Back to school - a new term

Hi

It has been a while since I blogged - I keep checking in but when I think about writing an entry I don't really know where to start. It seems as though this blog has become a bit of an online diary. I have written my diary for years and it was getting really boring (not the act of writing it but the content) and I was constantly on edge in case anyone ever found and read it. I would have been mortified.

Then blogging started to seem like a better idea - I would edit out the really dull stuff (I thought) because it was public, but anonymous. I might come up with some insights as to what makes me tick, and these might help others.

For a while I seemed to be going in the right direction. But now I have lost confidence a bit - keep wanting to go back over my old posts and edit them. Keep wondering if any of this will be of any use to anyone else (and I realise my need for reassurance on this may be wearying, so many thanks to those of you who have written positive comments). Plus, because I want my illness to remain under wraps, I can't talk about a lot of stuff that goes on in my life, and this feels restrictive, and a bit rude to any readers.

But anyhow, I suppose it is doing no harm. Nobody is forced to read this.

I am cracking on with the memoir now that I have free mornings during the week. I have written about seven thousand words in the last two weeks, and most of this is totally new. Now I am getting a bit slower, so I am planning to go back over the old autobiography, pick out and write down all the stuff that I can use without divulging my identity, then see what I have got and then fill the gaps with any new stuff I think might be useful (what I mean is stuff that happened that I didn't write down before). Plus I am trying to work out how to make it all more interesting, more readable. More universal.

You see? This blog has just become like my old diary entries used to be - I ramble on and on! Who needs to know all this baloney? I just like writing it down!

Anyhow. Kids are back at school, and as I said Toddler has started play school, so I have some free time. The trouble with this is that I feel I should only be writing during this time, but somehow I have to fit in the washing, shopping and cleaning - things I could do when I was looking after Toddler at the same time, but which I can't do when I am writing. So the house is a tip, and I have a constant sense of guilt. I am not much more relaxed despite the fact that it is nice not having to pander to Toddler every second.

He is still the cutest little thing imaginable - but is getting increasingly demanding. He is only at school from nine to twelve, and in the afternoons I concentrate on him 100 per cent - we have more quality time than we used to. We have lovely afternoons together. And although he usually still cries when I leave him at play school, he stops really soon after I have gone, and some days he doesn't cry at all. He is having fun there, and it was definitely the right decision to send him.

At the weekends though, or when the others get home from school after three pm, he insists on receipt of maximum attention. He can't stand it if Hubby or I are looking after one of the others instead, like when I was reading with his big brother this morning. He gets really annoying, and will engage in all sorts of bad behaviour just to try to get the attention back. I know he will grow out of it, but I wish he didn't have to put us all through this.

C'est la vie. As far as my mental health goes, things are ticking over. I try not to get too tired, because that is when I get moody. I usually do get tired though, however hard I try not to.

I haven't been out much socially, but that's fine - I have decided that there is no harm in avoiding things I find difficult, as long as I can do them when I have to. And at the school gate, things are quiet. I don't make a huge effort to talk to the other Mums and I don't feel bad that I am not in the centre of things - I am not trying to put myself there.

I try to stick to the company of people I find easy to be with, and it helps that I now have a higher purpose, a need to get home and write rather than just spend the day trying to be the best mother that I could manage to be (a nebulous aim, at it's best. Ultimately pointless, maybe - perhaps the kids will just turn out fine as long as they are loved, perhaps they will turn bad in some way and I will be powerless to change that. I can't bear to think that will be the case though).

I try not to worry so much about stuff, because I know the kids will pick up on it and this will make them anxious. Although they are lucky that there are four of them - they have the protection and support of their siblings. This morning when Toddler was annoying me I told him off (I hardly ever tell him off) and immediately his big sister was on the case, comforting him, sitting him on her lap to watch TV, then taking him off to play with his toys. So he got the attention he craved and I was free to read with my elder son for a few minutes - although he wasn't bothered, and just couldn't wait to get away and play Super Mario or Sonic Heroes or some such.

Enough for now. X X

Freedom at last!

Hello readers

I wonder, have my recent posts been too long? I.e. does anyone actually have the time or energy to read them? Any feedback on this would be appreciated, although I have a feeling I know the answer...

Kids are back at school, and Toddler has started play school. So, for the first time in many many years I have some leisure hours. It feels amazing, as though there might actually be a me in here somewhere, instead of just a Mummy. I mean, Mummy is great, the best ever title as far as I am concerned, but the chance of some respite from it all is a relief, to say the least.

I am using the time to write - I have to, otherwise I could not cope with the ordeal of having a wailing and weeping Toddler prised away from me each morning. At least by coming home to work I can tell myself that it is for the Greater Good, and so ward off the gnawing guilt. Of course, he is fine once I have gone - in fact this afternoon he had a paddy because he said he wanted to go to play school, and I told him it was closed.

I just hope my stress levels continue to go down. Things got a bit hairy for a while during the hols. x x