March

The Spring is coming and the equinox is near, there is an Easter eggs wreath on our front door already, and I’m noticing the warmer days with the sun poking through at last. It’s been a long Winter, with floods and storms, and it’s feeling like things are opening up again. Perhaps.

On the home front, Mole and Hedgehog are enjoying school, in years 2 and 3 respectively, and Beaver has recently started preschool, with mixed results. It took her about a month to not cry when she was dropped off, and I still think she prefers her days with the childminder. Now she talks about preschool in the same monotone as the other two speak about their classes… “It was FINE” or “GOOD”. One word answers are about all they can muster at the end of the day. Beaver now gets a whole day in the mid-week with me, which feels so luxurious. Mole and Hedgehog get envious and I’ve had some mini protests on the walk to school, when they want to come swimming / to the zoo / on whatever outing we have planned for the day.

It’s made me consider (and not for the first time) about home-schooling. A neighbour friend of mine is big into her home-schooling and posts regular inspiring blogs about it, but the jury is still out with me. I experienced something like home-schooling during the lockdowns, which I really got into and enjoyed. (It helped that we were in a bubble with Granny Purple Hair in darkest Wales, and had a fantastic backdrop with sunny weather). The thing is that Mole and Hedgehog genuinely enjoy their school, so if I was to venture into the home-schooling, for myself and for them, I think it would be on a part-time basis.

We are at that mid-point bit in the term, half way between February break and Easter break, when you start counting down the weeks until the next holiday. I think because the lockdowns kept us confined to the shire for so long, I’m now seizing any chance for a change of scene. So the rest of the year is organised with Airbnb bookings, Granny Purple Hair stays, and our first abroad trip for about five years to France, ON A PLANE! Mole, Hedgehog and Beaver are beyond excited about flying.

And now we come to Mole. Having reached the advanced year of eight, Mole is becoming very ambitious in her school projects and in excelling at everything she does. She practices her violin most nights, disappears into the playroom to write her latest book with her drawings in, stapling the pages together, and doing cartwheels all over the house to show off her gymnastics classes. This is all very entertaining for us as parents. The only fall-out from this is that she is quick to cry if she cannot master something straight away. The violin practice is a sensitive topic, and if anyone intervenes to help on a tricky bar, we are likely to be screamed at.

Mole can also lord it over Hedgehog at times, with a ‘I’m better at everything than you’ attitude. Hedgehog bears this with a maturity and stoicism that amazes me. Hedgehog is easily the most easy-going and least drama-queen character of the family. She will do almost anything for the easy life, and only protests to me if it’s over something really important like Beaver is taking her favourite doll that she’s had rights on since she was born.

Mole has taken to secret late night reading sessions with me in bed, and although this goes against my strict bedtime rules, I quite enjoy the special mum and eldest daughter time. She likes to compare what page she is on with me, and sometimes we listen to the ‘homeschool histories’ podcast, with the quiz at the end that Mole can test her knowledge on.

The other thing Mole likes to do is fiddle with the actual mole on my neck, and sometimes the one just under my boob too, which she has to wrestle her hand into my top to do. It’s a hangover from breastfeeding days I think. Between the mole fiddling and the thumb sucking, I’m reminded that she’s still very much straddling her earlier baby years and her older child years, and so I’m not anxious for her to grow out of this phase too soon.

The main thing I’d say we’re struggling with right now with all of them is getting them to go to sleep at bedtime. They will be put to bed without a hitch, we do the changing, teeth cleaning, and stories without any fuss, and then they…. stay awake. I don’t mind so much when they stay in their room to play, it’s when they start to migrate down the stairs and poke their heads into the livingroom that we get a short fuse. It causes tiredness in the mornings of course, which is frustrating for all of us. Seven o’clock turns into eight o’clock, and then suddenly they’re only settling when we go to bed ourselves.

I wonder if they get FOMO (fear of missing out) when they know we’re watching a film downstairs. Mole has expressed on several occasions how unfair she thinks it is that they have to go to bed earlier than us. This goes hand-in-hand with her exasperation at being asked to TIDY UP or even do some CLEANING. It is very hard work for Mole. Personally I’m enjoying the fact that we have an eight year old in the house who can actually do some useful things, like make the younger ones breakfast on a Saturday morning when we’re having a lay-in. The holy grail will be when she brings us our morning coffee. When that day comes, I will know that my work is done.

I have toyed with the idea of… drugging them to sleep. Nothing serious of course, just a little dose of herbal nytol in their bedtime milk… or something of that sort. Mr M&H is very dubious about this, but I think I might be on to something. It’ll have to be stronger than lavender oil on the pillow though, because I’ve already tried that and it hasn’t worked.

Anyway, we are considering swapping bedrooms with them, which will give them more space to play, and will make our bedroom into more of a… cosy nook, which I don’t mind at all. The other thing it will do is provide more space for sleepover parties and guests, which they are starting to have again at an alarming rate, it’s nearly every weekend. That’s always the best cure for insomnia isn’t it? Have a sleepover party??.

Mmmm, answers on a postcard please, I’m running out of ideas.

cafe treat after swimming sesh