They had developed this wonderful 'neighbling' relationship, that recently went a bit sour. Why? Not sure, there were a few things contributing I think. Atti has hit the stage of pushing and hitting and pulling hair when he doesn't know how to engage with people. So there was that. Also, she was kind of inciting him to behave badly. And she was treating him pretty poorly and her manners had kind of hit the skids. She seemed to have gone off all of us - the Wookie and Atti and me as well.
I had had enough two weeks ago when I picked her up to take her to the zoo with us on Friday afternoon and she changed her mind about coming half way there and I had to go back. I realised that this had been happening a lot lately - coming downstairs to play and then leaving 5 minutes later, that kind of thing. Entirely her prerogative to change her mind, except the 2 year old doesn't understand it and is sobbing on the floor for the next 15 minutes after she leaves.
So I decided that we would keep them apart for a week - we had a public holiday that week on the day that they pick him up from daycare and he spends the afternoon with them, so his father would have him that day, and it was school holidays so I could easily organise playdates with other friends so he wouldn't miss the stuff he did with her.
So that was the plan. It seems to have worked reasonably well. We went back to normal yesterday and they collected him from daycare and he spent the afternoon with them, and had dinner with them and his dad. It all went really well. Today I took the two of them to gym class, and we had a picnic with another friend and her toddler after, and that went just fine. So that is promising.
I was also really pleased to notice that her mother seems to be noticing some of the behaviour that I didn't point out when I suggest a week apart. I just said it was because of the mind-changing and the effect on Atti. I was waiting to see if anything changed before I brought up any other stuff. But there have been some conversations about her impact on him, and she has told us that she doesn't like him hitting her - so we have had some conversations about how we handle him learning to interact with others. I particularly like that her mum has decided to address the issue of the 5 year old telling me how to deal with my toddler all the time - yay. So now she doesn't try to handle things herself, she comes and tells me.
I am really pleased. I need to make an effort to re-bond with her myself too - part of my problem is that the stuff I try to do with her, she doesn't want to do. Or stuff I could do with her - like swimming (she can't do) or cooking (not interested at all) - you know the stuff I am good at and know how to do with kids. So I need to have a think about that - I think she and I need something that we do together too. For her to be willing to take on responsibility for my toddler (and she does need to) and to be willing to help us educate him, she needs to like me enough to want to help I think. I know she loves Atti, but that was sort of turning into more of a problem than a help for a while there.
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