The warrior's guide to survival

Hello my honey bunny, Actually, you'd object to that, you object to being called anything that you are not, such as 'baby' ("I'm three and a half!").  Unless we are playing, and you love to play pretend games, such as tortoise, where you hide under my pink washing basket and shuffle around the floor, or pussy cat where you miaw and let me stroke your hair.  Or dog, where I throw a toy and you fetch it, or if we are on an actual dog walk, you attach the lead to me or yourself and we take turns.  Now you are stronger, we play koala too - a bit like a piggy back but with you holding yourself on.  You invent great games, like today we were at the park near the trains (your favourite) and we took your boom bats, a couple of cars and a cricket bat and ball and you invented several hours of games to keep us entertained and active. You make me laugh so much, and now you are older I know you do it on purpose, to me and other people too, you love being the entertai...

Well hello my love, and its been such a lovely summer.  You have grown in height, in shoe size and of course wit and intellect and you continue to amaze me daily with your words and actions.  We have just had a quiet week, mostly me and you, enjoying what will probably be the last of the summer sun. We had an amazing holiday in Norfolk again, and we were both sad to leave.  But when we returned, we had a half birthday party for you at Granny and Grandads house. It was a fantastic Thomas themed day and ran on way past the finish time.  Your best friends attended; Oliver, of course, and Benjamin and Elodie, Eva, Chloe and Kian, William and Georgina.  Your new friends Charlotte, Thomas and James came and they brought with the their remote controlled Thomas to play with.  You liked it so much that I found you one on ebay and then the sound drove me bonkers.  Actually,  I think it drove us both a bit bonkers because you let me tape polystyrene to the ...

We are back at the same holiday home that we stayed at last year.  You are one year older, two inches taller and a hundred times cheekier, more inquiring and more eloquent.  Ive been meaning to write to you since my last letter in Novemeber.  Last winter I first of all had the court case with Darren to contend with and then I was so ill with the mystery skin thing I had and still plagues me in a lesser way today.  I could not write while the court thing dragged on. All I could think of saying to you were so many apologies for not choosing the perfect dad for you.  But you are you because of the unique set of genes that your father and I have combined and so you wouldn't be you if I had not met your dad.  I wouldnt change you for the world.  You are a unique, kind, strong, funny, clever, compassionate and beautiful inside and out.  You are confident and healthy and can climb, jump and run with such ease that I envy your self assurance and physical...

To my favourite person, Wow hasn't this year flown by?  I keep meaning to write and to document your growing wonderfulness but this year has been hard to write about without bring your father into it.  it's so hard not to speak ill of him because he hurt me very badly but I know you are a clever and very sensible and sensitive boy and you will see him as he really is. Your intelligence shines thorough, you learn so quickly, you only need to be shown once and you have learnt it.  Even stuff I don't think you notice, you do, and maybe several months later even you will surprise me with something you tell me or something you do.  your maturity astounds me and I forget sometimes you are only nearly three, but then you do something crazy and funny like run round in circles, or find something 'incredible'. 'wow' or 'amazing', as if you have seen it for the very first time.  Your use of descriptive language astounds me, for example while some kids mi...

dear you Well, not dear you at all,there is nothing dear about you, though once i clearly thought there was.  Your poor me puppy dog act worked on the judge but i saw the real you in court, the controlling, selfish, narcissistic misogynist liar that you are.  I can't knock your self-belief, you really do believe you are perfect don't you, that nothing you do is wrong.  Oh how you bemoaned the fact that the police kept 'picking on you' when you kept getting caught driving without a licence, or insurance, or smoking weed whilst you were driving, or not wearing a seatbelt...none of that was your fault either, was it?  I've been looking up all the definitions of domestic violence again, I still have to keep checking, because my own self-belief is not as unshakable as yours is.  I have deleted the ones you didn't do, but the ones you did I have left: Pressure tactics : sulking, threatening to withhold money, disconnect the telephone, take the car away, take the...

Dear Friends Thank you for all your valuable support whenever I am due to appear in court with Cubs father.  Back in May 2011 and early on in the court proceedings I wrote a brief history of the events that led up to this long drawn-out process that I am trapped in at the moment.  More life/relationship history can be found in my birth story, here and here .  I can't even read these again myself, the whole sorry saga just makes me a bit flat and depressed, to be honest, so I focus on my son, because he is the happiest little person I've ever met and my whole world. Over a year it took, of to-ing and fro-ing to the magistrates courts.  You expect, as a civilian (so to speak) for the solicitors to know their jobs, and the procedures, and to direct you forward in the appropriate manner.  Sadly for me and for many others, it seems, this is not the case.  Last year I made several trips to the court, I was ordered to attend a parenting course, which was ha...

hey baby, Well, less of a baby now aren't you? You're potty trained now my clever little boy.  And it was easy, I'd been setting the scene for you with your pirate pete book and elmo dvd and i had bought you pants and a nice potty.  You've been running around half-naked anyway with the warmer weather and one day you just wanted to wear your pants instead of your nappy and that was that.  You even take yourself to the potty now, and flush it all away.  How clever is that?  Well, I am very impressed anyway.  You continue to amaze me in so many ways, I think your wanting to be free of nappies just stemmed from your strong independent streak, you are so confident and like to do things yourself.  You love to help me too, for example I was carrying your car seat in from the car, you could see it was a bit heavy and rushed over the help me.  Little things like that just make me want to give you a big old monstersaurus cuddle and kiss your velvet-soft,...