.....additional

     After spending a fabulous day together yesterday having a "girly shop-fest", exploring our new surroundings and finishing up in a Victorian Tea Room eating toasted crumpets....


.....Daisy ventured out in to the Back Street.


     Less than 5 minutes later, she returned sobbing as they had all immediately started calling her horrible names and telling her they were not her friends.


     In Daisy's own words:


     "This was the best day ever, and now it's turned into the worst."


     I have no more to say.

Back in the Saddle....

     OK.....it's been a while since my last blog.


     I'd love to report that things in the garden are rosy, but I cannot tell a lie.


     it isn't. It's really quite awful.


     The backstreet politics run along seemingly unabated. Maybe this is just how NT kids are. I don't know. Maybe I am some kind of expectation freak who is constantly astonished by the behaviour of NT kids, but I was one for a while, and I don't remember anyone being on the receiving end of such wildly fluctuating behaviour. Bullying, yes, because someone was fat or black or Chinese or wore glasses but it was dished out and taken (although it was painful at the time, and I leave it up to you to decide whether Yours Truly is fat, black, Chinese or Four Eyes) and then dismissed. There was always someone else to mock or ridicule and the fat, black, Chinese and short-sighted were left alone in favour of the next new victim.


     I KNOW kids are fickle and shallow, as previously noted I was one myself once, but to me....and I really am trying to NOT be an "autistic mom" here....it seems hugely over the top. One minute they are all clambering over the garden gate to get Daisy out of the house to play, and the next she is running home sobbing because they have all turned against her for reasons she cannot comprehend. To be fair (or possibly unfair, it's all about your view point) I don't understand it either! Only on Sunday, she ran home sobbing because some boy or another had brought up the Biting Incident (again), and demanded to know why she had 
bitten Teasel. Again. Daisy was distraught and then, to add to it, her toys (which she insists on taking out with her) were thrown all over the place causing her even more distress. See, they aren't toys to her. They exist in her reality as real, alive creatures. They feel. They speak. They live, and they can die.


     As I have said in a previous post, Teasel's mother didn't run to our house breathing fire and retribution. She did nothing. At least as far as I can see. She never banned Teasel from playing with Daisy, and Daisy and Teasel get along fine. At least they do, just as long as one of the others doesn't "fall out" with Daisy. Then they all turn against her and even she doesn't know why.


     How do I deal with this??? I am at a bit of a loss. The Head Gardener and I both advise her that she needs to be assertive and just tell the troublemaker of the day to mind their own business. (Teasel has been apologised to and he doesn't appear to have a problem with it, so why should anyone else?) 


     Daisy cannot do this, incidentally. She doesn't have the courage or the confidence to stand up for herself. I cannot fight this battle for her, as it wouldn't happen if I were there, I cannot intervene at the time. I can only support her and hug her when she cries like it hurts real bad.....