Lifestyle - Father's Day

I've been meaning to write a Father's Day post for a few days, but haven't had the chance. It's a strange day in our house as my Dad has never celebrated it and madam's dad isn't exactly outstanding in the field! 

We actually had a really busy day as madam had a party in the morning and we decided to go out for the afternoon... Madam was at the local soft play centre for 11am and was bouncing around the house for *hours* beforehand.

I loathe sitting around at parties talking to mums I don't really know which is why I tend to leave madam to it if possible. Not the case at soft play, sadly. Though, being Father's Day meant it really wasn't very busy in there. Thankfully. 

After much partying and birthday lunching we decided to go to Hornsea (a local seaside town) for the afternoon. As the weather wasn't too cheerful we decided on going to the mere instead of the beach. Which was probably the best plan as it was windy enough there! 

The mere is home to a pretty sizeable goose population and madam had a great time collecting together the biggest feathers she could find. She has since taken them to school for crafts :-)  When she had picked up as many feathers as any one child could need we had a bit of a wander and she walked along one of the jetties to get a better look at the water. 

I did the parent thing of deciding whether to intervene as she made some rather scary manoeuvres horribly near the edge, but she didn't fall and I was glad she had got to do it her way. I bought her a wee windmill in the little shop that I don't remember ever being there before and she had fun running around and watching it spin. 

She mentioned her kite several times and we've decided that's what we'll do this weekend coming. Quite looking forward to that, its ages since we've flown the kite!

We voted for going to the Freeport in Hornsea for a drink as we were getting a bit chilly by the mere. We had a wander round the shops and had madam's feet measured at the Clark's outlet. She is now a size 1! But her school shoes are still OK until the end of this term, I hope! They'll just have to be, frankly! 

My mum is quite looking forward to madam's feet being bigger than hers (4) as she thinks that'll stop her wearing hers! Nope... 

One cup of coffee and glass of fizzy orange later we headed back to my parents to see younger bro for a bit before going home for tea. We had yummy meatballs and pasta and madam was told she could have a couple of the sweeties in her party bag. 

She ate all of them. I, therefore, told her off and banned her from having any more sweets this week. She was not impressed and threw some things at me. At which point I banned her from any bedtime stories for the week either. Major madam meltdown.

She was livid. But I wouldn't back down and did manage to get her to put her pyjamas on. Couldn't get her to go to bed and got stabbed with an umbrella and hit in the face with a flying projectile for my efforts. 

I left her to it. She was too angry to even try to reason with. She plonked herself on the floor under my feet. Eventually, she fell asleep where she was. I merely covered her over and left her to it. She woke up about 10pm. I told her to get in bed, she wimped a bit but went straight upstairs and silence re-descended. 

On Sunday I was really upset she'd spoiled our nice day. But in hindsight, it was only bedtime. We still had had a lovely day. She was still unreasonable and frighteningly out of control, but I think I need to focus on the good parts. 

She did, sort of in the middle, quiet down enough to tell me she missed her daddy and wanted him there and not a new one (she's a bit obsessed with me remarrying). And I understood a least a little of where this massive outburst had come from. 

Of course she was angry that I had confiscated things she liked but she had spent the week being built up at school and at Rainbows for a Father's Day she felt excluded from. This is the first year she's really been cognisant about it. Every other year she has been happy to accept me as substitute. But I'm not her Dad. And her Dad is gone at the moment. She hasn't seen him since August bank holiday last year and he hasn't phoned her for ages. 

My divorce (that's a whole other post!) is in progress and she is very aware of that. She is confused. Again. I feel heartbroken that she has to constantly deal with all these things when she is still so young. But I hope we can get through to the other side soon and she can get some happiness and stability back. 

I wish that we were there already though. 

Love, Pearl. 

Lifestyle - A Moan About Reality

Hellooooooooo! Sorry to have been A.W.O.L. for so long. I have been rather obsessively reading a series of books and then I read my book for the month in an hour or so, so I've sort of started on next month's book! 

I say almost, because technically its not the book on the list but as the one that is happens to be the 2nd of 3, I thought I could start on book 1 now :-) 

I have been feeling a little out of love with blogging as well. Too many other things going on that I'm not too happy with for whatever reason is leaving me uninspired. I did get a bit of a boost on Sunday though as I got to be internationally famous for an evening! 

This is because my interview was up on the Bonjour, Blogger! site. I really enjoy the interview posts and love to read about different bloggers out there. It certainly made me feel a bit more happy than I had been so far that evening. Madam is still being a handful...

And that's another thing that has been winding me up. Now, I'm certainly not averse to social media and use it all the time. And yea, I edit the things I put out there. But why is the internet full of pictures of kids destroying stuff, crying at nothing and generally being horrid when *no-one* seems to mention that side of it!

These things are collected in one place and only if you know where to look will you find them. They're not all over Facebook or Twitter (at least, not that I've seen). It leaves me feeling like my child is in some way abnormal for acting the way she does. And she's just not. My 5yr old certainly is angrier than a lot of others, but the rest of the stuff is perfectly normal 5yr old behaviour, isn't it? 

If I talk to the other parents in the playground they all roll their eyes and mention the time when their little darling did x or y or even both! I sometimes wonder why this side of parenting seems to be so taboo. My struggles with madam's temper would be more manageable if I didn't feel quite so alone dealing with it.

And if you search online for help there are hundreds of other parents asking the same questions. So, I shouldn't feel so isolated, but when you've had a whole day ruined by one, almighty, tantrum and you've been told just how much you're hated by the one person you're devoted to it does niggle. Because those are the moments when I rant on Twitter and I get to see someone else's perfect day with their child!  

So, come on parents, help me out! Surely there are bad moments in your days too? It can't just be me, can it? 

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - Holiday Hijinks

Its half term and I am in that unenviable position of having had to entertain the madam for the last few days in the rather horrid weather. This has led to us spending more money than I would have liked because indoor things are (almost) never free!

We haven't even had chance to do a museum day which we always love... 

Monday we went to the cinema and finally got to see the Lego Movie. And it was as good as I had been led to believe. My only issue was the part that was in live action. I just felt like it slowed the whole movie and it was the only point where madam got fidgety. But it was awesome, on the whole. 

Tuesday was a fun trip to the job centre so I could sign on and then a trip into Hull to re-submit my Divorce petition as there had been an error on the first version. Despite my mum and I having checked, double checked and checked again. Bugger.

The error was mainly caused by a difficult to interpret marriage certificate, but the court sent me an example that I could follow and I'm hoping that this time it won't bounce straight back... 

Wednesday, nah, we didn't do anything much. We didn't even get dressed until 4pm! 

Yesterday we went swimming for the first time in ages. Madam therefore got to wear her new 'kini again and I had to run the "do I still fit in my swimsuit" gamut. The answer was "yes" and all systems were go! I stopped taking madam a while ago as I find it quite frustrating to not be able to swim and have to instead pay out for us to have a bath!

Mum came this time which helped no end and we tried to teach madam the basics of swimming. I can't afford the £45/term fees for lessons and she won't get them at school until year 3. So, we worked on teaching her to float. This merely requires her to stay still, which is a near impossibility for my wiggly girl! 

She pretty much got it, but her fear of putting her face in the water and other little things have made mum and I determined to bring her more often throughout the summer to build up her confidence. And maybe she might get to swim by the end of it too...

Today we went to the SeaLife Centre in Scarborough with my parents and brother (younger). We had a 40% off voucher but it was certainly not a cheap trip! Madam was given a pass book that she had to get stamped in various locations around the centre and also a Moshi Monster hunt form. This last was just for half term and we hadn't known about it, sadly. Madam is a Moshi Monster fan and was rather thrilled to meet Katsuma. 

We saw penguins and otters, jellyfish and seals, sharks, seahorses and turtles. It was really good fun. My mum even forked out for a rather silly photo of us all. This was mainly because it had all of us  in (barring big bro and girlf) which is an unusual occurrence. 

After we'd seen everything we headed to the beach for a picnic and madam had a quick paddle in the sea. We had a mooch along North Bay and then caught the little train back to the SeaLife Centre and the car. 

Madam slept all the way home whilst wearing her new pirate hat and hook. It was a good day :-) 

So, what's your week been like? I am actually going to need aftersun later! 

Love, Pearl. 

Parenting - Fear is Anger

Having told you how much I've been struggling with madam's temper recently I decided I could do with being more proactive about getting to the root of the problem. Remembering that the last time she was this volatile was also connected to her fears it seemed a good place to start.

When himself punched me it left a permanent impression on madam (despite having been only 3 she still mentions it regularly). It also left her with a lot of mixed feelings to deal with which to some extent I had to ride out due to her inability to properly verbalise her feelings. 

New clothes make any girl smile :)

Some of it was outright anger and she punched everyone and everything for a while. I had to go into her nursery on the first day and explain what might happen. I then had to go through a whole child protection thing with them to ensure himself couldn't go anywhere near her without me also being there. 

Also, she became incredibly clingy, which, if you know madam, you will know is very out of character. This is the bit I decided to try and focus on with her this weekend. Her clinginess was a manifestation of separation anxiety. So is her current vile behaviour somehow all mixed up with that?

I took her to the cinema on Saturday morning so that we could have some alone time together doing something fun. I let her watch the film and choose where we were having lunch before talking to her about it so that I knew she was pretty chilled out.

Knowing that my going to work is something that is new to her I decided to use that as a jumping off point. And I pretty much hit the jackpot. She admitted to being worried that I would go to work and forget about her and not come back. This is another leftover from her dad as he left us to go and work in London and has not lived with us since.

Can you look menacing whilst wearing Lycra? 

Her little brain does parent working = abandonment. I have spent the whole of the weekend trying to reassure that even though, yes, we dont get as much time together, I will not leave her. I have used all the examples I can think of from times we've been apart and I have come back again.

The thing that made me sad was that she can remember every single night we've spent apart! She really doesn't like it. And I had to try not to dismiss her fears as silly. They are very real to her. Daddy left her. She can't see why mummy never would, even if I have always come back before there might be a time when I don't.

She did at one point ask if she could live with nanna as she's retired and therefore won't go to work and leave her :'( Poor little thing. I have tried to make her understand that even if she is angry and worried this is not a reason to throw things at people and she has been better over the weekend. We'll see how it goes on.

Does anyone have any other ideas of ways I might be able to reassure her?

Love, Pearl.

Parenting - How Do I Deal With Temper?

Hello, lovelies. How are you? I'm kinda tired, but its Friday, bring on the weekend! I have actually got no hope of having a peaceful weekend, but I can dream...

Madam has been horrid the last couple of days, culminating in her throwing a pair of (incredibly sharp) scissors at me yesterday. I'm sure its just a case of being hideously tired as she had had a very busy couple of days, but I can't cope with her behaving like that to me! She *needs* to work on her temper. 

I think it frightens her when she loses control like that. My main issue really was not the throwing of the scissors, but the fact she didn't apologise. She was so busy begging me to let her keep doing Rainbows (I told her it obviously made her too tired and cranky) that she didn't consider how she might go about making amends. 

I am at another impasse with her. I have to seriously consider whether her temper is worth letting her do something she clearly loves. Whilst I'm glad she controls herself with other people I can't be her punching bag any longer. She knows that I don't tolerate hitting, she remembers what happened when Daddy punched me after all. So this is why she throws things instead.

I'm considering throwing things away that she throws at me, so she learns to keep hold of her stuff. But then she'll throw my things at me, she's not stupid... I have nowhere that I can use to confiscate things to, either. I might try getting a lidded plastic box where I can put things that are confiscated and then make a list of ways to earn things back. 

Not sure it'll work, but it has to be worth a try. I dread her getting older and still being incapable of controlling herself. She will end up really hurting me, she's very strong already. This morning she pulled my hair really hard because she didn't want me to get out of bed. I pulled hers back, which was probably not very clever of me, but she needs to know how much that hurts! 

It's not really a cure all technique is it. I would simply be teaching her to retaliate like for like. And I spend ages telling her not to retaliate at school etc. Way to be a hypocrite Pearl. 

And you know the stupid thing? Despite her size and strength it seems to be her that gets shoved around at school! She told me she was pushed over three times the other day. Each time by a different student and each time she told the teacher who then dealt with it. But it seems to happen a lot and this is obviously something else that's winding her up. 

It's so hard to know what to do for best. I'm not convinced raising it with her teacher will really help. She is dealing with it and I should respect that. I'm just not sure she realises that madam is as upset by it as she is. She is the master of picking herself up and getting on with it.  Which must look like she's just brushing it off, but then I get it in the neck later. 

I really want to be able to help her, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not stupid enough to think that at no point she might be provoking people, she is good at that, after all. But how do I help her move forward? Should I have a word with her teacher? 

Love, Pearl.

Lifestyle - Work and Learning

I have finally started my voluntary job at Archbishop Sentamu academy in Hull and I'm loving it. It's so nice to feel like I'm actually doing something useful with my time.

Work ready!

I've been with both the year 8 and 7 nurture groups which are classes where the students need extra support than a mainstream class. This involves both some challenging behaviours as well as some vulnerable students. 

I was forewarned that I might be exposed to everything possible within the course of my days with these students, and they weren't kidding! Day one with the year 8s which involved a lot of belligerence and noise was a walk in the park compared to day two with the year 7s. 

But, I loved it. I felt like I actually helped some of the students to perform much better than they may have otherwise and it was nice to have them come to me for help when they needed it. 

I think I did use the phrase "can you be quiet, please" more in one hour than I have ever thought would be necessary, but these are kids who exemplify the acting out when bored mould. They also can't sit still and wandered around the classroom all the time!

What worries me is that some of these behaviours are exactly the same as madam's and I am now having visions of her being in a class like that when she's older! Some of the students in there were quite obviously very intelligent, one of the year 8s in particular really sticks out in my mind, but so incapable of self control... 

So my mummy brain has kicked into overdrive and I'm now plotting ways in which I can help madam to fit into the box they expect her to, without squishing her personality. I may be on an uphill battle here, school has already taken note of her inabilities. I don't want her put in the naughty kid box, because she is not and she is capable of so much. She just is not a typical sitting at a desk learner. 

Having done some work on learning styles I'm beginning to draw the conclusion my child learns better when she is moving. She HAS to be able to stand up and dance when watching anything, she still puts everything in her mouth to discover it fully. She can sit at a task if it really engages her, for example she's really good at drawing, but she needs a period of doing something afterwards before she can move on to the next task. 

Schools are not set up like that though. They put everyone in the auditory learner box, which works very well for me, but is definitely not for everyone. Hands up all the people who use video tutorials on YouTube all the time. They quite often confuse me... I like written instructions, not picture instructions (IKEA, I'm looking at you!) but real words. Or you can read something to me and I will follow that happily.

Madam can't really do either, partly because the kid is 5, but because she needs to take part to learn. How will school be able to help her? (Did I mention I'm in panicky mummy mode.)

I'm hoping as she ages and matures she may learn to process things in her own way so that she can fully participate at school. Next year when she goes into a proper sitting in front of a desk style learning environment is going to be a struggle, I can tell.

Do you think it's worth me speaking to the teacher about this? Surely if I as someone with very little knowledge of teaching know about learning styles, she must. Then maybe we could develop a technique to help her. 

OK, need to stop myself before I go into full on anxiety mode. She is 5, she is doing OK. She has all the advantages of a good school and loving family to help her. She's going to get through. And school is only a short time of her life to get past. 

Let's look to the good things. Madam is starting athletics after school tomorrow so hopefully she can burn off some of that abundant energy she is blessed with. And Rainbows is on Thursdays. First week was last week and it went really well (hence the silly picture!) 

She is now keen for me to get her the full uniform. She'll have to wait a couple of weeks, I think!