Maybe I’m asking too much? Please tell me if I am and perhaps I’ll chill out a little. At the moment we are battling with the 5 year old’s attitude. I’m guessing, and hoping, that this is normal, right? When she started school last September she was a polite, helpful and thoughtful girl but now we seem to spend our whole time asking her to think about her actions and not to wind her sister up and to TIDY HER BEDROOM!

On the whole, I accept the bulk of tidying duties fall to me. This makes sense as I’m at home during the day so I cook and clean (with a little help from the cleaner!) and do the washing. However, I do appreciate a little help. I also think that asking Grace to do one job for me – keeping her room tidy – will help foster a sense of responsibility and pride in her room. But this is proving to be an uphill struggle a lot of the time. So, am I asking too much? Do you ask your children to do chores around the house? I did try going down the pocket money route but actually, shouldn’t this just be something she does to help me out?

I am also battling with the 2 year old at the moment, but this is just part of everyday life, nothing unusual. She is a spirited and willfull little madam and that, with the move to a new toddler bed and learning to use the toilet has lead to its fair share of challenges!

Both the girls go to bed between 7 and 7:30pm, we read stories and tuck them in. Grace goes to sleep. Faith however, gets up and begins to trash her room. I don’t just mean she gets a few toys out. The other night she unpacked 5 drawers of clothes, a basket of books, all her soft toys, a bag of duplo and all her shoes. I am often faced during the evening with this (yes she is lying in amongst it all):

Often she takes her nappy off too, which is great if you don’t realise until the morning!

By the morning, when she has had a whole evening to unpack, I go in to find this little scene greeting me:

To be honest, this is a good day. Sometimes it can take me 20 minutes in the morning to fold all the clothes and put everything away again.

Sometimes it just makes me smile, sometimes I can’t even get the door open to get into her room, sometimes I want to tear my hair out! There’s no point stressing though – she 2 years old and she’s exploring. After all, it won’t last forever. Right?