"Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water."

Day 35:

Today was such a huge contrast compared to the bright and colourful mood I was in yesterday. I spent the day angry and upset and the fact that neither myself or Opeie had slept well just added to those negative feelings. By about 3 we had both decided that we just wanted to go to bed and start the day again, I really hope there's not too many of these days. I had a good cry before bed because it clearly needed to come out so that I could fully reset the following morning. I know I'm not the only one having these kind of days, these are weird times.  Stay safe all.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that"

I genuinely had no idea that the transition to becoming a single dad was going to be so difficult. I'd felt like a single parent for such a long time, so I figured everything would just fall into place. Being there for the boys though during this confusing and upsetting time has been so exhausting. Its hard enough dealing with my own confusion around why someone could walk out on their family for what seems like no reason at all, without having to also be damage control for those two very special boys in my life and the hurt and disappointment that they are feeling. Keeping busy is all I've got these days and I'm trying to desperately hold on to my passions and creativity, while keeping it together.

LEGO for me has always been so much more than a building toy, it has become a way of life in our home and a way for the boys and I to not only explore our imaginations but to also communicate with each other. Recently LEGO is the one thing that is keeping me sane of an evening, which may sound dramatic but there have been moments over the last few months where I have felt like I'm not coping very well and the evenings can be quite lonely. The rummaging, the designing, the entire process of building has become like my evening meditation and Ive started using that to build things to make the boys home more interesting. 

All the heartache aside, it has actually been pretty nice transforming our home into the home that we want and the first thing we did was to scrap the lounge and turn it into a LEGO room. It made so much more sense to actually make use of the space that we have and it has really helped the boys to look at our family home in a new way now that its just the three of us. 

The past couple of nights Ive been busy making small changes to things in the house. A couple of damaged picture frames have been replaced by frames made of bricks and (not being a fan of the main lights in the house) I decided to create some new table lamps for the house for a little more relaxed lighting (we could all do with a little more 'relaxed' these days). Opeie recently bought the Powerpuff girls kits with his pocket money and after building them they were just sitting on the shelf not doing much, so I decided to build the first lamp around them, mainly because of all the bright colours. It came out looking pretty cute and fit perfectly into the room.

Well, I'd got the buzz, so the following evening I started to build a Spider-man themed one for the boys bedroom. As I sat there clicking those bricks together it was the first time in what seems like such a long time that I really felt like myself again. Not only did the lamp come out looking really fun  but it really got me thinking of more things that I wanted to create over the coming weeks. I think it has been good for the boys to see me getting excited about something again.

Ive always had a thing for lighting around the house, especially of an evening and I can't believe I've not thought about doing this before. The great thing about building the lamps with LEGO is that if we get bored of them we can take them apart and change the theme. The boys also pointed out that we can create lamps for Christmas, Halloween, Valentines etc. It looks like this may be a new family tradition and as Opeie keeps saying 'Im glad we are are making new fun memories over the bad ones'.

As always, another amazing win for LEGO in our house, Its amazing that something as simple as plastic bricks, could have such a huge impact on us three boys.

"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.

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...

"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!!!)

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

Apparently nothing lasts forever, that couldn't be more true than when talking about thing's we build in our house. Weeks back I wrote a post about the Lego ice-cream parlour that we built, it took us a couple of weeks to build, yet took about two seconds to destroy. Opeie had been playing with it on The floor when Seth slipped off his chair, tried to keep himself up, lost his balance and went bum first through it. I couldn't stop laughing, Seth on the other hand being the sensitive little chap that he is had a little breakdown.

Thinking i was going to go mad, Seth instantly burst in to tears, looked up with very sad and worried eyes and said "I'm really sorry, I'll do anything, I'm so sorry", bless him. I thought that the fact that i was in hysterics would be comforting for him and would stop him feeling bad but it unfortunately just made the situation worse. After about 20 minutes he calmed down but sadly still didn't see the funny side. I really wish i had have been filming him at the time as his face was priceless.

So what do we do next? what shall we build in its place? Do you guys have any ideas? We only built this because of an idea given to us by one of our readers so if you would like to see us have a go at something then feel free to send your idea's our way and if it gets our creative juices flowing you might just see it on here over the coming weeks. Then you may also see it again a few weeks later when one of the boys have ended up on top of it. That's the great thing about Lego, it may break but that's just a reason to build another interesting piece, the reincarnation of a great toy.