Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 June 2004 21:24:18
Well, what a week of achievements this has been. Most incredible of all has been Tiddles. He's become a young man! He puts it all down to the fact that he now feels that he can be trusted and he wants to live up to that. He's been to the shop daily (and now sees the manager as among his best friends!), has learned to make delicious coffee and knows precisely when to offer to do it and, most impressive of all, he has mastered the tantrums, regardless of how tired he is. On two or more occasions this week I have seen him take control of his reactions to being thwarted and just get on with it. What a star he is - I am so proud I could burst!
On Thursday M rang to ask if it was still on for us to go to the concert to hear Tiddles sing with a male voice choir. Disaster - he was supposed to have done it on Wednesday night at another venue too! Still, better late than never! He was reluctant to go, initially, having missed the one concert and with it being quite late at night, but I persuaded him that he ought to honour his commitment and afterwards he thanked me for making him go. It was fantastic. The choir were good, and they had invited volunteers from the school to sing along with them. My son may not be pitch perfect, but he sings with such enthusiasm and devotion to what he's doing that I thrill to hear him... and his teacher picked him out for special praise for his involvement too.
Then another achievement last night: He walked ten miles, virtually from one side of the Island to the other, in three hours. As Smudgelet said at the time, "Was he walking all this time? Really? Just walking? For three hours? Wow!!!"
Smudgelet made an amazing improvement too. Those of you who know my youngest will know just how amazing this is. This morning I went into the kitchen to discover he was doing the washing up. Totally unbidden. As a gesture of kindness (as he smilingly informed me: "Look how kind I am mummy, I'm so kind I even washed your glass first!) and without any hint or demand for remuneration. And he played for an hour without seeking active attention, too....
As for me, I am delighted. I am feeling incredibly well. I have worked all week and not tired at all... well, no more than anyone in the peak of good health anyway. I have achieved more in one week than I have in the last two years. I have begun the task of decluttering and totally rearranging the lounge furniture and am making great inroads into that, as well as having the garden just how I like it at last. Well, OK, so the garden isn't perfect, but at least one corner of it is, and as it's the corner I sit in, I don't have to look at the rest.
I also now am the proud owner of... yes, I couldn't get out of it... I have a lovely new bike. On the plus side, it's purple. I love purple. On the downside, it's a bike and requires riding. I went out tonight, under cover of approaching darkness, and tried it out. Hmmm... just who kept wobbling it like that? I didn't realise how windy it was tonight! And isn't this hill we live on incredibly steep? I'd never noticed that before. I thought it was steep enough on the way up (although I guess my zigzag route worked a bit like tacking and made it easier than a straight vertical climb) but boy was it steep on the way down. It was with great relief that I somehow brought it to a sudden and undignified stop before paying my neighbour at the foot of the hill an unexpected visit. Somehow I am going to have to beat this creature into submission before Sunday. Oh why oh why did I make that stupid challenge?
I blame you.