"On Purple Days I'm sad. I groan. I drag my tail. I walk alone."

Do you ever wake up in the morning and instantly feel like you are on the brink of tears?
Emotions are funny things and although I have a very happy life and can nearly always be seen with a big smile on my face, every now and again I have one of these 'out-of-character' days. I have no idea what causes it and definitely have no control over it. A friend informed me that it could be something to do with the new moon??? but I will put it down to just being a pretty sensitive guy.

With the 'Man Up' campaign doing its rounds at the moment, highlighting the importance of expressing our emotions as a male and encouraging men to Cry in a bid to raise awareness of male depression and suicide, it seemed like an important and relevant campaign to mention. I however have absolutely no problem shedding a tear! Put me in front of 'The Holiday', 'Serendipity' or 'Love actually' and you will see this bald, bearded man weep! like I said... sensitive!

This post isn't meant to bring anyone down though. This is actually about what I do to get myself out of this unexpected funk. When I wake up on these rare mornings and have a generally off day, I make sure that on the evening, I give myself some time to pop my headphones in and hit the streets on those amazing wheels of mine. A solo scoot in the moonlight is all I need to sort out this uncontrollable mix of emotions and whizzing about on my own, with great music can really clear my head and make me feel a lot more productive. 

Micro Scooters have changed my world in so many ways and continue to shape the time I spend with the boys. I imagine that it will be quite some time before I have one of these random emotional days again but I can be safe in the knowledge that my wheels are not to far away.

Reasons to be thankful for Nintendo: de-stressing

Waiting in the drivers seat again while Opeie sleeps, it just seems like the norm these days...

I had an awful morning a few days back and was left feeling very disappointed and quite upset. The care of our children is not to be taken lightly, it takes effort and patience but as I sat that morning at Opeie's nursery and watched a little boy sitting facing a wall (alone), crying and with no one trying to comfort him, calm him down or include him in any of the group activities I thought to myself 'what the hell are we doing here'. I'd rather not have anyone looking after Opeie but us and if I'm honest it annoys me that someone is getting paid to spend time with my best friend but I know being around other children is what Opeie needs at the moment for his development.

Myself and Mrs M spent a lot of time talking about what we wanted for Opeie in regards to care outside of our family and when a nursery came along that suited us I was happy and prepared to place my trust and child in their hands. But as I watched the poor child that morning screaming for his mom and left to get on with it I felt guilty that I was attempting to leave Opeie there while he himself was very upset.

If I'd have left and a parent had told me that's how Opeie had been left I'd have been devastated, not to mention furious. I want and expect a lot more for my child, the boy that has filled me with so much happiness over the years. What would you have done? Well we left, Opeie was really upset and there was no way I was going to leave him to (in my head) possibly be ignored. I was almost in tears myself and the only reason I didn't go and comfort the little boy myself was because I was trying to calm Opeie down. 

There's two sides to every story which I am fully aware of and until I hear that side then I won't be making any rash decisions I just hate that guilty feeling and I'm not used to questioning myself in regards to the big decisions we make for our family. It was a very stressful couple of days.

I know the title of this post doesn't seem to fit the rest of the post but i hadn't been in the best mood that day which can be difficult when trying to entertain a child in a fragile mood. I wasn't going to write the post but as a sat in the car outside Seth's school while Opeie slept I switched on my console (which goes everywhere with me) and felt a sigh of relief. There's something quite comforting about those quiet moments, switching on my 3ds and switching the rest of the world off briefly.  I can always rely on Nintendo to de-stress me when I'm feeling down and when Opeie woke up I could continue my day a little less on edge.

Now back to my game...

Sometimes I feel like I have the body of a man but the emotions of a child.

Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel really emotional?  I really don't know what's up with me today but I really don't feel myself. I've managed to hold it in all morning while I've been out and about with Opeie. We were driving back home from popping to see nanny Roo and I looked in the mirror to check on Opeie and he was flat out, poor thing had had a rough sleep (me too) and he was shattered. As soon as I saw him asleep I burst into tears and am still crying as I write this. I'm not feeling sad, just not myself. 

Sometimes when I get like this I think it's things from my past that I've buried deep resurfacing other times its this continuous overwhelming feeling I get from being a dad and feeling like I finally have a purpose.  To some people I may look unapproachable, shaved head, covered in tattoos/piercings but behind this rugged exterior is a very sensitive boy and for some reason today I feel at my most vulnerable. It's probably nothing, tiredness maybe or just a rage of uncontrolable emotions like the hulk. Whatever it is I'm sure it will have died down by the time Mrs M comes out of work so ill just ride it out. Not being my smiley self really throws me off balance but I guess I can't be the sunshine kid all the time.

"Good humour is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison"

I love Seth to bits and will always treat him like my own. He's very intelligent and grown up for his age, has some fantastic qualities and he comes out with some great one liners. I've never written a post with anything negative in about the boys before but yesterday's actions have spurred one on. As a parent I do everything i can to make my boys happy, if you're a regular reader then you know that myself and Mrs M go above and beyond to make sure the boys as happy as they can be. Because of this, the effort we make and the love and affection that both of them receive I can not tolerate unneccesary moaning and grumpy behaviour. Last night he started crying over nothing and informed us he hadn't had a good day and was very unhappy with no reason to back it up. The crying i can deal with as i know that children can find it difficult to deal with emotions but i don't like grumpyness, having an attitude and being rude, there's just no need.

After 10 minutes of his behaviour it was clear that us talking to him was having no effect so we asked him to go in to his room and sit quietly for 3 minutes to calm down. After the initial first thirty seconds where he cranked his mood up a notch and did everything he could to override the short cooling off period I had requested he calmed down and sat quietly. Once the three minutes were up I walked in to his room and asked him a series of questions (Seths response is in red):

• Does it upset you that me and mommy don't give you any affection? What's affection? (I then explained) you and mommy always give me kisses and cuddles and tell me you love me (in an abrupt tone)

• Are you hungry, do you not get fed enough? I'm always eating, there's always food!

• When you want to play and we don't want to join you does that upset you? You always sit and play with me!

• How about reading? We read together EVERY day!

• Seth have a look around your room, what do you see? Books, Toys and Games! Just a couple? No there's lots!

I'm not going to go on with the questions I'm sure you get where I'm going with this. I did continue by explaining the luxury that is taken for granted by many people, walking to the kitchen, turning on the tap and filling a glass with clean drinkable water. I told him about children being mistreated and people suffering in other countries (which Mrs M has also explained to him on more than one occassion) I then asked him one simple question.

Have you really got anything to be sad about, Do you feel like you should be treated better?

Well you dont need me to tell you want he said. He's a smart child and very rarely has these outbursts. I am fully aware that Seth has issues, being from a broken family is difficult i know that from my own childhood but he has a lot of people around him that love him dearly. When he is upset about something to do with this we talk to him like an adult and answer his questions as best we can.

Needless to say Seth understood what I was trying to say, wiped his face, apologised, gave me a cuddle and left the room to apologise to Mrs M too. We never got to the bottom if what it was that upset him today but as with every issue in our house once it is talked about, whether we get to the bottom of it or not we take out our imaginary pens and draw a line under it.... Until the next bout!

At bed time Seth very lovingly said 'I'm really sorry about my behaviour tonight' and that sort of honest apology means everything to us. Seth knows how lucky he is, he may have a room full of toys, books and games but his real wealth is the amount of attention and affection he gets from us and that will never change no matter what mood he is in.


*I had to use relevant pictures from the boys favourite books, i didn't think shoving a camera in Seth's face and asking him to pose during his melt down was appropriate. (it would have been funny though!!!)

"Leave no stone unturned."

Our main objective when going to the park two days ago was to find a big bag of rocks for some craft fun, Today was a bit gloomy and cold so after dropping Mrs M at work early we headed back to make use of our findings. I had given them a good scrub in some soapy water yesterday so they were nice and clean for our creative session. The plan was to paint them (which i think i did when i was younger at school) so in preparation we went to Hobbycraft yesterday to buy some Acrylic paint and some new brushes.

Seth was excited about letting his creative flair run wild as always and the mention of the word 'paint' is always going to put a big smile on Opeie's face. I started to get everything set up and Seth wasted no time and ripped the brush packet open and began his masterpiece. I like to draw on mine so i know exactly where the paint is going, Seth takes a more spontaneous approach and just gets stuck in, and Opeie.... well, he likes to pretty much throw the paint at whatever he's trying to create. Three different styles yet the outcome is always amazing with a lot of love and effort put in.

Inevitably after about an hour of painting the boys started to lose interest and wanted to do something else. Seth, still feeling in an artistic mood decided that body painting was his next venture and decided to paint his own hand. Opeie?.... Well he decided to throw a little tantrum because i wouldn't let him walk around the house with open paint pots and a brush that was dripping red paint. Needless to say after ten minutes of crazyness they were back to their calm selves and helped me clean up.... yeah right, they went and watched the Lorax while daddy cleaned up, I'm such a pushover.

The whole activity lasted about an hour to an hour and a half but that was mainly because as we are three men, three impatient ones at that, after every layer of paint i sat and dryed them with mommies hairdryer which skimmed off some of the frustrating waiting time. My favourites at the end of it were Seth's purple and green incredible hulk and Opeie's multicoloured tie dye effect rock. When i asked Opeie what he wanted me to paint he said 'Spider-man' and 'The Lorax' (bet you didn't see that coming).