i am very grateful for my hormones.

not that mine were ever particularly obedient during the infertility years, my ovulation temperature charts looked like a flatline and indicated no oestrogen surge at all. magnificent used to put my daily temperature on the computer and made a very nice, professional graph out of it all, which he converted to power point to show how month by month my hormones were not improving or moving.

but on days like today, i am grateful for hormones.

i can blame my hormones on the absolutely crap day i feel like i am having. in fact, it was a good day, denby, mother of asha and shae (jasper’s "betht friends") and i took the trips and her twins out for lunch (her husband matt and their 15 month old ethan joined us) and then to a party. the kids were really well behaved. we were on the double decker bus, in taxi’s, and the kids were squashed and very good.

but at home it just seems that life is miserable. at one point, sebastian was meant to be reading to me and he wasn’t paying attention, and i got so fed up with drawing him back to the book. finally i just said, stop, sebastian, go away. you’re not trying and i cannot make you.

he dashed away, very grateful and happy, a renewed bounce in his step and his previously inaudible voice happy and loud.

yet halfway to the table and the tableau of siblings waiting to laugh at his jokes and encourage him in his ideas, he turned and raced back to me and gave me a big hug.

where did he learn this empathy?

why did he hug me? did he know he was being a rotter?

my black mood was momentarily lifted, and then plunged again when i asked him to brush his teeth, four times he ignored me. action time — no special blanket tonight. sebastian burst into tears, started using a baby voice and called me cruel and said that daddy never takes away his blanket. this is true. but as mean as i felt, i didn’t give sebastian his blanket back.

instead i cuddled it as i watched "friends".

i am going to try to blame everything that is going on on hormones, and not at all on my children who hate me and my misdirected, over zealous strictness which obviously isnt getting results.