Friday the 13th! Indeed it is!?!?!?

What a crap day it has been today; all I can say is thank goodness it’s nearly bedtime because then it will soon be tomorrow, depending on how many times Beanie Boy is going to wake me up in the night.

Yesterday, I made arrangements with Cafebebe to meet up with her and Little Miss at Ferry Meadows in Peterborough for a walk and lunch with the children.  About 10 minutes after I made the arrangements, whilst driving my car, I ended up with a very wet foot as water poured out from behind the pedals.  Worried that it might be something important like brake fluid, I called Hubby at work and asked to speak to one of the Master Technicians, who ran through a number of checks with me before confirming that the car was safe to drive, but he would take a look at it for me tomorrow (today).  This meant that I would be left with Hubby’s car for the day, which is much smaller than mine, and I haven’t actually driven it before.  When I set off on my journey, I soon discovered that I was extremely uncomfortable driving with my knees somewhere close to my ears, so I had to stop and swap the children around. 

When we finally arrived we headed off to the park and the girls had lots of fun playing on the swings and the climbing frames, so far so good!  Well if you don’t take into account my rubbish mobile phone which I haven’t been able to switch off all day.  For the last couple of weeks I’ve struggled with switching it on and today, it wouldn’t switch off AT ALL!

As lunchtime approached, we called time in the park and took the children into the restaurant for dinner.  When you bear in mind the troubles that I’ve had in getting Little Bean to eat, you’ll understand the stress that mealtimes cause me.  Today was not going to be any different, it would seem; she was very excitable at being with her best friend, Little Miss.  She would not listen to a word that I said; she wouldn’t eat her dinner, and she was basically a terrible two-year-old practising for being a teenager!  I reminded her that if she didn’t correct her behaviour, then she wouldn’t be earning her sticker for her Reward Chart, which would also mean that she may not get her “Special Day” with Mummy again.  She resorted to her usual comeback of “I want to be a good girl” but then carried on with the same behaviour.  I gave her Time Out in the corner of the restaurant, at the end of which I explained again what I expected of her; otherwise, we would be going home, and she wouldn’t get to play with Little Miss.  Within one minute, she was misbehaving again, so I followed through with my threat and told her that we were going home – cue the tantrum to end all tantrums.  By the time we reached the car, she was choking because she had got herself so upset that I had to cuddle her tightly to me and give her a drink in order to calm her down.  The crying continued for the journey home and most of the afternoon once we had got home.  I put her to bed in the hope that she would sleep it off, but SHE DIDN’T!

The worst part of my day had to be when Little Bean asked me why I was sad; I told her that I was unhappy because she had been a naughty girl, and we had to end our day out early.  She began crying (again) and said, “I just want you to be nice to me, Mummy”.  At that point, my heart broke into tiny pieces, and I sobbed.  I’m always nice to my children; they are my life, but her perception of me disciplining her is that I’m being mean to her, and it really upset me. 

Thankfully my Mum came to the rescue and took Little Bean to her house for a couple of hours until bedtime to give us both a break from each other but she continued with the same behaviour when she came home again.  She’s sleeping beautifully now and looks such an angel as she sleeps.  I hate falling out with her and I know that there will be many more days like these but it doesn’t mean they will hurt any less.

But lets end this Friday the 13th on a high note, not a gloomy one.  Tonight my little man, my Beanie Boy crawled properly across the lounge for the first time!  I think I’m going to be busy from now on . . . . . .

as for my phone, it’s still on, and it’s still officially rubbish!