Whine, whine, whine

The week has been.  It is done and I am glad.

I only wish I could find a button on my son that would turn off the whine.  The "Mummy.  Mummy.  Mummy?  Mummy!  MUMMY!!!"  that seems to be almost perpetual at present.  I say to him, "Munchkin, stop whining at me.  I don't like it when you say my name over and over."  The response?  "Michael not whining, Mummy."  Then two minutes later (if I'm lucky!) it starts again.  "Mummy."  You have to read it as Mum-meeeeee.  I ask him what he wants.  I get another "Mummy."  Ugh.  Over it.

I realise he is adjusting to kindy, to study.  We all are.  I'm trying to be gracious and patient and understanding.  And I know that at least some of this is just an age-and-stage thing.  But sometimes, it's all just a bit much.  Sometimes I really just want to break down and sob and howl and whine alongside my son. Holding it all together and being the sane, reasonable, loving one slips gradually from my grasp.

On Sunday afternoon I marshaled my reluctant husband  into bedtime duties.  It was someone else's turn to deal with the tears, the tantrums, the kicking of the feet, the screaming, and the whining.  I was done.  Over-done.  Like a baked potato that's been left in the oven so long it's grown a nice thick second skin of charcoal, that was me.  I left Boyo in charge and retreated to the garden, spray bottle in hand.  Seeing as I shouldn't, couldn't, and really didn't want to knock some sense into my son, I figured I'd do battle with the jasmine instead.  Probably should have chosen a fight I know I will win, seeing as I seem to be losing so many lately.  Never mind, my enemy has been subjected to it's third spraying in as many  months.  I am very slowly making ground.  Little by little the bright green leaves are shriveling, and turning brown and crumbly where once the green tendrils ran rampant over everything.

The solitude did me good.
I remembered that the week really hasn't been that bad.  It just felt like it because we have an overtired boy who is getting used to not spending all his days with his parents.  He also still has a cough and runny nose, so naturally the emotions are fragile.

It would help if he could sleep till six thirty each morning.  We've been playing bed-yo-yo lately.  Munchkin appears beside me.  Mummy takes him back to bed.  It's usually around 5-6am.  He goes quite willingly to bed, but then reappears fifteen minutes later.  Mummy pries her eyelids open and wishes he would just go away.  He does not.  We repeat the process.  But I caught on this morning.  As I tucked him back into bed at 5:40am, I informed my son (happily snuggling under the quilt - he'd woken because he was cold), that I would lock his door today because he had to stay in bed and go back to sleep.  I had to wake him up at 7:30am.  He was quite reluctant to get up.  As of Sunday he also owns an alarm clock (photos next week perhaps).  It is red.  It has a rather piercing alarm.  I now need to teach him that he can't get out of bed till the alarm goes.  And that he is under no circumstances whatsoever to touch it.  Don't want to be woken at 1am or something now do we!?

Study is going well.  Kindy too.  Mummy just needs to find a little more emotional equilibrium   So does Munchkin.  Daddy seems to be surviving, but then he's not had to spend quite so much time with Munchkin this week.  Grin.  Daddy is a little preoccupied with Maths at present.  But then I guess that is to be expected when it's a very tough paper in a high-level Diploma.  We needed the cricket this weekend.

I hope you've had a good week.
Amy

Our other highlights:

Some interesting footwear choices (these are mine, not his - not that his feet are that much smaller than mine!)

A new bib to keep tshirts dry.

Baking.  Finally managed some good chocolate chip biscuits (my third attempt!).

Ate the first of our Golden Delicious apples in a scrummy dessert.

Second lot of silverbeet seedlings dug up by over-zealous blackbirds in my parent's garden.  I don't mind them digging for worms but could they PLEASE leave my seedlings IN THE GROUND?!  This plant has been replanted at least twice already and was too far gone by the time I discovered it this time round.  They've even managed it with sticks placed around all the seedlings.  What am I supposed to do?  Our chooks have almost no greens, and we need to get something in the ground soon, ready for winter harvesting.

My garden at home is growing really well and I am loving it.