Bad day. Good thinking.

In fact I can't even write about it. Suffice to say that my mother's instinct wasn't so far off with Sophie, not quite being sold as a sex slave but it's not the most far reaching scenario.
I am worn out, without reserve.
This time I have to stand behind her and catch her if she falls, I have to whisper in her ear and then push.
I can't carry her, I can't save her.
She has to do it. Feel it, want it, work for it, feel it and DO it.
The first step is that she says she wants it. She wants to stop. I've heard it before.
I told her I love her, she believes me now, I also told her that I have to help her, not do it for her. I will help..when she makes the effort.
I will tell her what she needs to hear, not what she wants to hear.
I will love her and support her but not help her kill herself or lose herself.
I don't know what I could have done, doesn't matter, I didn't do it.
I don't think about how things could have been, they weren't.
I can't change what made her so sad, I do think that it wasn't all me.
I try to show her that where we go NOW matters, what we do NEXT is what counts. We can all wish things were different, they aren't though, are they? Things are as they are, we have to change them or accept them, get on with it or alter it. Go forward.
I wish that there was somewhere to turn. I don't know where to go. Who to see. What to do.
I am one person. Just one ordinary person and yet I have to deal with such exceptional things.
Many people I know have one huge deal, some 'thing' that tests them, something that alters who they are and shapes who they become.
I really don't know anyone else who has faced such a catalogue of disasters. I know this all sounds like melodramatic hysteria and self pity, well so be it, my blog, my party and I'll cry if I want to.
Ha...said I couldn't write about it...liar liar pants on fire ( although that could be the hot water bottle, if I put it on the very bottom of my back it helps the damn restless legs thing)
Sophie is back to drug taking, grey face, ratty hair, musty smell, bad tempered.....a new phase and she came to me again for help, all good signs. What isn't good is that we've been there and done that, here we are again.
I want to shake her until what brain she has left rattles, I want to scream in her face and make her SEE who she is and what she is wasting.
I do see that she is listening. I can believe that this time, the desire is there to change, when we sent her away last time, she was just mad that we stopped her having her 'fun'. Now it's not fun. She is in trouble and she knows it.
I don't want her to die, I can't live for her. She has to live and she has to fight for it. This is what the fight in her is for. From when she was 5 I have told people that I know she has this feisty nature for some good reason that at some stage in her life she was going to have to fight hard for something. This. Is. It.
She has got a fight on her hands and she has to win it. I can't fight for her, I can only stand in her corner and shout her on.
She came into the front room this evening, ready to go out.
I wasn't looking and heard Jordan say " Soph. Did you forget to put your clothes on or what?"
Dear life, she had shorts on that were so short they were shts, the rest got lost somewhere along the way. She had very pale tights on underneath and she went to sit down next to Mel.
Mel reached over and grabbed the tights, ripping one leg right out, Mel said " Whoops!" and Jordan said " oh, shame, now you'll HAVE to get changed"
She took it from them and didn't fight, no shouting.....she'd have raged until the walls caved in if I had done anything like that.
The good news is she went for a job interview today, wore Mel's clothes ( meaning clothes, rather than hankies or bits of string with a square of stretchy stuff somewhere around her boobs but not quite covering them) I will pray that she gets the job, it will help her get out of the rut she is in. It is NOT in a pub or a bar, I will pray HARD that she gets the job.
She likes a boy, who likes her. He works and lives at home, he hates drugs and everything to do with them. She is afraid to like him because he may hate her and make her sad just as she allows herself to like someone. I will pray that he likes her enough to make her believe him, that he likes her enough to stick with it even if she panics, that he likes her enough to make her like herself.
I have told her that she can spend her whole life avoiding good and happy things to avoid being hurt. She will never be happy that way. She surrounds herself with low life, with dark and miserable people and things because she is able, for a nano second to feel superior, then the low life drags her down, so she has to find something lower, darker, more miserable.
If she keeps doing what she is doing, she'll keep getting what she is getting.
I love writing this blog, it is better than therapy, as I write answers come to me and I am beginning to see what I can do.
I think she has to be loved until she can't stand it anymore. I have spent too long trying to teach her and show her, I think somewhere along the line, I forgot to just love her. She has been such hard work. It's so hard to love someone when they are screaming WHORE at you, when they spit and fight, kick and swear. It has been all I can do to not beat the living crap out of her, I have felt almost saintlike for not doing that......to love her in an outward and affectionate way was just too far out of the realms of possibility.
I have been able to love her, openly for a while now. Actually want to kiss her and stroke her face, to say the words. I am ashamed at how she soaks it up, like the littlest of girls she leans in for more. It is probably what she has been yearning for for years, the whole time she spat and hissed, swore and ran away, she probably just wanted to be loved.
While I have been teaching her and setting boundaries, fiercely and relentlessly fighting her cause, battling against my husband on her behalf, speaking with teachers and doctors about her, I should have just been hugging her.
Every slap should have been a stroke.
I am so sorry.
All these years that I thought she should know that I was fighting for her,while she was fighting with me, I forgot to TELL her that I was doing it, I forgot to love her in a way she could see.

She never heard me speak up for her, she heard me tell how difficult she was.

She never saw me battle for her to be treated the same as other kids...she heard me say how different she was.

I have heard for years how hard she had it.....from her, this twisted version of a life none of us could ever recall, until right now....if I look through her eyes I can see what she remembers, I can see why she see things that way.

It's hard to kiss and snuggle with a little girl as she falls asleep when you have spent 6 hours trying to get her to lie down.

It's impossible, most days, to sit and read a book with a child that has spent the last 2 hours charging around the room terrorising her brothers.

It was more than I could manage to be a gentle and loving mummy to a little girl who would talk all the time about how she only wanted a daddy, just a daddy, where's MY daddy? I want my DADDY!

How can you tell a 6 year old that you are happy to be home and hug her, when she headbutted the babysitter and split her lip wide open, while you were gone for 2 hours, at a meeting, heaven help it had been for fun?

How to reassure a 10 year old that she IS still loved and still important when she has kicked and bitten and spat at your new husband, simply because he loves her mum too?

How to convince a 14 year old that even though there will be a new baby, she will still be the only girl and still much loved when she has kicked your pregnant belly and said you should keep your
F*****g legs shut because all you can make is stupid boys?
I am not superhuman, I am just me. Just. Me.

The list could go on, but what for? I see what happened and the challenge now, is to see what can be done. I don't believe it is ever too late to love someone, no-one I have ever known has been beyond loving. Sophie isn't, she is still all but begging for that kind of love that she thinks other people had and she didn't. She has been loved more than she will ever know, but not the way she has longed for. It's time to do some of what she longs for.
I know it, I can see it....but can I do it?
H has said that he's not sure he will ever be able to look her in the face and forget what she has done to this family. I don't blame him, but I wish he could try. I have felt everything for his son that he feels about Sophie, if Rob were to turn up on our doorstep my very soul would scream in fear.
He has said though, that he will not stand in my way as I do what I need to do to help her. That is an enormous step. He is keeping his word, although I can feel his panic when he wakes up and she is here asleep. I am not giving in and I am not going to allow her to live here again. Right now I just have to let her see that I love her and that I want for her to be safe and happy.

Dear Lord, please let me be able to do it right.

Let's not add that one to the list, thankyouverymuch.

So, I went all the way to the doctor today, next door but one. I showed her my arms and she stroked them with lovely cool hands and said 'ohhhhhhhhhhh.'
I love my doctor. She looked up all kinds of different things to find the very best and gave me a script for extra antihistamines and some cream that will soothe and stop that itch, I took it right to the chemist who said that it would be ready in 5 minutes. I am so important and have such a full and busy life that I felt 5 minutes was a bit long and decided to go about my business and collect the magic cream and pills on the way back, when I would have to walk right past the chemist door.
So, I will go back and get them tomorrow then.
Stupid head, can't keep a darn thing but worry in it for longer than 28 seconds.
She then gave my bosom, left one, a much needed and very thorough examination because darned if it hasn't been hurting like a very hurting thing for days. I have checked it and poked it and there definitely isn't a lump or anything but it HURTS so much. So, she looked and poked and checked and then she said
" so, you're not pregnant are you?"
" Ha! OH NO! "
"Sterilised?"
" Not me, but H, snipped, 3 years ago, phew, hoorah"
"and he had samples checked and it worked?"
"Well, actually, no. But 3 years, no baby..it worked right?"
"................................................................................................."

Can you imagine????? Look, I have a check list of things that only happen to other people, that have happened to me. We'll leave that one for someone else's dinner party telling shall we? ~YES we WILL!

We decided between us, that my poor boob is probably bruised from the endless elbowing it gets from little boys who all want to sit with me, when its nearly bedtime, they shuffle next to me and then they endlessly hoike themselves up with their elbows, in my left boob. When I go back in 2 weeks for a check on my blood pressure we will discuss my bosom again, bless it. Actually she was impressed with my boobies, even asked where the scars were, hey there I was thinking they were terrible scars too. Yeay boobs.

We had 2 sets of people look over the house today. I absolutely have to get over this, if I don't I am going to end up either dead or sicker than sick. Get over it for heavens sake. It is not the end of the world.
I worked out that what my problem is is that I can and do get through anything of I know the details. Tell me when and how and where and I'll roll up my sleeves and get on with it. The hardest thing for me is seeing how full steam this house sale is going on, people want to see it and view it and probably buy it, regardless of how we feel , it is happening and all we can do is let it.
While we are letting it happen, what we are doing is floundering. Packing and letting go and not having anything positive to grasp onto, just a pile of hopes and prayers and more hopes. Crumble.
I know that much more terrible things are happening in the world but in my world, right now, because of the past..this is bad for me. My security is being snatched away. Helpless me. My safety is being taken. Frightened me.
My boys look to me and with absolute trust and faith know that I will make it OK, they are asking when we are moving and where we will live and what it will be like and I am chirpy and tell them that right now I don't know, but it will be exciting and new and we will have a lovely new house, like grandma and Jordan and Daniel. They believe me. Convincing me.
H is doing what H does best, he is waiting, because he knows that it will be, however it will be and when he knows something, he'll know what to do. Couldn't you just smack him?? I can't imagine being so controlled that I was able to simply not think about something unless there was something I could do about it. Imagine.
I am gloriously weary this evening, American Idol is nearly over, I do believe I shall have a nice sleep tonight. I love sleep, I love getting into bed and curling up with a book and feeling my whole being relax, my favourite feeling. Sleep.

It's a special kind of mean.

I'm sorry, more of the same, the down bit of the up and down up and down.
Tomorrow someone is coming to view the house. We won't be here because H will be taking his 'living in the UK test'. I think I'm glad we won't be here, I dry heaved after the phone call just to tell us they would be coming. I don't want to witness the stomping through our home, opening doors and peering through windows. I don't want to feel whatever I would feel if I were here.
It really is salt to the wound isn't it? This whole, hey I know you are paying a big old chunk of money to live here every month, thanks, however....it's not enough and we are selling up, could you still pay the same wad of cash and at the same time, pack all your belongings, scrub everything in sight, worry about where the dickens you WILL live when it's sold- oh and let people wander through your home whenever they like, which means that you will have to keep it clean and tidy and smelling fresh because, we all know that even though you really want to leave it messy and not care if they see it looking like a tip because you don't want them to buy it....you will clean and scrub and tidy because you are proud and can't stand the thought that anyone will think you are a slummock. *Insert swear word of your choice right here*
I am SO angry.
Heart poundingly and head spinningly rage filled.
I am trying, really I am, to be philosophical. To be all ' what will be will be, and will be for the best, and all's well that ends well, blah de bloody blah. It just isn't working. I am learning that I am a control freak, and why not indeed...it's my life, why shouldn't I want to be in control of my life? The very idea that these people, no matter how kindly spoken, have this much say over MY LIFE. Mad. I loathe it.
I love the idea that we could stay here, the afore mentioned landlord is not the person coming to view tomorrow, just some rich bugger that fancies living here. £350,000 that's the value. $700.153.17 . Not in a gazzillion years could we buy it. We have to move. I have to accept that this is a much sought after property and there are many people who DO have the money to buy it and renovate it and live in it. Such is life. I am giving up the idea that we can stay, for my sanity I have to accept that this isn't our home anymore.
I am going to have to try and just shut off and not worry about where we will go, trust in the council and the Lord and wait. When we DO get a house, I will move in and set down roots that no-one will shift. I will scuttle in a corner and rock until I feel safe and believe that we can stay. I will pray for a garden and clothes line, for nice neighbours, close proximity to shops and buses.
If I win the lottery one day, I will buy a street full of homes and rent them to people like us, I will be the kindest landlady ever known, I will probably wait a year and see if the people love their homes, if they do.... I will give them to them. I will. Honestly.
I am coming to realise that whatever I say, my poor old brain is unstable, my name is Helen and I am depressed. I am shaken very easily. It doesn't take too much to make me want a dark corner and absolute silence. Having said that, this IS much, having your home snatched from under your happy heart is not a trifling thing.

Thinking back.

It's a rough day today, maybe worse than tomorrow will be .......
Emotionally that is. My head has been all over the place today, Sophie and I spent the morning out together which was lovely, we shopped and ate breakfast and enjoyed the SUNSHINE!

All day though, my head has been switching from this time last year to this time 18 years ago.

My dad was dying, barely breathing yet still able to scream in pain.

I was waiting for labour to start.

We were trying to believe this was all really happening .

I was wondering if this baby was a boy or girl.

We were trying to pretend this wasn't happening.

I tried to picture being a mother to 3 children.

We sat and stared at his chest and counted the seconds til the next breath.

I wondered why my husband hadn't spoken to me for 4 days.

We wondered how we would manage never seeing him again.

I thought this baby would never come out!

We knew life would never be the same again.

I had no idea how life would never be the same again!

The past year has been long, and it has flown by. How have we managed to get through a whole year without a man who was so much to us all? How has mum done it all, all those things he said she couldn't do without him? How have we still laughed and breathed and eaten and slept and carried on, when he isn't here? Can we do it all again this year? Another year without him?

The past 18 years have been so full I think I have aged 36 years at least.

I feel so small. So inadequate. So tired.

Tomorrow, I hope will be more about celebrating what has been. We are going to Cornwall to where we scattered dad's ashes. We want to see if the flowers have grown from where mum planted some bulbs.
I bought a helium balloon kit so I can fill Sophie's room with balloons while she is out tonight, that means that we can set some balloons free tomorrow. We all know that dad isn't going to be up there trying to catch them, he won't read those messages....but he'll know what we want to say. It feels so good to let those thoughts go, tied to a balloon. You have to do whatever helps. It's all so .......so not enough. Words fail me.

Sophie's birthday is all organised, her room looks beautiful, all the gifts you sent have been put into pretty gift bags and added to our gifts...thankyou. Everything is waiting in her room because she was born at 13 minutes past midnight, by the time she gets home tonight it will be her birthday already.




I went to build a bear on thursday and well, I built a bear ( fancy!) for Sophie, I wanted her to have something a bit girlie and frivolous for her birthday. It is a sweet sweet teddy, pink and white and is wearing pink CROCS! It has a heartbeat and she will love it.




I'm sorry that I'm so scatty these days. I think my brain is on holiday. I am longing for a stretch of time where we aren't bombarded with massively important things to deal with, mentally ....give my poor old mind a rest. 'Course you know then I will be whining about being bored don't you?

I will take pictures, post them tomorrow if we aren't all completely emotionally exhausted and worn out. Yeay.....bet you can hardly wait huh?

Another rough one.

Not much else to say except I am glad today is almost over.
Tomorrow? Can't wait.
Don't even want chocolate.
Things are bad.
I am so tired of everything. Shutting down is looking good. Running away looks even better.

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.