Friday, 6 March 2009

Hello!

For the purposes of this blog you can call me step-monster. I'm not a monster really, and I'm not actually even a step-anything, not being married to my partner, but I don't think that matters.
At 31 I found true love, with an old friend no less. I'd lost touch with him for years, and when we met again, ten years after waving goodbye to him after university and promising to keep in touch, the connection between us was undeniable. Finally I understand what a good relationship is all about. He's my mate, my partner, my lover, and perhaps most importantly my friend.
He is perhaps the most unselfish, loving, kind, honest, gentle man I have ever met. He's a rock of sense in a senseless world and I adore him. He'd do anything to protect the people he loves, is very talented, sexy, funny, and interesting. He's not perfect of course, being human. He's clumsy, chaotic, flighty, clicks his toenails and picks his fingernails, but he is him, and all these things make up the amazing person he is. I've never met anyone so full of vitality and life before, and I never ever want to be without him. This blog isn't about him, but he plays a central role and is at least partly responsible for creating the Mads so a bit of background is a little necessary.

Being involved in his life means being involved in the lives of his two children. I knew this when I fell in love with him, and rather than scaring me witless I took it on the chin. Ha ha. That's a complete lie. It scared me witless. Utterly. I'm not a mum. I'm a good auntie to a nephew I don't see enough, and I've worked with lots of children, but responsible for two small hearts and minds, even on a part time basis? Scary scary stuff. I can honestly say there were points before I met the Mads that I wanted to run away very very very fast and never look back.

After we met again, it took a while for me and Him to get to the point where we lived together. This was mostly due to reasons involving jobs, distances and logistics but that's another story, which I'll write when I feel up to tackling it! Suffice to say, we are now firmly ensconced in a house together. It's got a garden, a lean-to (kinda like a connected shed, very useful) some walls, some rooms, and we love it. We still look at each other sometimes and laugh at how we ended up here. There was so much effort and emotion required from both of us to get us to this point that we still can't believe we actually managed it. Us! We're both very disorganised but have found that together we compensate for the knowledge that this trait is strongly present in the both of us and manage to form a highly efficient, hard-working, powerful ninja-style SWAT team. Need a house moved? No sweat! Overthrow a dictatorship in a small oppressed country? no problem! Killer Bees? We'll handle it! But I digress.

The Boys

The two characters central to this blog are Smallmad and Bigmad, collectively known as The Mads. This is because they are both utterly bonkers. Smallmad is four (nearly five as I'm sure he'd be quick to point out), interprets the world in his own unique but completely barking mad way, has a strong sense of justice, and enjoys tormenting his elder brother. He likes chocolate spread, grapes, eating ducks and other animals (more on that later), and head butting his dad in the vulnerables. Some of his jokes are so bad they make us whimper. He's an incredibly funny, smart, stubborn and loving little boy.

Bigmad is 8 and very bright. He's questioning the world around him and his role in it, particularly at the moment what's happened to his family and how we all fit together. He wants to be an inventor, a comedian and a poet. He's sparky, funny, loving, bullheaded, has a strong sense of justice and enjoys tormenting his younger brother. He likes Pokemon, his Nintendo DS, You've Been Framed, Bad puns, fart jokes, exploring, camping, and hearing us accidentally swear.

Through knowing the Mads I've become acquainted with the heady world of Pokemon, Gommity, Nintendo and Child logic. Children's Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Captain Underpants, Horrid Henry and much more besides. We see The Mads every weekend, and will see them more during the holidays. Our house during the week is quiet and mostly tidy, full of things we love, namely guitars and books. OK so we don't sit in silence nodding politely to each other over our respective newspapers and knitting. His arms are way too short to hold a broadsheet, and I'd end up strangled to death by my dropped stitches, but you get the picture.

Our house at the weekend transforms into a noisy madhouse of activity, blackcurrant squash, small plastic figures, shoes, mud, coats, battles of will, cuddles, tears and fun, and I hope you enjoy reading about it. I'm not going to mention any names of course, and personal details will be left out as they are not important. If you do know me, I'd appreciate you not identifying me, my partner or the boys, but all feedback is welcome.

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