Abi & Izzy - the next 5 years

Arghhhh! I cant say how many times I've wanted to stick my head in a bucket and scream - more times than I can count certainly. I seem to have spent the entire weekend chasing around making everyone else happy and after 2 lovely days away making glass, my patience as a parent has been stretched to the limit. It's world book day on Thursday so I came home on Friday to Izzy wanting to make her outfit from scratch. What it is to have a craft mad child... She wanted to be Harley Quinn who I've sort of heard of, but only in a context that I'm pretty sure is inappropriate for a 9 year old. I looked her up and sure enough I doubt the picture of a blonde in multi coloured bunches, hot pants, ripped t-shirt and stiletto boots wasn't quite what the school were thinking off! Apparently though it is a thing for girls of her age to dress up in a more age-appropriate version and Izzy had found a YouTube video of how to make the t-shirt so Saturday morning was spent looking

So half term wasn't quite how we'd planned, but all told it's been OK, and it definitely ended better than it started. Having said she wasn't going riding, Abi then decided that what she really wanted to do was head to Somerset to see Fifi and Grumps so that's what happened. I did wonder whether Izzy would want to go as well - with what's been going on at school I thought she might prefer to be at home but no, she was keen as well so off they went. Glenn took them down and I had a quiet day at home, not least I didn't really want to spend my day off in the car when I would be going down myself later in the week. So it started well, but then Izzy decided that perhaps 2 days of being on her (almost) best behaviour was enough and 1) stayed in bed until lunchtime and 2) refused to do anything other than what she wanted. This culminated in her trying to get me to FaceTime her at lunchtime on Wednesday as I was walking back into a meeting. All I got

It's half term already - blimey, that was quick! I'm sure they have hardly been back at school before we are wondering what to do with them for the week again. The plan for this half term was Abi off to Angie's for the week and Izzy mooching at home. Normally this means dropping off on a Sunday but everyone else was arriving Saturday so despite thinking we would have hardly seen her I agreed to do the same. Come yesterday lunchtime however it didn't go quite to plan. I asked her to go start packing and she didn't move. I asked again, then got frustrated with a "This is your week away, why should I have to make all the effort..." After saying this 4 or 5 times I shouted at her and stomped off (ever the adult when it comes to my own kids) and Abi burst into tears. I got even more frustrated and stomped around a bit more, only then to manage to stop and realise that it wasn't normal for her to be crying and reluctant to pack for a week's ri