Diaries.

By popular demand here is the next in the series of extracts / eventual book from my 'Diaries of an Older Single Mum!'  It is interesting, encouraging and enlightening to look back at those days.  I feel for those women still going through them whether alone and anguished or happy and exhausted, with a young baby in tow.  To them, I say this: Things will only get better.  To those with children starting school, I say: 'You won't know yourself shortly.  Enjoy!'

No longer getting away with ASDA..!

September 2009.

Column 4 - ROBSON STARTS SCHOOL.

Well it was the shoes that did it.  He looked so grown up.  Big boy black trousers, polo shirt with collar over his sweatshirt – all nice and casual, then you spot the polished formal footwear.  My little boy was starting school.

They break you in gently round here – a couple of taster sessions in the few weeks leading up to their first half week or so , then just mornings for a term being a May baby.  This must be more for the parents than the children i.e. to get us used to the idea.  Robson thought the whole thing was a hoot and ‘brilliant.’  Good old Montessori Nursery had set him up nicely.  He was confident and strutted in happily, all independent and never looked back.  I howled my way around the local Co-op for those days before relief finally took over.  Things were definitely easier now and there was so much pride running through my veins, any one of them could have burst.  It was a profound and moving time and having counted down our last days as things were, I would hold him close to me, sobbing behind his back, so, so, sorry for every moment he had been shouted at or moaned to.  We would all miss each other.  Things would never be the same. 

My heart lurches each time Baby Aiden and I see a train or when driving through a local  tunnel.  He is not as interested as his brother was, presently, but, you see, as a parent, we are trained to become over zealous about such matters and there is a great deal of fun to be had discussing and pretending who we are choo-choo-chooing to be – Thomas, Gordon, Percy etc. It’s also too tempting to not be able to help myself still sometimes diverting a journey in order to bump over a nearby level crossing, just for Robson, even when he is no longer a passenger because his days are spent elsewhere, without me, without us, now.

Not arguing about what we are going to listen to is a plus.  Radio 2 is my preference over the Nursery Rhymes and ‘Action Songs’ which have been endured and, shortly, probably will be again, so there is now peace in the car and joy for the lack of bossiness about to compete with my own.  He once told me not to gulp a glass of water or it might make me wet the bed!  He also once said he loves me with all his love.

Peaceful Puppy..!

Robson has been a Puppy dog since he was three.  Good Puppy, Naughty Puppy, Brilliant or Excellent Puppy, even, or especially, Rude Puppy sometimes.  Rather late down the road addressing him as ‘Puppy Dog’ has proved useful to dispel the more negative aspects of his personality, allowing the more gentle, kinder, generous ones to form positive bonds with Baby Puppy.  I am Mummy Dog. Daddy dog still comes almost every other week-end and ‘phones most evenings.  All of our adult friends are ‘Dogs,’ obviously, in the nicest sense of the word, while his friends are so and so ‘Puppy.’ This has remarkably held steady for so long, it escapes me how it all started.  Lately, he is being called ‘Verruca Puppy’ a great deal after his seemingly spoilt behaviour just like the girl from Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  Not popular with said Puppy dog, but richly deserved and hopefully helpful in the never ending battle which has begun since he ventured from my apron strings further afield into those school gates.  We had a great laugh when someone remarked what a cool cat he looks in his uniform.  'I'm not a cat, Mummy, I'm a Puppy!'  He thought it was truly hilarious.

Oh My Lord.  They say you might ‘lose them’ when they go and, indeed, it is another child who comes home.  Not to mention the table manners.  Where do they go?  All those years of ‘Sit to the table nicely.  Don’t gulp your dinner / Do eat your dinner.  Elbows off the table. Don’t talk with your mouth full etc…’ have to be started again.  Someone should make a recording on a CD that parents can play every meal time.  I should make one.        

Sometimes my body and soul ache for some back up.  It is not easy being a lone parent.  The simplest things require a magnitude of patience and, although developing, it has never been and never will be a virtue of mine.  I long to be held occasionally and cuddle up at the end of a particularly trying time, however it is simply not to be at present.  The silence of the evenings is a joy, instead of Estranged Husband’s shouting at the television and incessant moaning, boring me to death about his day and anything and everything else he brought to ‘us.’  Although he is good in lots of ways, there was no peace and I let it envelope me now when possible.  It is going to take time to recover and with Robson at school, the process can start.  In the meanwhile my electric blanket is my comfort, together with the children, naturally and that will have to be sufficient, because time will heal and, as my little boy has shown me in his posh black shoes, it will pass for evermore quickly. 

Read Diary 1 HERE.

Read Diary 2 HERE.

Read Diary 3 HERE.