Summer Holidays 2022

2nd August 2023
Well it was meant to be a ‘cool camp out’ in the tent in the front room last night…until Henry got so full of ADHD rage because ‘everyone is trashing the tent’. Ten gypsys warnings later from us of, “If the fighting doesn’t stop the tent goes back in the bag and no camp out”.

By this point Charlotte got sick of Henry and Stan fighting as if they were a pack of rabid dogs and told them they were ‘all stinky anyway’ and she motted off up to her Princess Lair. “Cause Princess don’t sleep in tents like peasants” apparently.

Henry got into a rage again because Stanley dared to sit on the duvet cover inside the tent and ‘creased it’.
Henry proceeded to kick Stanley in the balls.
Stanley called him a ‘poopy head’
…so they both got told “LAST WARNING!!”

I am literally falling asleep in the kitchen by this point by the washing machine, doing another load of laundry…thinking to myself I have painted bird houses with them today, they have built bug hideouts, butterfly hide outs… we have had a very active fun day but l they have done is scrap.

I’m seeing stars from all the stress now.

Few moments later Henry and Stanley are fighting again because Stanley commits the crime of the century apparently and “laid down in the tent!!’
For once, the demon baby child Stanley wasn’t actually doing anything naughty …but Henry still tries to smack Stan.
Luckily Andy catches Henry and Stanley before it turns into bloodshed…

Henry goes up to his bedroom, slams the door off the hinges, I can hear him whirling around like a natural disaster hurricane trashing the toys (tipping them out, even though he knows he will have to pick them all back up again when he’s done from meltdown mode).
I have lost the will to live and am contemplating taking the f#cking tent myself and going to sleep in the local pit heaps!!

Freddy is running around and about into walls and doors like a bumper car stuck in forward gear due to being in sensory overload meltdown and screeching, ‘They are making my actual ears bleed!”

Alfie now wants to sleep in the tent because he ‘doesn’t support tantrums’…

Henry is resembling ‘Anger’ from inside out…

Andrew is wishing he was born sterile…

Half an hour later they all are best of friends, Henry has apologized profusely and said, “I just wanted the tent to be perfectly neat for the sleep over.” So I now feel sorry for him and crap that I didn’t pick up on his triggers – I realised he went into meltdown mode as his OCD couldn’t handle Stanley ‘messing up the routine’ and ‘order’ he got the tent in.

Heard them all play fighting again 10 minutes later, then “owwwwww MaAaAam!!! He hit me” in the tent.

Me: ‘oh you can all go be friends with the local Mowgali in the pit heaps for all I care after tonight…’

9th August 2023
Well I can’t say I’m not a spoilt woman, I’ve just been treat to breakfast in bed…by the cat!! Our lady cat, Wednesday, climbed the wall and in she scrabbled through the open window, rabbit in mouth!! It was barely dawn so I am just opening my eyelids to see her sneaking through, with this huge dead rabbit hanging from her jaws. I thought I was dreaming until she dived onto my bed and dumped it .. on top of me and ran off!!

Andrew was still asleep and Stanley is laid next to me fast asleep. So here I am, trying my best not to freak out that there is a murdered corpse laid on my chest!! I’m trying my best to wake Andrew but all that comes out is whispered shrieks and he is woken up to, “GET RID OF THE F#CKING BODY!!”

Wednesday Adams kitty returned to the scene of the crime and is staring at me, she cannot understand why breakfast in bed isn’t appropriate! I’m furiously swearing under my breath so not to wake Stanley that she, “Really does f#cking live up to her name!!”

13th August 2023
Well today ur Henry has learnt the lesson of, “If you break it you fix it. Off to the hardware store he went with Daddy to buy stuff to fix the ceiling that he booted a hole in due to temper! (We have a triple bun bed for them – he’s not 10ft tall!) Last night went something like this…

• Charlotte and Henry had the tent in the front room, they wanted to sleep in it overnight, they were warned, “Any fighting and you cannot sleep in it, three strikes and you’re out!”.
• Henry decided to strangle Charlotte, so they started scrapping.
• They were told three times, so it was, “Right up to your beds there is no sleeping in the tent if you cannot behave yourselves.”
• Both stormed off upstairs like a heard of elephants. Charlotte screeching like a banshee and into her ‘lair’.
• Henry proceeded to swoosh into his bedroom like a Tasmanian devil on steroids, scaled to the very top bunk and booted a hole in the ceiling in temper.
• After retrieving his limb from the attic, he sheepishly comes into my room, “Erm Mam, A hole just appeared in my roof….maybe Santa fell through the attic??”
• Me: “A hole??” Thinking oh my gosh has the roof fell in?? That’s all we need, a new roof!!
• Henry: “Yeh like a hole…maybe it was one of the reindeers hooves cause they are pretty heavy!”
• Freddy zooming in 100mph shouting: “OH MY GOD IT’S A BLACK HOLE WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!!!”
• – Andrew: “Henry have you kicked the roof? Now, tell the truth as that is suspiciously the same size as your foot size son!!”

Gods give me strength….. So after lots of tears (from me mainly about how are we going to fix the roof as it’s in massive boards) about how we don’t destroy things in temper, Henry apologizing etc….he finally falls asleep and we laugh about the thought of the possibility a reindeer falling through our roof did cross my mind in this chaotic family of ours.

So poor Hubby has been trying to repair the roof with him this morning. Henry is literally five minutes later outside in the courtyard kicking his footy about when he comes running inside.

• Me: “Henry why are you furiously scrubbing you hands in the sink??”
• Henry: “I stood in dog poo”
• Me: “Eh?? You been walking around on your hands??”
• Henry: now furiously thinking “Errrr…yeh”
• Me: “Show me your hands”
• Henry: “It’s like tar”
• Me: “Have you been robbing a car or something, Henry for goodness sake you are covered in it!!” Me now in a heightened state of anxiety and hyper vigilance starts racking my brains thinking of alibis for my 7 year old son!!
• Henry: “no just climbed a fence!”
• Me: “You have been out there five minutes!! It’s bloody vandal paint!!”
• Henry: “ohhhhhh….”
• Me: “Well I suppose given your antics in life son you better get use to being covered in vandal paint…”

Phoned my parents to update them on Henry’s latest antics and my Dad pipes up, “ahhh next time tell him to stick his jacket over the fence before he climbs it, saves your hands!!”

27th August 2023
Tried to be ‘crafty mum’ today and make lip balms and hair oils. Turns out it isn’t as picturesque as the photos make out!! Freddy gagged at every ‘flower scent’ due to sensory overload and stated it was all way to sticky. Charlotte was in her element thought she was in an episode of some Witch movie and had every magic cauldron (pan) every rose scent, every herb, every oil….possibly even the cat …thrown into the ‘cauldron’ and cackling shouting “hubble bubble boil and trouble”.

I had lost the will to leave and was suffering from many broken limbs from slipping 1 hour in as I saw bee wax pellets be thrown into the air, my eyes and hair and the floor resembled an ice rink due to the amount of essential oils that had be ‘gently sprinkled’ into the mixtures.

Alfie said if he couldn’t eat it it was “out of the question” about him joining in.

Stanley wasn’t interested unless he could use the bees wax pellets as ammo to catapult at Henry…

6 hours later and I’m still looking for the cat…

28th September 2023
This evening I am ‘the worst parent in the world’ and so is Andy. It appears Henry’s rage even appears in his sleep. He turned into a Tasmanian devil because Andy had to wake him up and asked him to go for a wee before bed as he forgot to before he went to sleep. This wouldn’t be an issue if we 100% know he wouldn’t wet the bed, however we know he will as he has drank unlimited amounts of juice today. And my washing pile is way to high to strip beds again tomorrow. After 20 minutes of him screaming – still asleep, throwing pillows, shouting “How dare you wake me up you poopy head” we considered performing an exorcism of Henry… he stropped off to the bathroom for a pee and collapsed back into bed and slept.

29th August 2023
Today we went for a family trip to ‘Fountains Abbey’. We have been before so we knew it was ‘disabled friendly’ for the kids and we can get the wheelchair around it too. Before we even got in the cars Henry was protesting, ADHD rage at having to go to ‘a boring castle’. We tried to explain that we have been last summer holidays and he loved it, but he wasn’t having any of it. He went into full protest, sat on the porch steps and refused to move. It was rather warm on the morning, and I was worrying about the kids with the heat. I thought to myself, ‘is this going to be a; this seemed like a good idea at the time type of trip?!” Yes. Yes it was one of those trips…the photos I have are beautiful, but I felt like I needed to lay in a field of Lavender to de stress after.

• Henry ended up in my car (We take two cars when we go on a family trip due to needing buggy and wheelchair) which was fine, however he spent the entire 60 minutes winding Charlotte up. At one point I bribed both of them with a pound each if they could just be quiet until we got there just to have 5 minutes of not arguing and to practice deep breathing!!
• Charlotte needed a wee every 20 minutes as she kept drinking so much water saying she needed to ‘stay hydrated because of the sun!” Which is fine normally, however Fountains abbey doesn’t have toilets to facilitate needing a bathroom break every 20 minutes! The toilets are quite a walk in between the points in the grounds, so it would have been impossible to get around the place (3 miles around). So in desperation she jumped in the push-chair and we all stood around her so she could put one of Alfie’s nappies on, as she was busting for a wee and the closest toilets were half a mile away. It was either this or she was screeching at the top of her voice, “I’m going to pee my pants or pee on the floor if I don’t get to the loos or put a nappy on!”
• She ended up managing to wee outside the nappy as it was way to big for her, so her knickers got soaked in pee, her very own fountain in Fountains abbey?! Luckily, she had a dress on so her dress didn’t get wet and she was wearing sliders, so I managed to wash them in some water.
• Whilst I was sorting Charlotte out at the ‘Anne Boleyn’s seat’ part of the walk – the one place I wanted to enjoy on our tour and to see as I love the anything to do with Anne Boleyn – I turned around and to my horror I see Henry at the top of the ‘Anne Boleyn headless statue’ pretending to be a decapitated head. Stanley is trying to scramble up the statue, laughing so much he is falling off every 5 seconds. Freddy is peeing into some bushes and Charlotte now is running about with her dress on but not pants underneath!! (Luckily we have spares in the car!) I apologized profusely to the spirit of Anne Boleyn and hurried them all back down the hill very red faced!
• On the way back in Henry’s ADHD infinite wisdom decides to do cartwheels all along the paths and nearly ended up in the lake. At this point I contemplated leaving him in there as part of the water features as Alfie was shouting for ice cream, Freddy was saying, “the day was 1000 degrees and the sun would be cooler to live on”.
• I had chaffing on my thighs that even a factory of Johnsons baby powder couldn’t soothe!
• The first time in his life our obese dog decided he thought he was ‘young and hip’ and went to pure ‘cocker spaniel spaniel mode’ on a shoot. He tried to sprint at 100mph with Henry still attached to his lead through some bushes after a pheasant. Andrew chased after him, also forgetting he is not ‘young and hip’ and almost put his back out running after Henry who was now a distant spec of dust into the sunset.
• Charlotte lost her bunny rabbit toy, we could not find it anywhere, so I had to convince her that it hopped off to play with all the other bunnies at fountains abbey – judging by the tantrum she had all the way back to the car I don’t think she believed me.
• 
  When we finally got home, we splashed out on a take away – so everyone was happy we had pizza. I thought I would run a nice cool bath, only to find a turd in the bath – Freddy said, “I was busting and Henry was on the toilet!”
• Cheers Son!