Many years ago, way before I had children, I saw this gorgeous little French documentary called 'Être et Avoir'. The documentary focuses on a one-room school in rural France and the teacher in charge of the 4-11 year olds who attend. It's a lovely little documentary and I highly recommend it if you love kids and their idiosyncrasies. The star of the film, as far as I'm concerned, is the precocious little boy who features briefly in the trailer below (the one who needs to wash his hands). I adored watching him all those years ago and since having had Milo, I have often been reminded of him. They have a lot in common. A habit that they both undoubtedly share is their ability to discuss every other subject then the one that the adult talking to them is trying to talk about. Milo is a champion at this. For example, this evening, at bed time, I asked Milo to put on his pyjama trousers. He made a move to put one leg in and then decided it was far more important to tell me some story about a film he'd watched at his dad's. Story over, I then asked him once again to put his trousers on. He then decided he had another important story to tell me and we repeated these frustrating steps a couple more times before he finally concentrated on the task at hand and put the trousers on. We then had to get through the rest of the outfit!!! It is constant.
Today I both dropped Milo off at nursery and picked him up for the first time since having Alfie. Up until today, Milo's dad has been great and has been doing the nursery-runs and today was my time to take the bull by the horns and to get in to normal routine. Drop off was a success this morning thanks to Alfie sleeping most of the time and waiting for his feed until we got back home. I then met up with friends for lunch and then Alfie and I went and picked Milo up in the afternoon and as expected, that was a tad harder. The whole afternoon has been tough. I think Milo gave me a bit of a 'day off' yesterday and today he went to town and there were tantrums, tantrums and more tantrums. They luckily don't have the longevity of back from his 'terrible two's' days but as I was in quite a bit of pain from being on my feet a lot for the first time post-birth, it was a real test to my energy-levels and patience to deal with them.
Tomorrow morning I need to get Milo up, fed breakfast and in nursery by 8.15am as his group is going swimming. I took his swim stuff to nursery today as I was worried I may forget it in the rush tomorrow morning but I am a little nervous I must say. Even without Alfie, swim days were always a challenge but with the addition of a baby, this could be interesting! Please keep your fingers crossed for me.
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I admire you for you strength to be out and about with both kids only a week after you gave birth. Remember before it all gets too stressful tomorrow morning: another swimming day will come. Just don't put yourself under too much pressure. You can still drop off Milo after his class returns. And the teachers should understand. They should know about the impact a newborn has on a family. And a Schwimmkurs (I assume it is a Schwimmkurs) is just not worth stressing yourself and your kids out. If you realize it is all getting too late, try to slow down and I am sure Milo will also appreciate an unexpected hot chocolate with his mum. Just felt like I had to remind you of the option of not going. Don't worry about the teachers, they probably can be witchy sometimes (I am one myself, a teacher, and witchy sometimes) but in the end they will understand. And if not: their problem. And unprofessional. You are doing great!!!
ReplyDeleteHallo! I just read this post and, just like all the others i´ve been reading in the lasts months, I really enjoyed. I am too a expat mom living in Germany (Dresden), and also a blogger in my mother language. I apreciate the stories you tell here and I feel totally, in a way, conforted, by them. Its not easy to raise a child in another country and I think you describe our lives and difficulties in a really sensible and nice to read way. The story about how the germans can´t stand being barefoot belongs now to my ocasionally storytelling, when I need to entertain some german, for example. :)
ReplyDeleteExcuse me the bad grammar. Only deutsch comes in my mind now...eeheheheh
Keep wrinting and inspiring. And herzlich Glückwünsch on little Alfie! :)
Cheers, Tamine