Bank Holiday Weekend

I'm looking forward to this bank-holiday weekend with a bit of fear to be honest.

The plan is to spend the weekend at my sisters new house in Sandford near Exeter, help them with some new house type activities (sofa shopping etc) and get the kids to the seaside etc. A trip to Berryhead is also planned as clearly whenever in the local (ish) area I want to go and sit on our rocks and think about my Richie.

This time though Rebecca and Harry will be coming with me. Whilst Rebecca seems to vaguely understand what we did with Richie's ashes and why etc, I am really unsure on how to explain this to Harry. I guess I will try the approach of this is where we come to remember Daddy and celebrate how wonderful he was (is). My thinking is that this trip to Berryhead will be quite emotional for Rebecca. Rebecca to date has been wonderfully brave and coped magnificantly with everything that has happened to our little family over the past 18 months. She certainly has her moments where she is very upset and we talk about how much she misses Richie. We usually then get some old photos out and laugh at the pictures of the two of them together when she was little, and talk about the mean things she use to do to him. I think the best story of Rebecca's naughtyness to Rich when we first got together had to be the very first time he looked after her whilst I nipped to the gym.........

To backtrack slightly...... the very first time Rich and Rebecca met I would like to say was love at first sight. However, my darling little girl was clearly a little bit jealous of anyone taking her Mum's attention away from her so sweetly said "Hello" and then climbed out of her pushchair and booted him in the shin!! It all went kind of downhill from there really! Rich would try his hardest and she would just be more of a madam. If he tried to push her in her buggy then she would put her feet to the floor so it wouldn't move etc etc. Anyway, once we had been together six months or so they settled down and seemed to get along much better. The naughtyness had turned to more cheekyness and they started to become 'friends'. So, over the Xmas and New Year break Rich offered to play with Becs for an hour whilst I hit the gym to try and work off some of the excesses of Xmas! I therefore donned my trainers and headed up to the gym. Arrived at the gym, parked the car and headed towards the entrance....... oh crap its closed due to weird Xmas/New Year opening times. Oh well, got back in the car and headed home.

I arrived home to Rich and a very white face! Asked him if he was ok and the story unfolded! About 5 minutes after I had left the house Rebecca had informed Richard that she needed the loo for a number 2!! So he told her to go up to the bathroom to do the deed (so to speak). Anyway, a few minutes later she calls down to him to give her some assistance with wiping! At this point I'm about to burst out in fits of giggles...... So rich explained that he 'didn't know what the rules were about that kind of thing', but as she needed help he went up to lend a hand! So, as he walks into the bathroom Becs hands him the roll of loo-paper then promptly bends over and touches her toes to allow him to wipe her bum! Bless him, he then said he hoped that was ok! I then burst out laughing and explain to him that Becs has been fully capable of wiping her own behind for aprox 1 year now! We then walk into the lounge to see a very smug faced 4 year old on the couch looking like the cat that got the cream! 1-0 to Rebecca!!!

It wasn't long after this 'event' that Rich moved in with us and we soon settled into our own family routine. Rich was there to take her to school on her very first day and has been involved with all the major milestones that followed until he passed away. Its therefore not surprising that even though she has a great relationship with her own Dad, Richie became Daddy Rich - she would always call him Rich or Richie but in cards etc he was her Daddy Rich.

Anyway, back to Devon, even though I am sure it will be difficult to explain this all to the children again I have no doubt that my 2 little darlings will cope admirably and enjoy spending some time down on the rocks thinking of our big brave Richie/Daddy/Daddy Rich.