Has anyone else's 5 year old just completely lost the plot?

[TotesABoats]

Just that really. She's SO excited for
Christmas. Manic hyper nightmare. The 9 year old has just told her she's the most annoying person in his life, and while I have obviously mediated and resolved I am kind of with him...

Would it be so terrible to pop to Gatwick and get the next plane to anywhere? Would it really? I'd come back: just, like, on Boxing Day when she's calmed down...

The cutest! 😍

On the other hand, reading threads like these makes me think the aristocracy were on to something having a nanny and a nursery in the attic!

Relatively restrained start to the day, but she's going round the house clucking like a chicken. Why? Why a chicken?

My 5yo is pretty much the opposite of excited. She hasn't even been building her Lego advent figures and we have a pile of the little bags unopened. She was ill with a bad virus a few days ago and had 2 days in bed. But back to normal now and is just her usual self. We have loads of Christmas activity sets and crafts that she's been completely uninterested in.

😂
Having spent the last week with 78 five year olds I can confirm that they have all collectively lost the plot!
I only have one 15 year old at home now - this is one time of year I’m glad he’s so antisocial and spends all his time with headphones on!

Why not? Perhaps she thinks she’s being a Turkey?

10yo dd is very highly strung at the best of times, she's an emotional wreck today, excited one minute and in tears the next. I remember when she was 3, she was so excited on Christmas Day but didn't quite understand why, she fell over at PIL's and cried solidly for about an hour, fell asleep in the car and slept through most of the afternoon. 16yo ds is autistic and he's also on edge, he finds Christmas quite stressful but also enjoys it and he's currently talking through a list of the food we're about to start prepping on a loop 🤦🏻‍♀️

I have caved today and given my 7 year old the iPad. She is currently watching creature cases in square eyed rapture. This is the longest she's been quiet since Wednesday when school broke up. She can have the bloody thing all day for all I care at this point 😂😂.

We have run her little legs off, it's made no difference, she's been a blur of excitement and noise. Oh god the noise. She has not stopped talking. For days. I'll be glad when it's all over. I need a lie down and a stiff drink. And I don't even drink!

I miss it 😢 mine are getting older. DC1 is cleaning up the kitchen after cooking us breakfast and DC2 is hiding in their bedroom (has ASD) so is on edge.

Inspired! I am so putting googly eyes on presents next year....!

Get them out for a looooong walk in the woods/countryside. Mud and puddles. Use up some of the energy and time.

Ahh we're blaming the really late finish from school (and ND)

Crash helmets at the ready

Haha yes my 9yo & 12yo are giddy kippers

So far we've baked, played a new board game and we are off bowling shortly. Hopefully they will chill out a bit then
Good luck everyone!

Up until and including Friday I was working in an entire class of 5 year olds. I can confirm that they have ALL lost the plot. No learning happened this week 😬😅

I’ve been to junior parkrun this morning. It may be no coincidence that even on a wet and windy morning there were more kids there than there’s been for weeks! 😂

My 4 yo went into the sea today. If anyone is down on the south coast you'll know it is blowing an absolute hoolie. I then carried him back to the car because he refused to walk as I pulled him out of the giant sea puddles. Ah life at Christmas. Next is the woods. Wish me luck!

Yup. DS is being an absolute toerag (with very occasional moments of being lovely) - constant arguing, getting silly and unkind. I keep trying to tell myself he’s only this little once, and there’ll be plenty of Christmases when he’s a teenager where he doesn’t want to get out of bed… which sounds VERY appealing right now

We're doing a little better today - church this morning distracted her, then we've had quite a bit of TV this afternoon. She also enjoyed helping prep dinner, so it's good to have a few hours relief.

Lol my 5yo just got told off for doing parkour on the sofa 🥴. There should be a helpline somewhere for this Christmas related nonsense. Dinner, dog walk, bed!

Omg how many times have I used the phrase 'the sofa is not a soft play!' In the last two days. Kids are camped on said sofa watching TV now, and yawning, which has to be a good sign, right?

Our 4 and 7 year olds have been climbing the walls since Wednesday. The only thing that works is taking them out for a long walk or park visit in the morning.

My 3 (7/5/2) are all off their tits on Christmas. 5yo is being perfomatively kind, helpful and thoughtful (SANTA IS WATCHING) until it gets too much and she does something incredibly silly/annoying/dangerous to compensate, gets told off, has a minor meltdown then has to be extra good to recover, and so the cycle continues. Meanwhile the little one is rocking a Santa hat and nappy yelling “hohoho” at everyone.

My 4 and 9 year old are doing my nut in

Up before 5am the last 3 mornings, so they are tired, excited and like crack heads running around on sugar.

I have constantly mediated. But I lost my rag and left their dad to sort them out whilst I did a face mask and a deep hair conditioning treatment. It helped for all of 5 seconds before the mayhem started again

The 4 year old is so excited he's whipping his sister up into a state of frenzy. I'm too tired to even drink, they have bested me. lol

Yep, recognise all of this with a 6 and 3 year old in the house!

Trouble is, they’re both absolutely exhausted after a long term so anything involving wearing them out actually just makes things much worse.

Even screen time has been dismissed today as boring. Until I put a CBBC show on the iPad, announced it was a special “big kids” show (they’ve never been allowed to graduate past CBebbies before) and they were glued to it for a glorious 45 mins….

We also have paper chains taking over the house!

How is everyone faring????

2x walks today. 8yo moaned she didn't want to go and I slightly lost it 😳

Then we all made Christmas biscuits a d cards for our elderly NDN. 5yo GirlTwin said she wanted to do "a collage" from the Sunday Times mag - I thought fine, it'll be inoffensive pix of Tom Kerridge's mince pies or something - I realised as we were handing the cards over on her doorstep that the ST was running a feature on the Titanic submersible disaster and NDN's Xmas card has a haunted face looking out of a porthole as it sinks to its death. Festive.....

1 in bed, 2 still up......

Well, the park definitely helped, although the eldest in his excitement managed to accidentally headbutt me, so now I have a swollen lip and thought for a minute I might need some kind of emergency Christmas Eve dentist. But crisis averted, so long as I only show my left side in photos.

Highlights of the day included: a face-off between the youngest two over whose mummy I am ("my mummy" DS2 growled, "MY. MUMMY", DD5 bellowed back, and repeat most of the morning; a smashed massive Lego structure that needed rebuilding; strong words with the 5 year old maniac after she kept screaming "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" at random passers by and their dogs in the street; aforementioned headbutt; many many questions about where Santa is right now and whether he's invisible; impassioned requests to buy another Christmas tree as we passed a shop with several still left; and me having to silently meditate through a plethora of knock knock Christmas jokes.

But we have avoided time outs, tears, and (most importantly) A&E, and we are so very very nearly in bed...