It’s the first day back at school for my fae today. Routine is being re-established after the school breaks.
Oh, how I have missed the routine! I mean, my daughter has as well, but I think out of the two of us, I was the one jumping for joy the highest this morning. But it was hard to tell: Unlike a lot of children, my daughter skipped down the path happily and burbled brightly about seeing her school friends again.
This at least meant she didn’t hear my wails of ‘DOBBY IS FREE’ as I bolted back to the car the moment the door closed behind her.
I love my fae child, I really do. But I love her more when I can get a few hours every now and then to myself. Last week, I think I had a grand total of 3 seconds alone. After we returned home from the nightmare that was Christmas, we spent the week trying to settle our daughter. To this end, I suggested that we meet up with some of her neuro-spicy friends: She has 3 very close friends, all of whom are either diagnosed or on the pathway for ASD/ADHD/PDA or a combination of all three. Two of them are siblings, and all 4 of them get on like a house on fire – which is strange because I have a feeling that, if left unsupervised for any length of time, that would indeed be the result.
The speed with which their mothers responded to my ‘how about a meetup?’ messages with variations of ‘God yes! Oh you mean with the kids, I guess that works too’ gave me the impression that they too were feeling the strain.
So, instead of a brief foray in a local park, we ended up doing daily meets for 5 days straight. On the 6th day, to my great joy, my daughter finally slept through until 6am! I’m not being sarcastic: she hadn’t managed beyond 5 throughout the holiday, so this was a great improvement. We had been to three parks (one with steel dinosaurs), gone swimming, and her grandparents had come to visit (having been in America for the past month) and, finally, she was a tad tired.
This was the first time my daughter has been to a friend’s house for a play date. The first time, despite being exhausted and having been there hours, she needed physical carrying out the house, screaming and crying. She cried all the way home.
The second time, not only did she cry all the way back, but she tried to unfasten her seatbelt. In my haste to pull over, I scraped a wheel on the curb and ended up rather stressed.
The third time, I gave her a lunch box, and she muttered under her breath the whole way whilst eating rice cakes.
I’m hoping if there is a fourth, she will get the hang of leaving and accept that she will be able to go back, so it’s not the end of the world. Everything is such a trial sometimes.
Still: school, routine, and normal service will now be resumed. Thank goodness!
Raising the Modern Fae 