I haven’t had sex for 19 months.

I haven’t felt loved for 18 months.

I’ve been single for 12 months.

I miss being loved. I miss being held. I miss being wanted.

I love Jackson, I have thrown myself into parenting him and I haven’t felt like I’ve missed anything until now. Now when I see people in relationships and happy and I realise I had blanked out that option, I had given up on maybe having that. I’m 23! I shouldn’t give up on romantic happiness!

I’d been hanging on to the hope that maybe I would get back with Jacksons dad. Whether that be for the happy family image or to stop him taking Jackson away from me, or maybe I didn’t think I could do any better, but whichever it was I think I’ve given up on that idea. I’ve waited for him to grow up, be responsible, be the dad, be the man that I want, that Jackson needs, but I can’t wait forever. I can’t keep my life on hold just hoping.

I often curse myself for falling for him, for giving him two children, but I didn’t give him the children, we gave those children life. Without him, Jackson, this little boy who is growing up before my eyes wouldn’t be here. Even if I’d had a baby at the same time, without his dad he wouldn’t be the same. So I can’t regret it, I can never regret it. Whatever ends up happening between us.

I’ve lost my nice body, I’ve lost my carefree attitude, I’ve gained another person in my life who will always be the most important one in my life, and all these things will make it harder for me to find someone else, harder for me to put myself out there.

So I suppose now I need to work out how to date with a baby. Obviously I won’t even introduce him until it’s been a while or it’s not fair on Jackson, but that’ll mean babysitters so I can go on dates, and the whole concept of that terrifies me!

I think I may wait a while to be honest, get my body back to something I feel comfortable in and get my life in some sort of order before I go trying to add other people into the mix. That, or maybe just time to gear myself up!

Things progress and change but in my experience this single parenting lark doesn’t get easier!

I know some people will agree and some won’t, but I can only say what’s happened to me, and as time goes on I’m finding doing this on my own harder and harder.

I never got a quiet newborn who would happily lay in his crib, infact I could probably count the nights he spent in his crib on my fingers. I started off determined that he would, but quickly realised that I was fighting a losing battle and he came into my bed from a few weeks old. He’s still there. He helps himself to milk throughout the night, and apart from me sleeping a little lighter (that’s nature to stop me rolling on him) it doesn’t affect me.

I spent the first few months dispairing that I couldn’t put him down. Whenever I did he woke up screaming so for the first few months he was attached to me. I bought a carrier and started baby wearing so I could atleast do SOMETHING! Talking to other mums this isn’t unusual, but I think that being on my own intensified how little I managed to do!

Jackson was early rolling over and although I had never been able to leave him without him screaming I could at least rely on him being there when I came back, however as soon as he started rolling there were no such guarantees. Almost from that moment on he couldn’t really be out of my sight. If I left him it had to be on the floor and downstairs in case he accidentally rolled downstairs or something ridiculous!

At 6 months he started crawling and pulling himself up and since then I have to constantly watch him like a hawk. If he’s not crawling after the cat he’s pulling plugs out of the wall, sucking on chargers or climbing the stairs, eating cat litter or pulling the CDs off my shelves. It’s a nightmare, however much you baby proof your house it will never be baby safe, the only way to do that would be to put him in a pen, something I am loathed to do.

I really enjoyed his newborn days, sitting on the sofa having baby snuggles and feasting on ready meal after ready meal, though I regularly felt like I wasn’t getting much done I revelled in every second of it, just the two of us against the world, for some reason expecting it to get easier, but it’s only got harder. Admittedly I now have my hands free as I no longer have to carry him around, but I have to watch him constantly. I can’t Hoover as he pulls the Hoover over and plays with the wire, I can’t cook because he kicks up a stink sitting in his highchair for too long and I can’t let him crawl around the kitchen. My house has only been properly hoovered once or twice in 9 months and I could probably count the proper meals I have cooked on your fingers.

Don’t get me wrong I love him so so much, I am enjoying every second of him, but I am constantly aware of the list of things that aren’t getting done getting longer and if I’m honest I can’t see much getting done before he goes to school!

Single parenting is a full time job, and I mean 24/7/365. You get no off days, no sick days, and no time to yourself (unless you can rope someone in to babysit for a few hours.) and it’s hard. So so hard, but totally worth it. (Just don’t comment on the fact my washing up isn’t done, and the floors need hoovering!)

Not keeping to pre-planned arrangements is one of my pet hates.

I was raised to arrive on time, to leave extra early if you’re not sure how long a journey will take. (Even going so far as to take test journeys to things like interviews so I didn’t get lost and arrive late, or arrive ridiculously early)

My ex doesn’t keep to arrangements, infact he turned up almost an hour late to our first date… start as you mean to go on I suppose. So I should really have cut my losses then.

Since we broke up he has been meant to see Jackson regularly, but it has been anything but. He works shifts, meaning he works 4 days and then not the next 4, so unfortunately he can not arrange to see Jackson every Tuesday for example, however, he tends to arrange atleast one day of his 4 off to come and see us. Now the times he agrees to arrive have varied from 8am to 4pm and you can bet that he will be atleast 10 minutes late every time, sometimes 4 hours and sometimes just not show up at all.

If he says a time the day before I will set my alarm, get up, get Jackson up, we will get breakfast and then we will sit and wait. I can’t start anything because he might arrive in the middle of it, and we can’t go out. We sat in waiting for a whole day last week, unable to go out and enjoy the sunshine because every hour or so I was getting texts saying he had dozed off again and was coming in a minute, then at about 4pm he finally decided not to come because he was too tired. I was fuming at this. We lost a whole day to him messing us around and I couldn’t do anything about it. He rearranged that visit to today, and after turning up 20 minutes late without an apology he was in a snappy mood, argued with me over something stupid and left an hour and a half later. Thankfully it is still early enough to do something today, but he has just requested that he sees Jackson tomorrow. 3 days out of my week because he’s been either too tired or too angry to spend time with his son as arranged. I am in two minds as to what to say about tomorrow now, though I know that if I say no he will just hold it against me.

I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m trying so hard to be reasonable and calm for the sake of my son, but it’s dragging me down. We arranged a way we both agreed to co parent Jackson, but he doesn’t seem to have taken to arranging things a month early, nor turning up at 8am to do breakfast as agreed. I’m totally at a loss as to how to handle this. He has gone weeks without seeing Jackson in the past, being ill one time then tired, then something else another, yet for both his and Jacksons sake I want to keep contact up and as regularly as possible, but right now, trying to be the grown up in this situation is getting old fast and I just want to throw my toys out the pram and scream, but I must be the adult here!

Following my post before about the impending separation when Jackson spent time with his dad I gave the entire situation a lot of thought and realised that I can’t be selfish when it comes to my son and that everything I do has to be in his best interests to give him the best upbringing that our situation can. 

I spent a lot of sleepless nights working out what would be best for him and what I could live with and in the end I came up with a solution that I think that atleast for the foreseeable  future will suit me and his dad and most importantly Jackson. (And his dad agreed)

This is the message that I sent to his dad:

Let’s start somewhere we can both agree – we have a gorgeous, funny, happy, clever, active 8 month old who deserves the best life we can give him that works for all of us.

We both grew up in a ‘normal’, stable family, mum and dad both around and influential. I want that for our son too, it’s what we planned when we decided to have him and it’s what we should strive to give him.

Having researched extensively, talked to other mums and taken Jacksons personality into consideration I still feel that him having one bedroom and one permanent address is best all round. Children need somewhere that is theirs that they know they will return to each day, and I know that other families split their children’s time between parents, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not adversely affecting their children. With his home a stable and permanent environment he will have the best chance of a grounded upbringing. 

This said obviously you will want to spend time with him, and again, striving to give him the ‘normal’ family upbringing I’m proposing that we do this as a family. If we were together then your days off would be spent with both of us going out and/or spending time together as a family, so I propose that a minimum of once a week you come over say 8am, do breakfast with us, spend the day, have tea with us and participate in the bedtime routine (I’m assuming that one day we will get one!) we were planning on spending our lives together so one day a week should be feasible without arguing, sarky comments or anything. This way Jackson gets a taste of a normal family life so he doesn’t miss out on too much. I’d suggest that which days be planned out a month in advance allowing us both to plan our lives around it without too much trouble. I’ve said a minimum of one day a week, as some weeks it would be nice for him  to see more of you, but I think he should see you at least once a week without fail giving him a good chance to bond with you and spend some quality time with you. This arrangement will also allow you rest time from work, time to do your own thing and to live your own life while maintaining a close relationship with your son. Once he starts at school I’d assume your day a week would be a weekend where possible, but where your days off don’t fall on weekends maybe coming to pick him up from school and a trip to the park or a meal out in the evening would work?

I also want him to grow up having a close relationship with his grandparents and uncles, so will continue to endeavour to accommodate visiting them regularly. (I reserve the right to remove Jackson from any situation that I consider dangerous or upsetting and then reassess the arrangement accordingly)

I suggest that any new partners (either yours or mine) not be introduced or even mentioned to Jackson until we are convinced they will last, having lasted for at least 6 months, this limits his exposure to too many people walking into his life to just walk out again. I also think that even if we marry a new partner, they should continue to be referred to by their name, he should only ever have one mum and dad.

I hope that this sounds fair to you, I have spent the last 8 months worrying about how we are going to get this to work out, and I really hope that this could be the answer to giving our son the best upbringing we possibly can. Together.

Don’t come to me and complain you’re having a bad day.

You’re lucky. 

You can have a bad day and you can walk around with a sour face and yell at people and complain and sulk and throw hissy fits, but I can’t have a bad day.

Even when I feel like I’m about to explode inside I have to be having a good day, at least on the outside. I have to smile and laugh and play peekaboo.

I have to be a mummy. 

I can’t pass Jackson off to someone else and go and cry or beat up a pillow. I can’t shout and scream, sometimes I suppose I’m maybe a bit sharper than normal with him, but not noticeably, it can’t be noticably or he will think that it’s ok to act like that, and that’ll give me a horrible toddlerhood! 

Being a single mum is hard. 

There is no ‘me’ time except when his grandparents take him for an hour or two, but that times finite and irregular. 

I can’t hand him over for a couple of hours on an evening complaining he’s been screaming all day.

Not that I’m complaining, I love my son and all the time we spend together, it’s made us closer and I have come to rely on him being there as much as he relys on me. He’s like an extra limb I cannot be without now, It’s been 8 months of him constantly being there.

But I miss being able to vent without having to be careful about my tone or volume, to not have to do it with a sideways smile for my son so he doesn’t realise, so don’t complain you’re having a bad day, at least you can!

I’m lying here with my perfect, gorgeous, happy 8 month old lying asleep on my lap and I have just been overwhelmed by how much I love this little guy. Everything he does he makes me proud, every time he laughs I smile, when he crys I just have to comfort him. I never knew this much love was possible, people tell you about it but you don’t believe it until you’re living it, but every day, every second, every happy moment is ruined, is overshadowed, by worry, by fear of the minutes, the hours, the days that when he is old enough that his dad will take him (we broke up when I was 7 months pregnant), that I will miss. It’s stupid. I should be enjoying the here and now and not wallowing in the what ifs and maybes, but there’s a part of me that knows it’s inevitable that the conversation will happen and that his dad will request time with Jackson without me, and that really, honestly, I have no right to stop him, but my god it will kill me. I miss him if I don’t see him for a few hours, when I have a shower, heck, when I go to the loo (on the rare occasions he doesn’t join me). And the knowledge that that separation is in our future is totally marring the present. It’s always there niggling in the back of my mind. I’m burying my head in the sand and pretending it won’t happen. Pretending, hoping that his dad will be happy with how we are at the moment, seeing him while I’m there, visiting us both, and us visiting him, but I can’t see that lasting. I’ve never stopped him seeing his son, and I never will, but why do I have to be separated from the boy who is my whole life for that to happen?