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Monday, May 24, 2010

Bedtime Wars

Apologies I have been neglecting this poor blog.

We are finally experiencing some good weather in the UK, great for the kids as with hats and sunscreen on they are free to race around the garden and get rid of all their energy.

Lucy has had a breakthrough and realised that going to the toilet isn't as bad as she first thought, she is by no means consistent but I can finally begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully an end to buying nappies money sink!

It has become apparent however that Matthew and Lucy are both very competitive in every way. They want the same toy, to sit in the same space and be the first to do everything and anything. This has resulted in some very physical fights which inevitably end in tears, usually for both as one is relegated to the trauma of time out and the other is left demonstrating their injuries to me!

This is also true at bedtime, we aim for a staggered bed time so that disturbance is kept to a minimum. Lucy goes first, then about ten-fifteen minutes later Matthew and about an hour after that Lucy, the problem at the moment is that Lucy is often still awake and yelling when Heather goes to bed, part of this will be resolved when we move and they are no longer sharing a room! The reason seems to be that if Lucy has a nap she simply isn't ready to go to bed! It seems anything over twenty minutes and trouble results.

In an attempt to curtail some of the bad behaviour we had a discussion at dinner time yesterday. We explained that we weren't happy and that it amounted to bullying, and so I said to make sure the children understood;

'Matthew can you explain what a bully is?'
His reply 'It goes baa'
Apparently it is some kind of sheep and so at that point we gave up.

Still tomorrow I have a day off and I can't wait, I am off to a spa for a day of relaxation and pampering and maybe some writing, I have been trying to set out my writing goals for the summer to myself. Running seems to be going well at the moment, the next step is to increase the frequency of runs.