Mixed Day

Thanksgiving was excellent and when Tammy and Sam had gone we settled down to a day of benign neglect, while i tried to afford myself a bit of headspace, which i was feeling much in need of. Kids weren’t entirely of the same mind and kept coming and asking to learn things/be taught things/do things. Rascals. Maddy did reading, Amelie did drawing, Fran killed a hydra, Josie rampaged as only a toddler (gulp) can do.

So by the time Max was home, late, i was all broken really and had to even give myself an evening off work. Kids got outrageously excited by hanging up the pocket advent calender, Fran owned up to having worked out that a certain part of the magic of Christmas had become a bit see-through ( 🙁 but also 🙂 if you know what i mean.) I’m not sure if she’s sussed the whole thing or just that the pockets don’t happen by magic, which had been a game Max had played for some time, the pockets being very much his job. Anyway, she’s womanfully playing it for all she’s worth, having had a few things about little sisters whispered into her ear when she got a bit too blunt about it.

Had some lovely family news two days ago, which i am delighted about but still turned me temporarily inside out, not helped by Josie deciding yesterday that her new game was to cold shoulder me everytime i asked for a cuddle and go to Max instead. Sob. She could have timed it better. She’s moved into her own room now and is sleeping for half the night anyway and seems to be okay so long as i grab her when she wakes and bring her straight into bed with us for milky feed. Any attempt to fob her off with a bottle at that time results in instant fury, biting (i’ve never had a limb biter before, where does this child get off? She’s a changeling!) and waking up completely but she’s finally big enough for me to relax if she is in-between Max and i, so it’s fine to do that. I think she just gets a bit chilly, i probably ought to get her a womblesuit of somesort.

Max and i failed to get to the end of Kingdom of Heaven for the second time, but did put away a good bit of wine and Green and Black’s then i checked my mail before bedtime, where i read the most awful news, on one of my lists, that i have ever read. The kind which just makes you sob with grief for someone you’ve never even met, where nothing you have ever thought, feared or experienced gives you the ability to even begin to be able to say anything or imagine it. Much as i remember the dreadful feeling when they told me Amelie was in grave danger, it doesn’t come close, but it does make me question everything about online support and encouragement again, question everything about the choices i’ve made in the past and the ones i would make in the future. But most of all it just makes me hollow to know again that there are places that people find themselves which are just beyond grief, beyond comfort, beyond hope of ever being able to put it aside.

It’s pointless even to say that my heart goes out to them, though it does. How could it possibly help?