This week has been hard! Poor little Arley has been one tough cookie. As of yesterday he is doing a little better, but for five days straight, he was so angry, oppositional and defiant. There was nothing I could do, and I couldn't not butt heads with him. There were a lot of tears, along with a lot of shouting. It is so difficult when he is at a low, because all I want to do is help him, but he makes it impossible.
Yesterday the kids went off to Alithia, and he had a great day! I spent the day in the library at Bellingen, to be on call if necessary, but I didn't get that phone call. When I went to pick them up at the end of the day, Arley was running around playing some chasing game with the other kids. Carmie was sitting on a log reading her book, but that makes her happy, so that's all good. It was so nice to see Arley enjoying himself, and when asked, he said he had a great day. Today, on the other hand, not so good. I stayed up in Bellingen again, and dropped them off at 9:45. At 12:30 I got the call from the main mentor there saying she couldn't hold Arley off any longer, that he had been asking to call me for ages. So, I went at 1:15 and picked them up. Apparently he wasn't nearly as well-engaged today. But one out of two ain't bad! Also, on Wednesday they made sushi there, and Carmie's sushi was the best sushi we've ever tasted! She is so proud.
Our highlight of the week was our trip to the Big Banana fun park. The kids, particularly Carmie, have been waiting to go there for months. In fact, it is the only reason Carmie felt even slightly OK about moving to Coffs Harbour. And it was SO fun! They have a toboggan ride, a giant slide, mini golf, a 4D theatre, laser tag, and an ice skating rink and an awesome looking water park (both of which were closed, although the water park has just opened for Spring). It was a great (and very long) day, and we treated the kids to ice cream and gifts, and lunch out. Oh, and they also have a candy shop with candy-making demonstrations, and that was awesome, so interesting. We will be heading to the water park there as soon as we get a hot free day during the week. It's awesome that this place is only 15 minutes away, because if you want to go and have lunch and just do the toboggan ride, or the giant slide, you can pay per ride as well.
On Friday the kids went to their first horse riding lesson here. It was tough. Arley is not good with change, and it was certainly different. The horses were huge!! And Arley's reigns were different. They were thicker and kind of furry, and really long so they draped down one side. He felt like he couldn't steer properly using them, so he pretty much didn't try. The instructor ended up separating the kids so that Carmie was in one arena, and Arley was in a small arena with his wife. It was just a getting to know you session, but the kids, particularly Arley, didn't really get to show their abilities. Arley's horse just followed the instructor around at a walk, and broke into a short trot twice. He just wanted to get down. But, we are giving it another go. I am super happy that he is open-minded enough to go back, because I would have thought that he would be refusing. Carmie loved it, of course. The instructor said to me that he can do so much with her, that she has a feel for the horses, an obvious love for horses, and has learned some good techniques (thanks Milea!!). So, my fingers are crossed that Arley feels more comfortable tomorrow at his second lesson.
Over the weekend we went to a place call Boambee Creek Reserve, which is basically a park with an inlet. It is really beautiful, and we played a game of Finska there, so it felt like old times. The kids liked it because there's a kiosk there to get snacks from, so I definitely think we will be going back. Afterwards we went up to Sawtell lookout, which was seriously beautiful. There are so many places for us to explore here, it's really exciting :)
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