Diary of a Desperate Wife and Mother - aged 35...and a half

And It's Another Monday Morning

Monday

I woke up at 3am to find Finn standing next to me which I have to admit almost gave me a heart attack when I woke to see him standing there. Once he saw I was awake he began to cry as explained he'd been sick in his bed. Both Paul and I ended up getting up, I cleaned up Finn and settled him in our bed while Paul stripped Finn's bed. I have no clue how any couple successfully share a bed with a child because within an hour of Finn getting in me and my husband were wide awake, sweating, uncomfortable and bickering about who should stay with Finn and who should get in his bed...Paul won and got Finn's bed citing out son's need for his mummy when he was unwell. I begrudgingly agreed because my baby boy is very much a momma's boy at the best of times.

By the time I get out of bed it's early still. Finn has been sick twice more but is currently snoring away in our bed. Paul is already up and the kettle is on. I stand in the doorway and watch him stretching and groaning and wonder if he, as a man of just over 6 feet has any regrets about taking a bed built for a child no older than eight rather than the king size bed he left me in with Finn. My laughter at his final groan makes him aware of my presence. I laugh louder when he gives me a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows as he asks if I fancy giving him a massage.

With only the two of us awake I decide to open discussion on Scarlett and her periods over a cup of tea. Paul reacts as I knew he would, expressing concerns that once she is on the pill it will give her contraceptive protection that will allow her to have sex. She is almost fifteen and has a boyfriend, but they're not at that stage, which is what I tell Paul and stress that we have no control over when she chooses to have sex but we do have a responsibility not to allow her to suffer horribly each month. I remind him of the times she has literally rolled into a ball and cried, the ruined sheets and underwear and I see the second he softens. Paul is no pushover when he has his mind set on or against something so he is still not sold. He even suggests that she might be like me and unable to use oral contraceptives...I tried years ago and ended up a mass of bruises and really quite unwell. With a few words that if she is there might be a non-contraceptive alternative he seems happier, well as happy as he was ever going to be about our fourteen year old daughter going on the pill.

Paul and I are due to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks and I have known him all of my adult life really so I read him well, and I hear what he doesn't say as clearly as I hear what he doesn't say and I today is one of those situations, it what he's not saying that I hear loudest of all. When he says he doesn't want her to be like us, he doesn't mean pregnant at nineteen, well he does, but that's not the point he's making. He also doesn't mean he doesn't want her to have a shot gun wedding or marry a man out of duty and a sense of responsibility, the same man she is still married to and loves. What he means is he doesn't want her to be like me; to fall in love at thirteen, although she is older than that, but the point is still there. To fall in love at thirteen and never quite fall out of love with that boy. To make all of the mistakes I did with that boy, to make plans for a whole lifetime with that boy only to have my heart broken and in Paul's eyes to make do and settle for him and the life I have. I hate that he feels that way and I have no way of convincing him otherwise. I used to try and tell him that I was happy with everything that had happened, almost everything and that I was blessed to have the life I have now, and I am, but he never believed me so I stopped telling him and hoped he would see that I am happy and I am, most of the time. I do have regrets but everyone does, don't they?

For no reason other than the fact that Paul looks sad and I don't want him to be, especially not over me and what I did in the past with Steven, he is ancient history, I climb over into Paul's lap, straddling him and pull him in for a hug, to hold him, no more, sex is the last thing on my mind. I kiss his head, his cheek and neck and then somehow we end up kissing, like kissing-kissing, clearly sex is on my husband's mind even if it wasn't on mine. The fact that he is moving us both so that I am sprawled on the sofa beneath him confirms this. It is my intention to stop this, one, because I need to check on Finn, two, because my children could walk in on us at any second, three, because it is Monday morning and finally because I have just seen Oscar watching us with a very disgruntled and judgemental look on his face. What I actually say when words leave my mouth is, 'I love you' and I do love Paul, I want him to know and believe that, but I also need us to stop and yet all my words have succeeded in doing is spur him on.

The sound of Finn's voice shouting down the stairs that he has been sick again in our bed is the bucket of cold water I had been looking for and I think I might look relieved because Paul looks disappointed, sad and I know it is because of me and Steven and what we did that is fresh in his mind because of our conversation on teenage contraception.

I stay at home with Finn while Paul and the older children go off to work and school. Finn spends most of the morning asleep allowing me to call the doctor for Scarlett, clean up the house and do some ironing as well as arranging for Gemma to come over for lunch.

Finn is eating a slice of toast when Gemma arrives and as we sit down at the table my son is turning on the TV surfing the channels for Power Rangers.

Gem asks if I have plans for Easter, which is next weekend, which she knows I do, kind of. Together with Christmas it's one of the two occasions that I go to church with my Mum. Paul isn't religious and the older children have no interest. Finn goes to a church school as did my older two and as such he has to come too. I don't mind church and I do still have faith, sort of, but it's usually having to do it with my Mum who is quite devout that is the cause of my friend's amusement, that and memories of Father Joe.

Victoria's Diary aged 14 and a half

My Mum has really annoyed me...again! She has volunteered me to help at church. On Friday there is an Irish dancing class for little children in the church hall. I did it for years there but stopped when I was about 11, much to my mother's annoyance. Anyway, they need helpers, I don't know why, but big girl helpers is what my Mum said and she has offered me as 'a big girl'. I think I do know why, she thinks that she will stop me seeing Steven on a Friday if I am helping little girls and a couple of boys to perfect their front clicks, sevens and cuts, she's wrong. Tonight is my first night and Steven is meeting me at the end of the lesson so my mother's plan has only served to delay me seeing Steven rather than stopping me.

The children are mainly happy to be there, although there are a couple, the older ones who look like they would rather be playing on the motorway than dancing in the church hall, but clearly their mothers want them to dance. I smile as I remember my last year dancing, the battle between me and my Mum when I no longer wanted to dance. My Mum was convinced, still is that there is a direct link between entry to heaven and Irish dancing...it's clearly a Catholic thing! I am helping a couple of the older girls go through their steps and am surprised that I can remember so much when Father Joe turns up. He makes me feel awkward because he knows about Steven and my love bite and also because he really is fit in an older man way. He laughs with a couple of the Mums and his skin crinkles around his eyes and I think he might even be a little older than 30, not much, but a little, gosh that really is old! He sees me with the girls and comes over, making me blush and get hot. I really am going to hell, forever for crushing on a priest!

He has one of the boys with him, Callum or Cameron or Caine, I'm not sure but I think it begins with a 'C' but I can't really hear what he's saying, there's a whooshing sound in my ears when he talks. Anyway the boy and one of the older girls I was with are dancing together in a competition but are struggling with the choreography and OMG, Gosh, not the G-man because I am in church, kind of, with a priest, Father Joe dances! He grabs me and asks if I will show the kids, with him. I nod, although I don't want to, well I do, but I don't because he is making me hotter than before when he grabs my hand and waits for the music.

Once we have danced Mrs Montague claps and everyone joins in and then the kids try it again. I can't believe I have danced with a priest...is there anywhere worse than hell because I think I might be going there instead! Steven arrives early and Father Joe only goes and introduces himself. I don't know what he says because I am tidying things away and once I am done Father Joe excuses himself with a call of see you next week Victoria and then Steven and I leaves.

We go to the chip shop and I have battered sausage and chips. Steven has a saveloy, I have never had a saveloy, my Mum frowns at them! We walk back through the park and sit on the bandstand to eat and then we stay there for a while and kiss. I love Steven, I love kissing Steven but I am thinking about dancing with Father Joe, not like pretending Steven is Father Joe. That would be too weird! I wonder if you can love two people at the same time and for it to be ok, probably not, especially if one is a priest, yeah that would be a whole new level of sin!