Tuesday the 26th of June 2018
I’ll level with you – I nearly didn’t write again today. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing but it kind of feels like a pressure some days; a pressure I’ve added to life purely through choice I might add. I’ve gotten used to opening the laptop, or the app on my phone these last 3 months and brain farting my peripheral thoughts that I always feel a wee bit unfaithful just pushing it one side on the days where everything else takes priority. Some days I’m too broken and I feel like I’ve failed by not writing because I’m not capturing the essence of the illness and that has ramifications on raising awareness (fucked up logic, welcome to my brain) and other days I just don’t find the time through the day so I’m left with a decision of trying to write something, or admitting I’ll never be able to write a full blog post in one go. Today I’ve had to ask whether the few bits I managed to write earlier were enough of a skeleton to get started…. we’ll see shall we!?
I’ve not had as much time to write because these last two days have been solo parenting days and I’ve had more ups and downs that a whore’s arse. Yesterday was busy but low impact and today was quiet but pretty brutal; the last 3 days have caught up with me and donkey punched me on the back of the head. Lets start with the good bits though and then skirt round the shite bits because, I prefer living in la la land as much as you prefer reading about it to be honest.
So, it was my longest and bestest friends birthday on Sunday, you’ve read about her before if you’ve been on the blog long enough. Our Dawn, aka Teddy or D is one of my favourite human beings in this whole wide world. She and I got friendly at high school (age 14ish I think from memory) and have gone through life as friends ever since. We discovered leg shaving, Babyliss steam straighteners, Indie, boys and cider together and we’ve shared a fuck tonne of laughter along the way. Sometimes in our late teens and twenties we weren’t in touch for months because of Uni, work etc and other times I moved to Brighton for 6 years and married the wrong man and it was difficult to see each other; you know, usual stuff. We’re lucky enough to not need to be in each others pockets for our friendship to work and whether it’s been a week or a month, it only ever feels 5 minutes since we saw each other last, we just pick up where we left off. That’s a sign of a proper friendship if you ask me; life leads us all on a merry dance, but just like the hokey kokey, there’s a point when every fucker piles back into the middle and reconnects. We’re back in the middle now having gone off and done different things at different times but we’re both at the same stage of having young kids, a husband (each, we don’t share one) and a mortgage (again, each) and jobs. She has glorious wee twins who are almost 2 and I obviously have bollockchops who’ll be 3 at the end of September. So there’s the background – she’s a special friend and I’d wanted to mark her birthday in some way so we’d agreed that we’d meet up for a post birthday breakfast on the Monday at our normal haunt (mo’n the Dobbies) and let the kids run off their energy at soft play. I got Eli and over there, we ate one breakfast between us and the kids (talk about eeking out a 7 item breakfast!), we watched the kids play and had scatter gun half conversations broken with “Eli don’t do that” or “Michael where’s Leah?” and it was smashin, the kids were all on good form and they’d manage to have a good run of things on their own before the other fuckers turned up with their mindee’s or offspring. Job done.
The afternoon was already arranged too – I’d meet with another friend F and her wee boy who also goes to nursery with Eli and we’d sit on a picnic blanket eating while the kids entertained themselves at the playpark; you’re getting a the theme here aren’t you? Me sat down, child doing it’s own thing – it’s how all the M.E. mums parent if they’ve any sense. F on the other hand ended up getting roped into roundabout duty with not only our two but half the play ground. Mine was being a twat wanting in and out, and I reckon “FOR FUCKS SAKE” was etched on F’s lips but she’s a better person that me and managed to hold it in. Saintly. While all this was going on I was sat like the lazy bastard I am watching someone else parent for me…. well that’s what it must have looked like but in truth I’d had to fend off Davie and Agnes’ cousins from stealing the fucking picnic several times. Three of twats coming from different directions once they’d realised I was the only one defending the food! F brought the kids back over and I taught them to chase the seagulls when they came close. It worked well, it tired them out and it meant we could eat crisps and cake in peace; upstairs for thinking people. A squirrel was in two minds about coming over for a wee nose at what was going on but thought better of it when two toddlers went barrelling nearby – pussy. It was a cracking afternoon, so so warm and nice to be out in but I knew I was faltering fast. I’ve been lucky enough to be relatively switched on for a few days now so I could enjoy the convo’s I was having but I could feel the brain fog slipping in and I knew it was time to call it a day before my words went. Not before Eli decided to have an almighty paddy about a scooter that didn’t belong to him though. He’s never shown any interest before, the wee swine, but he was knackered from a full day and was pretty much ready to crumple at anything that wasn’t going his way so he cried it out allllllllllllllll the way to the car. It’s a terrible fucking noise at the best of times but when you’re feeling a bit cloudy, it’s a hundred times worse – a bit like a cat going through a mincer I reckon. I was already tetchy because I was wearing white trousers, which meant I’d needed to wear white pants and we all know how I feel about white pants and their impending skid mark doom so I wasn’t in comfy ground all round. Anyway, here’s some pics of us looking every inch the perfect mother and son….. and that fucking squirrel. Obvs. #instagramlife
Those sunglasses are an utter blessing to me because they hide my face which is just as well to be honest. Not in a “oh I am so grotesque” kind of way, (I appreciate I’m not a fucking supermodel but I don’t reckon I’m on par with Sloth from the Goonies either) but in a “fuck me, look how knackered she is kind of way” because I was knackered and I knew I looked it. I just hid it behind plastic. We were sat in the shade, so I’m sure I looked a bit of a tit but I couldn’t take them off for any length of time because it was just too bright for me. Boo fucking hoo.
So, this, is the reality. This is what 3 busy days does to me. This is what the glasses hide, and what I try and hide from people.
I look like I’ve been crying for 10 days but that was at just before 8 this morning and Eli hadn’t been on bad form. So not toddler induced, and not from being up too early, I just look (and am) fucked – it’s 10 hour since I took that pic now and I’d say I only look marginally less knackered. I’d love to say I’m better clothed than the pic, but it’s only half five and I have my jammies on, in fact I’ve had them on since 3.30. Namingly because my day clothes where covered in fucking hair; Eli’s hair. Yep, it was haircut day and people: it was HORRIFIC. That little fucker can reach vocal octaves I didn’t even know existed when he screams. We’d been talking about going for days, and all morning and he was fine, it looked like he’d made his peace with it until we were just about to leave. Christiaan had to help me get him into the car because he was crying, proper sobbing about not wanting to go. Fuck. It didn’t get any better, he sat with a face like thunder in the car till we go there and then erupted into tears as soon as we arrived…. I had to carry him in, which killed me physically, but it was the only way to get him through the door. Poor Nicola, the hairdresser, had to cut his hair while he was sat on my knee on the couch by the front door because he wouldn’t fucking move to one of the chairs…. and he screamed, and screamed and screamed. Chocolate didn’t help, Paw Patrol on my phone only helped marginally; he just wanted to bury his head in me and cry till it was done. I felt fucking rotten, not only for everyone else in the salon, but for Nicola and for me wee man because I genuinely hate seeing him upset, even when he’s being a tit, but what can you do? We can’t stop doing things that need done just because he doesn’t want to do them – it’s not how life works and he’s as well to learn that now at the age of 2 than when he’s older and a bit more arrogant. So it was horrible, he was upset and I was upset but I was also really struggling. Him screaming in my ear had fucked me cognitively and I had to sit with my head on the wheel in the car for 5 minutes before I could even think about setting off. It wasn’t even a peaceful 5 minutes because, tiny twat, the inconsolable, was now singing Paw Patrol. Loudly. Fickle fucking child had clearly got over his “end of the world” meltdown.
I got us home, chucked him in the bath so that he could get rid of “the itchy” and I went to get changed into my jammas. He’d broken me, I’d broken him – we were quits.
We’ve just had dinner though and I’ve got to say he’s redeemed himself somewhat. He’s done really well with trying new things this week; so far he’s eaten spaghetti hoops on brown toast for lunch for a few days, potato waffles as a side (alongside pasta obvs), beans on toast for lunch and today he tried a chicken dipper. Christiaan pointed out yesterday that it was kind of ironic seeing glory in getting him to try the foods that every other parent wants to get away from but, well, I’m hoping it leads to more solid turds if I’m honest. He has way too much veg and his arse is foul. I am not looking forward to trying to clean one of those sloppy shits out of a potty… and its the big weekend this weekend. The one where we start to toilet train him. I’m fucking dreading it. He would happily sit in his own shite all day long while denying there was anything in his nappy, he never acknowledges when he’s had a piss and you might as well have whispered in Klingon when you ask him if he’s just farted – he just pretends you don’t exist and it didn’t happen. So,we’ll see but I don’t have high hopes of him being ready to make it easy and I guess its whether we’re OK with abandoning ship and trying again later on in the year, or whether we want to make hard work for ourselves. My money is on coming back to it. Anyway, here’s him trying his beans, which his Paw Patrol hat on the Granny got him….and his sunglasses, obvs.
In other news the bedroom is nearly nearly there, in fact I’m sat on the bed writing this last bit because I needed some time away from the noise downstairs (Eli running riot) looking at my new cheapy shelves off of eBay and the big box with the blinds in. Hopefully Christiaan manages to get them up tonight and it’ll be a bit darker in here on a night because being an early bedder is a pisser on the light nights when you have no curtains or owt up. Plus, I’m sure half of Kinghorn have seen my tits now. FOR FREE.
The chair I’d ordered for up here isn’t coming now though because the place I bought it from did a last minute QA and found found it was the wrong fucking colour. Just as well they hadn’t sent it to me right enough but it means I’m back to the drawing board trying to find something else, but other than that and some new bedside lamps I think we’re there. Finally. Thankfully. It’s turning into a really lovely space and I may just chuck in a few pics in the next couple of days because I’m a bit proud of what we’ve pulled together.
In the meantime though, I’m off to cuddle my boy before bed time.
The end
- Highlights
- Solo parenting for the week is DONE
- Eli has had his haircut and we both survived
- I’ve had a really lovely weekend and a cracking day yesterday
- The blinds are here
- My new shelves are up
- Lowlights
- I’m fucked. Nuff said.
- Eli was a twat in the hairdressers
- The chair is not coming
- What’s on the menu Mellars?
- Breakfast – A yoghurt
- Lunch – A mug of home made soup
- Dinner – left over chilli from the other night with roasted butternut squash and some brown rice
- I was asked yesterday if this was all I eat, it is really, you don’t need so much when you’re pretty sedentary. I do have my “syns” on a night, which is normally a Rice Krispie square around 8pm but I’ve genuinely very little appetite for much else.
Are you new round here?
If you’ve just stumbled across TryingToDoItAll and have no bastarding idea what’s going on you should probably go back and read a few blogs from the beginning. Don’t panic, I won’t ask you to read them all, but these few posts will help explain. Oh stop sighing, it’ll only take you a few minutes. Fucks sake.
- Well you’re here, so you may as well get comfy
- Can’t stop M.E. now…. ahmm having such a good time, ahmm tickling your balllssss!
- When are the grown ups coming?
- Major surgery…again?
- You’ve got to be kidding M.E.?
#mecfs #meawarenessuk #mewarrior #silentillness #swearymum #meblogging
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ME Blogger extraordinaire… not really
Trying to do it ALL 