Crisis of confidence

I'm having one! A crisis of confidence that is! We are pretty much unschooling, except I have moments where the control freak inside of me rears up and demands to run the show. With so much illness in the house Elijah has gotten used to watching a lot of telly. I mean a LOT of telly. He could easily watch all day - and bearing in mind he doesnt go to bed til gone 11pm that could be a marathon telly day. Either that, or he wants to play on the wii. He is very good at Mario Kart racing in fact.

My worry is that he will never want to do anything else. I offer him all kinds of ideas/activites and he shows interest for a few seconds sometimes but mostly he just says no. He rarely wants to pick up any crayons at the moment and reading a book with him is a battle.

What's brought my panic on then? Well, we have these friends you see, you know, the ones who send their kids to nursery. And all of them are drawing professional family potraits complete with fingers and eye lashes, and a beautifully written label with their name on! And Elijah wont so much as hold a pen!

Plus, we're beginning to consider that maybe he has some sort of hyperactivity issues. He NEVER sleeps. All right then, he sleeps from 11pm til 8am, but never in the day, not even in the car after 4 hours of running around in forest school! We cant get him to go to bed at a decent hour, and right up until we all go to bed and he is forced to have to go to bed, he is still charging around and jumping and climbing and generally full of energy. He NEVER stops talking. Apart from when he's asleep. Or playing Mario - although that is accompanied by relevent sound effect he makes. Right now he is jumping on my bed behind me singing "Tommy Zoom" theme toon at the top of his lungs :)

So lots of questions...... is he normal? are we doing the right approach? should we seek professional advice about his energy levels? should I add structure to our home education? will we ever have a bed time routine that involves our children being in bed before us?

I think this crisis is brought about by exhaustion. It dawned on me this morning that I never ever have any time away from my littlest children. They are both with me every moment of the waking day, up until I go to bed, and they are with me then too - Bear still waking me 4 or 5 times a night mostly. I cant remember the last time DH and I had any time alone without some or all of our kids around. Dont get me wrong, I still think the attachement style we have adopted is absolutely right, but I also think our marriage needs some nurturing too.

But how? We have no family to help out and I always feel terrible if friends offer to help as its always the ones that already have their own plates full if you see what I mean.

Answers on a postcard please .................