Not having a good couple of weeks!

So tired I’m just dragging myself from day to day and activity to activity 🙁
As might be expected, the children are picking up on this and reacting accordingly, so mammoth tantrums from J and L. K continues to be his usual good-natured self, with just the incessant questions which I know I shouldn’t complain about, but they do get on top of me at times! On Monday we came incredibly close to taking J to CHEF sports in just his pants, as he took so long to get up and get dressed. In the end we were half an hour late, with him finishing dressing and eating breakfast in the car on the way – and then throwing a wobbly when we got there because he didn’t want to join in. Fortunately Gina was able to intervene and persuade him while I ran round the corner and flung myself into a little miserable heap to calm down for a few minutes! Of course once he joined in he loved it and I didn’t see him again for the whole session 😉

After the sports session it was medal-giving for the Sports Day a few weeks ago, which the boys were both seriously chuffed about, then we went to visit our friend with the twins and ended up staying quite late so that the boys could play for a while with her older boys and I could help her a little with bedtime. It was lovely, but set us up somewhat for another tired day on Tuesday – fortunately nothing planned that day except for Alice “our teenager” coming to help. She’s on holiday from Uni, came round last Friday and the children were really pleased to see her again plus Bob and I found out she was free because her holiday job fell through, so we asked her to come and help out for a couple of days int he holidays. She did a great job of looking after the children while I managed to get lots of tiling done in the bathroom 🙂 She’s coming again on Friday, so hopefully I’ll get the grouting done then, although it’s also another picnic in the park so she’ll help with that too. The temptation to just leave her with the kids while I sneak upstairs and sleep is great, but not a great use of money, I fear. At least if I tile or tidy I can see what I’ve been doing! If I carry on feeling the way I do though paying someone to babysit while I sleep may become a necessity…

Good grief – just realising quite how long it is since I blogged! I find it very hard when exhausted to sit down and write/type coherently. Everything gets tainted with how bad I feel,so I’ve not been doing it. Now I can’t even remember what we’ve done, apart from not enough “work” because J throws a tantrum every time I suggest it might be a good idea 🙁
I read in a child development book that 6 years old is a very problematic age because children are just starting to see that there are two sides to an argument and this leaves them feeling very unstable. They’re no longer able to be certain of anything, because they haven’t yet learned to distinguish properly between the two sides they can see, so everything is confusing. I guess it’s therefore no surprise that they are argumentative, combative and contrary! Praise is lapped up, but criticism, even if only perceived rather than real, is unbearable, and they will fly off the handle at the slightest thing. This described J’s current behaviour to a T! I guess it helps to know it’s a phase, a developmental stage, rather than something awful I’ve done to him! The same book said that 7 year olds can be incredibly helpful and eager to please adults, so I’m looking forward to that 😆

Having said all that about being so tired, why is it that I found myself sat in front of the computer before 6 am today? I don’t seem to be able to get back to sleep once I’ve woken up, no matter how tired I am. L is now in her own bed, at least nominally – in fact she is in her own bed from when she falls asleep until she first wakes, which could be anything from 1 to 4am, then she comes in with us. I then feed her and eventually get back to sleep, then she usually wakes again and I feed her again and then can’t get back to sleep. Used not to be a problem, but it seems the more tired I am the harder I find it to get to sleep 🙁 Just can’t get comfortable and can’t stop all the things I’ve not done from running through my head. Maybe I should try keeping a notebook by the bed to write them down and see if I can sleep then 😕 Anyway, unable to sleep after L woke me up at 5:15 today I finally gave up and came down to catch up on emails, write some cheques I need to post and blog! Perhaps I’ll sleep better tonight without all that on my conscience!
I wonder how the mums at today’s P&T would feel if I just went in, opened up the doors and toy cupboards, sat myself in a corner and told them i felt too poorly to do P&T today, but they’re welcome to do it themselves?