Second visit

Over the weekend the boys came to stay again. It was a hectic weekend, but I think they had fun. Our Mr 12 was fantastic at playing with Mr 6. I think they really enjoyed one anothers company. Mr 5 (he's had a birthday since last time) was pretty full on this weekend. I think because he had a terrible nights sleep on Saturday night. For whatever reason he became pretty uncooperative around bedtime and just didn't choose to stay in bed. It was well after 9pm before he finally settled. He was up around 3am for a bit suggesting it was time to get up. Clearly it was not! Then he rose early. Apparently he slept in on Saturday morning, so this may have had something to do with it. Sunday we went to church after which time I think he was just smashed. This made for some interesting decisions on his behalf and some pretty full on tantrums/meltdowns. It's probably fairer to say meltdowns if I think about it. I think he was just overwhelmingly tired so it took very little to hit meltdown stage. Although 5, his meltdown resembles more of a 2-3 year old tantrum. On the floor, kicking and screaming. Our approach was to remove him to his bed to give him a chance just to cool down without extra stimuli. He did eventually come and eat his lunch and then seemed to improve a bit.

The rest of the time went reasonably well. A bit of negotiation here and there, but they generally seemed to have a good time. Mr 6 did fantastically well. He showed signs of missing his permanent carer on Sunday, but besides that small moment did really well. He is also super smart. We were impressed with is reading ability as well as his ability to hear a song and then have a go at playing it. Just a simple song, but impressive nonetheless. Sunday afternoon the boys minus Mr 14 went and launched rockets. They made them on Saturday and so had a great time launching them. The weather was perfect for rockets - so still that they came down almost directly on top of them. Mr 5 seemed to have a few issues with the noise of them after a while, which I think was probably the result of his tiredness.

The plan at this stage is that we'll have the boys once more before Christmas. Mr 5 will have preschool, and the boys will also likely have a visit with one of their parents. This is new for us, but we are looking forward to seeing what that looks like. Apparently the boys do quite well with their visits and very rarely have any additional issues as a result. This was encouraging to hear, although given they will be with us and not their usual carer, I do expect they could find that a bit unsettling. Last week when we got home from being out at one point our Mr 12 mentioned he had seen the boys while we were out. Not sure why he didn't tell us at the time, but it turns out it was during a visit with one of their parents. Apparently they didn't see us. We're kind of glad because we're not really sure how we would have dealt with that one. Given the size of the town we live in, I suspect there will come a time where this could happen, so probably something we ought to think through some more.