Babies

I have had my last baby, definately, there will be no more, but as I type that I want to acknowledge how wonderful babies are….

Babies smell amazing, and I don’t mean the smell of baby shampoo I mean the kinda yeasty smell of little babies. I love that smell.

The warmth, the way a newborn craves human contact and so cuddles into it’s mum….so lovely.

To feel my baby’s breath on my cheek, how lovely that is, how wonderful to feel so special.

Oscar is my little man, I don’t know if it’s cos my new partner and I aren’t married and Oscar has my  surname Murphy, but he feels more mine..

I just want to eat him up he is that cute, he wakes up, gives out a bit but once he sees me he smiles like ” hey, great to see you”, relaxed for about twenty minutes until he doesn’t get his bottle!

Best baby ever!

Food

I don’t post about food that I cook, but tonight I did a taleggio and mushroom puff, it had thyme and rocket from my garden! I was so proud!

Garden

this  is the selection of photo’s from my garden…..Lovely yummy edible things!

Alternative BBQ

So on  Sunday my partner and I had a BBQ, we did all the usual stuff, steak, burgers,  hot dogs, salads, my mozzarella pesto garlic bread and cheesy tortilla chili wraps! Beer and wine , nothing very alternative about the menu, but the guest list might raise a few eyebrows.

We had my ex hubby and his partner, some of their friends who had never seen my ex hubby around his kids, they had done some nice things for us recently. Then there were some friends common to both my ex hubby and I, who we have shared custody of and lastly one of my newer mummy friends and her hubby and brood!

The kids had a ball, it was funny for me, they are so adaptable, it’s mummy and her partner, daddy and his partner and sometimes everyone all together! It does show that they really don’t care about who is with who unless people are fighting. I can say with my hand on my heart that none of my kids (the older two were 3 and 9 when my marriage ended) have ever asked me ill daddy come home. They are happy.

Now it is hard, us oldies find it more difficult, I found the day very stressful and have to admit I drank a good few beers and didn’t eat very much but I am glad we did it, I’m blessed to have a partner who understands my need to do things this way and not feel jealous or resentful that I don’t hate my ex. Now, that’s not to say that the hurt isn’t still there, my partner and I were doing the post mortem yesterday and he said people maybe think that my ex didn’t hurt me, or that I’m “over it”. I hope that’s not the case as I do still hurt. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I don’t want everyone to think I am some sort of robot with an on/off emotion switch (that feature only comes on the male model).

Anyway, it was a nice day, if stressful. Kids had a ball, and I could exhale a little more knowing they are still ok, everything is still working out ok. MY ex looked nervous at allowing his friends to see the “daddy” side of his personality, I wonder what they thought?

You see I am so tightly involved and bound into my children’s lives that my friends would have difficulty separating me from them. Which can be a pain in the ass as I feel like I don’t have any independent non mummy personality left, but I know if I had to choose I’d choose being a parent most of the time, I have moments of extreme jealously, my ex gets to live a single life, go out, have fun, have hangovers,  and then he gets to spend fun time with the kids, best of both worlds? But I get to spend the boring narky times with them too, and we spend so much time together in our tiny box house that we drive each other crazy, but they are my children and I am lucky to have them, there is one thing I am sure of, they are gonna make my life interesting and keep me busy for the rest of my life.

One more thing, I got everyone to bring there own booze, but also bring dessert to the BBQ, worked out a treat, we had such lovely treats I’ll definitely do it again!It was better than Charlie and the chocolate factory, my favorites were the Carrot cake (Avoca recipe made by Paula) and the brown bread (I don’t know where it was from but it was really good) , we also got homemade crumble and cream, meringue roulade, amazing chocolate ganache cake, Romantica ice cream dessert and the kids made cup cakes!

family

These are my beautiful children, I know, i am so lucky, my eldest, who has just finished fifth class,  has had an amazing school report, my five year old is a little genius and my two year old is a little mad scientist, but my little babe is the best baby ever and is so amazingly sweet and lovely!

Kids Cakes

These are my kids ckes…they are my cake decorating slaves!

Am I alone?

Ok, it’s ten minutes to five on a Tuesday afternoon, looks like I have a few minutes to try to write down a few of the things that are going on in my head right now….

Here goes… But first a cute piccy of the newest love of my life…..

Firstly, I’m thinking about joining second life, creating some kind of cyber me that I can transport all the best bits of me and my life onto and then just for an hour or so forget all the horrible bits, I’ve never understood why people did it before now, but now I can totally get it, ok, so now I’m obviously going mad right?

Secondly, I think stay at home mums are the loneliest people on the planet, Monday I meet a friend and she’s in awful form, toddler smearing poo on the walls, five year old not letting her out of his sight, baby on antibiotics, husband oblivious to the strain she is under. I try to cheer her up with a joke or two, a cup of tea and a cake or two. Tuesday roles are reversed and she is the one talking me down from the ledge.  We are all the same? I respect all the mothers I know, the working mums and the stay at home, but definitely staying at home is lonelier, when working I could talk to the other mums about missing our kids and the stress involved – not so at home.

I love my partner, he is an amazing man, but sometimes it feels like we are speaking different languages.  His scientific nature is so opposed to my airy fairy emotional way of dealing with things.

Thirdly, I wish I could get rid of the bad things from the past, my partners ex- wife or WW as I call her (ding dong the witch is dead) he even has a bell tolling for her ring tone, when she calls, as she does often, or when she texts, my heart drops, it’s always bad, there is always emotional upset to follow when she is involved.

Lastly, I should blog more, I am so isolated and lonely a lot of the time I don’t express it, to anyone other than my poor partner or closest friends. Two years ago I started this blog to help me adjust to being a mum to three, now I am a mum to four, separated, in a new relationship, coping with my blokes crazy ex…. I have more reason than ever to blog!

I have been getting away though, my ex and I have come to an arrangement where one Friday a month he doesn’t take the kids and in exchange one weekend a month he takes them on a Friday and Saturday which means my partner our baby Oscar and I get to go away for the weekend once a month, we’ve been to Waterford,visited the much loved Hook lighthouse. Two weeks ago we visited Limerick, the Absolute Hotel in Henry’s Mall was amazing, food not too great but the rooms were spacious and modern, amazing shower. We started the day at Oscars whim, 6.30 in the morning, we did all of the Burren, Cliffs of Moher and Alliwee cave, it was so lovely, relaxed, just our little family unit. Our July stop is the Twelve hotel in Bearna in Galway, I can’t wait to visit it, I’ve driven by it several times, it has it’s own bakery! It’s lovely for me, I like visiting all the lovely bits of Ireland, I’ve seen it all before but my parner hasn’t so he and I get to experience it together, with our little offspring!

Anyway, very disconnected post, baby awake now (actually jusr did a huge baby fart…well I hope it was a fart!).  Have to rescue two year old off climbing frame…again!

Pressure…..so much pressure!

See I knew once I committed myself to blogging again I’d be put under pressure to actually do it!!!! Arse!

It’s not that I don’t want to blog, it’s simply that being a full-time slave to four evil midgets means that I have no time to myself, you think Dobby the house elf has a hard life? Maybe I am exaggerating slightly, sometimes I do have five minutes such as now, or at the end of the day, but I am so drained that most of the time I know blogging would not be a good idea…too much woe is me! When I sit down to do something not child related it’s like an internal alarm goes off and they go off on one! Just now when I sat down my daughter decided to have a temper tantrum over the fact that her friend isn’t home, and the two smallest ones have filled their nappies, the big guy isn’t home from school yet!

I feel so overwhelmed a lot of the time, it’s as if the more children I have, the bigger my family gets, the more people I have to love, the more love I have to give, but also the smaller I get (only figuratively, unfortunately)! I really wanted to start my distance learning thing from DCU, to start working toward the future, but I can’t see it happening. I wanted to do a five week swimming course, that’s just an hour a week…..I couldn’t manage it! I would love to go to Bloom over the weekend, but just thinking about the reality of two adults and four children going to it is just exhausting! I like entertaining here, and have done a few little things, I’m almost recluse like…just call me the Howard Hughes of mothering!

This weekend my partner and I are going to a wedding of his good friend, I have a babysitter booked for my two year old and the baby, my folks are having the two older guys over on a sleepover. I have purchased a beautiful dress, which I think is very sexy, but I look like a bag of potatoes in it. I am totally organised, but I really don’t want to go! Last Saturday night the babysitter did a trial run, I took my two older guys and one of their friends out to see Coraline (loved all around!) my partner was out with his boys, and got home about an hour after I left, which was a blessing cos the babysitter ran into a few problems, my toddler was not happy that his mother had gone out, he hadn’t seen her in quite a while and screamed and was very difficult, so this week she is bringing her mum to help her out. Now she is a brilliant babysitter, and I totally trust her with the kids, but I do know how demanding he can be, and then throw in a screaming nine week old baby? I hope she will be ok…..I’ll be holding my breath all night.

It’s like everything in me is stopping me from leaving “Ah, sure I’ll just stay in, I’m too tired..” or “Sure what’s the point of going out, I look like crap and my brain is fucked, I can’t hold a conversation!” or just ” Ah, he is so cute, I love him so much, why would I leave?”  I suppose all this is biological to keep me attached to my baby, so I don’t get up and leave….?

Of course I’ve been through all of this before, but it is different this time, my partner and I only became aware of each others existence in November of 2007……. and now we are parents together, whereas in my previous relationship we were together for  seven years before our first son was born. Another difference is of course that I was married then…and now I’m…well, still married but not to my current partner! A form arrived in the post today for my ex to sign in the presence of a solicitor, a rebuttal form, declaring he isn’t the father of my baby!!!

Why can’t my ex and I get divorced, why does it take 4 years of separation to “know” you want to divorce? I don’t want to divorce so I can remarry (I don’t know if I ever could do that) but because I’m not divorced my husbands name will be on my baby son’s birth cert along with his dads name. It’s not the same for my partner, his marital status is irrelevant…

Ok, baby screaming, have to scram, a house elf’s work is never done!

Still Rocking

This is Oscar, he was born eight weeks ago tonight, in Holles Street, he was 9 days over due, although it felt like nine years!! I had a very quick and incredibly painful labour and delivery and got quite ill after the fact, in fact now I’m still not back to my normal self!

It’s been a really, really long time since I last blogged, actually been a really long time since I even turned on the computer to do anything other than just order my grocery shopping on line! Being pregnant was awful, I was so terribly tired all the time, and so ill. Now that the little man is out I do feel better, I have some of my energy back  but the days are very busy, raising four children is not a walk in the park.

But I am really gonna try to do more for myself, I’d like to be able to start blogging again, thinking about what’s going on in my life, maybe even talking about it here, that is moaning about it all here. Right now the baby is sitting with his dad, my two year old is being bold with knitting needles and my five year old is making supper of cheese on crackers and my eleven year old is upstairs playing video game!

They all need something from me and I am finding it difficult picking up a train of thought and following it through to the end!

I might try again later, but right now I am needed, the bedtime routine is about to start!

So Bloody Tired!

27 weeks pregnant exactly today!  I am so tired, I can’t imagine another 13 weeks of this! The last few weeks I have found that Thursday is the day that kills me, this week I just stopped functioning, and last week I got so tried I couldn’t stop vomiting.

I know I haven’t been blogging, but I am so tired I haven’t even been checking my mail!

Anyway I am still here, still gestating and occasionally feeling guilty for not blogging, I am reading though, and last Saturday I went to the protest, that was great but it wiped me out!

I will try to blog about something other than how tired I am……at some point when I am not feeling as tired???

Anniversary?

My partner and I have our anniversary coming up, problem is I have no idea really when it is…..

You see we met through an internet dating site……I know! I can’t believe I met the person I’d like to spend the rest of my life with through the internet….it’s just bizarre, not very romantic, sounds a bit desperate? But he sent me a message on the 20th of November last year, so a year ago tomorrow. But an email does not a relationship make and after several messages, progressing to G Chat, leading to phone calls (he sounded SO young on the phone), eventually we arranged to meet…for a date, my first ever date in fact! So we met on the 6th of December, drinks in the Duke, dinner in Wagamama and then a beer in Doyles. It was a nice evening, he was lovely, but I spent most of the evening thinking I was gonna throw up and he was far too intelligent and serious (never mind together) to fancy a hippy dippy girl like me! Then at the end of the evening when we were going our separate ways we were both standing there, he went to hug me, which was grand, we’d hugged when we met earlier, then he went to kiss me, all that had been going through my head for the previous hour or so had been, “is he gonna kiss me at the end of the night?”, I turned my cheek so he missed my lips, then I ran away, literally ran away! So does that count for our anniversary?

We kissed a week later, and the rest remains a mystery…..

There was no decision that we were dating, nothing like that, it just felt so right, there were (and are) no games to play, and if I am honest after a couple of weeks everything was so comfortable (not in a boring pipe and slippers way), I would cuddle up to him on the sofa and it just felt like home. By my birthday in April there was no doubt in my mind about how amazing this man was, and I was in deep. We have had more to deal with than most new couples, five kids between us, ex partners (some crazier than others!) families, and soon a new baby! But I think we have done ok. I worry sometimes because I have fallen so deeply in love with him, I worry that he will wake up and smell the coffee, realise that I don’t deserve his love. I worry that my cynical side will stop me from allowing him to love me, I spent quite a long time pushing him away.

But now, approaching our year anniversary,I thank God for bad timing, it was so soon after my break up, I was only looking for a friend, a shag, a date to go to the movies with and I met someone absolutely amazing, I met a man like no other man I’d ever met before. He fills my life with so much love, he believes in my possibility, he is the happiest, most optimistic person I know, he is a wonderful friend, his smile makes my tummy turn over, he has the most beautiful eyelashes I’ve ever seen, I respect his political beliefs, he is a great dad and a wonderful friend to my children, he is a wonderful maker of tea and a fantastic lover, he is like my other half, and sometimes I feel like I’ve known him my entire life, he also has a really cute bum I love falling asleep in his arms every night and waking up there in the mornings, when he reads to me or or rubs my big baby belly I feel so cherished,  I am terrified at times to have found love, once you have it in your heart, you really don’t want to lose it. I am so grateful to whatever it was that brought me to the point where I considered meeting someone on the Internet, but it really not only changed my life, if I am honest it probably saved my life.

I am absoulutely his and he is absolutely mine, sometimes it is harder than others, sometimes my cynical nature makes it seem too hard, or that love isn’t worth the pain, the balancing act that is the rest of our lives, but what is life about if it isn’t about love and sharing your life with others?

When to stop…..

I am having a crappy day, I opened up my laptop this morning, after a long tiring day yesterday, I had a post I wanted to do, but when I opened up my blog account I was faced with a comment on one of my posts which really upset me. I have been blogging for 18 months now, and I know all the comments can’t be nice and fluffy but I will never get used to nastiness. I suppose the problem is I blog from an honest place, I blog honestly about my life, my feelings good or bad, if I think I am being a moany bitch then I will admit that. I began blogging because I felt like I had no voice, that once I left “public life”, had my third child, was cloistered away from reality, I think most women at home raising their children feel the same way, especially now when most women have worked outside of the home, it is very alienating and isolating. But sometimes when I express my opinions, I am cut down for having an opinion….Is it better to be silent, is it better if I just don’t voice my opinions?

I don’t know…

My mum called me earlier on, my aunt who has motor neuron disease fell and broke her pelvis while visiting her son and his family in the States, she is back home now, after a couple of weeks in hospital there. Now previously twice a year or so she would be admitted to St Josephs in the hospice in Harolds Cross for a couple of weeks of intensive physio therapy, my own mum was there for six weeks earlier this year, but my aunt won’t be admitted this time, even though her already very limited mobility will be seriously affected by not getting the physio she needs, her husband took early retirement to be her carer, he himself has health problems and was barely coping with her illness before the accident, but he is a good man and will continue to care for his wife.

Why won’t my aunt be admitted to the hospice? Due to lack of funding St. Joseph’s is closed for the next 12 weeks! So the people with degenerative diseases, strokes, bone disease, who usually would get a week or two in there, for improved pain relief (some patients are so bad they are given a week of bed rest on morphine before they begin any treatment at all) or improved mobility, never mind the carers paid a pittance by the state to do a job they struggle to cope with, these people won’t get this much needed service for three months. Now I know the National Rehabilitation Clinic is still operating but they are stretched to the limit, dealing with people who have had accidents, strokes, brain surgery, they don’t deal with the old long term patients, nor should they have to. But I am left wondering, the government gave the over 70’s back their medical cards, but at what cost? We’ve all heard the saying “To give with one hand and take with the other “, but this is unbelievable, are they just hoping the elderly if left without treatment will just disappear (Soylent Green anyone?) My mum said she thinks the government see the sick and elderly as a drain, and they’d kill them all off if they could…. she is a woman not afraid to say what she means!

The elderly, the sick, the young….the vulnerable in any society, surely a society should be judged by how it cares fro these people? surely as human beings, not animals,not just mindless consumerist zombies we should stand up for these people? Are we all so afraid of rocking the boat, “I’m alright Jack, feck the rest of you? ” Anyone of us could get ill, lose our jobs, lose our homes, have a parent or child become ill, shit happens, we all get old, we all die no matter how many houses or billions we have in the bank!

So I am gonna continue to blog about crap, my crap or what ever other crap that comes along, I don’t blog much about what music I like or which TV shows I watch, I blog about things that affect me, and how I try (sometimes miserably) to deal with these things, I blog in the hope of maybe finding support, venting my sadness or anger, sharing my happiness, voicing my opinion about the problems I see all around me. I also blog in the hope that an honest account of life with young kids, life as a separated mother, life as a woman in modern day Ireland might help other people who find themselves in similar circumstances. Finally I blog for myself, so I can track how far I have come, and how much further I have to go.

And if people don’t want to read about my crap they don’t have to, in fact please don’t! I don’t want to start editing my comments, but I won’t let someone use my blog to bully me…..

CT scan

My mum is having her CT scan today, after all these weeks of waiting she is starting the process of finding out what if anything is wrong with her. It’s a double edged sword isn’t it? We are all relieved that she is having the tests but we are also a step closer to finding out what is wrong with her. My dad and her sister are going with her today. My dad has an appointment with a specialist himself at the end of the month, he hasn’t been well and the PSA blood tests showed up high levels, but as these tests aren’t foolproof he had two set of tests, but both gave the same result. So at the moment we are all just waiting to see….. I am still really worried about my mum and dad, but I am trying to keep myself calm.  So spare my mum a thought today, we need all the positive energy we can get.

Baby update

I had my scan on Friday, my baby is now 22 weeks, the same as the baby in the picture above, he (yes he) weighs somewhere around a pound and is about a foot long from top to bottom. He is fully formed, he can hear and last year a baby girl was born at his gestational age and survived.

All appears to be well, there were no abnormalities visible on the scan and I have some lovely pictures, which I will pop up here in the next week or so, he has a name now, and my children will all be calling my tummy this until he emerges, due date is 13th March, one day before my eldest son’s 11th birthday! I am delighted to be able to share good news with you, and I am feeling reassured that even if my body is a wreck and I’m falling apart the little dude is doing well.

He is kicking the hell out of me on a regular basis, but it’s not yet possible for my partner to feel him, I suppose the next few weeks will bring that pleasant surprise for him, when he starts snoring at night there will be two of us to kick him in the back!!!

Marxism 2008

I am naturally unpolitical, I have never really felt confident enough in myself to hae strong opinions one way or the other politically, I do have strong feelings on things, but generally I am too “touchy feely” too “emotional” to express myself properly, people who are political are always so good at making references to times and dates, numbers and facts…..I am crap at that. So if I ever try to express myself I always wind up tied up in knots by the person I’m talking to.

My partner is a socialist, a member of the Socialist Workers Party he is someone who has concrete solid opinions on things, the fact that he has such passion and optimistic belief in socialism is one of the things I find so attractive about him. He really cares about the world, not just his little corner of the universe, not just his own interests, and in this world of consumerism and individualism it’s so lovely to meet someone really thinking about the world and what he can do to improve it. Now his optimism and belief in an almost utopian society is the perfect foil to my pessimism and lack of action.

Now this weekend Marxism 2008 was on in the Royal Dublin Hotel, it was a seris of talks about a variey of issues, from feminism and Marx to religion, China, Gay marraige. My boyfriend had mentioned it a few weeks ago, and he didn’t have the kids tis weekend, I was free from Friday evening until Saturay afternoon, so I agreed to go to the conference.

My lack of confidence,  terrified that if anyone spoke to me I’d sound stupid, that I wouldn’t understand what everyone was talking about. But I love my partner, I want to be able to listen to him talking about politics and maybe make a contribution with a bit of knowledge, so I went along.

There was a “rally” type meeting on the Friday evening, various speakers talking about the recession, recent protests by students and pensioners, and the future of the left in Ireland and Europe (there was a speaker by a representative of Die Linke the new group representing the new left in Germany. There was lots of “comrade” and “revolutionary” rhetoric, and at times I felt overwhelmed, but over all I found it inspiring, I haven’t felt so inspired to try to instigate change since I was a student, my little brain was excited, surrounded by so many optimistic people, all so active and interesting in changing their reality to make everyone elses lives better.

I felt so useless and lazy around such motivated people, I felt so bloody crap actually, the pensioner who organised the protest out side the Dail, talking about people like me who thought it was a waste of time to vote, that it changes nothing, that I could afford to be unpolitical, because I have a good life, I have a roof over my head, my kids goes to a good school and I have a regular income. Now of course I am affected by the lack of affordable childcare, the problems n education and the waiting lists for the hospitals, but generally my life is middle class enough for me not to need political change.

So I have decided to get off my rapidly expanding pregnant woman ass, take my kids to the education protests on the 6Th of December, I am gonna ask the principal in my kids school what hey plan to do in the locality to protest about the education cuts, I am gonna try to find my voice, and my optimism again! I had given up on so much, I  stopped thinking about feminism I really just stopped thinking, well no more, and who knows maybe thinking about other things and other people will stop me from so much self piteous naval gazing?

Alone

I haven’t posted in a few weeks, I just can’t,  I am feeling so amazingly low I can’t even get the energy up to moan about how crap I feel everything is. Talking to an old friend last week and he said he stopped blogging cos all he did was moan and as he was sick of listening to himself moaning he couldn’t understand how anyone could bear to read it, and that’s how I feel.

In short halfway through my fourth pregnancy, feeling crap, trapped, unattractive, inhuman, nasty, boring, mum is still the same, no scans or tests yet, so no results, I am broke (I know everyone is in that sinking boat), so unbelievably stressed, I wound up in Holles Street last Saturday morning after my blood pressure went through the roof, I am mother and semi stepmother from hell at the moment, the tiniest thing is too much for me, and I am no fun at all.

I am lonely.

I have been thinking about this a lot the last few weeks, I am so lonely a lot of the time, a stay at home mums life with a baby is a pretty lonely one, you grab conversations at the school gate, I am never alone, I always have my 18month old with me, and my tow older kids talk constantly, but I am lonely.

I am lonely and proud though, I have a good neighbour/friend but I leaned on her so much last year when my hubby left that I don’t want to over do the pressure on her, I ask her in for tea and cake, and she is obviously aware of how lonely I am as she never says no, but I don’t want her to feel sorry for me, in fact I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me…. in the real world anyway, here in the blogsphere it’s OK, cos you don’t know me!

I am worried about myself lately, I spend a lot of time feeling alone, even with my partner, who is a wonderful kind gentle spirited man ( he really deserves a lovely easy going girlfriend, someone “chirpy”) I think I was so intertwined with my husband that when we parted there was a huge hole and that hole is still there, and in it is the belief that we are all alone, forever, no matter what happens, you could be with the love of your life for thirty years and still you are alone.I never felt like that before, I believed in a possible unity of soul mates. Sometimes now I find myself slipping, starting to think about my new partner like that, allowing myself to be open, thinking I couldn’t bear to be without him,believing in destiny and second chances. But I have to reign that in, because real grown up life has shown me that people are only human and you can only ever truly rely on yourself.

I know I sound really bitter, I don’t see it as bitterness, more sadness. It’s been a year, I think I’ve done OK, my kids are happy, well adjusted, probably happier than they were when my ex and I were together and arguing. I am in a relationship (OK, baby was not on the cards, or living together) I feel OK a lot of the time, but then the times when I don’t feel alright……like the last couple of weeks….it’s really hard. I wonder am I really OK, or is it that for so long I pretended to be OK, trying to be strong for the kids, for my folks for my friends, even for my ex! I really didn’t want to be the sobbing weak woman, did I just convince myself I was OK, did all the pretending and positive affirmation brainwash me into believing I was OK…am I OK?

I look in the mirror lately and apart from the fuzzy hair and unkempt eyebrows I don’t know who that tired middle aged woman is, she is a good person, a lovely woman, kind, would do anything for anyone….that’s not the person I want to see in mirror, because she isn’t a happy person, investing herself in other people, her happiness is a reflection of other peoples. If I spend my energy trying to make them happy and it results in a negative or lukewarm response I am upset, I have wasted my time.

I am hormonal, pregnant, stressed beyond belief and last couple of weeks I feel like the fight has just left me, I want to just close my eyes and have someone else do the thinking for me and the kids, I have only been alone for a year but I feel like I’ve aged a couple of decades in that time. I want to make everyone proud, walk tall, show the world I am a worthwhile person, not just another stupid moany separated woman, but I’m starting to see that maybe the bitterness and anger is better, it’s really hard to be even tempered, well for me anyway. Maybe if I let myself hate him for what happened in my life I’d be stronger?

But I don’t hate him, in fact at times like now when I am this horrible blob of raw emotion I wonder how he managed to stick it out for as long as he did?

Maybe my blog has run it’s course? This is not entertaining for me or anyone who might still read it.

My mum had cancer nearly twelve years ago, she had a type of cancer called Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, her doctor missed the growth on her neck, and misdiagnosed the other symptoms for several years before she discovered she had cancer, but at that stage it had spread and her chances of survival were only 40%. Mum underwent chemotherapy and radiation, it nearly killed it. But she survived.

A year after her treatment stopped we celebrated, five years after treatment stopped we celebrated, and ten years after her treatment stopped we had all forgotten and it passed without remark.

Now it looks like the big C has made a return visit, she has to have CT scan in November (earliest appointment available) and a colonoscopy, the growth, tumour whatever it is, is located near or on or in her bowel.

I feel empty and hollow, we nearly lost her before, and afterwards she said she couldn’t do it again, she just couldn’t fight, and that was when she was still in good health, now she is in constant pain from her bone disease, I know she won’t fight it, I know what is gonna happen this time.

I love my mum so much, so what you say, everyone loves their mum, but I mean I still need her, since becoming a mum, since losing my relationship she is my rock, I can tell her things I can’t tell anyone else, I can let my real feelings show to her, I can sob in front of her, I can be a little girl, I can be scared, I don’t have to worry about being strong.

I feel a bit like my daughter when I leave her at the school in the morning, everyday she’ll say “I’ll miss you mummy!”, it’s not a sad thing, she just wants me to know, and she trots off happily, when I pick her up at home-time she’ll say, “I missed you”. It’s such a strong connection a mother and child, it doesn’t weaken over years in fact as life gets more complicated and things change the ties that bind us tighten.

My boyfriend says not to worry, don’t jump the gun, wait to see what the scans say, but he didn’t see her last time, it’s abstract to him, and to you, to me it’s my mum, I’m part of her, and even the remote chance that this is the end of the most significant relationship in my life is terrfying….

The trivial things that have stopped me from blogging…..

Above is the video for the Cardigans “Sick and Tired”, I have rediscovered my love for the band recently, I know I haven’t been blogging, actually I haven’t been doing much at all, I have been going to bed early, not watching any TV, not blogging, not going out. But once in bed I am very busy, listening to music, rediscovering my old music collection, and reading……so much reading.

As I haven’t been going out, not drinking, no taxis, no new clothes apart from elasticated maternity trousers, I have been indulging my passion for buying books! Borders is my new “haunt” hanging around the gender studies or occult sections, looking shifty! I thing I mentioned the Descent of Woman book I was reading in a post a few weeks ago, well that marked my descent into my book fetish! So I decided to name ad shame my passions, here are the books I have read in the last few weeks, I know, this is probably the most boring blog post ever, I could spice it up with the erotic books I pick up daily, I am enjoying some nice slap and tickle erotica about bondage at the moment, it’s something I pick up when I need a pick me up!

So, here goes……

I am about to start Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, I actually read this in about 1996 but then lost my copy, so when I was reunited with it in Borders last week I had to have it!

I am also currently still reading Bad Faith by Carmen Callil, a book about Louis Darquier a french Nazi Collaborator, fascinating reading, it’s my car read at the moment, I have to keep different books in different places, one in the car, one downstairs, and one by my bed, if I didn’t do this I’d never be able to make time to read as I’d keep forgetting my book!

My beside the bed book that I am still reading is a book by an American David Frankfurter (poor man) called Evil Incarnate about demonic conspiracy and satanic abuse in history, I’m really enjoying this but it is heavy going, Mr Frankfurter is very academic, and that makes it quite difficult to enjoy reading.

This week I finished Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives (sex gender and archaeology) by Rosemary A Joyce, a book challenging the opinion that society has ever been divided by sex roles, that gender isn’t as well defined in history as we think it is, really enjoyed this book, easy read lovely illustrations. I also finished Aleister Crowley The beast demystified,  a biography by Roger Hutchinson, fascinating man, fascinating life! The last book I finished this week was A History of Witchcraft sorcery, heretics and pagans, an interesting book on the political and social conditions that caused witch scares over the centuries.

Last week I finished M.J Trow’s book Boudicca, the Warrior Queen, a book I found very dry, not very exciting considering the subject matter but still worth the effort. One book that I read lately that really stands out as exceptional is A brief history of Misogyny, the world’s oldest prejudice, by Jack Holland (a BBC northern Irish correspondent, who died before the book was published, the very moving forward is written by his daughter) This book was an excellent read, exciting and stimulating, from ancient Rome to the modern tracing misogyny through time, yet it is written by a man!

So that’s what I’ve been doing in the past month, I have felt guilt for not blogging but the selfish pleasure of reading, has been too tempting to resist!

By the way in case you are wondering I usually would read chick lit, I love Jane Green and Wendy Holden but for some unknown reason every time I have attempted to read a fiction book in the past few months I have hit a brick wall, lost interest and just given up! So it’s non fiction for the time being…..I do have one albatross circling over head, my ex lent me Naomi Klein The Shock Doctrine and it’s weighty tome is sitting on my locker taunting me….I just don’t think I have the brain power to handle it!

Better….

I am feeling much better today, mostly thanks to my lovely boyfriend and his gentle way of making me feel more grounded. I know you either love or hate this Tom Baxter song, personally I adore it, and I am horrified to hear Boyzone are realising their cover version as a potential Christmas single!!!!

Just don’t read this post……

Today was another crap day, my toddler was acting crazy, nothing I did was good enough for him, I was too slow, not fun enough! And the two older guys were not happy to see me, because I had demands on their time and they couldn’t just understand how on a Friday afternoon after school they were expected to do (shock Horror) chores!!!!! The little guy spilled juice all over the sofa, they had left the two glasses of juice on the window ledge right beside the sofa, within easy reach of the toddler!

Then my nice friend/neighbour called in for a cup of tea, I was so delighted to see her, but then the little guy decided we couldn’t have a chat! He decided the middle of the table was “the” place to be and he continued to attempt to gain access!  It was just pointless, our chat was stilted and I couldn’t maintain a thread of thought in my mind for long enough to actually have an intelligent conversation.

Surprise, surprise  I am having a crap time at the moment, pregnant and tired, stressed and under pressure, I just haven’t the heart to blog as I really don’t want to spread my negative attitude, and that’s all I can do right now. I really hate being so unpleasant, in real life as well as blog life, my friends all still need me, some more than other but I just don’t have the energy at the moment to be there for them, I actually think I am doing them a favour by keeping a low profile, they really don’t need my negativity making them feel worse.

So it is almost like I am withdrawing away into myself, far away from all the other human beings, and human interaction is what makes life worth living, but right now I just can’t bear to be around myself ao I have no idea how anyone else could bear it!