"Insomnia is a vertiginous lucidity that can convert paradise itself into a place of torture."

Day 87:

Life is really starting to get me down, It seems like the only thing I can get right these days is being a dad, which to be fair is a pretty good job as I love that kid to bits. It doesn't look like I'm going to be sleeping tonight as my head is so busy and I'm struggling to clear the noise, so I decided to paint, because it's one of the few things that seems to calm me these days. I'm so thankful for this creative brain of mine, I feel like I'd be a wreck without it.

Struggling to sleep yourself? Heres some handy information from Snoozy Monk about insomnia to get you through.

"The essence of pleasure is spontaneity."

Day 86:

Ever feel like you are living Groundhog Day over and over? I wake up some mornings thinking 'well here we go again'. I'm so used to being spontaneous, jumping in the car and driving wherever in search of adventure, This whole lockdown thing is slowly sucking the life out of us. So In order to combat the ever growing rutt we are trying to add a little crazy back into our life. With the weather looking like it's turning a little, we decided to bring the trampoline indoors and use it to build a den in the LEGO room. It's partially filling that void but we are definitely desperate for our lives back.

"Smile is a good reply to the dark world."

Day 67:

Life can throw some serious curve balls at times. The last few days have been awful, If it wasn't for the endless smiles caused by Baby Yoda being delivered today I think I may have had a mini breakdown. One thing I can always rely on is this little dude being there to pick me up when I'm having an emotionally challenging day. Being a dad (especially to this superstar) is what life is all about. 

"Come hell or high water, The sun's gonna shine. Might not be tomorrow but I know I'm gonna find, Smooth sailing"

These guys seem to have a song for every single thing that is going on my life...

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

Im really having to force myself over this blogging hump and its getting to the point where I'm driving myself insane, Its like I'm desperately trying to claw back my confidence. Aside from the boys obviously, writing was one of the things that really kept me going through the emotional battlefield I had been dealing with for the last four or so years.  I would look forward to that quite time when the boys were asleep so that I could get on here and write down my thoughts and document all the fun we had been having, for them to look back on. Things had to go and get complicated though and in no time at all that fire to write had gone out and that evening quiet time, became the darkest time of the day for me. I had a plan, it involved a strong family unit,  content and happy children and life of adventure and learning together. Im still working on that daily and to a certain extent we still have it, but now there is a dark cloud looming over all of us that we just can't shake.

I want to see the blog as a positive again but with so many people that I know reading it, it can at times make me feel a little uneasy. Especially when they get the hump about light comments written within the more personal posts. I need to get myself back to that place I was when writing was exciting, there is so much that I've not written about over the last 15 or so months and I want to continue giving the boys something amazing to look back on. 

Im not the same person I was a two years ago and I'm only just starting to realise just how much has changed. My views on life and relationships are so much clearer now and feel like I've reached the point where I can move forward in hopefully a healthy way. So for now, a bunch of short posts to ease me back in gently and hopefully I'll have my confidence back in no time at all. 

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time."

Pretty much every night I lay next to Opeie after reading to him thinking 'I'm going to write a post tonight' and every night I head downstairs, lie on the sofa and get overwhelmed by the mass of emotions that seem to stop me doing anything that I enjoy recently. If you've got this far into your life and you've not been faced with the reality that life, at times, can be an absolute arsehole, then you are doing pretty well. I've had my fair share of utter crap throughout my many years on this earth, some (not many though) I take full responsibility for, but the bulk of it has been thrown at me by the unpleasant people I have met while navigating through this storm of a life.

I had however thought that 8 years ago that had all ended and that my life was on track for the celebration of love and kindness that I felt like I deserved. Sadly I should have known better. When you finally meet 'the one' (and for me it was the one that I wanted to start a family with), It feels different than than any other previous relationship. For me, this was the rest of my life and I can honestly say that I put everything I have into developing that into a relationship I could be proud of. Unfortunately, there were two people in that relationship and only one was really putting in the effort when it came to matters of the heart.

When you are in a relationship with someone that holds their career in higher regard than anything else then there is only one direction that relationship is going in. I shouldn't have been surprised when I heard those heartbreaking words because there was a 3 year build up to that point, but then hope can be a very dangerous thing. And I did hope that she would see that her actions were destroying the magic we had built in the early years and that there is more to life than climbing the career ladder.

I wanted this blog to be a happy place for the boys to look back on and see all of the amazing things that we have done together and I hope that it still can be. I felt that it was important to write this post though, not only to mark where life changed for us all but also to break down the wall of negativity I had built, stopping me from doing the things I love most. The last 4 months have been a real learning curve, There have been more tears than I think I have ever cried, thoughts and feelings I thought I would never have and I've ended up really losing myself in all of it. 

If there is one huge thing I have learnt from all of this though it's that I have the most amazing group of friends that I could ever ask for. Not only for being there for me but also being amazing support for the two most important people in my life. The love, kindness and effort of all of them (and you know who you are) has got me through what could have been my lowest point. Life can seriously throw you about at times and I'm not expecting this new life as a single dad to be easy, but honestly, aside from the upset and confusion, so far it has been more fun than I've had in a long long time.

The boys and I have a whole new life ahead of us and I plan on embracing every moment I have with them, Its time to claim our lives back, there is so much fun to be had.

"You can not look at a sleeping cat and feel tense."

I am extremely content with my life and can honestly say that this is the best that things have ever been for me. No matter how good things are though i can guarantee that at some point EVERY single day Polly points out that hers is better....

...The end!

“Remember me and smile, for it's better to forget than to remember me and cry.”

It takes a lot for me usually to connect with people. Because of past events in my life and relationships I've had with former friends and family I tend to be very wary. Sometimes though there are people that you come in to contact with that you can't help but instantly connect with and Mrs M's great nan was one of them. Mable had one of those smiles that as soon as it was aimed your way you were hooked. 

Although I had only known her since me and Mrs M had been together I kind of felt like I'd known her for the past twenty odd years due to all the amazing stories Mrs M had told me. We would often lie in bed at night and she would tell me about all the things they used to get up to. My favourite was the story about how a goat ate a huge chunk of her hair (very funny). Mrs M, Auntie Lottie and their mom (Nanny Roo) had a love and admiration for her that you don't see much these days. It was always obvious what a huge impact she had had on their lives, it made me wish I had someone from my family that I cared that much about.

Mable absolutely adored the boys and they would always get really excited when we were going to visit. She would happily sit and talk to Seth for the entire time we were there and sometimes it was  like they were the only two people in the room, she loved them dearly. Sometimes when we would be driving home Seth would be in tears as he wanted to go back, I loved that he had this connection. She had a lovely garden and the boys loved looking after it for her, cutting the grass and watering the plants, she loved her flowers, especially forget-me-nots.

In great grandparent style her house was full of NicNaks, treasures from past adventures and a lifetime of memories. Opeie loved playing with her dolls, especially the doll she had handmade herself for nanny Roo when she was a little girl. Her NicNaks weren't all vintage though, there was always some Lego for the boys to play with, she was cool Nanny Robson.

Sadly this morning Nanny Robson passed away. It's been a quiet day at home and as expected Mrs M has been quite down. It's clear to see that in the 92 years Mable was here she touched a lot of people and was a very wise woman, earlier today Mrs M wrote about her great nan and included some of her wise words which I thought I would include:

- Treat every living thing with respect, everything has a right to live, even flowers in the garden... if we pay a little more attention to the world, we will all be happier.  

- Make yourself happy, don't concentrate on what others have, or what you don't have, be content that you have what you need.

- Look after your body, eat vegetables and fruit everyday. You only get one body, and its the only one you'll ever have, so enjoy it and take care of it.

- Always try and help people. Even if they are not your favorite people, help because it's the right thing to do, you never know when you might need help.

- Look after what you have, nothing is actually disposable.

- Forgive people.

- Put your children first, be selfless, if you do this, you can't go wrong. 

She certainly had the right take on life and she was clearly an amazing woman, it's a shame that more people don't see the world in the same way, it might be a better place.

"The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten."

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Great film and Wise words! Although I've always known this, the past three years have been a shock to the system at just how true the words are. When you have children everything seems to go in to hyper speed so as a doting parent you need to be taking in every moment and grasping them with both hands. Earlier today Mrs M was looking through some old pictures and inevitably Opeie's baby photos cropped up. It had been a while since we had looked through them and I sat down next to Mrs M and was hooked.

It probably sounds bad and it may be just me but its easy to forget exactly what your children were like in the first weeks, of course I've got an image in my head (how I remember him), for me it was one of the first days I held him on my chest and I couldn't take my eyes off him, I was completely in awe of the little person we had created, but when I looked back on the old pictures and videos I realised just how much I had forgotten. He was beautiful, that has never changed but seeing him so vulnerable and new, made me instantly well up.

Looking through the old photos and videos is always amazing but it isn't great for Mrs M's broodiness which over the last few weeks has been getting considerably worse. Mine thankfully had gone into hibernation, that was of course until we clicked on that folder to be greeted by these baby pictures. I would love another child, maybe a little girl and I know Mrs M feels the same. It's such a shame though that we have such complicated pregnancies. That's probably a blessing though as I could see us with 7 or 8 if situations had been different. Mrs M's ultimate argument being 'what if things were different if it was a girl?" What if? When it comes to the 'wanting more babies saga' there's lots of what if's. sorry, as always I've gone off on a tangent a little.

Seeing the photos made me realise just how independent Opeie is these days, he just used to lay there care free kicking his legs and making funny noises. Everything was a lot more delicate, I was petrified I was going to break him some how so was wary of every little thing I did, a big change from the picking him up and throwing him about play fighting that we do these days. I had no idea what I was doing so in some ways would be looking over to Mrs M for some sort of approval that I wasn't making a huge mess of simple tasks, it soon didn't take long though for it all to come naturally.

Mrs M has been saying for well over a year "i wish I could have him as a baby again just for one day", she says exactly the same about Seth. I thought she was a bit crazy but I'm now starting to understand why. As they get older children need you less and less. Although its amazing Opeie having this new 'i can do it' way about him I do miss helping him doing the little things. He is becoming a great little man though, happy, curious, always asking questions and most importantly beautiful inside and out, when he wakes up in the morning the smile on my face is uncontrollable. I realise every day that I'm exactly where I'm meant to be, and I'm happy.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it."

 

I can't believe your 2 already, I love you more than you will ever know.
                                                                                                                 Daddy xxx