A Challenging Week

It’s been a difficult week this week. As well as still feeling poorly, and the anniversary of nan’s death, we’ve had a few incidents with J which have left me feeling like quite a failure as a mother.

At long last however, following J having a meltdown at school resulting in him physically attacking me in front of staff and other students, his teacher took me to see the SENS lady at the school. After a long conversation with her, I felt much better and slightly less of a failure.

It’s difficult to explain to someone the change that sometimes comes over J. When he’s good, he’s very, very good, when he’s bad he is awful. He gets an ‘angry face’ on with gritted teeth and he’ll lash out. At school on Thursday morning it was about taking off his coat. I tried to help – he said he didn’t need help so I stopped trying to help – he flopped to the floor, getting under foot of other parents and kids in the cloakroom, and started rolling about. I got him to his feet, said to him he couldn’t be rolling round on the floor like that because he’d get hurt, and tried again to help him take off his coat. He kicked at me – he punched me – he grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked it one way while kicking me again. He’s only four, and he’s a slight build, but when the rage takes over and he starts lashing out it really is painful. And I don’t think people can appreciate how bad it gets until they’ve seen it – on Thursday it was the first time that the teachers saw him get physical with me.

The SENS lady was very understanding and very helpful and we established that J seems to have some issues surrounding certain things. She is writing a recommendation for our GP that J is assessed to see whether he needs any additional support – whether he is on the autistic spectrum at all or whether it is a case of him needing to be taught additional tools to help him learn to control his behaviour. His love of routine, order, lining things up, the way he will hold a conversation with an adult without an issue but has difficulty relating to kids his own age, all seem to point toward him being on the autistic spectrum somewhere, but at this point we need the assessment to see.

If he is, it’s not like it will make a difference to me – he’s just J as far as I’m concerned, and despite as upset as he makes me at times I do love the bones of him and would do anything to support him. I want the assessment to see if there is any additional help he can get. I don’t want him labelled as a troublemaker, or that kid who hits, or for him to be one of those children who gets to secondary school and ends up in the lower sets because he can’t concentrate properly so he ends up getting left behind with a bunch of kids who’re in the lower sets because they don’t want to apply themselves properly. (I know – I was one of the kids who ended up in the lower set for maths at school despite desperately wanting to do better I just can’t get my head around mathematics and so I ended up in a classroom of kids who only wanted to muck about and not actually learn)

It was a big relief for me to hear someone say that I was doing the best I could in difficult circumstances because for a long time I’ve felt like I’m failing him in some core way by not being able to deal with him properly 100% of the time. I’m fed up of feeling like a bad parent because he runs off and refuses to come back to me; or when he starts kicking off and getting physical with me. Early this week another child from his class was removed from the school to attend a specialist school due to his difficulties and the fact that the school J is at cannot provide the support this other kid needed. When speaking to the SENS lady about this she did say that J’s behaviour was noticeably worse when the other child was around because he would copy the bad behaviour. Now the other child has gone they hope that will help to calm J down considerably but she and his teachers agree there may be an underlying reason for his behaviour difficulties.

I refuse to call days “good” or “bad” any more. We would have far too many bad days and I feel that’s like telling J he is doing something “wrong”. I prefer to say he has had a difficult day, or a challenging day, and when he gets upset and starts lashing out rather than tell him that is wrong I’m explaining why he shouldn’t do it, that it makes the other person feel sad and hurt, and we’ve had a few less difficult times this week. I don’t know if that’s a result of the other kid leaving school, or because I’m going at it from a different direction or a combination, or maybe it’s just because he’s getting over his cold so he is sleeping better. His behaviour is always worse when he’s ill, because he doesn’t sleep well. He was always such a good sleeper as a baby but after he got to 2.5yrs that went out the window – he’ll be in our bed four nights out of seven at least by six o’clock in the morning.

Today he is being very attention seeking. Since waking me up at 8am by screaming and smacking me because Daddy P had gone to work without saying goodbye to him (we were both still asleep) he has been constantly demanding. I’ve had two days off work sick this week so I’m desperately trying to catch up, as well as do the housework that hasn’t been done all week because I’ve been unwell (those damn housework fairies never did show up to lend a hand!) every time I try to do something he’s interrupting me – he wants a drink, he wants something to eat, he wants me to help him with part of his game, he wants me to watch him playing his game, he needs the loo, he wants to play with my phone, whatever. It means everything is taking twice as long as it should because I can’t just get on and do it. I eventually asked for some quiet time and during that quiet time he sat there getting closer and closer saying “mummy, mummy, mummy” constantly until I snapped. I got up and told him to leave me alone for a moment while I calmed down and went into the kitchen. He followed me “mummy, mummy, mummy” so I went upstairs for a while. I feel terrible when I do this but it’s either walk away or shout at him and I’m trying my hardest not to shout. It’s not his fault I feel so shit. It’s not his fault I can’t split myself in four pieces so one piece can do housework while the other plays with him while the other works and the other catches up on sleep. It’s just all been snowballing and getting so much to cope with that I don’t feel like I’m able to cope anymore. Not like this. Which is why I’m so relieved that the school have finally started taking me seriously and are helping. I’ve been asking them since he started Nursery for some assistance. A year and a bit later we’re finally getting there.

I know, if he is on the spectrum, a diagnosis is a long way off. I know, if he is on the spectrum, this is just a baby step into a very long journey but the way I’m looking at it is, at least we’ve taken that step.

Now, I’m going to have a coffee and spend some time playing with him.

Love,

Mummy P

Can We Start The Week Over, Please? It Didn't Go To Plan ...

What with one thing and another, it’s been a pretty rubbish week this week!

On Sunday last week I started getting a sore throat and sneezes. Not normally so much of a biggie for me – a day or two of sneezing and coughing and I’m usually over these things quickly. Not so this time. On the Monday I had to be in the office for an important meeting – of course – so while I was trying to be professional and give a good impression my nose was streaming, my eyes were red and watery and I couldn't pronounce anything properly as my nose became more and more blocked as the meeting wore on. On Tuesday I should have been off work, but due to some training I had swapped my days off so I was back in the office, this time with the cold in full force, coughing and sneezing and feeling utterly hell while I learned about new products and then came home to bury myself in questions about existing products.

By Wednesday I was exhausted. I had a day off work and I’d been planning a long-overdue visit to a friend but instead I installed myself on the sofa with a duvet, a pot of coffee and a pile of toast and I watched episodes of Breaking Bad all day in my pyjamas. Thursday I was expecting to feel loads better so I vowed to do the housework then. It didn't happen. I felt just as rough on Thursday and just about managed to get J to school and get home before I collapsed. Popping cold and flu tablets along with vitamins as if they were going out of fashion I struggled to work on Friday and was grateful when my mum arrived to collect J from school and whisk him off for the weekend. I had a wonderful lie in on Saturday which helped tremendously – unfortunately J was also poorly and on Saturday night I got a text from my mum saying he was crying for Mummy, so I phoned her and she said she was packing up his stuff and would be on way to us soon. Sure enough they were at ours within an hour and I was trying to soothe my grumpy, irritable, overtired and poorly little boy who had been crying for Mummy but upon sight of Mummy decided I couldn’t do anything right so he was moaning and whinging and having a right old go at me about everything I did!

This morning I woke up with that familiar belly and back ache coupled with a feeling of sickness that women everywhere know and which makes you roll your eyes with hate every time it happens. Oh yes. Coupled with this damn cold – which has still knocked me for six – I now had that to deal with as well, and that always tends to be a particular issue for me. I have a long and argumentative history with it, including vomiting, nausea and migraines. I had hoped that Daddy P might say “its OK my love, stay in bed a while and I’ll get up with J” but no, I was woken to the noise of them arguing and it’s been a theme for the day.

They wind one another up like you wouldn’t believe. This morning J was trying to wake up Daddy P – admittedly he wasn’t doing it in the nicest or best possible way – but still I found Daddy P’s shortness of dealing with it somewhat surprising at eight o’clock in the morning all things considered. I mean, he’d just woken up and he was that annoyed already? Jeez what a fun day this looked set to be. All J wanted was for his daddy to wake up, and talk to him, play with him, spend some time with him. All Daddy P wanted was for J to go away and leave him alone so he could sleep. And he wonders why at times I could cheerfully smack him … Sunday is now the single day of the week where J doesn’t have school and Daddy P doesn’t have work, so really you’d think he’d be raring to make the most of that precious time together.

I ended up getting up with J and left Daddy P in bed. We came downstairs, we had breakfast (I had lots of coffee and painkillers) we played a game, we snuggled on the sofa, he helped me do some housework and just past eleven Daddy P finally came downstairs. Almost immediately him and J were on at one another – there’s no half measures, either Daddy P is doing nothing or he’s having a go at J. There’s no warning from the other side, either – J will go from lovely playing to horrible demon child in the blink of an eye with Daddy P. I think it’s because he knows he will get an extreme reaction, but of course I can’t say anything because whenever I do then Daddy P just gets annoyed with me, too. I generally try to stay out of it, or take J away and deal with it myself which while not ideal is the best option if the other one is Daddy P loosing his rag. This morning it was all going well with me sitting in the garden working on my laptop and J was chalking on his blackboard. The moment Daddy P appeared, J decided to start chalking the walls of the house as if that was OK or ever acceptable. So I asked him not to, and immediately I was shouted over by Daddy P who’d gone from 0 to 60 and was immediately in pissed off mode and having a go instead of a firm, “please don’t do that” The threat of taking the chalk away was then used about a million times with no follow-through on the threat, so of course J took this as an invitation to do as he pleased because there was no worry about the threat being upheld. After a million warnings the chalk was suddenly swept up and put away, resulting in a major meltdown because after all, the previous million warnings hadn’t meant anything so why was this one different? In his mind it made no sense. (He wasn’t the only one who felt that way …)

All day has been the same. Five minutes of nice playing together, then one of them does something and sets the other off moaning and before I know it they’re bickering. Daddy P seems to forget that J is four, not fourteen, you can’t reason with him as much as you might be able to with an older child. He expects a lot from him, and I think he forgets because J does act quite mature a lot of the time that he is only four, he’s still just little and there is so much more he doesn’t yet understand or know how to process and react to. There’s also the fact that J knows exactly how to wind us both up, and he’ll go right ahead and press that button if he feels like he’s not getting enough of a reaction out of you already. He’s always been the same, but instead of learning, Daddy P just seems to get more wound up more quickly these days.

So the long and short of it was that this week was rubbish and this day was one of the worst. The single day I get in seven to spend time with my husband and my son.  Tomorrow J is off to school and I am off to the office and Daddy P can sit and play Lego Lord Of The Rings if that’s what he chooses to do.  I hope next week is better all round – though at the moment I’m feeling so lousy it’s already off to a bad start.

To my knowledge a video game is not something to get so upset about. J and Daddy P feel passionately differently and arguments will regularly occur about the video games. I can't tell you how many times I've felt like chucking the games console and all games in the bin!

Off to bed early for me tonight with a hot chocolate and some more painkillers!

Love, Mummy P xxx

Homework For a 4 Yr Old

This week has been tiring, to say the least.

J’s second full week at full-time school – he’s bound to be tired. Like me, when he’s tired, he’s irritable, short tempered and moody. He’s four, so I have to take this into account as well as the fact that I’m just as bad! He’s had homework, too, which surprised me for the first full weeks – they went from mornings only for a year of nursery, then mornings only for a week, then straight into full days and homework!

The problem I’ve found, is that not eating dinner by 6pm means a huge battle with J about eating it. By that point he’s too tired; he’s fussing, he’s whinging, he’s distracted. It’s a nightmare. So, I started giving him his dinner earlier and earlier til it works – he’s now eating around four / four thirty. This means by the time we’re home from school, and he’s changed out of his uniform and gone to the loo and is back downstairs with a drink, it’s time for me to start cooking. It takes him up to an hour on a  good day to eat dinner, so you’re looking at it being at least five o’clock before he’s finished, normally half past. At that point, Daddy P comes home so naturally J is distracted talking to him and whatever, so then time gets round to six or half past and it’s time for our dinner – if I don’t do it then, we won’t end up eating til ridiculously late.

While our dinner is cooking Daddy P will try to sit with J to do his homework.

This week we’ve been practising writing letters each night, and there was maths homework to do over the week and finish by Friday. By this point in the evening J just wants to relax. Getting him to knuckle down and do the homework is difficult. Most times it’s only half done by the time they have to stop for Daddy P to have dinner. After that, it’s time for J to go upstairs and get ready for bed – I aim to have him in bed between 7.30 and 8 or else it’s a nightmare with him being too tired and screaming / crying / yelling.

Daddy P and myself have had several very trying encounters with J over almost anything and everything, from brushing teeth and going to the loo before bed to scribbling in the homework book and throwing things. J has been tired and frustrated and lashing out. It’s been tough.

Just how are parents expected to manage the juggle of homework on top of schoolwork at such a young age? I’m trying to do my best by getting a decent dinner into him and trying to ensure he gets a full nights sleep – which at four years old, he generally sleeps from 8.30 / 9 til 7.30 in the morning, and I think that’s reasonable. It makes me wonder, is four too young to be in full time school? Is he really ready for this, emotionally or physically? I could have deferred him for another year, due to where his birthday falls, and had him doing nursery now and reception next year – but last year he was so ready to start nursery, and to be honest I think he’s benefitting hugely already from being in reception – in two weeks he’s learned the A, B, C song as well as counting to thirty (he could do to 10 before) He’s reading me books – not because he knows how to actually read all the words, but because he’s memorised all of them, which is to me a basic step toward reading, and to my absolute delight he loves reading. At the moment, What's In The Witch's Kitchen remains a firm favourite but has been joined by The Hungry Caterpillar and Whatever Next, stories I remember reading to my brother when he was a child.

I’d like him to go to bed a bit earlier, but Daddy P says then he’d never get to spend any time with J. He has a point, but most families surely must find the same issue? Myself, when I was at school, my mum was a hairdresser in a salon til I was 8, and then worked from home, and my dad worked as an ambulance technician. If both of them were working I would be looked after by either my nan and granddad or my cousin. My dad’s shifts meant that sometimes he would be leaving for work before I got home from school, finishing after I’d gone to bed at night, and would be asleep when I left for school the next morning. During shifts like that, sometimes I’d go three or four days without actually seeing him at all. I don’t know whether it was more ‘normal’ then because of the whole ‘role’ of each parent in the nuclear family, or whether because both Daddy P and I work and have always worked such odd hours, but it certainly seems to me that it can’t be something that no other family finds.

And how about families with more than one child’s homework to get through? If one or both parents is working shift work, or even if they’re not – there never seem to be enough hours in the day as it is. You’re torn between cooking a nice fresh meal, doing housework and helping everyone get their homework done on time as well as trying to deal with a full time job. On top of shopping, cooking, cleaning, feeding the animals, there’s e-mails, unhappy customers, product launches and meetings. Several of my friends have partners in the armed services, and have to cope as a single parent effectively for weeks on end while their other halves are away – I also know several single parent families. That must be even more difficult to get everything done. How do people do it? I suppose you just have to, but still!

One thing is for sure, J is definitely tired today – we had a wonderful afternoon with friends, but he wore himself out so much that he had a major meltdown when we left and then another two once home! He was in bed by 8 but I’m not sure when he fell asleep as it was Daddy P’s turn to put him to bed and he fell asleep up there himself!

Tomorrow we have nothing planned; I need to pop to the shops and get a couple of bits but apart from that I’ve done loads of work hours this week already so not much more of that to do which means I can enjoy a nice lazy day with my family.

Bye for now!

Mummy P x

19th September 2014

It’s Friday evening. I’ve got a film on (but I’m not really watching it) I’ve just finished work for the evening and Daddy P, both the Hairy Hounds and our Dragon are all asleep around me in the front room and my baby boy is asleep upstairs.

Except he’s not a baby boy anymore. He’s a whole, big, grown-up four years old and today was the end of his first week at full time school. We’ve had a good week, on the whole – I’ve moved dinner time up for him from 6 to 4.30 / 5 in order for him to get in from school and have dinner quite early, meaning by the time Daddy P is home from work he just gets to play with J before bedtime. J gets very ratty and we have issues getting him to eat when he’s tired – as I’m sure is the same with many other children – and so this works better as it means he’s eating before he gets to that tired point where he’ll argue about eating and it all ends in tears.

Every morning he cheerfully woke, got dressed in his tiny little uniform that makes him look far too grown up, and we walked the two or three minutes down the road to his school. We went into his classroom, and he quite happily waved me off each morning. Each afternoon I collected him he was full of excited chatter about what had happened, the t-shirt that I’d put on him first thing bright, white and tucked into his trousers now looking smudged and rumpled and untucked from his trousers. Each afternoon his shoes were a bit more scuffed on the toe, his hair was wild and damp with sweat, and I found his sweatshirt crumpled in the bottom of his locker.

I made friends (sort of) with some other mums in the playground – you know how you see the same group of people all the time, and you start off smiling, then it’s a good morning, a hello and a wave as you cross the playground and then you’re standing there chatting to them and someone else they know comes up and joins in and before you know it there’s a group of you stood there nattering first thing, the only thing you have in common the fact that your kids go to this school.

He’s got homework again this weekend. Last weekend his homework was to cover his homework book, which Daddy P did on Sunday night after J had gone to bed. This weekend we’ve got to draw a set of numbers from 0-10 and add images to them like four ducks, five balls, six cakes and all of that,l colour them in and peg them up on a length of ribbon or string over J’s bed. I’m dubious how much of this I will end up doing but I’m going to make a start with him tomorrow anyway. Maybe if I spread it out over a couple of days the interest will hold and he’ll finish it off.

I used my new found freedom this week to my best advantage – on Tuesday I drove to visit some good friends in another village, which takes about an hour to get to, but we had a lovely morning drinking tea and gossiping – last time I saw her was on her wedding day so I looked through her beautiful wedding photographs and then her husband went to pick up their two boys from nursery school.  The following day I did a serious turf out of the kitchen. It’s been desperate for it for ages but I just haven’t had the time – I started at 9.30 on Wednesday morning and didn’t finish til 2.30 in the afternoon! I felt so much better for it – I’m not a fan of housework but if I have chance to do it properly and just crack on and do it I’ll have a mad blitz which is exactly what I did.

I know all mums say it, but time is going so quickly. It doesn’t seem possible he’s four already. It’s not been plain sailing but I’ve honestly not enjoyed anything else as much as I enjoy being his mum. Whatever else happens in my life, I achieved at least that one perfect thing. I got to be a mum to a brilliant, fantastic, amazing little boy so it wasn’t all bad!