Living Arrows 50/52

We’ve nearly made it to the end of the first full term of school and this photo pretty much sums up how this last week is looking. The little love is so tired now, afterschool is the time for him to snuggle up with a drink and a snack. I feel like I’m just pushing him through this last week of Christmas parties and Christmas jumper days as this will be the fun week in school! I know today they have their party and Father Christmas will be visiting them – he was so excited to go in with his own clothes to change into and I hope he is having a fun time with his friends. I still find it quite hard that he has this little world that I know nothing of, I can only imagine what this afternoon will be like for him. When I’m waiting outside the classroom door at 3.30pm I hope to hear a snippet from his day when he comes out. Sometimes he’ll tell me things all at once, stumbling over his words and other times I get, ‘I don’t walk to talk today’ so we walk home in near silence while he daydreams.

As hard as it has been for me to walk away and let him find his own way at school it has been amazing for Lucas, he has grown up in ways I couldn’t have even thought of before. When we walk into the school grounds other children call his name and tell him stories, he runs off to play before the doors open and he is happy there. He sometimes says he misses me when he is a school and I know he had a few days when he was getting upset but on the whole he has just got stuck in. To think just a few months ago we were wondering whether or not to hold him back a year! I’m so glad we didn’t.

There is something so bitter-sweet about seeing your child finding their place in a world that is independent of you. I only catch glimpses of it and wonder what he is like in that classroom. For this first time last week he wanted to take something in for ‘show’ and he told me how he stood at the front of the class and explained to his teacher about the card Christmas tree he had decorated. I could burst when he tells me things like this, and I think about him getting up there and talking about the spaceship he had drawn on his tree, I’m sure there will have been sound effects to go with it! I’ll never get tired of hearing about his days in school and that feeling of pride and crazy, emotional happiness for my boys just never goes away no matter what they are achieving.

Now we are on the last week and I am started to feel excited for these Christmas holidays. It certainly isn’t calm in our house, especially when the weather is bad and we are stuck in. There are moments when I get frustrated, days when bedtime can’t come quickly enough. I wouldn’t have you believe that it is all perfect and yet I still look forward to it, I still miss Lucas when he is school, I still want those moments when we are all together, in our own cosy house. It is total chaos but I am always counting down to the afternoon I get to pick him up from school and tell him we have two whole weeks together.