Children In Need 2017

It would be fair to say that this year we have been a bit distracted with family matters and so our effort for Children in Need fell sadly short on the day itself. What is so lovely though is how things have a way of working themselves out.

Just six days later and Jenson took it upon himself to tidy up the house, and by that I mean the whole house. By 9am he made the beds and hoovered the carpets. In the picture below Wren's bed doesn't look made, I know, but it is a vast improvement on Wren's attempts. The carpet in our bedroom looked spotless.

There was a brief interlude as we dropped Wren off at nursery, during which he didn't get out of the car as he was still dressed in his pyjamas such was his enthusiasm for cleaning.

On our return he got stuck into hoovering the tiled floors throughout the entire house followed by the sofa.

He also hoovered all the cushions and chairs.

He also insisted on washing up and washing the floors.

He then washed the windows, dried the windows and dried the floor.

I know his initial reason for doing all of this wasn't to raise money for Children in Need but was instead to help me, or in his own words, "to make me proud". When one drops a child off at school at 9am and picks them up at 3.30pm you can guarantee that the state of the house won't change in those six and a half hours. Home schooling on the other hand can bring a constant storm of mess and sometimes never ending complaining/nagging/shouting/screaming by me at the pair of them to help keep the house tidy. For him to go to such great lengths to please me I hope reflects how much he appreciates the great lengths I go to for him and Wren. Home schooling isn't a one way street.

Just the day before, Jenson had asked me to remind him to keep his promise of tidying up, which as it turns out I didn't need to do because he remembered for himself. It was only afterwards, as he sat exhausted upon the, (freshly cleaned) sofa that he told me he would like to donate all of the money he had earned to children who are less fortunate than himself. And so that's how Children in Need came full circle - a kind act on Jenson's part as a way to help me turned into a £10 donation to help others.