Sunday roundup - 5/02

Sunday roundup

Once again I have finished this week feeling like a bit of a neglectful mother. I’ve been late to pick him up from nursery once and we have resorted to takeout twice this week. A domino’s and a McDonalds – dead healthy.

Another week at work which has just overruled everything else. So much for it stopping after the week long workshop eh? It is what it is for now and I need to ensure I set myself and my team up for success going into next financial year, I do know my limit and when it does get too much I will slow down, but for now, whilst I am able I am going to do everything I can to ensure that next year is much more successful than this year has been work wise. Putting in this extra bit now will hopefully let up some of the stress and improve my work life balance next year.

Riley’s week at nursery has not been the best. Every night we have had a bad report whilst picking him up. He doesn’t listen to the ladies at the nursery, he runs about when he shouldn’t and has become very defiant. He is a very easily led child and will happily follow other children who aren’t behaving. I've been asked to come in and speak to his key worker next week to discuss next steps and how we can join up and be consistent.  

This weekend I haven’t seen any of this. He has been the perfect example of a well behaved boy and it makes me struggle to believe anything they have reported back all week. If we hadn't of just had the month from hell with his behaviour at home I probably wouldn't believe them! I do feel that we can’t have both a good week at nursery and a good weekend at home…it seems to have reversed this week, usually we get the raw end of the deal at the weekend!

With my job being quite intensive, I do wonder how much it affects Riley, I have felt super mum guilt all week about working so much. I do make sure that I spend every second I can with Riley, however I do worry that stress about upcoming deadlines and other projects can impact on my mood and I so terrified that Riley sees that. I have become in the past month a bit of a shouty mum. Something I never wanted to be. Although, one could argue that with Riley’s behaviour before Christmas and up until last weekend has also triggered that.

On Saturday we had a bit of a lazy start. Lots of lazing about in pyjamas until mid-day. Riley spend most of his morning building Lego rocket boosters to make cars go “Super-duper really fast!” Children’s imaginations always fascinate me; they see so much in things that as an adult you take for granted.

 

 Due to me being a pretty awful wife, mother all round person this week I hadn’t actually managed to get any shopping in so we decided we had to get dressed so we could head out for lunch. We recently stopped using the buggy completely for Riley. Living in the city centre and not really going anywhere in the car it was convenience for us to continue using the buggy but he was becoming very lazy with it. After Disney I decided that was it, it was going away and Riley was to be walking everywhere. He didn't take to well to this to begin with but is now more than happy walking about and unfortunately running away from us!

We decided to go to Frankie and Bennies as I had a £10 off voucher and it’s the only place Riley will behave anymore when we go out.

He remained pretty well behaved for the most part, and was kept happy with colouring in (what a godsend that activity is sometimes!) and playing with his Paw Patrol moshems. 

Of course the ice-cream for desert for eating most of his dinner was also enough to keep him happy too!

The one thing with Frankie and Bennies is how slow they are! The food is amazing but having to wait 10 minutes to be served and another 20 minutes for the bill and for them to take payment caused a little bit of angst when Riley got fed up! I kept him amused with snapchat for as long as physically possible!

Sunday has been another quiet day, mostly spent cleaning, which was all obviously undone rather swiftly by Riley half an hour later. My mum and dad were staying in St Andrews at a B&B as a gift they got for Christmas so decided to swing by our place for a quick visit. Riley was excited to see them. He was desperate to show them the rest of the Christmas presents he hadn’t already showed them over facetime. Another lovely little day, the first nice weekend we have had in a long time where he hasn’t spent half of it tantruming and screaming and crying!

All in I’d count it a successful quiet weekend!