I've been meaning to write a Father's Day post for a few days, but haven't had the chance. It's a strange day in our house as my Dad has never celebrated it and madam's dad isn't exactly outstanding in the field!
We actually had a really busy day as madam had a party in the morning and we decided to go out for the afternoon... Madam was at the local soft play centre for 11am and was bouncing around the house for *hours* beforehand.
I loathe sitting around at parties talking to mums I don't really know which is why I tend to leave madam to it if possible. Not the case at soft play, sadly. Though, being Father's Day meant it really wasn't very busy in there. Thankfully.
After much partying and birthday lunching we decided to go to Hornsea (a local seaside town) for the afternoon. As the weather wasn't too cheerful we decided on going to the mere instead of the beach. Which was probably the best plan as it was windy enough there!
The mere is home to a pretty sizeable goose population and madam had a great time collecting together the biggest feathers she could find. She has since taken them to school for crafts :-) When she had picked up as many feathers as any one child could need we had a bit of a wander and she walked along one of the jetties to get a better look at the water.
I did the parent thing of deciding whether to intervene as she made some rather scary manoeuvres horribly near the edge, but she didn't fall and I was glad she had got to do it her way. I bought her a wee windmill in the little shop that I don't remember ever being there before and she had fun running around and watching it spin.
She mentioned her kite several times and we've decided that's what we'll do this weekend coming. Quite looking forward to that, its ages since we've flown the kite!
We voted for going to the Freeport in Hornsea for a drink as we were getting a bit chilly by the mere. We had a wander round the shops and had madam's feet measured at the Clark's outlet. She is now a size 1! But her school shoes are still OK until the end of this term, I hope! They'll just have to be, frankly!
My mum is quite looking forward to madam's feet being bigger than hers (4) as she thinks that'll stop her wearing hers! Nope...
One cup of coffee and glass of fizzy orange later we headed back to my parents to see younger bro for a bit before going home for tea. We had yummy meatballs and pasta and madam was told she could have a couple of the sweeties in her party bag.
She ate all of them. I, therefore, told her off and banned her from having any more sweets this week. She was not impressed and threw some things at me. At which point I banned her from any bedtime stories for the week either. Major madam meltdown.
She was livid. But I wouldn't back down and did manage to get her to put her pyjamas on. Couldn't get her to go to bed and got stabbed with an umbrella and hit in the face with a flying projectile for my efforts.
I left her to it. She was too angry to even try to reason with. She plonked herself on the floor under my feet. Eventually, she fell asleep where she was. I merely covered her over and left her to it. She woke up about 10pm. I told her to get in bed, she wimped a bit but went straight upstairs and silence re-descended.
On Sunday I was really upset she'd spoiled our nice day. But in hindsight, it was only bedtime. We still had had a lovely day. She was still unreasonable and frighteningly out of control, but I think I need to focus on the good parts.
She did, sort of in the middle, quiet down enough to tell me she missed her daddy and wanted him there and not a new one (she's a bit obsessed with me remarrying). And I understood a least a little of where this massive outburst had come from.
Of course she was angry that I had confiscated things she liked but she had spent the week being built up at school and at Rainbows for a Father's Day she felt excluded from. This is the first year she's really been cognisant about it. Every other year she has been happy to accept me as substitute. But I'm not her Dad. And her Dad is gone at the moment. She hasn't seen him since August bank holiday last year and he hasn't phoned her for ages.
My divorce (that's a whole other post!) is in progress and she is very aware of that. She is confused. Again. I feel heartbroken that she has to constantly deal with all these things when she is still so young. But I hope we can get through to the other side soon and she can get some happiness and stability back.
I wish that we were there already though.
Love, Pearl.
