When I had DS, I felt instantly that being a mum was right for me. I got loads of confidence, we got on really well and spent 3 years very close and very happy.
Then DD was born. She has been a bloody nightmare from the word go: not sleeping (at all, ever, and no I am not exaggerating and no, there was nothing 'wrong' with her).
The first 10 months of her life were the worst of mine, our marriage nearly broke up and worst of all my relationship with my DS utterly changed. From having limitless patience and enjoying being with him, I now had none and couldn't wait to get away from both of them.
DD is now 16mo and is mostly a lot happier. Once she could walk, and we cracked sleeping, she stopped screaming 90% of the time. But she is extremely strong-willed, already has the most incredible tantrums, won't eat properly, won't nap during the day - unless she's with her childminder, in which case she eats fine and has 3 hour naps.
Her childminder, who also looked after DS, loves her but admits she is the most challenging child she's looked after.
Anyway, I feel like I am a rubbish mother. My relationship with DS never really recovered, I feel like I used up my store of patience when DD was tiny and he now hits and hurts her all the time, so I end up shouting. Every day is a huge battle, with both of them.
I don't like spending time with them. I look back on the mother I was when DS was born and see someone I would love to be again, but also someone I don't recognise. I feel like these children are not my own; that they must belong to someone else because I just don't understand why they have to be so horrible. And that shocks me, because DS and I were once so close.
I am fed up trudging around in the pissing rain with DD screaming her head off in the pushchair because she's tired because she won't nap, with DS dragging alongside whining, and me literally grinding my teeth because I am so angry that I want to throw her under the next passing car.
I don't understand why she is so angry. I don't understand why she fights everything. She dictates our lives and everyone tiptoes round her lest they upset her. It's not fair on DS because she gets everything she wants just for the sake of having her not scream.
My mum used to look after DD 1 day a week but now doesn't, and won't.
I am fed up of having no friends and no social life and feeling stressed all the time. I don't even like being with 'mummy friends' anymore because their kids all behave better and I just end up even more stressed trying to placate my two clearly unhappy kids.
I blame DD. I do love her, and when she's on form she is utterly amazing. But she also seems to save her worst behaviour just for me. And that behaviour has destroyed me, the person I was, the person I would like to be.
Sorry for the rant. I can't tell anyone any of this, and DH doesn't accept what I feel; he says I demonise DD and she's 'not that bad'. I don't think she is bad, but she is so angry and she has been since the day she was born, and nothing I do makes any difference.
I don't feel like this all the time, but I resent how we are all so dependent on her moods for our own - god knows it's hard being cheerful when a child is screaming, hitting and fighting for hours at a time. Poor DS just doesn't get a look in when she has one of her tantrums; on goes the TV, while I walk around trying to distract her.
So it's not 24/7 like it used to be, but on days like today I just look at my life and wish, really wish, I had never become a mother. I make my kids unhappy - so really, what's the point?