Bribery

Used chocolate cake to bribe Tobes to complete some school work. He's struggling to follow instructions and does his own thing creatively which unfortunately means his teacher can't tick the boxes that she has to tick. We've had a chat to him about this after parents evening but it is still happening. So I asked the teacher to send any work home if he didn't do what had been set. There has to be a consequence with Tobes. He doesn't see why he can't just go off and do what he wants to do. When he has to keep doing his work twice I hope he will realise!

We had tears and tantrums until he finally settled down to re-write his story. Once he got into it he really enjoyed it and when we compared the story he had done in class and the one he did at home he admitted it was much better and more interesting and agreed he needed to put more effort into his class work! Hopefully lesson learnt!

The reward was baking a chocolate cake. But he wanted to 'design' his own cake and I had to spend quite some time 'arguing' with him that you couldn't just use random ingredients in random quantities if you wanted an edible cake which can be removed from the tin!! He's being quite challenging at the moment!! We got there eventually. But he wanted to put all sorts in!

Mum, Dad, Peter and Rachel and the boys left just after lunch. I made a sausage casserole but had put it in the slow cooker. It wasn't going to be ready in time so I transferred it into the oven in the slow cooker dish and managed to completely melt the handle on the lid. Idiot!

Spent the rest of the afternoon/evening getting the house straight and met a lovely new customer too.

Feel very drained tonight. Big long list worries - Dad, Mum, Toby not getting on at school, Nell's behaviour, Alfie's arthritis and to add to this one of the chooks looks like she is not long for this world, all at the worst time of year for us with Henry's birthday approaching.