Every so often in the Beehive we have a weekend that just needs to be written off!
This weekend was that one!
On Friday at school I was part of a group of parents participating in a Health and Sexuality talk with a nurse. In a very large nutshell, it was about how we can teach our children about sex, puberty, self esteem and the likes. It was an good conversation and I came away with some excellent info, the most important was the ceasing of "teachable moments".
Saturday was the first of those such moments. Not related to the topic by any means, but early evening saw Master Beehive the elder and younger fooling around (as so often happens after dinner); remember the "witching hour" when they were babies? Well believe me, that continues for as long as they are children, manifesting itself in different ways and in my household, that becomes the "mad half hour". Children running wildly around in all different directions and doing all manner of things - fueled by fuel in fact - whoever said that children's behaviour deteriorates when they are hungry hasn't been in The Beehive after dinner of an evening!!!!!
I am chatting with Mr Beehive in the kitchen whilst needlefelting my gnome (nah! not as rude as it sounds, think voodoo but with an end product - the stress relief is G - R - E - A - T !!!) when I hear a tinkling sound. You know when you hear something, you know exactly what it sounds like but your brain refuses to register that this is what it could possibly be because, if it is.....well that would mean the inevitable has happened........and that couldn't possibly be so - or could it?
Apparently yes!
Mr Beehive the younger comes running through to say that Master Beehive the elder has put a baseball through the window. You know, STILL not registering (and I haven't even had a drink!!) I am SOOOO slow on the uptake, that it is not even in my radar that he is telling me that his brother has just broken the lounge window with a baseball!!??!!
Suddenly the realisation hits and the red mist comes down.
I storm through, see the evidence and send him forthwith to his room telling him I will deal with him when I have calmed down. Recalling an example in a book I read a while back, perhaps Life with Boys or something similar, where a dad talks about the exact same scenario and how he deals with it with his 11 year old, I decide to draw on this and go up to calmly talk to him. Together we come up with a suitable reprimand, in this case, some of his pocket money to help pay for the repair (this is the one thing that hits him hardest!) and discussing the fact that his dad and I are not upset with the fact the window got broken as it was an accident and yes, he didn't mean to do it, but more that he was irresponsible and was playing with a hard ball inside the house.
Anyway, cutting a looooooong story short. This morning I am awoken by whispering and swiftly attaching my extendable-mummy-ears catch on that he has just charged his poor brother $10 for the priviledge of entering his room!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously if it wasn't funny, I could have swung for him. He was dutifully ordered to return the toll!
So, teachable moment number one!
Teachable moment number two came on Sunday at breakfast time. Sitting down to scrambled egg we got onto the topic of the chicken and the egg and the fact that they lay eggs and we don't have eggs.
"But we do!" says I
"Where? We are mammals!" asks MB the younger
"Well mummy has eggs, like a bird really and they need fertilising with a seed before they become a baby"
Mr Beehive looks ominously at me! Ignoring his look, I am empowered after Friday.
MB the elder says
"Daddy has the seed"
"There you are!" I say, gleefully ! Woohoo that was easy!!
Silence
More silence
Then
"Well alright but how do the egg and the seed get together?"
Mr Beehive smiles a kind of smirking smile, the kind that says - ha ha now you did it!
"Sex," says I............
Thus endeth the second teachable moment!
So what with an abundance of teachable moments, and a childbirth class at school that found me on the floor of the school music room with a large blue ball between my legs (make of THAT what you will!) this weekend only had to end with one of them falling sick.
Poor lamby LMB! She is flushed and hot and feeling decidedly sick. I returned from the class at school to find her asleep on the sofa and since then she has been in the sling as I try to cook the dinner.
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Which the bogging dog ate the left overs of, so now I have to think of something afresh for dinner tomorrow night. Something that doesn't involve ANY teachable moments methinks!!!
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