Hi Ho Off We All Go

Well, up the Tweenies and I got this morning to go to the Farmer's Market for 7am!! I am positive that they would have rather slept in but I asked them to come and they agreed. Tweenie Son was again very agreeable at being woken although he did mumble something about 'I've got to do something at school'... Tweenie Girls was her predictable self so I stood at the door telling her to 'waken' as she snarled a bit. So, off we went. Okay, okay, it wasn't quite so easy. I did sort of bribe them with the potential for a hot chocolate if they caused me no trouble but I did impress upon them that that wasn't to be the reason to come. It was of course, so off we went. Apart from Tweenie Son rally-driving my shopping basket which is on wheels, all went well. I suppose it is because he is a boy. i don't quite view the world with the same focus that everything needs to 'screech' and 'spin'. New stage is stunt riding on his bike. Broken wrist cured the skateboard stage for a while. 

We are having family again this weekend so anti pasta for entree, followed by chilli prawn linguine with spinach with home made garlic bread and orange syrup cake with dessert. If we get around to coffee then some almond bread biscotti to finish off. Noice. Silver Fox's brother, wife and their fur-child (dog) are coming for the night before they head overseas next week for a holiday. Aaaahhhh, now wouldn't that be nice? To jet off for 3 weeks. One day perhaps.

We had a bit of a scare with Tweenie Son yesterday. We are trying to give him a bit more independence as he is 10 so we will let him ride his bike and meet up with friends. We also let him go to the corner shop for milk etc. So yesterday he was playing with 2 friends, one of whom I didn't know although he seemed nice. I was outside to keep an eye out as he was in the park. Can't see too much due to the trees but could probably hear if any trouble. Can't help it really. Part of their playing was going into the 'drains' which is a big no-no in our family (partly due to snakes ...). At one stage he thought he lost his new friend so him and his other friend went to the parents to tell them they thought he was stolen. They parents promptly put both boys in their car and got them to give directions to where they thought he had been picked up by a stranger. Hhhhmmmmm. Not on. Getting into someone's car. Especially people you don't know. Friends, what would you have done? Parents should know better I suppose but I guess they were concerned that their son had been abducted. The boys weren't causing trouble. They saw a van where they thought their friend was and were quite worried that he was really in trouble.  Tweenie Son was very upset when he got home. Why? Because he hopped in a car and he knew that was wrong. Did I yell? No.  Did I ban him from his newly found independence? Yes. Because he was playing in the drains. We discussed it all calmly. We problem solved about remembering license plates. We talked about stranger danger in general. We also discussed that 'feeling' he had in his tummy. The one that told him that the situation wasn't right. So, I will clip his wings for a while. And get more grey hair trying to balance his life between safety and autonomy....... I had a bit of a sleepless night worrying about the 'what ifs' life throws at us every day. Friends would you have done anything differently?......

Ciao for now

just Martha