everyone is away for the summer and you do get teased about being young. So I am trying to get him to see it as being an advantage and look at things in a different light ie, 'you are as cleaver as kids a year older than you' or as one of the mums said 'tell him you might be a year younger now but they will probably die before you' - very true but I could probably see that descending into something else and then getting pulled up in front of the teacher for scaring the other kids.

These first few years of school are all about the parent and the child learning how to let go - with Eldest it was easier as I went back to work when she was so young I did not generate the same bond that I have with Son. I also do believe that Mothers and Sons have something different - as we do with our daughters and all this changes as our children grow and need different things from us. I know I have already said that eldest find me annoying but I also know that she needs me now more than her father. Her father's place offers her peace and sanctity from her brother but with me she can talk about how she is changing and her feelings something she would die rather than discuss with her dad.

We well I attempted to have the boyfriend sex talk after having watched Eclipse yesterday and the look of horror on her face was priceless - 'err yuck and please can you just stop' was the response I got! So at least I know I don't have to worry about any of that for quite some time to come ...... yeah!!!