Just another day

Today I should be feeling better but I'm not. The weekend feels like it was a distant dream, I was carried away by it all, the loveliness of it and the contentment. Instead I have a little dark place in my heart and it keeps making me cry.

So here are some blessings to count, indulge me if you will as I must have counted them before;

Two beautiful healthy children who love me.

A mother who would do anything within her power to help me.

The possibility of working more hours in September in order to be able to support us.

It is a beautiful day outside.

There must be more things but I am having trouble thinking of them.

This afternoon Tall Girls best friend and sister are coming over for a sleepover. I am bracing myself, although the four of them get on well and are never any trouble. The major plus side of this event is that Tall Girl has had to clean up her room. There was barely floor space for one extra body in there let alone three! She has done a great job and hoovered too. If only I'd known weeks ago that to get her to clean up would be so easy!

More than just post weekend blues.........

After a beautiful weekend, it was bound to happen. My return to earth was fierce and brutal and when you are as high as a kite you have so much further to fall.

Moving between two lives, one as a Mother, Daughter, General Domestic Help and potential Ex- wife, and the other as Lover and Single Female with not a care in the world, is hard enough at the best of times. It gets harder each time in fact. It messes with my head and, on my return home, my realities fluctuate wildly for a while. And then, suddenly, all that I am certain of falls away, like scales from my eyes, and I am left with the stark reality of everyday living, with no one to talk to who could possibly understand the enormity of it all. I only have myself to blame. It is so easy to be carried away on moments of happiness even when you keep telling yourself that there is another life out there waiting to gather you up and spit you out again.

Today I am lost. Today I have realised how easy it is to lose it all, but nevertheless, whatever happens, my plans for the children and I to be self sufficient one day will play out to the end.

The weekend....

Sometimes one is lucky enough to inadvertently fall into a perfect weekend. I'm still living mine.

How was your bank holiday?

A Tall Girl Post

Last night, after getting in from my exercise class (if you can call it that!), Tall Girl was still up and about. I was so pleased to see her. I had picked her up from school, dropped her at drama and picked her up later from dance, before depositing her with Husband so that I could go to Pilate's. We were like ships that passed in the night.

As I walked through the front door she asked if she could show me her new dance moves. She did and eventually we danced together, though neither of us really knew the steps! After a few goes around the room she took off on her own in a 'baby giraffe' type of way! I call her that sometimes, my Baby Giraffe. And as I watched her tall gangley body trip around the room I was reminded of when we first moved into this house. I can remember sitting about on Sunday mornings, watching her practice her 'ballet' steps to unsuitable music, hoofing around the table in much of a similar fashion as she did now. She was four years old when we moved here. Wow how she's grown.

It was late by the time I persuaded her to go to bed. We sat on the floor in her room talking girly stuff for ages. We don't get enough time like that, just the two of us. Precious times indeed.

Sometimes.....

There are places in this house that are hidden, secret places that I cannot get to. There are locked drawers and fastened tight doors. I don't like it.

There are things said that have motives behind them, there are times when I know I trust too much.

There is a time, every day, when a car pulls up onto the driveway and I physically tense. A sigh releases from my mouth, involuntarily. I wait for the key in the door.

I am waiting. I am stuck. I have been told that I risk everything if I leave now, legally I need to stay put. 

There are moments when I have to speak, when all I want to do is ignore. There are times when I have to look at a person I no longer wish to see.

There are emotions in me which I don't recognise, which I despise in myself. There are times when I want to hiss and spit, cat like with fur flying.

Tuesday nights are my time alone at home with my children. I get respite until 10pm. 

Having put them happily to bed I settle down with a glass of wine, sink deep into the sofa and load iPlayer on the TV. 

At 8.40 the car drives onto the driveway, I wait for the key in the door, I curl up and sigh.

There are moments when I am not myself.

Small Sprogs world

I picked Small Sprog up from school today and presented him with the fact that we had to go and get a new tyre for the car, before we went home. Usually he hates having to do 'jobs', and just wants to get back and relax. However this was different. A chance to go to somewhere where he could inspect tyres and look at cars, hmmm, absolutely no complaining at all!

Once at the garage, Small Sprog was out of the car like a whippet! He carefully followed the 'tyre man' around the car, kneeling down and inspecting each tyre as he went. By the time he had finished his hands were almost as black as the 'tyre mans' (I briefly wondered, if the 'tyre man' managed to get all that black stuff off his hands every night, or whether it was a build up over time!)

Anyway we all waited in the, thankfully not too crowded, waiting room. Small Sprog wanted to go and watch the whole thing. I took him out to have a look but he felt a bit shy and came rushing back in. For a few minutes peace reigned. Then he realised he could shunt his chair across the tiled floor if he rocked his body backwards and forwards. Off he went, shuffling the thing across the waiting room, rocking in the most demented fashion. I glanced at Tall Girl, everything he does in public embarrasses her! She was not amused,  and I wondered if my expression matched hers.

"Can you stop doing that?" I asked politely

"Just once more?" He asked, wearing one of his most winning smiles

"Just one more time" I replied

And goodness how he milked that one more go. It was ingenious really. He could maneuver the chair anywhere he wanted to go. Tall Girl and I watched as he shuffled forwards, left, and then right, carefully avoiding the vending machine, before ending up back at our sides but the wrong way around. We all looked at each other...........and exploded into laughter. He certainly looked very pleased with himself!

And then I thought, well, I suppose he is a boy, and one day he'll be playing 'beat the flush' and lighting his own farts! So, in a way, this was a fairly harmless way of passing a few minutes.

On the way home Small Sprog piped up from the back....

"Mummy?"

"yes?"

"How many atoms are in an ant?"

For a minute I thought we were talking '80's bands again!

On the way to the shops.........

"Mummy, can we listen to that old '80's music in the car?"

"I thought you didn't like it"

"I want to hear it again"

"The B52's you mean?"

"Yes" (small pause......) "Are they dead now?"

"I'm still breathing aren't I?!"

(Oh to be 12 again!)

A mothers work........

A little while ago I wrote about having angels, how special people suddenly turn up when you most need them, lend a shoulder to cry on, show you the way or cheer you up. Well, today, I hope, I have repaid my debt a little and become and angel myself, no matter how small.

When I returned home from picking up the children, there was an older lady outside my house, pushing a baby in a pram, up and down the road. I smiled and she spoke. I let the children in to the house and went over the road to talk to her, and my goodness, how she needed to talk.

Her daughter, who lives not far away, had just had her first baby and the lady I was speaking to was the mum, come to do her bit for her daughter. But it wasn't going well. Her daughter hadn't slept for nights, was short tempered and upset. Gosh we've all been there! Dealing with the first new born certainly didn't come naturally to me, it was absolute hell for a good two months or more until I learnt to be a mother, less important, more giving, sacrificing all you crave for for a tiny little bundle. 

She was distressed, this other mum, the one who had come such a long way to pick up the pieces. It was all so different in her day: "We always put the baby on its tummy" She said "Now you have to lie them on their backs, what happens if they're sick?" 

She was in that awful position of trying to keep all her 'outdated' knowledge to herself, trying to keep the piece, trying not to interfere but wanting so much to help. She was a long way from home with no one to talk to. 

So she talked to me, for ages! I listened, remembering how difficult it was, knowing that it would get easier, and that her daughter would become closer to her mum in consequence, realising that one day I may be in her shoes if Tall Girl 'produces', knowing that everything takes time.

As she left she thanked me for listening. She looked a bit better and I wished her luck. 

Today I hope I gave a bit back, it felt good.

Children

"I love you mummy" said Small Sprog in the car earlier today. "I'll always be your little boy."

 My heart melted.

"But you don't have to worry about me when I'm grown up!"He continued.

"I will always worry about you, even when you're my age" I said

"She will always want to know you're happy" replied my Mum, with feeling. She knows I have things in my life which make me extremely happy. She knows I have a  lot of stuff to get through. She still asks 'why' a lot. She still worries about me. I count her as one of my best friends.

Tonight has been a dancing in the kitchen night (Mum has gone home). Husband is out, the loud music went on, and we danced until bedtime (which for Small Sprog is about 8pm!) We are good together, just the three of us. It's nice to 'let our hair down' once again.

The weekend

The children have had some 'down time' at home at last. Yesterday afternoon we all went to the local park, which has just had a long overdue renovation, and they played happily for hours with friends, whilst I and Mother of Two Boys, greedily munched on some tasty nougat which she had brought along for the purpose!

Today, Tall Girl and Small Sprog have been around and about the street with the Nit Children. They've played on their bikes, they've swooshed about a lot of water and got out the 'spud gun'! It's been a beautiful day and 'playing out' is just what they should be doing. However, today I have felt lonely. 

When I am in the house by myself I never feel lonely. I positively love it, and I'm fairly happy in my own company most of the time. But today I have not been alone here. Husband has been in all day too, and to have him here is not relaxing. I am on edge. I can't find a quiet spot to breath easy. I feel lonely but am not alone. I think the loneliness comes from the empty space that gapes between us. I am not regretful about that, I have so much more now, than I had before, but I am impatient to get through it all and move on.

Sometimes, when I forget that I have so much to be thankful for and forget that I have had such wonderful good fortune to have two healthy children and some very special and caring people in my life, something pulls me up sharp and reminds me to enjoy the positive things in the' here and now'. This time the something came from one of those special people, by e mail, I hope he doesn't mind me sharing:

"I love getting up early. It's such a delight to meet the possibility of the day before it arrives and then all the potential thereafter is free. 

Taking delight from whatever you can muster in any given minute is quite refreshing."

Makes you think huh?

PS. Thank you to everyone who has commented recently, especially regarding solicitors. It is in their hands now, though I suspect it will not happen quickly.

I wonder?

Having had a fairly acrimonious day or so with Husband, when I saw him this morning, just before he went to work, he informed me that he had booked his summer holiday, and that it was on the calendar.

After he had closed the front door I took a look. More than two weeks in the middle of August had been crossed off and scrawled upon "Cornwall with TG and SS". More than two whole weeks. He knows that he can do what he wants, he is taking them away for more than half of the next half term. He also knows I will miss them. 

I work part time in a school so that I can care for the children after the school day and in the holidays. When I wanted to get some full time work, I asked him if he could guarantee he would look after them for 2 weeks in the school holidays and he wouldn't 'play ball'. It would be hard to work in full time employment with only 4 weeks holiday if he didn't cover some of the long summer holiday and look after them. It seems he wants the best of both worlds.

As I registered the lack of children in my life for two weeks I began to wonder. I wonder if he's asked them whether they want to be away that long? I wonder whether he is going away for so long, more to spite me, than to enjoy his children?

This is a rant, borne out of frustration, sorry! 

Oh my goodness I have just reached for pen and paper to make a list!

Now, this may not seem like much to get excited about, and you'd be right, in normal circumstances.

I was a list making person once. They were everywhere, and I gained great satisfaction when I could cross the things off that I had achieved. Most of it was day to day running of the household type stuff, lots to do with the children's activities, things to do and remember for them, nothing very exciting. 

However, since January, since I have been in this strange half life of extricating myself from Husband, I have not been able to make lists. I couldn't make lists because my head was all over the place and I couldn't see further than the end of the day sometimes, let alone the end of the week. Being disorganised is part of  the process of dealing with major changes in your life. Feeling more organised is another step forwards. There is still a long way to go, but even so, today is another milestone! 

The first casualties

20 months ago I picked up two lovely bunnies from a rescue centre in Wiltshire. We (the children and I) had been asking for pets for years and one morning, at breakfast time, we were all whinging on about having rabbits (though I wanted a cat) and Husband suddenly said, "Well why don't you go ahead and get one then?"

I remember that Saturday morning, we were all very excited. We trawled the web for re-homing centers and came upon one in Wiltshire, run by a very dedicated but totally loopy woman who lived and breathed bunnies (as I'm sure you have to when you do that sort of job). The web site was very exciting. There were lots of photos of all the bunnies available, little bits of text about them and loads of info about what they needed in day to day care.

We didn't rush in straight away. We took our time, did some research and waited for the right pair of bunnies to become available! 

It was a warm sunny day when I went to pick them up. They were lovely and warm and bunny cuddly. The children were at school and I knew how pleased they would be to come home and see their bunnies at last.

That was 20 months ago.

The children's enthusiasm wained gradually, as I knew it would. I took on the responsibility of looking after them without question. I always knew it would be up to me and I re-homed them knowing I could look after them, 20 months ago.

But now things are different. They, the bunnies, are the first noticeable casualties of this family breakdown. I am being practical, in the future there may be no room to keep them, and believe it or not they cost a huge amount of money to keep. So it has always been part of the plan to sort them out somewhere else to live, if they were still alive that was. And they are very much still alive and kicking.Today I spoke to the re homing centre again, she said she could take them in within the next three weeks or not until September. So, this Saturday, I will take them back. The children don't know yet, though we have recently discussed the fact that the bunnies may have to go.

I know rabbits are by no means anywhere near the most important thing to sort out in a marriage breakdown, but to me it is one little symbolic step towards moving on. Yet I can't help remembering that when I brought them home, 20 months ago, I took on a responsibility that I now, have not fulfilled. 

Yet somewhere, perhaps not so far away, there will be a happy little family trawling through the web pages of the re-homimg centre, excitedly looking for bunnies to adopt, waiting for the right ones to come along. Strange how things turn out.

My children

Today I am aching for my children, though they are still here with me, tucked up in their snugly beds. I can feel my heart strings starting to tighten, because the day after tomorrow they are off on a camping trip, with their dad, for the weekend.

He has taken them away a lot recently and I have felt ok about it, but this time seems so much worse. I guess I'm feeling this way because it is the first camping trip of the year, they have not been camping without me yet, and I want to be with them. I want to be with them to make sure they are warm at night, to make sure they are not frightened of the dark, and to make sure they are safe when playing wild and free. I know he can do this, I am just finding it hard to relinquish my responsibility. 

Small Sprog wants me to go too. He doesn't understand, and I have realised that I do need to explain things to him more. It is finding the right moment that is tricky. Tall Girl asked if she could do some cooking with me this weekend. She had forgotten that she would be away. I would have liked to have cooked with her. 

I have come to realise that there is only ever enough time in the world when I'm alone, and then I don't need it.

Update: Thank you for all your comments. By a twist of fate, I have the whole day to spend on the sofa today with Small Sprog! He has been sick a few times, so can't go to school and is still feeling washed out. I hate it when he is ill, but I can't help thinking how nice it is to have time to snuggle on the sofa with him today with nothing else to do!

Hopefully he will be well enough to camp later this weekend, he does enjoy the freedom of it. And I will enjoy my weekend doing other things, it's just the letting go that's hard.

Tagged!

I have been tagged by Reasons to be Cheerful.

1.What is your current obsession?

Trying to get my life straight!

2.Which item of clothing do you wear often?
Knickers! 

3.What's for dinner?
Roast Pork 

4.What are you listening to?

Someone else doing the washing up!

5.Say something to the one that tagged you.

Thank you ;-)

6.Favorite vacation spot?

Somewhere quiet, secluded and preferably warm without any rain!

7. What I'm reading right now?

Brave New World by A Huxley and Stig of the Dump!

8. Four words to describe myself.

Tall, restless, curious (some may say nosey!), vulnerable (at the moment)

9.Guilty pleasure.

That would be telling!

10. What do you think you will feel about your life when all is said and done?

I hope I will feel fulfilled

11. What do you look forward to?

Spending time with people whose company I enjoy

12 Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?

Children, not always my own!

13. Best thing you ate or drank lately?

Bubble and Squeak from a jar!

14. Flower of the moment?

Apple blossom

15. Favourite ever film?

Love Actually (sad but true!)

16.Care to share some wisdom?

If only I had some to share.

I would like to tag anyone who reads this that would like to have a go!

Angels

My neighbour called in on Tuesday. She and her husband have been on a 5 week cruise and they both look very well and happy. "I won't stop" She said as I opened the front door "I just wanted to say thank you for looking after the house while we were away"

"That's sweet of you, but I haven't really done anything. You look well. Did you have a good time?"

You know the sort of thing, the way that sort of conversation goes? Then she said "And how are you?" And I burst into tears! She is a wise old bird, though not awfully old, and was very sweet and kind. I am lucky to have her so close.

Later that day I received a lovely long email from a far away bloggy friend, which also cheered me up and made me feel much better. Both these things happened out of the blue, when I was having a very 'down' day, and all of my usual 'shoulders to cry on' were busy with their own lives. And it just made me think a little. It seems that, sometimes when you are down, little angels are  sent to look  after you. Sometimes all you have to do is wait a while and weather the storm. 

Do you have angels? 

Bored suburban housewives of the world unite!

Last night I, unwittingly, lost my Small Sprog. The nit children's mother from down the road phoned to ask me if I knew where he was! Gosh, what a bad mother I am, I had no idea he was missing. Her son had seen him leave there house, and a few minutes later, went out after him and couldn't find him anywhere. We visited the usual families in the street that he often goes to, and no one had seen him. Tall Girl was almost in tears, fearing he had been taken by aliens, she confessed later, (She has her mothers mutant Star Trek gene!), but I was trying to be rational. He had walked out of the nit children's house voluntarily, no one had snatched him, he must be somewhere. Then Tall Girl had a thought. He might be at Gabriel's house (the angelic one who Small Sprog thought was a girl). Gabriel only lives part time on our road, so we'd forgotten to check there.

We raced down the road and knocked on the door, but there was no need, he was half hanging out of the upstairs window grinning. "Come down here at once!" I shouted at him, just as Gabriel's mum opened the door (I suspect she thought "fishwife"). Then I had to explain to her what was going on whilst explaining to him that he should always let me know where he's going. But, anyway, all was well.

I hadn't talked to Gabriel's mum before and she asked me in while we exchanged phone numbers, in case it happened again. Her kitchen was chaotic and she explained how she was cooking dinner for her book group that evening. "That's funny" I said" I have book group at my house tonight"

"What are you cooking?" She asked politely

"Crisps" I replied (we only require wine usually, no need for food!)

"One of my group writes food articles for the Times" She boasted "So I always get a little stressed about cooking for them"

I smiled politely, thinking that wine and crisps were quite easy to muster on a school night.

"What book are you reading?" She enquired. I told her the name and the author of our ordinary 'Top 10 Best Seller List' read and then returned the question. I wish I hadn't asked! I can't remember the title now, or the french author, but it was way more high brow than ours.

Later that evening, when my lot were chattering away (mostly not about books!), I mentioned the other book group meeting up the road. I wondered how in depth their book review was.

"Funny that we should all be doing the same thing on the same evening" I said

"Oh, I saw someone pop in there when I arrived" Someone else chirped in "She had far to much make up on to come to this book club!" 

Maybe we're not all quite so united after all!

Malt Loaf

I'm trying not to blog today! You can see that my will power has won out against all odds can't you? I am trying not to blog because I feel miserable! Feeling miserable is not good. I woke up this morning feeling that everything ahead is insurmountable, there is so much to get on with, but all of it is out of my reach and seemingly out of my power.......

Last night I was feeding Small Sprog some supper. "Would you like some Malt Loaf?" I asked him. "BUTTER-ON-IT" the whole family shouted!

This has become a family phrase, brought about by something on a home video. A video of Tall Girl when she was about a year old, or perhaps 18 months and not so tall. She had a passion for Malt Loaf. Husband was filming her, one tea time, when I passed her a slice of Malt Loaf. She was sitting in her high chair, and I, trying to juggle the usual tea time stuff, forgot to butter it. "BUTTER-ON-IT!" She screamed at the top of her voice, all caught on camera for posterity. She was so little, but so cross that I had had the audacity to pass it to her unbuttered, that the whole phrase, said so indignantly, made us all explode with laughter.

We probably would never have remembered that moment in time unless we had 'caught' it on film. It is only the re watching of it, over the years that followed, that has made it 'stick' in our heads and made it a family saying. 

The video camera didn't last long. There is not much film of Small Sprog past the age of about 3. I wonder what gems he came up with over the years that we have missed or forgotten? Although in the last year, having written this diary, there are lots of things I have recorded of his, that I would not remember now, if I had not written them down.

............As I was duly buttering his fourth slice, at supper time last night, I thought about the baby videos. Precious memories, along with photographs of happy times and captured milestones. They will all have to be split up, those happy memories on film and paper, split up, divided between us, cleaved apart, broken. Perhaps it is not the material that is bothering me today, but the significance of it, I am sad.

Well you did ask!

Apparently I need to 'enlarge' on the conversation with Small Sprog yesterday:

"Muuuum?"

"Yes"

"What would happen if you had sex with a nit?" (I don't think he meant me personally) Whatever goes on in that boys mind?

 "Well, I think they are a bit small for that" I say

"No, a GIANT nit!"

"Oh" the mind boggles. "I just don't think it would work sweetheart"!

Thank goodness that satisfied him.

Another conversation from yesterday:

Mum: "What is Tall Girls favourite meal?"

Me: "Wraps"

Mum: "Rats?!"

Me:"No mum........

On a similar theme, having taught mum to text, she is doing very well. This morning I was woken by her replying to a text I'd sent yesterday afternoon - she will keep turning her phone off! I replied back, blearily, saying thank you, and that it was raining. She chirpily texted back that it was raining there too and that she was about to get into the bath!

Now that is the funny thing about texting isn't it? She would never have phoned to say "It's raining and I'm about to have a bath!" But texting that sort of information seems perfectly normal, and in a way, I like it much more because of that.

However, a while later she texted again. This is what it said:

Dad has seen a very rare sight (she is referring to my step father here), two robins having sex on the bird table. It made her hungry, ha ha! Mum.

Can you believe it?!! Text savvy for less than 24 hours and that's the sort of thing she's sending me!

What was your last text message about?

Today I have:

Amongst other things,

Taught my mum how to text (Phew!)

Persuaded Small Sprog that interbreeding between species is not a good idea (don't ask)

Watched Tall Girl perform her dance moves.

Put up with a hellish bad mood from Husband (I wish he was gone)