So today might not have been the best day. Better than some worse than others.
It started ok. The woman downstairs finally moved out! Yay! I didn't throw a party, instead I fell asleep after embracing the silence. I can't think of an adequate way to sum up exactly how nice that silence was after 6months of listening to rather loud phone calls, and one, then another, child screaming for their mum's attention. Bliss? Near enough.
So when dinky woke me at 5am it wasn't the usual "argh, what time is it? Come give mummy a huggle for a bit". To be honest I don't even know why I bother. Dinky is not the kind of child that gives hugs for more than a minute (unless she's ill or hurt). She can lean on me or sit on parts of me (normally feet of arms) or put her head on my lap but she doesn't give long hugs, so why nearly every morning I hope she cuddles me for 1 hour I don't know. I blame being sleep deprived for my wishful thinking!
I watch her play with her toys while she looks at me wondering what I'm doing watching her before breakfast! At 6am it isn't the usual "ok, I'm getting up, I Am getting up". I got up and got the breakfast quicker than normal. Dinky looks at me and I smile. I do not normally smile before 7am! We get ready, dinky decides today she can't put her own socks on. So I do it for her to save arguments, well, why spoil a perfectly fine morning. So far no kids downstairs screaming and no mum swearing back at them in response. Yes, they have definitely gone!
Dinky was watching tv, she made me laugh watching Ben and Holly's little kingdom. Bless, she still tries to warn characters not to do things! But now she turns to me and says "see mum, I told him he shouldn't have done that!".
We get to the school gate and suddenly dinky decides to play up, and right in front of the head teacher as well! Oh dear. Basically, the playground was still covered in ice so the teachers had made paths and coned off the ice so the kids and parents (because let's face it some of the parents can be worse than the kids!), don't go on the ice, fall and sue the school. Oh no, that rule doesn't apply to dinky. Cones, what cones? Off she goes. I have to tear after her before she falls over or worse runs out of the other gate near the road. I can only imagine the head thinking this is exactly why we have the risk assessment! Once I get dinky and calm her down we go into her playground as we didn't have time to go and change her Wellies in cherry blossom (the SEN room). Once we get into the classroom dinky started getting agitated. I looked round, it was very busy. Dinky grabs her book and decides she wants to go to the library to do it. Before I get the chance to say anything she runs off toward the library. Luckily mrs H, dinkys favourite TA, is right by the door. She stops dinky and asks what the matter is. Dinky says she wants to do her work in the library. By this point we were joined by miss C the current TA who says it is fine. S we go to the library with mrs H. Dinky does her letters nicely. Mrs H left and dinky showed me more of her lovely letter writing skills. It was much different to the previous days where she was adamant she couldn't do it. So I was happy and so was she, after, I left dinky with miss C, whom dinky has begun to warm up to.
I got the bus and checked how much cash I had in my wallet and put it back in my pocket. When I got off the bus it wasn't there. The bus does a 15 minute loop, so I waited anxiously at the bus sto for the bus to return. The driver let me check for my wallet but there was a guy sitting in the seat I had sat in. He moved so I could check but it wasn't there. I got angry. Within 15 minutes some arsehole had stolen it. I wouldn't have minded so much if they had taken the money and left the wallet. Reason? Well, the wallet itself probably was nearing its last legs, and seeing as all the cards would be cancelled by the time the person tried to use them the cash was all that was worth them having. For me I means phoning 0845 numbers from a mobile phone (which can be quite costly), then having to relay all my security details and then waiting for a week or so for the cards, which means going into the bank and as I have no photo ID it is a struggle to get my own cash! Arrrghhhhh! As predicted I went into my bank to withdraw some cash and had to give them endless details in order to get some cash out. All cards cancelled and now the wait for cards... It sucks.
What also gets me is that I have given up smoking and decided savings would go to dinky's birthday, so far not much has been saved. I have had to get new school shoes, new water bottle (as dinky has chewed through yet another lid) and the chew necklace (to stop her chewing her toys). She loves the chew necklace! It was a fight to get her to part with it this morning, but she did eventually in return for a 20p troll toy.
I went to the library to return the behaviour books and the books I got out for dinky, and get her some more books. Then went back upto the school. I always worry when the teacher sees me, lets dinky come to me and then says "can I have a word after school tomorrow?".
I'm not quite sure what is going on now. Before christmas it was to say she had done something wholly unacceptable and for me to be made aware. However in the last 2 and a half weeks it has been to discuss ways to resolve things. Maybe it is a bit of both? I have no idea. I have the CAF meeting tomorrow morning, and now am going to see the teacher after school. This last few weeks have been very odd, as I don't know where the line is between a parent constantly seeking advice and/or help with their kid, or just a parent with a child who has problems and just wants to help to resolve them.
It does provide an opportunity to do what I was supposed to do Monday and ask for a contact book. I don't know why, but I feel like it is asking too much of the teacher to spend a few minutes writing out dinky's day, especially when she has 29 other children to supervise getting sorted to come home.
Anyway, dinky walks to the bus stop and asks for a story. So I let her and M read one of the new books I'd borrowed from the library. They sat ok on the bus. And dinky walked home ok. She did get docked 3 minutes of special time. Twice for hitting as I wouldn't let her on the ice, and once for shouting at me.
When I got home I got her reading diary out, which had gone to the teacher for review. You know your child is troublesome when the first line of feedback is 'dinky is becoming more compliant to come and read in group now' although I was pretty happy reading the next part 'once she does join the group she is proud of the reading she can do and so am I! :)' (the teacher did draw a smiley face but it is hard to do it the tight way up on here!) so it seems dinky is finally showing what she can do, and the teacher is realising that dinky is not as slow as she makes out. Well, not when it comes to reading. For the life of me I have never been able to get dinky to sit and do numbers with me. When she does she gets frustrated and purposely messes about in order to get me to end the ordeal.
In myself I'm still a little fragile in the sense that I'm still a little too aware of everything going on around me. Fair enough I didn't feel my wallet go missing, but I have caught myself a few times scanning the area. I have to keep reminding myself that everything is fine. It doesn't help that yesterday I was catching up on Facebook and came across a status which reminded me more of my childhood. Not just the bad, but the good (and the wild!)
The status was 'I miss building camps in the ramps sheds.. I miss goin on the go karts dat (ok for clarification I didn't write this!) S, R and R used 2 make and I miss the rope swing on the tree that we put up at the bottom of the hill dat I fink every kid went on in W.H...those days were the best bein a adult is boring :('
The go karts were awesome and there were a coupe of hills we used to ride them down. The rope swing! That thing would have been considered a death trap by any parent had they bothered to check where we were! It was about 15 foot high on the drop and only cleared the 5 foot fence by about half a foot. Scary as anything, but such a rush!
More comments were added, like the 'borrowing' of scaffholding poles and planks of wood to build camps outdoors (after the first incident of sexual abuse I wanted to find ways of camps out of the ramps), setting fire to the large bins. Then the less wild side of 30 odd kids playing Tim tam tommy and another game. It was mental! Kids from 7 year old up to 13/14 playing together. Knock down ginger! Oh dear, our estate was kind of too perfect for that with 7/8 houses on each balcony. We got up to so much back then! I have to try to remember the fun times. It was what kept me going during the dark times. Football matches between one side of the estate and the other, being the only girl and holding my own!
There were good times.
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