#Reasons to be Cheerful - Wk 16

Ooh I'm in need of some cheerfulness, I am. It's been a tough ol' week back at school - and it's only been three days! Oh dear...

B's behaviour has been particularly challenging, and I'm exhausted. I'm putting it down to his own exhaustion after the busy Easter holidays and getting back into the swing of things at school. So I am delving deep for some cheery thoughts.

image credit: 123rf.com

It's nearly the weekend, so a couple of days break from the stressful mornings, phew.

Despite the aforementioned behaviour, we have managed to make the school bell 2 out of 3 days so far (we'll not mention the 3rd day when we were a whole 15 minutes late and had to put his name in the 'late book' at the front office. Tut tut)

Apart from one 'blip', I have managed to remain reasonably calm and together (outwardly, at least!) in the face of tantrums, slamming doors, punching (oh yes), screeching, and just plain stubbornness. I know this has helped to stop some potential 'flip-outs' from becoming full-blown doozies.

In between the madness, he is my cuddly wee boy and I love him. Where else am I to get cuddles from these days?!

p.s. oh, an extra cheerful note, I've just noticed that my blog pageviews have broken the 1000 mark! Small potatoes for all you seasoned bloggers out there, granted, but it feels like a milestone for little ol' me!


What is making you cheery this week?

Silent Sunday - fire juggler

Luke-warm tea

My first ever time linking with Just Write over at The Extraordinary Ordinary and I'm 2 days late. Must Try Harder.

As I stood in the kitchen sipping a luke-warm cup of tea, I listened to B's bedroom door being slammed ever harder and his voice rising and screeching ever louder. I was at that horribly familiar place again, wondering what on earth is the best course of action to bring this particular tantrum to a quick close? Putting him in his room only added to his frustration (hence the door banging and screaming). Removing cherished toys or threatening the removal of TV privileges had not had any effect and I was stuck for ideas. Again. 

My mind was filled at this point, with questions: Will I be able to keep my own frustrations in check and not go through and scream back at him? How the heck do I get him to calm down and not resort to the throwing/punching/lashing out he has become accustomed to of late? How am I ever going to control his behaviour when he's 8, 9, 10 yrs old and much stronger (he's already a little strong man now)? 

...and thoughts: if he damages his bedroom door he is in serious trouble - although I have no idea what 'serious trouble' would actually look like; goddammit this all started because I dared to take 10 minutes to myself to read a magazine.

Cut to half an hour later and the door is still in its frame, scattered toys and other general bedroom paraphenalia  have been begrudgingly tidied up, apologies received, tears wiped away, and reminders given about good behaviour being rewarded with the return of favourite toys. As B returns to his usual bright, happy self, I am left  exhausted, spent, drained, wishing I could brush off such episodes as easily as he can. It would certainly help my sanity.

The Gallery - Easter

An Easter-themed gallery this week. Our Easter this year has been particularly busy. B and I have been on the move alot (although not always at the same time or same place!) At the risk of repeating myself a little from my previous post about our little holiday last week, Easter this year has gone a bit like this:


A weird few days of this:

Freak April snow at our holiday park

Lots of this:

... oh, and waaaay too much of this!:

From caravans to castles

A week or so of galavanting about up and down the country has meant an enforced blog break this past week. 

After freaking out about what would happen if I didnt blog for a whole week - turns out the world does keep on turning, imagine that! - I feel that the break has re-energised my blogging enthusiasm. It's also allowed me to remind myself why it is I started blogging, and am still blogging. I do think this sometimes gets lost in the mists of stats, memes, twitter and the rest. It's good to blow away the fog from time to time.

One of the reasons for my blog-free week has been our little mid-week Easter break up to Perthshire. Given my current lack-of-money status, luxury 5* accommodation is not a possiblity so I plumped for a caravan in a small holiday park. Always a bit wary of caravans, as I've had good and bad experiences in the past few years. Luckily it was a lovely caravan with actual central heating - something which was definitely needed given the freakish april snow!

Our holiday highlights, in no particular order:

1. We actually got there! Might not sound a big deal, but given the predicted snow on the day we were travelling, and the silly people who panic-bought petrol and emptied out the majority of the petrol stations, I was having serious doubts. But I outran the snow and fortunately the fuel hysteria was subsiding by the time we left.

2. B managed all the car journeys without any car sickness. He's been feeling rough on long and short journeys, and I thought the twisty roads would provoke the yucky feeling. But miraculously he felt totally fine. Bonus!

3. Our fun days out.

Glamis Castle, with its Kings and Queens - and ghosts

Scottish Deer Centre

4. Just chilling with B in our caravan, playing games or watching Tom and Jerry.

The only down side has been that all the fresh air and outdoors time has left me exhausted (doesn't seem to have done the same to B), and I need a rest to get over my holiday!