At the beginning of the week I was ready to take my little girl and run off into the distance with her. Upset at school with girls being mean and confidence being knocked has meant her flying start took a turn for the pooper and on Monday we had screaming hysterics like I have never seen before. It actually made me go a bit loony I think and I am more than sure now that the school, who I have been talking to A LOT, think I’m a proper fruit cake for the amount of questions I have asked… Still, there’s bound to be someone worse than me isn’t there? That’s one of the beauties of living in London surely? Always someone more crazy than you are somewhere!
Things are getting better I am pleased to say. Mr Foxy and the NQT teacher of the class, Miss Pretty (she’s very sweet and Florence adores her), are being all kinds of lovely to her and by the end of the week she just whimpered as I left. She cried later but that screaming raging girl who wouldn’t let go of me, actually waved me away with a smile on the last day of the week so my heart feels a whole lot better.
The girls thing, well, it’s not as bad as it was and as their parents are friends of mine we’ve been trying together to make it better. I’m sure this is just one step of many on the road to falling in and out of friendships, having girls be mean to her and, probably, at some point, her being mean to someone else… Us girls are a tricksy bunch!
It’s a difficult change regardless of anything happening to upset her and her days are now very busy. She may only be four but she also has all this home work to do which she really likes actually but to me it seems like an awful lot to juggle. One of her tasks was to build a 3D model of her house which she has taken on with great aplomb! Craft is definitely a forte of Florence’s. We have also been continuing our evening reading and watching old episodes of ‘Look and Read’ which I watched as a child. The teacher mentioned to me that he thought they were very dated – cheek!
We started the weekend, as always since the start of term, with our Friday Night Treat Tea, which this week was ‘Rio’ themed but since then we have had some ups and downs, I’m sure in part due to the dramas and upset but also, just because school is tiring and Florence is exhausted. She has been behaving, shall we say, less than exemplary at times and I have been biting my lip not to get too cross with her as I know she is having a tough time – also, this is very out of character for her. It seems the slightest thing sets her off on a melt down and I am wondering where my gentle kind girl has gone at times? She screamed at me in the park that she wanted a new Mummy because I was too mean. My crime? I had asked her to come and find a toilet as she needed a wee but then we would return to the park afterwards. This was, apparently, a step too far on the mean scale and while she screamed and I breathed deeply, I shed a tear of my own. My baby. She is struggling and I am struggling with it all too.
But… It hasn’t all been bad and we have had a lovely weekend of just us. Jonny was working so the three of us, our amigo crew, have pottered, had a play date, done some cleaning (my house is so tiny it is getting me down and the quicker this loft conversion happens the better) and then today we went off to a couple of press events. Lunch with the Miele team at their HQ and onto a private screening of Dolphin Tales 2 in the Ham Yard Hotel (It’s an amazing venue and I love being invited there).
Strangely, even though today was really quite glamorous at points, it was standing on Argyll Street watching break dancers that was the most calm and fun part of the day. We’d walked there via Carnaby Street (gosh I love the vibe there. I know it’s cliche, but really, it just IS terribly cool) on the way home and Florence was nearing a point of melt down about something again, then we saw these guys dancing, a small crowd around them and we joined. They were funny on the mic and terrifically good dancers. We stood for ages, Jimmy not trying to climb out of the buggy for once, Florence smiling again and me holding on to my amigos as we watched.
I’m hoping the calm will come to our little gang again soon and the upset and change will fade. I said last week I wanted to report something better this week and I have done so next week folks, I am planning on even more progress!
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