Children….

NB: As is becoming a trend with my blogs, this is tediously long and extremely boring., So if, for any insane reason, you do choose to read it and find yourself thinking what a waste of your time it was, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I’m feeling a bit down this evening - I’ve begun to find this blog quite therapeutic, so even if all this doesn’t directly relate to our move to Oz, at least I will have had some release… I hope!

Its Easter holidays, confusingly later than Easter itself this year, and we have had my step kids for a few days extra this weekend to stop them from driving their mother insane.

I was looking forward to seeing them on Friday morning because I knew their Mum and Step-dad had finally told them we are all moving to Australia so I was looking forward to being able to talk about it in the open with them, and show my excitement!

I had bought a couple of hand puppets, a kangaroo called Sheila and a crocodile called Bruce – I knew my Step-son, the oldest was on rugby tour this weekend, so I decided for fun to do a little puppet show for the girls. Okay, they are 10 and 11 years old, so it was just a joke really – but I sat them down and got behind the dining table and put on silly aussie accents and let Sheila and Bruce tell them all about Australia, with the help of a map showing them where we were going to live. It went down reasonably well, they thought I was insane obviously, and looked quite scared, but warmed up near the end and asked some questions like “is there any poisonous spiders where we’re going to live?” and “how many bedrooms will Dad and Megs new house have?”.

After that I took them to Brighton on the train and went to one of those pottery cafes, cost me a fortune, but was well worth it! We spent the afternoon chatting about Australia whilst painting, and I was really pleased how much they wanted to talk about it. They talked about how their cousin, and a couple of best friends had cried when they told them, and I talked about how my family felt (a child friendly account), I let them know that I was scared about it all too, and I didn’t know how I was going to make new friends either, but that at least we all had each other - we’re so lucky that the three of them, their Mum, Step-dad, half-sister, Dad and Step-mum are all in it together. They also said that they thought they might have another half sibling by the time we get there – meaning that I might have a baby by then. They said that their mum had said that I would probably have a baby soon – which made me feel a bit strange.

The thing is, I’ve never mentioned to her that we’re trying, but I’ve probably mentioned that I want my own kids at some point. And anyway, I’ve spoken about it to several people, so I’d be stupid really to think that it wouldn’t get down the grape vine to her eventually. The thing is, with the time of the month that it is, and with the idea that we will be emigrating finally beginning to sink in - and the initial excitement fading a little, the fact that I am still not pregnant is rising to the surface again. ?

I’m also feeling really sad that my step kids are growing up so quickly now, I came to the realisation this weekend that they are all too old now to need picking up and carrying. They don’t hold my hand anymore, the youngest just sort of holds onto my arm, and the middle one sometimes links arms with me in a matey kind of way (she’s almost as tall as me now!). When we drop them off at home and their 3-year-old sister toddles out to see us, looking so much like the girls when I first met them, I feel so sad! You just don’t realise until it’s gone, how special it is to have small children that still need to you like that. And when you only see them every other weekend, and they’re only your step kids anyway, it seems to pass even quicker I think.

I strongly belive that if your happy you can be happy anywhere, but if your unhappy you’ll be unhappy anywhere – so I’ve been telling myself over and over that if I’m still not pregnant by the time we go, I will still be unhappy about it when we get there. It may take my mind off it for a year or so, but that yearning is going to come back sooner or later. I keep asking myself over and over, your not doing this because you think it will make it all better do you? I’m sure I’m not, I know that if it ends up I can’t have kids (I’m a long way off that I know, but you can’t help worrying as you approach the 12 month mark) I’ll be devastated whether I live in the UK or Oz.

But what I’ve got to think is, if it turns out I can’t, I’m still going to have to live my life and achieve things! And for me I feel like moving to Australia is an achievement. It’s something hundreds of people dream about doing, but never follow through because they don’t have the guts. So I’m so happy I’m going, I couldn’t just sit around in this dingy 1 ½ bed flat, paying a fortune to live in the best possible location we can afford (which is still pretty scummy), waiting to get pregnant. I have to get on with my life, I feel I have wasted a year just waiting for it to happen and its not healthy – you have to have other dreams too!

As for the weekend - of course my step-son came home from rugby tour early with a broken hand, the youngest filled every spare second with a thousands questions like “what you talking about?”, “what does that mean?” “whats for lunch?” “whats for dinner?” “what time is it?” etc etc etc…..and our tiny flat is of course now a complete pig sty (will someone please explain to me why children’s dirty socks find their way into every possible crevice in the house?). As the weekend wore on my loving maternal patience slowly got chipped away by squabbles over who is using which computer, who’s wet towel was on the floor in the hall and who’s responsible for various broken and sticky things, until I was a ratty, hormonal bitch – snapping at the most trivial things.

After dropping them home the two of us stopped at PC world, (a place that tests my patience at the best of times) which of course ended in me muttering under my breath in the queue “what do we need this for? We’ll never use it! Its too expensive! Blah blah blah” and him snapping loudly in front of the cashier something along the lines of “oh for ****s sake, I’ll put the ****ing thing back then if your gunna be such a ****ing ***** about it! ****** **** ****” ( you can fill in those last expletives with any you fancy.)

So I’m sitting here now, in my nice quiet living room by myself - Its great! Part of me is thinking the baby thing can wait!