When you realize autonomy and lazy bugger really have nothing in common…

I’d love to refer to today as a day when my children had full autonomy but… well.. lol… True, Fran did the JP “e” page but she did it herself without me suggesting it, they watched telly mostly adultless till way past 10am and they were definitely erm… child led. I, on the other hand, was a full scale lazy bugger. Or possibly just had my head turned the other way. Josie slept on Max for most of the day and i tidied the lounge (even cleaned a skirting board!) sorted the toy shelves and generally just did non-child stuff. How there were 4 loads of washing again, i don’t know, but there were.

Actually, the girls had a fab day. Lots of cuddling Josie, a massive pirate game upstairs that went on for hours, various strange but enjoyable crafts, writing, reading, dog puppet making which was highly co-operative and well, just a lot of stuff i didn’t have to help them with. I got lots of love and cuddles from time to time too and they seem pleased with my stuff that i did, namely moving the dolls house to its own special spot upstairs and making the toys more accessible to them. And of course a few stories. Plus Steve taking computers to bits always intrigues them and Amelie warmed his heart by giving him a huge cuddle! She played with ponies for ages, i just adore watching her games.

I’m stressing about Maddy. She has gone from Little Miss Fastidious who obsessively changed knickers if they had one drop of wee on them, to being happy to walk around in sodden pants, trousers, dress, whatever. She puts wet and filthy clothes back in the clean box, even though she knows they are dirty, she twitters constantly during stories, she baits Amelie something rotten over stupid stuff that doesn’t matter, she ignores or is rude to me (the other day one of us said something to her and her reply was “whatever…” !!!!!!!) and oh… i don’t know. Its undoubtedly true that she is the one falling through the cracks atm, Fran and Ammi (and frankly Josie!) are better at claiming time and cuddles but i just feel a bit stumped on how to grab her attention too – she is remarkably resistant to having things “done” with her and i just can’t get a handle on her at all. She won’t tell me what she does at nursery, she doesn’t seem that keen to go but then asks to go, she won’t join in things i do with Fran and she is just reverting to “angry Maddy” rather a lot. And i sort of feel its too simplistic to just put it down to new baby-itis although i am sure that is the cause of it. Thing with Maddy is that little things just fester with her and i don’t feel like i know quite what is in her head. And finding the time to find out, or rather finding a way of my time co-inciding with her being remotely open, is extremely hard. I could put her in nursery on Wednesdays too, which would give her more structure, but i can’t help thinking that if she is feeling pushed out, then that will just make it worse.

Its been a while since i worried about Maddy but i’ve suddenly realised i ought to be on at least DEFCON 3…..

Sigh. When Fran was “almost 5” i was gearing up to “really HEing her” – Maddy is not getting what Fran got and she almost deserves it more. I really need Fran to get another notch of reading and writing under her belt so i can focus a bit more on Maddy’s needs without having nagging doubts about Fran.

I’d like them to do something meaningful next week, doesn’t have to be amazing, just something we can look at and say “that was fun” – like the Africa map. Would do us all good. I’ll have to go and wade through the craft cupboard.

Read about the origin of Angles/anglo-saxon in Our Island Story tonight. I succumbed to buying that (and a few other bits…) from Tanglewood. Ooops. And is it a bargain buy if you get 57 books from The Book People for your £70? We’ve done 13 weeks of the CM thing now, admittedly a pruned version. I have to say, its the best thing i ever did. I’m planning on doing some of the bits we didn’t do as a 6 month stint when we finish the Year One thing we are on at the moment. That should take us up to next Xmas with minimum effort. By that time, i might have got the hang of having 4 kids!