Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 November 2004 18:37:35
Last time my minister kindly came to babysit (remember my random babysitter?), he walked in on Tiddles having taken up residence in the bathroom for the duration of a tantrum. Guess what! Yes, tonight I'm awaiting his arrival to babysit again while I go round to M's for the evening... and yes, Tiddles is having another bad night. Actually he's not tantrumming, he's finally repentant as his sins finally found him out today.
This morning he had another paddy as I asked him what had happened about his bag, boots, kit etc etc. He'd been told if they weren't found by the end of the week, then his drum lessons would cease and his bike would have to be sold to replace them. He informed me, indignantly, that he had spent every break and lunchtime searching for them, and had asked the Games teacher who had helped him look, and the only thing he hadn't done was phone the bus company because he knew they weren't on the bus.... and he didn't know what more I expected him to do.
Cruel and uncaring mother that I am ;) I phoned the school at lunchtime and asked the office staff to ensure that he spent lunchtime looking through lost property. A little later they ring me to say that they had sent him to the dinner lady in charge of lost property, but that when they asked her later he hadn't been. BUT she adds that last Monday (You know, the night of the tantrum because he had no idea where any of his kit was?) at lunchtime she had sorted out all the lost property and, because his stuff was named, had returned to him his sports bag, his rugby shirt, his PE shorts, his boot bag (minus the brand new boots, mind) and two coats!!! So all week, all week, these things have been in his locker at school, all the time he was saying he didn't know where they were! So, to add to my cruelty, I turned up at school at hometime to give him and all his belongings a lift home. The office confirmed that he had not been to Lost Property at all and had spent every breaktime outside playing. And his Games teacher was really interested to know that he had been asked three times to help find the missing kit as he had no recollection of this having happened at all! He could distinctly remember telling Tiddles to take his kit OUT of the changing room where he had just left it lying around several times, but he had not been asked to help find it. And, poor child, at that moment the helper who looks after his pencil case for him turned up to find out why it hadn't been brought to her today and why some of his equipment was missing from there. His excuses fell on doubly deaf ears!
Poor kid - it looks like he may not be going on the school trip at all. If he's to learn any sense of responsibility at all, he's going to have to start paying to replace all these lost things with his own money.... which means he may not have enough in his account to pay his share of the school holiday price. It's so hard to stand back and watch him suffer the consequences of his actions - it really does hurt me even more than it hurts him. But it has to be done.
So, my bonus-babysitter has a remorseful child to deal with while I go out to M's house. We were going to have a quiet evening in watching Calendar Girls on video again.... but apparently she has some bodies to hide in the attic and a jack-in-the-box to construct so we're going to be too busy for such luxuries as videos on my night off.
I think it's going to snow.