The Worm Turned - And All The Glass Fell Out!

We all know what it is like with a tiny tot, where you are run off your feet all day, and never seem to get a  proper night's sleep.  You are running a house, perhaps working as well, and caring for a family, and you just seem to operate on autopilot most of the time.   I think you will laugh at this story, and the ones who will hopefully enjoy it the most are the mums who have or have had Post Natal Depression.   I suffered quite badly from PND, and it was no picnic.  One of the awful things I found was that I would fly into an insane rage over nothing.  I had to put a door between me and my baby.  I loved her to distraction but I was terrified I would do something to hurt her.  The only help way back then was a course of hormones and fluid tablets.  They did help, but things could have been better.



I had a truly horrible husband (of whom I have already written a little) who was jealous of his own daughter, as she had most of the attention.  Well, that is what happens when you have children, isn't it?  They are the ones who are totally dependent, and it is supposed to be up to us adults (I use that term loosely) to meet the needs of our children.    My ex, when he didn't have an audience of parents or neighbours, would ignore our tiny girl, he never spoke to her, or picked her up, or played with her.  Unless I pushed hard for him to do so.  If he said anything it was usually a huge criticism.   So that is a little of the background to my story.  Now to set the scene.

When I was halfway through cooking the evening meal, he decided he didn't want what I was cooking.  Terrific, I am already doing two meals - one for Katie and one for us.  So I have to turn around and do different vegetables and meat for him. More fool me, you say.  But then I was having a number done on my head remember? And horribly down.   I was already running late, and Katie, who was just able to pull herself up on the furniture at this stage, was hungry and whining.   Ex had his backside parked in his chair as usual, in front of the television.  Because God help us, we mustn't miss the news, must we? 
                                                   
I had taken her food off and had started to put it through the MouliBaby (hand puree thingo!) when Katie started bellowing like mad.   She was standing at her father's knee, holding on to him and his chair.  He didn't even make eye contact with her.   He didn't speak, or pick her up to comfort her.  He ignored her as if she wasn't there.   I started getting madder and madder.  Katie cried more and more.

                                                   

I popped her tea into her warm divided dish, and raced through the hall into the lounge room and picked her up.  By this time I was in a fury with him for being an uncaring insensitive pig.   I snarled at him through gritted teeth "I don't know how you can just SIT there and ignore her".   And I charged out through the hall, back to the kitchen.    Between the hall and the kitchen was a glass door, which had never been shut in the almost 6 years we had lived in our home.   In my temper I grabbed the door and slammed it shut behind me.
I put my little lady into her high chair, buckled her in, and started to feed her while she and I 'chatted' to each other.   I had given her probably 2 spoons of food when there was the weirdest noise, a whooshing and tinkling and a sort of crash?  I stopped and thought "what on earth was that?" - and when I turned my head to look where the sound came from I could have died of fright.  The glass in the door had just shattered and hovered there and then all fell out.......

                                          

I was honestly freaking out about what he would do, and could hardly breathe.  I just quietly kept feeding Katie, and out came the ex.   I couldn't look at him.  Breathe, breathe, don't panic, don't panic.   And he stood there for a minute and then said "You did a good job on that didn't you?"   I (being stupid and never knowing when to shut up) said "yep, I did".  Much to my total amazement he just quietly cleared all the rubble away and never said another word.

                                       

The best part of this?  I worked part time for a glazier, and my boss thought this was so damned good that she replaced the glass for nothing!  She had been married to an extremely lazy man, and she laughed so hard about my door that it made her day.  And bless her because I could laugh then as well.  I think sometimes there is justice.