Twenty Three

And so here it is, the night before the start of the last term of school. Only one more term and the Cherub moves into grade six.

I was dreading Cherub's return from his father's - a full week of being away, having life pretty easy and having to come home to regular showers, decent food and a fairly strict timetable of things being done in preparation for school tomorrow.

I was dreading it even moreso because on Tuesday when I called Cherub to see how he was going I received a very serious and very sullen "I don't want to talk to you about stuff, goodbye" and that was it. I was, of course, heartbroken, but made the conscious (dare I say it 'adult') decision to give him the space he felt he needed, and didn't call him for the rest of the week. It fair on nearly killed me, but I did make contact via an e-card which at least made ME feel better (and I was able to see via a system generated email that he had actually opened it).

But....Cherub has come home in a relatively decent mood, and been quite compliant for the few hours between arriving here and going to bed for the night. At one point he even 'apologised' if he was 'pushing me too far', after I offered him a hot chocolate and he refused, only to decide 10 minutes later that he did in fact want one! If only this was the kind of 'pushing too far' that he usually does!!!!!! But, as I told him, it's nice to know that he has enough respect for me to realise that he might have been pushing the friendship - although of course I told him that asking for a hot chocolate ten minutes after rejecting one was NEVER going to equate to 'pushing me too far'!

So, tonight while we were having our night time conversation in bed, I planted the seed for the 'Changes' that are going to be happening around here. There's really only three MAJOR ones, and I submit them here so that I can look back on my resolutions and either let you know that I've followed through, or guilt myself that I have become slack....

1. The school bus will now pick up/drop off at my work. I have organised this as I work close to the current bus stop and it seemed silly to drive the three minutes from one to the other, which caused me to have to leave fifteen minutes early every day to allow for the bus being early etc. Thankfully the bus company have agreed to change Cherub's stop, so we'll just do the one trip each morning and afternoon. He'll be at work with me for about fifteen/twenty minutes each day - which the lovely CT (my boss) has said will be OK.


2. Mornings will be a little different now. I was getting really sick of the slackness of mornings, letting him eat brekky in the playroom in front of the DVD, really just for my own peace as we tried to get things happening in the morning. So I spun him an absolute load of bullshit about a 'family tradition' of mine that in the final term of grade five you start 'training' for grade six, because that is the big kids' year. So you have to eat your brekky at the brekky table with the parent(s). I explained that when *I* was growing up in this house *I* had to listen to the daggy radio, *I* wasn't allowed to have the telly on at all, but that *I* recognise that we live in a different age now, so *I* will let *him* at least watch the cartoons while we eat together at the table. Pfft. "Rome wasn't built in a day". He hasn't kicked up too much of a fuss over that one.....we shall see how it turns out.


3. This is the BIG one. Cherub refuses to eat his fruit at school EXCEPT on a Thursday when he knows that if the fruit isn't eaten, the Macdonalds doesn't appear for dinner. Thanks to a suggestion from the lovely FB (which are the initials of a close friend of mine, NOT a reference to 'Facebook') I have advised Cherub that the Macdonalds now will only be forthcoming if the fruit is eaten every day. Fruit gone every day for one week equals Maccas for dinner. He certainly didn't like that one. I will need to be very strong to follow through on this one, but I have put procedures into place to help him succeed: (a) I have put two pieces of fruit in the lunchbox, from which HE can choose the one to eat, and (b) I have written a note for him that reminds him of the new rule, and have put that in his lunchbox. Seriously, what more can I do to help him succeed?

So, we shall see how it all goes, but for now I am off to bed, as I am reading a really interesting book about the Elizabethan age, the Catholic Priests and the people that chopped off their heads/burned them at the stake. (I'm paraphrasing of course).

Talk later

Janeane xx