Red beast

This has been an 'Red Beast' kind of weekend for our kidlets. Yesterday Sienna had one of her mother-of-all-meltdowns at the National Rhodendron Gardens. Twice. Note to self: lure Sienna up the hill before telling her it is time to leave (even after repeated counting-down and advance warnings). Carrying a screaming 7 year old up a hill isn't fun for anyone. Having her screaming things like "stinky face" (which is just funny) and "you're killing me" (not quite as amusing) just adds to the general experience.

The worst part of it is when she starts calming down and feels shame for how she has made me feel. She can't recognise it at the time of the meltdown - at that point, everything in the universe is just completely unfair - but she gets to a point where she realises how much she's upset / exhausted / pushed me. That is the bit that I worry about - the self-esteem issues. She spent some time painting rocks as ladybugs when we were home, a pretty good therapy I think.

This morning she cried for 20 minutes in her room at not being able to decide what top to wear with what jeans. I left her to it, and she sorted it out on her own, coming up later fully dressed and fine. She told me tonight she had actually been crying because she thought it was lunchtime. One of those "what does that even mean?" moments for me, LOL. Poor little thing's just having a rough weekend.

Ash's anger comes and goes briefly on a fairly regular basis, but usually passes quickly. This evening it was pretty much frustration at his unwillingness to eat his dinner versus his desire to watch a tv show before bedtime. The Red Beast reared up pretty dramatically, but Ben did a great job of working through it with Ash and Ash even chose the Red Beast book as his bedtime story. I've really gotta buy the boy a few stress balls!

Other weekend happenings included a 'Hen's Lunch' picnic for Sienna's best friend's mum, my friend Lisa; a pumpkin, leek and goat cheese frittata; some work on my Sydney Finders Keepers market application; some Curiouser workshop planning; kangaroo stroganoff; roast chicken; a dramatic episode of Farscape; a few colds / viruses (everyone except our two red beasts!) and some Alice in Wonderland.

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