Danger

Top stair gate gone. Feels empty, dangerous, crazy! 😜

Was more dangerous keeping it, given the kids fight over it... 🙄

Change

Daughter has been sleeping more than usual. Wondering if it was a precursor to a development leap. As well as talking better sentences, she ate banana today and oaty bar AND licked a piece of seaweed. My joy at this progress it literally sky high! 😂

Summer days

The A3 looks suspiciously like a motorway. I specifically told my satnav no motorways. Crept along it in torrential rain and thunder, after a gorgeous, if slightly short, rainy walk with my friend and her son (daughter wasn't too keen on the rain, the walk or the pancakes I brought her, so early departure was necessary). Upside of driving in heavy rain is you can't hear the kids. Despite the challenges, I kept my Zen, and have arrived home with only a minor stiff neck. 😍🤗

Perfect days

I've had such a perfect few weeks that I thought I'd cracked this parenting thing.

After a perfect few weeks, today has been less than. Today has been difficult. Unhappy kids in the forest (too cold and wet) and unhappy at the Look Out (too busy). Should've trusted my instinct and stayed home to play on our first cold wet day for months. Just as dinner almost made, daughter turns up in the kitchen, hands dripping in neon pink slime which is all over her clothes and all over the dining room! As she napped this afternoon (couldn't wake her for love nor money), I'm expecting a loooong evening too.

Wish me luck anyone who has had a day that just somehow keeps trying to go all wrong! ❤️

Returning

Seven minutes to home. It will be lovely to be home and to see our friends again (feels like an eternity we've been away, though it was only 11 days). As always I've left a part of my heart in Croatia. Until next year. ❤️

Holiday time!

Up at 3.30am, torrential rain and thunder, issues with parking, security checked everything including me and the girlie, almost missed the flight, except it had engine trouble so it was delayed. Finally, almost there, half an hour from my summer home, quick stop to the let the driver nap and we're on our way again! We're doing really well!! 😍

A new light shines bright

I never understood all the parent posts about their kids going to school and found all the photos of them in their uniform tedious, but that's life. You don't get it often until you're in it. I feel so sad about the end of an era. It's different to the ends of my own eras, house moves, job moves, leaving London, leaving Hong Kong, spending time in Croatia. It's different because I'm holding my own mixed emotions as well as my son's. I feel like I'm holding a little boy's world in the palm of my hand and the centre of my heart, and right now it feels fragile to him, so I have to hold so gently to keep it intact. I can't take away his sadness, just hold him until the sadness passes...and help him through to the excitement of something new. The first light of my life is starting to light his own way.

Endings

Last school lunch I'll be making for a while...until the girlie starts full days at nursery. 😥 and 🤗

Sadness all round

Today was the last full normal day of nursery for my son. He has a party day and a short ending early day next week. This was our last full week of nursery.

He couldn't fall asleep for ages tonight. He finally whispered that he was sad he wouldn't be going to school with his friends. That he wanted to stay where he's been at nursery. He didn't want to go somewhere new. His heart opened and he cried his eyes out. His grief is real and there is no cheering him up with platitudes. It is just something he needs to feel and get through and wait until he feels ok. He just needs to wait until he feels as at home at his new school.

I hear his sadness because I'm sad too. I will miss our lovely cycling route and the "weeeeeeeee" of the two lovely downhill sections first thing in the morning. I will miss the trees and the squirrels and the pigeons that seem so familiar now. I will miss the familiar faces of parents and teachers. I will miss chatting and walking with my friends. I feel sad too.

As I said to my boy, the depth of his sadness shows how happy he has been with this very large part of his life.

Kids having fun

My son's 'tan' wiped off his legs. 😂

Sign of a child having had a fun day! ❤️