Ok, so I want to start this blog by letting you know that I ADORE my boys. They are the reason I exist and everything I do is for them. Had it not been for me having my two boys over the past 3 years, I really don’t know where I would be now, they have been my reason for living, for carrying on, for getting out of bed on a morning.
BUT…….. 80% of the time, they annoy the hell out of me!!!!!!! 😂😂😂😂😂
I’m an only child, although I do have a step brother I wasn’t brought up with him, so have had the luxury of pretty much having my own way, ALL the time!!!! And I like to get my own way!! Cue children coming along and this ruins EVERYTHING about getting your own way!!! I had to stop being selfish and put these little human beings feelings and needs in front of my own!!! It’s been hard work, I can tell you!!!!
I don’t believe there is any such thing as a ‘perfect’ mother. I used to be jealous of those mothers that can manage to not have to go to work. That spend all day with their children, that do ‘creative’ stuff and go to a million classes a week with their child.
But then I realised there is nothing to be jealous about, life is just about balance. We are all thrown into parenthood, none of us really have a clue what we are doing and the thousand books I read beforehand still didn’t help me. The minute I held that tiny pink things in my arms, my immediate thought was ‘shit, what am I supposed to do now!!!!’
Some women are lucky that they can afford to not go to work. Before having my boys I wanted to be one of those women, but now, if I’m honest, I look forward to work because it gives me a break from the boys haha!!!!
When Pez and I met, we fell in love, we moved in together, we got married and we had our first baby Rhys. We did what a couple was ‘supposed’ to do. I had an idyllic vision of life in my head, as every young person does I suppose.
But once Rhys was born we were thrown into a life of turmoil and uncertainty. Our gorgeous boy was disabled and this was not the idyllic life I had imagined for us. We loved him with every inch of our being, but we did not choose this difficult life that we now had to face.
Having said that, we adapted, we changed our way of thinking and we accepted that ok, life wasn’t going to be easy but it was our life and nothing we could do could change that. But what we could do is change ourselves and try to make this life the best life we possibly could, so this is exactly what we did!!
We then decided to try for baby number 2, as we didn’t want Rhys to be an only child. Cue more heartache and trauma, as I sadly had 3 miscarriages and we went through numerous fertility tests, before I finally fell pregnant with Richie.
The pregnancy went well and we had lots of tests on richie to check if he had any disabilities, as Rhys did. We were over joyed to find out that he was a ‘typical’ baby and wouldn’t face any of the problems Rhys had.
Life started being happy again, we finally accepted that we were going to have another baby and couldn’t wait to meet him and for Rhys to be a big brother.
BUT THEN IT HAPPENED, FRIDAY THE 13th, 2014…
My amazing husband and father to my children went to work and didn’t come home, he had an accident and fell through a roof.
Where had my idyllic life gone?? All my hopes and dreams and the future I had imagined suddenly disappeared the second that Pez died.
It was all just unbelievable, I had a 6 year old, disabled child and was 32 weeks pregnant and I was now alone, I had to do this all by myself and i just didn’t think I could.
This next bit is going to sound harsh and horrible, and I can promise you it wasn’t a feeling that lasted for long. But the very first day after Pez died, I remember laying in bed alone, crying and crying whilst feeling my baby move inside me. And for a split second I wished that I wasn’t pregnant, wished I wasn’t going to have another baby, because for the life of me, I had no idea how I was going to cope myself, let alone bring up two children.
I was so very very angry with Pez. Angry at him for going up on the roof, although there are still some mysteries surrounding him being on the roof, he was on it and he shouldn’t have been. He fell through the window because he was on the roof and this makes me really angry. He left me alone, with a disabled child and a baby on the way and I was furious.
In fact even now, almost 3 years after his death I still feel a bit mad at him. But I accepted a long time ago that there was no point being angry at him, as despite what happened I know he never wanted to die, it was just a tragic accident.
So, cue me, 32 weeks pregnant and with a 6 year old that was heartbroken at losing his daddy. I truly did not know what to do. All I can say if that I am eternally grateful for the help and support I received from my parents and close friends in those early days, without them I really don’t know what I would have done.
So, let’s fast forward to now!!! I could bore you with every little detail of how difficult life was in the early days, with a newborn and Rhys, but to be honest these days are a massive blur!! I just woke up and put one foot in front of the other and tried really hard to look after my boys the best I could!!! I managed to feed them, clothe them and keep them alive, so guessing I did pretty ok haha!!!
I won’t lie, for about two years I was scared to death of my two boys!! That may sound dramatic but I was!!!! I couldn’t bear to not have plans on a weekend, had to do something or go somewhere, with someone, as I was too scared to go anywhere by myself with them both!!! I hated being my myself with them, it was all just too difficult most of the time.
I didn’t think I was coping very well, I would regularly meltdown when I couldn’t manage by myself. Sleep was horrendous, neither of them were very good sleepers, waking constantly through the night and I was just exhausted, which made me massively emotional!!! Mix all of this with the fact that I was grieving and I missed Pez so very much, it was a very dark and scary time in my life.
I felt really jealous of people that had split up with their husbands, as at least those people knew they got every other weekend to themselves, they got a break and at least their children still had contact with their fathers. (I know this isn’t the case for all, so please don’t flame me!!)
I did get some time out, but had to arrange for my parents or friends to babysit for me.
But then, Richie got older and life started to settle down a little and become easier. I started to realise that I COULD do this and that I was doing Bloody AMAZINGLY!!!!
Then at the beginning of 2016 I made the decision that we needed to move house. I couldn’t stand staying in the house that I bought with Pez anymore, there were
Too many bad memories there and these outweighed the good memories that we had made. It was the best decision i have ever made and we are now in our happy home, a place where we can make new memories of our own.
I started to see the bond that my two boys were getting, the love that they have for each other and this utterly overwhelms me!! The minute they both wake up, they ask for the other and totally back each other up!!!
Although It’s not always like this!!! Approximately 50 times a day Rhys will hit richie or be mean to him, but Richie is learning how to deal with this!! Mostly it’s by him hitting Rhys back and them ending up in a massive row, but boys will be boys I suppose haha!!
Rhys started in a special school in September 2016, he has been in a mainstream since nursery, it was a lovely place for him while he was little and it was all play based. But the older he got, I could see how much the gap was widening with him and his peers, even though I had held him back a year. So I made the very difficult decision that he needed some more specialist care, tailor made to him and his needs.
Since moving he has come on in leaps and bounds!!! Despite the amazing efforts of his 1:1, Marie (who he still sees and adores) and the lovely staff there, they just didn’t have the provisions or the facilities to cater for Rhys. The classes were too busy for him and this resulted in him having massive meltdown because he couldn’t cope. We all made some lovely friends at his old school, that we will stay in touch with.
Single parenting is bloody hard, being the one that is solely responsible for decisions is very very tough. I also find it difficult once the boys are in bed, I have no one to wind down with, to talk about the day with, so I do get lonely.
Sometimes the sadness gets me, as it always will, the sadness of missing Pez so very very much. It was never meant to be like this, he wasn’t meant to die and leave us. We were supposed to grow old together, we used to joke that we couldn’t wait for the boys to grow up so they could move out and we could be alone again!! Sometimes life is so very very cruel and it’s hard to understand why.
But I watch the boys grow and develop and know how very very proud Pez would be of them both. It’s breaks my heart on a daily basis that Pez never got the chance to meet Richie, to hold him, to feed him and to love him. I look at the independent little boy he is becoming and I know how much Pez would have loved him.
The boys birthdays and Christmas always have a little bit of sadness there, just because we know Pez should be there celebrating with us. But I try not to let this sadness come out, I want the boys to have happy memories, not sad ones.
I’m a firm believer in that Pez is here with us, that he can see us and the boys, but it isn’t the same as actually having him here with us.
Both my boys have Pez’ cheeky personality and his smile. They sometimes pull a facial expression and it blows my mind, because they pull the same faces that Pez used to! I love that their daddy lives on in them though!!!
I lose my shit approximately a million times a day, all usually before I even get Rhys to school at 9am!!!! I shout, a lot!! Probably more than I should do, I try to stay calm, but after asking the boys to do something 15,000 times in a calm voice, sometimes the only way is to scream the house down to get their attention!!!
Rhys has a tendency to repeat everything i say and use this in conversation of his own!!! So as much as I try to keep the swear words to a minimum, other things I can’t!!! It made me chuckle when he was playing with Richie the other day and I heard him say to him ‘I swear to god Richie, I’m not going to tell you again’ and realised that this was something I say to him, quite regularly!!!!
Also, I’m currently toilet training two children!!! Rhys has been in nappies all this time, but we are now starting the slow process of getting him into his big boy pants!!! He is doing so well, but Richie has also decided that he doesn’t want to wear nappies anymore!!!! So I keep finding puddles all over my house, thank god most of the floor is wood haha!!!! Although I have to say that after 9 years of changing nappies, I cannot wait for the day that this house is nappy free!!!!
I recently bought a caravan, so that we can spend a lot of time there, with my mum and dad and make lots of happy new memories for us all.
So, we’re all in a good place at the moment, the fact that I’m happy rubs off on my boys and makes them happy. But more than anything I am immensely proud of my two boys, they have carried me through these hard times and I will continue to carry them for the rest of their lives, as much as I am able.
Maybe one day, I will be lucky enough to find a special person to bring into our lives, but until that day comes then we are more than happy with our little family of three!!!