Heartbreak Hotel

This is an ongoing blog post for all the heartache that I, as a mother of 3 go through when I can’t fix things for my child.  What I have learnt is that unfortunately I cannot fix everything, as much as I’d like to, to spare them the pain.

Sometimes children just need to feel the sadness and hard as it may be, we have to sit on the sidelines and watch, yearning to help but knowing that there are times when there is nothing that we can do except to be there to pick up the broken pieces, hoping all the while, deep within our heart of hearts that they will come out unscathed, possibly with a valuable life-lesson under their belt.  Parenting is one of the hardest jobs I have ever had.

December 2016

Lettuce (5): I don’t want you to go away again like when you were sick. I didn’t like that (I had to go to hospital for surgery)

November 2016

Bacon (8): I don’t have any friends to play with at break time so I play with Mema. Now that she’s dead she can run and jump with me, she’s not sick anymore.
November 2014

Tomato (8) was lying in bed last night and asked if I would get her the sharp scissors. When I asked her why she needed them, she told me that her skin is so sore that she wants to die and she thinks she can do that with very sharp scissors!!

October 2014

Bacon (6) had an eyelash on her cheek so I put it on my finger and told her to blow it and make a wish, which she did. Then she asked “I wished that Fluffy would come back.” Fluffy our bunny died last year 🙁

My friend’s 16 year old son was killed in an accident Click here to see the blog post for Kyle Lowry and I was there. I was very upset and poor little Lettuce didn’t understand. In his very sweetest voice he said to me “Mommy why did you die?” which made me sob even more.

August 2014

Lettuce didn’t want to sleep so Daddy told him sternly to lie down and go to sleep. Lettuce got mad and told Daddy to get out of his room “you shouta me, you get out, you ugly to me” Daddy was heartbroken.

July 2014

Lettuce aged 2 years and 9 months wanted to sleep on a mattress on the floor next to his cot. In the night he rolled under the cot and couldn’t get back out. I heard a muffled cry and only then discovered him under there. He was sobbing :’-((

May 2014

Lettuce didn’t want to sleep and kept coming downstairs. I had told him numerous times to go upstairs when eventually he just said “no.” I got cross and said in a stern voice “go to bed or you”ll sit on the step” (which is timeout for a minute for every year of their age, his would be 2 mins). Hubby and I settled in and watched a TV show and after a while I suddenly realized that I could hear his sisters but not him. I called to Tomato asking where he was and she told me he didn’t come upstairs. We panicked and jumped up, only to find a very sad little boy sitting on the step. He’d been there for an hour!!! I scooped him up and said “I’m so so sorry Bubby” and the tears welled up in his eyes and he said “Mommy shout-a me. I felt terrible!!

March 2014

Hubby went on a culinary course to learn how to make sauceages and was gone the whole day on a Sunday. Tomato said to me when he got back “I didn’t realise how much I like having Daddy around until he wasn’t with me. I thought I was having a really bad day (we couldn’t go out because Bacon was ill) but when Daddy came home it turned into the best day of my life. I really love him you know.”

January 2014

Bacon said out of the blue “Are you sure Fluffy is ok with your dad in heaven?”

October 2013

Tomato said she doesn’t know who she is if she doesn’t have eczema

August 2013

Having a playdate at a friend’s house and Bacon comes up to me with her big blue eyes brimming.  I asked her what was wrong and she said she wasn’t allowed to play Snakes and Ladders.  I asked her why and she said “because it says you have to be 4 and I’m 5.”  Awww shame she didn’t understand that it’s age 4 upwards!!

April 2013

Tomato’s eczema is so bad she said to me “I like living here with you mommy, but I want to die, please let me go, I want to die”

January 2013

Tomato started Grade 1 and hates her new school.  She was told to tuck her shirt in and put her shoes back on when she took them off.  Also she can’t go to the toilet whenever she wants to, she has to wait for break time.  She asked me to tell the teacher that she is very very scared.

Tomato had to have her hair cut short because of the huge knot where she refused to brush it. We went out for dinner and she was very sad because all the children were staring at her because she “looks like a boy” when in reality the children were staring at her bleeding arms from her eczema.

November 2012

Tomato screaming in the middle of the night “get it off me” and she means her skin that’s itching and sore

September 2012

Lying with Tomato in bed and said “Mommy would you take away my eczema if you could?” I said  “Of course I would, I would even swap with you and take your eczema so that you don’t have to scratch.”  She replied ” I wouldn’t give it to you mommy.  I love you and I don’t want you to suffer like me.”

August 2012

Tomato woke up crying with blood all over her and her bed linen from her arms where she has once again scratched it raw.  I ran to help her, cleaned it up, put cream on and cuddled with her.  She said “how am I supposed to go to school tomorrow looking like this?”  Even though the weather is very hot, she wears her winter uniform to cover herself.  Makes me want to cry.

Nebulising Lettuce has got to be one of the most heart-breaking things a parent can endure. The screaming and struggling is almost too much for me to bear.

Took the girls to the dentist today for the first time.  Bacon is fine, but the child that suffers badly from eczema, has just got glasses, has to wear an eye-patch for 2 hours a day, has an abscess on her tummy, is painfully shy and stresses about EVERYTHING, has 2 cavities and possibly needs root canal treatment which needs to be done under a general anaesthetic! SERIOUSLY?????

I’d been working long hours and I hadn’t been “at home” for a couple of days due to medical dramas.  Tomato said “I wish you’d stay at home and play with me.  I miss you sooo much Mommy” *guilt*

Tomato got her glasses and they look adorable and she couldn’t wait to show off her Hello Kitty frames at school.  Everyone loved them except her best friend who told her she looked ugly 🙁

July 2012

Tomato will have to get glasses.  She seems pretty ok about it but then she said quietly “I hope the children don’t tease me.”

Tomato said “Why does God hate me?  If he loved me he wouldn’t give me eczema.  He must think that I’m a very bad person 🙁

June 2012

Fluffy the bunny went missing for a night but was luckily found a few houses down the road. Tomato was inconsolable.  She also thought the bunny ran away because it didn’t like her anymore 🙁

May 2012

When I told Tomato that her older cousins couldn’t come to her party due to school commitments she said “but I wanted Callum to shout at all the boys who tease me, now whose gonna do it?”  I told her daddy and I will do it and she walked off and said “that’s not the same.”

Tomato has terrible eczema and has also suffered lately from stys in her eyes.  Today she told me “If I see a shooting star, I’m not going to wish for Christmas everyday, today I’m going to wish for no more stys”  🙁

The children at school are teasing Tomato her about her eczema 🙁