When you’re six and the sun is shining, you want to throw off the shackles of school, homework and all the things you have to do each day and have fun. Much to my regret, my six year old has a busy life, a far too busy life. He has school and after school activities and not enough time sat at home chilling out and being six.
When he is at home we’re generally busy trying to get his homework done, or getting his dinner down him, or throwing him in the bath and bundling him into bed so he’s rested enough for the next busy day. I long for half term breaks, inset days and summer holidays so we can just be and we can just stop racing around for a few days and spend some precious time together.
At Easter I took him away for a couple of days, just the two of us and it was fantastic. We had the best time together and we were both well rested and tired out by the time we got home. Maybe that’s what I need to do to be able to spend time with him, steal him away from everything for a few days. It shouldn’t be that way but it is. Sadly.
This last week has been phonics screening week at school. He’s had a lot of prep and pressure leading up to this. He’s worked hard but I’ve no idea how he’s got on, nor do I care particularly. He’s six and he’s doing just fine and he doesn’t need pressure from me on top of the pressure from everyone else. When did being six become so stressful?
In the snatched moments we have together, when we’re not in a rush to go somewhere or do something, or finish some homework, we do crafts and baking, we go on nice walks and talk about nature. Sometimes we just sit and watch TV together and all of those things, all of them are just as valid as phonics, reading, homework, Beavers and football lessons.
We need to stop doing things and just be.
Although there’s hardly any time at all to just be, this week we did manage a few snatched moments of time to just be six. Walking the dog, colouring in with his new Paw Patrol stationery kit and we had a BBQ and I caught him gnawing away at a corn on the cob – a difficult task if you’re missing some teeth and nursing some wobbly ones!
I love this boy and treasure every snatched moment with him.
