Wednesday was hard. Harder than I expected.
But today is easier because of it.
It was healing to stop, press pause and remember.
To acknowledge the impact of what happened that day.
To pay respect to those lost.
To admire the bravery and courage and tenacity shown since then.
And the flowers were awesome.
You see, road cones are everywhere in Christchurch now. They are as much a feature of our landscape as powerpoles, trees even. You can't drive anywhere without going through roadworks of some kind, or swerving around a cone left to mark the latest hole in the road from the aftershocks.
Driving through rows of them, each with a flower, some with entire bunches of flowers, in them made me cry.
Little bits of hope crammed in to each one.
A collective act of defiance against the destruction.
In the midst of the mess, we will make something beautiful from it.
I am failing big time.
At the most important job.
And it cannot continue. I need to figure out what's going wrong with my (& Iains) parenting.
Erin is great, at 22 months she is still at the 'cute' stage where the tantrums are containable and the naughtiness slightly endearing at times. I feel like I am, mostly, a good mum to Erin.
But with Hamish and Zoe, nothing seems to be working. They are rude, naughty and unpleasant most of the time at home and I am a grumpy, ineffective and frustrated mum in response.
I have read everything I can about it.....Nigel Latta to Diane Levy.
Googled 'lying kids', 'siblings fighting', 'toilet training'.
Tried reward charts, timeouts, grounding, bribery, threats.
In fact as I type this Hamish is sulking because he is at home with me instead of at his cousins birthday party. He was in timeout and decided to pee on his bed, soaking it right through to the mattress as a way of showing his displeasure with being there.
I am at a total loss as to why it is this way in my house? Noone else I know has this level of dysfunction happening with their children. And I know deep down that I try as hard as they do to be a good parent but it's just not working. I work really hard at it, I lose sleep over it.
Or maybe we are all just really good at hiding our dysfunction as families. Maybe some of you reading this are astonished that this is going on in my home because you've met my children and they were lovely.
Zoe wasn't lovely last night when she told the babysitter she would kill her.
Hamish wasn't lovely on Friday night when he willfully pooed his pants and then smeared it on the shower walls because he was angry at me.
Please don't give me parenting advice in response to this post, I am a research addict, I know all the development theory and techniques.....they are just not working. By all means though if you have the magic bullet let me know and I will eat my words, glad to be proved wrong on this one!
And I know it takes a village.....but where is the village? I'm having trouble finding it. The village are either working, too busy with their own families, or would rather not know.
I've asked the 'officials' in the village too, but there is usually a cost or a waiting list involved. As well as the fear that the 'officials' might judge that I am a bad parent afterall.
And somewhere along the line I have bought into the lie that says I have to do it on my own. I know in my head that I don't so I write this blog in the hope that admitting it all publicly I will drag my reality, kicking and screaming in line with my ideals.
So there you go, it's out there in all it's ugliness....my failure as a parent....my helplessness at fixing it.
"Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble." Hugh Prather
And the flowers were awesome. 
