I am all unneccessary lately. If I were more uncouth I would say I hardly know my arse from my elbow, but I am the epitome of ladylike so unneccessary it is.
One minute up, the next down, one moment cup half full, the next, some bugger drank half my drink.
It is wet and grey and windy, suits my mood perfectly I suppose. Every now and then we get a glimpse of sunshine which reminds me that life is not all bleak and soon we can fill tubs with pretty flowers and feel fluffy and hopeful. We hope. Then it rains again, sideways ...in your face, which makes one feel hopeless and wet and very grumpy.
Shall I drag out some updates for you, assuming that you will care rather than lose the very will to live and hit the 'next blog' button?
Baby Coby is on his way back to our hometown, recovered enough not to need the marvellous yet far away childrens' hospital but not well enough to be home, in his moses basket surrounded by new baby things and adoring family, he will be in the hospital where he was born for a while until those tiny lungs can cope with all that breathing and stuff. Get well little man.

Sophie. Well, she is closer to leaving home, it is all confidential apparantly which is, I suppose, a polite way of saying mind your own business mother. Not easy to do but getting easier. I have spoken with doctors and teachers and spewed my guts and dirty linen so that everyone that matters is aware of what is going on should they hear from social services etc.
A couple of times I have been close to worrying that she isn't ready to move out and the good Lord has seen to it that she does something to show me that ready or not, it is time. I can only hope that she benefits from the help she is getting and doesn't shoot herself in the foot.

Ugh, see, flat writing, dreary soul.
Not sad though, I write well when I am sad, when I feel like this I bore myself.
H and I had a delicious lunch out today, no kids, we talked and planned what we should do with the boys, the great thing about having this 2nd chance is the ability to see relatively clearly where we need to change what we have done in the past.
The most important decision we made is that we can't wait til the boys are teens to start teaching them how to behave as teens. Right now is when we need to saturate them with how to be good people. Teach them now how to work well, serve each other and others. Good manners, faith in great things, respect and service.
If we can teach them how great it feels to accomplish even small things, that will stay with them.
H is going to contact an elderly lady at church, she lives alone and is Seth and Isaac's sunday school teacher. He is going to ask if he and the 2 bigger boys can go over and work in her garden, do any house repairs etc. Show them how great it is to work and help their teacher, how satisfying it is to do a good job.
Amazing how realising that there is no such thing as a day off in parenting has made a difference.
Everything takes on a new importance, the boys are like different children with the added attention, I'm not saying that we are spending every second entertaining them but little things like stories at bedtime, time taken to let them help cook and do dishes, seperate bathtimes so that each one gets that time to relax and chat with me. ( So much better for me too, that manic hour of throwing them all in together was misery!)
They listen more when we ask them to do something, they are more ready to help out and do as they are told. I do believe they are fighting less between themselves too although I wonder if the day will ever come when Isaac doesn't 'need' exactly the toy that Eli just chose or Eli want the very thing Isaac is playing with!

This is boring, I shall save you from me. I hope my brain works again tomorrow.

Manners maketh man. part 3.

So this evening we had our home evening and the lesson was on manners. You can never give up trying to instil some kind of decorum and manners in young people.
You might be led to feel as though you are nailing jelly to a wall but keep trying we say.
So, H led the lesson and he is never one to reduce things to the level of a 3 year old, or 5 or 6 year old even, keep up people!!
Gathered 'round his patriarchal knee our little boys were eager to learn and hear what daddy had to say.
This is how it went.....
" so, boys, if we're needing to ask someone to do something for us, how would we go about that?"
Silence, which is normally a treat but in this instance, replies would be good.
" Well you know we properly address the person we are talking to.....for instance we say, 'Mr Brown?' Then what would we say?"
Short pause and then Seth said
" you ask him for his postcode" ( zip code)

????? H looks at me, I look at H and then I said

"Seth, you're being silly."

" Well " Seth said " How else will I be able to address him properly?"

H and I had our first belly laugh for weeks and weeks.

One of those days.

Emotional ones. Oh dear.
Nothing to do with AF ( hysterectomy 1, keeping womb 0)
It was church that did it. Today was a day to celebrate young women ( yes, we do that at church, at home we sort of try to pretend we don't know any, especially if they live here and are being a bit unpleasant) The young women ( 12-18) pretty much did the whole service and even though we know these aren't always this clean looking and smiley, we like them and look at the potential they have etc.
So, all these young women on the stand and they were giving talks and reading poems and they sang. I am such a sucker for a lovely song. They sang, very beautifully about how they are of infinite worth and I felt the gulp feeling. That lump that starts in your brain and slithers to your throat and somehow makes your eyes water and leak.
I looked at this group of girls and really saw them. I saw 4 with 'that' look, you know 'the' look, that tells mothers of other teenage girls that these girls know how to be teenagers, that life is not fluffy and fun for their parents. It's such a sad look, one of defiance and asking to be challenged. It makes my blood run cold and my heart quiver a bit.
The other girls, they looked different and it was possible to see they they actually believe they are of worth, that they believe there is a purpose for being here. When they sang, they sang believing the words, they didn't just move their mouths and hang their head hoping no-one was actually watching them. I cried. Because my girl doesn't believe she is of worth. She can't see that the things she is chasing are not the things she needs. What are these 'children' looking for out in the world, what are they chasing when the stop going to church and start going to pubs and clubs and hanging out with people who have different values? I have yet to meet even ONE young person who walks away from the good, wholesome, uplifting lives they have been raised in, into the outside world with few morals, low standards and worldly pursuits that is happy.
I have this beautiful daughter who is miserable, who gets dressed up to look exactly like every other teenager she is mixing with, who goes out and bahaves the same way, she drinks and smokes and is loud, the way they all are, these girls she spends so much time with.
She cries because she doesn't stand out.
She is sad because she isn't noticed enough or loved enough and she hasn't met anyone that wants to love her or treat her nicely.
What can I do to show her that she is looking in the wrong places? If she only goes to places where people are drinking and smoking, she will meet drunks who stink, basically.
I wonder why so many of these kids are born to fight against the people who love them most, who really DO know what will make them happy.
As a teenager I didn't fight against it all. I really did look around and see that the things my school friends were doing held no interest to me. I wanted good things, I somehow grasped that the things my parents had taught me were good things and although it was tough to be so different, I liked it. I wasn't bowed down by pressure to be the same as everyone else. I discovered, without fail, that whoever I dated, admired me. Even if they couldn't stick with the hands to yourself rule, they admired it and respected me and even years later when I was grown and had children, they still tell me that I was the one that they think of with respect and admiration.
There is a young woman who got married last week, she was there with her new husband and I loved watching them. This couple did things the old fashioned way, the way we are taught in our church. They waited til they were married to sleep with each other. Imagine that.
What I saw today was how I believe things should be. A young couple who learned about each other, fell in love, became friends, made plans, laid the real foundations for a good marriage. They ( I imagine) experienced that burning longing to be together...and they waited, they made plans and then they got married. You can SEE the joy, see that they have that new happiness, marriage for them is truly a new beginning, not just the next step because well, done it, seen it, bit bored with it.
I know that this way of looking at things is old fashioned and not popular anymore.
I did it that way. 22 years ago and it wasn't popular then, I was a freak to have not slept with at least 1, maybe 2, howabout 6 men before I married.
What if you're not compatible? Phooie, you learn to be compatible, what if......yeah, what if, what if you meet someone who, like you thinks that sex is amazing and the very icing on the cake, that when you have the other stuff decided that comes into it and makes it very nice indeed thankyou. To me, too much importance is placed on fulfilling the physical desires and needs, when the emotional and spiritual and intellectual needs are met, the physical gets better, it is the icing, not the cake.
I remember that feeling of at last being able to 'be' with my husband, of feeling that I now belonged to an exclusive club, was a woman. The running home to experience that wonder of having my own home and a husband. I was 21. Very young to be getting married, sadly quite old to be a virgin.
These kids want everything so fast, they can't wait for anything. Nothing is put into a category to be worked for or earned. It's all so acceptable and disposable. It all makes me horribly sad.
I saw those girls today, who understand that these things ARE worth working for, who understand that they are worth the very best and I cried like a mother whose daughter runs with the crowd.
Where did I go wrong? Did I go wrong or is this just her path? Does she have to learn the hard way that to obtain greatness you have to work for it and put yourself in the right places, avoid being anywhere that puts you in danger.
I really believe that this emphasis on sex, this losing of the real meaning and purpose of it all is putting our kids in danger, physically of course, but emotionally as well. They give themselves without realising that that is what they are doing, sex is no more than a handshake, a how do you do, oh bother don't like you after all, next one please.
With every giving, surely something gets left behind? A little bit of soul, some self esteem.
I felt such power as a teenager. I felt so great. My heart was so broken when my first love and I broke up but he didn't take anything with him that was mine.
He left with me, me.
I want my daughter to feel that strength. I want her to know that what she is is hers. She doesn't ever have to give away any part of herself. If she waits, she can share herself with someone who will give back even more, make her more than she is.
I want somehow for her to sing in her soul that she is of enormous worth and can walk in faith knowing that she will never want for anything if she is true to herself.
This could all read like a mumbo jumbo load of twaddle. I don't care. I wish we could stop the way this world is going, go back in time to when ankles were sexy and youngsters courted each other. Chaperones and taking your time.
It is so sad that the world makes everything OK. Everything that is apart from being different, standing out from the crowd, saying no.

Oh and...random musings.

How utterly doable does it sound for me to say that if I lost a paltry 5lbs a MONTH I could lose 50lbs before I travel?
How wonderful, no need to even think about how many fat lady clothes there are to buy I wouldn't need them and also, 2 seats.
Can you even begin to imagine how ruinous it would be to get to the airport and be told that no matter how thrilling this trip is, sorry lady, you can't go unless you pay for another ticket because that arse is never going to fit in one seat?
I might have a little incentive to help. It is the most frightening and bizarre goings on I have ever encountered. I can feel my heart beating, really hard, in my neck and between my shoulder blades. It wakes me up, it makes me stop and catch my breath.
At the doctors the other day I told her about that and she took my blood pressure. Her eyebrows shot up and she said ' wow' that IS high.
She didn't seem suprised because I am in the midst of stressful stressfulness, but I have never had high BP before, ever, and so it has had the effect on me that for the past few days when I have gone to eat chocolate, add salt, eat chocolate, I hear my cheery head ask " what if THAT is what sends a fat clot hurtling through your fat veins and clogs your fat heart or fat brian ( look, I wrote brian again, I always do that , maybe I should just call my brain Brian and be done with it)
I really don't think I can bear to say I am doing it, look at me, I will be thin in days..here we go. I am tired of setting goals and diet plans, yawn ( and while my mouth is open, cake please.)
I don't want to die though, or be a vegetable, or even have to take a plethora of 'don't let THAT happen again' drugs.
How mad would I be if the worst happened and I look back and know that just NOT eating those chips would have stopped that.
This winter has been a tough one. Everyone has been so sick, cough, snot, sneeze, whine, snot, grizzle. Somehow, I have managed to have about 3 times of thinking it is my turn, ow sore throat.....then it doesn't hit me, hooray. I got sick once but everyone else here has been down much more than they have been well. I, however, I have been ooh ooh, owie, acking my way through the weather. My knees feel like they are made of some cheese grater type deal with a bunch of nerves caught in between. My ankles are screaming their displeasure. My back is old.
The boys like to have piggy back rides up to bed. Seth weighs 42lbs. I just can't carry that little nerd up the stairs, he makes my whole skeleton groan and beg for mercy. I lost 38 lbs last year and have gained back 28lbs. WHAT AM I DOING????
I lost just less than Seth weighs. His weight makes my poor body weep and beg for mercy. I am making myself carry him around all day, every day, upstairs, downstairs, around town, into bed.
If my bones don't like it, my heart must be thumping this hard to try and make me remember it is in here TELLING ME TO GIVE IT A BREAK!
We had baked haddock for dinner tonight, baked with lemon juice and black pepper. It was SO delicious, why don't we do that more? I have been so lazy. So bored. So stupid.
You must be bored hearing all this again. Last week I got back on the kind to me wagon, it was great, I felt better, lost a couple of pounds, then the Sophie thing and why does that stuff make me eat? Who else cares if I am punishing myself? Who exactly am I 'showing' when I beat myself up with chocolate and crusty bread with butter?
The Sophie thing is still going on.
I so get why grandpa let his kids stay at his house til they were on their 40s , this stuff is HARD.
The more she digs her heels in, the more she shows me how young she is and the more I just wish she knew more.
I am having to be tough on every single point.
"can I borrow £3?"
"no, because soon, when you aren't living here, £3 will be the difference between eating or not"
"but it's £3 and on monday I get....."
" And you have to learn, really quickly, that however much you will be getting, you are going to have do a huge amount with it. You cannot spend it all and then think someone will lend you money til next time. Sophie, you have chosen to be grown up. You have made measures to ensure that very soon you will be in charge of yourself. What then? What do you need for when you move out? Where will that come from?"
She walks out and pretends she doesn't hear.
I want to let her stay young but things have gone too far, no matter how many times she says I have never loved her and choose everyone before her, no matter how it breaks my heart to see that she actually believes that, I have to follow this through and let her go. I think that she has to go out into that world and learn first hand that sometimes I know what I am saying.
Maybe one day she will actually know that I love her.
It's the most frustrating thing ever to love someone this much and not be believed. There is so much I want to say to her, every time I try she throws it back, I don't love her, I treat her differently to everyone else, everybody gets more than her. After a while, you find you can't get the words out anymore, and then she is proven right. Damn.
She has an interview on monday for a place in a housing place that gives these kids independance whilst keeping an eye on them at the same time. She really could be moving out soon. The mummy in me wants her to just be nice, be happy, be good but she has to learn those things. I think she has to see it all from a new angle. This is so hard. But the tough stuff brigs the best rewards doesn't it? I know that one day we will be friends, we will look back on all this and know it was worth it. And that is what keeps me going.

Do you think America could handle...

A visit from the loud family?
We are planning it, for Christmas THIS year. H is homesick, I need sunshine and malls and Disney land and Sea world and target and even Walmart, maybe.
The saving is going pretty well, we are doing H's citizenship in the next month or so and Seth and Isaac, I discovered just today, can have an English passport because they have an English mother, which would be marvellous me.
If it wasn't 10 months away I would be hopelessly excited, as it stands, I am cautiously excited with a smidgen of 'yeah right, lets see what gets chucked at us before then shall we?' thrown in.
Part of me worries that when he steps foot back on his homeland, H might break into uncontrollable sobs and beg to be allowed to stay and never have to return to the land of rain and heart attacks. Bless him, he thinks that living here is what makes us all ill, it is hard to explain that it is much more the fact that we have 3 little boys going to school and nursery and basking in other kids' sneezing and spluttering bugs.
I love many things about America, living there isn't one of them I didn't love that, at all. All year round sunshine, loved it.
The galleria and apple and cinnamon bagels, delightful.
Theme parks of enormous over the topness, heaven to me.
The real life, every day. The harshness and the class distinction I encountered was so horrible I still break out in a sweat at never being the popular one ( except for being English everyone loved that) but the rest of me was deemed poor and not worth wasting time on I'm afraid.
I was never so lonely as when I lived among so many people.
I have never had money but until I lived in L.A ( and Utah) I have never EVER felt poor. I felt, in America that all I was missing was my shopping cart and soul flapping shoes. I am an incredible snob with delusions of grandeur, I loathed being reminded that despite a rather nice English voice, I was pretty low down the old social scale.
The idea that actually, lucky us, we can have the best of BOTH worlds, we can live here and walk with head high and pride in tact and then fly over and have the kind of holiday most English people dream of. 4 weeks in California, trips to all those glorious theme parks where everyone smiles with huge enthusiasm and beautiful teeth. Shopping trips to places that sell fat lady clothes on racks that aren't hidden at the back of the shop and don't cost 3 times more than thin lady clothes.
I shall drag H out at 6am on saturdays like the old days and we will go to 300 yard sales and spend $3.
I shall spend time with Marilyn and do girlie stuff while H and grandpa do boy stuff with the boys.
We will eat out and remember how HUGE those portions are, get doggy bags and put the left overs in the fridge for breakfast because they do that in America but here? How rude to ask to take food home, ewwwww imagine!
We will marvel at wearing shorts and t-shirts in December and January and phone home to ask what the weather is like here,
and we'll really really hope it is raining and cold here.
All the time we are there, I will love every minute and we will squeeze every wonderful memory in, but we will be happy that we will come home here, where we live.
At least I will, I wonder how H will feel, when I lived there I wouldn't even entertain the thought of coming here for a visit, I knew that if I stepped foot back in England I would dig my heels in and my heart would break if I ever had to go back.
So, the countdown begins. 10 months of saving and planning and
excitement. California here we come! Is it ready for us do you think?

Wish me ( us) luck. UPDATE.

So yesterday, I went to see the doctor, not MY doctor that I am registered with, that Sophie saw, because actually, he always appears so disinterested and bored, but the lovely doctor that I always try and see. I sat with her and told her everything about this past week. The grest news is, apparantly I have told her several times about our woes with the girl child, lamenting often and in detail about her shininigans and the reactions she has provoked. Hoorah for being a tell tale whiny sort of person who can't keep her mouth shut ( yeay ME!!) Also, her many visits with unexplained bruising. Phew.
The lovely Doctor said that if I can get Sophie in to see her, she will immediately refer to her to a neurologist, order testing to see if the areas in her brain that were evidently damaged that caused her epilepsy as a child are still proving to cause trouble. Whetever, she said that it is plain to see that Sophie has some kind of problem that must not be left alone any longer.
Sophie and I are going at 5pm tonight. I talked her into it by saying that a) she isn't happy like this. b) no-one is happy with her being like this c) she will never find her life is improving while she keeps doing what she is doing and as beautiful as she is, there are very few gorgeous boys who will be willing to risk being on the receiving end of her outbursts or unpredictable behaviour.
I also said that when she was little, until we left for the states her behaviour and such was deemed disabling enough for her to receive large amounts of govt money.
DING DING!!
If this should be proven that once again ( 0r still) her brain is making her do things that she otherwise might not do, she will get more help, faster help and she could even get some money. Make the appointment mother.
She needed reassurance that she wouldn't end up in a home with a red button necklace waiting for some burly man in a white coat to take her in a mini bus for a day trip to the zoo, that she would still be encouraged to live an independant life, in a lovely flat of her own with beautiful dresser ( that she doesn't know about because it is for her birthday and is a SURPRISE!!) and shiny saucepan.
I am doing this one day at a time because I have the horrible feeling that if drugs ( of a prescribed and not cool nature) or councilling are mentioned, well she may run for the hills and say, in the way she does so well. NO.
So, wish us luck today. First things first.
Oh, while at the doctors yesterday, I had a chat and catch up about my ( sorry if we have mixed company) hideous periods and increasing misery each month. Fibroids are in my beautiful and youthful womb, they will get bigger and cause more trouble and we are done making babies ( that turn into teenagers however divine they may be when first born) I only have to give the nod and we can whip that old womb out and be done with it all. I rather fancy that whole idea, especially as it would mean what would pass for a HOLIDAY with ROOM SERVICE and sleeping drugs and visitors with flowers.
I am leaving my decision for later, I shall drag it out and mull it over on those days when a break is like a blessed dream. I shall imagine not needing a calendar or hot water bottles or industrial size packets of industrial size pads every month. I shall hug that idea of a holiday to my weary bosom and not think about pain or being barren or early menopause or any of that stuff because we all need a little happy place to take ourselves don't we?

After the doctors visit.

It went well, I think. She behaved dreadfully at first, slouching and making rude hand gestures while talking about H. When I pointed out that she was being disrespectful to H but also to the doctor and herself and asked her if she thought what she had just done had made her look clever or funny to anyone in that room, asked her to sit up and we'd start again.
She argued with me about several things and then, she sat slumped, but quiet while we chated etc.
I left the room so she would feel more able to talk about how she feels and I tried not to listen. I did hear her say that she feels so angry all the time, that sometimes, she just wants to make other people feel just some of how she feels.
She is sad and has agreed to go to councilling, it remains to be seen whether she sticks with it when the going gets tough, because it IS a tough thing to go through.
She has been referred to a neurologist who will decide of further investigation is necessary. She says that she does find her mind blanking out but that could be depression.
She is having tests for thyroid deficiency.
She admitted that she has taken drugs, used to smoke pot but hasn't since last year. Please let THAT be the truth because with a brain already damaged she doesn't need anything that will mess with it anymore.

CHANGE OF SUBJECT AND A 'PLEASE'......




Beautiful Cobi, who is 11 days old, has been in hospital for 3 days with chest and breathing troubles. Tonight he has been rushed to another hospital 100 miles away, on a ventilator because the doctors just can't seem to make him well. He is so tiny and new. Please pray with us that he will grow and get better. Thankyou.

Subtle, yet pretty.( with bits edited and added all day)

So, naturally, the birthday plans for Sophie have changed. She hasn't quite grasped that this time, things are different. We are not able to just carry on as if nothing has happened and forget it all for next time.
That doesn't mean that the birthday must be horrible, but it will be different.
I have been looking at bedsits and one bed flats and showing her ( and Jordan) and explaining that really, you know, these things cost money and the money? YOU NEED TO PAY IT!
Ooooooooh lovely flat, handy, right by town, near work, buses, want it.......as well as new top, haircut, evening out, etc etc.
Hmmmmmmmm. What to do? How can we slam the message home that... HELLO?? Grown up!!
We can start by not letting a single thing slip past us ( exhausting)
No more rides, no more money loans, no more leaway on anything.
( exhausting and dull, so dull)
Extracting money for everything used that is not theirs, phone calls, INDIAN FOOD, phone calls, texts on my phone.
( painful and exhausting and MEAN, so MEAN!!!)
and we can make 18th birthdays beautiful and practical and subtley reminding that HELLO!!!!! 18, grown up.......look how gorgeous THIS IS!!



It will be filled with lovely, useful and yet beautiful things, for when she moves out. Towels and maybe silverwear ( from Asda because lets face it, they will probably be left with noodles stuck in the prongs for days, and that won't matter because it won't be HERE, sweet joy....we don't want to be silly here do we? Asda is Walmart with a shorter name)
The packages and cards have begun to arrive...THANKYOU! Actually, she let slip during one moment of niceness before the
" no I can't drive you anywhere" began, that she is really sad about her birthday and wants it to be happy but knows it won't be will it? It will be happy and hopefully she will love her dresser ( that really I love and want myself but am kind, so bought it for her)
I didn't like H last night, enough to sleep in the spare room until Hell, this bed is really uncomfortable and anyway he won't even notice that I didn't come to bed, registered .. and I snuck unnoticed into my lovely comfy bed at 4am.
I was so ready to sulk for at least a month and keep hating him today, I am such a lightweight, I walked into the front room at 6am and he said good morning and, I really wish I could sulk, it looks like such fun, I get so mad when good manners win through and I just talk to him and act all nice as if I don't want to hit him right across the head with that saucepan he hid, that I bought a year ago and he has hoarded because it is a really great pan and they were such a steal and we did buy one more than we need but damned if the kids will get it when they move out because this pan? with dried on supernoodles or burnt on spaghetti? Not on my watch you stupid woman.
I will hide it and make you feel like a piece of crap, because even though I know you heard me laugh and even though you agreed, at the suggestion that one of those thoughtless never do the washing up teenage things will be able to have THIS great pan, well maybe you might just give it to them anyway, and that would hurt. And even though we have a set of these pans that will last longer than us, well we might need it one day ourselves mightn't we?
I will hate that saucepan til the day I die now. One of those mother things, men don't get it and why try and explain that even though you long for these big people to leave and live elsewhere and just visit and go away again? Even though you know that this is the best thing for them and for us and for everyone? Well, you still want it to be OK and exciting and happy and if that means giving them a great saucepan, that they will burn and let rot? Well, you need to do that because it helps it not hurt and helps you not feel so damn useless.
Like you did everything wrong.
Like you realised just how much you stink at this whole parenting thing and LOOK a shiny pan, do you love me again?
Still?
It's a great pan even. Not crap or old or second hand, its shiny and I think you deserve a lovely saucepan.
Am I good mum really?
Am I?
Can you smile at me today? Or even talk to me ? Can you be in this house and not make my heart quiver and weep, just today?
If I give you this saucepan,

will you like me? Please.

Yeah, pathetic. Like that.

A very worrying thing happened this week, I spoke to the first one. He called me after he had spoken to Sophie. The first words out of his mouth were
" How are you? " Brownie point # 1
" I spoke to Sophie and just wanted you to know that I know that there is another side to this and well, I lasted 3 days before I felt like killing her, she is hard work, it's OK. She needs to move out"
Brownie point # 's 2-903
" you know, when I told Dan he had to leave I felt like puking, I followed him around for days saying " take these plates! Have this saucepan ( probably not a new one, or a grand one like ours but still) towels? Need them? take them!!!" It was SO bad but look at him, look at how he is doing, it is the best thing we ever did. It will be the same with Jordan and Sophie, just stick with it, it'll be great" Lost count at how many brownie points he got for that but I remembered a bit why I loved him so long ago.
He gets this whole thing because, although he is stupid and really stupid, he is their dad and he knows what this is like. He loves them even when he hates them too.
Nice to know someone understands, shame it was him but hey, what the heck? Grab what you can I always say.
I haven't cried like this for months and months. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Being the baddie in it all isn't fun though.
I think I can see that it isn't personal, that this is par for the course. That one day they will look back and see that the big bad mother was just doing what mothers do, helping them grow up.
Not sure what the big bad stepdad is doing. Wishing he was elsewhere I shouldn't wonder.

I just wish the husband was trying to make it easier. Fear I imagine. Fear that if he shows the remotest softness I will cave and change my stance. I know what that feels like, I liked his son as much as he likes my kids,when he lived with us, I kind of love him now, easy to see what to do when they don't have your blood running through their selfish veins and you chose to love their parent but they came as part of the deal, ack.
Also, when they are horrible? Even harder. Easy when they are cute or funny or smell nice or with the other parent or asleep or in another country.


( that's Rob, holding a baby Isaac.)



It's just that this is SO hard, even if it is right, a bit of understanding would go such a long way. Men are hopeless aren't they? Wonder why we keep loving them and not hitting them with pyrex saucepans with straining lids and stay cool handles.
They have a lot to thank cadbury's for is all I say.

P.S I found the saucepan. Next to my side of the bed.


And...because I'm not done whining yet and because I love to entertain, because Eli caused such hilarity...I am here to share more pictures, which means we didn't clean it all up ( why? they have a week off, we DID clear most of it up and FUN lets do it again, so to hell with that) and he did some more....look, can you tell how bad things are when THIS is funny??


What is really funny about this picture is that there is a kid in there....it's seth and I didn't see him til I downloaded the picture and wondered what that pile of white and green stuff was.....ha, cool, can lose whole kids in that mess, who said there isn't a silver lining?


pretty sure we will never get these toys back.


Argh, school library book on there, will have to get kitchen tongs and lean out of incredibly high window try to reach it, I might bounce if I fall, but I doubt it.
It is the very top one, it has a lock on it ( that I unlocked to take pictures) that means it just opens enough to throw toys, but not kids, out of. Apparantly, that is a great idea.
The french doors are to the teeny flat under our house, (I resisted the urge to peer through windows even though no-one is home, I am so polite, dammit)



PPS. I think I either heard voices in my head, or unspoken comments ( hand up if you were dying to tell me this!!) or just got a clue or something because, on going into that room again to get clean PJs ..... it occurred to me that it is useless waiting until these kids are 14 to start getting tough, now is the time.

So, when they got there,
the bedroom was bare
and so, now the buggers have none.

I took almost ALL the toys out. They are taped up and in other rooms. They have been told that children who can't look after toys or tidy up, find that they have little to play with. As they show they can clear up, not break, throw or abuse what we left them with, they can earn a few more toys back. We are taking a lot of toys down to the store room. They have way too many. How can they enjoy that many toys? They are begging to be tipped and thrown. I rather like the minimalist look in there. Refreshing.

As I type, they are playing snap. Apparantly the rules have changed since I used to play, these days you are supposed to fart instead of yell SNAP! Isaac appears to be winning.

Now, THIS you see, I can do.

As an older mum, I have the opportunity to watch young mums at work and see how they get worked up about stuff that to me, is funny. It wasn't funny when Dan, Jordan and Sophie did it, I thought it meant they would grow up deliquent ( and they didn't did they? Selfish maybe, insane and screwy but not deliquent)
The great thing about a second chance at anything is that you can use what you learned and do it better.

Because we are more than a little dim, my husband and I thought that seeing as the boys have a week half term holiday from school, we would do the whole DVD morning thing again. Invite a ton of little boys, fill them with sugar and colourings and send them home. we love it, they love it, the other parents love it, everybody loves it.
The only draw back is that sometimes, the other mums want to stay, which means srubbing toilets and cleaning kitchens and bedrooms and sitting rooms and polishing and all that stuff. Just in case. I draw the line at clearing the ironing, I think that makes me seem normal and loveable, that pile of ironing for all these people that, some day, I will get around to, or just do what I need when we need it, whatever.
So, feverishly wiping and vacuuming, I was busy as a bee downstairs, boys upstairs, you know what's coming don't you? Oh! you may think you know, but you don't.
Elijah is what happened.
This....is what happened.





That is the courtyard, outside their room, that leads to the little flat under our house, where 5 polish people live. The courtyeard is covered wit 5467 dinosaurs and little animals. I didn't take a picture of the guttering, the roof, the windowsills, or the floor of the bedroom that looked worse than the courtyard because somehow, those sights didn't make me laugh quite as hard as the ground outside.
Isaac stood bemused and a little excited that he was allowed to clear up, until his arms were about to drop off and one huge bin bag was full as well as that toy bucket.

The other stuff ? The teenage stuff, let's not go into that today, some light relief was needed. we had fun with the guests who were only 5 in number, as well as Isaac's classroom assistant who he invited because he loves her. She came because she loves him.

We are standing firm with the big ones, they don't like it....we don't care.
I sink into sadness and then tell myself that this is just how it is, that when we are through it, we will all be happier. And we will.
Hooray.

You know when......

You know when you think you might just be at the end of the extension you had put on your tether?
When you feel like you have a exorcist type scream right there in your throat and actually, your head might even do the spinning thing too?
When you grit your teeth and clench your fists, and really, you know that everyone knows they are walking a tight line?
Something in you tells you that this is OK, it will be fine, even stupid teenagers know when enough is enough and Hey! Better just walk the line for maybe a week, right? Keep your head down, mouth shut, flowers even . Cool.
When things are like, its good to treat yourself, get a little something to look forward to, go out on a 'what the hell' ...... like perhaps pick up a yummy Indian meal for 2, just need to heat it up for sunday lunch and then we can take a nap and life it will be just marvellous again, won't it?
Chicken Korma, tikka masala, pilau rice, poppodums, naan bread.......mouth watering? Can you smell it? Wish you were here?
I woke up this morning and thought that this would be an OK day, So what if the kids have eyes glued together with snot and conjunctivitis? We can manage, H can go to church and be filled with the spirit and come home and be filled with Indian food, I could smell it already.
I could.
Not kidding.
I smelled it.
I smelled it because Jordan came home in the night with a friend and ATE THE WHOLE DAMN THING!!!!!!!
Shame my rope snapped because I could have hung him with it.
I hate people. Especially teenage ones.
So, your job is to leave, in one word, your feelings on this.
What word would you shout in his face when he comes home? Lanky git. Selfish lanky git. Greedy,selfish, lanky, git.
Mine is ...........


GO!

what's yours??

That was a week, that was.

And I am mighty pleased that it is over.
A lot happened.
A lot was said.
A lot was done.
A lot was achieved.
And because I can write that last bit....everything else was not wasted. That's what life is all about, unfortunately.

I am feeling like a washed out dish rag. Weary isn't anywhere near a good enough word, but it'll do. You get it.
The upshot is, H and I both know that this is the time to encourage these big birds out of this nest.
In the years we have been married we have faced an onslaught of stressful situations that as parents, we were obliged to face and deal with and solve.
Now though, we can stand back and say, we did what we should do and now, it is our duty to help Jordan and Sophie take the next step in growing up and look forward to spending much time with these little boys.
Sophie came home today. She is tired, subdued and sad. She is also afraid because what she faces now is the unknown, my job is to make that exciting and good. She has been to gramma's, gramma has sold her house and has found a beautiful little house in a village nearby. This means that Sophie has been able to choose some furniture that can be hers for when she finds a houseshare, or a little flat.
Sophie has many good points and one of those is that she is very good with her money , she always pays her debts first and then does as she pleases with the remainder...now is the time for her to learn that real life usually leaves you with not much left over!
I spoke to her tonight and think I have convinced her to come with me on monday, speak to the doctor and insist on testing, I want to see if there is still epilepsy active there, this is all so reminiscent of when she was little and would go from sitting reading a book to suddenly smashing the boys in the face, or jumping out of a window.
She has never had any kind of control over her behavior, this is not a brat thing, nothing to do with discipline or lack thereof. This is almost like being possessed, nothing stops her when she is in full flow, when she is 'spent' it is like watching a rag doll. She can't remember what has happened.
She has run into main roads ( to "see what happens when a car hits her") she has climbed out of windows, she smashed a complete toilet at school, flooding the whole school.
She has hit people, said the most outrageous things at the most inopportune times. She has run away ( aged 12, in the night, in L.A) The list goes on.
All this since she was 5. I often think she must feel endlessly exhausted. I know I do, even when things are pretty good, it isn't ..because we are all holding our breath waiting for the next battle to begin. That's no life for a young girl ( or her mother!!) is it?

I really believe that there must be a medical reason for it. When she was 5, until she was 10 she was registered disabled because of her epilepsy and behavioural problems. We moved a year after she had her last seizure, she was weaned off her medication and we moved to the U.S. She has been pretty much without any follow ups or check ups since we left for America.
I so hope she comes with me on monday and we can insist on some kind of checkup, testing, something.

I won't even go into the private ( ooooh don't you wish I would go into that one??) shenanigans and life altering decisions H and I have agreed upon during all this. It has been a momentous week indeed and one that we mustn't forget, it has to be for good reason, or it will just have been horrible for horridness' sake. Can't have that, can we?

I took Eli to dancing class today, seeing that skinny little bum in his leggings, ankles socks and tap shoes, a grin as wide as his face and that enormous enthusiasm ...well even the darkest mood would have to be lightened, wouldn't it? He cried all the way there.
" I doe watt too doe a danthin' clath, I doe watt too......" I jollied him along and just as we got there, he peed in his jeans...."I doe watt to doe a danthin' ..Theff thed ith for dirlies, I not a dirlie am I? I a boy!"
Mrs dancing class teacher told him that actually, boys are always the very best tap dancers and she has a very big boy who is a dancer, ptttttthhhhh to silly big brothers who say dancing is for girls.
Little face lit up, tap shoes on and grin back in place, off he went for a blissful 45 minutes of tapping and skipping, in leggings with no underwear on, slightly piddly socks and a zest for life. I looked through the door at the end of class, as they had the chat before the bow, he had both hands down his leggings, showing his bum crack. Then, just like a true entertainer, he took his bow.
He does it with such a flourish, his head almost touched the floor. I adore him.
We walked home, with him in his leggings ( that are calf length and don't tell him, but they are girlies ones!!) black socks and his outdoor tan leather shoes, he looked like a very poor person's child, but he skipped, oblivious to the fact that, as adorable as he is, I was walking far enough behind that the general public wouldn't be sure I was his mother. I adore him but I can definately see when he looks dreadful. I should have taken a picture but I was too relieved to be inside and able to change him into nice child clothes. Actually, I'll be honest, we just took his leggings off, put a pullup on and had a glorious 3 hour nap.
Life was better today.

And it just gets worse.

I dropped by to see Sophie today at work. She is staying at various peoples' homes, people I don't know, people that she knows through other people, last night it was with Wes, friend of the people she stayed with the night before.

We had the usual conversation about how she didn't do anything and how did she deserve to be punched and kicked for not washing dishes. See? She sees it as how she was doing nothing, he said to do dishes, she said no and he punched and kicked her, she has no recollection of the teasing, the swearing, the biting, the punching, the yelling. The fact that actually he was trying toget her out, forcibly and uneccessarily roughly, but she remembers what she wants to remember, none of which is accurate. None of it.
She went to see MY doctor, the boys doctor, he is now apparantly her reference for assisted living. Her boss is the other one.
Isn't she kind NOT to have charged him? NOT to have made a statement and allowed him to have HIS say, allowed ME to tell what really happened.
She is right, a grown man should never hit, and he has. A grown man should never lose his temper the way H does.
The good news is, she is on an emergency list for assisted living. I told her that she doesn't need to live on peoples' floor, I will help her move, help her find somewhere, but somewhere she MUST find.
She asked , why, because she is just a kid, she should HAVE to clean up after herself, why DON'T we just do it and avoid the fighting, if we just did stuff for her she wouldn't HAVE to argue and fight, she would be happy. Well, what do you know? Wouldn't we all bloody well be happy if we had nothing shitty to do ever?
I pointed out that she ISN'T just a kid, she is an adult now and as unforgivable as it all this is, she has to take resposibility for HER part in it all. I am going to make H face HIS part, too.
I am tired, too tired of being the go between, the peacemaker, the step in and stop it. They are both adults, ding ding round one, get on with it, leave me out of it.

He has to face what he has done because it IS his doing, he DID lose it, she IS covered, from head to toe in black bruises, whether they are from being kicked, punched or from defending herself physically it doesn't matter to me. No-one should lose their temper like that and be able to carry on as if nothing has happened.
What do I do? go and see my doctor and explain the other side?
( see? ME! what do I do? Where should I go, who should I talk to? I haven't done anything! This isn't about ME. It will be me that sorts it all out though. Maybe that's my mistake, always trying to make it all OK. Shoot me.)
What I want to do is curl up and weep.
Please don't tell me I am a good mother because I really don't feel it. I really don't, being told that right now, makes me feel worse because it can't be true can it? Good mothers raise happy children who can live with people and get along.
Good wives can talk to their husbands and discuss problems, they don't just hope things will work out because trying to talk is too damn hard sometimes. I am sick of talking and reasoning and asking and hoping.
Good mothers can watch their children be happy and feel happy when it is time to move on, it should be an exciting time.

I don't feel right now that I am better anymore.

I am as sick and as sad and as lost as I ever was, only now I have to do it quietly because what's the point? To anything? The rat of misery is gnawing on my weary brain. Again. Pass me the drugs, make me not think.

H says he will leave and move back to the US rather than ever have any of this happen again, noble, better though, to walk 200 yards to his doctor, open his mouth and say " I have an anger problem, my stepdaughter makes me feel murderous, can you help me?" Will he do that? I doubt it. That statement was probably said to make me stick to having Sophie leave. I am sticking to that but not because he wants it, because it is better for her, and for the boys.

I am so sad for her because her whole life is going to be filled with situations like this unless she gets help to overcome this incredible one sided thing where she simply cannot see where she could change, what she could do differently.
The thought she has gone from one place to another telling this tale of being a poor innocent girl, minding her own business, walking into her home, where no-one loves her or sticks up for her and getting beaten because she didn't wash a dish. I hate that. She was dalm enough today, to actually listen to what I saw, with my own eyes. Until today she hadn't been, she was still yelling and threatening. I don't suppose it made the slightest difference. It helped me though.
I'm glad she has the help to move, to start on her own somewhere. I am sad that she has told untruths about a good man, who made a wrong choice. I suppose though, that when we overstep a mark, whoever we are, however good we may usually be, when we make a wrong choice we have to accept that there will be repercussions, this time the whole family has been put in a position where we face uncertainty and outside intervention. I am very cross about that, which will give me the strength not to push it all to the back of my mind and hope it won't happen again.
Sophie had every right to report what happened and actually, I am glad that she has the strength to stand up for herself, I wish she was more honest with herself and others , I wish she could see that her behaviour is anything but acceptable. I wish the same of H too, I wish he could see that no matter HOW bad she is, how loud she is, how maddening and rude she is, there is always a better way to deal with her.
How sad that in her life she has had her mother, her father, her 2 brothers and her step dad all lose it so badly that they have hit her. If I were to list the people who have stated that they want to hit her, who have threatened her, who have been driven to such depths by her relentless taunting, I would be here all day. How sad is that?
Until she sees that while she does what she does, she is going to be faced with the same reactions right throughout her life, until she sees that something must change, she will be unhappy. She can't be helped until she sees that she needs help.
The hardest part of being a parent is having to accept that sometimes you have to just stand back and let them learn, even when you know that this will all end in tears. Again.

So, today....

I don't know where she is. Her phone is turned off, I know she has no money at all, not until monday at least.
She came in at midnight last night, got her stuff and left.
I did cry, because it is all so stupid and unnecessary and exhausting. And sad.
I am tired of hearing stories about her, she puts herself in danger all the time and nothing seems to get through to her. She must have guardian angels on every side. She walks through the streets at 3am, she drinks with people she scarcely knows, she thinks everyone is her friend.
I know she is sad, she won't let anyone help her though. She thinks all the wrong things are the things that will make her happy.
No matter what I do she insists I do nothing, she is convinced that she is unloved and that we don't care, how do you convince someone that isn't so?
Answers on a postcard please.

And something so splendid.

Because when thigs are a bit bleak it is always a good idea to find something wonderful to do, I went over the road to see my new great nephew. Cobi Richard who is so divine and tiny and bird like, I forgot how revolting these tiny bits of perfection have the ability to become, this one though...surely, he will always be this perfect.

So then. The low down.

So, because this is my blog and isn't just for laughs, but started off as somewhere to come and vent the crappy stuff, here I am, about to tell the world the dark side of today.
Naturally, because this is me, I have to tell all the background and make it all long winded and try and explain ( but not excuse ) the whys and wherefores.
I don't think I started my blog until the very worst of Sophie was done. I'm sure we have had some bad times but not any of the worst. Maybe we have, but without reading through my whole blog, I can't remember. I do recall one episode that made me mad with H, but not sure if I have ever blogged in full detail any of the episodes that are Sophie.
So, here I go.
She is a teenager, normal in many ways and in many ways she is unlike any person I have ever known, teenager or otherwise.
She seems to take the greatest delight in teasing and arguing with the boys, there is something disquieting about a 17 year old fighting, really fighting, with a 3, 5 or 6 year old. She does, most days.
She does what a lot of teenagers with younger siblings do, she thinks she is the parent, when we are right there, she will discipline our children, she smacks them ( which drives me insane!) she teases them, she orders them about. I cannot stand it, H cannot stand it, nothing we say works, she is deaf to it all. She does as she pleases.
Eli has been so sick, you know little people when they are sick, look at them sideways, they cry, give them the wrong plate, they cry, don't look at them they cry. ARGH!!!! So Sophie walks into the room ( several times a day) she grabs Eli, who is sitting quietly with blanket and thumb. She grabs him, well just because. He screams, she drops him onto the couch and yells that he is a brat, stupid kid screaming.
3 days we have calmly told her to leave him alone, don't touch him don't interfere with him. LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!
This morning at 7.30, she did that. Then she started on Seth, pick, pick, niggle, pick, tease, yell.
H said "Sophie, if you're looking for something to do, go and do your dishes you left last night"
Nothing.
5 minutes later, nothing, still pick pick, ignore, sit, stare.
H...." Sophie, go and do what I asked you to do, what is this? Just do the dishes "
( here's where things get iffy, to give the real picture I can't just replace the words she says, sorry about this)
"Fucking hell, a few fucking dishes, get a fucking life, OH MY GOD!" all the while stomping and swearing and head wagging.
He left the room to follow her and left a red mist behind him.
I said " Don't hit"
I said that because I hate hitting, also, when the red mist descends, he hits. When you have a person who is almost always controlled, when they snap, they really snap. Me, I can yell at the drop of a hat, cry with the greatest of ease, laugh and start all over again. H doesn't so much of that. He thinks about things and works things out and he broods. He takes it all in and rather than say what he is feeling, he just feels it and broods about it and minds, he just isn't sure what to do about minding. So
sometimes, after he has held his wrath for days, weeks, months, over things that would have had me blowing my top....he snaps.
So, I heard, before I saw, that hell had erupted.
Now, this has happened 4 times that I can really remember. One of those times, he had his heart attack. His rage was so huge that his heart quite literally shook, convulsed and spewed off some plaque that blocked it and made it not work. The other times, well I hate to talk about them, or think about them really.
I do know that I am never afraid of him. He has come towards me with the rage in his face but he hears me when I say stop, when I talk to him, he comes back from the bad place and all is well.
Sophie though, well to start with she doesn't care enough to wonder what to do, he is my husband, it matters to me that when he is angry, we work it out. Why should she care? So she doesn't. I get that, in as much as she feels what she is feeling, what I don't get and can never understand is her complete inability to shut the hell up.
Everyone else I have ever met in my life, has that something inside that tells them to stop, shut up, be quiet, give up. Not Sophie. Ever.
When I got into the kitchen, I made myself stop and take in what was happening because, I have learned that there is power in knowing what you are dealing with, respond rather than react.
So, I stopped and I looked and I saw H, behind Sophie with his arms around her, holding her arms down, trying to get her out through Jordan's door. She was kicking, slapping with the arm that got free, and she bit him, right through his finger. The whole time she was yelling
"FUCKING BASTARD! Get off me, you fucking asshole, I'm going to get you kicked out, piss of back to America and I am going to make sure you never see your kids, Fuck you asshole!"
I walked in, stood between them , put a hand on each of them and told them to stop......he walked away, hardly breathing, she never took a breath, more fucking assholes, bastards, twat, etc etc. ( with 3 little boys, huge eyes very still, that breaks my heart the most)
She was raging, she was getting the police, social services, he was dead, finished. All dotted with expletives of the vilest kind.
Then she left, H took the boys to school and while he was gone, she came back. Because he wasn't here, she started on me, bitch, cow, fucking useless always taking his side, never treat her the same as everyone else, well fuck me, she's going to show us, she isn't going to take it anymore, just wait and see. Out she went again.
Just as H came home, the phone rang.
" Hello, to whom am I speaking?"
" Who would like to know?"
"This is ******* from social services"
"Oh, then you are speaking to Sophie's mother, I assume you have her with you, would you like to keep her?"
Slight silence as I am sure they are used to people being flummoxed and afraid and defensive.
He laughed a bit and then said that as she was almost 18 and an adult, no he wouldn't keep her but they had called the police and she had refused to make a complaint as she didn't want the boys taken away from me, AS IF!!!
I told him my side of the story and asked him if at any stage had she admitted that she could have been at fault. Oh, also, before he said anything I told him how, in the fight, H had tried to push her out of the door and she had banged her face on the doorframe....turns out she told him H had punched her in the face.
As expected, she had said that she had been ' a bit lippy' but hadn't deserved what he 'had done to her'. She will never admit to any responsibility, when the boys scream it isn't because she has pinned them down, it's because they are brats. When a teacher gives her a low grade it's because they hate her. When someone she is friends with stops being her friend it is because they are stupid and who gives a shit?

I had to go out, take Seth to the eye hospital, meet mum and look over a house with her, have a lovely lunch, pick up Isaac, talk with his teacher ( who is in love with him, of course) I got back just after 4pm, Sophie was in Jordan's room and as I walked past she laughed, LAUGHED and said " Ha, how's H's hand then?"
I tried 3 times to discuss what had happened with her, before she laughed that is. She told me to shut the fuck up, la la la la la la not listening, shut up, get out, don't give a shit, get out.
When she laughed and then said she was on her way to the doctor to show him what H had done to her leg ( which, from where I was watching, must have got bruised while she was kicking the door or him, or just fighting, he DID NOT kick her)
Well, that's when I began to feel as though the time has come for me to give up. When she left, I locked the doors. I called her and said that as she was so traumatised and afraid, that she had involved the police, social services and the doctor, then it was probably wise that she stay away. I would hate for her to have to be somewhere that she feels so threatened. She has texted me and asked that I pack her some clothes and makeup and leave it outside, she has told me where she is staying. I haven't packed her a bag yet because I can't be bothered, when I am ready I will throw some things in a bag and leave it outside and I won't cry. Much.
It is time that she find somewhere else to live. Be grown up, you know the way she keeps telling me she is.
I have no idea how or where she will go, but I will help her, as much as she will let me. I won't just fill the bin bags and watch her walk.
It isn't possible, with Sophie, to learn and try again. Nothing changes. How much more of these little boys' lives must be filled with seeing this and hearing the filth that comes out of her mouth?
Nobody tells you any of this when you take home that precious bundle of sweet smelling babyness. When you first encounter those toddler tantrums, you think this must be hell. When they make a mess of their rooms and don't try hard enough in school, you think THIS must be the toughest of all times.
Maybe it's for the best that we don't know what lies ahead. How marvellous that we see other people's teenagers and tut tut, imagine, not MY kid though, mine will never do that, be like that, treat me like that.
Animals have the right idea, if they don't eat their young, they turf them out when they have a new litter. Who says we are the superior species?

Maybe later.

We had a Sophie day today.
I can't even begin to tell you yet, suffice to say that I feel sick. She has pushed all boundaries and if any of you are planning to send her anything, and haven't yet, please don't waste your money.

I will tell you more later, it isn't nice, which means it will make gripping reading and will be one of those *gasp* posts that will make many wonder how I am still sane, others feel indignant, some be full of advice that I won't listen to because, unless you have had THIS person live in your house ( and she is nearly 18, the child thing won't wash with me anymore, she is not a poor little misunderstood girl, she is a cow.) well you can't tell me what I should have done. You can't say what you would have done. You can't.
I really thought that we had passed this kind of crap with this girl. I was wrong, it will never be over until she leaves, then it won't be over, it will just be somewhere else.
She bit through H's finger this morning, right through. I walked in just now, after 8 hours and she laughed as she asked how his hand is.
It is possible to despise a child you gave birth to, whilst hoping that somehow you still love them.
It isn't a fluffy feeling.

Thought it was some hair gel, but it 'snot

Elijah is poorly, poor Elijah. He tells me 37 times a day that he is soooooo poorly, while he is wailing, in between wiping snot on his hand, his arm, my leg, he does blow his nose but then sort of wipes it across his face. The hair? Not gel, oh no it isn't. Ewwww.

Poor little man, we can't keep up with the nose, it is winning every race. He is hot and his eyes are red and watery. And he cries. A lot. As a general rule he doesn't cry, hardly at all. He has been crying for 3 days. He can't sleep too well either and he wants daddy AND mummy to sit all day and just snuggle him and read.


Which all sounds heavenly, except sometimes, we have to move and do dull things like pee and collect other boys from school, which makes him cry and cough and just generally melt down rather spectacularly.
This winter has been a rotten old wet one, February is the most miserable month isn't it? Christmas is all over, the spring is just a bit too far away to look forward to. We're going away next week, just for 3 days, it will be lovely .... we won't think about teenagers left here, will we?
I say...... H is taking me to lunch for valentines day, on thursday though because then Sophie can look after snot head for us. What a thing though, h isn't known for his romantic gestures, which makes the ones he does do extra splendid. He really is a bit gorgeous lately.
Did I tell you he has started a blog? He has, he lets me read it too. He won't read mine because he says it might make me feel I have to curtail what I write ( and also? He has me here, saying it all...I suspect the very thought of having to sit and read all this might make him lose the very will to live)
H's blog is going to be informative and every now and then I think there will be something that makes my heart skip a bit. Just like him of course.
It is 1am, I have got to sleeeeeeeeep. I think the boys have at last stopped crying and waking up. I hate to go to bed, just doze off and then get woken up, guaranteed to get a snarl every time!
So, night night, may the snot stay away from your homes.

I think I'll go and eat worms.

So, Sophie's life is miserable. She has no joy, everything is crap, nobody loves her, nobody likes her ..... ( anybody got some worms?)
She thinks that maybe she should stop eating ( alas, she is my daughter, that will never happen!) and just drink alcohol instead ( that would work ,no??) and she has no boyfriend ( like THAT would cheer her up) and she should just give up because no-one even cares that it is her birthday soon ( at least she is mentioning her birthday, that's a step in the right direction at least!) Her life is over.
It is very hard to be cheery around someone who is whining so incessantly without doing anything to change anything.
I am the devil incarnate today, apparantly, she left a message with Jordan for me to collect some leaflets from the body shop for her yesterday, because she was only told a week ago that she had to have them TODAY, naturally Jordan didn't give me the message, so now she can't damn well go to damn college today because nobody got her damn leaflets that nobody but her knew about, and shut up because she has been too busy to get them herself in the 4 days she wasn't in college and wasn't bloody working which means she has no money, crap, boring, everyone is having a life except her.
I love teenagers, especially the girl ones with hormones and attitude and no boyfriends that live in my house.
When she GETS a boyfriend, I am leaving home, please don't let me have to listen to the whning and weeping and wailing that is sure to come along with that little development.
I had a trend of meeting someone and marrying them very quickly and then moving to another country, do you think that is genetic, does she have it do you think? Does anyone have a lovely boy relative that is in another country that would sweep my girl off her feet and whisk her away to pastures new and far away because, honestly, we are not having fun here.
I am excited about the cards and packages that such kind people are sending this child for the birthday that will see her become a woman, that she is dreading, I hope that she cheers up soon because otherwise, when they get here, I might be tempted to see how many I can shove where the sun don't shine . Do the packages have lots of gum in, that will stick her teeth together and shut her up? Please.
Breathe mother, count to 10.........
( ha ha the one thing that IS ok, is that this means she can stay in bed and sleep and sleep......shall I tell her that some men are coming today to cut a new loft entrance, right outside her bedroom door, I think not, I think I will leave that as a happy suprise that will make her day and mine......ooooh! maybe one of the men will be 19 and handsome and like teenage girls that look like they have been asleep in a hedge, during a gale.. and that swear really loudly when they are woken up with banging and sawing noises, what d'ya think?)

You couldn't make it up....

I couldn't anyway, who needs to make up tales when the real thing happens every day?
You remember when I wrote this 5 days ago....

I am comforted by the plethora of fire extinguishers we have in this house, we should perhaps read the instructions so we would know how to use them, rather than run around screaming like a demented lunatic wishing we knew what to do.

Do you think, for one moment that I hurried out to the hallway and the landing and read the instructions? Do you? Of course not. Do I wish I had? Oh yes. Why? you may ask.
Because today we had a FIRE. Yes a FIRE, a real one, with flames and smoke and lots of PANICKING.
H has a once splendid lavendar neck thingy that goes in the microwave, it heats up and once upon a time would come out smelling beautiful and was relaxing and soothing for a crinkly and aching neck. It is so old now, that it smells of porridge and is not pleasant although, because he is a man, he doesn't mind smelling like a pot of old oatmeal and he uses it every day. So, today he heated it up and walked away to do something else and Eli heard the microwave 'ping' and brought smelly porridge thing to daddy.
"Good boy, clever boy, thankyou Eli, what a helper you are." We said.
I was busy and H was busy and everyone was busy and Eli was REALLY busy, making dinner or something.
"Hey, I fink there is a toy inna micawave, I fink"

Oh.




OH!!....ARGH..QUICK .. SOPHIE!! SEE IF HE IS COOKING A TOY!!!!

"YES HE IS AND IT IS ON FIRE...REAL FIRE WITH FLAMES!"
I ran, well, if you can call moving the way I do when in a panic running, I cast a wasted glance at the 2 fire extinguishers on the way past and thought about how I told myself I should learn what the hell to do with them but didn't, what a waste of fire extinguishers, damn it all.
There was fire and smoke and melting toy trucks. What did I do? I grabbed a tea towel, you know, a flammable piece of cloth and grabbed the flaming toy truck, I AM SO CLEVER!!!!
Luckily, the sink is quite close to the microwave and with a dexterity I didn't know I had, I did a rather graceful pirouette type move ( oh shut up, I can dream) and flung the burning toy and flaming tea towel in the sink, hoorah! Am total hero.
Shan't be bothered by polish party smoking tonight, I suspect we won't notice. The microwave is dead. Very black and melted. We are safe though and all is well. I am going to read how those extinguishers work.
Yes. I. am.

Ramblings of a complete fruit loop.

I have been a bit glum lately. Actually, I have been a raving misery, crashed quite spectacularly and was beginning to think that I might even have to go and be tortured by the chinese needle man any day. ( you'd like that wouldn't you? I have evidence that the writings about my treatments were quite the thing to look forward to, you could all care less about the humiliation of my knickers shooting off, I am nought but an object of mirth )
I have had that sinking feeling on awakening, that feeling where rather than wake and leap out of bed saying " GOOD MORNING GOD!" you hide back under the quilt and mutter "ugh, good God, morning."
I hate that. I have much to be cheery about. Things are sort of tickedy boo and dandy. Ack. Mayhaps I am one of those never happy without a drama people. I don't think so.
Sometimes, I get like this and don't know why and then suddenly something will happen that is like a light bulb clicking on. That happened today. Thank goodness, imagine having to do the needles and smelling like a camphored up old biddy again in order to stop bloody crying all the time.
So, have you gathered that I am a firm believer in all things spiritual? I pretty much know that there is more than we can see and much more than we will ever understand and that when we die, we don't just disappear.
I have comforted myself this past 11 months with lovely pictures of my dad in the hereafter, living it up with people he loved and missed that he was reuinited with. Etc. Etc.
I thought that he would be thinking about us and all, but would be so busy dancing with the angels and singing with Jesus that really, there just isn't time to think about us much.
Turns out that mum still feels him around her all the time and things happen that make her sure he is still watching her, a lot. For some reason, this threw me into the deepest doldrums.
Oh NO! It means he can't be happy and he is sad and missing her too much to enjoy even the glories of the eternities. Is this life nicer than the next? because THAT would be depressing. Really depressing. What is it all about if he is sad, because we can't help him or bring him back.
( Hmmm, beginning to think , seeing THAT in black and white, that a visit to somewhere more secure than an acupuncturist might be in order)
Anyway, thoughts like these are generally best kept as thoughts because when voiced, well you sound like a lunatic and it's always best to keep that type of information quiet. The trouble with thoughts kept to oneself, when you are me, is that they grow and bleed and turn into monstous great mental boils that threaten to make your brain fester and explode. Gah.
And the thing about my mum is that she is just so lovely.
I am 44 and I can still walk into her bedroom and snot cry about how "dad must be miserable in heaven and what can we do and OH MY HELL we'll never be happy and neither will he and nothing is ever going to be alright again is it..and oh are you ready to go and have a camera down your throat for the ninth time and Seth followed me out of school THREE times in this torrential rain and I had to keep taking him back and my trousers are soaking wet and his teacher heard me yell at him and now she thinks I am a horrible mother and he might hate me and I think the cat has pooed in his litter tray because your kitchen? It stinks! "
I can do all that and even though it is HER husband that died, and it is HER that is about to have her 9th endoscopy, HER kitchen that smells like cat poo, she just loves me and says all the right things and makes ME feel better.
I shout at my kids when they are frightened of going into school and they are 5 and 6. Old cow.
The endoscopy went well, she is much better, she might even be able to eat without weeping for a while.
At the hospital we were entertained by a man in his late 60s who was splendidly irreverant and had us all howling with laughter. It was one of those golden times that you couldn't buy. He was still under the sedation a bit, so was mum which actually added to the hilarity of it all.
Somehow, for who knows what reason he told us that his wife ( the dragon, god love her) had come into some money.
"well when you've never had no money, time you get to our age, what are we eant to do with it? We got our dog, home and she got a new car, what more d'we need?" Then he said to mum

" course, you had some money you could buy yourself a toy boy"

I said " she doesn't want one of those, she wants a blind millionaire with no arms"

Much snorting and then the question " NO ARMS?? Why no ARMS?"

"Well, because she can't be doing with all that groping malarchy, he'd just say..there's my wallet help yourself"

"where'd you live my lover? Tell me where you live and I'll come round tonight, tie me arms behind me back and we'll give it a go!"

We sat in the recovery room, nurses and patients and family, everyone of us hooting, the man in the centre of it all stopped laughing for a minute and said " See? This is what it's all about, you can't fault this place can you? They look after you and can't help you enough. They're bloody marvellous here, we're lucky as hell aren't we?"
And we are. I hope dad was watching, if he is, he can see that it's all OK, he can be happy and see that even when the cat has made the house stink and mum has to have yet another procedure we can still laugh. Life isn't that bad is it?
Still wish I could stay in bed all day tomorrow though.

The plan so far!

I have found out that the fabulous CHICAGO is coming to a theatre near us in time for Sophie's birthday, so we will head into the big city, shop and shop some more, catch a matinee, eat a delicious dinner somewhere a bit lovely and come home so she can see her friends. I am sure she'll want to go out and be 'legal' at the pub!
Her birthday is march 11th, if you can send any cards as soon as you like I will just keep them hidden until the day. We will be going out the day before her birthday as the 11th is a sunday, so we wouldn't get too much shopping done and the show isn't playing!
The cards though, I will give to her on her birthday.
Email me if you need my address ( but if you're a lovely lurker and I haven't heard from you before, sorry, best not to give out my address! )
I am beginning to get so excited for her, several of you have asked if she likes anything in particular, she does, she loves corn nuts and cinnamon gum! Gpa brings her some but couldn't find any corn nuts, she is having withdrawals! She really likes ranch corn nuts! Shipping is horrendous though so don't go mad!
THANKYOU!!!!! This is going to be splendid.

what do you think?

So, next month, Sophie the girl child, will be 18. EIGHTEEN!! A woman. Hell.
She is one of those people that start talking about her birthday the day after christmas. She has always driven us a bit crazy with her birthday talking. This year though, the big one, the EIGHTEENTH one, she hasn't said a word. Fearing that she has actually gone and grown up completely and become a whole other ( boring) person, I asked her what she wanted to do on her birthday.
"Nothing"
"what do you mean nothing?"
" I don't like thinking about it anymore, i don't think I even like my birthday anymore"

WHAT??????
Guess what. Last year, on her birthday, my dad, papa died.
I didn't think that she had thought about it being on her birthday, we were all so horribly sad that we couldn't care what day it was, he was gone. Ugh.

What to do, what to DO???? Dan always hates his birthday, it doesn't matter if his birthday comes and goes, but SOPHIE?? The please can we make this day stretch 3 weeks and then start talking about the next one? Not her, she MUST lok forward to her birthday. She MUST have a day that brings back that Sophie who drives us insane.
Can you help me?
Can you, do you think...send her cards from all over the world? I have visions of waking her up and showering with proof that she is actually a bit of a star, I shan't tell her just HOW much you all know about her, just that you do and that she is a bit gorgeous and LOOK! CARDS!!!
Nobody wants her to feel that she has to forever be sad on her birthday, last year we couldn't help it, but this year and every year it has to go back to being the day Sophie was born, not the day papa died.
I will keep it all very quiet and let her think that we are grabbing the chance not to plan every detail of her day for months in advance and then live through her disappointment when it all falls apart.
I want to come up with an idea for celebating with her and can't decide between a her and me day, an invite all her loud friends and do something crazy day, I am sure I don't want to do the party thing, unless we make it a kiddie one where they can all eat jelly and cake, play games and win cool prizes ( which actually she would think is pretty cool)....her sort of party would be drunken and end in tears, she doesn't need that at all. So, ideas on that too please.
It is lovely to have something cheery to plan amidst all the sickness here, grey faces and weary bodies ...... take me away and help me plan the girls day, please!!

How many Polish people.....

....can you fit in the one bedroom flat in our basement?
Five at the moment, all adults. Remarkably quiet, apart from door slamming, they have to slam the door to get it to shut, so we don't blame them for that, we slam doors because we feel like it.
When our landlady said she was renting the basement flat to a polish man and perhaps his girlfriend, she told us that she had made it very clear that this is a family home, that we make noise and we make a lot of it, they had to live with that. They do, they are particularly polite, if we see them.
I am a martyr to smells. Smells rule my life, smells and noise. Visually, I am less bothered by things, long sighted and the least observant of people, I suspect I could ( and probably have) walked past my 'under the house' neighbours in the street and not even know it was them. I think the girl has blond hair and a less than cheerful face, the rest I have no idea about. I can tell you what they smell like though.
They cook delicious smelling food at the weekends and heaven help me, on saturday nights they have quiet parties where all their friends come over and smoke. They laugh, which is always a good thing at a party and they smoke, really a lot, of very strong smelling cigarettes. The smoke comes through the kitchen ( which is above their sitting room) and oh how it stinks.
I am not a fan of cigarette smell, I can appreciate the very first whiff of a newly lit cigarette and the occassional cigar will remind me of my grandpa at christmas time, anything over that and I really hate it.
I especially mind that smell in my house. I save drying for saturday nights ( actually, that's a lie, I don't save it but there is always laundry to dry) I put extra bounce drier sheets in and that masks the smell somewhat.
Naturally, because I do it so well, I worry about fires. All those people smoking in a tiny place ...throw the beers in and well, who's watching all those dog ends? I am comforted by the plethora of fire extinguishers we have in this house, we should perhaps read the instructions so we would know how to use them, rather than run around screaming like a demented lunatic wishing we knew what to do. I'm not sure how to even get them off the wall, I do know that a very loud alarm goes off when the boys try to get them off the wall.
I wish the people ( or the landlady) downstairs would arrange to have their mail delivered DOWNSTAIRS, there is a lot of mail for 5 adults and it all comes here and then we take it down. I give it to Jordan, he stacks it all up in his room and then when I have nagged him long enough he takes it down to them.
I am a bit sad when it comes to mail. I really look forward to the postman coming in the morning, I don't know why, it's not like I get much mail other than bills or official letters, ebay helps me feel people love me and are sending me presents, but I've been a bit ebay neglectful lately, what with being a born again miser and all.
So, when I hear the gate squeak, I smile inside and imagine what treats are about to be pushed through the letter box and plop on my coconut matting.
Usually some junk mail and 53 envelopes addressed to people whose names have lots of z's and y's in them. Even that joy is snatched from me.
My headache is a bit better, I'm down to that thumping empty feeling, I'll take that I suppose, it beats the bone crunching, brain squishing eye bulging headrot I had yesterday.
Isaac spared me this morning, I think the whole weekend of ' ooh Isaac, make sure you get some great books at SCHOOL on monday' and 'Isaac, I am so happy you are better and can go to SCHOOL on monday' must have worked.
He went to school like a good boy, he read 3 books with me and actually I got a real lift when we went to choose his books.....they are colour graded, starting at pink and working up to gold or white.....Isaac is on the blue level. I think that's about level 5 when we were choosing I noticed that the 2 children who were also choosing their new books, both in Isaac's class, were both choosing books from levels 2 and 3 levels lower than Isaac. Most times I get so wrapped up in the things Isaac can't / won't do, that it is refreshing to be reminded that there are things he excels at, when faced with daily reminders that this little boy is different and will always face these challenges it is easy to forget, that along with the difficulties, come so many incredible abilities.

I took the boys today as H is well and truly bedridden again with this flu ( hope its not bird flu, although why I think that is any worse then the flu he actually has I don't know. ) I hope I can get him to go to his doctor tomorrow, I don't think he could have actually made it there today he is so poorly. I do have sympathy when someone is ill but do wish they would see a doctor, take the medicine like a man and sleep. I don't suffer brave people well.
I think H was enormously relieved today when I told him to go to bed and sleep, he didn't take any persuading and stayed there the whole day. He looks terrible and I wish he would get that flu shot every year! I have an underlying and nagging worry about H lately, I wish I could put my finger on whatever it is, hopefully it is all in my mind anyway. When the spring comes and the sun is out I'm sure we will all feel better. He has had a rough winter. I think his Californian bones fine the weather here tough. He was so healthy in Cali, never saw a doctor ( of course, never had insurance so couldn't but we might tackle that topic another day !) since he has been here, he's had a heart attack, followed by Peri carditis, all kinds of illnesses that have laid him low. He must long for those days of sunshine even in february. He'd never say though, not like me when I was living there. I'm sure H was never in any doubt that I wanted to come home!
Ack, nearly 11pm and so much to do ready for tomorrow. Get well soon my H..the kitchen needs you!

would you mind terribly if I asked you to whisper?

It's just that I have this headache. Headache, that doesn't describe it at all. My head has a corkscrew in it, actually 3, one in each temple and one right through the top of my head. Every small noise brings an added crescendo of pain, there is much noise here today.
I have just been to mum's house, it is on the market and someone wanted to view today..the day that estate agents don't work, mum is away...so I went to answer questions I know no answers to and to stroke beautiful staircases and make much of how peaceful that house is. I didn't mention that compared to this house a shack next to the M25 is peaceful. I went early and turned on pretty lamps, ate chocolate and read my book, with no TV on, nobody talking, nobody fighting or jumping or throwing lego. I was a little disgruntled that Mr and Mrs houseviewer arrived on time, selfish buggers.
I was there when it turned dark and didn't cry, I always cry when I go to mum's house when it is dark because my dad still isn't there. He never will be again will he? I didn't cry though, I just sat and looked at his empty chair for longer than was healthy.
I wonder if it will be sad if mum moves, her new house will never have had dad in it, which will mean that it won't feel like there is a gaping hole where he was, but it might feel like we left him behind somewhere.
Can you believe it is almost a year since he died? This time last year we were all blissfully unaware of the sadness that was about to smash us in the heart. He was a bit weary and a little under the weather, he had that niggling sort of pain in his side, the 'pulled muscle' but he was still dad, still working, had just helped us move house by driving that huge truck. No clue that he will filled almost to the brim with that cancer. Unbelievable, still.
Mum went to somewhere I can't remember, to celebrate her sister and brother in law's 50th wedding anniversary. A long drive in a small car with 4 adults and 2 dogs, rather her than me.
Auntie Ann and Uncle Clifford renewed their vows, I think I want to be funny about that. I don't understand why someone would renew their vows after 50 years, it seems to me they remember them pretty darn well to have stuck with it all that time...or...they forgot and that was just as well because whatever they have been doing it's worked. Congratulations Anne and Clifford.
Anyway, I was saying, I have a headache, it has been 5 days with no let up, nothing is making it go away, I am becoming more and more irritable as time goes by. h is very sick, fever, sore throat, aching joints, Seth has it too, his little lymphangeoma eye is puffed up and weeping, that is sure sign that he isn't making it all up.
Isaac is better, having had all last week off school, I am dreading tomorrow because he is having a phase of screaming bloody murder every time we try to get him out of the door. I am ashamed to say that friday we gave in and just kept him home, I just couldn't face any more of that screaming but tomorrow, I will have to prise his fingers off the door jamb and pray my brain and ears don't bleed with the volume of those screams.
Does anyone else feel put out by the fact that as women we always have to keep on keeping on, even when our heads are breaking and our bodies are crumbling because everyone else gets first dibs on the sickbed? H is great though and it is times like this that having him home 24/7 works out, we play nap tag, relay snooze, passing each other on the stairs as we crawl up for a nap as long as we can get away with it.
So, another day is done......nearly bedtime for the noisy people in this house. Seth and his dogs are sitting in me, it is snuggle before bedtime. Hoorah.
May my headache go, soon, very soon because I don't like it. Not at all.

Will it ever get old?

I am talking about Elijah and his dance class. We went a little bit early today to choose his tap shoes. Oh sweet clippetty clop went my heart along with his teeny little tap shod feet.
I asked what clothes he should wear. Jazz pants, or, OR the most glorious, divine, lycra unitard, yes... a boy's leotard, one piece, knee length, sleeveless, turtle necked teensy piece of mummy heaven.
I didn't have my camera and as divine as he looked, and he did look divine, little butt in lycra? Are you kidding? That little bit of material that must have weighed all of 1/8th of an ounce cost £34.50. Justify that!
Every fibre of my being wanted to buy that unitard, my purse just wouldn't open to let me. I just know that mothercare will have some cute lycra that will be a fraction of the cost. I wish I had had my camera though because the little body, in that suit, with tap shoes, twirling and tapping? My heart took pictures but I can't post those here. Darn it.
I couldn't sit in the class today, I was sad about that, Elijah could care less, he ran into that room, lifting his shoes as he went to make sure Mrs Tap and jazz noticed he had the right shoes. He skipped out 45 minutes later aglow with the joy of his lesson. Please let him keep loving it at least for a while.
Seth and Isaac went to the movies with H. They saw Happy Feet, this was a pretty good saturday.
Eli and I went shopping after dance class and he asked " Tan I doe dramma's house? I love to doe dramma's house, my bess friend lives there" Auntie Leah and Gramma are his best friends, apart from Isaac who is his really best friend. Eli and Isaac are like siamese twins lately, they do everything together, they have their arms around each other and faces close together, they discuss things and they call each other 'best friend'.
Be still my heart.
He danced for gramma, he danced with Leah. He has this effect on people that makes them clasp their hands over their mouths, I think it might be to stop them biting him, because somehow, he makes you want to bite him.
We were walking along the street this afternoon and a lady coming towards us, flung open her arms at him, as if she simply must have a hug. He is growing up because he used to run right into open arms, caring not who's arms they were. This time though, he gave a sweet little smile and then a look that said "Lady, I'm sure you're nice and all but it ain't gonna happen. " He took a step to the side and walked on by.
I try not to think about how life will inevitably change how Eli lives his life. Already, at the grand old age of 3 and a half he is learning to be less trusting. Too soon the sad lessons have to be learned, innocence leaves earlier and earlier. Isn't that a sad fact of life? I hope though that he always has this unhindered joy. He is a rare child in that whatever comes his way really is always enough, a treat, perfect, joyous. He never looks for more, or better.
He never appears dissatisfied. He does not whine. When he was a newborn and cried, all I had to do was say his name and he would stop and look, he has always been such a delight. He is naughty. He has got into things the others wouldn't dream of, last night for instance, he tipped a whole glass of orange juice into the drawing box, it took me 25 minutes to dry all the pens and pencils, mop up the juice, clean it up. I got cross and was snapping about how he should just think, and be more careful. He looked and said " Oh, I really am ferry Thorry 'bout nat" and he was so sincere, it is impossible to keep mad at him. 10 minutes after I had finished cleaning up he shook his head again and said " Oh, really I am THO thorry I did nat."
It doesn't stop him doing something just as awful later on but it's just such a joy to raise this boy.
All that and he dances too. Sometimes that cup just overfloweth doesn't it?
Take a bow Elijah........