Surprise! I'm a single parent

My youngest has to be told to take a shower. I don’t get it. Doesn’t she like being clean? What I hate about camping and home renovations when the water gets cut off and part of the nightmare of what it must be like to live in Christchurch is the horror of NO SHOWER. But I have to tell her over and over GO AND HAVE A SHOWER!

I suppose when she is double digits she will suddenly become a person who uses up more hot water than I would like.

Part of the reason she doesn’t like showering is the lack of electronic devices in the bathroom. She just doesn’t like lack of input. I kind of understand. I’m beginning to thing I have some sort of email, facebook, twitter, stuff.co.nz, adult attention deficit disorder myself. Partly she’s just happy in her own smellyness. Somewhere along the way we seem not to have shamed her into having a horror of the possibility she might be wiffy.  Too much positive self image! Yikes.

Oh well the good thing is that this one thing we argue about (and its is an argument I still win). I’m still the Mummy.

Tomorrow its Easter Sunday and it’s our tradition to take rolly eggs out to a nearby hill and bowl them downwards. Then we race after them. Its so nice to have traditions and rituals. Its good to have fun things we do each year. A new thing we are thinking about doing is going to the ANZAC dawn service in town. It’s just the dawn part we are doubtful about. I’m going to get my grandfathers medals out and talk about them tomorrow. I hope you are enjoying your own Easter break.

Occasionally my exhusband gives me grief. When this happens I often find myself thinking how great it is I am not with him anymore. The frustrations today are nothing new – they were what I used to accept. I used to try being nicer and being good and being understanding and being loving and being patient and accepting that maybe I was a nag and all the other things he liked to suggest I was. Yup I’m flawed, yup yup yup.

Is he a bastard? I don’t know. For some reason my husband was like a lot of men who once he had wooed and won he didn’t have much idea how to love. And maybe the same can be said for me.

Sometimes however I realise that I have friends who are married to bastards. Men who practice psychological sabotage, men who shove, men who sulk and men who shout.

I know its hard to get out. But the grass is soooo much greener over here. If I had known how much better it was going to be I would have gotten out years ago. I lost so much of myself in my marriage. It sounds cliche but that’s what happened. Now I feel like I’m blossoming and I would so dearly like to see that happen for others.