Dearest Hannah
Day 30 of
writing to you and I am so pleased that I have made a whole month of doing
this. It still remains as a little part of my day where I can come and feel a
little closer to you.
Today hasn’t been
the best for either of us. Yet, I think I will talk about you and your day
mostly.
You, my love,
are still battling this cold/virus/monkey flu ;) and I think it has lowered
your resilience and this coupled with the fact that you are having hard
parenting moments has just made the last 24 hours really hard.
The kids have
come back from their dads and this always leads to A being hard work. He
becomes rude, threatening and demanding and it is all aimed at you. The thing
is that it is easy to allow a targeted assault to get to you and you think that
this is a problem within you; but it isn’t! You are a great, loving and
incredibly supportive mum. I see this and it is a quality that I love about
you. In fact, I wouldn’t see you as a potential partner to be around my children
if you weren’t!
You need to
see a few things quite clearly. A is 6; that is a small and young age and
however much we expect them to behave a certain way because we think they
should know better they are also only young. This is an age where they no right
from wrong but they are also trying to assert their place within the home. He
has also witnessed how to address problems and then how to treat other people,
including you, from the nearest make role model that he can find, his dad. It
is a male role model because ultimately A identifies himself as one and
therefore will look at how the closet male acts to the people around him and
that is clear when you reflect the presence of that person. He has also been
able to play on certain things he does and weven play the youngest card a few
times andi am sure that it has even worked a few times and he will try it
again. You know this is tru because you have seen the “smirk”, caught him red
handed trying to get his sister in trouble and see how direct he can be about
things and know full well that he knows what he is doing. It is a sad time for
yo to see and know all these things because he is, after all, your baby but he
has the same feelings. He believes he can be all of the above because of either
the reason that you have listed or because he is the cute baby who can get away
with it; or at least not anymore so bound to push back.
Lets be fair
though, it isn’t just A that has been causing you trouble and L has been
answering back, has a lot of sassiness about her and been quite flippent and
rude. Again, I think this is just a learnt attitude and often comes after
certain visits.
I can see
though that with both happening that you see it as a reflection of you and what
you are doing but it really isn’t.
We did have a
nice long chat at lunchtime about it all and you decided to try something off
of the back of a calm attitude rather than an angry one and see how that would
go. I think and still do think that it was and is a brilliant idea. They need
to know there are long term consequences to things and with along with that it doesn’t
mean that there will be a quick fix of a sorry and a nice thing to get it back.
This has
meant that you have had a hell of an evening with A but on the plus side L does
get it and I have faith that A will in time. It is only day 1 for you and him
but we need to push through.
The fact that
you are doing this shows how much you love and care and you are trying to allow
restrictions and guidelines within your home rather than allowing chaos. That
is GOOD parenting. You also need to see that the kids always come back to being
good, calm and really affectionate children a few days of hard and yet stable parenting
after seeing their dad.
I am so proud
of you for sticking to it all, for keeping going and not allowing them to break
you down. You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for.
The only
thing that saddens me is the fact that I can’t be there to support you through
it all. I wouldn’t mind whatever role you wanted me in but I wish I could just
back you up and offer you more than just phone support.
You have also
found out today that Costa have been using milk in the hot chocolate so it has
resulted in a bad IBS day for you and it really hit you hard after lunch. I am
so gutted for you as I know that costa is a little treat and social thing with
your friends. I know that there are alternatives you can do but I am still
gutted for you.
My day has
been, what I now see, a standard day. I took day to treatment. That seemed fine
until we got back and the twat twins decided to kick off and cause problems and
then following that to find out that dad has been lying about things anyway.
So, I have no idea what is going on but I did try and stay out of it.
My dpd has
been playing up massively. It has left me on edge and rather sensitive. I still
cant see the trigger or reason but the only positive is that I know it has a
valid reason of dpd and because of that I have been able to reign it in a bit.
Normally I
find it hard and little things get to me and I end up saying the wrong thing,
causing a problem and then having to explain or apologise and it isn’t ever
really a good position to be in. So, with that known information and feeling, I
have tried to ignore those little things and just get on. I mean, if I wake up feeling
better and everything goes back to Martyn normal then those things won’t matter
and I can just carry on as normal without causing any trouble along the way.
5 more sleeps
until I am with you and quite frankly that is already too long. I wish I was
with you, I wish we could just be our tag teaming selves and just be together
again.
It isn’t long
but at the moment it feels like a lifetime!
I am hoping and praying that we both have better days coming soon. In the meantime know that I love you, support you, I am proud of all that you are doing and I think you are one of the best mums, women and people that I could know.
Love you,
Martyn
