MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

I remember when you were so young

Not a care had you in this world

A three foot wonder, with a grubby chin

You used to be my little girl.

I remember the innocence in your voice

Fun was just a play in the park

Never self-concious of a shoe on the wrong foot

And your only fear was of the dark.

I look at you, and i still see

Visions of a carefree young girl,

With innocent eyes and a grubby chin

And not a care had you in this world.

I'm still that little girl mummy

It was only time that changed

Just because life became a little more difficult

Doesn't mean I'm not the same.

I remember all the little things

Like playing with me in the park

And all the times you cuddled me

Because of my fear of the dark.

Yes mummy, I've grown older

I have a few more cares in this world

But no matter where i go, or what i do,

I'll always be your little girl...

Written by Mel

Funny how I wrote this about the way I perceived my mother to feel about me when everything was soo out of control with me as I was growing up.. hence why I wrote this when I was a teen.. I feel the same about my own daughter in the situations I face in life right now... freaky.. much!

Todays blog is written as I sit here in tears and wonder about all the other mums that have been in my position before... I'm not a perfect mum, I never have been and never will be, but, that being said, I would do anything for my kids, absolutely anything in the world just to know they are happy, content and feel loved by me.

This stuff with Tay is taking months and months to pass and settle down, infact on Thursday last week I recieved a letter from my solicitor stating that her father is infact trying to take the remaining 5 children off me.. What can I say.. 5 years ago, I sat here in tears, soo mad I was that he had left the children for me to raise alone. I had my 7 month pregnant belly there to proove that I stll had soo much to go thru.. I remember sitting in the doctors office, alone, telling him I didnt want to go thru this alone and that for the first time in that pregnancy, I had actually regretted being in that state.. dont worry it soon passed when I got back on task and realised that not having her was not an option anyways.

I have come such a long way, I have learnt lessons of a single woman, dated all the wrong guys, gone out on my weekends off and got all the partying out of my system.. All the while, I tried to protect my children from my need to be single and independant and maintained that above all else.. I was a mum first and everything else second. I tuffed it out and missed out and made the most of being alone with my kids.. I taught myself to enjoy being a mum even on my own.. I prooved that I could do this on my own when they put my baby in my arms and not one bit of help came from the man who put her there in the first place... Strange how we learn our lessons. With tradgedy, sometimes comes the realisation of what you really want, and with age, sometimes comes the ability to realise that life doesnt always go as planned.

When I realised I was alone with my kids, I pictured what it was that i really wanted, I wrote it down, and I planned down to the last detail the types of relationships that I would accept and the ones I wouldnt.. What I didnt realise, was that I planned everything except the amount of children that would still be living with me here in our home.. I guess I took it for granted that the only time I was going to go thru the loss of a child was when they went away to university or got married etc... I think I actually took it for granted that the kids werent going to leave me because we had done this all on our own, as a family unit.. I accepted my life this way.

I have a wonderful partner, he treats me exactly the way the future man I planned to accept into my life would, and my children also.. I have wonderful, gorgeous, healthy kids. But Tayla seems to grow more and more resentment for me every day. Its all soo new to me, I dont know how to cope, I dont know how to tell her shes loved by me and have her not throw it back in my face.. Tonight she tells me she hates me, she says I was never there for her, I didnt give her enough attention, i didnt tell her i loved her enough, or hug her enough..I found myself saying to her that I was human.. she said 'Youre not a person.. youre a thing..a MOTHER is a THING' Wow this was all too much for me to understand.. when did i stop counting as a person who deserves respect and care for their feelings too..

I began to wonder if infact i didnt cuddle her enough as she was growing up, maybe i didnt say i love her enough.. maybe i didnt treat her like the grown up girl she wanted to be! How does a mum face her daughter cussing and swearing and calling her a horrible mother.. when she seriously doesnt believe she deserves that .. I have nursed these kids back to health whenever they were sick, made their meals, washed their clothes, tidied their rooms, entertained their friends, remembered their birthdays, made the birthday cakes!! thats just a few things, not even close to everything.... Did I do that for anything other than to see the smiles on their faces?? I dont believe there is anything in this world that is worth more than seeing my kids happy.. as you can see, one of them is totally unhappy and I feel like a caged animal ready to go and verbally tear that man to shreds on what he has done to my kids and myself... I'm scared that its irreversable and that my children will forever be emotionally effected by my troubled marriage.

Someone tell my why my daughter has seen soo much in her nearly 13 years, shes had him soo revved up he was screamin at me to grab his belt to strike her with at one time, I didnt get it ofcourse, but that child has been put to absolute fear by this man in her past, she has seen him throw things at me soo hard that it knocked me over in full view of the kids.. shes heard him put me down continuous, shes been kicked off his leg as he walked out the door on us and told to simply go away as her lil tears went unanswered.. she ran to me soo many times as he rejected her time and time again and all I could do was tell her all was going to be ok as I bit back my own tears.. Someone tell me why this girl is now telling people that i was a terrible mother, I was never perfect, but I always loved my kids, that part never has, and never will.. change.

Thanks for taking the time to read my ranting and raving. Cheers from Mel xx

Wednesday night was my first night of access with Tay .. To begin with, tay went psycho at me for wanting her with me for four days and that she didnt think she needed to come and be with us on the weekend that the order had set out!! She claims this is the only time that she gets to have friends over and that being with me during that time would mean she has no friends. I offered to let her have friends come and visit her over that weekend if it was really important to her and at that she spat that I was a mish mum and that her friends seeing that she comes from a pensioner mother would make it impossible for them to accept her, I thought , omg what do i say to this! I simply told her that the orders had been put in place with her dads agreement and that if she had troubles understanding it or finding the time for friends that she should discuss with him and alternative time that she would be able to have friends over etc and that when she lived with me she went with him fortnightly, shes chosen to go and stay with him, therefore, she comes home fortnightly until shes old enough to decide otherwise. I dropped the girls off at dancing, life was chaotic and i didnt know whats in store for me gettin my girl confident that i love her still etc.. its going to be a long hard road i thought.
I picked them up from dancing and i pretty much just spent most of the time ignoring her lil remarks about me being poor and the house being improper and how much her nan spent on her and her constant comments for information about court orders etc.. I asked tay to ask mahli how many times has she seen the court orders that i have here and she did..Mahli replied that she hadnt seen any, then Tay accidently shouted " i was there with nan showed you them so you lied!!!!" I was silent for a minute but then realised she has just made a full confession to the full enormity of what her nan is doing and i realised i cannot fight this with her, I put it behind me and treated her as normal.. we laughed and had fun with silly little things we talked about, lighthearted and not intense and emotional like before.
Later on last night, when all the kids went to bed, Tay and I sat up talking, bout the move and how she feels about school and whats actually important to her right now. She put alot of things into perspective for me. First of all she said that she moved over to her dads because she feels like she wants to be close to him right now, she feels for her its what she needs.. unfortunately, as i have predicted in my own thoughts, he isnt doing as she thought, shes daily being dropped off with her nan who is nuts.. She told me how her nan had seen some lady she used to be mates with in the supermarket, gave her a million reasons why this lady was a horrible person and made her hide in the isle with her till this lady had gone past and run around spying on her, to say the least tay was extremely embarrassed as I have never avoided people like that before and I guess she isnt accustomed to it... She said that nan is acting like shes a child and when taking her to buy all these extreme things.. is doing silly things like pulling open the curtains to the change room to have a look in the middle of the store where others might look and embarrasing her.. she told her off for this and had to endure this batty old woman telling her that shes hopeless and a horrible child and in tears not responding to tay when tay tried to apologise for growling, real emotional bullshit and to tell you the truth i feel sorry for this woman that she would even go to the extreme of making a child feel guilty for her stupid stuff. She says to me " mum i have to admit, seeing my nan once a fortnight was alot nicer than seeing her every day, its getting a bit too much for me to spend soo much time with her" she also mentioned that she hoped her dad would get a new job that he can be home for her from because in her hopes of spending more time with him.. hes still ignoring  her needs even now. She admitted that the true reason she was upset about me having her on the opposite weekend is that its the only time in actual fact that she really gets to spend time with her dad because in the mean time hes too busy with other things.. ironic isnt it?? I told her to tell her dad how she feels and ask him to make time for her outside that weekend, that Mahli and the other kids were looking forward to having her with us then too and really.. true friends wont judge her on her mothers house.. I also gave her a few of my old clothes and we talked about nothing in particular for a bit longer lol but i gave her a kiss and love ya and stuff the following  morning she went off with a spring in her step, I just know my little girl is still in there somewhere.. It will break my heart if he continues to ignore her need to know him.. all my kids want is the ability to be loved by him, I have tried to give them this but it cant be just me, I send them there and he splits them up and to his mums house and stuff. thier bdays come and he doesnt bother because his mother got them plenty of stuff and he didnt have time to shop for them anyways... I sit and discuss the guitar lessons we are going to pitch in for with Daniel my to-be step son, wish for their dad to do something that is just that little bit extra, and realise, thats what real parents do, ex or current, happy or sad, we do what we can for the sake of our kids..
I really have been thinking everything thru and I wonder if for some reason even the most horrible of things have a purpose, in the terrible ways we have endured, it will strengthen our bond with our kids, if we just bide our time to see the end result and i really feel I  can hang in there to wait it out and let the children grow.. Monday i wanted nothing more than my daughter home, this hasnt actually changed so much as i have seen the need for this situation to continue for longer so that Tay can see that I love her enough to let her give it a go, and if her dad becomes a wonderful parent as a result, then something good has come of it. Taking his mother away from them wont help this situation.. i have seen this lady is already digging her own hole, and she wont be able to crawl back out if she fills it with more bitterness and hate.. I'm almost at a stage where i can forgive her and feel sorry for her.. forgive but not forget, for my forgiveness is more about releasing my own bitter hateful side and allowing myself to accept some people arent like me. Not losing my children and my sanity in the process is soo important you know.. This raising children thing is soo complicated, theres tears and laughter and just about every emotion you can think of in the entire process of it and I am sure I will experience even more vastly different things as the children grow older.. Some days I feel soo scared of what lies ahead and have to remind myself that I am strong enough to handle anything that is thrown my way. When i look at other parents, I can now see that we all have our strengths and weaknesses and even the best of the best wont find themselves totally ready for every part of this neverending. tiring job that seems to change so dramatically from one day to the next.. Today I am passing on the ability for all my fellow mums to be strong, when you pass along good vibes they seem to work, so heres my hang in there and be strong vibe, theres no concept of time in blogging but I just meditated that thought for an entire 5 minutes to pass on some great feelings and revelations I have had this week.. Cheers to all Mel xx