Days at the moment seem to be massive rollercoasters. There are fantastic highs - F is developing in all sorts of ways and keeps having new ideas, asking new questions and achieving new things. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this development seems to be accompanied by horrendous strops/wailing sessions. I'm trying to identify exactly where these are coming from and today's can definitely be pinned on 'frustrated desire for independence' plus, to a less intractable degree, 'wanting everyone to do what she thinks they should do'. So I need to find more opportunities where F can be independent - I can instantly think of a couple, actually, and will give some thought to providing more over the next month or so.

I also need to help her work on being more adaptable, listening to other people, trying other people's ideas, etc. I think we generally need a lot of talking time right now because this social/emotional stuff is becoming a much larger part of F's concerns, I can see. She very frequently now wants to go over conversations that we have had, or that other people have had, line by line, dissecting them! Serve me right for loving conversation analysis and pragmatics when I did my degree. Trouble is, she expects me to remember things, word for word! And also she is not great at acknowledging she was wrong... Pride is getting in the way of her moving on quickly, at the moment. So, yeah, independence, pride, socio-emotional stuff - social development things really. And at the same time, big ideas, surges of creativity and experimentation, plus big steps in reading progress. No wonder she krrrrrraaaazzzzeeeeeeee.

Today, then...
J has a bad cold/cough and today has felt absolutely crap. He managed to blitz the kitchen, though, and to cook dinner, which was great because I didn't want to do any of that. I did hoover though! The hoover and I hate each other now - our relationship is irreparable, frankly, we don't even pretend. Oh it just loves to disconnect its hose and lose its rubber seal frontpiece thing at the worst possible moment, not to mention trying to trip me up on the stairs today. And no, I'm not even going to try counselling, it would only sit there wheezing and moaning about the way I try and drag it round corners by its hose and how rarely I let it out of its cupboard.
I'm getting a new one and that's that.
Anyway, I did hoover and it was very needed.
What did F do? I think that was when she was making a book to do with multiplayer options on DS games, which she showed me this evening and asked me to do writing for, on a few pages. Also she painted purple patches on her face 'as a surprise'!
*pauses to roll eyes*

A bit later, J's mum and his cousin A came and we went up to Spring Barn Farm Park, leaving J to flop. F got in her first strop before we had even left. Can't remember what that was about now - oh yes, hair! I just don't really brush her hair much, because I don't think it matters, and anyone who judges me/her on hair is obviously not worth caring about. However, there are times when it's expected and when it has got too mad it has to be done and she's usually OK with it but today she kicked off bigtime. I really ought to just do it every day, then the tangles would be much smaller. She has fine norty hair like me and it loves nothing better than to wind itself into knots. Anyway, yep, that was the first big strop.

At SBFP, all was fine for the first hour or so. During which time, J's cousin A and F had a spirited straw fight, and I used my new camera and took this:

It is difficult to combine being with F with being with adults who aren't very child-aware. The non child-aware adults tend to dawdle, saying things like 'is that a polyanther?' and 'oh look, they do marmalade', while F tends to run off to look at what she is interested in. I had to stick with her, of course, so I did - keeps me nearly fit.

Shortly after the lamb picture, she tried to make everyone go where she wanted to go, but they didn't want to. So she started to get cross. I stuck with her, then she wanted to be on her own, so I went off to a distance with the other adults and she stood by a fence looking at sheep and out at the hills. I communed with the pigs - I bloody love pigs. I grunted back at them and they came over to the fence for a bit of back scratching. It's just so sad that they are as intelligent as dogs, yet get treated as meat on legs by the pig-farming industry. But these were out in their field, snouting and grunting and having proper lives. I don't know how long they let them live for up there, but at least they are out in the light and fresh air, with space to move. I wouldn't personally eat them, but it kind of makes me feel better about buying F a ham sandwich up there. She loves ham, but she seems to love veggie fake ham just as much, fortunately.

Anyway, after the pigs, we all went up to the viewing platform thing - nice view of the downs and it was a reasonably clear day. But then F insisted I should stay there while she went off. I let her go a long way, but as soon as she was on her way out of sight, I headed after her. She was sooooooo cross, when I finally caught up with her. She had gone all the way in, to the indoor haystack area. I tried to explain how I was responsible for her, etc. and she just kept shouting and throwing hay at me (LOL I guess that sounds more amusing than it was). The non child-aware adults eventually caught up with me and witnessed the fracas - oh joy! Nothing I like better than an audience for these things. Tried everything I could think of, which wasn't much, to be honest, as she had got herself into that state of Not Listening To Anything You Say.

Eventually, she sort of ran out of steam and was lured by the thought of food and drink, so we all went to the cafe area. Things were fine after that, thank goodness. I had a really nice lentil and leek burger, the sort that makes me want to try making them. Another thing non child-aware adults tend to do is to start talking right over the top of a child and not listen to what the child is saying. Makes conversation kind of tricky but I just kept reminding people, now and then, that they'd missed an input. Can't really expect F to learn better listening with that kind of example can we?

After eating, we went to the slide area and things were all lovely again for the last hour. Phew. We came home and J's mum and cousin A went off, having left some lovely chocolatey stuff with us - mmmm.

F played a bit with Gears! Gears! Gears! Then she pronounced herself 'Bored'! With a tinge of irony and no expectation whatsoever, I said 'oh, if I was you and I was bored like that, what I would probably do is choose one of my books off the shelf, pick an easy one with pictures and only a sentence or two on each page, and try to read the whole book'.

So she did! And then she came and read it to me/us (J was in and out doing cooking stuff). I helped her with 3 words I think. It was 'One Bear at Bedtime' by Mick Inkpen - lots of clues in the pictures and some repetition - so quite an ideal book to choose. Nevertheless, there are parts where she couldn't guess from the picture and sounded out new words completely. I think it's fantastic!

She then finished off the day with a bit of impromptu sewing - found herself a plastic needle, some thread and other materials she needed (independence!).

So today is really indicative of what life is like at the moment - a right old mixture of stuff.