Combination of stress, no car, high-level hormones, and a 4 day late period have made the end of this week unbearably horrid! I’ve been shouty mummy extraordinaire. Bleurgh. Still, it’s all resolved itself now thank goodness (which mainly made me realise i really don’t think i want anymore children!)
Yesterday disappeared in a blur of shouting, stressing, puddlers, car collecting and house hawking. Thank heaven for Tammy doing a great group and for the Beans rescuing us and parenting my children while i went and retrieved the Peugeot. Goodness, i missed it! I think the session saved us all.
A sales exec gave the girls a building awareness pack each and they’ve used them loads; today i came home to find a Happy Street construction site in situ with Fran as foreman. Very funny to see them all in sunhats to keep the falling bricks off and demanding tea and biscuits! They’ve put up with patiently being hauled round houses today and gamed or read or done whatever. Fran is reading Fantastic Mr Fox and learning to play Zoo Tycoon. Maddy is doing Farmyard Tales sticker books and half managing to read them. Amelie is still very into her Leapster. Josie has learned to say “poo” when she’s done one and shoes if she wants them to be put on. Shu-shu… is such a cute baby word.
Fran and Maddy and i had a barney yesterday morning over a stupid thing. I’m probably not justifiably annoyed but it still does annoy me. To be honest though, Maddy just got drawn into it, she’s normally fine but this just drives me mad with Fran.
She wanted to do a picture frame and decorate it, like the one in her Brownie book; i carefully cut out one and suggested she used felt-tips so the coloures were nice. 5 minutes later she came back having literally just scribbled all over it in purple pencil. I was peeved, talked about design and care and cut out another one and sent her off to try again. 5 minutes later, another scrawl; a 3 year old could have done it and she still hadn’t bothered to get the felts out. It’s always the blooming same; the other day i gave her wax eggs and wax pens, showed her some design suggestions and explained about careful usage so it wasn’t lumpy and messy. Got called away and when i came back there was a scrath, messy, thoughtless scrawl in 1 colour that was supposedly a face.
I mean WTF? Surely at nearly 8 she could just put a bit of care into it? She doesn’t seem to have any idea at all of pride in her work, or any ability to look critially and see if she has done something good to look at. It drives me unutterably mad, because it means i waste so much of my time preparing stuff for her, or spending money on nice crafts. She wants to do them but she just doesn’t seem to have any pride, or thought in them at all. Certainly after the event she doesn’t – she just dumps her efforts without further consideration, like she’s just gone through the motions of doing it without any feeling of achievement or delight. I try incredibly hard to do the full don’t criticises or even praise until you know how they feel about it thing, so i don’t think it is a reflection of my feelings, she just doesn’t seem to care. It isn’t like i fore her, she wants to do this stuff.
I dunno, it just cheeses me off.
Max and i watched Closer last night; i quite enjoyed it actually, to my slight surprise. I think i’m becoming an oggler of Jude Law though… i don’t know what it is, but i do find him oddly appealing.
ROFL at tea & biscuits!!!!
I can quite identify with the scribbling thing, drives me mental too 🙄
I don’t think I’d have cut out the 2nd frame – that kind of thing drives me mental too. What is going on in their heads when they do that? Today sounds like it was good though.
but….I can remember being older than Fran and wanting desperately to do things like that and finding I just couldn’t. Could be a growth spurt and her coordination is all to pot. However I have memories of being asked to address an envelope correctly, staggering the lines neatly and had to do that about 4 times before I got it right, I couldn’t “see” it for some bizarre reason, and you know I like to line things up neatly ;o) xxx
Lol at the sunhats 🙂 My lot were playing some kind of wedding game yesterday and Buttercup was planning on wearing her Bob the Builder hard hat as part of her bridesmaid’s outfit 😉
So Fran does it, does it how she wants to, presumably enjoys it so does some more – doesn’t sound so bad. 🙂
glad that even temper is returning. ,mine leaving as pub ramping up the volume – do they make a 12 setting these days?
No matter how bad your days are I’m always impressed at how much your kids get done in a days time. They are the busiest and most creative little kids. I think that could be why you get so stressed. Everytime you post a pic there are projects everywhere. Your children are blessed to have you. Dont be so hard on yourself. Sometimes I dont let my kids even try that stuff cause i cant handle a mess. Right now they are growing crystals in a bottle on my buffet in the dining room. They’re doing it with dads help and the thing has to sit there a week! It’s driving me nuts! It sounds to me like your place is a very creative place to live and play. You deserve a metal!
C does that too, I know she can do things neatly when she tries, but she can’t seem to keep up the trying for long enough to actually make something worthwhile, and doesn’t seem to care if it looks nice or not at the end. Drives me mad too.