Well yes, actually, I WAS ready for that!

The sun that is....a whole day of it, the sun most definitely had it's hat on, hip hip hip hooray.
H and I cleaned the house from top to bottom.
Here's the thing, I walk around this house and I mutter and kick things out of the way, I tread over basketballs ( currently 7 on the kitchen floor) I swear at duplo that no-one ever seems to play with yet, there it is, always on the floor.
I see clean laundry waiting to be ironed, clean ironed laundry, waiting to be put away, dirty waiting to be washed, clean waiting to be dried.
Everywhere is a bloody great mess. Every now and then ( yet not as often as I would like) H and I have a day where it is just unbearable and we 'set to' It has never yet taken more than 2 hours to do the whole house, including scrubbing and polishing. Why then don't we just do it more often? Why, because without fail, as soon as we do it, it gets undone. Faster than it got done.
Today though we cleaned it and then, because I am so clever and was one step ahead of the gits....I took them out. Not only did I take them out but we picked up the splendid 11 year old Billy, who even though he is 11 and completely grown up, likes coming out with us and Seth, Isaac and Eli think he is just about the coolest and most fun person to be with. Crafty me, this always means that everyone has fun..including ME because I get to read a magazine in a deck chair while 4 boys play and entertain themselves.
H doesn't do beaches.....funny for a Californian I know but there we are, I suspect that he'd get sand in his sideburns and that would be that, misery for all, for me because the bloody sideburns make me miserable, and for him because well, he'd have sand in them and be uncomfortable as well as look like something out of a dickens novel. On a tangent, I discovered last evening that he is now growing a full beard as well. Lovely, facial hair, to me is the most repulsive thing. I can deal with it on other people's husbands if they are trimmed and tidy, if I don't have to have it poke me in the face if I am kissed and if I don't have to touch it, at all. H knows I hate it, he knew that the last time he grew a beard I was unhappy and when he shaved it off, I was very very happy. The fact that he is growing it again, is like a smack in the face for me and I have spent nearly 24 hours trying to think what I could do that would make him feel the same way and understand....hmmmmm, he finished with one girl because she would wear cherry lip gloss and he said that the very sight of the super shiny lips and the smell of the sickly sweet cherry was more than he could stand. If I bought some and kept kissing him you think he'd tell me he hates it? I bet not. That's the only thing I can think of though.
I cannot simply say " Ewwwww, ugly, look I have put up with the old fart sideburns for months waiting for you to shave the damn things off but this is going too far..." because he is stubborn and that would make him feel obliged to keep them even longer.
I did tell him that the chances of me going out in public with him from now on are slim to none......oh how he laughed at that one.
I have talked myself stupid over the whole issue, told myself that he is glorious and that he is being a super splendid step dad to the girl after years, she is a bit like a little girl about it and keeps asking if HE actually thought of the key for her and if HE bought it and went to get it cut and then she smiles when I tell her that indeed he did and yes he did and YES he really did.
A beard shouldn't be of any importance, should it? No, don't be stupid. Then I look over at him and I see it beginning to 'be there' and ...here we go again with the seething and tutting in my head.
Now, people keep asking me if I am depressed again and I keep saying " no, its the rain and the no money and the endless this and that and the other"
Actually, I am. Depressed. Horribly. But I know why, which makes it less depressing and as soon as my doctor is back from her holiday I shall go and see her and tell her and maybe that will help.
I know what the problem is, the problem is that things are better. Ha! See? Don't tell me I'm not crazy.
The past few days have been very bad for me, actually lets change that to weeks. A good few weeks.
The last week has been the worst. When things are truly terrible, when I am in the midst of horror, I am the most splendid coper in the world. Watch me rock the world....I flatten monsters, beat demons, battle with evil and I win. I am incredible.
Then it gets better, life begins to shine, the sun comes out and it starts.
The shaking and heaving.
Just read from the beginning of this blog and you'll see where we have been with Sophie. Up and down and down even further. I have been holding my breath since she was 5. When she has been good, I hold my breath more because we have always been waiting for it to explode, every time I write or speak about her I wonder how negative I sound, I can hear the voices in my head telling me not to enjoy it because it will hurt more when it goes belly up.
This time is different, from the night she came at 1am and sobbed on the floor and begged me to help her, I knew she meant it. She has done everything I asked her. She has fallen and picked herself backup and tried again. Even when she has appeared to be being a bugger, I could see that it was fear holding her back, I knew I had to love her though it .
Yet again I have been guided every step of the way, every time I had to make her leave I knew it was the only thing to do, every time I fed her and sent he on her way, every night I stayed awake waiting for the phone call or the knock on the door, I knew there was no other choice.
I have been astounded at how I have been able to do it all.
This week, when I saw her come home from her first day at work, I knew it was over. Oh I don't doubt there will be hiccups and I am sure there will be days when I will gladly swing for her...just like a regular mum and a regular teenage daughter. I am not floating on a happy cloud thinking I have cinderella in my dining room.
What is happening now, is what has always happened, after the boys were better, when I knew they would be OK, when Sophie grew out of her epilepsy, when I saw that Dan being gay didn't mean he was doomed to be a sad and lonely misfit, he will never anything but adored and he is, as far as I can tell very happy. Phew.
So, now I am smack bang in the middle of what happens next.
The place where I shake from head to toe, every minute of the day and night, where I wake up holding my breath. Where I go to breathe and gag instead. Where every minute of every day, my head is screaming " Oh...oh dear God, that was horrible, it was SO horrible, please never, ever make me do that again, please don't make me do that because it was HORRIBLE and how did I not scream my way through it? How did I not die or go insane and I must be so hard to have done all that and not fallen apart. What kind of person am I that I can just keep gong through this shit and still function and behave as though everything is alright?
That's where I am now.... fun, isn't it?
Then, I see H's beard and it isn't just a beard it is " LOOK! He knows I hate that and he still does it and it will be months and I will cringe everytime I look at it and I just want everything the way I want it and I want it all to be nice and just let me be happy. Please.
Bloody beard.
It's exhausting being in my head.
It's 10 o'clock on a friday night and Sophie is home. 5 days in a row she has been home by 11, asleep by midnight, up in the morning without being woken up. I think she is on her way and that is such a good thing, the way she and H are with each other is a miraculous thing. All these things I couldn't imagine, ever.... and here they are.
Now my head just has to catch up with my heart. While I wait.....here are some pictures of the normal things I do while my head is away with the fairies.
Hell, I am so good. Who'd have thought?