Losing the plot

Just popping on here for a quick update and vent as usual!

It's 1pm on Sunday, and this weekend ranks as one of the toughest in my parenting history. Darcie has been in full blown psycho mode all yesterday and all today, I realise that most people secretly suspect we exaggerate when we talk about her behaviour, but honestly she is demented. I'm not going to rant on and on, as to be honest I feel shattered physically and mentally (despite spending ten hours in bed last night) and haven't got the strength. Darcie was OK on Friday night, mainly because we didn't come straight home from school, instead going to the park with my friend Jo and her two kids. The more time she spends outside the better she is, although this rule doesn't always apply and the moods often happen when we're out too.

Yesterday morning Darcie kicked off big time, and she hasn't stopped since. I've been screamed at, slapped, hit, accused of random things and told I can't go in various rooms. A good example of how peculiar Darcie is and frankly how disturbing her behaviour is - a few days ago, Simon had the audacity to go out by himself, a crime punishable by death. Being left with her mother is apparently such a cruel, unfair and torturous thing that Darcie saw red and started screeching. I was using the computer, attempting to do what Simon repeatedly instructs me to do and which I often fail at - ignoring her. She asked me where daddy was, I told her calmly several times, receiving the usual "why has he gone to Asda? I know, it's because he hates me and wants me to die." response, duly ignored. Suddenly Darcie said the following "OK, come on, where have you hidden the body this time? I know you've murdered him. You murder people, hide the bodies and then the police turn up. You lie and say you don't know where the bodies are. You're always doing this, you're evil. Pure evil." For once, I was genuinely too stunned to speak.

Now, I would like to categorically state here that I have never murdered anyone, hidden the body and then lied to the police. Sure, I have a list of people who I would love to murder but I'm not that horrible and anyway, I'm not clever enough to hide the body and then successfully lie to the police and convince them I'm innocent. I was genuinely disturbed by Darcie's accusations, what the hell goes through her mind? Does she honestly think I do this? Oh and then she went on to accuse me of being the person who killed (if she was killed) Madeleine McCann. Now the thought of a child free holiday in Portugal sounds fantastic, but as I pointed out to Darcie, I would have found better things to do there than murder an innocent child!

This isn't the first time Darcie has accused me of being a killer, just the other day she stated that I am a murdering robot, and I'm regularly accused of slaughtering her father who miraculously comes back to life. (maybe he's actually Jesus in disguise, thinking about it they have similar hair styles, hmmm......) The kid has a death fixation, granted it's a confusing yet fascinating subject for most people, and incredibly hard for children to understand, but......I resent being accused of being a serial killer. A few months ago, Darcie randomly accused me of hating twins in her school, who I genuinely didn't realised existed. She said that I'm secretly planning on killing one of them, and that nobody would know because they're apparently identical and one would still be there. I kind of follow her logic in an abstract way, but she's wrong of course - people would realise that only one twin was at school, and I assume their parents would notice that rather than having two children, they only had one. We reckon that Darcie fantasises about killing people, and then accuses me of wanting to do it, such a frightening thought. Hopefully eventually she'll mature and stop these crazy thoughts, but if she thinks these things as a 9 year old, what the hell impulses will she feel as an adult? Is she going to lose the plot one day and end up killing someone? Is she going to go to the police and say I've murdered someone and hidden the body? Honestly, it's both ridiculous and terrifying.

Yesterday Darcie screeched at me to "go away forever, just die!" fair enough we all say things in temper, but sometimes the truth comes out when we're angry. She's obsessed with screaming "go away! go away!" at the moment whenever I walk into a room she's in, and things like "you've lived here long enough, now go!" whilst pointing to the door. I wasn't an angel child, but never in a million years would I have spoken to either of my parents like that. I remember being maybe five or six and my mum struggling to get my shoes on before we went out for a meal. I was obviously in an awkward mood and she snapped and said "I've had enough of you today." I clearly recall saying "I've had enough of you too." and the silence which followed, the kind of silence which makes you hold your breath as you know you've gone too far and something bad is going to happen. My mum chucked my shoes (black patent, all the rage in about 1985) on the floor and stalked out of the room. I dissolved into tears as I knew I'd done wrong, and was regretting it. Mum promptly told my dad who lost his temper and informed me that the meal was cancelled and we'd have beans on toast for lunch instead! Of course we did go but that event stuck in my mind forever, I realised that I'd been rude, and although I wasn't the perfect child, I apologised and promised not to say that again. To my credit, I have never, ever told my mum I've had enough of her since then, although I admit to sometimes thinking it!

Darcie will probably never remember an incident like that though, because she behaves like that to me pretty much constantly. That would be mild for her, and we wouldn't think much of it because she's rude and nasty to us most of the time. I would never have dreamed of telling my mum to leave, or accusing her of being a serial killer, but that's what I get hurled at me most days. Gradually Simon & I have come to the conclusion that Darcie resents me because, quite simply, she wants to be me. She wants to drive me away so that she can be Mummy, which is crazy - I've never come across a child so insanely resentful and competitive towards their own mother.

I'm afraid that I haven't dealt with Darcie well at all this weekend. I lost the plot majorly when she locked herself in the bathroom yesterday lunchtime and refused to open the door, apparently she is going to report my wicked behaviour to my own mum so that I can be duly reprimanded. I've said some awful things to Darcie this weekend, things my mum never said to me and things which I never imagined saying to my own child. In my defence though, being blindly hated by a child you've brought into the world and sacrificed a lot for is incredibly hurtful. I often think that nobody on this planet is capable of hurting me as much as Darcie is, and realise that she's fully aware of this.

This was meant to be about my little boy Harvey and his adventures (or rather mis adventures) now he's a big school boy. I have concerns and worries which I will write about, also a decision (well half decision really at the moment) which I've made but now isn't really the time. Darcie wants her lunch, I'm reluctant to feed her but suppose I can't let her go hungry! Then we're off to the park, where she'll stomp around, glare at me, accuse me of cruelty because I won't fork out for ice creams, and then refuse to leave, informing me as she did last week that I can go away and she'll only go home in her own time. Oh, how tempted I was to leave her behind last Sunday, the only thing which prevented me for doing so was the little voice somewhere deep down that reminded me that despite everything, I really do love her.

Freedom

It's 2am and normal people are fast asleep.......which is okay as I'm not normal! I really should be tucked up in bed, unfortunately I fell asleep with Mr-there's-no-way-I'm-going-to-sleep-in-my-own-bed at about 8/9pm tonight and woke up at 1am feeling confused and angry. The only way to get Harvey to sleep in the evening is to lie down on our bed with him, naturally lying down towards the end of the day makes me go all dopey and I often doze off. For a while I manage to fight the urge to sleep but it's been a knackering week and of course tonight was one of those bloody nights when my body just decided to zonk out. Waking up thirsty, confused and fully clothed with the lights still on reminds me so much of my student days, the only difference these days is I have a sleeping 4 year old next to me dressed in Mr Strong PJ's rather than a cold stinking burger and an empty bottle of wine!

So......the Hellidays are officially over and I've been very lazy with this blog. Free time isn't something I've had much of recently, Simon's family made their annual pilgrimage down to Portsmouth last Saturday & we spent most of the week either with them or running around like headless chickens getting ready to meet up with them. On Sunday we went to Bognor which was fun, haven't been there since I was about 2 so had no memories of the place, but oddly it seemed familiar. Harvey had a terrific time playing and talking to himself on the "wet mud" which was actually sand, our beaches in Portsmouth are pebbly so sand always utterly thrills him. Darcie did the whole "I'm too cool for this" thing and hung out with her grandparents while Simon & I took photos of Harvey which will really embarrass him in ten years and attempted to lure him away from the sea and sand. Bognor is definitely on my mental list of places to visit next summer, the Isle of Wight has also made it onto that list, we went there on Tuesday. Darcie had the day off school & we all went on the steam railway and then onto Shanklin for more sand! We don't go to the IOW very often, but each time we go I remember how lovely it is there & how much I like it. The old London tube trains are very cool and remind me of home, and I also get flashes back to my childhood as I went to the IOW with my parents a few times as a kid. These days we only go over there in the summer and of course it'll be bleak and miserable during the winter like anywhere, but it's a very cool place. We're hoping to have a little holiday in the Isle of Wight next August, hope it works out as it should be fun.

Harvey's first day of school was Thursday, which actually worked out well as we were so busy with his parents that when the big day arrived I didn't have much opportunity to stress. Harvey only went in the morning & finished at midday; we'd then arranged to head straight up to Gun Wharf and go up the famous Spinnaker Tower, before all heading back to out flat for a meal. It felt like we'd been waiting forever for Harvey's first day of school, but somehow I still hadn't got the uniform completely organised, despite plenty of help/random nagging from my mother! After a restless night involving bizarre dreams, I was woken up by Harv at 6.30am and then promptly realised that I'd forgotten to clean the bathroom up from the kids baths the previous evening. I dashed to the bathroom and began desperately tidying up, cursing myself for a) allowing my kids to make such a huge mess b) buying a bath bomb containing massive amounts of glitter which had welded itself to the bath overnight c) being so lazy and incompetent. I ranted to myself as I worked, but by about 7.15am the bathroom was tidy and I'd also had a shower which was fairly impressive really.

As always we were running late (I tell myself that one day I won't be rushing, but that's a load of crap, that day will never come) but by about 8.30am we had both kids dressed in the correct uniforms, Darcie's lunch made and bag packed (I'm hopeful that by her seventeenth birthday she might have reached the stage of considering organising her own stuff) and after the usual nagging/threats from Simon (freakily fast at getting dressed) we were out of the door, leaving chaos similar to that caused by a moderate hurricane behind us.

Harvey looked so incredibly smart and handsome in his school uniform that I fully expected strangers to stop us in the street and ask to take his photo, as he was truly the best looking school child of all time. His amazing good looks mean that he can't walk overly fast though, so I was forced to half drag him as usual, admit cursing from Simon and desperate pleas to hurry up. It's always Simon & Darcie in the lead when we go anywhere, while Harvey and I get left behind, talking to various inanimate objects and hoping that the next toilet isn't too far away. He drinks insane amounts of orange squash and has a hygienic yet annoying obsession with washing his hands, therefore requiring many, many toilet dashes on trips out - I simply have a much weaker bladder than I used to have, and am slowly turning into my mother who needs the toilet approximately every ten minutes whenever she leaves the house.

Darcie disappeared into her playground without even saying goodbye on Thursday morning, annoying really as I was hoping to thoroughly embarrass her with a huge public display of maternal affection. Simon & I found Harvey's classroom and were informed that rather than the usual starting time of 8.40am (yeah right, never going to be there at that time) he in fact wasn't meant to be there until 9am that day, making us early by default for one of the first times in my life as a mum. We hung around in the hall outside his Rabbit classroom (the other one is Field mice, having a pathological fear of mice and rats I was utterly relieved when we discovered that he's a bunny) before his teachers took pity on us and said we could go in and wait. Harvey's main teacher is Miss Cummings who seems really nice (I met her at his induction afternoon at the end of last term, typically I forgot about it and we were late but she doesn't seem to hold that against me) she actually spoke to us which is more than some of Darcie's teachers have done in the past. A tiny little girl called Lily was there too, obviously having been abandoned by her parents - either they had to dash off to get to work or simply couldn't stand being with their daughter for another minute after the endless holidays! Harvey went all shy as expected and made sounds rather than constructing sentences, we played with chalkboards and magnetic letters with him and desperately attempted to get him to communicate using words. Finally his friend from nursery, Cameron, turned up with his mum (not the most maternal woman in the world and went for the kiss-and-run method which I failed miserably at) I honestly felt love for Cameron when he held Harvey's hand and declared that they were best friends, suddenly Harvey perked up and allowed himself to be led away from us. The time had come to leave, the boys were settled on a mini-sofa thing with their backs to the door, perfect opportunity to sneak off. I fought the urge to stay with my precious son all morning, and tried to impress Miss Cummings and her worried looking sidekick Mrs Morgan (who doesn't look old enough to be a teacher, let alone a Mrs) by saying in a wobbly yet determined voice "OK then darling, Mummy's going now, having a wonderful time." hugged my little boy who I'm sure was only crawling around last month, and headed out of the door. Harvey turned around to look at me as I left, I blew him a kiss and to my delight he blew one back before returning to chatting to Cameron. As a mum there are certain images and moments which stay with you forever, and I know that I'll have that picture of my little curly haired boy blowing me a kiss on his very first day of school in my memory for the rest of my life. I'll look at him when he's a great strapping 35 year old and remember that moment.

I'm always glad to have Simon with me on these occasions as he encourages me to leave/ physically drags me away, assuring me that Harv is fine, which he was. Even so, there was a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I walked down the road as a mother of two school age children.

Fortunately as I said, I was too busy to let the tears flow, we dashed straight to Lidl and bought stuff to make the lasagne the in-laws had requested ( I strongly suspect that they think I'm incapable of making anything complicated, last years roast was a bit of a disaster) We then ran home and spent the next two and a half hours madly tidying up, and preparing the dreaded lasagne. Midday saw us at school once again, and after an agonising wait Miss Cummings appeared holding Harvey's hand.....I did my best to play it cool but I was so happy to see him and so relieved that he'd been okay. He was delighted with the giant tube of smarties I'd bought him as a bravery present, and even more delighted that he'd received the coveted "Miss Cummings Special Award" despite not fully understanding what he'd done to achieve it. I strongly suspect that every child may have receive this award, but repeatedly praised my clever boy and informed him that in the history of the world no child has ever been as brilliant on their first day of school.

We jumped in a taxi and joined the in-laws at Gun Wharf, spent the afternoon up the Spinnaker Tower - granted it's just a view but I've been up it 3 times and each time Harv has spoiled it for me by being a total pest. I spent a small fortune on ice lollies and toys for him in a desperate attempt to placate him, but tiredness and the fact it was boiling hot made him as ratty as hell. Finally we headed off to collect Darcie and then back to our flat for tea, the lasagne turned out okay and the in-laws smiled bravely whilst eating it. I reckon they headed straight to Macdonalds afterwards, but at least we made the effort!

Simons family have gone home today (well yesterday actually as now it's officially Sunday) and we probably won't see them for another year. The kids enjoyed seeing them and it's nice to remind Darcie & Harvey that they do in fact have two sets of grandparents! I never really had grandparents as a kid, and I honestly think it's wonderful that my children have two complete sets who love (or tolerate in my dads case) them. I love that our parents get so much pleasure from the children, and that it's thanks to us!

I'm nervous about the coming week. Friday is Harvey's first day of full-time school and it's going to be weird. I swing between feeling tearful as it really will be the end of an era, he won't generally be at home with me during the day ever again, which is sad as I've loved him being little despite all the hard work. Harv's my mate, and I'll truly be lost without him. I am really looking forward to the freedom though, and feel dizzy at the thought of whole days to myself, just to get on with stuff. In actual fact it's not a long time though, as he finishes school at 2.55pm so by about 2.30pm every day I'll have to be getting ready to leave. I realise the days will fly by, but people keep saying "wow, all that free time, what are you going to do?" and I feel worried as I still don't know. I'm thinking about doing a course, but have no idea what in - I'm conscious that I can't muck around now, if I'm going to do a course it has to lead to a job. I don't want to get stuck doing some pointless course, I'm 31, I need to have a career now. I hate the fact I don't know what to do with my life, it's awful. Nobody seems to really understand, but I guess it's something I'll have to work out for myself, haven't a clue where to start though :o(

Just realised it's 3.30am, bloody hell! I'll be back very soon with more on the job/course thing, but for now I think I'm going to have to go and get some sleep.........