Monday 29 November 2010

Little Boy Lost.

I wrote this back on the 17/10/10:

This Tuesday was one of the most frightening days I have ever experienced in my life. I lost my little boy. Even though he escaped from our house, it is still my fault. I was the responsible parent in charge so there is really only me to blame.

At 2.50pm I made the decision to go upstairs and wake my two youngest children from their nap as we needed to leave to collect my eldest boy from school at 3.15pm.

I woke my middle child first, he is the most difficult child to organise as he is totally unagreeable so I figured he would need the most time. I took him downstairs and got his coat and shoes on. I put him in our living room and closed the stairgate.

I went back upstairs to wake my daughter, who is perfect by comparison. I came back down whilst holding her and realised my front door was open.

It only took a second to realise that so was the stairgate to my living room as I placed my 1yr old daughter the other side of it and closed it firmly.

I ran out of the door only fleetingly acknowledging that my dog had also made a break for it.

I called my son, half expecting him to be messing around in the next door neighbours gardens but I heard nothing. Not a sound.

This is the time of day that my road is particularly busy as everyone rushes to the school at the end of my road.

There is no one there. No clue as to where my child has gone. My first thought is "what if someone has taken him?"

My heart is in my mouth. I realise that I am not breathing and gasp in frantic breath. The question of how long I may have been holidng my breath for doesn't even register.

I run to the end of my cul-de-sac and frantically look from left to right repeatedly looking for a sign, anything that might indicate where my child is. Out of the corner of my eye to my right I clock a small blue car that is stopped rather haphazardly in the middle of the road/turning. "Shit-he's been hit by a car" was my first thought. I run, instinctively in that direction, praying that it is the right one and realise that I am still in my socks. I see an older lady get out of the car and run in the opposite direction. My thoughts aren't on her though. I just want my child.

As I get closer I catch a glimpse of something I want to see but am not entirely sure that it is really there. My sons head bobbing above the line of the car as I am running downhill towards it. I can see the lady is chasing my child and as I reach her car she scoops him up in her arms.

Safe.

As she starts walking toward me I realise that she is also being closely followed by our dog. He is jumping up at the strange lady and in truth I am not sure if he is guarding my most troublesome family member or trying to gowd her into play.

I remember shouting at her to stay where she is as she reaches the road to which I am standing the other side of and out of nowhere a 4x4 comes hurtling around the bend missing my, now giddy at the end of the chase excitement, 1 year old dog by a whisker.

The guy yells some obscenity at us all and speeds off in another direction. I don't hear it, I am purely focused on my child. I want him in my arms.

Aware of the dangers of roads etc. it is paramount I gain control of the dog too.

I crouch down until he comes to my side and grasp him collar. The strangers hands over my baby boy and my emotions catch up with me. Shakily I walk back up the road, completely unaware of the discombobulated mess we look.

I never found the womans name out, but I owe her explicitely for rescuing my child the way she did.

Anything could have happened. I will live with the "what if"'s for the rest of my life.

When I got back to the house I held him for as long as I could without being the crap mother who turns up late to collect her son from school would allow.

I cried. He looked bemused.

I feel immensely lucky.

Warning. Explicit Content. Or lack of...

Even as I type this I am not entirely sure why I am compelled to revel this publically and publish this on my blog. I honestly feel that I cannot ACTUALLY hold this conversation with a real person.

Perhaps I just feel like I need to get this out of my head, in whatever form; speach, written word, whatever, in order that I may somehow make sense of what I am actually feeling and perhaps even get some feedback as to if I am the only one who feels this way.

Ok, here goes. Deep breath.
My relationship with my OH has always been on fastforward. Literally. We have been together for 5 years. We have been married for nearly 4 years. We have 3 children aged 4, 2 and 1.

Needless to say our sex life clearly hasn't ever been a problem.

Until now..

It was during  the act of carnal pleasure that I realised that perhaps things aren't as rosy as they once were between hubby and I.

For a while now I have been left feeling a little, how do we say, unsatisfied. There. I've said it. Phew. Glad that's over with.

Now for some explaination...

With 3 children all so young, close together and demanding of our time (which we give unquestionably), getting a chance to get down to business is tricky to say the least. Quite often we have to grab the chance whilst they are asleep and with my 1 year old still in our bedroom it really leaves little opportunity to experiment.

Let me give you the scenario;

One morning my husband wakes up and performs the usual ritual of despatching our children downstairs, putting the TV on to keep them entertained and giving them a snack and a drink before coming back up with a view to satisfying his urges. (Yep passion is dead from that point for me too.)

Pretty much as soon as he sneaks out of bed with the rudamentary "ssshhh, lets go downstairs kids" I am already well aware of what is on the cards. It has become our (his) foreplay! I lay and dread him coming back upstairs knowing that he hasn't got the idea of letting me have a lie-in in mind.

As soon as he pushes the door to, he is straight down to business. His pj bottoms are off as soon as the catch of the door touches. Then the heat is on for how quickly he can get mine off!

This seemed almost acceptable, grabbing the opportunity while we could, up until recently. One day I was suddenly overcome with the need to burst into tears and not from the pleasure he was trying (failing) to bestow on me, it would seem.

I actually felt really embarrased and made my excuses before leaving the room to tend to our (now) screaming child downstairs.

Don't get me wrong, child/tv noise is a huge passion killer! But it wasn't that which was on my mind.

I had realised that for the first time ever I would rather f*ck my vibrator than my husband! (I pray to god he never reads this!)

When did this happen? I find myself asking. And the truth is I am not sure. Our sex life has always been rather passionate and exciting. What changed?

Now I am no thereapist but I am pretty sure it could be a combination of a few things. The first being our little darlings. Not that we don't love them. We adore them. However, they are really all-consuming. We never get a chance to be ourselves and embrace being a couple any more as we are always wearing our mummy and daddy hats. The second being that there is always so little time to embrace anything remotely sexual we have lost the ability to be romantic, to make the other feel special. It's like our sex life is now on fast forward!

Nothing was said then or has been since. When did we gain the ability not to be able to talk about these things?

I really am not sure about how to put this right. I know there is fault on both sides and to be fair, I don't think laying the blame anywhere is going to help.

We have a problem. It has become the elephant in the room...

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Family?

Pronunciation:/ˈfamɪli, -m(ə)l-/noun (plural families)

What is your definition of family?

Wikipedia "In human context, a family (from Latin: familiare) is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children. Extended from the human "family unit" by affinity, economy, culture, tradition, honor, and friendship are concepts of family that are metaphorical, or that grow increasingly inclusive extending to nationhood and humanism. There are also concepts of family that break with tradition within particular societies, or those that are transplanted via migration to flourish or else cease within their new societies. As a unit of socialisation and a basic institution key to the structure of society, the family is the object of analysis for sociologists of the family. Genealogy is a field which aims to trace family lineages through history. In science, the term "family" has come to be used as a means to classify groups of objects as being closely and exclusively related. In the study of animals it has been found that many species form groups that have similarities to human "family"—often called "packs."

Oxford Dictionary:  [treated as singular or plural] a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unita group of people related by blood or marriage:
- Friends and family can provide support

Well I am simply intrigued by this last footnote.


What is the deal with famillies?


My family consists of myself, my husband and our 3 children all living in domestic bliss (yea right!) in semi suburbia. So all fairly a-typical so far.


As we branch up the family tree a little things start to get a bit weird. It has long been my suggestion that the monumental f*ck up's the rest of our 'family's' have made are the reasons why my husband and I were pushed together within this crazy cosmos, why neither of us wants to bring our children up following the examples set by us and why the two of us live in a perpetually fragile state of mind. 


Now I know many people reading this will think I am being disrespectful to my family. If this is already the case then read no further. This is not disrespect; it's truth. Stone cold truth. It is also why I aspire to be everything my family are not.

We'll start with my parents. This consists of my mother & my step-father (whom mother is seperated from), My father and his partner. The number of 'partners' each parent has had in the past 28 years since they split is relatively high. Lest not forget they got married when mother was pregnant with me and were divorced by the time I was 2. Not quite a match made in heaven.

My mother was a bit of a wild child and by all accounts has spent the last 13 years trying to recapture this youth. She is now pushing 50 and really needs to grow up and accept that her youth is over. She has one sibling. She had numerous fathers.

My father comes from a large family. He is 1 of eight children. The second born but the first boy. Somewhat favoured. He was going through the rudementary wild stages when he met me mother and hence fell in love with her hedonistic tendancies and free spirited approach to life. A breath of fresh air from the drudgery of work, work and well more work that he had witnessed of his own father as a child. Clearly the novelty wore off when mothers attitude to life involved another man. Which I remember..

So wholed up in a council flat on a notorious council estate back in the 80's my father compelted his appreticeship and worked hard as a tradesman. He expected to come home to domestic bliss, dinner on the table, baby in bed and wife with her legs open (this last is a assumption on my part).

My parents are somewhat unique in their complete inability to be remotely interested in raising a child yet live in complete ignorance of their inability. Hmmm.


There hope for me yet? As for support. Yea right!

Diet GLORIOUS diet...

...I'm totally not convinced but I am willing to actually give this a proper shot.

I need to lose weight. I have had 3 beautiful children across 4 years and although they still get some of the blame for my weight inconsistency, deep down I know that a lot of it is down to my crap diet and incredibly sweet tooth!

I'm not obese. However, my BMI level currently resides in the dangerous zone so something has got to be done.

I have bitten the bullett and joined an online slimming club (my second attempt this year). I have 10 months to lose 3st.

You see, it is my 30th birthday next year and my hubby has kindly agreed to fund a lovely holiday abroad in favour of having a party that the kids can't attend. (Those who know me will know and understand that my children are my life and I believe that once you have kids they are part of all of life's milestones and I would really want them to be there to share in this one).

It will be the first bikini holiday my husband and I have EVER been on together and the first time that the children will go abroad. I have a lot riding on this.

We'll see.

The good news is that I am not hungry and I am already losing weight! (hooray!) I'll keep you posted!