Hello.  I’m home and it feels like I’ve been away forever.  The heat is unbelievable but I am back a new Bonnie, I will not complain about Dubai anymore!  Well, I’m sure I will but will try not to as our time away highlighted the fact that home is home. It’s your own space where you make the rules and do what you like when you like.  My family’s sanctuary.  It turned out my nervousness about the trip was intuition, it was a mixed bag with good and bad, hard and easy days.

We spent our first 11 days with my dad’s cousin in a small town in Fife called Leven.  We had a lovely time here and were so well looked after.  We had dinner cooked for us every night which was a real treat and CJ loved the attention and company of the 2 big kids (19 and 20), his “mates”.  While we were here we played at the park and beach, took the train to Edinburgh and walked up to the castle, took bus rides to Elie and Anstruther and had a day at St Andrews.  We met most of dad’s cousins and their children and grandchildren.  Fife was beautiful, I loved the rolling lush countryside and dreamed of riding horses in the rain. MC started to walk everywhere and was so proud.

From here we left to stay with my uncle in Dunfermline where unfortunately things went wrong.  CJ didn’t cope with the change and missed Leven terribly.  This brought out his homesickness and he started to cry and scream for A most days. I caught a cold and felt miserable.  But the biggest challenge for me was the fact that my parenting was challenged and I’m sorry to say that I failed badly at being assertive and sticking to what I believe in.  The theory in this house seemed to be,use junk food, TV and noisy flashing battery operated  toys to keep children occupied and out of the adults way.  CJ ended up glued to the television and lost all motivation to go anywhere or do anything.  He was saying “no, you go mum, I’ll just stay here and watch my DVD”.  I was gutted and I wish I had have put my foot down from the start and made it clear CJ doesn’t watch much TV.  They were shocked I didn’t let CJ have Cocoa Pops for breakfast and sweets on tap through the day.  I felt my parenting was under the spotlight and the results were not good!  Massive tantrums almost constantly made me feel like a disaster.

We tried to make the best of the situation and managed another trip to Edinburgh which was a great day.  We went around on the double decker tour bus (2 laps!), went to the castle and had lunch there overlooking the city.  We visited the gorgeous old village Culross and my uncle took us to Loch Ness in the highlands.  But there was more bad luck here as I got a stomach bug overnight, no sleep and was sore and shattered the next day.  Driving home CJ lost the plot, which I totally understood as he was tired of being dragged around tourist sites and was just falling asleep when we woke him up to see another one.  This resulted in my uncle saying some harmful things directed at me about CJ.  We left the next day.  I’m sad as I never got to meet my dads uncle and I had really looked forward to meeting him, I think I’ll always regret that.  We also had a festival day planned (for today actually) that looked like a lot of fun.  But we had to go.  Poor CJ was a mess and needed his dad badly.  The night before we left, when we were in bed he said to me “I’m sorry for crying so much today mum, I just didn’t get enough sleep”.  Heartbreaking.  I could see that, I understand he is a small person with real feelings.  It’s so sad that children are judged as ‘good’ by how quiet they are

So, we made it home sweet home.  MC was a superstar on the plane walking up and down the aisles waving at everyone like a celebrity.  Grumpy was there to meet us, he’s been sick too and life is fast going back to *’normal’*.  I read the intro of Unconditional Parenting again last night and just thought ‘thank god for Alfie Kohn’!

Notes on Scotland: lovely. cold. fresh air and food. green. grey. old. natural. scenic.  I prefer traveling to more foreign, exotic places though so although it was nice, it was familiar and slightly boring or at least same same.  I think the highlights were our days in Elie, Anstruther and Edinburgh, when it was the 3 of us out exploring on our own.

CJ at FalklandCJ at ElieSt Andrews

Edinburgh

Anstruther

Culross

CJ with my cousin’s son

the rail bridgeDunfermline AbbeyEdinburgh Castle CannonCJ took this one fo MC and meThe scary man with the blue face (I had to go with CJ)

Blair Athol Castle

drumthebucket AKA Drumnadrochit (sp!)

famous castle at Loch Ness forgotten the name!

looking for Nessie

gondola near Ben Nevis

The start of Glen Coe

Apologies to MC for the lack of photos, she was attached to my front or back.  I will post a pic of her in her new shoes tomorrow!