Fragile like a bomb.
I am so glad that my child is back at school this week. Not because I dislike her or spending time with her. I truly think she is a wonderful person, she has the most wicked sense of humour and an imagination that would put even the most creative of writers to shame.
But after 6 weeks of being on ‘our time’ even with our adherence to morning and evening routine, and my attempts to keep some semblance of order in between, the last week she has been feral. This holiday we have had more order than any before – with her seeing her PA (I dislike this term because it implies that she is being assisted which she is not, she is being cared for) twice a week, and having football training every Wednesday. So really I only had to occupy her on Tuesdays (where we generally saw her friends) and Thursdays (where we continued to see her grandparents like we would in term time). So, all in all, her weeks had some sort of consistency. I thought this may have been overdoing it, but given that one of her little friends became so anxious by week 4 he was vomiting at the thought of leaving the house, and by week 5 couldn’t transition between the upper and lower floors of his house without an anxiety attack, I feel that it was worth it.
So on Sunday night, I wrestled an excited fae creature into bed and to sleep with the thought of “we’re there, we made it, school tomorrow!” Only to have the crushing realisation that the school failed to communicate that they were, in fact, having not one but two in-house training days and students didn’t actually return until Wednesday. The lead balloon that set in my stomach at this made sleep impossible that night: the thought of the potential meltdowns and disappointments that would be endured in the morning when I would have to crush her spirit by saying that she had two more days. I know that my husband also had a similar night.
Come the morning, I explained as clearly as I could that although, yes the school was open, it was only for teachers and kids didn’t go back until midweek, and braced while she processed. To her credit she didn’t meltdown but did look sad. She asked what we were doing that day, and if she could see her friend. To my relief, said friend was available, and despite the rain we spent 4 hours in a park watching them hair round after each other and dodge the geese. It was only that night when she realised that she couldn’t get her feet in the air (she was trying to cartwheel I think) and this was a disaster to end the world. She just about got over this heart wrenching disappointment, only to start her next one because her father wanted to eat dinner at dinner time. The final one was because her bath had bubbles.
So, it seems she saved up all the meltdowns to have them all once. Wonderful. She did the same on Tuesday when we came to dinner time. I have to clarify that all we had done that day was go shopping, had lunch and spent time with her grandparents. This too was apparently too much and she had another complete emotional disregulation hour.
So it was with little surprise that come Wednesday morning she told her father, in all seriousness, that it was ‘ok to be shy on the first day’ to which he agreed that it was absolutely ok. She then paused and informed him that she ‘wouldn’t be though’. She skipped into school without a backward glance.
She is happier, we’ve yet to start sleeping, and I’ve had a migraine for two days as all the springs start to relax. The only benefit is that she loves her school. I don’t know how we would cope if she hated it.
Raising the Modern Fae 