Tuesday 24 January 2012

Instruction Manuals

I've been thinking tonight how much easier life would be if kids came with their own individual instruction manual. It could pop out with the placenta!

If the Teenage Drama Queen has kids and they give her the sort of grief that she gives me, I will laugh hysterically. Today was a prime example. Her school contacted me this morning to ask why she was late. We live less than 10 minutes away from school so there is no excuse for her to ever be late. She had no proper excuse, her friend who normally knocks for her was off and she just didn't look at the time. If this was a one off then I wouldn't have made a big deal of it but she has been late about eight times so far this school year. The last time it happened,I told her that I would be harsh with her if it happened again so today I had to follow through with that. She has 6 weeks of very early bedtimes with no phone or laptop allowed in bedroom. I hope if she is in bed earlier then it might be easier for her to get up in the morning. She called me an idiot and told me I was overreacting but I did manage to get her into bed by half ten. It was supposed to be ten o'clock though.

Rebecca has been giving me a little bit of trouble lately too. She had her annual meeting with the Educational Psychologist last week which was brought forward so he could submit a report for her Statutory Assessment. One of his recommendations was that she follows the Toe by Toe scheme. I tried starting this with her in the summer. It is very good and I'd recommend it for anyone whose child has difficulty in reading. It has to be done every day for 10 - 15 minutes. The school are only working on it with Rebecca on a Thursday so the responsibility falls on me for the rest of the week. Rebecca is always quite tired after school and has been very grumpy and tearful so it has taken a lot of cajoling to get her to work on it. She also had a medical this week for the Statutory Assessment. I was disappointed as I didn't feel it was very thorough. She still has problems due to the hyper mobility in her joints and although I mentioned this, the Doctor didn't even examine them.

As for me, I'm still the same. Still knackered, still got a cough and still broke, but at least I'm still here!!

Speak soon

love Riki xxx

Thursday 19 January 2012

Sinking

I was going to write a nice up beat post this evening but now I'm not! You can blame the Teenage Drama Queen for the change of mind as she just thoroughly pissed me off by casually announcing that she has yet again gone more than twenty pounds over the Internet allowance on her phone. She knows that I am scrimping and saving every penny to try and clear our debts but still persists in just wasting money like this. I'm at my wits end with her. She contributes nothing to this family, is rude and lazy and expects the world to revolve around her and everything to be handed to her on a plate. I don't think its just because she's a teenager either. It makes me sad as I wonder if I've failed her in some while to make her grow up like this? It's a terrible fault of mine that I tend to blame myself for every thing and am always looking inward to analyse what have I done wrong or what could I do differently. There's nothing wrong with a little introspection but I am prone to take it to extremes!

I was already in a grotty mood tonight. The ex came over to see the girls. He was here for about an hour and a half. I had to keep telling Rebecca to calm down and stop being silly in front of him. After he had gone, she said she was trying to get his attention as all he was doing was talking to the Teenage Drama Queen. How sad is that? There was also another hint from him tonight that he reads our Twitter accounts. That annoyed me. He won't like mine anyway as it's never very complementary.

I ought to be working instead of talking to you, but I feel so grotty that I think I'll give up for tonight. I've had a cough since New Years that I can't shake and it's really starting to drag me down.

Speak soon and I promise to try and be more upbeat then

love Riki xxx


Monday 16 January 2012

Birthday Blues

Happy Birthday

Guess what?? It's my birthday.

As soon as I woke up this morning, the radio started bombarding me with stories about how this is the most miserable day of the year and everyone is depressed today. I opened the paper and it was the same story. Now I'm not into huge birthday celebrations now, it's more just a feeling of dread that I'm another year older. But it is a bit much to hear that everyone is so miserable on your birthday.... Even Rebecca asked me why my birthdays are so sad. I think she expected me to have a party or something. We would normally have gone out for a meal tonight but I am so broke that we are staying in.

I have no money to go out shopping and treat myself either. So far the highlight of my day has been having a long bubble bath.

As I started with a song today, I'm going to end with one. Love the lyrics to this, saw her on stage this year and she was phenomenal!

Jessie 

And no, I'm not going to tell you how old I am now!!

Love Riki xxx

Friday 13 January 2012

Running out of Rabbits

I used to compare being a single parent to being a juggler with the endless multi tasking being the balls you have to keep in the air. But now I think my role is probably more like a magician. I'm constantly having to find ways of achieving what looks impossible. Whether it's hacking the teenage drama queen's phone when she's forgotten her password, juggling credit cards to get another 6 months 0% credit or finding yet another source of income to try and keep a standard of life that is frankly becoming impossible to maintain.

So I've spent years pulling rabbits out of various hats and continued to achieve the impossible with no help. But lately it's become harder and I'm running out of rabbits hence the title of this post! I'm not sure why it seems so much harder. I've been ill since New Year so that certainly  hasn't helped and it is exactly 5 months tomorrow since the ex had the girls over night so single parenting 24/7 with no respite for that long has worn me down. Also I'm feeling guilty about not doing enough extra work with Rebecca as well. Her reading hasn't really improved over the last year even though her writing has and with the Statutory Assessment coming up, I just feel like I should be doing more but there's only so much you can cram into each day. If the teenage drama queen would get off her butt once in a while and help around the house then it might make life easier.

I'm also feeling a little depressed as it's my birthday on Monday and I've now reached the age when instead of celebrating, I just think Oh Christ, another year older! Still, with any luck someone might buy me some rabbits!!!

love Riki xxx

Friday 6 January 2012

Absentee Father

Its a constantly recurring topic in the media to talk about fathers who are denied access to their children. Its an important issue and does need public attention but what about fathers who just don't bother to see their kids?

The access arrangements with my ex have always been very flexible. I told him he could basically see the girls whenever he wanted. As we live in Essex and he has always lived some distance away, I felt that I needed to be very flexible and I wanted the girls to have regular contact with him. I am concerned now though that the contact with the girls seems to be dwindling. The girls have not stayed overnight with the ex since last August!

Last summer the ex and the girlfriend gave up their flat and moved in with his mother due to their finances. This does mean that space is limited and I appreciate that it might be difficult to have the girls overnight, but surely he could take them for the day? Things were made worse in October when the ex broke his leg. Obviously he couldn't drive or travel on the tube. I did offer to take the girls over during the half term holiday but when the ex discovered that I couldn't just leave them and come back later (its a 2 hour journey there by the way!) he made an excuse. He saw the girls once before Christmas for 4 hours when the girlfriend drove over and they took the girls out (found out this was because he were driving somewhere else later and we were on the way)

The ex is now out of plaster and driving again. I spoke to him yesterday to ask if he wanted the girls for his mum's birthday next month. He waffled a response and its clear that he's unlikely to have them. I feel like reminding him that he may have divorced me, but that doesn't mean that he's divorced the girls! I don't really know what to do, I can't make him be more interested in seeing them. There's no way to enforce custody.

I think the thing that bugs me the most though is that he has never said anything to me about not having them overnight. If he had said about not being able to have them stay due to lack of space while he's living at his mums, then I would have understood. That would have been the courteous thing to do, but the ex has never be strong on courtesy!

Speak soon

love Riki xxx

Monday 2 January 2012

Carpe Diem - Seize the Day

Just a quick note before bed. I am feeling quite positive tonight. Perhaps because this is the calm before the storm and I drop back into the maelstrom of school runs, homework, work, housework and debts tomorrow.

I'm not really sure why I feel OK tonight tonight but I suppose I'd describe it as having a feeling of inner peace (Jesus, that sounds really cheesy so I apologise for that!!). AnywayIi have a real feeling that I could change things for the better this year. I have four jobs sorted at the moment and job five is lined up to apply for once job three's contract finishes in Feb. Perhaps I'm just light headed as the New Year diet started today and my body may have gone into shock that I've stopped trying to consume my own body weight in food every day! Maybe its just that the St Johns Wort was stronger than normal today.

Anyway, whatever has caused it, I shall try and hang on to the positive mood of Carpe Diem and seize my day. Or as Homer Simpson put it, I will seize my donuts! particularly if I fall off the diet.

Love and peace

Riki xxx

Sunday 1 January 2012

Death

I know nobody is particularly keen on the thought of dying; but I am absolutely and completely terrified and the feeling has got worse as I've grown older.

Eastenders set me off tonight as it was the extended episode with the death of Pat. At first I was upset because it reminded me of when my mum died and brought back my guilt about her dying alone. I then got depressed because its my birthday in two weeks and my mum was only 8 years older than mecwhdn she got cancer the first time.

Now I just feel bad because I know I'm quite unhealthy at the moment and really need to lose some weight. I eat when I'm stressed so, with my life, that's fairly constant!

Only way I can manage to snap myself out of this mood generally is by thinking yes, we all die including me, but it won't be today.

NOT TODAY!

Love Riki xxx