I had one of those 'protective mother' moments today. I was really tired today (probably not helped by missing my tablets for a few days - yes,mum I won't do it again!!) I decided that rather than spend the afternoon getting stressed with the kids we would go and see a film at the cinema. Unfortunately the time on the internet was not the correct one so we missed it! Seeing as we were in Bowness anyway the kids decided they wanted to go and play at the indoor play area so off we went. Usually I spend half the time making sure Ben isn't being too rough but he seems to have calmed down a lot lately and actually has started to find 'friends' to play with.

Anyway as soon as he got in some other lovely child (??!) started following him around calling him 'girlie' because of his long hair. That may not sound like much but he just would not leave him alone, even after I had told him to either play nicely or go somewhere else. Of course Ben's never really come up against other kids being spiteful as it doesn't seem to happen in our Home Ed group. I was really proud of Ben as he didn't just turn around and thump him!! This kid would just not give up so I went all protective and actually ended up going into the play park and telling him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't stop I would be going to see his mother. I did feel a bit of a witch afterwards but hey, sometimes needs must!!

It did make me think back to when Eilidh was at school and coming home saying so and so said something nasty to her. It made me realise that we are so fortunate in having such a great group of people in our local home-ed group and how none of this nastiness seems to happen. They have their squabbles but it never gets to the name-calling stage and pointless nastiness.

The 'lovely child' soon left and it ended up with a whole group of 'new friends' all playing Robin Hood together (led by Eilidh- of course!) and they had a great time.