Hide the wardrobe!

As I've said before, Step children are what I like to call bonus children. That's what my step children are to me. I always wanted more children in my life and I have been lucky enough to have been blessed with wonderful step children. I love them dearly.

Last weekend my step children came to stay with us. To say I was excited about it was an understatement. To say that FD was excited was a total understatement. She couldn't wait! I think it would be fair to say that FD idolises The Princess. Hey! Whats not to idolise! I have to say the entire weekend passed without much incident, apart from the kids almost missing their plane on the Friday due to an argument about skinny jeans that allegedly made my stepson look 'gay'! The mind boggles. However, they did arrive and we all had with lots of lovely family time. However, last Sunday morning everything took a bit of a nose dive.

On the Sunday we had planned to have a big family dinner out (all 11 of us) before The Princess and The Human Dynamo went to the airport to go home to their mum. Poor OH was almost suicidal at the thought of them leaving and I was floating along in a haze of rose wine and chocolate from a big family get together on Saturday night! On Sunday morning I could see FD begin to get more and more stressed. The stress of trying to choose clothes for FD almost pushed me over the edge. I felt like Gok Wan being attacked by a horde of fashion junkies all out for his blood! And, I was slowly losing the will to live as outfit after outfit was pulled out of the wardrobe. Beam me up Scotty! I've had enough! Regular readers of the blog will know that this is an on-going difficulty FD has. She has more outfits than Imelda Marcus had shoes! That's probably half her problem.

Now, whether it was a combination of hormones, upset about my stepchildren going home or the stress of trying to decide on an outfit to wear to dinner, I'll never know. Suffice to say, Sunday morning was one of those mornings that I'd love to erase from my memory. It was the sort of day that made you want to rip your ears off and jump up and down on your own head!

When sitting down together to choose an outfit for FD to wear to dinner she started to become quite agitated. This agitation very quickly escalated into a full scale meltdown and possibly one of the worst we have seen in a long time. Not only did FD bang her head continuously off a wardrobe door, but she also hurt herself further by punching herself and pulling her hair. By the end of it all I wanted to bang my own sodding head off the wardrobe door!

To see your child hurt herself is difficult, emotionally draining and made me want to reach for the biggest bar of chocolate, laced with booze, I could find! I often wonder why no-one makes wine flavoured chocolate? The world needs this! I flippin well need this! To see FD so distressed that the only way should deal with this was punch, nip and slap  herself was unbearable. With every slap, I felt its pain and shed a tear. I tried to hug her but this only made things worse. I tried to reason with her but this only made her angry. If I could have carried the sodding wardrobe out of the room I would have, but she needed the stupid thing to bang her head off!

My poor step children were traumatised by what went on as this is probably the worst incident they have witnessed at such severity. Even the poor dog needed therapy by the end of it all. Hell, I needed therapy myself. However, a couple of hours later she calmed sufficiently to allow us all to go out. Dinner proved to be a bit of a minefield as it was obvious that FD was in the sort of  mood that made her want to pull the heads of jelly babies! But, we managed to work though it all and we came out of dinner relatively unscathed. Only just. Our poor waitress sensed that FD was slightly tense when she asked her what flavour ice cream she would like and FD barked back, 'Oh for goodness sake, you decide!' A mental note was made to discuss good manners with FD. But, obviously at a time when she didn't want to kill me!

I suppose that this is normal life for us and its a way of life we have grown accustomed to. Of course, it doesn't mean we like it but we manage it as best we can. I shed my tears as quietly as I can and pull my Superwoman knickers up as far as I can without actually choking myself! The rest of the week has been relatively calm apart from an incident with a low flying wellington boot that almost brained me. But hey! I'm still alive and didn't get my head knocked off in the wellington boot crossfire. Life goes on and so do we!