The problem is...

The problem is, when you're a single mum, to a child who's father moved away to London to pursue his own dreams, you're left to deal with all the bullshit, by yourself, with no break. Well maybe a couple of breaks but those breaks always have timers on, back by a precise time so I savour every little second up until that point. How is a human being supposed to deal with that pressure? Today I am feeling full of severe anxiety, I am experiencing the same sort of physical ache that occurs when I think of how it may be to be in prison forever.

I am very near to my breaking point, I need.some.space.
Harry is at his most intense at the moment, I can only put it down to the fact that he's not in nursery as much as I've broken up from uni and we have long stretches of time with not a lot to do, I'm lacking in imagination now too, and patience. This morning I woke up to him digging his fingers in my eyes, and then followed on by jumping on my head (by the way, clammy toddler feet REALLY stick to hair) We had an hour or so that was quite blissful, we got the paddling pool out and had breakfast in the garden but of course all of that ended as soon as my phone rang, I got spat at in the face and Harry decided to make the biggest mess he possibly could. I tried to tell him calmly why he shouldn't spit in my face... so he did it again. He's now in the spare room (where he goes when he's naughty) but instead of thinking about what he's done he's decided to find the block of polystyrene and make it into snow. GOOD.

Lets talk about money. Have you ever tried to get a job that fits into two weekdays? I think it's impossible. If you can't work weekends you're basically worthless and unconsidered. THANKS WORLD. Thanks Harrys dad, thanks Rosie for getting yourself knocked up before getting a career. Thanks bailiffs for making me fork out £600 when I'm desperately trying to save money, good one student finance for stinging me for £750 because of YOUR over payment 4 years ago, thanksthanksthanks.

If anyone wants to foster my child for a couple of weeks, hit me up. I'm up for it. Summer camp for three year olds??

Today I feel like a 'sorted' mum.

Today I became one of those mum I aspire to be. Just for one day. Everything went well today, I woke up with my usual negative view on the day but things worked out well. My make up seemed to sit just right on my face and my hair did as it was told, I wore comfy clothes but didn't feel disgusting for once.

I took the child swimming, the pool we went to is usually heaving with severely unattractive dads covered in blubber and hair and children with serious snot issues. I used to go to this pool with my brothers as a kid and frequently found a big piece of poo floating around, but not today... today the world decided that I was going to shine as a mum and bond with my child. We made amazing progress chucking this weird rubbery crocodile around, Harry went in up to his nose to rescue it and we did a lot of paddling around on a body board rescuing 'Norman Price' - the name he gave to a half chewed teddybear float. We then went for an ice cream and came home to make home made pizza with spinach and mushrooms on, yes, yes he ate real life actual vegetables and enjoyed them.

Bed time? well thanks to my new best Spotify friend, Harry went to sleep to the sounds of waves which filled his room with a calm cheap spa like ambience that relaxed him instantly (oh and by the way he even tidied up all his toys before we went upstairs) he tried to get out of bed a few times but soon couldn't really be arsed and went to sleep, we had amazing cuddles and I finally felt like we were buddies again.

I feel invincible.

Like the best mum in the world.

I even poured my beer down the sink and replaced it with a glass of milk.

So fuck you universe, today it's me thats winning, not you. I am mum of the year, I fed my child spinach!!!!

(continues to eat prawns straight from the packet and dip them into sea food sauce... straight from the jar)

Bed times

Bed times. I get a racing heart and anxiety just thinking about it. Not my bed time, his.

Bed time is the time of day that my beautiful lovely gentle kind child turns into actual devil Satan Lucifer Damien, every single possessed horror movie child you have ever known. I've tried everything to make bed time a pleasant experience, I've been exceptionally nice, exceptionally horrible, pretended to cry, laugh, ignore him, phone various family members, taken toys away, sent him to the naughty room, sat on the floor in a rocking back and forth state whilst he hits me repeatedly in the head, bites me, kicks me, pulls my hair, scratched my face... etc. etc. etc. If Charlie the cat is somewhere near by he'll get a whack too.

The past two nights I've been revisiting the rapid return approach, for anyone who has god like children or no children then you won't be familiar with this technique, it's where you continuously and without showing any form of emotion or eye contact (like approaching a ferrel animal) return said child to its bed, again, and again, and again, possible for even an hour, or two... three, however long it bloody takes. The trick here is to want the child to go to bed more than the child doesn't want to go to bed. Now it sounds fairly straight forward but fast forward me a few months back when I first used this technique, it was the hardest thing I have ever done. It goes against every built in natural motherly instinct I have to pick my child up and comfort him from the misery I was inflicting on him, it felt fiercely unnatural to show my child no emotion and to ignore his crying, my boyfriend repeatedly told me he was basically taking the piss out of me and taking advantage of my weaknesses, to which I felt extremely resentful towards him and couldn't believe that MY child could ever be that manipulative and betray our bond like that. Today, right now, I know how much of a little prick that child can be, "what a dick" is what goes through my head now, confirmed last night when he begged me to go for a wee, and I caved for a second and let him, he sat there and squeezed out the tiniest drop of wee I have ever seen. you prick. so back to bed it was, an hour of pacing back and forth between his room and mine, lifting him back into bed repeatedly I was definitely tired out and sweaty but eventually, after the worst and most demonic screams I've ever heard come out of his tiny being he gave in, said goodnight, and went to sleep.

Tonight I thought I'd mix things up a bit, break his usual bed time routine and let him come downstairs after his bath, hoping this would change his train of thought, I was wrong, as soon as the second episode of Rory the Racing car finished, I received my usual smack around the head, so did Charlie the cat. Child got a stern telling off then up the stairs we went. For a while it was the usual back and forth bullshit and then I realised why this hurt me so much, IT WAS THE NOISE, the noise of your child crying is easily the most emotionally draining noise a human can experience. Headphones, whyyyyy did I never think of this before?! in they went, Placebo turned up as high as I could and I felt like I was in a sped up scene of an action film, a woman on a serious mission who doesn't give a fuck. after a little while the penny dropped, if I needed something to break the noise and feeling then so does he. So tonight I made a simple yet beautiful discovery, the sleep playlist on Spotify. iPad on top of the wardrobe, child silences immediately, rolls over and says goodnight. I cut half an hour on last nights bed time, I feel like I've won a war. Thank you Spotify, we will be friends for all of eternity.

Trekstock

Every now and again, in between kissing my child to death/restraining myself from killing him, cleaning up poop and not doing my revision, I get to go and do some pretty exciting albeit horrendously nerve-racking things with Trekstock. A little while back we did some filming with Liam Payne (out of One Direction) which went against every moody goth bone in my body, we were filming to promote Trekstocks new THRIVE programme which is supporting young people and helping them to thrive through cancer- have a look at Trekstocks website for a far better explanation than I can give. Following the filming, I along with the rest of the young persons panel were invited to the Great Gatsby Ball, needless to say I spent at least 4 weeks buying and sending back outfits.

The ball was hosted by Liam and his Girlfriend Sophia Smith, and hosted by Scott Mills, we saw Dynamo perform and the surprise guest was Michael McIntyre, which was insanely exciting for me, that floppy hair and squidgy face :O. The purpose of the ball was to auction of various things such as cooing lessons with Jamie Oliver and X Factor tickets, things along those lines ALL to raise money for Trekstock, which is just insane. The evening alone raised around 100K, so.. despite my grumpy goth instincts, I've got to say the power of One Direction is strong, and Liam Payne has gone up a good few ranks for me, he did a fair amount of bidding himself. So Thanks Liam!
Here's some horrific photos of me. Why do I never look how I think I look when other people take my photo?!

(THERES THE TOOTH)

The power of positivity

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive; to breath, to think, to enjoy, to love."- Marcus Aurelius.

Firstly, who the hell is Marcus Aurelius. And secondly, what kind of a world does he live in? He's telling me that I need to do the following all before 10am:

Meditate
Reflect in Gratitude
Set your daily intention
Pad your schedule
Hydrate
Stretch
Listen to Music
Smile
Clean up after yourself
Do your hardest task first

I literally do the exact opposite to all of these things. EXACT.

This is how my average morning looks:

And yes, that fire engine is making a noise.

What you see here is me in complete denial of the fact that sometime during the night I've unknowingly allowed my child to get into my bed and at 6.30 am he's opening my eye lid and singing "do you wanna build a snow man?"So what I do is I wearily open my laptop and somehow with one eye load iplayer and navigate my way to cbeebies live. This buys me at least an hour, god I thank you so much for cbeebies, it truly is a gift to all parents. I admire people like my grandmother, who recently told me that she doesn't go downstairs until she is washed and dressed, and she's always been the same, even when my dad was a child, are there any parents who still do that? I've discovered that a brioche roll also buys me time before I need to go downstairs and sort real breakfast, last nights squash will do too. 

p.s, this morning he informed me that he'd got wee on my bed and when I opened his nappy a little nugget of poo fell out, then he picked it up and rolled it. 

Oh and the pj's usually stay on until about half an hour before we need to leave the house. 

The reason for this blog.

Following a phone call from my concerned mother I am aware now that I haven't made it perfectly clear what my reasons are for writing this blog.
The purpose is supposed to be a breath of fresh air, this blog will over time- hopefully- assure other people in my position (which is a very normal and fortunate one) that everything they are feeling is totally normal, completely. I hope to assure those who perhaps like me have moments of insecurity and huge areas of self doubt that they are not unique in that feeling.

I for so long have felt like a sore thumb in a world of seemingly 'sorted' people, mother and baby groups were horrendous, especially when you're the one who rocks up in ripped jeans and a Nirvana t-shirt, if anyone thinks working in fashion is cliquey, think again. I know which I'd choose.

As part of my journey towards adjusting to life as an ex cancer patient, I've been working on the Young Persons Panel with the amazing Trekstock, working with Trekstock has made me realise how similar people are when faced with difficult situations, when I first met the young persons panel my first thoughts were "woah, who here has actually had cancer? they all look so well and sorted" but as the day went on it dawned on me, not only had they had cancer but some of them still do, this just proved to me that no matter how people look or seem on the outside we really have absolutely no idea what is going on for people in their private lives.

So really, what I hope is that this blog will just open the door to a world that us brits especially like to hide- and hide very well, a life that is completely not perfect and full of fuck ups but covered up with very expensive make up and a Facebook full of smiling photos.

Oh, and finally, I am NOT seeking sympathy or pity, I am very grateful for my fucked up life.

The thing about social media is

The thing about social media is that no body is ever honest. No one ever wants to show the world that actually, most of the time... nearly all of the time, life is shit. This then makes people (or maybe just me) feel really crap about their own lives and doubt themselves, I find myself questioning everything I do, how I parent my nearly three year old son; everyones children look so happy and healthy and CLEAN in their Facebook and Instagram photos, why does mine smell like spice and saliva? Why does he ALWAYS have dried bogeys on his face and sausage roll down his top? Shame on me for not consistently carrying baby wipes around with me and wiping his entire being constantly! It must be my fault for being selfish and deciding that I'd rather have a nice empty bag with space for my Chanel lipsticks, a shoulder without that ugly red indent from carrying too much and maybe even occasionally a bag which can ONLY carry my Chanel lipsticks.

Not just does social media tell me I'm a shit mum who is still desperately trying to cling on to her responsibility free past life, it also makes me think I'm really ugly and seriously consider paying £5000 for a nose job. I hate my nose, it's so triangular, why can't I have one of those cute ski slope shaped ones? why is my chin so spotty and undefined? oh god I really hate it when people tag me, is my face really that lopsided and Quasimodo like? don't even get me started in that tooth that sticks out.

What else does Facebook and Instagram make me doubt? Oh yes, my relationships. Not just my boyfriend but my friends and my family, we don't take happy selfies together, I don't declare my love for any of them publicly (unless it's a special occasion like a birthday or mothers day) My boyfriend and I never share cute puppy videos on each others walls, nor do we share with the world what we're having for dinner or the cute things that should be annoying but we love oh so much. Now maybe the online world really doesn't give a shit that I'm not doing those things, but other people forcing it down my neck really makes ME think that I'm lacking something in my life- happiness.

But the thing is, as I just told myself at the start of this post, no body ever posts the bad stuff. I can only imagine it is because of everyones need to be accepted and to appear desirable, because really... no body wants to spend time with a moaner.

but heres the truth. Being a single mum, studying for a degree, trying to set up a business, getting over the physical and emotional implications that having Cancer as a teenager leaves behind and trying to maintain a relationship when you have a self destructive depressed mind that constantly wants to fuck things up, things can be really, really... really hard. Especially when you've been trying to get your child to bed for over an hour and he's still hitting you around the head and throwing books at you... by the way in this situation, Google will not help you, it will only further your belief that you're a shit mum, so will Instagram searching the word "parenting" in the hope that other parents have also shared videos of themselves sitting against their bedroom door so that their screaming child can't get in, no, all you will get is more photos of parents telling the world how sickeningly in love they are with their perfect nice smelling clean children in their beautifully tidy white homes. URGH.

So here I am, writing a blog in the hope that it will connect me with more normally reasonably miserable parents/ex cancer patients/ students/ boyfriends and girlfriends desperately trying to search for 'real happiness', I also hope that this blog can reach out to people who like me feel completely not normal, and reassure them that actually, everyones pissed off.
Expect plenty of videos of my child having tantrums, photos of my chin/s, cat sick etc.

peace. xx