Ups and downs

This is a time of ups and downs for us, in so many areas.

No point in dwelling on recent events in politics, which have shocked so many of us (but somehow, Trump was no surprise, after Brexit). Onwards, then, to more mundane things.

It snowed on 9th November. A lot. Now it’s raining and mild.

Most of the ups and downs, though, involve the children.

On the up side, I am so delighted to see Serious taking responsibility for feeding and cleaning his new pet (rat!!) Nibbles.

It makes me happy to see Smiley giggling as her rat Squeaky scampers around and sniffs at her fingers.

I was very proud to see Serious behaving well at the recent Remembrance Ceremony we attended.

It was lovely to hear good things about the children’s behaviour and attitude at the school Parent Consultations last week.

On the down side, Serious seems to be rather uptight at the moment, and is being frankly fairly horrible to his father. Is it because Beardy is working so hard and is away a lot? Is it anxiety over something at school? Is it a growth spurt? Who knows.

It’s hard, though. I don’t know whether my approach is the correct balance of keeping the channels of communication open and conveying a message that shouting and stomping is unacceptable, of whether I’m being too conciliatory, or what.

Yesterday we had a very difficult moment over a miniature war memorial Serious wanted to build in the garden. On the drive. Directly in the way of any vehicle delivering wood to us this winter.

Such disappointment, such anger, such sadness! It took a lot of time, reasoning, negotiation, and possibly blind luck to get over it. But in the end he found a solution, and build a beautiful little memorial, surrounded by bulbs.

We spent a good two hours in the garden, and I also planted many bulbs: daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses. They probably won’t grow, our soil is so claggy, but I wanted to try.

And after a couple of hours outdoors, we all felt much better.