He's now 16, in the middle of Year 10 at Hogwarts and his father recently announced they're upping stakes and moving to Queensland. Over my cold, dead, perimenopausal body! And so began the fight to reclaim my boy.
Well, today I won that fight. My son is coming back home, where he will be safe and secure. Where he will have rules and boundaries, a set bedtime and strict homework criteria. Yep, I'm an unashamed nazi in that regard. His recent mid-year report from Hogwarts was a fail of spectacular proportions. Turns out he's missed a lot of school (surprise!). He wants to go back to his old school. And naturally I sold all his uniform some months ago after he told me he was never ever going back to that school and now have to scout around to try and get one together again. That'd be right. So he'll be coming from a long way back but I'm going to try to ensure the rest of the year goes as well as possible for him so he can complete Year 10 and transition to VCE smoothly. It will take a lot of work, I know this. We all have a lot of shit to get through, I'm fully aware of it.
So I will be going through my perimenopausal stuff and dealing with a surly Aspergian 16-year-old. I already feel for my poor partner. We're all off to counselling soon to get our collective shit together - there needs to be an Airing of the Grievances so we can all move forward. Along the way there'll be tears and tantrums and that'll just be me.
But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.
Today, my boy came home.
