Today is a very emotional one for me. I have no idea why that would be the case but apparently it is.

For a day that had nothing pre-arranged this one has turned out quite busy.

First, I agreed to take Matt for breakfast though I wasn’t really hungry. He was being quite argumentative in the morning about some thing or other, I don’t recall what exactly but some matter of politics where he was going to argue the toss whilst knowing little or nothing about it. But, even so, I was quite upbeat as Jermaine had gone to school on time … no, scrub that, i was upbeat until I yet again had to tell Zoey to get her arse out of her room, downstairs, do her chores and get to school, that is when this day started to go downward.

I spent way too much money on a new doorbell, true, we needed one but not one that cost nearly £50! This too has not helped.

I went to see a garage that can fit parking sensors to my car, all well and good but they needed me to supply paint to match the circles up on the rear bumper. Easy enough I thought but it wasn’t. Halfords don’t stock anything for Chrysler, neither does Chrysler stock spray paint for the cars so I had to go somewhere and get a can specially made by a paint manufacturer. In the meantime, Matt calls to say he needs to be leaving home to meet his girlfriend but my door keys are at home. So, I said for him to leave and I would meet him somewhere to collect them. I got down town where his bus was taking him, tried to call but he is in a dead zone and I got voicemail for a while, not helping me to relax.

When I got home I tried to catch up on some planned things for today, tracking down a volunteer job. Most annoyingly, the one I really wanted had been withdrawn months ago but they apologised that they forgot to tell the volunteer centre of that little detail. I still have some I would like to go for and have ‘e’ applied for a couple.

Something else I wanted to do was to talk to the adult department at social services to see if I couldn’t get some support in the home with Jermaine giving him a shower and cutting his nails but children’s’ services call first and I was stuck on the phone with them for so long that time ran out on me so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Matt fitted up the new doorbell but left the packaging along with some discarded green beans form yesterday o the dining room table, clearly, me talking to the kids the other day asking them to take responsibility for their own mess didn’t count for anything. I thought I was getting together with a shopping list for the fish and chip shop, I was actually quite happy when Daisy asked for chicken and I remembered we still had a couple of legs in the fridge from yesterday. This ended when Matt mentioned he ‘might have’ ‘accidentally’ eaten the skin off them as it was just sitting there! I went into the ‘how irresponsible’ speech and he went into his ‘you’re so unreasonable’ speech and we hit stalemate. I am now in a totally foul mood, can’t be arsed to do anything but with the full and certain knowledge that quite soon Jermaine will kick off wanting food and drink. I did mention to the kids that they could do themselves some food but TV is way more important than that sort of detail and dad is just so unreasonable.

Earlier on I was listening to McFly in the car, well, kinda listening to it and thinking how happy it made me feel and suddenly, whilst driving, I started to cry and I didn’t feel happy anymore, I felt really low.

My personal opinion, I am losing it, my ability to rationalise things is going, I just don’t think I can do the thinking for 5 and take the shit of that extra 4 for ever. Something has to give, either I have to pull myself together or they need to start pulling their weight and not winding me up being so damn inconsiderate so much of the time. I just cannot get them to see that doing their chores is not enough, they need to be thinking about the mess they leave behind them, their attitude, their social skills.

Maybe more later, I suspect this day shall get worse before there is any change and it may not be for the better.

… I spoke to the kids earlier, explained how difficult it was for me to have so much pressure because not even the little things could be easy when I was always in this battle with them.

They all appeared to be taking no notice.

Later, Daisy asked if I wanted a coffee and then a tea and cleaned the worktops after her in the kitchen then went to bed on time. Zoey behaves like nothing at all has changed. She is now making a drink, just for her. Matt has done himself some food, no one else that I am aware of. I fed Jermaine.

I cried again in the kitchen earlier whilst I cleared up the mess from the weekend where the kids have left things where they last used them, not cleared up crumbs, tea stains and general debris. I seem to be just crying quite a bit just now for no apparent reason, I guess to say I am feeling depressed is an understatement.

Dad called earlier to see how things were going, he seemed quite upset he couldn’t help at all, well, he can’t. Hell, if their own mother can’t give a fuck why should anyone else?

I am going to beat this feeling though because I don’t like it one bit. I feel an overwhelming desire to throw something and I would too if it didn’t mean I would have to clear up yet more mess.

I suspect I may need to write more later.