The Theme for the Week........ Listening!

This week I have been listening to birdsong, listening to the girls ignore most things I ask them to do, listening to my own body telling me it needs something different and listening to terribly sad news from Boston and Texas on the radio whilst decorating the children's rooms still. My prayers are with the victims and their families as well as the rescue workers, medical staff and investigators. 

The birdsong was in the garden of friends of my parents, where Dewi was doing some tree felling for them. The children had a wonderful time, the girls used thin branches to build dens and made dinner from the catkins, and Idris played with everything he could lay hands on. He helped to load the sawn logs into bags (above)....

 ..... he climbed in and out of the bags and giggled whilst Allan swung him round in it.....

 ...... the girls used the pile of twig sized branches as a trampoline.......

......Idris did a bit of impromptu pouring with the dregs of my tea.......

...... and was finally allowed to try out one of the tools that he had been coveting all day without being allowed to play with........

 ....... as well as a bit of tin carrying, these were tricky to pick up together and Idris had to try a few different techniques before he had any success! It was nice to see him busily engaged in the hard work of learning about the world. He had been unwell Monday and Tuesday with a high temperature making him feel miserable so good to see him back to his best.

The girls have been argumentative and rude with a lot of bickering over the last week. We have managed to nip some of it in the bud but it is always a multi-step approach when things get out of hand and will take a little time to get things onto a smoother path again. I have used a 'time out' discipline technique with one of the girls that I'm not a fan of, but as nothing else over the past few weeks has worked to get through to her about an aspect of behaviour that was really unacceptable, we decided to try it. She went into time out twice for the behaviour in one day, and we haven't seen the behaviour since! 

The issue of chores has reared it's head again as it does every so often with complaints about being asked to do EVERYTHING and dragging their heels when asked to do something or simply walking away and not doing it. I have responded by asking them to do more, and us all doing it together before moving on from a mealtime and it seems to work! I'm considering implementing some kind of chore card system to spread the load without having to verbally ask time and again, not sure though!

As well as listening to what the girl's behaviour was telling me, I have had to start listening to my own body telling me to take note of being 25 weeks pregnant! When I was expecting Idris, I could sleep til 7am with the girls waking about 7.15-7.30 but as Idris wakes up around 5-5.30 am I am getting less sleep and also finding that I often can't rest in the day when I need to. I have a few ideas in mind to help me get the rest my body is telling me it needs so hopefully will get things in better balance soon. I think next week's focus will be on little old me with a few of the other things I am working on on the back burner for a few days!!