My Laptop is fixed! Actually it is replaced, something had gone well and truly awry inside my old beastie and the IT guys couldn’t bring it back from the dead this time – it turns out they are not, in fact, miracle workers. But they could give me a looks-just-like-the-old-one-but-has-newer-programs-on-it one so that’s cool.

I’ve actually had it back for a few days but my brain has been so full of stuff, and I have had so much on that I took advantage of the hiatus until I could figure out what to write about – and I’m not even sure I have but I have more energy today being that it is Sunday and we still have one more day off! Long live the Queen!

On Thursday I went on a PD course called ‘Trauma Sensitive Practice in Schools’ and fuck it was excellent. It was one of those things where I walked in and wasn’t sure if I was meant to be there or not. I sat at a table by myself at the back (rebel without a cause) and was soon joined by four guidance counsellors. Shit! I thought – do I need to have a psychology degree to understand this day?! But it turned out that no, there were a bunch of other Deans there too and it was SUCH a good day.

It was really heavy going though, the australian woman who presented – Beth Guy – had been a nurse, then a teacher and is now a Psychologist who travels and work with schools. It sounds like she does a lot with indigenous communities in Australia who probably have the highest population of traumatised children in the country to be fair. And what she talked about was fascinating. It was the science behind the brain stuff – what happens in the brain in development – as early as pre-birth – when a child experiences Trauma. Trauma being defined as anything from neglect to physical, sexual or psychological abuse. This woman had worked with pre-verbal children (0 to 2 yrs) who were already showing signs of trying to protect themselves from this abuse – or survive the neglect. Fucking hell. Thankfully the course wasn’t centred on the horrors that humanity inflicts upon its children however; more understanding how to make your classroom/school a safe place for these kids to be when they are trying to navigate the everyday business of surviving school without being triggered. And wow there is so much that these kids can’t control – so much that is wired beyond their power – that could set them off in to a total Freeze/Fight/Flee situation. But there is also so much that we can do to help them relax enough to actually remember what is being said in class and action what we ask them to do. I left so inspired but so weighed down with it. I really wanted wine so I didn’t have to think about my girls and what they live with every day.

So I impulse-bought boots. Makes sense huh? You feel me.

Then I spent all night awake with this new information in my head. And the guilt from the boots – and niggling doubt that they were really ‘me’. In the morning I skipped boot-camp because of exhaustion and then later Friday afternoon I took the not-me-but-still-very-gorgeous-boots back. It was for the best.

I love a good long weekend though. Friend and family catch ups, time for slobbing about, time for school work (I have a whole day of report writing and assessment stuff tomorrow), and just catching up on vital alone time.

That’s if you ever get to be alone. I don’t know about other mothers but I appear to have created two little shadows and it doesn’t matter where I take myself to have alone time – they turn up moments later. At the moment one of my shadows is dressed like a tiger 24 seven so he’s pretty hard to miss (He was a hit at the zoo yesterday). I have tried leaving them happily watching TV and going to the other end of the house to read or colour in (don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it baby) and within moments I have a little audience of two joining in on whatever I am doing. Until recently we had no light in the loo so had to have ‘quiet time’ with the door open if one wanted to see what one was, ahem, doing. This meant a visitor EVERY time I was abluting to ask me to read to them, where their socks were, what they could eat etc. We got the light fixed so I thought I could have alone time with the door closed. Turns out the hint was not received.

And with the rain the entire house has cabin fever. The grumpy Dutchman is EXTRA grumpy – not helped by the fact that he had to go ona rescue mission in our ceiling last night because the Kitten was stuck in the wall! Crawling on his belly in a space no higher than half a metre, through MASSIVE spider webs, in his pyjama pants, when all he wants to do is sleep. I was standing in the lounge helpfully shouting instructions at him through the ceiling. I think I heard grumpy muttering. Then to top it all off – the kitten so wasn’t that grateful. He sauntered over to me at the ceiling cavity, scratched my face all up being dragged out and slinked off slinkily. Cats. We are merely their house servants.

Tomorrow we are taking the lads – all three of them, fur-child as well – to the wild west for a runaround in the coastal air. They need to be run long and hard to get their energy out. Then the GD is taking the two human lads to the Museum so I can figure out how to write ‘Your daughter is a delight but she doesn’t nothing in class but take selfies and text her boyfriend you don’t know about’ 120 times.

I can’t report anything good about my food intake so I won’t go in to it. Lying by omission while I slurp tea with real milk and eat leftover ‘entertaining’ cake from my dad’s visit today. Living on the edge.