Had a rather downbeat conversation with some Mums and Dads at NA today and it left me a bit full of heart-ache. Today the Mums and Dads of the nursery group there were asked to leave their little ones with staff to get them used to be left without Mum (preparing them for pre-school and ultimately school). I was talking to one woman and she sounded like such a nice decent lady and it was tearing her apart that she had to leave her son in there and kept taking peeks inside to see if he was OK (the other parents had driven off to get an hours peace). He wasn't crying, but he just sat there quietly looking at the door. It was tearing her apart and she didn't know how she was going to do it full-time like her other kids. "But" came the inevitable one-liner, "they've got to get used to it sometime". Then other parents returned and they all shared their loathing of having to leave their kids - some were honest enough to admit they couldn't wait to leave their kids at school all day and get their life back, but without questions they ALL said "They have to get used to it sometime. The sooner they get over it the better. It's for their own good". So I innocently asked, "Have any of you considered homeschooling?" Silence. Except the woman I was speaking to admitted she had thought about it. The rest didn't not want that comfort zone intruded upon so I shut up (yes I actually shut up - amazing innit - I must be learning something in my old age!). And it physically hurt to think about all these children being torn from their Mummy's arms to be tended to all day by strangers when they didn't WANT to be. And being pushed away by people they depend on for protection. And when these little kids came out, my God, they were half the size of Boss and were just babies - literally toddling everywhere. It makes you think what chance do these people have when they are thrown in at the deep end to literally sink or swim? And the parents calously saying "it's for their own good - they have to get used to it sometime" with stupid grins on their faces. They are just babies for crying out loud. It took all my concentration not to tell them all about what I learned as a sociology student - that kids who are pushed away are more likely to be LESS independent rather than more!

It broke my heart.

And it got me thinking again about how much I contribute towards things. Someone once said you can't change the world and you have to take baby steps and I think sometimes that's my problem - I want to be able to do so much that I end up doing nothing because it's too much. I think I want to go back into counselling (doing it, not receiving it LOL.... although maybe I need it?!) again, specialising in bereavement counselling for children. I have looked into this before and out it on a back-burner, but I think I need to do something constructive that I felt was actually helping people. I was so dissatisfied with teaching simply because it didn't impact on anybody's life - it was just one big game - teaching lab rats to jump through hoops.

Anyway - we got to see frogs and frog spawn there today which was just an amazing thing to see (can you believe I have never seen real live frog spawn before?!). Boss, who is quickly becoming a fan of David Attenborough, was enthralled. We may to film his next commentary about frogs very soon ;-) We also went to see the smelly animals and it was quite amusing to see the tiddlers find the only muddy puddle there are ruin all their nice Next gear - one lad even managed to lay flat out in it - twice! I may be being too smug for my own good, but I was relieved it wasn't Boss.

Had a good clear out today of where my bookcase should be (but isn't because I don't have one). I needed to get some books from the bottom to the top and sorted through that. Found loads of books appropriate for Boss right now and spent much of the afternoon pawing through them. Also watched some blue whale web casts and heard the song of the humpback whale - Jaws immediately imitating it.

Also received some parcels from my beloved eBay - some whale and dolphin pop-up books - Boss very happy, and The Screwtape Letters for me.

I have also discussed the idea with DH that I need to leave Boss with him in the afternoons as I try to salvage some friendships and have conversations with adults without having to peel Boss off other peoples' kids and nagging him all the time. He agrees that he just can't be taken anywhere so I'm glad he has agreed to watch him occasionally so I can get out more. Because of how Boss is I have limited myself so much and turned down so many invitations simply because they are untenable propositions with him around. I don't think that is fair to either of us. So we'll see how that pans out insha'allah.